The Political and Economic Transformation Between the 13th and 17th Centuries

History
Name of the Student
Institutional Affiliation
Course ID
Instructor Name
Due Date
Introduction
The chapter focuses on the political and economic transformation occurring between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries. The author illustrates using elaborate examples of how the politics and economy were intertwined and how they contributed to a region's success or failure. The chapter's main subject is Western Europe, covering the English, the Dutch, the Germans, the Portuguese, the Spaniards, and the French. 
Political Transformation
The chapter covers the political climate that existed during this period in Western Europe and how it contributed to the success or failure of member states. From the beginning, there is a change from medieval rule towards a modern world. In the medieval world, also referred to as the old world, in the text, the rule of the land was the clergy, lords, serfs, and guild members who occupied a specific place and performed specific actions. However, the modern world saw the consolidation of these parties into a singular ruling dynasty or state. This resulted in centralized political authority. It demolished the structure that existed before, whereby power was shared between the king and other parties into one. The ruler of the state had sovereign power over the land.
The establishment of the modern state, however, panned out differently over the region. For example, in Spain and France, the king was the sovereign ruler and the central figure of this political structure. Absolutism to this kind of rule was the accepted norm, and the idea of liberty, currently dominant in Western Europe, was rare. This remained true, especially in these two regions. In England and the Netherlands, however, there was the development of the contending idea promoting human liberty to exist compatibly with the modern state. This led to the development of a parliament which protected the people from the sovereignty of the king. In Germany, attempts of development of the Roman Empire as the central governing body failed, with territories remaining fragmented by independent interests of the ruling nobility in the different areas.
Economic Transformation
The evolution of politics in Europe coincided with the social-economic transformation. This was evident in the change of the economy from a traditional and hierarchical system to the development of capitalism. This type of market capitalist market was more individualistic and gains from it, self-centered. This emerging market economy was greatly boosted by the voyages of discovery happening around the same t...