Malkier ians.

[Artfully_Unintelligent]

I thought Lan said that there were no more Malkierans/ians/ers except for, obviously Lan and now all of a sudden there is a whole group of them? and how would nyneave have found them exactly? pure chance? or is rands ta'veren ness rubbing off?

[Majsju]

When Lan says there are no more Malkieri, he refers to the nation Malkier being dead. Quite a few malkieri survived, and are scattered all over the Borderlands. Though most of them have more or less abandoned their Malkieri heritage in order to fit in in their new homelands.

[cloglord]

There is also death by old age to consider as well.  Lan is 50 and was a baby at the time of Malkier's fall.  I would also assume that the vast majority of men who had been of fighting age died with Malkier  Meaning that, by my estimate, only the demagraphic of Malkieri men who were between 5 and 15 are likely to have survived and still have any memory of Malkier, as any men too old to fight at that time have probably succumed to old age.  Woman are probably a slightly different story, but would still almost be universally 60+ if they continue to identify themselves as Malkieri.

[RobertAlexWillis]

I'm not sure where everyone gets the idea that "of a sudden there is a whole group of them".  To date, we have seen exactly three.  ::)

 

Any Malkieri Lan gets will be second or third generation removed, half Saldaean or Kandori or Arafellin or Shienaran, or they will be old men.  And I don't think there will be nearly as many as some people think there will be.

[safwd]

I'm not sure where everyone gets the idea that "of a sudden there is a whole group of them".  To date, we have seen exactly three.   ::)

 

Any Malkieri Lan gets will be second or third generation removed, half Saldaean or Kandori or Arafellin or Shienaran, or they will be old men.  And I don't think there will be nearly as many as some people think there will be.

Maybe not old men, but they will be around Lans age or a little older. Pregnant women could have fled which would put a few just younger then Lan.

I think by Dragonmount Lan is about 45 so you would have some that are still at an age where they can fight.

[Ahaz Flagg]

I am not sure where you get that there alot of Malkeri's either, its is a known fact that many people on the border would ride with Lan for Malkeri,  go back and read the The eye of the world,  as Lan and party approch Fal Dara, all of the people asked if the Crane would fly agian. 

 

The fact is, Malkeri is a symbol to the borderlanders, and many people of all four nations would ride with Lan just for that.  It has nothign to do with weather they are from Malkeri, it is simply the respect people have for Lan and Malkeri.

[Skowsa]

IIRC, the Golden Crane was raised in New Spring time frame and over 2,000 men came in support. They weren't all Malkieri, but some of them must have been.

 

There must have been a fair number left around by the time covered in WoT though. The Hadori (and what it signifies) brings fear/awe/respect everywhere and that wouldn't happen if there were just a few around.

 

Also, Malkier has only been gone for 47 years by the the end of book 11. Not enough time for all it's inhabitants to be swallowed up, maybe?

[ignavus1223]

IIRC, the Golden Crane was raised in New Spring time frame and over 2,000 men came in support. They weren't all Malkieri, but some of them must have been.

 

There must have been a fair number left around by the time covered in WoT though. The Hadori (and what it signifies) brings fear/awe/respect everywhere and that wouldn't happen if there were just a few around.

 

Also, Malkier has only been gone for 47 years by the the end of book 11. Not enough time for all it's inhabitants to be swallowed up, maybe?

 

The New Spring novel was about 20 years before the main novel timeline.  There would have been many more Malkieri and they would have still been adapting into their new lands. 

 

I agree with cloglord.  Most of the fighting men would have died of old age if nothing else, especially considering that the life expectancy for non-channelers would be significantly lower than life expectancies today. 

 

Considering how everyone in the Borderlands is familier with Malkieri, even though most would have been born after its fall, it's not surprising that the Hadori would be common knowledge. 

 

 

[Thorum]

gone for 47 years, you have to be at least about 8 to have active knowledge of it, so that puts 55 as minimum age of knowing Malkieri.

 

Since WoT is in a Medieval society (medical, hygienic, wars, ...), medium life expectancies won't have been much more than 40, maximum 50.

 

If we take 50, and 55 as minimum age to know it; that would mean it's about the segment of our Western world of 90 and older (average age 80). Not too many, and those not too lively, I'ld guess

[Andvari]

A flippant observation would be that they didn't have Healing in the Mediaeval times though...not to mention other Power-enabling ways to prolong life and promote hygiene (the Keeping weave, I think was Egwene's (re-)discovery, but there may well have been something similar if less effective) and therefore it isn't necessarily valid to equate a fantasy world to the time it msot resembles technologically in our world with regard to life expectancy.

