The invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in the mid-15th century had a tremendous impact on the dissemination of knowledge and information. By the 16th century, the printing process had become more efficient and accessible, which facilitated the spread of books and publications, fostering the development of education, trade, and the exchange of ideas.
Most of the French population, however, still engaged in agriculture. The main crops included wheat, barley, grapes, and flax. In the 16th century, artisanal production also became an important sector of the economy. Craftsmen organised themselves into guilds to protect their interests and set quality standards for their products. France actively developed international trade, with the introduction of new sea routes and the opening of new markets in the New World being particularly important. Trading companies played a key role in this process. Religious wars and other political conflicts affected the economy, leading to destruction and losses. For example, the Wars of the Huguenots (1562-1598) had a detrimental impact on trade and production in the country.
Abraham Ortelius' map of Utopia
Thomas More, in his ‘Utopia,’ published in 1516, describes, for instance, such a parasite upon society:
“One day, when I was dining with him [John Morton], there happened to be at table one of the English lawyers, who took occasion to run out in a high commendation of the severe execution of justice upon thieves, ‘who,’ as he said, ‘were then hanged so fast that there were sometimes twenty on one gibbet!’ […] Upon this, I (who took the boldness to speak freely before the Cardinal) said, ‘There was no reason to wonder at the matter, since this way of punishing thieves was neither just in itself nor good for the public; for, as the severity was too great, so the remedy was not effectual; simple theft not being so great a crime that it ought to cost a man his life; no punishment, how severe soever, being able to restrain those from robbing who can find out no other way of livelihood. In this,’ said I, ‘not only you in England, but a great part of the world, imitate some ill masters, that are readier to chastise their scholars than to teach them. There are dreadful punishments enacted against thieves, but it were much better to make such good provisions by which every man might be put in a method how to live, and so be preserved from the fatal necessity of stealing and of dying for it.’ […] That will not serve your turn,’ said I, ‘for many lose their limbs in civil or foreign wars, as lately in the Cornish rebellion, and some time ago in your wars with France, who, being thus mutilated in the service of their king and country, can no more follow their old trades, and are too old to learn new ones; but since wars are only accidental things, and have intervals, let us consider those things that fall out every day. There is a great number of noblemen among you that are themselves as idle as drones, that subsist on other men’s labour, on the labour of their tenants, whom, to raise their revenues, they pare to the quick. This, indeed, is the only instance of their frugality, for in all other things they are prodigal, even to the beggaring of themselves; but, besides this, they carry about with them a great number of idle fellows, who never learned any art by which they may gain their living; and these, as soon as either their lord dies, or they themselves fall sick, are turned out of doors; for your lords are readier to feed idle people than to take care of the sick; and often the heir is not able to keep together so great a family as his predecessor did. Now, when the stomachs of those that are thus turned out of doors grow keen, they rob no less keenly; and what else can they do? For when, by wandering about, they have worn out both their health and their clothes, and are tattered, and look ghastly, men of quality will not entertain them, and poor men dare not do it, knowing that one who has been bred up in idleness and pleasure, and who was used to walk about with his sword and buckler, despising all the neighbourhood with an insolent scorn as far below him, is not fit for the spade and mattock; nor will he serve a poor man for so small a hire and in so low a diet as he can afford to give him.’ […] In France there is yet a more pestiferous sort of people, for the whole country is full of soldiers, still kept up in time of peace (if such a state of a nation can be called a peace); and these are kept in pay upon the same account that you plead for those idle retainers about noblemen: this being a maxim of those pretended statesmen, that it is necessary for the public safety to have a good body of veteran soldiers ever in readiness. They think raw men are not to be depended on, and they sometimes seek occasions for making war, that they may train up their soldiers in the art of cutting throats, or, as Sallust observed, “for keeping their hands in use, that they may not grow dull by too long an intermission.” But France has learned to its cost how dangerous it is to feed such beasts.”
