What you can learn about medieval Europe if you focus on peasants

Re:What you can learn about medieval Europe if you focus on ... by smogcutter on Friday February 12, 2021 @01:24AM (#26111210)

I broadly agree with you, but think there’s a danger there of going too far in reducing culture and belief systems to simple “customs”.

Bret Devereaux, for one, constantly reiterates on his (awesome) blog you linked that people in the past really did often act, relate, and believe very differently than we do.

Anachronism is a trap just as much as romanticism, only from the opposite extreme.

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Re:What you can learn about medieval Europe if you focus on ... by Balgair on Friday February 12, 2021 @10:41AM (#26114847)

The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.

-L.P. Hartley

Try watching old movies, something from before WW2. The scripts and the acting aren't just different because of tech, but because the people are different. The similarities, usually in the vices and not the virtues, are eye opening too.

Now that 'drift' from our reality continues all the way into the past, sometimes with violent changes, sometimes more slowly.

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