The onset of renaissance in Europe is responsible for the birth of a plethora of ideas, concepts and movements. One of those being the Renaissance humanism movement which dramatically helped shift the worldview of the continent's people. Although this intellectual movement was embodied by the worldview centered on the nature and importance of humanity, the stern principles of the monastic idea ''ora et labora'', hailing from the preceeding Middle Ages were, despite efforts of humanists, all but forgotten. Nevertheless, mentioning the emergence of new humanistic ideas regarding the relationship between the Catholic Church and the individual remains of great importance. The medieval commoner found in twelfth century Europe varies greatly to the one observed just some couple hundred years later in any land that had been struck by the reforms brought upon by the Renaissance. The god-fearing individual deprived of any trace of individualism in the Middle Ages had now become an increasingly educated and curious entity. His free will, once completely stripped by the serfdom to his earthly and heavenly lords, had now swollen with interest for newfound notions of individualism and anthropocentrism. The new values brought upon by the Renaissance influenced a great number of works which radiate with the mentioned concepts, but also some that continued to be shaped by the era that preceded them. Two authors that wore the influence of medieval thinkers on their sleeves are John Donne with Holy Sonnets and Christopher Marlowe with The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus. There works are prime examples of how the strict and religious medieval tradition continued to exist during the Renaissance, although now greatly altered under the influence of the period's evolving philosophical thought.