Lifespans of the European Elite, 800-1800

Principal Investigator(s):  View help for Principal Investigator(s) Neil Cummins, London School of Economics

Version:  View help for Version V1

Name File Type Size Last Modified
NobleLifespan_Cummins2017.R text/x-r-syntax 63.3 KB 09/26/2016 04:14:PM
fti20finals.Rda application/gzip 8.3 MB 03/09/2017 06:58:AM
fti_deaths.Rda application/gzip 13.9 MB 03/09/2017 06:54:AM

Project Citation: 

Cummins, Neil. Lifespans of the European Elite, 800-1800. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2017-03-09. https://doi.org/10.3886/E100492V1

Project Description

Summary:  View help for Summary I analyze the adult age at death of 115,650 European nobles from 800 to 1800. Longevity began increasing long before 1800 and the Industrial Revolution, with marked increases around 1400 and again around 1650. Declines in violent deaths from battle contributed to some of this increase, but the majority must reflect other changes in individual behavior. There are historic spatial contours to European elite mortality; North-West Europe achieved greater adult lifespans than the rest of Europe even by 1000AD.

The data underlying this analysis is deposited here and the code files replicate the tables and figures in the paper. The data and replication files are in the R language. 




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