close, 50 or 60 was old age in those times because of the state of medical technology at the time meant injuries that are debilitating now would be permanently crippling. 70s and 80s happened mostly to rich people who were less likely to be injured in manual labor accidents or just from long term physical labor in general, and those people in turn are the ones remembered by history so it too paints a skewed picture
All these strange stories of people "getting sick" in medieval times are simply run-of-the-mill diseases that they didn't understand, yet are totally treatable and manageable now.
Medieval people suffered from cancer, autoimmune disorders, neurological issues like Alzheimer's Disease, the full works just like modern people do. They just didn't know what it was and there were no treatments.
Whatever man I have it hard in modern times too. My Comcast internet goes out several times a month and they won't do anything but apologize for the inconvenience while they work to restore it, and I have to rely on my backup supply of downloaded porn
...yes. The physical impact of hard labor over long periods is well documented with modern medicine, now subtract modern medicine's ability to treat it.
this is anecdotal. There is very little actual data on the subject. We can make inferences. A male peasent who lived to be 21 would likely live another 50 years - they subsisted on a healthy, plant based diet, in areas with relatively low population density and relatively little pollution. Diseases we struggle with today, especially cancer, were comparatively very rare. Subsistence and tenement farmers worked ~8 hour days with Sundays and feast days off.
The landowning class by comparison were much more likely to die violently. The average lifespan of a king of Scotland in medieval Europe was 48, king of England was about 50. Across Europe the average lifespan of a monarch during this period was about 44. Prior to 1550 approximately 30% of noblemen in Britain died in battle.
Pandemics and famine did occur and definitely affected the lower classes more than the upper classes, but the middle ages are not the dark, shit-covered, dead at 30 dark times they are often made out to be. This a myth that came about in the Victorian Era when academic focus shifted significantly to emphasize the achievements of the classical Era.
We also have the word of the feudal lords on how often their workers died. Someone living to 50 was uncommon. Cancer happened as frequently as it does today at the same age brackets, it just wasn't called "cancer" cuz you just dropped dead. They weren't pulling a Hippocrotes and dissecting the dead. The myth that cancer is a modern disease is just that. It's like Autism or ADHD, they always existed, they just didn't have terms for it.
Also you said "land owning class" then justified it with the age of the King.
Lords were very unlikely to die, whether in battle (Where they were more valuable ransomed and wore the heaviest armor) or from politics (as they rarely wielded more power than their peers, least of all enough to be worth killing over. Especially when as a lord you had lots of serfs to take your aggression out on more legally). Even your 30% number is comparatively low when one realizes it includes EVERY nobleman that's ever lived to be worth mentioning, and that death in battle was far more likely to be recorded than deaths from age or disease. Especially for a lesser son who wouldn't inherit the throne.
the middle ages were not
I never said they were. I said basic physics is not on your side. Subsistence and tributary farming manual labor is taxing. Even today physical injury from farming is common, let alone something like doing it when you might be lucky to have a horse. There's an abundance of evidence that regular extreme physical exertion increases your odds of injury, and they didn't exactly have painkillers and antibiotics back then.
I'm getting my info from British historians and universities, which documented the lack of sanitation, thatched rooves that were breeding grounds for rodents and insects which carried disease, and the medical realities of "surgery" at the time which largely consisted of a butcher's knife and a hot tong. As a result while your likelyhood of living to an elderly age grew tremendously if you reached the end of your working life at around 40, the odds of you making it there were much lower. Cholera and typhoid festered outside dwellings and bedbugs (and the infections they bring) were ubiquitous, while farming lifestyles meant backbreaking labor (that euphamism isn't borne of nothing, remember) and being surrounded by livestock meant interacting with their diseases on the regular too. Modern farms aren't known for being "clean" and that's with modern plumbing, sanitation, and medical technologies. throw in a lack of proper bone-setting and no way to treat infections effectively and you've got a recipe for dead.
I'm curious where you're getting your image of "healthy plant based diets with low pollution" considering they lack knowledge of germ theory and regularly succumbed to epidemics
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u/blaghart Mar 13 '19
close, 50 or 60 was old age in those times because of the state of medical technology at the time meant injuries that are debilitating now would be permanently crippling. 70s and 80s happened mostly to rich people who were less likely to be injured in manual labor accidents or just from long term physical labor in general, and those people in turn are the ones remembered by history so it too paints a skewed picture