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I analyze the adult age at death of 115,650 European nobles from 800 to 1800. Longevity began increasing long before 1800 and the Industrial Revolution, with marked increases around 1400 and again around 1650. Declines in violent deaths from battle contributed to some of this increase, but the majority must reflect other changes in individual behavior. There are historic spatial contours to European elite mortality; North-West Europe achieved greater adult lifespans than the rest of Europe even by 1000AD.



The data underlying this analysis is deposited here and the code files replicate the tables and figures in the paper. The data and replication files are in the R language.

