Exercise 1

The period of the Northern Renaissance and Reformation corresponded with the Age of Discovery.  This age of modern exploration was inaugurated by Columbus' epochal landing in the "New World."  Take a moment to read about the lands that Came To Be Called America.  Then consider the conditions of The Mediterranean World that helped to prompt the great explorations.  Finally, read about how Europeans Invented America, that is conceived of and represented it to themselves.  What sort of world did the Europeans find in America, and how did that world meet and/or fall short of their expectations? What do maps and other images from this age suggest about how Europeans envisioned America?

Once Columbus and his immediate followers realized they hadn't arrived in India or China, they claimed to have discovered an entirely new world.  However, over four-hundred years before Columbus Norse explorers from Iceland and Greenland visited what came to be called North America and even tried to settle there.  Consider some excerpts from the Greenlanders' Saga that tell of the Norse Discovery of North America: read the sections "Thorvald Goes to Wineland" and "Of the Wineland Voyages of Thorfinn and His Companions." When you finish, read the entries for Saturday 13 October and Tuesday 16 October in Columbus' Journal.  How do the Norse and Columbus respond to the world they've found and its inhabitants? How do their observations resemble and differ from each other? What type of information does the Norse saga emphasize; what information does Columbus emphasize?

Exercise 2

One of the ways in which Catholics have professed their devotion to the church and its principles is by repeating the catechism, that series of questions and answers that convey the basic tenets of belief.  During the Reformation, Protestant sects devised confessions of faith as alternatives to the Catholic catechism.  One of the most famous of these Protestant confessions is the Belgic Confession of the Reformed church of the Netherlands.  Another is the of the confession of the Reformed church of Scotland founded by John Knox, a follower of Calvin.  The Anabaptist Schleitheim Confession contains the principles of a more radical form of Protestantism.  Read sections 1-5 of the Belgic Confession, all of the Schleitheim Confession, and sections 1-5 of the Scottish Confession.  How do these confession resemble and differ from each other? How does each begin, and in what order do they present the principles of their respective churches? What does each confession suggest about the priorities of each sect?