In medieval and early modern Europe, where was the standard of living the best for peasants?

In medieval and early modern Europe, where was the standard of living the best for peasants?

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_commune
ourworldindata.org/human-height/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadtluft_macht_frei
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for early modern, the dutch. medieval depends on the era but probably italy

Al Andalus

I always forget about those.

First post correct post.

If you pick a random date like 1300, the answer is Netherlands, Italy.

France

The Netherlands and Northern Italy, by a very large margin.

The grave.

So, all ends up to pic related.

Likely Switzerland and the free cities of the HRE, Hansa towns and parts of today's Netherlands.

Wow look they had meager soup AND pots of fetid water. Olde Yurope is so noble and proud!

Switzerland was known as a poor, backwards country for centuries before there banks became very profitable.

I wouldn't call people who lived in the free cities peasants, they were free men with a "collective nobility", meaning they could form their autonomous communes in the cities.

They were better off in rural areas as cities were cess pools of diseases.

>working 16 hours a day 6 days a week
>sundays you eat nothing and take a long pilgrimage into the nearest village church
>work so hard you fuck your body up and cant grow past 4 feet in height
>life expectancy about 26 years

I think we can all agree the past a shit.

One of their common fight topics were taxes.
When taxes were asked the local authorities were the ones who had to raise them, and obviously, everyone tried to pay the less they could.
A popular way to do so was to overcharge the hamlets, after all, peasants living on the hamlets did not hold right to vote the town´s offices.
But that did not mean that the hamlets could not try to fight back asking for help into the Courts or to organize themselves to harm the towns interests.

>Osaka
>Japan had almost zero population growth between the 1720s and 1820s, often attributed to lower birth rates in response to widespread famine, but some historians have presented different theories, such as a high rate of infanticide artificially controlling population.
How are your katana and animal girl pillow collections going?

that was a bit hyperbolic wasnt it?
We know well that most worked less days per year than the modern human, most people reached a height of 5'5'' and lived well into their 50's and 60's. Yes, disease was prevelant and child mortality was very high, but please, we werent covered in mud and plagues all day long.

The standard of living was pretty ok untill around the 16-18th century when the population shot through the roof and the value of a job plummeted and we ended up sending our kids down into the coal mines.
Average height for men across europe has been a pretty steady 170cm (5'5'') for the last 2 millenias untill the early 1800's when it took a nosedive into the mid to lower 160's.(5'3''-5'4'' and shot up 20cm to 180cm (5'11'') average the last 150 years.

ourworldindata.org/human-height/

So something interesting happened around the 16th to 18th century when standards of living went to shits, but overall, we humans are good at making ourself as comfy as possible. Even rural peasents, but hollywood likes to portray the medieval europe as a cesspool of disease, death and early visit to the grave.

People used to get drunk during sunday church.

Probably not in Northern Europe especially in the beginning of the 13th century because of the cold climate and little ice age.

The best standard of living would be if you could become a land owning peasant or a yeoman

Scandinavia, maybe. They didn't have a lot of wars, were not effected by the Black Death, and gained political representation relatively early.

14th century*

Did Vatican II happen to remove that holy tradition from the Mass as well?

>were not effected by the Black Death
They were, 1/3 - 1/2 of the population died. You're thinking of Poland.
But yes, overall the population density was low so there were little fighting over resources, but then you have to account for the fact that majority of scandinavia is mountainous and most of the fertile lands is in the lowlands by the coasts. Plenty of fish though.

No the drinking during the mass happened in ancient roman times but was forbidden quickly afterwards because it was an abuse. Rich roman aristocrat Christians who hosted the mass at their property did that.

>>working 16 hours a day 6 days a week
That was only true in 18th and 19th centuries, in let's say 13th it was half that or less

wasnt the life expectancy actually pretty high if you made it through childhood?

and would anyone care about working 16h days if they didnt know any better

If you made it to 20 you had a good chance to make it to 60 or older.

I have two 17th century peasant ancestors who lived past 80 and while the 17th century wasn't exactly the Middle Ages rural conditions can't have differed that much.

i imagine people were somewhat more aware of hygiene by then so diseases wouldnt spread as easily

might be pulling this out of my ass though

Can't say I know of many medieval advances in the area of germ theory prior to the 19th century.

Though washing hands was customary in Europe for centuries.

>most people
You are describing the people with easy lives, available housing, ate meat regularly, and above average life expectancy.

Serfs in the Manor System did not live these idealized lifestyles you wewuzz about in your reactionary fantasies. They had a life expectancy of about 35 years due to poor diet and non stop hard labor. Dont forget asking permission to get married, or who you can marry. Dirt floors. And taxes out the asshole way worse than it is now. If you don't want to pay the baker tax they fucking kill you for using another bakery. Nobles, clergy, knights sticking their dicks in every hole god saw fit to drill in your family's slender frames.

