Episode 9 – The Resurgence, 960–1070 AD

The Roman Empire of Constantinople experienced a renaissance, expanding territorially, economically and culturally. This provided an impetus for the resuscitation of the West. From the late 900s onwards in the Occident new shoots of growth and expansion appeared everywhere. Whereas east Rome was a capital city and the seat of a central government, the West emerged from the century's destructiveness in a state of thoroughgoing political fragmentation. Into this authority vacuum stepped the regional counts and dukes, and above them the still thinly-based western Emperors in Germany, and, ever more firmly, the Roman papacy.