6 ms·

Yes, somehow when it comes to slave states, people tend to focus on the lifestyle of the slave masters rather than the great heap of humanity living in squalor

Yes, somehow when it comes to slave states, people tend to focus on the lifestyle of the slave masters rather than the great heap of humanity living in squalor to support them. In context though, I wonder if serfs really had it better. They still had no freedom to move, and in the early Middle Ages there was no appeal granted to serfs under a tyrannical lord.

brodo 5y ago
Yes although there where also some free farmers. As I understand it, the serfs had more power in the high middle ages than before and after, because the lords also lacked the resources for strong police forces. There was not a lot of metal around, so most soldiers did not have shields or armor. You and your serf buddies could realistically resist the local lord with some forks and knives. Plus the catholic church was also protecting serf's rights to an extend.
- zrail 5y ago
  Also keep in mind that during that period the Black Plague killed 30-60% of the population. Serfs had more power because there were dramatically fewer of them.
  - varjag 5y ago
    On the other hand if it took a plague to improve the standards of living it is fair to agree the baseline was quite abysmal.
    - zrail 5y ago
      Oh no doubt!
    - rufus_foreman 5y ago
      I don't think that argument makes sense. What's the country with the highest standard of living today? This says it's Canada: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/quality-of-life-rankings https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/quality-of-life-r.... If a plague wiped out 50% of the population of Canada, and wages went up afterwards, would that mean that the current standard of living in Canada is quite abysmal?
      - TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
        If a plague wiped out 50% of the population of the First World countries, wages wouldn't go up, they'd disappear entirely. The just-in-time supply chains that keep the lights on and food and other goods in the stores would fall apart within a couple of weeks. Medieval starvation was local. Areas were largely self-sufficient in the bare essentials - except in bad years, which happened regularly enough to keep a lid on population growth, but not so regularly they caused widespread depopulation. Trade was mostly for useful extras. That's very much not true today. Everything is specialised and interdependent, and not even farming areas are truly self-sufficient. This was - and possibly still is - the biggest risk from a pandemic. It's hard to calculate the exact tipping point, but when you have a certain percentage of the population unable to work for a couple of weeks or so, essential systems start breaking down.
        rufus_foreman 5y ago
        The "essential" system that broke down during the Black Plague was serfdom. If 50% of Canadians died next week, you think what, Canada would cease to exist?
        pbourke 5y ago
        > If 50% of Canadians died next week, you think what, Canada would cease to exist? It’s possible. Canada’s nearly broken up* in recent memory over regional differences. 50% of a population dying is a massively destabilizing event that could undo even a comparatively wealthy nation. * or at least its second largest province narrowly decided to stay in Confederation.
        whoaisme 5y ago
        Maybe it would? I mean if yyou're smart tell us how 50 percent of Canucks getting wiped out would play out. You act as if plenty of political entities didn't cease to exist because of the plague.
        dragonelite 5y ago
        We have seen the shock to the supply chain that happened during the early months of this pandemic.
  - brodo 5y ago
    The black plague started 1350. 1310 was the big famine. Late middle ages where no joke.
- lumost 5y ago
  I hadn't heard of a metal shortage during the middle ages ( only seen examples of heavy metal armor worn by nights ). Do you have a link to a resource to learn more about this?
  - robotomir 5y ago