Illustration for Gargantua and Pantagruel by Gustave Doré (1873)
The centre of Paris in 1550, by Olivier Truschet and Germain Hoyau
A vivid illustration of the aforementioned can be found in the eighth chapter of the first book of Rabelais' novel ‘Gargantua and Pantagruel’, ‘How they apparelled Gargantua,’ which provides a detailed description of his wardrobe, showcasing the incredible amount of fabric used. For instance, ‘For his shoes were taken up four hundred and six ells of blue crimson-velvet, and were very neatly cut by parallel lines, joined in uniform cylinders. For the soling of them were made use of eleven hundred hides of brown cows, shapen like the tail of a keeling. For his coat were taken up eighteen hundred ells of blue velvet, dyed in grain, embroidered in its borders with fair gillyflowers, in the middle decked with silver purl, intermixed with plates of gold and store of pearls, hereby showing that in his time he would prove an especial good fellow and singular whipcan.’
In the agriculture of 16th-century France, there was a trend where the bourgeoisie and the bureaucratic nobility emerging from it—the ‘men of the robe’ (gens de robe)—were purchasing both the seigneurial rights to collect feudal rent and, more significantly, the peasant holdings on a large scale. They also provided loans secured against land, in the form of so-called constituted rent, where the interest on the loan was paid either in kind or in money, calculated over the entire area of the debtor's farm, similar to the payment of feudal dues.
The influence of the bourgeoisie and the ‘men of the robe’ on the development of 16th-century French agriculture was further strengthened by other means. When buying land, they typically did not establish their own farms but leased the acquired land to peasant tenants on short-term rental agreements.
All these various obligations and payments enmeshed peasant farms in a web of heavy burdens, hindering economic development.
Entry of King Henry IV into Paris on March 22, 1594 through the Porte Neuve near the Louvre by Bernard de Montfaucon (1733)
In the 16th century, France witnessed a series of religious conflicts arising from the strained relations between Catholics and Protestants (Huguenots). These conflicts had profound political, social, and religious significance and greatly influenced the course of French history. The Huguenots were led by the Bourbons (Prince Condé and Henry of Navarre) and Admiral Coligny, while the Catholics were led by the Queen Mother Catherine de' Medici and the powerful Guise family.
Procession de la Ligue sur la place de Grève by Unknown artist (1590)
The first Huguenot war began in 1562, following the decision by the Huguenots to conduct worship according to their faith within Catholic cities. In March 1563, the leaders of the Huguenots and Catholics signed the Edict of Amboise, guaranteeing the Huguenots freedom of worship within a limited number of areas and holdings. Subsequent wars were triggered by the discontent of the Guises with the concessions made to the Huguenots, the revocation of freedom of worship in France, and the horrific St Bartholomew's Day Massacre. In total, there were eight wars, ending with the signing of the Edict of Nantes in 1598.
The first secular college in France was called the Collège de France. It was established by King Francis I in 1530. The Collège de France was created as an institution of higher education, dedicated to research and teaching across a wide range of disciplines, from philosophy and religion to science and literature. The Collège de France did not have a rigid curriculum, allowing professors the freedom to choose their own subjects and materials for teaching. This flexibility enabled the college to attract leading scholars of the time and provide students with access to cutting-edge knowledge.
Regarding education in 16th-century France more broadly, it was accessible only to a limited group of people, primarily the aristocracy and clergy. Most children from the lower classes did not receive formal education and were taught to work from an early age. For the aristocracy, education began at home under the guidance of private tutors and could then continue at colleges or universities.
A faculty meeting at the University of Paris (1550) by Étienne Colaud
One of the key aspects of the development of education was the spread of humanist ideas. Humanism was a philosophical and cultural movement that emerged during the Renaissance in Europe in the 14th to 16th centuries. Humanists recognised the importance of individuality and the uniqueness of each person. They upheld the ideal of humanistic heroism, encouraging people to strive to develop their abilities and achieve their potential. Humanists rejected a dogmatic approach to knowledge, preferring to turn to the classical texts of ancient culture. They criticised the dogmas and authority of the Church, advocating for the necessity of critical thinking and the independent pursuit of truth.
Humanism arose in Europe due to several factors, including the impressions of different ways of life during the Crusades, connections with Northern Italy, which traded with the East, and the growing interest in ancient culture and texts, which were restored and translated from Greek and Latin. Humanist ideas spread thanks to the development of printing and the dissemination of books, allowing them to have a significant impact on the intellectual and cultural life of the time.
