Chapter 7: Transformations - Religion and Science (1450-1750) PDF

@altural CHAPTER Transformations Religion and Science 1450-1750 The Globalization of Christianity “We couldn’t just throw up our hands and see...

@altural CHAPTER Transformations Religion and Science 1450-1750 The Globalization of Christianity “We couldn’t just throw up our hands and see these churches turned Western Christendom Fragmented: into nightclubs or mosques.” this was the view expressed in 2006 by The Protestant Reformation Tokunboh Adeyemo, a Nigerian church leader and scholar, referring to Christianity Outward Bound Conversion and Adaptation in a growing movement among African Christian organizations to bring Spanish America the Gospel back to an “increasingly godless West.” It represented a An Asian Comparison: China and remarkable shift from earlier efforts by European and North American the Jesuits missionaries to bring Christianity to Africa and Asia, beginning in the Persistence and Change in early modern era. One reason for the discarded churches in the West lay Afro-Asian Cultural Traditions Expansion and Renewal in the in another cultural change—the spread of modern scientific and secular Islamic World thinking, which for some people rendered religion irrelevant. That enor- China: New Directions in an Old mous transformation likewise took shape in the early modern era. & Tradition India: Bridging the Hindu/Muslim Divide A New Way of Thinking: The Birth of Modern Science The Question of Origins: Why nd so, alongside new empires and new patterns of com- Europe? merce, the early modern centuries also witnessed novel Science as Cultural Revolution cultural and religious transformations that likewise con- Science and Enlightenment nected distant peoples. Riding the currents of European empire European Science beyond the West building and commercial expansion, Christianity was established Looking Ahead: Science in the solidly in the Americas and the Philippines and, though far more Nineteenth Century and Beyond modestly, in Siberia, China, Japan, and India. A cultural tradition Reflections: Cultural Borrowing largely limited to Europe in 1500 now became a genuine world and Its Hazards religion, spawning a multitude of cultural encounters— though it spread hardly at all within the vast and still-growing domains of Islam. While Christianity was spreading, «« GGM Analyzing Evidence a new understanding of the universe and PPPeeeTeTeerererer rire rrr irre A eee eee eesce snore seesesssessssssssssssens a new approach to knowledge were tak- Explain how this Mexican painting is an example of cultural syn- cretism. Be sure to identify specific elements in the painting to ing shape among European thinkers of support your answer. the Scientific Revolution, giving rise to 293 294 CHAPTER 7 « CULTURAL TRANSFORMATIONS, 1450-1750 another kind of cultural encounter—that between science and religion. Science was a new and competing worldview, and for some it became almost a new religion. In time, it grew into a defining feature of global modernity, achieving a worldwide acceptance that exceeded that of Christianity or any other religious tradition. Although Europeans were central players in the globalization of Christianity and the emergence of modern science, they were not alone in shaping the cultural trans- formations of the early modern era. Asian, African, and Native American peoples largely determined how Christianity would be accepted, rejected, or transformed as it entered new cultural environments. Science emerged within an international and not simply a European context, and it met varying receptions in different parts of the world. Islam continued a long pattern of religious expansion and renewal, even as Christianity began to compete with it as a world religion. Buddhism maintained its hold in much of East Asia, as did Hinduism in South Asia and numerous smaller- scale religious traditions in Africa. And Europeans GG Causation themselves were certainly affected by the many “new Cesc oreo eee cesesroseerseeesessseseeeeses Seem erro reece recess see seeseeseeseesesseeeeeee To what extent did the cultural changes of the early mod- worlds” that they now encountered. The cultural ern world derive from cross-cultural interaction? And to interactions of the early modern era, in short, did not what extent did they grow from within particular societies? take place on a One-way street. The Globalization of Christianity Despite its Middle Eastern origins and its earlier presence in many parts of the Afro- AP* EXAM TIP Asian world, Christianity was largely limited to Europe at the beginning of the early Understand the pat- modern era. In 1500, the world of Christendom stretched from the Iberian Peninsula terns of expansion for major religions. and British Isles in the west to Russia in the east, with small and beleaguered commu- In addition, under- nities of various kinds in Egypt, Ethiopia, southern India, and Central Asia. Internally, stand examples of the Christian world was seriously divided between the Roman Catholics of Western cultural diffusion and and Central Europe and the Eastern Orthodox of Eastern Europe and Russia. Exter- syncretism. nally, it was very much on the defensive against an expansive Islam. Muslims had ousted Christian Crusaders from their toeholds in the Holy Land by 1300, and with the Ottoman seizure of Constantinople in 1453, they had captured the prestigious capital of Eastern Orthodoxy. The Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1529, and again in 1683, marked a Muslim advance into the heart of Central Europe. Except in Spain and Sicily, which had recently been reclaimed for Christendom after centuries of Mushm rule, the future, it must have seemed, lay with Islam rather than Christianity. Causation How were cultural trans- formations during the Western Christendom Fragmented: early modern period the The Protestant Reformation result of interactions As if these were not troubles enough, in the early sixteenth century the Protestant among non-Western cultures and not solely Reformation shattered the unity of Roman Catholic Christianity, which for the the result of European previous 1,000 years had provided the cultural and organizational foundation of an domination? emerging Western European civilization. The Reformation began in 1517 when a Landmarks for Chapter 7 1450 1500 1550 1600 1650 1700 1750 1517 Martin Luther posts 95 Theses; beginning of Protestant ©1543 — Reformation Copernicus, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres 1543-1727 Scientific Revolution 1545-1563 Council of Trent 1642-1727 Se Life of Isaac Newton 1694-1778 (es Life of Voltaire 18th century © European Enlightenment © 1534 Juan Diego’s vision of Virgin of Guadalupe © 1560s Taki Onqoy in Peru 1530s-1700 eS See ae ee Widespread conversion to Christianity @ 1535 Bishop of Mexico destroys traditional shrines and “idols” ————————"" 1469-1539 Life of Guru Nanak, founder of Sikhism a" 1498-1547 Life of Mirabai, bhakti poet ' 1580 Muslim astronomical observatory dismantled »> >) 1582-1610 Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci in China ' 1636 Beginning of Japan’s closure to the West 1715 © Jesuits lose favor at Chinese court 1740-1818 See Wahhabi Islam in Arabia German priest, Martin Luther (1483-1546), publicly invited debate about various abuses within the Roman Catholic Church by issuing a document, known as the Ninety-Five Theses, allegedly nailing it to the door of a church in Wittenberg. In itself, this was nothing new, for many had long been critical of the luxurious life of the popes, 295 296 CHAPTER 7 * CULTURAL TRANSFORMATIONS, 1450-1750 The Protestant Reformation An engraving of Martin Luther nailing his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Wittenberg castle church in 1517, thus launching the Protestant Reformation. (Photo © Tarker/Bridgeman Images) ay Analyzing Evidence What does this image suggest about