Did medieval peasants have more children on average than royalty? Or is this a modern phenomenon?
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I’m seeing lots of speculation and not much data. If you want data, check out this review paper which puts together data from a _ton_ of studies.
https://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol18/5/18-5.pdf
Looking at all studies together, on average the transition happened around 1800, but this is probably mostly driven by the western world, which has the best data. Seems to have happened more recently in other parts of the world.
Historical records tend to find that in the middle ages the wealthy had more kids on average.
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