History, Wonder Tales, Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends The Flemish | Page 280

often affected by the factors of political and nationalistic character, whether conscious
or not.
Until the late eleventh century, although the Germans controled most of the Sorbian
territory, they were practically unable to colonise conquered lands, simply due to low
population.And in Saxony and Thuringia there had always been much lower
population than in the western lands, not significantly higer than across the ElbeSaale. In the north, that is in the Obodrite and Veleti lands, Germanic political control
was not fully established before the middle of the twelfth century.
Between the eleventh and thirteenth century, Western Europe experienced a
substantial growth of population.This was a general trend,which began sometime in
the tenth century, reaching its peak during the twelfth.The population stabilized at the
turn of fourtenth century, not long before the Black Death. To a large extent, this
rapid population growth was a result of improved agricultural methods and the spread
of new technologies in the Western Europe. A significant new development was a
three-field rotation cultivation method that became more common.It increased the
crops and allowed the introduction of new high protein leguminous plants. The spread
of the wheeled plough with mould-board also i