the attitude of the artist toward the Lutheran Reformation? the corruption and immorality of some clergy, the Church’s selling of indulgences (said to remove the penalties for sin), and other aspects of church life and practice. (9 Causation What made Luther’s protest potentially revolutionary, however, was its theolog- ical basis. A troubled and brooding man anxious about his relationship with God, What were the long- Luther had recently come to a new understanding of salvation, which, he believed, term and short-term causes of the Protestant came through faith alone. Neither the good works of the sinner nor the sacraments Reformation? of the Church had any bearing on the eternal destiny of the soul. To Luther, the source of these beliefs, and of religious authority in general, was not the teaching of the Church, but the Bible alone, interpreted according to the individual’s con- science. All of this challenged the authority of the Church and called into ques- tion the special position of the clerical hierarchy and of the pope in particular. In sixteenth-century Europe, this was the stuff of revolution. (See the Snapshot: Catholic/Protestant Differences in the Sixteenth Century, page 297.) Contrary to Luther’s original intentions, his ideas provoked a massive schism within the world of Catholic Christendom, for they came to express a variety of political, economic, and social tensions as well as religious differences. Some kings and princes, many of whom had long disputed the political authority of the pope, In what ways did the found in these ideas a justification for their own independence and an opportunity Protestant Reformation transform European to gain the lands and taxes previously held by the Church. In the Protestant idea society, culture, and that all vocations were of equal merit, middle-class urban dwellers found a new politics? religious legitimacy for their growing role in society, since the Roman Catholic  The Globalization of Christianity 297 SNAPSHOT Catholic/Protestant Differences in the Sixteenth Century _ Catholic Protesta nt EGR Causation Religious authority oon ai church Wieere et The Bible, as fiforpreted Bie Using the information individual Christians- from this chart, what Role of the pope Oitinate Boones invet Sia might be the causes Nuthonity a the pope “denied doctrine for the appeal of Martin Luther’s ideas among Ordination of clergy Erestolic succession:Pcireet ies Dooce succession » GCE many Europeans? between original apostles and ordination by individual allSubsequently ordained clergy congregations or denominations Salvation iporence of ch Importance of faith alone: God’ S sacraments as channels of grace is freely and directly God" S &race granted tobelievers aa ot Manus Highly prominens SpE Less Bonen: Mary's below Jesus; provides constant intercession on behalf of the intercession for believers faithful denied to God. but one ihroush,| or To God alone; no role for Mary with Mary and saints and saints Holy Connunion Paneietaniaton: bead Age Transubstantiation eee wine become the actual body bread and wine have a Spiritual and blood of Christ or symbolic Significance Role of clergy Priests are ene Eelioate, Mintsiers may marry; precuiand sharp distinction between of all believers; clergy have priests and laypeople; priests different functions (to preach, are mediators between God and administer sacraments) but no humankind distinct spiritual Status Role of saints Prominent eprital exemplars. Generatly Giedainea as a source and intermediaries between God of idolatry; saints refer to all and humankind Christians Church was associated in their eyes with the rural and feudal world of aristocratic AP* EXAM TIP privilege. For common people, who were offended by the corruption and luxu- Understand the rious living of some bishops, abbots, and popes, the new religious ideas served to causes of the Prot- express their opposition to the entire social order, particularly in a series of German estant Reformation peasant revolts in the 1520s. within Christianity. Although large numbers of women were attracted to Protestantism, Refor- mation teachings and practices did not offer them a substantiallygreater role in the Church or society. In Protestant-dominated areas, the veneration of Mary and female saints ended, leaving the male Christ figure as the sole object of worship. GM Causation Protestant opposition to celibacy and monastic life closed the convents, which had How might Luther’s offered some women an alternative to marriage. Nor were Protestants (except the understanding of salva- Quakers) any more willing than Catholics to offer women an official role within tion have challenged the their churches. The importance that Protestants gave to reading the Bible for oneself Catholic Church of the stimulated education and literacy for women, but given the emphasis on women as sixteenth century?  298 CHAPTER 7 « CULTURAL TRANSFORMATIONS, 1450-1750 wives and mothers subject to male supervision, they had little opportunity to use AP’ DIGGING DEEPER that education outside of the family. ~ John Calvin built on Reformation thinking spread quickly both within and beyond Germany, thanks Luther's doctrine of in large measure to the recent invention of the printing press. Luther’s many pam- justification by faith phlets and his translation of the New Testament into German were soon widely alone. He empha- available. “God has appointed the [printing] Press to preach, whose voice the pope sized the doctrine of predestination is never able to stop,” declared the English Protestant writer John Foxe in 1563. > salvation iis for tho: As the movement spread to France, Switzerland, England, and elsewhere, it also chosen byGod—which divided, amoeba-like, into a variety of competing Protestant churches— Lutheran, also.spread thre ugha Calvinist, Anglican, Quaker, Anabaptist —many of which subsequently subdivided, producing a bewildering array of Protestant denominations. Each was distinctive, but none gave allegiance to Rome or the pope. Thus to the sharp class divisions and the fractured political system of Europe was now added the potent brew of religious difference, operating both within and between states (see Map 7.1). For more than thirty years (1562-1598), French society was torn by violence between Catholics and the Protestant minority known as Huguenots (HYOO-guh-naht). The culmination of European religious conflict took shape in the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648), a Catholic—Protestant struggle that began in the Holy Roman Empire but eventually engulfed most of Europe. It was a horrendously destructive war, during which, scholars estimate, between AP* EXAM TIP 15 and 30 percent of the German population perished from violence, famine, or Understand the politi- disease. Finally, the Peace of Westphalia (1648) brought the conflict to an end, with cal and social factors that divided Europe some reshuffling of boundaries and an agreement that each state was sovereign, for centuries. authorized to control religious affairs within its own territory. Whatever religious unity Catholic Europe had once enjoyed was now permanently splintered. The Protestant breakaway, combined with reformist tendencies within the Cath- olic Church itself, provoked a Catholic Reformation, or Counter-Reformation. In the Council_of Trent (1545-1563), Catholics clarified and reaffirmed their GOR Contextualization unique doctrines, sacraments, and practices, such as the authority of the pope, See reer cee eran eoeserecreeseeeseeses priestly celibacy, the veneration of saints and relics, and the importance of church Analyze the impact of tradition and good works, all of which Protestants had rejected. Moreover, they the printing press on the spread of Protestant- set about correcting the abuses and corruption that had stimulated the Protestant ism and the divisions movement by placing a new emphasis on the education ofpriests