tralized empire and had become a barrier dividing three largely hostile worlds of Byzantium, Islam, and the west. In the west, the political, economic, and cultural centre of gravity had shifted to the north, as the latter developed new lands and markets while the south suffered ecological and climatic decline.
There is also a more positive side to the picture. By 900 a new political map had emerged which was to remain unchanged in its essentials until 1453, consisting of an increasingly fragmented commonwealth of Islam, the new Rome which we call Byzantium, and the kingdoms of the west. The Islamic world had lost its early wave of expansionist zeal and was fragmenting into smaller states, many of which continued to provide a fertile environment for economic and cultural life. In the Byzantine Empire of the Macedonian emperors renewed stability led to economic prosperity, a Reconquista was under way in the Balkans and the east, and an artistic and cultural renaissance reflected a self-confident reassertion of Byzantium's Roman and Hellenistic traditions. As the empire stood on the threshold of its greatest period, however, forces were at work which were to undermine its centralized structure and lead to the 'feudal' dominance of great landowners.
For all its underdevelopment the west was evincing the first signs of a vitality which was later to re-establish the Mediterranean south as the most dynamic area of Europe and a clearing-house for fruitful contacts with the east and south. The ideal of a Christian empire established by the Carolingians maintained its hold on men's minds and had as its corner-stone an increasingly distinctive western Christianity subject to the increasingly powerful authority of the Pope. The south shared in the general economic and demographic recovery, and drew some benefits from its closer links with the resurgent north. It was cushioned from the barbarian attacks which had been its lot earlier, it developed a valuable role as a trading intermediary, and it attracted pilgrims to its shrines, such as Rome and Compostela.
While southern France remained in a state of disorder and underdevelopment, in Christian Spain favourable conditions for
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