Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A Look into Medieval Homes

medievalists.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 77 posts

Re: A Look into Medieval Homes

#21

Post by null_object »

guntherhermann wrote: post #18
null_object wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you gravely misunderstood my comment, I’m certainly not harking back to some romantic ideal of pre-industrial Arcadia. If you were an under-nourished worker, living in the rat-like polluted conditions of an Industrial Revolution town in Northern England (for instance), constantly breathing sulfurous fumes, suffering cholera epidemics, seeing the whole town and all the countryside around it blackened by the as…

> I think your comment falls into the “it was unadulterated hell being a peasant”-trap that I was referring to You might be reading my comment as if that were the case, but I assure you that my thoughts are not that. Humans adapt to any situation, that's why we are the superior species, we are the world's greatest adapters. Peasant life wasn't misery all the time, but there was FAR MORE misery on a FAR GREATER scale…

> full of pedantic tripe like that.

Ah here was me thinking this was an uncontroversial and enjoyable discussion on HN.

Anyways. Once again, just to underline what I wrote before - my comment wasn’t supposed to suggest that there was a golden age of Elysian harmony in the pastoral landscape of Europe, somehow superior to the ‘terrible’ existence we have now, with our hospitals, antibiotics, electronic gadgets, space travel etc.

Over the last few years there’ve been quite a few studies linked on HN that have begun to give a nuanced image of life in the ‘Dark Ages’ - albeit one that was ravaged by conflict and disease.

I thought these interiors gave another dimension to this new perspective. That’s all my post was about.

Re: A Look into Medieval Homes

#22

Post by Retric »

guntherhermann wrote: post #10
null_object wrote: post #2

Setting aside the problem (mentioned in the article) that these images were produced for an aristocratic class, and possibly don’t accurately describe the reality of a peasant’s home, then what’s most striking is how decorative the interiors are: patterned floors, painted walls, and neat carpentry. I’ve read the theory that the life of peasants in the Middle Ages was demonized and made to sound dystopian to encourage…

The life of a peasant was one of serfdom, watching too many of your children die before their 4th birthday. The wheat you grew you had to mill in a landlord's mill and they collected a tax from it. There was no light in the evenings because tallow or other wax was far too expensive so when it got dark there were limited things to do. Floors were covered in rushes instead of carpet and were host to bugs. True medicine…

Light in peasant houses didn’t use candles but rush dipped in fat or tallow. Rushlights took minimal effort to create and rush was basically free. Candles where more consistent and significantly longer lasting though vastly more expensive, while rushlights where plenty useful and cheap.

The major cost was you could also eat the fat, but an hour of light every night would cost you something like 1% of the calories you needed to survive. Making them viable outside of true starvation situations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rushlight

Similarly, work was intense during planting and harvest, but slowed down the rest of the year. So people would do things like take pilgrimages surprisingly often. Rather than long days of backbreaking labor the major issue was they lacked productive work most of the year.

I am not saying life was good, but rather it was very different than we imagine.

Re: A Look into Medieval Homes

#23

Post by madaxe_again »

ggm wrote: post #9

The last scene of Joseph and Mary from the tres riche heures shows an adjustable pot hanger, over the fireplace. Assuming it's not just artistic licence or artistic invention, The fireplace has a reverbatory rear: it's designed to reflect heat. It's also part of the thermal mass of the house. The adjustable pot hanger would be familiar to any cook for the next 400 years: it provides for variable sizes of pot, and dis…

Trammel hooks are still used in the corner of Portugal in which I live - quite a lot of families have an old house which still has a hearth covering half the kitchen, filled with chains and hooks for setting various fires and putting pots on at various heights.

Of course, most folks also have a modern kitchen, but for high days and holidays they cook the old way still. Not unusual to see an old lady cranking a kid goat on a turnspit, either.

