The rise of the merchant class began to change all that. Presently you had a class, that while hypothetically subject to their primitive masters, began to have enough cash and power that they needed more freedom. Some medieval rulers participated with them, many did not and did what they could to control and oppress the rising well off shipper class. So who did the shippers swing to? The Lord obviously! The rulers considered this to be a chance to pick up control against their wild vassals. As this pattern proceeded with it raised sovereignty to the arrangement of outright government that created as the medieval times finished. This is a misrepresentation, however, gives the essential significance of it.
