History Hit Medieval Expert...Time For A Reality Check

[@metatronyt]

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[@OGDamnnation]

You should check out Tasting history

[@Oldmaninabasement]

I want for my note for another episode

[@mansfieldtime]

. Southwark. I would have said South War-k or South Ware-k.

[@Casey2262]

Hey Metatron. There's a guy's channel named Kurimeo Ahau, who thinks Napoleon was black. He's been saying this about every medieval character for years. Do you think you could debunk his claims whenever possible? Thanks.

[@JackyHeijmans]

Tea, herbal tea. You can make wonderful tea with all kinds of herbs, berries and what not. Try Elderberry together with another herb, as an example. Elderberry is medicinal, but it is also very delicious as a tea. I am sure people made hot drinks with herbs as medicine, and if they liked the taste, why not tea? They had things like mint, lemonbalm, etc. ❤

[@etiennesharp]

'Having your tea' = a British euphemism for having dinner. He didn't mean literal tea.

[@MultipleSquids]

We truly don't make things easy for people not native to the UK but aye I agree he was meaning having dinner.

[@tiramisunsun]

how did it came to mean dinner? Do British people drink tea during dinner time?

[@someonesilence3731]

@@tiramisunsun The Brits have blood in their tea, not the other way around.

[@Im-Kaspa]

​@tiramisunsun well we used to have high tea and then dinner, which eventually merged into just tea meaning dinner It was a literal meal time name

[@tiramisunsun]

@@Im-Kaspa oh ok thank you

[@rorymkirk]

Tea is a regional term in the UK for supper or dinner. Though dinner is also lunch in some parts. Tea is also just tea in other parts. Whatever you do, never start a discussion over what bread rolls are called.

[@Juxtaposedjoker]

I know I read this incorrectly. But now I think the UK has a second lunch and I am here for it.

[@JarlOfDemise]

Round bread rolls are called Baps and hot dog style bread rolls are called Buns! The meals of the day are Breakfast, Dinner, Tea! ofc just my opinion/upbringing but everyone else is objectively incorrect 😊

[@rorymkirk]

@@JarlOfDemise lol tell me where you’re from without telling me!

[@IanHunter-xc1po]

Bread rolls, what are they? Do you mean barms, or cobs? Maybe you mean baps?

[@JarlOfDemise]

@@rorymkirk nah, I think that even Sherlock and Batman would have difficulty trying to guess where I'm from!! (Sarcasm for people like Sheldon!!!)

[@mattjack3983]

CORRECTION. The king who was shot in the face with an arrow was not actually the king at the time. And it was not actually a field surgery either. It happened at the Battle Of Shrewsbury, and he was at the time known as Prince Hal, who later became King Henry V, son of King Henry IV. Even at 16, Prince Hal was a very skilled and competent fighter. Some accounts say that after taking the arrow to the face..which struck him somewhere next to his nose and just above the corner of his mouth, embedding itself approximately 6 inches into his skull thru the cheekbone..he continued to fight on until being dragged off the battlefield and to safety by several men in his retinue. John Bradmore, a royal surgeon and metalworker, woukd be the man who would save the future King Henry V's life. BUT, at the time of the Battle Of Shrewsbury tho, when the Prince was wounded, John Bradmore had been imprisoned by the King, under suspicion of using his metalworking skills to counterfeit coins. Bradmore was immediately granted pardon and released, and sent to take care of and hopefully save the Prince, who had been taken to Kenilworth Castle (i believe). Other surgeons who had aided the Prince were successful at removing the arrow shaft, but the bodkin point arrowhead still lay embedded in the Prince's skull, just narrowly missing his brain stem, and surrounded by arteries and blood vessels. Even the slightest wrong move could cause the arrow head to knick one of the arteries, and the Prince would be beyond saving. Bradmore had the wound filled with honey, and then quickly and diligently went about designing and making a tool to extract the arrowhead, which came to be known as the Bradmore Arrow Extractor. Bradmore himself did the surgery, guiding in the tool, and locking it into the arrow head, and then very slowly, over the course of several days, backing the tool out and pulling the arrowhead out without causing any further damage. It was a very slow and excruciatingly painful process for the young Prince. But operation was successful, and Prince survived a wound that absolutely 100% would have killed any other ordinary soldier who did not have access John Bradmore's medical mind and metalworking skills.

[@JKribbit]

Love your detailed accounts! Just to add another fun tidbit. it was this battle that Prince Hal, later Henry V saw the devastating effect of Henry "Hotspur" utlisation of longbowmen, so when he became king, longbowmen became a big part in his campaign in France. Henry V is one ot my favourite English kings and I love him because he's always a student throughout his life.

[@mxlexrd]

He may have been using the word "tea" to refer to the evening meal as is common in parts of Britain.

[@Vandal_Savage]

Undoubtedly.

[@Ramdingle007]

In NZ we also have breakfast, lunch and tea. when someone says it's tea time they mean dinner time

[@Vandal_Savage]

@@Ramdingle007 what!? No second breakfast?

[@Ramdingle007]

@@Vandal_Savage only for hobbits :)

[@jonbaxter2254]

He absolutely was.

[@doctorlolchicken7478]

This was a much more fact based expert than we usually see in these kinds of videos. He didn't try to sugar coat anything or exaggerate. He didn't shy away from saying peasants were almost slaves, which is a position many modern historians shy away from because it's seen as "normalizing" slavery. Only black people being slaves to white people is the permitted modern definition of slavery. So good on him for not trying to rewrite history.

[@harryhanz1690]

Maybe in America, but I've never heard that.

[@exantiuse497]

I don't think I've ever heard people try to glorify the life of a medieval peasant. If anything people exaggerate how awful their lot was

[@holzlastname1976]

@@exantiuse497it may be more of an American thing. But, definitely happens quite often in the States.

[@trenae77]

Matt and Tristan Hughes are both great. Tristan hosts ‘the Ancients’ and Metatron has enjoyed videos of his as well.

[@DaveReece-u4b]

Literally no modern historian shies away from saying peasants were ALMOST slaves. However it’s a gross generalization to say all peasants were “almost slaves”. There were “freemen” peasants who owned a small piece of land for subsistence farming. There was serfdom which was more akin to sharecroppers in the US. They were given a plot of land for subsistence farming but were required to work their Lord’s land and give military service when required. The peasants of Europe are different from chattel slavery in the fact that, except in Russia, they weren’t property that could be brought or sold.

