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While it’s easy enough to find a lot of relatability in the past, the truth is that humans have a very large capacity to be simply weird one way or another. So it stands to reason that a time traveler would probably encounter situations, norms and rules that would seem deeply bizarre.
Someone asked “What is something that was normal in medieval times, but would be weird today?” and internet historians shared their favorite examples. So get comfortable as you scroll through, upvote your favorites and be sure to add your own thoughts and examples in the comments below.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
Wielding supreme executive power because some watery tart threw a sword at you.
Riley Quinn 8 months ago
Monty Python and the Holy Grail's 50th anniversary. I suddenly feel very, very old.
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Peter Bear 8 months ago
At least the watery tart had standards, unlike the modern method of allowing supreme executive tyrants to choose themselves.
Apatheist Account2 8 months ago
She used to be King Arthur's girlfriend...but he thought she was the ex-calibre.
RELATED:
#2
Wearing cloaks
I don't understand why cloaks are amazing
we should bring cloaks back.
Peter Bear 8 months ago
So true! I have a cloak and I wear it at every opportunity, and I'm a 44 year old gainfully employed 'theoretically' adult.
BookFanatic 8 months ago
One of my coworkers sometimes wears a black wool cloak in winter. She's let me try it on and I fling it around dramatically every time.
detective miller's hat 8 months ago
I have considered getting a really nice cloak, since heavy coats usually make me too hot after like 15 seconds.
#3
In the medieval period, it would be not at all unheard of for a people oppressed by economic means and force alike, to rise up and gut their leaders.
No person living is under an obligation to suffer torment without equal and opposite response, although the written law may say otherwise. Leaders and those with authority would do well to recall and respect the fact that their position is given them by consent, and should they misuse it, they have more to lose than those positions, and deserve to lose more than those positions.
Riley Quinn 8 months ago
Are you reading this Americans? Maybe it's time for a pig roast in the Rose Garden.
Luis Hernandez Dauajare 8 months ago
Sometimes. Power was taken to be God's given right, and people gutting their leaders was a perversion of it. Consent did not exist, it was widely accepted to position of a s**f was God's will. A lord's abuse of it was also God's will, or a test. Yet, sometimes people would go to a higher authority -the King's or the Church- and if they decided so, the lord was through.
Arthur Waite 8 months ago
And, the leader had enough money and contacts to hire a personal army, just to keep the rabble away. Still true.
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The danish woman 8 months ago
Hmm... Sounds a lot like the democracy we so love and practice in Europe nowadays, just without the killing each other
Rebecca McManus 8 months ago
I'm just going to remind everyone that the Dutch once killed and cooked a politician who annoyed them
Lil be lil 8 months ago
What about the one in Libya who was made into hamburger?
Load More Replies... #4
Going to sleep as soon as it gets dark, waking up and hanging out with your family for a few hours in the middle of the night, and going back to bed until sunrise.
WindySwede 8 months ago
I hope not it was done like that in summertime here.. right now it's night 8.7h, and keeps getting longer days, at midsummer it's only 5.3h "night".
TheElderNom 8 months ago
I miss living that far south :p Though to be fair I still don't live above the polar circle.
Load More Replies... Riley Quinn 8 months ago
For many years, I developed a strange (or medieval?) sleeping habit. I'd sleep for 4 hours, wake up, do some work or read for a couple of hours, then return to sleep for another 4 hours.
Pittsburgh rare 8 months ago
I still do that, only my first sleep is around 4 hours and the second one only a couple hours if l'm lucky and don't need to get up early
Lee Gilliland 8 months ago
Which is actually how we're set up, eight hours straight of sleep is NOT how the body was designed.
jwlx 8 months ago
Maybe for you. If i don't sleep atleast 8 hours something is off. I just feel off all day and I can't fix it except by sleeping 8+ hours. 10 hours is the best 🤷
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Alex Ruddies 8 months ago
Surprisingly, this is how people slept untill the industrial revolution. What made the change was the rigid time structure in factory work and now we all try to sleep eight hours straight.
Laura Mitchell 8 months ago
It's called a biphasic sleep pattern and it's a normal variant. It happens to me every once in a while.
#5
Thinking God could save you from the plague.
Oh wait.
Billo66 8 months ago
Must be a different God than the one I was taught about. That one drowned most of us 6 chapters into the first book.
RamiRudolph 8 months ago
More like, thinking God would so anything at all. He never does. Either he doesn't exist or he doesn't give a cráp.
Delicate Fcuking Flower 8 months ago
I think our "god" is some alien kid that created Earth as a science experiment that they got a C- on and we've been sitting and rotting on their bedroom shelf because they went to alien college and their parents just haven't had the heart to change their room
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Riley Quinn 8 months ago
I just don't understand religious beliefs. If god created all life, then god created virulent viruses that kiill humans. Praying to the creator of the virus to spare you from an untimely demise is a stretch of the imagination that I can't comprehend.
JB 8 months ago
If you're genuinely wondering, I can try to explain: so the perfect plan - the perfect creation - had viruses and bacteria but they all lived in balance. Many still serve benign and harmless existences. The bacteria in your gut, for example, lives in harmony with you. But then sin was introduced into the world by our choices, and so all creation is affected by it and now the things that were created perfect and created to live together in this beautiful system are tainted. Viruses can mutate and k**l. The bacteria in your gut grows out of whack and you get the s***s - that kind of thing. But because God is love and is merciful, Creation is being renewed and one day will be perfect again (Christians call this the "new heaven and the new earth"). So, talking to the being that has the power to create all life, save all people from themselves, and remake the universe to perfect harmony - it does make sense of you like at it another way.
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Luis Hernandez Dauajare 8 months ago (edited)
They *accepted* God sent them the plague. The debate was why. People assumed the plague was a test or a divine punishment (for losing wars, for tolerating Jews o Muslims -true story- or for their sins). People would fast, whip themselves or attacking minorities. The Strasbourg Pogrom was because of it.
Load More Replies... #6
Inheriting clothes being a big deal.
Things weren't really disposable back then - people wore, turned, refreshed, re-sewed, cut down and re-sewed, stripped into trimming and then into rags every piece of clothing they owned. There was a thriving second hand market, and a lot of money in carefully re-using good bits of cloth, cutting off worn out buttonholes and re-sewing garments, re-using trim, etc. Even the upperclass did this to an extent, you had to get to ridiculously wealthy Royalty level for clothing to be abundant and completely new all the time. You rarely find whole garments in archeological digs, but you find all sorts of bits and pieces that were cut off an otherwise whole garment.
