The Middle Ages was an elusive period in European history, in which mystical thought triumphed over cold reason.
In medieval Germany, couples could divorce by fighting.
To ensure fair play, a man must stand in a pit with one hand tied to his body and stab his wife with a spear, while the woman's weapon is three socks filled with stones, and if one of them dies, the divorce is established.
In medieval Europe, there was no uniform weights and measures, and the units of measurement were sometimes very primitive.
For example, in 10th-century France, the area of a forest was measured in terms of pigs, which refers to how much space a pig needs to feed itself in a year. Converted to our system of weights and measures, the area is roughly equivalent to one hectare of forest.
This makes us wonder what pigs do in a medieval forest full of wolves and bears......
In a medieval castle, the toilet was simple.
The image below shows the premium version on the right, and most of the options on the left...... There is no need to flush the water, everything is already splashed on the heads of passers-by.
In the Middle Ages, wall closure was a popular way to punish criminal behavior.
In this picture, for example, the nuns of the convent are enclosing the guilty in a wall. They would leave a small hole in the wall through which they would drop food on the prisoners.
The imprisoned person would spend several years here until she went mad with loneliness and darkness.
Until the Tudor/Elizabethan era (1485-1603), swans were food for the aristocracy.
Later, when all the swans in England were declared the property of the monarch, the popularity of swans as a dish came to an end.
In the Middle Ages, it was believed that in order to expel evil spirits, it was necessary to open the head of the sick person and let the evil spirit come out of the head.
Craniotomy is a popular method of exorcism.
During the Black Death, a large number of sheep died, leading to a shortage of wool in Europe.
In the Middle Ages, only women used forks.
In Europe, the first forks appeared in 1379, but it was not until 1608 that men began to use forks. For almost 230 years, it was considered unseemly for men to use forks.
In medieval England, men called forks "women's squeamishness" and continued to eat with their fingers for up to 200 years.
The degree of cumbersomeness of secular etiquette is staggering, on the one hand, closely related to drama, and on the other hand, to the exaggeration of the sense of honor.
For example, when John, Duke of Burgundy, entered Paris, he mistakenly thought that the richly dressed Parisian executioner was a nobleman, so the duke greeted the executioner and touched him. By the standards of society at the time, this was a difficult shame for the duke, and in order to save face, the executioner eventually had to be executed,
The executioner himself sharpened the axe used to decapitate himself and instructed those who were about to take his place.
In 1314, England officially banned the game of football through more than 30 royal and local laws.
This was because merchants in London complained to King Edward II of England that "the loud noise caused by playing ball in the city may produce many God-forbidden evils".
In the Middle Ages, social status was determined by the length of the shoe.
The longer the toe cap, the higher the status, the servant's toe was short, and the nobles had to tie the toe of the shoe or they could not walk.
In the Middle Ages, there were no large cities with dense populations.
Because the maximum number of inhabitants is 40-50,000 people, which is very small by today's city standards.
Charlemagne was a medieval emperor who ruled much of Western Europe from 768 to 814 and is now sometimes referred to as the "Father of Europe."
But he was not only the "father of Europe", he was also the father of up to 18 children. He is said to be a dutiful father who encouraged his children to get an education and loved his daughters so much that he did not let them marry while he was alive.
In the Middle Ages, some treatments were very special, especially in the treatment of insanity.
For example, when King Charles VI of France (1368-1422) lost his mind, it was decided to treat him by putting him in severe fright. To this end, 12 people dressed in black dressed as demons suddenly attacked the king, claiming to take him to hell.
It didn't help.
Between 1315 and 1322, Western Europe suffered heavy rainfalls, up to 150 days.
Farmers struggled to grow and harvest their crops, leading to a lack of bread, a staple food, which, combined with cold winter weather, caused about 10-15% of people in Britain to die during this period.
In the Middle Ages, tattoos served a variety of functions.
Some of these are forms of punishment for criminals, while others are used by Christian pilgrims to flaunt their piety and commemorate their journey to the Holy Land. Some professions also have tattoos, for example, knights get tattoos to show their allegiance to a lord or kingdom, while sailors commemorate their experiences at sea.
In the Middle Ages, animals were subject to the same law as humans.
For example, in the French city of Savigne in 1457, seven pigs were tried for assaulting a five-year-old boy.
The trial was attended by a lawyer who defended the pig, and the judge ultimately ruled that because only one pig had been witnessed attacking the boy, the pig would be hanged and the other pigs would be acquitted.
There were two main types of dance in the Middle Ages.
One is the Farlando. It is a type of queue dance in which people hold hands but the lead dancer leaves his left arm free, and the dancers move clockwise in a curved maze pattern, and the lead dancer sometimes makes other movements.
The other is the Brownler, which is a side-to-side movement in which dancers line up or sit in a circle, alternating large side steps to the left and an equal number of small side steps to the right.
In 1518, a city in France broke out with the "Plague of Dance".
Hundreds of people danced for weeks without stopping, and by the end of the strange dance, about 100 people had died from being able to stop.
Modern scientists believe that it all has to do with rye bread contaminated with ergothorns, a parasitic poisonous fungus that grows long black horns on the ears of rye and other grains.
The privileged class of the Middle Ages always wanted to show off their status through their possessions.
In addition to money, they also enjoy rare items sourced from afar, including silk, spices, and exotic animals such as monkeys, tropical birds, and tigers.
The term "Dark Ages" originated with Renaissance scholars, who considered ancient Greece and Rome to be the most successful periods of humanity and despised the Middle Ages.
They belittled the Middle Ages as a chaotic period without great leaders, without scientific achievements, without great art.