Working saeculum

C	1147-1176	A	1305-1328
H	1176-1204	U	1328-1355
A	1204-1231	C	1355-1385
U	1231-1258	H	1385-1410
C	1258-1282	A	1410-1435
H	1282-1305	U	1435-1459

I start with an Awakening over 1305-28 proposed by Dave McGuinness at this site back around 2000. The reason for his dating an awakening at this time apparently was the beginning of the Avignon papacy and the abuses of papal and church authority that would eventually lead to the Reformation two centuries later.

Looking at my religious/spiritual events database I find few such events over the 1282-1355 period consisting of the proposed Awakening, the High before it and the Unraveling afterward:

1294 Order of Hermits of St. Augustine founded
1309 Knights of Rhodes founded
1312 Order of Montessa founded
1321 Dante Alighieri - "Divine Comedy"
1324 Marsiglio of Padua - "Defensor Pacis"
1328 William of Ockam (proponent of clerical poverty) excommunicated
1342 Rolle - "The Fire of Love"
1353 Our Lady of Sienna
1372 Dame Julian, mystical experiences
1375 John Wyclif develops Lollardy

The 1305-28 period shows 5 events, the turning before shows 1 and the two after each show 2, supporting McGuiness’s determination that it was an Awakening.

Strauss and Howe describe the spiritual awakening period as one in which "sex role distinctions narrow, public order deteriorates, and crime and substance abuse rise (Generations p 355).

Here are crime rates reported in Norfolk over the 1300-1348 period (Barbara Hanawalt, Crime and Conflict in English Communities, Cambridge MA, 1979, p 243-79)

Year	# Crimes	Year	# Crimes
1300-04	45	1325-29	104
1305-09	49	1330-34	54
1310-14	62	1335-39	30
1315-19	184	1340-44	44
1320-24	146	1345-38	58

The average over the proposed awakening in 1305-28 was 110, compared to 48 for the period outside. The difference is statistically significant at >99.98%. This finding is consistent with an Awakening.

Deterioration of public order suggests increased social unrest. Here is a site that tracks popular uprisings over the 14^th through 17^th centuries. I summarize events over the period from 1305 to the first S&H turning:

Dates	UK	FR	Flanders	SP	Hanseatic	Scand	Total	Rate
1305-1328	1	1	1				3	0.12
1328-1355				1			1	0.04
1355-1385	3	11	1		7	1	23	0.77
1385-1410				1	4		5	0.20
1410-1435	1	2		2		1	6	0.24
1435-1459	1			1			2	0.08

The putative awakening period is does not contain a large number of such events compared to the other periods.

The 1305-28 period saw the Great Famine. Heavy rains led to a bad harvest in 1315. In 1316 they happened again and Europe experienced the worst famine in its history. The historian David Fischer (The Great Wave, p. 37) describes the horror:

When other sources of food ran out, people began to eat one another. Peasant families consumed the bodies of the dead. Corpses were dug up from their burial grounds and eaten. In jails the convicts ceased to be fed; we are told that starving inmates “ferociously attacked new prisoners and devoured them half alive.” Condemned criminals were cut down from the gallows, butchered, and eaten. Parents killed their children for food, and children murdered their parents.

This certainly can provide motivation for discontent and a questioning of the social order, which did develop during the 14^th century. Did this questioning begin with the Avignon papacy and the associated changes in church? What else can one look for to confirm an awakening at one particular time and not another?

Mikebert,

What do you make of the Lollard Movement of the 1370s - 1390s which shocked people by translating the Bible into English and questioning the doctrine of transubstantiation? It came back again later in the 1400s, but it originally got off its feet and remained moving until the death of Richard II in 1399. In fact when you look at how the movement spreads, it sounds very much like an Awakening movement. In fact the "Lollard Knights" who evaded prosecution (unlike the more vocal priests such as John Ball) and managed to remain "discrete" but still strong about their support and following the principles in a personal manner sound like a bunch of Artists akin to the equivalent of "Corporate Hippies" of the Silent Generation, at least in my mind.

In fact one of the rioters for the Peasant Revolt was a Lollard preacher who uttered the most famous line about the uprising: "When Adam delved and Eve span, who then was the gentleman?" which of course asked the question of how the nobility came to exist in the first place when mankind was supposedly all "workers" since Adam and Eve--charging that the nobility was a corrupt human institution irreligious in the sight of God. And we all know which part of a saeculum loves to proclaim institutions corrupt and irreligious...

A very clear Crisis comes in the era of Edward II (1307 - 1327) when English control over Scotland comes to an end and Scotland is provoking England to be unstable with frequent raids which along with Edward II's numerous political mistakes and choice to have male favorites all helping to justify the nation being thrown into a civil struggle over the crown with the Crisis only ending 1329 when Edward III finally took the throne away from his power-hungry mother, Isabella, and quelled the Scottish problem himself not too long thereafter (in the early 1330s). Under Edward III's reign we get the development of the national identity of England as England, the development of England as one of the most formidable military powers in Europe, and he's the one who began the Hundred Year's War which after some initial setbacks, overall went very well under him. Edward III began the cult of Chivalry--consider this the Age of Chivalry--and supported nationalistic works of literature written in the English language to help promote the English language amongst all classes. Sure his reign also contains the Black Death, but that hits the society differently from the tract it's already been on. Overall, Edward III's considered a high point in English History, especially in consideration to the mess that came before in the form of his father. I'm not saying Edward III's entire reign is a High, but that a High most definitely occurred under his reign at some point, despite there being the Black Death (in fact, probably before it).

