Did medieval PEASANTS TRAVEL?
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- Опубліковано 24 кві 2022
- Jason Kingsley, the modern Knight, discusses how and why peasants might have travelled in medieval times and why.
Thanks to Hereford Cathedral.
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Love how you are able to truly humanize medieval common people. It's easy to see a knight as an individual these days, with their personal coat of arms, their weapons and their stories. But I often find that media portrays the medieval peasants as a grey mass of people who where there just for the sake of being stepped on by anyone on top of them on the social pyramid. Loved the part about the souvenirs by the way. Great work : )
Thanks
Movies often portray peasants as a grey mass to provide a contrast to the hero/protagonist for both storytelling and visual cues. It then sort of just becomes our own understanding of what a peasant is. I love videos like this that show how things really were. Subbed!
@@DeanO9128 They also want you to think that the lower classes have a much better life today than they did back then.
@@aethulwulfvonstopphen8013 that's really not a concern of people making a movie. Maybe someone does want you to think that, but it's not the movie makers who do.
Also ironic that you're saying that in the comment section of a video made by a multi-millionaire.
@Aethulwulf Von Stopphen I mean... the lower classes tend to. True, things weren't as bleak as movies portray, but by the same token, the average life expectancy has gone up, the quality of life has gone up, the sheer amount of luxury items we have now, has gone up. I can, for a dollar, go buy spices that in the medieval age, would have landed me a Barony, and a hundred Men-At-Arms, simply because they were unknown, or only known to the Aristocracy. And we enjoy those today on even the cheapest of dishes. We have far better healthcare (yes, we even have free care in the US), we have electricity, access to nearly unlimited, clean water, near 100% guarantees of food being safe to eat.
I'd rather be poor in the modern age, than be poor in the medival age, that's for sure.
Modern network protocol routing operates similarly on "local knowledge" for each hop along the path to get to their destinations. Packets know their ultimate destination but have to be told at each "town" (router) which road was the correct one. Worked for pilgrims in the middle ages, works for 1's and 0's in the digital age.
I'd not considered that, but great observation.
Thank you for sharing this! This gives me a great direction for research on a novel I'm writing. :)
That's an incredible observation, great catch!
Heck, just look at few decades in the past. Tv broadcast network is basically the same, with repeater tower acting as nodes. Then cell phones and modern internet came.
Now my head hurts but I understand .
Absolutely baffled me when I found out he was the head of rebellion game studios. I've been watching him for a while. And played so many rebellion games, especially the Alien vs Predator game as a kid. Instead of living the lavish lifestyle of having so much money, this guys out here living like a 13th century knight. Amazing props to you keep making this videos
Thanks!
Maybe Rebellion could make a new Medieval era game 👀
Well you really don't know how lavish a life style he goes home to.
@@ModernKnight you should make a kingdom come deliverance type game set in England that would be awesome.
Wait... What?! Really?! That's amazing and yeah, why the hell haven't they made a game set in the Medieval period given that their boss clearly has *so much* knowledge about the setting?! Another Sniper Elite game is great and all, but Knight Elite? You'd have one happy preorder customer right here!
I lived this life for a couple of years. In the 1980s, I was a volunteer teacher in the Himalayan foothills of Nepal. If the presenter substituted "medieval" with "Nepali," most of the video would work just fine. Walking for days to get somewhere was often the only option. We trudged along rugged footpaths, ate at tea stalls along the way, and slept huddled in simple lodges (no electricity or running water). Finding one's way from place to place was exactly as described here. As I suspect was the case in the Middle Ages, many people I encountered, especially women, did indeed spend their entire lives in one village--sometimes rarely leaving the farm. But many did need to get products to market, go on pilgrimage, retrieve a new wife from elsewhere, and so much more. But where I lived, it wasn't just cathedrals a traveler would marvel at: Imagine a peasant for the first time seeing automobiles, electric lights, plate glass widows, and all the other trappings of modern life. Oddly, this historical video about centuries past brought back memories.
that's incredible.
I did similar, only 5 years ago. Some parts of the world are so incredibly remote, it's the only option really - especially when there's mountains, valleys, rivers, and other natural obstacles in the way, stopping motor vehicle roads being built to these places.
That's the story of my grandpa's daily trip to school. Lmao
that’s amazing i bet it was an awesome experience traveling by foot between villages
That’s awesome MR! I have a question & I think I know this answer but I always ask a person who’s experienced such things that I haven’t, and I’m curious. Were the local people you met on the journey very nice and pleasant? I’m sure you had the occasional “not so nice person,” but I’m curious if the people were friendly, personable, kind hmm 🤔 not having an issue with travellers (strangers) etc etc etc?
Imagine an English peasant on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem finding himself in a land of deserts and palm trees.
To him it must've felt like visiting another planet entirely!
Modern people may not have been to places where palm trees grow in the wild, but media makes us somewhat familiar with them regardless. But to a medieval english peasant, he would've probably never seen anything like it.
Being from North East Florida I've only seen show twice in my life IRL and dispite the abundance of it in video games movies and other media. Watching the snow fall outside my costins window was something thing else even though my main reaction to it IRL is picking it up and just letting it fall again. Which I do like snow levels and maps in video games so yeah even today seeing something out of the norm or juswt an exprence is just as valueble as it always was.
@@GreenBlueWalkthrough Yes. It sometimes comes as a surprise to me being so used to snow, that some people who visit my country have never seen or touched snow their entire lives.
Still, I do treasure the snowfall every winter. Everything just goes very quiet when the landscape is snowcovered since it absorbs a lot of sound.
@@sevenproxies4255
While I do treasure snowfall every late autumn and winter, I don’t feel quite the same about snow in late April. Fortunately it’s been warm enough that the snow no longer settles on the ground, but I’d still much rather prefer another day if not needing my jacket on my way home from work.
Edit: The snow did settle. I want spring.
@@GreenBlueWalkthrough For all of the hardship it brings, I wouldn't trade the snow for anything.
I wonder what it would be like for the people in Jerusalem to see these sunburned-red folks speaking a foreign language, dressed very differently, and pointing at all of the mundane plants and animals saying, "Whoa, look at that!"
