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Life in the Middle Ages

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Sheriff Roland:
I've started reading a book called A Brief History of Life in the Middle Ages.

Maybe it's because of my fascination with Merlin.In the 70's, Mary Stewart wrote a couple of Merlin books - The Crystal Cave and The Hollow Hills - followed by 3 other 'arthurian' era novels. Recently I also aquired a much appreciated made-for-TV 4 hour mini-series called 'Merlin's Aprentice'

Anyways, back to the Middle Age.

This book was written by an English historian Martyn Whittock and, though I suspect very few folks will share my fascination, I will nonetheless post various interesting facts (as best we can recreate them, 1 000 years later).

Sheriff Roland:
First, apparently Merlin was not a part of the Middle Age.  :(

The books on Merlin set the stories in the 'Dark Ages' around the 6th century. In the first few chapters of my current read, the Middle Ages proper only got started in the 11th century but since very little had changes socially in the previous 2 centuries, a lot of information dates back to the 800's.

OK, factoid #1: Around the turn of the Millenium, the population of England in estimated to have been roughly 2,5 million. 500 years later, towards the end of the Middle Ages, the population of England was essentially unchanged - estimated to be 2,5 million.

Jeff Wrangler:
You just keep postin' them factoids, Sheriff, and I'll try to keep readin'. The Middle Ages interests me. Not as much as the Renaissance, but, after all the Renaissance wouldn't have been the Renaissance without the Middle Ages before it.  ;D

Sheriff Roland:
factoid #2

life expectancy.

35 for men, 25 for women.

In today's world, Sierra Leone reached this low life expectancy level after it's civil war in 2002 (26 for women) and Burkina Faso reached 35.3 (2002) for men.

The Middle Ages' low life expectancy is thought to have been basically as a result of lack of knowledge of disease prevention and treatment.

A physician's reference book from the period included a chapter on remedies for disease caused by elves, specifying the kinds of elves, the diseases they were believed to cause along with their remedies.

Sheriff Roland:
Alright.

I've done reading the book. I'm not likely to 'just' present factoids. More likely I'll be attempting to give a Reader's Digest extended book report type presentation of the facts from the book and my views on the writing.

First, though the author Martyn Whittock is regarded as an expert on the subject (he IS head of History in his secondary school and Director of the Humanities Faculty), not to mention the author of  numerous history textbooks ... he's also a 'Methodist Lay Preacher and an Anglican Lay Minister' (can you really be both?), which to this Catholic (me) implies that he too is a product of his times (and prejudices - especially with regards to the Catholic Church).

The book was fairly easy to read and I most enjoyed gaining many new insights on this period that remains mostly unknown by a great majority of today's common folk.

I'm rereading it hoping to share more accurately some of the fascinating elements of the social history of the English people in the 'Middle Ages'. (yea - the book pretty much limits itself to the Middle Age in Britain)

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