I would have made an excellent medieval peasant for the following reasons, and I urge you strongly to consider my application:
1. I hate washing my hands
2. I honestly believe that attractive people are more valuable than I am and would willingly serve them; it is legitimately not difficult to convince me that well-dressed people with shiny hair require my assistance and I owe it to them to be useful
3. I get scared when I wake up in the middle of the night and would welcome being surrounded by dogs and all my family members and a bunch of servants as I slept
4. I love bread so that’s no problem there
5. It would take about four days of intense farm labor to burn the modern sass and feminism right out of my; my instinct for self-preservation is stronger than literally every single one of my values, and I would gladly abandon them in order to fit in. Like if you needed to know about a feudal revolt that was coming up, I would turn in every single villein interested in establishing basic labor rights, without question
6. I LOVE FITTING IN
7. I honestly don’t understand how diseases work and could easily be talked into venerating the sun
8. I have great teeth, no cavities
9. I’m happy to sift or loom whatever
10. I know how to read but if that’s a problem I will happily pretend not to and renounce literacy as witchcraft, no problem at all
11. I’ve never been pregnant but I feel like I’d be super good at it, also I would be super good at keeping it a secret if the lord of the manor wanted to borrow me from my peasant husband for a sex a few times a month
12. Not to brag but I’m pretty okay at starting a fire if someone coaches me through it, so I could probably keep the house warm through the winter
13. I would have no problem carrying oversized flagons of foaming, nut-brown ale to various warriors throughout the mead-hall
14. I’m good at paying enough attention in church that people feel like I’m happy to be there but not so much attention that people start to think I think I’m better than them
15. I hate two things: urbanization and guild members. I know my place, for sure, and it’s stitching corn or whatever in a field
16. I have no interest in joining the emerging middle class
17. I don’t know how to swim
18. I know that you can use honey like a band-aid AND Neosporin, I learned that from a lifestyle blog, so I would be a pretty helpful doctor
19. I’m not allergic to anything except I think sometimes shrimp which shouldn’t be a big problem
20. I’m almost 5’8 so people would definitely want to mate with me, for more peasants
Thank you for your time.
Tags: history, humor, medieval getting used pretty loosely here, not all medieval stereotypes may be 100% accurate, the middle ages
I like to think that I could hold out for longer than four days before burning away all my sass, but I would probably have an epic meltdown on day two and end up being burned as a witch.
ETA – Assuming I didn’t die of dysentery within the first 48 hours, which is significantly more likely to happen.
I just literally thought to myself, “was dysentery invented yet?”
I have good wide hips, and sturdy legs, and thick ankles not prone to injury, so I would be excellent at any job that required long hours of trudging.
I can happily survive on a diet of grains, rough bread and occasional gristly meat offcuts.
I’m a bit worried I’d be discovered as a witch though, considering I’m female, clever and I stick herbs on my injuries.
I like to imagine that my flimsy, sprain-prone ankles are a SURE SIGN of aristocracy. Plus you can see blue veins on my wrists. Where is my castle? Where is my demesne??
You can see blue veins on my super-delicate wrists, but I’m pretty sure that’s just being Irish.
Which means DOUBLE the peasantry!
Or descended from Brian Boru?
I like to tell myself that my sturdy Irish Peasant physique marks me out as being descended from some of the greatest irish chieftans, warriors and poets, because I can guarantee you none of them were tall and willowy, but probably short and stocky like me.
Wait, are there people who can’t see those veins?
Yes, many.
But I can see them all the way up into my palms, and also in my temples, my breasts, and my hips. But then, I don’t go outside.
My mind has been very minorly blown.
I too have flimsy, sprain-prone ankles, so I should obviously breed with someone who also has flimsy, sprain-prone ankles and we will produce a race of men whose feet are totally detached from their lower calves. WE SHALL RULE UPON THIS EARTH FOR ALL TIME.
reminded me of the terrible joke: how long should a man’s legs be? long enough to reach the ground (http://rakaposhi.eas.asu.edu/cse494/lincoln-query-woody-allen.pdf)
Unless you can fly, that is. (Definitely burned as a witch)
I’m female, clever and I stick herbs on my injuries.
The trick to surviving that one is to recite the Latin mass as you stick herbs on your injuries, and also to not have land that’s worth killing you over.
21. Super good at eating meat on sticks/bones/stickbones.
This reminds me of a conversation an old roommate and I would have on occasion. What kind of peasants would we have been? Her – tall, sturdy, strong, healthy, in possession of good childbearing hips = an in demand milkmaid/wife/mother of 14 children. Me – small, skinny, bad teeth, glasses, chronic cough = dead/ shipped off to the nunnery. We talked about this in great detail.
