A World Lit Only by Fire: the Medieval Mind and the Renaissance

In the first percentage of William Manchesters A creative activity illumine Only By Fire, we are taken into a world that is vastly several(predicate) from our own, and we see a kind of status which is rarely seen today. Manchester stresses the fact that the peasants in the glum Ages had no knowledge of what was happening in the rest of the world. In our age of twenty-four-hour news networks and instantaneous access to information from across the globe through the internet, it is hard to get across that if we were still living in the lowering Ages approximately of us would be completely oblivious to the activities of the rest of the world outside of our sm all(prenominal) village.Manchester also engineers out that the unwashed deal in the Dark Ages had no conception of epoch. Most would not bemuse known what century it was, let solo the specific date. For close to peasants, clip passed in a cycle of seasons, and they tho postulate to know the days of the week i n order to know when it was the Sabbath. This is in staring(a) contrast to the brio of a neo musical composition. We can know time win to the second. And we need to know time with greater precision. While the peasants of the Dark Ages needed only to recognize the passing of the seasons and when the Sabbath was, modern objet dart often needs to know the time of day precisely.We are constantly on a schedule. School and work starts at a certain time, and we must be there on time. Another fascinating difference which Manchester points out is the fact that almost(prenominal) of the peasants did not concord surnames and were either referred to by their first name al unity, or by a nickname. I found this rattling strange. Manchester does a good job of screening the differences between the modern mind and the mediaeval mind. Being aware of these differences allows the reader to assess the huge impact that the conversion had on Europe.Now in the succeeding(a) section of A Wor ld Lit Only by Fire, empower The Shattering, Manchester shows us several moments that tatterdemalion beliefs during the Renaissance. Most of these had something to do with the church service at the time because religion was one of the most important parts of Medieval and Renaissance life. The first event that shattered beliefs and changed life did not immediately cause a revolution but had a undestroyable impact on the future of Christianity. That event was the dissemination of the works of Erasmus.With his constant criticism of the Church and his sees for papal reform, he turn out that one could criticize the church without cosmos a radical revolutionary, for Erasmus was a good Catholic. Before Erasmus, few had dared to criticize the roman print Church and those who did were not taken seriously. However, with his satires, Erasmus appealed to all classes of people and gave the people the encouragement to call for reform and criticize the Church. This may have influenced Martin Luther, even though he dislike Erasmus work, to nail his 95 Theses to the Castle Church door at Wittenberg.The fact that Erasmus was widely popular also contributed to the change in the thinking that anyone who criticized the church would be call down to hell. Even though Erasmus didnt do anything as revolutionary as Martin Luther, his splendid satires were able to change the mindset of Europeans and may have enabled, against his own wishes, the Protestant rehabilitation. The next event discussed by Manchester is the reformation itself. Sparked by Martin Luthers outrage at the barter of indulgences, this is the event that split Christianity in half.Those patriotic to the existing Christian Church mentalityed by the Pope became known as roman letters Catholics, and those who were not loyal to that Church organise distinguishable Protestant Churches. Before the reformation there was one authoritative vocalism of the word of God i. e. , the Pope. Most Christian lite rature was in Latin, but since Latin was essentially a dead language, most people could not read or understand it, and this helped the Church maintain comptroller of Christians of the age. Within this system, freedom of religious model was extremely limited.Saying anything that contradicted the pontiff could get you tagged as a heretic and sentenced to jail, or even death. After the Reformation, several different Churches formed and as they formed, they warred with each other. The pope was no longer the supreme head of Christianity as he had been before the Reformation. Bibles where produce in living languages. All kinds of opinions were create in pamphlets. One undesirable takings of the Reformation was the different sects fighting with each other.Each different sect believed it represented the one true religion. conflict between sects became common. Fighting between Catholics and Protestants was rife. Protestants burned Roman Catholic churches, smashing mosaics and statues , and even killing gratuitous women and clergy. The Roman Church started its notorious Inquisition, which was specially violent in Spain. Before the Reformation there was only one Christian Church so religious personnel in Europe was rare, but afterward the Reformation religious violence and persecution became commonplace.The Reformation was a major turning point in the history of Christianity. Without it, America today would be a different country, since more settlers in early America came to endure religious persecution. Manchesters section on the Reformation is therefore perhaps the most important section in the book. In the last section of A World Lit Only by Fire, entitled One Man Alone, Manchester writes about Ferdinand Magellan and his circumnavigation of the globe.In this section, Manchester takes time to go into extremely fine pointedness about Magellans voyage in order to explain what type of man Magellan was, and, more importantly, to show how big the betting odds were against his actually finishing his voyage. Manchester seems to idolize Magellan, in part because Magellan wasnt seeking fame or wealth, but instead simply had a dream and was determined to make it a reality, something that I think most people can respect.