thingfishs wrote: I think I might be getting confused between urban and rural a bit.
Well, I think you might simply have a just so slight misconception about what came before the medieval period and in which condition Europe was around 900 AD .
It's not without reason that the period between the fall of the western Empire and the beginning of the middle-age is known as the Dark Age. It was literally like the end of the show and as if somebody had switched off the lights. Everybody just went home and did nothing for the next 400 years.
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To be continued...