Another kind of travel throughout Europe was that of the Journeyman.
A craftsman towards the end of his apprenticeship would be 'banished' from his town or village for ~2 years to live off his wits and skills with only the tools he could carry himself.
Only allowed to work for food or lodging (no pay) and with a journal to be reported in by everyone he worked for.After ~2 years one was allowed to return home to complete the final training to become a master craftsman.A literal rite of passage.
This was actually done to allow each workshop/area to increase its technological knowhow by gathering differing and novel work practices and skills from afar,not unlike being encouraged to go to the fetes of neighbouring villages to avoid in=breeding in the villages.
And this still exists in Germany to this day.
@@Leeschany And France as well
Used to be very common in Scandinavia, still exists though not as big as in Germany. The word "naver" is actually the last part of Scandi-naver. 3 years and 1 day is what you are expected to travel for.
People tend to forget that people were as smart and innovative back then as they are now, they just had less good nutrition and education to develop polymaths with genetically optimal brains. Culturally they still had plenty of innovations that adapted to the times and technology and maximized what they had.
Now I get why it's called journeyman
Pilgrims were often supported by locals who fed them along the routes. They had strong legal protection, and attacking a pilgrim was an incredibly serious crime.
How did people know they were pilgrims, if they were a protected class? Were they registered somewhere? Carry some sort of badge or symbol that recognized them as such?
@@Wh40kFinatic There are likely many different signs, but sea shells are often used for the identification of pilgrims on the Way of St James
@@Wh40kFinatic There are tons and tons of "pilgrim badges" in museums apparently. Google "wargina badge"
Thanks for this info. I was wondering how could those travellers support themselves for long periods of time and how would they carry a mountain of gold coins to do so. No ATM along the way!
@@franglais-ridersalso the knights templar started a kind of pre banking banking system that let people deposit money in europe and get a letter of credit from them that they could use to withdraw in the holy lands
There is this really good book called "Montaillou, an Occitan Village from 1294 to 1324", it uses primary sources to explain the life of the average joe in medieval France. It also describes the lives of those who did not become a farmer, as the inheritance of the farm usually was reserved for the first born son. Other male siblings became pastors, workers, goat herders or did odd jobs here and there. One example is of the herders who took other people's flocks to and from the summer fields. It was a hard life, with many succumbing to the elements high up in mountain passes. They often didn't have the luxury of taverns and inns. But they went to places, and they relayed news, or cults, and often had trouble readjusting to sedentary town life. In once example a young herder's family found him a wife, only for him to leave again after only 2 weeks of being married. Their profession was travel and they truly felt free to their core. Which to me isn't surprising because as hunter gatherers it's all we did for 250.000 years, walk. We're built for it. "Montaillou, an Occitan Village", a great book, if you can find a copy you'd be doing yourself a great favor.
In England, two pilgrimages to St David's in Wales were considered equal to one trip to Rome due to the risks involved. So apparently the Welsh roads weren't that safe.
Thanks, I'll look into that.
Another pilgrimage in Wales was *Bardesy island* - three pilgrimages to it equalled to one pilgrimage to Rome .
Could that be due to the terrain in wales though? back in medieval times you'd be going up and down a lot of mountainous terrain in poor weather conditions, without modern bridges, roads, landscaping etc
@@MasterIceyy There would've been a few roads - vestiges of the straight roads laid down by the Romans,centuries earlier -but I'd hazard a guess that by the medieval times they wouldn't have been in particularly great condition.
In the late 13th century with Edward the 1st determination in conquering Wales,one of his orders was to cut
pathways/roads through the then densely forested valleys of Wales - getting his troops and builders of castles in without being attacked -this had thwarted previous Anglo Norman /English armies that were constantly ambushed -and often defeated by a numerically smaller but determined Welsh forces.
Love the fact that they used to call them roads back then and now we call them Highways/motorways.
I think the fact that we are still having long distance walking routes shows that there's something innate about leaving your front door and seeing where your feet take you. And sure, maybe first we take a train and a bus to a starting point, or maybe we drive, but the walk and the slowly changing landscape seem to be something entirely natural.
Yes, Bilbo.
no shit sherlock...
When humans evolved from primates, for a long time we became hunters and/or gatherers. This was something that made people walk a lot. We evolved to be not the fastest runners in the animal kingdom but a good endurance for a long distance travel. Great for searching for food either as plants or just following prey till it was too tired to run anymore or succumbed to its injury. It is quite literally very natural for us to walk.
Our ancestors both from the sapiens sapien and sapiens neanderthal were traveling on foot
Even now, people walk all over Europe for the pilgrimage to Santiago.
While not European, my parents did know people who made pilgrimage to Mecca from Punjab, Pakistan. They would do pretty much what you said, go a specific route in order to get to Mecca. Pretty amazing to hear people actually did this. My aunt tells me a local man would be gone for years and when he came back he'd have so many stories to tell.
where would he get the money for food and lodging
@@phineus8397 hustlin
@@phineus8397 they’d work most of their lives for it. That’s why pilgrimage to Mecca is only mandatory for people ‘who can’.
Very cool
@@phineus8397some stay for several days or weeks to work for a business person or some sort. Perhaps you also heard that people that wanted to take a boat who can't afford to pay fare will ask the captain if they can work for him along the trip.
I once hiked for three weeks in Germany (my homeland) on foot and it was one of the if not the best experience in my life. This video remembered me about that and what a great experience it must have been for this people to travel for months and through different countries, amazing.
wonderful!
My history teacher was just talking about this. I think he’s low-key convinced the entire class to walk the Camino de Santiago
A good teacher!
“Europe was born in pilgrimage, and
its mother tongue is Christianity”
(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
"Low-key." I phrase nobody in history used until 5 years ago. A meaningless word that millennials can't seem to communicate without. Was anyone in your class high-key convinced? Or just regular convinced?
@@SalvableRuin I guarantee whatever your generation is had plenty of "meaningless" words in use when you were young. Low-key isnt even a vaguely defined or new phrase: originating from lower or quiet sounds in music--or undertones--it can describe anything that's done subtly. the only thing that's changed recently is the breadth of use for the word.
