Survival tips if you find yourself in the Middle Ages?
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Re: Survival tips if you find yourself in the Middle Ages?
#21000 plus or minus 200 years covers a huge range. 1000 was just about the fulcrum of the medieval period: life in 800 would have been a complete disaster, whereas life in 1200 was in some places a mini-Renaissance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_of_the_12th_century
If you really got dropped at a random place, it would probably be grazing land or forest, especially in 800. You'd have to find the nearest tiny village and convince them you weren't dangerous. The stuff you had on you would seem miraculously fine, so could be valuable in trade if it wasn't stolen from you first. But the best way to extract value from your stuff would be to give it as a gift to some powerful protector; money wouldn't be any use unless you could protect yourself against robbers. So it would be all about finding a powerful protector.
In 800 you'd want to find the most enlightened bishop nearby, present yourself as a traveller from some obscure pocket of Nestorian Christians in the far east (drop hints about Prester John), and get work helping to administer his estates. This wouldn't work everywhere, though: a lot of Europe was still pagan in 800. If you landed in the north or the east, you'd have to try to find some enlightened local warlord instead. Hard to say what use you could be to him, though; probably your only hope would be that he'd keep you around as an adornment to his court.
In 1200 you might still want to find a bishop, but if there was a town nearby (especially a great one like Florence or Venice) you could also find work in a bank or for one of the great wool merchants.
Generally: Be compulsively clean, and keep your opinions to yourself.
Re: Survival tips if you find yourself in the Middle Ages?
#3Prediction is impossible, we all know that. What
we don't know is that retrodiction is also impossible.
History is a form of science fiction. The future is
history that hasn't happened yet. History is the
sensibility of one time, assessing another time, that it
cannot possibly know.
-- Bruce Sterling, http://www.viridiandesign.org/notes/1-25/Note%2000001.txt
Re: Survival tips if you find yourself in the Middle Ages?
#41000 plus or minus 200 years covers a huge range. 1000 was just about the fulcrum of the medieval period: life in 800 would have been a complete disaster, whereas life in 1200 was in some places a mini-Renaissance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_of_the_12th_century If you really got dropped at a random place, it would probably be grazing land or forest, especially in 800. You'd have to find the nearest tiny…
What one invention would you introduce ahead of its time?
Re: Survival tips if you find yourself in the Middle Ages?
#51000 plus or minus 200 years covers a huge range. 1000 was just about the fulcrum of the medieval period: life in 800 would have been a complete disaster, whereas life in 1200 was in some places a mini-Renaissance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_of_the_12th_century If you really got dropped at a random place, it would probably be grazing land or forest, especially in 800. You'd have to find the nearest tiny…
What one invention would you introduce ahead of its time?
Hygiene.
Re: Survival tips if you find yourself in the Middle Ages?
#6Re: Survival tips if you find yourself in the Middle Ages?
#7Re: Survival tips if you find yourself in the Middle Ages?
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hygiene.
How can you make money with that? Purveyor of scented soaps? ;)
One of the commentors at Kotte's mentions that you could sell boiled water as "de-sprited water", good for all menner of medical procedures.
Unfortunately, another commentor recognized that firewood would be difficult to access, and cow poo doesn't fire hot enough.
Re: Survival tips if you find yourself in the Middle Ages?
#9Two chicks (Marle and Lucca) at the same time.
Re: Survival tips if you find yourself in the Middle Ages?
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
How can you make money with that? Purveyor of scented soaps? ;)
One of the commentors at Kotte's mentions that you could sell boiled water as "de-sprited water", good for all menner of medical procedures. Unfortunately, another commentor recognized that firewood would be difficult to access, and cow poo doesn't fire hot enough.
Why would firewood be difficult to find? I could be wrong, but I don't think the European deforestation had set in yet, at that time. Is the wood in most European forests not of sufficient quality?