This was because making cloth was insanely time consuming, especially in the earlier periods when the primary looms were upright and sheep weren't yet fully modernized and produced smaller amounts of wool, of various qualities. Linen was even more time consuming, cotton wasn't a thing yet (and cotton is seriously annoying to process by hand), and silk was out of reach for most people.
So, people willed cloth to relatives when they died, as well as specific garments. These days you sell off all Grandma's old WalMart clothes, or sometimes get some cool vintage stuff you wear occasionally, but back then getting a few ells of worsted wool cloth was a huge score. There are garments that were passed down several times, because they were just that valuable - and clothes show up in the wills of people from many different classes. It was entirely normal for your daughter to be wearing a dress made from her great-grandmother's old overgown that had been willed down through the family and the good cloth re-purposed until it was only fit for rags. There were whole industries devoted to re-finishing cloth that had gotten a bit worn so new garments could be sewn from it.
Imagine today getting excited because your Aunt died and left you four pairs of jeans. But, in the Medieval period, that would have been a truly great score of an inheritence.
XenoMurph 8 months ago
So when your uncle and his entire family died of plague, you inherited his clothes, blankets, and matresses. With lots of small surprises inhabiting the clothes just waiting for you to wear them.
Debby Keir 8 months ago
Apparently it was the lice in the seams, rather than the fleas.
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Magenta Blu 8 months ago (edited)
This was normal in many random families up to 1970. Modern people is too wasteful
Renegade 8 months ago
I wore a coat handed down from a family we knew for years. All through high school and into college. I loved that way too big coat. I still prefer men's coats.
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Andie Day 8 months ago
I learned about 'turning' collars and cuffs on shirts from my g-ma. You unstitch them and flip them over so the frayed and worn sides are underneath. Gives a llonger life to the shirt without it looking so beat up. I did that on a couple of my favorite shirts that I couldn't bare to part with.
Lene 8 months ago
Well... honestly.... If I had a relative with clothes I could see myself in (being my size and just anywhere near my style) I'd happily take the clothes after they died -unless it was the actual clothes they died in. Kids get pass-me-downs all the times (usually not from dead relatives but, you know). Grown-ups don't do it as much. Perhaps we should.
Riley Quinn 8 months ago
Growing up poor, hand-me-downs between extended family was common where I grew up. Everyone knew how to sew, well, at least buttons, and mending and repair were constant. An old dress could easily be converted into smaller items for the kids, stuff like that. Smaller pieces were turned into rag rugs.
Ange Marsden 8 months ago
Another thing I like about Medieval clothing is that it was much more adjustable than now, you could go up and down in dress sizes and wear the same clothing - even through pregnancy.
Ashlie Williams 8 months ago
This is a really interesting one. We forget how lucky we are these days.
Rednose 8 months ago
Generational reuse of clothing isn't unheard of nowadays. There is a family photo of my grandmother wearing a light wool suit in the mid 1930s. The suit emigrated with my family from Germany to the US in the mid 1950s when my mother wore it as a young woman. My two sisters have worn it, and now my 20-something niece has it and is over the moon at how good it looks on her. The only major work done on it was when it was brought to a German tailor who essentially turned it inside out.
#7
The name Lance isn't popular in this day and age, but back in medieval times people were called Lancelot.
Panda Cat 7 months ago
Poor kid. I hear he shortened his name to Aboil but people still laughed at him.
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Michael Largey 8 months ago
People imitated him because they were trying to establish an equivilance.
#8
Women plucking their hairline to make their forehead bigger. In the C13th, there was this whole European aesthetic about women's s**y, s**y foreheads. So women would pluck their hair to make the forehead bigger and sexier.
Whenever I tell my classes about this they go "ew" but they are all manscaping and waxing other body parts.
Don Adams 8 months ago
Dutchess Ptrimatt the First, from a France, of course.
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Chari Lane 8 months ago
So glad we have advanced our beauty standards! We would never consider having something surgically inserted into our behinds to make our a***s inflated to astronomical sizes! Both dumb!
RamiRudolph 8 months ago
Thankfully they don't do that anymore. Not that many beauty trends nowadays are much better.
Panda Cat 8 months ago
Sure they do. Anyone who plucks about their eyebrows looks … unusual. It must be damaging the hair follicles since it seems to become permanent. Having full eyebrows makes someone look younger than thin ones.
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Al Padilla 8 months ago
Starts with "s" and ends with "y" - but no room for a double t. Must be .... Bowdler would have approved, but normal people find this censorship annoying.
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Roxy222uk 8 months ago
I have noticed that women with higher than usual foreheads tend to look younger than they are until you get up close, so I wonder if that is what drove the fad.
#9
Sleeping with your entire family in one bed.
Or if you are a king, sleeping in the same bed with a rival king to cement your friendship and respect for each other, as brothers.
Privacy was just not really a thing in the middle ages!
Edit: I came at this with a pretty western perspective obviously. Many families around the world still sleep together in the same bed/space. However in modern western culture, it isn't considered as normal as it would have been in previous centuries.
Ange Marsden 8 months ago
Can confirm, a cat can take up as much room as an entire human 😆
Load More Replies... Riley Quinn 8 months ago
My spouse and I had separate bedrooms because I think it's nonsense and frankly unhealthy to sleep with someone who will disturb my rest. My cats, on the other hand, were always welcome to sleep with me.
Panda Cat 8 months ago
No matter how loudly my cat snores he’s no match for a snoring human. Snoring can be pathological and should be discussed with a sleep specialist.
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Foxglove🇮🇪 8 months ago
I was just reading this evening about families in Dublin, 2 bedroom homes with 8 or 10 occupants.
April Pickett 8 months ago
How do you make them babies, if all of them babies are in bed with you?
Auntriarch 8 months ago (edited)
Sunday school. Guaranteed one hour a week of privacy
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#10
This was a love potion recipe from the 10th century:
A woman will lay a cloth on the ground and cover it in grain. She will then strip her clothing off and cover her body in honey. After that, she will roll around on the cloth and try to get covered in grain.
Afterwards, she will get up and take the grain stuck to her body over to the mill and ground that into flour. She will then use that flour to bake bread and give it to her husband to eat.
There was also another love potion that involves a wife presenting her naked butt to her husband who then rolls bread dough on it that will be turned into bread.
Edit: Did not expect this to blow up. I read this in an excerpt of Burchard of Worms book “The Corrector” (or alternatively “The Physician”). He was a bishop in southern Germany who wrote books on canon law. Book 19 (this one) covered a lot of popular pagan rituals.
Senjo Krane 8 months ago
These sound more like fertility potions than 'love' because if theyre married already, they should love each other, although love didnt really come into in those days.
