7.
THE QUESTION OF THE CREATIVE CORE

We began the previous chapter with the story of the printing press in Europe and how it contributed to the creative take-off between 1450 and 1500. Fortunately, we know exactly where these first printers were located, and that can help us to identify from where exactly in Western Europe the take-off was driven and why. As the map below shows, most printing activity was concentrated in a wedge running from Northern Italy up through Germany and the eastern part of France and the Netherlands even though there also were a number of printing presses scattered over Spain.

A closer examination of the map shows something else: A significant number of the printers were located along the main rivers, but not all that many along the coastlines. Water access is not really needed for small-scale book printing, so this is probably indicative of where people were most innovative and advanced: along rivers. In the Medieval Age, people needed water access for trade, but they were probably too militarily exposed when they lived on the sea-front.

While these locations seem indicative of creativity concentration between 1450 and 1500, Charles Murray’s study provided a far more systematic and long- ranging mapping of creativity, and it showed what he called the “European core” of accomplishment. This is shown on the map below, where it should be noted that this core only constituted approximately 10% of Western Europe which again constituted approx. 2 % of the global landmass. So half of the creativity happened within 0.2 % of the landmass, and only approximately 1% of the global population lived in that tiny area.

One difference between the two maps is that the one with the printing presses only covers that particular innovation, and only between 1450 and 1500, whereas Murrey’s map covers all innovation until 1950. Nevertheless, the maps show rather similar patterns with the notable exception that Spain is not included in Murray’s creative core, despite that fact that it had a fair number of printers (Spain fell behind during the Spanish Inquisition, which lasted 1478-1834). Conversely, the Scottish area around the Clyde River where the Industrial revolution later began had no printers between 1450 and 1500 but was a creative powerhouse 300 years later.

EUROPEAN PRINT SHOPS IN THE 15TH CENTURY, PER ESTABLISHMENT, DATE AND BOOK OUTPUT. A CLOSE INSPECTION OF THE MAP SHOWS A VERY HIGH CONCENTRATION OF PRINTING PRESSES ALONGSIDE RIVERS AND TO A LESSER EXTENT BY SEA PORTS.⁸⁴

So which factors have been most important in driving the creative explosion?

While access to good rivers and coastal areas were surely important contributors, they cannot easily explain the timing of the growth in creativity, since they had been there all along, including when Europe was behind. Nor can the Roman standards and shared memory systems do it, because, they were there during the far less creative times of the Roman Empire – even as it declined and collapsed. Furthermore, the Ottomans and Chinese also had lots of shared memory systems as they entered creative decline, so that cannot do it alone. But here is one factor that can explain the timing: medieval decentralization.

EUROPE’S INNOVATIVE CORE, WHICH CONTRIBUTED APPROXIMATELY HALF OF EUROPE’S CREATIVE OUTPUT UNTIL 1950.⁸⁵

We have already noted that Western Europe was divided into countless mini-states after the fall of the Roman Empire and much of it remained extremely decentralized for many centuries after, as had previously happened in creative Greece. So let’s study that phenomenon further.

First we can ask why that de-centralization lasted so long? One reason for this was that the continent had many languages and mountain ranges, which led to the natural fragmentation, but it had also had that under the Roman Empire. A better reason was that Europeans in the Middle Ages had two very strong military concepts that could not overcome one another; namely the knights and the castles. This created a kind of “power stalemate”, because castles evidently couldn’t attack knights, but knights also had difficulty capturing fortresses; a lord, typically, only had the right to draw on the surrounding farmers for a military campaign for 40 days a year, which wasn’t long enough to starve the inhabitants out of a castle.⁸⁶

A third reason for the huge decentralization was that the kings had great difficulty collecting taxes for the simple reason that they did not have standing armies, whereas the local lords had their own armies as well as fortifications. As mentioned before, the Germanic tribesmen were pretty handy with their battle axes.

There was a fourth reason for the lasting decentralization, namely that the Germanic people tended to divide their land between their sons upon death. So it was not, as in some other societies, the eldest son, who inherited it all - no, if there were two or more sons, the land, barony or kingdom would be divided up between them. They could then marry the neighbouring landowner’s daughter and gain some consolidations that way, but because of the inheritage patterns there was no overall trend towards consolidation among Germanic people.

The result of these circumstances was that Western Europe - especially from around 1300 - was divided into several thousand separate communities, including baronies, principalities and other types of mini-state, all of which competed vigorously with one another. Various areas were, from 962 to 1806, connected in a very loose alliance known as the German - Roman Empire (and once as the Holy Roman Empire), but basically it was an enormous chaos of autonomous mini-states similar to Lichtenstein, Luxembourg, Andorra or Monaco.⁸⁷

The Netherlands had a more settled structure than the mini states in the Holy Roman Empire, but it was also highly decentralized and for that reason often the laughing-stock of people from more centralized nations such as France and Spain. After all, its population was a ramshackle mix of Jews, Protestants, Catholics and atheists, it didnt have a king or central leader, it didnt have enough land to feed its population, so it largely lived from trade. Despite all of that, its population was happily flaunting its luxury. As for England, this was, after the so-called Glorious Revolution in 1688, a largly democratic and rational nation which, for a time, led to a sort of “Anglomania” among continental supporters of the Enlightenment.

And this is important: The decentralization was by far most pronounced in a band stretching from northern Italy and Switzerland through Germany, Eastern France and Holland, including England. That band coincides very well with our previous maps of printing presses, of Charles Murray’s creative core and the places where modern patents are taken out. As we shall learn later, this decentralization is almost certainly the most important explanation for why Western Europe became particularly creative at the time that it did and in the places it did.

So now that’s clear, but we dont get a full picture without examining Anglo-Saxon mentality.