[@billygoat3564]

Towards the end of the video, when the professor refers to peasants having 'tea'. In the UK, it's used as another way of saying dinner.

[@mk__cyanheron1154]

I was taught that the medieval period was from the fall of rome to the fall of the constantinopole. That seemed like a more satisfying historical arc.

[@Subutai_Khan]

It is arbitrary at the end of the day. But as long as we agree on the general area I guess this is what matters. The thing with terms like “Early Modern” for instance is everyone saw their period as modern. Modern just means present. So nobody was like “it is 1500 so it is no longer he Middle Ages.” But it is fair to say that after a certain point many developments we associate with our world start to come into their own.

[@Marveryn]

@@Subutai_Khan as people cant make up their mind when rome fell as he did mention rome was sack several times before finally collapse

[@olorin3815]

Over here they use 3 events together to kinda mark the ending of the period 1)Discovery of America 2) Invention of the printing press 3)Fall of constantinopole ... or in whichever order they happened doesnt matter much

[@rikulappi9664]

Me too. Printing press and reformation where also mentioned along the fall of Constantinopol.

[@HD-mp6yy]

​@@Subutai_Khan Yeah but you need to choose a date to separate time periods. And is harder to find something better as the end of the medieval period as the fall of Constantinople. Expecially if you look at the entirety of Europe, the Mediterraneum, and the Middle East. 476 it's more arguable.

[@soulknife20]

The guy answering the questions is actually pretty good at what he does. I don't have any issues with him. And hearing Metatron speak with an American accent is....unsettling

[@ConcettaLynch]

TOO BAD FOR YOU. ENGLAND IS NOT THE ONLY COUNTRY ON THE WORLD.😊😊😊

[@soulknife20]

​@@ConcettaLynchI live in America. The best country on the planet.

[@nickwilliams6621]

@@soulknife20 I would agree, but USA has tornadoes :(

[@StarRider253]

Timestamp for the American accent moment?

[@magyarbondi]

America is not a country, it's a continent, you dipstick. 🤣

[@JuliusSeether]

I love the enthusiasm Metatron gets when he gets to where his armor.

[@LoLFilmStudios]

I know you did that on purpose.

[@holzlastname1976]

I agree❤ and that blue silk is gorgeous ❤!!!

[@Sturdy_Penguin]

I think my biggest gripe with the video was when he was talking about medieval food. There is so much that is different! The modern westerner living in a big enough city has more access to varieties of food, herbs, and spices than any nobility from the era. You would be limited to food that you could actually grow and was available. The varieties of grain were also much smaller than their modern counterparts that have been bred or genetically modified to have giant yields. You would also eat food seasonally for what couldn't be preserved, varieties of fruit were also much different to go along with the grains. Paintings of medieval watermelons and descriptions of oranges are just depressing compared to what you can find at any supermarket. Not to mention how widely things differed depending on your region. You can't really grow olives in Norway or have access to oceanic fish in Bohemia without it being salted. You deal with what can survive around you or what can be preserved and transported, and be willing to pay higher prices for it.

[@WickedFelina]

One thing I can say about both you and Matt Lewis, you are on my list of the genuinely sweetest, and kindest men not just in history scholarship, but the world in general. Bless you both.

[@dartskihutch4033]

I expected a roast video, but damn, this was awesome!! This man did an awesome job answer the further commentary only filled in the gaps of deeper understanding. Truly awesome! Thank you!

[@Cationna]

Re: torture issue, it was kinda mentioned but not gotten into, that justice was for the most part a local issue and enforcing it fell to the community itself or the local ruler rather than to the idea of specialised authorities. Harsh and swift punishments were a way to ensure law and order in a society where dangers of lawlessness were also much, much higher than we realise today. Basically it was the way to protect those for whose whole lives you were responsible, or your community which was as safe as it was strong.

[@cjohnson3836]

I don't think that its necessarily true that "dangers of lawlessness were much, much higher." You're doing the same thing people were doing in the questions. Pretty much everything we know about evolutionary behavior tells us that smaller, more closely connected social groups, lead to greater regulation of social interaction. People would be less likely to crime against each other because standing among each other was much more important for daily life, than we would expect today. If anything, I think what we would be shocked by is how well people generally would get along. Social norms were also far more concrete. Barring certain notable locations in major cities (Rome, Constantinople, etc.) most places would be culturally homogeneous by comparison. This, again, leads to reduced social conflict as interactions are predictable. And really, there's a plausible sociological argument that the reason punishment then was stronger was a result of that greater social cohesion, not as a means of maintaining it. In modern times crime rarely impacts us per capita. In medieval times, a criminal in a village would be your relative, or at least someone you interact with closely. The broken trust would be closer to home, and the more extreme punishment may have been a result of a that social wound. Not as a maintenance mechanism for cohesion.

[@cjohnson3836]

To support my above statement; evolutionary theory predicts that cooperation is greater when we make frequent interactions with the same person, when they are related (often these are correlated through most of history), when the cost is low, or the benefit we gain from helping each other is high (or at least higher than the expected cost). All of these conditions are generally met in smaller communities of the type that would be the majority in medieval period.

[@leodesalis5915]

​@@cjohnson3836 you make some very good points and i agree with the majority of it, but i also think the more severe punishments were used as a deterance. Its difficult to track down a group of robbers or bandits on the roads or someone in a city whose been killing people at night and especially difficult if you dont have much evidence. Its also one of the things i think led to religion being pushed so hard. If people fear the outcomes and punishments if they're caught, they're less likely to commit a crime. When you then factor in the idea of an all seeing god who will also judge you for those actions it deters people from commiting a crime moreso as youll be punished in this life and then be sent to hell. Also quite a lot of justice as they saw it came from an eye for an eye. The idea of blood money, paying money to the murdered persons family or they get to murder one of your family, or having a hand cut off as a thief, it was about the idea of getting even eith the criminal.

