Slow your roll. This was not always the case.
"The entirety of Europe" was NOT always filled with such things. In fact, there was a time when the Romans and even Arab cultures considered Western Europeans to be "backwards," especially Britons.
Once the technology and know-how migrated to these parts of Europe through conquest and trade-routes, they made the most out of what they just learned. And they are to be commended for that. But don't get crazy. I know history, too.
My M.A. thesis was on this very topic.
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My God, man, the entirity of no place on earth was always filled with such things. But in the areas I was ralking about was there anything such as Isaac Newton, Von Liebnitz, Alfred the Great, the Magna Carta, invention of the printing press, educational institutions, the Canterbury tales? You rell me you're a student of history. Maybe you should become a student of logic and reason.