    I think shortage of metal was a problem during the bronze age. Because bronze is easily recyclable, my theory is that the Late Bronze Age collapse happened when everyone had a sword. In the Iron age, it's not a question of availability, but of technology, how quickly can you provision a sword and a chainmail for everyone?
    - ProjectArcturis 5y ago
      Swords have always been a fairly rare weapon. Spears and pole-arms offer longer range at much lower cost, particularly in the context of massed infantry battles.
      - robotomir 5y ago
        What about armor?
        watersb 5y ago
        Armor is hard. It slows you down, and you can't hear or see as well as the guy coming up behind you. If you are trained well enough to be effective with metal armor, you're probably trained well enough to be effective without it in close quarters. Heavy plate requires mounted cavalry, but largely negates the maneuverability of horse, and can be brought down with foot trained with pikes or heavy spears. Maybe the metal was best used elsewhere.
        hermitcrab 5y ago
        Medieval warriors who could afford it wore plate armour, because it was (despite some drawbacks) incredibly effective protection. Many modern tropes (they had to be be winched on to horses, they couldn't get up if they fell over etc) are just plain wrong. The medieval warriors were less educated than us, but they weren't stupid.
- jeltz 5y ago
  What does metal have to do with shields? Metal shields were never popular in medieval Europe. And I also really doubt your assertion that shields were rare.
weare138 5y ago
Serfs were essentially slaves but because Christianity technically forbade slavery the church side-stepped the issue by narrowly defining slavery as only when someone is bought or sold. Serfs were bound to the land and lord they 'served' under and had no rights. Lords couldn't buy and sell serfs but they could lease them to other lords. So it wasn't slavery as long as you gave the serf back to the lord you got them from at some point.
- notsureaboutpg 5y ago
  Where is your source that Christianity technically forbade slavery and that this was related to the concept of serfdom? I wasn't aware of this and find it surprising compared to what I had originally thought about the time period on question.
- epicureanideal 5y ago
  There is a dead sibling comment to my comment that seems inflammatory but is correct historically. Many societies continued to have slaves after the introduction of Christianity, including Britain before the Norman conquest. There was a religious reform movement around the time of the conquest that if I understand correctly gradually eliminated slavery over a few generations to a few centuries.
  - lalaland1125 5y ago
    The main distinction here is that Christianity was much more open to the slavery of non Christians than the slavery of Christians. The Catholic Church was very particular about this in making sure to only ban the enslavement of Christians while explicitly condoning the slavery of non Christians. It's a classic example of ingroup vs outgroup bias.
    - mc32 5y ago
      I would say that’s not exclusive to Christianity or even Abrahamic religions.
  - Gibbon1 5y ago
bobthechef 5y ago
> I wonder if serfs really had it better. They still had no freedom to move, and in the early Middle Ages there was no appeal granted to serfs under a tyrannical lord. In Poland, peasants actually were freer in the Middle Ages then they were in later centuries. Serfdom became more of a thing with the rise of the wealthy landed magnates whose greed increasingly bound the peasants to production. Poland was, among other things, the breadbasket of Europe, and in the preindustrial era, agriculture was a major source of wealth, and so among its exports to Western Europe, grain was a major source of revenue. The nobility in Poland was quite large (around 10%, as opposed to the ~2% in a country like France), but over time, a part of that nobility managed to become fabulously wealthy and maintained private armies that I believe could rival the army of the Polish Crown in size, and owned hundreds of villages, towns, and even cities. Eventually, Poland's last king, Stanislaus II Augustus, placed the peasants under the protection of the State.

