Re:Life Expectancy Among European Scholars from the 16th to ...
by Telemakhos on Wednesday March 31, 2021 @08:24AM
(#26646292)
Erasmus of Rotterdam was one of the greatest scholars of the Renaissance and certainly one of, if not the, best Latinist. His father was a priest, and so could not legally marry Erasmus' mother, who was apparently the father's housekeeper; they were not well-off. The parents died from the plague in 1483, and Erasmus was thereafter raised and educated by monks, whom he eventually joined out of poverty. He went on to become one of the most influential Latinists in history.
There was a nobility during the Renaissance, but underneath that was a churning sea of social mobility that rewarded intelligence and capability.
In many cities you can see that the lifespan increases with the average household income of the neighbourhood, and if you look at say, Monaco, one of the richest per-capita cities, the average life expectancy is 85 for men and 93 for women, over 20 years longer than the average European scholar.