History Commons^™

5. The Rise Of National Feeling, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold A. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section V: The Rise of Capitalism and the National State to 1500

In the centuries under review in this chapter the self-sufficient manor, the feudal aristocracy, and the cultural isolation of Europe fell before the forces of economic change. In much the same way and for many of the same reasons the political institutions and practices of feudalism succumbed to the joint attacks or monarchs and the middle class. Even in its day of glory feudalism had within itself certain weaknesses. It had never been able to maintain more than a modicum of order, and indeed under the chivalric code the proper occupation of the knight was warfare. To the interminable civil …