Medieval times what was life like

With time, such duties often became archaic. However, titles survived involving the ghosts of arcane duties. These styles generally dated back to the days when a noble household had practical and mundane concerns as well as high politics and culture. These positions include butler, confessor, falconer, royal fool, gentleman usher, master of the hunt, page, and secretary.

Elaborate noble households included many roles and responsibilities, held by these various courtiers, and these tasks characterized their daily lives. This involved a vernacular tradition of monophonic secular song, probably accompanied by instruments, sung by professional, occasionally itinerant, musicians who were skilled poets as well as singers and instrumentalists.

Women in the Middle Ages were officially required to be subordinate to some male, whether their father, husband, or other kinsman.

Widows, who were often allowed some control over their own lives, were still restricted legally. Three main activities performed by peasant men and women were planting food, keeping livestock, and making textiles, as depicted in Psalters from southern Germany and England.

Women of different classes performed different activities. Rich urban women could be merchants like their husbands or even became money lenders, and middle-class women worked in the textile, inn-keeping, shop-keeping, and brewing industries.

Townswomen, like peasant women, were responsible for the household and could also engage in trade. Poorer women often peddled and huckstered food and other merchandise in the market places or worked in richer households as domestic servants, day laborers, or laundresses. There is evidence that women performed not only housekeeping responsibilities like cooking and cleaning, but even other household activities like grinding, brewing, butchering, and spinning produced items like flour, ale, meat, cheese, and textiles for direct consumption and for sale.

An anonymous 15th-century English ballad described activities performed by English peasant women, like housekeeping, making foodstuffs and textiles, and childcare. Peasant household. An image of a peasant household, including a woman preparing cheese. Noblewomen were responsible for running a household and could occasionally be expected to handle estates in the absence of male relatives, but they were usually restricted from participation in military or government affairs.

The only role open to women in the church was that of a nun, as they were unable to become priests. During the first year of life children were cared for and nursed, either by parents if the family belonged to the peasant class, or perhaps by a wet nurse if the family belonged to a noble class.

By age twelve, a child began to take on a more serious role in family duties. Although according to canon law girls could marry at the age of twelve, this was relatively uncommon unless a child was an heiress or belonged to a family of noble birth. Peasant children at this age stayed at home and continued to learn and develop domestic skills and husbandry.

Urban children moved out of their homes and into the homes of their employer or master depending on their future roles as servants or apprentices. Inventors devised technologies like the pinhole camera, soap, windmills, surgical instruments, an early flying machine and the system of numerals that we use today. And religious scholars and mystics translated, interpreted and taught the Quran and other scriptural texts to people across the Middle East.

Crusaders, who wore red crosses on their coats to advertise their status, believed that their service would guarantee the remission of their sins and ensure that they could spend all eternity in Heaven. They also received more worldly rewards, such as papal protection of their property and forgiveness of some kinds of loan payments.

The Crusades began in , when Pope Urban summoned a Christian army to fight its way to Jerusalem , and continued on and off until the end of the 15th century. In , Christian armies captured Jerusalem from Muslim control, and groups of pilgrims from across Western Europe started visiting the Holy Land.

Many of them, however, were robbed and killed as they crossed through Muslim-controlled territories during their journey. Around , a French knight named Hugues de Payens created a military order along with eight relatives and acquaintances that became the Knights Templar , and they won the eventual support of the pope and a reputation for being fearsome fighters. They did make ordinary Catholics across Christendom feel like they had a common purpose, and they inspired waves of religious enthusiasm among people who might otherwise have felt alienated from the official Church.

They also exposed Crusaders to Islamic literature, science and technology—exposure that would have a lasting effect on European intellectual life. Another way to show devotion to the Church was to build grand cathedrals and other ecclesiastical structures such as monasteries. Cathedrals were the largest buildings in medieval Europe, and they could be found at the center of towns and cities across the continent.

Between the 10th and 13th centuries, most European cathedrals were built in the Romanesque style. Romanesque cathedrals are solid and substantial: They have rounded masonry arches and barrel vaults supporting the roof, thick stone walls and few windows. Around , church builders began to embrace a new architectural style, known as the Gothic. Gothic structures, such as the Abbey Church of Saint-Denis in France and the rebuilt Canterbury Cathedral in England, have huge stained-glass windows, pointed vaults and arches a technology developed in the Islamic world , and spires and flying buttresses.

In contrast to heavy Romanesque buildings, Gothic architecture seems to be almost weightless. Medieval religious art took other forms as well. Frescoes and mosaics decorated church interiors, and artists painted devotional images of the Virgin Mary, Jesus and the saints.

Also, before the invention of the printing press in the 15th century, even books were works of art. Craftsmen in monasteries and later in universities created illuminated manuscripts: handmade sacred and secular books with colored illustrations, gold and silver lettering and other adornments.

Convents were one of the few places women could receive a higher education , and nuns wrote, translated, and illuminated manuscripts as well. In the 12th century, urban booksellers began to market smaller illuminated manuscripts, like books of hours, psalters and other prayer books, to wealthy individuals.

If you are asked about the life of a peasant in the Middle Ages, here are ten things you could mention:. If you are asked about the life in a town in the Middle Ages, here are ten things you could mention:. A medieval town would seek a charter giving it the right to become a borough.

