Dagoth Ur
Banned
It's not nothing, 1% fewer for 5 generations is a 4.9% decrease.1% is absolutely nothing, some demographic scholars estimate far larger disparities in unmarried people between Western Europe and Eastern Europe in the early modern era.
Yes...and aren't those disparities leading to the beginning of demographic collapse in Europe, to the point that hundreds of thousands of immigrants have to enter Europe each year to keep the population stable? Kind of leads credence to my numbers.
Hellenic identity with huge religious component was a big enough thing that the religious figures of the late empire would rather submit to foreign heathen (to them) conquerors that wouldn't force them to convert, than accept aid from in exchange for vassalage to the (to them) semi-heathen Catholics who would force them to convert. If they cared more about their empire than their religion, it might have survived.Far as I'm aware, that's nonsense. Putting aside the matter of 'Hellenism' not really being a thing, 'state declined because people became monks instead of doing X' explanations tend to have no real evidence in the sources.