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This all sound to me to be much more like the Renaissance than the Middle Ages.
Large stone castles really didn't exist in the Middle Ages. Only a relatively small keep in a castle compound was stone, as it was a last redoubt, and a noble family's quarters were seldom permanently in the keep. It was like a bomb shelter. Their quarters may have been more spacious than a commoner's, but even they were tiny in comparison to private living spaces today. Most of the indoor activity was conducted in one large room, and the great hall was only as great as it had to be, dependent on the population size of the particular area.
Most medieval castles were either demolished or vastly remodeled during the Renaissance and afterward.
Nobles and commoners ate very similar food. They both ate meat or not, depending on the country and the climate, and both lived on much more than just meat and bread. Vegetables, especially root vegetables, played a very important part in living through winters in the north, and in the south, seasonal vegetables were as important as grains, which were always prone to shortages due to natural calamities and bad storage. The nobles may have gotten the better cuts of meat, but all animals weren't eaten frequently. They were too valuable alive to be indulged in as food.
Fish, fowl, eggs and shellfish most often made up the bulk of protein of the diets for both nobles and commoners. Game was more commonly eaten as meat than any domesticated animals, and game was whatever that could be caught.
Life was spent mostly outdoors for both. In the colder climes, interior spaces were intentionally cramped, because they were easier and less laborious to heat, and were dark and smelly for all. Tapestries were both functional and artistic, but peasants spun the same wool threads and wove the same cloth, and covered their smaller interior spaces' walls with them for exactly the same purpose- to keep the chill out and the warmth in.
Large animals- cattle, sheep and horses- were most often stabled alongside the human spaces for the same reason. They were all little organic furnaces that helped keep the people warm. Their dung was used as fuel when the cold was particularly bitter.
While many nobles held the power of life and death, they only held it if they could live themselves. Relations with their commoners had to be pretty good and balanced most of the time; if a noble began lording over his subjects too much, a peasant who could do him in would easily take his place, and they did, regularly. it was never a one-way street. The nobles offered two vital elements: security and justice. If they failed at either, they were gone, and they knew it. While the nobles didn't swing a hoe or an ax, they administered, a function that was just as vital to everyone's well being. They all got fat or starved together.
Human waste was handled in the same way since time eternal- dig a hole, fill it up, move the jakes and dig another. Or choose a stream and pollute it. Commoners and royalty alike used the same communal outhouses and thought nothing of it. The idea of intentionally pooping alone was as strange to them as it would be to do the same publicly out in the open is today. No one gave any thought to urinating in public wherever they were.
And the church reigned over them all. The power of the church vs. the nobility was constantly fought over throughout the Middle Ages, and Popes had armies more powerful than many countries. The Popes used their military might, too, and settled things the way they wanted when it came to Kings, Queens, and lesser nobility. Typically, the local church was the biggest and grandest joint in town, not the local castle complex.
These are some of the reasons why the Middle Ages lasted so long. Life for all was not bad nor vastly unequal. It was, for the most part, highly predictable and didn't change much from one generation to the next, so it must have been pretty good for everyone for a long time.
The period was one of more stability by far than those that followed, and instability was much more local. 'Nations' were regions, not countries. The notion of national boundaries were the exception, and were determined much more by geography than civilization.
It's fascinatinating how 'bedrooms' evolved. They did not exist in the true middle ages. A pesant would have a space for sleeping in the warmest part of their hovel, near the fire. A lord would have a great hall with a large fireplace. It was the place governing took place, meals for the entire household, including servants, were eaten. Special events and blessings and gathering away from danger happened there too.
Sleep took place there as well. The doors would be hung with heavy tapestries to keep in the heat. The mulititude of bodies helped keep it warm as well. The lord and family might have a hideaway space or might sleep in a secluded corner, but they shared the hall with all visitors, courtliers and servants. It was like a giant crash space and for centuries this is how it was expected to be.
