Overview:
The Renaissance represents a discovery and rebirth of the glories of antiquity, as well as the dawn of the modern world. The great universities of Paris, Bologna, and Oxford were products of the Middle Ages, and had initiated the study of Aristotle and other ancient thinkers in relation the tenets of Christianity. The rise of humanism during the Renaissance represented a challenge to the scholastic thought of the Middle Ages: it was a strain of humanism which resulted in the Protestant Reformation. The Catholic Church responded by convening the Council of Trent, which initiated the Counter-Reformation.