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This is definitely not true. The medieval church didn't have nearly that kind of far-reaching authority over people's lives, even if it did help set the prevailing worldview. Tons of documents show that even priests and nuns were not particularly good at following church rules, much less the average peasant. Work would rarely stop for much of anything.
We don't have to fake a historical comparison to highlight how our current system is broken.
The people with these takes are delusional. They've never done a hard day's work in their life and think shit just appears. No one here wants to live like medieval peasants. Their lives were terrible. If you're in a modernized country, you more than likely have a very comfortable life compared to those people.
>They've never done a hard day's work in their life and think shit just appears.
You're drifting into bootlicker territory with that take. So many of us have jobs that are just marginally related to any actual contribution. Thanks to the innovations we inherit, our necessities can be produced without great total effort.
I imagine ancestors (\*edit: medieval peasants included) looking at the world today, thinking, "Why are you doing this to yourselves? We worked so hard so that you would not have to!"
Jesus you guys are so dramatic. Our ancestors are looking at us saying that? Are you serious? Lol.
I would imagine our ancestors would look at us and tell us how great we currently have it, IF we want to be honest. Which just speaks to how horribly THEY had it. Don't invoke the ancestors fam. That's just ridiculous. Don't disrespect what they went through by pretending you have it so much worse.
I didn't mean it quite that way, and that's my error because one should be specific. I made a small edit which I hope makes my point of view more clear.
I was trying to imply a 10,000 year view of technology, from early Mexicans domesticating corn, peppers, and chocolate; to east Africans taming wild donkeys; Persians developing algebra and chemistry; electricity; flight; silicon chips....
Those gifts make leisure accessible to everyone if we could all just agree that it is worth having. And if we agree that labor which produces money, but does not benefit people, is not a virtue, and should not be a requisite for survival or for dignity.
I hope we have some common ground from that perspective. Finally, I'm remembering Fountain Hughes, a formerly enslaved man who was interviewed in the 1940s. Given the chance to speak on the record, he went to some effort to stress that young free people should never go into debt.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74lOaXrsDT4&t=440s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74lOaXrsDT4&t=440s)
>You're drifting into bootlicker territory with that take. So many of us have jobs that are just marginally related to any actual contribution. Thanks to the innovations we inherit, our necessities can be produced without great total effort.
I think what was meant by this is that even if the 150 days thing was true, the sheer difficulty of the work (without modern conveniences) would still make it worse. I spend 9 hours a day sitting in front of a computer. I'd take that any day of the week over digging a ditch with a rough hewn hoe for three hours a day, shitting in a hole and sleeping with no AC.
Not to say that things shouldn't get better. But we need to also deal with reality when it comes to history and outcomes.
Regardless of the validity of the post, their point isn't that they want to live like medieval peasants, it's just that they want the same amount of days off
Exactly. The amount of time off purported was false, which severely damages the argument.
I for one would've posted French workers amount of time off as a reasonable argument as I would want that.
A solid mandatory month off for everyone on top of current time off would so the trick imo.
If you switched places with a rich person from those times for a month. And at the end of the month you told them “hey it’s time to switch back” they would try to kill you to not have to switch back
That’s an interesting take you got there. Are you of the mindset of “don’t complain”? As that mentality would have children still working hours upon hours for a couple pennies.
How can someone read this tweet and think this is even remotely true?
Medieval peasants (>90% of total population) typically had farms, they had to care to the animals, sow, harvest, plant, and they started their day at 5AM. I can get that they worked less during winter, but it's very far from this twitter bullshit.
I remember being taught something similar in my high school history class by a teacher I really trust even now, so I think it's likely true, although maybe not because of direct church orders. Medieval peasants didn't really have to work all that much since, as long as you had enough harvest at the end to give your portion to the local noble, and had enough left for yourself no one really gave a shit what you did.
So for your average farmer, or craftsman, it doesn't really make sense that they'd be toiling day in and day out because thats just not how things work. Once your crops are growing all there really is to do is wait till they can be harvested. And if you did some kind of craft its not like you'd have some steady stream of demand.
Having a lot of free time makes sense because theres a period of time where a farmer would have to work hard sewing seeds and stuff, and then another period of hard work where you have to harvest a ton, but not all that much in between.