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by Chas'88

What do you make of the Lollard Movement of the 1370s - 1390s which shocked people by translating the Bible into English and questioning the doctrine of transubstantiation? It came back again later in the 1400s, but it originally got off its feet and remained moving until the death of Richard II in 1399. In fact when you look at how the movement spreads, it sounds very much like an Awakening movement. In fact the "Lollard Knights" who evaded prosecution (unlike the more vocal priests such as John Ball) and managed to remain "discrete" but still strong about their support and following the principles in a personal manner sound like a bunch of Artists akin to the equivalent of "Corporate Hippies" of the Silent Generation, at least in my mind.

You raise a good issue. When I first looking into this 12 years ago, I noted the Hussite phenomenon, which fell neatly into the pre-1435 period that ought to map into an Awakening. I found that it was based on the teaching of John Wycliffe who had been active in the 1370's. The spacing between Wycliffe and Hus was too long for them both to be Awakening figures, so how to proceed? Initially I proceeded by constructing a timeline of religious events to see which periods were unusually rich in such events. I presented a portion of this timeline in my post.

This analysis shows peaks in the frequency of religious events corresponding to the four great awakenings and it also show noticeable clusters in the early 12th century (first crusade, Templars, Hospitalers, Cistercians) and the 13th century (Franciscans, Dominicans) which look like Awakenings. So I had what looked like Awakenings early in the 12th, 13th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Looks like one in the early 14th was missing. Then I came up with the idea that if I used Roman Catholic saints as examples of spiritual/religious people, I could perhaps identify prophet gens. Each of these lives when they lived (flourished) would itself by an event. I added 33 to their birth years to get the year of their flourishing. I used age 33 because this was the average age of religious/spiritual movement founders in my database. So these saint-based dates were added to the event timeline, and this much larger data allowed me to see a large peak early in the 14^th century and not during Wycliffe’s’ time.

This analysis was done in the 2000-2001 timeframe. In 2005, after discussions with John Xenakis, I re-examined my database and found lots more saints. Apparently John Paul II had canonized a ton of saints and none of these were in the earlier database I had consulted, but they were in the one I consulted in 2005. This new analysis destroyed the neat pattern with the four awakenings, casting spiritual event analysis into question (at least when using saints). Stripped of the saints, the record is too thin to make statistically significant determinations.

However, I believe taking a turning by turning approach and looking at a broad range of information some may be salvaged from my earlier effort. It is true that the initial impetus for what McGuiness calls the Hussite Awakening came from John Wycliffe, a putative Crisis figure, Wycliffe in turn was inspired by the workers earlier in the century who first began to question the worldliness and ungodly behavior of the church. William of Ockham and his colleagues lived a life of apostolic poverty and believed more clerics should, a concept that directly challenged the church establishment with their sumptuous banquets at Avignon at a time when their flock was starving by the thousands. He and the superior of his order were forced to flee for their lives and Ockham was excommunicated for preaching things that the church never ruled was actually heretical.

In contrast Wycliffe's writing were well received by the English secular authorities who naturally did not care for the French popes still at Avignon. Wycliffe's ideas during his lifetime had more political impact than spiritual. Later, under Hus, they were used to undergird a new way of living, what was later called the "Bohemian lifestyle", which I think was an attempt to live according to Christ's directive to live in the present and not hoard wealth or make plans for the future. Thus, one might think the expression of Lollardy under Hus was perhaps more Awakening-style than it had been under Wycliffe.

In fact one of the rioters for the Peasant Revolt was a Lollard preacher who uttered the most famous line about the uprising: "When Adam delved and Eve span, who then was the gentleman?" which of course asked the question of how the nobility came to exist in the first place when mankind was supposedly all "workers" since Adam and Eve--charging that the nobility was a corrupt human institution irreligious in the sight of God. And we all know which part of a saeculum loves to proclaim institutions corrupt

Surely you can see the political nature of John Balls’ question? It is positively Marxian. Marx believed that the people of his time were alienated from their true natures by capitalism that provided an overabundance to a few and too little to the many. Ball implied that society had diverted from God’s plan in recent times (i.e. people were alienated from their true natures as equal in the sight of God).

Until the 14^th century peasants had (in theory) been one of the three orders in society: those who fight (nobility), those who pray (clergy), and those who work (peasantry). All were considered equally next to God. Peasants had a hard life, but so did most people. As the land reached its population carrying capacity around 1300 the nobility had extracted an increasingly-greater share of an ever-slower growing pie because the surplus labor relative to the land, gave them the upper hand economically. When the limit was reached and workers started dying in droves, it was necessary for the upper classes to justify their position as God's children relative to fellow children of God who were starving. Those who were poor came to be seen as less close to God, and hence deserving of a fate different from God's elect, just as today’s elites use beliefs about the invisible hand to justify the current social order.

