Are we safer now than people were in the Middle Ages?
All of us are familiar with turning on the news bulletins and hearing constant references to terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, civil war, the list goes on. This gets me thinking, is it more dangerous to live nowadays or would life have been more perilous in medieval times?
News gets to us very quickly in the 21st century. If there’s a disaster we get to hear of it sometimes just moments after it happens. Information is fed to us on a minute-by-minute basis and so perhaps sometimes the threats to us individually seem magnified.
Medieval life had its own dangers and just as today, life could be very uncertain. Life spans were short; a person who got to the age of 40 could consider themselves to have lived to a good age. Many women died in childbirth and only around half of children born lived beyond the age of five. Medicines were primitive and often, to our modern eyes, dangerous.
Medieval people could face great personal dangers, settlements could be torched by enemies, or invaders arrive and take over an area. Add to this the fact that men who worked for a master could be expected to fight in that master’s wars whenever and wherever these were.
It’s a fascinating question and one that everyone will have their own view on. For me, medieval life was more dangerous on an individual level and life nowadays is more dangerous on a global level. Human nature hasn’t changed very much over the centuries.
