@@TCJB33 pros and cons to every era. The people who will benefit in a modern day feudalistic society are the same people we are trying to save our republics from. Not gonna be nearly the same as it was back then. More like judge dredd meets robocop. If you think the people with the most in todays world give a crap about God or our faith….Good luck with that.
@TCJB33 on top of that if you look at most modern catholic Countries they have a way more relaxed Working culture. The protestant work ethic is great and all but have you ever had a 2 hour long siesta?
I'm a farmer now so I can about imagine what it would have been like. Planting and harvesting would have been very busy then like now. They would have spent summers cutting hay and pulling weeds. Winter they probably sat in their huts by a fire. They didn't punch a clock and work 40 hour weeks. They worked a few 100 hour weeks and many more 10 hour weeks probably.
maybe so, but they also had 50-150 days off, way lower taxes, a life surrounded by nature and a community of people and families that they knew well. honestly, sounds better than now. life expectancy is obviously superior nowadays, but the quality of life is no better than back then honestly.
I'm a farmer to and I would Change for no Money in the world my modern equipment for the medival one. The work must have been backbreaking. I don't care for more Off time if I can't use it to travel or other Things ,more than few days march away, because you have animals to care for and stuff to repair.
@@thoro1932 I'd love to create an Amish style eco-village where we all grow food and live like the Amish, but with modern farming equipment and modern solar technology for energy. There's no point spending hundreds of hours digging when a machine can do that job in a few hours.
@Jake-mv7yo same here, I've worked farms and the work is intermittent at best in the year. Of course they had many other responsibilities, like animal husbandry, which isn't as seasonal, and maintaining the house/village. But yeah, i remember reading about how the first industrialists had a lot of difficulty integrating rural "peasant" hires into the factory work environment because they never showed up on time, refused to punch in and out, disrespected and disobeyed any superiors, usually ate and drank whenever they felt like it, were confused about why they couldn't bring their families along, etc etc. It really shreds that myth about peasants being meek little worker drones.
@@thoro1932 lots of people travelled, even peasantry. Pilgramages were common for anyone from any walk of life, usually in the spring, and could comprise of crossing continents, but usually involved national movement. This was done in the spring. The Canterbury Tales is all about this.
My grandmother used to grow her own vegetables and she'd keep chickens for the eggs and meat (the roosters would be made into our chicken soup, after we caught the body that always runs away without its head). It's long hours of "work" but she was never stressed. There's nothing stressful about growing food and collecting eggs. It just takes a lot of time. I think of that lifestyle as a "peasant" lifestyle. She was healthy and lived for almost a century. The peasant life is pretty good.
She was not a peasant, but a freeman. She wasn't tied to the land. On the flipside, unless she was able to sell a lot of eggs she would quickly have learned that she doesn't own the land she holds the deed for if she failed to pay local property taxes to support the bureaucrats.
I have a vegetable garden rotational chicken yard about 200m2, soft fruit bushes and fruit trees. I'm not stressed but I'm certain that I wouldn't survive on my own with that.
Fml taxes are not the same as serfdom. If you don't want to pay taxes, move to some backwater djungle and live your life. But don't you complain about lack of roads, lack of safety, or go to a hospital when you're sick.@@myronplatte8354
Yes being a medieval peasant was not as horrible as people think ,in fact the worst period to be a common person in europe came after the renaissance in the 17 th century.
Sometimes I think that people in the 17th and 18th century made up all the common myths about the middle ages because they were coping for how shitty their actual time was (or they just assumed that things were always that shitty since the fall of Rome)
@@casteddu6740 Just based off modern times I'd say you're right. Also consider that it essentially comes from communists today. Back then it came from the proto-communists like those who caused the French Revolution (one of the most shameful and evil periods in human history).
The worst period to be a common person in the west is the 2020s when you are depressed, poor, and have no joy, meaning, purpose, religion, or a partner!
Wow, I had to go back to see why my comment was hidden. It's because I drew parallels between now and back then, mentioned kahm yuu nihsm, said it's not surprising, etc.. It's amazing anyone thinks social media is useful for expanding human understanding.
My favorite myth about the Medieval period is that peasants didn't take baths. There's a really good video about that on YT and I think you should do more videos about medieval life.
It's all part of the greater agenda to villify and demonize anything to do with the wh-yt-3 races, Western cultures, and Christendom since we were kids.
There is the added nuance that there was technically two types of peasantry in at least northern europe: villeins and freemen. Villeins are the classic peasant archetype. They serve a lord, tending his fields or doing other work for him, and are obliged to give tithes to him in the form of produce or other useful labor. In exchange they can tend their own lands. Under contract, the only real restriction they had under their lordship was an inability to legally leave the land unless their lord granted express consent, however, lords very rarely made any effort to track down villeins or their families who decided to pack up and leave, given that it is basically a myth that the lord of the land was an autocrat who had say and presence in every facet of his peasant's lives. His appointed officials ran the day to day business. A village official *might* send a family member to fetch back an errant villein, but once the latter made it to a town or city there was zero chance of finding them. Additionally, if the villein wanted to marry outside the manor, a fee would be levied against him for the inconvenience of tangling the affairs of one manor to another. A few other restrictions were also present, but as with the marriage example the consequence was usually a fee, plus social shame. Freeman were peasants who simply paid rent to a lord in exchange to working their own field. Tradesmen were also often freemen. They had no formal restrictions to movement or marriage like villeins, and were basically entitled to the same rights. In exchange for this ostencible freedom, their guarantee of work was less sure. I believe there were sometimes some discrimination against freemen for being "unloyal", after all, they are not bound to the land, but instead utilize money to secure their place. I've seen historians call them "mercenary peasants", lol It is extremely common in modern framing of olden times to depict freemen as "better" or richer than villeins, but reality is more complex. Freemen engaged in a trade were indeed liable to be wealthier, depending on business acumen, than a villein, but many villeins could get quite wealthy by their labors, and even employ folks to live and work on *their* land, called cotars. The wealthiest people in a village who were not in a lord's household were usually villeins, and the poorest were cotars, or freemen down on their luck. Service comes with its privileges.
Small correction: Getting to a town didn't necessarily mean you have "successfully gotten away", though. (And why would it? Getting food to a town - because towns generally relied on the surrounding lands for food, same as today - would commonly have peasants travel there temporarily. Plus, big regional trading markets and specialized craftsmen that your local village just didn't have, somewhat similar to today.) Instead, typically (at least for the HRE and some other parts of Europe) you were considered "free" from any prior Lord only after having been in a town for a year or longer, without your prior Lord having made any claims demanding you to return in that entire time frame. If they did make such claims, however, then you were still legally bound to return. And being "free" didn't mean being objectively free. It just means you belong to the city now, and the city belongs to some higher up nobleman or (in some cases) directly to the emperor or king. So you are again belonging to someone in a city, just someone else now, and potentially with different "terms of service" in your social contract, e.g. less strict movement or marriage restrictions in exchange for (time-limited) war duty. If you're not good at farming but very good at some craftsmanship, that can be very much worth it, ofc.
