Rural Aristocracy

What could stop the decline of the European rural aristocracy from 1300s to the 1750s? Assume technology advances as usual and is no behind or ahead than by 30 years OTL. There was a debate on which technologies made them less powerful or if they affected the aristocrats negatively at all, this isn't the place to discuss that since we are assuming tech is more or less similar.
 
Plagues don't kill off so many peasants, so the survivors could demand better pay and more rights?

It being more acceptable for aristocrats to engage in trade, rather than their main income being in the form of rents?
 
Plagues don't kill off so many peasants, so the survivors could demand better pay and more rights?

It being more acceptable for aristocrats to engage in trade, rather than their main income being in the form of rents?

Could it work is plagues in general don't kill off so many peasants, but the Black Death is still almost as bad?
 
Could it work is plagues in general don't kill off so many peasants, but the Black Death is still almost as bad?

The Black Death is usually cited as the/a big nail in the coffin of feudal aristocracy, whether it is true or not.

Needless to say almost as bad as IOTL is still a lot of death.
 
The Black Death is usually cited as the/a big nail in the coffin of feudal aristocracy, whether it is true or not.

Needless to say almost as bad as IOTL is still a lot of death.

No kidding. The aristocracy's response to the mass deaths (telling people to work for more acres of land for the old pay for starters) I can say was self defeating in the long run.
 
So, in one of the more recent episodes of Mike Duncan's Revolutions Podcast (which I highly recommend), he discusses the Austrian Empire and it's economic state in the lead up to 1848.

According to an off-handed comment he made (which is info I had never heard of before and haven't checked his sources on) industrialization was happening on the landed estates of aristocrats as opposed to in cities.

If the Black Death were to be avoided (one of my favorite PoDs because then you've got 800 years of Medieval, post-Medieval, and then a weird sort of modern Europe to play with) then this would likely be the result if industrialization still happens.

As it stands, I am of the opinion that the Black Death completey shaped the West. It broke the power of the Catholic Church and allowed the Reformation to take place. It severly diminished the number of workers (by 1/3) and so made each worker significantly more valuable (and if you are at all interested in economics, you've likely seen the idea that the supply and demand of anything, including workers, is incredibly important).

I don't think Europe without the Black Death would recognizably be Europe by this point.
 
So, in one of the more recent episodes of Mike Duncan's Revolutions Podcast (which I highly recommend), he discusses the Austrian Empire and it's economic state in the lead up to 1848.

According to an off-handed comment he made (which is info I had never heard of before and haven't checked his sources on) industrialization was happening on the landed estates of aristocrats as opposed to in cities.

If the Black Death were to be avoided (one of my favorite PoDs because then you've got 800 years of Medieval, post-Medieval, and then a weird sort of modern Europe to play with) then this would likely be the result if industrialization still happens.

As it stands, I am of the opinion that the Black Death completey shaped the West. It broke the power of the Catholic Church and allowed the Reformation to take place. It severly diminished the number of workers (by 1/3) and so made each worker significantly more valuable (and if you are at all interested in economics, you've likely seen the idea that the supply and demand of anything, including workers, is incredibly important).

I don't think Europe without the Black Death would recognizably be Europe by this point.

Any other ideas besides no Black Death?
 
Make europeans take up the potato en masse in the 16th and not 18th century. A ratio of peasants more to the advantage of lords and less to the advantage of peasants and capitalists.
 
Um this period is so long that depending on the country you could have had several revivals and declines of aristocractic power. Like in England the Tudors seem to make it policy to weaken landed magnate since they were blamed for the wars of the roses but glorious revolution onward aristocractic power seems to have been on the up swing thourgh aristocractic domination of parliament
 
Tudor policy wasn't really to weaken landed aristocrats at all - numerous attempts to limit their retainers had been made before and during the Tudor period - it largely failed because England had no standing army and needed those aristocrats and retainers at times of war. England's slightly more flexible social mobility and large country gentry (untitled aristocracy) contributed to the idea of less aristocratic control but it is a myth really until the 19th and 20th century and the expansion of the franchise
 
In Denmark their power fell with the Reformation, where royal power increased, only for it to increase to the point where they proclaimed a noble noble republic a century later, again for the king and burghers to coup them and set up a absolute monarchy, after which they saw a slow continued fall and the disappearance of internoble difference, which have resulted in the nobility pretty much becoming irrelevant after WWII. WWI was what killed them as a relevant social class, but nobles who had rose to prominence before WWI still kept important position.
 
