Health

To be ill, wounded or unhealthy was not something to look forward to if living in the middle ages. The Christians believed a sickness was a punishment from God for sinful behaviour, which practically meant that on top of your disorder you were (often, not always) now a sinner and had to plead for forgiveness. People would pray, do good deeds and go on a pilgrimage (holy journey), eager to once again become healthy.

A lot of illnesses were not very extreme, although were dealt with in ways regularly leading to bigger problems and often resulting in a painful death. The Christians of the middle ages had barely any knowledge on how to cure people, whereas the Islam’s took their time to find out the remedies and were more advanced.

According to health by medieval Christianity, there were four humours (in comparison to there being four elements – water, earth, fire, air) blood, yellow bile, black bile and phlegm. Theory stated that:

1.     Blood – if you were hot, feverish an bad tempered, you had too much blood and they would bleed you by placing leeches on you or cutting part of you open to get rid of some excess blood.

2.     Black Bile – if you were slow, sluggish and depressed they would give you a purgative (making you go to the toilet a lot) to release some black bile that was causing it.

3.     Yellow Bile – if you were bad tempered and feeling nauseous, you had too much yellow bile, so you were required to vomit a lot.

4.     Phlegm – making you hot and sweaty would cure you from being unhappy and tearful which was apparently the result of too much phlegm in your body.

They also believed doing some horrifying surgery was the solution! Barber-surgeons were often unskilled and worked as barbers and surgeons performing disgusting operations such as:

·      Trepanning – where a hole was literally drilled into your skull to release evil spirits. Some operators also used to cut pieces of the brain out, or in some cases were the brain was taken out for a better look! Patients had trepanning done to them if they were going mentally ill or even just from a simple headache, although this regularly ended in death.

·      Blood letting – this is where blood was let out of your body to release evil spirits or bad blood. Leeches or knives were used.

·      Cauterization – where the part of your body that was causing your sickness was cured by a red hot poker being held on the spot.

Pilgrimage was also very common for general illnesses where people were told that going to your holy shrine would express your love for God and he would forgive your sins and make you healthy.

Surgery was very expensive so peasants were not able to afford them, which meant if they were sick, they would spend their money on visiting an apothecary who worked with herbs and natural medicine.

Crime And Punishment

Crime and punishment in the Middle Ages and the differences from that era to nowadays, is a definitely shock to modern day society. Many crimes were crazy and are most certainly not considered crimes today. Some include caught not working hard enough, bakers making faulty bread, drunkenness, swearing, telling lies, nagging ones husband and breaking curfews. Likewise, there were also a fair amount of crimes that are still crimes today such as stealing, murder, etc, although the way they were dealt with was quite horrific.

To prevent people from doing these offences people were often punished in ways of torture. A few examples of the devices they used include:

·      Stocks & pillories – held in ankles, hands and wrists with nowhere to go. Mainly a form of humiliation.

·      Brank – forced over the face of a women who gossips, not allowing any movement on the mouth.

·      Drunkards cloak – also a form a humiliation, where a drunkard must wear a barrel for being drunk.

·      Head crusher – similar to a helmet shape, placed on the victims head which is then screwed until the actual skull gets crushed, literally!

·      Iron boots – where the criminal is tied down securely while their legs are being smashed and crushed up by someone with a weapon (most likely metal/hammer-like object).

·      Gibbet – iron cages that are held up displaying the bodies of executed people.

Fines, shaming, mutation (cutting off a part of the body) or death was the most common form of punishment. People were often tortured in ways, which were not intentionally meant to kill them, however this was also often the case.

Ordeals were also a common in the middle ages, used to determine if a person was innocent or guilty. They were mostly unimaginable loads of garbage such as:

·      Ordeal by fire – the accused had to pick up red hot iron bars and hold them in their hands for a certain amount of paces then let out. After two to three days they would return to the court and if the burn had started healing, they were innocent. If not, you were guilty and most likely killed.

·      Ordeal by water – suspect was tied up and thrown into water and if they were to float they were innocent, once again if they drowned, they were guilty and we most likely killed.

·      Ordeal by combat – simply accused noblemen were forced to fight to the death, the winner was innocent.

Crusaders

In 638, an Egyptian Muslim man was the leader of Jerusalem and approved of anyone of any religion to come and pray there. Jerusalem was an incredibly sacred city for 3 different religions for it had a holy praying shrine of each religion. The Dome of Rock Mosque where the Muslims believe the Prophet Mohammed rose up and visited heaven, the Church of Holy Sepulchre where Christians believe Jesus was buried and finally the Wailing Wall (aka Western Wall) – the last remaining part of King Herod’s temple and a site of pilgrimage for the Jews.

