WI the Middle Ages last much longer

Many fictional/fantasy books* depict world were technology is similar to OTL 1300s (without gunpowder), but this have been so for thousands of years.

Would it have been possible for technology and social forms of organization distinct of ORL Medieval Europe (feudalism and such) to remain like that for a much longer period? Or was a sort of Renaissance/discovery of the Americas/humanism/birth of modern science inevitable and unstopable?

Would the absence of the printing press and gunpowder be enough to put progress to a halt? If no, how could it be done?


*Such as a Song of Fire and Ice, which I've just started reading
 
How about recurrent climate shifts every 200-300 years or so, such as occurred OTL in Younger Dryas, returning to Ice Age conditions very rapidly. The resulting collapse of agriculture drastically reduces the population and prevents the economic base to form for further technological advances.

Historically, the great advances in civilization and technology have always occurred during warm climates. (e.g. the Minoan warm period, the Roman warm period and the Mideival climate optimum. The end of Roman civilization corresponded with the sharp decline in temperatures in Europe.
 
What about no black death? Keep the great die-off from happening for 100 or so years (until the 1450-1500 at the eariliest).
 
In a very broad sense, yes, it would be feasible for centuries (I'm not convinced about millennia). in a narrower sense - the culture of the European middle ages often depicted in bad fantasy - no, it would not be.

Basically, the problem is that medieval Europe never got the chance to achieve a plateau, what people call the "high-equilibrium trap". There was always a hunger for innovation and technological solutions to problems, and there was always expansion and conquest. It wasn't so much a matter of mindset as of social dynamic - you had lots of people with no room inside the established society that had to look for a way to become established in their own manner. With low technology, such son-surplus societies work well on the fringes of more powerful and developed lands. With high technology - we've only had one so far, and it didn't look pretty.

A society with the technological level of medieval Europe that can function at replenishment level - without Europe's lousy crop yields, population pressures, and extensive farming - could very well slow down developmennt in "fundamental" technologies to a crawl. China is actually not a very good example, because China was very innovative and dynamic for most of its history, but there are aspects of its culture that work well as an analogue. If you can produce a society within which there is room for everyone, with sufficient knowledge of the surrounding world to discourage conquest and enough technological advantage to make studying outsiders ineffective, there will be very little need to cvhange fundamentals.

Imagine a human empire, established a long time ago, back in the bronze age. Imasgine the ruling classes taking their cues from Elves, insanely long-lived and notroriously nostalgic creatures of few earthly needs. Imagine the frontiers populated by savages and orks that discourage travel. Imagine fertile lands that could accommodate all people born into them. You could see that lasting almost forever - or at least until some dwarf engineer figured out something really cool.
 
In a very broad sense, yes, it would be feasible for centuries (I'm not convinced about millennia). in a narrower sense - the culture of the European middle ages often depicted in bad fantasy - no, it would not be.

Basically, the problem is that medieval Europe never got the chance to achieve a plateau, what people call the "high-equilibrium trap". There was always a hunger for innovation and technological solutions to problems, and there was always expansion and conquest. It wasn't so much a matter of mindset as of social dynamic - you had lots of people with no room inside the established society that had to look for a way to become established in their own manner. With low technology, such son-surplus societies work well on the fringes of more powerful and developed lands. With high technology - we've only had one so far, and it didn't look pretty.

A society with the technological level of medieval Europe that can function at replenishment level - without Europe's lousy crop yields, population pressures, and extensive farming - could very well slow down developmennt in "fundamental" technologies to a crawl. China is actually not a very good example, because China was very innovative and dynamic for most of its history, but there are aspects of its culture that work well as an analogue. If you can produce a society within which there is room for everyone, with sufficient knowledge of the surrounding world to discourage conquest and enough technological advantage to make studying outsiders ineffective, there will be very little need to cvhange fundamentals.

