Note 1 — Chapter X · FREETHOUGHT IN THE RENAISSANCE

What is called the Renaissance was, broadly speaking, an evolution of the culture forces seen at work in the later “Middle Ages,” newly fertilized by the recovery of classic literature; and we shall have to revert at several points of our survey to what we have been considering as “medieval” in order to perceive the “new birth.” The term is inconveniently vague, and is made to cover different periods, sometimes extending from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century, sometimes signifying only the fifteenth. It seems reasonable to apply it, as regards Italy, to the period in which southern culture began to outgo that of France, and kept its lead—that is, from the end of the fourteenth century1 to the time of the Counter-Reformation. That is a comparatively distinct sociological era.