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The Black Death
Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2015 5:09 pm
by Tom Mazanec
This plague killed about a third of the population of Europe in a few years. Was this enough to create a synchronized Crisis across the continent?
Re: The Black Death
Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2015 8:52 pm
by jmm1184
I'm not sure, but I would think probably not. It is possible as the only European countries I've studied in this time period are Greece, France and England.
Greece, was either in the midst of a crisis war (Civil War of 1341-1347/1353); France and England had just begun their Hundred Years War. However, John has identified in his earlier writings the climax for the first crisis war in The Hundred Years War as the battle of Crecy in 1346, which would put England and at least N. France in a recovery era when the plague occurred.
Long story short, we'd have to study each region separately, but Europe is so vast and at the time so political disunified that I don't think the Black Plague would cause a first-turning reset.
Re: The Black Death
Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2015 9:11 pm
by John
Tom Mazanec wrote:
> This plague killed about a third of the population of Europe in a
> few years. Was this enough to create a synchronized Crisis across
> the continent?
jmm1184 wrote:
> I'm not sure, but I would think probably not. It is possible as
> the only European countries I've studied in this time period are
> Greece, France and England.
> Greece, was either in the midst of a crisis war (Civil War of
> 1341-1347/1353); France and England had just begun their Hundred
> Years War. However, John has identified in his earlier writings
> the climax for the first crisis war in The Hundred Years War as
> the battle of Crecy in 1346, which would put England and at least
> N. France in a recovery era when the plague occurred.
> Long story short, we'd have to study each region separately, but
> Europe is so vast and at the time so political disunified that I
> don't think the Black Plague would cause a first-turning
> reset.
Today, I'm pretty sure that the 1346 Battle of Crécy was NOT a
climactic battle in the Hundred Years War. Instead, it was the Battle
of Poitiers in 1356. This would mean that the Black Death led into
the climactic battle, but it did not cause a first turning reset.
The only thing of this sort that I'm aware of -- and I'm not even 100%
of this -- is that the Irish famine of 1845-52 might have caused a
first turning reset.
Re: The Black Death
Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2015 8:17 pm
by Nathan G
I think this is a matter of cause vs effect. Peter Turchin described how Crisis eras in a culture could actually cause epidemics to happen. How? In an agricultural society, when there is a shortage of resources due to the crisis, more people are forced to travel between cities as beggars. As these peasants become beggars en mass, they spread diseases between cities much faster. Also, lack of resources means that more people are malnourished, making them more susceptible to diseases.
So in other words, there will generally be some kind of epidemic coinciding with a crisis era (see the Spanish Flu -> WWI, and the Plague of Athens -> Peloponesian War), not because diseases causes the crisis, but because crises can help spread diseases.
Re: The Black Death
Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2015 12:17 am
by jmm1184
As I was skimming through an article on the Black Death, I encountered a chilling footnote. It said that during the Black Death, several cities in Germany, such as Mainz, massacred and nearly or completely wiped out their Jewish populations, blaming them for the plague. I have not studied Medieval German history, and so I have no context for these massacres, but I would not be surprised if this was at least a component of a crisis war in certain parts of Germany in the years around the Black Death.