[@cjohnson3836]

@@leodesalis5915 You have it backwards. Eye for an eye was a restriction on the mob, not a punishment for the criminal. It was a recognition that mob rule goes too far. It was put in place to ensure proportionality. Also the new testament further cautions against even that (relevant since this entire topic is being framed under medieval period Europe and near east). As for religion. Religion is an emergent property of social behavior. Culture is nothing more than information you inherit that encodes your behavioral profile, not that dissimilar from genetics Culture functions to reduce behavioral variation because that increases predictability in our interactions. And because of autocorrelation, culture becomes a means of determining out-group when it is then placed into larger societies like those that emerge post agricultural revolution. Religion is just one more means of crystallizing social norms within culture. That's why its so entrenched in faith. Other animals do this. We call them conventional signals; signals believed to improve fitness while holding no biological relevance to an individuals health or ability.

[@simonspacek3670]

@@cjohnson3836 Another thing, it could be an outsider. Somebody not robbing in and around the city he was born in, but going somewhere else. And people traveled a bit (at least merchants did) and told stories, it was spreading and it worked a bit like "advertising". Imagine that you are a robber and you want to go somewhere and then you hear how the local ruler caught some robbers there and skinned them alive. Do you want to risk it?

[@michaeltelson9798]

In England during the Middle Ages, salmon was very common. So common was salmon that certain guilds restricted how many times a week an apprentice could be served it. Sweet corn is also a 20th century development of maize. The first sweet corn variety was Country Gentleman released about 1910.

[@nihtris3204]

About beer as an everyday beverage: At the very least, most of the history professors I spoke to consider cleaning water was little more than a secondary effect. As far as I and they are aware, brewing good beer with unclean water is nearly impossible and clean water was generally pretty accessible unless the local well(s) where specifically dirtied or poisoned (which happened, don't get me wrong, but was the exception, not the rule). The primary reason to choose beer over water was probably ease of storage and taste. Trastporting fresh water (once or a few times a day) from the well to your home (and generally place of work) in buckets made of wood and having it sit in them for hours at a time doesn't tend to make for a tasty drink. Storage problems where the primary reasons for it as a traveling beverage. Same goes for wine in the south.

[@exantiuse497]

I think storage is related to cleanliness, and taste as well. It's definitely true that you can "purify" actual tainted or poisonous water by brewing it into beer, but if the water's a little off and has a bad taste makikg it into beer makes it drinkable.

[@Vampirzaehnchen]

@@exantiuse497 That's the problem: If you store your water in a wooden bucket (or barrel, or whatever), it will taste bad, but it will still be drinkable. You won't get problems from that water, besides a nasty taste in your mouth. You won't get sick, you won't die from it, it just tastes ugly. To give an example: I hate eggplants. I don't like how they taste. But if I eat them, it won't kill me. They just taste bad. They are still edible food, they are just not yummy food. So of course I choose different food to eat but that doesn't make the eggplant suddenly poisonous or unhealthy.

[@AxeBearWhoCares]

I think it's fair to say that knights were probably built more like modern fighters. Most are pretty lean, but there is muscle there

[@2TrackMind-c6i]

or, athletes in general. Some are soccer players, some are rugby guys, some are NFL players - which covers just about all body types from linemen to safeties. I saw a lot of armor in Graz, Austria that was made for guys 6' tall and taller. One suit was for a man who was about 6'8" A lot of them showed repaired battle damage.

[@TA-yw7ce]

There’s an account of a guy at the battle of Bosworth around that tall. I think the Knight was a bodyguard/flag bearer for Henry

[@AxeBearWhoCares]

@@2TrackMind-c6i potentially, but you have to remember a different sports effect the body differently. I wouldn't be surprised if a knight looked a lot like the average Muay Thai. Dudes do a bit of strength training, with a crap ton of cardio and fight training

[@sashasemennikov157]

I would expect them to be akin to modern infantry types

[@2TrackMind-c6i]

@@AxeBearWhoCares There is at least one written record of instructions to men-at-arms to be free of drunkenness, lascivious living, and to be physically fit through weight lifting, calisthenics and running - along with frequent wrestling and armed practice. Unfortunately it was long time ago and I can't remember the source. I think such practices would result in a normal level of fitness among any athletic class of men, with some being those in the Top biological 10% that would be bigger stronger and faster than their peers. Just like today. It wasn't that long ago.

[@AdamJorgensen]

I bake my own bread at home. Nothing fancy, just bog standard half wholewheat half white flour. Usually end up with two loaves that get used over the course of a week and a half. Even without preservatives bread doesn't get mouldy that fast if you keep it in a clean, cool, dry airtight container. Obviously some parts of the storage would have been tricky and the bread does still get stale but it remains edible toasted for a good long while.

[@chwilhogyn]

I live near Eryri National Park, where there’s a mountain called ‘CNICHT.’ The name is thought to come from the English surname Knight. This family used to be merchants in Caernarfon. When the Welsh adopted the name, they kept the same pronunciation for the consonants ‘K’ and ‘gh’ in English. So, in Welsh, they’re spelled ‘C’ (/k/) and ‘ch’ (/χ/).

[@mandowarrior123]

In monty python's holy grail the french call them 'kh-ni-gts' Also in that film there's a great moment when they debate pronunciation of 'aghhhh' in aramaic... 10 years later in a random moment it dawned on me there ARE no vowels in aramaic, and so few people will ever get that joke.

[@DanielMWJ]

Good ol' hard ch/kh.

[@joenapper3001]

I'm from the north east of England and your explanation of how we say words like face is spot on. I reckon you'd do a better North East accent than most English people. We also still use words like aught and naught though they sound more like out and nout. Some older people even still use thou instead of you.

[@bobulationnation]

The boats were made of wood but the men were made of metal

[@cedricschmidtke4287]

heyo German here, i sometimes watch a German KZbinr who decided he's going to travel the world on bike, and he went to really desolate places, for example some mountain villages in Afghanistan which maybe a couple of hundred people, and when he went into a store i was a bit shocked how little acess to various food they had but after thinking it over I became amazed that compared to old times It's still was an exceptional selection. sure maybe some products are out of stock for an exntended period of time, but considering the terrain, the situation in that country and how desolate the village was it really surprised me.

