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The daily life of a medieval king
- unquietwiki 1y agoMy antivirus triggered trying to visit this page; some kind of script injector.
- morgoths_bane 1y ago[flagged]
- joules77 1y agoDonald Trump, the Ayatollah and Putin are very disciplined people. Ordered lives need to be grounded in value systems, moral emotions, and philosophies deeper than self preservations. Otherwise people start behaving like ants. Don't need a human brain for that.
- actionfromafar 1y agoRuling by golfing. Well, it is pretty consistent in that regard.
- wiseowise 1y ago> Donald Trump, the Ayatollah and Putin > moral emotions …
- yard2010 1y agoSame goes for Muamar Kadafi and Aladin Aladin
- inglor_cz 1y agoPutin may be disciplined (I would believe it in case of a career KGB employee), but that has zero to do with the outcomes of his reign. The Russo-Ukrainian war already looks like a completely avoidable disaster, and we don't know yet what is going to happen. Maybe a more sloppy ruler would not invade, instead preferring time-outs with lovers.
- pjc50 1y agoDonald Trump is incredibly ill-disciplined by even his own degenerate standards.
- CuriouslyC 1y agoFrom all accounts the disciplined one is Susie Wiles, and Trump is like boss baby.
- scott_w 1y agoHe only said "essential," not "sufficient."
- pbhjpbhj 1y agoI'm curious what you mean here -- what discipline do you think Trump demonstrates? Clearly no moral discipline; so I assume you mean work regimen? Which disagrees strongly with the evidence of Trump's golfing (although likely that in part is about him taking money from the treasury). Fascinated to know your answer.
- dontTREATonme 1y agoI always question how accurate these types of accounts were. Even if she wrote this after his death, his successor obviously wouldn’t look too kindly on it being disparaging.
- ralfd 1y agoBtw: The successor was “Charles the Mad” who is known for mental illness and psychotic/schizophrenic episodes and had to be placed under regency. So maybe she also wanted to give an example how a sane King normally ruled. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_VI_of_France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_VI_of_France
- pjc50 1y agoIt reads a lot like those instagram/magazine profiles of "I get up at 7am and eat healthily" (author actually gets up at 9am and eats junk food on most other days). Worth noting that this is a relatively immobile king. Various other kings spent a lot of time on: - hunting for sport - military campaigns (e.g. Richard Lionheart spent more time out of England than in it) - assizes (mobile courts) - summer residences (Versailles is a huge, late example of this, but lots of monarchs around the world have had holiday homes of one sort or another)
- pyrale 1y ago> e.g. Richard Lionheart spent more time out of England than in it To be fair, most of his prize holdings were also out of England.
- gherkinnn 1y ago> To be fair, most of his prize holdings were also out of England. To be fair, he wasn't really English and didn't speak the language either. It wasn't until Henry IV (reign 1399 - 1413) that a post-invasion King's mother tongue was English. Most people don't realise that for over 300 years the (language at) court was Norman French.
- 1y ago
- agys 1y agoNice morning routine: at 10am a little glass of wine and stringed instruments playing the sweetest possible music.
- Cthulhu_ 1y agoLittle has changed, except it's coffee and Spotify for me. Keep in mind that back then, wine / beer were an important source of clean drinking water, and it would often be low alcohol.
- nottorp 1y ago"He drank clear and simple wine, light in colour, ** well cut ** ". It's right there in the original medieval article.
- ygritte 1y agoSpeaking of which, do you know what "well cut" means in this context?
- AquilaWing 1y agoIt refers to diluting your wine with water
- mrits 1y agoI never heard the term "cut" outside drugs that often involved putting something stronger but less expensive in
- rtsil 1y agoAssuming it's translated literally from French, and the meaning of the French verb "couper" hasn't changed since the Middle Ages, it means mixing with water, and is a widely used expression in French.
