History

The Five Major Influences on the Renaissance

Five social trends that spurred change in Europe between 1349 and 1633.

Historians have long called the 1400s the “Renaissance” from the French word for “rebirth.” Literature, learning, art, and thought all experienced their own transformations that were intertwined with each other. This renaissance of culture and learning in the European world was real and robust and grew out of a series of events that changed how Europeans viewed the world and ultimately themselves…