The Renaissance was the rebirth of Greco-Roman civilization in Italy (1350-1550). Before the Renaissance, the middle ages could be characterized as darkness due to its lack of classical culture. The Renaissance is known as the birthplace of the modern world, the “perfecting of the individual” and secularism. Secularism was a new outlook on religion. It basically said religion should not interfere with living life to the fullest. People who believed in secularism were however not atheists. Individualism was another Renaissance philosophy, it stated that people should assert their own personalities, express their feelings and demonstrate their unique talents. Humanism was an educational and culture program based on the study of ancient Greek and Roman literature. Humanist did not seek to replace the text of Christian texts but for the appreciation of ancient text. Italian humanists restored every Roman text that could be found, and tackled moral problems in a secular manner. These ideas and thoughts brought social and religion change, along with a literature and art expansion.
The Renaissance helped the European economy recover through the expansion of trade. During the fourteenth century trade had slowly declined causing smaller city-states to suffer from competitive growing city-states. It also had affected manufacturing such as the woolen industries of Flanders and northern Italian cities had been devastated. However, the fifteenth century created expansion and recovery for not only the woolen industries but for luxury industries as well. Luxury industries included things such as silk, glassware and hand worked items in metal and stone. Other new industries such as the printing press and mining industries developed and helped to spread modernization to France and Spain. This affected social class because it allowed merchants to gain more wealth and the rich to become richer.
Social structure of this time was inherited from the middle ages. Society remained...