- coffeecantcode 1y ago
- braza 1y ago> His meal was not long, for he did not favour elaborate food, saying that such food bothered his stomach and disturbed his memory. He drank clear and simple wine, light in colour, well cut, and not much quantity nor great variety. Like David, to rejoice his spirits, he listened willingly at the end of his meal to stringed instruments playing the sweetest possible music. For me, the most curious thing here would be to know if a person in today's world in 5th percentile in wealth (i) would have (i) a larger life expectancy than a king in the 15th century, (ii) more food security, and (iii) more life opportunities. Every time that I hear those stories from medieval times, as soon as I become fascinated by their tales and so on, I imagine how hard it would be to live there, even as a king. Does someone know any reliable sources about that kind of comparison?
- dan-robertson 1y agoI assume someone in the 5th percentile of wealth is going to have very negative wealth which is only really possible in developed countries, eg an American medical student or a doctor who is part-way through paying off their loans, or someone suffering from massive credit card debt / car loans. (I think this isn’t really what you were thinking of though. I think the poorest people in the world still live, in many ways like medieval peasants except with much lower infant mortality and somewhat net food security)
- LudwigNagasena 1y agoThe correct metric is probably something like Actual Individual Consumption.
- mihaic 1y ago> someone in the 5th percentile of wealth I find the percentile measure terrible to technically mean 95% of the population, but is often colloquially understood the other way around. It's like German numbers, when people say five and forty to mean 45. The general population rejects needless complexity.
- psychoslave 1y ago
- dm319 1y ago[flagged]
- verisimi 1y ago[flagged]
- BizarroLand 1y agoHard disagree. Boredom is the consequence of a disengaged mind. Seems like his life was pretty fulfilling, with new music and entertainment, new people to meet and talk to, and new issues to solve, and when he did get bored I'm sure he had ample opportunities to do new things and take on new endeavors to satiate his mental appetite.
- motoxpro 1y agoSounds about like a manager at any large-ish company. Not in a disparaging way, just interesting.
- twalichiewicz 1y agohttps://archive.is/XnX1g https://archive.is/XnX1g
- khazhoux 1y agoThe supplicants brings to mind the opening scene of The Godfather. I’m endlessly perplexed how a human with the same number of hours as me, can rule a kingdom, or run a modern country, or be CEO of a major company, meanwhile I’m working long hours every day and still get nothing accomplished.
- pyrale 1y agoHow many secretaries, go-to people, etc. do you have?
- bluGill 1y ago75 years ago someone in my position would have had a secretary - she (sexism intended) would have covered about 4 others. My boss would have had a personal secretary. Today Outlook (or similar programs) do the majority of what she would have done and they do it better. I can book an airline ticket myself in the time it would take to explain what I really want to the secretary.
- tristor 1y agoI think you are mistaken, because you have made a category error. The work of a personal secretary or an assistant isn't merely to book you an airline ticket or manage your calendar. These are part of it, yes, but not the entirety and even in those you are missing the nuance of it. Their job is to understand you, and act on your behalf in the matters you delegate, knowing what outcome you would choose yourself. This is a force multiplier in the way that Outlook will never be.
- IAmBroom 1y agoI started work in that era. That secretary booked an airline ticket by calling her contact at the same airline, regardless of price savings. She typed his messages; that task is obviously done by the boss himself these days (Obama's blackberry addiction is a case in point). Voice-to-text handles her job while I'm driving; NO ONE did that job back then. In the middle of the night, I can set an appointment that just occurred to me. Again, that's not something 1980s me could do. Technology is a force multiplier you are ignoring. As bad as Outlook seems, it is better than most secretaries could be.
- DrNosferatu 1y agoHe did that much in the morning, after getting up, on an empty stomach??
- IAmBroom 1y agoI work half my day under those conditions.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- pavlov 1y ago> ”After this rest period, he spent a time with his most intimate companions in pleasant diversions, perhaps looking at his jewels or other treasures.” Men don’t spend a lot of time looking at jewels anymore, but I guess the modern equivalent would be hanging out with your buddies having some beers and admiring your fancy car.
- subjectsigma 1y agoI imagine there also wasn’t much else to do if you couldn’t participate in sports. (Article claimed he was frail so I imagine he wasn’t out there playing soccer or jousting.)
- OJFord 1y agoAny collectible really? It's just that jewels (they're minerals, Marie!) used to be a more common one.
- begueradj 1y ago[flagged]
- psychoslave 1y agoHmmm well, anyone that saw a single video watched infinitely many more video than all medieval kings together.