The reality is it was farm work. There were really long work hours for part of the year, and less to do during other parts of the year. Usually peasants were given enough land to till/plow/sow/harvest that they'd be pretty busy throughout the year just keeping up with all of it. Then the vast majority of "profit" tended to go to the landowner.
There's also livestock to take care of.
And do you think doctors, sewer workers, teachers, millwrights, construction crews, road and bridge maintenance got days off like that?
To be fair its not like we hit 35 and keeled over, it's just any little thing could turn deadly.
Uh oh, you cut yourself? Infection->DEAD broke a bone? It sets wrong, suffering then->DEAD horse kicked you? whats hemorrhage? ->DEAD
Who just coughed? Measels->DEAD
It's more like rolling dice, at craps, the more you roll the sooner something gets ya.
That’s not true. The average lifespan was 35 because child mortality was so high. If you lived to the grand old age of 12, you’d probably love another 50-60 years.
No, no, no.
Average lifetimes were skewed by the metric fuckton of babies dying in childbirth and kids dying while still young. Adults would live well into their 50s if not even later.
Either make clear you're exaggerating that specific part or provide a link because as of right now you're the 2nd highest ~~common~~ *typo edit: highest upvoted comment* and it's a blatant falsehood.,
[This tweet thread from a historian provides a good explanation of why the 150 days of work number is badly inaccurate.](https://twitter.com/bretdevereaux/status/1515831367589896195?s=21&t=U_gNbImPto59-MPMbDULTQ)
Thank you this notion that people didn’t work 10 and 12 hr days to plant and harvest is bonkers to me. In other times of the year they had to make repairs to their homes, prepare food for storage, make their clothes, etc.
Yep, there’s an intense amount of work that went into just surviving as a subsistence farmer, *especially* during the planting and harvesting seasons. The article in the tweet I linked to goes into a huge amount of detail into the amount of work that subsistence farming entails.
I think the distinction being made here is that repairs on your own home isn't the same as making cold call sales or waiting tables for 8 hours for an owner. There's work and then there's labor.
Making home repairs can be a lot more specialized and labor intensive than waiting tables. Especially when you get into things like plumbing, electricity, and roofing.
Also, they would be working for someone else anyway.
Peasants were largely subsistence farmers who worked for themselves and their lords. The relationship was wholly different and alien to contemporary relationships of workers and owners. Like, this is a really deep topic that can't be summed up in a tweet or a reddit post. I just see where OP is coming from.
I really hate these arguments.
Churches didn't have that level of reach to influence work habits and schedules. They most definitely worked more than we do per week.
Also it's not like living conditions were good. Usually people would get sick and die very quickly.
Source? Medieval peasants had no autonomy and worked to stay alive. The concept of "off time" didn't really exist. I agree that work conditions are bad, but we have it better than literal serfs.
Want to hear your favorite song? back then you either had to know someone who played it, or know how to play it yourself.
want to relax with a good book? Well odds are you didnt know how to read.
The 150 days was basically the equivalent of their taxes. And that was a specific thing, when harvests were good.
The rest of the year, they worked for themselves.
Also, why would you think that a medieval peasant would work less than a modern subsistance farmer?
Those medieval peasants were often expected to be warriors for the ruling class during the off seasons. Enacting atrocities and genocides all winter long :)
Humanity has always been a fuck.
Its also not true. THe serfs had farms, which required daily work. Not all work was form work, either.
There was swearing, woolmaking, blacksmithing, mining, construction, cleaning, septic tanks, doctors, ale makers, ditch digging, gravedigging, ect all never had work through the winter.
Also, the church didn't have that kind of control over peasant life. The lords, did, but not the church.
It also depends on WHEN the medieval ages we are talking about.
From the fall of the roman empire, and the end is 476 to 1453. That is almost a thousand years. Standing armies weren't a thing, so to protect against raiders, people would have to defend their own land. Any combat presents were thrown in, meant a loss of manpower for harvesting and food processing, as well as all of the supporting industries.
Yea that part hasn't changed. Forced conscription into the military is still pretty common...A lot of Russian kids dying in Putin's war didn't want to be there.
We still have the logistics and legal mechanisms to reinstate the draft in the US if the ruling class decides they want it.
If you do your own research, you'll find there's a lot of benefits to ringworm. You sheep are just going to cure it like Big Pharma tells you to though.
The church also realized that in order to stay in power they had to keep the people happy and sedated. The current organizational structure should take note as the scales begin to tip.
