The Renaissance, a period of prosperity and advancement, sparked and came to life through a series of economic and political changes. The Black Death wiped off almost 50% of Europe’s population off the face of the Earth. However, this gave the survivors an opportunity; a chance to start over. More jobs were available and living expenses also went down. This developed specialization, which later improved and developed trade. Specialization is where you are talented/knowledgeable about in a field. From then on, you would make it your job and make lots of profit off of it. Guilds also use specialization to produce and set standards for a specific product (ex: chocolate). Since the population is extremely small, they will probably have a surplus amount of their product, which leads to them trading it off for money. This developed trade, which led to the common people becoming extremely rich. Nobles degraded in power, and the commoner’s power went as far as to even be able to change the autocracy into oligarchy (not every single city-state, but some)! As people were making more money, there was also a desire to improve the technology to make the producing of the merchandise much more easy.