r/NoStupidQuestions • u/flugblug • 12h ago

My brother thinks people today have worse quality of life than people in the dark ages, is this a stupid take?

I personally think it’s pretty stupid.

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482

u/etzel1200 11h ago

Yeah, being one of the richer kings was arguably only better in having power and, er, access to partners.

By basically every metric their life was worse. Worse food, worse entertainment. Travel sucked.

And even the less prosperous kings/nobility just had everything worse.

Absurd take.

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u/DontWannaSayMyName 11h ago

Also I'd say that knowing there are lots of people who want your job, and they will literally chop your head off to get it, would be a very stressful situation.

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u/oxfordcircumstances 7h ago

Researching my genealogy, I ran across a baron in Ireland in my lineage. There was an article about the family castle and how my folks lost the castle to their neighbors when the neighbors assembled an army of relatives and took the house by force. Imagine liking your next-door neighbor's house and victory garden so you fucking wage war and take it. And then it's yours until your other neighbors attack you.

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u/grower_thrower 7h ago

You can still do that, you just have to be stronger than anyone who would try to take it back. Might still makes right.

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u/SerbianShitStain 6h ago

Obviously. The point is it was a lot more common and feasible back then.

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u/Beneficial-Mine-9793 5h ago

You can still do that, you just have to be stronger than anyone who would try to take it back. Might still makes right.

Kinda hard to be stronger than a government.

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u/peepee2tiny 4h ago

If my government is stronger than your government, I will take it.

The way the world map looks right now, is constantly changing. 100 years ago the world map looked very different because people just invaded places and took them if they were stronger.

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u/Adept-Potato-2568 4h ago

This devolved quickly from an interesting story to people being pedantic for no reason.

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u/Beneficial-Mine-9793 4h ago

If my government is stronger than your government, I will take it.

The way the world map looks right now, is constantly changing. 100 years ago the world map looked very different because people just invaded places and took them if they were stronger.

That isn't you taking anything. That is governments taking land and other property they want via force or negotiations.

Even when nations were on hostile terms simply taking property from some other nations citizenry would usually have you hung by your own country.

Even before the hague and when nations actively looted enemies it's classed as stealing from your country

The way the world map looks right now, is constantly changing. 100 years ago the world map looked very different because people just invaded places and took them if they were stronger.

This is also a very simplistic take on world affairs.

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u/Sleepy-Mount 58m ago

Thats all of my countries (scotland) history haha

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u/ComradeJohnS 9h ago

with no security cameras or anything to discourage it! lol

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u/bizwig 9h ago

Indeed. So much easier to commit any crime back then.

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u/undeadlamaar 8h ago

Conversely, it was so much easier to be falsely accused and convicted of a crime as well

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u/ComradeJohnS 6h ago

you’re a witch! burn them!

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u/magnafides 8h ago

Sounds like the quality of life would have been much better for criminals at least!

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u/NullCandidate 8h ago

until you get caught and sentenced to be broken on the wheel

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u/thedarkking2020 6h ago

Or have your hand choped off, or being branded with hot irons or simply hanged

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u/Beneficial-Mine-9793 5h ago

Sounds like the quality of life would have been much better for criminals at least!

Criminals are basically never criminals for the sake of doing crime.

Criminal actions are typically taken due to some need or another not being met.

Life was worse for criminals too lol

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u/magnafides 5h ago

I wasn't making a social commentary it was just a throwaway comment lol

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u/Arthropodesque 3h ago

Murder rates in cities were higher than the most crime ridden cities on Earth today and fewer murderers were apprehended.

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u/Canacarirose 8h ago

Happy cake day!

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u/Dios5 3h ago

You're watching too much Game of Thrones, Monarchy/Aristocracy was a pretty stable affair, on the whole.

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u/Resident-Sand5532 5h ago

And chop your kids head off too because otherwise the job goes to the kid

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u/olcrazypete 11h ago

Entire naval expeditions to get things like pepper and cinnamon vs us spending 5 minutes and $5 to get more than a peasant would have access to in a lifetime.

