Peter Burke, a modem historian from England, says that by using, the term Renaissance Jakob Burckhardt exaggerated the difference between the periods before it and after it. Peter Burke added that it would mean that during the Renaissance period the Greco-Roman cultures revived and the scholars and artists accepted the Christian view of the world instead of the pre-Christian view.

Both these arguments are exaggerated in their own ways. The scholars before the Renaissance were familiar with the then cultures and therefore. It would be incorrect to say that the cultures had a rebirth. In the case of religion also there was no serious departure from the past. Religion continued to be an essential part of the life of people.

The Humanist historians pictured Renaissance as a period of energy and artistic creativity. At the same time, they considered the Middle Ages as a park Period with no development at all.

Many of the features of Renaissance could be seen in Italy in the 12^th and 13^th centuries. But some historians point out that even in the 9^th Century France there were literary and artistic development like those of the Renaissance period.