Consolidating Power

The shape of Europe changed between 1340 and 1492. In eastern Europe, the Ottoman Empire took the place (though not the role) of Byzantium. The capital of the Holy Roman Empire moved to Prague, bringing Bohemia to the fore. Meanwhile, the duke of Lithuania married the queen of Poland, uniting those two states. In western Europe, a few places organized and maintained themselves as republics; the Swiss, for example, consolidated their informal alliances in the Swiss Confederation. Italy, which at the beginning of the period was dotted with numerous small city-states, was by the end dominated by five major powers: Milan, the papacy, Naples, and the republics of Venice and Florence. Most western European states—England and France, for example—became centralized monarchies. The union of Aragon and Castile via the marriage of their respective rulers created Spain. Whether monarchies, principalities, or republics, states throughout Europe used their new powers to finance humanists, artists, and musicians—and to persecute heretics, Muslims, and Jews with new vigor.