The prividliged didn't have a 'room' in part because of cold, but also because there was no place for one. The Hall was a multi purpose, all life events place. And each had their place in it.
In time, when the outside world was more secure, the lord and family would retreat to a corner sectioned off from the rest by a hanging woven 'door'. Eventually this led to special alcoves built into the hall. There was still not much room, but it was a dedicated space. Others still slept with the rest. It wasn't until later that it evolved into a 'bedroom' and was used as a family only space as we would understand it. But this wasn't until there was decent security from invaders from the outside, putting it past the early and mid middle ages. But to people of the time it was perfectly normal.
I think if you took someone from that time and gave them the guest room, I think they would feel very lonely and uncomfortable, and you might wake up with them sleeping on your floor.
And even into the 1800's, farm settlements and urban housing were often largely open sleeping. Farms didn't have the time to build a room for the kids. They usually slept up in the loft, and parents below.
I think someone from that time would find us most wasteful, but we would have much much more trouble if we had to adjust to their world.
What the great hall gave them was a sense of all belonging to the same society. They virtually lived their whole lives together. Perhaps the practice kept up for so long since it was reassuring, to be part of a whole, in the face of so much unknown.
Last edited by nightbird47; 09-12-2013 at 12:07 AM..
I think any person from the 800's would die of terror in the modern world, man or woman.
Our lives and everything, including our language, would be as terrifying to them as a visit with aliens would be to us. They would have no point of reference at all.
I disagree. I think that throughout history, people were much more emotionally resilient than most of us are today. Sure, our modern technology and high speeds would be overwhelming at first, but these people had to adapt to all kinds of things we would consider horrible, and they would adapt to our stuff too.
In the middle ages (hell, even up to the early 20th century) it was common for children and babies to die. Most mothers had lost half the children they'd given birth to (if they didn't die in or soon after childbirth themselves). They didn't shut down and curl up in a ball. They dealt with it and kept functioning and living life. Today such a mother would go into a deep depression or exhibit symptoms of PTSD, and she would not be able to function or care for her other children. No one around her would expect her to perform her life functions normally; she'd be excused from responsibility at best, and at worst, end up in a locked psych hospital ward for a brief period.
Today, if a person witnesses the brutal murder of a family member, they also have the option of being so traumatized that they can't function. People around them expect them to be traumatized, and they'd question if the person DID keep on functioning normally. The person needs treatment and tons of support form others. They can't work anymore; they might qualify for disability benefits.
But this "option" of shutting down with shock over some trauma is actually a modern "luxury." It wasn't even on the menu in the past.
If we had a visitor from Medieval times, who had seen children die, mothers die in childbirth, people die of plague, leprosy, other disease, maiming, burning, starvation, who had known it pretty common for homes and towns to be suddenly be destroyed by fire or flood, invasion or war, who had lived in fear of Vikings, devils, witchcraft, famine and drought, I sincerely believe she'd have the emotional fortitude to survive the initial shock of our society, and she's learn to adapt and keep living life.
I disagree. I think that throughout history, people were much more emotionally resilient than most of us are today. Sure, our modern technology and high speeds would be overwhelming at first, but these people had to adapt to all kinds of things we would consider horrible, and they would adapt to our stuff too.
In the middle ages (hell, even up to the early 20th century) it was common for children and babies to die. Most mothers had lost half the children they'd given birth to (if they didn't die in or soon after childbirth themselves). They didn't shut down and curl up in a ball. They dealt with it and kept functioning and living life. Today such a mother would go into a deep depression or exhibit symptoms of PTSD, and she would not be able to function or care for her other children. No one around her would expect her to perform her life functions normally; she'd be excused from responsibility at best, and at worst, end up in a locked psych hospital ward for a brief period.
Today, if a person witnesses the brutal murder of a family member, they also have the option of being so traumatized that they can't function. People around them expect them to be traumatized, and they'd question if the person DID keep on functioning normally. The person needs treatment and tons of support form others. They can't work anymore; they might qualify for disability benefits.
