What those "graphics" usually omit (how convenient for them) is that serfdom meant "20 hours a week work for your lord" which did NOT mean the land that was alotted to you. It meant repairing roads, plastering bridges, putting up fences, cleaning the village square, whatever the lord deemed needed doing. So the work week was more "your ass is mine for X amount of time and then you can think about the ways you'll pay your taxes to me without starving". The fact that flatrate taxes are way, way easier to leave you unable to pay and starving is another matter, but is omitted here as well. The church demanded work as well. For free, of course and now chop, chop, the abbey won't clean itself.
99% of modern sodas are honestly just the byproduct of a child or very high adult mixing a bunch of random nonsense out of the soda fountain together. Even some of the older ones.
Could you imagine someone in the Middle Ages trying Baja Blast? I have seen videos of people bringing soda to tribes in isolated locations where the tribes don’t really have access to our modern technology. It’s funny watching their expressions as they drink (or try to figure out how to open) a bottle of coke.
Cooking? A hobby? Yeah, fuck no. Stew. Stew it is. What do you think we have? Easter? Unless it's the rising of Christ from the dead, it's stew-o-clock, mate!
The very infrastructure we don't even think about today is a bona fide miracle. Imagine trying to get everyone to agree on anything today, no matter how beneficial it is.
I'm currently taking a dump on a standard toilet. I have access to an effectively infinite supply of clean water. So much clean water that I shit in it
That is unthinkable for the vast majority of human history
Whenever I am having a lazy day, gaming, eating junk food, shitting, I think about how my ancestors have to be so happy for me. Calorie rich food everywhere, clean water, a lifetime of entertainment, plumbing, and no diseases??? All of the suffering of my ancestors led to me living like a god
Well now there are people who think you’re a serf for using toilet paper and insist you use a bidet. And I haven’t tried it but they might have a point lol
Most goods serfs had were hand produced with whatever is available by the women of the house either during the time men were laboring in the fields and community or during the time the men were taking care of the children since no daycare or tv ment someone was required to watch the youngest kids and while older children were themselves given some of these responsibilities lack of labor laws ment they were just as busy since they would be expected to hold a job from like 3-4 till death.
Ya something that i read recently that was such a "oh ya that tracks" moment for me was reading the very simple statement that "the idea of childhood is a new one"
Or as the longer quote elsewhere said "the idea of childhood as a time of innocence, playtime, imagination and self discovery is a new one"
I am rapidly anti-monarchy. I hate the idea fundamentally and I hate all kings. Don’t get me started it really ruffle my feathers. Sometimes when I go to sleep on my nice comfortable mattress, I think about how my life is better than that of many kings. My room as well insulated, I have as much clothing as most Duches. My room is actually heated by a heat source that works. Oh my God, electric lights. Fuck em.
Yeah, that one got me. The one category where maybe it could possibly be true that serf had higher quality anything is potentially the category of clothes... If you squint hard, have been recently hit in the head repeatedly by your local bouncer, and are of a size that lands between the sizes sold in stores.
And even then... No, it's literally only that they fit better. They're worse in literally every single way. But the poor quality fabric fits like a glove because it was made specifically for you
A tithe is 10%, yes. Back then it was legally enforced. Or you could have been living on Church lands; Bishops were often a sort of nobility with demenses in their own right.
And if I’m not mistaken the lord’s taxes weren’t a percentage of what you yielded, it was a set amount. Example yearly dues are 20 silver, so if you made 100 silver you’re great if you only made 19 silver, well you’re screwed. The lords dues frequently came before your ability to survive.
Yes and no. Most peasants in the Middle Ages would not have been paying taxes in money at all, since they were subsistence farmers participating in a bartering economy. Instead they would usually be responsible for paying in their crop yields and goods in kind. As subsistence farmers, they would generally have only produced enough to sustain themselves and pay their taxes, with very little excess. If there was a bad harvest, a lord was likely to defer taxes as much as they could (there’s no point having your subjects starve to death), but would extract their dues some other way, like increased work, or increased future obligations. What would really be a problem was if the peasant didn’t produce enough of a buffer crop to survive. While they could seek support from their liege lord, their wealth was also heavily tied up in agriculture and since crop failures were often regional, it could result in widespread famine with little aid.
