ABSTRACT
The eleventh century was still violent and turbulent but the Magyar invasions were over by the second half of the 900s, while the attacks from Scandinavia which had so destabilised Western Europe for nearly 200 years had run their course in most places by the early part of the new millennium. Many towns were of ancient, often Roman, origin, while others were more recent, such as Magdeburg in eastern Germany, established by Otto I in the 930s. But as the rural economy continued to grow and produce surpluses, more trading settlements developed. Most knights in Germany, for example, were so-called ministeriales, men of unfree status. Gradually, though, the social status of knights began to rise, and the acts of submission they performed before their lords began to be seen, not as demeaning, but as the defining features, not just of a professional group, but of a separate, elite caste.