Thing is, some of these “old” houses were built as recently as the 70’s, using techniques which hadn’t changed since the medieval era - stone and timber, lath and plaster, packed earth floors - such are the privations of nearly a century of stunted development, particularly in rural areas.

Re: A Look into Medieval Homes

#24

Post by [deleted] »

null_object wrote: post #2

Setting aside the problem (mentioned in the article) that these images were produced for an aristocratic class, and possibly don’t accurately describe the reality of a peasant’s home, then what’s most striking is how decorative the interiors are: patterned floors, painted walls, and neat carpentry. I’ve read the theory that the life of peasants in the Middle Ages was demonized and made to sound dystopian to encourage…

[deleted]

Re: A Look into Medieval Homes

#25

Post by bodhiandphysics »

guntherhermann wrote: post #10
null_object wrote: post #2

Setting aside the problem (mentioned in the article) that these images were produced for an aristocratic class, and possibly don’t accurately describe the reality of a peasant’s home, then what’s most striking is how decorative the interiors are: patterned floors, painted walls, and neat carpentry. I’ve read the theory that the life of peasants in the Middle Ages was demonized and made to sound dystopian to encourage…

The life of a peasant was one of serfdom, watching too many of your children die before their 4th birthday. The wheat you grew you had to mill in a landlord's mill and they collected a tax from it. There was no light in the evenings because tallow or other wax was far too expensive so when it got dark there were limited things to do. Floors were covered in rushes instead of carpet and were host to bugs. True medicine…

It really depends where. England ended serfdom in the 14th century, and in much of western europe (Italy notably, but also Scotland and Spain) serfdom never really developed. In central and eastern europe, peasants were ensurfed into the 19th century, though in most places this was an imposition in the 16th - 17th century. It's also important to remember that peasants weren't a homogenous group. There were rich peasants and poor peasants, often in the same village, and they lived different lives.

Re: A Look into Medieval Homes

#26

Post by ricardobayes »

guntherhermann wrote: post #10
null_object wrote: post #2

Setting aside the problem (mentioned in the article) that these images were produced for an aristocratic class, and possibly don’t accurately describe the reality of a peasant’s home, then what’s most striking is how decorative the interiors are: patterned floors, painted walls, and neat carpentry. I’ve read the theory that the life of peasants in the Middle Ages was demonized and made to sound dystopian to encourage…

The life of a peasant was one of serfdom, watching too many of your children die before their 4th birthday. The wheat you grew you had to mill in a landlord's mill and they collected a tax from it. There was no light in the evenings because tallow or other wax was far too expensive so when it got dark there were limited things to do. Floors were covered in rushes instead of carpet and were host to bugs. True medicine…

It's interesting to look at feudal tax rates. It varied between countries but the concept of "thirteenth" seems to be common, based on what I see it used to be between 2% and 10% of "revenue". I wonder when did we normalize 40-60% taxation. Seems we made a wrong turn somewhere. Perhaps our convenient modern life wouldn't be sustainable on such low taxes, but maybe it would - looking at Monaco or Dubai firmly at 0%.

Re: A Look into Medieval Homes

#27

Post by rpvnwnkl »

ricardobayes wrote: post #26
guntherhermann wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The life of a peasant was one of serfdom, watching too many of your children die before their 4th birthday. The wheat you grew you had to mill in a landlord's mill and they collected a tax from it. There was no light in the evenings because tallow or other wax was far too expensive so when it got dark there were limited things to do. Floors were covered in rushes instead of carpet and were host to bugs. True medicine…

It's interesting to look at feudal tax rates. It varied between countries but the concept of "thirteenth" seems to be common, based on what I see it used to be between 2% and 10% of "revenue". I wonder when did we normalize 40-60% taxation. Seems we made a wrong turn somewhere. Perhaps our convenient modern life wouldn't be sustainable on such low taxes, but maybe it would - looking at Monaco or Dubai firmly at 0%.

