Medieval people only drank ale? WRONG!

[@maxstone3779]

Imanage a historian 300 years from now reading about San Francisco, "Everyone in the 21 century just went on the street."

[@SmogginMog]

I do recall "Tea" being a thing that has existed for a while.

[@alynt9260]

Not in medievil Europe actually ^^

[@napoleonfeanor]

​@@alynt9260 not real tea but herbel stuff existe,too

[@facundocerisola2633]

I think it only got popular in Europe after the middle ages.

[@marcoalimandi6013]

Herbal infusions were common all over medieval Europe: the most notorious example of this was a beverage made with nettles in Scandinavian lands, also a rosemary infusion was used to reduce the secondary symptoms of bubonic plague and to prevent diseases from entering the body, sage was used against headaches and fevers and so on.

[@DanielMWJ]

​@@marcoalimandi6013Wasn't willowbark tea used as a painkiller, or am I misremembering that?

[@UncleMikeDrop]

When I was on gradeschool, a couple of my history teachers believed this.

[@Rajaat99]

I miss Shad's historical videos.

[@RoulicisThe]

On top of that, "Ale" and "Beer" back then were two very different beverages

[@walkir2662]

Most impressive thing about water distribution in the Middle Ages I learned from german-speaking histpry KZbin: The city of Salzburg (modern Austria) built a kilometer long pipe from the Königssee (modern Germany), including going 370m through a mountain (big enough too walk through! talk about medieval tunnel builders...) just so they didn't have to go down to the local river... twice. Because the first one belonged to the bishop and the city wanted its own.

[@alynt9260]

Wait till you read about roman aquaducts, waterpipes, fountains and heated water directly to houses just like we are used to today :D

[@walkir2662]

All infrastructure projects and such are to be measured by the effort it took relative to what the people doing it have to do it with. That waterworks was way closer to building the Chunnel than to building a sewer or the aqueducts of old by a major empire.

[@LyleAllenCairns]

I live in utah next to the Utah lake. It is horrifyingly contaminated because there are still “unidentified” city sewage that is dumped into the lake. During the summer and fall the smell is so horrifying that it is hard to sleep upwind of it. No there are no practical efforts to clean the lake. There are funds run by politicians and their children designated as “lake cleaning funds” but they seem only to have enough millions each year to pay the fund managers for “managing” the funds. So yes, sewage has been dumped in the pale since the “pioneers” arrived here and someday… they might stop.

[@russward2612]

I live about halfway between Utah Lake and the Great Salt Lake. I feel your pain, I get them both. It's pretty intense when you're up close and there's been a storm.

[@alynt9260]

Let's not forget poo was valuable as well! Dump it on your field to get the biggest potatoes....er, i mean crops!

[@walkir2662]

Not to forget: feces and urine can be used to create gunpowder ingredients. Throwing that shit away like it's nothing would be a MAJOR waste.

[@24darush]

That's why it was collected! "Towns" in the early and high medival aera where not as much stuffed with houses and buildings as me think (that started in the late medival), it looked more than a cluster of villages with fields and gardens in the town borders, nearly everybody had a compost pile. No way they could make their water to dirty to drink. And fountains with a bucket on a rope where very very rare, water suplies came with running, not standing water! And btw., you can't brew ale or beer with dirty or contained water. The reason they brewed a light beer/ale for every day was simply it tastes much better than boring water!

[@KnightsWithoutATable]

Potatoes are from the Americas. Not going to find those till much later. More like parsnips and turnips. Maybe yams.

[@Santiago-Farrell]

1. You need to make something called compost first otherwise it won't work as a fertilizer 2.human feces are too acidic and cannot be used as a fertilizer

[@Santiago-Farrell]

Also they were collected and dumped to keep the city clean. Otherwise you would have to take them outside yourself

[@Roland3ld]

Here is the usual full support for channel growth.

[@gazza8234]

As the bailiff of Pribyslavitz, Henry decrees that all citizens of Pribyslavitz must take a dump 150 feet downstream.

[@Tomichika]

You should never drink water straight from the source, no matter how clean it looks. Even if its a spring, be safe and boil it first!