A very clear Crisis comes in the era of Edward II (1307 - 1327) when English control over Scotland comes to an end and Scotland is provoking England to be unstable with frequent raids which along with Edward II's numerous political mistakes and choice to have male favorites all helping to justify the nation being thrown into a civil struggle over the crown with the Crisis only ending 1329 when Edward III finally took the throne away from his power-hungry mother, Isabella, and quelled the Scottish problem himself not too long thereafter (in the early 1330s). Under Edward III's reign we get the development of the national identity of England as England, the development of England as one of the most formidable military powers in Europe, and he's the one who began the Hundred Year's War which after some initial setbacks, overall went very well under him.

How is this any different from the sort of political wrangling that was going on all over Europe during all sorts of turnings? Edward II is fighting with the Scots, three decades earlier they were tussling with the Welsh, and the turnings after they are duking it out with the French. Recall that the King of England was also the Duke of Normandy and the French king was his liege lord. Until King John about a century before this time, the English king was based in France and had more domains there than in England. They lost most of their French territory under John and so the Normans were forced to be "English", a big step down from their former glory. John's successors sought to enlarge their realm, first in Wales, then in Scotland, and when the opportunity arose, in France under Edward III.

Edward III began the cult of Chivalry--consider this the Age of Chivalry--and supported nationalistic works of literature written in the English language to help promote the English language amongst all classes.

Edward attempted to revive the moribund concept of Chivalry though his Order of the Garter. And yes, after losing most of their French domains the Norman court had moved to England and the Normans gradually picked up the language & culture just as the German Georges later did (George I did not speak English, George II spoke broken English, George III was fluent in English). By the time of Edward III, the Normans were culturally and linquistically English.

Sure his reign also contains the Black Death, but that hits the society differently from the tract it's already been on. Overall, Edward III's considered a high point in English History, especially in consideration to the mess that came before in the form of his father. I'm not saying Edward III's entire reign is a High, but that a High most definitely occurred under his reign at some point, despite there being the Black Death (in fact, probably before it).

The plague occurs 19 years after your 1329 Awakening end, planting it squarely in the High. So you have a High in which a third of the population dies. This was followed by a continent heaving with revolt and unrest, and the sort of challenges to the social order and legitimacy of the existing establishment as John Ball gave. This latter could be an Awakening, since unrest is typical of social moments in general.

But consider that the complaint Ball raised was an echo of what Ockham and others had talking about half a century earlier. Ockham was merely criticizing the church on doctrinal matters (he was no revolutionary) while Ball was a spokesman for an angry mob. Which one is the political actor? Yet Ockham was excommunicated and forced to flee for his life. Why? Was he a heretic? Why no, less than two decades after his death the church restored his reputation (it took them three centuries to do the same for Galileo). Obviously he was not wrong theologically (and they knew it since no evolution in thinking could have occurred over such a short time), the authorities simply did not like the implications of what he said, implications that took a more threatening form two turnings later.

Ultimately, nothing political came out of the protests of the 1355-85 period. Real wages rose dramatically though, improving the material lives of commoners. So the crisis can be said to have had an economically successful outcome, but political action had nothing to do with this. On the other hand this improvement might have been seen as a restoration of the way God intended things to be. This is just a conjecture, as I have not researched it.

The Great Famine and Great Plague crises stand out in tumultuous century. It is not trivial to carve such a century into turnings, which is why I started here. There is plenty of material to work with.

Have you looking at my mechanism thread? Eight years ago I developed some analytical ideas that can be used to explore the workings of the saeculum in more detail.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

How is this any different from the sort of political wrangling that was going on all over Europe during all sorts of turnings? Edward II is fighting with the Scots, three decades earlier they were tussling with the Welsh, and the turnings after they are duking it out with the French. Recall that the King of England was also the Duke of Normandy and the French king was his liege lord. Until King John about a century before this time, the English king was based in France and had more domains there than in England. They lost most of their French territory under John and so the Normans were forced to be "English", a big step down from their former glory. John's successors sought to enlarge their realm, first in Wales, then in Scotland, and when the opportunity arose, in France under Edward III.

I'm perfectly aware of this part of English History (Henry II being the pinnacle of it), although you can tell when issues appear concerning rulers and their barons because they tend to repeat in English History: Stephen vs. Mathilda (there's a history play in this conflict yet to be written, that would be perfect for our times), Henry II vs. his Archbishops (this conflict should be an Awakening), King John vs. Geoffrey, Edward II vs. Isabella, Richard II vs. Bolingbroke, etc. There always seems to be a noticeable pattern of conflicts popping up between Kings of England and their Barons, that can either be classified as Awakenings or Crises themselves.

King John is an intriguing ruler--and I don't just say that because I'm descended from a bastard child of his. His rule is akin to Richard III's in terms of problems (and by that I mean his rule being threatened by the existence of children of an older sibling existing and each being suspected of bumping off their young nephews). In that case, the King of France supported the young nephew's claim to the throne and such tension caused many problems and the eventual loss of most of the land in France. Shakespeare's history play on the matter has John being a wily old devil, but one who isn't completely black hearted as he has nothing to do with his nephew's death (Shakespeare portrays Geoffrey as leaping to his death--unclear whether its suicide or a botched escape attempt) and tries to repent for the boy's death in the end because he thinks the boy died on his hands because he wished for it to happen. The obvious 4T conflict which created the Magna Carta is not even mentioned in Shakespeare's play, instead the consequences of Geoffrey's death are what drive the latter part of the play and is seen as being the major issue.