[Thorum]

Healing is only available to a very limited few. If 10,000 out of 10,000,000 people live 10 or 20 years longer, the medium age won't change.

[DuDZiK]

Some things to consider...

 

1) Some Malkier must have been saved. I'm sure Lan's father, the king, would have done all he could to hold back the trolloc horde and allow women, children, and some men to escape.

2) Some Malkier must have been absent from the city at the time; emisarries, tradesmen/merchants, travellers etc.

3) Yes, it's been 50 years since Malkier fell and anyone who did escape must be well into their middle years by now, but those Malkier would have married and had children of their own. Those children will have grown up on the stories of their parents' old home, and very well may think of themselves as Malkier. Heck, Nynaeve thinks of herself as Malkier and she hasn't a drop of their blood.

 

That passage of Nynaeves in Knife of Dreams where she speaks to a living Malkier survivor is revealing, I think. She basically hinted at everything I have said above, especially the third point in regards to people still thinking they are Malkier, or "as long as a woman wears (the dot on their forehead), and bears children for a man who wears (the leather strap that holds their hair back) the Malkier will still be alive."

 

Methinks it was a bit of foreshadowing.

[cloglord]

Since WoT is in a Medieval society (medical, hygienic, wars, ...), medium life expectancies won't have been much more than 40, maximum 50.

 

Tell that to Lini...Randland is not medieval it has progressed, or as the case may be regressed to a hybrid of time periods that have exressed themselves in reallife societies worldwide.  European Medieval society had certain religious underpinnings that had a profound effect on society, science, war, that are completely missing in Randland.  It was missing such notable randland features as printing presses, gunpowder, and most recently steam engines.  Its an apples and oranges comparison.

 

1) Some Malkier must have been saved. I'm sure Lan's father, the king, would have done all he could to hold back the trolloc horde and allow women, children, and some men to escape.

 

Old men, cowards, and children too young to remember much of Malkier.  Of the group likely to have escaped and retained memories of Malkier, 55+ year old women are the most likely demographic to have survived, and still consider themselves Malkieri.

 

2) Some Malkier must have been absent from the city at the time; emisarries, tradesmen/merchants, travellers etc.

 

This is correct, but unless they had brought their children with them in their traveling, this still limits those people to 70+ years old.

 

3) Yes, it's been 50 years since Malkier fell and anyone who did escape must be well into their middle years by now, but those Malkier would have married and had children of their own. Those children will have grown up on the stories of their parents' old home, and very well may think of themselves as Malkier. Heck, Nynaeve thinks of herself as Malkier and she hasn't a drop of their blood.

 

Those children might consider themselves as Malkieri after a fashion, but I would imagine that they would hold at least as strong a loyalty to their adoptive country as they feel towards Malkier.  Simply they have no personal ties to the land of their Parents.  My family is descended from German immigrants, but it doesn't mean that I consider myself German.  The only time it comes up is in discussions of where my family came from, and has little bearing on my daily life. 

[DuDZiK]

Tell that to Lini...Randland is not medieval it has progressed, or as the case may be regressed to a hybrid of time periods that have exressed themselves in reallife societies worldwide.  European Medieval society had certain religious underpinnings that had a profound effect on society, science, war, that are completely missing in Randland.  It was missing such notable randland features as printing presses, gunpowder, and most recently steam engines.  Its an apples and oranges comparison.

 

*nods* Society as we know it did not have magic to help it, so you can't compare Randland to the middle ages. At the same time, in terms of technology Randland is now experiencing a revolution, and even before then things like halbreds and the sort of heavy cavalry is a mark of the later middle ages if not the beginning of the early modern period. At the same time, life expectancy in the later middle ages (depending on where you were, and what social class you were in) was higher than 40-50. For instance, in Ireland in the late middle ages the average age of marriage for men was the late thirties, and they were known to live far past their 60s or 70s. There was a well known harper who lived in three different centuries.

 

At the same time, they had no Aes Sedai to heal them. Admitedly, not many people would be lucky enough to have an Aes Sedai heal them, but as I recall there are as many of the Kin throughout Randland, many of whom can heal a cold or illness I'm sure, who could help.

