16th Century Mod

[Mireille Duhon]

The 16th century was the century from 1501 to 1600. In this century, many Europeans visited or moved to the newly-found Americas and some also searched for new routes to Asia. There was much change in Europe at the time, such as the Protestant Reformation and the Renaissance.

The 16th century began with the Julian year 1501 (represented by the Roman numerals MDI) and ended with either the Julian or the Gregorian year 1600 (MDC), depending on the reckoning used (the Gregorian calendar introduced a lapse of 10 days in October 1582).[2]

The Renaissance in Italy and Europe saw the emergence of important artists, authors and scientists, and led to the foundation of important subjects which include accounting and political science. Copernicus proposed the heliocentric universe, which was met with strong resistance, and Tycho Brahe refuted the theory of celestial spheres through observational measurement of the 1572 appearance of a Milky Way supernova. These events directly challenged the long-held notion of an immutable universe supported by Ptolemy and Aristotle, and led to major revolutions in astronomy and science. Galileo Galilei became a champion of the new sciences, invented the first thermometer and made substantial contributions in the fields of physics and astronomy, becoming a major figure in the Scientific Revolution in Europe.

Spain and Portugal colonized large parts of Central and South America, followed by France and England in Northern America and the Lesser Antilles. The Portuguese became the masters of trade between Brazil, the coasts of Africa, and their possessions in the Indies, whereas the Spanish came to dominate the Greater Antilles, Mexico, Peru, and opened trade across the Pacific Ocean, linking the Americas with the Indies. English and French privateers began to practice persistent theft of Spanish and Portuguese treasures. This era of colonialism established mercantilism as the leading school of economic thought, where the economic system was viewed as a zero-sum game in which any gain by one party required a loss by another. The mercantilist doctrine encouraged the many intra-European wars of the period and arguably fueled European expansion and imperialism throughout the world until the 19th century or early 20th century.

The Reformation in central and northern Europe gave a major blow to the authority of the papacy and the Catholic Church. In England, the British-Italian Alberico Gentili wrote the first book on public international law and divided secularism from canon law and Catholic theology. European politics became dominated by religious conflicts, with the groundwork for the epochal Thirty Years' War being laid towards the end of the century.

In the Middle East, the Ottoman Empire continued to expand, with the sultan taking the title of caliph, while dealing with a resurgent Persia. Iran and Iraq were caught by a major popularity of the Shia sect of Islam under the rule of the Safavid dynasty of warrior-mystics, providing grounds for a Persia independent of the majority-Sunni Muslim world.[3]

In the Indian subcontinent, following the defeat of the Delhi Sultanate and Vijayanagara Empire, new powers emerged, the Sur Empire founded by Sher Shah Suri, Deccan sultanates, Rajput states, and the Mughal Empire[4] by Emperor Babur, a direct descendant of Timur and Genghis Khan.[5] His successors Humayun and Akbar, enlarged the empire to include most of South Asia.

Japan suffered a severe civil war at this time, known as the Sengoku period, and emerged from it as a unified nation under Toyotomi Hideyoshi. China was ruled by the Ming dynasty, which was becoming increasingly isolationist, coming into conflict with Japan over the control of Korea as well as Japanese pirates.

The acquisition of medieval liturgical chant manuscripts that trace the history of music notation as it evolved over half a millennium, became a major collection priority in the Music Division beginning in the 1920s. One century later, we are fortunate to feature in this digital presentation over fifty of our chant manuscripts (e.g., antiphonaries, graduals, processionals, etc.) containing music intended for use during the rituals of the Roman Catholic Mass and Divine Office.

Researchers from the University of Arkansas, the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, the University of Arizona, Valdosta State University and the University of Western Ontario will report their findings in an upcoming issue of the journal EOS, Transactions of the American Geophysical Union.

The researchers used drought-sensitive tree ring chronologies that extend back before A.D. 1500 from trees in Western North America, the Southeast and the Great Lakes. They found that dry conditions extended from the Sierra Madre Occidental in Mexico and the Southwest to the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi Valley throughout the last half of the 1500s. Severe conditions occurred at times in Mexico, the Southwest, Wyoming and Montana, and the Southeast.

