Being Rich In The Middle Ages Came With A Significant Hidden Danger

When most of us think of medieval society, we tend to consider those at the bottom as having been extremely unfortunate. Peasants of the Middle Ages are often characterized as dirty, impoverished, and downright down on their luck. Overworked and underappreciated, these people seemed to live pretty sorry lives.

The people at the top of medieval society, on the other hand, seemed to live lives of incomparable luxury. We’ve already touched upon the excesses of their diets and they also lived in better houses. Their interiors would’ve been decorated far more extravagantly and some may even have had glass windows. A peasant could hardly have expected that.

The benefits of being rich in the Middle Ages, then, are absolutely plain to see. Unfair as it was, the wealthy had access to far better quality of life — or so you’d think. Given the excess and luxury these people experienced, we’d be inclined to presume their lives were just better. But some researchers have now called that belief into question.

According to a team from the University of Southern Denmark, wealthy people in the Middle Ages faced a unique threat to their health and quality of life. An aspect of their lifestyle was actually very problematic, even though they didn’t realize it. And poorer people of the period, in this respect, dodged a bullet.

The Middle Ages — or the medieval period, as it’s also referred to — lasted for roughly a thousand years. In broad terms, it began after the western Roman empire’s collapse and it ended when the Italian Renaissance got underway. That takes us, roughly speaking, from the years 400 A.D. to 1400.

We can split the Middle Ages into three broad stages. The first lasted for more than 500 years, just after the Roman Empire in the west collapsed. This period’s come to be known as the Dark Ages, as many common markers of civilization went into decline. Literacy among the population decreased and the economy became more basic.

The next stage was the High Middle Ages, which takes us from around 1000 A.D. to 1350. This is widely considered to be the peak of the medieval period, as it witnessed the construction of lasting monuments that we still see today, such as cathedrals and castles. It’s an era that in many ways set the template for the Europe we all recognize.

The Late Middle Ages — which by some accounts takes us to around 1650 A.D. — saw a return to bleaker times for lots of people. This period is, in large part, defined by the Black Death and its horrendous impact. Millions died from plague across Europe and the region was also blighted by war and religious conflict during this time.

The Middle Ages cover a long stretch of time and space, then, so people’s experiences differed greatly. To speak very broadly, though, we can say society during this period was defined by a fundamental structure. At the top was royalty, followed by nobles, knights, clergy, tradespeople, and finally peasants at the bottom.

The upper echelons of Middle Ages society resided in fancy castles and manor residences. Their estates were serviced by peasants, who lived in small communities. These people worked the land and otherwise did the bidding of their lords. Life as a medieval peasant was starkly different to that of the rich.

Towards the end of the Middle Ages, a kind of middle class emerged. These people lived in towns and held down work as craftspeople, merchants, and so on. There were other groups in medieval society, too, such as the clergy. And some ethnicities were widely discriminated against during the period, such as Jewish people.

At the very top of medieval society were kings and queens, followed by nobles. The latter were extremely powerful and affluent, and sometimes ruled over vast territories of their own. While they weren’t as high-ranking as actual monarchs, these people weren’t always terribly far behind them on the social ladder.

Less powerful members of the elite classes included knights and gentry. They were part of a lord’s entourage, as it were, and served in battle on their behalf. At best, they could hope to be rewarded by their lord with a little territory to rule over. They tended not to have too much land, though, and sometimes had none at all.

The manor was an extremely important feature of medieval life. This is where great lords resided, not to mention their knights and servants. These buildings were often well-protected and difficult to penetrate. In earlier days, they may have been wooden structures but eventually stone came to be favored.

Knights and gentry lived in manor houses that were more modest. These estates were tied to the fates of small communities, which these people ruled over. They weren’t as powerful as the great lords but they still wielded tremendous influence over those positioned below them within society.

The peasants resided within small communities, where they could see to their farming duties. Serfs were a type of peasant who were totally bound to their lord’s land. They had to look after it and provide other services, too. They had, in short, essentially no freedom over their own lives.

Free peasants, on the other hand, could up sticks if they wanted to. They were able to seek out lords to work for, paying them with rent. These people could even technically purchase and sell their own plots of land, if they had the means to. There were only a small number of free peasants in medieval society, with most people being serfs.

Peasants would’ve lived in simple houses, usually in a tiny cottage. The specific nature of the structures would vary from family to family, as conditions differed across Europe. But generally speaking, a peasant’s home might’ve consisted only of one room and some stalls outside for farm animals. They wouldn’t have been luxurious digs.

Similarly, peasants would’ve worn very simple items of clothing, often made out of wool. Wealthier people, of course, would’ve dressed far more extravagantly, even utilizing dye to have different colors in their wardrobes. And the very richest would wear fine, lavish materials such as linen or even silk.

The difference between rich people’s diets compared with what poor people could expect to eat is even more stark. While peasants might only get a bit of dark bread to munch on, the wealthy would gorge themselves on meats, spices, and sweet treats. The menu available to them was totally different.

An aristocratic feast could be a lavish affair, as this list from 1387 proves. It was from a banquet for King Richard II of England, who wanted: “Fourteen salted oxen, two fresh oxen, one hundred and twenty sheep, twelve boars, fourteen calves, one hundred forty pigs, three hundred kegs of lard and grease, three tons of salted venison, fifty swans, two hundred forty geese, fifty high-fat capons, eight dozen capons, sixty dozen hens, four hundred large rabbits...”

