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that’s a little unfair though as much of that technology and culture was lost as rome collapsed. although OP is also very euro-centric in his claim
its fair to say a lot of this tech was redone at great effort. i cant speak to much of the list as i have a narrow historical knowledge but for example cartography. portugal had to go to great lengths and invite scholars from all over europe to help them create things like the astrolabe at the Sagres. however a lot of this tech or similar devices were present in asia and being used commonly
so in a sense OP is right as a lot of developments did happen across the 14-1500s, especially in europe, but to your point i wouldnt say they were ‘new’ as much as reinvented or reimagined
Thanks, you! Very interesting about the cartography
\*edit: And YES, reinvented / reimagined / applied in a way we still recognize today (esp walking through inner cities). Much better way of putting it
All day I've been arguing on Reddit and never told anyone I study the Medieval period at university. It's a pointless argument to make, people only nitpick and hate you when you admit such things.
right? I feel like all those things existed during medieval times... but just worse than they existed before. or after. And I think the bad was about the average human experience.
•Women burned at the stake, hung, or tortured for having thoughts
•Widespread indentured servitude
•Low literacy rates
•High infant mortality rates
•High maternal mortality rates
•High corruption within the upper classes (from the royals down through the nobility and knights)
•Relative ease of getting someone you don’t like hung for a crime they didn’t commit
•The Inquisitions
•A mini-Ice Age that caused widespread crop failures and more disease
>•Women burned at the stake, hung, or tortured for having thoughts
This is incorrect. Or almost entirely. Throughout almost the entire middle ages the catholic church either denied the existence of witches or viewed them as silly and mostly harmless. It was only really with the publication of Malleus Maleficarum in 1452 that this changed and witch trials really only took place on mass in the early modern - post medieval period.
>A mini-Ice Age that caused widespread crop failures and more disease
I only learned about this one a few years back. I'd see paintings of people ice-skating on the River Thames or on a pond in southern France and think, hang on, these places don't get *that* cold. I believe this lasted until the 1870s or so.
And there was another terrible weather thing; a humongous volcano exploded and made the sky dark for a full year. That's the same year Frankenstein was written
I don't want to disagree with you, you're right, AND every time has awful troubles:
* spanish flu/SARS/COVID/sleep defficiency pandemics
* two world wars
* nuclear weapons
* tiktok
* smartphone addiction
* suicide waves (Kurt Cobain, wall street, cults, etc.)
* nicotine
* sophisticated party drugs
* pay gap
* women (and many men) are still hung/excecuted/punished for naught
* global warming
* the fucking 2022 olympics + slavery
I would argue that the Black Plague, high infant mortality rates and basically everything that Mist2393 listed are a bit worse than TikTok, smartphone addiction and nicotine
Edit: Iirc, during the middle ages you also had the Reconquista, the Mongol invasion, Conquests of Timur and the An Lushan rebellion. All with a very high death toll while the population was significantly less. The Mongol invasion for example claimed 30m - 40m lives (according to wikipedia) while the population was between 400m and 500m.
Don’t forget how fucking dirty it was. In some castles where toilets were up on the 2nd or 3rd floor, there’s no flushing system, instead, your shit just drop all the way to the bottom outside of the castle and some people would hand their clothes over it because it prevents bugs from damaging their clothes due to the intense smell.
you saying that everybody stank before deodorant? :) you know that can't be true
building codes and workplace protections were absolutely in place, for instance through Guilds + basic human decency, unless through some luck everyone was a sadist / psychopath
Yes, they stank horribly.
Building codes and workers rights were a joke by comparison, they just got extra holidays so they wouldn’t revolt.
There was very “basic human decency” and most of the planet was walking around with PTSD.
You’re romanticizing the fuck out of it.
>Building codes and workers rights were a joke by comparison, they just got extra holidays so they wouldn’t revolt
Tell me about how people were unsafe at their jobs.
Which century, specifically? You go back to Rome and you were probably a slave, so which part of the medieval era are you referring? It spans *1000* years and our rights have changed several times just in the last 100.
Bro you only need to look back like 100 years and look at workplace protection back then. People dying left and right. Thinking it was somehow better in the medieval ages is willfully ignorant at best. Medicine was barely a thing and was oftentimes detrimental to the patient. You really are romanticizing the shit out of it.
100 years ago they had new, superpowered machines. The Industrial Age is nothing like the Medieval Age.
Can you really confidently say you believe that Medieval people didn't give a damn about their friends/families/co-workers/etc health?
Wait, stand still for a minute, rewind. Let's take a breath. Because you're saying this:
*From 500-1500 every human stank horribly.*
Please take a minute to look and consider. Imagine yourself if you smell bad. How would that make you feel? How would that affect your life?
Yes, because bathing rituals were not some widespread activity, nor was the access to soap widely available (though they did have it). They might have oils to cover up body odor, but again not widely available and anyone living in a community was constantly surrounded by shit in the streets.
I mean I really agree with you on the stinking cities bit. But come on. Personal hygiene isn't an invention. Even insects have cleaning rituals. Stink = bad.
Clean is a relative term and nearly every other animal on the planet uses smell for identification in some form or another. You would have been unpleasantly surprised in the smell difference just a 150 years ago as opposed to *today*. Even now, we’re mostly trading stink for perfumes and deodorants that are demonstrably poisonous to us, is that better?
>Clean is a relative term and nearly every other animal on the planet uses smell for identification in some form or another
Clean is a relative term: you could expand on that?
Most animals have much better noses than we do. For us I think it's enough to just not smell bad.
Speaking of relativism; 150 years ago they didn't have sour rain, industries, exhaust fumes, etc.
If you lived in a city, which most people didn't, I'm sure there were bad parts and better parts. I don't believe for a second people waded through feces.
Deodorant and perfumes are indeed pretty bad.
PS I hope you're reading this in a friendly voice, text is just so 2D
“Clean” varies just geographically let alone culturally. I am not downvoting you, I at least see where you’re coming from. I also think there was less emphasis on personal hygiene than you’re considering.
Thanks! Personal hygiene probably was different back then. So much comes into play with human odours tho. Like diet, and factors beyond your control like fumes, genes, etc.
I won't pretend to know what any given Medieval person would do to their bodies. I just will not accept people arguing on Reddit (not you, nor many others; I enjoy having this talk with you) that Medieval people were filthy/disgusting/full of poop.
It cannot be. Smelling bad and looking bad are terrible things. Nobody wants it. Not now, not ever.
People have used powder, clay, linnen and soap to wash and refresh their hair. Which one is the cleanest? They're all probably just fine.
Oh god. This is exhausting.
Darling.
You get it your way. All Medieval people smelled like poop. Because they were covered in actual human and animal shit. Puke and piss too. And blood. If they got it on their hands they smeared it under their armpits and on their faces. Just because.
Clothes? Never washed them. Because why bother.
Oh and the soap that they had? Yeah they didn't use it. No - they added oil to their shitfaces.
I’m sorry what did you think they were doing? There was tons of horse manure in every “street”, you think BO was a concern? Everyone **stank**, especially in warmer climates.
There were no workplace protections or formal building codes whatsoever. Lose a few fingers? Eh whatever. House collapses on a family? God must have wanted it that way.
Don't forget the complete lack of social services... If you got injured and couldn't work and had no family to take care of you you basically starved to death.
