Biggest MISCONCEPTIONS of medieval CASTLES and LIFE
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- čas přidán 16. 05. 2024
- What was life REALLY like living in a medieval castle and times? There are a lot of falsehoods spread attempting to answer that question and in this video I clear things up.
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Are you telling me that medieval society was an actual complete society and not a collection of bad tropes? Unbelievable!
I know right?
inconceivable! *- Vizzini*
That's how we see everything related to future or past, only the present is described as normal.
People are gonna see the 80s athstetic in thor ragnarok and think that's actually how it was for this entire era.
@Ano Midorimiyaa
You keep using that word.
I do not think it means what you think it means.
“People are people” and “they didn’t understand germs but they understood cleanliness” are two of the most powerful anthropological statements I’ve heard in years.
"Cleanliness is godliness" I'm wondering how old this saying is.
Just want to say, I love the name.
@@danijelandroid For that specific saying 1778 -John Wesley is the best bet. The concept was a lot older though being found in ancient Greek, Hebrew and Mesopotamian writings.
@@FakeSchrodingersCat OH MY GOSH I was... worried you were dead. *HUGS*!!!!
You're correct on all counts, and all I can add is that before chronic illness knocked me out of even my first two years at a theological university (hist/lit/hoplology), the Anglican translation of "cleanliness is next to godliness" comes from the group of books Catholicism (and I think Evangelicals too? I just think that Catholicism actually includes it in their catechism whereas the Protestants do not) called the Apocrypha, ooooo, the "hidden books." That Hebrews will tell you is like "yeah that's... that's like part of our stuff sooo....." I can't recall if it's Maccabees or Bel and the Dragon or which one. It's in there, I didn't read anywhere near as frequently as I should've.
Be safe my friend, and everybody! I'm so glad you dispelled any leftover heisenberg I may've had by writing this comment, ....otherwise I ....would've just... *Wait, she looks up, feeling spooky action at a distance.... slowly wanders away*
Funny how relevant this is now
In 500 years there will be a guy in a hologram talking about life in the 21st century: "There wasn't just facebook and twitter, people worked too."
"The people were so lacking in energy and drained by the misery of their lives that they would drink coffee, energy drinks, and high sugar 'soft-drinks' into to keep their mind active. The diet of the 21st century was pizza, potato tots, and cup ramen, leading to a very unhealthy lifestyle for the common worker.
@@ddshocktrooper5604 This isn’t accurate?
@@gurgy3 Yes, that's the point. The whole thing is taking something that might be true somewhere, and saying it's universally true.
@@ddshocktrooper5604 Don't forget packet ramen, some of us can't afford the high price of cup noodles.
"And eventually serfs stopped working because they would earn more gold doing nothing than working a gong job like customer service at a fast food chain."
People tremendously underestimate both the warmth and heat of fireplaces. When I used to work in historical reenactment I was always impressed with how warm and bright a fireplace plus two small windows would keep our log cabin!
That they do my friend! My house has a genuine fire place from 1920 and it heats the whole house all winter for roughly 300 dollars of wood!
@@benjaminmoore9815 Ooh...I have a 1920s house with an original fireplace...maybe I need to light that and see what it does for our heating bill!!
Completely agree, they are so underrated. How I miss the fireplace in the older houses I’ve lived in. It’s always annoyed me when looking for a house how few have fireplaces nowadays.
How about a campfire? That keeps you warm too. I think everyone has sat by a fire before.
@@rafox66 It's fantastic sitting round a campfire, you just have to watch out for the smoke.
Another nuance to the alcoholic beverages from back then is what we call 'tafelbier' (translates to table beer) which is basically a dense and dark kind of beer, Piedboef for instance, which hardly contains any alcohol at all. It's basically a liquid form of brown bread. You wouldn't drink it to get drunk, but rather to fill you up while having a meal.
It's called Kvas in slavic cultures and was indeed staple of the diet on par with black bread
Tafelbier still literally translates as tablebeer in Dutch. I live in the Netherlands and there are still people in several regions using the term, mainly when a bigger group of family or friends dine (elaborately) together, in my experience at least.
Plus (aside of consuming nutrient beer as a food) beer wasn't that cheep anyway, so assumptions of "preferring beer over water" would also imply people in general were quite rich to be able to afford such a lifestyle, heh
@@godo2712 you can make beer yourself, if you have a farm. In a city tho...
Do you have a recipe for it? I would like to brew it. Normally i make mead.
Fact: In Germany, to this day, we are drinking only beer. Every house has a faucet that serves beer.
That would be so nice :D
(The part with the faucet)
In Cologne it is in fact like that, there are two faucets for every house. One for beer, one for something that certain other people refer to as beer. We serve that unwanted guests. And they will drink it happily and think we're friends, and then they'll go home and nothing ever happens.
In France we do the same with wine.
Lol
well I hear that in Bavaria(Bayern) they drink beer at work, so there is that ^^
Also it's weird to assume that the modern-day look of an ancient non-restored castle is exactly what it did look like in its peak times. Like, there were drapers and frescoes and stuff like that. And believe it or not, people did not paint in those bleak colors you see on some hundreds-year-old paintings. The colors were vivid and realistic!
plus a good number of those paintings aren't supposed to be that bleak they got that way due to dirt and the varnish going yellow with age. i recommend Baumgartner Restoration youtube channel if you want to see what i mean.
This is true, but sometimes when a film or serie shoots in the medieval period, they often film in real castles for "authenticity", and they have to do with what they have at the moment
Yeah, i would love to see them in their prime.
vivid and realistic and made from highly toxic substances!
....do you mean a castle or a palace. Remember a castle is a military strong hold and fortified defensive structure. A palace is just a fancy home...
Random person: "How was life like in the medieval period?"
Shad: *sigh* "Maybe you should sit"
Random person: "I can stand"
Shad: "Maybe *I* should sit"
Is that a Dragon Age referense?
@@rafaelpastorramos5997 Youre goddamn right.
Hello, fellow ancap.
Shad: "Let me explain. No there is too much. Let me sum up."
It's not often you find someone who actually looks into the history and understands that the people of the past were no less human than we are. Keep it up.
NO ONE could just 'do' stuff like make cloth or bake bread or make cheese, etc. ALL of this was controlled by guilds. All of them had to have permission from the Lord or Baron or King, etc. All this was very controlled by the rulers and the Church. Not only that, at one point in time, peasants were not allowed to grind grain by hand nor bake bread, either. They had to give over their grain to the miller and the baker.
@@emsnewssupkis6453 I don't doubt that there were some ludicrous rules throughout different parts of the middle ages but peasants were encouraged to take on other skills in their free time, not necessarily forced to. However, in the renaissance once people established themselves in a profession they were made to keep it in the family. This applied to most professions such as glass makers, stone masons and wood workers. Leaving such a profession would be punished with banishment.
@@emsnewssupkis6453 Where and when? Not everyone lived in towns.
@@emsnewssupkis6453 yeah right. Despite that, they were still infinitely more free than we are now. We have an oppressive state, that steals our wealth forcefully, arrests us if we say the wrong things, forces us into state indoctrination camps, has a monopoly on violence, taxes everything, regulates everything, removes all fun from life, requires a licence to do anything
@@janetmackinnon3411 Throughout the entire Middle Ages! Everywhere. Even small towns were within easy reach of various castles and buildings run by the rulers. My own clan was Norman, for example. We were nasty.
Think they are confusing the medieval period with college.
You can't have a sword, people only drink beer and throw shit out of windows...
This is suprisingly accurate.
Cold, dark, drunk... Huh, does sound like the stereotypical collage life.
A lot of booze, fighting over territory, and just being somewhat useless. Yup. Seems right.
@@adorabell4253 fraternity = monastery + sex?
Nathan Gamble Can’t forget eating malnourishing garbage
Common medieval misconception: it's just a flesh wound
They lost an arm.
@@gangrenousgandalf2102 Tis but a scratch.
@@charadreemurr8673
**chop**
🤣👍
Of course it wasn't! They had no flesh!
I think a good way to look at it is "When checking historical documents, look for the stuff that kinda just *exists,* not the stuff that's specifically highlighted. Highlighted means it wasn't mundane or standard."
If its highlighted, it stands out. And nothing stands out more than some absurd bizzare shit
Good advice, like "I had to take me helmet off to fully absorb the beauty of er breastplate" tells you there were plenty of helmets, and few beautiful female breastplates
I think a big reason why pork was more common is the fact that pigs are not very picky eaters. They literally ate the household garbage.
So you could invest your garbage from the kitchen (semi-spoiled vegetables, meat, dairy etc.) into feeding your pigs, and end up with tasty pork once the pigs were fattened up.
Feeding scraps, letting them feed in woods, comparatively good feed to meat conversion...plenty of advantages to pigs.
Downside: fairly easy for sharing diseases between pigs and humans (but that was harder to know about)
They'll also eat and gain nutrition from manure. Horse, cow, or even human feces. They can literally turn shit into meat.
