THE INVENTION OF POWER: Popes, Kings, and the Birth of the West

A single event in the 12th century changed the course of European and world history. By creating a compromise between churches and nation-states that traded money for power and power for money, the 1122 Concordat of Worms incentivized economic growth, facilitated secularization, and improved the lost of the citizenry, all of which set European countries on a course for prosperity. Illus.