Medieval Peasants Worked Fewer Hours Than Modern Americans

1. The Sickness That Struck the Rich

In the late medieval era, a new disease is known as the “sweating sickness” suddenly emerged, first in England, and from there, it spread to continental Europe. A mysterious illness, the sweating sickness struck in epidemic waves over a seven-decade period, then vanished just as suddenly as it had emerged. Little if anything is known about the incubation period, but when the symptoms cropped up, they and their consequences were sudden and usually devastating: death frequently occurred within just a few hours.

Initial symptoms included a sense of dread, followed by shivering, headaches, giddiness, exhaustion, nausea, and severe pains in the neck, back, shoulders, and limbs. Then came the symptom that gave the disease its name: copious sweat. That was often accompanied by abdominal pains and delirium. Severe symptoms typically lasted for 15 to 21 hours, and often culminated in a coma or death. Unusual among medieval illnesses – or illnesses of any age, for that matter – the sweating sickness disproportionately struck the upper classes. Today, various theories ascribe the mysterious disease to hantavirus, influenza, typhus, or botulism. However, there is no definitive answer yet as to just what the sweating sickness might have been.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

History Collection – The Intriguing Past Times of Peasants in the Middle Ages

Big Think – Vikings Unwittingly Made Their Blades Stronger by Trying to Imbue Them With Spirits

Brown, Reginald Allen – English Castles (1976)

Medium – Medieval Peasants had More Days off Than the Average American Worker

Massachusetts Institute of Technology – Pre-industrial workers had a shorter workweek than today’s

Fool – Here’s How Many Hours the Average American Works Per Year

Buzzfeed – 16 Strange and Surprising Facts About Medieval England

Daftary, Farhad – The Assassin Legends: Myths of the Ismailis (1995)

DeVries, Kelly – Military Medieval Technology (1992)

Encyclopedia Britannica – Al Mutanabbi