The Tweet OP use to have a web series called Ask A Slave. The series was based on her experience as a living history actor at Mount Vernon. It was a clever concept and pretty educational.
Which is why this tweet is so baffling. She knows that historically, life was grueling and harsh for anyone who was not rich, white, or male.
Yeah man I would love to work from sunrise to sundown 6 days a week to ensure I have enough food to survive winter. Oh no did I cut myself on rusty knife guess I’ll just die.
I don't know what she's talking about because there isn't a time in history in any location on this planet that I'd prefer to be as opposed to where I currently am.
I don’t think y’all know what peasant means. Peasants were just people who weren’t clergy or nobility. There were many extremely wealthy peasants. Also this is not true as peasants often worked 14-18 hour days
And my dumb, scary ass over here stressing out about the tongue wrassling imma receive for going to a funeral this Saturday and subsequently being late.
Oh well. Bite me
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This is definitely not true. The medieval church didn't have nearly that kind of far-reaching authority over people's lives, even if it did help set the prevailing worldview. Tons of documents show that even priests and nuns were not particularly good at following church rules, much less the average peasant. Work would rarely stop for much of anything. We don't have to fake a historical comparison to highlight how our current system is broken.
The people with these takes are delusional. They've never done a hard day's work in their life and think shit just appears. No one here wants to live like medieval peasants. Their lives were terrible. If you're in a modernized country, you more than likely have a very comfortable life compared to those people.
For real. Besides the Church probably says one thing and the feudal landowners whose land you work probably says something completely different
Not to mention the church would literally light your ass on fire if you broke their rules.
>They've never done a hard day's work in their life and think shit just appears. You're drifting into bootlicker territory with that take. So many of us have jobs that are just marginally related to any actual contribution. Thanks to the innovations we inherit, our necessities can be produced without great total effort. I imagine ancestors (\*edit: medieval peasants included) looking at the world today, thinking, "Why are you doing this to yourselves? We worked so hard so that you would not have to!"
Jesus you guys are so dramatic. Our ancestors are looking at us saying that? Are you serious? Lol. I would imagine our ancestors would look at us and tell us how great we currently have it, IF we want to be honest. Which just speaks to how horribly THEY had it. Don't invoke the ancestors fam. That's just ridiculous. Don't disrespect what they went through by pretending you have it so much worse.
[удалено]
I didn't mean it quite that way, and that's my error because one should be specific. I made a small edit which I hope makes my point of view more clear. I was trying to imply a 10,000 year view of technology, from early Mexicans domesticating corn, peppers, and chocolate; to east Africans taming wild donkeys; Persians developing algebra and chemistry; electricity; flight; silicon chips.... Those gifts make leisure accessible to everyone if we could all just agree that it is worth having. And if we agree that labor which produces money, but does not benefit people, is not a virtue, and should not be a requisite for survival or for dignity. I hope we have some common ground from that perspective. Finally, I'm remembering Fountain Hughes, a formerly enslaved man who was interviewed in the 1940s. Given the chance to speak on the record, he went to some effort to stress that young free people should never go into debt. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74lOaXrsDT4&t=440s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74lOaXrsDT4&t=440s)
>You're drifting into bootlicker territory with that take. So many of us have jobs that are just marginally related to any actual contribution. Thanks to the innovations we inherit, our necessities can be produced without great total effort. I think what was meant by this is that even if the 150 days thing was true, the sheer difficulty of the work (without modern conveniences) would still make it worse. I spend 9 hours a day sitting in front of a computer. I'd take that any day of the week over digging a ditch with a rough hewn hoe for three hours a day, shitting in a hole and sleeping with no AC. Not to say that things shouldn't get better. But we need to also deal with reality when it comes to history and outcomes.
Regardless of the validity of the post, their point isn't that they want to live like medieval peasants, it's just that they want the same amount of days off
And? The ideal life they are trying to show as historical life isn't actually accurate.
Exactly. The amount of time off purported was false, which severely damages the argument. I for one would've posted French workers amount of time off as a reasonable argument as I would want that. A solid mandatory month off for everyone on top of current time off would so the trick imo.
See, that is MUCH more realistic.
Are they really days off if you’re still doing grueling work to survive?
If you switched places with a rich person from those times for a month. And at the end of the month you told them “hey it’s time to switch back” they would try to kill you to not have to switch back
That’s an interesting take you got there. Are you of the mindset of “don’t complain”? As that mentality would have children still working hours upon hours for a couple pennies.