and their supervi- within it. sion by bishops. A crackdown on dissidents included the censorship of books, fines, exile, penitence, and sometimes the burning of heretics. Renewed attention was given to individual spirituality and personal piety. New religious orders, such as the Society ofJesus (Jesuits), provided a dedicated brotherhood ofpriests committed to the renewal of the Catholic Church and its extension abroad. Although the Reformation was profoundly religious, it encouraged a skeptical attitude toward authority and tradition, for it had, after all, successfully challenged the immense prestige and power of the pope and the established Church. Protestant reformers fostered religious individualism, as people now read and interpreted the scriptures for themselves and sought salvation without the mediation of the Church. In the centuries that followed, some people turned that skepticism and the habit of  The Globalization of Christianity 299 Tyrrhenian Sea Some Protestant influence [E243 Catholic (29) Eastern Orthodox Christian ie te S86 eer ad i miles ==== Boundary of the Holy Roman Empire : 200 400 kilometers 5) LF oe ay Se MAPPING HISTORY Map 7.1 Reformation Europe in the Sixteenth Century G8 Causation The rise of Protestantism added yet another set of religious divisions, both within and between eee eeeewenscoeeneesccesessosesereses states, to the world of Christendom, which was already sharply divided between the Roman According to the evi- Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. dence in this map, what impact did the spread of READING THE MAP: What parts of Western Europe were predominantly Protestant by the end Protestantism have on of the sixteenth century? Which regions remained predominantly Catholic? European state building? MAKING CONNECTIONS: Compare this map with Map 5.1: European Colonial Empires in the Americas. Did Catholic or Protestant states control the largest American colonies? a I a a ne REELED 300 CHAPTER 7 * CULTURAL TRANSFORMATIONS, 1450-1750 >= ae Mite EZ 5 NEW FRANCE | >= : e AP* EXAM TIP ¢ is (Catholic) 7. i Keep track of the / global changes over y 2 2 time in the size > ‘z of Christianity’s influence. BRITISH NORTH AMERICA (Protestant) > SPR. ATLANTIG NEW SPAIN (Catholic) OCEAN jar SOa ge. OCEAN LS) Areas of Christianity in 1500 New Christian presence by 1700 1,000 2,000 miles EGR Contextualization 0 1,000 2,000 kilometers Seema e ee eerereescenseenesereseesesees Examine the areas on MAPPING HISTORY this map that had not converted to Christianity Map 7.2 The Globalization of Christianity by 1700. Why would The growing Christian presence in Asia, Africa, and especially the Americas, combined with older these areas not have centers of that faith, gave the religion derived from Jesus a global dimension during the early adopted Christianity? modern era. —— EE ES ee Ss Show on Oi eeee CGR Causation thinking independently against all conventional religion. Thus the Protestant Refor- Oa eh mation opened some space for new directions in European intellectual life. What motivated Euro- ; ie ; P hichly & Pp bear political and Sco. ere n short, 1t was a more highly ragmented but also a renewed and revitalized nomic expansion in the Christianity that established itself around the world in the several centuries after late fifteenth century? 1500 (see Map 7.2).  The Globalization of Christianity 301 a WESTERN EUROPE tholic/Protestant divide) |g ___| RUSSIAN EMPIRE —& * ee (Russian Orthodox) B* SIBERIA Say (Russian : “| Orthodox) |S QING EMPIRE (Minor Catholic presence) PACIFIC ~_ |MUGHAL EMPIRE OCEAN ARMENIA (Minor Catholic (Armenian presence) EGYPT ida cal Ba JAPAN ==>), (Christian Century, (Minority 5 Catholic, 1549-1650) Coptic) SOUTH INDIA |f | ETHIOPIA (St. Thomas [ (Ethiopian Christians) PHILIPPINES Orthodox) (Spanish Catholic) | - — Equator (Court-adopted INDIAN Catholic) a: OCEAN DUTCH ate SOUTH AFRICA LZ (Protestant) te READING THE MAP: Where did Protestants establish INTERPRETING THE MAP: Did the Catholic, Protestant, overseas colonies? or Russian Orthodox Church have the most success in establishing itself as a global faith during the early modern period? How might you explain the variations among them? Christianity Outward Bound Christianity motivated European political and economic expansion and also ben- efited from it. The resolutely Catholic Spanish and Portuguese both viewed their movement overseas as a continuation of along crusading tradition that only recently 302 CHAPTER 7 * CULTURAL TRANSFORMATIONS, 1450-1750 had completed the liberation of their countries from Muslim control. When Vasco da Gama’s small fleet landed in India in 1498, local authorities understandably asked, “What brought you hither?” The reply: they had come “in search of Christians and of spices.”? No sense of any contradiction or hypocrisy in this blending of religious and material concerns attended the reply. EGR Causation If religion drove and justified European ventures abroad, it is difficult to imag- secre eee ee eeeeseneeeaseeersesseseeeeee ine the globalization of Christianity (see Map 7.2) without the support of empire. How did European Colonial settlers and traders, of course, brought their faith.with them and sought imperial expansion help spread Christianity? to replicate it in their newly conquered homelands. New England Puritans, for example, planted a distinctive Protestant version of Christianity in North America, with an emphasis on education, moral purity, personal conversion, civic responsi- bility, and little tolerance for competing expressions of the faith. They did not show much interest in converting native peoples but sought rather to push them out of their ancestral territories. It was missionaries, mostly Catholic, who actively spread the Christian message beyond European communities. Organized in missionary orders such as the Dominicans, Franciscans, and Jesuits, Portuguese missionaries took the lead in Africa and Asia, while Spanish and French missionaries were most prominent in the Americas. Missionaries of the Russian Orthodox Church likewise accompanied the expansion of the Russian Empire across Siberia, where priests and monks ministered to Russian settlers and trappers, who often donated their first sable furs to a church or monastery. EGR Comparison Missionaries had their greatest success in Spanish America and in the Philip- pines, areas that shared two critical elements beyond their colonization by Spain. Compare and contrast Most important, perhaps, was an overwhelming European presence, experienced the spread of Christian- ity in the Americas to the variously as military conquest, colonial settlement, missionary activity, forced labor, spread of Christianity in social disruption, and disease. Surely it must have seemed as if the old gods had Asia and Africa. been bested and that any possible future lay with the powerful religion of the Euro- pean invaders. A second common factor was the absence of a literate world reli- gion in these two regions. Throughout the modern era, peoples solidly rooted in Confucian, Buddhist, Hindu, or Islamic traditions proved far more resistant to the Christian message than those who practiced more localized, small-scale, orally based religions. (See Working with Evidence, page 327, for sources illustrating the global spread of Christianity.) Spanish America and China illustrate the difference between those societies in which Christianity became widely practiced and those that largely rejected it. Conversion and Adaptation in Spanish America CGM Causation The decisive conquest of the Aztec and Inca empires and all that followed from it— FPR e eee e em eeeeee reese eeseeeesessseses disease, population collapse, loss of land to Europeans, forced labor, resettlement—created What was the effect of European Christianity on a setting in which the religion of the victors took hold in Spanish American colonies. the Native American cul- Europeans