As the Roman Empire was getting over (it took scores of years) there was knightly help in keeping mercenaries separate from soldiering.  Teams would sweep questionables from hill and vale onto plateaus and plains for the sorting by crime.  By crime was at the basis of a fair and equal justice.  There was also clear and firm penalty among Westerners.

  Jousters began to make changes to their sport in the Middle Ages.  There was necessary distinction between sport and soldiering.  The Olympics caught a tradition of democracy up to law and order.  

  There continued to be arenas, cults, clusters of people within Western homelands which carried on with unique lifestyle and traditions of their own, often amalgamations of regional culture and/or purist factions.

  As the United States of America's judiciary changed from Colonial into Early American, the state of Maryland held out on putting people in stocks.  Other states like New York were digging up old Dutch rules (more for navigating and shipping and holding prisoners at sea) to try and justify the guillotine-methods of "punishment".  Lawyering as a way to world travel and go in and out of worldly Courts and inner chambers was a highly competitive bloodsport and a way to capture and destroy enemies in the form of persons.

  Sir Walter Raleigh's The History of the World is not a summation because the arguments continue on the nature of man (humanity) and there's no automatic winner.  Indeed some battling has proven that humanity alone cannot win an argument regarding good and evil.  What Raleigh's work does provide is linkage between times in human history when people chiseled constructions into sculpted forms which we in the West comprehend as politics and religion.

  In his work we find some coaching on understanding ourselves in "an age".  As a historian he fills us in on intellectual thinking that has underpinned and imbued the constructs of the West.  As a commander amongst commanders he draws upon not only his perspective but the canons of a world to date in a classic formulation of the West versus/as different than the world of other worlds.

  He cites Saints' of the Holy Apostolic Church days and those touched by the Holy Roman Empire sphere of influence in recalling major milestones.  For example, he draws upon the age of St. Gregory's lifetime period (328-390 A.D.), only that long after Jesus' lifetime to frame a potent and critical work of the West, authored in part by Jesus himself and all of humanity around at that time and since.

  The Creed convenings of the Church formed philosophy and sacraments, influenced religion's rituals, and sought to be/made effort to be a voice of authority on many issues.  Sir Raleigh calls attention to the distinctions between such complexities as "metaphysics" and "supernatural" through indicating the story of Paul traveling through Mars Hill in the Apostles' age.  It's critical linkage in the greater story, still unfolding, of the Father sending His only Son Jesus to take away the sins of the world.  Through Jesus as the Lamb of God there was sea-change around "forgiveness" in the world.  Also, in individual souls with one lifetime each having choice/using free will to "sin" or not.  By evoking the standards of what Jesus and his Company were up against we are also privvy to the broader concerns of humans since the Garden of Eden.  Those big worries about good and evil and what is beyond our "control" and why.

  The Church had to acknowledge Jesus' miracles and almost singular power to remove even the foulest sin/evil in the form of demons/possession.  And in doing so, the Church allowed for "the mysteries" of the Holy Trinity.  That helped define some happenings as "metaphysical" and others as "supernatural" which in turn clarified world events into politique, etc.

  It was through the West's grip on God-based comporting of self and nation that the West became different than other cultures.

  "England, to whom we owe what we be and have...." --John Dunne

  Here, Dunne picks up the quill in a Canterbury Tales way.  Bridges have more than one side but serve the purpose of connecting.  England, Anglican, Protestant variation of Christianity.  Knights and Royalty ever the through thread even as the Isle itself was in transitions involving other cultural influence.

  We read in a book like Passing The Time In Ballymenone of the enduring warrior spirit that is preserved in family pride and a more national than tribal unity.  In Britain especially Cromwell's era to age shaking root and branch had many generations of Westerners being grown up in less orthodox Church ways, and in more common civilian ways.

  So what then of this?  A peaceful transfer of power complicated only by loyalties, passions, and all things "shipping".  Innovation in military terms can be weaponry, or something else like navies paying wages instead of conscripting.  To traditionalists who'd fought fair and square the battles between religions this third option (bolstered by innovation in travel) a "new world"?  What to make of it?  And, what this?  And, merchanting sustains?