 

Old men, cowards, and children too young to remember much of Malkier.  Of the group likely to have escaped and retained memories of Malkier, 55+ year old women are the most likely demographic to have survived, and still consider themselves Malkieri.

 

That doesn't say anything of the older men and women who had children, and whose children had children; or people in their teens/early adulthood. The legend of the Malkier is almost as strong as that of Manethren, and Malkier was only destroyed 50 years ago. I'm sure there are many people who secretly are proud of their Malkier heritage. It may only number a few thousand at most, but I could throw any number out and it would be open to immediate and obvious scrutiny. All I'm saying is, the number could be higher than expected, and because of the problem of estimating numbers (something historians love and hate to do for the same reasons...) is made difficult lacking any evidence.

 

2) Some Malkier must have been absent from the city at the time; emisarries, tradesmen/merchants, travellers etc.

 

This is correct, but unless they had brought their children with them in their traveling, this still limits those people to 70+ years old.

 

And again I point out that they will have had children, and told them all about their heritage. Some I'm sure will have tried to forget, thinking there was no hope. But that merchant in Knife of Dreams whom Nynaeve spoke to was very reluctant to hope that Malkier might be resurrected - he had given up hope, and was trying to supress or forget his heritage because of that dashed hope - but the flames of passion were lit in him only on hearing news that Lan was ready to gather a force together. Imagine what will happen when Lan himself travels through the Borderlands with Nynaeve spreading the news of what he is doing.

 

3) Yes, it's been 50 years since Malkier fell and anyone who did escape must be well into their middle years by now, but those Malkier would have married and had children of their own. Those children will have grown up on the stories of their parents' old home, and very well may think of themselves as Malkier. Heck, Nynaeve thinks of herself as Malkier and she hasn't a drop of their blood.

 

Those children might consider themselves as Malkieri after a fashion, but I would imagine that they would hold at least as strong a loyalty to their adoptive country as they feel towards Malkier.  Simply they have no personal ties to the land of their Parents.  My family is descended from German immigrants, but it doesn't mean that I consider myself German.  The only time it comes up is in discussions of where my family came from, and has little bearing on my daily life.   

 

Apples and Oranges, to take your own proverb.

 

How many people feel strong ties to Manethren when it has been dead and gone for hundreds of years? With Malkier it much different, in that there will be a number of living Malkier who lived in and remember Malkier itself. As I said, they will have had kids and told them all about their heritage when there might have still been hope that Malkier might be recovered. Those people and their children will flock to him (many will anyways), and we will find out just how many of them there is.

 

Like I said, I'm not here to say that there will be a great horde of Malkier who will show themselves and follow Lan, I am putting some things into context to make people think of certain things they might not think of otherwise when it comes to getting an impression of how many there might be.

[Thorum]

Since WoT is in a Medieval society (medical, hygienic, wars, ...), medium life expectancies won't have been much more than 40, maximum 50.

 

Tell that to Lini...Randland is not medieval it has progressed, or as the case may be regressed to a hybrid of time periods that have exressed themselves in reallife societies worldwide.  European Medieval society had certain religious underpinnings that had a profound effect on society, science, war, that are completely missing in Randland.  It was missing such notable randland features as printing presses, gunpowder, and most recently steam engines.  Its an apples and oranges comparison.

 

Where has the average Randlander progressed beyond our Middle Ages?

 

- Healing only to a selected few

- religion is no factor in Randland, because, according to Robert Jordan, "if your gods play an active role in your life, you don't need rituals to remember they're there".

- I haven't seen a printing press in Randland

- gunpowder, printing presses and steam engines are inventions-in-the-making. No one lives longer because of them. Even if they were already made (esp. gunpowder & steam engines would have negative effects).

 

So, the question remains: if they ain't Medieval, why not?

 

 

New post:

- as stated above, the magic is only available to a selected few: if 10,000 people out of 10,000,000 live each 20 years longer, the average age of those 10,000,000 won't change.

- to the long-lived persons: it's statistics: the mean was lower, but the variance was a lot higher. This means that more people became 1.5 times the average age in the Middle Ages than today. Reason? Human cells are not build to last 100 years. And some cells (e.g. brain cells), stay from birth till death.

- The Ireland-example: that's really a first to me I'm gonna look it up this evening

[DuDZiK]

Where has the average Randlander progressed beyond our Middle Ages?

