User blog comment:Rdv65/no black death world wide - what the consequence over history/@comment-5169980-20131115044109/@comment-4612798-20131115165313

Yes Europe had probably reached the peak of its medieval population (and possibly already beginning to decline thanks to the end of the 'Medieval Warm Period') before the Black Death hit. But I agree with LG that the social order - i.e. feudalism, would probably have survived a bit longer without the sharp drop in population avoiding all the peasant revolts of the period.

Wars were never really about living space in that period - they would have just continued as normal - being mostly dynastic squabbles. You'd probably have a different progress of the Hundred Years War (i.e. you wouldn't have the lull in fighting between 1347 - 56) though.

It was the closure of Eastern trade routes by the Ottomans that really spurred European exploration of Africa and beyond. I very much doubt just having a bigger population would trigger anyone bothering to explore earlier. Certainly there would be a bigger resource pool once it got started but not much else.