Pirenne's Thesis on the European Middle Class Analytical Essay by Top Papers

The paper asserts that the key significance of Pirenne's thesis on this growing European middle class is most certainly linked with the mercantile system. The paper discusses how with the feudal system dissolving the slavery of serfs working the land for the nobility, they could now have a wider economic base in which serfs could become peasants. The paper explains that the "middle class" that is defined here was made through the intervening merchant classes that helped to set a buffer between the nobility and the serfs-not to mention to powerful clergy classes that manipulated the wars during the Crusades.