Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/375

 EXPANSION OF CHRISTENDOM 325 developed without any wars at all. The crusades, however, at least served to give European society a shaking-up. Holders of fiefs died in Asia Minor and their lands passed i to other lords. Crusaders sold their property and borrowed j money and bought supplies and hired ships and took out All this brought money and land and goods into circulation, land made more business, and caused activity and change and bustle and excitement. The crusades were in a sense a failure, but there was enterprise behind them, and enter- prise is a good thing of itself. We shall next turn to two even greater movements at I home, which accompanied the expansion of Christendom ! abroad ; namely, the rise of towns in western other great i Europe, and a great development of art, litera- JJ ^ ™ ents ture, and learning through the twelfth and thir- twelfth teenth centuries. These two parallel movements CSdeTthe were not caused by the crusades, but were, like crusades the crusades, symptoms and products of a new energy and enterprise and life and civilization in the society of western Europe.
 * letters of credit on Italian or Jewish bankers in Syrian ports.