[@melvinhilber4403]

What was said about the streets is only true for the two big cities London and Paris. In the holy roman empire for example the cities were not crowded, they had streets where the houses were very close to each other, but they had gardens for subsitance behind them. No need to throw out poop, you need it as fertilizer (after processing it). Cities had street sweepers who worked with brooms. Does not work if every street is full of mud and poop

[@exantiuse497]

I'm sure it was a city by city basis. If the city was ill-managed or if it was growing too quickly you'd get feces on the street, if it was well managed and coordinated you wouldn't

[@anom5389]

What are you trying to say, Metatron? “Kings would have had hair as long as mine” 😂

[@Arigriphantua]

I always considered the Middle Ages to be the period from the fall of Rome to Columbus landing in the Caribbean.

[@Kili2807]

this is one way to localise the middle ages, there are other dates as well for certain regions

[@Terter1551]

Or from the fall of Rome to the fall of Constantinople as we were thought in school. Most final dates put it somewhere in the 15th century, though.

[@crushedcan5378]

what if we are still in the middle ages? Just a thought

[@DanielMWJ]

​@@crushedcan5378Nah. We're in the modern age, and have been for over 500 years! We still got another 500 years until the next age. 😂

[@LynetteTheMadScientist]

Is the Renaissance Era considered part of the Medieval Ages then?

[@TheEnglishCountryHouse]

We saw Matt act at the Harvington Hall Gunpowder event back in November, he’s a good guy. 😊

[@LilShrimp01]

"Why were medieval punishments so cruel?"

[@jackisgallant]

That's why it's good to have a foundation for goodness, which only following Christ can truly provide.

[@fornavnefternavn208]

@@jackisgallant Everyone can be taught good morals and principles, that has nothing to do with religion especially in our modern times. Can't you even see how ignorant and judgmental and absolutist your sentence is in general? that only by following my religion can you have good foundations? so none of Asian with the Buddhist or hindu has a chance of being good? isn't that kind of insane to say and especially with such conviction? i bet that way of thinking has let to a lot of war and problems in the past.

[@jackisgallant]

@@fornavnefternavn208 If you'd like to set up a debate, please let me know. Your response is an ages-old weak rhetorical tactic from atheists who, shockingly, have no foundation for their morals, that is to say, no logical justification. It's only assertions from your lot, just like the one you just haphazardly made. The entirety of western civilization was built upon the moral foundation of Christianity. Your modernist attempt to hijack it without even being able to justify the "why's" is laughable at best. But, like I said, if you'd like to debate formally, let me know, I'm all for it. Otherwise go clutch your pearls elsewhere.

[@MarkHorton-n3t]

In medieval Europe, illiterate meant not knowing Latin. Only clergy, nobility, and merchants learned Latin. However, most people could read and write, but not spell, their native language. There is a museum in England with hundreds or thousands of notes written by medieval peasants. One asks for more beer sent to the field. Not only did someone write it, someone had to read it. These are notes with no reason to keep them. If some survived, there must have been many more. Due to the cost and limited availability of paper and parchment, these notes were on tree bark, leaves, and such. They were scratched or written in crude homemade ink. Obviously, all literate peasants were homeschooled. There is also evidence that French commoners could read French. There is even poetry in French, English, and other languages considered vulgar. Someone must have been able to read them. A different situation, but all Jewish men were expected to be able to stand up and read Scripture in Hebrew in the Synagogue. Dating back as far as there has been Jewish Scripture. There was a deviation to Greek, but the Masorites fixed that.

[@habacht2465]

From when were theses letters? since paper was valueable i doubt they would use it even if they could write. What museum are you referring too?

[@MarkHorton-n3t]

@habacht2465 My source is several people on KZbin who were there, not people like me who only heard. Paper and papyrus were indeed to valuable for a note like "send more beer" The notes were not on paper. The inner side of a piece of bark scratched with a stick or rock works.The rock works as a writing surface too. There are plants with sap that stains.

[@13thcentury]

Parchment was used. Wax tablets. Chalk board. Vellum. Lots of materials to write on.

[@cjohnson3836]

@@habacht2465 Did you really only have the attention span to read his first sentence?

[@KnightofAges]

Really? First time in almost 60 years I heard that; all that I studied before pointed at a literacy rate between 4% and 10%, depending on the century and country. Also, in my family (wealthy landowners), almost all men and women born before 1850 never learned to read nor write. Literacy rate in the whole country in the 1830s was 14%. Do you live in San Marino or some other special country? Also, scribes and cleargymen produced a LOT of written things over the centuries, enough for one to find hundreds of thousands of written documents. If "most" people would have left written records, we'd have hundreds of millions of them.

[@bethanywallace8575]

I'd be a hot commodity in the dating world if big foreheads were a draw 😆 Let's bring that beauty standard back 😉

[@mandowarrior123]

Oh my god a self aware woman. Maybe lean into it and trim an inch more off? Or maybe try the headdresses of that period? Your eyebrows must have won a great battle because your hairline has routed! I have a dinted head, balding in a fantasy dwarf sense, and crippled but taken.

[@OnceUponReddit]

Lol

[@3nineXO]

🗿

[@Lopfff]

Honey you’re fine in the modern world

[@OnceUponReddit]

@@Lopfff bro, she's not going to sleep with you. Stop being creepy

[@recalone]

The humor you put in is really refreshing and sobering. 🤝 and I massively respect your work

[@brettmuir5679]

Three weeks in as a new subscriber and I must say... "Veni, Vidi, Pompei" Love it. Im here everyday. Thanks

[@onegunninja]

Great video! Very informative and we as an audience get 2 knowledgeable historians for the price of one in a single video. Thanks for putting these videos together. Really interesting, entertaining, and educational. 👍

[@matthijsnaylor4000]

When English people refer to tea, they can also mean dinner or the main meal of the day. He didn’t mean having a nice cold one with a nice cup of tea xD

[@TheRealSoldatmesteren]

17:12 When I was in the army, the officers there were extreamly strong and hardcore individuels but non of them were jacked bodybuilders, they were lean guys. Young men that are active are naturally strong. I were at time down to 60kilos 180cm tall quite skinny, and I were very suprised how strong my body was when pushed over the edge.

[@DualStupidity]

Your average soldier throughout history could rarely afford the upkeep required for such muscles, but there were definitely some dudes in every era providing real references for those insanely ripped statues.