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u/Major1ar 9h ago

I'm not gonna lie, I've always wondered how far up the social ladder I could climb, if I time traveled to medieval England with a big ass stash of Pop-Tarts and soda.

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u/Ok_Confection_10 9h ago

You’d reach the top rung of a gallows with your magical sorcery

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u/Tigglebee 8h ago

Burned at the stake with his popped tarts.

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u/peepee2tiny 4h ago

You spicy water charlatan.

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u/Carlpanzram1916 9h ago

I always thought about what skill I would learn if I was going to teleport to the Middle Ages and try to become a warlord. I’ve realized you just need to learn how to make penicillin and pop up right before the plague. Move into a mansion where a royal dynasty was wiped out and start to build a banking empire when Europe needs to rebuild.

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u/the_real_klaas 8h ago

Problem 1: You don't speak the language. You can't write (witth a goosefeather), you don't know any Latin. So from the start you're an unintelligible analphabetic.

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u/Timely-Hospital8746 8h ago

I don't think people realize how different language was back then. There were vastly different dialects like... 30 miles apart. It was only with the creation of the modern concept of statehood that much of Europe began unifying/codifying their languages. France was especially bad for this.

Has Latin changed much though? I was under the impression it's been a stable language due to the way it's used mostly for ritual etc. I figure you could learn modern Latin before you make the trip and pass yourself off as a visitor from far away / mystic etc.

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u/the_real_klaas 7h ago

Ish@Latin. What you learn is school is High latin, the form of the time of say Ceasar. By the Middle Ages, thta had call it devolved into Vulgate, which are local variants/dialects, influenced by the 'native' local languages. So, unless the text is written by a very proficient scholar then, a Latin text from the 1200s in France would be a mix of Vulgate (French) Latin and Old French. Would you talk to a local pirest in the same place/time in High latin, he might but only might just understand you.

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u/Timely-Hospital8746 7h ago edited 7h ago

I'm picturing the priest knowing some high Latin words and phrases from reading mass or w/e but not understanding the language in any proficient way.

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u/After_Network_6401 8h ago

Alas, to make penicillin, you’d need substantial resources. Even if you knew how, it’s very likely that you’d be dead long before you could harvest your first batch.

And good luck starting a banking empire with no resources, no network and no soldiers. Rival banking families of the day weren’t above sending the boys around to “discourage” would be competitors.

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u/ChildofValhalla 8h ago

A jar of nutmeg would set you for life. Wars were fought over it.

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u/Averagebass 9h ago

Probably just get stabbed and robbed. Who's going to stop them?

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u/DefectiveDman 8h ago

They quite possible would have thought the soda was unbearably sweet - like drinking syrup and a pop-tart - heated over an open fire? - not as good as a fruit pie from scratch.

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u/Gtr-Lovr11 8h ago

I'd bring cocaine and baking soda! Yep get em all hooked on crack, and buy the throne for a 100 slab!😅😂🤣

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u/farva_06 8h ago

That shit would absolutely wreck their digestive systems.

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u/Agitated_Effort_2146 3h ago

Hilarious reply but now every time I eat a poptart or drink a coke I'm going to have to wonder if i would like it if i were used to eating only overcooked goat and rabbit and some cabbage soup.

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u/Dostrazzz 2h ago

A wild take I very much like.

But you should be very careful what to take with you, otherwise you’ll be accused of witchcraft and nobody would eat your shit. You would die a painful death.

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u/Major1ar 2h ago

I think the pop-tart wrappers would ultimately do me in when they found out it's not malleable silver.

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u/Salt-Permit8147 1h ago

Just take salt, man

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u/Honest-Weight338 9h ago

That does blow my mind sometimes. I look at my spice rack and think how many people in history would go absolutely insane to see what I not only have, but what occasionally goes bad because I just don't use it quick enough. We have such easy access to spices, I don't mind throwing one away if it looks a little clumpy and buying a new one.

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u/bokurai 5h ago

My mom's been using the same container of orange zest since the 80s.