That's where the bank saving symbol comes from.
(a pig with a hole to put coins through)
You give your leftovers to the pig and after enough time, you break it to profit from your previous savings. ;)
Not sure if this lends any weight to the discussion, but my paternal grandfather raised hogs on and off, and fed them a healthier diet than they are generally fed today in factory farms. He never fed them waste or rotten food. He won blue ribbons at the county fairs for his pigs every year he raised them, and reds and yellows most years at the state fairs (Iowa). As a result, he could sell any hog he raised for substantially more than his competitors (which is basically the purpose of trying to win ribbons at fairs). For context, this would have been in the middle 20th century (30s to 60s, basically).
What I mean to add (hopefully) is I'm pretty sure that people preferred to feed their hogs good food. I agree that in lean times, the advantage to pork was that it *could* be raised if necessary by the means described in the OP and the comments, but overall I think people were mindful of what they fed their pigs and didn't rely on the "cheap stuff" if they could avoid it.
@@silverwurm That's no big deal. McDonalds do it all the time
Haven't you seen the documentary "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"?
Medieval peasants spent their days crawling around in the dirt looking for good filth!
They were felt that King Arthur being considered a king was ludicrous, and as said by one peasant:
"Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony."
@@shortfuse875 That was one highly educated peasant.
Definitely one of the best documentaries ever
Nice.
@@shortfuse875 who's that?
Must be a king.
How can you tell?
He isn't covered in shit.
There's also a medieval handbook on raising children (in german), which emphasizes the importance of giving the children time to play every day so they won't get overwhelmed by work. The handbook encourages parents to let children have plenty of time to play all sorts of games.
People are people...oh wait
Thats interesting. So you happen to know the name, or where you heard it from?
@@nopenothanks08 I've heard it in a video on the german channel "Geschichtsfenster" (meaning 'Window to history'). Unfortunately I don remember which video it was from, but I'll go check.
I must assume someone has already made this remark, but...
"Cell phones were invented in the 20th century. Therefore, everyone in the 20th century had cell phones."
Pretty much true in western countries. I mean you can get free ones on welfare here in the US for a long long time, in fact its easier to get a cellphone then a land line if poor, and these days they upgraded them to refurbished old gen smartphones that even include free data plans... Then any where we go we install cell towers like Iraq we were followed by cell companies that went out of their way to make it affordable and easy to get for every one. Its kind of a big thing right now you got be under political trade sactions more or less or just too unstable to have a company want to move in to not have basic access to cellphones...
@@Zalzany Missing the point here bud. In the 20th centuary even at its end only a minority of people had cell phone even though it was invented in the 70ies or 80ies.
@@tripplebarrelfinn4380 No, the entire 20th century was known for everyone using cell phones.
This is why you see everyone on Downton Abbey using cell phones. It would be historically inaccurate if they didn't.
Titanic - Sank because of poor cell phone coverage.
WWI - Started because Archduke Franz Ferdinand was dialing outside his coverage area.
Atomic bomb - Made from volatile cell phone batteries.
Queen Elizabeth - Rose to power by taking selfies for Instagram.
Moon landing - Cell phones.
Learn your history.
Yeah, I remember who Admiral Yamamoto was frantically trying to text his subordinates, "Bombing Pearl Harbor is a great idea", and before he could finish his second message ("if you want to LOSE A WAR") it was too late. And spotty reception delayed the second message by like a year.
@@nihilvox A lesson learned the hard way.
Modern companies train people on the limitations of texting, emails, and social media, and how sarcasm rarely translates well. Yamamoto was using sarcasm, with the explanation afterward. But if you delay that explanation, the sarcasm becomes literal confirmation that attacking would be a good idea.
If he had simply said, "Bad idea," he could have gone into his sarcastic great idea bit later when he met the other leaders in person.
Imagine looking at an abandoned office building with no electricity or utility services.
"Wow, these people must have had miserable lives"
Still not an incorrect statement lol
Looks at cubicles. Dang these people clearly hated themselves
Even with electricity they are still living miserable lives
@@baldrickthedungspreader3107 Exactly, we live closer to medieval lives than we realize, but that doesn't mean that our life was working in dark and cold spaces.
Imagine if these sheltered kids that think no electricity is hard seen a military encampment in the desert.
The water part becomes even more funny when you have places like Madrid which were named precisely after the great amounts of water they had, the arabs named it Mayrit which literally means abundant in water
well to be fair though, the idea that so many places were built around, and named after, having water, suggests that the majority of people had to struggle for water
@@KairuHakubi depending on the region for sure, even in the iberian peninsula the region of la Mancha is very dry compared to the south, france on the other hand has lots of rivers
Kairu Hakubi or it could just be that water sources make it easier to find places. Eg. Stratford upon Avon makes it easy to find the town, it's in the Avon River.
Or it could be that people just like water. Even today, towns are named after water.
I mean yeah those are good but I'm not sure they were a higher priority than securing an adequate water source.
in any case I think Shad's the first to agree that everything about this video is basically things that are/were true/real, but just not _everywhere_ and in _every period_ the way a lot of people like to think.
I read that other reason for towns to be built on rivers is transportation of goods.
I can confirm the "thicc stone = thicc insulation" bit. My ex grew up in an old 1800s stagecoach station out in Australia that had been coverted into a house, and the walls were made of incredibly thick stone. There was no or heat/AC, even though it would get above 50c and below 0c out there, but the inside of the house was always super cool throughout the day from the night chill, and in the winter a big fire in the living room would keep the majority of the structure cozy for hours.
That is spelled "thick". "thicc" is demeaning.
@@JarieSuicune Thicc is yes
I stopped the video to look for comments concerning the stone thing. My family has a very old stone house in a small mountain village in Greece. It is by far the most comfortable place to live. No need for AC in the summer and the fireplace is enough to keep it toasty in the winter, and while it's not that hot, it is very comfortable even when the temperature nears 40 degrees.
@@LordAini Thank you so so much for the anecdote, that sounds like an incredible place to grow up. I've always wanted to visit Greece, the landscape is just so beautiful.
@@JarieSuicune Calling a woman "thicc" is not demeaning. It's a compliment. A trait some men.. Many men find attractive. Calling a wall thicc is a little cringy though
I drank a shot everytime when shad said "okay" now i know whats like to live in "Medieval Time" that many people are picturing lol
he mixed it up with some ''all right's''. those are interchangeable. i think you might to have to do that again...
I've been to Medieval Times. They served ale. Also you had to eat with your hands because silverware wasn't invented yet.
I took a shot every time I felt like he was reprimanding me, and now I’m dead.
@@Sunmonks so, you're now Undead, ain't ya?
Shad needs an "okay" shirt
Time stamps for misconceptions Shad tackles:
4:28 - Castles are dark, dank and cold.
11:30 - Drinking water was so poor people only drank ale.
15:10 - Human waste was thrown into the streets.
18:02 - People were filthy and had no personal hygiene.
19:43 - People didn't wear color
22:30 - Castles were dull and colorless
24:22 - Shout out to his video on why castles were white (go check it out) .
25:00 - Carrying a long sword was outlawed to the general populace.
27:53 - Food was bland and tasteless (Check out the 4 videos made by the Modern History TV channel for more about this topic) .
32:57 - Food was only cooked over an open fire.
35:27 - Life is nothing but work, life was miserable, people worked all day every day.
Those were the main ones I noticed, hope someone found this helpful
You are the man. It's rare to find someone being useful in CZcams comments.
How about around the late middle ages or in between the high middle age and late middle age? We're castles still dark back then or did they at least put more torches this time?
Apple gonna spread the misconceptions that Windows is a weakness.
Windows is a weakness whereas Linux is pure power. ;)
@@ViceN53X
No torches in castles, period. Candles, mate. Candles all the way.
1000 years from now.
Water is so dirty that everyone drink cola, even the babies.
Is this a reference to Idiocracy? If not you might like that movie.
hopefully they have a better way to deal with kidney stones
@@Killerduck0213 and now I have the sudden urge to watch it again... must be that its rich in electrolytes
Except Russia and post-soviet countries, we drink alcohol (not just vodka, that's boring)
And we collect the caps and use them as currency
Imagine in a thousand years someone asks, "What was life like in the 21st century?" And they look up an article about 2020…
And they think that we all stayed inside all the time.
Jesus Christ they're all going to be a bunch of stupid idiots like the people are getting misconceptions for everything in the medieval period
@@franklinjones793 And some will say every house has solar power and every home is a smart home but, we that live in this century, know it isn't so.
@@sidicniy874 exactly. The more misconceptions are made by a bunch of stupid dumbasses, the more misinformed we will be about what actually happened in our history. So those people who are spreading misconceptions better shut up or me and Shad are going to pull up to their houses on horseback and beat the crap out of them with our sticks and cut them with our swords and trash their roof for not having machicolations
"The 21st century didn't have any form of public entertainment, as the entire industry was cancelled."
