Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/412

R E N 11 E N duties on this planet, a new culture and new intellectual perceptions penetrating every sphere of thought and energy, it also involved new reciprocal relations between the mem- bers of the European group of nations. The Renaissance closed the Middle Ages and opened the modern era, not merely because the mental and moral ideas which then sprang into activity and owed their force in large measure to the revival of classical learning were opposed to mediaeval modes of thinking and feeling, but also because the politi- cal and international relations specific to it as an age were at variance with fundamental theories of the past. Instead of empire and church, the sun and moon of the mediaeval system, a federation of peoples, separate in type and divergent in interests, yet bound together by common tendencies, common culture, and common efforts, came into existence. For obedience to central authority was substituted balance of power. Henceforth the hegemony of Europe attached to no crown imperial or papal, but to the nation which was capable of winning it, in the spiritual region by mental ascendency, and in the temporal by force, loiiserva- That this is the right way of regarding the subject ive aud appears from the events of the first two decades of the 16th century, those years in which the humanistic revival >arties attained its highest point in Italy. Luther published his i modern theses in 1517, sixty-four years after the fall of Constanti- hirope. nople, twenty-three years after the expedition of Charles VIII. to Naples, ten years before the sack of Rome, at a moment when France, Spain, and England had only felt the influences of Italian culture but feebly. From that date forward two parties wrestled for supremacy in Europe, to which may be given the familiar names of Liberalism and Conservatism, the party of progress and the party of established institutions. The triumph of the former was most signal among the Teutonic peoples. The Latin races, championed by Spain and supported by the Papacy, fought the battle of the latter, and succeeded for a time in rolling back the tide of revolutionary conquest. Meanwhile that liberal culture which had been created for Europe by the Italians before the contest of the Reformation began con- tinued to spread, although it was stifled in Italy and Spain, retarded in France and the Low Countries, well nigh extir- pated by wars in Germany, and diverted from its course in England by the counter-movement of Puritanism. The auto da fes of Seville and Madrid, the flames to which Bruno, Dolet, and Paleario were flung, the dungeon of Campanella and the seclusion of Galileo, the massacre of St Bartholomew and the faggots of Smithfield, the desolated plains of Germany and the cruelties of Alva in the Nether- lands, disillusioned Europe of those golden dreams which had arisen in the earlier days of humanism, and which had been so pleasantly indulged by Rabelais. In truth the Re- naissance was ruled by no Astrsea redux, but rather by a severe spirit which brought not peace but a sword, remind- ing men of sternest duties, testing what of moral force and tenacity was in them, compelling them to strike for the old order or the new, suffering no lukewarm halting between two opinions. That, in spite of retardation and retro- gression, the old order of ideas should have yielded to the new all over Europe, that science should have won firm standing-ground, and political liberty should have struggled through those birth-throes of its origin, was in the nature of things. Had this not been, the Renaissance or re-birth of Europe would be a term without a meaning. Literature. The special articles on the several arts and the literatures of modern Europe, and on the biographies of great men mentioned in this essay, will give details of necessity here omitted. It may be useful to indicate a few works upon the Renaissance in feneral. Burckhardt's Die Cultur der Renaissance in Italien, lichelet's " Renaissance " (7th vol. of Histoire de France), Voigt's Wicderbelebung des Classischen Altcrthums ; Symonds's Renaissance in Italy, Marc Monnier's Renaissance de Dante a Luther, Miintz's Precurseurs dc la Renaissance and Renaissance en Italic ct en France, and Geiger's Humanism/us und Renaissance in Italien und Dculsch- land are among the most comprehensive. (J. A. S.) RENAIX, a manufacturing town of Belgium, in the province of East Flanders, eight miles by rail south of Oudenarde, with a communal population of 14,089 in 1876. It contains the ruins of a castle built in 1638 by Count John of Nassau-Siegen, and a church with the tomb of St Hermes, to whom it is dedicated. RENAUDOT, EusfcBE (1646-1720), theologian and Orientalist, was born in Paris in 1646, and was educated for the church. Notwithstanding his taste for theology and his title of abbe, he never took orders, and much of his life was spent at the French court, where he attracted the notice of Colbert and was often employed in con- fidential affairs. The unusual learning in Eastern tongues which he had acquired in his youth and continued to maintain amidst the distractions of court life did not bear fruit till he was sixty-two years old. His best-known books, which are still valuable, are the Historic/, Patri- archarum Alexandrinorum (Paris, 1713), and the collection of Eastern liturgies (2 vols., 1715-16). The latter work was designed to supply proofs of the "perpetuity of the faith" of the church on the subject of the sacraments, the topic about which most of his theological writings turned, and which was then, in consequence of the controversies attaching to Arnauld's Perpetuite de la Foi, a burning one between French Catholics and Protestants. R6naudot was not a very fair controversialist, but his learning and industry are unquestionable, and his piety shone the more brightly that it did not withdraw itself from contact with the world. He died in 1720. RENDSBURG, a town of Prussia, in the province of Schleswig-Holstein, is situated on the Eider, in a flat and sandy district, 20 miles to the west of Kiel. It consists of three parts : the crowded Altstadt, on an island in the Eider; the Neuwerk, on the south bank of the river; and the Kronwerk, on the north bank. Rendsburg is the chief place in the basin of the Eider, and when in the possession of Denmark was maintained as a strong fortress, guarding the approach to the Cimbric peninsula. Its present import- ance, however, rests on the commercial facilities afforded by its connexion with the North Sea and the Baltic through the Eider and the Eider Canal, by which a brisk transit trade is carried on in grain, timber, Swedish iron, and coals. The principal industries are cotton-weaving, tanning, and the manufacture of artificial manures ; and there is a large iron foundry in the immediate neighbourhood. The popu- lation in 1880 was 12,776, including a strong garrison. The town of Rendsburg came into existence under the shelter of a castle founded by the Danes about the year 1100 on an island of the Eider, and was at first an object of dispute between the Danish kings and the coinits of Holstein. In 1252 it was finally adjudged to the latter, and it has since shared their fortunes. The town was surrounded with ramparts in 1539, but the important fortifications of the Kronwerk were not constructed till the end of the 17th century. During the Thirty Years' War Eeudsburg w;is taken both by the Imperialists and the Swedes, but in 1645 it successfully resisted a second siege by the latter. The war of 1848-50 began with the capture of Rendsburg by the Holsteiners by a coup de inain, and it formed the centre of the German opera- tions. On the departure of the German troops in 1852 the Danes at once set to work to demolish the fortifications. RENti I. (1409-1480), duke of Anjou, count of Provence, and titular king of Naples, was the second son of Louis II. of Aragon, king of Naples, and Yolande, daughter of John I. of Aragon, and was born 16th