Many people seem to think that Anglo-Saxon means British, but the Anglo-Saxons consisted originally of Juti, Angli and Saxones. The Juti were people from Central and Northern Jutland in Denmark, the Angles were from Schleswig-Holstein, which has historically been either German, Danish or independent, and the Saxons were from northern Germany; perhaps especially from Lower Saxony and from the German north coast just southwest of Schleswig-Holstein. So the Anglo-Saxons were all Danes and North Germans. We know from genetic studies where their descendents in Europe live today:

GENETIC MAPPING OF FREQUENCY OF THE R1B-S21 MUTATION, WHICH IS INDICATOR OF ANGLO-SAXON ORIGIN.⁸⁷

Two ancient features of the Anglo-Saxons are striking. The first is their aforementioned extremely adventurous sailing tradition (the Vikings), combined with the fact that ancient Germanic tribes (including Vikings) did not tend to build strong fortifications at home. The second is that they had decentralized societies with direct democracy.

When it comes to adventure, we have already seen how the Vikings sailed the European rivers and surrounding oceans. There is a striking contrast between the energy these people put into their foreign ventures and how little they invested in defending their home bases – almost nothing. The typical Viking village had either no defence walls at all or was surrounded by a small elevation with a simple wood fence. This may have been because few enemies ever bothered or dared to attack them, but the point is that this outwards-focus most have both reflected and shaped their mentality. They would have been accustomed to viewing strangers as opportunities rather than as threats.

As far as the Germanic tribesmen go, these were known, both before and after the Anglo-Saxon settlements in England, for their exceptional work discipline and their sense of time, commitment and tidiness (they are still known for these today). In fact, these traits were already recognised by people in the Roman Empire, whose leaders often hired Germans as bodyguards. They were apparently legendary in Europe during the Middle Ages where, for example, large landowners in Eastern Europe invited Germans to establish local towns on their land, where they were often allowed to govern according to their own, Germanic laws as well as to use German as an official language. For example, in the area called Silesia, which is part of present day Poland and the Czech Republic, there was, in the mid-1300s, more than 1,000 German villages, of which more than 100 were ruled according to German law. Similarly, the Germans established towns in Croatia, Romania and Russia, etc.⁸⁸

Many landowners in Eastern Europe actually considered it so attractive to attract German settlers that they would send for them and offer them money to come. When they actually did come, they would almost always have significantly higher literacy rates than the indigenous inhabitants, and they would bring with them valuable skills in optics, beer brewing, mining, instrument-making and, later, book-printing, for which reason they were often given prominent positions in public administration and armies. In1700, many of these German enclaves started printing their own German language newspapers such as St. Petersburg Zeitung and Odessaer Zeitung.

But why was that so? Why were Germans so incredibly efficient and responsible? The best place to find our answer is in a remarkable book called De Origine a situ Germanorum, which was written by the Roman historian Tacitus, in the year 98 – almost 2,000 years ago. This described the Germanic life, as the Romans saw it then, and here you can read that these people lived in small communities, where they decided almost everything by hand vote. Furthermore, their leaders were elected by the local people more based on their “ability to inspire” than on their “ability to persuade”, as Tacitus wrote.

We do not know how popular Tacitus’ book was in his own time, but it became a best-seller in Germany and France in the 17th and 18th centuries, and our aforementioned writer Montesquieu quoted it often. Perhaps the reason was what one could read between the lines: people develop a responsible culture if they are given responsibility.

And that brings us back to the Vikings and their ancestors, because they also lived in small communities and relied largely on hand vote, where all landowning men, plus landowning widowed women, could vote. They replicated this kind of self-rule (by landowners, which largely meant non-slaves), when they settled abroad, such as when they came to Island and established their parliament in Þingvellir in the year 930.

What we know about the Anglo-Saxons (and the Norwegian and Swedish Vikings) and their ancestors going as far back as 2,000 years ago, clearly suggests that they were extremely adventurous and individualistic with a strong tradition for local self-rule in small communities. Furthermore, their religions encouraged individual performance and suggested that they should be anything but submissive. The Vikings’ road to Valhalla was not to show humility and ask forgiveness, but rather to show initiative and bravery; while anyone can debate which is better, it seems obvious that the latter is more economically efficient.

There was one more thing: when the men were out sailing – often the whole summer and sometimes for years - the women would run everything back in the village, and this created a sense of independence and responsibility among them that rarely happened in nations were men were always at home.

THE PERCENTAGE OF EUROPEANS WHO ARE CATEGORIZED AS HIGHLY INDIVIDUALISTIC. AS CAN BE SEEN, THEY ARE PARTLY CONCENTRATED WHERE THERE ARE MANY ANGLO-SAXONS, AND PARTLY ABOUT WESTERN EUROPE’S MAJOR RIVERS.⁸⁹

As for modern individualism, we can even trace it on a map today, since this is being tested at regular intervals through the extensive World Values Surveys studies. The map below shows the intensity of individualism in Europe, which is generally greatest within Anglo-Saxon areas, although it also elevated around the navigable rivers where the population is not Anglo-Saxon.

So what is the overall conclusion? What were the driving forces behind the Western European creativity and especially the creative core? Was it standards left from the Roman empire? Or sailing culture, religious values, diversity, competition, individualism or decentralizion? At first it might have seemed that these were largely interrelated, but when we look at the 1) timing of the creative development plus the 2) location of the creative core, one factor really stands out: decentralization. It happened when it did and where it did because this particular area at this particular time was extremely decentralized. Therefore , it really does seem that, if a large triangle in the centre of Europe hadn’t been complete decentralized for hundreds of years, the creative explosion wouldn’t have been nearly the same and the West wouldn’t have eneded up dominating the world.