Gracie Mae 8 months ago
So did she just go straight to the mill, naked & covered in honey with the grain still stuck to her body & have them scrape it off? enquiring minds...
Riley Quinn 8 months ago
Granted, folks back then did wash their hands and face before meals, but bathing wasn't a frequent habit. Let's hope some washing was done prior to making butt bread.
Scott Rackley 8 months ago
So, the modern "I bet a quarter would bounce off her behind" was "I bet you could roll a croissant on her derriere."
#11
Boiling fruit before you eat it.
(People in medieval times thought raw fruit was bad for you - so they boiled their fruit before eating it. Boiling removes vitamin C from fruit. This habit is thought to be one of the reasons why there were high rates of scurvy in medieval times. One of the symptoms of scurvy is hallucinations. Scurvy-induced hallucinations are thought to be one of the reasons why so many people in medieval times were documented to have had religious visions. LPT - if you want to see Jesus, stop ingesting vitamin C. Possible side effects include loss of teeth, bleeding gums, aforementioned hallucinations, suppression of immune system, and death).
Bill Swallow 8 months ago
Ergot (a fungus that grows on rye and other grains) was also a very popular hallucinogen.
Roxy222uk 8 months ago
The not eating raw fruit thing was certainly true in the Stuart era (I don't know when it started) but I strongly refute the idea that this led to scurvy. Firstly, fruit naturally has only been available to humans in Europe for a limited time at the end of summer. Nomadic tribes certainly weren't preserving and carrying around a year's worth of fruit with them, they just enjoyed the bounty when it arrived (and possibly got carried away and got the runs as a result). But for the rest of the year people ate widely from all the other parts of plants. Up until the industrial revolution destroyed the connection between people and the land Brits at least ate a lot of farmed and foraged plants because they were cheap and tasty. They were getting far more vitamin C than most Brits nowadays!
Ruth Watry 8 months ago
You can go back thousands of years (hunter/gatherers) and people ate raw fruit - and this practice (for familiar fruits like apples, berries and pears) never went away. They did also cook them, but raw was fairly common
Riley Quinn 8 months ago
Toss in some Ergot poisoning from infected rye and you've got yourself quite the religious experience. Ergot also causes convulsions and hallucinations, so the religious nitwits of the time accused them of demonic possession.
Kitty 🥀 8 months ago
This one always freaks me out. Like something out of a horror movie.
Load More Replies... detective miller's hat 8 months ago
I knew a kid in college who got scurvy beside his eating habits were horrendous.
WindySwede 8 months ago
Ow, that was not so smart of them. I wander what we do today that will be considered as smart as this, for a 100 years from now?
Barbara Burns 8 months ago
Some processed foods are barely fit for human consumption, yet we keep on eating it.
Load More Replies... Cydney Golden 8 months ago
In the 1930s movie It Happened One Night Claudette Colbert is astonished that Clark Gable would eat carrots raw.
Panda Cat 8 months ago
Some types of raw or undercooked green beans can have deleterious effects. I personally prefer them in an Italian style I ate in the Cinque Terre.
Load More Replies... #12
Donating your urine to a Dyer.
David 8 months ago
you sold it to leather workers, the acid was used in leather processing. It was sold and purchased. There were literal urine merchants
dan gerene 8 months ago
One could sell the urine, buy beer and have more urine to sell. A win-win situation.
Delicate Fcuking Flower 8 months ago
And the expression "don't have a pot to p**s in" = highest level of no money
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Kabuki Kitsune 8 months ago
It was also sold to Laundresses (washer women), who would use it to help soften the clothing and get stains out. This was due to the high levels of ammonia in it. Woodworkers would also buy it to soak wood in, as when it stays in contact with untreated (varnish, wax) wood, it will turn the wood black.
Pittsburgh rare 8 months ago
You still can 🙃 l hear there's market for*everything*
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James Ward 7 months ago
In Roman times you didn't get paid, they just left a barrel out for passing men to donate.
#13
Having rules about what colors and what type of clothing and hats you could wear, based on your occupation or social level.
SouthernGal 8 months ago
Still exists in the US. Cheeto lovers all wear horrid red MAGA hats. /s
Delicate Fcuking Flower 8 months ago
It's the crips v bloods: political version.
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Alexandra 8 months ago
One upside of having sumptuary laws is that you know exactly what you are allowed to wear, so no need for extensive shopping.
CatD 8 months ago
Sumptuary laws were put in place after merchants became rich enough to afford the same kind of clothes royalty wore.
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DowntownStevieB 8 months ago
That shirt on the woman in the photo was a CHOICE! I was like "OMG what terrible burns!"
#14
A barber doing surgery.
UKGrandad 8 months ago
In the UK the professions were separated by an act of parliament in 1745.
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Krd 8 months ago
They had the pliers, and the barbers had the sharpest blades, hence why they did these respective things.
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#15
Fight instead of divorce
Why waste time on courts and child support? In medieval Germany, if a husband and wife reached a dead end on some important issue, they entered the ring.
The rules, of course, equalized the forces of men and women. In the ring, the man was in a hole, one hand was tied behind his back, so that he could strike with only one hand. And the wife was given a bag of coal, with which she struck.
Whoever wins the fight (inflicts serious injury or the defeated one asks for mercy) is, therefore, right in the dispute.
El Cucuy 8 months ago
There is a great illustrated book out there about Medieval fighting techniques and weapons. This very thing is in the book. And a few other husband/wife fighting situations. :-D
tresgatos72 8 months ago
I wish I could have done this to my ex. He'd have been begging for mercy in seconds.
Dragons Exist 8 months ago
I wonder if these kinds of things had anything to do with the traditional German versions of fairytales lol
Ange Marsden 8 months ago
The English made the man stand in a hole up to his chest to equalize the fight
#16
Outlawry, which stripped a person of all legal rights and allowed anyone to k**l them with impunity.
Luis Hernandez Dauajare 8 months ago
Still a thing in many parts of the world. And some other countries wanting it back.
Lil be lil 8 months ago
Well if you're A cop in the U S and you put your knees on the necks of a black man or a mentally ill person and take their life, you have impunity!
StPaul9 8 months ago
The Viking legal system seems to rely on this. It was what made a long viking warrior such an untrustworthy companion: He just wanted to go nuts, get himself into Valhalla and blow your entire operation. And he was naked except for a bearskin.