- IAmBroom 1y agoMeh, I was 13 in 1977, and the same was true for me.
- jajko 1y agoYou mean actually physically saw? Kings usually slept around with way more women than average boys these days.
- mseepgood 1y agoSo he only did four hours of actual work per day.
- achenet 1y agomuch like members of the original affluent societies, hunter-gatherers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society#The_three_to_five_hour_work_day https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society#The_... here is also a link to a video interview of Jeff Bezos explaining that he prioritizes sleep, because at his level, quality of decisions is more important than quantity of decisions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze0op3sJr2A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze0op3sJr2A
- bluGill 1y agoRead the critisim section. There is no reason to think hunter-gathers worked only 4 hours per week, unless you define work so narrowly that the majority of what they did doesn't count even though anyone who has done those tasks knows how much work they are.
- LightBug1 1y agoSounds about right for average office worker. WFH had its benefits too.
- empath75 1y agoThis was in the middle of the Hundred Years War, too.
- bluGill 1y agoWhat is work? Those religious services were mandatory to set the image of him as a king. The discussion around the jewels was also mandatory - again setting an image. While he had the ability to skip any of those things, not doing them sets him up as an image of a bad king and soon he will be removed.
- dartharva 1y agoWhich is still way more than most political elites of today do..
- teleforce 1y agoThe author is Christine de Pizan, an Italian-born (Venice) French court writer [1]. Fun facts, Christine married at the age of 15, now will be considered by both Italian and French law as an illegal underage marriage. The marriage was, by all accounts, a happy one [2]. She had 3 children from the marriage to Etienne du Castel, (a royal secretary) for about ten years, remained widow after her husband's death. Christine was Catholic and is often presented as one of the first feminists in history. [1] Christine de Pizan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_de_Pizan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_de_Pizan [2] Biography of Christine de Pizan, Medieval Writer and Thinker: https://www.thoughtco.com/christine-de-pizan-biography-4172171 https://www.thoughtco.com/christine-de-pizan-biography-41721...
- dartharva 1y ago[flagged]
- subjectsigma 1y ago> For the sake of HN's guidelines (to assume good faith) I am assuming this was just you being curious and oblivious to the unintended undertones of your comment, but I'll humbly suggest going over it again. Part of why I love Hacker News is exploring all the millions of ways people can sound like assholes without actually saying any bad words, or anything negative at all. It’s truly incredible to me and I never get tired of it.
- whamlastxmas 1y agoIt’s a fun fact because it’s different from current society, and it’s nice to highlight that something now viewed as abuse was not, at the time for her specifically, a traumatic situation according to her public records. Obligatory “just because it wasn’t traumatic for her doesn’t mean that wasn’t overwhelmingly the case for others”
- projektfu 1y agoAnd at the age of 12, the king (then dauphin) married his 12-year-old cousin, Joanna. Etienne was apparently 8 years older than Christine.
- ChrisMarshallNY 1y agoThat's a fascinating treatise. It also paints Charles in quite a good light. I assume that she wrote to please, but it also sounds like he was a genuinely good king. I have heard that the best form of government is an absolute monarchy, and the worst form of government is an absolute monarchy.
- baxtr 1y agoRe your last paragraph: can’t this be said about any form of government since there will be any kind of variation independent of form?
- taneq 1y agoNo. The best form of government is never a committee, but the worst form is seldom a committee.
- baxtr 1y agoFair enough. Makes sense!
- namenotrequired 1y agoIt means the variation in monarchy is higher. So the best monarchy is better than the best democracy, but the worst monarchy is worse than the worst democracy
- adsteel_ 1y ago"Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time...." - Winston S. Churchill, 11 November 1947
- Ishxnxibz 1y ago[flagged]
- game_the0ry 1y agoFrom the looks of it, a medieval king spent more time with his subjects that a typical US congressman spends with his constituents -- rather, they tend to spend more time at dinner parties with lobbyists and donors. In fact, the only time I here from my congressional rep is when I get texts asking for more money.
- HEmanZ 1y agoMedieval kings were a lot closer to mafia dons, in scope of government, role in government, and strength of position than any kind of politician we have in the western world today.
