ABSTRACT
We now need to look at the effect which the spread of the Italian Renaissance had on the
organization of the rest of Christendom. Late medieval Europe down to about 1460 was
still organized horizontally, held together especially by the universal church. Throughout
Europe what were to become the issues of international relations, that is the relations of
territorial lay authorities with each other and the disputes between princes and between
them and the church, were still regarded as coming under a universal system of
customary law, based on individual and local inheritances, rights and charters.