“There was not poop lining the streets everywhere, people don’t want that” CA Bay Area: “allow us to introduce ourselves”
I stayed in the Tenderloin district. Thought there'd be beef lining the streets. I was wrong.
That's called "dog poop"
There was a tone of horse poop on the cobbled roads though the poorest it was one of their jobs some even sifted through the poop to find dog poop to sell it for fertilizer and the rest they had a few other people shoveling up all the poop to keep the roads as clean as possible and to stop it building up they had to clean it after it was all shoveled up too.
@@FlyingMonkies325 so... the poop gathering quests in wow are historically accurate?
@@katharinafisher394 I don't play Wow but Yep! i mean the horses going up and down all the cobbled roads they had to poop somewhere lol :D plus horses just kind of poop wherever the are, and because traders were on strict time schedule if they weren't in a barn resting they just pooped on the roads.
Something to remember when studying history: People have always been people
There's this ancient manuscript illustration (I forget where I saw it) depicting a man farting through a trumpet as his fellow scholar visibly despairs.
People have always been people.
@@eyesofthecervino3366 if you don't send me the link-
@Apathetic Apparition send me the link please 👁️👄👁️
Apathetic Apparition thank youuu
@@cassandra- the fact that you seem so desperate to see farts is quite concerning.
Of course they only drank ale.
Why else would you find all the quest givers in taverns?
My favorite drinking buddy, let's get some mead
Then there's those annoying guys in the tavern who never shut up about thier adventuring days being put to an end when they took an arrow to the knee.
And before you know it one of the bar workers are involved in a conspiracy from all the way back in hammerfell and you have to go on this quest
@@ra_alf9467 mead was quite strong stuff, I think it's made from honey & can't remember what else.
Too good too strong for servants.
Weak Beer provided for servants was between 1 & 2% vol alcohol , they could drink gallons & it still wouldn't get them drunk.
It was equivalent of juice , simply a drink for a thirst, it wasn't intended to get anyone drunk .
People didn't drink from rivers , everyone poured sewage from villages towns, bc all were near rivers, ,,, shad is wrong people didn't drink water , only a minority lived in a castle with a well tapped into clean water.
But nobody touched river water
@@kevwhufc8640 there were still clean water sources outside the cities like further up stream. Cities were built lower downstream for trading and mobility, and people could still cook water or use a type of water filter.
"If it happens once, everyone remembers that instance." Omg, so true! If you shit your pants once in school, everyone calls you shit-pants until you die or move out of town.
The key is to do something even more memorable. That's why I'm known as Arthas the Arsonist now and not Pissy Pants.
@@arthas640 cool story bro
“Tina pina Googins crapped her pants!”
Well also about the castles, some of them had their stone bricks covered in a layer of mortar so that it's not bare brick, and then an additional layer of lime wash. The lime wash would allow for more reflection of light inside the castles, there are even cases of the lime wash layer being decorated with simple paints. This all of course is much weaker material than the stone walls, and over time would deteriorate, so most castles we see today look like they have always been just the raw stone walls, which wasn't always the case. Helps with the light issue.
He said this, he literally poineted this out they had many diffrent systems and most wouldn't just leave it as bare stone, and at least white wash it...
Shad did indeed point this out tangentially. And explicitly mentioned several other methods of sprucing up the place.
White washing would usually be for the exterior, but yes, this is correct. Lime, whitewashing, carving, painting, tile-work (Moorish influence common in Spanish, but also seen in Byzantine, Sicilian, and Crusader castles), tapestry, rugs, candles, interior windows, furniture, statues and pottery, taxidermy, wood paneling (see Peña Palace) - many castles have wooden flooring of interior levels, if not the top floor, wooden … kinda hard to hit the top, so think about it like a late 19th century battleship.
And that’s not even counting all the poor wooden castles lost to history.
Exactly. Basic optical physics that a layman can understand by experience. Light will scatter across light surfaces and make an area brighter. People didn't have to write it down because it was just something people understood.
As a modern farmer, I can confirm, things slow down a LOT during the winter.
Yeah in the winter I get about a 2 hour break instead of 30mins. Its Glorious
Devin Stromgren I have a question friend! How do Farmers manage to do all that working? Do Farmers earn enough for their hard work?
Let me put it to you this way. One year I made more money than I knew what to do with, and some years my income is a negative number.
@@Devin_Stromgren thanks for clearing things up!
My dad worked on an apple orchard, and told me that during harvest, he'd wake up and eat, go to work, and then eat and go to bed sort of thing. Has that been your experience? (I suppose size of the operation will affect this greatly but?)
Medieval people dug wells.....as did most humans in most eras...
On a more serious note, they also dug unlined cesspits... often close enough to the well to contaminate the water.
Lorgar - I thought I heard that gerbils dug small wells in Ethiopia in the 13th century, not just humans.
On food: just because peasants didn't have black pepper or vanilla does not mean they did not have anything. There are mushrooms native to Central Europe that have a very peppery taste, so you wouldn't eat large amounts, but you could perfectly use them to season a dish. I have no idea if this was actually done, my point is that there were local herbs/mushrooms that people might have used that we don't know much about anymore.
Also, please do a continuation of this!!
Thank you for the great content. I believe that in our modern days we reserve the same arrogant attitude to our distant ancestors as we do to different cultures. The simple statement “people are people” is actually very profound and we should keep that in mind when studying people who just have customs we are not used to.
But wait, aren't alll non-americans or at least non-whites insane barbaric neanderthals who eat their own shit unless the Empire cures their sin through capitalism?
This is true, but within reason. You should look at other cultures without an arrogant attitude, but also keep in mind that all cultures are not equally good. There are cultures where the men do unspeakable things to children, and it's considered a requirement. The Spartans killed all babies that weren't perfect.
30:00Pigs are also omnivores and eat basically whatever a human eats. Thus you can feed it with leftovers and with the bits you cut off in the preparation of your own food (fruit and potato skins, bits of meat not good to eat etc.). Hence, keeping a pig is a bit like having a medieval waste recycler that you can eat when grown.
Also, you do not need access to a larger tract of land to let it graze and/or make hay for the winter months - opposed to a cow.
Sheep and especially goats are very low maintenance and as a bonus will feed on weeds you want to be gone from your garden anyway. So enter the medieval lawn mower (edible). Just have to keep it out of your veggie beds - but your children need something to do so they are not underfoot anyway, dont they?
They didn't have potatoes.
In the Middle Ages, pigs were grazed in forests where those animals were fed on acorns and beech. In general, they looked more like wild boars than today's breeds.
I like how both replies to this comment make broad assertions about the entire medieval period immediately after watching a video about how misconceptions are started that way.
I live in 15th century house, and about 200 years ago, the local Lord of the manor (who owned all the houses in the village back in the day) paid to have pig sty's built in the gardens of these houses so that each of his tenants could raise their own pig. That meant that every household in the village was guaranteed decent meat during the year, and there was a way to get rid of scraps. I use my (double) pig sty to store my lawnmower and all the other random stuff collected now ! I would guess this generosity was not common then, nor further back in history.
@@randomboy3m98 Exactly, potatoes are native to the Americas, they were introduced to Europe throughout the 1500s-1600s.
Europeans weren't constantly drunk during medieval times? Next you'll be saying that Aussies weren't constantly drunk between the arrival of the First Fleet and some point in the '90s.
Some say they're still drunk to this day.
Wait, you mean they STOPPED? :/
They were pretty drunk in the Renaissance, though, after gin and such became common. Not because they had to, of course. Still, many local priests of early Modern age complained that the parish on pretty much every Sunday service was drunk senseless.
reapr31337 the land down under by men at work is a historical document.
reapr31337
You’re in Austria... do you trust what you drink not to kill you?
i feel the misconception about drinking 'ale' is how much ppl were encouraged to drink cider in the settling of america because of how common dysentery was which i can easily imagine being relevant to a big city like london
To be fair in times and places where people do this in history its watered down like crazy. Its like grog every assumes ships crews must been shit faced 24/7 but it was worse then light beer in most cases lol Just enough booze in it to make it last longer in storage
The video wasn't long enough. The picture you "draw" of the medieval period is so cozy I'd definitely go back and spend a week in a medieval town if I could.
depends on what you could afford. build tight white washed stone cottage it would be okay.
you probably wouldn't be accepted. Everyone knew each other back then, and they didn't like funny looking mysterious strangers
@@AverageAlien Excuse me, "Everyone knew each other" and "they didn't like funny looking mysterious strangers"?
Sure, it might be true that everyone in a small or even medium town knowing each other, but what about large towns or even a city? Or a traveler from another town???
And WHY wouldn't they like "mysterious" strangers!? Strangers equals stories, songs, and something new to talk about!!!
@@JarieSuicune Do you really think you can just waltz in to a random medievel town, without speaking their language, knowing their culture, or having any sort of relevant backstory and be welcomed?