[@Kronosbattlemaps]

I love these debunking videos! :)

[@badgerpa9]

Time team did a pretty good show with this. They had a document written in I think middle english, it was very old that talked about boiling drinking water and making beer. The mash would be used 3 times so the first batch would be strong the second weaker and the 3rd time pretty weak but it was used for kids also to have something other than just water for meals. But yes it did talk about them drinking water and wines also. I wish I could remember which show it was. On another show they talked about the tunnel diggers for trains(so much later in time) and they had strong beer for most meals so they could get a little pain help from it. But after you drink beer for every meal after a short time you will not feel drunk from the beer, it can still give you a little muscle pain help though.

[@NerfThisBoardGames]

Ahhh young shad

[@mouselord5882]

I liked videos like this a lot. Shad sitting on the throne and doing a deep dive. The longer the better.

[@juozapasbernotas-pakeris231]

Yo Shad, I would love to see more content like this. I really miss these kind of videos.

[@Fearoq]

Oh damn, it been such long time since i saw non-brigandine Shad

[@gerbo8018]

I mean they could boil water. There are also lighter versions of ale Tablebeer comes to mind and then i heard of something like leftoverbeer with water.

[@councilofkarens729]

Their water was probably a darn sight cleaner than. ours is currently.

[@TheDraco877]

I remember when the original full version was released on Shadiversity.

[@xyzxyzxyzxyzxyzxyz]

Of course people had access to clean water. They needed clean water to brew ale and beer. And they definitely drank it as well. They had a preference for drinking beer, though. Mostly because it was considered as a more healthy drink than water.

[@walkir2662]

And it has ntrients. It's still colloquially called liquid bread in German.

[@napoleonfeanor]

"There is a chance it was contaminated just off the BAT"

[@zacharybloom5871]

Well done putting Az in the thumbnail

[@londonfog2301]

Castle ruins that have wells?

[@Dreamfox-df6bg]

Something people from outside Europe don't understand is how close everything is together in Europe. There are quite a few springs that eventually feed into the big rivers. And if someone upstream pollutes the water they might get an angry visit from a village downstream. Especially when they 'waterways' are just small streams. The 'Lauter' connects about 10 villages and small towns over it's length of 42 kilometres (about 26 miles) before it joins the Danube River. And even the Lauter has various inlets which makes it grow from a stream to a small river in it's own right. And in the beginning of the medieval age some cities still had Roman aqueducts. That's just natural springs. Digging wells was also a thing.

[@TwoKnowingRavens]

I grew up on a farm with a hand dug well that we got all our drinking water from. It's not that complicated and medieval people understood how to get fresh ground water.

[@dustinmillar120]

Sounds like something someone would say to justify day drinking haha

[@alext6933]

Well I only drink beer so..........

[@ViolentMessiah666]

These kind of myths always drive me nuts because if you just apply a bit of common sense it's obvious. Humans not liking to be around poop shouldn't be some mind blowing revelation, neither should the fact that when wine, mead or ale were the drink of choice was so heavily WATERED down it had hardly any alcohol in it but sure, us Euros just walked around drunk & dumped poop in the streets for 800 years 😂

[@napoleonfeanor]

Don't call false beliefs myths

[@bokrugthewaterserpent3012]

When I was in school we were actually told that they drank beer for the calories, and that it was barely alcoholic and basically like liquid bread. Gonna need at least a 2 hour long video debunking this on my desk by Monday, thanks.

[@norskattforfun8575]

Also poo was valuable as fertiliser and urine was used in tanneries

[@TheSpongyMallard]

I think it all boils down to people thinking the people of the past were stupid.

[@abyssminiaturestudios6103]

Shad could we get a video on mideaval naval combat?