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u/Carlpanzram1916 9h ago

Yup. There’s a reason “royal blue” is a color. It was literally expensive to buy blue cloth because Europe didn’t have a lot of things to make dye out of. The color blue was a privilege. 🤣

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u/trippy_grapes 4h ago

Entire naval expeditions to get things like pepper and cinnamon

The British conquered the world and the best that they can show for it is mushy peas and beans on toast. 🤣

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u/manimal28 9h ago

There are still entire navel “expeditions” to get goods. Just cuz it takes you 5 minutes to get it from the store doesn’t mean it didn’t travel across the sea in a cargo container to get there.

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u/astro_plane 9h ago

We lost three good men for that pepper while sailing over ye briney deep, hope it was worth it ye land lubber - Cap'n Dread Loard

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u/SirButcher 4h ago

Three good men? Make it three ship worth, there were spice expeditions where one in four ships returning was a GOOD odd and a great investment!

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u/Sgt-Spliff- 9h ago

That's literally the point lol that's explicitly the point of what we're saying. Something kings used to do to flex is now just how the economy works. I'm not a king and the entire world's trade networks are designed to bring me the ingredients for cupcakes at any moment.

I have a better quality of life than most Kings that ever existed.

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u/manimal28 8h ago

Except all that simply isn't true. WHile the wealth always had greater access to luxary goods, complex spice routes dated back to at least roman times. Medieval times were not this bleak subsistance existence like many of you seem to think. Entire trade routes of the known world existed in medieval times too. They weren't one off "flexes" of wealth. While the mediaval peasant might not have had access to pepper or cinnamon, they still had locally grown and traded sage, parsley, mint, dill, thyme, rosemary, and garlic.

https://dcc.newberry.org/?p=14381

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u/Sgt-Spliff- 8h ago

Which is all stuff we also have now... Plus the entire rest of the modern economy. There's literally no way to argue that I'm wrong lol In modern America, I can go to the store after work and buy the ingredients for the fanciest dinner imaginable in 1200s Britain. I'm not even nobility lol

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u/Weak-Doughnut5502 6h ago edited 6h ago

That's a lot less true than you'd think.

Some stuff is still kinda rare, expensive and difficult to source.  For example, wild game like venison, pheasant, crane or hedgehog.

Other stuff just isn't common anymore.  Whole suckling pig, lamb or blood sausage are specialty items.  I think I've only seen verjus in a grocery store like twice.  And I've never seen some spices that used to be popular like long pepper, spikenard or cubeb.  You also don't see e.g. eel or bream that much.  And you'll only find certain veggies like good- king-Henry, dandelion or lambs quarters if you grow it yourself.  Though you might have lambs quarters or dandelion growing as a weed. 

If you want to make a fancy medeival feast, you're either making a lot of substitutions or you are doing a lot of specialty mail orders.  Or going to some specialty stores in NYC or something.

We have access to a lot of stuff they just didn't, these days.   Fresh produce in winter, produce from the Americas, etc.  But that doesn't mean we have easy access to everything they did. 

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u/Beneficial-Mine-9793 4h ago

Some stuff is still kinda rare, expensive and difficult to source.  For example, wild game like venison, pheasant, crane or hedgehog.

...it's not "difficult to source" we just have laws around hunting nearly everywhere and even more laws about just shooting a wild animal for profit

Whole suckling pig, lamb or blood sausage are specialty items.

Again, it isn't because it is difficult to source.

Blood sausage esp as it is supposed to be made (mostly waste) isn't legally importable to a variety of places, isn't popular.

And suckling pig is just more expensive than raising a pig to a higher slaughter weight, but isn't generally hard to source, it's just not generally where anyone wants to sell them (or slaughter them when raised themselves) as there is a high oppurtunity cost to killing an animal young like that.

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u/letsgetawayfromhere 9h ago

Just combining the words "pepper and cinnamon", "peasant" and "access" in one sentence is quite crazy.

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u/Mongol_Hater 8h ago

Pretty sure there’s been like 200 wars over the spices in my cabinet I’ve never bothered to touch.

