The change in architectural style, known as the Gothic, which began in the twelfth century and reached its full development in the thirteenth, represents so wonderful an expression not only of constructive genius but also of spiritual aspiration that one would fain peer through the mist of the past to discover the kind of civilisation that produced it. The general conditions that shaped the civilisation we have already noticed in the chapter on Early Mediæval Civilisation. There we recognised the threefold influences of the power of the Church, the extension and growing importance of Commerce, and the results of the various Crusades. And these still continued to be the motive forces of the later and fuller civilisation. Prominent among the causes of the confused conditions in Western Europe was the multiplicity of rival authorities; which it had been Charlemagne’s dream to subordinate to a centralised authority, emulating that of the Roman Empire. But, while his attempt at temporal domination failed, the more spiritual dominion exercised by the Church proved to be a unifying agency. Through the influence which she exerted over conscience and consequently over the actions of men through the Sacraments of Confession and Penitence, she was able in considerable measure to curb the license of feudalism. Furthermore, by allying herself with the growing power of the burgher classes in cities and standing as the champion of the defencelessness of the lower classes in cities and country, she became the great adjuster of the fearful social inequalities of the period. Her policy was one of checks and counter-checks. She could not subdue the forces that made for disorder; but could and did restrain them. Thus her support of the burghers built up a new force in the community that, through trade and commerce, made for stability and set up the constructive arts of peace as a make-weight against the destructive conditions that the internecine strife of the nobility engendered. And these last she further checked by utilising the enthusiasm for Crusades, which had been first stirred by the missionary zeal of Peter the Hermit in 1096. This first expedition, under Godfrey de Bouillon, resulted in the capture of Jerusalem from the Arabs and the establishment of a Christian Kingdom in Palestine. The six other Crusades, terminating with the second expedition of Louis IX (St. Louis) of France in 1270, failed to recover Jerusalem which had been recaptured by the Arabs. But in the course of them a Latin kingdom had been established in Constantinople under Count Baldwin of Flanders and a kingdom also had been formed in Cyprus. It is unnecessary to attempt to follow these various expeditions in detail, the more so that they represented only incidents in what had become a perpetual progression of movement toward the East. It is the effect of this that really concerns us here.