Renaissance Ideas

Humanist John Colet

Humanist John Colet

• Significant humanist voice in English education

• Refounded St Paul’s School, London

• Appointed governers drawn from a city guild rather than choosing clergy men

• Also appointed a humanist as the head of the school

Education in humanism

• School’s like St Paul’s’ influence grew

• Similar concepts were introduced in Oxford and Cambridge

• By the end of Henry VIII’s reign, humanist influences had gained a lasting hold on university curricula

How Renaissance ideas increased in Henry’s reign

• Knowledge of classical learning increased among the elite groups in society

• A growing number of schools became influenced by humanist approaches to education

• Henry VIII saw himself as a promoter of new ideas and of humanism

• The Crown needed well-educated diplomats who could communicate with their counterparts in other countries

Important humanist writer

• Thomas More

• Combined his intellectual interests with his work as a lawyer and statesman

Renaissance ideas on visual culture

• Henry VIII commissioned Italian sculptors to produce the tombs of his parents and grandmother in the Renaissance style

• Dominant painters at Henry VIII’s court were from the northern Renaissance - more Gothic influenced than Italian Renaissance

• Henry was also a patron nof Renaissance music

• Evident that on a cultural platform that Italian Renaissance influences were becoming more fashionable