6 – Life in the Middle Ages Was Horrible For Almost Everyone
You may have heard the old saying about life in the Medieval era which suggests it was nasty, brutal and short. Basically, people in the Middle Ages typically died young because of rampant diseases and if they made it beyond puberty they would die from poverty or get worked to death. The streets of Medieval Europe were filthy and with all the wars that occurred, villagers could expect to die horribly from a rampaging horde of invaders if they somehow survived all of the other problems!
It is true that the average life expectancy of approximately 35 years is incredibly short by today’s standards. However, a lot of this has to do with the huge level of infant mortality in the era. Remember, medicine was still at a primitive stage compared to the modern age and there were no vaccinations for children. Yet if males reached the age of 21 (at the end of the 15th century), they could reasonably expect to live into their sixties or even their seventies.
This is because conditions in the Middles Ages were nowhere near as bad as the myth suggests. Believe it or not, peasants didn’t often work beyond 8 hours a day and they typically had Sundays off. In Christian countries, there was also time off for Christmas, Easter, midsummer and a number of other religious celebration days. While peasants were by no means comfortably off, a reasonable amount of them fared okay. That is, they could afford half decent food and a considerable amount of ale.
You’ll also be surprised to learn that people in the Middle Ages were relatively clean as well. Due to the various plagues that spread through Europe during this period, it is assumed that Medieval people were disgusting wretches that seldom washed. In reality, it was customary to wash your hands before and after eating and once you have entered someone’s home. Soap was in huge demand even by the 13th century but when the Black Death arrived, scholars began telling people that bathing opened the pores up to diseases.