Oh, no. You’d never get to the nunnery. They took wealthy women because they got to claim their dowry! You had to buy your way in to most nunneries.
Unless of course you were abandoned on their doorstep as a tiny, sickly, bastard child.
Oh no! Definitely dead!
I forgot about how my dismal eyesight from the age of 8 will doom me in my peasant life.
Orrrr, you could turn it around and pretend your eyesight is poor because you have the gift of second sight, and your vision is crowded with spooks and wraiths and otherworldly things! Then become a trusted advisor to someone rich, and – oh wait, probably be put to death as a witch. Nope, sorry. You’re definitely screwed.
What you got to do is pretend to be blind, then get a friend to help you fake regaining your sight at some local shrine, and then you can become an anchoress or something.
Meh. Nearsightedness doesn’t stop you from spinning/weaving/sewing. Or cooking. Or giving birth/nursing.
I wish I could find a few The Name of The Rose gifs for this piece. Especially from the peasant’s shack!!!
A lack of Name of the Rose gifs is the biggest problem with the internet today.
That’s Amadeus, you can’t fool me!
just demonstrating the lack of evil F. Murray Abraham gifs from “Rose” on the net.
No joke, I sat down to read this while finishing my lunch of hard cheese, cold stewed meat, and mustard on bread and thinking “Man I eat like a medieval monk.” So clearly we’re on the same wave length here.
Maybe I should make a list for myself “…am comfortable in all-male environments and with not knowing what babies look like.”
I work at a tech company, so that’s good practice for my future as a medieval peasant in an all-male environment.
Why I would make a good monk
-I could live without hair on my head
-I practically live only on beer anyway
-I can rewrite books without changing them
-Great at cowering in towers while vikings attack
what am I saying I would totally give Viking hordes all the church silver in exchange for leniency
yeah, I…got some bad news about vikings.
TV wouldn’t lie to me, it;s all capturings by male models with undercuts and then possible threesomes, right?
Oh yeah probably, probably that’s like 90% of it.
kate beaton time: http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=254
😀
DAMMIT MONKDUDEwhosenameescapesme, why didn’t you take up the hot blonde couple on their threesome offer? WHY?
I would be a good monk because I refuse to take anything at face value and insist it must be a metaphor or contain complex religious meaning also I enjoy drawing funny animals in margins.”
#11, no shame.
I have terrible teeth and have long known that an abscess would spell my doom in Medieval times or the Apocalypse or whenever. The dentists have their cold fingers clutched around my soul.
I have terrible teeth AND terrible vision. I’d last a couple years, tops, til my teeth rotted out and/or my glasses broke (assuming I had time-traveled with my glasses or something, I don’t know). Medical specialists, I’m nothing without you.
My eyes used to be ok, but now have gone all to hell – possibly they’d be alright as Medieval eyes, but who cares, I’d be dead from tooth abscess.
Also, I love that your username is Rusalka – that was the title of my novel, but the publishers asked for a change, so now it’s probably The Daughters. (Which I also am quite happy with, because it sounds a bit creepy.)
Maybe those of us with terrible eyes could survive as seamstresses or weavers or something where you only have to look close up? Otherwise, dead in an instant. Put me out in the fields and I’d never see the wolves coming.
I am not really satisfied that medieval peasants had any great need for 20/20 vision.
Maybe if you’re tending a flock and need to be able to find the ones that wander away/see well enough to see they’re all there?
I think being BLIND would probably be a huge hassle in Peasant Dayes, but I’m pretty nearsighted and I still figure I could make out a sheep at a hundred paces.
“It’s a sheep, it’s a sheep, it’s a sheep, oh wait it’s a bundle of clothes and now my flock has run off BYE.”
(That would be me, given my horrific vision without medical interventionary devices.)
pfuh. it’s Peasant Dayes. I’m wearing all my clothes.
Thanks! I picked it long ago for a blog and it’s stuck around. Sometimes I worry that rusalki are overplayed, but then I remember that that’s probably only in the nerd-women circles I run in. Congrats on your novel!
I would be super good at taste-testing the lord of the manor’s food before any royal banquets. Nope, probably no poison here, but we should open that other flagon of mead next, just to be sure.
“I’m good at paying enough attention in church that people feel like I’m happy to be there but not so much attention that people start to think I think I’m better than them.”
Looking at you, Margery Kempe.
Fuck dying horribly, I can joust, wrangle horses, grow beets, live with no heat, and sword-fight with absolutely reasonable competency. I will not be put down.
