What I mean is, was, say, the Enlightenment, only possible because of the Renaissance? And was the Renaissance only possible because of the Middle Ages? Is history just one big chain reaction, each period feeding off the last and expanding on, or rejecting, their ideas?
I read somewhere that the Renaissance in the 12th century was one of the biggest, if not the biggest, event that helped cause the Renaissance in the 15th century; I had always thought the fall of Constantinople was the event that set the wheels in motion.
It is, but a chaotic one, as your proposition of rejection (or perhaps reaction) suggests. Each development is grounded in and constrained by its circumstances. But it's also subject to buffeting by the many other developments of its time, and by contrary human responses to perceived threats of instability, insecurity or change.
If events are part of a chaotic system, it warns us against viewing them in a linear manner: I would argue that if the intellectual & cultural changes of the 12th century "caused" the Quattrocento (which you're not suggesting), why didn't it happen in the 13th? Something must also have changed that had previously prevented it. But there's also a case against 1453, because the period's artistic and intellectual revival had earlier manifestations.
For my part, my money's on the Black Death, which overnight (not quite, of course) made the survivors potentially a good deal better off than they'd been previously and opened new opportunities for progression and exploration: out of disaster came renewal. But no factor should be neglected.