Life in Middle Ages vs.

life nowadays

What makes studying medieval history fascinating is that you have to grapple with
both the puzzle of extracting information from difficult and often fragmented surviving records,
and the challenge of constantly checking your own thinking for assumptions and inherited
stereotypes. But still, we have a good grasp on certain facts that, as a whole, define the life in
Middle Ages.
The world population increased from 1 billion in 1800 to 7.7 billion today. Also, in
medieval time the population of Europe increased hugely across the 12th and 13th centuries,
with cities and towns getting much larger; Paris grew about ten-fold (and London nearly as
much) in this period.
Nowadays we have the upper layer, a middle class and a social supported one. Certain
medieval writers described their society as divided into ‘three orders’ – those who prayed, those
who fought, and those who labored – that became an increasingly inaccurate picture from after
about 1100, because of a middle class of merchants, laborers and craftsmen in the city. Indeed,
the number of peasants, as in laborers of the earth, was much greater then. The decrease in the
number of farmers is due, mainly, to the technology that supply the force labor.
Of course, in the middle ages we had no machines of any kind. There were no cars,
trains and no roads as we define then now. Middle Ages roads were no more than dirt tracks
that turned to mud in winter. Men traveled on horseback (if they could afford a horse!). Ladies
traveled in wagons covered in painted cloth. They looked pretty but they must have been very
uncomfortable on bumpy roads as they had no springs. Worse, travel in the Middle Ages was
very slow. A horseman could only travel 50 or 60 kilometers a day. Some goods were carried
by packhorses (horses with bags loaded on their sides) and peasants pulled along two-wheeled
carts full of hay and straw. However, whenever they could people traveled by water.
No technology means no phones, so they will write and send the message thru a
courier. So, that is a craft that prosper. 
The equivalent of our multi-million $ houses are the castles of the rich. But there are
great differences between the wooden frames filled in with wattle and daub (strips of wood
woven together and covered in a 'plaster' of animal hair and clay) and the houses of the people
today. Also, there is a difference between the sources of heat. Not so much for the nobles that
had a stone chimney that would offer in-floor heat for the rooms above, but for the peasants that
will no longer have to share the house with cows for more heat. Still, the toilet will be, for the
king a chute built into the thickness of the wall and for the serf a hole dug in the earth.
Now we have a trend in house design: simplicity. But in the middle ages it was life
itself: very few pieces of furniture. A bed only for rich ones and very few chairs, only stools.
Clothes were mainly from wool, different quality of course. Some silk for the rich
ones. But there was a certain cold period then, so it is understandable.
In the middle ages, the common people was mainly vegetarian: they mostly ate bread
and stew. The stew would have beans, dried peas, cabbage, and other vegetables sometimes
flavored with a bit of meat or bones. Other foods like meat, cheese, and eggs were usually
saved for special occasions. Since they didn't have a way to keep their meat cold, they would
eat it fresh. Leftover meat was smoked or salted to preserve it. The nobles ate a wider variety of
food including meats and sweet puddings.
There is a major difference between education then and now. Very few people
attended school in the Middle Ages. Most peasants learned their job and how to survive from
their parents. Some children learned a craft through apprenticeship and the guild system.
Wealthy children often learned through tutors. They would go to live in the castle of another
lord where they would work for the lord, learning about how a large manor was run. There were
some schools run by the church. Here students would learn to read and write Latin. The first
universities also began during the Middle Ages. University students would study a wide range
of subjects including reading, writing, logic, math, music, astronomy, and public speaking.
We now marry after 18 years and just then we start to work, but childhood ended early
for children in the Middle Ages. In upper-class families, girls married as young as 12 and boys
as young as 14. They did not normally choose their own marriage partners. Their parents
arranged their marriage for them. Children from poor families might have more choice about
who they married but by the time they were about 7 or 8 they had to start helping their parents
by doing simple jobs such as chasing away birds when crops had been sown or helping to
weave wool. Children were expected to help the family earn a living as soon as they were able.
Middle ages were not a god time to get sick, unless you like leeches because medicine
was dominated by the ideas of Galen and the theory of the four humors. Medieval doctors were
great believers in bloodletting. Ill people were cut and allowed to bleed into a bowl. People
believed that regular bleeding would keep you healthy. So monks were given regular blood
letting sessions. Medieval doctors also prescribed laxatives for purging.
We now have COVID but then they had leper. Furthermore outside many towns were
leper 'hospitals' (really just hostels as nothing could be done for the patients). Leprosy was a
dreadful skin disease. Anyone who caught it was an outcast. They had to wear clothes that
covered their whole body. They also had to ring a bell or a wooden clacker to warn people they
were coming.
Also, a common event is war. As weapons we have: battering ram, catapult and
longbow. All weapons used for killing at distance, as our nuclear weapons and guided missile.
But, as a whole, life now is much, much better and much longer. In Middle Ages life
was short and hard. The common thing is the human being, that will find happiness on a dance
in a village square or a visit to Bahamas.

Bibliography:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zm4mn39/revision/6
https://www.historyextra.com/period/medieval/middle-ages-facts-what-customs-writers-
knights-serfs-marriage-travel/
https://www.ducksters.com/history/middle_ages/daily_life_in_the_middle_ages.php
http://www.localhistories.org/middle.html