The resurgence during the Middle Ages: The confused dynamics of the Middle Ages

Abstract

This paper, focussing on the Middle Ages, is to be taken as a simple gloss, similar to those penned at their time by the compilors of Justinian’s Digest. It aims at commenting on - and perhaps critically extending - the general reports presented by Professors North and Berman, who have already dealt with the essentials of this era. Indirectly, a contrario so to speak, this paper also refers to the third general report - by Professor Mueller - on “the decline of the nations”. Yet despite all the troubles of demographic and economic disasters, despite ignorance, material and moral weaknesses, and many false roads taken, these “Middle Ages” certainly were no era of decline, least of all a decline of nations. On the contrary, it is out of the nations that a liberating competition emerges. It was a time of trust, development, imagination and, finally, of extraordinary growth. But growth did not come by accident or simply by good fortune. It was the result of bold joint efforts made by people motivated individually and collectively - perhaps we ought to grasp and remember this, for future inspiration. Of course it is equally appropriate to identify the causes of the era’s weaknesses and failures; in other words, we must know what limits there were in regard to our modern criteria of competition, innovation, and growth.