@@AverageAlien people are people, they aren't as backwards as we would like to think.
Great video! On the subject of bathing, a tour guide in Florence once said that nobles in the 1400s only bathed once per year, because they discovered hot water opens up the pores in their skin and deduced that plague enters through those pores - so once per year they bathed in hot water and quarantined for a day to avoid getting sick.
Curious to hear your thoughts on this, as its not a case of "durr stupid medieval peasants" but rather a somewhat (*somewhat*) rational response to the very active threat of plague.
-B
Hi mate! I'd love to see a credible reference for this, but interestingly, if accurate it's another fact that might have helped spread the myth that medieval people all over Europe through the whole medieval period rarely bathed. Another case of applying a specific instance to the whole.
what I always heard debunking that is that, yeah, they wouldn't fully IMMERSE very often, because there are so many logistic and potentially hygienic problems with that (not like you'd be lucky enough to be the first person in that water)
But in between they'd take sponge baths every few days like any normal person would, using rags and soap
@@KairuHakubi that makes total sense, especially considering how in many other places and cultures, that is how people historically bathed (rags and sponges)
I've heard a claim that at least in England people cleaned themselves every morning using cold water (and I guess maybe a cloth/towel) so as not to open the pores, but I've not tried to verify it.
@Overly Sarcastic Productions, Yeah but now with all our high tech knowledge our president can advise us to drink Lysol to avoid getting sick. Progress!
*Medieval life:*
- No Dungeons
- No Dragons
- No Magic
- No Random Encounters
- No Silly Usernames
- A lot of Pommels
Everyone had to carry a D20.
@@toboterxp8155 roll initiative please.
-Most fun shit gone
You ended that comment rightly, Sir.
Oh there were definitely dungeons.
38:09 so what you're telling me is, medieval people would have loved Dungeon and Dragons.
"Alright Henry, rolleth a 20 and you shall slay thee dragon"
No they wouldn't. It would've been to contemporary. It's like modern people playing an RPG about going to Wal-Mart and getting pulled over for not stopping at a stop sign.
@@leepreston9637 isnt there any action or exploration in dungeons and dragons? I havent played it but i doubt its only content is fieldwork and patching old clothes. Because in modern day we have all kinds of entertainment set in modern times
@@taistelusammakko5088 do we make pencil and paper role-playing games about them. Also Dungeons and Dragons does include shopping and interactions with law enforcement.
Plus it was a joke.
@@leepreston9637 so you saying that they actually would, but you were just joking? Its hard to detect a joke through text alone sometimes
1:56
Happens in regards to fiction too it seems, there's a Titanfall lorebit about a specific training facility where 98% of the trainees die or fail. Now, it was just one place with extreme measures, but then it became a whole largescale misconception in the community that everywhere all trained soldiers of that classification are the surviving 2% of their respective factions when most of them are actually trained in safe simulated environments and the facility was an outlier :/
"The medieval era was not that lit"
Perfect content.
Medieval times:
Dad: "Put that candle out, do you think were made of money"
Modern times:
Dad: "Turn that light off, do you think were made of money"
Yeah the year has changed but society is pretty similar.
Edit These are quite different even leaving the light on 24 7 doesn't cost that much whereas candles were expensive enough people went to bed at sunset
@@64standardtrickyness bro shad literally made a video on why thats not true, go watch his video on torches and candles
we're*
@@64standardtrickyness Chilled Pint was just saying things ain't so very different nowadays in many respects to the past
And he's right
@@kevwhufc8640 NO he's not here's just a snippet czcams.com/video/WBp2dr-tlFU/video.html
It's not really possible to make this comparison. Yes, we may have some idea of not wanting to waste food, but it's a triviality the basics of food are cheap and no one (in 1st world) starves. The peasant viewed having sufficient food as paradise.
We are so accustomed to people having their own rooms and beds which was not the case in medieval times.
Likewise, while candles were available most ancient people were basically ruled by daylight getting up at dawn and settling in at dusk due to the significantly less light produced and cost of candles.
People in the ancient world were constantly in danger of going extinct due to disease, famine or warfare which explains why some civilizations like the Mayans and Aztecs were willing to do human sacrifice on a large scale.
tldr nothing was the same.
About collecting the poo and pee etc. from houses. It reminded me of a somewhat overlooked character in the Discworld books, Harry King aka Piss Harry aka King of the Golden River (and that's not the River Ankh, that's more of a mix of browns and grays and whatever else... It's only called a river because it flows faster than the land around it...).
Harry would give establishments (and if i remember correctly, also individuals) buckets for doing their business into. He'd the charge a reasonable fee to come and empty it. He'd then sell certain parts of it to different people, saltpetre and ammonia to alchemists, farmers etc. And the bits that can't be sold can be used to make compost. He also collects (against payment) other rubbish that he compost and/or sort through and sell to other people for even more profit. Even though he's illiterate, lives at the junkyard and because of which has a bad smell, he's actually quite rich and has a keen business sense. But, he still lacks 'class' since others don't want to associate with the man who handles rubbish and other waste, sadly.
9:30 vaulted cellars like this are very common in southern Germany and date back hundreds of years. Not only castles used them, but farms and land owners. They are generally way colder than the outside in summer, but warmer than the outside in winter, which is crucial if you want to store for example liquids.
Shadiversity; more accurate than the History Channel.
That’s a low bar these days
Well pretty much everyone is more accurate than the swamp ancient alien ghost network nowadays 15 years ago they might not had been as profitable but at least it was historical
being more accurate then the channel with ancient aliens is not much of an achievement.
More history and historical than history channel
Ever heard of a Low bar.
Shad, we need a part II, part III, part IV, etc.
One thing that annoys me the most is when they say that most persons in the medieval perioid would reach 30 years old and then die.
They don't understand that life expectancy is an average, and it was really low because of death in childbirth and early infancy. Something we still had up until the end of the 19th century, when Ignaz Semmelweis posted the antiseptic procedures. But if you got past after infancy, then you would likely reach 60 years old, or even more.
Assuming one didnt get unlucky and get infected with deadly disease, I agree child infancy inflates the statistics but diseases in general caused lot of deaths before the rise of anticeptics and vaccination
@@MrAapasuo you cant trick me, pro-vaxxer! my kids will remain autismless
Educate my poor soul but how often did people die due to diseases (as Saberspear mentioned), famine as well as combat?
@@n484l3iehugtil You got me with those specifics. I can only give some incomplete thoughts about that:
Regarding diseases, the numbers depends a lot wether there was a pandemic disease in certain time period or not.
Regarding combat, I'm not sure if most of the times the number was high (comparing with the rest of the causes of death). I think it was actually kinda low in comparison of the big number we always imagine.
Regarding famine: absolutely no idea.
But I do know the thing with infant mortality rate. It was always high until the second half of the 19th century. To give a simple example: Johann Sebastien Bach, the famous musician of the first half of the 18th century, had 20 children but only 9 of them survived to adulthood.
What will you hear always? "THE STUPID MEDIEVALS LIVED SO LITTLE BLABLABLA!!!"
Yeah well, say that to Johann Sebastien.
And if they say to you: "ha, stupid medievals (and only the medievals were stupid and no one else) they had the black death because they were stupid".
Tell that to the spanish flu in 1918: one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history.
About the whole "tourism in the medieval ages" thing, I had heard that a peasant was forbidden to leave their lord's estate unless they had permission. Is that wrong? Or is it one of those "practiced here but not there" things?
It was a fairly common practice, but misunderstood. Remember that the local lord was usually also your landlord and possibly your employer as well, so it was more like the kind of lease rules where you have to tell your landlord if you were going to be out of town, making sure your rent is up to date, letting the guards know to keep an eye, stuff like that, and then as now you needed your boss's permission to go on vacation.
Varies on where you are each kingdom and province had its own laws regarding that. In smaller towns and provinces lord kind of needed every one they could get, in a larger one with cities its crazy hard to keep tabs on every one. But say moving from UK to Paris yes this required some paper work, trade did happen a lot but there was tons of laws and regulations and red tape involved to navigate it all. But in essence lord is your land owner you don't own your house, and unless you work for a merchant chances are you are working for the lord in some capacity, tilling his fields making gear for his needs etc etc.
Most but not all did like to know about coming and goings if they could. This is why large towns and cities taht were walled and what not would have gates and checkpoints it was securtiy issue mostly to keep things more stable it helped if you just didn't let any one come and go who wanted to for no legit reason. There was no "well today I think I am gonna back up and spend a week on the road and visit a new city, most likely you would be asked purpose of your visit, just like if you were to pack things up and leave locals would ask what in the world you are doing, and odds of you getting your job back afer your little "vacation" were slim to none unless you worked it out with your superviser as they vacancy would be filled asap, and unless you were very skilled odds of them removing some one to take you back pretty slim, just like skilled craftsman were more sought after so they may not want you to leave.
