ABSTRACT
Europe in the year 1200 was a continent in a state of political and economic equilibrium: no major wars tormented its people and there were still sufficient natural resources to accommodate its growing population. Prosperity and security, relative to medieval standards, was the norm. In the next three centuries its economic and social landscape would witness challenges of monumental proportions: widespread poverty, military invasions, civil strife, adverse climatic changes, and a devastating health crisis, such events producing dramatic swings in the standards of living of its people. By the year 1500 the continent found itself at the threshold of a trajectory that eventually led parts of it to the doorstep of modernity while others witnessed the beginning of institutional transformations which compromised their economic growth for centuries to come.