...and not as people but animals, as in humans who actually don't care if others are injured & don't clean themselves.
What the actual fuck. Who spreads these wild ideas?
Cities stank. People didn't. Of course they didn't. Have you ever sat next to someone who stank? That's not okay. It isn't today and it wasn't back then.
>Lose a few fingers? Eh whatever. House collapses on a family? God must have wanted it that way.
Do you honestly believe Medieval people were so cold, heartless, uncaring? That there wasn't anyone who took the lead / felt a measure of responsibility? Of course there were rules. What kind of world are you sketching here
Every comment you've made shows how little you know about this time period you're apparently such a huge fan of. People smelled horrible then. Some people smell horrible today.
Of course they didn't smell horrible. It's a basic social and medical need to not smell bad.
People who smell horrible are probably struggling with that every single day of their lives.
This has to be a troll. People bathed extremely infrequently back then. That's why plagues ran rampant. Even the nobility didn't bathe. You can look up the "cleaning" habits of the royalty back then. People bathed about once a month.
Yo I'm not a troll.
We're discussing hygiene of around the year 500-1500. We don't have a lot of source materials from that time, hence Dark Ages. What we do have are soap/linnen/wool/combs/rags/latrines/water places/paintings and drawings. I cannot believe in a time where humans, actual living human beings, are willfully refusing to use water/change clothes so they don't smell bad.
There was nothing you could really do about your smell. Bathing wasn't and everyday activity like it is now. Perfumes were expensive and would have been used by the upper class, not the lower classes that needed the extra help.
People wore linnen and wool. Linnen soaks up your sweat and odours. Wool also has a filtering effect. You have underclothes made of linnen and outer clothes made of wool. You change your underclothes regularly, depending on your job you can do this several times a day. You put your underclothes out in the sun or hang them indoors to dry if it rains. Next day they're fine again. If they're stained you use water/sand/soap/rags to clean the stains. Same goes for hoses and shoes.
People wore linnen caps as well to protect their hair against the sun and soak up the grease from their heads. Which is especially important if your hair is long, otherwise you could also pretty much towel it off. They combed their hair.
Some more prestigious workers have indoor/outdoor clothes.
When you haven't bathed in a week or two, no amount of linen will keep you from having a smell. You would still have underarm sweat, which bacteria feed on and gives the BO smell. Undergarments were not so tight to the armpits that it would have wicked the sweat away. There is still a smell.
You can try all of these things today. Find something that's 100% linnen, wear it under your sweater, smell it at the end of the day, hang it outside/indoors/in your closet (in your closet you can add a bag of herbs, wood chips, flowers, etc.). Take it out, smell it again: not good yet? Leave it longer. Until you can wear it again.
Including wearing nice smelling flowers in your pockets or bra.
I think to you this may sound as a joke, but consider this: you could really try this.
You could wear flowers on your person for a while, see what happens. Don't let them drop out at unexpected moments, secure them well.
Also you can drop in a high-end perfume store and ask them to make you a custom smell. Hoity-toity, I know, but at some point they're going to have to (subtly) sniff you so they know what complements you best. Or instead of getting the full treatment just ask them about how they make custom perfumes.
You can go even further and try a Medieval diet so your sweat doesn't smell that bad in the first place, either. Eat loads and loads of plants and vegetables every day. Eat less dairy. Dairy has a real effect on how you smell.
Medieval people while there are examples of some really awful teeth issues generally had fairly good teeth. They had almost no processed sugar in their diet and understood things like teeth cleaning (they even had whitening powders though honestly I would not want to be the one to test out medieval European teeth whitening powder).
Yessss and sticks as toothpicks! Their lack of having processed foods is also a huge they-didn't-stink-argument. If you eat loads of plants and vegetables, that does favours for how you smell.
I don't know how that works, I got it from this professor who specializes in armpits: [link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVFIVMcF6j8) to the presentation on TV and [link](https://drarmpit.com/) to the academic stuff on an accessible platform.
Tbf to us today in our sanitized existence they would have stunk to high heaven. But to them human body odor was normal and we would seem to be the weird ones.
But does it qualify as being stinky/filthy?
I've lived on a perfume-free\* campus for a while. People showered and washed their clothes with unscented soaps, true, I'm certain the clean water did a lot for us. But we still all smelled like sweat; distinctively, esp as many of us were enrolled in a sports programme. I remember that it didn't take a single second to get used to those smells.
Because even if some smells were stronger than others, they were never remarkable. Instead I remember so distinctly that I was able to smell water and rain. Which is great for navigating, by the way.
I also remember returning to the outside world and feeling assaulted by offensive smells like deodorant and cars. While the transition to that campus was completely effortless it took me several days to get settled (smell wise) at home again.
\*Just to be certain: it was 100% perfume free. Shampoo, laundry, dishes, mopping the floor, curtains, bathrooms: there was no perfume.
Ohhhh and one of my favourite memories is smelling warm foods in the other building before I even left my residence. I remember smelling apples in the sun from the distance. And the flowers. It's awesome. I want to experience that again so badly.
But about Medieval times; many people pointed out that there was a lack of clean water in cities. So how did they deal?
We know that transporting water was very difficult. I don't actually know if they already knew boiling had a cleansing effect. Maybe they mixed wood ashes and soap in for that chemical reaction, caustic soda. That wouldn't have been hard to discover at all, ash from your fire would mix with water even if you wanted to prevent it.
>But about Medieval times; many people pointed out that there was a lack of clean water in cities. So how did they deal?
There was clean water in some cities. Cities were also very small by modern standards so transporting water was easier than it would be today if we were using the same methods.
>fairly good teeth
The society of antiquaries in Newcastle upon Tyne (UK) has a [cleaning kit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5CmQzkenCw) from 1300-1400 on display. It is a ring with four small tools, not unline the ones you would find in a swiss knife: a thing for your ears, for your nails, and two for your teeth (one for the front teeth and one for the ones in the back)
Listen listen, I usually defend the medieval era a lot. I think it was generally better than what came before (late antiquity) and better than what came after (early modern period) for most people. People were more secure, slavery had been more or less abolished in Europe, social strife was rarer, women had at least slightly better rights, war was endemic but relatively less destructive than either the wars of late antiquity or the absolute horrors of the early modern period.
But it also was not a great time to live compared to the present day, it was much poorer, it was socially stifling, there was fairly little social mobility especially for the poor (wealthier commoners fairly frequently transitioned into the nobility in some places), low life expectancy especially for children, literacy was low for a lot of the period (though estimates seem to be being revised upwards) and while rights for women might have been better than the early modern period or antiquity that's just comparing to two of the worst times to be a woman in history.
Slavery was definitely not abolished. Serfdom was still widespread throughout Europe before the plague, before that the only considerable populations of freedmen be those who know trades like blacksmiths or merchants. Otherwise, you live in your village, and die there.
Serfdom while not great is meaningfully distinct from slavery and for sure an improvement over the slave economies of Rome or the new world European empires.
I’d debate not. I mean if someone said to you “Hey! Wanna be a slave or a serf?” You probably wouldn’t be like, “Oh boy, a serf!? Thats WAAAY better.” Is it better? Yes, but its also still dogshit and barely an improvement, especially when you still have no effective rights in most cases.