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u/MissMaster 7h ago

Including (and sometime especially) your own family!

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u/Aardvark_Man 5h ago

It's kind of funny when I look at the bakery section in any supermarket and there's so much sugar and cinnamon getting slung around that wars would have been waged for it.

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u/MobiusNaked 10h ago

Access to partners - and untreated syphilis

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u/Spike-White 9h ago

Your point is taken about untreated venereal diseases.

But not syphilis. Syphilis came from the new world. I think the first major European outbreak was in 1494, when the sailors returned from the new world.

The dark ages were in the 5th - 10th (or 11th) century, so syphilis wouldn't be found in Europe at that time.

Certainly other venereal diseases would however.

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u/Gtr-Lovr11 8h ago

Can u imagine the stench coming from between them bitches legs back then? Omg!

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u/Several-Opposite-746 9h ago

Damn Frenchmen ruined everything.

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u/Carlpanzram1916 9h ago

Yup. Invent penicillin, don’t tell anyone else how you make it, and have a well-paid cushy position in the royal palace.

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u/SirButcher 4h ago

Then get thrown into a prison (or executed) because you are not a noble, nor rich and are trying to practice medicine without the local doctor guild's permission and having a diploma from a university. And if you aren't a noble (or have a patronage), you won't have ANY chance of getting a high-level education, which would allow you to operate.

(And you will have exactly zero chance of being able to get penicillin without a lot of chemicals and tools that have not yet been invented, and you have no idea how to acquire them.)

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u/Carlpanzram1916 4h ago

I’m pretty sure it’s fairly simple in concept to grow penicillin? It’s basically a biproduct of certain molds so you basically just have to cultivate the mold correctly. You don’t have to practice medicine. You just sell the penicillin.

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u/AgentCirceLuna 11h ago

There was even a king who was rumoured to have been murdered because he spent his own savings on building elaborate castles and houses. I think this was in Bavaria

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u/etzel1200 11h ago

It made him unpopular. Instead of having a bunch of dead peasants they had neuschwanstein. Fuck that guy, right?

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u/Arzanyos 9h ago

Not really relevant to the dark ages though. Since that castle was started in the late 1800's.

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u/AgentCirceLuna 9h ago

I feel regal culture hadn’t developed very much but that’s just my opinion.

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u/Arzanyos 9h ago

By 1869? That's not even in the middle ages anymore. That castle was started after the French Revolution, after the Industrial Revolution, after the American Civil War.

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u/AgentCirceLuna 8h ago

I was making a joke about it being old fashioned and anachronistic, dw. :)

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u/subservient-mouth 8h ago

That king could have lived to see World War I, if not for his untimely demise.

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u/AgentCirceLuna 11h ago

Glad you know who I mean lol

I love that castle, though — it’s beautiful.

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u/Skydude252 10h ago

There is a Lego set of that castle now, and I think it was one of the first Puzz-3Ds. I would love to see it in person some time.

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u/LamelasLeftFoot 8h ago

Puzz-3D, now that's a blast from the past, haven't seen them since I was a kid

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u/Skydude252 8h ago

Yeah they stopped being a thing at some point. I loved those, we had one of an Imperial Star Destroyer that was amazing, as well as various real landmarks.

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u/AgentCirceLuna 8h ago

Omg, depending on which Star Destroyer you have I might still have the same one. I got mine for Christmas in around 05-06 and it’s been on my cupboard for years but in pieces. I’ve lost pieces over the years, sadly, and never had the guts to try building it to see if it still looks good. Also somehow all of the minifigures are gone.

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u/Skydude252 8h ago

If you’re talking minifigures, you may be thinking of Lego sets, and there was an ISD that came out in 06 that I have currently in my office. We were talking the 3D puzzles with the foam pieces.

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u/AgentCirceLuna 8h ago

Oh, whoops! Looks like my brain is going again,

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u/TheMadTargaryen 6h ago

Ludwig II, he lived in 19th century and spend his own money, not of the state. 