 

- Healing only to a selected few

- religion is no factor in Randland, because, according to Robert Jordan, "if your gods play an active role in your life, you don't need rituals to remember they're there".

- I haven't seen a printing press in Randland

- gunpowder, printing presses and steam engines are inventions-in-the-making. No one lives longer because of them. Even if they were already made (esp. gunpowder & steam engines would have negative effects).

 

So, the question remains: if they ain't Medieval, why not?

 

Because their world as opposed to ours is apples and oranges. Even within our world, there was a comparative difference between cultures such as Europe and China. Even though China had a political and administrative system that was well advanced past medieval governments, their technology was comparitavely poor by the time the middle ages ended. So what are you using as the hallmark of 'medieval'? Technology? Ideology? Furthermore what part of the middle ages are you referring to? Early? Middle? Late? There is another marked difference in each of those eras both in technology and ideology.

 

Magic is always a sort of metaphor for technology. Because of it, people hold the belief that if anything serious needs to get done, just have magic do it. It greatly affects the motivation of people to find their own solutions. You can't logically expect a society with different variables than our own to progress in exactly the same way as ours did, especially because this is a fictional story. I mean they're also on the verge of discovering electricity and the steam-engine at the same time; one marked the end of the Middle Ages and the other was more than one hundred years after it was already over.

 

New post:

- as stated above, the magic is only available to a selected few: if 10,000 people out of 10,000,000 live each 20 years longer, the average age of those 10,000,000 won't change.

 

Of those 10,000 people, there are around 3,000 of the Kin who are part of the various towns and cities they live in and act as healers. If there is only one in every town/city (or even most cities), they are there to heal people of their illnesses and smaller injuries, and that would greatly help people live longer.

 

As I already said, the average lifespan of people in the middle ages - depending on where you are talking about, what social class the people belonged to, and what part of the middle ages you are talking about - varied greatly. It could be anywhere from 40-70. In all the Medieval history courses I have taken at my university, all the professors and all the sources they have us read tell us how difficult it is to pin down such a number because of the lack of evidence. They didn't have any annual census like we did; England was the only one to have anything near such a thing until the modern period (that I am aware of), and they had only two in one century and that was it. Furthermore, such documents were extremely flawed in the information we need to extrapolate from them. They were mainly concerned with finding out who owned what land. It marked down adult males only, and alot of people dodged this census for tax avoidance reasons.

 

- to the long-lived persons: it's statistics: the mean was lower, but the variance was a lot higher. This means that more people became 1.5 times the average age in the Middle Ages than today. Reason? Human cells are not build to last 100 years. And some cells (e.g. brain cells), stay from birth till death.

 

- The Ireland-example: that's really a first to me I'm gonna look it up this evening

 

I can give you some books to look up. I'm a Celtic Studies major at my university, and a History major as well (I focus on medieval history... its way cooler ;D).

[Orange Fescue]

Since WoT is in a Medieval society (medical, hygienic, wars, ...), medium life expectancies won't have been much more than 40, maximum 50.

 

 

Where has the average Randlander progressed beyond our Middle Ages?

 

- Healing only to a selected few

- religion is no factor in Randland, because, according to Robert Jordan, "if your gods play an active role in your life, you don't need rituals to remember they're there".

- I haven't seen a printing press in Randland

- gunpowder, printing presses and steam engines are inventions-in-the-making. No one lives longer because of them. Even if they were already made (esp. gunpowder & steam engines would have negative effects).

 

So, the question remains: if they ain't Medieval, why not?

 

 

It's always been my impression that Randland is mostly at a Renaissance level of technology but, as some have mentioned, they don't directly correlate to pre-modern Europe.

• Although Healing with a capital "h" is limited to a select few, their herb-women, wise women, whatever they're called locally seem to get better results than I would expect from the medieval physicians of our world.
  
• Regardless of medical technology, life expectancy in Randland may very well be longer than it would be in Europe at that technology level just because everything seems to be so clean. When I think of medieval Europe, I think of filth and dirt and raw sewage in the streets. Perhaps I'm stereotyping medievals but Randlanders seem to bathe a lot by comparison. I read an article on the prospects for future increases in life expectancy that claimed much of the longer life spans Americans have enjoyed in the 20th century (from 48 years to 72 years) was related to antisceptics and generally improved hygiene and sewage disposal.
  
