Between 1050 and 1300, Latin Christendom enjoyed the period of renewal and expansion known as the High Middle Ages. This renewal was prompted by an agricultural revolution. Driven by improvements in farming technology and technique, this revolution expanded the population and enabled the colonization of uncultivated land, thus undermining manorial serfdom. Commercial activity expanded as well as Italian cities took control of the Mediterranean and international trade fairs grew in the north. As increasing amounts of goods moved throughout Europe, new business techniques emerged including double-entry bookkeeping and commercial law. Simultaneously, towns rose at economically strategic points, their development fueled by the population expansion and food surpluses that allowed people to specialize in trades and professions. Controlled by the new middle class and its trade guilds, the towns further undermined the feudal system by winning recognition of their rights from feudal lords and by welcoming laborers fleeing the land.

During this period monarchical states began to form. England achieved the greatest unity through the policies of William the Conqueror, Henry I, and Henry II, who limited the power of feudal lords and encouraged the development of common law and the royal judiciary. By signing the Magna Carta, King John accepted legal limits on royal power and enabled the parliamentary system to take root. In France the process of building a powerful monarchy began under Hugh Capet and significantly advanced under Louis VI and his successors. Although the French kings clashed with England, the papacy, and their own lords, they succeeded in asserting royal prerogatives in areas such as taxation and law to fashion an orderly monarchical state. The Estates General also began to develop, but it never achieved the power of the English Parliament. In Germany the Holy Roman Emperors strove to dominate their lords, seeking the help of German bishops. However, this effort led to a destructive conflict with the papacy that kept Germany divided. Throughout Europe representative institutions emerged as kings accepted the principles of parliamentary consent.

Using the sacraments as a coercive tool, the church worked to enforce a Christian worldview on every aspect of European society. Inspired by Cluniac reformers, the papacy asserted its independence, and under Gregory VII claimed preeminence over all temporal authority. This claim provoked the Investiture Controversy that, despite the compromise of the Concordat of Worms, launched the long conflict with the German kings. The papacy also asserted its authority by directing the warlike and spiritual energies of Europe into the Crusades. Also an expression of a larger European expansionism, the Crusades yielded no lasting gains and had little effect on the course of European culture. As the papacy attacked enemies abroad, it crushed or contained dissent at home. Using the Inquisition and other violent meant, the church suppressed the heretical Waldensians and Cathari. Like these movements, the Franciscans challenged clerical worldliness, but rather than suppress them the church turned them into instruments of papal policy. Never a threat to the church, the Dominicans became leading theologians and inquisitors. Papal authority reached its height under Innocent III, who articulated the theory of church supremacy in the Fourth Lateran Council.

During this period relations between Christians and Jews were especially strained. Driven by a variety of anti-Jewish myths and theological justifications, Christians frequently persecuted Jews. Civil authorities often seized their property, and the church pronounced restrictions on their activities. Nevertheless Jewish culture thrived, achieving its highest expression in the Greek-influenced thought of Maimonides.