Feudals and Flamethrowers-Would an early Industrial Revolution be Possible?

By the 6th century AD doesn't humanity have the capability to undergo the agricultural revolution that began in the late 18th century? Could it feasibly occur much earlier and lead to an early industrial revolution? What would this new technology be like? How would it change society? How long before we would reach the stars.
This was just an Idea for a TL I had but am not sure If I am going to make.
 
By the 6th century AD doesn't humanity have the capability to undergo the agricultural revolution that began in the late 18th century? Could it feasibly occur much earlier and lead to an early industrial revolution? What would this new technology be like? How would it change society? How long before we would reach the stars.
This was just an Idea for a TL I had but am not sure If I am going to make.

Why it isn't possible

-Climate : you have to wait the VIII to have anew warmer temperatures

-Population : depends where your TL is situated; but population in Europe was just VERY low at this time, maybe 8 millions in Gaul by exemple.

-Economics : The pre-feudal system, based of gift-microeconomy and raid, is not at all helping. To maintain their relativly good life, the nobles have an easier time to just raid other people (for Franks Frisians, Goths, Germans, Aquitains, etc) than impulse an hardly reachable (for their time) really "revolutionnary" agriculture

-Culture : you need a preservation of antic agronomists. It exists in the VI, yes, but a widespread preservation, more carolingian-like would be preferable

And here, i'm talking about the IX-like agricultural revolution. Not a XVIII-like. You can easily imagine what i could say about the later one.
 
Why it isn't possible

-Climate : you have to wait the VIII to have anew warmer temperatures

-Population : depends where your TL is situated; but population in Europe was just VERY low at this time, maybe 8 millions in Gaul by exemple.

-Economics : The pre-feudal system, based of gift-microeconomy and raid, is not at all helping. To maintain their relativly good life, the nobles have an easier time to just raid other people (for Franks Frisians, Goths, Germans, Aquitains, etc) than impulse an hardly reachable (for their time) really "revolutionnary" agriculture

-Culture : you need a preservation of antic agronomists. It exists in the VI, yes, but a widespread preservation, more carolingian-like would be preferable

And here, i'm talking about the IX-like agricultural revolution. Not a XVIII-like. You can easily imagine what i could say about the later one.
How early could an 18th century Agricultural revolution be achieved then?
 
How early could an 18th century Agricultural revolution be achieved then?

Well...I would say after the feudal age, so the XV maybe?
Maybe if the investments made in the New World are made in agricultural it could work.

But then, the same question, why invest in the agriculture when you can became richer and wuicker just by plundering?
 
Well...I would say after the feudal age, so the XV maybe?
Maybe if the investments made in the New World are made in agricultural it could work.

But then, the same question, why invest in the agriculture when you can became richer and wuicker just by plundering?

The introduction and/or independent development of crop rotation and the moldboard plow?
 
You also need a fairly strong merchant middle class who are rich enough to take advantage of the new possibilities to turn them into businesses, otherwise the entire think just becomes a money sink for the government, who will not plough enough cash into it to make it either profitable or widespread.
 
Crop rotation was already introduced since the XIII.
The moldboard plow maybe far earlier, maybe the V.

Yes but said techniques took a long time to fully disseminate. A sizable increase in crop yeilds is needed both to preserve urban civilization and to create the population surplus needed for specialization and trade.

If need be, the gains of said technologies could be enhanced by the gradual introduction of african crops as per OTL and the wide spread adaptation of windmills and waterwheels.
 
Yes but said techniques took a long time to fully disseminate.
Actually, these techniques rather quickly dessiminate themselves.
The plow was dessiminated after the carolingian times when the nobilty needed agrarian incomes to preserve his train of life. In XIII, only the lands where it was hardly praticable (as mediterranean ones) didn't used that until that the technologies to improves soils apparead (XVIII and mainly XIX)

A sizable increase in crop yeilds is needed both to preserve urban civilization and to create the population surplus needed for specialization and trade.
I disagree. The medieval agricultural revolution occured in the same time that trade knew an huge revival.
The two are linked by the needs of nobility : one the raids hardly doable, it searched to have nevertheless income and luxuyry goods. So it forced their desmenes to be more productive, attracting by the way traders, allowing nobles to buy more products, etc. Mainly after that the carolingian authority (that forbid speculation on food and cereals) vanished. It's how cities and great domains began to reappear.

If need be, the gains of said technologies could be enhanced by the gradual introduction of african crops as per OTL and the wide spread adaptation of windmills and waterwheels.
It would be hard to widespread waterwheels more early than OTL with a post-Roman Empire POD. For the windmills, earlier and stronger mongols could do it.
For the african corps, maybe you could find more from Al-Andalus, but i suggest you to find more asian ones if you want a little more diversity and somewhat productivity.
 
Yes, in Song China. Not in contemporary Europe. An industrial empire on the scale of Song China would vastly outpace anything the UK did. We're not talking part of two small islands here, we're talking what's already one of the most densely populated and technologically advanced societies in the world. That's not got any OTL analogues except possibly the United States of America (best case and depending on what situation you're in still unpleasant for a good number of people *in* the industrializing state) or in the worst case the Soviet Union (due to the Chinese Emperor having an increasing power to really be an autocrat). Either way we should not be looking to the UK for an analogy and there'd really be no good one from OTL.
 
