On Tuesday, September 5, 2017 at 7:01:26 AM UTC+2, Peter Stewart wrote: > I wonder how much less frequent this kind of downward social mobility is > estimated to be in European countries where 'nobility' was somewhat more > like a caste system than in England. Edward III's contemporary the Holy > Roman emperor Charles IV had 10 children, but I haven't seen estimates > that 80% of any national population are probably descended from him. I have been working on Belgium lately. I do not think you can generalize usefully about Britain versus Europe. Within Britain I think there are very big differences between say the southeastern cities like London and Norwich, and the deep countryside (with their surrounding manors). There are also differences in the countryside, with the sparsely populated marches have quite a different dynamic for example. Within Europe there also massive regional differences. I think more useful is to look for factors which make a difference nearly always. Too suggest 3: whether the clergy could have children, whether there was a substantial merchant class, such as in the free cities whether the rural work was done by a large servile class (such as in heavily populated lowlands) or by thinner clan-like kinship networks (which I think was more typical in the pastoral economies of the marches).