This was quite a peaceful time, right up until 1079, where everything changed. A Turkish Muslim leader took over Jerusalem and had a different opinion from the Egyptian leaders. By his point of view, if you were not Muslim, you were not allowed to come and pray, so Jerusalem was basically a Muslim only area.

The Christians were horrified and soon enough, the Pope had made a call to fight for their rights to once again be allowed into the holy land. Word spread and soon enough the Christians had an army of peasants and knights.

And they set out on an adventure to fight for their right to pray…

1.     The People’s Crusade – the first group of people to return the Pope’s call and fight for his army to forgive their sins. The Christians killed 10,000 Jews on their journey for their gold, although soon enough supplies and weapons ran out, most people were killed and the rest were kept and used for slavery. It was the year of 1096 and they were strongly defeated by the Muslims because they had almost no training and few knights whereas there were thousands of regular peasants.

2.     The First Crusade – it was 1097 and on their journey they lost half of their army due to disease, starvation and small battles. Their leaders were William the Conqueror and Robert of Normandy and unlike the People’s crusade; they took over Jerusalem for about 6 decades.

3.     The Second Crusade – leader King Louis was in charge, it was 1147 and the Muslims took over Jerusalem once again. They were not as blood thirsty as the Christians but somehow managed to overtake them.

4.     The Third Crusade – year 1189 where leaders Richard King of England & Philip were the leaders. Unfortunately one of them drowned before they made it to the battlefield, although they did win some land and freedom to pray in Jerusalem, however the Muslim’s were still in charge.

5.     The Fourth Crusade – horrible time which ended up being a Christian verse Christian fight, with people everywhere just killing and raping one another. 1202 was certainly a disgusting time in medieval history and was lead by Pope Innocent the third.

6.     The Children’s Crusade – In 1212, it was the children who fought. Nicolas and Steven were the leaders and there was a massive 30,000 kids who wanted to escape home. They followed a German man in the fight, however ended up getting sold for slavery and prostitution. 

Village Life

Living in a village during the medieval times was one of the worst places to live in. Firstly, you had about as much freedom as an animal in a zoo enclosure. Unlike living in a medieval town, you were not able to buy a charter – a piece of paper that gave you permission to leave your town for another – and if you were caught trying to leave your village, the punishment was not something worth trying for.

The Domesday Book kept a record of all the villagers, their earnings, the animals they owned and how much money they had. They had no privacy or say in who got surveyed and would be punished if the truth was not told. The King was in charge and lent land to the barons who in return provided knights for the King’s kingdom and paid for the land lent to them. There were usually only about 200 barons, who were still incredibly high classed and they lent land to the 4,000 knights who then in return gave the barons money for the land and fought for whoever the barons needed for them to fight for. Finally, the villeins (approximately 1.5 million) were given land from the knights. They were intituled to this land on the condition that they paid for all of the land and food used.

Houses were absolutely foul in the medieval times. They were completely built of mud, animal dung, straw and urine and had to be 100% handmade. Moreover, it was awfully time consuming, tiring to build, although was worth having, especially in the winter where the animal dung keeps you just warm enough to survive.

Winter was the hardest season to live through and the only time you may have to chance to taste meat. Winter involves looking after your cattle and other animals (which get killed for their fat and fur) and trying to stay alive. Whereas in autumn, summer and spring the main focus is to keep your crops and family well fed and healthy. The regular schedule for eating was around 6:00am, 10:am and 4:00pm and consisted of eating mostly bread, oats, bread, vegetables, bread, fruits and… more bread! They drank ale, which is a beer type drink because fresh or even drinkable water was often difficult to find. 

Town Life

If you were a peasant of the 13^th century, you would have been lucky to have had the privilege to live in a medieval town. You could have an occupation as a builder, carpenter, painter, lead beater, thatcher, cook, butter maker, cutler, miller, skinner, weaver, belt maker, cordwainer, combere, saddler, hosier, the list goes on! The towns had more space, freedom and land than the villages and they were also much, much cleaner. Although, your idea of clean is most likely completely the opposite of what medieval standards of clean were.

Just imagine…

The feel and smell of poo covering the floor, feral animals everywhere eating away at rotten food, their carcass’s in every direction, the faeces squashing in between your worn out leather shoes as you try to make your way to the local stalls. And the people… Masses of crowds everyday, getting pushed around, falling over, diseased animals infecting the people, the people then infecting the town and soon, there’s nowhere where people aren’t vomiting or coughing and spreading life threatening illnesses. The pollution is just another disadvantage, with waste covering the filthy ground, the humid air causing you to dripping in sweat and the smell of everything giving you a headache.

There’s one way out, but it requires money, which you are limited to. Once you have collected the money, you are able to buy a charter. This is a piece of paper, which gives you freedom. Freedom to leave this filthy town to settle in a new place, maybe another town.