this paper tries to answer the question: Why did Europe grow rapidly economically during this period of political fragmentation. the number of states in Western Europe increased from something like 20 to something like 200 or 300 during this period.
Economic development during a time of political fragmentation contradicts most examples of economic development such as the Roman Empire, Qing dynasty in China,etc.
Paper concludes that the church and guilds were the key factors--- in opposition to the development of feudalism.
I doubt this because, as I noticed quite some time ago, the most advanced economic areas of the world ( not coming to the US which is an offshoot of Western Europe) are Western Europe and Japan--- both of which had feudalism--- which existed nowhere else as far as I know.
from another paper:
A New Civilization Emerges in Western Europe
"The second limitation on the royal families came from the traditions of
feudalism and from the landed aristocracy as a powerful class. Aristocrats
tended to resist too much monarchical control in the West, and they had the
strength to make their objections heard. These aristocrats, even when vassals
of the king, had their own economic base and their own military force -
sometimes, in the case of great nobles, they had an army greater than that of
the king. The growth of the monarchy cut into aristocratic power, but this led
to new statements of the limits of kings. In 1215 the unpopular English king
John faced opposition to his taxation measures from an alliance of nobles,
townspeople, and church officials. Defeated in his war with France and then
forced down by the leading English lords, John was forced to sign the Great
Charter, or Magna Carta, which confirmed basically feudal rights against
monarchical claims. John promised to observe restraint in his dealings with
the nobles and the Church, agreeing for example not to institute new taxes
without the lords' permission or to appoint bishops without the Church's
permission. A few modern-sounding references to general rights of the English
people against the state that were included in Magna Carta largely served to
show where the feudal idea of mutual limits and obligations between rulers and
ruled could later expand.
This same feudal balance led, late in the 13th century, to the creation
of parliaments as bodies representing not individual voters but privileged
groups such as the nobles and the Church. The first full English parliament
convened in 1265, with the House of Lords representing the nobles and the
church hierarchy, and the Commons made up of elected representatives from
wealthy citizens of the towns. The parliament institutionalized the feudal
principle that monarchs should consult with their vassals. In particular,
parliaments gained the right to rule on any proposed changes in taxation;
through this power, they could also advise the crown on other policy issues.
While the parliamentary tradition became strongest in England, similar
institutions arose in France, Spain, and several of the regional governments
in Germany. Here too, parliaments represented the key estates: Church, nobles,
and urban leaders. They were not widely elected.
Feudal government was not modern government. People had rights according
to the estate into which they were born; there was no general concept of
citizenship and no democracy. Thus parliaments represented only a minority,
and even this minority only in terms of the three or four estates voting as
units (nobles, clergy, urban merchants, and sometimes wealthy peasants), not
some generalized collection of voters. Still, by creating a concept of limited
government and some hint of representative institutions, Western feudal
monarchy produced the beginnings of a distinctive political tradition. This
tradition differed from the political results of Japanese feudalism, which
emphasized group loyalty more than checks on central power.
During the postclassical period, a key result of the establishment of
feudal monarchy was a comparatively weak central core; although several
monarchies gained ground steadily, they wielded very few general powers. This
would change, as kings attained far more extensive powers in military affairs,
cultural patronage, and the like. However, some solid remnants of medieval
traditions, embodied in institutions like parliaments and ideas like the
separation between God's authority and state power, would define a basic
thread in the Western political process even in the later 20th century."
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