How did medieval people wipe their a**? What was the weather like in the Middle Ages? How much was medieval money worth?
Medieval historian and co-host of the Gone Medieval Podcast Matt Lewis answers Google’s most searched questions about life in the Middle Ages.
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00:00 Introduction
00:41 Did medieval children go to school?
01:34 Were there medieval universities?
03:00 How old were medieval people when they started working?
03:23 Were there apprenticeships in the medieval period?
04:22 What was the weather like in the medieval period?
05:31 Where did medieval people sleep?
06:48 What hairstyles were popular in the medieval era?
08:21 How did medieval people wipe their a**?
09:33 Did medieval people wear underwear?
10:11 What music did medieval people listen to?
11:05 What was the average height of an adult in the medieval era?
11:58 Did medieval people brush their teeth?
12:46 How did medieval people hear about news?
13:33 Which medieval country was the best to live in?
14:07 Did medieval people go on holiday?
15:13 What were the existing religions in the middle ages?
16:37 How diverse was medieval England?
17:46 How did medieval people tell the time?
19:07 What did the average day look like for a peasant, priest or king?
20:59 How likely were you to die of the plague?
21:33 What was the plague cycle?
22:10 How likely were women to die in childbirth?
23:07 How much was medieval money worth?
24:16 What was the average lifespan in the middle ages?
24:41 Was there a judicial system in the middle ages?
26:32 How did medieval people entertain themselves?
27:12 How did people share stories in the middle ages?
28:31 Were medieval people flat-earthers?
29:03 Did medieval monks party?
29:40 Conclusion
When people talk about Medieval times and customs, are they generally referring only to countries in Europe?
I love the air of superiority when people look at the middle ages. Both in questions and with the so called specialist answering. "Did they brush their teeth? Did they wear underwear? Did they travel?" It's like talking about children who didn't know what they were doing. Not only a ridiculous air of superiority when people look at another age, but also, to ask and want a single answer about a whole period spamming almost a thousand years, across various cultures is mind boggling. In one generation now people go from banning head covering or making it mandatory, and they want to hear a single answer for a whole period. Not sure what is worse, the ones making the questions or the so called specialist actuality answering. Probably the latter
Monks and nuns usually got up for Prime – the first 'hour'.
"how diverse was *insert european country*" The answer is not very diverse and definetly not in the way people think of diversity these days.
First, this was very much a regional thing. Port cities were the most diverse locations by far because they were the locations were trading vessels would naturally land. But in the hinterlands? That's a different story entirely.
In addition diversity in a medieval sense does not mean that the populations and ethnicities of different continents mingled. For example: East Asians like people from China or people from central Africa are basically unheared of in Medieval Europe. What did happen a bit more frequently (but still not that common) was diversity within Eurpe – so someone living in Paris might have met people from the Holy Roman Empire or Spain or England. Diversity would have meant an Englishman living in France or a Bavarian living in Denmark.
The areas that were the most diverse in a more global sense was most likely the Mediterranean. The peoples of North Africa, the Middle East and Southern Europe have traded and interacted in various ways since Antiquity and in large coastal trade cities in particular there was a chance of seeing people with a different skin colour. However: We're still talking about very small numbers of people here and not a diverse picture like we have today.
24:40 That might be the case in England, however we have quite a few church books in Germany that give detailed listings of births, marriages and deaths so we do have a pretty good idea.
That said: There is a very important fact that most people don't really think about(it is mentioned in the video). From the sources we have we can tell that the AVERAGE lifespand was around 40-45 years. However: That must not be confused with the actual ages people reached once they survived the bay- and toddler phases. What depresses the average age so much is the very high infant and toddler mortality which was sometimes as high as 50 %. But once people had lived past this phase the mortality rates were actually not that different – adults often died in their 70s (just like today most people die in their 80s). So while the average life expectancy was much lower due to the high infant mortality the average age of people dying of old age was from what we know from the sources maybe about 10 years below modern day ages.
29:25 There are also other activites. There is an example in southern Germany of a monastery and a nun cloister connected by a hidden tunnel….and quite a few skeletal remains of babies.
23:48 12 pennies in a shilling and 20 shillings in a pound making 240 pence in the pound..When we decimalised the currency, the new 5 and 10 pence coins had the same size, shape and value as the old 1 and 2 shilling coins.
I remember using 100 year old coins alongside the new ones and no-one would bat an eyelid at it!
This is a really good video. Im super tired but i want to look up more of your videos. First time im watching.
In China there is a saying "women giving birth are going through the gate of hell"
Those aren't hose, sir. We know what hose are…👀