@Heroesflorian Something else i didn't mention was that townsfolk often helped hide a runaway villein, because it meant the settlement would gain their service, plus it was making a new friend, as nietworks were everything to these people. i was referring to english villeins exclusively, i don't know about the escapee practices of the other countries, however, i know that the ratio of villein to freemen was different in those places. For example, due to the culture, agricultural practices and land usage, the italians were mostly freemen, whereas the french and russians were mostly villeins. England was almost 50/50 in this regard, and the HRE was similar although east of the Elbe more priveleges and rights because the electors wanted people to settle there. Geography and pop played a big role. Villeins in very decentralized or frontier areas (like the aforementioned germans) typically has less restrictions then those in more densely populatee farmland or nucleated settlements
The king had much less power than todays rulers. The medieval king couldnt say how the peasant had to build his farm, how to keep his sheep or how long to work. While nowadays everything is regulated. The reason why we think that the peasant had a bad life is because we have so little written accounts on the medieval peasants life, because they were illitarate. Almost every account comes from the noble class that had predjudices, like we have today about farmers. The farmer today is also often seen as somewhat filthy and dumb.
The Renaissance is to blame for the "dark ages" myth and it also kinda influenced our perception of rural people. Those who live in cities are perceived as being "developed" or "educated" while those who live off the land are seen as "backwards" or "inbreeds", which is ironic since urban dwellers have no land, no contact with nature, and yet decide which course a country can take.
Manorialism was the closest to the Libertarian ideal that we have ever seen. Good luck explaining that to them though. Their radical individualism and revulsion towards monarchism would keep them from seeing the prize.
@@n4ughty_knight It would be Better to Blame the Protestant Reformation or Better yet "The Christian Revolution" for the Early-Modern Educational Perception that Shaped the Viewpoints of Individuals among Society since the Christian Revolution had been Responsible for the Renaissance's Aftermath that Concluded the Evolution of Modern Education as we Know It today.
@@augcaes Yes, I know about Hoppe. I have Democracy: The God that Failed. The "small l" libertarian would be easier to convince than the Party Libertarian.
Good to see this becoming more widely recognized! I’ve been a professor of medieval history for years and usually have to have this very talk at least twice a semester. Keep up the good work! Would you mind posting your bibliography for the videos, so we can all read along?
Medieval peasants commonly had no military duty, so wars were fought by the nobility and their retainers. Agincourt meant nothing to the average medieval farmer; October 25, 1415, was just another day to them.
It was likely also far worse than you think. I live in an African country where traditional subsistence farming is still practiced, and our subsistence farmers have a lifestyle that is surprisingly similar to that of medieval peasants. The main difference is that Africans have hereditary chiefs instead of nobility, and there is a lot of social pressure for the chiefs to obey traditions. But a subsistence farmer is still a subsistence farmer, whether they be a medieval peasant or a modern African. One of the first things a Westerner would notice is the extreme poverty. Everybody is thin and wearing old clothes. People have so few possessions that basic farm tools like pickaxes are often shared between families. Most families have one cooking pot and children usually grow up without ever owning a pair of shoes. People still keep chickens and goats, but eating meat is generally a luxury reserved for feast occasions. If a person is lucky they might get to eat meat once per week. The physical labor is backbreaking. Everything has to be done by hand and it takes forever. Even just getting water and collecting firewood takes hours every day. Yes there are days (especially during the dry season) when there is no work to be done, but then there is nothing else to do but sit around because there's no electricity. So no cell phones, internet or computers. People live in small and uncomfortable mud huts with no electricity, so they go to bed at sundown and get up at dawn. Also forget about modern medicine or dental care. A person living on welfare in a developed country has a far higher standard of living than an African traditional farmer, and likely also higher than a medieval peasant.
Hilarious watching people in the comments debate what life was like as a peasant "back then" when we have clear examples of subsistence farming all over the world to draw examples from.
@@cryowreck3193This wasn't the fault of the system, but of time. Technology takes time to advance under any system. If medieval peasants suddenly got democracy they wouldn't magically get medical care
Other than modern medicine I have yet to see a decent argument for the pros of modernity over that of the pre-industrial world. Commercialism, hyper-sexuality, and factory produced “necessities” are diseases that rot the soul of the first-world. Meanwhile the second-world isolates itself into self-contained militant cults while the third-world is forced to be the eternal political no-man’s land for duplicitous “leaders” to exploit, for the most part, with absolute impunity. Modernity has turned society into a parasite that sacrifices hundreds of millions for the benefit of those born to the “right,” group or identity who risk little and gain everything. We live in our own hell. Made apathetic to the plight of our human kin, mistaking materialism for purpose, selling our souls for fantasies and worldly pleasures, ignorant through our own pride, and perhaps most bestial, willing to sacrifice freedom for authority simply out of fear. Maybe through this self-imposed suffering change can happen. But I fear that would require a lot more suffering, suddenly, consistently, and quite brutally to wake humanity from this miasma of decadence. Until then, all we can do is try to maintain our humanity. Love unconditionally, especially those who wrong you, earn an honest a living as is possible for your situation, nourish your soul, and try to achieve TRUE altruism. Peace and love to you all, my friends.
modern housing, heating and air conditioning. Every time has its challenges. If we ever solve the ones that we have today, new ones will pop up in their place.
@@cbogue418 well said but there are ways to live without creature comforts. Modern AC systems are not feasible in the long run. You build a house for the correct climate with the right insulation your means to heat it and what you wear in the home make up for lack of artificial temps. Synthetic clothing are basically plastic bags not allowing your body to breath. Wear the right fabrics in the appropriate season and you’ll survive. These modern solutions are for our own self-created modern problems. But I agree it’s easier said than done. Edit: however, you can’t have modern medicine without modern facilities. Which lined up with your point friend. Refrigeration for meds and produce too.
@@DefeatedRoyalist Electricity. You wouldn't be typing on your screen today without it. Cars. Without them it would take days to travel to the next town rather than minutes. Double glazing. Your room would be very draughty without it and would probably have ice on the window in winter. Fertiliser. Modern nitrates are more effective and get faster results than the food scraps and animal dung our ancestors would have used. Trains. You can travel from one side of the country to the other in a few hours rather than weeks.
I was wondering about the diet of those times. All seasonal, All organic , an inclusion of fish all fresh produce. stored pork. chicken eggs small game. Fruits and dried for storage. Bread that would be classed a Artisan organic full grain ( cost an arm and a leg today in some fancy bakery . My suspician is thet the regiems that followed the Reformation, Renaissance, and Enlightenment . Spent many column inches disparaging the previous and enhacing their new ways of religion, polotics economics . masking a siezure of power "Absolutism". Agriculture . "Enclosures" and Economics. "Joint stock " companies and Fractional reserve banking. All resulting in the dispossesion and creation of a landless class dependent on "Wage slavery". Thanks for your thoughtful and measured content.
the Dark ages was before the little ice age, the little Ice age started in the mid 1300s, and the seasons where longer and warmer then later even famines where less then in later periods
@@poekiemanpoekieman9224 C'mon. Italy was reconquered by Belisarius 'The Sword of Rome' and Narses 'The Armenian'. That's gotta mean something! Although italy wasn't kept for long. (And no one cares about france or Spain)
Afaik the small ice age only started hitting at the very end of the late medieval ages, fully impacting in the early modern period. Also: Careful with such precise year numbers for climate and human historical periods. There exist a number of different proposals for exact timings, and any exact timings have the issue of painting a "black and white" picture, where most changes were quite gradual (both climatic and societal). History is full of continuous change, humans just like to (somewhat arbitrarily) cut things into distinct pieces to simplify. And a gentle reminder to everyone reading this: The "dark ages" were called so because they are "dark" to us nowaday in the sense of having few remaining and known, written sources from which to reconstruct the details of reality at that point in time, leaving "in the dark" some aspects or finer details of what life was like back then. Which is in large parts because paper (and cheaper alternatives like bark, wood, skin, wax tablets) tend to decompose over time, and because much day-to-day stuff was also dealt with more orally and less in written form. The term "dark ages" does NOT have anything to with climate or sun intensity, nor with how grim or happy life was back then. It is only referring to a lack of nodaways-available, written sources from that time describing how it was. (And also, it was coined at a point in modern time where we had even less access to and overview of sources from the time than we have now. Same as the term "viking age" being coined when there was a lack of modern-day focus on anything other than vikings, plus some conflation of any Scandinavian activities with the particular activity of "going on viking", i.e. seafaring outside your home region.)