[@exantiuse497]

The question was about knights though, and a knight isn't your averge soldier but a military aristocrat who has access to all the food he needs and whose life's purpose is to be ready to go to war

[@karliikaiser3800]

As a baker I would say it´s not just about wholegrain and white bread. It is also about the type of flour in medieval times up to the 19th century and even into the 20th century rye was more common than wheat. Barley and speltwheat, oat. Wheat needs more nutrients and before modern fertilization wheat was there but other grain was more common, depending on the local climate. Preservatives dont do anything about making a bread better. A well made ryebread keeps relatively fresh for a week. Wheat is bad at keeping fresh. Wheat is etymoligical realated to white... Becasue wheat makes a relatively white dough.

[@richardavery4692]

People keep thinking in modern terms of physical fitness. You're all forgetting there were no automobiles back then. If you wanted to go somewhere, you walked. If you wanted to go somewhere quickly, you ran. Every single person was in crazy good shape when it came to cardio & endurance. Being a knight, or a professional soldier of any kind, would have required crazy strength training on top of the standard cardio you already did. Carrying the weight of all that metal, swinging a heavy melee weapon for any length of time, would have required a ton of muscle. Those guys would have been seriously jacked & capable of running several miles without stopping. Even our professional athletes of today are incredibly soft compared to our ancestors of just 100 years let alone several 100.

[@keeferChiefer]

I don’t think they would be “jacked”. But definitely very toned and a bit muscular. Getting “jacked” like the people you see on IG requires tons of hypertrophy training, doing excess cardio actually hinders your ability to put on muscle. But I do agree that on average they would’ve been MUCH more fit than the average person today.

[@richardavery4692]

@keeferChiefer Those guys were swinging 20 lbs of steel around. Think about a 20 lbs kettle bell at your local gym for comparison. Now, swing that thing for hours every day in practice for battles that could last a day or more while encased in suits of metal adding additional weight to your entire body. That's how jacked they were! That doesn't mean they're rocking 6% body fat like a movie star on screen with washboard abs. They were just freaking monsters of muscle with insane cardio, much like a 200 lbs hockey player that only stands 5' tall.

[@omegazombies]

Loving the HistoryHit reaction videos. I like a lot of their stuff already and its really ni e to have some expansion and alternative answers/perspectives discussed on the same topics

[@stumccabe]

One disagreement I have with the expert is the suggestion that the medieval peasant's food was bland and tasteless. I don't have any evidence, but human beings are human beings and if there were ways to make their food tasty they would have done it - and there certainly were plenty of delicious wild herbs available to peasants even in medieval England, here are a few: wild garlic, wild onion, wild celery, horseradish, calamint, wild basil, meadowsweet, and more. They might rarely have eaten beef, but I'm pretty sure they'd have at least some bacon. With the vegetables they grew, the bread, the cheese, the beer and a selection of tasty herbs I just do not believe that their food was bland. Of course I could be wrong!

[@lonelystrategos]

Many people nowadays seem to be completely ignorant about herbs. I've seen plenty of idiotic statements that traditional European food is bland because they didn't have spices back in the day, but herbs can make a tremendous difference to a dish.

[@2TrackMind-c6i]

I agree. Salt was a monetary unit and a fiercely guarded commodity. The Bishop of Salzburg became one of the richest men in Austria because of his control over the many salt mines in the area. Salt paid for the fantastic Fortress of Salzburg, which was never taken by arms. Just add salt to almost anything and it transforms the flavor instantly. Add some onions and garlic, and that's western culinary basics right there.

[@catocall7323]

I used to believe that until I traveled to England.

[@mrchambers31]

Had you lived near the sea, people would have plenty of fish. You can catch it all year and it requires little skill or equipment. Dried in the wind it will last.

[@soulknife20]

​@@mrchambers31This was basically Sweden

[@aule10]

Fun fact about bathhouses, they where very common in medieval, but with the new disease called syphilis in many countries those bath houses got closed down, because of the side hustles happening there, unfortunate it didnt help, and they never opened again in many countries.

[@nickywal]

The peasant revolt in England was in a large part caused by the black death, people suddenly had more freedom to demand better conditions because there was such a labour shortage. But it wasn't all peasants, it had people from most walks of life involved. They certainly weren't happy

[@michaelpurdon7032]

It really was a newly emerged petite bourgeoisie for the most part

[@nickywal]

@@michaelpurdon7032 Yep all that land up for grabs and people being able to make more money, despite the king trying to freeze wages. Hell we know the person who lit the final spark, a butcher who didn't like that the poll tax people were demanding the right to do virginity checks on women. Hardly the raving mob of country bumpkins

[@nickywal]

@@michaelpurdon7032 Yep all that land up for grabs as bad as it sounds and the ability to demand higher wages despite the king trying to freeze them. Hell we know the person who ignited the whole thing, he was a butcher

[@nickywal]

​@@michaelpurdon7032 Exactly you had all that land up for grabs, the ability to demand better wages even though the king tried to freeze them and we know a lot of the leaders were craftsmen. I guess it was easier to call it a mob of country bumpkins descending on London and paint the king as a hero instead for being willing to face them down.

[@fegeleindux3471]

Half of the Eastern Roman/Byzantine Empire's inhabitants were literate and many (including women) attended secular education starting with Homer, there were serious medical schools for both sexes and the first world clinics and professional hospitals. In one Byzantine manuscript, there is a description and a drawing of a surgery from the 9th century on Siamese twins, one was dead and they were trying to save the other, they managed to separate them and the other twin survived for many hours which for that time was a lot (he survived a tough and long surgery) and was the first ever attempt to separate siamese twins.

[@youcantrustmem8]

Yeah I also find that line satisfying also makes the joke that the roman state was such a massive entity in history that only half of it falling marks an age

[@exantiuse497]

Start of medieval period: fall of Roman Empire End of medieval period: fall of Roman Empire

[@exantiuse497]

I have heard that the origin of the myth of the heavy medieval sword comes from movies. When filming movies involving medieval swords, the prop swords they use are usually much thicker and as a result heavier than real ones, because the props need to be safe to use and a sword of realistic thickness is unacceptably dangerous even if it's blunted. As a result, the actors using these prop swords (as well as other people that use similarly "safety proofed" replicas) find using them much more heavy than it would be with the real thing, and so when they give interviews they'll mention how heavy the weapon was and how incredibly hard it must have been to use them in battle, resulting in the myth that medieval weapons weight much more than they really did

[@theguileraven7014]

A heavy blunt sword is very dangerous, especially since the thicker spine likely means it’s stiffer and thus a potential impalement tool even with a completely rounded tip. If safety were the concern, they would have gone the opposite route, and them as light and floppy as possible, like you see with swords in kung fu movies.