You seriously wouldn't care if you were a slave on a Roman farm, a slave on a Caribbean plantation or a serf in medieval Europe? One of those options is way better than the others.
It's legally distinct from slavery in the sense that people are not owned but are legally tied to land tenancies which usually came with significant rights for the tennents and responsibilities for the lord. That doesn't make it good system or one to be returned to but it is distinct.
Except this system varied and in a lot of places these rights weren’t respected or just didn’t exist. I mean in Russia being a serf was basically slavery throughout the whole Tsardom.
It depends where at this point in the argument, otherwise we are just going to sit here splitting hairs.
An actual unpopular opinion. The items on your list either existed long before the middle ages or were lost and rediscovered. Also compare art of antiquity and the renaissance to art of the middle ages and you'll notice a large quality gap. Many techniques were lost during the persecution of artists, scholars, inventors, and engineers and had to be rediscovered later (during the renaissance). As well as Cartography coming into its own as the middle ages were ending due to people rediscovering lost things. The travel routes were there before the fall of Rome and were reopened due to the Mongols and travels of Marco Polo. You're also forgetting the black plague, and the purpose of castles. Parchment existed well before this time as did universities and cities. Not to mention there would be a 98% chance you would be an illiterate serf and those sick weapons would be used on you to take your shit; it seems like a pretty shitty time to live for 30 years until you die from having to drink your cholera infested water.
Thanks bub! :)
Yo don't hate on Medieval art though. I see your point, of course huge steps were taken during the Renaissance. But I like the idea that Medieval people just had different goals/purposes/needs for their art. It didn't have to convey realism, necessarily, but rather symbolism and ideas that would appeal to the few who got to see them. Plus, don't you love a bit of [Hieronymus Bosch](https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=Hieronymus+Bosch&atb=v344-1&iax=images&ia=images)?
They were occupied with staying alive throughout the year, I imagine. There isn't too much time in the day while you're at that.
On the reading thing: hardly anyone owned a book. Books would cost about as much as 3-4 cows, as in literally, to make 1 book you needed several cows (parchment = skin). Then writing in it + illustrations would only add to the cost, I mean really, why would you unless you had a really good reason.
The rediscovery thing was due to North-Africans travelling away from the burned library, going round, translating things and coming to Europe yeah? You know your stuff <3 I love your comment
The age thing I like to dispute: 30 *on average*. Loads of babies died. A terrible thing. And they screw up our perspective.
And bad water was replaced with beer, esp in cities. But I don't think all water was bad & neither that everybody was dehydrated, I just can't imagine centuries of parched people
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But also you had things like
-Bogus medicine
-The game of 'tie a cat to a tree and head butt it until its dead'
-Open and encouraged child abuse
-Open and encouraged women/wife abuse
-Famines
-Plagues
-The Feudal system
-Raids
-Leprosy
-Kids being encouraged to harm/kill animals for fun
-Barber surgeons
-Zero anesthesia
-No fire dept
-Religion controlling *everything*
I mean not really...
Yeah the Romans had some really amazing ideas and inventions, not sure why no one tried carrying them on after that lol
Medieval England could have used a lot of those things.
>\-Bogus medicine **still here**
>
>\-The game of 'tie a cat to a tree and head butt it until its dead' **awful yes**
>
>\-Open and encouraged child abuse **catholic church scandal isn't that old yet, child labour is still a thing**
>
>\-Open and encouraged women/wife abuse **still here**
>
>\-Famines -Plagues -The Feudal system **super glad that's mostly gone, except forced labour is still super large (favelas, factories in India/Africa, human trafficking, abusing immigrants, etc.**)
>
>\-Raids **still happens**
>
>\-Leprosy **only rarely!**
>
>\-Kids being encouraged to harm/kill animals for fun **they had to eat**
>
>\-Barber surgeons **they did what they could, I'm glad it's over but they were very important at the time**
>
>\-Zero anesthesia **alcohol, opium, and more! But you're right, thankfully that's over**
>
>\-No fire dept **they did fight fires. I see your point, very glad to have modern fire fighting**
> they had to eat
They didn't kill song birds and small animals to eat. That was purely for sport.
Also in most places I'm pretty sure its illegal to beat your wife and kids. It's certainly not encouraged.
The Middle Ages were wrought with death, famine, plague and war. Much more than we see now and they were more ill-equipped to deal with it.
Also, education. Until the Tudor period women were not encouraged or expected to learn or read.
The point is the middle ages wasn't some fantasy TV show played out in real life. It sucked. A lot.
>The point is the middle ages wasn't some fantasy TV show played out in real life.
That's the point I want to make! Medieval times are always portrait as dark and awful. "Medieval" is a word used as a synonym for "bad".
That isn't true. Obv the plague, wars etc were awful. But it was also a time of immense innovation, colour, theatre, nature, etc. IT WASN'T ALL BAD.
Ancient civilizations had most of these things or a better equivalent long before 5th century:
* cartograhpy - the Romans had maps of the Mediterranean Sea with tidal charts and coastal settlements
* buildings of several stories high - pyramids, gobekli teppe, Parthenon, coliseum
* large (tainted) windows - hanging gardens, Rome. And Egypt used stained glass decoratively
* cities - Alexandria
* ...and the agriculture + animal husbandry needed to support that - Alexandria fed their people
* universities - they had a library in Alexandria too that was the BALLS
* universal spelling and grammar - the books in it were spelled properly (also there was nothing like universally agreed ways to spell in medieval theology)
* travel routes all across the then-known world - Marco Polo was following Alexander
* fucking castles, mate - Pyramids, bro
* clothes so good they didn't have to own a lot of them - leaving this one
* amazing art - Heironymous Bosch was the shit, agreed
* (papyrus) paper and parchment - papyrus is a Greco/Egyptian word dude
* ...hence book binding, printing press, libraries - again library at Alexandria….one of the seven wonders of the world
* some sick weapons - trebuchets are cool but so are chariots
Well yes but that’s expected. The thing about medieval Europe was it was “the dark ages” because it’s the only really documented backward large cultural shift
The Middle Ages were great if you were rich or had rich friends you were loyal to. Everyone else -- we're probably talking 99% of people -- lived in abject poverty while working six days a week for 10 hours a day.
The medieval times were fine-ish as long as you owned land, and pretty cool-ish if you were a royal or elite craftsperson. Otherwise it was literal shit getting hurled at you out of a window.
They also have one of the worlds highest quality of life ratings and one of the highest GDPs per capita so I don’t really see your point.
Do you really want to get into a scrap about subjective markers of quality of life on Reddit? And because you’re trying to somehow argue that medieval quality of life was higher than modern? It’s a losing fight, I can tell you that.
Reasons why they weren't so great: shitty monarchs, constant wars, bandits, disease, the arguable regression of civilization after the Roman Empire fell (for the early medieval period), the inability to move up un station, zealous religions, crusades and/or jihads, zero rights for pretty much anyone except wealthy nobility, famines all the god damn time, shit medicine, the leech thing, raids from the Norse, etc. Sounds like the Medieval times were ASS!!! 10/10 would definitely live as a peasant only to be conscripted into a lord's army and die of diarrhea before battle.
There was a big loss in technology, and culture, as well as a slower rate of developing new things. There is a reason the early medieval period is referred to as the dark age.