[@jierdareisa4313]

I love ALL THE SHADLANDS videos!!!! ❤

[@samphillips4925]

In America we called it "The night soil men"

[@chipsdubbo6983]

It also should be noted and i believe you mentioned it in the original video this is a clip from that what was known as "drinking ale" was actually an extremely lo alcoholic content drink. I know from recipe's of drinking ale from the 18th century as it remained popular for quite some time after the medieval period, that drinking ale only contained anywhere from .5% to 2% at the most alcoholic content which is the same as some near beers which are considered non alcoholic. This is because drinking ale as well as drinking beer was made every morning and was not aged at least in the 18th century. It would even spoil when bottled within 6 months to a year since it just wasn't made for aging. Of course this is all information from the 18th century so i can't really say to what degree it was similar to the medieval period but the point is it is an instance of drinking ale recorded in history and we just don't have a lot of that from the medieval period. Not recipe's we can make anyway. Also keep in mind that it still did not replace water, another term for it was working man's ale because it was usually drunk throughout the work day but not necessarily at home.

[@ZippydsmLee-freetube]

I assume its less "beer" and more "processed" water, with fruits, acids and herbs. Also once can build up some resistance water microbs but you still have issues of mind aches and whatnot. But I never really went down the rabbit hole at looking when humans figured out boiling water makes it safer.

[@christopherjones8448]

I thought the dumping poop out your window thing was more of an industrial thing than a medieval thing

[@PeregrinTintenfish]

It is definitely an urban thing and the industrial area was more urban.

[@LaughingMan44]

How does fermenting sewer water magically make it safe to drink exactly?

[@nooneshome8746]

It's like saying that water from today is so bad we only drink coke or pepsi

[@Kawanakajima]

Also, you can't really make beer or ale in the first place when all you've got to work with is highly contaminated water.

[@Mailed-Knight]

What about Dragons Shad.

[@ziul.3124]

Welcome to the Shadlands🥳🥹🥂

[@CreepyMF]

Shad's voice really changed over the years, probably because of all the talking. Sounds deeper and raspier now compared to back then.

[@kirbymarchbarcena]

Kampai!!!!

[@yolkonut6851]

How can drunkardness be a sin if everyone drank alcohol to survive

[@devnull1200]

Who the hell does say that anyway? I mean, did people forget about wine...?

[@kenton6804]

What? People didn't like poo in the past? I can't imagine.

[@jimspetdragons3737]

Ale instead of water? Only in Ireland...

[@EllenbergW]

Yeah, because dirty, contaminated water is the best water to brew beer [rolls eyes]

[@damachinen]

Have an algo boost. Thanks for supporting Western European values, customs and history. I learn from you.

[@ac9356]

More ppl drank ale because it was safer to drink then just water that’s what I always been told as there ale was week

[@19Burgandy]

I really appreciate all the videos you've been making. It's really simple, the romans made aqueducts yet medieval people didn't have clean water or had smelly cold castles. People were way more useful than over now for survival. Generalizing is really boring and getting old.

[@robertlewis6915]

No, they got 99% of their hydration from watermelon.

[@darcraven01]

people who believe they only drunk ale.. tf did kids drink than?

[@shawy83]

The law came in, because their was poo all over the streets, mostly horses, it was an evolving thing.

[@NicholasNappi]

Haha in the medieval period if people got too drunk the executioner had a particular punishment for public drunkenness. The drunkerds cloak which was a big barrel they had someone walk around in in public for humiliation. So no medieval people didn’t only drink alcoholic beverages. Being drunk all the time to an extent was not allowed. And in the medieval era the reason why gong farmers worked at night time was because there was laws against dumping 💩.

[@nicknevco215]

Maybe they mixed up liquid bread

[@OurAwesomeUniverse]

Thanks Shad for telling us more about the filthy medieval period. Weren't there bodies clogging up all the waterways?

[@d_dave7200]

It may be wrong, but it isn't an entirely stupid concept on its face. Beer, especially low alcohol beer, would indeed provide significant hydration contrary to popular belief. Just less than the equivalent water. People have this idea that alcohol and caffeine somehow remove the water from a drink by magic. That's not the case.

[@24darush]

The picture you show at 4.40 says a women is so desperate over the loud crowd in the night, and nothing else helps to drive them away.

[@pyeitme508]

Got it

[@walkir2662]

Good luck making good beer with bad water...

[@SaPekkarinen]

dont be dumb... wells were just a fashion acessories ;)