Introduction to The Premodern World (1000–1500)

The governments of the pre-modern world included vast conquering empires, feudal regions, city-state republics, and emerging national monarchies. The Catholic Church was a formidable power in Europe, the largest landholder, and a dominant force in daily life. Popes contested with kings and nobles for political power and economic privilege. However, new forces were slowly arising that would disrupt the governing structures of medieval life. Advances in trade and commerce led to increased population, the growth of cities, and the enrichment of a middle class between the peasantry and aristocracy.

The remnants of Rome’s empire remained, centuries after its fall. In Central Europe, the Holy Roman Emperors ruled in an uneasy alliance with the Catholic Church and struggled to control the feudal territories under their domain. In the eastern Mediterranean, the Byzantine Empire governed under persistent attack from its neighbors. After the nomadic Seljuk Turks defeated the Byzantine army in 1071, Emperor Alexius I Comnenus (1048–1118) appealed to Pope Urban II (c. 1035–1099) for aid in defending the Holy Land from the Muslims, initiating the first Crusade. Seven more would be launched over the next two centuries.

During this era, the Mongols forged the largest empire in world history. Genghis Khan (c. 1167–1227) unified the nomadic tribes of the Central Asian steppes, then set out with his cavalry on a campaign to conquer all of Eurasia. His heirs built on his achievements until the Mongol Empire had captured China and the Korean peninsula, eradicated the sizable Russian state of Kievan Rus, and conquered Baghdad, the seat of Muslim power, from the ʿAbbāsid dynasty. To govern this far-flung empire, the khans (rulers) collected hefty tributes from conquered lands and dealt severely with disobedient subjects.

In the Western Hemisphere, the most powerful of the Mesoamerican civilizations was the Aztecs of Central Mexico. This warlike people built the great city of Tenochtitlan, where the emperor shielded himself from public view. Rituals of human sacrifice, an important feature of Aztec governance, took place regularly in the city’s temple. In 1521, only a century after the peak of the Aztec empire, the Spanish conquered and destroyed Tenochtitlan; Mexico City would be built upon its ruins.

By the thirteenth century, the growth of trade in Europe had begun to destabilize the feudal system. In the expanding cities, the merchant middle class grew wealthier and slowly shook off its subservience to the provincial nobles. Merchants began to ally with the national monarchs, who could help them extend the reach of their commercial networks. These shifting alliances led to political innovations, particularly in the Italian city-states, which had won their independence from the Holy Roman Empire in 1183. Milan, Genoa, Venice, and Florence all established some form of republican government. The Black Death, which reduced Europe’s population by a third in the middle of the fourteenth century, further weakened the aristocracy, as well as the clergy. The monarchs, with standing armies and administrative bureaucracies at their command, stood to gain from these epochal transformations. In the centuries to come, the nation states of Western Europe would consolidate their power.