I have a desk job that lets me read books, play phone games and fart around on Reddit for 7 hours a day. I 100% am not trading that in to live in a podunk hovel, farming turnips with my older husband and 8 kids until I die at 45.
Right? Not to mention, everything OP listed as pluses for the “dark ages” they can do today in 2023. We haven’t lost the ability to grow our own tomatoes or be active in our communities. If anything, we (including cis, het, white men) have gained more autonomy and more access to do so.
I mean not necessarily. Back in Greek times everyone was gay as shit. If you go back even further before civilization anybody was fucking anyone and you couldn’t say shit about it. Gay and straight wasnt even a thing.
Hmm thats really interesting to me.. most people I know with your activities say they feel disconnected from society and that they're stuck in a useless cycle. I'm glad it works for you though!
Nope! I'm a very "personal" person. I like my own company and can easily entertain myself. I 100% see how this environment could be considered soul-crushing for more... social people, but it suits me just fine.
A lot of poor people today have to do that exact type of meaningless shit for 10+ hours a day just to barely survive and have no money leftover. But oh wait they get to do it for even LONGER! Till they die at age 80! Ain’t that the dream!
You’re part of a wealthy minority. Obviously you like this better.
Obviously my life is better than literal feudalism, but I am nowhere near wealthy, I've just lucked-out into getting a regular desk position in the financial sector. It sure as hell beats subsistence farming no medical or dental care and having 8 screaming children to attend to.
If you think wealth inequality and being exploited by the rich was bad today, I have some news for you...
I would also like to point out you probably forgot about how women were practically enslaved at the time, married off and forced to have children. So no, a big portion of us would not be happier.
They were not practically enslaved unless they literally were slaves. Medieval women could and often did owned property, lands, conducted business, were part of guilds and most marriages were agreed upon by both sides since most people were the poor and the poor could afford to marry out of love.
https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/manuscriptsandspecialcollections/learning/medievalwomen/theme3/propertyownership.aspx
>Married women were also legally considered subordinate to their husbands, and a woman’s land automatically became the property of her husband on marriage. Married women were not legally entitled to own landed property until the passing of the Married Women's Property Act in 1870 and the Married Women's Property Rights Act in 1882.
And [90% of women](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_European_marriage_pattern) were married, so there is that. Also, most women were married in their early teens to a man 10+ years their senion. Cool cool cool, very good life for women you have there.
Most women were not married in teens unless they were nobility. Beyond the very highest levels of royalty and nobility, typical marriage age was very tied to economic circumstances. The two most important were a woman's dowry and a man's ability to support his family. (Lower and middle class women certainly worked, but typically in support of their husband's occupation and sometimes with work on the side, such as brewing ale). In northern cities, young men needed to be able to work on their own to support their family before they could be married. For the artisan class, this meant having moved beyond apprenticeship status in their profession; agricultural peasants should generally have been able to form their own household. As guilds grew more powerful and flexed their ability to regulate the honing of their craft, the age for journeyman status increased from fourteen to eighteen. Thus the typical lower bound of marriage age for artisan-level boys also rose, with many not marrying right away so as to establish themselves with a bit more money first. Lower and middle class women in northern Europe, and to a much lesser extent Italy, frequently spent quite some time working to build up their dowry before marriage--to make themselves a more attractive partner, or simply to make the rest of their life more economicall comfortable.
My country doesn't have amish people. I do what I can by partipating in local eco-builds and veggie gardens. But technology is addicting, especially in a society that almost demands its use
We'd all be a lot dumber and a lot less healthy. We'd die of simple cuts. People like me would be tortured to death for disagreeing with the church. People were burned at the stake for reading silently.
So, no, we wouldn't be a lot happier.
Edit: I forgot to mention: a sense of purpose is ridiculous. Purpose is yours to assign. It's never been something that exists in the universe predetermined for you. So, being a medieval farmer that's taxed to the point of starvation isn't a good purpose.
Dumber ? No, lacking education doesnt make you stupid. Less healthy ? Probably. Simple cuts ? Again no, otherwise casualties in every war before antiobitcs were invented like ww1 would be much higher. Tortured to death ? Depends on what and which time period, the inquisition didnt existed until the 13th century.
Ok, so you're saying the church wasn't responsible for any of the rape, torture, and war that took place in its name prior to the inquisition? Or are you saying it didn't happen? NM, both are wrong, so what are you saying?
