EARLY INFLUENCE OF EUROPEAN RENAISSANCE ON ENGLISH
Renaissance The word ‘renaissance’ is of French origin, and means ‘rebirth’. Renaissance is a social wave that marks the beginning of the Modern Age in Europe. Dating a period from the 14th to the 17th century, this is regarded as the cultural bridge between the Middle Ages and modern history. It started as a cultural movement in Italy in the Medieval period and later spread to the rest of Europe. Renaissance, (French: “Rebirth”) period in European civilization immediately following the Middle Ages and conventionally held to have been characterized by a surge of interest in Classical scholarship and values. The Renaissance also witnessed the discovery and exploration of new continents, the substitution of the Copernican for the Ptolemaic system of astronomy, the decline of the feudal system and the growth of commerce, and the invention or application of such potentially powerful innovations as paper, printing, the mariner’s compass, and gunpowder. To the scholars and thinkers of ...