Imagine a human empire, established a long time ago, back in the bronze age. Imasgine the ruling classes taking their cues from Elves, insanely long-lived and notroriously nostalgic creatures of few earthly needs. Imagine the frontiers populated by savages and orks that discourage travel. Imagine fertile lands that could accommodate all people born into them. You could see that lasting almost forever - or at least until some dwarf engineer figured out something really cool.


Or until a Tribe of Orks or so called savages , living in another less fertile land , but sufficient enough to support a decent civilization arise , avoid a high equilibrium trap, and become the first sentients in the world to embark on an age of Exploration and an Industrial revolution.
 
Many fictional/fantasy books* depict world were technology is similar to OTL 1300s (without gunpowder), but this have been so for thousands of years.

Would it have been possible for technology and social forms of organization distinct of ORL Medieval Europe (feudalism and such) to remain like that for a much longer period? Or was a sort of Renaissance/discovery of the Americas/humanism/birth of modern science inevitable and unstopable?

Would the absence of the printing press and gunpowder be enough to put progress to a halt? If no, how could it be done?


*Such as a Song of Fire and Ice, which I've just started reading


If you get rid of Alchemy you can slow the technological progress down but I think the social progress is a different matter.

OT: Excellent book choice! I read them all - you are in for one hell of a ride:)
 
Or until a Tribe of Orks or so called savages , living in another less fertile land , but sufficient enough to support a decent civilization arise , avoid a high equilibrium trap, and become the first sentients in the world to embark on an age of Exploration and an Industrial revolution.

Up orks and savages!:D
 
Stopping or limited the black death would help slow the move toward the Renaissance but not stop it maybe by 100 to 200. Maybe the Ottoman Empire does not close the trade routes to Europeans. With the trade routes still open and no need for Columbus to go west. Most likely only delay the Discovery of Americas by maybe 70 to 100 year at the most. With the Portuguese trading off the West African coast only matter of time ship blown across of atlantic ocean.
 
How about recurrent climate shifts every 200-300 years or so, such as occurred OTL in Younger Dryas, returning to Ice Age conditions very rapidly. The resulting collapse of agriculture drastically reduces the population and prevents the economic base to form for further technological advances.

Historically, the great advances in civilization and technology have always occurred during warm climates. (e.g. the Minoan warm period, the Roman warm period and the Mideival climate optimum. The end of Roman civilization corresponded with the sharp decline in temperatures in Europe.

This coincides with the many "winters" of ASOIAF, with were basically mini- Ice Ages that would crush population growth made over the many summers in the Seven Kingdoms, but as we can tell, the most progress so far has been made with this last Summer, and by the looks of it, the upcoming winter looks to be the hardest and last one.
 

MAlexMatt

Banned
In a very broad sense, yes, it would be feasible for centuries (I'm not convinced about millennia). in a narrower sense - the culture of the European middle ages often depicted in bad fantasy - no, it would not be.

Basically, the problem is that medieval Europe never got the chance to achieve a plateau, what people call the "high-equilibrium trap". There was always a hunger for innovation and technological solutions to problems, and there was always expansion and conquest. It wasn't so much a matter of mindset as of social dynamic - you had lots of people with no room inside the established society that had to look for a way to become established in their own manner. With low technology, such son-surplus societies work well on the fringes of more powerful and developed lands. With high technology - we've only had one so far, and it didn't look pretty.

It annoys me slightly that you never see this discussed in talk about high level equilibrium traps, but the difference between Europe and China in this regard is that China was able to successfully close itself off from global trade networks, while European sovereignties were far too fractured and multitudinous to ever accomplish the same thing.

I mean, it's not like most of European culture in the relevant time period wasn't extremely conservative and anti-innovation -- right up until the industrial revolution itself Luddites would engage in machine-breaking. The difference is that the high level of inter-state competition prevented this attitude from actually attaining and keeping power for any long period of time.

In order to keep Europe backward and undeveloped, you need to stop the commercial revolution of the 12th century. I don't know how possible that is. The Mediterranean is such a natural highway of commerce that you would probably have to get rid of it in order to actually succeed in stopping some kind of commercial revolution.