The major issue of Shakespeare's Richard II is "what do we do when we have a King who's corrupted?" We force him to abdicate. (Nothing about the Peasant's Revolt is even mentioned in that play, despite it taking place in Richard's reign, I should note). This forced abdication idea stems from Edward II--but Shakespeare never wrote that play, Marlowe did. And that abdication has consequences which cause other barons, the common people, and even the welsh to rebel against the usurper, Shakespeare combines all the rebellions of Henry IV's reign into one in Part One. Only with Henry V do you get another "triumphal moment" with the battle of Agincourt.

Personally, I tend to notice that a large majority of the "triumphs" of a nation in national memories tend to come around the late High/early Awakening eras to be seen as the ultimate "golden era" lost to time. You can see this in our saeculum with the "Moon Launch" completing the "Camelot" vision of America's future--Kennedy's "Camelot" being that ultimate "golden era". These types of "moments" are seen as the last time the people "banded together to get something done before it all went wrong". That usually is what drives this nostalgia--and the victory of Agincourt was seen in this light, especially come Shakespeare's times knowing that the War of the Roses would occur during Henry VI's reign, as the Chorus at the end of Henry V reminds us ominously.

What's funny is that Shakespeare ends not with the victory of Agincourt, but in Henry V wooing a difficult Katherine of Valois (it's always the Katherines who are "difficult" in Shakespeare) to be his Queen.

Although I use a lot of history plays and films as ways to "enter" (I do do actual historical research as well), I do so keeping the mind that I'm looking at how these periods look in retrospect, and when I do that I try to compare how we look at our own history in retrospect to try and find connections. It is important after all to look at how we look at turnings after they've finished, because certain turnings typically get remembered certain ways. This especially is true when we look at how those periods are remembered in context with what came before and what came after. If we have the completion of a long series of events that built on top of one another and stretch over many decades, more than likely we have a Crisis. If we have a brief triumphal moment after having recovered from a previous trouble but before problems that just get worse, we likely have a late High/early Awakening triumphal moment.

After all, things that are held by a people collectively in the nostalgia bubble in a similar regard SHOULD be similar types of periods. And usually you can tell when something's an Awakening conflict and when something's a Crisis conflict as an Awakening conflict feeds later into the Crisis conflict.

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by Chas'88

There always seems to be a noticeable pattern of conflicts popping up between Kings of England and their Barons, that can either be classified as Awakenings or Crises themselves.

I've noted that, for example the 13th century saeculum has the two Baron's wars in 1215-16 & 1264-65 that fall within McGuiness Awakening (1204-1231) and Crisis (1258-1282) turnings.

Although I use a lot of history plays and films as ways to "enter" (I do do actual historical research as well)

I see a problem with using Shakespeare a the primary source. For example, you mention that Shakespeare doesn't mention the Peasants revolt. The chronicler's accounts (where Shakespeare got his info) don’t say much about the common people, or about the Black Death or the Great Famine either. For example, during the Great Famine they note that the king at one time had to skip a meal when on traveling because there was no food that could be secured. Or during the plague, Edward III complaining about how the City of London was not being properly kept up and decreed that the street are to be swept as of old. The chroniclers were writing for an audience of elites who wanted to hear about themselves, and so that’s what they got.

But of course some elites were aware of issues affecting commoners. For example, during the period around the Great Famine some intellectuals noted that while most Christians (presumed equal in the eyes of God) starved, the prelates of the church lived in luxury. This dichotomy raised disturbing questions, particularly amongst members of the mendicant orders. Was it OK for the earthly representatives of Christ to live and behave as if they were nobles or even royalty? The church attempted to suppress this sort of thinking. In 1318, four Franciscans were executed for practicing an extreme form of poverty. In 1322 the pope declared the Franciscan doctrine that Christ and the apostles had no property as heresy. In 1328, William of Ockham, a proponent of clerical poverty, was excommunicated and forced to flee for his life.

The Black Death killed a lot of commoners, which changed a world in which labor has been in surplus into one in which it was in shortage. Even before the end of the first outbreak of the Black Death, there were efforts by the authorities to stem the upward pressure on wages, with parliament passing the emergency Ordinance of Laborers in 1349 and the Statute of Laborers in 1351. Efforts to regulate the economy continued as rising wages put pressure on the landed classes. In 1363 parliament attempted unsuccessfully to centrally regulate craft production, trading and retailing. A rising amount of the royal courts' time was involved in enforcing the failing labor legislation – as much as 70% by the 1370s. Many land owners attempted to vigorously enforce rents payable through agricultural service rather than money through their local manor courts, leading to attempts by many village communities to legally challenge local feudal practices using the Domesday Book as a legal basis for their claims. With the wages of the lower classes still rising, the government also attempted to regulate demand and consumption by reinstating the sumptuary laws in 1363. These laws banned the lower classes from consuming certain products or wearing high-status clothes, The 1370s also saw the government facing difficulties in funding the war with France. In 1377 turned to a new system of poll taxes, aiming to spread the costs of taxation across the entirety of English society. There was a violent response to these policies. There were 21 popular uprisings over the 1363-1384 period (one of which is the English Peasants revolt) compared to 6 over the rest of the century. In the end the commoners won. By the end of the century the lot of the common people had greatly improved; real wages had risen more than 60% from the levels in the early 14th century and the material crisis of the 14^th century had dissipated.

