18 Ch. 1 • Medieval Legacies and Transforming DiscoveriesReligious holidays and festivals interspersed the calendar year, still gov
erned by the agricultural calendar. At the beginning of Lent in some places
in Western Europe, frolicking young men carried torches of blazing straw
through the village to ensure agricultural and sexual fertility. Carnival was
the highlight of the year for most people in early modern Europe. People
ate and drank as at no other time, tossing flour, eggs, and fruit at each other
and playing games. Carnival also stood the world on its head, if only briefly.
The poor acted out the misdeeds of the wealthy in elaborate plays. Ordi
nary people could poke fun at the powerful in elaborately staged farces and
parades by spoofing the behavior of judges, nobles, and clergymen.
The Emergence of Early Modern Europe
The late Middle Ages brought significant economic, social, and political
changes that shaped the emergence of early modern Europe. Following the
devastation of the Black Death in the fourteenth century, Europe's popula
tion slowly revived and then grew. More land was brought into cultivation,
providing a greater supply of food. Yet the balance between life and death
remained precarious; famine, disease, and war still intervened frequently
to check population growth.
However, the continent's trade and manufacturing developed rapidly,
particularly in the Mediterranean region (especially the Italian city-states)
and in northwestern Europe. Prosperous banking families provided capital
for traders and manufacturers, as they did for states, and basic mechanisms
for the transfer of credit evolved. Trade with Asia and the Middle East
developed at a rapid pace, catching up with the amount of trade Europeans
carried out with the Muslim world. Towns grew in size, and their merchants
became more prosperous, reflecting the importance of trade and textile
manufacturing on urban growth. As they grew richer, some merchant fami
lies purchased land and noble titles. Merchants became important figures
in every state. Many nobles resented the new status of these commoners,
believing the old saying, “The king could make a nobleman, but not a gen
tleman.'' The growing prosperity of the entrepreneurial elite of many towns
in Western Europe reflected their relative independence from territorial
rulers. One of the characteristics of this independent status was the prolif
eration of guilds and other organizations that reflected a more dynamic
economy.
Yet some aspects of the modern state system were already in place. During
the period from 1350 to 1450, the rulers of France, Spain, England, Scot
land, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Hungary consolidated and extended
their authority over their territories, eroding the domains of feudal lords and
ecclesiastical authorities. The Iberian Peninsula was divided between Castile
and Aragon—joined through the marriage of Queen Isabella and King Ferdi
nand in 1469, forming contemporary Spain—and Portugal, the borders of