Why the Middle Ages weren't really so bad as we imagine

[momopi]

"The peasant's free time extended beyond officially sanctioned holidays. There is considerable evidence of what economists call the backward-bending supply curve of labor -- the idea that when wages rise, workers supply less labor. During one period of unusually high wages (the late fourteenth century), many laborers refused to work "by the year or the half year or by any of the usual terms but only by the day." And they worked only as many days as were necessary to earn their customary income -- which in this case amounted to about 120 days a year, for a probable total of only 1,440 hours annually (this estimate assumes a 12-hour day because the days worked were probably during spring, summer and fall). A thirteenth-century estime finds that whole peasant families did not put in more than 150 days per year on their land. Manorial records from fourteenth-century England indicate an extremely short working year -- 175 days -- for servile laborers. Later evidence for farmer-miners, a group with control over their worktime, indicates they worked only 180 days a year."


My aunt's family is from Brazil and her parents owned a ranch. One issue they had with ranch-hands (laborers) was that the workers would come and work when they needed money, and as soon as they made enough, they'd quit and go off somewhere. When the money runs out, they come back and ask for a job. If this kind of lifestyle appeals to you, I guess it's still possible to do in Brazil today.

However, for farmers who worked on their land, the folks who are writing all this crap about how the farmer only has to work for XXX days and get to laze about has no real understanding of farm work. To start, you must care for your farm animals daily. There is no "non-working day". Just because it's winter doesn't mean that you can skip feeding, watering, and shoveling manure.

[abcdavid01]

http://www.gourmetbritain.com/food-ency ... val-times/

Right up until the end of mediaeval times all animals were expected to forage for themselves for most of the year, under the guidance of a neatherd, shepherd, swineherd or goatherd.

[momopi]

http://www.gourmetbritain.com/food-ency ... val-times/

Right up until the end of medieval times all animals were expected to forage for themselves for most of the year, under the guidance of a neatherd, shepherd, swineherd or goatherd.

During the months when animals might be able to forage for themselves, the farmer is also busy with haymaking, gathering straws, and foraging for animal feed. Otherwise you have no hay/straw for your cow/horse and no acorn for your hogs in winter. Cows need to be milked and if you wanted to fatten up meat animals before the slaughter, you need to feed them more than what they can forage. Look, attending to farm animals is one of the first choirs of the day on a farm. Even in winter you must get up in the morning to feed, water, and clean after your animals. A horse is like a popping machine. These are only a few of the numerous work that must be done around the farm year-round.

I attended school in Fullerton area in 1990, and some of my friends were the last generation of children from old Fullerton families that bought their kids horses. One girl is from a family of 3 girls and the parents gave them a horse each to keep them out of trouble. None of the girls got knocked up before marriage because they spent considerable amount of time tending to their horses daily. Feeding, watering, mucking out, grooming, hoof cleaning, exercise, etc. The horse eats from one end and poops from the other continuously, 7 days a week, 365 days a week. In parts of Asia today you'd still find poorer farmers live in 2-story homes where the animals are brought in to sleep on the ground floor at night.

[abcdavid01]

I get what you're saying, but cows and horses were expensive during the Middle Ages. Most farms didn't even have horses then. They were used for cavalry.

I still think the wider point holds. Technology may advance, but social organization doesn't. It's too diffuse in its goals. Some people are very happy with the sociopolitical order, be it national or global. Most here probably aren't. There's a lot of good to be learned from the past despite what "progressives" running the media and schools would have us believe. Conservatives are accused of wanting to go back to the 1950's. I'm someone who would go as far as questioning Enlightenment ideals.

[fschmidt]

It's pretty hard to argue about economics. Even if people worked less in the Middle Ages, which I am not sure of, they certainly had less comfort. I think it's hard to find an economically better time than America in the 1940s-1950s.