Climate varies within a certain envelope, with a drier spell one year and a damp one the next, but in the 1500s "the basement collapsed and went down to another level," said David Stahle, professor of geosciences at the University of Arkansas.

The tree ring records tell of the worst drought in 1,000 years, with an extended period of dryness lasting 40 years in places. Early records from Spanish and English settlements in the Carolinas and Virginia corroborate these findings. You can actually see the correlation between the annual weather variation written Ain archival records and the annual "reports" of the tree rings, Stahle said.

Archival records from the Spanish colony of Santa Elena on Parris Island, S.C., indicate a severe drought from 1566-69. In 1587 -- the year Sir Walter Raleigh's colony on Roanoke Island disappeared -- the Parris Island settlers abandoned their colony. Tree ring records show the year was the region's worst drought in 800 years.

Tree growth depends upon the amount of water and nutrients the plant receives in a given year. Tree cells grown during spring and summer differ from one another, and researchers peering through microscopes can tell much about a region's climatic history by looking at the recorded tree ring growth from year to year, using pencil-thin core samples from living trees.

The scientists compare the tree ring characteristics to the climate data gathered over the past 100 years. Then they use statistical models to reconstruct past climate changes based on the tree ring structures, going back hundreds of years.

Individual trees have their own personal histories, but a group of 30-40 tiny core samples from trees in the same region form a library with a shared recording of the climatic past. The scientists used some chronologies that date back more than 1,000 years to reconstruct the past climate of North America and Mexico and unearth the epic drought of the 16th century.

The severely dry weather over the Southwest and northern Mexico may explain why some American Indians in these areas abandoned their pueblos between 1540 and 1598, the researchers contend. And one of the fiercest and longest battles between American Indians and European settlers, the Chichimeca War in Mexico, raged for 40 years beginning in 1550, during the most severe part of the drought.

Ironically, the lack of water may have been linked to ocean currents. Because the drought-affected area looks like a pattern formed on a smaller scale in today's climate-ocean current phenomenon La Nina, Stahle speculates that cold ocean currents in the equatorial Pacific may have caused the prolonged drought since the weather blows across America from the Pacific Ocean.

"This drought was not a consequence of global warming. We don't know what caused it. The factors that did cause it could return," Stahle said. Further studies of ocean sediments or coral reefs may reveal the ocean's role, if any, in this past, prolonged, severe drought.

"If such a drought were to occur today, it would wipe out certain agricultural activities. It would change economic activities on the land. And it would put enormous stress on water resources. This would have a dramatic effect on society," Stahle said.

Hundreds of thousands of Indians already called Florida home when Europeans first arrived in the early 16th century. But it did not take long for the ensuing wars, slave trade and European diseases to nearly wipe out the aboriginal population.

When European ships first landed on Florida in the 16th century, the area was well populated. Indians of the Timucua, Apalachee, Ais, Tekesta and Calusa were farming rich lands in the north -- growing corn, beans and squash -- and fishing or hunting for most of their food in the south.

Locations near reliable food sources with fresh water, comfortable microclimate and high, dry ground made good habitat for these Indians. Fresh and brackish bodies of water supplied steady sources of fish and shellfish, while fertile soils allowed farming to prosper.

Florida's aboriginal population of about 100,000 was nearly decimated by exposure to deadly diseases that were brought to Florida by European settlers. Smallpox, measles, influenza, even the common cold were deadly to Indians.

One of the most powerful and influential native groups of Florida was the Apalachee. At the time Europeans began arriving in America, the Apalachee controlled the fertile area near the Tallahassee hills between the Ochlockonee and Aucilla rivers. The fertile clay and loam soils of the hills supported the heaviest, most concentrated aboriginal population in the state.

The first Spaniards to explore Florida extensively were drawn to this same region. Panfilo de Narvaez journeyed there from Tampa Bay in 1528. Hernando de Soto wintered there from October 1539 until early March 1540.

Searching for gold, Narvaez and his expedition moved through swampy unpopulated flatwoods until they reached the Apalachee area, near present-day Tallahassee. The Apalachee "loomed big and naked, and from a distance looked like giants. They were handsomely proportioned, lean, agile, and strong," he wrote.

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