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The Renaissance (\'new birth\') began in the Mediterranean countries and spread across Europe during the course of the fifteenth century. By the sixteenth century, - as well as heralding a burgeoning of art and culture - it represented the rebirth of learning and of free enquiry, the exaltation of the individual (both in mind and body) and a focus on \'life\', instead of the medieval preoccupation with the soul and death. It is arguable how much of this physical and spiritual expansion had immediate effect on the great majority of the population of Britain. However, the Renaissance certainly influenced court life, courtly manners and architectural building, and Henry VII and Henry VIII in England, and James IV, James V and Mary in Scotland, were, in their own ways, Renaissance monarchs.
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