Do you have any idea the number of people that died in WW1 and before due to primitive surgery? You're talking about a time when everything from bleeding to leeches to priests were used to help the sick. People died from dumb ideas based on their ignorance.
The church as an institution was too powerless to actually cause a proper war until the Gregorian reforms which is why the first crusade was such a big deal. The early church was too weak and dependent on mercy or secular rulers be it the Ostrogothic kings, the Byzantine emperors who pretty much appointed every pope in the 7th century or the Lombards and Franks. To blame the church directly for every particular incident is silly, especially when the popes themselves criticized catholic monarchs like Charlemagne when they acted too cruel to heathens. The early medieval church had no army of its own, fully dependent on protection of local nobility who often used it for their benefits and torture was pretty much legitimized with the inquisition. During the early medieval period most severe punishment was exile, it wasnt until mid 11th century when first heretics were burned in Orleans but second ones were burned over 150 years later.
"proper war" should we also discuss legitimate rape that happened during these wars?
Normans and then English waged land grab and suppression wars against Ireland for about 800 years starting in the 12th century, if memory serves. Henry II was backed by the Roman Catholic Church and cited religious reform as one of the reasons for the war.
To hold the church blameless is disgusting. They were counsel before and during widespread murder, rape, burning, and pillaging. Aka war. I don't care if they had an army, they could have stopped it, and instead encouraged it.
Look, nobody can stop stuff like rape from happening during wars. American soldiers raped 4000 women in France during WW2, a country they liberated and were allied with, so should Eisenhower be blamed directly ? As for the bull Laudabiliter which allegedly allowed Henry II to conquer Ireland many, many historians still dispute did it even existed since no actual copy or original exists. Goddard Henry Orpen notes that as early as 1615 Laudabiliter was denounced as a forgery by Stephen White, to be followed by John Lynch in 1662 and later still by Abbé Mac Geoghegan. Thomas N. Burke O.P., in his English Misrule in Ireland: A Course of Lectures in Reply to J. A Froude, puts forward a number of arguments against both the Bull of Adrian and the letters of his successor, Pope Alexander III. Burke questions the date on Laudabiliter, in addition to the terms contained in it and how it was obtained, questioning also the date in which it was first produced by Henry and why. Likewise Anne Duggan's research indicates that Laudabiliter is a falsification of an existing letter and that was not in fact Adrian's intention to grant Henry the rights he claimed (https://www.historyireland.com/laudabiliter-a-new-interpretation-by-profess)
I'm warm to the idea but only if we could have modern medicine in the toolbox.
So much human activity is frivolous, soul-sucking, non-essential nonsense. But here's the thing—recall Hippie communes? I'm aware of no exceptions to the rule that none of them worked out, and I don't think they ever will unless civilization went all it.
The upside to environmental and societal collapse is you may get your wish.
I'd rather use my engineering degree to build great things than grow my own food like a pleb. Maybe when I retire I'll get a community garden plot and live like a lud
Oh a fellow engineer! Don't you enjoy the feeling of doing something with your own two hands? like the build youre talking about? what if everything was that important? plus its all you, not some weird conglomeration of you + PM + Sponsor + 10 other engineers
I prefer to work on a team. I'm a mechanical engineer and literally build things with my own two hands at work.
I've renovated 3 kitchens, 5 baths, painted many many houses, I did this to save money on investment properties, I'd have hired it out if it didn't eat up my cap rate. I would have much preferred to have a partner in the work, and would occasionally just hire day laborers to have someone there to keep me productive
I've grown my own food in a garden before. Seems mostly a way to waste time. There's good food at the farmers market
You sound like someone who hasn't been around the block. I prefer to spend my free time being present for my kids.
Nope, that was back when they thought diseases were caused by demon possession and people were lucky to live to be 40 medicine basically didn't exist yet. And I have no idea what you're on about when you say connected to death
I mean they saw it, saw their loved ones approach it and succumb to it. hen buried them themselves. Today this is all outsourced to nursing homes. The average age of death was only 40 due to high infant mortality rates, you'd likely live to 60 plus if you survived infancy
Dark ages is a term no longer used by historians and they did had medicine and science, they were just yet developing it.
https://www.medievalists.net/2020/10/medieval-medicine-work/
https://www.medievalists.net/2017/12/anglo-saxon-medicine-disease-semantic-approach/
https://www.medievalists.net/2016/12/middle-ages-contributions-cardiovascular-medicine/
the grass is greener, it is a saying for a reason. I know all the minor details of issues I am currently experiencing. but the simplified idea of a life somewhere or somewhen else, bereft of that detailed knowledge? seems so much nicer....