The rich merchants would then be allowed to choose a mayor and hold a market. Houses were made of a wooden frame, with the gaps filled with woven strips of wood, known as ' wattle ', and covered, or 'daubed', with clay and horse-dung. Most roofs were thatch. Medieval shops were workshops, open to the street for customers, with the craftsman's house above. Because few people could read, shops signs were a huge model showing the craftsman's trade. People of the same trade often worked in the same street.

The streets of a medieval town were narrow and busy. They were noisy, with the town crier, church bells, and traders calling out their wares. There were many fast food sellers, selling such things as hot sheep's feet and beef-ribs. Read more The larger towns had stone walls. Small towns often only had stone gates. They also had ditches and earth ramparts with wooden stockades on top. Most of the buildings in Medieval towns were of wood and fire was a constant danger.

Many English towns were devastated by fire in the Middle Ages. In towns in the Middle Ages, there were a host of craftsmen such as carpenters, bakers, butchers, blacksmiths, bronze smiths, fletchers arrow makers , bowyers bow makers , fullers who cleaned and thickened wool before it was dyed , dyers, potters, coopers, turners who turned wooden bowls on lathes and barber-surgeons who both cut hair, pulled teeth and performed operations.

Often craftsmen of the same kind lived in the same street. Most craftsmen had a workshop at the bottom of their house which doubled up as a shop. Behind they had a storeroom.

The craftsman and his family lived in the rooms above. Many people in towns kept animals as well. Craftsmen took in apprentices for money. The apprentice lived with the craftsman and his family and his apprenticeship might last 7 or 8 years.

At the end of it, the apprentice had to make a masterpiece to prove his skill. If it was good enough he was admitted to the guild. In the Middle Ages, craftsmen were organized into guilds. They fixed hours of work and the wages paid to apprentices. Moreover, guilds looked after their members in times of trouble like a sickness. Merchants had their own guilds. Guilds also put on plays called mystery plays. The word mystery is a corruption of the French word metier meaning job or trade.

The plays were based on Bible stories and were meant to instruct the people. However, there was nothing solemn about these plays. They contained lots of jokes. In the Middle Ages religion was an important part of everyday life for most people. All children were baptized unless they were Jewish and most people attended mass on Sunday. Mass was in Latin, a language that ordinary people did not understand. Bishops ruled over groups of parishes called dioceses. They usually came from rich families.

Bishops lived in palaces and often took part in government. Things were very different for parish priests. They were poor and often had little education. Parish priests had their own land called the glebe where they grew their own food.

They lived and worked alongside their parishioners. In the Middle Ages, monks and nuns gave food to the poor. They also ran the only hospitals where they tried to help the sick as best they could. They also provided hospitality for pilgrims and other travelers although as time went by there were an increasing number of inns where you could pay to stay the night. In a Medieval monastery, there was an almonry where food or money was given to the poor, the refectory where the monks ate, the dormitory, infirmary, and the cloisters where the monks could take exercise.

An almoner looked after the poor, an infirmarian looked after the sick and a hospitaller looked after visitors. In the Middle Ages, the Church ran the only hospitals. As well as the monks from the 13th century there were also friars. They took vows like but instead of withdrawing from the world they went out to preach. Franciscan friars were called grey friars because of their grey costumes. Dominican friars were called black friars. In the Middle Ages, most people were illiterate but not all.

Upper-class children were educated when they were pages. Among the poor, the better-educated priests might teach some children to read and write — a little. In many towns, there were grammar schools where middle-class boys were educated. They got their name because they taught Latin grammar. Boys worked long hours in the grammar schools and discipline was severe. Boys were beaten with rods or birch twigs. There were also chantry schools.

Some men left money in their wills to pay for a priest to chant prayers for their souls after their death. When he was not praying the priest would educate local children.

During the Middle Ages, literacy and learning gradually increased. By the 15th century, perhaps a third of the population could read and write. From the early 13th century England had two universities at Oxford and Cambridge. At them students learned seven subjects, grammar, rhetoric the art of public speaking , logic, astronomy, arithmetic, music, and geometry. In the late 11th century a school of medicine was founded in Salerno in Italy.

In the 12th century, another was founded at Montpellier. In the 13th century more were founded at Bologna, Padua, and Paris. Furthermore, many students studied medicine in European universities.

Medicine became a profession again. In the Middle Ages medicine was dominated by the ideas of Galen and the theory of the four humors.

Medieval doctors were great believers in bloodletting. Ill people were cut and allowed to bleed into a bowl. People believed that regular bleeding would keep you healthy. So monks were given regular blood letting sessions. Medieval doctors also prescribed laxatives for purging. Doctors also prescribed baths in scented water. They also used salves and ointments and not just for skin complaints. Doctors believed it was important when treating many illnesses to prevent heat or moisture from escaping from the affected part of the body and they believed that ointments would do that.

The color, smell, and even taste of urine were important. Astrology was also an important part of medicine in the Middle Ages. Doctors believed that people born under certain zodiacal signs were more susceptible to certain ailments. In the 13th century, a new type of craftsmen emerged in towns, the barber-surgeon. They cut hair, they pulled teeth and they performed simple operations such as amputations and setting broken bones.

In the Middle Ages, the church ran the only hospitals. Although often the only thing they could do was offer food and shelter. In many towns, monks and nuns cared for the sick as best they could.

Leprosy was a dreadful skin disease. Anyone who caught it was an outcast. They had to wear clothes that covered their whole body. They also had to ring a bell or a wooden clacker to warn people they were coming.