Leonardo da Vinci's studies
Humanism was at the heart of Renaissance art. The birthplace of the Renaissance is considered to be Italy, particularly Florence. The Renaissance arrived in France later. French art in the first half of the 16th century was distinguished by its refinement and beauty, as well as its attention to harmony and proportion. Here is how the Austrian art historian Ernst Gombrich describes the Italian, or southern, and northern Renaissance, as well as their synthesis in France:
‘The end of the fifteenth century, which the Italians by an awkward trick of language call the Quattrocento, that is to say, the 'four hundreds'. The beginning of the sixteenth century, the Cinquecento, is the most famous period of Italian art, one of the greatest periods of all time. This was the time of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, of Raphael and Titian, of Correggio and Giorgione, of Dürer and Holbein in the North, and of many other famous masters. […] We have seen the beginning of these conditions far back in the time of Giotto, whose fame was so great that the Commune of Florence was proud of him and anxious to have the steeple of their cathedral designed by that widely renowned master. This pride of the cities, which vied with each other in securing the services of the greatest artists to beautify their buildings and to create works of lasting fame, was a great incentive to the masters to outdo each other—an incentive which did not exist to the same extent in the feudal countries of the north, whose cities had much less independence and local pride. Then came the period of the great discoveries, when Italian artists turned to mathematics to study the laws of perspective, and to anatomy to study the build of the human body. Through these discoveries, the artist's horizon widened. […]
By a singular misfortune, the few works which Leonardo did complete in his mature years have come down to us in a very bad state of preservation. Thus, when we look at what remains of Leonardo's famous wall-painting of the 'Last Supper' we must try to imagine how it may have appeared to the monks for whom it was painted. […] Never before had the sacred episode appeared so close and so lifelike. It was as if another hall had been added to theirs, in which the Last Supper had assumed tangible form. How clear the light fell on to the table, and how it added roundness and solidity to the figures. Perhaps the monks were first struck by the truth to nature with which all details were portrayed, the dishes on the table-cloth, and the folds of the draperies. Then, as now, works of art were often judged by laymen according to their degree of lifelikness. But that can only have been the first reaction. Once they had sufficiently admired this extraordinary illusion of reality, the monks would turn to the way in which Leonardo had presented the biblical story. There was nothing in this work that resembled older representations of the same theme. In these traditional versions, the apostles were seen sitting quietly at the table in a row—only Judas being segregated from the rest—while Christ was calmly dispensing the Sacrament. The new picture was very different from any of these paintings. There was drama in it, and excitement. Leonardo, like Giotto before him, had gone back to the text of the Scriptures, and had striven to visualize what it must have been like when Christ said, ‘Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me’. […] Christ has just spoken the tragic words, and those on his side shrink back in terror as they hear the revelation. Some seem to protest their love and innocence, others gravely to dispute whom the Lord may have meant, others again seem to look to Him for an explanation of what He has said. St. Peter, most impetuous of all, rushes towards St. John, who sits to the right of Jesus. As he whispers something into St. John's ear, he inadvertently pushes Judas forward. Judas is not segregated from the rest, and yet he seems isolated. He alone does not gesticulate and question. He bends forward and looks up in suspicion or anger, a dramatic contrast to the figure of Christ sitting calm and resigned amidst this surging turmoil. One wonders how long it took the first spectators to realize the consummate art by which all this dramatic movement was controlled. […]
The Birth of the Virgin by Domenico Ghirlandaio (1486–1490)
In the northern countries, in Germany, Holland and England, artists were confronted with a much more real crisis than their colleagues in Italy and Spain. For these southerners had only to deal with the problem of how to paint in a new and startling manner. In the north the question soon became whether painting could and should continue at all. This great crisis was brought about by the Reformation. Many Protestants objected to pictures or statues of saints in churches and regarded them as a sign of popish idolatry. Thus the painters in Protestant regions lost their best source of income, the painting of altar-panels. The stricter among the Calvinists even objected to other kinds of luxury such as gay decorations of houses and even where these were permitted in theory the climate and the style of buildings was usually unsuited to large fresco decorations such as Italian nobles commissioned for their palaces. All that remained as a source of regular income for artists was book illustration and portrait painting, and it was doubtful whether these would suffice to make a living.
