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Merino sheep had been introduced into Spain from Africa but they were highly sensitive to temperature and while they could graze in the northern highlands in Castile in the summer, they had to be driven far south to Andulusia for winter feeding. When conflicts between the northern Spaniards and the southern Moors became serious, these movements became difficult and ended as one of the provocations firing Spanish determination to drive the "infidels" from the peninsula. (Ref. 122) Slavery thrived on the Iberian peninsula and in the entire Mediterranean world, as Moors, African, Hungarians, Serbians and others were enslaved from one end of the Mediterranean to the other. Christians even enslaved fellow Christians. (Ref. 267)

Portugal

After winning wars against the Moors and Spain, with the help of papal intrigue, the Portuguese became independent from Castile in 1139 and by 1143 had established their separate kingdom under Afonso I of the Burgundian Dynasty. This did not stop the continuing wars with both the Moors and the Castilians, however. (Ref. 8)

France

With accelerated cathedral building in the 11th and 12th centuries, western Romanesque architecture developed into Gothic. Steep roof s elongated into spires, the cross-grained vaulted roof was introduced, the pointed arch

The pointed arch had been used in Arabic art for 200 years. (Ref. 33)
displaced the rounded one and there was development and elaboration of windows and stained glass. Craft guilds began to appear all over Europe so that a new class of people now had to be tallied in addition to the nobles, clergy and peasants. France led the way with the development of the fourth class, the bourgeois, or burgesses, who were bakers, merchants, master-craftsmen and the like. But still the whole of the land was owned by a small number of families and landed property was really the sole source of power. The Crusades and later the English wars decimated the nobles of France and divided their possessions. Actually under a series of weak kings, including Louis VI the Fat and Louis VII the Pious, France remained throughout this century a minor and harassed state. England held an area on the continent that was greater than that held by the French king by virtue of the fact that the English throne had passed to the Count of Anjou (the English Henry II), who had married the heiress of Aquitane. Burgundy was chiefly German, Provence was independent and so was Flanders, the area now a part of the Netherlands. Only at the end of the century, in about 1180, did France get a king, Philip II, who was strong enough to begin lifting France to a significant place in Europe and become strong enough to battle Richard I, of England. The marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine to England's Henry II not only eventually led to the Hundred Years War, but gave overnight prosperity to the Bordeaux wine merchants who became purveyors to the English court. Eventually a 300 ship fleet was built to carry Bordeaux wine to England. (Ref. 33, 217, 137)

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Source:  OpenStax, A comprehensive outline of world history. OpenStax CNX. Nov 30, 2009 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col10595/1.3
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