Actual toiling may have been less, but they didn't pop over to the corner store to get some butter, eggs, milk and bacon. Those things they had to make themselves or as a family unit. Milking had to be done twice a day for every milk cow. Chickens needed protection from predators, so extermination of pest animals was a constant activity. Home churned butter took a good chunk of the day to make. Baking was not a fun Sunday afternoon exercise, it was every day before sunup, or finished before you went to bed in your hay pile. Bacon was slaughtering your pig (assuming someone didn't steal it or it died of a disease), then spending days of fall weather turning everything but the oink into food and somehow preserving it. All that between the ordinary chores of sweeping your dirt floor and washing laundry by hand. Life was HARD, well beyond working a 40 and doing a little grocery shopping on the way home to Netflix and chill.
No, you wouldn't. Be grateful you were born in the 20th century where you have healthcare, electricity, clean water, central heating, air conditioning, and you don't have to do smelly, backbreaking work on a farm just to survive.
Good presentation. I'm glad you made it. Yes, modern medicine is definitely an improvement, and I wouldn't trade it for a medieval poultice, but it wasn't all "dark" and miserable as we see it portrayed in movies and TV shows. Most of all I like the fact that life was much more integrated compared to these days. Strong community bonds, church mandated times of rest from work, and a smaller sense of the world, seems much more in scale to what we actually need as human beings.
They were freer than we are. They paid MUCH lower taxes. Their rent was a pittance compared to what we pay. They were not overburdened by laws and regulations.
@@MrKoobuh Sure. Everyone gripes about taxes. But if they had to work over 60 days a year to pay their taxes AND rent, that was considered severe. I’m betting that most of us would be happy to pay our taxes and rent with just 60 days of work.
The only bad thing was recurrent wars, but that is an issue of the era, as centralized States were not a thing yet. War always affect civilians, however, medieval peasants had overall a nice life, everything I want away from the modern burdens. I love going to my gf's family hacienda, is so nice to work with the cattle and just live with the nature.
No dishwasher, no tap water (probably the biggest one), no laundry machine. Handmade cloths, handmade lighting (rush lights), hand hewn firewood for heating. Mostly handmade tools (handles, wooden rakes, pitchforks, brooms, carts, baskets), handmade furniture, handmade home. There was always something that needed fixing. I’m sure they had enough to do in their “free time”.
There is no stopping this fantasy people have about medieval life, nor do many even seem to understand just how long a time "medieval" spans and how much it differed depending on the century or location.
I'd love for you to make a video on the side of the lords and knights who guarded these farmers and their land. Did they really "abuse and tyrannically oppress" them, doing as they wished, like Hollywood and MMS so often loves to portray? Or did they know that 'no farmers, no life'?
I work for local government here in the UK. Can not afford to buy a house. Will never be able to own land. Receive twenty five days annual leave and I am most definitely two pay cheques away from homelessness. The game of monopoly that started in 1066 has not ended well this british peasant it seems.
A very insightful video. People often make all kinds of rhetorical claims as to how much "common" people suffered in the past. In fact, these "common" people very rarely suffered and it was the uncommon people (disabled people etc) who generally suffered most in any society then as well as now.
The Middle Ages are perhaps the most maligned times there are. From monarchy to the lives of the peasantry to the character of the nobility. All must be spat on.
If you destroy the reputation of what came before, modern people have no choice but to accept what is now. If there are no alternatives beyond, what, neolib capitalism, fascist nazism or authoritarian communism, than people will bow down to whichever of those claws its way onto the world stage in their time.
It's not much different today. The farther from large urban centres you get, the more free people tend to be. The trade off is a need for self sufficiency, a lack of access to all the creature comforts and services people crave, and, usually, a much more physical and robust lifestyle. There's a reason people are no flocking to live even as the Amish do, let alone as a medieval peasant.
Famine and plagues aside, they didn't either, and their teeth were probably much better. It was the introduction of refined cane sugar to the west that started the dental problems. English skulls recently unearthed showed a remarkably good overall dental health---their diet was much better.
The whole thing looks very similiar to the first Indian coolie labourers the British brought to parts of the world which they colonised like Malaya. They lived in a communal estate where each had a place of worship, childcare and common hall etc. They were paid a pittance after deduction for various facilities such as accomodation. These meagre balance was than spent for provisions such as rice sugar and salt at the only store inside the plantation estates. Than there was the alcohol. Initially rationed for each working man, than sold in credit at the local provision store ensuring that the population of coolies were forever living in bonded labour.
@ISmellLikeBeefandCheese It's exactly the same thing. Russian peasants toil away on their farms far from the gaze of their distant autocratic ruler. They fear and revere him but they are more worried about the local gangsters and corrupt officials who have taken the place of the old feudal lords
Add to it that a lot of peasants would have been slaves under the Roman system. In fact many of them were ex-slaves who now had a home of his own, and were able to have a family.
I can't wait for the youtube videos extolling the virtues of life as an antebellum slave. This is not the first or even third video I've seen trying to warm peoples' perception of medieval peasant or serf life, almost as if subtle programming was being floated to make people comfortable with the idea.
I agree. There was nothing glamorous or romantic about the Middle Ages. Life only began to improve from the late 17th century onwards but it would have still been dirty and generally unpleasant. Even when we had electricity, running water and modern medicine in the late victorian era there was still bad pollution from the factories, widespread poverty and no safety in the workplace. For all its problems we are better off in the 21st century than we would have been 150 years ago
I love this video, but could you please list some sources in the description? It would be great to know at least where the maps you show in the video come from.
I think people negatively view medieval times because we live in Republicanism so they don’t like monarchy and many are very lazy and greedy today which back then you couldn’t be.
Eh, that’s part of it but you are forgetting that these systems did coexist into the 19th century. Spain and Russia had serfdom into the 1860’s and France only got ride of it in the 18th century. People weren’t typically envious of the serfs.
Sounds a lot like the life style of the Amish people who live in my region of Pennsylvania. And don't kid yourself, they work HARD! Sitting at a computer keyboard and punching keys isn't a shadow of what they do to get by.
@@MrKoobuh No, not really. Even in the U.S. 1900 century farmers east of the Mississippi, winters were reserved for hunting, quilting, some inside barn work and not much else. The medieval peasantry had much time off after harvest and before spring planting--and many holy days in between.
@@johncharleson8733 Those days off weren't leisure time. When they weren't working in the fields peasants had to look after their livestock, repair the walls of their mud houses, replace the thatched roof, do their mandatory archery practice, go to church, gather nuts and berries, snare small animals, churn butter, bake bread, repair their clothes, and butcher and salt meat for the winter. There was always work to do, just like on a modern farm
each peasant abode would have a central fire that was lit day and night that served as central heating. Additionally, new archaeological research indicates that indoor plumbing, at least pipes to get rid of bad water, was present in some houses and huts. The catch is that they were made of wood, so didn't preserve well.