Panda Cat 8 months ago
Maybe you should do a little more research on Vikings. They weren’t all bezerkers as you imply. They were renowned and often criticized because they took great care to be clean by washing at least weekly. These are people who travelled the world from North America, down through Russia, the boot of Italy and more. Not only did they travel far and wide they settled in many places and brought people back to join their genetically diverse people. They brought the genes for red hair to many places- it wasn’t the Irish and Scots who did it. Erik the Red is one fine example of red hair in the Nordic region.
Load More Replies... #17
Assuming that most women you meet can't read.
Assuming that most men you meet either can't read or can also read Latin.
Not going more than 20 miles from where you were born.
Salt being extremely expensive. (Getting some comments here - expensive is a relative statement, and when you consider that less than three hours of minimum wage buys a 50 lb bag of salt today... it's safe to say that a modern person would be surprised at how expensive salt was. Additionally, salt in West Africa was expensive even in absolute terms.)
Barbers also being doctors and performing surgery.
Marrying second cousins. When nobody travels and villages are small... it's pretty much unavoidable.
Huge age disparities between husband and wife, both of whom are getting married for the first time.
Paying different taxes based on religion.
Uncle Panda 8 months ago
Hey, if you're not using it, can I borrow the time machine for last weekend?
Load More Replies... nm 8 months ago
Being so valuable, soldiers in the Roman army were sometimes paid with salt instead of money. Their monthly allowance was called "salarium" ("sal" being the Latin word for salt). This Latin root can be recognized in the French word "salaire" — and it eventually made it into the English language as the word "salary."
Rick Murray 8 months ago
Where I live has an interesting history of salt smuggling. It's a bunch of fields and cows in the ärse-end of nowhere...but salt was smuggled through here to avoid the dreaded taxes. 🤷🏻♀️
tresgatos72 8 months ago
Plenty of countries (and a few US states) today where 1st and 2nd cousins still marry and / or have huge age disparities between husband and wife. In Pakistan and Afghanistan 7 to 9 year old girls often get "married" (sold) to men in their 50's or older.
Khavrinen 8 months ago
This video argues that the price difference on salt wasn't as great as people usually think: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHgWkiHZY8I
CatD 8 months ago
Especially if you lived near salt water. It's fairly easy to make from boiling.
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Laugh or not 8 months ago
Paying different taxes based on religion is still a thing in some countries - Germany, for one.
James Ward 7 months ago
There was no need to read as there were no books, except maybe in a monastery.
#18
I’ve taken medieval literaturein college. There’s a lot of strange things that was normal for them but strange for us. Selling off your daughter so the rest of your family can eat, putting iron near your baby to protect them from Changelings, et cetra et cetra.
️Rando Panda 8 months ago
My great-grandmother was sold as a housemaid when she was a child. Basically indentured servitude where her parents profited.
Debby Keir 8 months ago
Attaching a charm to the babe's clothing against the 'evil eye' is still practiced in many parts of the world.
Serendipity 8 months ago
In india it's the bride that pays money for the groom, called dowry, although that's different some grooms t*****e and k**l their wife if they find the money to be insufficient
Load More Replies... CatD 8 months ago (edited)
They thought the baby had been taken and replaced with a fey. Probably the infant had genetic problems and didn't look right, or died for no reason.
Load More Replies... zerofoxgiven 8 months ago
You do realize that not everyone's first language is English, right? And even when it is, people make mistakes. No need to be so rude and hateful, Riley.
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Kalikima 8 months ago
Do you really not understand, or are you being an àss cuz she missed a space?
Load More Replies... #19
You have insulted my honor , I challenge you to a duel !
Jason Kennith 8 months ago
I think this should still be legal. As long as both people consent.
Riley Quinn 8 months ago
Things haven't changed much. Remember the Senate hearing when Senator Markwayne Mullins challenged the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Sean O’Brien, to a fight.
TheForrestGreene (he/they/it) 8 months ago
this still happens in the hallways at my high school, specifically between classes and at lunch
Rachel Reynolds 8 months ago
Maybe not with swords or pistols at dawn, but have you ever been in a dive bar?
#20
The hue and cry. Literally shouting that someone stole something and having the whole village chase after them.
David 8 months ago
still exists in some parts of the world, even is some ethnic areas in the US
Riley Quinn 8 months ago
And if cell phones had been available back then, they'd be filming and uploading to social media. People are people.
Debby Keir 8 months ago
But if the 'theif' reached the church, he could claim Sanctuary. *Sanctuary Rights: The right of sanctuary existed from the 4th to 17th centuries in England, and it extended to both legal and civil processes. Limitations: Sanctuary was not absolute. For example, after a period of time (often 40 days), a fugitive might be allowed to leave the church with certain conditions or face removal by force*
Roxy222uk 8 months ago
Briefly misunderstood 'face removal by force' and I will be having nightmares now, which is quite something when you know what was actually being done to people
Load More Replies... #21
Brushing your teeth with a stick.
Missy VanWinkle 8 months ago
I have my grandmother's "toothbrush" stick. She was born in the Carolina's in the late 1880 and was dirt poor most of her life. Dunno why Mom saved it, but the mantle has been passed to me, so there you go.
Missy VanWinkle 8 months ago
*Carolinas (no apostrophe and can't edit, dang it!)
Load More Replies... Lee Gilliland 8 months ago
This is why stick cinnamon became a thing, it sweetened your breath at the same time.
Renegade 8 months ago
Cinnamon naturally rolls into quills upon drying. That it's a stick is just a convenience.
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Huddo's sister 8 months ago
There is an interesting scene in Lost in Austen where a character is confronted with this practice for the first time.
#22
Having people help you get dressed and undressed as an adult.
[>.<]/ 8 months ago
99,99% chance you'd be the one doing the dressing....
Load More Replies... Riley Quinn 8 months ago (edited)
That's the least of it. How about the Grooms of the Stool? I mean, nobles ruled over large swaths of land, but couldn't dress themselves or wipe their own butts.
JB 8 months ago
If you didn't have toilet paper but did have money, would you really want to be the one holding the poopy sponge to wipe your butt?
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Dolly_of TheCowboy 8 months ago (edited)
Getting a corset or stay just the right level of tight requires someone else to pull in the lacing (apologies overtired brain used wrong word in the wrong spot) . I have helped dress many a lady for events but never forget boots before corset ;)
Gracie Mae 8 months ago
with all the layers they wore, it's no wonder they needed help! no thanks
#23
Never traveling more than a few miles outside of your village or town.
Kabuki Kitsune 8 months ago
Honestly, until the advent of the automobile (the train helped... some), this was a very common thing, as you were limited in how far you could go by either how far you could walk in a single day, or how far your horse could carry you.