In the shorter term, perhaps an Islamic conquest of more of the Mediterranean basin could prevent Christian Europe from participating in the commercial revolution to any great extent.
 
China's real problem wasn't the inability to pull of a global trade network, but that it was the destination of said network.
 

MAlexMatt

Banned
China was a massive exporter for most of its history, a huge destination of capital. It really should have industrialized, but it cut itself off from these capital flows before global demand was really there to justify the economies of scale involved in industrialization. Combined with the collapse of the Chinese monetary system under the Mongols and early Ming, her economic developed was cut short.
 
It seems to have become increasingly focused on that (being the destination of traders). Traders going to other places and bringing stuff into China were discouraged.

I mean, its not as if the trade network that saw development in Europe soar was all exotics - the herring trade or timber trade were also important (and timber, at least as in ship building timber, does seem like something that should have been a good worth hunting down).

But China never did anything like that.
 
It annoys me slightly that you never see this discussed in talk about high level equilibrium traps, but the difference between Europe and China in this regard is that China was able to successfully close itself off from global trade networks, while European sovereignties were far too fractured and multitudinous to ever accomplish the same thing.
Europe is quite fractured geographically and demographically; if one did want to arrest the general drive toward both technical and social innovation in Europe I'd think a necessary but not sufficient condition would be for someone--Holy Roman Emperor, the Papacy, some other monarch--to achieve comprehensive and lasting conquest of pretty much the whole subcontinent, at least as far eastward as all the German-settled regions and possibly having to go so far as to subdue or otherwise induct England into the continental system. And the Scandinavian countries, and Iberia (unless Iberia stays Moorish-ruled and thus perhaps outside the European system).

It seems like a much tougher hurdle to jump than unifying China; of course China's unity may be more an artifact of the feat having been accomplished thousands of years ago than any natural geographic unity.

Anyway--necessary, but not sufficient; the regime would then have to still have an interest in promoting stability at the cost of economic progress.

But without unity, what you have is a bunch of smaller states in competition with each other, with a merchant/financier class pretty free to gravitate toward whichever regimes offer them the best available deals, thus all rulers had an interest in both keeping these classes reasonably happy and in at least matching, if not outdoing, the innovations of their rivals. Some got good at it and survived, others belatedly compared notes on the examples set by their more successful rivals and rallied; as the situation kept changing the winning strategies of yesterday became the backward conservatism of today and the pot kept stirring.
I mean, it's not like most of European culture in the relevant time period wasn't extremely conservative and anti-innovation -- right up until the industrial revolution itself Luddites would engage in machine-breaking. The difference is that the high level of inter-state competition prevented this attitude from actually attaining and keeping power for any long period of time.
We agree on the role of competition, but I have to point out--Luddism wasn't a perennial conservatism of the countryside; it was a radical reaction precisely to the industrial revolution as experienced in the countryside. Earlier peasant revolts were not against industry or technical innovation as such; they were against the manorial regime as such.

If I were going to point out reactionary culprits in the medieval and early modern period, I'd be looking considerably higher up the social ladder.
In order to keep Europe backward and undeveloped, you need to stop the commercial revolution of the 12th century. I don't know how possible that is. The Mediterranean is such a natural highway of commerce that you would probably have to get rid of it in order to actually succeed in stopping some kind of commercial revolution.
Again--even without the Med trade, which was very important of course, Europe was quite a dynamic trading region. The Rhine was a major avenue, as was the Baltic. I honestly don't know to what degree these channels were stimulated by carrying trade originating in the Med region or beyond it, but I would think that even if the Mediterranean turned into a sea of poisonous boiling mud, north of the Alps there would still be a lot of trade between regions of northern and central Europe.

So I'd think we're left with scenarios either of some great, eternal, and ultra-conservative Empire, which is tricky to imagine how it could rise and sustain itself, or with drastic climatic, epidemic, or geological disasters essentially devastating Europe and driving the units of population left that can cohere down far below the level prevailing even after say the Black Death or the Thirty Years War.
 
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