ABSTRACT
The process of secularization in the Renaissance has intimate connections not only with an emerging individualism but with the problem of authority. This problem is, in turn, closely identified with a typical Renaissance concept of history—an interpretation of events in terms of the passions, drives and inner conflicts of leading historical figures: we can understand Roman history if we know what kind of man Coriolanus, or Caesar, or Anthony was, and we can understand English history by studying the characters of the English kings. This psychologizing was a natural response to secularization; in a sense, no other kind of interpretation was possible, since “society” had not yet come to be viewed as a body of changing institutions. The problem, therefore, was to legitimize secular authority by finding moral guarantees for those who exercise it.