On the other hand, stake-burning due to being absolutely shit at church and fitting in is definitely in the picture.
You can joust?
Cooooooool
it is a horrible, dangerous, unrecommended snobby thing.
do it the first chance you get, on bicycles if necessary.
Brilliant idea: what if we did it on bicycles (OR SEGWAYS) with those foam pool stick thingies? Doing that the VERY next time I get to the burbs.
Shopping cart jousting: also a most excellent pastime.
I am entirely down with the idea of drinking nothing but beer for the rest of my days, and will gladly assist or decry the local Protestant revolution as befits historical significance.
My teeth are terrible–just terrible!–but it’s all sugar’s fault. My teeth would be good to go in a world without transatlantic trade.
Also shorter life expectancy, so teeth had less time to go bad. On the other hand, brushing your teeth with a twig can’t be great for them. I’m assuming that’s what they did, I have not researched this at all.
People still do in some places, it actually works pretty well. You chew the end first so it’s splintered and softened, when I was kid we used to do it on camping trips with licorice root so it was even kind of tasty.
omg I used to love chewing on licorice root, maybe I would be a good Medievan after all
Why I would be a bad medieval peasant: I hate cows.
Actually, I feel like, based on the very elaborate methods I developed in order to get out of chores as a child (look, if we set up this system of pulleys and ropes, I won’t have to carry ANY firewood thirty feet to the backyard, we can just load it up and slide it down the ropes!), and how badly those methods actually worked (oh. those pulleys aren’t as sturdy as I’d assumed they would be), I would probably be the least popular medieval peasant of all.
“Guys, guys, guys. I am 100% positive that this will work. You just hook the cow’s udders up to these reeds, and you start pumping the bellows to turn that giant stone wheel, and bam! Fresh milk, no need to actually touch a cow! I am 90% about this one, guys. Definitely between 70 and 90%…70 and 80% sure. 75% sure. Around 75% sure.”
“Where did you learn what ‘percents’ are?”
“NEVERMIND”
You need to read (or listen to) “What We Were Trying To Do,” by Ron Carlson. It was on This American Life’s Fiasco episode. Transcript here (it is under the incorrect heading of “Car Wars”), audio here. If you’d like, if you haven’t already, of course.
I love that one. (It’s pretty much a solidly great episode, but Carlson’s act is a standout.)
On the other hand, I definitely feel like I could have invented rocket cats.
Hate them enough to punish them for heresy? ‘Cause we can work with that.
Oh, hey, I forgot that we could put animals on trial for committing crimes against God! Maybe there’s a place for me in the world of medieval peasantry, after all.
It’s got something for everyone! Especially diseases. Lots of diseases.
I think I definitely have the figure of a lusty barmaid, which sounds like an alright life as long as your boss isn’t too terrible/a rapist.
well, uh…I got some bad news about medieval bosses
Oh! Right! I could be a nursemaid. I have big milk-producing facilities, like caring for babies, and my terrible eyesight ruins me for many other pursuits.
stitching corn or whatever
Yeah I have no stamina at ALL, so I’m pretty sure I’d make a terrible peasant. Although this may change now that I’m regularly eating meat again. I’m more suited to the life of a noble lady, sitting around making tapestries and eating swans.
YESSS stitching corn or whatever slayed me
I have always thought that my husband and I would be really great at running a small inn in some roadside town. Basically I cook an amazing stew and my husband makes an excellent bed and a real big, long-burning fireplace fire.
The only bit of Lord of the Rings that I enjoyed (and I read all the books) is the bit where they stop at Inns and enjoy hospitality stew and ale and go to sleep early in order to be up early to do more whatever the thing is with the ring.
You’re hosting the next meetup, right?
My body bears the epigenetic markers of a long line of prosperous ancestors: tall and broad-hipped, have never broken a bone, no allergies. But I also have very generic northern European features/vaguely resemble a lot of people, so my people were also probably pretty inbred. My hazy grasp of genetics has led me to the unshakeable conclusion that I am nobility.
My best friend once described me as a descendent of a long line of people “who were cold, miserable, and ate cabbage all the time.” I would add, “also selecting for wives who could finish the plowing when the ox died.” In other words, I’m six feet tall, look vaguely Northern European, and will, with malice aforethought, add cabbage to anything because I love cabbage (my best friend doesn’t*).
* On the other hand she has the luminous pallor of the truly noble
I have coeliac disease. The Medieval period is not for me.
“Well if you just tried to eat Paleo, I’m sure you’d get over it!”
