Introduction
The concept of citizenship has changed considerably throughout the history of Western civilization. The ancient Greek and Roman philosophers first recorded their ideas of citizenship, but since this citizenship was limited to men who owned property within their city-states, their vision was limited. Attendance at the forums and voting on governmental and political issues was the duty of every citizen.
During the medieval period, the idea of the citizen participating in his own governance was lost. Peasants, comprising the vast majority of the population, contributed by working in whatever capacity they could, and relied on the Church and secular leaders to protect them and make any decisions.
In the Renaissance, the concept that individuals have personal worth and dignity gradually eclipsed the medieval arrangement of allegiance and protection. The development of Italian city-states also led to the new emergence of the common man as a citizen. The Humanists, a group of intellectuals, revived ideas and ideals about citizenship from the Greek and Roman philosophers and developed them further, although they rarely wrote directly about the relationship between the common man and those who governed him.
There are several major factors that contributed to the emergence of the individual as a citizen with rights and responsibilities during the Renaissance:
- the "rebirth" of Cicero's, Aristotle's and Seneca's ideas of the individual, citizenship, and the Roman law of civis (citizen)
- the weakening of the Church's influence in secular domains
- the "celebration" of the uniqueness and variety of the human personality in visual art and literature
- humanistic changes in thinking about economic, social, and political power structures
- the weakening of the "boundaries" between classes, so that it became possible for an individual to change his status via his own effort
- the formation of city-states that allowed for interaction between classes
- the intermarriage between the aristocracy and lower classes
- the formation of guilds, organizations of merchants or craftsmen, that governed themselves and asserted their members' rights
- the acceptance and printing of works in vernacular languages circa 1500 (rather than Latin) gave ordinary citizens access to information. By mid-Renaissance, the literacy rate of men approached 50%.
The changes listed above, combined with humanist ideas derived from the Greeks and Romans, have strongly influenced modern thought on citizenship, and form the underlying philosophies of governmental systems, revolutions, and political ideals. The readings below explore aspects of citizenship in the Renaissance. They are extracted from Renaissance documents and philosophical works, as well as from secondary sources.
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