In Denmark their power fell with the Reformation, where royal power increased, only for it to increase to the point where they proclaimed a noble noble republic a century later, again for the king and burghers to coup them and set up a absolute monarchy, after which they saw a slow continued fall and the disappearance of internoble difference, which have resulted in the nobility pretty much becoming irrelevant after WWII. WWI was what killed them as a relevant social class, but nobles who had rose to prominence before WWI still kept important position.

This is true, but you do have to admit that the 1700s power of the aristocracy was weaker than their 1300s and 1400s counterpart.
 
This is true, but you do have to admit that the 1700s power of the aristocracy was weaker than their 1300s and 1400s counterpart.

It depend on where, in Poland and Germany (of they was nobles what answered dir cult to the emperor, as example the imperial knights had far more power by 1650 than 1350) they was stronger. In Scandinavia they was far weaker.
 
Tudor policy wasn't really to weaken landed aristocrats at all - numerous attempts to limit their retainers had been made before and during the Tudor period - it largely failed because England had no standing army and needed those aristocrats and retainers at times of war. England's slightly more flexible social mobility and large country gentry (untitled aristocracy) contributed to the idea of less aristocratic control but it is a myth really until the 19th and 20th century and the expansion of the franchise
Um just because it wasn't successful doesn't mean it wasn't policy. And weren't the Tudor aristocracy less powerful over all then the war of the roses aristocracy?
This is true, but you do have to admit that the 1700s power of the aristocracy was weaker than their 1300s and 1400s counterpart.
I don't know. I've seen it argued that for the average aristocrat for what powers they lost they gained other ones in exchange. Like for example no private armies but crop prices are rising and you can use that extra money to bribe more elections so you can influence the the whole nation even more then before. Of course the main problem is that the period is too long to really debate over this topic
 
Um just because it wasn't successful doesn't mean it wasn't policy. And weren't the Tudor aristocracy less powerful over all then the war of the roses aristocracy?

I don't know. I've seen it argued that for the average aristocrat for what powers they lost they gained other ones in exchange. Like for example no private armies but crop prices are rising and you can use that extra money to bribe more elections so you can influence the the whole nation even more then before. Of course the main problem is that the period is too long to really debate over this topic

Well, it's true that trading private armies for a huge land wealth that could be partially spent to bribe elections and keep the rest is a better deal. However, I'm not convinced they got enough money to do so. The House of Commons was as an aggregate less powerful than the House of Lords in the 1700s, but it couldn't be ignored. Idea rarely originated from the Commons, but an Earl who made a proposal that was slightly opposed in the House of Lords but greatly favored in the commons had a good chance of passing if the Crown thought it favorable (the Crown no longer withheld royal consent from bills, but at this time it still influenced on the fence people to abstain)

In Modern Britain, a parliamentary district will have no more or less than 5% extra population compared to the average district. In the 1700s, a district could have up to 3.1 times as much as the average district. The large population districts were usually in cities. However, London still had multiple MPs.

And there is the fact that the grain prices... weren't really all that high. They were higher than before farm mechanization for sure, but no more than triple in pounds compared to the High Middle Ages. The guilds tended to make lots of money.
 
Well, it's true that trading private armies for a huge land wealth that could be partially spent to bribe elections and keep the rest is a better deal. However, I'm not convinced they got enough money to do so. The House of Commons was as an aggregate less powerful than the House of Lords in the 1700s, but it couldn't be ignored. Idea rarely originated from the Commons, but an Earl who made a proposal that was slightly opposed in the House of Lords but greatly favored in the commons had a good chance of passing if the Crown thought it favorable (the Crown no longer withheld royal consent from bills, but at this time it still influenced on the fence people to abstain)

In Modern Britain, a parliamentary district will have no more or less than 5% extra population compared to the average district. In the 1700s, a district could have up to 3.1 times as much as the average district. The large population districts were usually in cities. However, London still had multiple MPs.

And there is the fact that the grain prices... weren't really all that high. They were higher than before farm mechanization for sure, but no more than triple in pounds compared to the High Middle Ages. The guilds tended to make lots of money.
The common was dominated by the aristocracy though thourgh bourgh and election corruption. For like 95% of seats you only got it if your local magnate liked you and you probably were related to him. It was seen as default career choice for younger sons.

Grain prices were just an example. The British aristocracy wealth at there height either in the regency or just before the agricultural depression, were wealthier then in the Middle Ages.
 
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