All of this occurs outside of the accounts of the chroniclers and so Shakespeare had no access to this history. Neither did modern historians until the 20^th century. Elite history is useful for looking at the 12^th and 13^th centuries when the struggle was elite versus elite, as you note:

If we have the completion of a long series of events that built on top of one another and stretch over many decades, more than likely we have a Crisis.

You can clearly see this build-up over the 1242-1263 period before the second Baron's war:

1242 Monfort questions Henry's finances, start of buildup to Civil War
1254 Parliament summoned to discuss finances
1258 Oxford Parliament, Henry agrees under duress to committee to oversea state finance
1260 Committee disbands after failing to reach agreement (sounds like the sequester thing eh?)
1261 Henry attempts to re-assert his former power (as if Oxford had never happened)
1263 Fighting breaks out
1264 Simon Monfort & 2nd barons war
1265 War ends with death of Montfort, Ordinary People's Parliament called to discuss finance

But a case can be made for the first baron's war too:

1207 John imposes income tax
1212 John extorts money from barons
1215 John sings Magna Carta under duress
1216 John reneges and 1st Baron's war breaks out

If you read the elite history, one would think the 14^th English century was about the various Edwards’ squabbles with Welsh, Scottish and French nobility, when the entire material basis for Medieval society was in collapse. To rely solely on a noble-focused account one misses development in philosophy and ethics that had (and still have) a bearing on out times. One of these was the consequences of the appearance of the mendicant orders in the early 13^th century awakening, an issue that with the new pope, still has echoes to this day.

The following table gives some economic information organized by McGuiness turning. The price level is basically a CPI with 1495 = 100. Real Wages are a measure of the living standard for common laborers, higher is better. Price stress is a measure of how high prices are relative to their long term tern, it is an indicator of times of relative food shortage, higher is worse. Building projects shows two values the number of construction starts on major religious buildings (mostly cathedrals and abbeys) and secular buildings (mostly castles) for that turning. Except for the buildings the data is all for England, the buildings are from all of western Europe.

What patterns do you see and how would you explain them?

Period	Turning	Real Wages	Price Level	Price Stress	Religious Bldgs.	Secular Bldgs.
1022..1049	U	--	--	--	3
1049..1071	C	--	--	--	5	6
1072..1095	H	--	--	--	13	4
1096..1122	A	--	--	--	5	1
1123..1147	U	--	--	--	14
1148..1175	C	--	26	0.67	7	1
1176..1203	H	--	38	0.38	4	1
1204..1231	A	56	78	0.56	2	1
1232..1257	U	64	92	0.46	6
1258..1282	C	50	114	0.53	4
1283..1304	H	53	118	0.43	4	3
1305..1327	A	47	150	0.61		1
1328..1355	U	65	121	0.33	3	1
1356..1384	C	69	147	0.59	1
1385..1410	H	84	123	0.44
1411..1435	A	98	122	0.5	4
1436..1459	U	105	116	0.48	3	2
1460..1487	C	104	117	0.50	1	3
1488..1516	H	102	117	0.41	2	1

To help us both in our research:



~Chas'88

The video continued... this video seems to show how England and France have already gone their separate ways in terms of common culture, as what's described in the beginning is the two countries being in two separate turnings. After having forced a peace treaty after the first 20 years, England gets a time of peace, stability, estate building, and such, while France descends into more chaos.



~Chas'88

And here is Part Three:



~Chas'88

Another documentary...



~Chas'88

This is a good series about the rise of female monarchs in England. This is episode two and is the only one that I can find at the moment. It might be a good way to look at the idea of whether or not England's in a Crisis or an Awakening. Because some (like Eleanor of Aquitaine) definitely strike during an Awakening of some sort.



~Chas'88

Bad King John Documentary



~Chas'88

Here I will introduce the use of popular unrest as a social moment indicator. The table below lists the number of events of popular unrest per decade I was able to find from a variety of sources (listed at bottom). You can see outbursts of unrest in the US that correspond to the Great Awakening (1727-46), the Revolutionary crisis (1773-1794) and the Transcendental Awakening (1822-44), showing the promise of this tool for identifying social moment turnings.

Of particular interest is the Revolutionary crisis. The US dates shows two waves of unrest, one in the decade after the French and Indian War and one after the Revolution. The war itself is relatively devoid of events. This reflects the nature of the database, which does not list explicitly political events, like those surrounding the war of Independence. These events would go into the lists of events in what Robert Butler calls spirals of violence, which is another way of characterizing social moment turnings. I give examples of these for the 13^th century here. What is shown here is an initial wave of unrest over 1766-75, associated with the beginning of a period of economic stress (1770-87) that when further analyzed in terms of the spiral, resolves into a buildup to war from 1765 (start of the Sons of liberty) to the 1775 outbreak of war at Lexington, which reached the point of irreversibility with the Tea Party in 1773, which serves as the divider between the 3T and 4T. After the war there is a second burst unrest, indicating that the crisis is not finished. And indeed, the record of political events shows the failure of the first constitution, its replacement with the one we have now, and the creation of a viable national state in the years after. Based on this story the 4T/1T divider for the US is drawn at 1794.

