Post #1912

When the Viking raids ceased and governments grew more stable, it became essential that there be centralization, so that larger areas, through internal cooperation, might properly exploit the earth's resources and increase their own prosperity. By that time, however, the traditions of feudaHsm had struck deep and had come to seem the natural way of things and as something ordained by God. (There has never been any custom, however useless it may become with changing conditions, that isn't clung to desperately simply because it is something old and familiar. As a result the history of Europe for many centuries consisted very largely of attempts on the part of central governments to impose their will on a turbulent nobiUty holding firm to their feudal rights. —"The Dark ages" by Isaac Asimov (1968) p.193