3 ms·

> The survivors (or more, their children) ended up significantly better-off, for a century or so, basically because there was more land per person. Indeed, thi

by lqet 8y ago

> The survivors (or more, their children) ended up significantly better-off, for a century or so, basically because there was more land per person. Indeed, this is something I always found extremely fascinating. The plague destroyed the very rigid social and economic structures of medieval Europe. Simply put, they had to take anyone as a goldsmith's apprentice, even some poor farmer's kid, because everyone else was dead. I am quite sure it is no coincidence that the Renaissance appeared 1-2 generations after the black death, and always held the secret opinion that European culture was basically born in the fire that was the black death epidemic. > The strange thing is that Europe recovered quite fast. Easy answer: the plague was much, much, much more devastating in Ethiopia than in Europe, leaving no one behind to recover from anything, or to tell the harrowing story.

cimmanom 8y ago
> I am quite sure it is no coincidence that the Renaissance appeared 1-2 generations after the black death, and always held the secret opinion that European culture was basically born in the fire that was the black death epidemic. I've heard that hypothesis from both popular and scholarly sources before. Pretty sure it's a broadly held theory.
- iguy 8y ago
  I'm not sure I would go this far, there was a lot else that went on. But economically, for sure it was huge... we can actually trace several such swings in pre-industrial England, plotting population against per-capita income (or calories!) and it walks back & forth along the same curve a few times over the centuries.
- chewz 8y ago
  > I am quite sure it is no coincidence that the Renaissance appeared 1-2 generations after the black death, The opposite - Black Death had delayed the Renaissance for circa 2-3 generations. It was already happening and then the plague came and the Renaisance have played out later in different times and with different people and ideas. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_renaissances https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_renaissances
hugh4life 8y ago
Not the black death so much(though that may have facilitated some positive social changes... I'm not that familiar with the time period), but the trade that was facilitated by the mongol empire definitely facilitated Europeans desire to explore the world.
dan-robertson 8y ago
> Easy answer: the plague was much, much, much more devastating in Ethiopia than in Europe, leaving no one behind to recover from anything, or to tell the harrowing story. I disagree. There must have been some people left behind (assuming such a plague happened) because there are still people in Ethiopia and at least some of the culture from then still exists (I’m thinking of the Ethiopian church but I expect there is plenty more). If there were no people left then such things would have died out. Therefore I think we should conclude that either some people were able to recover (or the plague was localised to some regions which were completely destroyed whereas others survived). I think in either case one would still expect this plague to be known about and I would certainly expect such a large event to leave at least some clues behind in eg oral traditions or written records. Secondly this answer is assuming that the question is reasonable (ie that Ethiopia recovered more slowly than Europe). I’m not sure that there is much evidence either way about it. There are two parts to this: one is recovering back to a similar state as before the plague, and another is recovering to the same level as each other. It is slightly unclear to me which the question means but I suppose I would guess the first. In my opinion, any difference in recovery is going to be much more related to the differences of geography (and maybe politics) than differences of devastation. One caveat would be that maybe social structures could cause the plague to be more devastating in one place than another but I’m not sure I buy it. I expect most medieval social structures would soon be reacting quite similarly to a plague of such proportions.
zeristor 8y ago
Perhaps the infrastructure had been built for a large population, with quick enough growth people could reinflate society before things started decay Mind you I’m not sure how much one can scale giving birth and raising children, perhaps the child mortality rate declined?

by lqet 8y ago

cimmanom 8y ago

> I am quite sure it is no coincidence that the Renaissance appeared 1-2 generations after the black death, and always held the secret opinion that European culture was basically born in the fire that was the black death epidemic. I've heard that hypothesis from both popular and scholarly sources before. Pretty sure it's a broadly held theory.

iguy 8y ago
I'm not sure I would go this far, there was a lot else that went on. But economically, for sure it was huge... we can actually trace several such swings in pre-industrial England, plotting population against per-capita income (or calories!) and it walks back & forth along the same curve a few times over the centuries.
chewz 8y ago
> I am quite sure it is no coincidence that the Renaissance appeared 1-2 generations after the black death, The opposite - Black Death had delayed the Renaissance for circa 2-3 generations. It was already happening and then the plague came and the Renaisance have played out later in different times and with different people and ideas. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_renaissances https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_renaissances

hugh4life 8y ago

Not the black death so much(though that may have facilitated some positive social changes... I'm not that familiar with the time period), but the trade that was facilitated by the mongol empire definitely facilitated Europeans desire to explore the world.

dan-robertson 8y ago

> Easy answer: the plague was much, much, much more devastating in Ethiopia than in Europe, leaving no one behind to recover from anything, or to tell the harrowing story. I disagree. There must have been some people left behind (assuming such a plague happened) because there are still people in Ethiopia and at least some of the culture from then still exists (I’m thinking of the Ethiopian church but I expect there is plenty more). If there were no people left then such things would have died out. Therefore I think we should conclude that either some people were able to recover (or the plague was localised to some regions which were completely destroyed whereas others survived). I think in either case one would still expect this plague to be known about and I would certainly expect such a large event to leave at least some clues behind in eg oral traditions or written records. Secondly this answer is assuming that the question is reasonable (ie that Ethiopia recovered more slowly than Europe). I’m not sure that there is much evidence either way about it. There are two parts to this: one is recovering back to a similar state as before the plague, and another is recovering to the same level as each other. It is slightly unclear to me which the question means but I suppose I would guess the first. In my opinion, any difference in recovery is going to be much more related to the differences of geography (and maybe politics) than differences of devastation. One caveat would be that maybe social structures could cause the plague to be more devastating in one place than another but I’m not sure I buy it. I expect most medieval social structures would soon be reacting quite similarly to a plague of such proportions.

zeristor 8y ago

Perhaps the infrastructure had been built for a large population, with quick enough growth people could reinflate society before things started decay Mind you I’m not sure how much one can scale giving birth and raising children, perhaps the child mortality rate declined?