Roxy222uk 8 months ago
That's why inns existed. So you could sleep somewhere and then carry on the next day. Or people just wrapped up in their cloaks and slept in a hedge. People have always travelled!
Load More Replies... Otto Katz 8 months ago
I know people today who won't travel. BTW, why is that man kissing that horse?
Pernille 8 months ago
Because he can. Maybe it's his wife, weird things happened in medieval times.
Load More Replies... Lene 8 months ago
Many people travelled, though. There were annual markets to attend and sell your goods at. There were merchants, soldiers, story tellers, and so on. A lot of ppl stayed at their birth-village but there was still reasons for people (also regular folks) to travel at least a bit.
Lee Gilliland 8 months ago
When railroads first came in, the English were certain their culture would break down because too many people were marrying out of their area and between classes.
Dan 8 months ago
Not strictly true, people would travel to markets and pilgrimages were a big part of life. There’s a burial here in my city (midland UK) of a pilgrim who had been on the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage, a round trip of around 2500 miles. It’s true that most people would live and die in the same village though, but they did travel outside their villages. One reason why we have so many accents here in the UK
Panda Cat 8 months ago
I’ve wanted to do that since I read Jack Hinds’ account. I don’t really like walking, other than hiking so I might do it on a bike.
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Roland Nijveld 8 months ago
My mum is born, raised and still lives in the same neighborhood for over 70 years
Load More Replies... Riley Quinn 8 months ago
Not much different than where I live now. Everything we need is in our neighborhood, so leaving it is reserved for special events.
#24
The whole family waking up at midnight to drink and b******t for an hour or two before going back to bed.
#25
Seeing someone in stocks on a stage in public.
Pernille 8 months ago
I say bring them back, they would be full of influencers that has done stupid things, and we could shame them publicly
UKGrandad 8 months ago
Nice to see they got the right picture. The device that had the offender held by the wrists was a pillory.
Panda Cat 8 months ago
And would be much worse. There seems to be a guy in the Denver area who makes beds that have a pillory and one for the heads in the foot board. Hmmm…
Load More Replies... Debby Keir 8 months ago
The village I was brought up in had stocks (and still does). There is a 'directory' of stocks and whipping posts and their location. *http://www.pilloryhistory.com/L03Stocks(abridged%20version).pdf*
TheForrestGreene (he/they/it) 8 months ago
can we bring this back just so we can put trump in one?
dan gerene 8 months ago
Better to have the hand one so he can't do that squeeze box thing when he is lying. A ball gag would top off the satisfaction of the view. But he would claim the throwing tomato ammunition sales. And Melania would run the stand.
Load More Replies... Riley Quinn 8 months ago
I'd love to see the return of this punishment. A whole row of politicians and CEOs, and we could throw rotten tomatoes at them.
Bill Swallow 8 months ago (edited)
People sentenced to the stocks were in danger of their lives. Crowds frequently pelted them with rotten fruit or vegetables. Or dung (Hey, get some of that $#!t into cuts or open wounds with little access to hygiene or medicine!). Or Rocks. So, disease, disfigurement, and broken bones were on the table.
Lee Gilliland 8 months ago (edited)
Where, BTW, they could be harassed and had things thrown at them. The stocks were dreaded because those in them frequently got rapidly dead.
Michael Largey 8 months ago
Too late. The Jan. 6 traitors have already been pardoned.
Load More Replies... #26
Public baths. Not on the same scale as they were in Rome, but it was still pretty common to have a bathhouse in medieval Germany and surrounding places to bathe in a group in a large tub of hot, fragrant water, called a "Zuberbad" in German. Now everyone's all hung up nudity. even among friends, so it's way less common (although you can still enjoy a public Zuber bath at medieval markets and renaissance fairs in Germanic countries).
2bwhctmvgn 8 months ago
"Even among friends"?!? I would definitely rather see a n**e stranger than a n**e friend, and I would definitely rather a stranger than a friend see me n**e.
L.V 8 months ago
Have been to an onsen with friends, can confirm, it's weird at first. But then you get used to it because it's normal there
Load More Replies... Dolly_of TheCowboy 8 months ago
I seem to remember an article a while back somewhere saying that the church got all up in arms about public bathhouses in mediaeval times because of the mixed nudity and people going "ooooh so that's what you look like all nice and clean....so how's about it love?" and in many areas people going at it like hamsters. So the church basically not wanting people doing the do in relative freedom they pushed the "bathing is sinful" thing so that people would stop going to them
CatD 8 months ago
That's not at all surprising. The made súicide a sin because people wanted to go to the wonderful heaven, and took reincarnation out of cannon so it would be a choice of heaven or hell.
Load More Replies... Riley Quinn 8 months ago
The Municipal Bath House located in St. Louis, Missouri closed in 1965, but they continue in businesses like spas.
Roxy222uk 8 months ago
I do find it amusing that they we presume that nowadays is the most open minded and liberal in attitude to any point in history, when this is demonstrably not true. For example using the words 'p.i.s.s.' and 's.h.i.t.' as normally every day words in front of any one and everyone.
#27
Wearing a codpiece.
ShadySlytherin 8 months ago
A merkin is completely different from a codpiece. For starters, the latter is an article of clothing. Or has the definition of merkin changed?
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Riley Quinn 8 months ago
Originally designed as a modesty piece, it eventually became a symbol of masculinity. Until it was removed, I assume.
Dolly_of TheCowboy 8 months ago
There is a good reason we say "pair of pants" or "pair of trousers" and not a "pair of shirts" because you had separate pieces of material, one for each leg, and those were tied around the waist. So that then technically left the meat and veg exposed hence the codpiece to cover that area. As with the massive pointy shoe thing where men stuffed the tips the monster codpiece fashion thing was all about making your area look as massive as possible..and they say only male animals have decorative plumage to attract a suitable mate XD
Never Snarky 8 months ago
The bigger, the better. They didn't have monster trucks to show off their masculinity.
Roxy222uk 8 months ago
Grrr, I am trying to hold out and complain at the end, but this is **not** Mediaeval!!
Leslie Victor 8 months ago
Best thing ever, and yes in the late 1980's a designer tried to bring them back..
dan gerene 8 months ago
Look up the 1566 painting The Wedding Dance by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. It was my favorite painting at the Detroit Art Museum when I was a kid. I thought it was hilarious.
Debby Keir 8 months ago
Ye G*ds! The Orange blob would have one so massive we might not even see his face.
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CatD 8 months ago
And his doublet and sleeves are slàshed within an inch of their lives. His undershirt and undersleeves must have been huge.
Load More Replies... #28
Carrying a sword.