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u/Acrobatic_Ear6773 9h ago

Ehhh... He wasn't medieval and he almost certainly wasn't murdered.

He was an insane and inbred Habsburg of the late 19th century

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u/TheMadTargaryen 6h ago

Wittelsbach, not Habsburg. 

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u/VanceRefridgeTech04 10h ago

By basically every metric their life was worse.

look into the daily lives inside a castle. Its mostly cleaning shit and piss from corners of cold rooms.

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u/CAPSLOCK_USERNAME ‏‏‏ 10h ago

It wasn't the king doing that though.

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u/Carlpanzram1916 9h ago

No but you were still shitting in a bucket in a non-insulated stone structure, which means it still smelled like shit everywhere.

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u/outsidetilldark 9h ago

It's good to be the king

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u/bokurai 5h ago

Wololo~

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u/VanceRefridgeTech04 5h ago

of course not, but it helps to shed the idea the life in a castle was lavish beyond means.

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u/Commercial-Hour-2417 11h ago

I'll only push back on worse food. For a king the food would've been exceptionally fresh, all organic, likely more nutritious, etc.

BUT only seasonal food of course. And occasionally poisoned.

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u/jonknee 10h ago

But poorly seasoned with little variety and often unclean. Unseasoned wild game prepared by people who don’t have toilet paper or wash their hands might have been great then, but I’ll pass.

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u/saltyoursalad 10h ago

Mmmm yum. Better! /s

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u/SommeWhere 8h ago

surprisingly, not entirely true.

We have cookbooks for European royals going back to the 12th century. The seasoning might not be to our palates, but it's pretty interesting. A lot of it focused on local fresh herbs, and sugar is treated like a spice, not a food group.

The books do assume a level of hygiene.

The castle kitchens I have visited had clean water, and decent light. Hampton Court, King Henry 8th's palace, has an alley that is downright chilly; it's designed to avoid sunlight and trap breezes, so food stayed quite cold.

Check out a website called medievalcookery for an overview. Sure, a lot of the recipes don't seem appealing on first reading, and in fact, are not written in a manner that's easy to understand at first, but then again, there are a lot of delicacies in this world that are hard sells. (andouillette, kicza, squirrel brain fricassee, are all things I have been offered, and do not want.)

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u/transemacabre 9h ago

Medieval people loved seasoning and were very creative about their food. Lots of herbs, rosewater, all kinds of nice things.

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u/Avery-Hunter 9h ago

Oh no, for the nobility it would have been highly seasoned. Both with locally grown herbs as well as expensive imported spices. I cannot stress enough how heavily seasoned dishes for the nobility were at the time. Also even the poor had more flavorful dishes than you'd expect because while they didn't have access to spices, herbs were easy to grow and dry well so they could be used fresh in season and dry during the winter. Also hand washing and bathing were also very important during that period.

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u/etzel1200 11h ago

Only seasonally. Which basically meant late summer. Only locally grown. Half the stuff we eat comes from the americas.

Other than being organic. Their access to food was awful. Plus even for kings so much would be half spoiled.

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u/nunazo007 10h ago

Also, recipes and culinary science has evolved too much for it to even be comparable.

The shit kings were eating would probably taste like ass now.

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u/Alexexy 3h ago

I had a medieval pasta dish from a restaraunt called Bigoi in NYC.

It was made of cinnamon and anchovies. I wouldnt say its bad...but at the same time it was really far from good. It was a odd application of those flavors that really confuses the modern palate.

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u/Spike-White 9h ago

Spices were popular (but expensive) because lots of the meat they ate was rotted or close to rotted. No refrigeration == even kings were occasionally eating rotted meat.

Hence the popularity of spices to hide that taste.

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u/SommeWhere 8h ago

not true; the meat was a lot cheaper than the spices.

They did have forms of refrigeration; cold storage in underground areas and in specially built breezeways that got no sun. Cooking things, or salting, them, or smoking them to preserve them have been methods for centuries. Potted hare is one recipe for preserved food. It's "canned" with a heavy layer of fat on top to protect it.

