The daily life of a medieval king • Hacker News Board

Re: The daily life of a medieval king

#111

Post by crabbone » Mon, Jul 21, 2025, 2:52 PM 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…

With how many times you find: "horse and man fell to the ground", and "he smote him such a buffet", and "armed himself at all points", "hauberk covered in blood" and so on... I'd think that life expectancy wasn't exactly great...

Wasn't Arthur alone responsible for the untimely death of like a dozen kings? :)

Re: The daily life of a medieval king

#112

Post by GuB-42 » Mon, Jul 21, 2025, 2:53 PM UTC

game_the0ry wrote: post #91

From the looks of it, a medieval king spent more time with his subjects that a typical US congressman spends with his constituents -- rather, they tend to spend more time at dinner parties with lobbyists and donors. In fact, the only time I here from my congressional rep is when I get texts asking for more money.

Much lower population, and you had to see the king in person, travelling at walking speed. It means the king could afford to listen to the comparatively few people who get to him.

Among these people are probably a good number of what would be called lobbyists today.

Re: The daily life of a medieval king

#113

Post by dylan604 » Mon, Jul 21, 2025, 2:53 PM UTC

eviks wrote: post #62

antonvs wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No refrigeration either, so you're limited to seasonal availability. Well, except for food preserved via pickling, salting, drying, smoking, fermenting, sugaring, and confit. Which makes for quite a long list. Plus, various foods like grains, root vegetables, onions, and even apples could be stored for months using proper techniques. They didn't have the luxury we have of not paying much attention to how we store t…

> pickling, salting, drying, smoking, fermenting, sugaring, and confit. Which makes for quite a long list None of which preserves the taste/nutrition well for a wide range of foods like greens/fruits/vegetables, you the limits in seasonal availability don't get resolved

There's a difference of being a bougie bitch expecting to have fresh greens in the dead of winter with a meter of snow on the ground and being thankful you stored the fall's harvest in such a way that you have food to last until that meter of snow has melted. Maybe they could have utilized green houses earlier, but when did it become practical to make clear sheets of glass?

Re: The daily life of a medieval king

#114

Post by dartharva » Mon, Jul 21, 2025, 2:58 PM UTC

teleforce wrote: post #61

The author is Christine de Pizan, an Italian-born (Venice) French court writer [1]. Fun facts, Christine married at the age of 15, now will be considered by both Italian and French law as an illegal underage marriage. The marriage was, by all accounts, a happy one [2]. She had 3 children from the marriage to Etienne du Castel, (a royal secretary) for about ten years, remained widow after her husband's death. Christin…

[flagged]

Re: The daily life of a medieval king

#115

Post by dartharva » Mon, Jul 21, 2025, 3:02 PM UTC

mseepgood wrote: post #43

So he only did four hours of actual work per day.

Which is still way more than most political elites of today do..

Re: The daily life of a medieval king

#116

Post by Telemakhos » Mon, Jul 21, 2025, 3:02 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #48

pjc50 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wo…

Addendum: food security was assured, food choice was very restricted by modern standards. Remember the medieval period is pre-Colombian exchange, so no potatoes, no tomatoes, no peppers. Some spices, but a different range to what modern palates are used to. No refrigeration either, so you're limited to seasonal availability. In the winter that means you're eating a lot of root vegetables and bread, even if as king yo…

I don't know where the "no painkillers" meme comes from, but opium's been around forever and is among the easiest drugs to harvest: just lightly score the poppy seed pod and collect the latex. It was as known and available in the middle ages as in the ancient Greek world.

https://www.neurology.org/doi/10.1212/WNL.92.15_supplement.P...

Alcohol, though, is great for dissolving opium into an easily ingestible potion, whence one gets dwale or laudanum.

Re: The daily life of a medieval king

#117

Post by psunavy03 » Mon, Jul 21, 2025, 3:07 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #48

pjc50 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wo…

Addendum: food security was assured, food choice was very restricted by modern standards. Remember the medieval period is pre-Colombian exchange, so no potatoes, no tomatoes, no peppers. Some spices, but a different range to what modern palates are used to. No refrigeration either, so you're limited to seasonal availability. In the winter that means you're eating a lot of root vegetables and bread, even if as king yo…

> A huge number of critical historical decisions were taken by people who would fail a breathalyzer.

[citation needed]

The idea that historically people went around hammered because the water supply was poor is a myth.

Re: The daily life of a medieval king

#118

Post by psunavy03 » Mon, Jul 21, 2025, 3:10 PM UTC

gampleman wrote: post #33

raincole wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

This "average life expectancy in the ancient world" thing is nothing more than an illustration of when to pick the median over the mean because the data is skewed by outliers.

Re: The daily life of a medieval king

#119

Post by biophysboy » Mon, Jul 21, 2025, 3:22 PM 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…

You might be interested in "A Distant Mirror" by Tuchman

Re: The daily life of a medieval king

#120

Post by whamlastxmas » Mon, Jul 21, 2025, 3:24 PM UTC

dartharva wrote: post #114

teleforce wrote: post #61

The author is Christine de Pizan, an Italian-born (Venice) French court writer [1]. Fun facts, Christine married at the age of 15, now will be considered by both Italian and French law as an illegal underage marriage. The marriage was, by all accounts, a happy one [2]. She had 3 children from the marriage to Etienne du Castel, (a royal secretary) for about ten years, remained widow after her husband's death. Christin…

[flagged]

It’s a fun fact because it’s different from current society, and it’s nice to highlight that something now viewed as abuse was not, at the time for her specifically, a traumatic situation according to her public records. Obligatory “just because it wasn’t traumatic for her doesn’t mean that wasn’t overwhelmingly the case for others”