… is from page 24 of Nathan Rosenberg’s and L.E. Birdzell, Jr.’s excellent 1986 book, How the West Grew Rich:
The West’s sustained economic growth began with the emergence of an economic sphere with a high degree of autonomy from political and religious control. The change from the coherent, fully integrated feudal society of the Middle Ages to the plural society of eighteenth-century Europe implied a relaxation of political and ecclesiastical control of all spheres of life, including not only the economy, but also science, art, literature, music, and education.