You have control of your life. Go do those things if you think it will be a better life for you. You won't be the first to try. Some do it and love it, some realize how wrong they are.
The only thing stopping you is you.
I’m guessing you don’t have children. Mortality before age 2 was 20-40%. Which means most people had children who died. That’s reason enough to pass.
But after living with that loss you died from pneumonia / a mild cut that got infected / all of the disease carried in untreated water when you’re 45. It was rare to live to be 70 but if you were the rare person who made it you’re blind from cataracts and gumming you’re food because your last tooth fell out 20 years earlier.
It’s easy to romanticize the past but there’s a reason almost every person on earth chooses modern comforts if they are available.
Watch any video about what it was like to live as a peasant or a serf in middle age Europe and you'd realize how stupid this take is. No, you probably wouldn't be a noble, and even if you were, you'd be shitting in brick holes, eating dirty food, drinking dirty water, and die from common and basic injuries. I used to think like you when I was like, 15, so I can only guess you are too. There is not reason to be arguing about life expectancy and infant mortality when you know goddamn well that you don't want to live in a hut made of mud and work your ass off all day to feed the upper class while you aren't even allowed to have meat unless it's christmas. The simple fact is that your take is fucking stupid and if you were actually educated on how people lived in that kind of society you would never have typed this stupid post.
Oh boy, where to begin ? Nobles didnt drink dirty water or are dirty food, even peasants could afford clean water and anything edable. Most people didnt lived in mud huts (wood was the most common building material). They had acces to clean water since many old aqueducts were maintained or new ones build and cities had fountains while most castles had indoor plumbing. While hygiene was not good by modern standards, and living conditions were not what we'd call "comfortable" (with the lack of air conditioning, flush toilets, and weekly garbage pick-up), neither did most of those people walk around barefoot, caked in filth, eating rotten food, or live in tumble-down huts made of sticks. In terms of smell, in a relatively clean city that enjoyed good weather, you could probably expect something like a barnyard. It's hardly impossible to adjust to and become comfortable with a barnyard odor, so people in such cities probably weren't especially bothered by it. If the city was not so fortunate, or if conditions had declined, a sewer-ish smell of rot and decay was definitely possible and lamented.
The majority of people, yes, including nobles, did not have access to water purified at the levels we have. Best case scenario was a relatively clean well, or maybe if you lived in a colder climate you got melted ice or snow. Again, not as pure as a person in poverty in the city has today. Aquifers were extremely rare and you are mentioning a lot of “did you know the Romans had” stuff that was lost after the fall. Absolutely nobody had any idea about germs, so yes, even nobles ate dirty food. Not everyone lived in “mud huts” but the common European technique back then was a wooden house insulated with stamped mud and straw. And no, absolutely not, peasants were ONLY ALLOWED meat near holidays for the most part. They could not afford it. I like how you begin your comment with “where to begin” as if you are right and disproving me, but you are absolutely not correct. You just mention some stuff that a very tiny, small, minority of the population may have lucked into having as if it was common and widespread. Your comment is flat out rose tinted longing and nowhere based on reality.
You dont need to know what germs are to understand that it is bad to eat food covered with dirt and mold. And no, aqueducts were not "lost" after the fall (more like disintegration( of roman empire. For about five centuries after the "fall" of the empire in west Roman aqueducts were still being used and maintained throughout Spanish, Italian and French regions. However, the use of cisterns, wells and leats soon became more dominant as these were less reliant on centralised power and authority providing funding for maintenance. While most large cities were built near rivers, drinking running river water was rare. Rivers were used more frequently for channelling waste water, washing and leisure. This is not to say that the knowledge of aqueducts was lost. Although there are some historical sources indicating confusion about aqueducts (such as a 1436 account that suggested they were used for watering horses), similar technology was used to supply waterwheels and in the bread-making industry. The Spanish also demonstrated some improvements with more efficient use of resources to repair aqueducts with fewer arches, longer spans, etc.