@@SalvableRuin btw millennials are not the ones who came up with this word.. millennials (such as me) are old by now :(
@@Giofear Please don't remind me that i'm old now 😅🥲
Once again, superb. Thank you for these gems.
Why didn’t they just use waypoints to fast travel? Seems really inefficient unless they’re trying to unlock the achievement.
At 4:28. Paris has the same deal. It used to be ringed by this huge medieval wall, and the roads that went through the wall gates told you the final destination of the roads. Thus the road to Orleans went through the Porte de Orleans ("porte" is "gate" in French). The Porte d'Italie was the gate for the road that led you to Italy, the Porte de Normandy was the gate for the road that led you to Normandy, the Porte de Lyon was the gate for the road that led you to Lyon, etc. It was pretty nifty, and very similar to Oxford Street in London and London Road in Oxford.
Most German towns and villages also have streets named after the place you‘d reach if you followed them out of town.
Most street/road names in Denmark older than about 150 years are named the same way.
Although nowhere nearly as ancient one sees the same thing in Georgia (the state in the USA). Every small town has a Main Street usually parallelling the railway tracks, and a Church Street; parallelling Main Street a block or two away, on which all the various denominations of Protestant Churches reside (The oldest in town is typically designated 1rst e.g., First Baptist, First Methodist except, if present, the Catholic and Anglican (Episcopal in the states) churches which are named after "Papist" saints. (these denominations are scarce in rural Georgia), All the major roads out of town are named after the closest "large city at which they terminate.
I remember being told in my high school history class that peasants weren’t allowed to leave the manor and were stuck there their whole lives. I always thought that sounded too harsh to be true.
Well, that depends on the manor lord. Usually a peasant is a source of income for the lord, so there a financial reasons for him to not allow a departure.
When towns arose they could go to the towns which would seldom be more than 20 miles. The town's Royal Charter then would protect them , at least in theory.
@@juanzulu1318
But also spiritual reasons to allow them to leave, at least for pilgrimages.
@@ragnkja well, thats an interesting point. Would a lord simply let his peasant go if he just claimed "Hey my lord, I wanna go to Jerusalem, let me go!"
I dont think so.
I assume the reaction would have been: "Dont be silly! Go care for ur family and harvest ur field!"
@@juanzulu1318
No, it would probably be a longer and more nuanced discussion than that. Like, you probably wouldn’t get to go all the way to Jerusalem if you were the one your family relied on for the ploughing. At best you might get “time off” to go to somewhere closer like Mount St Michael or Canterbury, and only during a less critical time of the year.
I'm guessing a journey from England to Jerusalem would not only take years, but it would also be very expensive (food, renting rooms, the fee for the ship, etc.). How did they carry all that money? There's no way you can just fit it all in a coin purse, and a chest would've been something very heavy to transport. A video on travel logistics would be great!
I was wondering about that also and my thoughts were maybe they exchanged labour for food . I could be wrong but I think I remember something about there being a law that certain places had to accomodate sleeping arrangements for travelers free of charge
One solution that arrived in the later middle ages, if you were going to Jerusalem, was to deposit your money with the Templar Order, who would then issue you a document certifying your deposit. When you arrived in Jerusalem, you could then present that document to get an equivalent amount of money there.
If you were on a pilgrimage then I think the different orders in the cities would take care of you, give you some food and shelter. As this was supposed to be their holy duty. But I agree, a video on the travel logistics would be a great follow up.
and btw: does the mule already have a name?
Back then, it was normal for people in Europe and especially the church to offer lodging and food to travels for no cost as a form of charity.
@@unnamedchannel1237 I've heard that much of Europe used to have, until quite recently, a hospitality culture where people would frequently offer room and board to travelers in exchange for help with some chores, or even just news of the lands they came from. That would probably help out a lot.
The reaction to seeing the inside of a cathedral is incredible even after driving there comfortably. Imagine the reaction / reward of seeing and being welcomed into a cathedral after a long, arduous journey, meeting people, sleeping rough and experiencing all the towns and vistas to get there. What an incredible experience, what a life well lived. Our technology now steals this away.
This is why I love cyclotouring. Traveling by bicycle gives you the time necessary to really get a sense of a foreign land, landscape, people, climate. You don't just see one or two places, you (relatively) slowly travel from place to place and let all of that sink in. Compared to regular tourism industry there are really not many downsides, besides the longer time required to do it. The required effort and the loss in comfort I don't consider downsides really, as you can adjust both to you liking (faster/slower pace, choice of terrain/destination, sleeping in a tent or a hotel). Hell, you can also mix and match (a few days camping and then a few at a hotel/hostel etc.). It's not for everyone, but is the closest practical approach to something that sort-of resembles medieval travel. Walking just takes too much time for the modern lifestyle.
Great comment, and on a bike on modern roads you can travel a long way in one day if you want to do so.
about relics: it was believed that an object that was touched by a relic became a relic itself.
that way relics could be systematically produced.
The game ‘Kingdom Come: Deliverance’ a fairly accurate historical game set in 1403 Bohemia shows this. It contains a lot of people traveling the medieval dirt roads, pilgrims and wayfarers they are called. It even contains characters asking for food or shoes. Many of the in-game peasants or craftsmen also mention they have been to other cities in Bohemia before. It really adds to the atmosphere, and shows a lot of people traveled even back then.
The game has a map which is cool for gameplay purposes, but imagine an immersive mode where there's no map and u have to ask NPCs for directions in your first playthrough before you memorize your way around the map.
Referencing a game for historical purposes seems rather risky.
@@miguelservetus9534 Kingdom come deliverance set out to be as accurate as possible, obviously it wasn't perfect, there were some flaws as youtuber metatron pointed out but it's probably the most accurate construction of a medieval setting ever made.
@@Obi-WanKannabis my comment was not in criticism of the game.
