Why would the rise of a merchant class help to end the institutions that characterized the Middle Ages?

Question

World History

Answer 1

The rise of the merchant class helped to undermine the feudal system of the Middle Ages. Under that system, in theory the King was at the apex, and he had vassals that owed him fealty and they had sub-vassals who owed it to them, and so did they, and so on down to the lowliest peasants. However what the feudal lords owed the king was fairly minimal, and in practice they were often more powerful than the king. While the king was only the nominal head in the kingdom, he was only really the ruler in whatever areas he owned personally (known as allodial lands), and these were often smaller than the lands his feudal vassals owned. Everywhere else, the feudal lords were virtually absolute rulers, with those beneath them (especially the peasantry) completely subservient to the lords' whims.

 

The rise of the merchant class started to change all that. Now you had a class, that while theoretically dependent on their feudal lords, started to have enough money and power that they wanted more independence. Some feudal lords cooperated with them, many did not and did what they could to control and subjugate the rising wealthy merchant class. So who did the merchants turn to? The king of course! The kings saw this as an opportunity to gain power against their unruly vassals. As this trend continued it helped elevate kingship to the system of absolute monarchy that developed as the middle ages ended. This is an oversimplification but gives the basic gist of it.