Basically in the bigger more successful places think of the gathouses like custom check points while it varied greatly on each lord, and kingdoms laws and regulations on what to expect, chances are they were gonna at min ask what you visit was for, how long you were staying then write down your name if it was more organized set up.
"Practiced here but not everywhere"
What the others said. If it was just a total rule that peasants can't even leave the lord's estate without permission... that sounds more like a slave situation than a peasant.
Not all peasants we're serfs, bound to the land, (as was the Baron for that matter,) and even serfs we're not slaves, not property. Varying from place to place, serfs kept 2/3 of the harvest, could own their own cottages, small plots of land, livestock, could marry who they wished, and leave their property to their children. Many of the abuses so popular in "historical" romances or movies were more typical of the Renaissance after the classes became much more stratified and power more centralized. Medieval Lord's were just as interested in raising pigs as the serfs/peasants we're.
I’m really into the cultural and historical clothing and its really funny how people think in gritty, realistic medieval times everyone wore grey and black and brown and everything was dirty and falling apart where in reality they’d more likely wear bright tights, skirts and balloon sleeves with all sorts of patterns
Shad, you have forgotten to mention all of the Herbs and Spices they had for flavouring their food. Sage, Blaeberry, Black Pepper, Nutmeg, Garlic, Saffron, Ginger, and all of that good stuff.
Right on. Spices imported from far away were obviously expensive, but most cultures have always had a wide variety of local herbs that flavor their food. The particulars change, but humans love to add in extra flavonoids to their recipes. And this goes way back, far earlier than the middle ages.
Mustard was a very common spice that was affordable or growable even by poorer people. It's the reason why it's still so popular in certain cuisines as opposed to the Americas for example
While things like Pepper and Saffron take a decent amount of work to manufacture, and would have been expensive. Things like Sage, Rosemary, Thyme, Mustard, Garlic, and the list goes on, are pretty damn tough as plants go, and even considered weeds depending on where you live. Garlic and Mustard in particular can grow pretty much anywhere that isn't a desert or the Arctic. Garlic would have been especially common, and its flavor and benefits were held in such high regard it's nickname is/was "Stink Rose."
Saffron was more expensive than gold by far on a per weight comparison. And it still is today.
@@Cillranchello
My mother planted rosemary in our yard and I can attest that it grows incredibly well even with negligent upkeep. It's probably our most used kitchen herb. I can't imagine medieval people would use it any less.
People today: How dare the neighbors have a better lawn, call the gardener!
Medieval people: How dare the neighboring lord have a whiter castle than mine, call the masons!
The more things change, the more they stay the same. :)
nickyiil.
What claim do you have? This Castle has been my family home for centuries! For some upstart Nobleman with an army to attack ME is merely insulting. Begone, fake Lord, before you anger the might of our Emperor, Tiber Segmin.
Seriously, you need a claim to attack a friend or enemy. Otherwise, you're just attacking for no reason and no one would agree that you should own that castle.
@@DZ-1987 and a growing number of angry neighbors united by a common objective of fixing this problem. ;-)
@nickyiil even back then you still needed a reason to war
Well the kept lawn thing is a dirrect from the posturing from English nobility in the first place, so it's not even a modern replacement as much as it's still the exact same thing with newer tools to reduce the labor per area of lawn to make upkeep cheaper.
The colour purple was expensive in the Middle Ages because it occurs rarely in nature. It does occur in some flowers like violets, but seldom elsewhere. The richer you were, the more you could afford materials dyed or made with purple.
So could they not just mix red and blue?
Who needs to outlaw peasants using purple dye when economics will handle it for you.
@@Technotoadnotafrog probably it's a cheaper peasant version of purple
Mixing red and blue can create a muddy purplish color, but not a bright clean one. Trying to make purple out of flowers would wash/sun-bleach out quickly.
The only long-lasting, good quality purple was Tyre purple. It was made from the shells of a species of snail that lived there, diving without modern equipment. Also Tyre is a city on the East-coast of the Mediterranean, which in the Middle Ages was Muslim states, which didn't trade with most European Christian nations. So you had a hard to get material, from one source, and limited trade, with such tiny supply and multiple monopolies in the chain of sale prices went crazy high.
@@Technotoadnotafrog The other guy forgot to mention that organic dyes are hard to mix. Sometimes the color you get is what you get, and can't hope to mix it.
12:21 to quote Tyrion lannister
''Being drunk all the time ain't easy
Everyone would do it if it were easy''
I didn't know Jack Dorsey said that?
"They only drank ale" What else would they do with it, bathe in it?
In a matter of speaking, yes, since alcohol is a fantastic sanitizer
Sparta wants to message you
So wait? Studded leather wasn't common dress in the 13th century?!
I know your talking about studded leather tunics and boots but I'm still picturing medieval peasants working the fields in leather daddy harnesses and gimp suits.
@@arthas640 In some movies that isn't too far from the truth.
@@arthas640 Fun fact: Medieval Peasants looked somewhat like a mixture between Hells Angels with questionable personal hygiene and the occupants of your average Pride Day Parade float.
@@xyxxanx9810 kinky
Arthas Menethil 😂
On the pottage and family recipes bit, made me think about how the same recipe can be made wildly different by two people that are very similar, even with the same skill level. And then there's the skill level of untrained cooks: I'm sure a lot of villages had that one home they wished they could go to every day to eat.
People seem to think, that medieval people were like: "It is what it is...".
If you are freezing your ass off, you build thicker walls.
If you think, poo smells bad, you don't keep it near...
The codex calixniticus is a twelve century travel guide for pilgrims that went to the sanctuary of Santiago de Compostela, for security and convienence, it assume you will left your town and joint as soon as possible one of the traditional routes. it have extensive information about the quality of the water you will find on your way, mentioning specific streams and fountains are safe to drink, others that is better to boil or mix with wine before drinking, and others to be avoided, inns with clean bathouses and nice food, etc. People at the time have standards (diferent but not less real) and of course wanted to avoid illness at all time, but much more during a long travel.
So it was literally a 12 century travel guide? That's so cool. Except instead of 'Disneyland! Ride this coaster! Ride the other thing!" It was more like 'See the dead saint at this beautiful cathedral! Don't drink from this river, but the other is okay to drink from! Probably avoid this inn, but this other one is honest and most likely won't get you robbed, and the beds are mostly free of bedbugs! Good price on ale!' Somehow this just tickles me to no end.
@Jan Sitkowski We always made sure to drink bottled water on vacations if we didn't want to drink alcohol. Which is a pretty good idea, since most of the vacations I have been on have been diving (Scuba diving) vacations, and you can't (or shouldn't, lol) drink alcohol at breakfast or lunch before a dive. But NEVER tap water, or glasses of water they'd serve you at a resturant. So it was always bottled water, juice, soda, coffee, or tea ('cause they gotta boil the water to make coffee and tea, kills the germs). Just to be on the safe side, we'd even brush our teeth w/ bottled water. Of course at dinner after the day's diving is over (Unless we had a night dive planned) then it was various forms of alcohol for most of us =) I had my first shot of tequila was in Mexico, and it was top-shelf Mexican tequila you can't even get in the states, poured by a gregarious Mexican bartender. All expenses paid, so I had about 4 shots. I was 17. Good times. As an aside, ocean was sorta cold. Needed to use a wetsuit. I hate those.
@@cassuttustshirt4949 Me too, and the pilmigrinage is still popular, so these travel guide have 21'st century equivalents available in internet
@Jan Sitkowski yeah I think the everyone drinks ale thing stems from using alcohol as a kind of cheap & quick way to make water safe to drink because you have to think that in many places building fires & boiling water wouldn't be feasible like for example in the deserts of the middle east where firewood would be hard to come by. Now by no means would it be a cure-all or perfect germ killer at low percentages like 3-5% but it would probably be good enough to kill off some bacteria especially if you're going to be carrying it with you & giving the alcohol more time to work.
@Jan Sitkowski Oh yeah. Always wanna google about the drinking water when going on vacation, or better yet ask the people working at the hotel. They're almost always local and want you to have a good time (Good time means better tips and maybe a return visit!) so they'll tell you like it is.
"Everybody was drunk in medieval times!"
"Maybe you shouldn't take Dwarf Fortress that seriously."
"Water froze in winter and now everyone is dead!"
@@joshuamakler5464 Nice! Make sure to check out kruggsmash, he's the best DF youtuber around!