Same regarding the black slaves in the West, the US and Britain. Most of them had a better life than they had in the brutal tribal system of Africa. With all of its wars and conflicts. It was a harsh life for many, death and pain was their life. If you was lucky you got caught and transported to a new home in the US. Where despite all the fantasy we are told by movies and books, most of them had good lords and got fed and had a secure and "decent" life.
But whom wants to listen to sunshine stories? Give us the bad stuff, and every ear listens ... In fact, I can't sleep well before I've digested something bad and horrible! What a bin of garbage the human soul is.
Except when harvests failed, which was frequent, or epidemics swept through, which was frequent too. Or endemic warfare burned your village out. Some peasants in some areas did quite well, and others did very, very poorly. Interestingly, when peasants did well, they had a surplus to take to market, and eventually replaced their labour dues with cash payment, so that serfdom died out - in England for example, it was gone by the 14th century, more or less. But it wasn't necessarily a great life, by any means. Better, I think, to be a well-established merchant in a free town or city. Much more security in that.
I would be happy with a life like that but with a medical aid. What if you get into an accident? Or the wife struggled with labour? Or you have inflammation in your teeth or even a migraine? Nope, not a chance in hell.
You're leaving out the horrible epidemic disease, devastating warfare and famines . . . Also the diarrhea . . . There was lots and lots of diarrhea . . .
You accidentally forgot to mention poverty, disease, tyranny and serfdom. And an early death. It was the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution and Capitalism that lifted Western civilisation out that misery and generated a level of prosperity and happiness that we still enjoy today.
The challenge was making it past childhood. If you did, then life expectancy wasn't much different to now. But why on Earth would that be 'primarily the sole indicator'? Seems like a bizarrely arbitrary choice of metric.
Jesus Christ saves from hell. Jesus died for our sins, was buried and rose again the third day (1st Corinthians 15:1-4 KJV). Water baptism DOESN'T save us (1st Corinthians 1:17 KJV). Jesus shed His blood for our sins (Ephesians 1:7 KJV). We are saved by grace through faith, not our works (Ephesians 2:8-9 KJV).
Thank you for preaching the Good News here. I will say however that I see plenty of Paul’s letters but nothing of the Gospel among your quotes. Baptism is still important, and so are good works and obedience, even though none of us can earn our way into heaven. Faith without works is dead. Works without faith is blind. A Christian is someone who believes in Jesus’ death and resurrection for our sins, and who tries to walk the path Jesus laid out for us. Let’s remember how simple this is and also acknowledge that even though none of us understands these things perfectly, God will forgive us if we repent and turn our hearts towards Him.
and than the english aristocracy betrayed the catholic church, in the following centuries it would invent the "renaissance" a period in wich the wiseness of the middle age in particular was regarded as dumb, than those idea spread trough the world like a disease and evolved in illuminism, positivism, progressism and the worst of all, an idea that create the illusion for the people of escaping this nightmare without the moral compass of the deeply hated religion: communism, an idea born from a german but he was writing in england, supported by an english aristocrat. I wonder when the people (those of england included) will see the light and understand the importance and perfection of cristianity, and catholicism in particular because it is clear to anyone that know history that the superiority that europe has enjoyed in the last five hundred years is to be attributed, for a huge part, to the social order, cultural order and travel net provided by the catholic church
being a medieval peasant was so great the fled thier farms illegally in droves to get jobs in medieval cities, which were literally firey pestilent death traps with negative natural population growth. 😅😅😅
You know it's getting bad when we're having nostalgia for serfdom. 😂😭
May as well have nostalgia for Shire life as a Baggins, while we're at it.
Two uneducated comments so far
While we’re at it…. The next video should be “Being a slave ain’t that bad”
@@TCJB33 pros and cons to every era. The people who will benefit in a modern day feudalistic society are the same people we are trying to save our republics from. Not gonna be nearly the same as it was back then.
More like judge dredd meets robocop.
If you think the people with the most in todays world give a crap about God or our faith….Good luck with that.
@TCJB33 on top of that if you look at most modern catholic Countries they have a way more relaxed Working culture. The protestant work ethic is great and all but have you ever had a 2 hour long siesta?
I'm a farmer now so I can about imagine what it would have been like. Planting and harvesting would have been very busy then like now. They would have spent summers cutting hay and pulling weeds. Winter they probably sat in their huts by a fire. They didn't punch a clock and work 40 hour weeks. They worked a few 100 hour weeks and many more 10 hour weeks probably.
maybe so, but they also had 50-150 days off, way lower taxes, a life surrounded by nature and a community of people and families that they knew well. honestly, sounds better than now. life expectancy is obviously superior nowadays, but the quality of life is no better than back then honestly.
I'm a farmer to and I would Change for no Money in the world my modern equipment for the medival one. The work must have been backbreaking. I don't care for more Off time if I can't use it to travel or other Things ,more than few days march away, because you have animals to care for and stuff to repair.
@@thoro1932 I'd love to create an Amish style eco-village where we all grow food and live like the Amish, but with modern farming equipment and modern solar technology for energy. There's no point spending hundreds of hours digging when a machine can do that job in a few hours.
@Jake-mv7yo same here, I've worked farms and the work is intermittent at best in the year. Of course they had many other responsibilities, like animal husbandry, which isn't as seasonal, and maintaining the house/village.
But yeah, i remember reading about how the first industrialists had a lot of difficulty integrating rural "peasant" hires into the factory work environment because they never showed up on time, refused to punch in and out, disrespected and disobeyed any superiors, usually ate and drank whenever they felt like it, were confused about why they couldn't bring their families along, etc etc. It really shreds that myth about peasants being meek little worker drones.
@@thoro1932 lots of people travelled, even peasantry. Pilgramages were common for anyone from any walk of life, usually in the spring, and could comprise of crossing continents, but usually involved national movement. This was done in the spring. The Canterbury Tales is all about this.
My grandmother used to grow her own vegetables and she'd keep chickens for the eggs and meat (the roosters would be made into our chicken soup, after we caught the body that always runs away without its head). It's long hours of "work" but she was never stressed. There's nothing stressful about growing food and collecting eggs. It just takes a lot of time.
I think of that lifestyle as a "peasant" lifestyle. She was healthy and lived for almost a century. The peasant life is pretty good.
She was not a peasant, but a freeman. She wasn't tied to the land. On the flipside, unless she was able to sell a lot of eggs she would quickly have learned that she doesn't own the land she holds the deed for if she failed to pay local property taxes to support the bureaucrats.
Was your grandma russian?
So she’s not a freeman. She has to pay taxes.
I have a vegetable garden rotational chicken yard about 200m2, soft fruit bushes and fruit trees.
I'm not stressed but I'm certain that I wouldn't survive on my own with that.
Fml taxes are not the same as serfdom. If you don't want to pay taxes, move to some backwater djungle and live your life. But don't you complain about lack of roads, lack of safety, or go to a hospital when you're sick.@@myronplatte8354
Yes being a medieval peasant was not as horrible as people think ,in fact the worst period to be a common person in europe came after the renaissance in the 17 th century.
Sometimes I think that people in the 17th and 18th century made up all the common myths about the middle ages because they were coping for how shitty their actual time was (or they just assumed that things were always that shitty since the fall of Rome)
@@casteddu6740 Just based off modern times I'd say you're right.
