Friction between national and papal interests was nothing new in the 16th century. Although the kings of Europe largely conceded that the powers of the Pope were superior to their own, both the English and the French monarchies, for example, clashed over the issue five centuries earlier and more.
The New Renaissance Mindset
In the main, though, these quarrels applied only to specific cases. One example was the disagreement between the English King Henry II and his Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, which culminated in the murder of Becket in 1170. What was different about the Renaissance, which paralleled the Reformation, was that it introduced a whole new mindset into European thinking about the nature of the human race and its place in the world.
The medieval Catholic Church had created the view that humans were deeply flawed beings living in perpetual fear of divine anger at their sins and in constant need of redemption which only faith in Christ could provide. The Renaissance and the rebirth of classical learning encouraged another, more individualistic way of thinking and retrieved humans, their talents, achievements and their future from the shadow of divine control.
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