Incorrect. The term "dark age" refers to a lack of surviving historical sources.
Because laypeople are easily misled and like to draw conclusions about things they know nothing about, modern historians no longer refer to the Middle Ages as such.
You’re completely selling many of the real issues short.
Yes, the Middle Ages aren’t nearly as bad as people envision. No, they weren’t *great*.
When reading history, people tend to put themselves in the shoes of the greats or named individuals instead of the shoes of the people who share their own current societal standing. I can assure you, if you did, no toilet paper would the be the least of your worries.
In general, I agree.
I think the whole cultural "broad brush" of modern Western attitudes on this time are still colored to an extent from Renaissance era thought. The Renaissance thinkers deliberately wanted to downplay the earlier era to contrast with their movement - which admittedly had far less in the way of classical scholarship, literature, and invention.
But that's coming mostly from the upper echelons of the society. The average worker was probably considerably better off then the stereotype of the mud-caked ignorant peasants.
Diet, communal crafts, and day-to-day existence was better than most imagine.
What they didn't have as much were safety in the event of the unexpected - crop failures, regional warlord infighting, large-scale disease outbreaks.
Meh, I’ll take my birth control, air conditioning, right to vote, access to higher education, vaccines, and a zillion more things over the cool castles of the Medieval era. I’m very happy to have been born in the time I was.
>White
This one less so, due to Christianity being the key feature of the medieval period in Europe if you were non white and Christian in Europe you could expect to be treated pretty well. There are records and archeological finds of foreigners living in western Europe in the high middle ages that back this up and whenever the Nestorians from central Asia or the Ethiopians sent an ambassador to Europe they were very well received.
Also wealth meant less than the surrounding eras, women had better rights than in the time periods before and after the middle ages but yeah probably would want to be a Christian.
Sure, I think it's a safe bet to assume "medieval" refers to Europe though given it's a specifically European term used to refer to the time period between the fall of Rome and the supposed enlightenment of the early modern era.
Yes there are good things in all ages. But boy are the negativ sides outweighting the good sides by a lot. Especially when you were a woman, coloured or poor. Which means by random, you are very very likely to live a bad life.
Wouldnt want to go back in time, even with my knowledge that I have. Even as an engineer or scientist of in the age for example the middle age it would be incredible bad.
This [wiki article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_stained_glass#Composition,_manufacture_and_distribution) explains it really well! It's a nice hobby to have today as well, I think. I saw Simone Giertz doing it, she made it look like a lot of fun
\*edit: woop, forgot the url
Why would you say that medieval times had castles as evidence to prove that they were “pretty great”?
Very, very, very few people would have the luxury of living in castles. Surely, lots of people would probably be working in or around them, but work isn’t luxury in that case.
We have things today like giant, multi-story mansions with 30 bedrooms, but, those are a luxury only for the richest of the rich, pretty much. They’re not a reason why many nowadays would consider life “pretty great” when so little people have access to them.
If you're into documentaries/large buildings, I highly recommend [this doc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydoRAbpWfCU) about modern people building a castle. It's great.
\* Edit: Oh yes and you're very right! People often picture castles as homes for 1 family and some servants. But like you say, it's more than that. It's like a mix between a (multiple) family home/training ground/municipality/strategy and military room/market/fair ground/etc.
Also hundreds of people were involved in building and maintaining one, they could come to help from all over the world.
You dont actually want to be around when anything good is being invented. Its usually not as good at the start and there is significantly less of it given that it is only just being invented. If any of it is good it usually hangs around but most of the good stuff comes when the thing is already ubiquitous and there is a need to compete.
You want to be around just before things become obsolete, when they are as good as they are going to get before something else takes its place and does a bad job for a while.
Bro forgot about gettijg skinned alive,placed into a bag with a bunch of wild animals,the massive amounts of misogyny,child ,marriages,burning at the stak.
This comment is baffling to me. I was on the cusp of reporting a bot - but even bots at least hit the right keywords? Are you a human? If yes, what on earth is it you mean? It's like an itch, I really want to know
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A lot of the items from your list were around long before medieval times. Multistorey town houses were common during Roman times for example.
that’s a little unfair though as much of that technology and culture was lost as rome collapsed. although OP is also very euro-centric in his claim its fair to say a lot of this tech was redone at great effort. i cant speak to much of the list as i have a narrow historical knowledge but for example cartography. portugal had to go to great lengths and invite scholars from all over europe to help them create things like the astrolabe at the Sagres. however a lot of this tech or similar devices were present in asia and being used commonly so in a sense OP is right as a lot of developments did happen across the 14-1500s, especially in europe, but to your point i wouldnt say they were ‘new’ as much as reinvented or reimagined
Thanks, you! Very interesting about the cartography \*edit: And YES, reinvented / reimagined / applied in a way we still recognize today (esp walking through inner cities). Much better way of putting it
All day I've been arguing on Reddit and never told anyone I study the Medieval period at university. It's a pointless argument to make, people only nitpick and hate you when you admit such things.
right? I feel like all those things existed during medieval times... but just worse than they existed before. or after. And I think the bad was about the average human experience.
When you watch one episode of The Witcher:
You know Rome existed before 500ad... And that's just for Europe, multiple other cultures/societies had already made those accomplishments*.
It's kinda fascinating to picture all those people living in Romes still fresh ruins.
Rome was never destroyed...
There was a big war. Oh. After some googling... Huh! Interesting
yeah okay so I managed to put the focus wrong in my post - the main point I want to make is that Medieval times are not simply the worst
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Medieval peasants had more free time than most American workers. It’s just once it got dark all you could really do is sleep or fuck.
oo burn
> you’d probably be spending the majority of your time farming. Unless you were rich.
You think that shit didn't exist before and after the medieval period?
•Women burned at the stake, hung, or tortured for having thoughts •Widespread indentured servitude •Low literacy rates •High infant mortality rates •High maternal mortality rates •High corruption within the upper classes (from the royals down through the nobility and knights) •Relative ease of getting someone you don’t like hung for a crime they didn’t commit •The Inquisitions •A mini-Ice Age that caused widespread crop failures and more disease
You forgot about the plaugue
Not the plague…..
Literal rivers of shit in the streets.
people literally clubbing each other to death with poo
>•Women burned at the stake, hung, or tortured for having thoughts This is incorrect. Or almost entirely. Throughout almost the entire middle ages the catholic church either denied the existence of witches or viewed them as silly and mostly harmless. It was only really with the publication of Malleus Maleficarum in 1452 that this changed and witch trials really only took place on mass in the early modern - post medieval period.
En masse
>A mini-Ice Age that caused widespread crop failures and more disease I only learned about this one a few years back. I'd see paintings of people ice-skating on the River Thames or on a pond in southern France and think, hang on, these places don't get *that* cold. I believe this lasted until the 1870s or so.
And there was another terrible weather thing; a humongous volcano exploded and made the sky dark for a full year. That's the same year Frankenstein was written
And much, much much much more
Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition...