Bamberditto closes the comment with. ‘(it) shows a lot of people traveled even back then’. This is based on content of a game. Well researched or not, it is not a foundation upon which to build a conclusion. It’s like saying there must be sound in space because most movies in space have vehicle and other sound.
Note that this video’s narrator says 95% did not travel. If true, the most did not travel.
*plays a video game*
“This is history”
I love this video. So many people, even (most egregiously) my history teachers say things like “people in the Middle Ages only knew about their village and the next village over” which is of course ridiculous.
Some people are traditional ones don’t have any desire to leave the village except to sell their goods and work on their farms, and the housewives probably just spent a lot of time with childcare and working in the house.
There’s other people with the Explorer desire that are definitely walking and exploring and taking pilgrimages like in this video
I don't usually comment, but it doesn't really matter now. I have been following this channel for a long time and I noticed that your knowledge about the Middle Ages is so excellent. I mostly find people who talk about the Middle Ages from the perspective of today's man, but when you talk and do something, you seem like you came from the Middle Ages. I have the experience as if you traveled to the Middle Ages, saw it all and now you are retelling it. Really fascinating, I would like to one day understand that period in history so well. However, lately I've been thinking about something. Maybe someone would be able to answer me, so I will state the question. For example, I am a noblewoman who traveled from Britain to the Byzantine Empire with my husband and escort. On the way we were attacked by bandits (or such) and I managed to save myself and run away. I ended up in an unknown country, a village for example, without money, my people, etc. Is there a way for such a person to get back to Britain safely in medieval times? If yes, how?
I like the _"this is what I think they did"_ way of stitching together the known bits of history. It takes a history lesson from potentially dry to oh-that's-why!
It seems like the law that allowed you to walk through a peasant's crops was a built in incentive to require them to help maintain the road. Just like modern local ordanances here in the States that require you to maintain and keep clear from ice, the adjacent public sidewalk to your property or be liable for injuries.
I live far enough out in the 'burbs we don't bother with silly things like sidewalks. But where they do, they fine you if you don't have it cleared by 24 hours after the snow/ice/sleet stops. Especially if people report you. If it's a three foot blizard you get a little leeway on the time. In town centers when it has reached the goat path stage, the town will clear away with a front-end loader and dump trucks in really bad winters. When I was commuting by rail/subway up in Boston I spent a lot of time climbing over and walking on snow mountains one especially bad winter. I was horrified to find out that unimportant suburban streets just don't get plowed for days.
That makes sense. The biblical legal standard is that anyone is allowed to pass through anyone else's land, which would likely promote a similar maintenance of paths. It also allowed travelers to eat from the fields/orchards they passed through, but not to gather up anything to take with them. So, like grabbing a few grapes and munching on them as you pass. If you maintained paths through your land, you could exert some level of influence over what people are going to snack on as they pass through
@Jonathan kwabquack Are you ready to take up your lineage's fine legacy of Hog Riding?
i will never get over how epic this intro of him riding in on a horse is. God it cracks me up but also i love it deep down and secretly want a shot of me doing this.
The feeling you get when landscape changes on your journey is quite an experience. You don't get that with a plane or car travel that much. I did a hitchhiking journey from Poland to Spain and walked quite a bit during it. Went form cold and snowy plains, through hills in France to dry and desert like places in southern Spain and ended up in blush greens in north of Spain. I wish to do the Santiago the Compostela trail somewhere in the future. Maybe even starting from mu home😃
I have to say learning about swords and medieval warfare and other things like that is fun to learn about but there's something very fascinating learning about just the average person in the medieval period it tends to be overlooked so many times unfortunately due to that in pop culture media there is just this wrong depiction of peasants from games to TV series when people tend to think about peasants there is this odd dehumanizing them in some ways I guess that's the best way to put it but we need to remember that these were humans just like us just try to live their best lives though we may be separated by time like us they had loved ones, hobbies, and dreams. Watching channels like this that use actual sources really do paint a different picture of life in that time period and in some ways make us feel more connected to our ancestors who are just like us human beings.
I also dislike that medieval peasants, or just people in general regardless of their status, are dehumanised by the modern world. They are often looked down on, or considered stupid, when in reality they were incredibly smart and knew what they were doing and why they were doing it.
@@peachesandcream8753 exactly I would love to start seeing better representation for people living in the medieval time period and treated with more respect and dignity and most importantly a more historically correct representation in Media it'll be great to see a film mostly focused on the average person in that time period and have it done by people who spend time and research to get authentic look and feel with characters in the story that can have people relate to maybe one day we'll get to see it
Sonder
I only gave more thought to the peasants was learning a little more about my genealogy. One of my ancestors was a villein who left his village and Lord for London and joined a trade guild. I don't remember the guild he joined but I saw a photocopies of his membership there and his London City Freeman document thing. I didn't see the court papers but my uncle who did the research said it came up in a court case because his Lord contested his status. The Lord had paid for the apprenticeship and was expecting a skilled tradesman for his village but instead my ancestor had buggered off to London to join a guild and be a free man.
Anyway, it looked like his life as a peasant was a lot more complicated than working in fields all of the time. And maybe he was not entirely honest.
@@runningfromabear8354 genealogy can be super interesting and you're lucky to have found records from a mere villein from so long ago! i can only get back past the early 1700s from any family lines that have nobles/lords etc in them usually
I find it fascinating that the concept of navigation via itinerary is alive and well in the form of subway and mass transit maps. You'll find that they are not drawn to scale because they don't need to be: they aren't maps, but intersecting itineraries overlaid onto a vestigial map backdrop. I didn't understand why or how these "maps" would be made that way until watching this video.
Thanks for this. I didn't know how Underground maps worked and always wondered.
Wonderful observation
Which is in utter contrast to New York City's subway map. It actually is drawn to scale showing overlaid onto a map of the city, but the reason is that knowing the actual physical location of those stations in relation to the other parts of the city is too important to have a more abstract, "clean" map.
@@AirLancer I think that the NYC map is not drawn to scale. Look at lower Manhattan vs the rest of the island, or just Brooklyn in general.
