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The debating societies discussed an extremely wide range of topics. Before the Enlightenment, most intellectual debates revolved around "confessional"—that is, Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed (Calvinist) or Anglican issues, debated primarily to establish which bloc of faith ought to have the "monopoly of truth and a God-given title to authority."
Age of Enlightenment (or Reason) (Europe, 18th century) Scientific Revolution (Europe, 18th century) Long nineteenth century (1789–1914) Georgian era (the United Kingdom, 1714–1830) Industrial Revolution (Europe, United States, and elsewhere 18th and 19th centuries, though with its beginnings in Britain) Age of European colonialism and ...
The date used as the end of the ancient era is arbitrary. The transition period from Classical Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages is known as Late Antiquity.Late Antiquity is a periodization used by historians to describe the transitional centuries from Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages, in both mainland Europe and the Mediterranean world: generally from the end of the Roman Empire's ...
Western Europe was forced to discover new trading routes, as happened with Columbus' travel to the Americas in 1492, and Vasco da Gama's circumnavigation of India and Africa in 1498. The numerous wars did not prevent European states from exploring and conquering wide portions of the world, from Africa to Asia and the newly discovered Americas.
Yet just as Petrarch, seeing himself at the cusp of a "new age", was criticising the centuries before his own time, so too were Enlightenment writers. Consequently, an evolution had occurred in at least three ways. Petrarch's original metaphor of light versus dark has expanded over time, implicitly at least.
Europe had about 105 universities and colleges by 1700. North America had 44, including the newly founded Harvard and Yale. [3] The number of university students remained roughly the same throughout the Enlightenment in most Western nations, excluding Britain, where the number of institutions and students increased. [4]
Universities in northern Europe were more willing to accept the ideas of Enlightenment and were often greatly influenced by them. For instance, the historical ensemble of the University of Tartu in Estonia, that was erected around that time, is now included in the European Heritage Label list as an example of a university in the Age of Enlightenment.
[18] [19] Before the advent of the printing press, introduced in Europe in the 1440s by Johannes Gutenberg, there was no mass market on the continent for scientific treatises, as there had been for religious books. Printing decisively changed the way scientific knowledge was created, as well as how it was disseminated.