Replies to post #4933 on Distributed Digital Property Board

[goin fishn]

Hi Alea

I would add the economic side of it. After the Dark Ages began to ease, there was a great rebirth of trade. Fairs were sponsored by lords to try to attract tax revenue. Serfs began to gain their freedom, as well, as lords sought to grow the size of towns in their fiefs, and to increase economic activity. This expansion of trade, and new freedom played no small role in the growing wave of secular knowledge. People have to get out and meet and trade ideas. Money must be plentiful enough to support scientific activities.

The tension that Nicaea created had several facets. Your assertions are correct, but it also helped create the kind of power that could eventually calm what was a violent society in Western Europe. Feudalism was, in the words of Terry Jones, a time in which armored thugs took turns beating the crap out of each other. This doesn't create an atmosphere that is conducive to trade. The creation of unified Christian policies also led to unified followers of the Pope. Religion calmed down the "Barbarians" who had settled in Western Europe such that by the 1300s, trade was reviving. If not for the Black Death, we might have had a Renaissance 100 years sooner.