Our research expands earlier studies on elite human capital by widening the geographic scope and tracing the early roots of the European divergence. We present new evidence of elite numeracy in Europe since the sixth century CE. During the early medieval period, Western Europe had no advantage over the east, but the development of relative violence levels changed this. After implementing an instrumental variable strategy and a battery of robustness tests, we find a substantial relationship between elite numeracy and elite violence, and conclude that violence had a detrimental impact on human capital formation. For example, the disparities in violence between Eastern and Western Europe helped to shape the famous divergence movement via this elite numeracy mechanism and had substantial implications for the economic fortunes of each region over the following centuries.

我们的研究通过扩大地理范围并追溯欧洲差异的早期根源，扩大了对精英人力资本的早期研究。自从公元六世纪以来，我们提出了欧洲精锐算术的新证据。在中世纪早期，西欧没有东方优势，但是相对暴力水平的发展改变了这种情况。在实施工具变量策略和一系列健壮性测试之后，我们发现精英计算能力与精英暴力之间存在着实质性的关系，并得出结论认为，暴力行为对人力资本形成具有不利影响。例如，