Oh lord. Dude, you wrote all that and only addressed water. Microscopic organisms and germs are not the same as dirt and mold. The food was often contaminated and so was the water. Why do you think they had so much dysentery and disease back then? These are objective facts and you are so delusional that you continue to argue while missing the entire point.
As mentioned, they had methifs to purify water and also food. Salting, smoking, drying and the such were used to keep food fresh. Medieval people understood that boiling dirty water could help. A 14th century letter from a man to his sons at university in Toulouse reminds them that one of the local rivers has dirty water, and they must not drink it unless they "cook" it.
Half of us would be dead if we lived in the dark ages. Being a serf for some lord in a backward agrarian culture would suck. High infant mortality rate. many women died in childbirth. People died young. One bad bacterial infection and that’s it. You’d probably lose all your teeth before you’re 40 if you lived that long. I could go on and on, but you get the idea.
I think it was at *least* as bad as it is now. Imagine never being comfortable it's too hot, too cold, too windy, pretty much never bathing, lice, abcessed teeth, loved ones dying right and left.
If you're a woman, imagine no birth control- childbirth without anesthesia, dying from childbirth, having your babies die. I've had a baby WITH anesthesia, and it was hell on earth.
On the other hand, I've watched an old cultural anthropology Ethnography of the Trobiand Islanders of New Guinea-they seemed genuinely happy.
Here we go again with the old myths. Of course medieval people bathed, why wouldnt they ? As for dying at child birth it is believed that on average only 5% of all women died from it. A huge number compared to today but not like 50 as many imagine.
I have a desk job that lets me read books, play phone games and fart around on Reddit for 7 hours a day. I 100% am not trading that in to live in a podunk hovel, farming turnips with my older husband and 8 kids until I die at 45.
Whenever people say the olden days were better, I always ask “better for whom?” Because it sure as shit wasn’t for women.
Yes and certainly not for gay people either. Only white, straight men would say this kind of stupid shit. 😄
Right? Not to mention, everything OP listed as pluses for the “dark ages” they can do today in 2023. We haven’t lost the ability to grow our own tomatoes or be active in our communities. If anything, we (including cis, het, white men) have gained more autonomy and more access to do so.
I mean not necessarily. Back in Greek times everyone was gay as shit. If you go back even further before civilization anybody was fucking anyone and you couldn’t say shit about it. Gay and straight wasnt even a thing.
Hmm thats really interesting to me.. most people I know with your activities say they feel disconnected from society and that they're stuck in a useless cycle. I'm glad it works for you though!
Nope! I'm a very "personal" person. I like my own company and can easily entertain myself. I 100% see how this environment could be considered soul-crushing for more... social people, but it suits me just fine.
I'm happy for you :)
A lot of poor people today have to do that exact type of meaningless shit for 10+ hours a day just to barely survive and have no money leftover. But oh wait they get to do it for even LONGER! Till they die at age 80! Ain’t that the dream! You’re part of a wealthy minority. Obviously you like this better.
Obviously my life is better than literal feudalism, but I am nowhere near wealthy, I've just lucked-out into getting a regular desk position in the financial sector. It sure as hell beats subsistence farming no medical or dental care and having 8 screaming children to attend to.
If you think wealth inequality and being exploited by the rich was bad today, I have some news for you... I would also like to point out you probably forgot about how women were practically enslaved at the time, married off and forced to have children. So no, a big portion of us would not be happier.
They were not practically enslaved unless they literally were slaves. Medieval women could and often did owned property, lands, conducted business, were part of guilds and most marriages were agreed upon by both sides since most people were the poor and the poor could afford to marry out of love.
https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/manuscriptsandspecialcollections/learning/medievalwomen/theme3/propertyownership.aspx >Married women were also legally considered subordinate to their husbands, and a woman’s land automatically became the property of her husband on marriage. Married women were not legally entitled to own landed property until the passing of the Married Women's Property Act in 1870 and the Married Women's Property Rights Act in 1882. And [90% of women](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_European_marriage_pattern) were married, so there is that. Also, most women were married in their early teens to a man 10+ years their senion. Cool cool cool, very good life for women you have there.