When I first saw Canterbury Cathedral my first thought was what must it have been like for a medieval peasant to see such an amazing building it's an extraordinary building
Makes me feel old, I'm 30 but can still remember travelling over seas without gps
I imagine that a law that said people can trample your crops if the path is swamped would encourage farmers to maintain the walkways themselves.
My very dear friend, I was missing you!
It made my day to have this video. I hope you continue uploading things like this as you did.
I send you a warm hug and all the blessings.
More to come!
Your history is so fine to listen....I have also something to say. I am Czech from west Bohemia and my grandmother told us children about her childhood.....from her village it used to and still is 18 km roughly 12 miles and even in 1930s and 40s or even after ww2 they carried potatoes on their backs in willow branches plaited baskets on foot to the town those 12 miles also in the forrest picked blueberries,mushrooms and other berries.....there was a proper road but most people had no vehicules and they spared animal for work on the fields so travelling to the market was done on foot even in 20th century....
My wife and I just walked a pilgrimage from London to Canterbury during Holy Week. Such a beautiful and powerful experience! Can it recommend this enough!
wonderful
I plan on walking to Santiago de Compostella for a third time in a few weeks and what you described is exactly what I experienced. Meet people, watch the climate and landscape change and just imbibe the experience as you plod along. I love the idea of walking the same routes that has been walked all those centuries. Great video, thanks very much
wonderful, have a great time.
That's a similar experience I have of doing cycling tours. I might only travel 200km in a week within my own home region, but slower travel leads to better appreciation of the places
I will start 27th June this year to Santiago ...and I´m so exited!
Buen Camino
Ultreia, Ultreia, et Suseia, Deus, adjuva nos!
“Europe was born in pilgrimage, and
its mother tongue is Christianity”
(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
@@tusk70 do you mind me asking which route you plan on taking?
I think the idea that people did these things for pleasure is dead on. If you live in the same village and will do your whole life, when your mate asks if you wanna go sod off down the holy land for an adventure, who would say no? The people you'd meet, the different towns and environments... these are the same reasons people go travelling today.
Yeah. just sod off to the Holy Land, where no-one would speak your language, and you risk being killed in other countries conflicts along the way. Not knowing where your next meal was coming from, or place to sleep. Sure FUN!! Naivety is strong in you.
I wish you had gone more into practicalities of medieval travel. How would you have access to drinking water each day? What kind of rations did you bring along? Did you hunt every now and again to make sure you weren't using up your dried rations? Where and how did you sleep each day? What would you bring along?
Awesome. People haven't changed and still looking for adventure. Kinda enjoy travelling without researching the destination. Keeps it fresh and interesting
I walked Boudicca Way (Diss to Norwich) which is 36 miles in one day, dawn until dusk. It was incredibly tiring and had huge blisters because I thought (wrongly) that running shoes would be better than my walking boots. Plenty of hills too for Norfolk.
Medieval people probably were used to walking and doing physical work all the time, so they maybe did not think walking all day nothing unusual. I remember trekking in Nepal, local peasants were all very fit and laughed to us because we thought walking with backpacks was tiresome.
Thank you, Thank you! The myth of the Peasants staying within 10 miles of home in their whole lives! Driving Geese, cattle, and sheep from the rural areas to market in London, or any large city might take days and well over 100 miles. As you say, Pilgrimage which were in every country, usually several (Canterbury, Our Lady of Walsingham, or . . . Simple wanderlust!). See them all, collect the little lead pins, just like spoons or charms today).
It's fairly easy even for modern humans to walk ~50 km a day with rest at the destination. Now, introduce a mule/some other beast of burden to carry water, food and your products.
@@runakovacs4759
How far you can walk I encumbered in one day is different from how far you can walk each day if you’re walking six days a week for several weeks, while carrying most of what you’ll need for those weeks (except food, which you’d probably buy at the places you stayed the night). Besides, a group would set their pace so that everyone in the group could keep up, and that might include children or old people.
My great-greatuncle was born and died in pretty much the same town. But since he was a cattle smuggler and thief he travelled from the edges of the Po valley to austria and back. Every season. So yeah, he got around, even if the lifes journey ended in the same place.
Even in my lifetime there were village people in Somerset who had never been to Bristol which is 15 miles away.
Yeah, but why would you go to London? I mean, unless you're selling your whole herd, which is not a good thing, that means leaving the rest of the animals unattended for weeks ^^'
It would make more sense to pay a fee someone who will travel with catlle and sheep of multiple persons to London XD
The road naming scheme of the Middle Ages is alive and well in Kentucky. Each state highway that leaves Lexington is named after the city that road takes you to - Versailles Road, Frankfort Pike, Winchester Road, Richmond Road, and onwards. Harrodsburg Road turns into Lexington Street when you arrive in Harrodsburg.
In the pre-interstate days it just made sense. I like exploring backroads on my motorcycles and finding a “Athens-Boonesborough Road” certainly does a lot more to guide you than “KY-418” ever could.
Here in southern Nigeria as well
0:16 What a gorgeous white stallion! The horse he's riding is beautiful as well
This topic reminds me of the channel “Fandabi Dozi” who does videos on travel in 17th century Scotland, I would be interested to see the kind of equipment and food rations a medieval pilgrim would bring with them on such a journey.
I smell a collab 👀👀👀👀
@@aragorn1780 I would absolutely love that!
This is such a coincidence! I just wrote an essay for university about pilgrimage in the 15th century and class barriers imposed on the ability to make that pilgrimage. I think you were totally right about the "impiety" of the many of the pilgrims in Chaucer--according to the travel account of Felix Fabri, "many are prompted by sinful rashness and idle curiosity." Great video, as always!
are you able to post the essay publicly?
I'd love to read that essay
I doubt I would be able to publish the essay since it's only an undergrad paper. I also have some problems with it because of the limited scope imposed by the assignment. Perhaps I'll turn the topic into a thesis one day!
@@noahpayne5065 can just post to an online blog or an open view (but editting locked) Google doc but definitely wait until it's marked because it'll flag for plagiarism if you post it somewhere unfortunately.
