at there were a
great many changes in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. This new
love for adventure, which gave us so many new words, was one sign of
the times. Then there were changes in manners, in religion, and in the
way people thought about things. People had quite a new idea of the
world. They now knew that, instead of being the centre of the
universe, the earth was but one of many worlds whirling through space.

The minds of men became more lively. They began to criticize all sorts
of things which they had believed in and reverenced before. During the
Middle Ages many things which the Romans and Greeks had loved had been
forgotten and despised; but now there was a sudden new enthusiasm for
the beautiful statues and fine writings of the ancient Greeks and
Romans. It was not long before this new great change got a name. It
was called the _Renaissance_, or "New Birth," because so many old and
forgotten things seemed to come to life again, and it looked as though
men had been born again into a new time.

One of the chief results of the Renaissance was a change in religion.
The Protestants declared that they had reformed or changed religion
for the better, and the change in religion is now always spoken of as
the Reformation; just as the reform of the Catholic Church which soon
followed was called the _Counter-Reformation_, or movement against the
Reformation--_counter_ coming from the Latin word for "against."

In England the Renaissance and Reformation led to great changes not
only in religion but in government, and the way people thought of
their country and their rulers. People came to have a new love for and
pride in their country. It was in the sixteenth century that the old
word _nation_, which before had meant a race or band of peoples, came
to be used as we use it now, to mean the people of one country under
one government. In the sixteenth century Englishmen became prouder
than ever of belonging to the English "nation." They felt a new love
for other Englishmen, and it was at this time that the expressions
_fellow-countrymen_ and _mother-country_ were first used.

The seventeenth century was, of course, a period during which great
things happened to the English state. It was the period of the great
Civil War, in which the Parliament fought against the king, so that it
could have the chief part in the government of the country.

All sorts of new words grew up during the Civil War. The word
_Royalist