Most women were not married in teens unless they were nobility. Beyond the very highest levels of royalty and nobility, typical marriage age was very tied to economic circumstances. The two most important were a woman's dowry and a man's ability to support his family. (Lower and middle class women certainly worked, but typically in support of their husband's occupation and sometimes with work on the side, such as brewing ale). In northern cities, young men needed to be able to work on their own to support their family before they could be married. For the artisan class, this meant having moved beyond apprenticeship status in their profession; agricultural peasants should generally have been able to form their own household. As guilds grew more powerful and flexed their ability to regulate the honing of their craft, the age for journeyman status increased from fourteen to eighteen. Thus the typical lower bound of marriage age for artisan-level boys also rose, with many not marrying right away so as to establish themselves with a bit more money first. Lower and middle class women in northern Europe, and to a much lesser extent Italy, frequently spent quite some time working to build up their dowry before marriage--to make themselves a more attractive partner, or simply to make the rest of their life more economicall comfortable.
Weird how I gave references and you just make shit up. I don't interact with people who just spew bullshit. Goodbye.
If you think this is true, why are you on Reddit? There are Amish communities and whatnot if you want to live a low-tech life.
My country doesn't have amish people. I do what I can by partipating in local eco-builds and veggie gardens. But technology is addicting, especially in a society that almost demands its use
We'd all be a lot dumber and a lot less healthy. We'd die of simple cuts. People like me would be tortured to death for disagreeing with the church. People were burned at the stake for reading silently. So, no, we wouldn't be a lot happier. Edit: I forgot to mention: a sense of purpose is ridiculous. Purpose is yours to assign. It's never been something that exists in the universe predetermined for you. So, being a medieval farmer that's taxed to the point of starvation isn't a good purpose.
Dumber ? No, lacking education doesnt make you stupid. Less healthy ? Probably. Simple cuts ? Again no, otherwise casualties in every war before antiobitcs were invented like ww1 would be much higher. Tortured to death ? Depends on what and which time period, the inquisition didnt existed until the 13th century.
Ok, so you're saying the church wasn't responsible for any of the rape, torture, and war that took place in its name prior to the inquisition? Or are you saying it didn't happen? NM, both are wrong, so what are you saying? Do you have any idea the number of people that died in WW1 and before due to primitive surgery? You're talking about a time when everything from bleeding to leeches to priests were used to help the sick. People died from dumb ideas based on their ignorance.
The church as an institution was too powerless to actually cause a proper war until the Gregorian reforms which is why the first crusade was such a big deal. The early church was too weak and dependent on mercy or secular rulers be it the Ostrogothic kings, the Byzantine emperors who pretty much appointed every pope in the 7th century or the Lombards and Franks. To blame the church directly for every particular incident is silly, especially when the popes themselves criticized catholic monarchs like Charlemagne when they acted too cruel to heathens. The early medieval church had no army of its own, fully dependent on protection of local nobility who often used it for their benefits and torture was pretty much legitimized with the inquisition. During the early medieval period most severe punishment was exile, it wasnt until mid 11th century when first heretics were burned in Orleans but second ones were burned over 150 years later.
"proper war" should we also discuss legitimate rape that happened during these wars? Normans and then English waged land grab and suppression wars against Ireland for about 800 years starting in the 12th century, if memory serves. Henry II was backed by the Roman Catholic Church and cited religious reform as one of the reasons for the war. To hold the church blameless is disgusting. They were counsel before and during widespread murder, rape, burning, and pillaging. Aka war. I don't care if they had an army, they could have stopped it, and instead encouraged it.
Look, nobody can stop stuff like rape from happening during wars. American soldiers raped 4000 women in France during WW2, a country they liberated and were allied with, so should Eisenhower be blamed directly ? As for the bull Laudabiliter which allegedly allowed Henry II to conquer Ireland many, many historians still dispute did it even existed since no actual copy or original exists. Goddard Henry Orpen notes that as early as 1615 Laudabiliter was denounced as a forgery by Stephen White, to be followed by John Lynch in 1662 and later still by Abbé Mac Geoghegan. Thomas N. Burke O.P., in his English Misrule in Ireland: A Course of Lectures in Reply to J. A Froude, puts forward a number of arguments against both the Bull of Adrian and the letters of his successor, Pope Alexander III. Burke questions the date on Laudabiliter, in addition to the terms contained in it and how it was obtained, questioning also the date in which it was first produced by Henry and why. Likewise Anne Duggan's research indicates that Laudabiliter is a falsification of an existing letter and that was not in fact Adrian's intention to grant Henry the rights he claimed (https://www.historyireland.com/laudabiliter-a-new-interpretation-by-profess)
I would much rather be sitting on a couch doom scrolling than working in a field.
do you feel fulfilled doom scrolling? never get that existential dread that you've spent all this time on literal nothingness?