Before potable water though, people did complain about feeling in a constant haze drinking grog. This complaint is during the enlightenment mid 1700's 1800's.
and even then only dwarves in Dwarf Fortress are alcohol dependent. all other species you can modify to play as are not alcohol dependent and can drink water
Lukaerd dwarves can drink water, they just need alcohol to stay happy
Thanks for making these kinds of videos! I've spent the past couple of months trying to design my own homebrew D&D setting, and really diving in deep to try and give things a little more historical weight.. (I may have just spent 2 weeks trying to rebalance the whole 5e economy around silver instead of gold, which somehow segwayed into trying to calculate how much grain a small village could produce a year.. don't judge me). These videos of yours have really helped me to get a better grasp of life in that time period, so thank you very much :)
39:30 The Colossus of Rhodes, one of the seven wonders, was partially destroyed in an earthquake - snapped at the knees and fell in the dirt. It was still so awesome it continued to attract tourists for 300 years afterward.
Not sure if anyone else has made this point yet, but I suspect the "Only Nobles can carry longswords" might be a transfer because of the popular association between Knights and Samurai. As I understand it, there was a period in Japan where swords (or maybe just the katana) was a status symbol of the Samurai class, so only they could legally carry one. There is plenty of transfer in misconceptions between Knights and Samurai, so this might be the source of the longsword myth.
Wrong, the higher lords samurai served could also carry swords. Common people, of course, could not.
Still right that it was a status symbol, though.
I know this is true of the Tokugawa Era, which is likely because of the Iron Bowl policy that entitled all Samurai to a bowl of rice. Thus Katana being limited to nobles or Samurai became important to prevent theft I would imagine. While also serving to keep the citizenry in check of course
@@Max-ek3kf
Sir, your blade is truly sharp! For the hairs, you are splitting them. 😂
Very true! I assumed it was implied that higher classes could also carry swords, but I had not stated it. Thank you for that clarification. 🙂
From a quick wiki search, most of that is attributed to Toyotomi Hideyoshi, an (ironically) peasant turned Kampaku (imperial regent) who ended up enforcing strict class divisions (including binding peasants to their land and preventing Samurai from becoming merchants, as well as confiscating weapons from the peasant class) that lasted for some time after his death. -
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyotomi_Hideyoshi
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_hunt
Its important to note that swords are sidearms, meant for personal defense. Longswords are really big and unwieldy when carried on the hip, especially compared to later shorter swords like messers. So carrying such a weapon was probably a luxury, hence it probably being only popular with nobility and the very wealthy. A sword and buckler is a far more practical sidearm to carry, which probably made it more popular with the general population of sword carriers. So that popularity might have helped fuel this misconception.
about salmon being cheap. I am from the Netherlands, and there are actual contracts for housemaids, that prohibit the employer from serving salmon more than 3 times a week. That's how abundant salmon was back then
interestingly enough the same thing happened in early new england in america. it was in some servants contracts that they not be fed lobster more than twice a week
daaaaaang
I read in the comments on another video (note: I have NOT verified this) that that may have had to do with unclean water sources from all the waste (excrement, dye and chemical dumping and so on) which made the river fish quite unpleasant and unclean. Regional variance, though, obviously
Nevis Ysbryd it’s also that they were considered cheap and low class products. They thought of them as waste.
@@spectrum3808 and then rich people tried it and thought "hey this is good!"
When you think about it, the tales of king Arthur and the knights of the round table were the medieval equivalent of fanfiction.
Pretty much. One of histories first recorded written works was the Epic of Gilgamesh which was basically a massive self insert fan fiction where the king is a Mary Sue.
I think a lot of it was allegorical. To 'pull a sword from the stone' was believed to be a metaphor for knowing how to blacksmith which is literally the act of creating a sword from iron ore or 'stone'.
You know youve found a good channel when they take pride in their work. Been really enjoying your videos recently, keep up the awsome work!!👍🗡
Shad's energy level is off charts in this video. Love your seemingly limitless passion for the subject.
I suspect the involvement of caffeine.
Fact: tastebuds were not invented until 1653.
@zouni 1935.
Fact, drive by shootings were invented in 1992.
@@axslaps Nope, by the Scytians in the second millennium bc or if you want with guns by Germans in the 16th century.
@@lukatomas9465 What source do you have? Mine was a joke, like those before me and OP, History Channels 'Gang Tech' said it was the Chinese in the old Pacific Northwest (yea, not all Chinese in the U.S. then were slaves).
@@axslaps I should have said ride by shooting.
In regards to the down time of farming professions, it might be interesting to observe the raiding schedules of cultures such as the Norse where raiding was common. IIRC most of the raids didn't start until after the fields back home had been plowed and planted, and with a few exceptions, most of the raiders went home for harvest time (rather than when weather became bad enough that the journey became risky). But I haven't done any specific studies of this, it's just a generic thing I've picked up from various sources I've read over the years.
Just ran across your channel recently. I have been greatly enjoying these videos - I have learned an enormous amount. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise with all of us.
One other thing people probably aren't very aware of is our modern understanding of countries and nationality compared to the middle ages. Back then you were (supposed to be) loyal to your lord or liege lord. sure there was probably some idea of ''us and them'', but not like in the 1900 for example. French wasn't the only language spoken in France for example, you had Burgundian and Flemish to name a few. and the HRE was not one centralized state like the actual roman empire. It was a group of somewhat cooperative duchies and kingdoms.
modern nation states only really emerged after the first world war afaik
@Red Eagle But it was still quite divided in terms of power, it wasn't centralised and people would still support the local lord above others (often). I'd say it isn't untill the 16th-17th century you started to see truly centralised nation states.
@Red Eagle that really isnt the same as being a modern nation state, for one, it was a feudal monarchy and had local groupings stronger than the national identity, which was largely the case for most of the European monarchies.
my point isnt that there arent nations that have existed longer, but that most of them had a very different social and national structure and nationalism really wasnt a thing as we see it today, again not an absolute.
@Red Eagle No. France has varying ethnic groups and language groups. What we consider French today is based around Ile-de-France (Paris), Tours, Orleans, and Berry which were the crown lands of the Capetian dynasty, symbolised by the fleur-de-lis (lily flower). Brittany has Celtic origins, Normandy has Scandinavian origins, and Southern France is a mix of Occitan (Latin) and Basque.
@Red Eagle spare Normandy and all the Atlantic cost to the south which belonged to plantagenets rather than to France.
Saying that the Middle Ages must have been dark and dank because "hey look at this old ruin that is crumbled and lifeless" is the result of looking at structures that were once inhabited and whole and equating the way they appear now with how they must have always been.
It's quite ridiculous. Even if the walls were mostly stone, if the owner could pay for that then most likely they would be able to afford vibrant tapestries to put on those walls, and even large rooms would be separated with further drapes and tapestries.
In many cases, such as a typical French manor house in the 12th century, the lord's "bed chamber" would be the same room as the "living area" and it would simply be partitioned by a curtain lol
Absolutely spot on, imo best reply to this video ⚔👍
Movies make out they lived in the huge rooms but nope as you said they had smaller cosier rooms with leather & cloth tapestries, furs on the floor and a fire large enough to keep the smaller rooms more than hot enough for anyone.
I always get a chuckle watching American westerns where they ride into some boom town that went up last year and all the buildings are 150 years old and weathered all to hell.
I always thought its called the dark ages because historic record is sparse and scientific progress was hold back by the church.
It might seem ridiculous, but it's actually an easy mistake to make. The reason why so many modern western democratic government buildings and public statues are white marble in classical Roman/ Greek style architecture is because many enlightenment to early modern period political leaders were trying to recapture the ideals and aesthetics of, well, the classical Romans and Greeks. They saw and read about ancient Roman and Greek ruins and statues and such being made out of white marble, and so assumed that they were unpainted white marble back in the day, too. The reality, though, is that these structures and statues were almost always colorfully painted and decorated, and the real reason that they were carved out of marble is because it was a readily-available and strikes a good balance between being structurally sound and easy to carve ornate detail into (it is relatively soft but not crumbly, homogenous, there's no grain [like wood] to worry about when chipping away at it, it's not too brittle or prone to shattering due to structural stress or drunken commoners, it's somewhat translucent for the times when they did want to keep it unpainted, etc...). What had really happened is just that the paint on the marble had faded and washed away over the millenia, and so by the time the enlightenment crowd was trying to imitate their style everything left was white and so they assumed that this was the intended look. This is why The Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson, and other D.C. Memorials and most Federal buildings in the capitol are in that style. By the time archeologists realized (or maybe just by the time what they already knew starred to become more widely known by the public) that all of the ancient ruins and statues were supposed to be painted, it was too late. So many neoclassical buildings and statues had been made in the white marble style that it just became it's own style.
So I think the real lesson here is that it can be hard for the average person to look at a pile of stone rubble and know it was once plastered and covered in colorful murals and tapestries. Though people who are going around and authoritatively "teaching" facts that they don't know the first fucking thing about should be eviscerated publicly for not doing their research.
silentlamb21 I’m pretty sure your right there
Great video. Like that you were so nice about addressing people spreading misinformation about this time period and admitted to being guilty of it. It's nice to listen to someone that has a more humble and (hopefully) thorough approach. I don't know if it's of any interest to or you feel up to it, but could you make a video about the Renaissance that's as detailed as this one?