I disagree. The medieval agricultural revolution occured in the same time that trade knew an huge revival.
The two are linked by the needs of nobility : one the raids hardly doable, it searched to have nevertheless income and luxuyry goods. So it forced their desmenes to be more productive, attracting by the way traders, allowing nobles to buy more products, etc. Mainly after that the carolingian authority (that forbid speculation on food and cereals) vanished. It's how cities and great domains began to reappear.

Yes but the increase in agricultural production directly led to an increase in trade. People could afford to specialize when the immediate risk of famine was abated and Europe could begin to produce exportable quantities of wine, iron, cloth and grain, as well as support the merchant class which dealt in them. Higher productivity meant more profits hence the incentive to invest in better means of production. This first culminated in the high middle ages, then post black death, the Renaissance.


It would be hard to widespread waterwheels more early than OTL with a post-Roman Empire POD. For the windmills, earlier and stronger mongols could do it.
For the african corps, maybe you could find more from Al-Andalus, but i suggest you to find more asian ones if you want a little more diversity and somewhat productivity.

I think we are in a chicken/egg situation. Water wheel and wind mills require both a fairly considerable knowledge base as well as the financial means to construct them. One arguably needs the ideal level of development, combined with a demographic situation where said investment would be more profitable than using more human or animal labor.

As for Crops, Al-Andus and Islam were a major factor for introducing both to Europe. The earlier the spread the better in my humble opinion.
 
Yes but the increase in agricultural production directly led to an increase in trade. People could afford to specialize when the immediate risk of famine was abated and Europe could begin to produce exportable quantities of wine, iron, cloth and grain, as well as support the merchant class which dealt in them.
That's the second phase. As the question was how to launch the process, the most easy solution is to make the nobles interested in a better production as OTL.

Higher productivity meant more profits hence the incentive to invest in better means of production. This first culminated in the high middle ages, then post black death, the Renaissance.
I'm sorry but no. It's clearly the need of nobilty to have as goods it have during the gift-microeconomy phase that launched the post-carolingian agricultural revolution.
First the investment in both trade and agriculture (i insist on that, before 850's, the domains had a stagnant production, and almost no innovation) came from the 750-850 results of raids in all western Europe not because of a first improvment of production.
Second, the investment was not made so in new techniques, for agriculture, but in the regroupment of peasants and the fusion of their diverses statues (free, serf, chased slave) into one with a rationalisation of existing techniques.

For the pre-Plague movment (with both nex techniques including artisanal ones, wood cutted etc) i would more agree, critically because it launched the monetarization of feudal system with the development of cens. But again, it was less because of previous improvment between the X and XII than a pauperisation of nobilty and the fear to be outed from the dynamism in urban centers (except in southern France where nobility participed from the beggining to it).

So, for a Middle-Ages POD, as in "feudal", it would need that investment in agriculture is more easy and rentable than raid.

I think we are in a chicken/egg situation. Water wheel and wind mills require both a fairly considerable knowledge base as well as the financial means to construct them. One arguably needs the ideal level of development, combined with a demographic situation where said investment would be more profitable than using more human or animal labor.
Watermill exist since Roman Times. The knowlegde never really disappeared. It actually be more used with the fusion of peasantry statues in the IX and the post-carolingian agricultural revolution. I can't call that an innovation or a discovery but a rationalisation thanks to widespread of roman texts during carolingian times.

For the windmill, maybe by making it caming from Al-Andalus rather than England would make gain maybe 200 years. But without a moving base, watermill would be preferred anyway in the region with rivers.

As for Crops, Al-Andus and Islam were a major factor for introducing both to Europe. The earlier the spread the better in my humble opinion.
Well, it was recently disputed with really strong arguments. Many crops or even irrigation techniques we belived caming by Islam were present in Visigothic Spain as well.
The difference was again the rationalisation of agriculture after 70 years of civil war and the impossibility of real raids after 770's (the piracy lasting until 1000 being mainly a slavery-based one).
 
Yes, in Song China. Not in contemporary Europe. An industrial empire on the scale of Song China would vastly outpace anything the UK did. We're not talking part of two small islands here, we're talking what's already one of the most densely populated and technologically advanced societies in the world. That's not got any OTL analogues except possibly the United States of America (best case and depending on what situation you're in still unpleasant for a good number of people *in* the industrializing state) or in the worst case the Soviet Union (due to the Chinese Emperor having an increasing power to really be an autocrat). Either way we should not be looking to the UK for an analogy and there'd really be no good one from OTL.
I would agree, this is the best place, except my sense of China is, there was a cultural opposition (or indifference) to technological innovation. Why, IDK. Was this true in India? IMO, that may be the better place: same pop drivers, but my sense is, more willingness to innovate. In either place, IMO, you could do this virtually any time, if you can overcome the reluctance to innovate.
 
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I would agree, this is the best place, except my sense of China is, there was a cultural opposition (or indifference) to technological innovation. Why, IDK. Was this true in India? IMO, that may be the better place: same pop drivers, but my sense is, more willingness to innovate. In either place, IMO, you could do this virtually any time, if you can overcome the reluctance to innovate.

Well there was the whole Genghis Khan thing.....
 
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