Daily Life in the Middle Ages: Reality versus Myth

 

The Middle Ages, roughly the 5th to the late 15th century, are portrayed as centuries of darkness, ignorance, and filth popularly referred to as the "Dark Ages." 

Medieval folk are typically portrayed in Hollywood films and fantasy literature as dirty peasants, obedient serfs, or rampaging knights who live in dilapidated castles. 

This portrait is only partly true and fails to convey the entire and rich diversity of life in this thousand-year period.

Here, we will separate myths from facts or realities and explore the realities of daily life in the Middle Ages and how men lived, worked, ate, learned, and interacted during the centuries that were far more complicated and diverse than the popular image.

Myth 1: Everyone Was a Poor, Filthy Peasant

The Myth:

The overall image of medieval individuals is one of a dirty, toothless peasant tilling fields, bathing rarely, and living in wretched squalor.

The Reality:

While the majority of medieval Europe's populace consisted of peasants, things were not always so in terms of location, time, and social class. 

Besides, the image that everyone was dirty and miserable at all times is not realistic.

• Peasants did exist in simplicity, but they were usually low on hygiene. People washed their hands and faces often and bathed as often as they could. Bathhouses were communal in cities and towns until communal bathing became problematic after the Black Death.
• Houses were plain and often made of wood with straw roofs. They could be smoky and cramped but not necessarily dirty by standards of the time.
• Diet included bread, cereals, vegetables, and occasionally meat or milk. They were not starving but did have seasonal shortages and famines.

The stereotype overlooks the reality that peasants also had close community relationships, religious lives, and even time for leisure during holidays and festivals.

Myth 2: The Middle Ages Were a Time of Constant War and Violence

The Myth:

The majority picture the medieval period as being perpetually in arms, with knights engaging each other daily and peasants living amidst perpetual upheaval.

The Reality:

While the Middle Ages were in fact home to numerous conflicts (the Crusades, the Hundred Years' War, and Viking raids, to name a few), the majority of citizens lived peaceful, agrarian lives away from the front line.

• War was mostly suffered through by the nobility and their retainers. Most peasants were not soldiers.
• Extended durations of peace allowed agriculture, business, and cultural life to flourish.
• The Church popularized peace movements, such as Peace of God and Truce of God, to limit violence.

Conflicts at the local level tended to be solved through village courts and communal laws rather than sheer force in most places.

Myth 3: People Believed the Earth Was Flat

The Myth:

One of the oldest myths is that individuals in the Middle Ages thought that the Earth was flat until Columbus proved it wrong.

The Reality:

There were learned men in the Middle Ages who were aware that the Earth was spherical. 

This knowledge was available as far back as the ancient Greeks and was preserved by learned men in the Middle Ages.

• There were clerics, scholars, and sailors who believed in a spherical Earth.
• Works of Boethius, Isidore of Seville, and Thomas Aquinas assumed Earth's roundness.
• The myth that the common belief in a flat Earth was actually prevalent was popularized during the 19th century as a means to tarnish the Middle Ages as ignorant.

What people did argue over was the size of the Earth and what the unexplored lands beyond their known world were like.

Myth 4: There Was No Science or Progress

The Myth:

The Middle Ages are also held to be an intellectual wasteland between classical antiquity's brilliance and the Enlightenment.

The Reality:

The Middle Ages actually were a period of heightened intellectual ferment, first among monasteries and eventually the universities.

• Medieval scholars translated and preserved Ptolemy, Aristotle, and Hippocrates' works from Greek and Arabic sources.
• The scientific method was developing in the 13th century with the likes of Roger Bacon and Albertus Magnus.
• Advances were also made in architecture, farming, and mechanics like:

1. The heavy plow
2. Three-field crop rotation
3. Mechanical clocks
4. Gothic cathedrals with flying buttresses and stained glass

Science was not yet dormant despite being often intertwined with theology.

Myth 5: Life Expectancy Was Only 30 Years

The Myth:

Most people think that individuals in the Middle Ages survived to only around 30 years of age.

The Reality:

Average life expectancy was low by today's standards, but this is distorted by high infant mortality rates.

• If one lived through childhood, they might survive into their 50s or even 60s.
• There were many kings, queens, monks, and ordinary people who lived well into old age.
• There was limited medical knowledge, and there were plagues, but people were not predestined for short lives.

The fallacy results from the combination of infant mortality with adult mortality within statistical measures.

Myth 6: Women Had No Rights or Agency

The Myth:

Women during the Middle Ages are generally assumed to have had no rights or agency whatsoever and existed completely under male domination.

The Reality:

Women were less right-holding than men, but their agency and influence were more complex than generally assumed.

• Noblewomen likely governed estates, especially where husbands were at war.
• Women owned businesses, brewed beer, spun, and acted as midwives, and worked in markets.
• Several women became influential religious leaders—abbesses ruled over vast convents and lands.
• Women like Hildegard of Bingen and Eleanor of Aquitaine were culturally and politically influential.

Patriarchal marriage law and social convention did exist, but women were not uniformly repressed or erased.

Myth 7: The Church Suppressed All Dissent and Thought

The Myth:

The Middle Ages are traditionally represented as being a time when the Church suppressed all intellectual freedom and burned anybody who had new thoughts.

The Truth:

The Catholic Church was strong, and heresy was punished, especially in later centuries. 

But the Church also supported education, science, and art.

• Monasteries preserved classical books and educated clerics and nobles.
• Universities in Paris, Bologna, and Oxford were founded by Church leaders.
• Theologians like Aquinas harmonized reason and faith.

Heresy trials and inquisitions took place, but intellectual life continued within and sometimes beyond the boundaries of orthodoxy.

Myth 8: Everyone Was Uneducated and Illiterate

The Myth:

It's widely assumed that literacy just didn't exist in the Middle Ages except among clergy.

The Reality:

While literacy was low compared to today, many people were literate, especially in cities and among clergy, merchants, and nobles.

• Latin was the language of education, but English, French, and German vernacular literature had emerged by the 12th century.
• Chivalric romances, devotional sermons, and mystical writings were some of the popular works.
• Literature was laboriously copied out by hand until the invention of the printing press in the 15th century, which made literature more widely available.

Educational opportunities were expanding by the later Middle Ages, especially with the expansion of towns and guilds.

Myth 9: Castles Were Always Gloomy Fortresses

The Myth:

Castles tend to be depicted in common culture as bleak, gray stone prisons.

The Reality:

Castles were not only defensive locations, but houses, courtrooms, and administrative centers.

• Interior rooms held tapestries, carpets, and wooden furnishings.
• Banquets, feasts, and music were common entertainment pursuits.
• Gardens, falconry, and tournaments were included in the life of aristocracy.

Castles showcased the lord's wealth and refinement and were often colorful centers of medieval society.

Ultimately: A More Nuanced View

The Middle Ages weren't just a time of darkness and ignorance. 

They were a complicated, evolving period of religious observance, intellectual ferment, social change, and artistic innovation. 

Daily life was vastly varied based on class, geography, and time. 

While privations abounded war, disease, and inequality the citizens of the Middle Ages also loved, learned, worked, played, and believed in a better future.