[@stumccabe]

Metatron, at about the 55 minute mark, when the "expert" used the word "tea" he was using it as the British (working class) name for the evening meal, he wasn't literally referring to tea. It was a poor choice of words since it has probably confused thousands on non-Brits!

[@mandowarrior123]

Also metatron assumed tea means indian tea but non caffiene teas were popular drinks, still drunk today, like nettle or Dandelion tea, some with medical uses like willow tea (asprin) and things like rose petal tea, mint tea, you name it. If you're boiling the water anyway to drink you might as well give it a little something, and if you're boiling food you might well not waste the broth water.

[@Bioshyn]

One reason we have such beautiful churches in Bavaria is the fact that people didn't work the fields in winter, but spent their time with wood carvings and such.

[@richardmetzler7909]

Re. literacy: Shadiversity had two videos on the topic arguing and showing evidence that basic reading and writing was tremendously useful to any farmer running his own farm, every craftsman etc., and they weren't stupid, so many did pick up enough for everyday communication in their own language, especially in urban areas. However, to be counted as "literate", you needed to be able to read, write and understand Latin, and that was limited to nobility and clergy.

[@Tang-qi6zw]

18:30 I’d expect knights to look like fighters, but not quite as lean and dehydrated as they look in fight day. So look at the mma, boxing, or wrestling guys between fights when they aren’t cutting for a fight.

[@Glegionar]

About the last bit of the video: you didn't watch Vinland Saga season 2! That's so beautiful.

[@AxeBearWhoCares]

I personally think you should have pushed back on the rights thing. Medieval Europe, especially Christendom, did have concepts of natural rights

[@НилИванов-ж1ц]

It's not human rights, because it's not rights of a person. If a person didn't have community, guild, family, feudal lord - that person was nothing. Exile was capital punishment, equal to death.

[@AxeBearWhoCares]

@НилИванов-ж1ц I didn't say human rights. I said natural rights. Which encompassed the rights of individuals, communities, and states

[@gregfam6250]

Respect to you. Too many lowlife KZbinrs find it easy to criticise the 'establishment' as low hanging fruit for views or attention. You were fair in your comments and civil in your disagreements.

[@CatsAttackAgain]

Metatron's hair makes his frog-mouth look like an Elden Ring helmet

[@AverageAlGuitar]

Great video, always love watching these sorts of videos as you expand on the points they make and give much more context. Just a heads up, in certain parts of Britain, "tea" isn't solely used as a word for the drink, it's often used as another word for dinner/evening meal.

[@dannygreenland4853]

Another great chapter very informative from both of u

[@andrewwolff2161]

The concept of four humors and homeopathy may not exactly be comparable to modern medicine, but the ideas did not just come out of nothing. The concepts were the best understanding of what people observed at the time. It is imperfect, but still a system within which to work to provide relatively consistent care to patients. And consistency allows an observer to view correlations between treatments and recovery.

[@Bazerald777]

6:39 THE MUSIC IS BACKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@kamikaze9699]

I think you should do an episode on the Dark Ages. The first video I found searching for a Dark Ages documentary on YT had like 1 minute of European peasants, about 2 minutes of Muslim Iberia, then the rest of the hour run time was everywhere except for Europe (the geographic area for which the term specifically applies to). Even a quick no-justice-done overview of the art, the writings, peasant and noble life, major conflicts, philosophies floating around, archaeological finds...

[@michaeltongue]

When he says Tea he is referring to the Northern evening meal ... ;-)

[@mattturner3696]

I don’t have any idea where he came up with the 7000 calorie per day diet but I call poppycock. Eating that much in bread and vegetables would be a full time job on its own. Look at how much a 350 lb strongman eats when bulking and then try imagining trying to get that from plain food. Soldiers in boot camp today eat around 3000 calories a day engaged in hard training. Fact is the human body is extremely adaptive and will find a way to function at around 2000 to 2500 calories regardless of lifestyle. Tribes of modern day hunter-gatherers eat about the same amount of calories as a mainstream westerner.

[@Siegbert85]

Exactly. I made the same point about the hunter-gatherers. Eating that much food would most likely be a hinderance more than it helps with the labor.

[@wally4golly]

One thing to note is that literacy of the time would be noted as Latin and similar languages. Common English wasn't really considered in the same way.

[@Alloy211]

The helmet with the headphones has to one of the most cursed images I've ever seen.

[@WHITERAGS]

I love the juxtaposition of the helmet and Nord VPN

[@christianlenik5307]

Protection

[@MarkHobbes]

juxtaposition is a really strange word

[@Arkantos117]

On the topic of how people looked in the medieval period I think it's worth noting that there would be some blatant regional differences in physical appearance even on the local level. More curly haired people in a town 15 miles away, guys with thicker eyebrows in the next village over, squarer jaws in the next county, more blondes down in the bay and so on. Even today we have these things but to a lesser degree for obvious reasons.

[@mctwist13]

Did you buy the Tutankhamun Ale? I wanna see a video of an unboxing and maybe a taste testing. No idea how expensive they are though lol.

[@runevi]

Friend, his "look like a clown" comment was in reference to the fact that clown shoes are long. He's not being insulting. If shoe length correlates to wealth if you go back in time wearing clown shoes-looking like a clown-people would think you're rich.

[@babilon6097]

Polish peasants were really unhappy. Especially in later times.

[@TA-yw7ce]

did you meet some of them ?

[@babilon6097]

@@TA-yw7ce Let's look at the evidence. Shall we? Polish nobility had a great influence on the king. Over time they passed more and more laws that restricted peasants liberties. e.g. peasants were tied to the land permanently and were forbidden from relocating without their lords approval. This shows that peasants tried to improve they lot by going over to the lord who treated his subjects better. At one point polish nobility were forbidden from treating their peasants well. This shows that some lords tried being humane, but those who were more ruthless also had more political sway. When Poland disappeared from the map after The Partitioning, the peasants rebelled several times, but not against the invaders. Those who worked for foreign masters actually were better off than those working for polish nobles. And the invaders actually fuelled this feud to keep polish nation internally divided else it revolts.

