General principles: medieval mortality and the mortality of the Black Death as functions of the medieval social formation

The division of history into periods reflects comprehensive structural processes that over time produce pervasive and irreversible systemic change between particular social systems, also called social formations. Social formations are defined or determined by the observation that the basic societal structures such as economy, technology, politics, government, religion, culture and mentality, social stratification (social-class relations) and demography are characterized by fundamental qualitative dissimilarities from the preceding and subsequent historical periods. They are also defined by the fact that these main structures interact in the production of the historical process in a specific way that also produces specific dynamics and direction of development. There is comprehensive conceptual concordance between the concepts of historical period and social formation.

A historical period is a chronological concept that indicates that in a specific time in the history of a civilization, long-term systemic change has produced a qualitatively specific form of society. The history of civilizations can be seen in terms of a series of social formations. The concept of the Middle Ages designates a chronological division of the European civilization characterized by a specific social system, as is the case with the Early Modern Period or Modern Period.

Mortality in the Black Death must be discussed in the general perspective of normal medieval death rates and the medieval demographic system or regime. Normal death rates in any society are not fortuitous or accidental phenomena but closely associated with the societal system. Societal systems are characterized by the specificity of their main structures, i.e., their economic, technological, political, social-class, cultural and mental structures, and, of course, the demographic structure. In the case of the high Middle Ages, these structures were represented, for instance, by the economic structure of the feudal manorial system in conjunction with the commercial system, the feudal political system, the religious system of the Catholic Church, and also by a corresponding specific medieval demographic system. In the case of the demographic structure, the systemic character is exhibited in characteristic or normal levels of mortality and life expectancy, age at marriage and fertility, patterns of age distribution and gender distribution of mortality.