Until the 15th century, the attempts of the kings to consolidate a firm governmental authority always met a strong and on the whole successful resistance from the lords. Moreover, the primitive economy, the lack of manufacture for the market, of money-exchange, of extensive foreign trade, of easy transportation and communication, meant the absence of a socio-economic basis for lasting large-scale political units. In the first stages of the breakup of feudalism, those who were aiming toward the national political system, which was later to win out, were working at