But I am more interested in culture anyway. My impression of the Middle Ages is that they were highly immoral. The Canterbury Tales come to mind. I haven't read The Decameron but it sounds similar. So I would ask for some original source material showing any morality from this time. There is plenty of morality to be found in the writings of most rising cultures.

[Cornfed]

I think it's hard to find an economically better time than America in the 1940s-1950s.

Except that the economy then was and unsustainable suicide cult based on exponentially increasing consumption of scarce natural resources and robbing future generations.

[gsjackson]

I think it's hard to find an economically better time than America in the 1940s-1950s.

Except that the economy then was and unsustainable suicide cult based on exponentially increasing consumption of scarce natural resources and robbing future generations.

No, the economy in the U.S. then was the muscle and sinew of the post-war world -- a vigorous manufacturing nation in which labor and government served as an effective counterweight to capital, and characterized by some of the most equitable distribution of wealth any nation has seen. Long gone now, of course.

[Ghost]

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[gsjackson]

It was unsustainable, but that was toward the start of the ride. Now things are winding down. It was always a bad idea and could never have been sustained, but there were really good times at the beginning of it.

What was unsustainable and a bad idea? The pressure put on corporations from President Eisenhower on down to be good citizens concerned with the well being of their employees and of the communities in which they were located? The strong labor unions that brought the stick toward this end when the carrots didn't work? The steeply progressive tax system that had the wealthy paying a fair share? The strict regulation of the financial sector?

These and many other characteristics of the economic era were policy choices, and they were reversed by alternative policy choices made by subsequent regimes. There was nothing inevitable about that.

[fschmidt]

What was unsustainable and a bad idea? The pressure put on corporations from President Eisenhower on down to be good citizens concerned with the well being of their employees and of the communities in which they were located? The strong labor unions that brought the stick toward this end when the carrots didn't work? The steeply progressive tax system that had the wealthy paying a fair share? The strict regulation of the financial sector?

These and many other characteristics of the economic era were policy choices, and they were reversed by alternative policy choices made by subsequent regimes. There was nothing inevitable about that.

That's right.

[Ghost]

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[Winston]

Why do they call the Middle Ages as "The Dark Ages"? What does that mean? Was there really a "dark age"? Aren't we living in a dark age now?

Weren't people in the Middle Ages more authentic and natural than now? Did they have fake smiles or isolating lifestyles?

For some reason, I find myself drawn to Medieval and Renaissance music, as if they bring me a sense of nostalgia. Perhaps I lived during those times in a past life. In my Tune In Android app, there are radio stations under "Early Music" that I listen to, such as Ancient FM.

I'm the only one I know that still likes classic music, especially medieval music. I wonder why people nowadays don't like classical music anymore. I heard lots of classical radio stations have closed down too.

[Cornfed]

Why do they call the Middle Ages as "The Dark Ages"? What does that mean?

The early Middle Ages (from an Anglocentric view, between the Romans leaving Britain and the Norman conquest or thereabouts) are called Dark Ages because we have much less information about that time in the way of a written record than we have of the periods before and since.

[Winston]

Why do they call the Middle Ages as "The Dark Ages"? What does that mean?

The early Middle Ages (from an Anglocentric view, between the Romans leaving Britain and the Norman conquest or thereabouts) are called Dark Ages because we have much less information about that time in the way of a written record than we have of the periods before and since.

Really? I thought the reason they were called "The Dark Ages" was because science and reason came to a standstill during that era. At least that's what Atheists and anti-Christians claim.

Why was the history of that time not recorded?

Was the Inquisition exaggerated? What does the evidence show?

[Cornfed]

Why was the history of that time not recorded?

Because the Roman Empire collapsed, cities were abandoned, centralized means of collecting information ceased, and largely illiterate rural Germanic tribes took over. It was the age of decentralization. But surely you know this?

Was the Inquisition exaggerated? What does the evidence show?

Yes it is, but in any case it came several centuries later than what an Anglo would call the "Dark Ages".