But this "option" of shutting down with shock over some trauma is actually a modern "luxury." It wasn't even on the menu in the past.
If we had a visitor from Medieval times, who had seen children die, mothers die in childbirth, people die of plague, leprosy, other disease, maiming, burning, starvation, who had known it pretty common for homes and towns to be suddenly be destroyed by fire or flood, invasion or war, who had lived in fear of Vikings, devils, witchcraft, famine and drought, I sincerely believe she'd have the emotional fortitude to survive the initial shock of our society, and she's learn to adapt and keep living life.
There is no way that you can prove this to be true, and I don't think it is. The human mind has not changed radically in the last 1000 years. People were more accustomed to death and violence in the past, but unless they were living in a war zone, they were actually exposed to less of it than many people in today's world.
"Melancholia" was a common malaise in the past, especially among women. To think that women in the past who lost children "just got over it" and that women today don't speaks to your own narrow vision of the world, not to reality. That some women never "got over it" is historical fact. Mary Todd Lincoln is a well-known example.
There is growing evidence that soldiers as early as the Civil War suffered what today we call PTSD. We now recognize that soldiers in WW II and Korea did as well, and that PTSD was NOT a result of Vietnam veterans not being properly welcomed home.
We do not have written records on how people in much earlier times were affected by loss and violence and warfare. Perhaps just ascribing it to "God's Will" enabled them to cope more easily. Certainly the horrors of a medieval battle with the limited weaponry of the times couldn't match the horrors of inflicted by a Civil War artillery barrage much less the havoc wreaked by 21st century weaponry.
Our world is ruled by magic. None of us know everything about how our wondrous machinery and technologies work, how our modern chemistry does what it does, or how our abundant electric power system functions. We just know it does work, and take it for granted. Every modern miracle is soon replaced by something even more miraculous.
But not to a medieval person. Not at all. To them, anything that was good came from God, which was most of the stuff and the beliefs that kept them alive. Everything else, especially what could not be explained in religious terms, came from Satan. That would include anything they perceived as threatening.
Death and disease wouldn't scare anyone from the middle ages. What would terrify them is how we can move around so casually in a vehicle with a totally incomprehensible power source at heart stopping speeds and think so little of it. A telephone or TV would be devices full of witchcraft and bad spirits. An aircraft would be more terrifying than the Devil himself.
The real terror would be how easily we avoid what would be imminent death to them every minute of our lives. They would believe the world had become populated by demons who only look like people, because we don't drop dead when all the lights in the house come on at once.
They would know we are demons by our minty breath and our weirdly florid body odor. Our clothing, with colors never seen in nature, would be Satan's doing. Our massive amounts of pavement would be terrifying. Concrete, a material invented by the Romans but forgotten in the middle ages, would be something straight from Hell.
The medieval mind was oriented completely on the axis of Heaven and Hell. Every natural force in the world was seen as either coming from God or Satan with nothing in the middle. Mathematics did not exist, except in the Orient. Physics did not exist. Only Heaven and Hell existed, and both made everything else work.
A medieval person would only be comfortable in a rough cabin out in the woods- an old hunting camp that doesn't have electricity, running water, central heating or indoor plumbing. They would understand hunting woolens, and would marvel at a cast iron stove, a modern steel axe and kerosene, a liquid fuel more powerful than anything they had. They would wonder at a print in a frame hanging on the wall, and the exquisite fineness of a steel wood screw. All of that would be understandable to them. The outhouse in back would be completely familiar, especially if it was a 2-holer.
But any form of urban or suburban life would scare them to death. They would have no frame of reference at all.
We could go back to their time with a lot of understanding, because it hasn't been all that long since we lived lives that were similar in many ways, but they could not go forward, because the future is always unknown. The farther the future extends, the less is known.
