Survival tips if you find yourself in the Middle Ages?

Re:Survival tips if you find yourself in the Middle Ages? by bootload on Saturday January 03, 2009 @11:51PM (#419002)

"... What one invention would you introduce ahead of its time? ..."

The fireplace chimney as it wasn't introduced before the 13th century and fire smoke is a major cause of lung ailments.

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Re:Survival tips if you find yourself in the Middle Ages? by pg on Saturday January 03, 2009 @01:58PM (#418557)

Hygiene.

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Re:Survival tips if you find yourself in the Middle Ages? by robg on Saturday January 03, 2009 @02:05PM (#418570)

How can you make money with that? Purveyor of scented soaps? ;)

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Re:Survival tips if you find yourself in the Middle Ages? by pg on Saturday January 03, 2009 @10:39PM (#418955)

You could not die, which would be pretty valuable.

But come to think of it, you could also make tons of money. An ordinary educated person today knows way more about medicine than medieval doctors did. So your optimal career goal should probably be to become a court physician. You could become as rich as minor nobility doing this, and (most importantly) without having to take sides in power struggles.

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Re:Survival tips if you find yourself in the Middle Ages? by robg on Saturday January 03, 2009 @11:48PM (#418996)

SaS = Soaps and Sterilization. Hmmm, interesting, but seems like you'd have to violate your second rule ("no opinions"). Maybe if you could manage to out live most other folks into your late thirties and forties (steering clear of all sorts of bugs - water, food, and transmission-based) the marketing would be your very aliveness. People would have to solicit your counsel rather than you having to actively sell it.

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Re:Survival tips if you find yourself in the Middle Ages? by bprater on Saturday January 03, 2009 @02:45PM (#418602)

One of the commentors at Kotte's mentions that you could sell boiled water as "de-sprited water", good for all menner of medical procedures.

Unfortunately, another commentor recognized that firewood would be difficult to access, and cow poo doesn't fire hot enough.

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Re:Survival tips if you find yourself in the Middle Ages? by time_management on Saturday January 03, 2009 @02:54PM (#418612)

Why would firewood be difficult to find? I could be wrong, but I don't think the European deforestation had set in yet, at that time. Is the wood in most European forests not of sufficient quality?

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Re:Survival tips if you find yourself in the Middle Ages? by inklesspen on Saturday January 03, 2009 @04:13PM (#418675)

It belonged to the nobles.

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Re:Survival tips if you find yourself in the Middle Ages? by pg on Saturday January 03, 2009 @10:43PM (#418958)

Depends where you were. In feudalized, agricultural bits of Europe, everything did, at least nominally. But especially in 800 there would have been large expanses of uncultivated and mostly depopulated forest.

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Re:Survival tips if you find yourself in the Middle Ages? by robg on Saturday January 03, 2009 @03:32PM (#418651)

Didn't the ancient Chinese mine coal? Not a bad map to bring with you: surface coal deposits. Still, start global warming 500 years early?

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Re:Survival tips if you find yourself in the Middle Ages? by gjm11 on Saturday January 03, 2009 @03:05PM (#418622)

There might be reasons for doing it other than making money. For instance, (1) making life more pleasant for yourself and (2) saving a whole lot of lives.

Perish the thought that anyone might think either of those more important than making money, of course...

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Re:Survival tips if you find yourself in the Middle Ages? by robg on Saturday January 03, 2009 @03:31PM (#418649)

/joke/

Still, there's an argument to be made that people can be better convinced of a need if there's something they think they have to buy.

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Re:Survival tips if you find yourself in the Middle Ages? by russell on Saturday January 03, 2009 @08:55PM (#418877)

I would introduce the horse collar. It existed in Europe as early as the 10th century but was not widespread until around 1200. It enabled horses to pull plows and was much more efficient. In order to use my much increased grain production, I would introduce distillation and whiskey. Ah the riches.

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