[@morriganmhor5078]

A) Sword: If you´ve said correctly about the weight of an arming sword, it would be nice if you also did it for hand-and-half, longswords, and two-handers. B) Guilds: I don´t know much about the situation in England, but elsewhere there were not only merchant guilds but also craftsmen guilds- i.e. armourers´, painters or butchers´.

[@aknaton6349]

People did drink tea in medieval times, it just wasn't you usual earl grey with sugar. But all sorts of herbs and wheats were boiled and drunk.

[@ombrepourpre7562]

Tea, is a VERY specific plant (or more exactly leave). All other are NOT tea, but infusion. Like verveine infusion before go to sleep and have good dreams. Not tea. So no. And yes, the difference matter. It is not nickpicking because in History context and accuracy are very important.

[@TA-yw7ce]

2 things. 1 many people refer to that other stuff as tea even if it’s not technically correct. 2. he was referring to ‘tea time’ aka evening meal

[@aknaton6349]

@ombrepourpre7562 depends on what time and definition of tea you're referring to. In ancient China the word tea was referring to a number of plants. In pressent day netherlands we have no trouble calling all those infusions tea.

[@ulrikof.2486]

There was no tea in Europe in the middle ages.

[@beyondrecall9446]

As for the British accents, I find the WW1 POW records uncovered in Germany fascinating.. Props to all who were involved in that project

[@nibel-k1433]

HI METATRON!!!!

[@DrewishAF]

I would imagine that most of the medieval knights would be built kinda like lightweight MMA fighters. Lean, muscular, shorter than most of us today, that kinda thing.

[@oddiethefox5832]

3:50 Metatron is a medieval woman confirmed

[@LaineyBug2020]

Lol, I totally gasped when you flipped the brigandine armor around. Did they wear chainmail under it? Because that's what I'm imagining...

[@seth7174]

Dropping a pre like on the video

[@frankenstein6677]

13:42 I'll say that commercial whole-grain bread is also very different from homemade (especially if you use wild yeast like sourdough), as they focus on making it 100% whole-grain, BUT artificially add high amounts of gluten in order to make them palatable. Just that fact makes them worse than properly made white bread, not because "gluten is bad" or anything, but because the amount of it is just excessive.

[@SomeOrdinaryJanitor]

i think the food is the biggest overlooked changed. not just in the aspect of class based foods and no processed foods, but food lasts INSANELY short. anyone who's baked their own bread before knows just how quick it goes stale.

[@annwood6812]

I guess it depends on your climate but my home made bread goes moldy more so than stale, but so will store bought just more slowly. As for the healthy aspect of whole grain bread it provides more protein and more roughage, which generally, but not universally, is more healthy. I don't know how people lived without refrigeration. I suppose they boiled a lot of food into pottage which would make it fairly safe.

[@cetterus]

@@annwood6812 preservation methods were basis of many recipes: brewing, pickling (vinegar), drying, salting, smoking, boiling, baking... and some combinations of said methods. Interesting topic that. My grandmother used to make her own bread, baked on cabbage leaves. In batches of about dozen, it could last for weeks if not cut. Once cut- it would last on average 5 days (usually we would eat it much faster). It didn't dry, didn't mold, didn't go stale. It was heavy, dark and dense with slightly sour taste. Regarding old food- I presume our taste and guts have changed over time as well.

[@mandowarrior123]

? I bake bread without preserves. You can leave it rising for a couple days and bake the bread and it will be good for 3 or so days at least. You want to make buns with a crispy crust that you eat separately to last. Flour lasts and so does your sour dough starter you keep fed. You have bread on demand. You can have fresh bread every day if you want. You'll have a fire to boil your veg, water, herbal teas etc anyway, and keep you warm half the year. With a bread hook it takes 5 mins of actual work to make bread. I do it because it's easier than going to the supermarket mid week. And tastier.

[@Jorell420]

22:00 you’re hilarious in a good way!! The movements and pointing in the frog mouth hahah keep up the good work, buddy

[@Glegionar]

6:39 original Metatron ost. I'm crying man

[@Maybeabandaid9]

"...there were peasant revolts." Just an aside, the painting from earlier in the video is a depiction of one such revolt. The painting where you pointed out the frogmouth helmet is a painting of an event during the Peasants Revolt in England in 1381, if I remember right. The painting portrays Wat Tyler being killed by Richard the 2nd's men at Smithfield outside of London. This happened right after the rebels stormed London and killed the Bishop of Canterbery Simon Sudbury, who was also the Lord Chancellor at the time. I feel he was basically sacrificed to appease the crowd by the king. (conjecture on my part, I know) Crazy part is, Richard the 2nd was a kid at the time. I think he was 13 or 14 years old or something like that. After he watched Wat Tyler get killed by his men during the start of negotiations, he rode straight to and convinced the whole "army" of rebels to follow him to another town nearby, defusing the situation in the process. He's actually depicted twice in the painting. It's actually a really crazy story if anyones interested and in my opinion, the situation probably led Richard to being such a firm believer in his divine right of rule. Side note, he was later deposed like 20 years later lol.

[@mrh4900]

It’s great to be Anglo Saxon

[@anom5389]

Na, you don’t exist, according to academia. 😂

[@PackHunter117]

@@Alienwatcher I’m majority English and German with some Welsh.

[@firingallcylinders2949]

Proud WASP

[@MundusMeus974]

You're not Anglo-Saxon lmfao.

[@dee-taylor]

​@@AlienwatcherAs a Norse/Gael/Cherokee hybrid I say nothing is wrong with it.

[@misere4]

it always fascinates me how certain games make the two handed sword a big slab of iron barely able to be lifted off the ground, but the characters using it like a feather, mostly fantasy. I liked the one in the game Silkroad Online tho, it gave a fairly "realistic" set of animations for how a heavy two handed sword would be handled, there is its weight, movement, and inertia seem extremely fluid and convincing, from a physical standpoint it felt so right and immersing even the walking/runing animation perfectly presents the slight draging and arm swing motion while the heavy sword is always slagging behind the character

[@CristianNazare]

Who on Earth does not know the "Dark" ages were called that because we have no "light" on the stuff that happened during that time. They're "dark" because we can't see, not because they were grim.