I love this channel just for the sheer amount of information you give me. Thanks a lot!
Not candles, but oil or fat fuelled lamps. Wax was expensive and used mostly in churches.
rushlights were a thing and wooden splints covered in old grease was used for lighting, downside of witch was they created smoke witch was unhealthy in a house with little ventilation.
I think that Lindybeige actually covered that misconception, not candles but the use of torches everywhere instead of lamps.
Tallow (rendered down fats and unused animal parts) could be used as oil for lamps, but can be formed into candles. Whether or not this was common back then is something I don't really know.
@@thomascranor2668 i think they also used tallow to make soaps back then.
@@phyton9O And properly built houses had ventilation, with high vents to allow a small draft to flush smoke up and out, similar to what North American tribes did with their double-layered tents. Similar solutions to the same universal problem.
Shad, please bear hug the person who does the editing for me.
I'm only 15 minutes in and the little comedic subtitles they threw in already have me laughing a bit harder than I should be.
When you mention people being outside more back then, it makes me realize there is no particular reason to always be inside, and being outside would really change my mood in positive ways. Our lives are far easier today, but we self-impose a lot of unhealthy behaviors that dramatically reduce our happiness potential. Being inside most of the time is probably one of those. (Also: being on social media/news media, eating prepared food instead of cooking, not exercising, etc--but I digress)
well, they didn't have air-conditioning back then
lots of people nowadays live somewhere that, for most of the year, staying outside all day would be miserable
if you live somewhere with nice weather, lucky you!
@@Technotoadnotafrog True, the discomfort of being outside might outweigh the positive sides much of the year in much of the world.
This video actually almost motivated me to do in depth research on medieval farming. I come from a family of farmers and i disagree with the fact that you just work when you harvest and plant seeds. Different kinds of plants go in different times of the year, even some vegetables need to be planted in winter, farming is hell of a ton of work. Especially because they did not have the machines we have today to harvest or plant. I wonder how long it would take to do it by hand with the aid of some oxes, especially because as you just said in the video, few people could afford meat regularly... So it takes a lot of land to harvest, plough and seed for the entire year. is not like your backyard vegetables (and keep in mind that you have to have unused land every year and assign every bit of land every year so you would have to do a lot of planning ahead due to the farming rotation that i know for sure was know since the roman times, i don't know the specific english term sorry). But again i am not versed on the medieval part of the subject so don't take what i just said as factual truth, perhaps shad is right and i am wrong, only the medieval people of europe actually know.
At first glance at the thumbnail I thought that monk was holding a smartphone. "Wait THAT is a misconception people have?!", me thinking.
Sadly there are a group of people that try to prove the existence of time travelers and claim various historical artworks portray modern, and possibly futuristic, technology. Much like the "ancient aliens" people.
We are taking the simple things for granted which feeds into our biases
Kingdom Come Deliverance taught me that in bath houses, you can get clean. But you can also get dirty. ;)
I totally survive just by fuckin wenches, almost never sleeping or eating lol
@@mortache Psshhh! The two of you! I slept. I ate. I even got myself onto a goddamn circadian rhythm! (I may have RPed a bit too hard in that game...but I had fun!! Also, featured a realistic version of one of my favorite mid-late medieval weapons...the WARHAMMER!!!! I beat so many people to death. It was great)
@@mortache story of my life
I don't even need to spend money. My Henry is such a chad that ladies will house and feed him from their own pockets xD
Kingdom Cum: Deliverance of a Load
Thanks for the video Brah! You make my work day go by more enjoyably. TTYL!
Never realized how much I had in common with Medieval castles.
White and plastered.
I'm also like a medieval castle
more empty inside than I used to be
I would heavily doubt that castles were dark, damp and cold in *Spain* xD
Asturias can get plenty rainy. And that was for a time the only Christian part of Spain...
@@jesusgonzalez6715 Austrians get rainy in spring or winter, but is still hot all over the rest of the year. Either way, that part is next to the sea, so it's obviously going to be rainy.
The reality is that in all Iberia (modern Spain and Portugal). Castles and other defense structures where present trough out the ages. Either by Carthaginians, Romans, Arabs, etc. Lastly the Christians after the reconquista, continued a tradition of construction that was not just of stone. In fact on most of the South of Portugal and Spain the common "taipa" (rammed earth) construction was present all the way to the early XVIII century, for military application. XX century for civil application.
Getting strong again under the flag of "ECO" construction! ;-)
That was still, by far, the most thermal efficient type of construction until quite recently. Walls that could be some 4 meter thick made for really good insulation. BTW and extremely efficient absorbing the energy of cannon blasts! ;-)
@@crpth1 man, I'm Spanish and lived here all my live and you know way more history about my country than myself and many people I know xD
Also, important to note that the Spanish Reconquest took around 780 years. They would obviously build castles throughout all that time if they were going to confront the Arabs in war.
Or Greece. At least only during the winter.
A common story from medievel Antwerp still delivered today:
There was a port near the (then considered) foothold/city of Antwerp at the river Schelde. It had a good lay and good trades followed the city. There however was one eyeblight: Druon Antigoon the Giant. He demanded a toll for every ship that passed his way on the river. The toll could be payed in coin, or in blood. If you couldn't pay, really he'd cut of yer hand and throw it into the river. One day, a Roman soldier with the name of Silvius Brabo came over the river and met Druon. As normal, Druon demanded a toll. When Silvius refused to pay, Druon got mad and threatened with his knife (a GIANT's size of knife, mind you) to cut off the hand of the soldier if terms weren't met. Silvius then drew his AWESOME sword and killed the mighty opponent, cut of his right hand and threw it into the river. The term Antwerp, or in the flemmish dialect of the city/district "Antwaarpe" derives from "Hand te werpe" or throwing the hand. Every. Single. Child raised in Antwerp knows this saga. It's a part of living folklore there and it's VERY MUCH kept alive through the Antwerp Hand, a biscuit that's sweet and distinct in shape and taste and It's AWESOME.
Awesome !
Taste likes hand
Reminds me of a tale about Leiden, a Dutch city. Giants once made trade impossible, because even if you could convince one giant to let you through as a merchant, another would not care about that. So you would need to bribe so many giants that you would be left with nothing.
Now one day all giants ended up in a big fight to see who was the strongest. Once they were done, the strongest giant, that of the river Rhine, declared himself ruler. Which allowed him to authorize merchants to go through all giant territory, through means of a permit to travel through the territory, a "vrijgeleide".
So every giant asked merchants: "Ben je wel voorzien van een vrijgeleide van de Rijnreus?" Translation: "Are you, in fact, in possesion of a permit by the Rhine Giant?" This was later shortened to: "Ben je voorzien van vrijgeleide?" Translation: "Do you have a permit?"
That worked for a while, but trade started to increase, and long lines of merchants waited at every giant. They shortened it to "Ben jij van vrijgeleide?" and after that "Ben jij van geleide?"
In the end though, even that proved too long, so they held a meeting and after a lot of thinking, a novelty for giants, they managed to make it shorter: "Bent u van Leide?" (Rough translation: "Are you of Leide?") After which the answer was, "Ja, van Leide". Translation: "Yes, of Leide".
And when a city was founded, they called it "Leiden", for everyone was "of Leide."
Source: a book, "De mooiste Nederlandse sagen en legenden" Published by Uitgeverij Verba, 1999
I gotta go there
@@ezicarus8216 Against taxation, specifically (also Robin Hood, etc.).
lmao shad i always get hooked in your vids, all of a sudden its been 20 minutes and im just glad theres 20 more haha
I'm curious about how much soap an average person would go through in medieval England. I did some calculations, and I go through 12.25 lbs or 5.5 Kg of bar soap every year just to bathe every other day. I'm hoping I don't have to kill more than one lard hog just to make the soap required to bathe myself annually. Maybe butter-based soap is a cheaper alternative.
Castles aren't damp? Well, ENGLAND generally, is pretty damp, so I don't think that ou can blame the castles.
They still had Ronseal even back then , so there was no worries really.
@@RubbittTheBruise we still call it pitch, outside of wherever that "ronseal" brand is sold.
Destroying/contaminating wells inside or outside of a fortified place during sieges was one of the most common tactic of attritional warfare. There are HUNDREDS of accounts of how import WATER SOURCES were for defense of a city and how concerned the defenders were that city wells are going to dry up because of the influx of refugees from the surrounding countryside. And what about all the sources that mention sea travel and how water in their barrels became putrid and not suitable for drinking?
I wonder how this myth became so popular.
I think that's just that it got all muddled up. Preciousness = scarcity nowadays. We don't have a lot of things that, if we neglect them, they're gone, but if we protect them, they're plentiful. Things are either expensive or cheap, regardless of use. So they figured if water was so important, so easy to deprive people of, they must have been totally screwed for water all the time. and we do know that dehydration from diarrhea could kill you back then, so it WAS possible to run out of water. they're just wrong about the idea that nobody ever had access to clean drinking water ever.
it's the history channels fault if I'm honest
10:19 This goes hand-in-hand with the multiple fireplaces present in most castles. Stone is a poor insulator but retains heat very well, so the more fires you have and the longer they burn, the more heat is absorbed by the stone. This creates a kind of primitive radiant heating system.
