Text original - Anglès - Feudalism, dependence on a local magnate...

Feudalism, dependence on a local magnate, had been superseded by nationalism, loyalty to the king and his central government, not only in E., but to some degree in F., S. and P. (G. and I. were to wait nearly another four centuries), and while H. was consolidating his power, C. was planting the Spanish flag in A., and Portuguese adventurers were doubling the Cape of Good Hope on their way to I. The little medieval world of Western Europe, of which E. had been the unprofitable fringe, was expanding into a globe on which she was a promontory thrust out towards a New World.