Chapter One. Aspects Of East Central European Humanist Learning

Abstract

This chapter discusses about the social functioning of humanist learning in the Habsburg monarchy, Poland and Transylvania may best be described in terms largely similar to those commonly applied to fifteenth-century Florence. In the sixteenth century, Europe perhaps had more cultural centres than in the preceding and coming centuries. The advance of humanist Latin, the expansion of vernacular literature, the spread of the printing press and the rapid growth of a learned public led to an unprecedented cultural flourishing in all parts of ultramontane Europe, including its Eastern parts. Local universities in East Central Europe had a controversial role in the spread of humanist learning in the region. At the turn of the fifteenth century, the Krakow and Vienna institutions were thriving centres of learning, instrumental to the spread of humanism. East Central Europeans made an active contribution to the international fluctuation of ideas, cultural practices, life-styles, and goods.Keywords: East Central Europe; Habsburg monarchy; humanist learning; Krakow; Poland; Transylvania