We have seen that in the span of just over a century, cruel practices that had been a part of civilization for millennia were suddenly abolished. The killing of witches, the torture of prisoners, the persecution of heretics, the execution of nonconformists, and the enslavement of foreigners -- all carried out with stomach-turning cruelty -- quickly passed from the unexceptionable to the unthinkable. Payne remarks on how difficult it is to explain these changes:

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