Commercial Quickening and Religious Reform

1050–1150

Western Europe was alive with change in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries. Trade and agricultural production were on the rise, promoting the development of a new, cash-based economy. A greater prevalence of wealth prompted a range of responses at all levels of medieval society. The first document set elucidates the innovative business arrangements that fueled the commercial revolution. With the economy booming, many ecclesiastical leaders feared that the church was becoming entangled in economic preoccupations. The second document suggests how this fear helped spark a religious reform movement that elevated the papacy to new heights of authority. The third document reveals this power in action when Pope Urban II called for the First Crusade in 1095. Heeding his call, tens of thousands of people from all walks of life left their homes to fight for God in the Holy Land. The fourth document allows us to see the crusade from a Muslim perspective as the crusaders made their way to Jerusalem. While the papacy expanded its reach through the First Crusade, the final document unveils how secular authorities strove to solidify their own power, buttressed by growing, fiscally minded bureaucracies and new ideologies of kingship.