So... I’ve been trying to find supporting arguments for my intuition that even though death rate is far lower than Spanish Flu (2%) and European Black Death (25-30%), the civilizational damage is comparable. I’ve found a pretty good one...
It's an interesting theory but there's no good evidence that suggests people considered life cheap and disposable, neither in family nor battle.
https://medievalists.net/2015/06/medieval-warfare-and-the-value-of-a-human-life/…
https/radicaldeathstudies.com/2019/08/20/child-death-and-parental-mourning-in-the-middle-ages/amp/
I got a different impression from a discussion of child-rearing practices in 14th century, where kids were largely neglected beyond basic care for the first 6-7 years, animals were tortured for fun, and peasants were casually slaughtered during uprisings
I don’t know. Tuchman’s book is pretty modern and post the revision from naive dark age theories. The general idea of dynamics of family/societal life with lots of babies and high infant mortality rate squares with my experience. More children = much less investment per child.