saw their political and military success as a demonstration of the power of the tures of Latin America? Christian God. Native American peoples generally agreed, and by 1700 or earlier the  The Globalization of Christianity 303 vast majority had been baptized and saw themselves in some respects as Christians. After all, other conquerors such as the Aztecs and the Incas had always imposed their gods in AP* EXAM TIP some fashion on defeated peoples. So it made sense, both practically and spiritually, to Past AP® exams have asked ques- affiate with the Europeans’ god, saints, rites, and rituals. Many millions accepted baptism, tions about methods contributed to the construction of village churches, attended services, and embraced of conversion to images of saints. Despite the prominence of the Virgin Mary as a religious figure across Christianity in Latin Latin America, the cost of conversion was high, especially for women. Many women America. who had long served as priests, shamans, or ritual specialists had no corresponding role in a Catholic church, led by an all-male clergy. And, with a few exceptions, convent life, Causation which had provided some outlet for female authority and education in Catholic Europe, What factors led to was reserved largely for Spanish women in the Americas. greater success for Earlier conquerors had made no attempt to eradicate local deities and religious prac- European missionaries tices. The flexibility and inclusiveness of Mesoamerican and Andean religions had made in Spanish America and it possible for subject people to accommodate the gods of their new rulers while main- the Philippines than in taining their own traditions. But Europeans were different. They claimed an exclusive Africa and Asia? religious truth and sought the utter destruction of local gods and everything associated with them. Operating within a Spanish colonial regime that actively encouraged conver- CGB Analyzing sion, missionaries often proceeded by persuasion and patient teaching. At times, though, Evidence their frustration with the persistence of “idolatry, superstition, and error” boiled over into How does this image violent campaigns designed to uproot old religions once and for all. In 1535, the bishop display a difference of Mexico proudly claimed that he had destroyed 500 pagan shrines and 20,000 idols. between European Christianity and Christi- During the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, church authorities in the Andean anity in South America? region periodically launched move- ments of “extirpation,” designed to fatally undermine native religion. They destroyed religious images and ritual objects, publicly urinated on native “‘idols,’ desecrated the remains of ancestors, flogged “idolaters,’ and held religious trials and “proces- sions of shame” aimed at humiliating offenders. It is hardly surprising that such aggressive action generated resistance. Writing around 1600, the native Peruvian nobleman Guaman Poma de Ayala commented on the posture of native women toward Christian- ity: “They do not confess; they do Andean Christianity Religious syncretism in the Andes emerged during the not attend catechism classes... nor early modern era but continues to play an important role in the religious life of the region today. This 2016 image shows Peruvians participating in a religious do they go to mass.... And resum- worship with Catholic traditions ina procession that combines Incan mountain ing their ancient customs and idola- vibrant festival that attracts thousands of celebrants each year. (Barcroft Images/Getty try, they do not want to serve God or _ images) 304 CHAPTER 7 * CULTURAL TRANSFORMATIONS, 1450-1750 the crown.” Occasionally, overt resistance erupted. One such example was the religious AP*® EXAM TIP revivalist movement in central Peru in the 1560s, known as Taki Onqoy (dancing sick- You should know ness). Possessed by the spirits of local gods, or /uacas, traveling dancers and teachers pre- examples of resis- tance to forced cul- dicted that an alliance of Andean deities would soon overcome the Christian God, inflict tural conversions. the intruding Europeans with the same diseases that they had brought to the Americas, and restore the world of the Andes to an imagined earlier harmony. “The world has turned about,’ one member declared, “and this time God and the Spaniards [will be] defeated and all the Spaniards killed and their cities drowned;.and the sea will rise and overwhelm them, so that there will remain no memory of them.” More common than such frontal attacks on Christianity, which colonial authorities quickly smashed, were efforts at blending two religious traditions, rein- terpreting Christian practices within an Andean framework, and incorporating local elements into an emerging Andean Christianity. Even female dancers in the Taki Ongoy movement sometimes took the names of Christian saints, seeking to appropriate for themselves the religious power of Christian figures. Within Andean Christian communities, women might offer the blood of a llama to strengthen a village church or make a cloth covering for the Virgin Mary and a shirt for an image of a huaca with the same material. Although the state cults of the Incas faded away, missionary attacks did not succeed in eliminating the influence of local hua- cas. Images and holy sites might be destroyed, but the souls of the huacas remained, and their representatives gained prestige. One resilient Andean resident inquired of a Jesuit missionary: “Father, are you tired of taking our idols from us? Take away that mountain if you can, since that is the God I worship.’® In Mexico as well, an immigrant Christianity was assimilated into patterns of local culture. Churches built on or near the sites of old temples became the focus of community identity. Cofradias, church-based associations of laypeople, organized community processions and festivals and made provisions for proper funerals and burials for their members. Central to an emerging Mexican Christianity were the saints who closely paralleled the functions of precolonial gods. Saints were imag- ined as parents of the local community and the true owners of its land, and their images were paraded through the streets on the occasion of great feasts and were collected by individual households. Mexico’s Virgin of Guadalupe neatly com- bined both Mesoamerican and Spanish notions of Divine Motherhood (see the chapter-opening photo and Historians’ Voice 7.1, page 336). Although parish priests were almost always Spanish, the fiscal, or leader of the church staff, was a native Christian of great local prestige who carried on the traditions and role of earlier religious specialists. Throughout the colonial period and beyond, many Mexican Christians also took part in rituals derived from the past, with little sense of incompatibility with Christian practice. Incantations to various gods for good fortune in hunting, farm- ing, or healing; sacrifices of self-bleeding; offerings to the sun; divination; the use of hallucinogenic drugs—all of these practices provided spiritual assistance in those areas of everyday life not directly addressed by Christian rites. Conversely, these  The Globalization of Christianity 305 practices also showed signs of Christian influence. Wax candles, normally used in Christian services, might now appear in front of a stone image of a precolonial god. The anger of a neglected saint, rather than that of a traditional god, might explain someone's illness and require offerings, celebration, or a new covering to regain his or her favor. In such ways did Christianity take root in the new cultural environ- ments of Spanish America, but it was a distinctly Andean or Mexican Christianity, not merely a copy of the Spanish version. An Asian Comparison: China and the Jesuits The Chinese encounter with Christianity was very different from that of Native Americans in Spain’s New World