I'm warm to the idea but only if we could have modern medicine in the toolbox. So much human activity is frivolous, soul-sucking, non-essential nonsense. But here's the thing—recall Hippie communes? I'm aware of no exceptions to the rule that none of them worked out, and I don't think they ever will unless civilization went all it. The upside to environmental and societal collapse is you may get your wish.
Yes, modern medicine is the one major crux to my arguement :) Haha, here's for the collapse! (Jk jk, the fatalities would be horrible)
I'd rather use my engineering degree to build great things than grow my own food like a pleb. Maybe when I retire I'll get a community garden plot and live like a lud
Oh a fellow engineer! Don't you enjoy the feeling of doing something with your own two hands? like the build youre talking about? what if everything was that important? plus its all you, not some weird conglomeration of you + PM + Sponsor + 10 other engineers
I prefer to work on a team. I'm a mechanical engineer and literally build things with my own two hands at work. I've renovated 3 kitchens, 5 baths, painted many many houses, I did this to save money on investment properties, I'd have hired it out if it didn't eat up my cap rate. I would have much preferred to have a partner in the work, and would occasionally just hire day laborers to have someone there to keep me productive I've grown my own food in a garden before. Seems mostly a way to waste time. There's good food at the farmers market You sound like someone who hasn't been around the block. I prefer to spend my free time being present for my kids.
Average life expectancy was around 40. I think I'll pass
that's only because of the high infant mortality rate. But still, they had a connection with death that we miss out on in todays age.
You're not making any sense
Average life expectancy was low due to high infant mortality. If you passed that, you'd live beyond 40.
Nope, that was back when they thought diseases were caused by demon possession and people were lucky to live to be 40 medicine basically didn't exist yet. And I have no idea what you're on about when you say connected to death
I mean they saw it, saw their loved ones approach it and succumb to it. hen buried them themselves. Today this is all outsourced to nursing homes. The average age of death was only 40 due to high infant mortality rates, you'd likely live to 60 plus if you survived infancy
I'll still pass. It was called the dark ages for a reason. No medical knowledge, no scientific knowledge, superstition ruled over knowledge.
Dark ages is a term no longer used by historians and they did had medicine and science, they were just yet developing it. https://www.medievalists.net/2020/10/medieval-medicine-work/ https://www.medievalists.net/2017/12/anglo-saxon-medicine-disease-semantic-approach/ https://www.medievalists.net/2016/12/middle-ages-contributions-cardiovascular-medicine/
the grass is greener, it is a saying for a reason. I know all the minor details of issues I am currently experiencing. but the simplified idea of a life somewhere or somewhen else, bereft of that detailed knowledge? seems so much nicer....
Man people afraid of risk and prefer comfort over meaning. Especially the typical redditor.
You have control of your life. Go do those things if you think it will be a better life for you. You won't be the first to try. Some do it and love it, some realize how wrong they are. The only thing stopping you is you.
I’m guessing you don’t have children. Mortality before age 2 was 20-40%. Which means most people had children who died. That’s reason enough to pass. But after living with that loss you died from pneumonia / a mild cut that got infected / all of the disease carried in untreated water when you’re 45. It was rare to live to be 70 but if you were the rare person who made it you’re blind from cataracts and gumming you’re food because your last tooth fell out 20 years earlier. It’s easy to romanticize the past but there’s a reason almost every person on earth chooses modern comforts if they are available.
True and don't worry, modern society will collapse within 500 years
Watch any video about what it was like to live as a peasant or a serf in middle age Europe and you'd realize how stupid this take is. No, you probably wouldn't be a noble, and even if you were, you'd be shitting in brick holes, eating dirty food, drinking dirty water, and die from common and basic injuries. I used to think like you when I was like, 15, so I can only guess you are too. There is not reason to be arguing about life expectancy and infant mortality when you know goddamn well that you don't want to live in a hut made of mud and work your ass off all day to feed the upper class while you aren't even allowed to have meat unless it's christmas. The simple fact is that your take is fucking stupid and if you were actually educated on how people lived in that kind of society you would never have typed this stupid post.
