Course 1- THE TUDOR AGE

The first Tudor is Henry the 7th. He became king after he won the war of the roses, and he
started the Tudors (he created this dynasty by marrying Elizabeth of York, so the Tudors appeared
thanks to the combination between the Lancasters and the Yorks). Henry the 7th brought three new
social classes.

He ruled until 1509, when his son, Henry the 8th became king and he received a stable country,
on its way to modernisation. The rule of Henry the 8th brought a new age in England’s history,
characterized by two main events: the Renaissance (it affected the culture) and the Reformation (it
affected the religion). So, the Middle Ages finished and we have the beginnings of the Reformation in
England.

The Renaissance appeared for the first time in Florence, Italy, in the same time with the
Platonic Age. It represents the Rebirth of the Antiquity, so the main purpose is to live in a way in
which the Romans and the Greeks used to do. It opposed to the Middle Ages and it spread in Europe.

The Renaissance introduces a new concept: the humanism (the man is the main object of study).
It tries to understand the human nature, how it works, but the human still remains a secret, a mystery,
we can’t know him totally. During the Middle Ages, God was put in the centre of the Universe. The
Renaissance put the man in the centre. It is not a total replacement because it is known that the man is
the main creation of God, so through man, we can observe God’s infinite power to create beautiful
things, man represents another way to know God well, through man, and we can see God’s beauty.
The artists of the period tried to explain this beauty through their creation.

We have another concept, the idea of homo universalis (a man who is a genius in several
domains; the artists of the Renaissance were genius, like Da Vinci). The idea of developing yourself
appeared, the men understood that they need to cultivate their mind (going to schools), to learn more
and more, but also to have a healthy life (to have HEALTHY MIND in a HEALTHY BODY).

The Renaissance put the base of the modern science and we have several scientists like
Copernic and Galileo.

Galilei is known thanks to his astronomical knowledge’s: he discovered that the earth turns
around the sun. This information shocked the Church because they believed that the earth is the most

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important planet in the Solar System (because there are humans living on it) and should be in the
centre.

Copernic discovered that the earth wasn’t flat, was elliptic, round. Before this thing, the people
believed that England is at the end of the world. Columbus, following Copernic’s ideas proved that the
earth was round, reaching to a new continent, South America (he believed that he reached India and
died with this idea in his mind).

In England, the Renaissance changed the mentality: life became more open and the countryside
gained a great importance. After Henry the 8th, his daughter, Elizabeth l brought the strong point of
the Renaissance (the multiplication of schools and faculties). The people returned to the ancient Greek
and Roman philosophy. So the new theories changed the people’s vision and encouraged the wish of
learning.

The Reformation is the other great event that affected England until today, it affected the
religion and it took place in the time of Henry the 8th, he is known thanks to this. Before the
Reformation, England was a catholic country, like all the western countries of the Europe and the
Church was under the authority of the Pope in the Vatican. Henry the 8th was already married with
Catherine of Aragon, who was married in the past with Henry’s elder brother, but he died and Henry
the 8th politically married her. She gave him a daughter, Mary Tudor and after that she wasn’t able to
have any children.

It seems that, on his death bed, Henry the 7th asked his son, Henry the 8th, to have a boy in
order to assure the continuity of the throne. The only possibility for Henry to have a boy was to
separate Catherine and to marry again, but this thing was impossible because the Catholic Church had
already forbidden this. There was another danger: a conflict with Spain (Catherine came from Spain).
The Reformation allowed Henry to marry again and he decided (in a personal way) to break all links
with the Vatican.

The man who created the Reformation was a German, Martin Luther, a monk and a teacher at
The University of Wittenberg. During that period, people went in many pilgrimages, in order to show
the faith in God (Rome and Compostela were the places of doing pilgrimages).

Martin went to Rome and when he saw that the people were selling fake pardons he became
very upset. When he came back he decided to write some principles, in order to rebring the great

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image of the Catholic Church. He wrote 95 theses and he nailed them of the doors of the university so
that everyone could read them. (95 of theses of the power of efficacy of endowments).

The Reformation and Martin Luther were helped by a man (Guttenberg) and his invention (the
printing press, which made easier the transmission of the information). There are the three most
important principles in Luther’s concept:

1. Sola fides- only faith in God can save you. If you want to be saved, you have to
believe.
2. Sola scriptura- only by reading the Bible (the Book in which you can find any
answer) you obtain salvation. The Latin in the churches was replaced by the national language
and the Bible started being translated.
3. Theologia crucis- only the crucifix can save you. This is why the Protestant
Churches has no saints or holly pictures, only the crucifix.

In England, the Reformation said that you could obtain salvation only by faith, by discovering
Christ and by breaking the links with the Vatican, which would be called an enemy. The Protestant
Churches no longer exist under the authority of the Pope.