Also consider that it essentially comes from communists today. Back then it came from the proto-communists like those who caused the French Revolution (one of the most shameful and evil periods in human history).
The worst period to be a common person in the west is the 2020s when you are depressed, poor, and have no joy, meaning, purpose, religion, or a partner!
@@Lord_Machiavelliwelcome to the decadent society of techno-feudalism. Which is an insult to even traditional feudalism.
Wow, I had to go back to see why my comment was hidden. It's because I drew parallels between now and back then, mentioned kahm yuu nihsm, said it's not surprising, etc..
It's amazing anyone thinks social media is useful for expanding human understanding.
My favorite myth about the Medieval period is that peasants didn't take baths. There's a really good video about that on YT and I think you should do more videos about medieval life.
It's all part of the greater agenda to villify and demonize anything to do with the wh-yt-3 races, Western cultures, and Christendom since we were kids.
Bathing funny enough declined in the 14th century because people believed that it made one more susceptible to miasma/illness.
There is the added nuance that there was technically two types of peasantry in at least northern europe: villeins and freemen. Villeins are the classic peasant archetype. They serve a lord, tending his fields or doing other work for him, and are obliged to give tithes to him in the form of produce or other useful labor. In exchange they can tend their own lands. Under contract, the only real restriction they had under their lordship was an inability to legally leave the land unless their lord granted express consent, however, lords very rarely made any effort to track down villeins or their families who decided to pack up and leave, given that it is basically a myth that the lord of the land was an autocrat who had say and presence in every facet of his peasant's lives. His appointed officials ran the day to day business. A village official *might* send a family member to fetch back an errant villein, but once the latter made it to a town or city there was zero chance of finding them. Additionally, if the villein wanted to marry outside the manor, a fee would be levied against him for the inconvenience of tangling the affairs of one manor to another. A few other restrictions were also present, but as with the marriage example the consequence was usually a fee, plus social shame.
Freeman were peasants who simply paid rent to a lord in exchange to working their own field. Tradesmen were also often freemen. They had no formal restrictions to movement or marriage like villeins, and were basically entitled to the same rights. In exchange for this ostencible freedom, their guarantee of work was less sure. I believe there were sometimes some discrimination against freemen for being "unloyal", after all, they are not bound to the land, but instead utilize money to secure their place. I've seen historians call them "mercenary peasants", lol
It is extremely common in modern framing of olden times to depict freemen as "better" or richer than villeins, but reality is more complex. Freemen engaged in a trade were indeed liable to be wealthier, depending on business acumen, than a villein, but many villeins could get quite wealthy by their labors, and even employ folks to live and work on *their* land, called cotars. The wealthiest people in a village who were not in a lord's household were usually villeins, and the poorest were cotars, or freemen down on their luck. Service comes with its privileges.
Tenant farmers.
Some farmers served the empire in return for land. In the ERE with the Themata System.
Small correction:
Getting to a town didn't necessarily mean you have "successfully gotten away", though. (And why would it? Getting food to a town - because towns generally relied on the surrounding lands for food, same as today - would commonly have peasants travel there temporarily. Plus, big regional trading markets and specialized craftsmen that your local village just didn't have, somewhat similar to today.)
Instead, typically (at least for the HRE and some other parts of Europe) you were considered "free" from any prior Lord only after having been in a town for a year or longer, without your prior Lord having made any claims demanding you to return in that entire time frame. If they did make such claims, however, then you were still legally bound to return.
And being "free" didn't mean being objectively free. It just means you belong to the city now, and the city belongs to some higher up nobleman or (in some cases) directly to the emperor or king. So you are again belonging to someone in a city, just someone else now, and potentially with different "terms of service" in your social contract, e.g. less strict movement or marriage restrictions in exchange for (time-limited) war duty. If you're not good at farming but very good at some craftsmanship, that can be very much worth it, ofc.
@Heroesflorian Something else i didn't mention was that townsfolk often helped hide a runaway villein, because it meant the settlement would gain their service, plus it was making a new friend, as nietworks were everything to these people. i was referring to english villeins exclusively, i don't know about the escapee practices of the other countries, however, i know that the ratio of villein to freemen was different in those places. For example, due to the culture, agricultural practices and land usage, the italians were mostly freemen, whereas the french and russians were mostly villeins. England was almost 50/50 in this regard, and the HRE was similar although east of the Elbe more priveleges and rights because the electors wanted people to settle there. Geography and pop played a big role. Villeins in very decentralized or frontier areas (like the aforementioned germans) typically has less restrictions then those in more densely populatee farmland or nucleated settlements
Super interesting! Thanks for sharing
Not gonna read all that
"The peasants are revolting!"
"You're telling me, they stink on ice!"
The great unwashed.
The king had much less power than todays rulers. The medieval king couldnt say how the peasant had to build his farm, how to keep his sheep or how long to work. While nowadays everything is regulated. The reason why we think that the peasant had a bad life is because we have so little written accounts on the medieval peasants life, because they were illitarate. Almost every account comes from the noble class that had predjudices, like we have today about farmers. The farmer today is also often seen as somewhat filthy and dumb.
The Renaissance is to blame for the "dark ages" myth and it also kinda influenced our perception of rural people. Those who live in cities are perceived as being "developed" or "educated" while those who live off the land are seen as "backwards" or "inbreeds", which is ironic since urban dwellers have no land, no contact with nature, and yet decide which course a country can take.
Manorialism was the closest to the Libertarian ideal that we have ever seen. Good luck explaining that to them though. Their radical individualism and revulsion towards monarchism would keep them from seeing the prize.
@@n4ughty_knight It would be Better to Blame the Protestant Reformation or Better yet "The Christian Revolution" for the Early-Modern Educational Perception that Shaped the Viewpoints of Individuals among Society since the Christian Revolution had been Responsible for the Renaissance's Aftermath that Concluded the Evolution of Modern Education as we Know It today.
@@Fact-fiend_1000ASMR.yes and no. You can use Hoppe, one of their own, as a gateway to make them see he light.
@@augcaes Yes, I know about Hoppe. I have Democracy: The God that Failed. The "small l" libertarian would be easier to convince than the Party Libertarian.
Good to see this becoming more widely recognized! I’ve been a professor of medieval history for years and usually have to have this very talk at least twice a semester. Keep up the good work! Would you mind posting your bibliography for the videos, so we can all read along?
Medieval peasants commonly had no military duty, so wars were fought by the nobility and their retainers. Agincourt meant nothing to the average medieval farmer; October 25, 1415, was just another day to them.
in the old Swiss Confederation they did have military duties most battles where fought by the Peasants against the Habsburgs
@@goatfarmmb Okay what about the Swiss King and his nobility?
@gratefulguy4130 what king of Swiss Switzerland has always been a lose confederation since birth of it
@@cyancat8633 always a good place to hide some coin
All of you seem incapable of understanding qualifiers like "commonly".
But they didn’t have Netflix and iPhones, so it was obviously hell on earth.
Thoughtful and well designed. As always. Thanks for this.
It was likely also far worse than you think.
I live in an African country where traditional subsistence farming is still practiced, and our subsistence farmers have a lifestyle that is surprisingly similar to that of medieval peasants. The main difference is that Africans have hereditary chiefs instead of nobility, and there is a lot of social pressure for the chiefs to obey traditions. But a subsistence farmer is still a subsistence farmer, whether they be a medieval peasant or a modern African.
