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The daily life of a medieval king

medievalists.net

31–40 of 175 posts

Re: The daily life of a medieval king

#31
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 assume someone in the 5th percentile of wealth is going to have very negative wealth which is only really possible in developed countries, eg an American medical student or a doctor who is part-way through paying off their loans, or someone suffering from massive credit card debt / car loans. (I think this isn’t really what you were thinking of though. I think the poorest people in the world still live, in many way…

The correct metric is probably something like Actual Individual Consumption.

Re: The daily life of a medieval king

#32
> ”After this rest period, he spent a time with his most intimate companions in pleasant diversions, perhaps looking at his jewels or other treasures.”

Men don’t spend a lot of time looking at jewels anymore, but I guess the modern equivalent would be hanging out with your buddies having some beers and admiring your fancy car.

Re: The daily life of a medieval king

#33
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 t…

And very very importantly, this is taking the death ages of kings (i.e. people who lived long enough to actually become monarchs) compared to life expectancy at birth (i.e. people who lived long enough to be born).

Given that until roughly the 1700s infant mortality was brutal (according to [1] fully 50% of children died before reaching adulthood), this comparison becomes even starker, since average life expectancy of a crown prince at birth would be far lower (somewhere in their 20s).

[1] https://acoup.blog/2025/07/18/collections-life-work-death-an...

Re: The daily life of a medieval king

#34
post #23

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 (Ve…

> e.g. Richard Lionheart spent more time out of England than in it

To be fair, most of his prize holdings were also out of England.

Re: The daily life of a medieval king

#35
post #32

> ”After this rest period, he spent a time with his most intimate companions in pleasant diversions, perhaps looking at his jewels or other treasures.” Men don’t spend a lot of time looking at jewels anymore, but I guess the modern equivalent would be hanging out with your buddies having some beers and admiring your fancy car.

Any collectible really? It's just that jewels (they're minerals, Marie!) used to be a more common one.

Re: The daily life of a medieval king

#36

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.

How many secretaries, go-to people, etc. do you have?

Re: The daily life of a medieval king

#37
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Kangxi emperor being disguised as a commoner in some kind of undercover boss scenario is a common trope.

Re: The daily life of a medieval king

#39

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.

By having a team around them. I'd recommend listening to podcasts by former politicians to get an understanding of the types of challenges they have. Rory Stewart regularly talks about his time in government. I recall former chancellor George Osborne talking about how much government energy is spent reacting to crises and giving the illusion of control.

Re: The daily life of a medieval king

#40

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.

If you have people who take orders from you, obviously you can accomplish much more. If you're CEO, literally everyone in the company is that. Of course they can get a lot done.

Another way to see it is they themselves don't get anything done, in the end others do all the work.

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