The daily life of a medieval king • Hacker News Board

Re: The daily life of a medieval king

#21

Post by raincole » Mon, Jul 21, 2025, 9:11 AM UTC

braza wrote: post #10

> His meal was not long, for he did not favour elaborate food, saying that such food bothered his stomach and disturbed his memory. He drank clear and simple wine, light in colour, well cut, and not much quantity nor great variety. Like David, to rejoice his spirits, he listened willingly at the end of his meal to stringed instruments playing the sweetest possible music. For me, the most curious thing here would be t…

https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/43292/what-was-t...

> For England, including the Kings of Wessex from Æthelberht on (the first I could find a birthdate for), and the Kings of England up to Edward IV, whose reigns extends to 1483 (and consequently into Modern Ages, if we take the usual date of 1453 - the fall of Constantinople - as the end of the Middle Ages), I found the average age of death of monarchs to be 44 years. (http://ideias.wikidot.com/reis-da-inglaterra-na-idade-media)

Life expectancy is longer than that in even the poorest countries today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expe...

Re: The daily life of a medieval king

#22

Post by khazhoux » Mon, Jul 21, 2025, 9:14 AM UTC

The supplicants brings to mind the opening scene of The Godfather.

I’m endlessly perplexed how a human with the same number of hours as me, can rule a kingdom, or run a modern country, or be CEO of a major company, meanwhile I’m working long hours every day and still get nothing accomplished.

Re: The daily life of a medieval king

#23

Post by pjc50 » Mon, Jul 21, 2025, 9:19 AM UTC

dontTREATonme wrote: post #5

I always question how accurate these types of accounts were. Even if she wrote this after his death, his successor obviously wouldn’t look too kindly on it being disparaging.

It reads a lot like those instagram/magazine profiles of "I get up at 7am and eat healthily" (author actually gets up at 9am and eats junk food on most other days).

Worth noting that this is a relatively immobile king. Various other kings spent a lot of time on:

- hunting for sport

- military campaigns (e.g. Richard Lionheart spent more time out of England than in it)

- assizes (mobile courts)

- summer residences (Versailles is a huge, late example of this, but lots of monarchs around the world have had holiday homes of one sort or another)

Re: The daily life of a medieval king

#24

Post by pjc50 » Mon, Jul 21, 2025, 9:20 AM UTC

joules77 wrote: post #3

morgoths_bane wrote: post #2

[flagged]

Donald Trump, the Ayatollah and Putin are very disciplined people. Ordered lives need to be grounded in value systems, moral emotions, and philosophies deeper than self preservations. Otherwise people start behaving like ants. Don't need a human brain for that.

Donald Trump is incredibly ill-disciplined by even his own degenerate standards.

Re: The daily life of a medieval king

#25

Post by DrNosferatu » Mon, Jul 21, 2025, 9:23 AM UTC

He did that much in the morning, after getting up, on an empty stomach??

Re: The daily life of a medieval king

#26

Post by em500 » Mon, Jul 21, 2025, 9:35 AM UTC

braza wrote: post #10

> His meal was not long, for he did not favour elaborate food, saying that such food bothered his stomach and disturbed his memory. He drank clear and simple wine, light in colour, well cut, and not much quantity nor great variety. Like David, to rejoice his spirits, he listened willingly at the end of his meal to stringed instruments playing the sweetest possible music. For me, the most curious thing here would be t…

Not that I have any direct knowledge, but I think a real king (either medieval or modern day) has a huge number of constraints on life opportunities. They have a lot of nominal wealth, but probably also too many obligations and duties (real or perceived) to just say, the heck with it, I'm going to be a full time traveling musician or rock climber or some such.

Re: The daily life of a medieval king

#27

Post by doctor_blood » Mon, Jul 21, 2025, 9:43 AM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #12

agys wrote: post #8

Nice morning routine: at 10am a little glass of wine and stringed instruments playing the sweetest possible music.

Little has changed, except it's coffee and Spotify for me. Keep in mind that back then, wine / beer were an important source of clean drinking water, and it would often be low alcohol.

https://leslefts.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-great-medieval-wat...

Re: The daily life of a medieval king

#28

Post by walthamstow » Mon, Jul 21, 2025, 9:47 AM UTC

em500 wrote: post #26

braza wrote: post #10

> His meal was not long, for he did not favour elaborate food, saying that such food bothered his stomach and disturbed his memory. He drank clear and simple wine, light in colour, well cut, and not much quantity nor great variety. Like David, to rejoice his spirits, he listened willingly at the end of his meal to stringed instruments playing the sweetest possible music. For me, the most curious thing here would be t…

Not that I have any direct knowledge, but I think a real king (either medieval or modern day) has a huge number of constraints on life opportunities. They have a lot of nominal wealth, but probably also too many obligations and duties (real or perceived) to just say, the heck with it, I'm going to be a full time traveling musician or rock climber or some such.

We've seen this recently in British and Japanese royal families. Some people just don't want it, and to get a normal life they have to leave the monarchy.

Re: The daily life of a medieval king

#29

Post by pjc50 » Mon, Jul 21, 2025, 9:51 AM UTC

braza wrote: post #10

> His meal was not long, for he did not favour elaborate food, saying that such food bothered his stomach and disturbed his memory. He drank clear and simple wine, light in colour, well cut, and not much quantity nor great variety. Like David, to rejoice his spirits, he listened willingly at the end of his meal to stringed instruments playing the sweetest possible music. For me, the most curious thing here would be t…

I remember many years ago the Economist pointed out one of the Rothschilds died young of something that would have been readily solvable with penicillin, but no amount of money could get you something that didn't exist yet.

I'm going to go with a cautious "yes" to the first: the ages at death of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_monarchs are not great.

"No" on the second (king is never going to have to worry about food security, that's for the peasants)

And "life opportunties" .. bit of a divide by zero situation. As king, you technically have all the opportunities. But you can only do things which actually exist at the time. And you're bound by the social and religious conventions of the time, which you mess with at your peril. Doing so worked for Henry VIII but not for the various Georges. See, for example, the controversy over whether James 6 might have been gay.

Re: The daily life of a medieval king

#30

Post by pjc50 » Mon, Jul 21, 2025, 9:56 AM UTC

walthamstow wrote: post #28

em500 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that I have any direct knowledge, but I think a real king (either medieval or modern day) has a huge number of constraints on life opportunities. They have a lot of nominal wealth, but probably also too many obligations and duties (real or perceived) to just say, the heck with it, I'm going to be a full time traveling musician or rock climber or some such.

We've seen this recently in British and Japanese royal families. Some people just don't want it, and to get a normal life they have to leave the monarchy.

This is reminding me of folk tales where the king, prince or princess disguises themselves and goes among the commoners, but I can't name a definite example of the trope at the moment.