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Are we all descended from country nobility?
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calvo View Drop Down
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Posts: 846 		  Quote calvo Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Are we all descended from country nobility?
    Posted: 10-Oct-2007 at 11:56

A few weeks ago there was an article on the Spanish newspaper EL PAIS, stating a theory that the majority of modern populations do not descend ENTIRELY from ancient and medieval populations, but only a fraction of them: notably the country nobility.

Why?

Prior to the industrial age, endemic diseases were rampant and most human populations lived on subsistence level. Infant mortality was very high and anthropolgists have made the calculation that every woman would need to have at least 5 children to maintain a stable population, because on average 3 of them would not make it to reproductive age.

In major cities like London, Paris, Bagdad, Beijing, or Delhi, the mortality rate would have been even higher due to the unhygenic conditions. It has been estimated that as recent as the 1700s diseases killed of 40% of each generation of Londoners, with their numbers recompensated by immigrants from the countryside.

However, the nobility, due to a more nutritious diet and more advanced sanitary habits, enjoyed a longer life expectancy with a greater proportion of their children surviving to reproductive age.
People from the countryside also lived under better conditions than those in the cities.
If we take on average that a noblewoman living in the countryside had 7 children in which 4 of them survived to have children, while a plebian city-dwelling woman had 5 (she had more probability to die in childbirth) in which only 2 surivived; filtering through the generations, the genes of the "country nobility" would no doubt dominate over the entire population.
 
Since the invention of modern medicine and sewers, this tendency has been halted, as rich and poor people had the same probabilities of having descendants who survive them.
 
However, most of us alive now would carry a disproportionate amount of genes from the medieval aristocracy, with plebians, serfs, and slaves leaving a much smaller genetic imprint.
 
Do you think this theory makes any sense?
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Patch View Drop Down
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Posts: 119 		  Quote Patch Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10-Oct-2007 at 12:34
A similar theory has been produced by Professor Gregory Clark of the University of California.  He puts the inductrial revolution down to the greater survivability of the rich over the poor.
 
 


Edited by Patch - 10-Oct-2007 at 12:35
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Constantine XI View Drop Down
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Posts: 5711 		  Quote Constantine XI Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10-Oct-2007 at 12:46
I am cautious about accepting this. We must keep in mind that proportionally the nobility may have been responsible for more of the fighting and warfare. In some particularly awful battles, you would have a whole mass of your noble class men wiped out and those who survived the war went on to marry into the nobility.
 
Let's not also forget the merchant class. Less of the poverty, less of the fighting.
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Posts: 3387 		  Quote Aelfgifu Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10-Oct-2007 at 17:06
The theory also leaves out the fact that nobility, perhaps due to the high number of financially or politcally motivated marriages, would in general have a lot less offspring to begin with. A happily married farmers couple might keep reproducing until too old or death, but many noble couples had just enough kids to be relatively sure of continuin the bloodline and then keep out of each others way. (much easier to do when you have a house or castle rather than a one-room hut, too). Also the noblemans kids would be no more resistant to diseases than other kids.
 
Another interesting thing is the diet. It was not the nobility who ate best, but the merchant people. Veggies were not a valued food during much of the past. The very rich could afford lots of meat on a regular basis, and they would have a far too protein rich diet in general: why eat greens when you can afford haunches, after all. A young knight witb plenty of workout in fighting, practicing, hunting etc. would be able to handle that, but the more inactive types, as well as the older men retired from regular duties or exercise would quickly become clotted up inside.
The poor would of course have a very one-sided diet too.
The merchants on the other hand would have been rich enough to eat meat, and yet would have to add vegetables to make a full meal. This means they would often eat waht we would now consider a balanced meal.

Women hold their councils of war in kitchens: the knives are there, and the cups of coffee, and the towels to dry the tears.
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Posts: 846 		  Quote calvo Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10-Oct-2007 at 17:23

This theory might apply if the population lived in peace where the same social and economic situation continued for centuries and centuries without any major disturbances.

However, survival of the fittest is determined by other more important factors like surviving "bottlenecks" - the typical examples are plagues or large-scale wars involving the mobilisation of almost the entire nation.
 
The Black Death apparently wiped out between 1/2 and 1/3 of the population of Eurasia. Those who survived it, regardless of economic status, would have given a much more significant genetic imprint than those who did not, on the modern populations.
 
 
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