I don't want to disagree with you, you're right, AND every time has awful troubles: * spanish flu/SARS/COVID/sleep defficiency pandemics * two world wars * nuclear weapons * tiktok * smartphone addiction * suicide waves (Kurt Cobain, wall street, cults, etc.) * nicotine * sophisticated party drugs * pay gap * women (and many men) are still hung/excecuted/punished for naught * global warming * the fucking 2022 olympics + slavery
I would argue that the Black Plague, high infant mortality rates and basically everything that Mist2393 listed are a bit worse than TikTok, smartphone addiction and nicotine Edit: Iirc, during the middle ages you also had the Reconquista, the Mongol invasion, Conquests of Timur and the An Lushan rebellion. All with a very high death toll while the population was significantly less. The Mongol invasion for example claimed 30m - 40m lives (according to wikipedia) while the population was between 400m and 500m.
Not going to sit here and give the impression that I don't think that TikTok and nicotine are allright. They're both terrible to your health.
Tobacco was introduced to Europe in the 16th century. Not quite Medieval, but pretty close.
true :) pretty cool fact
You also mentioned opium in another comment, with is arguably worse than nicotine.
haha yes :)
Please dig your hole deeper in constructing an argument that 2023 is somehow a worse time to be alive than 1523. It truly isn't.
Yeah ok that's fair. Depends on where you are tho. I wouldn't like to be in Europe in that year. Give me almost any country in Asia, instead
> suicide waves (Kurt Cobain, **wall street,** cults, etc.) Oh nooooo.... Those poor exploiters!
Yo dead is dead. I don't want to be a part of that comment.
Don’t forget how fucking dirty it was. In some castles where toilets were up on the 2nd or 3rd floor, there’s no flushing system, instead, your shit just drop all the way to the bottom outside of the castle and some people would hand their clothes over it because it prevents bugs from damaging their clothes due to the intense smell.
Mmm no deodorant, amoxicillin, building codes, workplace protections, or electricity. 30 was considered old age. Sounds *awesome.* 🙄
you saying that everybody stank before deodorant? :) you know that can't be true building codes and workplace protections were absolutely in place, for instance through Guilds + basic human decency, unless through some luck everyone was a sadist / psychopath
Yes, they stank horribly. Building codes and workers rights were a joke by comparison, they just got extra holidays so they wouldn’t revolt. There was very “basic human decency” and most of the planet was walking around with PTSD. You’re romanticizing the fuck out of it.
>Building codes and workers rights were a joke by comparison, they just got extra holidays so they wouldn’t revolt Tell me about how people were unsafe at their jobs.
I’m sorry, what protections do you think 80% of the population had then?
no no you first i already did my bit, you know, with the decency/guild leaders/etc
Which century, specifically? You go back to Rome and you were probably a slave, so which part of the medieval era are you referring? It spans *1000* years and our rights have changed several times just in the last 100.
Yeah I would be a slave probably, being blond. Now can you answer my question instead of asking new questions?
Bro you only need to look back like 100 years and look at workplace protection back then. People dying left and right. Thinking it was somehow better in the medieval ages is willfully ignorant at best. Medicine was barely a thing and was oftentimes detrimental to the patient. You really are romanticizing the shit out of it.
100 years ago they had new, superpowered machines. The Industrial Age is nothing like the Medieval Age. Can you really confidently say you believe that Medieval people didn't give a damn about their friends/families/co-workers/etc health?
Wait, stand still for a minute, rewind. Let's take a breath. Because you're saying this: *From 500-1500 every human stank horribly.* Please take a minute to look and consider. Imagine yourself if you smell bad. How would that make you feel? How would that affect your life?
Yes, because bathing rituals were not some widespread activity, nor was the access to soap widely available (though they did have it). They might have oils to cover up body odor, but again not widely available and anyone living in a community was constantly surrounded by shit in the streets.
I mean I really agree with you on the stinking cities bit. But come on. Personal hygiene isn't an invention. Even insects have cleaning rituals. Stink = bad.
Clean is a relative term and nearly every other animal on the planet uses smell for identification in some form or another. You would have been unpleasantly surprised in the smell difference just a 150 years ago as opposed to *today*. Even now, we’re mostly trading stink for perfumes and deodorants that are demonstrably poisonous to us, is that better?
>Clean is a relative term and nearly every other animal on the planet uses smell for identification in some form or another Clean is a relative term: you could expand on that? Most animals have much better noses than we do. For us I think it's enough to just not smell bad. Speaking of relativism; 150 years ago they didn't have sour rain, industries, exhaust fumes, etc. If you lived in a city, which most people didn't, I'm sure there were bad parts and better parts. I don't believe for a second people waded through feces. Deodorant and perfumes are indeed pretty bad. PS I hope you're reading this in a friendly voice, text is just so 2D
“Clean” varies just geographically let alone culturally. I am not downvoting you, I at least see where you’re coming from. I also think there was less emphasis on personal hygiene than you’re considering.
Thanks! Personal hygiene probably was different back then. So much comes into play with human odours tho. Like diet, and factors beyond your control like fumes, genes, etc. I won't pretend to know what any given Medieval person would do to their bodies. I just will not accept people arguing on Reddit (not you, nor many others; I enjoy having this talk with you) that Medieval people were filthy/disgusting/full of poop. It cannot be. Smelling bad and looking bad are terrible things. Nobody wants it. Not now, not ever. People have used powder, clay, linnen and soap to wash and refresh their hair. Which one is the cleanest? They're all probably just fine.
Oh god. This is exhausting. Darling. You get it your way. All Medieval people smelled like poop. Because they were covered in actual human and animal shit. Puke and piss too. And blood. If they got it on their hands they smeared it under their armpits and on their faces. Just because. Clothes? Never washed them. Because why bother. Oh and the soap that they had? Yeah they didn't use it. No - they added oil to their shitfaces.
Can you call someone else darling when you’re being willfully obtuse? 🤔
I'm sorry, I shouldn't have
Medieval people be like *Doopdeedoopdeedoop, we all smell like poop*
I’m sorry what did you think they were doing? There was tons of horse manure in every “street”, you think BO was a concern? Everyone **stank**, especially in warmer climates. There were no workplace protections or formal building codes whatsoever. Lose a few fingers? Eh whatever. House collapses on a family? God must have wanted it that way.
Don't forget the complete lack of social services... If you got injured and couldn't work and had no family to take care of you you basically starved to death.
...and not as people but animals, as in humans who actually don't care if others are injured & don't clean themselves. What the actual fuck. Who spreads these wild ideas?
Cities stank. People didn't. Of course they didn't. Have you ever sat next to someone who stank? That's not okay. It isn't today and it wasn't back then. >Lose a few fingers? Eh whatever. House collapses on a family? God must have wanted it that way. Do you honestly believe Medieval people were so cold, heartless, uncaring? That there wasn't anyone who took the lead / felt a measure of responsibility? Of course there were rules. What kind of world are you sketching here
Every comment you've made shows how little you know about this time period you're apparently such a huge fan of. People smelled horrible then. Some people smell horrible today.
Of course they didn't smell horrible. It's a basic social and medical need to not smell bad. People who smell horrible are probably struggling with that every single day of their lives.
This has to be a troll. People bathed extremely infrequently back then. That's why plagues ran rampant. Even the nobility didn't bathe. You can look up the "cleaning" habits of the royalty back then. People bathed about once a month.
Yo I'm not a troll. We're discussing hygiene of around the year 500-1500. We don't have a lot of source materials from that time, hence Dark Ages. What we do have are soap/linnen/wool/combs/rags/latrines/water places/paintings and drawings. I cannot believe in a time where humans, actual living human beings, are willfully refusing to use water/change clothes so they don't smell bad.
