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Western Europe's economy began to grow in the late eleventh and twelfth centuries because nobles had a demand for luxury goods and when crusaders took the city of Jerusalem, they took control of the treasury of the al-Aqsa Mosque, which had the world's largest known concentration of gold, silver, and precious stones. The gold and silver then entered circulation in European markets.Italian city-states largely cleared the Mediterranean of Muslim pirates. crops failed in China, and the demand for European grains caused wealth to flow from east to west. Italian merchants figured out how to make cinnamon, saffron, and cardamom grow in the soil of Western Europe.

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