In our second sweep through the later medieval period we look even more closely at the philosophical undercurrents that foreshadowed the modern era. The stage was set with the nominalism of William of Occam and the curtain came down on the work of Johann Goethe in Germany. Occam challenged the Aristotelian particularism introduced to the church by Thomas Aquinas. He launched a long era of secularism by denying that universals have any real existence. Men begin to live out the implications. Some like Thomas A Kempis by retreating into a radical pietism. Others like Leonardo Da Vinci by trying to make sense of the world without reference to God. John Foxe recorded the martyrdom of those who held to the Biblical standard. The course examines how that standard was planted in the New World by pioneers like John Winthrop and Cotton Mather. Unfortunately, its potential was stunted by the Enlightenment rationalism of Montesquieu, Voltaire, and ultimately James Madison.