Unrest events per decade

Period	UK	France	Neth	Ger	US
1696-1710	1.3	0.8	0.4	3.6	0.8
1711-1725	1.3	0.0	0.0	2.7	0.0
1726-1747	1.4	0.0	0.5	3.2	5.0
1748-1765	0.0	0.0	0.0	1.7	1.1
1766-1775	1.0	1.0	0.0	2.0	8.0
1776-1785	1.0	0.0	0.0	6.0	1.0
1786-1795	3.0	10.0	1.0	2.0	7.0
1796-1810	1.3	2.0	NA	NA	1.3
1811-1821	4.5	0.0	NA	NA	0.9
1822-1844	1.7	0.9	NA	NA	13.9
1845-1860	0.0	0.6	NA	NA	4.4

What is interesting in this table is the data for other countries. Since the Revolutionary 4T in America closely involved Britain, a 4T in that country at around the same time would make sense. I have found three British 4T’s from former posters who are professional historians: 1776-98 (McGuiness) 1783-1806 (Alston) and 1778-1805 Krein for a consensus of 1779-1804, implying a 6-10 year delay in the British 4T compared to the American one. A spike in British unrest aligned with the second American spike supports the idea of a later 4T. I have a good deal of data for 18th century Britain, including crime trends, recreational drug (alcohol) use, and economic fluctuations based on indices of trade and industrial production as well as prices, which well supports Awakening and Crisis turnings at around the S&H dates give or take 5-10 years. So I take the British 4T in the late 18th century as well as a 2T in the 1720-45 period as established.

We see a huge burst of unrest in France over the 1786-95 period, but only one. This outbreak is associated with the spiral surrounding the French Revolution. As was done with the US, the many political events that are part of Revolution are not included in the database (the attempt here is to measure socioeconomic distress, not political unrest). What this data suggests is the 4T in France overlapped with that of the US, and ended only a few years afterwards (I would suggest 1799 when Napoleon began dictator). With the rise of Napoleon, a French T begins, which contributes to the extension of the British 4T for some years, until the French existential threat was eliminated, which was probably achieved at Trafalgar in 1805.

A tiny bump is seen in the Netherlands; this the unrest associated with the short-lived patriots movement. Finally there is a burst of German unrest (all old-style peasants rebellions) suggesting that there may have been something like a 4T going in Germany as well. My dataset also suggests a possible bump for Italy, but I don’t have enough data at this time to warrant posting it. All this suggests the late 18th century saw a period of crisis that first developed in the American colonies and spread through much of Europe. Since the Kondratiev trough around 1790 (indicative of the end of a period of economic stress) is seen in many European price series the idea that European-wide economic distress could have fomented unrest in the years around this trough, some of which my analysis is picking up.

The take home message here is that the unrest data, the economic data, and the spirals can all be obtained for periods before the 18th century, going back to Medieval times, and the tendency for certain kinds of unrest to spread to mean that one can look at events in different countries to describe the same fundamental forces associated with the saeculum. That is, one does not have to proceed as if adjacent nations who are close trading partners, share a religion and have centuries of political interaction can have radically different saeculae.


References

Popular Unrest in England, France, Flanders, the Netherlands, Scotland, Scandinavia and Spain (1300-1800) http://mappinghistory.uoregon.edu/en...U/EU06-00.html

Filippelli, Ronald L (ed), Labor Conflict in the United States: An Encyclopedia, New York: Garland 1990 (http://www.worksonwork.irc.umn.edu/d...ec/dbtwpub.dll)

Wikipedia article: "List of incidents of civil unrest in the United States" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._United_States)

Wikipedia article, "List of Riots" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_riots)

Slave Revolts http://www.historyguy.com/slave_rebellions_usa.htm

Race Riots in the US & UK (www.rotten.com/library/history/racism/race-riots/)

I would say that Germany certainly had a fourth turning during that time, as the Napoleonic Wars saw, among other things, the end of the Holy Roman Empire. It seems, as you say, like the cycles are not only linked, roughly, and radiate outward.

Here's a great, though long 4 hour podcast which talks about the connecting tissue between the Roman Empire and the Holy Roman Empire. The so-called Dark Ages...

It really discusses the fact that the common culture is Christianity and how the Western Roman Empire essentially delegated itself out of existence by dividing up its territory and unofficially setting up its successor states.

Great, though long, podcast. Enjoy!

http://www.dancarlin.com/disp.php/hh...eval-antiquity

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by JordanGoodspeed

I would say that Germany certainly had a fourth turning during that time, as the Napoleonic Wars saw, among other things, the end of the Holy Roman Empire. It seems, as you say, like the cycles are not only linked, roughly, and radiate outward.

Welcome back. This is a similar discussion to this in the megasaeculum thread in the Theory section. I bring in some of the economic/trade cycles stuff there as welll as the mega-awakening concept. Would you like to get a copy of by Word document that describes some of the methods I am using here? I am looking for input wrt methodology development. My methodology needs to be updated, which is what the thrust of these threads are about. I you are interested send me a private message with your email address.

In a previous post I showed how unrest patterns can reveal the presence of turnings in some cases by showing how the known-to-be multinational Revolutionary crisis showed in as bursts of unrest. Here I extend the analysis to what historians refer to as the Crisis of the 17th century. This table shows bursts of unrest in Britain, America and Italy corresponding the Glorious Revolution 4T. Also shown is a burst of unrest over the period corresponding to the Puritan Awakening. America is just in the early phases of settlement and this sort of analysis won’t work for this era. Note the burst of unrest in France, Italy and Spain over this same period. This illustrates another example of a simultaneous multinational social moment turnings.