Average tax rate in the US appears to be less than 20%

Re: A Look into Medieval Homes

#28

Post by HEmanZ »

null_object wrote: post #2

Setting aside the problem (mentioned in the article) that these images were produced for an aristocratic class, and possibly don’t accurately describe the reality of a peasant’s home, then what’s most striking is how decorative the interiors are: patterned floors, painted walls, and neat carpentry. I’ve read the theory that the life of peasants in the Middle Ages was demonized and made to sound dystopian to encourage…

I think you’re right, peasant life wasn’t so dystopian through the Middle Ages, and it seems to get a bad rap. Peasants didn’t have modern freedoms but they were not chattel slaves. They had a lot of free time and for much of history had a lot of land-per-person. Humans with free time and space, even if they are economically poor, carve out interesting and non-dystopian lives for themselves.

I know explicit propaganda was used to try to convince Russian peasants their lives were miserable to spur the communist revolution. I’m not sure about explicit propaganda elsewhere. I think our collective consciences have merged together images of “old poverty” and we have an image of surfs that are closer to chattel slaves thanks to colonialism and industrialization. I also suspect quality of life among peasants was volatile over time, with famines and political turmoil hitting them extremely hard. By the industrial revolution it may really have been dystopian in much of Europe.

Re: A Look into Medieval Homes

#29

Post by HEmanZ »

ricardobayes wrote: post #26
guntherhermann wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The life of a peasant was one of serfdom, watching too many of your children die before their 4th birthday. The wheat you grew you had to mill in a landlord's mill and they collected a tax from it. There was no light in the evenings because tallow or other wax was far too expensive so when it got dark there were limited things to do. Floors were covered in rushes instead of carpet and were host to bugs. True medicine…

It's interesting to look at feudal tax rates. It varied between countries but the concept of "thirteenth" seems to be common, based on what I see it used to be between 2% and 10% of "revenue". I wonder when did we normalize 40-60% taxation. Seems we made a wrong turn somewhere. Perhaps our convenient modern life wouldn't be sustainable on such low taxes, but maybe it would - looking at Monaco or Dubai firmly at 0%.

Idk what country you’re paying 40-60% tax in. I make very good money in the US and I don’t pay close to that.

Using the US as an example, most people pay an effective tax rate of 20%. This is equivalent to a peasant getting a 10% tax and their 10% tithe to the church, so it’s not far off.

Basically we’ve moved redistribution/welfare from the control of the church to the state. In medieval times these were effectively the same thing anyways.

Re: A Look into Medieval Homes

#30

Post by arbuge »

HEmanZ wrote: post #29
ricardobayes wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting to look at feudal tax rates. It varied between countries but the concept of "thirteenth" seems to be common, based on what I see it used to be between 2% and 10% of "revenue". I wonder when did we normalize 40-60% taxation. Seems we made a wrong turn somewhere. Perhaps our convenient modern life wouldn't be sustainable on such low taxes, but maybe it would - looking at Monaco or Dubai firmly at 0%.

Idk what country you’re paying 40-60% tax in. I make very good money in the US and I don’t pay close to that. Using the US as an example, most people pay an effective tax rate of 20%. This is equivalent to a peasant getting a 10% tax and their 10% tithe to the church, so it’s not far off. Basically we’ve moved redistribution/welfare from the control of the church to the state. In medieval times these were effectively…

You are probably not counting all the other US taxes: payroll, property, sales, state income tax, business taxes, etc. If you only consider personal federal income tax, the picture will of course appear rosier than it really is.

Once you include other taxes, the overall figure climbs rapidly. It's already almost 30% counting just federal income tax, social security, and medicare, and none of the other taxes mentioned above.

https://www.thebalancemoney.com/what-the-average-american-pa....

"The OECD reported that the U.S. "tax wedge" for the average single worker was 28.4% in 2021." ... "The OECD tax wedge only includes these three taxes: income, Social Security, and Medicare. It doesn’t include sales, property, vehicle, or state income taxes."

Post reply on HN