No Black Death

[LordKalvan]

What about no Black Death in the 14th century? You may have a minor insurgence of bubonic pestilence, or even nothing at all. In any case there not the equivalent of OTL Black Death, which is supposed to have killed 25 million people in Europe alone, or 1/3 of the population.

My guess is that taking Black Death from the equation, the history of Europe (and of the world) would be quite different, and technology would be much less developed than OTL: no Renaissance, no Age of Exploration (there would be no resources to devote), a much more stratified society.

Your ideas?

 

[Fenwick]

Well for one the Jewish populations would still be high in France, Austria, and German nations. For a rumor at the time was that Jews posioned wells, which by laws at the time would allow people to get at what ever property the posioner owned. Mass emigrations to Poland and Russia occured afterwards.

The black death did cause the writing of a complex system of inheirtence and property laws. Without it would the world be any worse off? I don't think so, but a lot of first wives and their children would lose everything to the husbands 20 something midlife crisis.

 

[Wiggy]

Happy shiny people

I think it would have had a big impact on the Church. Instead of people dying all around you inexplicably, you're able to carry on with your life. With no Black Death there's not the same need to seek refuge in faith. People end up with a more positive view of the world, the Church doesn't end up with the same grip on the population.

 

[tom]

Actually, the BD took a large toll on the Church. Priests died disproportionally, and the Church was forced to let in the kind of semi-educated clerics who helped lower the prestige of the Church, helping set the stage for the Reformation. Weird cults like the Flagellantes sprung up when the Church was seen as helpless before the plague, also planting Reformation seeds. Shortages of serfs helped undermine the feudal system the Church was entangled with. Also, some survivors got rich, and were able to finance the Renaissance. If the BD had not occured, the theocratic Middle Ages would have lasted generations, perhaps even centuries, longer.

 

[sbegin]

Actually, the BD took a large toll on the Church. Priests died disproportionally, and the Church was forced to let in the kind of semi-educated clerics who helped lower the prestige of the Church, helping set the stage for the Reformation. Weird cults like the Flagellantes sprung up when the Church was seen as helpless before the plague, also planting Reformation seeds. Shortages of serfs helped undermine the feudal system the Church was entangled with. Also, some survivors got rich, and were able to finance the Renaissance. If the BD had not occured, the theocratic Middle Ages would have lasted generations, perhaps even centuries, longer.

I agree, and not just the power of the Church. After all those people died, there was a severe shortage of available labour. Those left were able to pick and choose where they wanted to work, which meant the rich merchants and nobles that needed to hire workers had to offer better salaries and benefits to get labour. This had a great part in ending feudalism. With no BD, feudalism and the dark ages last longer.

 

[Doctor What]

Slightly OT...

For a few years, some scientists were postulating a Bubonic plague-AID immunity link to explain certain findings about the rather high number of Europeans that were immune than other regions of the world. It turns iut that they had the right idea but the wrong disease--it was smallpox rather than BD that gave them the immunity.

http://www.hon.ch/News/HSN/517399.html

 

[LordKalvan]

Actually, the BD took a large toll on the Church. Priests died disproportionally, and the Church was forced to let in the kind of semi-educated clerics who helped lower the prestige of the Church, helping set the stage for the Reformation. Weird cults like the Flagellantes sprung up when the Church was seen as helpless before the plague, also planting Reformation seeds. Shortages of serfs helped undermine the feudal system the Church was entangled with. Also, some survivors got rich, and were able to finance the Renaissance. If the BD had not occured, the theocratic Middle Ages would have lasted generations, perhaps even centuries, longer.

It makes sense that the death toll in the Church members should be somewhere higher than among normal population: after all, most or the priests were living in cities, where contagion would be easier. And also among the monks, the rule of tending to infirms should help bring in pestilence even in rather isolated communities. I agree that after the BD, Chrurch could not be very selective and had to get whomever she could, with an obvious loss of prestige.

Another im portant point is that after the major onslaught of BD, birth rate jumped out of the roof, even taking into account the hygienic condition of the time. It is the genetic answer to ant catastrophe, to maximise the chances of survival, but it had also the effect of loosening even more the moral strictures which were so common in earlier Middle Ages.

The major effect, however, was certainly the weakening of the social order.