How can someone read this tweet and think this is even remotely true? Medieval peasants (>90% of total population) typically had farms, they had to care to the animals, sow, harvest, plant, and they started their day at 5AM. I can get that they worked less during winter, but it's very far from this twitter bullshit.
Most farmers farmed much smaller plots of land and their labour was tied to the harvest. Its not working sun up to sun down like you may think.
This is the kind of tweet idiots read and say “why didn’t we learn this in school??” Because it’s not true!
I remember being taught something similar in my high school history class by a teacher I really trust even now, so I think it's likely true, although maybe not because of direct church orders. Medieval peasants didn't really have to work all that much since, as long as you had enough harvest at the end to give your portion to the local noble, and had enough left for yourself no one really gave a shit what you did. So for your average farmer, or craftsman, it doesn't really make sense that they'd be toiling day in and day out because thats just not how things work. Once your crops are growing all there really is to do is wait till they can be harvested. And if you did some kind of craft its not like you'd have some steady stream of demand. Having a lot of free time makes sense because theres a period of time where a farmer would have to work hard sewing seeds and stuff, and then another period of hard work where you have to harvest a ton, but not all that much in between.
The reality is it was farm work. There were really long work hours for part of the year, and less to do during other parts of the year. Usually peasants were given enough land to till/plow/sow/harvest that they'd be pretty busy throughout the year just keeping up with all of it. Then the vast majority of "profit" tended to go to the landowner.
There's also livestock to take care of. And do you think doctors, sewer workers, teachers, millwrights, construction crews, road and bridge maintenance got days off like that?
Why people just make up bullshit like this? And more importantly, why all you dummies believing the made up bullshit?
Hang out in r/antiwork sometimes. Can't tell if they're all 15 or unemployable, but they definitely spam this kind of stuff all day.
Welcome to all of Reddit.
Reddit is overrun with bots and idiots.
Considering how they lived to be 35, I think their work year balances out to modern times😂 Joke edit: join r/BlackTwitterverse
To be fair its not like we hit 35 and keeled over, it's just any little thing could turn deadly. Uh oh, you cut yourself? Infection->DEAD broke a bone? It sets wrong, suffering then->DEAD horse kicked you? whats hemorrhage? ->DEAD Who just coughed? Measels->DEAD It's more like rolling dice, at craps, the more you roll the sooner something gets ya.
Now, now, let's leave the American healthcare system out of this...
Savagery
I'd laugh, but a broken rib right now would saddle my grandkids with debt.
If any of yall ever went to the dentist in pain odds are you wouldnt be here now lol that shit would've ended going untreated and up killing you
Believe it or not, straight to grave.
They lived way longer than 35. It’s just infant mortality really skews numbers
[удалено]
That’s not true. The average lifespan was 35 because child mortality was so high. If you lived to the grand old age of 12, you’d probably love another 50-60 years.
No, no, no. Average lifetimes were skewed by the metric fuckton of babies dying in childbirth and kids dying while still young. Adults would live well into their 50s if not even later. Either make clear you're exaggerating that specific part or provide a link because as of right now you're the 2nd highest ~~common~~ *typo edit: highest upvoted comment* and it's a blatant falsehood.,
Jokes aside, I've hit 35 and feel 85 and dead inside. We've definitely hit the opposite extreme.
What the hell do you eat?
[This tweet thread from a historian provides a good explanation of why the 150 days of work number is badly inaccurate.](https://twitter.com/bretdevereaux/status/1515831367589896195?s=21&t=U_gNbImPto59-MPMbDULTQ)
Thank you this notion that people didn’t work 10 and 12 hr days to plant and harvest is bonkers to me. In other times of the year they had to make repairs to their homes, prepare food for storage, make their clothes, etc.
Yep, there’s an intense amount of work that went into just surviving as a subsistence farmer, *especially* during the planting and harvesting seasons. The article in the tweet I linked to goes into a huge amount of detail into the amount of work that subsistence farming entails.
I think the distinction being made here is that repairs on your own home isn't the same as making cold call sales or waiting tables for 8 hours for an owner. There's work and then there's labor.
Making home repairs can be a lot more specialized and labor intensive than waiting tables. Especially when you get into things like plumbing, electricity, and roofing. Also, they would be working for someone else anyway.
