Why You Wouldn't Last 24 Hours in The Dark Ages....

Many people look at the Middle Ages through romantic eyes. They think about armoured knights on lumbering steeds, beautiful damsels in pointy hats, dragons, chivalry and courtly love. Nothing could be further from the truth. For most people, the Middle Ages were dirty, difficult and really quite dangerous. Let's find out now why it was unlikely that you could stay alive and prosper, and why you were likely to die quite quickly during that time. Welcome to Medieval Madness. Communication, or the lack of it. Let's just suppose you suddenly arrived in Medieval England, that there was some sort of time slip and now you were stranded in the middle of the 14th century. The first thing you would realise is that you wouldn't understand a damn thing anybody was saying. The ordinary people spoke Middle English, the posh people spoke French and the clergy spoke Church Latin. Speaking only modern English, you might be able to understand the odd word, but an intelligible conversation with anybody is impossible at this point. A Woman's Worth So, now supposing you had picked up a little bit of the language, but you were unlucky enough to be a woman, then you would know all about hardship. Because of the importance placed on biblical text, medieval women were usually regarded as morally weak, meaning they were oppressed and treated as subservient. In particular, the writings of St Paul highlighted men's authority over women For the peasant woman, work was gendered and she was responsible for the household chores. Not only spinning, brewing, cooking, weaving and taking care of livestock and children, but also sharing the labour of the farm and fieldwork with the men. Women were expected to marry or become a nun. It is the first option that awaited the majority of women. Marriage meant pregnancy and that meant childbirth. There was no modern pain relief or sterile hospital setting. Complications that we now consider to be inconsequential could prove fatal for the medieval mother and child. Having money and status didn't guarantee a safe birth and a caesarean section was only performed if the mother was dying or already dead. In 1420's Florence, for example, one in five women died during labour. Death during childbirth was so prevalent that women were urged to write out a last will and testament long before giving birth. Which kind of takes the shine off what should have been a joyous event. Today we consider the death of a child to be rare or unexpected, but if you were born in the middle ages you would be lucky to make it even past your fifth birthday as the child mortality rate was so high and one third of children died before that age in medieval England. And the dangers would start whilst you were still in the womb. Unaware of the risks of alcohol fetal syndrome, medieval women would have been blissfully knocking back huge quantities of ale or wine or both throughout their pregnancies. And don't get me started on their nutrition. The death of a child is one of the most awful tragedies that anyone can imagine. In medieval Europe the mortality rate was thought to lie somewhere between 20-30% dying under the age of 7, depending on the year. That's children dying from incidents during birth, accidents or because of war or famine and disease. Deadly illnesses included whooping cough, measles, influenza and stomach infections, sicknesses that can easily be treated today. And the grief was the same for parents living thousands of miles away. In medieval Japan 48% of the population died as children. 48% is practically 1 in every 2 children dying. The problem with living in the middle ages was that 85% of the population were serfs. So you would have been more likely to be part of that group than not. Tied to the lord and his land, not only would you have to grow food to sustain yourself and your family, but you would also have to make sure that there was enough to pay the lord his due too. You couldn't leave the land without your lord's permission or even get married. You may as well have been a slave. You would have been always reliant on the weather, too much rain or not enough could be a catastrophe and cause the failure of crops, which led to malnutrition and in the worst cases, starvation. Malnutrition meant a weakened immune system and that led to an upturn in diseases like dysentery, typhus and smallpox. Food, when it was available, consisted of coarse bread made with barley, oats, rye or millet and a thin stew known as pottage. Medieval Europe was teeming with wild game like rabbit, hare, deer and boar. But these were for the nobility to hunt, not for the lower classes and the penalty for poaching was usually pretty harsh. Clothing wasn't the comfiest, being made from itchy wool. Houses weren't exactly palatial either. Most had just one room or two rooms with no chimney and perhaps one or two small windows. They were dark, smoky, smelly and unsanitary because they were often shared with animals, especially in the winter when conditions outdoors were harsh. With no central heating, lighting or running water, is it any wonder that medieval lives were so short? The average life expectancy for most men in the 140 years between 1330 and 1479 was just 24 years. Women came out better with an average of 33 years. But still, not great. The Justice System Medieval crime and their punishments were really different from today as well because the church controlled just about every aspect of life from what you wore to what you could eat and when. So no nipping out to McDonald's in your long pointy shoes on a Sunday morning for your McMuffin breakfast. If you were the victim of a crime, there were no police, you just had to scream loudly to raise a hue and a cry and hope for the