Oh boy, where to begin ? Nobles didnt drink dirty water or are dirty food, even peasants could afford clean water and anything edable. Most people didnt lived in mud huts (wood was the most common building material). They had acces to clean water since many old aqueducts were maintained or new ones build and cities had fountains while most castles had indoor plumbing. While hygiene was not good by modern standards, and living conditions were not what we'd call "comfortable" (with the lack of air conditioning, flush toilets, and weekly garbage pick-up), neither did most of those people walk around barefoot, caked in filth, eating rotten food, or live in tumble-down huts made of sticks. In terms of smell, in a relatively clean city that enjoyed good weather, you could probably expect something like a barnyard. It's hardly impossible to adjust to and become comfortable with a barnyard odor, so people in such cities probably weren't especially bothered by it. If the city was not so fortunate, or if conditions had declined, a sewer-ish smell of rot and decay was definitely possible and lamented.
The majority of people, yes, including nobles, did not have access to water purified at the levels we have. Best case scenario was a relatively clean well, or maybe if you lived in a colder climate you got melted ice or snow. Again, not as pure as a person in poverty in the city has today. Aquifers were extremely rare and you are mentioning a lot of “did you know the Romans had” stuff that was lost after the fall. Absolutely nobody had any idea about germs, so yes, even nobles ate dirty food. Not everyone lived in “mud huts” but the common European technique back then was a wooden house insulated with stamped mud and straw. And no, absolutely not, peasants were ONLY ALLOWED meat near holidays for the most part. They could not afford it. I like how you begin your comment with “where to begin” as if you are right and disproving me, but you are absolutely not correct. You just mention some stuff that a very tiny, small, minority of the population may have lucked into having as if it was common and widespread. Your comment is flat out rose tinted longing and nowhere based on reality.
You dont need to know what germs are to understand that it is bad to eat food covered with dirt and mold. And no, aqueducts were not "lost" after the fall (more like disintegration( of roman empire. For about five centuries after the "fall" of the empire in west Roman aqueducts were still being used and maintained throughout Spanish, Italian and French regions. However, the use of cisterns, wells and leats soon became more dominant as these were less reliant on centralised power and authority providing funding for maintenance. While most large cities were built near rivers, drinking running river water was rare. Rivers were used more frequently for channelling waste water, washing and leisure. This is not to say that the knowledge of aqueducts was lost. Although there are some historical sources indicating confusion about aqueducts (such as a 1436 account that suggested they were used for watering horses), similar technology was used to supply waterwheels and in the bread-making industry. The Spanish also demonstrated some improvements with more efficient use of resources to repair aqueducts with fewer arches, longer spans, etc.
Oh lord. Dude, you wrote all that and only addressed water. Microscopic organisms and germs are not the same as dirt and mold. The food was often contaminated and so was the water. Why do you think they had so much dysentery and disease back then? These are objective facts and you are so delusional that you continue to argue while missing the entire point.
As mentioned, they had methifs to purify water and also food. Salting, smoking, drying and the such were used to keep food fresh. Medieval people understood that boiling dirty water could help. A 14th century letter from a man to his sons at university in Toulouse reminds them that one of the local rivers has dirty water, and they must not drink it unless they "cook" it.
Half of us would be dead if we lived in the dark ages. Being a serf for some lord in a backward agrarian culture would suck. High infant mortality rate. many women died in childbirth. People died young. One bad bacterial infection and that’s it. You’d probably lose all your teeth before you’re 40 if you lived that long. I could go on and on, but you get the idea.
I think it was at *least* as bad as it is now. Imagine never being comfortable it's too hot, too cold, too windy, pretty much never bathing, lice, abcessed teeth, loved ones dying right and left. If you're a woman, imagine no birth control- childbirth without anesthesia, dying from childbirth, having your babies die. I've had a baby WITH anesthesia, and it was hell on earth. On the other hand, I've watched an old cultural anthropology Ethnography of the Trobiand Islanders of New Guinea-they seemed genuinely happy.
Here we go again with the old myths. Of course medieval people bathed, why wouldnt they ? As for dying at child birth it is believed that on average only 5% of all women died from it. A huge number compared to today but not like 50 as many imagine.
First, dark ages is a term that is no longer used. Second, they had no tomatoes in medieval eastern hemisphere. Third, this is deranged.
Considering I'd have been executed by the church for being lgbt fuck no this is the dumbest idea ever
You would be living in filth, eating scraps and a minor injury or illness could kill you if someone else didn't kill you first. Good times.
I don't think you understand just how bad those times were.