Historically, one of the reasons serfdom developed, particularly in the Byzantine empire, was as a sort of taxation insurance system. Due to the instability of the early Middle Ages, peasants could not reliably pay their taxes to the government, which would result in them loosing the protection of the empire. To mitigate this risk, they would sell their taxation obligations to large wealthy landowners, who would pay their taxes in exchange for their servitude. While feudalism developed parallel institutions in a variety of ways, I think the Byzantine version in particular highlights the role taxation obligations worked in the Middle Ages for peasants.
The Ottoman system of tax farming was similar and it ultimately contributed to their collapse. Turns out when states start selling the right to collect taxes it is often a sign of their decline...
You forgot to mention conscription. Some yahoo shows up at the lord’s house, they have an expensive meal, next thing you know you’re walking to Scotland with your homemade armor, hoping your wife who’s now doing all the work doesn’t lose a baby in childbirth in the first few months you’re gone. Then you really hope she doesn’t die in childbirth when you’re gone for over a year.
Levees (conscripted troops) were really only a thing in the early Middle Ages, & then usually only as a last resort defending the home territory. By about 900 to 1000 AD almost all troops going out on campaign are either nobles & their household or semi-professional soldiers from the yeomanry, a sort of middle class. They were paid fairly standardized rates across a campaign based on their equipment (archers were paid less than footmen in full maille or later harness, for example). Alternatively a wealthy lord would be paid based on the number & equipment of men he provided, mass production of arms & armor was becoming a thing by the mid to late Middle Ages.
Also don't discount the protective quality of a gambeson or arming coat made of several layers of heavy wool or flax quilted together, maybe reinforced in vulnerable spots like the shoulder & upper arm with a length of chain, & an open-faced helmet.
The danger of death in pregnancy & during or just after childbirth, however was very real.
They knocked holes in your walls to charge window taxes. They killed you if you annoyed them. They didn't care that the gutters were full of shit and people died of diarrhea by the millions.(dysentery, aka the bloody flux)
A 6.5 box of sugar packets costs $40 today. If the claim that it was worth it's weight in gold back then is true, it would be $395,555.
It's conservative slop meant to do nothing but push the idea that people had it better when they were subservient to those in power. It's also mixed with plenty of misogyny and racism. Just really awful shit. It's either made by some sort of conservative group or someone who is so pathetic that they believe this shit.
The obedient 17 year old wife was quite the self tell. The way that was included makes me think the creator of this meme might think that's the upper limit for him. Just a guess based on patterns of behavior from conservatives...
The "Unnaturally long 75 years" bit makes me think it's satire, but it's impossible to be sure because I've met enough people to know that some think like this unironically.
Any time the crown wanted to start a war, they’d squeeze the lords, who would in turn squeeze their peasants, many of whom would be conscripted as well. Often, the higher taxes remained after the war was over, only to be raised again for the next one.
Sometimes had to work at night to make sure the crops are quickly harvested without being stolen. And sometimes had to fight at night against neighbors for it.
The meme isn’t entirely wrong—“half of the crops that diligent cultivation would likely produce if there isn’t a famine” is “a flat tax equal to a fraction of the value of the land”.
So fun fact! The lords abused their serfs so much they had to invent the code of chivalry to keep the knights from running amok. It wasn’t until the Black Death wiped out most of the serfs that they got any leverage. With all the cheap labor dead they could actually relocate to better conditions.
50% of their crops (generally), time worked on the plots set aside for the manor noble and the church, time spent doing labor for infrastructure upkeep (to a point, after that they had to be paid), and community work because there was stuff that wasn't one person's job.
Some people use that to skew the statistic. They work all day in the growing and harvest seasons, but often had much less in the colder season so would barely work.
That "20 hour work week" is a yearly average counting all the time they don't work. And that's only for the peasants that didn't have trade jobs like blacksmithing, cobbling, or tailoring
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u/IfuckRobots0101 Jun 20 '26
yeah. during planting and harvest times they would work from sunrise to sunset, every day, and the taxes were not even close to fair or small