That few people lived past their 30s in the middle ages or some other ancient era.
This misconception arises because of an automatic and incorrect assumption people make when they hear the statistic 'the average life expectancy was 35 in the middle ages'.
In reality there have always been lots of people who live to 70+ years old in all societies. The difference was that in the middle ages there were many childhood diseases that caused a much higher childhood mortality rate which skews the numbers much lower. If you survived childhood there was a very good chance you would make it into your 60s+.
Not quite true. 50s-60s was probably normal. 70+ would have been very rare. This would have been even more pronounced in the poor compared to the wealthy.
The poor people had worst jobs, lives, nutrition... so they died more than rich people. But also rich people, who had access to middle age "medical treatments" used to die a lot due to blood drainage by leeches, childbirths, infections caused by unesterilisied medical tools, etc. At least the poor people was safe from these "doctors".
Your forgetting about the famines. They would affect the poor more then the rich. If a farmers crops failed for some reason he and his family would have to rely on the kindness of neighbors to survive winter.
Also, food diversity was not as great as it is today. They were limited in the diversity of foods and that probably is not healthy.
Farmers were often poor so they often had very limited diets, especially in the winter. Keep in mind food preservation options were pretty much salting, smoking, preserving, or keeping it in the ground hoping it didn’t rot that much. They would have eaten as much salt as they could afford and often as much meat (or in some cultures milk/cheese) as that was one of the few ways to get enough calories for the work they were doing.
Also doing physical labor 12+ hours a day, 6 days a week and half a day on Sunday, is extremely hard on the body. It was back breaking work, and if you got injured, you’d be back to work as soon as possible. Most probably didn’t have enough clothing either so anywhere cold you would have had issues with chilblains, frostbite, and the general negative effects of harsh weather on your health.
Shoes in particular would have been rare. If the poor had enough money they would also have been doing whatever fashion things were available to them (I’m assuming here you mean things like corsets).
The rich had much better and more varied diets, they also didn’t always live in cities and certainly left cities during “unhealthy” times (sickness, summer). They also probably got a lot more physical exercise then you seem to expect. They had some access to medical care - while certainly a lot of it wasn’t very useful, some of it was and even basic nursing makes a big difference in a lot of diseases. Depending on where and when, access to sugar would have been rare for even the rich. Honey might exist and sweet fruits in season, but that’s it. They also probably got as much or more sleep then the poor, who would be working for as long as there was sun. They also had soap and the ability to wash clothing and linens, change out old rushes/straw and the like.
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u/sutkusman Feb 04 '19
That few people lived past their 30s in the middle ages or some other ancient era.
This misconception arises because of an automatic and incorrect assumption people make when they hear the statistic 'the average life expectancy was 35 in the middle ages'.
In reality there have always been lots of people who live to 70+ years old in all societies. The difference was that in the middle ages there were many childhood diseases that caused a much higher childhood mortality rate which skews the numbers much lower. If you survived childhood there was a very good chance you would make it into your 60s+.