Values are unrest events per decade

Period	Britain	France	Italy	Ger	Spain	US
1550-1571	0.9	0.9		2.3	0.5	NA
1572-1590		3.2	0.5	2.1		NA
1591-1610	2.5	1.5		11.5	0.5	NA
1611-1625		2	0.5	5		NA
1626-1650	3.2	10	2.4	4.8	2.8	0.4
1651-1674		5.2	0.8	2.8	0.4	1.2
1675-1695	2.4	1.0	0	1.9	1.4	2.9
1696-1710	1.3	0.8		3.6	0.4	0.8

There are also bursts in France, Britain and Germany that roughly correspond to the Armada crisis (1569-1594). For this turning I have some supporting data in the form of crime statistics. The table below shows annual property crimes in three English counties and homicide rate (per 100K) in Kent for the late 16^th and early 17^th centuries. A peak in crime appears to have happened in the 1590’s. Similar peaks in crime in 1740 and 1789 were associated with social moment turnings in the 18^th century and can be taken as further evidence for a social moment in Britain at the end of the 16^th century. What is interesting here is the absence of unrest data for Spain and the Netherlands, which were key participants in the Armada crisis. This might be explained by the fact that both countires were enmeshed in a political conflict over the 1566-1609 period which covers the enitre period. Thus, this time was filled with violence, it just took the form of political violence (war) and not the sort of violence (e.g. peasant rebellions, urban riots, labor strife etc) that appears in the unrest database. I expect that a spiral of violence analysis would confirm the presence of social moments in Spain and the Netherlands during the Armada 4T. If we accept this, then there is evidence for social moment turnings in the late 16th and early 17th centuries at about the time S&H have them. If we couple this with the observation of a similarly broad-based Revolutionary crisis. That is three out five successive social moments that are aligned, suggesting a unified saeculum for all of Western Europe since at least the late 16th century.

Period	Sussex	Essex	Hertfordshire	Kent Homicides
1559-69	43	38	--	--
1570-79	--	72	47	3.6
1580-89	58	89	47	4.7
1590-99	69	116	52	5.7
1600-09	55	--	51	5.3
1610-19	43	--	49	3.9
1615-25	42	--	51	2.5

References
Popular Unrest in England, France, Flanders, the Netherlands, Scotland, Scandanavia and Spain (1300-1800) http://mappinghistory.uoregon.edu/en...U/EU06-00.html

Filippelli, Ronald L (ed), Labor Conflict in the United States: An Encyclopedia, New York: Garland 1990 (http://www.worksonwork.irc.umn.edu/d...ec/dbtwpub.dll)

Slave Revolts http://www.historyguy.com/slave_rebellions_usa.htm

Labor History Review: www.iam837b.org/Labor%20History.htm

Colonial Era Webquest http://www.scarborough.k12.me.us/wis...nial/index.htm

A Timeline of Modern English History http://myweb.fsu.edu/cupchurch/Resou...e_ModBrit.html

J.S. Cockburn, "The Nature and Incidence of Crime in England 1559-1625: A Preliminary Survey", in Crime in England 1550-1800, J.S. Cockburn ed., Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press: 1977

J.S. Cockburn,"Patterns of Violence in English Society: Homicides in Kent", Past and Present, 130 70-106 (1991)

In this post I cover the 16^th century. Proceeding as before I note that two waves of unrest occurred in the early 16^th century. Germany, Italy and Spain showed a peak over 1511-25 while Britain, France, Scandinavia and the low countries show a peak over 1526-1535. Both periods overlap with the S&H Reformation Awakening turning. These data suggest that stress occurred first in Spain, Italy and Germany and in the last it gave rise to the Reformation, which spread to France, the Low Countries, Scandinavia and Britain, giving rise to unrest later. Thus, all seven regions show social moments during this era. And since a well-documented cultural moment occurred at this time we can say that all of Western Europe experienced an Awakening turning, with those in Germany (where the Reformation began) and the countries which remained Catholic beginning perhaps a decade or so before the ones in the countries that would become Protestant. I also note unrest spikes in the late 15^th century in France and Britain that correspond to the War of the Roses 4T.

Values are unrest events per decade

Period	Britain	France	Italy	Scd & LC	Ger	Spain
1421-1460	0.5	0	0.5	0.25	1.5	0.5
1461-1490	1.7	1.7	0.7	0.0	2.7	0.3
1491-1510	0.5	0	0.5	0.5	2.5	0
1511-1525	0.7	0.7	2.7	0	11.3	2.0
1526-1535	1	1	1	0	2	0
1536-1549	2.9	2.1	0	3.6	1.4	0
1550-1571	0.9	0.9	0	0.9	2.3	0.5

It would be interesting to extend this sort of analysis to the Ottomans and the Russians, whose successor states still aren't aligned with the Wests, just to see if they are off by the same amount going all the way back, and where the geographical boundaries are.

not a request, just an observation

I end with a late medieval analysis. Here we see increased unrest in a three decade period beginning shortly after the Plague in all five regions examined. Not shown here is Spain and the rest of Germany. At these early dates it is not clear that these countries were fully integrated into either the North-South trade axis extending from Northern Italy through Bruges to London, or the East-West Hanseatic network.