- GuB-42 1y agoMuch lower population, and you had to see the king in person, travelling at walking speed. It means the king could afford to listen to the comparatively few people who get to him. Among these people are probably a good number of what would be called lobbyists today.
- naniwaduni 1y agoThe time spent with lobbyists and donors most certainly gets totaled in for this purpose.
- jcalx 1y agoNot specifically about kings but — I recommend The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer, for a very thorough look at daily life in this era. More specifically about kings, ACoUP has a great writeup [0] on royal legitimacy and the various purposes of the king's court in the context of my favorite medieval shenanigans simulator, Crusader Kings III. [0] https://acoup.blog/2022/02/18/miscellanea-thoughts-on-ckiii-royal-court/ https://acoup.blog/2022/02/18/miscellanea-thoughts-on-ckiii-...
- reillyse 1y agoThis is less historical record than medieval propaganda piece. I get that it was written as such but even the article at the beginning pretends it’s an accurate representation of what the king got up to and then towards the end tacitly admits it’s an idealized representation of how a king should behave. This basically brings into question all of the actual details. Did he go to church every morning ? Maybe it was deemed proper that he did but as the king he just skipped it - we’ll never know. Likewise listening to commoners- maybe this was done for show with some well cleaned up subjects every so often , or maybe it was a genuine practice , we don’t really know.
- rfwhyte 1y agoYeah this reads as a total puff piece to me too. Seems to really want to paint a picture of the king as a pious, diligent, man of the people, yet it only leaves me with the impression that what was intentionally omitted is the true nature of the man. Just like any officially sanctioned biography of Trump would omit his late night reality TV binge watching, his gorging on fast food and his raping of children, this account embellishes Charles' best qualities while utterly ignoring his worst, so it is of no historical value whatsoever in terms of understanding who he truly was.
- magic_hamster 1y agoI agree, and I will also add that the entire post is just basically quoting from another source, and adding zero original thought. Just point us to the book so we can read it, it's really good enough to say "hey, if you want to know what a medieval king's day to day was, check out this really cool book".
- kmeisthax 1y agoGiven all the matters that a head of state has to attend to I would be surprised if they found time to go to church once a week, much less daily. Even with an on-site priest. As for listening to commoners, I'll accept the possibility of kings that wanted to be accountable to their subjects. The problem isn't the king, it's the nobility. The nobles are going to be filtering the commoners that get to talk to the king, because the king isn't allowed to know any commoners directly. Hell, they might not even be able to speak the same language at all. England's kings all spoke either French or German for a long time, and French wasn't so much the language of France as much as it was the language that France's ruling class spoke[0]. Even if the king could understand commoners and had unfiltered access to them, it's not guaranteed that they could do anything with that feedback. Say, a peasant complained about what they pay to their lord. Does the king actually have the power to overrule the nobility? Will the nobility depose the king, or start a civil war that destabilizes the country? The game everyone's playing is ultimately to convince subsistence farmers to "go big or go home" - i.e. to overplant and overproduce food, at the risk of crop failure, so that the state can seize some of that food and eat it themselves, nominally in exchange for "protection"[1] from rival states whose main difference is that their king is fake while yours is rightful. In other words: the king and nobility are wolves, the commoners are sheep, and it's bad form for predators to befriend their prey. [0] At least until France erased their own minority languages in the 1800s and forced everyone to speak French, which I'm pretty sure counts as genocide [1] Identical to the 'protection' paid to a mafioso
- sharkjacobs 1y agoI was always fascinated by the detail that Odysseus plows his own fields, and what that means about being King of an island in mythological Greece
- IAmBroom 1y agoBrilliantly, the "Lion in Winter" opens with the King of England, the most powerful person in Europe at that time, rising from bed and breaking the ice atop his personal washbasin in his bedcroom. Just in case you were thinking of Lerner & Loewe's England: this ain't that.
- BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 1y agoAbdul Azziz al Saud, founder of Saudi Arabia, received supplicants on a near daily basis as all his subjects believed they had a right to bring their complaints to him. In the early years of his reign, he was involved in military campaigns to expand his kingdom.