empire. The most obvious difference was the political context. The peoples of Spanish America had been defeated, their societies thoroughly disrupted, and their cultural confidence sorely shaken. China, on the other hand, encountered European Christianity between the sixteenth and eigh- teenth centuries during the powerful and prosperous Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1912) dynasties. Although the transition between these two dynasties occa- sioned several decades of internal conflict, at no point was China’s political inde- pendence or cultural integrity threatened by the handful of European missionaries and traders working there. The reality of a strong, independent, confident China required a different mis- GB Comparison sionary strategy, for Europeans needed the permission of Chinese authorities to Why were missionary operate in the country. Whereas Spanish missionaries working in a colonial setting efforts to spread Chris- sought primarily to convert the masses, the Jesuits in China, the leading mis- tianity less successful sionary order there, took deliberate aim at the official Chinese elite. Following the in China than in Latin example of their most famous missionary, Matteo Ricci (in China 1582-1610), America? many Jesuits learned Chinese, became thoroughly acquainted with classical Confu- cian texts, and dressed like Chinese scholars. Initially, they downplayed their mission to convert and instead emphasized their interest in exchanging ideas and learning from China’s ancient culture. As highly educated men, the Jesuits carried the recent secular knowledge of Europe—science, technology, geography, mapmaking — to an audience of curious Chinese scholars. In presenting Christian teachings, Jesuits were at pains to be respectful of Chinese culture, pointing out parallels between Confucianism and Christianity rather than portraying Christianity as something new and foreign. They chose to define Chinese rituals honoring the emperor or venerating ancestors as secular or civil observances rather than as religious practices that had to be abandoned. Such efforts to accommodate Chinese culture contrast AP* EXAM TIP sharply with the frontal attacks on Native American religions in the Spanish Empire. You should know The religious and cultural outcomes of the missionary enterprise likewise differed about some of the scientific and reli- greatly in the two regions. Nothing approaching mass conversion to Christianity gious contributions of took place in China, as it had in Latin America. During the sixteenth and seventeenth Jesuit missionaries centuries, a modest number of Chinese scholars and officials did become Chris- in China. tians, attracted by the personal lives of the missionaries, by their interest in Western 306 CHAPTER 7 * CULTURAL TRANSFORMATIONS, 1450-1750 science, and by the moral certainty that Chris- tianity offered. Jesuit missionaries found favor for a time at the Chinese imperial court, where their mathematical, astronomical, technological, and mapmaking skills rendered them useful. For more than a century, they were appointed to head the Chinese Bureau of Astronomy. Among ordinary people, Christianity spread very mod- estly amid tales of miracles attributed to the Christian God, while missionary teachings about “eternal life” sounded to some like Daoist pre- scriptions for immortality. At most, though, mis- sionary efforts over the course of some 250 years (1550-1800) resulted in 200,000 to 300,000 converts, a minuscule number in a Chinese pop- ulation approaching 300 million by 1800. What explains the very limited acceptance of Christi- anity in early modern China? Fundamentally, the missionaries offered lit- tle that the Chinese really wanted. Confucian- ism for the elites and Buddhism, Daoism,.and a multitude of Chinese gods and spirits at the local level adequately supplied the spiritual needs of most Chinese. Furthermore, it became increasingly clear that Christianity was an all-or- Der Gaetan iAMS therkayeTELODAMS & aheoin Us me nothing faith that required converts to abandon much of traditional Chinese culture. Christian Jesuits in China In this seventeenth-century Dutch engraving, monogamy, for example, seemed to require Chi- two Jesuit missionaries hold a map of China. Their mapmaking skills were among the reasons that the Jesuits were initially nese men to put away their concubines. What welcomed among the educated elite of that country. (Frontispiece to China would happen to these deserted women? Monumentis by Athanasius Kircher, 1667/Private Collection/ Bridgeman Images) By the early eighteenth century, the papacy CGB Analyzing and competing missionary orders came to Evidence oppose the Jesuit policy of accommodation. The pope claimed authority over Chi- sereeeeee POO m eee eenereeeeeseneeeeaes nese Christians and declared that sacrifices to Confucius and the veneration of ances- Identify the aspects of the painting that demon- tors were “idolatry” and thus forbidden to Christians. The pope’s pronouncements strate a European point represented an unacceptable challenge to the authority of the emperor and an affront of view. to Chinese culture. In 1715, an outraged Emperor Kangxi prohibited Westerners from spreading Christian doctrine in his kingdom (see Working with Evidence, Source 7.4B, page 333). This represented a major turning point in the relationship be- tween Christian missionaries and Chinese society. Many were subsequently expelled o} and missionaries lost favor at court. In other ways as well, missionaries played into the hands of their Chinese oppo- nents. Their willingness to work under the Manchurian Qing dynasty, which came  Persistence and Change in Afro-Asian Cultural Traditions 307 to power in 1644, discredited them with those Chinese scholars who viewed the Qing as uncivilized foreigners and their rule in China as disgraceful and illegitimate. Missionaries’ reputation as miracle workers further damaged their standing as men of science and rationality, for elite Chinese often regarded miracles and supernatural reli- gion as superstitions, fit only for the uneducated masses. Some viewed the Christian ritual of Holy Communion as a kind of cannibalism. Others came to see mission- aries as potentially subversive, for various Christian groups met in secret, and such religious sects had often provided the basis for peasant rebellion. Nor did it escape Chinese notice that European Christians had taken over the Philippines and that their warships were active in the Indian Ocean. Perhaps the missionaries, with their great interest in maps, were spies for these aggressive foreigners. All of this contributed to the general failure of Christianity to secure a prominent presence in China. Persistence and Change in Afro-Asian Cultural Traditions Although Europeans were central players in the globalization of Christianity, theirs AP* EXAM TIP was not the only expanding or transformed culture of the early modern era. African Compare these religious ideas and practices, for example, accompanied slaves to the Americas. “blended” forms of Common African forms of religious revelation— divination, dream interpretation, Afro-Asian Christianity visions, spirit possession— found a place in the Africanized versions of Christianity with those developed that emerged in the New World. Europeans frequently perceived these practices as by native believers in evidence of sorcery, witchcraft, or even devil worship and tried to suppress them. Latin America. Nonetheless, syncretic (blended) religions such as Vodou in Haiti, Santeria in Cuba, and Candomblé and Macumba in Brazil persisted. They derived from various West African traditions and featured drumming, ritual dancing, animal sacrifice, and spirit possession. Over time, they incorporated Christian beliefs and practices such as church attendance, the search for salvation, and the use of candles and crucifixes and often identified their various spirits or deities with Catholic saints. Expansion and Renewal in the Islamic World The early modern era likewise witnessed the continuation of the “long march of Islam” across the Afro-Asian world. In sub-Saharan Africa, in the eastern and west- ern wings ofIndia, and in Central and Southeast Asia, the expansion of the Islamic EGR Continuity and frontier, a process already a thousand years in the making, extended farther still. Change Conversion to Islam generally did not mean a sudden abandonment of old religious practices in favor of the new. Rather, it was more often a matter of“assimilating What accounts for the continued spread Islamic rituals, cosmologies, and literatures into... local religious systems.” of Islam in the early Continued Islamization was not usually the product of conquering armies and modern era and for the expanding empires. It depended instead on wandering Muslim holy men or Sufis, emergence of reform Islamic scholars, and itinerant traders, none of whom posed a threat to local rulers. or renewal movements In fact, such people often were useful to those rulers and their village communities. within the Islamic world? 