What was the relationship between the Renaissance and the Reformation? To what extent did the ideas of the Renaissance shape the Reformation? How...

The first thing to understand is that the definition of the word "renaissance" is "rebirth." In the same way that the Renaissance was a cultural rebirth, the Reformation was a religious rebirth.

The rediscovery of Greek and Roman knowledge/writings in the late Dark Ages was the igniting spark of the Renaissance flame. Contrasting with Medieval obsession with God and the principle of "Trust the Church and obey", the Renaissance relished development of the individual. This...

The first thing to understand is that the definition of the word "renaissance" is "rebirth." In the same way that the Renaissance was a cultural rebirth, the Reformation was a religious rebirth.

The rediscovery of Greek and Roman knowledge/writings in the late Dark Ages was the igniting spark of the Renaissance flame. Contrasting with Medieval obsession with God and the principle of "Trust the Church and obey", the Renaissance relished development of the individual. This gave rise to a principle that we know as humanism and also the creation of a middle class. The Renaissance was at its height in Northern Italy during the 15th century, where times were prosperous and people had begun to accumulate enough wealth to be able to afford commissioning art and literature. This wealth and lavish living made the city-states in Italy far more powerful than they had ever been, and in turn, made the Church into an extremely powerful figure in economics and society. With this newfound wealth, corruption quickly followed.

Farther north, however, Germany had recently been hit by a huge economic crisis in the 14th century, so it took them a little longer to catch up. While Italy was all about creating new forms of expression in art and literature, the focus in Germany was scientific intellectualism. The Germans had set up a multitude of universities in the 15th century, where Latin and Greek were taught to the students. Reformer and priest Doctor Martin Luther went to one of these universities, and eventually became a professor at one as well. The Bible at this time was only written in Hebrew and Greek, and therefore was largely read by only priests. This allowed the Church to construct a sort of "chokehold" over the largely peasant population. This corruption led to a call to purify the Church. This notion was led by a scholar named Erasmus, whose translation of the Greek New Testament into Latin began an action to investigate the majority of the religious truths held by the Church. The invention of the printing press enabled this translation to be distributed widely, along with the later Martin Luther translation into German. Because of these now readily available translations and the widespread education of the common man in Europe, the Reformation took a firm grip over the entire continent. What started as a religious movement ended up becoming a societal and economic movement that brought change to the European continent that could not be undone.

Essentially, the Reformation could have happened at no other time in history than during the Renaissance. The Renaissance's very nature of free-thinking and exploration of new ideas actually gave birth to the Reformation, granting the characteristics of individualism and a desire for the truth in the process.