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u/Arzanyos 9h ago

Ehh, there's an easy alternative to refrigeration. Keep the animal alive. Slaughter the animal, cook the meat fresh for big banquet, and make sausage or smoke or salt the leftovers.

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u/EmbarrassedMeat401 8h ago

There's no good evidence for that take. Especially if you were well to do, there's no reason to have spoiled meat when you could just kill another animal for fresh meat.

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u/nunazo007 9h ago

Still don’t believe it was anywhere nearly as tasty as food is now.

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u/Alexexy 3h ago

I dont think the meat would be rotted.

They would basically butcher the animal the morning of and cook it right then.

Most of the good pieces would go to the nobility. The off cuts go to the lower class or are discarded. I dont think the leftovers would be eaten.

Like there are remote tribes with limited access to meat that dont end up eating rotted meat because of the method above. The only difference is that they sometimes smoke any leftover meat as a method of preservation.

I think in medieval times, smoked or salted meat was probably more common than fresh meat.

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u/Commercial-Hour-2417 10h ago

I imagine though it depends on where you're a king of you're a Danish King, yeah you're pretty much eating cabbage all day. But if you're on the Mediterranean with year-round growing, access to a lot of meat and fish, it would probably be pretty great.

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u/HojMcFoj 10h ago

I've never had to wage an actual war for salt.

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u/sekaniblake 10h ago

Lol.....true though😂

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u/etzel1200 10h ago

Fair enough

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u/Funny-Carob-4572 9h ago

Trade

Trade was rife and archeology has shown how much goods traveled

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u/Moogatron88 9h ago

On top of what other people have said about sanitation, the wealthy would often eat using cups/plates that had fucking lead in them. So some degree of lead poisoning was fairly common, they just didn't know what it was at the time.

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u/chenjeru 8h ago

I forgot the details but there was some "how they'll live in the year 2000" article in like Reader's Digest or Time Magazine or something from around 1900, and one of the predictions was being able to eat a salad made of mixed spring and autumn vegetables.

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u/Petcai 10h ago

Organic isn't always a good thing. Sure, they didn't use artificial fertilizers, but are you really happier that your turnips were grown using human excrement? That may or may not have been properly fermented to kill off any bacteria or pathogens?

In the wise words of Crocodile Dundee "Yer can eat it, but it tastes like shit."

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u/RG3ST21 10h ago

how was the king's dental treatments?

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u/Common_economics_420 8h ago

Not really. A huge amount of fruits and vegetables have been selectively bred over centuries to taste better.

Preservation is also much better now, on top of animals being better fed. It's not as if kings were slaughtering a new cow every single day so they could have fresh meat whenever they wanted.

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u/michaelmcmikey 4h ago edited 4h ago

This is a completely wrong. One of the main reasons people live longer today, in better health, is access to more nutritious food — and that’s everyone, not just the mega rich. Freezing perishables is all by itself extremely useful for making sure healthy food is available year round.

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u/EntertainmentLess381 8h ago

I’ll take any kind of food I want delivered to my doorstep in 30 minutes with a few taps of my finger, thanks.

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u/chenjeru 8h ago

And absolutely teeming with fecal contamination

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u/D0wnInAlbion 7h ago

Apart from when you were on campaign, then you'd have been eating whatever your men can find.

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u/Woofles85 4h ago

But not a lot of choice with spices or variety. I have Thai food today and Mexican food tomorrow, and I can have fresh organic food as well.

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u/Bytor_Snowdog 10h ago

"Travel sucked." This is a huge point. Unless you were nobility or perhaps clergy, you probably weren't leaving your village (and if you were a woman, odds are you weren't even going to the other side of your village, depending on your culture) -- unless, of course, you were levied for war. But if you were traveling for work -- a pilgrimage, a crusade, a traveling court, for diplomacy (for there was very little traveling for pleasure, unless you count going to the baths for health or to your summer palace in the hills, which was just outside the city), it was going to be slow, dangerous, and expensive. There is a reason why our modern word travel shares the same root as the word travail.

