Editing Eastern Europe (section)

===1453 to 1918===
The conquest of the Byzantine Empire, the centre of the [[Eastern Orthodox Church]], by the [[Ottoman Empire]] in the 15th century and the gradual fragmentation of the [[Holy Roman Empire]] (which had replaced the Frankish Empire) led to a change of the importance of [[Catholic Church|Catholic]]/[[Protestant]] vs. [[Eastern Orthodox]] concept in Europe. Armour points out that [[Cyrillic]]-alphabet use is not a strict determinant for Eastern Europe, where from Croatia to Poland and everywhere in between, the Latin alphabet is used.<ref>Armour, Ian D. 2013. ''A History of Eastern Europe 1740–1918: Empires, Nations and Modernisation''. London: Bloomsbury Academic. p. 23. {{ISBN|978-1849664882}}</ref> Greece's status as the cradle of Western civilization and an integral part of the Western world in the political, cultural and economic spheres has led to it being nearly always classified as belonging not to Eastern but Southern or Western Europe.<ref>See, ''inter alia'', Norman Davies, Europe: a History, 2010, Eve Johansson, Official Publications of Western Europe, Volume 1, 1984, Thomas Greer and Gavin Lewis, A Brief History of the Western World, 2004</ref> During the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries, Eastern Europe enjoyed a relatively high [[standard of living]]. This period is also called the east-central European golden age of around 1600.<ref>
{{cite book
 |author= Baten, Jörg
 |title= A History of the Global Economy. From 1500 to the Present
 |date= 2016|publisher= Cambridge University Press
 |page= 46|isbn= 9781107507180
}}
</ref> At the beginning of the 17th century, [[numeracy]] levels in eastern Europe were relatively low although regional differences existed. During the 18th century, the region began to catch up with western Europe but did not develop as rapidly. Areas with stronger female autonomy developed more quickly in terms of numeracy.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Baten |first1=Joerg |last2=Szołtysek |first2=Mikołaj |date=2017 |title="Girl Power" in Eastern Europe? The human capital development of Central-Eastern and Eastern Europe in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries and its determinants |journal=European Review of Economic History |volume=21 |issue=1 |pages=29–63}}</ref>