One of the first things a Westerner would notice is the extreme poverty. Everybody is thin and wearing old clothes. People have so few possessions that basic farm tools like pickaxes are often shared between families. Most families have one cooking pot and children usually grow up without ever owning a pair of shoes. People still keep chickens and goats, but eating meat is generally a luxury reserved for feast occasions. If a person is lucky they might get to eat meat once per week.
The physical labor is backbreaking. Everything has to be done by hand and it takes forever. Even just getting water and collecting firewood takes hours every day. Yes there are days (especially during the dry season) when there is no work to be done, but then there is nothing else to do but sit around because there's no electricity. So no cell phones, internet or computers. People live in small and uncomfortable mud huts with no electricity, so they go to bed at sundown and get up at dawn. Also forget about modern medicine or dental care.
A person living on welfare in a developed country has a far higher standard of living than an African traditional farmer, and likely also higher than a medieval peasant.
Hilarious watching people in the comments debate what life was like as a peasant "back then" when we have clear examples of subsistence farming all over the world to draw examples from.
wakanda
B-but muh I phones and dying in 30s!
If you survived childhood (past the age of 5), you could expect to live into your early 60s.
you would still have innovation
@@Falconlibrary If.
@@cryowreck3193This wasn't the fault of the system, but of time. Technology takes time to advance under any system.
If medieval peasants suddenly got democracy they wouldn't magically get medical care
@@KnownNiche1999 Yep. Halfa folks still died before five though, so let's not pretend it was sunshine and rainbows, eh?
Other than modern medicine I have yet to see a decent argument for the pros of modernity over that of the pre-industrial world.
Commercialism, hyper-sexuality, and factory produced “necessities” are diseases that rot the soul of the first-world.
Meanwhile the second-world isolates itself into self-contained militant cults while the third-world is forced to be the eternal political no-man’s land for duplicitous “leaders” to exploit, for the most part, with absolute impunity.
Modernity has turned society into a parasite that sacrifices hundreds of millions for the benefit of those born to the “right,” group or identity who risk little and gain everything.
We live in our own hell. Made apathetic to the plight of our human kin, mistaking materialism for purpose, selling our souls for fantasies and worldly pleasures, ignorant through our own pride, and perhaps most bestial, willing to sacrifice freedom for authority simply out of fear.
Maybe through this self-imposed suffering change can happen. But I fear that would require a lot more suffering, suddenly, consistently, and quite brutally to wake humanity from this miasma of decadence.
Until then, all we can do is try to maintain our humanity. Love unconditionally, especially those who wrong you, earn an honest a living as is possible for your situation, nourish your soul, and try to achieve TRUE altruism.
Peace and love to you all, my friends.
modern housing, heating and air conditioning.
Every time has its challenges. If we ever solve the ones that we have today, new ones will pop up in their place.
@@cbogue418 well said but there are ways to live without creature comforts.
Modern AC systems are not feasible in the long run. You build a house for the correct climate with the right insulation your means to heat it and what you wear in the home make up for lack of artificial temps.
Synthetic clothing are basically plastic bags not allowing your body to breath. Wear the right fabrics in the appropriate season and you’ll survive. These modern solutions are for our own self-created modern problems.
But I agree it’s easier said than done.
Edit: however, you can’t have modern medicine without modern facilities. Which lined up with your point friend. Refrigeration for meds and produce too.
@@DefeatedRoyalist Electricity. You wouldn't be typing on your screen today without it. Cars. Without them it would take days to travel to the next town rather than minutes. Double glazing. Your room would be very draughty without it and would probably have ice on the window in winter. Fertiliser. Modern nitrates are more effective and get faster results than the food scraps and animal dung our ancestors would have used. Trains. You can travel from one side of the country to the other in a few hours rather than weeks.
@@DefeatedRoyalist Electricity, cars, railways, clean water
30 million deaths from lipid nano particles means you would be better off without modern medicine.
I was wondering about the diet of those times. All seasonal, All organic , an inclusion of fish all fresh produce. stored pork. chicken eggs small game. Fruits and dried for storage. Bread that would be classed a Artisan organic full grain ( cost an arm and a leg today in some fancy bakery . My suspician is thet the regiems that followed the Reformation, Renaissance, and Enlightenment .
Spent many column inches disparaging the previous and enhacing their new ways of religion, polotics economics . masking a siezure of power "Absolutism". Agriculture . "Enclosures" and Economics. "Joint stock " companies and Fractional reserve banking. All resulting in the dispossesion and creation of a landless class dependent on "Wage slavery". Thanks for your thoughtful and measured content.
Great video! Tho I think even on days off, animals needed to be fed or put out to pasture, food needed to be made and fire wood gathered.
You don't need to collect firewood daily, but yeah some animal-based chores must still be done on a 'day off' (eg: milking the cows).
Nah, I'll take my doom and gloom and quiet desperation, thank you very much. (sobbing quietly)
Lower crop yields were probably also caused by shorter and colder warm seasons and by... yes! lower CO2 concentrations in those little ice age times.
the Dark ages was before the little ice age, the little Ice age started in the mid 1300s, and the seasons where longer and warmer then later even famines where less then in later periods
@@goatfarmmb Dark ages were from 450 to 850. Medieval warm period was from 850 to 1250.
@@poekiemanpoekieman9224
C'mon.
Italy was reconquered by Belisarius 'The Sword of Rome' and Narses 'The Armenian'. That's gotta mean something!
Although italy wasn't kept for long. (And no one cares about france or Spain)
Afaik the small ice age only started hitting at the very end of the late medieval ages, fully impacting in the early modern period.
Also: Careful with such precise year numbers for climate and human historical periods. There exist a number of different proposals for exact timings, and any exact timings have the issue of painting a "black and white" picture, where most changes were quite gradual (both climatic and societal). History is full of continuous change, humans just like to (somewhat arbitrarily) cut things into distinct pieces to simplify.
And a gentle reminder to everyone reading this: The "dark ages" were called so because they are "dark" to us nowaday in the sense of having few remaining and known, written sources from which to reconstruct the details of reality at that point in time, leaving "in the dark" some aspects or finer details of what life was like back then.
Which is in large parts because paper (and cheaper alternatives like bark, wood, skin, wax tablets) tend to decompose over time, and because much day-to-day stuff was also dealt with more orally and less in written form.
The term "dark ages" does NOT have anything to with climate or sun intensity, nor with how grim or happy life was back then. It is only referring to a lack of nodaways-available, written sources from that time describing how it was.
(And also, it was coined at a point in modern time where we had even less access to and overview of sources from the time than we have now. Same as the term "viking age" being coined when there was a lack of modern-day focus on anything other than vikings, plus some conflation of any Scandinavian activities with the particular activity of "going on viking", i.e. seafaring outside your home region.)
How did we go from the Roman Empire to Manors as explained in this video?
Could be an interesting video idea.
Mind you, they did work less, but there was much more house-work that needed doing
Actual toiling may have been less, but they didn't pop over to the corner store to get some butter, eggs, milk and bacon. Those things they had to make themselves or as a family unit. Milking had to be done twice a day for every milk cow. Chickens needed protection from predators, so extermination of pest animals was a constant activity. Home churned butter took a good chunk of the day to make. Baking was not a fun Sunday afternoon exercise, it was every day before sunup, or finished before you went to bed in your hay pile. Bacon was slaughtering your pig (assuming someone didn't steal it or it died of a disease), then spending days of fall weather turning everything but the oink into food and somehow preserving it. All that between the ordinary chores of sweeping your dirt floor and washing laundry by hand. Life was HARD, well beyond working a 40 and doing a little grocery shopping on the way home to Netflix and chill.
