Investor’s Daily poll (22 July 2026)

Interestingly, do you know which invention made medieval civil wars far less common?

Gunpowder 129 votes (28.0%)
The printing press 197 votes (42.7%)
Standing national armies 68 votes (14.8%)
Double-entry bookkeeping 67 votes (14.5%)

Total votes: 461

The answer is standing national armies.

Most people assume gunpowder changed everything. In reality, historians often argue that permanent state armies gradually removed military power from feudal nobles, making private wars much harder to wage.

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