# Europe's Emergence From The Midle Ages-How Did It Take Place? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 22, 2013, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/europes-emergence-from-the-midle-ages-how-did-it-take-place/666868 "2013-08-22T13:07:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![GrandWino](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grandwino/32/67_2.png) [@GrandWino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrandWino)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2013, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/europes-emergence-from-the-midle-ages-how-did-it-take-place/666868/21 "2013-08-23T14:26:50Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > The fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the Ottoman Turks Well, it’s nobody’s business but their’s. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2013, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/europes-emergence-from-the-midle-ages-how-did-it-take-place/666868/22 "2013-08-23T14:34:17Z")
> [@newcomer](#): > > Growth of population would be my primary pick. Except the European population didn’t recover from the black death and the famines of the 1300’s until almost 1600. The Rennissance happened just after a local minimum of the European population. ---
**Author:** ![newcomer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e5b9ba/32.png) [@newcomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/newcomer)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2013, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/europes-emergence-from-the-midle-ages-how-did-it-take-place/666868/23 "2013-08-23T17:17:48Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > Except the European population didn’t recover from the black death and the famines of the 1300’s until almost 1600. The Rennissance happened just after a local minimum of the European population. Interesting view - [Medieval demography - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_demography) Which brings us to a question - what is the range of what we refer to as “Middle Ages”? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2013, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/europes-emergence-from-the-midle-ages-how-did-it-take-place/666868/24 "2013-08-23T20:12:13Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > It wasn’t just labor relations that changed after the Black Death. The millions who died left behind untold volumes of cash and property, giving the survivors a level of wealth and material prosperity they had never dreamed of. This laid the foundations for Capitalist society. They also left behind a lot of clothes. Which were turned into rags, and sold to paper makers, resulting in paper suddenly becoming very cheap. Right around the time people were figuring out interesting things you could do with block type and a modified wine press. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2013, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/europes-emergence-from-the-midle-ages-how-did-it-take-place/666868/25 "2013-08-23T20:43:33Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > And in the end, France and England prospered, while Spain crashed and burned at a high rate of speed, cratering so badly that they effectively remove themselves from history for the next 350 years. Spain was the equivalent of one of those people whose life was ruined by winning the lottery. It used to be if a nation wanted to be rich, it had to earn it by building a strong working economy that had enough surplus for the government to tax. The discovery of America changed that. It was basically free money (gold and silver) that was handed to the government. The first unanticipated factor was what the increased supply of gold and silver would do to their value. Economics was basically unknown. The supply of gold and silver had always been pretty steady so everyone thought of their value as being essentially fixed - if you had ten times as much gold and silver, you’d be ten times as rich. But what happened was that the price of gold and silver dropped as all that new supply hit the market. So the Spanish were always finding they weren’t as rich as they thought they were - the gold and silver they were spending always bought them less than they had anticipated. The second factor was that Spain essentially became a spending economy. Rather than make the things they needed, they would just buy them from other people. So new farms and workplaces arose in France, England, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, etc to supply the stuff that Spain wanted to buy. In the short term, Spain prospered by having the gold and silver to buy stuff from these countries. But after it bought stuff, the gold and silver ended up in those other countries. And those other countries still had all those farms and workplaces which Spain didn’t have. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2013, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/europes-emergence-from-the-midle-ages-how-did-it-take-place/666868/26 "2013-08-23T21:31:30Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > And in the end, France and England prospered, while Spain crashed and burned at a high rate of speed, cratering so badly that they effectively remove themselves from history for the next 350 years. I think this was due more to the Inquisition than anything else; despite all its voyages of discovery, Spain became the greatest intellectual backwater in Western Europe. I wouldn’t say Spain “cratered” until it lost most of its colonies in Central and South America at the beginning of the 19th century. Of course, it had long been in a period of decline, ever since Britain became the dominant sea power in the 16th and 17th centuries. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2013, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/europes-emergence-from-the-midle-ages-how-did-it-take-place/666868/27 "2013-08-23T21:44:16Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > The fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the Ottoman Turks and subsequent influx of refugees to Italy and elsewhere in Europe also helped jumpstart the Renaissance; the displaced brought with them a wealth of Eastern culture and knowledge that slowly spread and mingled with the local cultures to produce something new. A great deal of Eastern culture was also acquired through trade with the Islamic world, largely through Venice, Portugal, and Spain, not to mention the Muslims occupying Iberia for more than 700 years. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2013, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/europes-emergence-from-the-midle-ages-how-did-it-take-place/666868/28 "2013-08-23T21:57:19Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > Protestantism. Or rather, Catholicism no longer having as much power as it used to to forbid charging interest. Interesting is rather important to banking. > > Before then, interest could be charged but you had to be stealthy about it and take roundabout ways which likely cut down on how much interest was charged and therefore how much financial instruments were used. That made it more difficult to transform potential consumption into capital. The rise of Protestantism (i.e., the Reformation) was also an important manifestation of incipient nationalism, helping to break down the old system of an all-reaching, pervasive Church or Empire. One thing I love about studying history is that it’s possible to view things from so many different angles; seldom (if ever) is there any single cause determining the course of events. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2013, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/europes-emergence-from-the-midle-ages-how-did-it-take-place/666868/29 "2013-08-24T05:27:29Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Spain was the equivalent of one of those people whose life was ruined by winning the lottery. > > It used to be if a nation wanted to be rich, it had to earn it by building a strong working economy that had enough surplus for the government to tax. The discovery of America changed that. It was basically free money (gold and silver) that was handed to the government. > > The first unanticipated factor was what the increased supply of gold and silver would do to their value. Economics was basically unknown. The supply of gold and silver had always been pretty steady so everyone thought of their value as being essentially fixed - if you had ten times as much gold and silver, you’d be ten times as rich. But what happened was that the price of gold and silver dropped as all that new supply hit the market. So the Spanish were always finding they weren’t as rich as they thought they were - the gold and silver they were spending always bought them less than they had anticipated. > > The second factor was that Spain essentially became a spending economy. Rather than make the things they needed, they would just buy them from other people. So new farms and workplaces arose in France, England, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, etc to supply the stuff that Spain wanted to buy. In the short term, Spain prospered by having the gold and silver to buy stuff from these countries. But after it bought stuff, the gold and silver ended up in those other countries. And those other countries still had all those farms and workplaces which Spain didn’t have. While all this is true, we should not ignore the fact that the Spanish monarchy wasted vast sums of money waging wars through the 16th and early 17th centuries. The amazing thing is that despite stealing almost all the wealth from two continents in the early 16th century, they quickly got into debt and stayed that. The expulsion of the Jews from Spain was motivated by a desire to steal their money. High taxes and lack of infrastructure spending in Spain itself didn’t help either. ---
**Author:** ![Becky2844](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Becky2844](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Becky2844)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2013, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/europes-emergence-from-the-midle-ages-how-did-it-take-place/666868/30 "2013-08-24T10:03:08Z")
Thank you **MrDibble**. Don’t know what I was looking at with such a precise date. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2013, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/europes-emergence-from-the-midle-ages-how-did-it-take-place/666868/31 "2013-08-24T20:49:21Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > Protestantism. Or rather, Catholicism no longer having as much power as it used to to forbid charging interest. Interesting is rather important to banking. > > Before then, interest could be charged but you had to be stealthy about it and take roundabout ways which likely cut down on how much interest was charged and therefore how much financial instruments were used. That made it more difficult to transform potential consumption into capital. I’ve mentioned this before but one way around the illegality of charging interest was currency exchange. Charging interest for a loan was illegal. But changing the currency of one place for the currency of another was legal and there was no law specifying the exchange rates or methods. So let’s say, for example, that 100 guilders was generally equal to 200 florins. But you and I make an agreement that you’ll give me 300 florins for 100 guilders - with the provision that I give you the guilders today and you give me the florins in six months. Under the cover of a currency exchange, I’ve just loaned you 100 guilders for six months at 50% interest. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2013, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/europes-emergence-from-the-midle-ages-how-did-it-take-place/666868/32 "2013-09-05T13:03:00Z")
Prosperous cities allied with, rather than subject to, strong Kings seems to be a possible answer to OP’s question. But why did this arise in medieval Europe, rather than in classic Europe or in the Orient? I was reminded of this thread when I chanced upon a discussion while reading on an unrelated topic. In a [book on the history of mathematics](http://books.google.co.th/books?id=ECkXB-T2mwIC&pg=PA79&lpg=PA79&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false) one reads: > [@](#): > > There are significant differences between the development of Western, early Greek, and Oriental feudalism. The extensive character of Western agriculture made a vast system of bureaucratic administrators superfluous, so that it could not supply a basis for an eventual Oriental despotism. There was no possibility in the West of obtaining vast supplies of slaves. When villages in Western Europe grew into towns these towns developed into self-governing units, in which the burghers were unable to establish a life of leisure based on slavery. This is one of the main reasons why the development of the Greek _polis_ and that of the Western city, which during the early stages had much in common, deviated sharply in later periods. The medieval townspeople had to rely on their own inventive genius to improve their standard of living. Fighting a bitter struggle against the feudal landlords—and with much civil strife in addition—they emerged victorious in the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries. This triumph was based not only on a rapid expansion of trade and money economy, but also on a gradual improvement in technology. The feudal princes often supported the cities in their fight against the smaller landlords, and then eventually extended their rule over the cities. This finally led to the emergence of the first national states in Western Europe. Dirk Struik provides no footnote or endnote to support this argument. Is it valid? (BTW, I have this book in my library but searched for it on-line to avoid typing the long paragraph. I found it at Google Books _but do not know how to copy text there – is there a way?