brodo 5y ago

Yes although there where also some free farmers. As I understand it, the serfs had more power in the high middle ages than before and after, because the lords also lacked the resources for strong police forces. There was not a lot of metal around, so most soldiers did not have shields or armor. You and your serf buddies could realistically resist the local lord with some forks and knives. Plus the catholic church was also protecting serf's rights to an extend.

zrail 5y ago
Also keep in mind that during that period the Black Plague killed 30-60% of the population. Serfs had more power because there were dramatically fewer of them.
- varjag 5y ago
  On the other hand if it took a plague to improve the standards of living it is fair to agree the baseline was quite abysmal.
  - zrail 5y ago
    Oh no doubt!
  - rufus_foreman 5y ago
    I don't think that argument makes sense. What's the country with the highest standard of living today? This says it's Canada: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/quality-of-life-rankings https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/quality-of-life-r.... If a plague wiped out 50% of the population of Canada, and wages went up afterwards, would that mean that the current standard of living in Canada is quite abysmal?
    - TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
      If a plague wiped out 50% of the population of the First World countries, wages wouldn't go up, they'd disappear entirely. The just-in-time supply chains that keep the lights on and food and other goods in the stores would fall apart within a couple of weeks. Medieval starvation was local. Areas were largely self-sufficient in the bare essentials - except in bad years, which happened regularly enough to keep a lid on population growth, but not so regularly they caused widespread depopulation. Trade was mostly for useful extras. That's very much not true today. Everything is specialised and interdependent, and not even farming areas are truly self-sufficient. This was - and possibly still is - the biggest risk from a pandemic. It's hard to calculate the exact tipping point, but when you have a certain percentage of the population unable to work for a couple of weeks or so, essential systems start breaking down.
      - rufus_foreman 5y ago
        The "essential" system that broke down during the Black Plague was serfdom. If 50% of Canadians died next week, you think what, Canada would cease to exist?
        pbourke 5y ago
        > If 50% of Canadians died next week, you think what, Canada would cease to exist? It’s possible. Canada’s nearly broken up* in recent memory over regional differences. 50% of a population dying is a massively destabilizing event that could undo even a comparatively wealthy nation. * or at least its second largest province narrowly decided to stay in Confederation.
        whoaisme 5y ago
        Maybe it would? I mean if yyou're smart tell us how 50 percent of Canucks getting wiped out would play out. You act as if plenty of political entities didn't cease to exist because of the plague.
      - dragonelite 5y ago
        We have seen the shock to the supply chain that happened during the early months of this pandemic.
- brodo 5y ago
  The black plague started 1350. 1310 was the big famine. Late middle ages where no joke.
lumost 5y ago
I hadn't heard of a metal shortage during the middle ages ( only seen examples of heavy metal armor worn by nights ). Do you have a link to a resource to learn more about this?
- robotomir 5y ago
  I think shortage of metal was a problem during the bronze age. Because bronze is easily recyclable, my theory is that the Late Bronze Age collapse happened when everyone had a sword. In the Iron age, it's not a question of availability, but of technology, how quickly can you provision a sword and a chainmail for everyone?
  - ProjectArcturis 5y ago
    Swords have always been a fairly rare weapon. Spears and pole-arms offer longer range at much lower cost, particularly in the context of massed infantry battles.
    - robotomir 5y ago
      What about armor?
      - watersb 5y ago
        Armor is hard. It slows you down, and you can't hear or see as well as the guy coming up behind you. If you are trained well enough to be effective with metal armor, you're probably trained well enough to be effective without it in close quarters. Heavy plate requires mounted cavalry, but largely negates the maneuverability of horse, and can be brought down with foot trained with pikes or heavy spears. Maybe the metal was best used elsewhere.
        hermitcrab 5y ago
        Medieval warriors who could afford it wore plate armour, because it was (despite some drawbacks) incredibly effective protection. Many modern tropes (they had to be be winched on to horses, they couldn't get up if they fell over etc) are just plain wrong. The medieval warriors were less educated than us, but they weren't stupid.
jeltz 5y ago
What does metal have to do with shields? Metal shields were never popular in medieval Europe. And I also really doubt your assertion that shields were rare.

weare138 5y ago

Serfs were essentially slaves but because Christianity technically forbade slavery the church side-stepped the issue by narrowly defining slavery as only when someone is bought or sold. Serfs were bound to the land and lord they 'served' under and had no rights. Lords couldn't buy and sell serfs but they could lease them to other lords. So it wasn't slavery as long as you gave the serf back to the lord you got them from at some point.

notsureaboutpg 5y ago
Where is your source that Christianity technically forbade slavery and that this was related to the concept of serfdom? I wasn't aware of this and find it surprising compared to what I had originally thought about the time period on question.
epicureanideal 5y ago
There is a dead sibling comment to my comment that seems inflammatory but is correct historically. Many societies continued to have slaves after the introduction of Christianity, including Britain before the Norman conquest. There was a religious reform movement around the time of the conquest that if I understand correctly gradually eliminated slavery over a few generations to a few centuries.
- lalaland1125 5y ago
  The main distinction here is that Christianity was much more open to the slavery of non Christians than the slavery of Christians. The Catholic Church was very particular about this in making sure to only ban the enslavement of Christians while explicitly condoning the slavery of non Christians. It's a classic example of ingroup vs outgroup bias.
  - mc32 5y ago
    I would say that’s not exclusive to Christianity or even Abrahamic religions.
- Gibbon1 5y ago

bobthechef 5y ago

> I wonder if serfs really had it better. They still had no freedom to move, and in the early Middle Ages there was no appeal granted to serfs under a tyrannical lord. In Poland, peasants actually were freer in the Middle Ages then they were in later centuries. Serfdom became more of a thing with the rise of the wealthy landed magnates whose greed increasingly bound the peasants to production. Poland was, among other things, the breadbasket of Europe, and in the preindustrial era, agriculture was a major source of wealth, and so among its exports to Western Europe, grain was a major source of revenue. The nobility in Poland was quite large (around 10%, as opposed to the ~2% in a country like France), but over time, a part of that nobility managed to become fabulously wealthy and maintained private armies that I believe could rival the army of the Polish Crown in size, and owned hundreds of villages, towns, and even cities. Eventually, Poland's last king, Stanislaus II Augustus, placed the peasants under the protection of the State.