Said every irritating person ever.
Haha I have this like weird fantasy where some archeology/nutrition historians get unequivocal evidence that in the paleo period people ate rice noodles and then all the paleo restaurants have to rethink their menus.
I would be so happy.
So, so happy.
(I work with archaeologists, I’ll have them get to work on this immediately.)
OMG please make this happen. If the archaeologists do nothing else this year, if they find no dinosoars, let this be the great discovery of 2014. My favourite would be if they found Paleo people feasted regularly on some kind of highly processed carb like a potato chip of some sort, that had nitrates in it or some shit.
I have diabetes, and one of the first thoughts in my 10-year-old brain when I was diagnosed was, “if I’m ever stranded on an island or sent back in time or kidnapped, I will be gone within a fortnight.”
Celiac disease, bad vision and a propensity to snap my bones in half. I would have been left by the side of the road!
Maybe you and I could have become stuffed dolls for Mallory and others with a propensity to excel in the Medieval period.
I can eat bread all damn day, but I don’t want to live in a world where I can’t spread nutella on it.
And yet not too far away is the time when you won’t live in a world where you can, assuming you’re eating nutella all day too.
I know how to dry fruits and herbs
I know how to reconstitute dried fruits and herbs
I know how to make cheese
I know how to dye with natural dyes (including sage and goldenrod, which I think grow in England)
I am not afraid of eating very old food if it’s preserved correctly
I know that plantain leaves can be used to stop bleeding
I know the difference between a sheep and a goat
I can start a fire from yesterday’s ashes
I can weave (sort of)
I can pick up a chicken
I know the difference between a cow and a calf and a heifer and an ox and a steer
I am accustomed to being cold
SCIENTISTS OF THE FUTURE, INVENT TIME TRAVEL ALREADY AND SEND ME BACK
plantain leaves as in like banana leaves?
No, plantain the thick leaf-like weed that grows among the grass. We think of it as a weed now, but settlers from Europe actually brought it for medicinal purposes.
“I can pick up a chicken” is my favorite here.
Chicken lifting was a popular medieval sport.
I know which plants a lot of common drugs were synthesized from, so I think I’d make a great alewife.
I’d have died a sickly, asthmatic child pretty early on, possibly before I was deemed viable enough to be worth naming. Good thing by the time I died mom would probably be pregnant again already.
I carry all fat in my stomach which means I have all sorts of insulation for freezing winters and/or famine.
I would have died in childbirth, literally. I bled so much with my first I had to go to the doctor at 4 weeks and get dosed with more pitocin. Modern medicine, you are my friend!
I would have kicked it at birth too. Ten days overdue, no contractions, picotin but my cervix never reached a 10, C-section with 10 lb baby. I imagine I would have wandered around just getting larger and larger until I literally popped.
“my instinct for self-preservation is stronger than literally every single one of my values” is the title of my autobiography.
Charter member of Team Sturdy here, plus I horse-whisper, so I’d like to submit my application for Weirdly Androgynous Stablehand.
The question remains is if we all become medieval peasants do we get to re-enact Christina Queen of Sweden.
Now that I think about it, my asthma problems (mostly resulting from a summer of custodial work in which nobody was given adequate protection from dangerous chemicals) and my chronic foot pain (damn you, sidewalks and concrete floors) might not actually exist if I were a Medieval peasant.
I’d probably still die in childbirth/a farming accident/a random military skirmish, though.
A lifetime around horses; sturdy, flat feet; decent teeth; and the ability to smile, nod, and curtsy to my betters means I’d probably be valuable to some farmer type, right? Or, ooh, dreaming big.. a miller! I can cook, I have wide hips, and I don’t mind a grain based diet. Voila.
There’s not a T-shirt in the world that wouldn’t benefit from the following slogan ‘I can cook, I have wide hips, and I don’t mind a grain based diet.’
Oh I’m also allergic to dairy. No hard cheese and rough bread for me. I think dietary requirements are the main thing from stopping me from leaving my 2014 life behind and becoming a Medieval because I think hessian is not that uncomfortable, and I’m down with wearing no bra, and I think I could easily become accustomed to bathing once a year unless it’s a leap.
How do you feel about a diet based primarily on turnips and weeds?
Not good, Alicia, not good. Did they even have salt? Yeah, it’s a no.
I think beans, lentils, and oatmeal were all available to peasants, though I guess the oatmeal might have been just as contaminated with gluten as some modern oatmeal. Dunno about salt. I mean, it was definitely available, but I don’t know if you’d have been able to afford it. Probably not.
