Why Was Europe Able To Embrace Itself?

By the beginning of the fourteenth century Europe seemed to have recovered from the effects of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. The threats from Vikings, Magyars, and the Muslims were ebbing and Europe began to emerge as a dominant military, economic, and political power. Although the process of this transformation was never easy, it can be argued that Europe was now on a more solid path toward further growth and improvement. There are a number of reasons why Europe was able to remake itself. An agricultural revolution transformed crop production; its effects spread unevenly across England, parts of France, and western Germany. A number of technological breakthroughs made it possible for peasants and lords to obtain a greater yield from the land. This, in turn, made it possible for early medieval towns and cities to grow prosperous and support even larger populations. Manorialism, or serfdom, became a principal form of land organization during this period, and although the serfs' life was always harsh, they at least knew that their obligations were fixed by custom. …show more content…
Although the Crusades illustrated a new spirit of adventure among European kings, princes, and knights, when analyzed in their entirety, the Crusades were hardly a total success. If anything, the Crusades hardened the sense of "holy war" between the Christian west and Islamic east.

The political, economic, and military institution known as feudalism slowly developed in the High Middle Ages as an attempt to bring some order to the politically fragmented world of medieval Europe. At the same time, new national monarchies emerged in England, France, Germany, and Spain; they owed their success to citizen participation and loyalty. One could make the bold claim that perhaps the modern nation-state was born during the High Middle