Between the years 1100 and 1500 A.D. the state-system of
Europe passed through changes amounting in their sum-total to a revolution. But
the changes which endured, whether they affected political boundaries or constitutions,
came about by slow instalments. At no stage of the development was there any
general cataclysm such as had followed the dissolution of the Frankish Empire,
and was to follow the advent of Napoleon. New ideas matured slowly in the
medieval mind; by the twelfth century the forces making for social stability
had grown until they balanced those of disruption; and it was only in the age
of the Renaissance that the equilibrium was again destroyed. In the interim the
vested interests of property and privilege, of religious and secular authority,
presented a firm front to the anarchists and radicals.
The Jacquerie in France
and Wat Tyler's followers in England, the Albigeois of Languedoc and the
Hussites of Bohemia, were overwhelmed by armies of conservatives spontaneously
banded together in defence of the established order;--while this spirit
prevailed among the ruling classes, there was little fear that a revolution of
any kind would be effected by a sudden stroke. As in domestic politics, so too
in international relations, these solidly established states were habitually
inert, strong in defence, but irresolute and sluggish in attack. The age
produced no conqueror to sweep through Europe like a whirlwind, because the
implements of conquest on the grand scale had either been destroyed or had not
yet come into existence. The peoples of Europe had emerged from the nomadic
stage of culture, and they were not yet organised as so many armed camps.