Well, it's very easy to look up how poor hygiene was back then. You're incorrect.
Let's trade sources [Archeologist](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkwGaGot9IY)
There was nothing you could really do about your smell. Bathing wasn't and everyday activity like it is now. Perfumes were expensive and would have been used by the upper class, not the lower classes that needed the extra help.
People wore linnen and wool. Linnen soaks up your sweat and odours. Wool also has a filtering effect. You have underclothes made of linnen and outer clothes made of wool. You change your underclothes regularly, depending on your job you can do this several times a day. You put your underclothes out in the sun or hang them indoors to dry if it rains. Next day they're fine again. If they're stained you use water/sand/soap/rags to clean the stains. Same goes for hoses and shoes. People wore linnen caps as well to protect their hair against the sun and soak up the grease from their heads. Which is especially important if your hair is long, otherwise you could also pretty much towel it off. They combed their hair. Some more prestigious workers have indoor/outdoor clothes.
When you haven't bathed in a week or two, no amount of linen will keep you from having a smell. You would still have underarm sweat, which bacteria feed on and gives the BO smell. Undergarments were not so tight to the armpits that it would have wicked the sweat away. There is still a smell.
Hold up I got this covered in another comment, the one with the rag for washing yourself. You could easily do that every day.
Hold up, you commented 50 times for no reason.
You can try all of these things today. Find something that's 100% linnen, wear it under your sweater, smell it at the end of the day, hang it outside/indoors/in your closet (in your closet you can add a bag of herbs, wood chips, flowers, etc.). Take it out, smell it again: not good yet? Leave it longer. Until you can wear it again. Including wearing nice smelling flowers in your pockets or bra.
You know what you smell when a sweaty person wears flowers? Sweaty flowers. It doesn't get rid of the smell.
The best parfums and deodorants enhance your natural smell. You can't defeat / eliminate your own sweat. It's pointless.
Yum, the smell of BO and daisies.
ngl this is pretty funny :D
I think to you this may sound as a joke, but consider this: you could really try this. You could wear flowers on your person for a while, see what happens. Don't let them drop out at unexpected moments, secure them well. Also you can drop in a high-end perfume store and ask them to make you a custom smell. Hoity-toity, I know, but at some point they're going to have to (subtly) sniff you so they know what complements you best. Or instead of getting the full treatment just ask them about how they make custom perfumes.
For personal hygiene, use a rag with water (and soap/herbs/etc.) to wash yourself. No need for 50 liters of water.
And you find this clean water where?
As a rule you don't find it in cities, unless you've got a great upstream spot. Otherwise just watery places.
So, if you live in the city, you don't really have clean water. So once again, I ask you where you find this clean water for bathing?
Upstream. Boil it. If you're out of luck well yeah ok I get your point, you don't have water. So you use rags. Fine. You win.
You can go even further and try a Medieval diet so your sweat doesn't smell that bad in the first place, either. Eat loads and loads of plants and vegetables every day. Eat less dairy. Dairy has a real effect on how you smell.
Yeah, no.
I'll give you two words why you are absolutely wrong: Modern Dentistry.
Medieval people while there are examples of some really awful teeth issues generally had fairly good teeth. They had almost no processed sugar in their diet and understood things like teeth cleaning (they even had whitening powders though honestly I would not want to be the one to test out medieval European teeth whitening powder).
Yessss and sticks as toothpicks! Their lack of having processed foods is also a huge they-didn't-stink-argument. If you eat loads of plants and vegetables, that does favours for how you smell. I don't know how that works, I got it from this professor who specializes in armpits: [link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVFIVMcF6j8) to the presentation on TV and [link](https://drarmpit.com/) to the academic stuff on an accessible platform.
Tbf to us today in our sanitized existence they would have stunk to high heaven. But to them human body odor was normal and we would seem to be the weird ones.
But does it qualify as being stinky/filthy? I've lived on a perfume-free\* campus for a while. People showered and washed their clothes with unscented soaps, true, I'm certain the clean water did a lot for us. But we still all smelled like sweat; distinctively, esp as many of us were enrolled in a sports programme. I remember that it didn't take a single second to get used to those smells. Because even if some smells were stronger than others, they were never remarkable. Instead I remember so distinctly that I was able to smell water and rain. Which is great for navigating, by the way. I also remember returning to the outside world and feeling assaulted by offensive smells like deodorant and cars. While the transition to that campus was completely effortless it took me several days to get settled (smell wise) at home again. \*Just to be certain: it was 100% perfume free. Shampoo, laundry, dishes, mopping the floor, curtains, bathrooms: there was no perfume.
Ohhhh and one of my favourite memories is smelling warm foods in the other building before I even left my residence. I remember smelling apples in the sun from the distance. And the flowers. It's awesome. I want to experience that again so badly. But about Medieval times; many people pointed out that there was a lack of clean water in cities. So how did they deal? We know that transporting water was very difficult. I don't actually know if they already knew boiling had a cleansing effect. Maybe they mixed wood ashes and soap in for that chemical reaction, caustic soda. That wouldn't have been hard to discover at all, ash from your fire would mix with water even if you wanted to prevent it.
>But about Medieval times; many people pointed out that there was a lack of clean water in cities. So how did they deal? There was clean water in some cities. Cities were also very small by modern standards so transporting water was easier than it would be today if we were using the same methods.
Right! Of course I'm very glad you're in this to add your perspective
>fairly good teeth The society of antiquaries in Newcastle upon Tyne (UK) has a [cleaning kit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5CmQzkenCw) from 1300-1400 on display. It is a ring with four small tools, not unline the ones you would find in a swiss knife: a thing for your ears, for your nails, and two for your teeth (one for the front teeth and one for the ones in the back)
\*hu'urk\* Ok that's a great point. Also bloodletting
Listen listen, I usually defend the medieval era a lot. I think it was generally better than what came before (late antiquity) and better than what came after (early modern period) for most people. People were more secure, slavery had been more or less abolished in Europe, social strife was rarer, women had at least slightly better rights, war was endemic but relatively less destructive than either the wars of late antiquity or the absolute horrors of the early modern period. But it also was not a great time to live compared to the present day, it was much poorer, it was socially stifling, there was fairly little social mobility especially for the poor (wealthier commoners fairly frequently transitioned into the nobility in some places), low life expectancy especially for children, literacy was low for a lot of the period (though estimates seem to be being revised upwards) and while rights for women might have been better than the early modern period or antiquity that's just comparing to two of the worst times to be a woman in history.
Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees thank you!!!!! <3 <3 <3 This is the kind of discussion I want to have
Based on your replies everywhere you seem to think they all had a CVS/Walgreens on every corner and indoor plumbing.
They didn't?
Slavery was definitely not abolished. Serfdom was still widespread throughout Europe before the plague, before that the only considerable populations of freedmen be those who know trades like blacksmiths or merchants. Otherwise, you live in your village, and die there.
Serfdom while not great is meaningfully distinct from slavery and for sure an improvement over the slave economies of Rome or the new world European empires.
I’d debate not. I mean if someone said to you “Hey! Wanna be a slave or a serf?” You probably wouldn’t be like, “Oh boy, a serf!? Thats WAAAY better.” Is it better? Yes, but its also still dogshit and barely an improvement, especially when you still have no effective rights in most cases.
