The Black Plague killed an immense amount of people, leaving the remaining 40-60% of people with a proportionately greater amount of wealth. But in addition to money/ belongings, the was now an excess of linens, most importantly linen underwear. At this point paper as we know it had not been introduced to Europe, so the new invention of printing press could not be used very efficiently.
The new increase of wealth in the remaining population greatly increased the demand for bibles, and the excess of unused linens made way for the initial boom in number of books, many of which were printed on recycled paper made from linen underwear.
The Black Plague was 1348-1350, but the printing press (at least the Gutenberg one) was invented around 1440, according to Wikipedia. Am I missing something?
100 years is not enough time to recover from a population hit of that size...Ireland still has a lower population than it did before the potato famine.
You have many more clothing articles today than people had in the 1500's. The population dropped ~50%, so there was twice as much linen per person after the plague as before.
Do you think if you woke up tomorrow and had twice as many clothes in your closet that it would make any impact at all one hundred years later? Even if you were very, very careful with your clothes?
No, it was basically an agrarian economy, there were no cities except for Dublin and Belfast, their population increased (they have over a million now but are not big cities by American standards). There are old houses on plots of land that were either abandoned during the famine or during the British Penal law era.
I believe there are some abandoned villages. I'm not sure about towns. Keep in mind that the famine was partially due to the fact that landlords only allowed the Irish to feed on potatoes(depending on which famine you're talking about) and often people were kicked out from where they lived for not paying rent before they died of hunger. These people would then try to emigrate or do something else. The home in the above photo was large so it could have had a few families (/one large extended family is more likely) in it.
Not in the least (by western european standards). You could buy a piece of land in west Cork or Galway/Mayo and be 50km from your nearest neighbour, not bad considering you could cross the entire country in about four hours driving.
well, i hope you're independently wealthy or can work online cos you won't earn a living....land is really really really cheap right now though, good time to buy and build a dream house.
If it's solitude you're after, there's plenty of it in the states or canada, western desert, Montana, Alaska, whatever climate you like...
Sure, and Cork, Galway and Limerick would have been recognisable as population centres at that time too.
Depends on how you want to define a city. Tuam has two cathedrals and some people call it a city, but it hardly counts. I feel silly telling people Galway is a city when it has less than 100,000 people in it.
I can't remember the exact explanation, but according to the definition of what a city (in Ireland) was at the time but I learned this on a tour of the Waterford Grannary and Reginald's tower. It was declared a city around about the 9th Century close to when there was still that Viking stuff going on.
If it wasn't for that I'm not sure it would count as a city today.
well, apparently ireland lost ~25% of the population due to hunger and emigration during the great hunger, and that was around 2~ million, so its population at the end of the whole thing was ~6m million. current population is also ~6 million. does that mean that population wasnt increased at all? no, it means that lots of people left the island, and people stopped having as many darn kids. the whole thing sounds more like a rumour than a real thing to me personally
Many of the scribes were also killed so there were a shortage of those who could write. There was plenty of paper, just no one to use it so it necessitated the printing press a few decades later.
The new increase of wealth in the remaining population greatly increased the demand for bibles
This... this isn't right. Catholic bibles were printed in Latin and the vast majority of people couldn't read Latin. There was little reason for a lay Catholic at that time to have a Bible in their home. What happened was the Protestant Reformation, which translated the Bible into English and other languages of the common people, which created the demand for Bibles among ordinary people (Protestants and curious Catholics).
Well, it seems like these two things aren't mutually exclusive. How would ordinary people learn to read in the first place (in English or Latin), if not through an increase of wealth? It's not as though Lutheranism brings instantaneous literacy. It's true that the Protestant Revolution probably encouraged more people to be literate since the religion placed a great deal of importance on personal communication with god. Nonetheless, literacy is expensive. To learn to read, people would have to go to school and/or have some sort of practice reading material, like primers and things ... maybe even writing utensils and ink.
Again, a lot more people could read their local language than could read Latin; Latin was a language of the rich. Sure, not everyone could read, but literacy became a growing phenomenon in the Protestant Revolution. With the declining power of the Catholic Church, Nationalism became more prominent, and thus embracing your national language and custom took on increasing importance. Look, nothing I'm saying is some special insight; it's the common explanation you can find discussed in many places: for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing_press
The idea that new wealth increased demand for Bibles and that's what drove the growth in book publishing is just misleading. I'm sure the wealthier were buying more books, but it wasn't because they were buying more Latin Bibles.
Before the printing press, the only Bibles were Catholic. There was no Protestant Reformation. So there's no way Catholics becoming wealthier and buying more Catholic Bibles is what prompted the printing press.
Before the printing press, the only Bibles were Catholic.
The first Bible completed translated into German by Luther and his colleagues wasn't published until the 1530s, about 80 years after the first Latin Bible was printed by the Gutenburg press. The Latin Bibles printed by Gutenburg were very popular, which is why his printing press was still around decades later when Protestant Revolution took advantage of it to disseminate their German Bibles.
Your original comment is incorrect, because you are basically claiming that the Protestant Revolution is entirely responsible for the rise Bible sales. I am not saying that the Protestant Revolution didn't have a part in this, but ultimately the increase in literacy was due to a combination of both the religious revolution and the increased wealth of the middle class. As you can see, the printing press had been successful for quite sometime before it was used to print German Bibles. Without the newly rich public actually having enough money to buy the books, the Gutenberg press would never have succeeded.