best. For serious crimes, death was the punishment, and these didn't just include murder or treason. Forgery, arson, receiving stolen goods, robbery and burglary were all punishable by hanging. In fact, stealing anything worth over 12 pence, the equivalent of about three weeks wages, meant a trip to the gibbet. Early in the period, trial by ordeal was a thing. Here the guilt or innocence of the accused was determined by subjecting the suspect to a painful and often deadly experience such as walking over red hot coals or plunging your hand into boiling water or oil. If you were innocent, God would perform a miracle and save you. Petty crimes like being in debt, gambling, playing football or using abusive language in the street were also dealt with quite harshly, with punishments ranging from public humiliation in the stocks or pillory to branding or imprisonment. Many people died in prison because of the unsanitary conditions and lack of decent food. Most crime was linked to theft because of poverty, so there was a lot of it about. WAR, WHAT IT ISN'T GOOD FOR The list of wars throughout the world during the 1000 year period of the middle ages is insane. In total, there were over 370 wars across many empires, with the last one, the Italian war, finishing in 1504. Many were fought to see which incompetent was going to sit on the throne next as king or queen, and others were contested for what were thought to be noble reasons such as the crusades. But then, as it is today, it was the common people who were left to pay the ultimate price. As a serf, and because of the European feudal system, if you lived in the kingdom of one of two rich people who wanted to have a go at each other, then you would be obligated to fight. Peasants had to supply military service to their liege lord on a regular basis. Men were only sent away for short periods of time, so if you were lucky enough not to die in the first 40 days, you could return home. This was because if everyone went off to war at the same time, then there would be no one to take care of the nobles. No labour meant no crops and no money for all the wealthy people to spend on silly wars. The result was a medieval military that was for the most part disorganised, resulting in a lot of dead people. And the noblemen didn't evade death either. Around 30% of them died in one skirmish or another. As for the commoners, no one really knows the victim numbers. They were thought to be so insignificant that nobody ever kept a tally. We can only estimate the casualties from medieval wars, both soldiers and the innocent bystanders caught up in the conflict. During the first crusade at the siege of Jerusalem, 90,000 people died. In all, during the crusade years from 1095 until the end of the 13th century, there were between 1 to 3 million deaths. The Hundred Years War, fought between 1337 and 1453, produced between 2 and 3.5 million fatalities. And in Asia, the Mongol invasions and conquests that took place during the 13th and 14th centuries ended with the loss of between 30 and 40 million lives. It really wasn't a good time to be a soldier or a peasant. Let's suppose that you happen to be rich during the middle ages and able to afford the finer things in life. Would that have made your chances of survival better? You would definitely have eaten better than the peasants with their bread and pottage. For you, the table would be laden with meats such as veal, venison or peacock in rich cream sauces followed by sugar desserts and fine wine. You would eat your gourmet food from beautifully glazed plates and drink from delicately decorated cups. The problem was that the glazing was made from lead oxide. Yes, it looked lovely and it was practical for cleaning, making it very popular among those who were privileged enough to be able to afford it. But when salty or acidic food was served on glazed plates or kept in glazed pots, it caused the coating to dissolve and the lead was absorbed into the food. Lead is a poisonous heavy metal which collects in the human body over time. Acute poisoning can attack the nervous system and cause headaches, abdominal pain and infertility. Chronic poisoning may lead to seizures, coma and death. Because children are still growing, the effects on them can be devastating and affect their ability to learn. Medieval skeletons from cemeteries in more affluent urban areas of Germany and Denmark have shown that people had lead levels well above normal. Lead was also present in stained glass windows, coins and on roof tiles. Rainwater was often collected from roofs for drinking and this could have been another source of the poisoning. Bread was the main food staple for the medievals. Often the rye used to make bread would become infected with a fungus called Claviceps purpurea. This caused an infection in humans which was called St. Anthony's fire. There were many outbreaks throughout the middle ages which caused tens of thousands of people to die and millions more to become sick. What we now know as ergot poisoning caused hallucinations, muscle cramps, nausea, insomnia and sores. In extreme cases, when left untreated, the blood flow to an infected person's hands and feet is restricted, causing burning pains. Gangrene can set in and fingers, toes, hands and feet can turn black and drop off. Some historians believe it is ergot poisoning that is responsible for some of the dancing epidemics that occurred between the 14th and 17th centuries. These epidemics involved groups of people, sometimes thousands at a time, dancing erratically in the streets until they collapsed from exhaustion and or injury. Thank you for watching this episode of Medieval Madness. Please subscribe if you enjoy these videos and I'll see you next week for another one. Have a great week. Cheers!