[@Eagle-eye-pie]

Every human being at some point in their life.

[@Fabio-bu9bp]

Everyone I know thinks the dark ages were called the dark ages because of famine disease and war

[@CristianNazare]

@@Fabio-bu9bp famine, disease and war is EVERY time period of the human race, depends just what geographic area you look at. That's not anything new.

[@jekyle1980]

I’m writing a book set in Britain in about 506 AD. Calling this period the “Dark Age” in terms of trying to find information about sooo many aspects of life in this period is ABSOLUTELY appropriate!! 😵‍💫

[@Subutai_Khan]

Even Falchions are thin and light so they are not as heavy as they look at all. Just slightly balanced differently. Only very specific types of falchion like the mackovski bible falchion would be balanced significantly forward. Tod made a good video about that.

[@OpticfIare]

44 mins in and its so refreshing to see u agree with what a professor has to say 10/10!

[@dreadassembly4087]

The History channel plays fast and loose with the truth.

[@skepticalbadger]

History Hit is nothing to do with the History Channel.

[@dreadassembly4087]

@@skepticalbadger Oops! I haven't watched TV for years.

[@winry2357]

The question of happiness is kind of an interesting question. If someone from our time was taken back to pretty much any other time period in the past, they’d be miserable just due to the modern conveniences that we see as basic necessities. Our lives are just so different than they would have been even a couple of decades ago. Someone from a few hundred years ago would probably also be unhappy if they were plopped into our world. They’d be astounded and intrigued by our modern conveniences (assuming they didn’t jump to it being witchcraft of devilry), but they’d likely be bored with how much extra time we have. My grandma used to get bored a lot. She was raised on a farm in the middle of nowhere and she was used to working all the time. She couldn’t stand just sitting around and reading or watching tv, she needed to be doing things all the time. She made so many blankets in her old age, it’s not even funny. That’s what happens when you’re used to living life a certain way.

[@babilon6097]

Body builders look muscular because they reduce their body fat to dangerously low levels. They only do it for the show. Normally you can't see people's muscles because even a little bit of fat obscures them. When I was at my fattest so far I weighed 130kg. I had friends who weighed less - 120kg - but looked fatter because I exercised a little while they didn't. One more point - polish nobility in late middle-ages were considered very formidable opponents. One of the most common causes of death were obesity-related.

[@tipemotions]

About Southwark, the best way to learn he pronunciation of the different area in london is to listen to the announcements in the tube.

[@stumccabe]

Was a medieval peasant's life nothing but hard work? NO! Peasants in England worked on average 150 days per year (there were many religious holidays and feast days) and their average working week was less than 28 hours!

[@tarkett8529]

Then you have to add in running a home without any modern conveniences which add a ton of time and work to the week

[@johnstenhouse7960]

your talking utter shite

[@Fabio-bu9bp]

​@@johnstenhouse7960respond with reasonable criticism instead of being rude. Or look into it yourself to find out the truth. I do not think this response was warranted

[@olorin3815]

it may be true that in some periods they didnt have that much work to do but on the other hand in some when you are planting and harvesting they might quite literally be working all day in the sun and breaking their back

[@DrakonPhD]

They still had to work during those feast days. The feasts didn't make themselves, firewood still needed to be chopped and prepared, animals still needed to be taken care of, houses and clothes cleaned, personal land (as opposed to manor land) needed farming...

[@EvropaVetvs]

The 7000-9000 calorie claim is ABSURD. I have no idea what he bases it on, but you absolutely do not need that many calories even if you do hard labor for 12 hours per day. Not to mention medieval people worked longer days, but also had, I believe, 1/3 of the year off, especially farm workers. Modern strongmen eat 10 000 - 12 000 calories per day and they weigh 150+kg, do heavy training for hours per day, are on steroids which increase the amount of calories the body burns, and they are still in a caloric surplus most of the time. If medieval men ate that many calories, they would have been a bunch of blobs of fat, barely able to get out of bed, let alone doing physical labor.

[@Dude0000]

It would be more accurate to name it ‘History Hit and Miss’.

[@maximebajer6354]

As usual when talking about the middle aged, we don’t talk about the links with the eastern world, the capital importance of the access to India, the fact that the fall of Constantinople pushed Europeans to find a new way to India, ultimately leading to the americas. We already had Arab words in French for exemple, and discovered famous Arab philosophers like Avicenna and averroes. I would love to see you dive into this aspect of the Middle Ages !

[@arecane2000]

I think he's sucking up to the powers that be , suggesting that consuming massive quantities of empty vegetarian calories is the normal, healthy diet of successful people of our ancestry.

[@soulknife20]

Maybe you should think harder.

[@samuelterry6354]

That's the dumbest thing anyone has ever said.

[@nickywal]

So how much money does your church pay for fancy lawyers to protect predators

[@arecane2000]

@@soulknife20 Have another soy-patty wonder burger.

[@tuehojbjerg969]

You do know that for a centuries the main food of ireland was potatos with a very small bit of meat/fish,nd they where considerd to be some of the strongest/hale people around

[@Zaphodox]

Rabbit, fish etc was very common food. Seperate meats like venison and beef from squirrel and voles and rats edit: and frogs and snails. Readily available to peasants and ‘meaty’. Still popular in many cultures including France, Malaysia etc

[@WarDogMadness]

History hit is a corporate trash show. taking away opportunity from regular youtubers.

[@soulknife20]

History Hit doesn't have many more subscribers than Metatron. So. This is inaccurate

[@davidbraun6209]

I was reminded of the story of the origin on that classic Tuscan soup, ribollita, consisting in the main of the table scraps from the upper echelons' tables, gathered and put into the cook-pot along with bits of shredded bread and whatever else was at hand for the cook to throw into the pot and "reboil" (whence the name).

[@rurikschutte2188]

18:16 I would look at a military special ops guy to compare them to. “Lean, agile, VERY CAPABLE “

[@eevee9632]

You certainly, make me want to believe. Awesome channel! Watched for years. Well done!

[@colleen2864]

I don't beleive that Knights would've looked like body builders, but Captain America is a pretty good representation of how our modern special forces dudes appear. Captain America is on the upper end of average for them. 😍