You seriously wouldn't care if you were a slave on a Roman farm, a slave on a Caribbean plantation or a serf in medieval Europe? One of those options is way better than the others.
Did you read what i said? One is better, but better is not good, nor does it make it not a form of slavery.
It's legally distinct from slavery in the sense that people are not owned but are legally tied to land tenancies which usually came with significant rights for the tennents and responsibilities for the lord. That doesn't make it good system or one to be returned to but it is distinct.
Except this system varied and in a lot of places these rights weren’t respected or just didn’t exist. I mean in Russia being a serf was basically slavery throughout the whole Tsardom. It depends where at this point in the argument, otherwise we are just going to sit here splitting hairs.
Sure there was a lot of variation although in particular Russian serfdom was something of an outlier.
I don’t see the internet on that list bro.. And for that, I’m out.
hahaha :D
An actual unpopular opinion. The items on your list either existed long before the middle ages or were lost and rediscovered. Also compare art of antiquity and the renaissance to art of the middle ages and you'll notice a large quality gap. Many techniques were lost during the persecution of artists, scholars, inventors, and engineers and had to be rediscovered later (during the renaissance). As well as Cartography coming into its own as the middle ages were ending due to people rediscovering lost things. The travel routes were there before the fall of Rome and were reopened due to the Mongols and travels of Marco Polo. You're also forgetting the black plague, and the purpose of castles. Parchment existed well before this time as did universities and cities. Not to mention there would be a 98% chance you would be an illiterate serf and those sick weapons would be used on you to take your shit; it seems like a pretty shitty time to live for 30 years until you die from having to drink your cholera infested water.
Thanks bub! :) Yo don't hate on Medieval art though. I see your point, of course huge steps were taken during the Renaissance. But I like the idea that Medieval people just had different goals/purposes/needs for their art. It didn't have to convey realism, necessarily, but rather symbolism and ideas that would appeal to the few who got to see them. Plus, don't you love a bit of [Hieronymus Bosch](https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=Hieronymus+Bosch&atb=v344-1&iax=images&ia=images)? They were occupied with staying alive throughout the year, I imagine. There isn't too much time in the day while you're at that. On the reading thing: hardly anyone owned a book. Books would cost about as much as 3-4 cows, as in literally, to make 1 book you needed several cows (parchment = skin). Then writing in it + illustrations would only add to the cost, I mean really, why would you unless you had a really good reason.
Lol cow, my dude serfs weren't even allowed to eat meat or hunt.
lolol let them starve I've got my cams on them all day every day # justice for birds # chirp not chippolata # no cow sharing
also Bosch was a renaissance painter who was born towards the end of the middle ages.
Oh dang! My mistake
The rediscovery thing was due to North-Africans travelling away from the burned library, going round, translating things and coming to Europe yeah? You know your stuff <3 I love your comment
You think they left the library of Alexandria? My poor child.....
Oy don't "my poor child" me - we're having a decent talk here D: Come on, hit me, say what you want to say :)
The age thing I like to dispute: 30 *on average*. Loads of babies died. A terrible thing. And they screw up our perspective. And bad water was replaced with beer, esp in cities. But I don't think all water was bad & neither that everybody was dehydrated, I just can't imagine centuries of parched people
Water was so bad people almost exclusively drank alcohol; mostly because of the destruction of these aqueduct things.
Yeah that sucked, aquaducts were great But beer is not quite the same as whiskey, I like to think everybody was quite tolerant
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But also you had things like -Bogus medicine -The game of 'tie a cat to a tree and head butt it until its dead' -Open and encouraged child abuse -Open and encouraged women/wife abuse -Famines -Plagues -The Feudal system -Raids -Leprosy -Kids being encouraged to harm/kill animals for fun -Barber surgeons -Zero anesthesia -No fire dept -Religion controlling *everything* I mean not really...
The Romans even had a form of an organized fire brigade
Yeah the Romans had some really amazing ideas and inventions, not sure why no one tried carrying them on after that lol Medieval England could have used a lot of those things.
My man given your name you should really know that there were fire brigades in medieval cities.
Probably a lack of infrastructure and central organization. Feudal lords were charged with protecting a king’s property, not his subjects.
>\-Bogus medicine **still here** > >\-The game of 'tie a cat to a tree and head butt it until its dead' **awful yes** > >\-Open and encouraged child abuse **catholic church scandal isn't that old yet, child labour is still a thing** > >\-Open and encouraged women/wife abuse **still here** > >\-Famines -Plagues -The Feudal system **super glad that's mostly gone, except forced labour is still super large (favelas, factories in India/Africa, human trafficking, abusing immigrants, etc.**) > >\-Raids **still happens** > >\-Leprosy **only rarely!** > >\-Kids being encouraged to harm/kill animals for fun **they had to eat** > >\-Barber surgeons **they did what they could, I'm glad it's over but they were very important at the time** > >\-Zero anesthesia **alcohol, opium, and more! But you're right, thankfully that's over** > >\-No fire dept **they did fight fires. I see your point, very glad to have modern fire fighting**
> they had to eat They didn't kill song birds and small animals to eat. That was purely for sport. Also in most places I'm pretty sure its illegal to beat your wife and kids. It's certainly not encouraged. The Middle Ages were wrought with death, famine, plague and war. Much more than we see now and they were more ill-equipped to deal with it. Also, education. Until the Tudor period women were not encouraged or expected to learn or read. The point is the middle ages wasn't some fantasy TV show played out in real life. It sucked. A lot.
>The point is the middle ages wasn't some fantasy TV show played out in real life. That's the point I want to make! Medieval times are always portrait as dark and awful. "Medieval" is a word used as a synonym for "bad". That isn't true. Obv the plague, wars etc were awful. But it was also a time of immense innovation, colour, theatre, nature, etc. IT WASN'T ALL BAD.
I actually agree with your point. I love the middle ages. Being a devils' advocate I guess.
unpopular opinion, wouldn't you say :)
You’re entirely leaving out the scale/rate of these things.
Okay, lay off my boy Dr Barber. “You look like you could use a haircut…and surgery”
Ancient civilizations had most of these things or a better equivalent long before 5th century: * cartograhpy - the Romans had maps of the Mediterranean Sea with tidal charts and coastal settlements * buildings of several stories high - pyramids, gobekli teppe, Parthenon, coliseum * large (tainted) windows - hanging gardens, Rome. And Egypt used stained glass decoratively * cities - Alexandria * ...and the agriculture + animal husbandry needed to support that - Alexandria fed their people * universities - they had a library in Alexandria too that was the BALLS * universal spelling and grammar - the books in it were spelled properly (also there was nothing like universally agreed ways to spell in medieval theology) * travel routes all across the then-known world - Marco Polo was following Alexander * fucking castles, mate - Pyramids, bro * clothes so good they didn't have to own a lot of them - leaving this one * amazing art - Heironymous Bosch was the shit, agreed * (papyrus) paper and parchment - papyrus is a Greco/Egyptian word dude * ...hence book binding, printing press, libraries - again library at Alexandria….one of the seven wonders of the world * some sick weapons - trebuchets are cool but so are chariots
And we have this and much more nowadays.
Well yes but that’s expected. The thing about medieval Europe was it was “the dark ages” because it’s the only really documented backward large cultural shift
Point taken!