Life expectancy was higher than in roman times

Life expectancy under the empire was 22 years old.

Many peasants died when the weather was too wet or too dry. If their crops didn’t grow, they didn’t have food to eat.

it fucking blew
wish all these medieval euro larpers got to experience it

>being forced to go work the fields and leave your 2 year old home unsupervised when thats the same way your last kid died.

Well it wasn't that bad all you did was have kids and work in a small community for your life, its the same thing as today except with big cities with more improved living conditions because of industrialization.

These always took infant mortality rates

That said, 50 was a good old age under the roman empire and 55-60 in medieval era.

Heres one thing OP, the rural country side prob held a healthier life

>They were better off in rural areas as cities were cess pools of diseases.
LMAAAAAAO
>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadtluft_macht_frei

"City-air makes one free."

>You are describing the people with easy lives,
And you keep describing a hollywood fantasy.

Serious question: how could we answer this question? What are the criterions? Even those who survived the Black Death could have had the best time of their life, fucking like rabbits while eating the surplus left. How do you measure happiness?

Timbuktu was very comfy. Always warm, cheap food, and plenty of sweet water to drink.

Medieval peasants only "worked" maybe 100 days out of the year, the rest of the time were holidays and smaller house chores.

People only ever worked that much during the industrialization, and even a modern work load would seem insane to a medieval peasant.

>>life expectancy about 26 years
That's the result of high child mortality. If a person reached adulthood, they stood a good chance of reaching an age of 60-70.

Medieval and early modern you dumbass

England.

this.

Was medieval London a free city or was it part of feudal structure?

women had almost no good orgasms back then, so life was awful

OGM BOBS ON CHET WILL U B MY Veeky Forums GURLFRENS

Women can't have orgasm.

Is there any point to listing life expectancy with infant mortality for ye olde times when it gets distorted so horribly? Wouldn't it be better to exclude infant mortality and list it alongside life expectancy? I mean it gives you a better picture of life by showing how many died before their first birthday and how long they'd live if they survived.

Londoners enjoyed some of the best law and order in the country, however this was to serve the elite who needed to foster a good environment for commerce. Successful merchants who rose above their station had to seek a patron or gain popular support to defend their interests or they would be eaten alive.

>Is there any point to listing life expectancy with infant mortality for ye olde times when it gets distorted so horribly? Wouldn't it be better to exclude infant mortality and list it alongside life expectancy? I mean it gives you a better picture of life by showing how many died before their first birthday and how long they'd live if they survived.

There's a point to it, but it mostly leads to confusion in understanding because it does completely distort the imagined walking-around life. It does give a picture of how depressing it must have been with all those dead babbies flying around.

heeyyy colmar

Pretty much anywhere after the black death

The ottoman empire around the agean was comfy and the peasantry had pretty good standards of living being far away from wars and famines.

>after the black death
Which one?

>Almogavares
potentially the most based light infantry of all time

What kinds of people lived in London?

This

"Oh its St. Stephen's day honey lets stay home and fucketh."

"Oh its the sabbath we must go to mass then come home and fucketh."

"Oh its winter now, can't farm anything and its cold. Lets stay inside and fucketh."

>Where can I learn more about citizens versus peasants?

Eugene Weber's "From peasants to frenchmen"

Easy Italy. Part of the spice trade. Over there, they don't even teach a dark medieval ages.

>Little Ice Age hits SwedenNorway like a truck
>Denmark is in constant wars due bordering Sweden, Baltic, easy sea path to central europa and bordering most of Germania. only kept competitive from reasonable farmland and good sea trade
>Black Death kills 2/3 of Norways population, almost as bad in Denmark and Sweden
>Iceland has extremely harsh weather and seasons, due weak climate for growing crops
>Finland is too far north to have reasonable crops. Just like how most of Russia is living alongside inland rivers, to live far down south
Scandi is fine. Sure, its harsh, but its also somewhat peaceful compared to what bordering actual city states is like.

"Childhood" is relative.
Most people died as kids.
Then teenagers. Who pumped out kids to avoid extinction.
Then whoever made it into their 30s where old people.
And those who made it past their 30s became old fucks, so old they where living trees and earned respect from age alone.
A bonus point is that if people die regularly, you can advance in ranks from aging alone, so the old person will also be a head of something, as long as he isn´t senile.

I would not like to live in Norway. Black plague killed almost half, the little ice age meant that it was even colder than now. Commonplace for some families to die altogether by starvation before spring. It's kingdom went to denmark because of how fucking poor the state was, the royalty had a strike among the few servants in the last few years, because they constantly had not enough to pay for their upkeep. Life here was suffering before the modern age.

why did everything go to shit during the industrialization, why did they have to work 16 hours a day?

Because theres shit to do all the time.

Winter was supreme comfy though. It was only during growing season that people were busy, particularly during planting and harvest.

So society was mostly twenty-somethings? Sounds awful.