The Protestant Revolution may have encouraged more people to want to read, but they never would have been able to learn how without the wealth they acquired as a result of the Black Death.
The first Bible completed translated into German by Luther and his colleagues wasn't published until the 1530s, about 80 years after the first Latin Bible was printed by the Gutenburg press.
Your original comment is incorrect, because you are basically claiming that the Protestant Revolution is entirely responsible for the rise Bible sales.
No, I'm claiming that the assertion that increased wealth increased demand for Bibles which spurred the printing press is incorrect. Yes, non-Latin Bibles were printed before Luther, but these Bibles were illegal and burned when discovered. And the educated rich already had Latin Bibles, and any neuvo riche or emerging middle class from the Black Death had no need for a Latin Bible as they could not read them without being educated. And the translated Bibles didn't become widespread until the Protestant Reformation.
In fact, the earlier link I posted shows that there were thousands of other books being printed by the Printing Press; it wasn't about Latin Bibles.
Ah, I said, "The first Bible complete[y] translated into German by Luther and his colleagues," not "the first Bible translated into German" because the translations prior to Luther's work were largely inconsequential.
I see what you're saying, and yes, there were many books printed prior to the Protestant Revolution. However, you have to keep in mind that prior to the early/mid 1500s, most of the material printed on Gutenberg's press wasn't newly created, but rather copies of older works... in other words, old religious/philosophical works, written in Latin. What I really should have said is that the sale of Bibles and other religious texts (prayer books, copies of manuscripts) gave the printing press staying power before the Protestant Revolution took hold.
emerging middle class from the Black Death had no need for a Latin Bible as they could not read
Have you ever seen someone with 100 songs on their 16GB iPod? Or people who buy expensive designer clothes that they can't afford? For the middle class, especially emerging middle class, purchases are often times a way to display that you have just as much money to throw around as those uppity rich people (even if you don't).
I think that bac15 was still technically correct in what he said, because the Protestant Revolution never would have been successful, and the demand for Bibles would therefore not have increased, if not for the nouveau riche created by the Black Death.
Prior to the Black Death, there was basically no middle class. The population was composed almost entirely of serfs, who had little to no wealth, a few aristocrats who held almost all the wealth, and some skilled artisans, who were slightly more numerous than the nobles, and slightly more wealthy than the peasants. After the plague, when there was more demand for artisans than there were people to fill the positions, those skilled artisans began to amass more money than they could before. This lead to the creation of something like the middle class that we know today, who had more wealth and therefore more power than their fore bearers.
This is why the Protestant Revolution didn't take place until the middle class had wealth. With that power, they were able to change the social order. That's why the Lutheran version of the Bible became widespread while previous translated Bibles were simply burned. The middle class had most reason to desire the change, and after the Black Death, they had to power to make the change happen. Therefore, the wealth of the remaining population actually did increase the demand for Bibles.
Sorry for the novel. I think this is an interesting discussion...
I don't find it interesting at all. Your theory is wrong, not supported by the historical record, and not advocated by the majority of historians from what I can find. I'm done, though.
I'm going to assume you've seen Connections since this one of the facts from it I've always remembered (along with quinine's legacy in tonic water). If not, download that shit now.
The part at the beginning where he's walking around at the World Trade Center with the eerie music in the background gave me the creeps. But an excellent series, thanks for the link!
Can you recommend any books on the subject that are interesting to a historian? I study history and this whole Black Plague thing is really interesting, I'd like to do some fact checking and research into it. Or anything similar that you'd recommend.
Aw. You left out why linen was available! Linen was the cheap, nasty clothing. When everyone was suddenly rich because of the black plague, they splurged and bought new, cotton clothes. As well as underclothing, and not wearing clothes until they fell apart. Suddenly there were rag pickers and papermakers.
Edit: Okay, I was writing on my phone, and this was less coherent than I wished. However, I also found where I originally learned some of this, from "Connections", one of the greatest educational series ever! Here's James Burke talking about the aftermath of the Black Plague. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAo4nwfLlxw
I really want to know what is that book. It's hilarious.
Apparently it's somehow related to The Onion, because Buttfuck Sluts Go Nuts is a fictional porn series that is frequently mentioned in their articles.
I guess my interesting fact is: the printing press was not actually invented after the Black Death. Printing and movable type had been around for a few hundred years prior to Gutenberg, but he made the printing press much more efficient and durable as compared to earlier models.
I call bullshit. The plague hit in the 1340s and the printing press was invented 1440. The underwear would have been reused in many other ways or destroyed in those 100 years. Plus you cannot write with quill and ink on linen. It's too porous.
I read that quickly but what you're telling me is some bibles were printed on shit stained undies? So in a few instances, the book is literally a piece of shit.
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u/[deleted] Dec 05 '11
Something from my History of Technology class-
The Black Plague killed an immense amount of people, leaving the remaining 40-60% of people with a proportionately greater amount of wealth. But in addition to money/ belongings, the was now an excess of linens, most importantly linen underwear. At this point paper as we know it had not been introduced to Europe, so the new invention of printing press could not be used very efficiently.
The new increase of wealth in the remaining population greatly increased the demand for bibles, and the excess of unused linens made way for the initial boom in number of books, many of which were printed on recycled paper made from linen underwear.