Double Portrait of Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve (The Ambassadors) by Hans Holbein the Younger (1533)
We can witness the effect of this crisis in the career of the greatest German painter of this generation, in the life of Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543). Holbein was twenty-six years younger than Dürer and only three years older than Cellini. He was born in Augsburg, a rich merchant city with close trade relations with Italy; he soon moved to Basle, a renowned centre of the New Learning. […]
Feast of the Rosary (1506) by Albrecht Dürer
There was only one Protestant country in Europe where art fully survived the crisis of the Reformation-that was the Netherlands. There, where painting had flourished for so long, artists found a way out of their predicament; instead of concentrating on portrait painting alone they specialized in all those types of subject-matter to which the Protestant Church could raise no objections. Since the early days of Van Eyck, the artists of the Netherlands had been recognized as perfect masters in the imitation of nature. While the Italians prided themselves on being unrivalled in the representation of the beautiful human figure in motion, they were ready to recognize that, for sheer patience and accuracy in depicting a flower, a tree, a barn or a flock of sheep, the 'Flemings' were apt to outstrip them. It was therefore quite natural that the northern artists, who were no longer needed for the painting of altar-panels and other devotional pictures, tried to find a market for their recognized specialities and to paint pictures the main object of which was to display their stupendous skill in representing the surface of things. Specialization was not even quite new to the artists of these lands. We remember that Hieronymus Bosch had made a speciality of pictures of hell and of demons even before the crisis of art. Now, when the scope of painting had become more restricted, the painters went further along this road. They tried to develop the traditions of northern art which reach back to the time of the Drôleries on the margin of medieval manuscripts and to the scenes of real life represented in fifteenth-century art. Pictures in which the painters deliberately cultivated a certain branch or kind of subject, particularly scenes from daily life, later became known as 'genre pictures' (genre being the French word for branch or kind).
Netherlandish Proverbs (1559) by Pieter Brueghel the Elder
The greatest of the Flemish sixteenth-century masters of 'genre' was Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1525?-69). […] The 'kind' of painting on which Brueghel concentrated was scenes from peasant life. He painted peasants merrymaking, feasting and working, and so people have come to think of him as one of the Flemish peasants. This is a common mistake which we are apt to make about artists. We often are inclined to confuse their work with their person. We think of Dickens as a member of Mr Pickwick's jolly circle, or of Jules Verne as a daring inventor and traveller. If Brueghel had been a peasant himself he could not have painted them as he did. He certainly was a townsman and his attitude towards the rustic life of the village was very likely similar to that of Shakespeare for whom Quince the Carpenter and Bottom the Weaver were a species of 'clowns'. […]
In France the crisis of art took again a different turn. Situated between Italy and the northern countries, it was influenced by both. The vigorous tradition of French medieval art was at first threatened by the inrush of the Italianate fashion which French painters found as difficult to adopt as did their colleagues in the Netherlands. The form in which Italian art finally was accepted by high society was that of the elegant and refined Italian Mannerists of Cellini's type. We can see its influence in the lively reliefs from a fountain by the French sculptor, Jean Goujon (died 1566?). There is something both of Parmigianino's fastidious elegance and of Jean Boulogne's virtuosity in these exquisitely graceful figures and the way they are fitted into the narrow strips reserved for them.
A generation later an artist arose in France in whose etchings the bizarre inventions of the Italian Mannerists were represented in the spirit of Pieter Brueghel: the Lorrainian Jacques Callot (1592-1635). Like Tintoretto or even El Greco, he loved to show the most surprising combinations of tall, gaunt figures and wide unexpected vistas, but, like Brueghel, he used these devices to portray the follies of mankind through scenes from the life of its outcasts, soldiers, cripples, beggars and strolling players (Fig. 239). But by the time Callot popularized these extravaganzas in his etchings most painters of his day had turned their attention to new problems which filled the talk of the studios in Rome, Antwerp and Madrid.’
The Hotel de Ville of Paris in 1583 by Hoffbrauer (1885)