There were plenty of long and bloody wars during the High Middle Ages (such as the Albigensian Crusade and the Anarchy, just to name a couple). I think a large

There were plenty of long and bloody wars during the High Middle Ages (such as the Albigensian Crusade and the Anarchy, just to name a couple). I think a large part of the author's point that this is a long period of time (even if we restrict it to 800-1300, that's about the same length of time as between Columbus' voyage and today), covering a large area (even if we restrict it to Western Europe), and it's difficult to come up with a single criteria of comparison.