Did Incest aid the collapse of Feudalism?

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Sure, succession rites tied to bloodlines inevitablely get messy over time, which in turn aided in the collapse of said system - but here
I'm talking specifically about the negative biological effects that issues of incestuous parentage developed over time.
How many poor rulership decisions made throughout the middle ages could be tied to defects in a historical figure's DNA?
 
I think the slow demise of feudalism had more to do with a greater bureaucratisation and centralisation of the state, general population growth, urbanisation, increase in trade, a wider circulation of money, codification of law etc. which lead to the growth of mighty and populous groups of that based their wealth and power not on land but on control over trade or their value as workforce in an industrialising economy.

... or to put it another way:
Feudalism didn't die because feudal rulers failed but because they succeeded. They succeeded in centralizing power, increasing tax revenue, expanding their borders and destroying domestic aristocratic opposition.
 
IMHO the Black Plague in killing 1/3 of the European population in the 14th century was the death blow as well for feudalism. This created a huge labor shortage, before this runaway peasants who attempted to set up with another liege would usually be recovered by their original liege - one hand washing the other. Also towns were somewhat circumspect in allowing peasants to run away and seek a better life there. With the huge labor shortage after the epidemics the forces that would keep a runaway villein from getting a new start on the land elsewhere or in a town were reduced to almost nothing. The feudal system worked around a pretty rigid system of "place" with physical and social mobility quite restricted.

The effects of the inbreeding, in particular the example of the Habsburgs, came much later and did not affect the lower nobility. When the inbreeding got to the point of physical inability or mental inability, a collateral branch would be available to step in usually. If not, that is what dynastic wars are for.
 
The feudal system worked around a pretty rigid system of "place" with physical and social mobility quite restricted.
I strongly disagree : everything you describe above did happened before the plague : you had a physical mobility being obvious at least since the great clearing of the XIIth centuries, urban charts litterally specify about newcomers, and not only nobles didn't gave away runaway peasants but they actively tried to poach them (with the bastidal movement, for exemple).

Similarily, the emancipation of serves (and whatever remained of slavery north of Alps) was well undergoing in the XIIIth century, up to (for what matter France) the legal interdition of serfdom and slavery in 1315 within the royal demesne. Similarily, the labor shortage in countryside predates the epidemics, and appears in the late XIIIth century out of an attested rural exodus (partially tied to the split of farmland ownership)

What you describes is much more akin to XIXth slavery in America than European Middle-Ages.
 
It's complex, inbreeding served to consolidate states into bigger ones, enable the monarch to establish a more centralized states. So inbreeding among royalty resulted in better run states, which outcompeted states with more genetic fit rulers. Just compare the Ottomans to their western counterpart, the Ottomans had a far more diverse family tree than their western counterparts, they still ended up victimized by Western powers ruled by inbreds. Of course these consolidations if the Western states did result in central administrations getting rid of feudalism.
 
It should be noted that most excessively inbred lines did what you expect: they died out. The genetically sound lines had tons of children and got to marry all over the place.

Add in that Germany always had a few princelings extra to add... take the House of Orange(-Nassau); they had a few iterations of cousin marriages, to Britain and Prussia, but the repeat-British line (William 3) died out, and the cousin-marriage to Prussia was flanked by Hesse-Kassel and Russia and apparently thereby was safe enough.
 
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Sure, succession rites tied to bloodlines inevitablely get messy over time, which in turn aided in the collapse of said system - but here
I'm talking specifically about the negative biological effects that issues of incestuous parentage developed over time.
How many poor rulership decisions made throughout the middle ages could be tied to defects in a historical figure's DNA?
Actually,the collapse of feudalism had a lot to owe to great rulership rather than poor rulership.It takes good leadership to build bureaucracy and crack down on the nobility.Quite a number of states in Eastern Europe that used to be quite centralized during the Middle Ages fell apart by the early modern period precisely because of poor leadership and the crown's inability to restrain the power of the nobles(cue Poland).


I've been noticing a trend.You've been frequently posting some rather bizarre questions periodically since you have joined this forum.
 
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I've been noticing a trend.You've been frequently posting some rather bizarre questions periodically since you have joined this forum.

To be fair, of all the places on the Internet to get answers to weird history questions, you can do worse than this website :p
 
To be fair, of all the places on the Internet to get answers to weird history questions, you can do worse than this website :p
In general,the guy's alright,but whenever he asks one of those weird open ended questions,it's almost as though he was trolling.
 
In general,the guy's alright,but whenever he asks one of those weird open ended questions,it's almost as though he was trolling.
I'm not sure I see the same thing there : I mean, it doesen't seem more off than your own threads with short questions, for instance, altough they're more on broad thematics.
 
Someone's been waiting for the next Game of Thrones season to come out way too much...

Can't really add anything more than what was already said. Feudalism died more because states were modernizing than because of anything else. The nobility inbreeding had less to do with that, espcially considering that consanguinity in royal families is often less common that what is assumed. Not to mention the role of the Church that actually put restrictions in terms of consanguinity and also made it a useful argument to get marriages annulled.
 
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