Richard wasn’t done yet, either. Let’s see how his wishlist ended. It continued: “Four pheasants, five herons, six young goats, five dozen pullets for jelly, twelve dozen pullets for roasting, one hundred dozen pigeons, twelve dozen partridges, eight dozen rabbits, twelve dozen curlews, twelve cranes, wild fowl, one hundred twenty gallons of milk, twelve gallons of cream, twelve gallons of curds, twelve bushels of apples, and eleven thousand eggs.”

That obviously seems excessive even now and in the Middle Ages it was plainly absurd. Even a single hen was incredibly valuable back then, as it could produce multiple eggs. To slaughter such an animal to eat it would’ve been seen as a luxury that only the very richest could afford.

Fish was also very costly back in the Middle Ages, especially in areas situated far from the coast. Hunted animals such as deer were more widely consumed, with the best cuts reserved for the upper classes. Animals we wouldn’t think to eat today such as peacocks and swans were also enjoyed whenever possible.

The wealthy couldn’t be seen to consume this vast selection of meats on any old plate. No, they required the very best, so they often ate off glazed crockery and drank from glazed cups. They may have thought this made them look very fancy — but in reality it was damaging in ways they couldn’t imagine.

These utensils, fancy as they may have looked, were in truth incredibly dangerous. That’s because they were often glazed in lead, which wasn’t a good thing to mix with food. If a meal was quite acidic, the lead from the glazing might well find its way into people’s bodies. In other words, the wealthy were exposed to a terrible risk that the poor were not.

This revelation’s come from a study in which Kaare Lund Rasmussen was involved. Detailing the research in a statement, he laid out the dangers of lead. “Lead poisoning can be the consequence when ingesting lead, which is a heavy metal,” Rasmussen explained. “In the Middle Ages you could almost not avoid ingesting lead, if you were wealthy or living in an urban environment. But what is perhaps more severe, is the fact that exposure to lead leads to lower intelligence of children.”

Children are especially at risk when it comes to lead poisoning, as their nervous systems are in a developmental stage. High doses of lead directly interfere with the nervous system, so kids are particularly vulnerable to being badly affected. Having said that, grown-ups are by no means immune to its negative qualities, either.

Rasmussen didn’t conduct this study alone. On the contrary, he worked closely with a bunch of colleagues from the University of Southern Denmark. Together, the team analyzed a set of skeletons that’d been exhumed from cemeteries in Denmark and Germany. Some of these remains had come from people who’d lived in the countryside, while others had been urban dwellers.

Two of the cemeteries explored for this project — Denmark’s Ole Worms Gade and Germany’s Rathaus Markt — contained the skeletons of people who’d lived in towns and had been quite wealthy. The other four cemeteries had held the remains of people who’d been poor and resided in the countryside. This meant the researchers could easily compare the differences between these two demographics.

Speaking of these variations, Rasmussen stated, “There really is a big difference in how much lead the individuals from the cemeteries had in their bodies. This depended on whether they lived in the country or in a town. We see almost no lead in the bones from rural individuals, while the levels of this toxic metal were high in urban individuals.”

We can conclude from these findings that rich people had more lead in their systems than poor people. That’s because wealthy people in the Middle Ages tended to reside in urban areas, whereas the poor peasants were, as a rule, out in the countryside. And it was the skeletons from towns that had too much lead in their systems.

Glazed pottery doesn’t seem to have been a popular choice for those medieval people who lived in the countryside. They may have wanted it but their inability to afford it inadvertently saved their lives. So even if they didn’t realize it at the time, their unglazed utensils were far, far safer than those used by the rich.

“In those days lead oxide was used to glaze pottery,” Rasmussen explained. “It was practical to clean the plates and looked beautiful, so it was understandably in high demand. But when they kept salty and acidic foods in glazed pots, the surface of the glaze would dissolve and the lead would leak into the food.”

Of course, lead didn’t come exclusively from glazed pottery. The troublesome element could also be found in coins and even in windows. Another problematic source was in roof tiles, which could be a big problem. Rainwater could build up on roofs and sometimes it was collected for people to drink.

The prevalence of lead throughout medieval society meant it wasn’t only the rich who were affected by it, though. Rasmussen pointed out, “The exposure was higher and more dangerous in the urban communities, but lead was not completely unknown in the country. We saw that 30 percent of the rural individuals had been in contact with lead — although much less than the townspeople.”

Amazingly, lead wasn’t the only problematic element that managed to find its way into many of these medieval people’s bodies. The researchers also tested the skeletons for mercury, which in those days was used as a sort of medicine. People suffering from syphilis or leprosy were often given the element, for example.

Once again, the experts found the urban skeletons had been far more compromised than their rural counterparts. It seems mercury was administered to people far more often in towns than it was in rural areas. The element may well have been very useful for those suffering from conditions such as leprosy but it needed to be administered appropriately. The success of these treatments seemed to vary between the two urban sets of skeletons.

So, it seems that being rich during the Middle Ages wasn’t a sure way to live a good life. The very fact of your wealth could, in the end, undermine your health. Showing off with your fancy lead-glazed plates and cups was a real threat to your health — and poorer people didn’t have that problem.