Sort each item by whether it supports reading the period as a CRISIS or as a RECOVERY and reorganisation.
Groups: Supports "crisis" · Supports "recovery"
- More land available per surviving household
- Printing with movable type from the 1450s
- Improved diets and higher real wages for workers
- A war between France and England lasting over a century
- Rival popes commanding divided obedience for forty years
Hints
- One column counts the deaths and the institutional breakdowns; the other counts what the survivors had.
- Ask whether you are measuring the population or the individual.
Show the answer
Supports "crisis": Rival popes commanding divided obedience for forty years, A war between France and England lasting over a century
Supports "recovery": More land available per surviving household, Improved diets and higher real wages for workers, Printing with movable type from the 1450s
The two columns are answering different questions, which is why the debate is hard to settle. Aggregate output, population and institutional coherence all fell; output per head, land per head and wages all rose. Whether that is a crisis depends on whether you are counting the society or the person inside it.
Practise The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries: a Time of Crisis?
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More questions on The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries: a Time of Crisis?
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