The opening of XIII. SECTION I
The Rise and Progress of the Reformation.
PARTLY owing to the insular position of Scotland, the means of intercourse with the other communities of Europe had for ages been comparatively limited, but, from the closing years of the thirteenth century onward, the commercial and foreign relations of the kingdom had gradually extended, and new historic conditions had arisen. The gradual development of the industrial arts, the extension of commercial relations, and the consequent improvement of the means of intercommunication, had at length permitted different nations to influence each other more freely and directly. Step by step commercial enterprise had become a power in Europe, and the narrow feudalism of the earlier period had begun to relax and decay. The energy of the people of Europe had rendered it possible for the various communities to influence each other in their ideas and opinions, as well as to confer benefits by the exchange of their diverse commodities. This mutual influence was most decisively manifested in the department of thought and feeling associated with the Reformation movement.