Pole vault? - The Statesman thestatesman.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from thestatesman.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Sovereigns | National Affairs nationalaffairs.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from nationalaffairs.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
European state-formation would have looked very different if rulers did not constantly have to negotiate with a strong clergy, independent townsmen, and the nobility over, inter alia, the wherewithal for warfare, succession and public peace. But the medieval Church shaped European societies in other ways than this. It was the one institution of late antiquity that survived the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century, and it carried the torch of the Roman world after the Empire collapsed.