ABSTRACT
The sixteenth century was a period of considerable change in Western education, both in thought and practice, of which the expanding influence of Italian humanism was the major, although not the only, element. Economic and commercial developments also contributed to the growing secularism of educational thought and practice in Germany and England, although the chief impetus to educational change came from the expansion of Italian humanism in these areas. Educational leadership in Europe from the ninth century onwards had been exercised very largely by France, and it maintained this position until the end of the thirteenth century. Germany was very late in developing an indigenous education. The position was different in the rural areas where developments reflected the totally different consequences of the Hussite revolution among the peasantry. A powerful stimulus to the maintenance of independent communities was the fear of social and hence religious domination.
