* Renaissance monarchs- concentration of royal authority, attempts to suppress the nobility, efforts to control the church in their lands, and desire to obtain new sources of revenue in order to increase royal power and enhance the military forces at their disposal * Niccolo Machiavelli, an Italian who wrote The Prince, one of the most influential works on political power in the Western world. His major concerns were the acquisition, maintenance, and expansion of political powers as the means to restore and maintain order. He contradicted the approached that a ruler ought to behave based on moral principles (first Western thinkers to abandon morality for the analysis of political activity).
10. Social Changes in the Renaissance
* Society in the Middle Ages were divided into three estates: * * The clergy/ First Estate- preeminence was grounded in the belief that people should be guided to spiritual ends * The nobility/ Second Estate- privileges rested on the principle that nobles provided security and justice for society * Third Estate- the peasants and inhabitants of the towns and cities
* By 15th century,