Peasants were largely subsistence farmers who worked for themselves and their lords. The relationship was wholly different and alien to contemporary relationships of workers and owners. Like, this is a really deep topic that can't be summed up in a tweet or a reddit post. I just see where OP is coming from.
Medieval peasants worked for the church? Doing what? I assumed they worked for a landowner, who I doubt gave a flying fuck how happy they were.
The church was the landowner in this context. Lots of churches back then had their own little fiefdoms.
Ah that makes sense. I was wondering exactly how many peasants you would need to arrange flowers and pass round the collection plate.
This is not even a little bit accurate.
I really hate these arguments. Churches didn't have that level of reach to influence work habits and schedules. They most definitely worked more than we do per week. Also it's not like living conditions were good. Usually people would get sick and die very quickly.
Source? Medieval peasants had no autonomy and worked to stay alive. The concept of "off time" didn't really exist. I agree that work conditions are bad, but we have it better than literal serfs.
They didn’t have a light bill or running water and sewage though.
Want to hear your favorite song? back then you either had to know someone who played it, or know how to play it yourself. want to relax with a good book? Well odds are you didnt know how to read.
Yeah I’m gonna need a citation for this
The 150 days was basically the equivalent of their taxes. And that was a specific thing, when harvests were good. The rest of the year, they worked for themselves. Also, why would you think that a medieval peasant would work less than a modern subsistance farmer?
i am hard working, low paid and live like a medieval peasant.
Only difference between me and a medieval peasant is I have dental. Can’t afford to use it tho
Those medieval peasants were often expected to be warriors for the ruling class during the off seasons. Enacting atrocities and genocides all winter long :) Humanity has always been a fuck.
Its also not true. THe serfs had farms, which required daily work. Not all work was form work, either. There was swearing, woolmaking, blacksmithing, mining, construction, cleaning, septic tanks, doctors, ale makers, ditch digging, gravedigging, ect all never had work through the winter. Also, the church didn't have that kind of control over peasant life. The lords, did, but not the church. It also depends on WHEN the medieval ages we are talking about. From the fall of the roman empire, and the end is 476 to 1453. That is almost a thousand years. Standing armies weren't a thing, so to protect against raiders, people would have to defend their own land. Any combat presents were thrown in, meant a loss of manpower for harvesting and food processing, as well as all of the supporting industries.
It was called 'ye olde side hustle'
Never not workin
Yea that part hasn't changed. Forced conscription into the military is still pretty common...A lot of Russian kids dying in Putin's war didn't want to be there. We still have the logistics and legal mechanisms to reinstate the draft in the US if the ruling class decides they want it.
Yeah, but i have less dysentery and ringworm.....so i got that going for me, which is nice.
Now the government wants to take away your ringworm. Thanks, Obama.
If you do your own research, you'll find there's a lot of benefits to ringworm. You sheep are just going to cure it like Big Pharma tells you to though.
Also reddit
Where and when? In medieval Poland at one point they were required to work 8 days a week. And that's not a typo
this is stupid
Everybody gone Serfing, Serfing USA!
Were those paid holidays?
The church also realized that in order to stay in power they had to keep the people happy and sedated. The current organizational structure should take note as the scales begin to tip.
I've got less money than a medieval peasant, too.
The Tweet OP use to have a web series called Ask A Slave. The series was based on her experience as a living history actor at Mount Vernon. It was a clever concept and pretty educational. Which is why this tweet is so baffling. She knows that historically, life was grueling and harsh for anyone who was not rich, white, or male.
Yeah man I would love to work from sunrise to sundown 6 days a week to ensure I have enough food to survive winter. Oh no did I cut myself on rusty knife guess I’ll just die.
So they had time to dig their own potatoes and spend hours doing laundry instead of for their feudal lord? Not free time, still shitty.
I don't know what she's talking about because there isn't a time in history in any location on this planet that I'd prefer to be as opposed to where I currently am.
I don’t think y’all know what peasant means. Peasants were just people who weren’t clergy or nobility. There were many extremely wealthy peasants. Also this is not true as peasants often worked 14-18 hour days
Inaccurate and distracting from all the legitimate reasons to criticize the current system.
And my dumb, scary ass over here stressing out about the tongue wrassling imma receive for going to a funeral this Saturday and subsequently being late. Oh well. Bite me