WI: No Black Death in Europe, no Renaissance, continued control of Latin Church over daily life

Marc

Donor
By four major civilizations do you mean Europe, the Islamic world, India and China?

Yes. Standard agreement about the four major civilizations of Eurasia circa 1350. Sinic: China and the Chinese cultural sphere - Korea, Japan, Mongolia, and parts of mainland Southeast Asia. Greater India: the subcontinent including Sri Lanka; Southeast Asia out to the Malay Archipelago. Islamic: Middle East, Central Asia, and along North Africa. European or Western: Generally, from the Atlantic to the Urals, defined primarily, like the Islamic world, by religion. By and large, they all were more or less co-equals until about 1500 CE. The Sinosphere had the largest population, and therefore the great gross wealth, but on a per capita basis there was apparently little difference in personal income between a farmer in China and one in France. A lot of people don't realize that Greater India had a geographical dispersion about as extensive as the Islamic community.
Obviously, there were other viable cultures and societies outside of these. They are simply the predominant ones in the vast Eurasian ecumenism.
 
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Yes. Standard agreement about the four major civilizations of Eurasia circa 1350. Sinic: China and the Chinese cultural sphere - Korea, Japan, Mongolia, and parts of mainland Southeast Asia. Greater India: the subcontinent including Sri Lanka; Southeast Asia out to the Malay Archipelago. Islamic: Middle East, Central Asia, and along North Africa. European or Western: Generally, from the Atlantic to the Urals, defined primarily, like the Islamic world, by religion. By and large, they all were more or less co-equals until about 1500 CE. The Sinosphere had the largest population, and therefore the great gross wealth, but on a per capita basis there was apparently little difference in personal income between a farmer in China and one in France. A lot of people don't realize that Greater India had a geographical dispersion about as extensive as the Islamic community.
Obviously, there were other viable cultures and societies outside of these. They are simply the predominant ones in the vast Eurasian ecumenism.

What influences did "Greater" Indian culture have on Southeast Asia? I know Buddhism spread there, but what makes you say that Southeast Asia was a part of that cultural "sphere"? I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just uneducated about Southeast Asia in this time period.
 

Marc

Donor
What influences did "Greater" Indian culture have on Southeast Asia? I know Buddhism spread there, but what makes you say that Southeast Asia was a part of that cultural "sphere"? I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just uneducated about Southeast Asia in this time period.

First off, the term "Greater" is conventionally used the same way we do to describe an area that is larger than formal boundaries, for example: Greater New York as opposed to New York City; the former including the metropolitan area beyond the political definition. So Greater India is simply an entity that includes regions beyond the subcontinent.
As for influence, you name it. Most of the proto-kingdoms of Southeast Asia derived their political structure from India. Besides the Buddhism that endured, Hinduism spread widely throughout the Malay Archipelago - Bali, in the middle of Indonesia, to this day has remained a Hindu state while the rest of Indonesia was largely converted to Islam. Language, dress, arts and music, cuisine (Curry is likely a South India creation). India, peacefully, their influence was done by trading communities, had, and still has the same kind of global impact as the other major civilizations.
 
Are we going to see less trans-Atlantic slavery, then? There will be more manpower and labor available for Spanish and Portuguese colonies in what is now Latin America.

In the context of what you are answering to, how the greater numbers of the lower nobility on the other side of Atlantic would decrease trans-Atlantic slavery? Are you saying that all these nobles would be serving as the field hands or work in the mines? Anyway, the issue is rater mute because it was more than a century between the Black Death and discovery of America and even more between it and start of the massive slave imports from Africa to America.

I'm aware that the concept of the medieval "dark ages" is mythological,

It is not really "mythological". It was simply introduced by an Italian snob to underscore the difference between those speaking perfect Latin and those who did not. ;)

but you can't deny that the Black Death resulted in immense individual opportunity for people who were previously at the bottom of the social ladder. The lack of such a system shock is going to slow the rapid overhaul of European society and could perhaps take its course in a different direction.

Any convincing statistics showing that immense numbers of the people from social bottom made it to the social top immediately after the Black Death? AFAIK, there was no rapid social "overhaul" in mid-XIV century Europe.
 
In the context of what you are answering to, how the greater numbers of the lower nobility on the other side of Atlantic would decrease trans-Atlantic slavery? Are you saying that all these nobles would be serving as the field hands or work in the mines? Anyway, the issue is rater mute because it was more than a century between the Black Death and discovery of America and even more between it and start of the massive slave imports from Africa to America.

