What If A Collapse Happened And Nobody Noticed?

[lapislzi]

29. I think you may be oversimplifying medieval Europe

Medieval Europe underwent several cultural expansion-and-contraction phases. There was hardly any time when trade dwindled to near-nothing.

Here's my senior Medieval Studies paper, Reader's Digest version, about why the "Dark Ages" were anything but dark:

After the decline and decay Roman power, the tribal communities consolidated and formed alliances. Mostly, they allied with other nascent Christian powers, and/or converted. The Church became the cultural driver and center of literacy and learning.

Viking (among the last to convert) raids were also trade and marriage runs, jumbling up the gene pool of Europe and points east. These were the precursors of the trade and Crusade routes of the eleventh through thirteenth centuries.

The trading and cultural centers shifted over the centuries, but never went away. For awhile (ninth century), Charlemagne's court at Aachen was the place to be. For awhile, Venice. Later, Florence. Rome never really lost primacy, either, due to its being the seat of the Church.

Heck, the bubonic plague outbreak of 1348 - 49 was BECAUSE of trade. Even that setback lasted barely a generation, as a new bourgeois class began to consolidate and reform the economies of their states.

During the 14th and 15th centuries, fiefdoms that had withdrawn because of the disease outbreak codified their social and military structures, resulting in a tiered system of vassaldom (Game of Thrones) that was gradually absorbed by centralized royal powers of states--through heavy military levies and taxation.

I could go on, but I won't. My point is, Europe continually reorganized itself according to conditions.

Aren't you glad you asked?