BetterMost Community Blogs > My "Great White North"
Life in the Middle Ages
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: Sheriff Roland on June 25, 2009, 09:10:54 am ---First, though the author Martyn Whittock is a 'Methodist Lay Preacher and an Anglican Lay Minister' (can you really be both?)?
--- End quote ---
OT, but probably. Churches are so desparate to hold onto members these days that it's shockingly easy to fulfill the minimum requirements to "keep your name on the books." I was received into membership of my neighborhood Episcopal parish 11 years ago this March. I've never come "off the books" of the Lutheran church I was raised in, in my home town--because to stay "on the books" all I have to do is make one financial contribution a year and receive Communion once a year, requirements I easily fulfill when I go to visit my dad.
But anyway, regarding the life expectancy factoid, does the author say anything about the role of nutrition--or lack thereof--in life expectancy?
Sheriff Roland:
The Middle Age - when does it start? When does it end?
Some folks (in charge of the British Museum's Anglo-Saxon collection) have considered treasures from c. 625 (AD) to be 'Early Medieval'. Most frame the Middle Ages by political watersheds - the Norman Conquest in 1066 and the start of the Tudor Dynasty in 1485.
But since the social realities did not much change with those watersheds, the 'Social' Middle Ages would best be framed by 900 (the West-Saxon re-conquest of land held by invading Vikings) and 1553 ('the rigorous Protestant Reformation of Edward VI's reign (and the destruction of the Catholic 'ritual year'))
Sheriff Roland:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on June 25, 2009, 09:21:21 am ---... regarding the life expectancy factoid, does the author say anything about the role of nutrition--or lack thereof--in life expectancy?
--- End quote ---
Yes it does ... And I will try and bring those up when I get to those parts of the book in my re-reading. Mostly the problem with life expectancy (as I recall) is a lack of scientific knowledge about nutrition and especially medicine.
Also, even though there was a mini warming trend in the middle of the Middle Ages (which allowed for more crops and an increase in population), it was followed by a significant cooling off period (mini ice age) which caused, along with the many 'plages', a serious shortage of all food - leading to starvation. A high infantile death rate also kept the life expectancy relatively low.
Front-Ranger:
I find this topic extremely interesting too. The book that turned me on to the Middle Ages was Leonard Schlain's The Alphabet Vs. the Goddess, which has two chapters entitled Illiteracy/Celibacy (500-1000) and Mystic/Scholastic (1000-1300), so I come at it from somewhat of a different angle.
Do you believe that Merlin had supernatural powers? Was he a historic person?
Sheriff Roland:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on June 25, 2009, 09:36:58 am ---Do you believe that Merlin had supernatural powers? Was he a historic person?
--- End quote ---
No I don't. Like Robin Hood (which they do talk about later in the book), he's likely nothing more than a legend that grew from simple 'acts' that impressed the common folk.
At least that's my belief, based on the information in this book about the 'origins' of the Robin Hood/Frier Tuck/Little John/Lady Marion legend. The book does not talk of Merlin and only peripherally refers to the Arthurian era.
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