Western Civilization.p

(Jacob Rumans) #1

CHAPTER OUTLINE


I. Introduction

II. People and Space: Population Density, Travel,
and Communication

III. Life Expectancy in the Old Regime

IV. Disease and the Biological Old Regime
A. Public Health before the Germ Theory
B. Medicine and the Biological Old Regime

V. Subsistence Diet and the Biological Old Regime
A. The Columbian Exchange and the European
Diet
B. Famine in the Old Regime
C. Diet, Disease, and Appearance

VI. The Life Cycle: Birth
A. The Life Cycle: Infancy and Childhood
B. The Life Cycle: Marriage and the Family
C. The Life Cycle: Sexuality and Reproduction
D. The Life Cycle: Old Age

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CHAPTER 18


DAILY LIFE IN THE OLD REGIME


F


or most Europeans, the basic conditions of life in
the eighteenth century had changed little since
the agricultural revolution of Neolithic times.
Chapter 18 describes those conditions and
shows in dramatic terms how life at the end of the Old
Regime differed from that of the present day. It begins
by exploring the basic relationships between people
and their environment, including the density of popula-
tion in Europe and the barriers to speedy travel and
communication. The chapter then examines the life of
ordinary people, beginning with its most striking fea-
ture: low life expectancy. The factors that help to ex-
plain that high level of mortality, especially inadequate
diet and the prevalence of epidemic disease, are then
discussed. Finally, the life cycle of those who survived
infancy is considered, including such topics as the dan-
gers of childbirth; the Old Regime’s understanding of
childhood; and its attitudes toward marriage, the fam-
ily, sexuality, and reproduction.




People and Space: Population Density,

Travel, and Communication

The majority of the people who lived in Europe during
the Old Regime never saw a great city or even a town
of twenty-five thousand people. Most stayed within a
few miles of their home village and the neighboring
market town. Studies of birth and death records show
that more than 90 percent of the population of the
eighteenth century died in the same region where they
were born, passing their lives amid relatively few peo-
ple. Powerful countries and great cities of the eigh-
teenth century were small by twentieth-century
standards (see population tables in chapter 17). Great
Britain numbered an estimated 6.4 million people in
1700 (less than the state of Georgia today) and Vienna
held 114,000 (roughly the size of Fullerton, California,
or Tallahassee, Florida). People at the start of the

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