21-10-2021, 08:33 PM
This may seem like a "how long is a piece of string" kind of question, but I hope there is more to it than that.
If one only includes people from areas of the world that the majority of researchers think the author could have come from. I would think this would exclude China, Americas(I am excluding Nahuatl), India. In truth probably almost just Europe. Population of Europe in the year 1400 was 78 million.
Then ask what percentage of that population would have the financial means to afford to produce such a manuscript. Say 5% ? Which gives one a figure of under 4 million people.
I could see why some might think this a pointless effort, but I am curious what vague figure we could give to this question.
Personally I would be more narrow in my figures say toughly 10 million people in Northern Italy and Central Europe. Maybe 2% of people who had the financial resources to produce such a manuscript. So that gives you a figure of 200,000 people.
However I have plucked those figures out of thin air, so I would be curious what other numbers people might suggest.
If one only includes people from areas of the world that the majority of researchers think the author could have come from. I would think this would exclude China, Americas(I am excluding Nahuatl), India. In truth probably almost just Europe. Population of Europe in the year 1400 was 78 million.
Then ask what percentage of that population would have the financial means to afford to produce such a manuscript. Say 5% ? Which gives one a figure of under 4 million people.
I could see why some might think this a pointless effort, but I am curious what vague figure we could give to this question.
Personally I would be more narrow in my figures say toughly 10 million people in Northern Italy and Central Europe. Maybe 2% of people who had the financial resources to produce such a manuscript. So that gives you a figure of 200,000 people.
However I have plucked those figures out of thin air, so I would be curious what other numbers people might suggest.