ABSTRACT
The independence of the Catholic Church in Europe is also quite unusual, and therefore some attention to the political role of the church is devoted in this chapter. This chapter discusses the development of the printing press: This had appeared first in China but would have a more dramatic impact in Europe. Thematically, it is also devoted primarily to politics, culture, economy, technology, science, and art. It made similar promises of salvation at times to those who joined Christian kings in Spain against Muslim rulers in Spain: Indeed, Pope Alexander II established the precedent later used in the Crusades when he promised to absolve the sins of French and Norman soldiers fighting in Spain. The Renaissance was a period of artistic and intellectual creativity in Europe from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries. The name “Renaissance” or “rebirth” signals that this involved to a considerable extent the rediscovery of the works of classical Greece and Rome.