We would be just like them if we could go into the 25th century suddenly. i doubt very seriously any of our projections into a time 500 years away will be any more accurate than theirs would be if the 21st, But the biggest mental difference of all would be that the medieval mind never gave much thought to the future at all. We have learned how to think ahead into times we will never know. They didn't know how to do that yet.
I disagree. I think that throughout history, people were much more emotionally resilient than most of us are today. Sure, our modern technology and high speeds would be overwhelming at first, but these people had to adapt to all kinds of things we would consider horrible, and they would adapt to our stuff too.
In the middle ages (hell, even up to the early 20th century) it was common for children and babies to die. Most mothers had lost half the children they'd given birth to (if they didn't die in or soon after childbirth themselves). They didn't shut down and curl up in a ball. They dealt with it and kept functioning and living life. Today such a mother would go into a deep depression or exhibit symptoms of PTSD, and she would not be able to function or care for her other children. No one around her would expect her to perform her life functions normally; she'd be excused from responsibility at best, and at worst, end up in a locked psych hospital ward for a brief period.
Today, if a person witnesses the brutal murder of a family member, they also have the option of being so traumatized that they can't function. People around them expect them to be traumatized, and they'd question if the person DID keep on functioning normally. The person needs treatment and tons of support form others. They can't work anymore; they might qualify for disability benefits.
But this "option" of shutting down with shock over some trauma is actually a modern "luxury." It wasn't even on the menu in the past.
If we had a visitor from Medieval times, who had seen children die, mothers die in childbirth, people die of plague, leprosy, other disease, maiming, burning, starvation, who had known it pretty common for homes and towns to be suddenly be destroyed by fire or flood, invasion or war, who had lived in fear of Vikings, devils, witchcraft, famine and drought, I sincerely believe she'd have the emotional fortitude to survive the initial shock of our society, and she's learn to adapt and keep living life.
I don't think someone from that time would be unable to function. Life then, and now though we refuse to acknowledge it, was a daily affair. You woke not knowing what might happen. But you took things as they come. You don't have to go back to the middle ages. Read the diaries and letters of pioneer women who bore their children along the trail, had them wander off and just disappear, and be abandoned, and saw plenty of death. But they still got up ready to face the day.
I do think someone from the past would quickly tire, or not be much enthralled by our wonderous technology. It wouldn't be real to them. There is a shot in Time after Time, where HG Wells follows Jack the Ripper to the future when The Ripper slips out on the time machine. He sees a modern city, circa the seventies. It's big and fast and he sees the technology, but is unimpressed about how its used. And he ends up at a McDonalds. He keeps wondering where he scottish food is and why the table looks wood but doesn't feel like it, feels fake. He doesn't see why it just shouldn't be wood. Plastics don't impress him.
I think way back when there were those who could experience losing a child and go on, not fold, and those who could not. The ones who could not slipped away and eventually died from their grief. The people of the time were survivors not just because they lived in a world you needed to be, but because if you didn't you didn't hack it. I think there are more people around today who would 'get it' after losing the financial bet. If they couldn't handle the loss, they never will. If it was in them, then they could find ways.
The first is how you see the world. I had a horrible calamity happen in my life. I ended up alone, just me and the dogs and a car which sort of ran. But you know, something kicked in. You don't know if its there until it has to. I would not have believed that all the stuff lost simply came to not matter as it did. Today, now, where I was going to eat lunch, where I'd sleep, that was what mattered. How to get out of the situation too. If your mired in self pity you take comfort in the new little society you find yourself in and may never leave.
I've been tracing family. There were a lot of those times for them. They persisted and went on. I don't know if its genetic or you pass it on other ways, but it came to me.
This is either in us or not. Way back when, and not so far back as this thread reaches, it simply had to be. There used to be a common expression, that someone grieved themselves to death. Even today with all the little helpers it still rests on the individual if they want them to work. Or if they cooperate at all. But when death and dirt and uncertainty was part of life, and if one reached adulthood, they'd learned to accept it in childhood, the ones that couldn't fell by the wayside very early. Today they take a long time. But in the end the man drinking himself to death since he doesn't see any point in not, and the woman with a lost child who falls into fatal grief are much the same in the end. They made a choice. They might not have lasted as long way back when.