308 CHAPTER 7 * CULTURAL TRANSFORMATIONS, 1450-1750 They offered literacy in Arabic, established informal schools, provided protective charms containing passages from the Quran, served as advisers to local authorities and healers to the sick, often intermarried with local people, and generally did not insist that new converts give up their older practices. What they offered, in short, was connection to the wider, prestigious, prosperous world of Islam. Islamization extended modestly even to the Americas, particularly in Brazil, where Muslims led a number of slave revolts in the early nineteenth century. The islands of Southeast Asia illustrate the diversity of belief and practice that GGR Continuity and accompanied the spread ofIslam in the early modern era. During the seventeenth Change century in Aceh, a Muslim sultanate on the northern tip of Sumatra, authorities sought.to enforce the dietary codes and almsgiving practices of Islamic law. After Explain how Islam changed as it spread. four successive women ruled the area in the late seventeenth century, women were forbidden from exercising political power. On Muslim Java, however, numerous women served in royal courts, and women throughout Indonesia continued their longtime role as buyers and sellers in local markets. Among ordinary Javanese, tra- ditional animistic practices of spirit worship coexisted easily with a tolerant and accommodating Islam, while merchants often embraced a more orthodox version of the religion in line with Middle Eastern traditions. To such orthodox Muslims, religious syncretism, which accompanied Islamiza- tion almost everywhere, became increasingly offensive, even heretical. Such senti- ments played an important role in movements of religious renewal and reform that emerged throughout the vast Islamic world of the eighteenth century. The leaders of such movements sharply criticized those practices that departed from earlier pat- terns established by Muhammad and from the authority of the Quran. For exam- ple, in India, governed by the Muslim Mughal Empire, religious resistance to official policies that accommodated Hindus found concrete expression during the reign of the emperor Aurangzeb (r. 1658-1707) (see “Muslims and Hindus in the Mughal Empire” in Chapter 5). A series of religious wars in West Africa during the eigh- teenth and early nineteenth centuries took aim at corrupt Islamic practices and the rulers, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, who permitted them. In Southeast and Central Asia, tension grew between practitioners of localized and blended versions of Islam and those who sought to purify such practices in the name of a more authentic and universal faith. The most well known and widely visible of these Islamic renewal movements AP*® EXAM TIP took place during the mid-eighteenth century in Arabia itself, where they found Understand the main expression in the teachings of the Islamic scholar Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab elements of the Wahhabi movement (1703-1792). The growing difficulties of the Islamic world, such as the weakening within Islam. of the Ottoman Empire, were directly related, he argued, to deviations from the pure faith of early Islam. Al-Wahhab was particularly upset by common religious practices in central Arabia that seemed to him idolatry —the widespread veneration of Sufi saints and their tombs, the adoration of natural sites, and even the respect paid to Muhammad’s tomb at Medina. All of this was a dilution of the absolute monotheism of authentic Islam.  Persistence and Change in Afro-Asian Cultural Traditions 309 The Wahhabi movement took a new turn in the 1740s when it received the political backing of Muhammad Ibn Saud, a local ruler who found al-Wahhab’s ideas compelling. With Ibn Saud’s sup- Mediterranean port, the religious movement became an expansive Sea Damasf state in central Arabia. Within that state, offending tombs were razed; “idols” were eliminated; books on logic were destroyed; the use of tobacco, hashish, and musical instruments was forbidden; and certain taxes not authorized by religious teaching were abolished. Although Wahhabi Islam has long been iden- tified with sharp restrictions on women, Al-Wahhab himself generally emphasized the rights of women within a patriarchal Islamic framework. These included the right to consent to and stipulate condi- tions for a marriage, to control her dowry, to divorce, and to engage in commerce. Such rights, long embed- _4] Ottoman Empire about 1800 S¢a. ded in Islamic law, had apparently been forgotten or [J Core Wahhabi territory, about 1800 Wahhabi incursions in 500 miles ignored in eighteenth-century Arabia. Furthermore, early 19th centiey 250 500 kilometers he did not insist on head-to-toe covering of women in public and allowed for the mixing of unrelated men Map 7.3 The Expansion of Wahhabi Islam and women for business or medical purposes. From its base in central Arabia, the Wahhabi movement By the early nineteenth century, this new reform- represented a challenge to the Ottoman Empire, while its ideas subsequently spread widely within the Islamic world. ist state encompassed much of central Arabia, with Mecca itself coming under Wahhabi control in 1803 (see Map 7.3). Although an EGR Causation Egyptian army broke the power of the Wahhabis in 1818, the movement’s influence How did the spread of continued to spread across the Islamic world. Together with the ongoing expansion the Wahhabi movement of the religion, these movements of reform and renewal signaled the continuing displayed in the map cultural vitality of the Islamic world even as the European presence on the world influence the practice of Islam in Arabia? stage assumed larger dimensions. China: New Directions in an Old Tradition Neither China nor India experienced cultural or religious change as dramatic as that of the Reformation in Europe or the Wahhabi movement in Arabia. Nor did Confu- cian or Hindu cultures during the early modern era spread widely, as did Christianity and Islam. Nonetheless, neither of these traditions remained static. As in Christian Europe, challenges to established orthodoxies in China and India emerged as com- EGR Continuity and mercial and urban life, as well as political change, fostered new thinking. Change China during the Ming and Qing dynasties continued to operate broadly within What kinds of cultural a Confucian framework, enriched now by the insights of Buddhism and Daoism changes occurred in to generate a system of thought called Neo-Confucianism. Chinese Ming dynasty China and India during rulers, in their aversion to the despised Mongols, embraced and actively supported the early modern era? 310 CHAPTER 7 * CULTURAL TRANSFORMATIONS, 1450-1750 this native Confucian tradition, whereas the foreign Manchu or Qing rulers did so to woo Chinese intellectuals to support the new dynasty. Within this context, a considerable amount of controversy, debate, and new thinking emerged during the early modern era. During late Ming times, for example, the influential thinker Wang Yangming AP DIGGING DEEPER (1472-1529) argued that “intuitive moral knowledge exists in people... even robbers know that they should not rob?”