I love your enthusiasm for all your videos!
Great video Shad, but one little correction. Night watchmen didn't clean out cesspits, they were watchmen who patrolled the streets. You were thinking of the term nightmen or gong farmers, which were Tudor slang terms for people who cleaned cesspits. They were called nightmen because they shovelled out nightsoil and they were only allowed to work at night because of the smell. According to author Priscilla Galloway, there were 16 public latrines in London in the late 14th century.
Where can I find info about gong farmers because I'm thinking of using one as either a dnd character or NPC
72 Anonymous Hydras Tony Robinson did a TV Series called Worst Jobs in History. The Tudor episode talked about gong farmers. I found it on CZcams. czcams.com/video/va4vYnjqjfg/video.html the gong farmer part starts about 6:30 in, and continues in part 3 czcams.com/video/67wWc11UEMI/video.html
Didn't knackers handle disposal of shit in medival period along with corpses?
You mean HISTORY IS COMPLICATED?!
godsoloved you’re from hello future me right
I'm so glad this channel exists.
I've really enjoyed your videos, thanks!
That question is comparable to “What was life like in Colonial America?”
What regions? Who? When? There’s so many different answers lol
What is life like in the Modern Age?
1. Everyone eat borgar.
2. Water is polluted, everyone drink Coke.
3. Guns banned/restricted everywhere.
4. Nobody like Britain.
Future civilization, hundreds of years in the future - Ah, when the M-16 wielding colonists led by the likely mythological figure of Jorge W. fended off the SA80 A2 using men of the George 3.
It was Colonial American
Colonial Americans, from England, Europe, probably knew about boiling water killed bacteria by then ..
Its about 600 years after medieval times finished .
@@kevwhufc8640 bachteria wasn't even been discovered yet...but probably they noticed that You don't get sick drinking the water that was boiled our thinking process have allways work by logic
I love this video. People are people. It's so easy, on the surface, to talk about a zeitgeist, but the moment you start to scrutinize the details you begin to realize that human civilization has always been more varied than we give it credit for, in any time period. Trying to say "what life was like" in the Medieval Era is like trying to say what life is like today: Where? Who? We are complex creatures, both deeply tied together in our mores and traditions, yet also highly diverse from home to home. And I love how your video captures the fact that medieval life, while more physically and legally difficult than it is today (especially for women and minorities), was colorful, vibrant, and peppered with delights.
Mostly a good comment, except the part:
"...while more physically and legally difficult than it is today (especially for women and minorities)..."
There was no such thing as "minorities" in those times, as nations were mostly homogeneous, with possible exception being slaves, though their population (especially from "exotic" areas) was of hardly-significant-enough-to-mention size. Also, I'd like to see a valid historical record showing, that women were actually being oppressed back in those times, in any kind of way.
@@Gyvulys Nations were homogeneous, but there might be multiple nations under a particular Ruler, and people of a single Nation might be split in terms of their spoken language, etc.
As for "no such thing" as minorities, that's not true. The Jews were a minority, as were Gypsies. It was regarded very differently, however (more sensibly if you ask me)
@@Gyvulys
>There was no such thing as "minorities" in those times, as nations were mostly homogeneous, with possible exception being slaves
Wat.
1. Shad spends half of the video explaining how it is dumb to make blanket statements about 'the medieval Europe' as if it were a homogenous thing - and yet you do that yourself here. For example - throughout most of it's history, Poland was an incredibly diverse country and even if we focus on the medieval period only: in many cities the foreigners (Jews and Germans) outnumbered the natives. Many big cities were cultural melting pots. Medieval countries would be considered 'homogenous' only if the only diversity you accept is skin colour diversity (which, if you ask me, is the definition of racism).
Another example of a diverse medieval population - Spain, which was a mixture of the Spanish and the Arabs. Or what about Palestine, which during the Crusades was inhabited by all sorts of people, such as Jews, Arabs, European crusaders, the Turks and so on?
2. Slavery was not a thing in most European countries by the year 1000 - and this is a period covered by the video. Countries and timeperiods with slavery were the exception, not the rule - and even then they were usually indentured natives, not conquered/purchased foreigners like in the ancient times or in the later European colonies.
@@igorbednarski8048
Your point #1:
I was referring to race and ethnicity. Countries were homogeneous in that sense. There weren't as many small countries in those times, and thus, to use your example, Poland having germans there is not technically "diverse".
Also:
"which, if you ask me, is the definition of racism"
Sorry, but I honestly don't care if you consider me that. Racism (to an extent) is, in fact, natural to humans, and essentially every animal species.
Your point #2:
I was not referring to the video, I was referring to the OP's comment, which is talking about "medieval era", which encompasses many centuries, and, of course, times when slavery was alive. Also, it was, in fact, very common, that nations would take slaves from lands they conquered during medieval times, before medieval times, and all the way to the world wars.
@@Gyvulys
> There weren't as many small countries in those times
You couldn't be more wrong. There were more countries in the area of modern-day Germany alone than there are countries on the entire planet today. There was no Spain until the late XVth century, it consisted of several different countries. Same applies to Italy - there was no Italy until the XIXth century, just a crapton of small countries. Same applies to Russia - there was no 'Russia' in the medieval ages, there was Kievan Rus, Novgorod, Muscovy, Tver, Pskov.... Europe was INCREDIBLY fragmented throughout most of the middle ages.
>I was referring to race and ethnicity. Countries were homogeneous in that sense.
No, they were not, as they were inhabitted by peoples that spoke different languages, had different cultures, often different religions, different ancestry... they just mostly had the same skin colour. By this logic Indonesia is a "homogenous" country, even though the people living there speak 700 different languages, there are Muslims, Buddhists, Christians and other religions there, some people probably share the most recent common ancestor thousands of years ago - but they all have dark skin, so I guess they are all the same, bruh .
> it was, in fact, very common, that nations would take slaves from lands they conquered during medieval times
It was before the year 1000, which is not the period covered by this video and, therefore, not the subject of our discussion. Between the Xth and XVth century slavery was a rare exception in Europe - and when it did happen, it was almost always due to debts, not conquest.
When you pointed out that the insides were often at least white washed, it makes me think that that also served to lighten it up inside even more.
Informative as always! On the topic of story telling for entertainment: I'm not an old guy (34 years old presently), but back when I was in elementary school, growing up in Hungary, there were such things as poem reciting/storytelling competitions. You would memorize a complete poem or tale and do your best at reciting/telling it to the audience in an entertaining way. I loved partaking in those events as a child, but I'm not sure if they still do them today (which is a bit scary, as we are only really talking about a 25 year difference).
Would love to see a video about medival cities. How big they were, how spread out, how they were constructed and grew.
That would be also quite different. As a over all trend - cities in Meditaranian tend to be bigger in ten of thousands big - in the north of Europe they were much smaller - there you were a metropolis with five thousand like Luebeck the "captial" of the hanseatic league. So there were some exceptions like Bruges for example also in the ten of thousand league. You had only few very big ones - like Cordoba, which was the first city in Europe over a million. In the south you had winter crops and didn't need so much wood for heating in winter.
@@Janibek35 No - after antiquity the numbers went down also to the range of ten of thousands.
With very few exceptions cities were a size that they could be crossed on foot within an hour. Kind of like nowadays few people commute more than one hour one way. Horses were rare among urban dwellers - a journeyman certainly couldn't afford one.
By necessity cities were very densely populated and with the exception of smelly or taboo stuff (tanners, executioners) everything was mixed into one another - most business owners lived directly above their shop...
Shad: "--with the type of winters you get in Europe, especially Britain--" // Me: *laughs in Nordic*
I dunno man, lately the winters here in Denmark have been pitifully warm.
*It's a conspiracy : **_Sweden and Norway are stealing all our snow !_*
Give it back ! 🤣
@@Grumpy_old_Boot sweden says get stuffed. Were kicking up our fake cocaine industry.
You think your winters are cold, Laughs in canadian norse.
@@NoirVelours oh please you wouldnt know what bloody snow is until your in a bar fight in -40 and smash someones nose or stab someone in the ass with the nearest up ended beer bottle
@@serteshsardrakal2272
Nuuuh!
Give back our snow!
We needs it!
Our precious!
I love this channel, I just found it and now I get to binge watch all his videos!!!
In my grandmothers lifetime, lobster went from the food of the poor to something that is ‘expensive’ and most people don’t eat all of the time. It’s crazy how quickly tastes and culture can change!
Largely due to over-harvesting having reduced availability, as I understand it...? Scarcity often seems to lead to food (& other things!) becoming more exclusive?