Value in unrest events per decade

Period	England	France	Hansa	Italy	Scd & LC
1300-1315	1.3	2.5	0	0	0.6
1316-1330	2.0	1.3	0	0	0.7
1331-1353	0.0	2.6	0	0.9	0.0
1354-1384	1.3	4.5	2.3	1.3	0.6
1385-1410	1.2	0.0	1.5	0.4	0.0
1411-1420	2	2	0	0	0
1421-1460	0.5	0	0	0.75	0.25

There also sees to be elevated unrest in England and France over the 1411-1420 period, and perhaps in England over the 1316-30 period. Large-scale peasant uprisings generally did not occur before 1300 and so this type of analysis can not be extended before this date. To summarize our findings I present all the countries that show unrest during all the social moment turnings since the mid-14^th century.

Turning	ENG	FR	HSE	IT	SC+LC	GER	SP
Plague C	X	X	X	X	X
Hussite A	X	X
War of Roses C	X	X
Reformation A	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
Armada C	X	X			X**		X**
Puritan A	X*	X		X			X
Glorious C	X*
Great A	US only
Revolution C	X*	X	X		X	X

*Also in America (US)
**Assumed to have a crisis associated with the Armada as both were more deeply involved in the conflict than Britain.

Originally Posted by JordanGoodspeed

It would be interesting to extend this sort of analysis to the Ottomans and the Russians, whose successor states still aren't aligned with the Wests, just to see if they are off by the same amount going all the way back, and where the geographical boundaries are.

not a request, just an observation

I have data for both from the Peasants unrest source, but there are too few events for a meaningful analysis. You need hundreds.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

I have data for both from the Peasants unrest source, but there are too few events for a meaningful analysis. You need hundreds.

A lack of data, eh? Yeah, I can see that being an obstacle. :P

It just seems like it would be interesting to see how the cycles synch, and what sorts of connections (trade, language, religion) bring them together.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

There also sees to be elevated unrest in England and France over the 1411-1420 period, and perhaps in England over the 1316-30 period. Large-scale peasant uprisings generally did not occur before 1300 and so this type of analysis can not be extended before this date. To summarize our findings I present all the countries that show unrest during all the social moment turnings since the mid-14^th century.

Turning	ENG	FR	HSE	IT	SC+LC	GER	SP
Plague C	X	X	X	X	X
Hussite A	X	X
War of Roses C	X	X
Reformation A	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
Armada C	X	X			X**		X**
Puritan A	X*	X		X			X
Glorious C	X*
Great A	US only
Revolution C	X*	X	X		X	X

*Also in America (US)
**Assumed to have a crisis associated with the Armada as both were more deeply involved in the conflict than Britain.

Let's see... the only thing I would necessarially disagree with is uprisings during the Great Awakening being a "US only" affair. I'm not sure that's an accurate portrayal of England at the time. After all there was "the Forty-Five" which was all about the possibility of bringing Bonnie Prince Charlie onto the thrown and undoing the Glorious Revolution. True it's not completely a peasant revolt but Charles playing on Scottish clansmen's loyalties, but it's enough of an uprising that its defeat marks the beginning of a new "unity" or the English 3T IMO. The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749--set in 1745), has all the characters take sides during the event. That probably ends up being the uprising they have instead of a peasant revolt.

~Chas'88

The table below summarizes the picture for British turnings. Shown are British turnings, which are the consensus of three historians and S&H for the Armada crisis one, and then S&H turnings before then to 1435, and McGuiness turnings before then. In the next column are given the periods of high unrest just discussed. Next two columns are periods of high alcohol consumption and crime rates. Finally the last column givens periods of economic distress defined as periods of high prices relative to the trend up to the Plague crisis, Kondratiev upwaves after that until the Puritan Awakening and then Kondratiev downwaves from the Great Awakening through the Transcendental Awakening. There is no economic stress measure for the Glorious Revolution 4T because the alignment pattern is shifting from upwave-stress (reflecting falling real wages) to downwave stress (reflecting economic depression).

Turning	Unrest*	Alcohol	Crime	Econ Stress
1305-1328	1316-1330 (1)		1315-1330	1308-1330
1328-1348
1348-1378	1354-1384 (5)			1354-1377
1378-1406
1406-1435	1411-1420 (2)			1392-1435
1435-1459
1459-1487	1461-1490 (2)			1464-1490
1487-1517
1517-1542	1536-1549 (7)			1519-1554
1542-1571
1571-1595	1591-1610 (2)		1585-1615	1581-1598
1595-1622
1622-1650	1626-1650 (3)			1625-1655
1650-1676
1676-1705	1675-1695 (1)			NA
1705-1729
1729-1754	NA	1735-1750	1737-1742	1721-1745
1754-1779
1779-1801	1786-1795 (5)	1790-1810	1782-1794	1768-1788
1801-1823
1823-1842	1811-1844	1830-1840	1829-1854	1810-1840

*Values in () are no. of European regions with elevated unrest aligned with turning

The data in the table I believe confirm the existence of British turnings from the 14^th century on. I have done a similar analysis with US data and have confirmed American turnings that correspond to the S&H dates and align well with the British turnings above. The unrest analysis just presented shows that in most cases, at least one other European nation (and in three cases at least five) have elevated unrest aligned with the appropriate turnings suggesting that a more appropriate unit for analysis for looking at the saeculum is probably not the nation, but a larger group.