I think a lot of peasants were smart enough to realize the medieval Catholic church was full of shit to a large extent - i.e. hoarding food/resources from the community, affairs/infidelity with parishioners, copious consumption of alcohol/hedonism, etc. I'm sure many priests were decent people but there were many awful ones as well - as such I'd wager your average medieval peasant took the church's teachings with a grain of salt and knew you could be a good person but also have "a bit of sinful fun" from time to time as well...
3:29 this is similar to how I learned to hitchhike around Germany - go to a gas station, look for a car with a license plate from a town that's in the general direction you want to go, then ask if they'd take you in that direction and drop you off at the next rest stop where you can rinse and repeat until you get where you want to go.
I really like these videos about medieval/ancient everyday life because it always shows that we aren't smarter or more cilvilized. Technology is different, laws and social structure but the basic person with its needs and wishes is the same
Totally underrated channel, this is some TV level stuff, super cool
I was SO excited that he had put out a NEW video..... yea!
Better than anything you’ll find on tv in terms of medieval knowledge
What rating are people giving the channel and what should they be giving it ?
Thank you so much for the informative information, I had been under this false assumption for years.
Hopefully, I'll be able to use this to help my story telling and game design. Thanks so much!
Good luck with your work!
2nd episode I see from this creator and I'm totally sold. What an excellent presentation, pleasant scenery and truly interesting topics. And when talking about the peasants perspective of visiting a cathedral, it really drew me into full immersion. And then continuing about the travel experience, just marvellous.
Glad you enjoyed it!
I just discovered you and your amazing channel and it’s like I struck gold. I absolutely love medieval history! I love how I can relax and watch your videos and transport myself to another time for 20 minutes. Love your work. Thank you.
Welcome aboard!
I always wondered how people would pay for trips like this. The walking was free, but the inns, the food, etc. must have cost something.
That's what I was wondering during the video as well. Perhaps it's a matter of savings to do it the one time in your life.
You could probably get work once in a while along the way doing something for an evening if help was needed, get some coins that way
shoes isn't free
@@richardpashos Sure, but they're a lot cheaper than a horse, carriage, and/or driver.
When ordinary people went to war in the middle ages it was the responsibility of a knight or higher to arm them and feed them. People had no means in general of doing this themselves. An individual peasant wanting to go would probably have found a knight to happily sponsor him and he would then become a retainer of that knight (who was also likely to be a retainer of a higher noble). That is my understanding of the social and economic structure of those times. Please educate me if you think I am wrong.
I was amused by the segment on naming roads. Naming a road for where it leads to is still used. One tenth of a mile from my home, in northern Ohio, USA, begins "Fremont Road," and in Fremont it is named "Port Clinton Road." Not much changes, sometimes.
Enjoy all of your uploads. Thanks for posting.
It’s a useful naming convention.
It's even used on a local scale. The road that goes by the mall is still called [Town] Mall Blvd halfway across the city.
And in the 1700s & 1800s USA, a lot of roads were named for the families who owned the adjoining land. Still are sometimes. It's not the official name, but some in Omaha call a street in the Fairacres division Warren's Way. You can guess who lives there.
Similar setup in the Atlanta, Georgia area. Roswell Road goes to Roswell and once you get there it becomes Atlanta Street. There is no Atlanta Road IN Atlanta.
Similarly in Eastern Ontario Canada, there is a Montréal Road in all cities and many towns, leading east to… Montréal eventually!
That bit about traveling on foot at the end was so beautifully well put. This is exactly why I travel
Knowing about itineraries (and that whole concept of geography) really helps contextualise the importance of scouts and local guides and all the ambushes and accidental battles throughout military history
Long ago, while researching the Normans and how they conquered southern Italy, I discovered that it was common for people from northern Europe to travel to Apulia (Italy's heel region) because there was a miraculous Saint Michael Archangel Sanctuary where north Europeans were cured of ergotism and other endemic illnesses. Scientists discovered that when people traveled from north to south, their customary diet altered, and new quality cereals and much more vitaminic fruits were supplied to them as "the miracle." The normans did the same as many others, and during one of these journeys, the pope urged them to free south Italy from islamic and bizantine possession, hence south Italy became a norman rule like the United Kingdom in less than 50 years. This is one of the most fascinating facts about how many medieval people used to go on foot and how two very different sections of our continent were far more connected than we imagine today. And, strangely, in Apulia, there is a cathedral (Otranto Cathedral) with a mosaic and statues about King Arthur dating from 1163-1165, indicating a visible link between the United Kingdom and Italy made more than 1000 years ago.
That would not be the King Arthur of Britain who was supposed to have lived 500AD +/--
@@andrewblake2254 I think they mean a cultural link, because in the 1100's people in Apulia were clearly interested in the legend of Arthur, and via the Normans already were a part of the wider Norman led realms and their cultures
@@andrewblake2254 I was skeptical when I first heard the story, but after doing more research on King Arthur in Italian territory, I discovered that Apulia and Sicily were the places where people used to travel to the holy land as pilgrims or crusaders, so Britons and Normans expanded the legend of King Arthur to these territories.
I know it sounds crazy, but it's as if during the Middle Ages, the legend of King Arthur became a true mania for everyone, and because southern Italy was an epicentre of different religions (Judaism, Islam, Ortodox christians, and European catholicism), basically a meltingpot like London today, it used to absorb information faster than other places. In fact, after hearing this story in Apulia, I read several legends about King Arthur in Sicily, the most famous of which is that Morgane used to mislead people near the channel of Sicily and that King Arthur and his court lived after their deaths inside the Etna Volcano!
Anyway, here's a picture of the mosaic that says "Rex Artvrvs" in Latin (King Arthur) King Arthur is related to the three of life, as well as Cain and Abel.
LINK:
1.bp.blogspot.com/-yVnpANjdjxU/XRSZjOz2SII/AAAAAAAAMdY/ItnErt2J5ggBkqYeVVM-RW14LU-0n-MlgCLcBGAs/s1600/colours.jpg
These are two good links on this unusual story, and they have fonts if you want to find some books about it.
