How to Survive in Medieval England by Toni Mount

Author:Toni Mount [Mount, Toni]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History / Europe / Medieval
ISBN: 9781526754417
Google: af47zgEACAAJ
Publisher: Pen & Sword Books Limited
Published: 2021-06-15T23:46:34.378926+00:00

Top tip

A quick and soothing treatment for small burns is to find a snail and rub its slime on the burn. Slime protects the snail from injury and helps heal any nicks and cuts it suffers. It can do the same for people.

What diseases will you be most vulnerable to?

Living in a town, where folk are more crowded together, epidemics are unavoidable. Typhoid fever, typhus, dysentery, measles, scarlet fever, diphtheria and smallpox are just some of the afflictions that snatch away lives in alarming numbers. Most feared of all, after its first visitation to England in 1348, is the plague. These diseases have no respect for rank; a king is as susceptible as a commoner but at least – you might think – royalty can afford to take countermeasures. Even in the thirteenth century, the connection between dirt and disease is understood, although it’s described in terms of ‘foul airs’ rather than bacteria and viruses, so a clean house is a healthy house. The rich can travel to their other residences while servants scrub and refresh the place they’ve left. For the poor, however, this isn’t an option when disease appears in the vicinity.

There are two schools of thought on what to do when plague breaks out: pray hard, avoid sin and be virtuous, so God might see fit to spare you; or enjoy life to the full while you can.

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