• Although the Aes Sedai seem to think they already know everything that can be known and Whitecloaks seem to think anything they haven't encountered before is of the Dark One, people and leaders in general seem fairly open to technological innovation. My impression of medieval Europe is that people were less open to innovation until the Renaissance but, again, I could just be stereotyping.
  
• I was sure that printing had been mentioned in the books at some point but may have just assumed it was there based on what seems to be a very high level of literacy and a large number of books that have been encountered. Rand, Mat, and Perrin are all literate despite being peasants from the backwatery-est backwater in Andor and Tam owns several books. The inn where Rand meets Loial has even more books. References to reading (not hearing) "The Travels of Jain Farstrider" suggested to me that most children had read them. When peddlers go through the Waste, the first thing they sell out of is books. If Randland doesn't have printing technology, books are hand-copied and should be rare and expensive with a corresponding drop in functional literacy.
  

There was something else I was going to bring up but can't quite think what it was. Ah, well, I'm tired anyway.

[Thorum]

Indeed, bathing is a huge difference. It probably makes about 10 years on average, which is enough to have quite a few Malkieri left.

 

The printing, I don't know, ... Could be. Maybe even Jordan himself didn't know how books were copied. But, anyway, I don't think that would improve live expectancies

[Orange Fescue]

You're right, of course, printing has no immediate effect on longevity unless one counts governmental public service leaflets on the importance of boiling water before drinking it and so forth. In terms of less immediate effects, printing would contribute to a higher rate of literacy and education which would contribute to a higher standard of living leading to greater life expectancy.

 

I included printing in my list in response to Cloglord's not having seen a printing press in Randland being used to suggest that Randlanders hadn't progressed beyond the European Middle Ages technologically. It wasn't the best fit for the list, I know, but I was tired and not in a very well-organized state of mind.

[cloglord]

Fescue, either I wan't clear enough our you missed my point, in either case we agree.  I took the same evidences of literature, literacy,  and the relative ease of access to books as indicators of printing, which to my mind was one of the great signals that brought on the renaissance.  I just didn't articulate them as well, nor did I go to the trouble of explaing how literacy could raise life expectancy.  We agree, you just did all the work.

 

RJ is quoted at something called the Elf Fantasy Fair on  April 7th 2001

 

I dislike the view of the world of the Wheel of Time as medieval. I think of this as the 17th century, as it would have developed without gun powder. Look at the things, I mean, moveable type and printing presses and books are not uncommon and mechanical clocks and a lot of other things. If you look at what's going on you'd realize that we're not looking at a medieval world. We're looking at the 17th century, minus gun powder.

 

I think that puts paid to the notion that Randland is medieval.

 

 

That doesn't say anything of the older men and women who had children, and whose children had children; or people in their teens/early adulthood. The legend of the Malkier is almost as strong as that of Manethren, and Malkier was only destroyed 50 years ago. I'm sure there are many people who secretly are proud of their Malkier heritage. It may only number a few thousand at most, but I could throw any number out and it would be open to immediate and obvious scrutiny. All I'm saying is, the number could be higher than expected, and because of the problem of estimating numbers (something historians love and hate to do for the same reasons...) is made difficult lacking any evidence.

 

This is not an apples to oranges comparison, pride in heritage does not equal assimilation.  As I said I'm proud of my German heritage, it doesn't make me a German.  Here's a bit of heresay from an April 2001 book signing that might clear things up.

 

A pretty original question was about the Malkieri (Note by Liandra: Yeah, that's mine!) . In New Spring there were still a lot of them, but nowadays Lan is the only one around: how's that possible? Did they all die? No, it's a matter of assimilation. All these people now think of themselves as part of the country they live in, they've taken on these new cultures. Lan is the only one who hasn't done this, who at heart remains a Malkieri.

 

 

[DuDZiK]

That doesn't say anything of the older men and women who had children, and whose children had children; or people in their teens/early adulthood. The legend of the Malkier is almost as strong as that of Manethren, and Malkier was only destroyed 50 years ago. I'm sure there are many people who secretly are proud of their Malkier heritage. It may only number a few thousand at most, but I could throw any number out and it would be open to immediate and obvious scrutiny. All I'm saying is, the number could be higher than expected, and because of the problem of estimating numbers (something historians love and hate to do for the same reasons...) is made difficult lacking any evidence.

 

This is not an apples to oranges comparison, pride in heritage does not equal assimilation.  As I said I'm proud of my German heritage, it doesn't make me a German.