I won't say that our ability *sometimes* to fix the grief is bad. But it still rests firmly inside the mind to want to. The greatest mirical pill in the history of time ONLY works if you want it to. And there are levels. Some women who crumbled after losing a child may have not had to, but nobody knew how to help. What is unrealistic is that belief that somehow we can fix everything.
Someone from even a century ago would have called us fools on that.
Last edited by nightbird47; 09-12-2013 at 10:34 PM..
There is no way that you can prove this to be true, and I don't think it is. The human mind has not changed radically in the last 1000 years. People were more accustomed to death and violence in the past, but unless they were living in a war zone, they were actually exposed to less of it than many people in today's world.
"Melancholia" was a common malaise in the past, especially among women. To think that women in the past who lost children "just got over it" and that women today don't speaks to your own narrow vision of the world, not to reality. That some women never "got over it" is historical fact. Mary Todd Lincoln is a well-known example.
There is growing evidence that soldiers as early as the Civil War suffered what today we call PTSD. We now recognize that soldiers in WW II and Korea did as well, and that PTSD was NOT a result of Vietnam veterans not being properly welcomed home.
We do not have written records on how people in much earlier times were affected by loss and violence and warfare. Perhaps just ascribing it to "God's Will" enabled them to cope more easily. Certainly the horrors of a medieval battle with the limited weaponry of the times couldn't match the horrors of inflicted by a Civil War artillery barrage much less the havoc wreaked by 21st century weaponry.
I think the difference between today and even a century ago, is that people today in the 'first' world, especially, are carefully shielded as they grow. Learning to deal with small things and being allowed to teaches you how. We make a goal to protect children. This is not the common thought civil war time, and before. They grew up knowing there were horrible things in life. They knew people died of disease. They had ways of coping which they could build on. Daughters knew that mother's could die in childbirth, and babies didn't always live. They had the ammo to help them deal with adult life as it wasn't hidden away. Children *need* that. We've gone the full swing the other way.
And meloncholia, prolonged depression, had existed for a long time. Women didn't just get over loss, but they knew if there were other kids they had to be tended to, and a very very common practice was to name a new baby after a dead child, especially a family name. Most today find that repugnant, but we don't deal well with death. Women grieved but on the whole didn't slip away and did deal with children and family while they grieved. I think the structure of having that responsibility helped them, diverting the grief and padding the pain. Few just vegged out. And most, especially in a time when the death of children wasn't unusual, recovered in their own time and way. But things aren't like that today. Parents expect their child will be healthy and will grow up. We have far less resources to deal with the reality that you still are doing a roll of the dice.
I'm sure ptsd has been around as long as humans, and people knew that soldiers wouldn't come back the same. And swords and axes and various farm impliments could create carnage which is very grisley and indescribable. But if you were wounded then, you didn't stand much chance of going home so there were fewer damaged goods returning. Very few of those with massive trauma who live today would have back in WW2 even. We have more living reminders of what war can do. Other centuries people went home, often coped however they could. They weren't singled out because they weren't expected to come home the same.
I think the difference is that in the past people still 'felt' grief and horror, but it was a part of life, and they could fit in better. We don't like damaged goods anymore, except as entertainment. We'd rather go have them hide somewhere and go on playing and not be bothered by the idea that life isn't in the end filled with perfect endings.
Possibly more than anything else your noble houseguest would be shocked at the lack of deference automatically showed to her due to her high rank and position in society.
Everyone in a medieval society, actually, in all western societies up through as late as WWI, was treated based on their class and position in society. Despite your modern "luxuries" the noblewoman would probably be quick to perceive your status in society (none at all as a normal citizen in the modern classless US), due to the lack of deference shown to you by anybody. Due to this she would be very quick to assume that you are "worthless" due to your lack of command, and expect you to defer to her wishes and requests at all times. She will treat you like a servant and all aspects of your mannerism and language would be heavily scrutinized by her to ensure that you are showing the proper deference to a woman of higher birth and class.