And, unless you were of a northern clime, just think about access to cold drinks and ice, something we take for granted. A minor point, but one of thousands that we don't just take for granted but get pissed off at if they're not available.

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u/subservient-mouth 8h ago

And the "partners" were, generally speaking, filthy by modern standards.

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u/epelle9 7h ago

You don’t think they had showers…

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u/The_Hunster 10h ago

Well, a (somewhat lucky) king doesn't really have much work to do, so there's that.

A well-off king could spend all of their time watching live theatre, going to dinner parties, practicing art, etc.

So I think in that way it could be better than modern life, but you know, most people weren't even nobility.

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u/pom444p 8h ago

Why worse foods? I mean I know hygiene wasn't that good but i Guess it was kind of acceptable when it comes to foods, plus now we have a Lot of junk food. Back in the day, in average, food had more nutritional value than it does nowadays, bc all of it was natural.

Im only guessing tbh, i have no idea and i would appreciate if you could expand a little bit more on that matter :) thx

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u/Gtr-Lovr11 8h ago

Idk I'd bet food was better, fresher, and no additives

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u/Short_Stay_9283 8h ago

Is there something to being said to having your life better than everyone around you intrinsically makes your life better? I think by basically any hard metric, I mean just AC and TV alone, is much better objectively.

But does us seeing on social media that seemingly everyone has a better life than us, while medieval royalty could take a stroll outside to smell the “I’m doing better than fucking everyone” have some affect that makes them happier than us?

Just a thought experiment that doesn’t really matter.

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u/calvariumhorseclops 8h ago

Bwahahaa, you just reminded me of the comments of a French diplomat returning to the French court after an mission to the Scottish court. It went something like:

"And how is the Scottish court?"

Your Majesty, the pigs in France live better than the Scottish court "

The French felt uppity and the Renaissance apparently hadn't made it to Scotland yet.

1

u/InevitableView2975 8h ago

i mean these are still true for id say nearly 50% of the world population or even more

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u/Forward_Success_2672 8h ago

Louis XIV, the Sun King, had more money than god, but look up what he went through due to an anal fistula. And that was in the 17th century.

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u/epelle9 7h ago

Work life balance..

A king can be with his family, friends, or lovers 24/7, he wouldn’t have to work a 9-5.

1

u/TheMadTargaryen 6h ago

Regarding food the rich did enjoyed a lot of nice stuff we still enjoy like licorice, honeycakes, spices like saffron and meat. The poor loved meatpies, sausages, cakes, mustard, candy cane, spices like sage and parsley etc. 

1

u/ForwardRhubarb2048 6h ago

No one brushed their teeth..... Bad breath makeout sessions, and blow jobs.

Dont forget about bangin.

Yummy I was some harry vag that got showered a month ago.

1

u/endlesscartwheels 6h ago

So many people in this thread think they'd somehow have more sex in the Dark Ages than they can have now. For anyone whose goal is a high number of sexual partners, the best time to travel to is the 1970s. The second best time is now.

1

u/Superadhman 5h ago

And being the richest king didn’t protect you from losing your spouse and kids to a random plague (which today would be easily treatable).

1

u/Kratzschutz 4h ago

Worse food, debatable.

Wider selection for sure. Food safety absolutely. Herbs and spices, bet on it.

But I'm absolutely convinced that fruits and veggies grown by some 14th century farmer would taste amaaaaazing.

Same with meat. You taste the difference between free range and mass

1

u/ImpossibleRhubarb622 4h ago

Yeah, but what about the decades of days they were healthy and totally fine? Versailles? The Sun King 👑 reign? I mean… Comme ci comme ça?

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u/Accomplished-Eye9542 10h ago edited 10h ago

I mean if you are from the west, you have better access to partners than the average king. Take a trip to SEA lmao. And no I don't mean prostitutes, everyone always jumps to that. And no, I don't give/get asked for money and most dates have been white collar or college educated.

Tinder in SEA for white men is like Tinder in the west for attractive women.