This article is a part of a series that resulted from some observations about the economic modelling in the strategy video game Europa Universalis 5 (EU5). That game allows you to take over the leadership of one of the very many political organisations that existed in 1337 and steer it into the following centuries (the game timeline ends in the 1800s). However, in order to understand the economic situation in 1837 in Western Europe, you need to understand how Western Europe evolved out of the W...