Luis Hernandez Dauajare 8 months ago
Only knights and noblemen could, and just in certain places. If you were a commoner, *owning* a sword, let alone carrying one, would have you hanged, as it was assumed you had stolen it.
Riley Quinn 8 months ago
Commoners carried daggers that served as both a utility knife and for self-defense.
Load More Replies... CatD 8 months ago (edited)
It's legal in Texas now too. I guess if they have open carry on guns, not being able to carry a sword was dumb. I was in the SCA, so have many to choose from.😹
Load More Replies... UKGrandad 8 months ago
It's illegal in the UK to carry any bladed weapon in public unless it's needed for your job. This includes anything from craft knives to swords.
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#29
Throwing your s**t out of the window.
UKGrandad 8 months ago
This one is largely a myth. Most houses had earth closets for burying waste.
Debby Keir 8 months ago
and if it was a posh one with an upstairs, then there'd be a hole in one corner of the floor (in the overhang) for it to land outside - and the maid cleaned up any poop first thing in the morning.
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Poppy 8 months ago
Well, what we’re talking about in, erm, privy terms is the very latest in front-wall, fresh-air orifices, combined with a wide-capacity gutter installation below. Mrs: You mean you c**p out of the window. Edmund: Yes! Mrs: Well! In that case, we’ll *definitely* take it! (takes a cup from Edmund) I can’t stand those dirty indoor things.
Riley Quinn 8 months ago
It was a crime to throw human waste out onto the street. Now, IDK whether this law was enforced because I didn't feel like doing any more reading on the subject.
#30
Public executions.
Rob Stevens 8 months ago
and maybe we'll be lucky enough that he gets the ol' Mussolini treatment.
Load More Replies... Luis Hernandez Dauajare 8 months ago
Still a thing in Iran, China and several African and Middle Eastern countries.
Panda Cat 8 months ago
North Korea- Democratic People’s Republic of Korea -DPRK. Ever notice when a country claims they’re a “people’s” nation they aren’t?
Load More Replies... Riley Quinn 8 months ago
OP apparently doesn't know public executions are still carried out in certain countries. They continued in the US until 1936, but we all know lynchings continued until the 1980's, usually supported by local law enforcement.
Panda Cat 8 months ago
Obv dRump wants to bring them back and for crimes that haven’t callled for capital punishment. How many of you folks outside the US know about the “Central Park 5” and the “thing” he ran in the NYTimes calling for their e*******n? It was such a good thing when they were finally exonerated. One of them was recently elected to a local office like mayor or state representative.
Load More Replies... Kabuki Kitsune 8 months ago
The last public e*******n in the United States happened in 1936. Though there is one case from the 1950's in Iowa, though it's argued it was extrajudicial as opposed to state sponsored. The last public e*******n in France was in 1977.
Multa Nocte 8 months ago
Plenty of executions in the southern US until fairly recently - they were called "lynching."
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#31
For most of history, for the average person, getting married was as simple as agreeing to be married. The ceremony, witnesses, and engagement were only really important for people who were afraid of being deceived. A wealthy person, with a lot to lose, would typically announce their upcoming wedding to allow time for any issues to be discovered, like a previous marriage, financial ruin, or an affair that could call into question legitimacy of any heirs.
Witnesses were useful because a marriage by agreement is truly and he said/she said set up until the marriage becomes common knowledge. If party A claimed to be married to party B and party B denied it, they would call on witnesses to confirm or deny each senario. The more witnesses or the higher their status, the more reliable the testimony would be. So, say a local noble denied that he married a lower class girl, and it's him and his family against her and her family. The girl's family would likely lose. But if a priest married them, his word would be final. Having people sign a church register was a natural extension that occurred more frequently over time. Similarly though, they could go to a local public place and tell people together that they were married and the marriage would become common knowledge, which is hard to deny.
Basically all the wedding layers that we enjoy as romance and tradition are just levels of security.
Forrest Grump 8 months ago
True fact: The surprise marriage proposal was invented by the diamond business as a promotion to sell more diamond engagement rings (before they were common). Reference: The Drum, Carnyx Group Limited. (2016). 1948: De Beers 'A diamond is forever' campaign invents the modern day engagement ring.
CatD 8 months ago
Interestingly enough, the tight carbon structure in a diamond means, unless shattered, it pretty much will last forever.
Load More Replies... Riley Quinn 8 months ago
We call them wedding banns. Notices announcing an intended marriage that give people time to raise objections to the marriage. Still happening today.
Panda Cat 8 months ago
In some US states all you have to do to be married is to declare you are. The church started getting involved in the weddings of royalty and nobility. It took off from there because the church had to get it’s nose into people’s business.
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#32
From an American context (and possibly other places too idk), the amount of time off work in Medieval times would be utterly bizarre compared to now. The idea that the peasantry toiled dawn to dusk in the fields before dying of exhaustion and plague at age 45 is incorrect.
Farmers worked the land when it needed work, and the calendar dictates that schedule. Festivals, harvest, Religious holidays, and every day life took up more time than work did. We've disillusioned ourselves into thinking that our ancestors lived to work so we should too.
Debby Keir 8 months ago
*Medieval peasants in England typically worked around 150 to 180 days out of the year. This included work on their own land and labor for the lord of the manor. There were also numerous religious holidays and periods of rest, especially during winter. *
Jenny Barton 8 months ago
Running a home was far more labour intensive, however. Caring for clothing, making beer, making bread, other cooking, washing clothing, etc was all much harder work than it is now.
Lee Gilliland 8 months ago
They still worked one h*all of a lot harder and longer than we do. A medieval woman swept the floors, lit the fires, took out the slops, made the beds and fed the livestock BEFORE taking an hour to make breakfast.
Riley Quinn 8 months ago
We so-called modern people work much longer hours at mundane, punishing jobs than peasants ever did.
#33
Burning People because the church finds them *ahem* sus.
Kabuki Kitsune 8 months ago
Burning at the stake for witchcraft (what the person here is implying) actually wasn't as common as it's made out to be. Witchcraft was a felony in both England and its American colonies, and therefore witches were hanged, not burned. In Catholic Europe, burning did take place, but it was more on a limited basis. The Spanish I*********n, surprisingly enough, executed only two witches in total. The idea that it was common, is something that is presented more in fiction, than in fact.
Lee Gilliland 8 months ago (edited)
More people were pressed or hanged than burned (pressing was a punishment where you laid the person on the ground, placed a plank of wood on them, and added rocks until they suffocated).
