Western Civilization III

The earliest features of Western Civilization derived from the Bible and from great civilizations of the past. That heritage delivered an age of faith crowned by the great gothic cathedrals of Europe of the 12th and 13th Centuries. In the middle of the Fourteenth Century, however, the arrival of the Plague in southern Europe shook the foundations of Western Civilization. Over the 150 year period that followed, the population of Europe declined by a third or more. The Catholic Church, at the peak of power and prestige after 1000 years of growth was severely weakened, and the Medieval social order was largely destroyed. Over the course of just a few years as it spread northward from Mediterranean port cities, the old ways of understanding how the world worked fell apart.