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42 4 N and the Emergence of Market Capitalism Europeans’ exposure to black powder is inextricably linked to a wide range of societal changes, many of which were well under way before the arrival of this explosive material. However, subsequent efforts to secure its main ingredient, nitrogen-rich saltpeter, serve as a good lens for viewing these changes. Of special importance is the emergence of market capitalism in Europe, a socially constructed cycle of variation and selection that facilitates the production of technological knowledge. Among other things, this new system of knowledge production rewarded innovators for developing more efficient methods of production, including those associated with the production of saltpeter. Furthermore, given that the search for saltpeter placed merchants in competition with farmers for access to chemically active nitrogen , it also shows that nitrogen-related changes in the agricultural sector accompanied the rise of capitalism. An Explosive Mix At the end of the eleventh century, before the arrival of explosive black powder, feudal Europe faced a significant challenge. Some of its surplus was being used to train armed fighters who fought petty battles among themselves and terrorized those around them, contributing to a general atmosphere of lawlessness. In short, a portion of the wealth of medieval society was being used to increase, rather than reduce, the general level of violence and chaos in that society. Leaders recognized that a problem existed. Indeed, in 1095, when Pope Urban II convened a meeting of three hundred French lords and bishops in Clermont, a cathedral city situated on a tributary of the Loire River, about four hundred kilometers south of Orléans, he declared: “It is so bad in some N A ND T HE EMERGENCE OF M A R K ET C A PI TA LISM 43 of your provinces, I am told, and you are so weak in the administration of justice, that one can hardly go along the road by day or night without being attacked by robbers; and whether at home or abroad one is in danger of being despoiled either by force or fraud.”1 He sought the group’s council on a range of issues, but one stood out among all others: a request from the Byzantine emperor for military support against the Seljuq Turks, who were pushing into Byzantine territory. This request, for which Urban II passionately argued, represented an opportunity to dedicate the knights of Europe to something other than petty squabbles. Urban painted his call for support as a holy war for the liberation of Jerusalem , which the Seljuqs had closed to Christian pilgrims some two decades earlier. He knew that his words would resonate with the assembled leaders. After all, his predecessor, Pope Gregory VII, had made a similar proposal twenty years earlier. At that time, a major dispute between the pope and the Holy Roman Emperor had complicated matters. Since then, however, a variety of other voices had begun to call for the kingdoms of Europe to support their fellow Christians. What Urban II did not anticipate, though, was the magnitude of the response. Soon after the council disbanded, tens of thousands of untrained peasants, emboldened by a charismatic monk and led by a handful of minor knights, mobilized, departing months before the date sanctioned by Urban II. Streams of better-trained fighters soon followed, albeit with little more coordination of strategy than those who had preceded them.2 Neither did Urban II anticipate that, during the next two hundred years, waves of knights and assorted adventurers would make the journey eastward , with each successive crusade becoming a more and more transparent exercise in organized plundering. Furthermore, each returning wave of crusaders brought back intriguing artifacts and stories of cities larger and more sophisticated than any found in feudal Europe. Gradually, these crusades morphed into trade between Europeans and distant merchants, with the Mediterranean Sea serving as their economic highway.3 The exposure of crusaders and medieval traders to other cultures reinforced several trends. Even before the crusades, Greek and Arab scholarship had been trickling into Europe from Moor-occupied portions of the Iberian Peninsula, and a body of Christian scholars had become acquainted with the philosophical systems of Aristotle and other ancients. Some of these scholars hoped to use Greek approaches to reason and logic to explain the teachings of the Roman church, and increased contact through trade channels simply reinforced scholars’ interest in using eastern knowledge to benefit European society. By the thirteenth century, scholastics such as...

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