#34
I read a book from the 1930's about life in Medieval England, one of the thing that really stuck out was the level of animal cruelty, and I don't just mean beasts of burden and what not. In one section on the types of games played at fairs there was one for example which involved tying a Rooster to a peg and then the contestants took turns throwing stones at it, whoever killed it was the winner. Bear baiting, bull baiting and baiting just about any kind of animal, usually ending in it being killed was the height of wholesome fun.
Debby Keir 8 months ago
It's part of the whole ideology of humans being the only sentient form of life (and in medieval times, many of the lords and ladies thought their serfs to be non human)
Lee Gilliland 8 months ago
It is still a common belief that those below you feel pain and cold less.
Load More Replies... Senjo Krane 8 months ago
They believed that animals did not have feelings or souls (still a thorn of contention today actually)
#35
Animal Courts. By far the most serial offenders were pigs, accused and convicted of chewing off body parts and even eating children. Most were found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging or being burned at the stake. In 1386, a convicted pig was dressed in a waistcoat, gloves, drawers and a human mask for its e*******n. .
Lee Gilliland 8 months ago
Nope, our barbecue came from the natives of the Caribbean after Columbus discovered it.
Load More Replies... Uncle Panda 8 months ago
Somewhere in the middle of Herodotus' The Histories, I ran across, "after the spirit went to the gods, the men ate the flesh.' THE SACRIFICES WERE BBQS! It explains so much.
Lee Gilliland 8 months ago
Well, they were pig roasts. BBQ didn't happen technically until we had tomatoes.
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#36
Duels over a bride at a wedding.
Debby Keir 8 months ago
You forget a droit de seigneur *droit du seigneur, (French: “right of the lord”), a feudal right said to have existed in medieval Europe giving the lord to whom it belonged the right to sleep the first night with the bride of any one of his vassals. The custom is paralleled in various primitive societies, but the evidence of its existence in Europe is all indirect, involving records of redemption dues paid by the vassal to avoid enforcement of some lordly rights. Many intellectual investigations have been devoted to the problem. A considerable number of feudal rights were related to the vassal’s marriage, particularly the lord’s right to select a bride for his vassal, but these were almost invariably redeemed by a money payment, or “avail”; and it seems likely that the droit du seigneur amounted, in effect, only to another tax of this sort.*
Daniela Lavanza 8 months ago
This was debunked long ago, it's called "droit de cuissage" and was some urban legend legend made up centuries afterward to make the middle ages look like awful times.
Load More Replies... #37
Gruesome executions that took a while to actually k**l someone.
Seriously medieval people WTF is it with sentencing people to be burned at the stake or crucified or drawn-and-quartered?
A swift beheading was the most benevolent way to k**l someone in the old days but not widely practiced as it turns out.
Lexi 8 months ago
Not all beheadings were quick, there are historical records of the axe/sword bearer have to take two or three swings to finish the person off.
UKGrandad 8 months ago (edited)
It was more often a matter of needing several attempts to complete the decapitation. An executioner's axe or sword was a heavy object, and even with a blunt edge a single blow to the back of the neck would be enough to sever the spine and spinal cord - it would be a fatal blow in almost all cases. The problem with a blunt edge is that it is not very efficient at slicing through muscle, tending to crush it instead, so the extra blows were needed purely to get through the soft tissue to complete the separation. A sharp blade ensured a 'clean' death, i.e. one without the unavoidable peripheral splatter from crushing rather than slicing the soft tissue.
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Luis Hernandez Dauajare 8 months ago
Absolutely. They were both spectacles and deterrents. And also a sort of divine justice: inflict as much pain and suffering as the criminals had done.
Load More Replies... Debby Keir 8 months ago
It's 'hung drawn and quartered' so you're hung first and dead by the time your gizzards are removed and then quartered so they can display you on the town walls as a deterrant.
Hiram's Friend 8 months ago
Often the quarters were distributed about the country. This also the era where heads were displayed on pikes over the city gates.
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UKGrandad 8 months ago
To be hanged, drawn and quartered was no worse than just being hanged. The hanging came first so the person was already dead when the last two punishments were carried out.
Lace Neil 8 months ago
Ah my sweet summer child. The person was only hanged until they were near death, then they were castrated and disemboweled. If they were dead after that and before the quartering, they were lucky.
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#38
Eat foods without processed sugar.
dan gerene 8 months ago
Sugar wasn't common until they found they could grow it in the warmer parts of the New World. That's why the Spaniards started bringing in more slaves just to work it. It was labor intensive.
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#39
Beer for children.
UKGrandad 8 months ago (edited)
It was called 'small beer' and had a very low alcohol content, typically around 1% abv. Because the water was boiled during the brewing process the bacteria that caused dysentery and typhus was destroyed, so it was a healthier option than water. Obviously there was no germ theory back then so they didn't understand why beer was better than water, so it didn't occur to them to just boil water for drinking.
Riley Quinn 8 months ago
Drinking beer and wine were for health and safety reasons because water was often contaminated. Heck, France served wine to school kids at lunch until 1956, and an all-age ban went into effect in 1981.
dan gerene 8 months ago
Couldn't they just put a water filter on their faucets?
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Lee Gilliland 8 months ago
You should check out what the ancient Egyptians drank, it was against the law if you could see the bottom of the bowl!
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Lowrider 56 8 months ago
Up until recently, in some European countries kids got wine with their meals at school.
Lee Gilliland 8 months ago
This was pretty much " small ale" or, as we call it, near beer. 2% alcohol or less.
Laura Gillette 8 months ago
It didn't have a very high alcohol level. It was just alcoholic enough to k**l any harmful bacteria. Today's beers are a lot higher in alcohol, because people drink them to get drunk, whereas back then they drank them to stay hydrated without getting sick from their hydration source.
UKGrandad 8 months ago
It wasn't the alcohol that destroyed bacteria, it was boiling the water as part of the brewing process.
Load More Replies... #40
Sleeping twice.
In medieval times life effectively revolved around the sun. But particularly in the winter, there was far too much time in the night to fill with just sleeping.
It was still common for people to go to sleep at dusk, after a hard day's work. But they would wake up in the middle of the night and do something (chat to the neighbors, have s*x in front of the whole family, have a snack, etc.
Then you'd go back to bed for your second sleep, waking up with the sun.
Serena Myers 8 months ago
I gather that waking up at around 03.30, pottering around for an hour or two or three, dusting, washing the floor, whatever, then going back to sleep, was pretty normal in medieval times. It suits me today, as long as I don't do anything to wake husband up!
#41
People getting burned alive for witchcraft allegations.
Piwakawaka 8 months ago
When really they were women who either cared for animals, didn't like men, preferred being single, used their knowledge of herbs etc, showed their intelligence, and so on.