* Thus anyone could achieve a virtuous life by intro- spection and contemplation, without the extended education, study of classical texts, and constant striving for improvement that traditional Confucianism prescribed for an elite class of “gentlemen.” Such ideas figured prominently among Confucian schol- ars of the sixteenth century, although critics contended that such thinking promoted an excessive individualism. They also argued that Wang Yangming’s ideas had under- mined the Ming dynasty and contributed to China’s conquest by the foreign Man- chus. Some Chinese Buddhists as well sought to make their religion more accessible Change to ordinary people by suggesting that laypeople at home could undertake practices What continuity and similar to those performed by monks in monasteries. Withdrawal from the world was change does this image not necessary for enlightenment. This kind of moral or religious individualism bore display regarding the some similarity to the thinking of Martin Luther, who argued that individuals could role of Chinese women seek salvation by “faith alone,’ without the assistance of a priestly hierarchy. in society? Another new direction in Chinese elite culture took shape in a movement known as kaozheng, or “research based on evidence.” Intended to “seek truth from facts,” kaozheng was critical of the unfounded speculation of conventional Confucian philosophy and instead emphasized the importance of ver- ification, precision, accuracy, and rigorous analysis in all fields of inquiry. During the late Ming years, this emphasis generated works dealing with agriculture, medicine, pharma- cology, botany, craft techniques, and more. In the Qing era, kaozheng was associated with the recovery and critical analysis of ancient historical documents, which sometimes led to sharp criticism of Neo-Confucian ortho- doxy. It was a genuinely scientific approach to knowledge, but it was applied more to the study of the past than to the natural world of astronomy, physics, or anatomy, which was the focus in the West. Dream of the Red Chamber This mid-eighteenth-century image depicts While such matters occupied the intellec- a garden scene from Dream of the Red Chamber, a wildly popular epic novel that found a wide readership in Qing China and is now considered tual elite of China, in the cities a lively popular one of China's “Four Great Classical Novels.” (Pictures from History/Bridgeman Images) culture emerged among the less educated. For  Persistence and Change in Afro-Asian Cultural Traditions 311 city-dwellers, plays, paintings, short stories, and especially novels provided diversion and £8 Comparison entertainment that were a step up from what could be found in teahouses and wine- see e newer eee eeeereeeenseesssseesseeees How did Neo- shops. Numerous “how-to” painting manuals allowed a larger public to participate in Confucianism differ this favorite Chinese art form. Even though Confucian scholars disdained popular fic- from traditional tion, a vigorous printing industry responded to the growing demand for exciting novels. Confucianism? The most famous was Cao Xueqin’s mid-eighteenth-century novel The Dream of the Red Chamber, a huge book that contained 120 chapters and some 400 characters, most of them women. It explored the social life of an eighteenth-century elite family with AP’ EXAM TIP connections to the Chinese court. Understand the attempts to connect India: Bridging the Hindu/Muslim Divide Hindu and Muslim beliefs in South Asia In a largely Hindu India, ruled by the Muslim Mughal Empire, several significant cul- in this era. tural departures took shape in the early modern era that brought Hindus and Muslims together in new forms of religious expression. At the level of elite culture, the Mughal CGM Comparison ruler Akbar formulated a state cult that combined elements of Islam, Hinduism, and Zoroastrianism (see Chapter 5, “Muslims and Hindus in the Mughal Empire”). The How was the role of Mughal court also embraced Renaissance Christian art, and soon murals featuring Guru Nanak, as depicted in this painting, simi- Jesus, Mary, and Christian saints appeared on the walls of palaces, garden pavilions, and lar to the role Martin harems. The court also commissioned a prominent Sufi spiritual master to compose Luther played in the an illustrated book describing various Hindu Reformation? yoga postures. Intended to bring this Hindu tradition into Islamic Sufi practice, the book, known as the Ocean of Life, portrayed some of the yogis in a Christ-like fashion. Within popular culture, the flourishing of a devotional form of Hinduism known as bhakti also bridged the gulf separating Hindu and Muslim. Through songs, prayers, dances, poetry, and rituals, devotees sought to achieve union with one or another of India’s many deities. Appealing especially to women, the bhakti movement provided an avenue for social criticism. Its practitioners often set aside caste distinctions and disregarded the detailed rituals of the Brahmin priests in favor of personal religious experience. The mysti- cal dimension of the bhakti movement had much in common with Sufi forms of Islam, which also emphasized direct experience of the Divine. Such similarities helped blur the distinction between Hinduism and Islam in Guru Nanak This painting shows a seated Guru Nanak, the founder of India, as both bhaktis and Sufis honored spiri- Sikhism, disputing with four kneeling Hindu holy men. (the British Library, London, tual sages and all those seeking after God. UK/© British Library Board.AllRights Reserved/ Bridgeman Images) 312 CHAPTER 7 * CULTURAL TRANSFORMATIONS, 1450-1750 EGR Causation Among the most beloved of bhakti poets was Mirabai (1498-1547), a high-caste a eee eee eceres sees essseeesensesesssases woman from northern India who abandoned her upper-class family and conven- What caused the cultural tional Hindu practice. Upon her husband’s death, tradition asserts, she declined to changes that took place in India during the early burn herself on his funeral pyre (a practice known as sati). She further offended caste modern period? restrictions by taking as her guru (religious teacher) an old untouchable shoemaker. To visit him, she apparently tied her saris together and climbed down the castle walls at night. Then she would wash his aged feet and drink the water from these ablutions. Much of her poetry deals with her yearning for union with Krishna, a Hindu deity she regarded as her husband, lover, and lord. She wrote: What I paid was my social body, my town body, my family body, and all my inherited jewels. Mirabai says: The Dark One [Krishna] is my husband now.’ Yet another major cultural change that blended Islam and Hinduism emerged with the growth of Sikhism as a new and distinctive religious tradition in the Punjab region of northern India. Its founder, Guru Nanak (1469-1539), had been involved in the bhakti movement but came to believe that “there is no Hindu; there is no Mus- CGR Contextualization lim; only God.” His teachings and those of subsequent gurus also generally ignored eee reece eescocccseeeeccsesesceesesees What features of Sikh- caste distinctions and untouchability and ended the seclusion of women, while pro- ism created a distinct claiming the “brotherhood of all mankind” as well as the essential equality of men and religious community? women. Drawing converts from Punjabi peasants and merchants, both Muslim and Hindu, the Sikhs gradually became a separate religious community. They developed their own sacred book, known as the Guru Granth (teacher book); created a central place of worship and pilgrimage in the Golden Temple of Amritsar; and prescribed certain dress requirements for men, including keeping hair and beards uncut, wearing a turban, and carrying a short sword. During the seventeenth century, Sikhs encoun- tered hostility from both the Mughal Empire and some of their Hindu neighbors. In response, Sikhism evolved from a peaceful religious GG Comparison movement, blending Hindu and Muslim elements, Cee e reer eee serccresereseseeecoeseeseoees FOP eee ee ree eee ree reese ess eee eaeeeseeseeseans In what ways did religious changes in Asia and the Middle into a militant community whose military skills were East parallel those in Europe, and in what ways were they highly valued by the British when they took over different? India in the late eighteenth century. A New Way of Thinking: The Birth of Modern Science While some Europeans were actively attempting to spread the Christian faith to dis- AP° EXAM TIP tant corners of the world, others were nurturing an understanding of the cosmos at Understand the least partially at odds with traditional Christian teaching. These were the makers of Causes, as well as Europe’s Scientific Revolution, a vast intellectual and cultural transformation that the consequences, took place between the mid-sixteenth and early eighteenth centuries. These men of the Scientific Revolution. of science no longer relied on the external authority of the Bible, the Church, the speculations of ancient philosophers, or the received wisdom of cultural tradition.  A New Way of Thinking: The Birth of Modern Science 313 For them, knowledge was acquired through rational inquiry based on evidence, the product of human minds alone. Those who created this revoluti — Copernicus on from Poland, Galileo from Italy, Descartes from France, Newton from England, and many others—saw themselves as departing radically from older ways of thinking. “The old rubbish must be thrown away,” wrote a seventeenth-century English sci- entist. “These are the days that must lay a new Foundation of amore magnificent Philosophy.”'® The long-term significance of the Scientific Revolution can hardly be over- estimated. Within early modern Europe, it fundamentally altered ideas about the CGM Causation place of humankind within the cosmos and sharply challenged both the teachings Coe eeceeeeeecesneneseeeeesseseessesses What conflicts did the and the authority of the Church. Over the past several centuries, it has substan- Scientific Revolution tially eroded religious belief and practice in the West, particularly among the well cause in Europe? educated. When applied to the affairs of human society, scientific ways of thinking challenged ancient social hierarchies and political systems and played a role in the revolutionary upheavals of the modern era. But science was also used to legitimize gender and racial inequalities, giving new support to old ideas about the natural inferiority of women and enslaved people. When married to the technological innovations of the Industrial Revolution, science fostered both the marvels of mod- ern production and the horrors of modern means of destruction. By the twentieth century, science had become so widespread that it largely lost its association with European culture and became the chief marker of global modernity. Like Bud- dhism, Christianity, and Islam, modern science became a universal worldview, open to all who could accept its premises and its techniques. The Question of Origins: Why Europe? Why did the breakthrough of the Scientific Revolution occur first in Europe and during the early modern era? The realm of Islam, after all, had generated the most advanced science in the world during the centuries between 800 and 1400. Arab scholars could boast of remarkable achievements in mathematics, astronomy, optics, and medicine, and their libraries far exceeded those of Europe." And China’s elite culture of Confucianism was both sophisticated and secular, less burdened by religious dogma than that of the Christian or Islamic worlds; its tech- nological accomplishments and economic growth were unmatched anywhere in the several centuries after 1000. In neither civilization, however, did these achieve- ments lead to the kind ofintellectual innovation that occurred in Europe. Europe’s historical development as a reinvigorated and fragmented civilization arguably gave rise to conditions particularly favorable to the scientific enterprise. By the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Europeans had evolved a legal system that guaranteed a measure of independence for a variety of institutions—the Church, GG Causation towns and cities, guilds, professional associations, and universities. This legal revo- Explain how the rise lution was based on the idea ofa “corporation,” a collective group of people that of universities contrib- was treated as a unit, a legal person, with certain rights to regulate and control its uted to the Scientific own members. Revolution. 314 CHAPTER 7 * CULTURAL TRANSFORMATIONS, 1450-1750 CGM Comparison Most important for the development of science in the West was the auton- Comer een reece eneecesceeeeeresesereees omy of its emerging universities. By 1215, the University of Paris was recog- Why did the Scientific nized as a ‘“‘corporation of masters and scholars,” which could admit and expel Revolution occur in Europe rather than in students, establish courses of instruction, and grant a “license to teach” to its fac- China or the Islamic ulty. Such universities —for example, in Paris, Bologna, Oxford, Cambridge, and world? Salamanca—became “neutral zones of intellectual autonomy” in which scholars could pursue their studies in relative freedom from the dictates of church or state AP* EXAM TIP authorities. Within them, the study of the natural order began to slowly separate Here’s another itself from philosophy and theology and to gain a distinct identity. Their curricula example of the roles featured ‘‘a core of readings and lectures that were basically scientific,’ drawing played by cities in heavily on the writings of the Greek thinker Aristotle, which had only recently world history: the become available to Western, Europeans.'* Most of the major figures in the Scien- rise of universities in major European tific Revolution had been trained in and were affiliated with these universities. towns. By contrast, in Islamic colleges known as madrassas, Quranic studies and reli- gious law held the central place, whereas philosophy and natural science were viewed with considerable suspicion. To religious scholars, the Quran held all wis- dom, and scientific thinking might well challenge it. An earlier openness to free inquiry and religious toleration was increasingly replaced by a disdain for scientific and philosophical inquiry, for it seemed to lead only to uncertainty and confu- sion. “May God protect us from useless knowledge” was a saying that reflected this outlook. Nor did Chinese authorities permit independent institutions of higher learning in which scholars could conduct their studies in relative freedom. Instead, Chinese education focused on preparing for a rigidly defined set of civil service examinations and emphasized the humanistic and moral texts of classical Confu- cianism. “The pursuit of scientific subjects,” one recent historian concluded, “was thereby relegated to the margins of Chinese society.’!* Beyond its distinctive institutional development, Western Europe was in a posi- tion to draw extensively on the knowledge of other cultures, especially that of the AP* EXAM TIP Islamic world. Arab medical texts, astronomical research, and translations of Greek This paragraph is a good example of how classics played a major role in the birth of European natural philosophy (as sci- cross-cultural interac- ence was then called) between 1000 and 1500. Then, in