Salt is pretty important in cheesemaking and meat preservation, so yes, I’d say you’d have salt.
Wait Google tells me it was pretty expensive so maybe not.
I feel like I would’ve been a shitty peasant, what with the wanting to read all the time sort of thing. I feel like I would’ve been kind of okay as the wife of a merchant or artisan whose vital contributions to my household’s success are overlooked by contemporaries and historians. I don’t mean contributions of the political kind either. I mean.. making jewelry, or keeping accounts and shit.
You could have become a nun. They learned to read, and also mane some very impressive handcrafts.
I would mostly definitely be burned as a witch the second I opened my mouth, but I feel like all the hard labor would be really good for my anxiety and depression. Someone get me a field to scythe!
I inexplicably refused to breastfeed as a baby, so I totally would’ve died as an infant as a result of my own stubbornness, which probably… says something about me.
I’ve spent my whole life so far in the south, I grew up in in a Southern Baptist household, and still managed to become a feminist. So I don’t think living in medieval times would change that. However, I’m very skilled at hiding it when I need to, and I never feel guilty about that, so I think that would keep me alive.
Growing up, my parents made sure I learned a number of survival skills including growing vegetables, lighting fires (and putting them out) and basic first aid. Also, I have wide hips, I’m 5’9″, and I know I’m actually descended from medieval peasants (occupational surname).
So if I somehow woke up in medieval wherever Europe — magically speaking whatever language, unaccented — with my current survival knowledge intact, I would be a very good — maybe even great — peasant. But I still would not want to.
Nope nope nope nope nope. I’ll keep my copious vaccines, suffrage, synthetic fabrics and nacho cheese-product, thanks. #priorities
“my instinct for self-preservation is stronger than literally every single one of my values”
To this point, I recall even as a YOUNG child (disturbingly young) thinking that the best defense against all potential monsters/murderers/ne’er do well’s was to immediately pretend to also be into their evil bullshit. As in, a murderer pops up in your bedroom: first move is to be all “WOW, you love to murder? Me too! I love to murder, it is my favourite thing. Instead of murdering me, why don’t we become murder friends? Love you!”
If you take “I LOVE FITTING IN” to the most extreme point, it basically turns into “I WILL BECOME EVIL TO SAVE MYSELF BECAUSE I AM ADDICTED TO BEING ALIVE.”
‘”WOW, you love to murder? Me too! I love to murder, it is my favourite thing. Instead of murdering me, why don’t we become murder friends? Love you!” ‘ This is amazing.
Bed bugs love me (maybe rats too) so I could ensure the survival of anything small that loves blood and lives in a straw bed. Plus I could keep that hacking cough all through the night – the one that started when I was 12 and before I knew to wear a coat in winter. Good teeth, love eating meat off the bone – no utensils required. Could be a big disappointment in the childbearing area.
I already venerate the sun, soooooo
I just literally thought to myself, "was dysentery invented yet?"
I was born with a cleft lip (a fairly minor one, but still), had really bad colic as a baby, and am very short-sighted. I am also a triplet and so probably would not have survived birth (especially as I am the third-born, so my mum would almost certainly be too exhausted to push me out after the first two). The mediaeval period is probably not for me. Which is a shame, as I have studied Old and Middle English (practiced reciting the Lord’s Prayer in Old English in case I went back in time and wanted to prove I wasn’t a witch! Although Latin might be better), am sturdy and good at carrying heavy things, and have good teeth. But no, I would be dead.
Mallory, I’ve canceled all your vacation time, and scheduled you for indefinite over time. Your sole purpose from now on is to write me Medieval themed humour. Occasional Classical themes are acceptable, but not particularly encouraged.
You’re funny; I like you.
You're funny; I like you.
I would be a terrible medieval peasant, largely on account of the poor eyesight, hypermobility syndrome, over-active imagination, questioning of authority, and homosexual tendencies. Oh, and the coeliac disease, unless the scaremongerers are right that it’s all this genetically modified wheat causing the problem? (Now there would be an experiment. IF I TRAVEL BACK IN TIME CAN I EAT BREAD.)
On the plus side, I study medieval Irish, which I’m sure must have SOME practical application.
I would be a terrible medieval peasant, largely on account of the poor eyesight, hypermobility syndrome, over-active imagination, questioning of authority, and homosexual tendencies. Oh, and the coeliac disease, unless the scaremongerers are right that it's all this genetically modified wheat causing the problem? (Now there would be an experiment. IF I TRAVEL BACK IN TIME CAN I EAT BREAD.)
On the plus side, I study medieval Irish, which I'm sure must have SOME practical application.