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How awful do you think life was in medieval Britain?
marc_p88
Posts: 1,133 Forum Member
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taking the bad weather conditions and food supplies into consideration, how bad do you think life was back in the dark ages?
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marc_p88
Posts: 1,133
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As for the quality of life - it improved immensely after the Black Death; did you ever see Betany Hughes' Seven Ages of Britain series? In the wake of the Black Death, with a quarter of the population dead, even serfs had it better because they could up sticks and go to where people offered them better wages for their efforts ;-) Even the physical labour of the lowest in society became a valuable commodity when it was in short supply.
I'd say the standard of living I enjoy today, as a humble "serf", is far better than a "noble" living in medieval times.
If you managed to survive infancy then you could probably look forward to a life span not really bettered until the 20th century (health took a big knock during Industrialisation).
Of course the Black Death was bad, and there were plenty of wars you could get caught up in like "The Anarchy" during the 12th century, the Norman invasion and Viking raids. But between times it was probably better as a serf than, say, a Victorian factory worker/miner.
I mean really, think about it. Apart from the social pecking order, how would you know anything better? What was there to compare to?
Agreed. They had no idea that they had no chemically tangoed bimbos, 'pop moguls' or reality TV, so could never know how truly blessed they really were.
hard work, dirty homes, animals, rats, poor sanitation, the threat of death or disease never far away. no wonder christianity took off with its promis of a 'better place' to go to after death.
but on the plus side... meadows full of flowers, abundant butterflies, birdsong would be plentiful, no pollution, i dont think it would be too bad for many youd just be used to it.
Monasteries were hotbeds of agricultural life from the Dark Ages on - when they literally were little bubbles of light and life amid the tribal chaos all around. By the Middle Ages they were highly productive agricultural colonies, exploiting every single natural resource in Church land...
When they vanished as economic powerhouses with the destruction and havoc wreaked by Henry VIII, their place in the economy was taken by the estates of the landed gentry, by the early 1800s, "service" and its guarantee of a living for life (if you didn't fvck up!) was what people aspired to - up to one in six of the entire population was in service in England in 1805, for example.
However - as for the people of the Middle Ages not knowing any better, I wouldn't assume so ;-) They had all the remnants and ruins of "the Old Romans" around them, some of it still in use - a late Dark Age/early Medieval monastery here in Northern Ireland was discovered a few years ago to have been using a design of tidal water mill cribbed exactly from the Roman era! They would have seen and been familiar with the remains and ruins of villas with underfloor heating, aqueducts for piped water etc. etc...
...and away beyond the horizon there was still, all through the Dark Ages and the early Medieval period, a miraculous place where all this still worked! Where the Old Romans still had their civilization...
Well anyone hoping to claim benefits would be in for a shock...
...but live, all-star, public executions!
Baths only once a year.
Bedding of furs that were never cleaned.
Excrement and rubbish everywhere.
It must have reeked to high heaven.