WI: No Black Death

The Black Death hit Europe's population hard, but arguably sped up medicine and social development. So what might the long-term effects might be if the Black Death was either avoided entirely, or was confined to the Italy?

On a related note, what might have happened if the Black Death somehow spread into the Muslim world?
 
The Black Death hit Europe's population hard, but arguably sped up medicine and social development. So what might the long-term effects might be if the Black Death was either avoided entirely, or was confined to the Italy?
The outcome depends of your POD. Have you an idea how to avoid or to confine the plague?

On a related note, what might have happened if the Black Death somehow spread into the Muslim world?
What do you mean? It's was spread into the Muslim world, earlier than Europe, and the results were the same : depopulation.
 
The outcome depends of your POD. Have you an idea how to avoid or to confine the plague?

Well, I am not sure about containment, but what if the Mongols do not reach Caffa and the plague isn't introduced.

What do you mean? It's was spread into the Muslim world, earlier than Europe, and the results were the same : depopulation.

Sorry, I had my dates wrong. I was wondering what would happen if they had been hit at the same time, I thought the Muslim world wasn't hit until after the European outbreak was over. so instead, what might happen if the Siege of Caffa doesn't occur, the infection of the Muslim world doesn't spread to Europe, but the news arrives in Europe. Might they launch another crusade believing God has weakened their foes and infect Europe anyway?
 
Well, I am not sure about containment, but what if the Mongols do not reach Caffa and the plague isn't introduced.
Then the plague would have been carried by trade, from Levant and Egypt.


Sorry, I had my dates wrong. I was wondering what would happen if they had been hit at the same time, I thought the Muslim world wasn't hit until after the European outbreak was over. so instead, what might happen if the Siege of Caffa doesn't occur, the infection of the Muslim world doesn't spread to Europe, but the news arrives in Europe. Might they launch another crusade believing God has weakened their foes and infect Europe anyway?
Actually, European have news about plague in Orient. There's mention of "Tartaria devastated, Mesopotamia depopulated, etc."

Now, in the short time where Middle-East was touched and Europe not, yes technically they could use it.
But ask yourself this question : WHO would be idiot and sucidial enough to go in a land where an epidemy kill mass of people? It's not because it's the Middle-Ages that they didn't understand this : when a country is ravaged by an epidemy, better being far from it.

Merchants could still go, because european need their imported goods, but they avoided contacts with population.
 
Too hard to avoid a pandemic in Middle Age Europe....sanitary levels were awful and even if Black Death hadn't reached Europe, other disease would do the job (maybe cholera could scape earlier from India)
 
So, since the theme has been brought up... Can somebody tell me how Poland escaped the plague IOTL?

Because Poland was more isolated than his european counterparts.
Not due to closures, but to the terrain : wetlands, forests, etc. (By the way, it explains why Lituanian is preserved as a language, while it's considered as really archaïc).

Secondly, because Poland was not in the great trade stream : the country was quite self-sufficient, not part of the great West-East trade.

It's quite the same thing that why Arabs didn't get really affected by Justinian plague. More isolated, more natural features, not a trade country.
 
Without getting in to HOW the Black Death pandemic is avoided (and there are several reasonable alternatives) the biggest effect of no such pandemic is the prolongation of the feudal system. The waves of plague that swept through Europe created losses at the top (reducing nobility) but most importantly a labor shortage. Because labor was now a seller's market, keeping serfs on their lord's estate was much more difficult. Not only did the free towns beckon even more so than before, but any given estate holder was much less likely to ask where some peasant and his family came from if they were willing to work on his land, and also the "employers" were likely to be more generous in "employment terms" as absent peasants their land was worthless. Once serfs were no longer tightly bound to the land, both physical and social mobility became possible - both on estates and in towns where guilds would be more than willing to take non-hereditary apprentices.

With a larger European population the advances of the Mongols, and later the Ottomans will be more restricted.
 
Wasn't the population of Europe just before the Black Death nearly that of 1910? If true, then they were looking at famine in God awful proportions.
 
Wasn't the population of Europe just before the Black Death nearly that of 1910? If true, then they were looking at famine in God awful proportions.

1910? I highly doubt it.
Yes, there is approximate numbers.

1300 : 73 000 000
1750 : 140 000 000
1910 : 420 000 000
 
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