Serving the nobility was seen as a great privilege and honor, so if you rebelled against your noble guest, she would be bewildered and unable to comprehend why you would put yourself on equal footing with her.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TracySam
Yes, I was more focused on the later middle ages than the era immediately post-Roman. But still, even during what we call the Renaissance, most people, rich and poor, were still living a very medieval life. The Renaissance happened in pockets here and there, and we only see it as a separate era from our vantage point.
Plus, even the typical early medieval castle keep would probably be bigger than my little house.
Oh! I forgot about bugs! I remember reading about how the wealthy nobility, even the kings & queens in the middle ages through the 18th century, were accustomed to fleas, lice, and bed bugs. I guess before reading that, I had assumed it was something only the peasants dealt with. But even the monarchs had servants using flea combs on them, getting fleas and lice out of their hair. Those rich clothes that didn't get washed, but maybe just brushed off, were also homes to many parasites.
Today, when a moth flies in the back door, or I see a spider on the wall, it's an "event." A cause for alarm to me, and a cause for celebration for my cats. A bug seen in the house means "stop everything and take care of this now." I know there must be more bugs in my house that I don't even see. But that's the point; I don't see them and they don't live on my body.
My medieval noble house guest would be surprised, probably pleasantly, about the lack of bugs and vermin in my home.
I was mostly writing about luxuries that are material, not abstract. But yes, we have many things today that we take for granted or view as "rights" that our friend would see as great luxuries. Yes, the catholic church dominated all. My houseguest would be a Christian, as am I. But that's the only point where our religious lives would overlap. She would be shocked that I could dare to pray all by myself, in my own home, outdoors, or just in my head. She would have been taught that one must have a priest between the praying person and God, or God would not hear your prayers. She'd be shocked that I own a Bible, written in my own language, which I could read at my pleasure, or not read, whatever I choose. After getting over her initial shock, she might see my ability to openly discuss my religious beliefs as a great "luxury." In her day, such behavior would get one executed as a heretic.
Again, once getting over her initial shock, she might envy the luxury I have of choosing whether to marry or not, and choosing whether to reproduce or not. I can buy and sell property, vote, speak my mind or publish my own writings. Although I might complain that in recent years when I openly disagree with our current President, I'm labeled a racist or "hater", I still have freedom of speech (for now anyway). My houseguest would come from a world where if you spoke out against your leader, you were executed for treason. If I share my political beliefs, I might just incur taunting from the more vocal liberals, or have difficulty getting my non-profit organization registered, but I'm not getting killed.
And since my imaginary medieval houseguest is a woman, we'd then have to get into all the freedoms and rights that women in the US today enjoy. She'd be shocked, yes, and even appalled at some things, but after getting past that, she might view our freedoms as a great luxury.
I think any person from the 800's would die of terror in the modern world, man or woman.
Our lives and everything, including our language, would be as terrifying to them as a visit with aliens would be to us. They would have no point of reference at all.
Well, I don't think they would like a busy city street in the middle of skyscrapers, or a trip down a crowded, fast moving freeway, but there are plenty of people living now in rural areas who don't like those things and are scared and uncomfortable in those situations.
I think if you took the medieval person out in the country to a cornfield or pasture, and started from there, you could start with that familiar setting and work your way out or forward.
But really, a forest, a stream, a field, a pasture, a mountain, the world is still here. Two people talking in a field are still two people talking in a field. That is a big part of life for many people in the world today.
If you go to a place like Peru in the highlands of the Altiplano, you can look around and imagine that nothing much has changed from 500 years ago. There are just little huts, families living in them, tending their animals and working in the fields. Much more of the world is like this than we are aware of, living our lives driving from place to place on paved roads and never getting out of our cars or buildings much.
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