CHAPTER TWENTY
THE AGE OF EXPANSION

In the fifteenth century the great inventions,
the geographical discoveries, the extension of
commerce, the growth of capital, the rise of
the middle class, the revival of learning, the
growth of great dynastic states, destroyed the
ideals of poverty, chastity and obedience.

—W. G, SUMNER

The period of transition from the Medieval to the Modern
times is often referred to by historians as the Renaissance or
Renascence. But this term, which signifies "re-birth", is
rather misleading and inadequate to convey to us a full
impression of the many-sided changes that took place in
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, particularly in Western
Europe. It may be more truly described as the Age of
Expansion, geographical, commerdal, social, intellectual,
artistic, and moral. It was not so much or merely a re-
birth of learning which is usually implied, but an all-round
awakening and broadening of the human horizons, The
Europeans, who were destined to revolutionise the whole
world, felt during these centuries a fresh impulse of life
which set their feet on new ground that bore ere long a
harvest of unexpected fruit. If the world in which we live
to-day is very different from what it was during the ages
described in the preceding chapters of this book, it is largely
because of what happened in this Age of Expansion. Here