You get to farm and drink beer?!! Im down.
Being a medievil peasant sounds better than a modern peasant. I would trade places with them.
Back to work for your corporate Lord peasant!
No, you wouldn't. Be grateful you were born in the 20th century where you have healthcare, electricity, clean water, central heating, air conditioning, and you don't have to do smelly, backbreaking work on a farm just to survive.
Good presentation. I'm glad you made it. Yes, modern medicine is definitely an improvement, and I wouldn't trade it for a medieval poultice, but it wasn't all "dark" and miserable as we see it portrayed in movies and TV shows. Most of all I like the fact that life was much more integrated compared to these days. Strong community bonds, church mandated times of rest from work, and a smaller sense of the world, seems much more in scale to what we actually need as human beings.
They were freer than we are. They paid MUCH lower taxes. Their rent was a pittance compared to what we pay. They were not overburdened by laws and regulations.
They had that much less to spare, and overtaxation (even at that low rate) was a constant gripe of subject populations.
@@MrKoobuh Sure. Everyone gripes about taxes. But if they had to work over 60 days a year to pay their taxes AND rent, that was considered severe. I’m betting that most of us would be happy to pay our taxes and rent with just 60 days of work.
Glad to be a member!!
We’re pleased to have you! Thanks for the support.
KEEP THIS KIND OF THING COMING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
War and plague was also common in this time. You win some, you lose some.
Do you mean in medieval times or in 2024?
Industrial revolution did not solve this
It was nice that there was some built in ways, religious holidays and seasons, to limit how much work a peasant can do.
The only bad thing was recurrent wars, but that is an issue of the era, as centralized States were not a thing yet. War always affect civilians, however, medieval peasants had overall a nice life, everything I want away from the modern burdens. I love going to my gf's family hacienda, is so nice to work with the cattle and just live with the nature.
If it keeps going the way it is , we all might get to see how it was in real life.
No dishwasher, no tap water (probably the biggest one), no laundry machine. Handmade cloths, handmade lighting (rush lights), hand hewn firewood for heating. Mostly handmade tools (handles, wooden rakes, pitchforks, brooms, carts, baskets), handmade furniture, handmade home. There was always something that needed fixing. I’m sure they had enough to do in their “free time”.
There is no stopping this fantasy people have about medieval life, nor do many even seem to understand just how long a time "medieval" spans and how much it differed depending on the century or location.
I'd love for you to make a video on the side of the lords and knights who guarded these farmers and their land.
Did they really "abuse and tyrannically oppress" them, doing as they wished, like Hollywood and MMS so often loves to portray? Or did they know that 'no farmers, no life'?
"The average peasant probably worked less than you ! " 💀💀
I work for local government here in the UK. Can not afford to buy a house. Will never be able to own land. Receive twenty five days annual leave and I am most definitely two pay cheques away from homelessness. The game of monopoly that started in 1066 has not ended well this british peasant it seems.
A very insightful video. People often make all kinds of rhetorical claims as to how much "common" people suffered in the past. In fact, these "common" people very rarely suffered and it was the uncommon people (disabled people etc) who generally suffered most in any society then as well as now.
The Middle Ages are perhaps the most maligned times there are. From monarchy to the lives of the peasantry to the character of the nobility. All must be spat on.
Probably because of how Catholic it all was.
@@markwelch9250
Honestly I’ve come to realize that’s probably the exact reason why.
If you destroy the reputation of what came before, modern people have no choice but to accept what is now. If there are no alternatives beyond, what, neolib capitalism, fascist nazism or authoritarian communism, than people will bow down to whichever of those claws its way onto the world stage in their time.
@@markwelch9250What is this even supposed to mean?
The liberal bastards of the XVIIIth Century had to promote their nonsense by murdering the reputation of something.
It's not much different today. The farther from large urban centres you get, the more free people tend to be. The trade off is a need for self sufficiency, a lack of access to all the creature comforts and services people crave, and, usually, a much more physical and robust lifestyle. There's a reason people are no flocking to live even as the Amish do, let alone as a medieval peasant.
This sounds like a recruitment as made by the nobility post-first Black Death lol. It’s woefully understating what actually went on.
I don't have rickets and my teeth aren't rotting and I've had a lot of varieties of food and fun, so my life is good
Famine and plagues aside, they didn't either, and their teeth were probably much better. It was the introduction of refined cane sugar to the west that started the dental problems.
English skulls recently unearthed showed a remarkably good overall dental health---their diet was much better.
The whole thing looks very similiar to the first Indian coolie labourers the British brought to parts of the world which they colonised like Malaya.
They lived in a communal estate where each had a place of worship, childcare and common hall etc.
They were paid a pittance after deduction for various facilities such as accomodation.
These meagre balance was than spent for provisions such as rice sugar and salt at the only store inside the plantation estates.
Than there was the alcohol. Initially rationed for each working man, than sold in credit at the local provision store ensuring that the population of coolies were forever living in bonded labour.
I would have loved to have been a medieval peasant. I detest the soulless modern world.
Go and live in Russia. Outside of the cities the peasants still live the same way their ancestors did hundreds of years ago
@ISmellLikeBeefandCheese It's exactly the same thing. Russian peasants toil away on their farms far from the gaze of their distant autocratic ruler. They fear and revere him but they are more worried about the local gangsters and corrupt officials who have taken the place of the old feudal lords
What the heck I want to be a medieval peasant now 😂
Because they didn't have so many subscriptions
You and Pax Tube would get along well, methinks.
Add to it that a lot of peasants would have been slaves under the Roman system. In fact many of them were ex-slaves who now had a home of his own, and were able to have a family.
They never had an iPhone!! Never traveled further then a day at the very most, if I choose to lessen my work days I’d likely simplify my life.
Just Google “Monty Python Constitutional Peasants” almost a documentary 😀
id rather be a peasant than a modern neo slave
I can't wait for the youtube videos extolling the virtues of life as an antebellum slave.
This is not the first or even third video I've seen trying to warm peoples' perception of medieval peasant or serf life, almost as if subtle programming was being floated to make people comfortable with the idea.
I agree. There was nothing glamorous or romantic about the Middle Ages. Life only began to improve from the late 17th century onwards but it would have still been dirty and generally unpleasant. Even when we had electricity, running water and modern medicine in the late victorian era there was still bad pollution from the factories, widespread poverty and no safety in the workplace. For all its problems we are better off in the 21st century than we would have been 150 years ago
Being a medieval peasant may have been better than I think, but it wasn't better enough to make me want to sign up for it either.
The term "Dark ages" is a misnomer, inaccurate, and not used by historians now
The bigger problem was actually the lack of modern medicine really, and the fact that farms are consistently exposed to diesease
Very interesting. Thankyou. I have subscribed... 🙂👍🌻
I love this video, but could you please list some sources in the description? It would be great to know at least where the maps you show in the video come from.
Thanks
Bantam eggs were untaxed. Taxes were not intended to kill you, not to make you rich, just to do all right next year.
I think people negatively view medieval times because we live in Republicanism so they don’t like monarchy and many are very lazy and greedy today which back then you couldn’t be.
