原始文本 - 英语 - Although the medieval state was by no means a...

Although the medieval state was by no means a welfare state, at least manor and guild were in some sort responsible for their members, but medieval collectivism was now giving place to individualism.
Moreover, the old nobility had almost destroyed itself in thirty years of internecine war –there was only one duke left at the end of H.’s reign – and the lord of the manor was now typically a country gentleman and justice of peace living quietly on the outskirts of a village in an unfortified manor house. In any event the new invention of gunpowder made fortifications almost as useless as the plate armour worn by knights in the late wars, and the king was the only man who could afford a train of cannon.