About the mosaic:
clasmerdin.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-enigma-of-otranto-mosaic.html
About King Arthur in Sicily:
www.etnaexperience.com/mt-etna-tours/legends-etna/
mythbank.com/mount-etna/
@@helmort The Fata Morgana mirages in the Straits of Messina.
Oh man, I could watch a whole series about medieval travel; great content, Jason! In Belgium we have lots of "destination roads" as well, we call them "...steenweg" ("stone/paved road"). So for example, from Antwerp to Mechelen: Mechelsesteenweg leads to Mechelen and once you get close to Mechelen it's called Antwerpsesteenweg :D
Steenweg = "stone way." Interesting.
@@SalvableRuin in its most literal translation, yes :)! "Weg" translates more to a smaller road or path nowadays, but a "steenweg" is mostly a larger connecting road between towns/cities (before we had motorways and dual carriageways). They're still in use today, just modernised a bit and horribly busy :D
It just blew my mind... This is better than History Channel.
I could listen to this and watch this while procrastinating or having a break from brain heavy tasks.
Excellent content, absolutely loving it. If there isn't a piece about medieval music and instruments, musicians and how they lived and found each other to form the band etc., I would love to see that material too.
Thank you, Jason! And keep up the great work ❤
From what I have heard. The ordinance survey maps were first drawn in Ireland. By a military officer so they could work out how much land there was to tax people. There’s many Roman roads still used today here in Britain. It’s something my dad would point out on long car journeys as a child to take our minds off the boring journey. Love your channel.
Fascinating! Any idea how a peasant would afford the costs involved? I presume they couldn't bring enough shelf-stable food with them for a long trip, plus water (when away from rivers), lodging for the night (or was it free to just sleep in the common room of a tavern?), new clothes / shoes if yours wore out or you got to a climate where you needed different clothing, etc.
was wondering the same. also how it impacts the people adjacent to heavily trafficked roads - was that an opportunity to trade with travelers or a burden to have to support them?
@@jessicastevens5782 As someone born and raised in Florida, the mass traffic is a burden. An opportunity for frustration, annoyance, and inflated prices.
@@jessicastevens5782
Probably a bit of both.
I was just going to ask the same thing. Great minds think alike?
I'd guess alot worked their way along. Travel for a couple days, stop to help a local family with their chores in exchange for a meal, a place to sleep, and some for the road, then move on.
The City that I live in has a road which is called Holländische Straße. It leads unsurprisingly to Holland even though that's quite far away. I guess it was used by merchants from the low countries a lot
You are the greatest at humanizing medieval lives. A wonderful vivid mental picture is painted with the help of these films.
thanks, I try!
I walked the Camino de Santiago recently, it was amazing to see the evidence and history of the people who walked that road hundreds of years ago.
Another pilgrim-brother. 😀
I walked to Santiago de Compostela in summer 22.
Ultreia!
The long journey is something that's missing in the modern age. I think it's transformative for people psychologically and it's important to having a stable society.
We're also missing those lovely roadside bandits, plagues, templars, lack of adequate protection from the elements and so on and so forth. Nice!
I live in a rural part of America and many roads are named after the town that they go to. It's not unusual at all. Like you mentioned about the roads in England, they change names at the town line.😎
Walked home 15 kilometers from scool because i didn't want to wait for the bus this was the first video recommended.
Talking about seeing changes, if you start off in Southern England & walk North. You are pretty much keeping up with the speed a "season" travels North. So apart from local micro climates you'd almost keep pace with the flowers opening in spring.
Love this channel so much. The educational wholesomeness, and quality is just always so good ⚔️ I found you a while back as a recommended video (I was rewatching the Edwardian farm series) and I would love to see you sit down with Ruth Goodman and just talk about stuff and things, would be amazing 🖤
That would make for such a good video! I'd love to see that now too
I imagine travelers jumping off-trail and stomping through crops might give a farmer some incentive to do some maintenance of the road adjacent to his land to keep it from happening again. (Especially after the local magistrate dismissed his case against the alleged trespassers.)
4:35 this practice is still in use today in the new world. I live in Indianapolis, where there is a prominent road named Lafayette Rd (goes to Lafayette) but as soon as you leave the city it becomes Indianapolis Rd.
Love all these details. Also, aside from itineraries, there were local tour-guides who would guide pilgrims along safe routes from local place A to B. And they would make sure the roads the safe as well. This was a great video and I learned a lot including the souvenirs.
This Monday only got better when I got a notification for a new video! Thank you for this, very informative about a subject that’s not talked about a lot.
For the next one could we have one demonstrating the layout of a village? Like where the blacksmith was located there and why?
Keep up the great work!
I love your new format! Indepth research, context, perspective of the Medieval person. Then the plus of great music. MHTV just keeps getting better and better. It's like being there. It's nice to see Ghost again too.
Thanks
There were many local pilgrimage sites, that could be visited by those with less money. Not everyone went to Jerusalem or even Canterbury. One notable individual who did was Margery Kempe, the wife of a rich merchant from Norwich. She traveled through Rome, staying at the hospital of St Thomas of Canterbury, which hosted English travelers, eventually making it to Jerusalem and Bethlehem. She left England in 1413 and made it back to Norwich in 1415.
Kempe and her husband were from Lynn (not Norwich) and I believe he was a brewer, not a merchant, though they were still relatively well off. Even so, she survived on alms for most of the journey to the holy land.
I wondered about how many women travelled and how. I assumed it was a man's luxury.
Bothwell built a castle in Missouri and it still has way stations in the woods underneath for travelers in this style, they're one open room with a fireplace
Fasting or pilgrimage were typical penances (and it was okay to be cheerful and social, it didn't have to be an awful experience). So you didn't necessary do it because you had been so holy or because you felt pious but because you had been less-than-holy and needed to be restored. The mercy of God is always free but our cooperation can enable us to actually be restored to virtue. Today if you went to confession for the same sin you might be told to say three hail marys. You're still forgiven but I bet someone who went on pilgrimage to complete their penance would have less recidivism.
Thank you for another great video! I can only imagine teaming up with a small party and go out on the road and explore the world. Heading from village to village, staying at the inns, meeting new people and drinking with them. Life seemed soo much easier and better in some aspects than what it is today.
