MENU: 2.5. NOBLES GODS AND HEROES
TOWARD 1500, EXPLORERS' DISCOVERIES LEAD TO NEW SOURCES OF INCOME AND SO TO A BOOM THAT UNDERMINES THE SOCIAL SYSTEM
Nascent capitalists gain the means to challenge the ruling class of nobles, hereditary landowners who draw their wealth from peasant labor and define themselves as warriors.
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Discoveries in 1502 / zoom |
The earliest known map of the Age of Discovery
Absorbing dynamic commoners was one way of reinforcing a potentially menaced social order. They could purchase lands to which a title was attached or an "office" in law, administration or finance. Or the king could grant the title. The newcomers did not have the aura of those whose ancestors had gone with Saint-Louis on crusade, but their legal privileges were the same.
As well, nobles adopted arts that associated them with antiquity, giving them a prestige that upstarts could not rival.
But most important were the innumerable aspects of daily life that grew up naturally, and that led all society to think their superiority innate.
In brief
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