Eh, that’s part of it but you are forgetting that these systems did coexist into the 19th century. Spain and Russia had serfdom into the 1860’s and France only got ride of it in the 18th century. People weren’t typically envious of the serfs.
Can't wait for Kingdom Come Deliverance 2.
Sounds a lot like the life style of the Amish people who live in my region of Pennsylvania. And don't kid yourself, they work HARD! Sitting at a computer keyboard and punching keys isn't a shadow of what they do to get by.
yeah it was still terrible
"The average peasant got about 100 to 150 days off per year." That's more time off than most people get now!
They still had to work, just not on the laird's land. That was the time they had to work for their own survival.
@@MrKoobuh No, not really. Even in the U.S. 1900 century farmers east of the Mississippi, winters were reserved for hunting, quilting, some inside barn work and not much else. The medieval peasantry had much time off after harvest and before spring planting--and many holy days in between.
@@johncharleson8733 Those days off weren't leisure time. When they weren't working in the fields peasants had to look after their livestock, repair the walls of their mud houses, replace the thatched roof, do their mandatory archery practice, go to church, gather nuts and berries, snare small animals, churn butter, bake bread, repair their clothes, and butcher and salt meat for the winter. There was always work to do, just like on a modern farm
Being a peasant in brazillian massive agro bussines farms seems sick enough to me
How does my life compare? Well, I do have indoor plumbing and heating in the winter
each peasant abode would have a central fire that was lit day and night that served as central heating. Additionally, new archaeological research indicates that indoor plumbing, at least pipes to get rid of bad water, was present in some houses and huts. The catch is that they were made of wood, so didn't preserve well.
They did have heating and good insulation. They just used fires instead of expensive modern zero-effort systems
How did they survive without DEI?
Same regarding the black slaves in the West, the US and Britain. Most of them had a better life than they had in the brutal tribal system of Africa. With all of its wars and conflicts. It was a harsh life for many, death and pain was their life. If you was lucky you got caught and transported to a new home in the US. Where despite all the fantasy we are told by movies and books, most of them had good lords and got fed and had a secure and "decent" life.
But whom wants to listen to sunshine stories? Give us the bad stuff, and every ear listens ... In fact, I can't sleep well before I've digested something bad and horrible!
What a bin of garbage the human soul is.
Except when harvests failed, which was frequent, or epidemics swept through, which was frequent too. Or endemic warfare burned your village out. Some peasants in some areas did quite well, and others did very, very poorly. Interestingly, when peasants did well, they had a surplus to take to market, and eventually replaced their labour dues with cash payment, so that serfdom died out - in England for example, it was gone by the 14th century, more or less. But it wasn't necessarily a great life, by any means. Better, I think, to be a well-established merchant in a free town or city. Much more security in that.
The internet is a great source for information if you don't mind if it is true or not. Slaves have never been allowed to write history.
Embrace Tradition
life was good as a Helot
I would be happy with a life like that but with a medical aid. What if you get into an accident? Or the wife struggled with labour? Or you have inflammation in your teeth or even a migraine? Nope, not a chance in hell.
Classism was always crippling to real culture. Damn aristicracy.
You're leaving out the horrible epidemic disease, devastating warfare and famines . . . Also the diarrhea . . . There was lots and lots of diarrhea . . .
The medieval times are where it’s at! 😂
52 x 2 = 104 days
Plus 8 bank holidays
Plus 25 holidays
137 days off.
I'm doing well.
Europeans are fine.
Americans work too hard.
You accidentally forgot to mention poverty, disease, tyranny and serfdom. And an early death. It was the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution and Capitalism that lifted Western civilisation out that misery and generated a level of prosperity and happiness that we still enjoy today.
I'm so happy and prosperous living as a minority in my neighborhood in my native country.
The good old days when you were told what you had to believe or else. Let's not pretend that a church running society was ever a good thing.
It was better. Modernity has failed. The Roman Church is still alive
Only for a little bit longer.
"Come out of her my people"
@@Boringcountrylife I do not think that verse means what you think it means
Cholera, dysentry, bubonic plague
Your titles are so clickbait Im only here because of the titles!
They may have worked fewer hours but they'd kill to sit in an air conditioned office and do Excel all day instead of thresh wheat by hand
As somebody who sat in air conditioned offices for 15 years and then pursued more of a peasant lifestyle, I guess the grass is always greener.
what was the life expectancy back then? Because before you can say it was better than today that is primarily the sole indicator.
Rather live 40 years of hard fulfilling work than 80 years sitting for 8 hours a day
@@zyaicob That answers the question...A medieval peasant had it worst than us.
The challenge was making it past childhood. If you did, then life expectancy wasn't much different to now. But why on Earth would that be 'primarily the sole indicator'? Seems like a bizarrely arbitrary choice of metric.
Jesus Christ saves from hell. Jesus died for our sins, was buried and rose again the third day (1st Corinthians 15:1-4 KJV). Water baptism DOESN'T save us (1st Corinthians 1:17 KJV). Jesus shed His blood for our sins (Ephesians 1:7 KJV). We are saved by grace through faith, not our works (Ephesians 2:8-9 KJV).
Thank you for preaching the Good News here. I will say however that I see plenty of Paul’s letters but nothing of the Gospel among your quotes. Baptism is still important, and so are good works and obedience, even though none of us can earn our way into heaven. Faith without works is dead. Works without faith is blind. A Christian is someone who believes in Jesus’ death and resurrection for our sins, and who tries to walk the path Jesus laid out for us. Let’s remember how simple this is and also acknowledge that even though none of us understands these things perfectly, God will forgive us if we repent and turn our hearts towards Him.
None of the scriptures you cited proved baptism doesn’t save or that sola fide is true😔God bless you for being so zealous for the Lord though😸🙏🏿
@@MrOhWhatTheHeckso true! Even John wrote 3:36 those who are disobedient to the Son will not see life but the wrath of God is upon him.
Sounds cult-y to me. Go to Church man and get baptized like a regular Christian....
Don't go to church who has time for that dogwater
and than the english aristocracy betrayed the catholic church, in the following centuries it would invent the "renaissance" a period in wich the wiseness of the middle age in particular was regarded as dumb, than those idea spread trough the world like a disease and evolved in illuminism, positivism, progressism and the worst of all, an idea that create the illusion for the people of escaping this nightmare without the moral compass of the deeply hated religion: communism, an idea born from a german but he was writing in england, supported by an english aristocrat. I wonder when the people (those of england included) will see the light and understand the importance and perfection of cristianity, and catholicism in particular because it is clear to anyone that know history that the superiority that europe has enjoyed in the last five hundred years is to be attributed, for a huge part, to the social order, cultural order and travel net provided by the catholic church
being a medieval peasant was so great the fled thier farms illegally in droves to get jobs in medieval cities, which were literally firey pestilent death traps with negative natural population growth. 😅😅😅
There are really only 2 relevant metrics here: population decline/increase and life expectancy. Both varied wildly
population decline was when the black death happened and that was in the 1300s which was in the middle of the Middle ages.
@@goatfarmmb
And the Justinian plague a few hundred years before.
We had some 26 Million inhabitants in the empire back then!
@@Adventeuan wasn't that because of a volcanic eruption that caused that. That ended the Roman Warm period.
People keep saying life expectancy is the important metric. Why?
@@mrdeanvincent Because it's one of the best indicators for wealth and quality of life in a given region
@frmcf