I discovered this channel yesterday. I can't stop watching. Exceptionally well presented stuff. Amazing.
Glad you enjoy it!
This is one of those channels that I check often to see if there is any new uploads. Very well done and so educational that I think we all wish there was more!
The Mission System on the California coast has great similarities to this. The monks built missions between ten and twenty miles apart depending on terrain features. This would allow one days travel without having to sleep in the elements with hostiles of any sort.
Never stop making these. What I love most about these videos is how many aspects of the topic you consider.
Walking is so therapuetic as well. I wish sometimes that I could live back then. It was probably so quiet and peaceful with no one around most of the time.
This is one of my favorite channels. Thanks for gathering all this info and sharing it with us in such an entertaining and educational fashion.
In the area where I grew up, all the lanes are named after the village that they lead to, changing at the parish boundary to the name of the village they've just come from. This works on a larger scale, in that I call everything from Bank out to Uxbridge "the Oxford Road", & forth as far as the Three Pigeons, whence it becomes the London Road as far as either Magdalen or Carfax.
Your comments on 'way station' stops fits well with the first settlement I made for my fantasy world building. It's on a crossroads between larger towns and is near a site of religious importance so the pilgrims and travellers kinda just settled on having a small stop there, then it grew into a village who's main source of income is visitors, pilgrims, monks and traders looking to do business with them. Nice to know I just by chance kind of got it right!
Some interesting info associated to this I've come across in my looking:
Generally speaking, one does not travel any faster on horse than on foot. You CAN, but this was only really done where you could get additional horses, or out of necessity. Horses, while able to move much faster than people over short distances, are not able to move much faster than humans over long distances.
If you're interested in how long certain journeys might take, there's an interesting tool from a university somewhere modeling travel times in the Roman empire, with options for things like season, different modes of travel, weather, etc. that can give you some insight into plausible travel times.
Of course, if you're interested in this for a more fantastical adventure into the wilderness context, travel times are more in the area of 0.5-1 mph, perhaps less, even. It almost can't be exaggerated how slow traveling through actual wilderness is. Consider on top of that that you need a few hours at least of light to pack up/set up camp at the end of the day... you might get 12 hours of travel time a day, and you're not going to be traveling in straight lines AND you will likely have to regularly double back as you find your way. That's in good season, btw. In winter you might get half of that. Obviously this is contextual to your latitude/planet, but most fantasy we'd be looking at here is your typical European/Earth-like.
If you need convincing that roads were safe, ask yourself: if roads were not safe, why would they be used? If roads are not used, why would they be maintained? If roads needed to be used, and weren't safe, why wouldn't those with an interest in them being used not take action to secure them?
Sitting here, taking a pause from playing kingdom come deliverance, think I'll check out a video about medieval day to day life 😂 absolutely lovely video❤
Great to see another video from this channel. You constantly open my eyes to new things on medieval life. Many thanks
Glad to hear it!
This was wonderful! I hadn’t discovered your channel until recently, and I’ve been watching videos when I can quite regularly. Thanks for such an informative look at this! I really had been under the impression that travel basically didn’t happen for medieval peasants-it’s cool to know that even if most didn’t pack up and move every couple years, they could certainly still travel if they wanted to.
Great video! As someone who walks through the country professionally and has been on a few pilgrimages, I really appreciate the way you talk about walking journeys. The idea of "the world only revealing itself to you" when you travel on foot and take it in slowly is a really lovely notion.
Nice informative video, thank you! I love this channel for its insight into times long since passed.
Another common traveler one might meet would be some fellow going "I'm on my way to Windhelm to join up with the Stormcloaks"
lol, good game.
I've walked to Santiago de Compostela four times. Averaging ten miles per day is a solid pace. When Western Europe's entire population was only 30 million, one million people a year did the Camino de Santiago. Once in a lifetime indeed.
On average, that is, because some went more than once and those who died very young likely never went.
The bit about navigating/using itineraries was super interesting. Old school mapquest. I love your videos! Great content.
Awesome video! Really puts some aspects of that time period into a new perspective!
Lots to think about in this episode. Just never looked at this subject in quite this way before. Thanks for the eye-opener. But, then, all your videos, besides being entertaining, are also educational. Thanks.
France roundabouts usually have signs on each exit that say which town they head towards. Before GPS, it was really easy to find your way around in France just by going from town to town on a map. Even if you made a wrong turn, the next town would still tell you which way the next spot was so you could easily get back on track.
Before GPS... GPS has done people no favors when it comes to learning to read maps or even just finding north. I don't own anything with GPS, and assuming the sky isn't cloudy, I have no problem figuring which direction is which.
People asking direction to my home are asked in turn if they know where a particular well-known landmark is. When they say yes, I tell them to turn north, follow the road until they come to a particular sign, turn south, and they've arrived. Their usual next question is "how do I know which way is north?"
At this point I bang my head on the wall, because learning this is something kids of my generation were taught before the end of elementary school.
@@Shan_Dalamani We took our kids to orienteering so they learned maps & compass. For places I haven't been, I like GPS because old rural towns aren't necessarily laid out in grid. Plus I can instantly re-route around construction. For people who don't know how to use maps, it can be a crutch, but GPS can be a really fun tool if you do know.
@@WhatIfBrigade I can see the usefulness for up-to-date road conditions or construction. But if you're in a situation where the information you're going by has been entered incorrectly, it can lead to trouble. People have died because they relied on GPS maps that were using old information.
Orienteering was part of our Grade 6 science and outdoor education unit. We were given compasses, taken to a local slough, dropped off, and told to find our way back to the school. Considering that the grass there was taller than we were and this was a time and place that mosquitoes were out and happily snacking on us, we had excellent incentive to figure out the way back ASAP.
Interesting listening to the perspective of pilgrimages and travel for travels sake. Feels the same as the motivation of many long distance hikes today. Spontaneous groups (tramilies), intermediate town stops with different sleeping options (hotels, hostels, fields), and keepsakes from the journey ...
I just found this channel and I love it so much!