Tea at Trianon: On Monasteries and Birth Rates

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, August 27, 2025

On Monasteries and Birth Rates

From Anne Morse-Huércanos at Public Discourse:

Like all demographic patterns, the fertility system in historical Europe was the result of a complex interplay between economics, culture, and institutions. Cultural values dictated that people waited until marriage to have children, and that marriageability was tied to one’s ability to support a family. In combination with norms concerning inheritance and the existence of a largely agricultural economy, this often meant waiting to inherit land before starting a family. Unsurprisingly, this resulted in a comparatively late age at marriage. Where other natural fertility societies often had an average age at marriage in the mid-to-late teens, Europe generally had average ages in the mid-to-late twenties, for both men and women. The European system also left significant proportions of people never having children at all. Despite widespread childlessness, high rates of fertility within marriage maintained a moderate fertility rate in the population.

Within this historical regime shaped by culture and economics, social institutions also played an important role. Monasteries, in particular, served important functions in the demographic ecology. Monasteries absorbed excess children; impoverished parents could safely abandon children they couldn’t care for, and people of all social classes gave children as oblates to avoid dividing the family estate among “too many” offspring. With their members’ vows of chastity, monasteries regulated fertility rates by sequestering part of the population from reproduction. Monasteries also provided social goods such as education for the poor, hospitals for the sick, and relief for the impoverished. (Read more.)