_ I ended up using [http://www.onlineocr.net/](http://www.onlineocr.net/) which worked very well.) ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2013, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/europes-emergence-from-the-midle-ages-how-did-it-take-place/666868/33 "2013-09-05T13:42:48Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > While all this is true, we should not ignore the fact that the Spanish monarchy wasted vast sums of money waging wars through the 16th and early 17th centuries. The amazing thing is that despite stealing almost all the wealth from two continents in the early 16th century, they quickly got into debt and stayed that. The expulsion of the Jews from Spain was motivated by a desire to steal their money. High taxes and lack of infrastructure spending in Spain itself didn’t help either. Spain wasted most of the new world money on trying to reimpose its will on northern europe and Italy. Those wars showed the importance of new technologies and new ways of organizing troops. War is a time when new techonologies get adopted very quickly and changes can happen very quickly. Because of the monetary issues already discussed Spain was not as rich as they thought and ended up being hurt financially by all the new silver and gold from the new world. Much of the silver from Peru ended up in China which had a huge need for a stable currency because the invention of paper had led to paper currency which led to massive instability of monetary supply. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2013, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/europes-emergence-from-the-midle-ages-how-did-it-take-place/666868/34 "2013-09-05T16:32:26Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > There were also advance in ship construction. Shipbuilders developed techniques like carvel planking, multi-mast rigging, and stern rudders. Plus there were navigational techniques using compasses and Mercator projections. These ideas made long-distance oceanic travel possible. It also made coastal navigation much easier. Trade centers moved from Eastern France to Flanders because it had become more convenient to ship merchandises directly from the Mediterranean Sea to Northern Europe than to transport it overland. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2013, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/europes-emergence-from-the-midle-ages-how-did-it-take-place/666868/35 "2013-09-05T16:37:12Z")
> [@Becky2844](#): > > Wiki says the last jousting in England was in 1602 during Elizabeth I’s reign. (How can it know what was going on in outlaying areas or in woods practiced by boys?) But by then I’d say it was stylized. But yeah, it was still kind of going on when Columbus set sail. Henri II of france was killed in a tournament in 1559. So, it wasn’t “stylized” yet and that was already 70 years after Columbus. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2013, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/europes-emergence-from-the-midle-ages-how-did-it-take-place/666868/36 "2013-09-05T16:45:19Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Of course, it had long been in a period of decline, ever since Britain became the dominant sea power in the 16th and 17th centuries. England didn’t become the dominant sea power before the second half of the 17th century. Before that, even though Spain had declined, it wasn’t outmatching France and the Netherlands on sea. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2013, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/europes-emergence-from-the-midle-ages-how-did-it-take-place/666868/37 "2013-09-05T17:40:12Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > It also made coastal navigation much easier. Trade centers moved from Eastern France to Flanders because it had become more convenient to ship merchandises directly from the Mediterranean Sea to Northern Europe than to transport it overland. Waterborne transportation made moving stuff a lot cheaper once shipping became reliable. I read an amazing statistic recently. Suppose it was around 1800 and you wanted to move a ton of goods from Manchester to Bombay. It would cost you thirty shillings to move those goods thirty miles over land to Liverpool. Then it would cost you another thirty shillings to move those goods seven thousand miles over water to Bombay. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2013, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/europes-emergence-from-the-midle-ages-how-did-it-take-place/666868/38 "2013-09-05T17:52:18Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Spain wasted most of the new world money on trying to reimpose its will on northern europe and Italy. “Reimpose”? A lot was wasted imposing it in the first place, obsessing over the Germanic Empire rather than looking ahead, to the New World. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2013, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/europes-emergence-from-the-midle-ages-how-did-it-take-place/666868/39 "2013-09-05T21:19:10Z")
I’m glad to see my bump led to more interesting comments in this interesting thread. 🆒 But disappointed to note that none of the comments pertain to my own interesting post. ☹ > [@](#): > > There was no possibility in the West of obtaining vast supplies of slaves. When villages in Western Europe grew into towns these towns developed into self-governing units, in which the burghers were unable to establish a life of leisure based on slavery. This is one of the main reasons why the development of the Greek polis and that of the Western city, which during the early stages had much in common, deviated sharply in later periods. The medieval townspeople had to rely on their own inventive genius to improve their standard of living. That medieval Europe had far fewer slaves (discounting agricultural serfs) than classical Europe or the Orient agrees with what little I know of history. That the lack of slaves would lead to technology and a more robust prosperity seems logical. What I don’t fully understand is _Why “there was no possibility in the West of obtaining vast supplies of slaves.”_ ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2013, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/europes-emergence-from-the-midle-ages-how-did-it-take-place/666868/40 "2013-09-06T14:28:55Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > “Reimpose”? A lot was wasted imposing it in the first place, obsessing over the Germanic Empire rather than looking ahead, to the New World. My understanding was that Holland was brought peaceably into the Spanish Empire by Charles the 1st. By reimpose I meant the 80 years war. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/europes-emergence-from-the-midle-ages-how-did-it-take-place/666868.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/europes-emergence-from-the-midle-ages-how-did-it-take-place/666868.md?page=3)