Elizabethan Europe

Unit Review Sheet

Facts and Definitions

Lesson 1: Europe at the Time of Elizabeth's Birth

• The Protestant Reformation was a religious movement in the 1500s that called for reforms in the Catholic Church. Several Protestant religions were created as a result of this movement, and conflict between those who continued to support the Catholic Church and those who followed Protestant faiths often resulted in violence.
• The Renaissance was a revival of knowledge, art, and literature that took place in Europe from roughly the 14th through the late 16th or early 17th centuries.
• Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) ruled England from 1558 until her death in 1603. Her reign took place during the Renaissance in England and against the backdrop of the Protestant Reformation.

Lesson 2: The Renaissance and Elizabeth's Childhood

• Roger Ascham was one of Elizabeth's tutors when she was a teenager. He described her as being an excellent student.
• Elizabeth's life coincided with the Renaissance in England, a period when there was a renewed interest in art, literature, and learning.
• The artists and scholars of the Renaissance were interested in secular humanism. Unlike in the Middle Ages, when scholars and artists had focused primarily on religious ideas, in the Renaissance, scholars and artists became more interested in secular (non-religious) topics and in understanding and representing worldly subjects such as human nature, biology, and engineering.
• During the Renaissance, artists developed new, realistic ways of painting and focused less on subjects related to the church and more on everyday life and realistic details of the world. Italian artists led this movement in art, and the works of men like DaVinci, Botticelli, and Michelangelo are considered some of the finest examples of Italian Renaissance art.

Lesson 3: Becoming Queen

• Nine Men's Morris was a popular game in Elizabethan England.
• The portraits of the English royal family and nobles painted by Hans Holbein the Younger frequently showed blackwork embroidery (decorative stitching using black thread) on clothing, especially on sleeves, shirt fronts, cuffs, and necklines.

Lesson 4: Religious Turmoil

• At the time of Elizabeth I's coronation, Europe was divided between Catholic and Protestant countries. Some countries were divided — sometimes the monarchy followed one faith but other powerful people supported another. These divisions led to clashes or to the official faith of the nation changing as one king died and another came to power.
• Under Elizabeth I, the Church of England or the Anglican Church once again became the official religion of the nation. Elizabeth I was named Supreme Governor of the Anglican Church.

Lesson 5: International Affairs

• The Counter-Reformation was the response of the Catholic Church to the Protestant Reformation. Church leaders responded to Protestant complaints, clarified church teachings, and declared the ideas of Protestants to be heresy.
• In the 1580s, Catholics were persecuted in England, and threats to Elizabeth I's life grew more serious.
• English sailors established trade between England, Africa, and the Americas, and English ships harassed Spanish ships between the Americas and Europe.

Lesson 6: Defeating the Spanish Armada

• In 1588, King Philip of Spain decided to launch an invasion of England.
• The powerful Spanish Armada was considered invincible, but a combination of English strategy and bad weather proved otherwise.

Lesson 7: The End of Elizabeth I's Era

• Queen Elizabeth I died in 1603.
• King James I was crowned on July 25, 1603.

Lesson 8: The Making of the Modern World

• After the Middle Ages, a tremendous amount of cultural change took place within the space of a century and a half.
• The Age of Discovery, the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation, and the Scientific Revolution all overlapped with and influenced one another.

Final Project: An Elizabethan Lapbook

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