 

Neither does it have to do with the objective number of people who are actually Malkier, but that was not my point in the passage you quoted. My point there was to point out how many people might follow Lan claiming to be Malkier.

 

Here's a bit of heresay from an April 2001 book signing that might clear things up.

 

A pretty original question was about the Malkieri (Note by Liandra: Yeah, that's mine!) . In New Spring there were still a lot of them, but nowadays Lan is the only one around: how's that possible? Did they all die? No, it's a matter of assimilation. All these people now think of themselves as part of the country they live in, they've taken on these new cultures. Lan is the only one who hasn't done this, who at heart remains a Malkieri.

 

That's true, but I think I still touched on this when I was talking about how Lan finally rallying people together under his banner, the royal banner of Malkier, could very well break them out of their 'assimilation'. I even cited the example of the merchant that Nynaeve spoke to in Knife of Dreams; he was 'assimilated' too, but the news that Nynaeve brought him was enough to rouse their Malkier heritage and pride in him and his companions (who I am to assume is also Malkier). I am saying that this could very well happen with alot of these 'assimilated' people.

 

[CUBAREY]

Quote:

 

RJ is quoted at something called the Elf Fantasy Fair on  April 7th 2001

 

 

Quote

I dislike the view of the world of the Wheel of Time as medieval. I think of this as the 17th century, as it would have developed without gun powder. Look at the things, I mean, moveable type and printing presses and books are not uncommon and mechanical clocks and a lot of other things. If you look at what's going on you'd realize that we're not looking at a medieval world. We're looking at the 17th century, minus gun powder.

 

I think that puts paid to the notion that Randland is medieval.

 

 

It should be pointed out that the 17th century was about the most violent, and disease ravaged time in European history. You had plagueis (smallpox, black death, dyptheria, etc,) you had religious wars (the 30 years War killed 30-40% of the population, , The English civil War while not as bloody caused a great deal of dislocation) and your run of the mill dynastic wars. If you look at the demographic evidence the population in 1690 was slightly lower then in 1610. While the Age was technologically more advsnced then the middle ages the poulation level, lifespan and hygene levels were no better.

[DuDZiK]

It should be pointed out that the 17th century was about the most violent, and disease ravaged time in European history. You had plagueis (smallpox, black death, dyptheria, etc,) you had religious wars (the 30 years War killed 30-40% of the population, , The English civil War while not as bloody caused a great deal of dislocation) and your run of the mill dynastic wars. If you look at the demographic evidence the population in 1690 was slightly lower then in 1610. While the Age was technologically more advsnced then the middle ages the poulation level, lifespan and hygene levels were no better.

 

I think he was saying that he thought of his world as like 17th C Europe in the spirit of the time more than an actual reflection.

[cloglord]

I even cited the example of the merchant that Nynaeve spoke to in Knife of Dreams; he was 'assimilated' too, but the news that Nynaeve brought him was enough to rouse their Malkier heritage and pride in him and his companions (who I am to assume is also Malkier). I am saying that this could very well happen with alot of these 'assimilated' people.

 

I was adressing the point about children or children's children.  The merchant was around the same age as Lan, and had allowed his uncles to give him the Hadori.  This is an example of a person first generation removed from Malkier, and he even thinks to himself that he has no memory of Malkier, and that he seldom thought of it, that is except as how useful it made his reputation.  He was actually born in malkier and he is that divorced from its culture, technically he is Malkieri by virtue of having been born there, but I'm pretty sure that no one under the age of 45 can make that claim.  However, I am quite sure that there are thousands and thousands of borderlanders who can claim descent from Malkier, and by virtue of their heritage decide to take up arms. 

 

 

It should be pointed out that the 17th century was about the most violent, and disease ravaged time in European history. You had plagueis (smallpox, black death, dyptheria, etc,) you had religious wars (the 30 years War killed 30-40% of the population, , The English civil War while not as bloody caused a great deal of dislocation) and your run of the mill dynastic wars. If you look at the demographic evidence the population in 1690 was slightly lower then in 1610. While the Age was technologically more advsnced then the middle ages the poulation level, lifespan and hygene levels were no better.

 

 

By that same argument I could make a case that Europe during WWI was more technologically advanced than the middle ages, but that the population level, lifespan, and hygene levels were no better.  For me, if RJ says it, its enough.

[Thorum]

 

Meaning: life expectancies only started to change drastically in the late 1800s (according to this graph)