Would you like to have lived in the Middle Ages?
Not me – if I had any doubts, they would have been utterly dispelled by my reading of “Medieval Britain: A Very Short Introduction” [my review here].
It was a time of terrible social and personal turmoil: regular civil wars, endless conflicts with France; famine, disease and plague, domination of the Church, a preoccupation with damnation. If I’d managed to stay alive, none of my favourite interests would have been open to me: no printed books, no radio or television, no films, no Internet, few desserts, and no chances for international travel (except on the Crusades).
January 17th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
Ah, but Roger, you wouldn’t have known what you were missing. It would have all seemed perfectly normal (though we would probably both have been dead by now given the poor life expectancy)…what a thought.
I too am glad I exist now and not then!
January 17th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
OK, Sharon, let’s put it this way: if they invent a time machine, medieval Britain will not be my first destination.
January 18th, 2009 at 12:04 am
Maybe we can blame the Victorians for romanticizing the Middle Ages in their art and literature. Have you ever read Michael Crichton’s book Timeline? In that book, the characters manage to create a device to transport them to parallel universes, one of which is in the Middle Ages still. They go, and someone gets killed in the first five minutes. And that’s probably the most realistic fiction about the Middle Ages I’ve read! Still, I think I’d be too curious not to check it out.
Did the book say anything about Plague survivors? I heard a theory that one reason we don’t have as many problems with it is that over time, survivors built up an immunity to it, and we carry that immunity, but I’m not sure I didn’t just make that up, thinking I had read it.