Many misconceptions about the medieval period stem from the fact that the average person doesn’t even know when the medieval period was. To most laypeople, the entire span of time between the fall of Western Rome and the Industrial Era is considered “medieval.” This is an incredibly broad stretch of history that can actually be divided into two distinct eras. The latter of these eras—spanning from the late 15th to the early 19th centuries, depending on the region—is often referred to colloquially as the Renaissance, the Colonial Era, or the Enlightenment. Most historians, however, use the broad term “Early Modern Era.”

Interestingly, many misconceptions about the medieval period actually originate in the Early Modern Era. For example, the famously gruesome methods of torture and execution often associated with the medieval period largely belong to the Early Modern Era. In comparison, torture and execution in the medieval period were relatively simple and practical. Similarly, in relation to the article, it was the people of the Early Modern Era—not the medieval period—who had truly questionable hygene.

There are a few key reasons why hygiene declined in the post-medieval world. The main factor was the rapid growth of urban centers, which led to nearby waterways becoming polluted with human waste. With clean water harder to obtain, people bathed less frequently. The introduction of sugar from the New World into the European diet also wreaked havoc on oral hygiene, and it took centuries for proper dental practices to develop. Finally, as the article points out, there were many widespread misconceptions about hygiene and its role in preventing disease, particularly with regard to the much-feared Black Death.

In short, William the Conqueror was likely a well-groomed man, while George Washington probably stank.

Idk, I know a pianist and his house is just filled with boxes and boxes of sheets music!

Biggest argument in favor of compulsory military service I’ve ever seen. The everyday citizen soldiers didn’t give a fuck about the coup, and weren’t willing to risk confrontation with their military trained fellow citizens for a wannabe dictator. It was a beautiful thing.

And Cyberpunk

His rise really is symbolic of the rot that has taken hold of our society. Truly, our most degenerate moron has risen to the top of the shit pile.

Whales, Elephants, and the other Great Apes are all likely to go too, and they don’t deserve it. Humans brought this on ourselves, but the loss of peaceful intelligent life is a true tragedy.

About to be a total Doomer, but I would just like to remind everyone that the current effects we are seeing are due to carbon pumped into the atmosphere 30 YEARS AGO! And emissions have only increased since then.

As a millennial, it’s been a hard reckoning that greed and evil truly won before I was born. There was nothing I could ever have done about it. All I can do is just ride it out. In a way, I am privileged. I’ve always had an interest in history, how fortunate I am to witness it’s end.

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Riker is clearly pan

There’s no way Musk “works” 100 hours a week. How do you think he’s found all this time to spend with his new bestie Donald? By all accounts the guy spends a significant amount of his time playing video games and on Twitter. His “work” is lunch meetings and zoom calls with the board where he just spitballs a bunch of nonsense.

Why not just cut out history education all together? It’s not like anyone was paying attention anyway /s

You’re right, it will be a slow setup then a sudden overwhelming deluge, if not in two years then in four. That’s project 2025’s whole thing. It all really just depends on how much GOP incompetence and in-fighting delays their plans.

My comment about Trump was more aimed at the fact that he is an old man in seemingly poor health who doesn’t even really like being president beyond the power trip and ego boost. His main motivation for running again was to avoid legal consequences for the corruption of his first term. If he doesn’t die within the next four years my money is on him being forced to step down and pardoned by Vance

Yeah, things are going to get bad, but it’s going to happen slowly. So slowly that a lot of people panicking right now will calm down and go back to business as usual. We will be distracted and forget this is happening, until it’s too late to do anything about it. I’d be shocked if Trump is even president/alive still when America goes full mask-off fascist.

That’s what’s so insidious about it.

The plan to make up for immigrant labor is prison labor. Tank the economy, further criminalize homelessness. Wouldn’t be shocked if debters prisons make a big comeback.

I’m going to be the nerd who talks about how difficult it is for modern, post-Industrial Revolution humans to truly understand how medieval peasants lived. Really, this applies to how ancient and medieval people of all walks of life lived, but for now, let’s stick to the topic of this meme. Is it entirely relevant to this post? Eh, probably not, but I’m bored at work and in the mood to ramble.

That meme about how peasants had so many more days off than modern workers? Those “days off” were simply the days when their labor wasn’t solely for the benefit of their lord. The days they “worked” were the ones spent fulfilling their feudal obligations—working their lord’s fields to stock the larders and granaries of the nobility and clergy. The rest of the year was when peasants worked to sustain their own communities.

Make no mistake: a peasant’s life was one of constant toil. For a medieval peasant, there was no sharp distinction between work and home life like we have today. There were no modern conveniences either—everything required labor. When fields didn’t need to be tended, and livestock didn’t require care, that was the time for milling grain, baking bread, brewing ale, weaving cloth, etc. God, crafting and maintaining your clothes took so much work, not to mention repairing and upkeeping your cottage.

Granted, these duties were often divided among family and community members. Unless you were a hermit living alone in the woods, no one was expected to do it all themselves. One of the “nicer” aspects of medieval peasant life was the close bonds within families and communities. People provided for one another. Children and the elderly, while still expected to work, had lighter duties. Bartering and trading goods or services with neighbors was also common.

That said, I don’t want to romanticize their lives too much. Here are some of the harsher realities:

1. If you were a man, you could be levied into your lord’s army at any time. This meant marching far from home, and risking death in battle. You really, really do not want to find yourself on the losing side of a medieval battle, something completely out of your control as a levied peasant. You also had to provide your own equipment. If you were relatively well-off, this might mean a spear, a shield, and padded armor. If not, you’d bring whatever you had—likely a farm tool. Refusing or deserting would leave you an outlaw, and if you were caught you would be flogged and possibly hanged.

2. If you weren’t called to war (because you were a woman, a child too young to fight, or too old or infirm), you lived in constant fear of armies rampaging through your village. They could destroy your home, steal your valuables, and rape and murder you, regardless of age or gender. With your lord’s army far away (or defeated), you’d be left to defend yourself, and running was your best option.

3. Medical care was rudimentary. Alcohol was the primary painkiller, and while there were herbal remedies, their effectiveness was often questionable. Nearly every illness or injury carried the risk of an agonizing death. Infections were almost always fatal. Childbirth was a leading cause of death for women, and as people aged, they faced constant pain with little relief.

Medieval peasants lived lives that, by our standards, were horrific: often short, brutal, and full of hardship. They were at the mercy of powers far beyond their control—victims of the whims of history. Yet ignorance truly was bliss. They knew no other way of life. If they were blessed with good times, free of war, famine, or plague, many peasants could lead fulfilling lives, and some, may have even considered themselves happy.

Okay I’m ootl on this asshat but now I keep hearing his name. Who the fuck is he and what the fuck is his problem?

America’s saving grace may in fact be that the fascists are too stupid and lazy to do the work required to dismantle the federal government and cause mass human suffering.

A few weeks ago a poor POC came up to me trying to convince me to vote Trump because “Trump will put money in your pocket”

I asked him what he meant by that, thinking his reasoning would be tax cuts or inflation. Alas, his reasoning was that he thought the COVID stimulus checks came from Trump’s personal wealth and that him winning the presidency again would mean we would get more.

It was when I noticed the other people around me agreeing with him that I knew we were doomed. What can man do against such reckless ignorance?