What is more important technology or trade in the medieval ages and Why?

Answer 1

This is a hard question, and possibly impossible to answer with any assurance.

Technology was profoundly important. It was a little different in the middle ages than it is today, because it applied more to mechanical things, Metallurgy, chemistry, and so on, and was pretty simple by modern standards. We may not think of a horse collar as technology, but it is a technology that makes horses more comfortable. We may not think of making horses more comfortable as vitally important, but it meant that a horse could pull a plow without getting exhausted, and do about twice as much work in a day, which doubled the amount of plowing a man could do in the spring, doubled the harvest, and lead to a European population at the end of the middle that was much larger than it had been at the beginning, despite the Black Death.

Other new technologies of the middle ages included a superior plow, horseshoes, stirrups, the rib vault of Gothic architecture, a number of different cranes, wheelbarrows (invented earlier in China, but separately in Europe around 1200 AD), oil based paint, clocks, the blast furnace for making superior steel, the paper mill, the rolling mill, water hammers, the compass, the stern mounted rudder, rag paper, spectacles, Arabic numerals (brought into Europe from Islamic neighbors), the horizontal loom, the spinning wheel (an import from India), grinding wheels, rat traps, guns and gunpowder, and, in a grand final act, printing (invented earlier in China, but never widely used there).

That is a lot, but at the beginning of the middle ages, there was really not much trade in the middle ages. As the middle ages went on, nations established themselves, security increase, and trade increased. Then the pilgrimages both to the Holy Lands and within Europe, and later the crusades, established routes along which large numbers people travelled; this was not caused by trade, but increased it. The Knights Templar established a system for protecting people's money and goods along these routes, and this lead to a virtual banking system that was operated by an organization that was a branch of the Church, but actually a power unto itself. When the Tamplars were disbanded, possibly so rulers could get their money, it left a power vacuum into which the growing mercantile groups, such as the Italian Medici family, moved. This lead to banking which was not under control of the Church, and, since the organizations crossed national boundaries, was not under control of any one state or the nobility. By 1400, the bankers were very important as a powerful influence on trade, increasing the power of both merchants and tradesmen who became manufacturers of large quantities of goods.

Simultaneously, the Hanseatic League established itself in northern Europe with similar effect, producing a powerful trading organization that not only ran across national boundaries, but rivaled the states themselves, having its own armed vessels and walled cities.

And at the same time, the Mongols improved the safety and condition of the Silk Road to the point that Europeans like Marco Polo could move across it to trade, bringing valuable goods, but also information and technology across it.

These influences both gave rise not only to the middle class, but to the desire and need for learning, increasing the numbers of schools, which had been established in the Early Middle Ages, and the universities, a product of the High Middle Ages. And both profoundly influenced the society of Europe.