RedPepper 8 months ago
Witchcraft trials really started mid-16th century, and peaked in the 17th century. That's Renaissance and early modern period, not Middle Ages.
Riley Quinn 8 months ago
You know what would be a cool change of pace? Posters doing a bit of research before posting myths instead of the truth. Buddy, you're already on the internet, open a new tab and learn.
CatD 8 months ago
The Malleus Maleficarum in the mid 1400s labeled witchcraft as heresy.
Load More Replies... #42
Let's sleep on some hay on the floor.
Lee Gilliland 8 months ago
It was a lot better than sleeping on branches, which was frequently the alternative.
#43
Walking in what were basically leather socks. Tyler's a great video showing how people used to walk, and it is surprisingly different.
#44
Leprosy.
Riley Quinn 8 months ago
What's your point OP? Considering it remains a serious global health concern today, esp. in Africa and Asia, did you think it mysteriously disappeared? Not a problem in the US, but give it time now that we have a moron heading our health and human services.
CatD 8 months ago
People in the US still get it. My Mom worked for a dermatologist and they had several patients.
Load More Replies... #45
When a girl asks you to treat her like a princess so you marry her to a stranger to strengthen the alliance with Poland. Something that is normal today but would be wierd in medieval times is washing.
Apatheist Account2 8 months ago (edited)
Much more likely to form alliances between any two of England, Portugal, Spain, France, Netherlands, Prussia or the Holy Roman Empire. Poland wasn't a big player in Medieval Europe.
dan gerene 8 months ago
Poland at one time was an empire. But those in those other countries never went that far. They stayed in their villages for their whole life kissing their horses. See above^^ And they had a strange monarchical system of importing their kings.
Load More Replies... Lee Gilliland 8 months ago (edited)
It was because they believed "blood bred true" and "blood will tell", both beliefs that we stayed loyal because we were related. This did not stand the test of time.
#46
The concept of k*****g the wife by burning when the husband dies, called as Sati.
Debby Keir 8 months ago
Suttee/sati, a Hindu practice, was banned in India by the British, in 1829.
Luis Hernandez Dauajare 8 months ago
Last reported case happened in 2008...
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Lee Gilliland 8 months ago
That was initially because whoever carried the bride off had a claim to her husband's possessions if she was pregnant, and as we were counting on fingers, if she got pregnant a few days after the husband's death, it still counted. Don't forget women weren't as valued back then.
#47
Having multiple children, over many years, while living in a 1 room dwelling.
Eta: I had answered the question assuming op was talking about the socio-economic and cultural experience that the time period was, and not the time all over the world. My bad.
#48
Leeches, bloodletting and general medical hocus pocus.
Debby Keir 8 months ago
They didn't have toilet paper either. My point being is that doctors practiced what they believed at that time. Lots of discoveries since, and they have changed their practise.
#49
I haven't k****d an english man in 5 days
(William Wallace).
Michael Largey 8 months ago
Posterity has been harsh on William Wallace. For instance, Mel Gibson played him in the movies.
#50
Having a low carbon footprint.
#51
A doctor taste testing urine.
SouthernGal 8 months ago
A primitive way to detect sugar in urine, indicative of what we now know as diabetes.
Pandemonium 8 months ago
Rodney Dangerfield: "My doctor told me there was sugar in my urine so the next morning I pissed on my cornflakes."
Load More Replies... Riley Quinn 8 months ago
Easy way to determine if a person is diabetic when you don't have a lab at your disposal.
#52
The concepts of paying a bride price or a dowry (they're the exact opposite).
Back then you had to pay to get married; now you just pay after you're married.
#53
Not taking a bath.
Lee Gilliland 8 months ago
Actually, bathing was more frequent than we usually think. It's just it was done more by the peasentry than the nobility.
CatD 8 months ago
The nobility owned multiple linen undergarments. They absorbed the sweat and dead skin from the body. Peasants usually had just one or two, and had to wash them themselves.
Load More Replies...Explore more of these tags
What do you think ?
Renegade 8 months ago
This is pissing me off on a personal level right now.
Load More Replies... Lee Gilliland 8 months ago
I'm actually impressed by the amount of specific knowledge shown by these responses. Good job, BPers!
Ace 8 months ago
All very entertaining, but just in case anyone's going to repeat these anywhere, nearly all of them are massive exaggerations and extrapolations from very rare events that may have happened a few times over a few hundred years. but almost none of them were 'normal' everyday things.
Apatheist Account2 8 months ago
I disagree. Normal doesn't mean it happens every day, just that when it happened, that's what was done. It's normal to have general elections these days, but they only happen every 4 or 5 years.
Load More Replies... TheForrestGreene (he/they/it) 8 months ago
men wearing what would be considered today as dresses
Roxy222uk 8 months ago
The more fabric the better as it showed your wealth and status. This actually is early Mediaeval. Women and men were only distinguishable from the neck up at one point.
Load More Replies... Roxy222uk 8 months ago
I like history lists but I do wonder what BP thinks Mediaeval means? That Era stops by Tudor times. Actually, I realise this is English-centric and I'd be interested to know what other European countries define as the Middle Ages. https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/story-of-england/medieval/
John Barker 8 months ago
People shaving their teeth down to get veneers. But nobody is that dumb now to ruin their real teeth for some fake looking results
Renegade 8 months ago
This is pissing me off on a personal level right now.
Load More Replies... Lee Gilliland 8 months ago
I'm actually impressed by the amount of specific knowledge shown by these responses. Good job, BPers!
Ace 8 months ago
All very entertaining, but just in case anyone's going to repeat these anywhere, nearly all of them are massive exaggerations and extrapolations from very rare events that may have happened a few times over a few hundred years. but almost none of them were 'normal' everyday things.
Apatheist Account2 8 months ago
I disagree. Normal doesn't mean it happens every day, just that when it happened, that's what was done. It's normal to have general elections these days, but they only happen every 4 or 5 years.
Load More Replies... TheForrestGreene (he/they/it) 8 months ago
men wearing what would be considered today as dresses
Roxy222uk 8 months ago
The more fabric the better as it showed your wealth and status. This actually is early Mediaeval. Women and men were only distinguishable from the neck up at one point.
Load More Replies... Roxy222uk 8 months ago
I like history lists but I do wonder what BP thinks Mediaeval means? That Era stops by Tudor times. Actually, I realise this is English-centric and I'd be interested to know what other European countries define as the Middle Ages. https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/story-of-england/medieval/
John Barker 8 months ago
People shaving their teeth down to get veneers. But nobody is that dumb now to ruin their real teeth for some fake looking results
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