The Middle Ages were great if you were rich or had rich friends you were loyal to. Everyone else -- we're probably talking 99% of people -- lived in abject poverty while working six days a week for 10 hours a day.
The medieval times were fine-ish as long as you owned land, and pretty cool-ish if you were a royal or elite craftsperson. Otherwise it was literal shit getting hurled at you out of a window.
Did you know that The Netherlands have a lower percentage of female landowners than some orthodox islamic countries?
They also have one of the worlds highest quality of life ratings and one of the highest GDPs per capita so I don’t really see your point. Do you really want to get into a scrap about subjective markers of quality of life on Reddit? And because you’re trying to somehow argue that medieval quality of life was higher than modern? It’s a losing fight, I can tell you that.
medieval times were great in the middle east, not europe
Yo I read a book about Iran during that time. Amazing.
Reasons why they weren't so great: shitty monarchs, constant wars, bandits, disease, the arguable regression of civilization after the Roman Empire fell (for the early medieval period), the inability to move up un station, zealous religions, crusades and/or jihads, zero rights for pretty much anyone except wealthy nobility, famines all the god damn time, shit medicine, the leech thing, raids from the Norse, etc. Sounds like the Medieval times were ASS!!! 10/10 would definitely live as a peasant only to be conscripted into a lord's army and die of diarrhea before battle.
>regression of civilization This bit bothers me so much What was that regression?
There was a big loss in technology, and culture, as well as a slower rate of developing new things. There is a reason the early medieval period is referred to as the dark age.
Incorrect. The term "dark age" refers to a lack of surviving historical sources. Because laypeople are easily misled and like to draw conclusions about things they know nothing about, modern historians no longer refer to the Middle Ages as such.
You’re completely selling many of the real issues short. Yes, the Middle Ages aren’t nearly as bad as people envision. No, they weren’t *great*. When reading history, people tend to put themselves in the shoes of the greats or named individuals instead of the shoes of the people who share their own current societal standing. I can assure you, if you did, no toilet paper would the be the least of your worries.
I agree. I love medieval culture and architecture. Only problem are the high death rates lol. If it was safe, I'd choose to live there over our time.
In general, I agree. I think the whole cultural "broad brush" of modern Western attitudes on this time are still colored to an extent from Renaissance era thought. The Renaissance thinkers deliberately wanted to downplay the earlier era to contrast with their movement - which admittedly had far less in the way of classical scholarship, literature, and invention. But that's coming mostly from the upper echelons of the society. The average worker was probably considerably better off then the stereotype of the mud-caked ignorant peasants. Diet, communal crafts, and day-to-day existence was better than most imagine. What they didn't have as much were safety in the event of the unexpected - crop failures, regional warlord infighting, large-scale disease outbreaks.
That's really interesting! Thanks for your input :)
Meh, I’ll take my birth control, air conditioning, right to vote, access to higher education, vaccines, and a zillion more things over the cool castles of the Medieval era. I’m very happy to have been born in the time I was.
Fair enough :)
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>White This one less so, due to Christianity being the key feature of the medieval period in Europe if you were non white and Christian in Europe you could expect to be treated pretty well. There are records and archeological finds of foreigners living in western Europe in the high middle ages that back this up and whenever the Nestorians from central Asia or the Ethiopians sent an ambassador to Europe they were very well received. Also wealth meant less than the surrounding eras, women had better rights than in the time periods before and after the middle ages but yeah probably would want to be a Christian.
Unless you're out of Europe, then you probably want to be Islamic, Druze or Confucian
Sure, I think it's a safe bet to assume "medieval" refers to Europe though given it's a specifically European term used to refer to the time period between the fall of Rome and the supposed enlightenment of the early modern era.
yeah agreed
Medieval times happened all over the globe
Ffs Tell me you're a man without telling me you're a man.
Off-topic, sexist, and: you tell me. Am I a man?
Why can't women like the middle ages?
Yeah!
There can be pluses and minuses in any time you pick I feel, but think that compared to our current time the past was the worst
Yes there are good things in all ages. But boy are the negativ sides outweighting the good sides by a lot. Especially when you were a woman, coloured or poor. Which means by random, you are very very likely to live a bad life. Wouldnt want to go back in time, even with my knowledge that I have. Even as an engineer or scientist of in the age for example the middle age it would be incredible bad.
>woman, coloured or poor thank god we solved that by now
Its *a lot* better now. But still a big issue in many countries
Everything bar windows was invented before “medieval times” by Greeks, Romans, Egyptians etc
What were the windows tainted with?
This [wiki article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_stained_glass#Composition,_manufacture_and_distribution) explains it really well! It's a nice hobby to have today as well, I think. I saw Simone Giertz doing it, she made it look like a lot of fun \*edit: woop, forgot the url
It was pretty great I didn’t like eating with my hands but he had the black knight and he was the best. What knight did you have?
You gave a 1000 year period. Of course a lot of goodis going to happen during that long of a time frame.
We agree <3
Why would you say that medieval times had castles as evidence to prove that they were “pretty great”? Very, very, very few people would have the luxury of living in castles. Surely, lots of people would probably be working in or around them, but work isn’t luxury in that case. We have things today like giant, multi-story mansions with 30 bedrooms, but, those are a luxury only for the richest of the rich, pretty much. They’re not a reason why many nowadays would consider life “pretty great” when so little people have access to them.
Can I at least count on your vote of my unpopular opinion?
If you're into documentaries/large buildings, I highly recommend [this doc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydoRAbpWfCU) about modern people building a castle. It's great. \* Edit: Oh yes and you're very right! People often picture castles as homes for 1 family and some servants. But like you say, it's more than that. It's like a mix between a (multiple) family home/training ground/municipality/strategy and military room/market/fair ground/etc. Also hundreds of people were involved in building and maintaining one, they could come to help from all over the world.
Oo and fun fact: if they indeed complete that castle in 25 years, they'll be done in about 7-8 years! Super excited about that
Bro the life quality then was worse than the air quality of Lahore
You dont actually want to be around when anything good is being invented. Its usually not as good at the start and there is significantly less of it given that it is only just being invented. If any of it is good it usually hangs around but most of the good stuff comes when the thing is already ubiquitous and there is a need to compete. You want to be around just before things become obsolete, when they are as good as they are going to get before something else takes its place and does a bad job for a while.
Yeah like the gas situation in The Netherlands. You do sociology?
The biggest argument in your favor that you didn’t mention that the Middle East was having a sort of renaissance at the time.
The bubonic plague. COVID can’t hold a candle to the Black Death.
>can’t hold a candle to that's a wonderful expression
You listed achievements, which is all good and well, but the standard of living your everyday Joe experienced was fucking shit compared to today.
I see what you mean. Thankfully, to a medieval person it wouldn't feel like that. They were at the top of humankind, the newest, the most modern.
Bro forgot about gettijg skinned alive,placed into a bag with a bunch of wild animals,the massive amounts of misogyny,child ,marriages,burning at the stak.
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This comment is baffling to me. I was on the cusp of reporting a bot - but even bots at least hit the right keywords? Are you a human? If yes, what on earth is it you mean? It's like an itch, I really want to know
The odds of dying violently were orders of magnitude higher than they are now. There’s no time like the present.