The Middle Ages The Middle Ages (400-1300A.D.)form a period of great significance in the economic,as in the general,history of Europe,They represent a vast transition,in which the germs of a new world were deposited,but in which little was fully elaborated.
There is scarcely anything in the later movement of European society which we do not find there,though as yet,for the mostpart,crude and undeveloped.The medieval period was the object of contemptuous depreciation on the part of the liberalschools of the last century,principally because it contributed so little to literature.But there are things more important tomankind than literature.and the great men of the Middle Ages had enough to do in other fields to occupy their utmostenergies.The development of the Catholic institutions and the gradual establishment and maintenance of a settled order afterthe dissolution of the Western empire absorbed the powers of the thinkers and practical men of several centuries.The firstmedieval phase,from the commencement of the fifth century to the end of the seventh,was occupied with the painful andstormy struggle towards the foundation of the new ecclesiastical and civil system;three more centuries were filled with thework of its consolidation and defence against the assaults of nomad populations;only in the final phase,during the eleventh,twelfth,and thirteenth centuries,when the unity of the West was founded by the collective action against impending Mosleminvasion,did it enjoy a sufficiently secure and stable existence to exhibit its essential character and produce its noblestpersonal types.The elaboration of feudalism was,indeed,in progress during the whole period,showing itself in thedecomposition of power and the hierarchical subordination of its several grades,the movement being only temporarilysuspended in the second phase by the salutary dictatorship of Charlemagne.But not before the first century of the last phasewas the feudal system fully constituted.In like manner,only in the final phase could the effort of Catholicism after auniversal discipline be carried out on the great scale --an effort for ever admirable though necessarily on the wholeunsuccessful.
No large or varied economic activity was possible under the full ascendency of feudalism.That organisation,as has beenabundantly shown by philosophical historians,was indispensable for the preservation of order and for public defence,andcontributed important elements to general civilization.But,whilst recognizing it as opportune and relatively beneficent,wemust not expect from it advantages inconsistent with its essential nature and historical office.The class which predominatedin it was not sympathetic with industry,and held the handicrafts in contempt,except those subservient to war or rural sports.
The whole practical life of the society was founded on territorial property.the wealth of the lord consisted in the produce ofhis lands and the dues paid to him in kind;this wealth was spent in supporting a body of retainers whose services wererepaid by their maintenance.There could be little room for manufactures,and less for commerce;and agriculture was carriedon with a view to the wants of the family,or at most of the immediate neighbourhood,not to those of a wider market.Theeconomy of the period was therefore simple,and,in the absence of special motors from without,unprogressive.
In the latter portion of the Middle Ages several circumstances came into action which greatly modified these conditions.TheCrusades undoubtedly produced a powerful economic effect by transferring in many cases the possessions of the feudalchiefs to the industrious classes,whilst by bringing different nations and races into contact,by enlarging the horizon andwidening the conceptions of the populations,as well as by affording a special stimulus to navigation,they tended to give anew activity to international trade.The independence of the towns and the rising importance of the burgher class supplied acounterpoise to the power of the land aristocracy;and the strength of these new social elements was increased by thecorporate constitution given to the urban industries,the police of the towns being also founded on the trade guilds,as that ofthe country districts was on the feudal relations.The increasing demand of the towns for the products of agriculture gave tothe prosecution of that art a more extended and speculative character;and this again led to improved methods of transportand communication.But the range of commercial enterprise continued everywhere narrow,except in some favoured centres,such as the Italian republics,in which,however,the growth of the normal habits of industrial life was impeded or pervertedby military ambition,which was not,in the case of those communities,checked as it was elsewhere by the pressure of anaristocratic class.