More people to work as indentured servants for the expanded Gentry, who receive titles etc in the Americas and sponsor workers to move across the Atlantic?
 
A lot more of the lower nobility goes adventuring in the New World, Africa, and East Indies.

Not necessarily. To start with, there was a considerable time gap between the Black Death and beginning of the European exploration so the relation is not necessarily direct. Then, both Portuguese (started by Henry Navigator in the early XV century) and Spanish (started in the late XV - early XVI) activities had been strictly limited and not "free for all" enterprises.
 

Marc

Donor
I find it very unlikely, the reasons behind western dominance on world affairs aren't that related to the great plague

Briefly, I think the influence of the Black Death, globally, tends to be understated. The plague ravaged the other major civilizations as well, and from a geopolitical perspective, broke down what was an evolving world socio-economic system. My remark was based on the supposing that system didn't fall apart and continued to grow and expand. Among other things, that means a faster cross dissemination of information, exchange of ideas and discoveries, i.e. technological developments.
Which is not to say the West doesn't have an edge - I think their exclusive discovery and exploitation of the New World is a huge factor - but I do think sans the Black Death and the collapse of that network, the other three civilizations are more robust and resilient than how they actually were.
I know, it's a bit of an orthogonal take on the late medieval/early modern history of Eurasia.
 
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Briefly, I think the influence of the Black Death, globally, tends to be understated. The plague ravaged the other major civilizations as well, and from a geopolitical perspective, broke down what was an evolving world socio-economic system. My remark was based on the supposing that system didn't fall apart and continued to grow and expand. Among other things, that means a faster cross dissemination of information, exchange of ideas and discoveries, i.e. technological developments.
Which is not to say the West doesn't have an edge - I think their exclusive discovery and exploitation of the New World is a huge factor - but I do think sans the Black Death and the collapse of that network, the other three civilizations are more robust and resilient than how they actually were.
I know, it's a bit of an orthogonal take on the late medieval/early modern history of Eurasia.
I can see where you are getting at but IMO it's quite evident that other civilization weren't even interested in the kind of development that happened in Europe in the last centuries. China refused to acknowledge its technological backwardness when presented with the new weapons from Europe
 

Marc

Donor
Does somebody know what were the effects of the plague on China and India??

It's complicated, like most attempts at historical epidemiology and demographics, the data is often scanty and sometimes conflicting. But here's the abstract from George Sussman's major paper that I managed to recall from my dusty memory:

"Firsthand accounts of the Black Death in Europe and the Middle East and many subsequent historians have assumed that the pandemic originated in Asia and ravaged China and India before reaching the West. One reason for this conviction among modern historians is that the plague in the nineteenth century originated and did its worst damage in these countries. But a close examination of the sources on the Delhi Sultanate and the Yuan Dynasty provides no evidence of any serious epidemic in fourteenth-century India and no specific evidence of plague among the many troubles that afflicted fourteenth-century China."

His analysis of the Indian data appears to be spot on in terms of timing. However, It seems that the Plague did eventually hit India, starting not in the 14th century, but in the early 16th century. Death rates seem to be overall lower due to the Black Death doesn't spread well in tropical rainforest habitats (why there has been no evidence of the Black Death in tropical African and points south.), but it wouldn't be too wild to project a 10-20% death rate in Northern India. On the other hand we do know that China was hit by devastating pandemic(s) between 1330-1350, which if not the Black Death, apparently had the same mortality rate in China as in Europe.

Like I said, complicated.
 
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Marc

Donor
Just a short note about the Black Death and Islamic World:
As bad as Europe, easily. Approximately a 1/3rd of the population mortality rate in the most populous areas: Levant and Mesopotamia and the urban centers of Persia and Central Asia, lower numbers in the pastoral communities. 40% is the guesstimate for Egypt. Arabia is unclear, but it struck hard in cities near the Red Sea (Mecca had a horrible outbreak).
Arguably it changed the course of history in the Islamic World as it did in the West.
I'm a little influenced by Toynbee's "Challenge and Response" theory, in broad strokes, hopefully without his prejudices. How various civilizations dealt with the great pandemic crisis of the 14th-17th centuries is I think far more crucial than is often given credit. Creating any alternate history without taking in its impact skews things badly.
 
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