August meme, Day 11
A fun question today, along the lines of fantasy imagination, with a built in request for common sense *g*
11. Everyone always thinks they’d be royalty or a knight if they were born in medieval times, but let’s be honest, you probably wouldn’t be. So, what kind of person do you think you’d be if you were born in medieval times?
Of the ones we know about, most of my ancestors were peasants, the English ones either living a subsistence life on smallholdings or itinerant farm workers. Later they became unskilled labourers in the new industries of North East England. And being that, we have not been able to trace them back very far. No further than the late 1700s/early and mid 1800s, for the most part. Then there were the ones who arrived in England from Ireland and for them all trace is lost because their documentation rarely says where exactly in Ireland they came from.
But to ask what kind of person do you think you’d be if you were born in medieval times is really a bit of a 'what rank of person do you think most people were in medieval times and what would you like to have been' question. In England, most people were unfree peasants answerable to their Norman overlords. That is not a life I would wish on myself, or on anyone else.
I am not ambitious for great wealth. I would just want to be left alone to live my life peacefully, so what I would like to have been would be a free crafts-person, a leather worker, a smith of some sort, a potter, even a chandler. Something indoors where a woman could work with safety and where excellence would have earned respect and a degree of financial security. I would also want to live in a small county town. Certainly not in London, where the overcrowded streets bred disease. A county town would have the custom for a crafts-person to thrive and the houses would have their plot for growing vegetables and keeping a pig and maybe a goat or a cow. I would hope I could live modestly but adequately in such circumstances.
But let's be honest (to echo the question) why would anybody want to go back in time to live then? I wouldn't want to be royalty or a knight, let alone a peasant in medieval times *g*
The rest of the month's questions can be found under the cut on day 1's post.
11. Everyone always thinks they’d be royalty or a knight if they were born in medieval times, but let’s be honest, you probably wouldn’t be. So, what kind of person do you think you’d be if you were born in medieval times?
Of the ones we know about, most of my ancestors were peasants, the English ones either living a subsistence life on smallholdings or itinerant farm workers. Later they became unskilled labourers in the new industries of North East England. And being that, we have not been able to trace them back very far. No further than the late 1700s/early and mid 1800s, for the most part. Then there were the ones who arrived in England from Ireland and for them all trace is lost because their documentation rarely says where exactly in Ireland they came from.
But to ask what kind of person do you think you’d be if you were born in medieval times is really a bit of a 'what rank of person do you think most people were in medieval times and what would you like to have been' question. In England, most people were unfree peasants answerable to their Norman overlords. That is not a life I would wish on myself, or on anyone else.
I am not ambitious for great wealth. I would just want to be left alone to live my life peacefully, so what I would like to have been would be a free crafts-person, a leather worker, a smith of some sort, a potter, even a chandler. Something indoors where a woman could work with safety and where excellence would have earned respect and a degree of financial security. I would also want to live in a small county town. Certainly not in London, where the overcrowded streets bred disease. A county town would have the custom for a crafts-person to thrive and the houses would have their plot for growing vegetables and keeping a pig and maybe a goat or a cow. I would hope I could live modestly but adequately in such circumstances.
But let's be honest (to echo the question) why would anybody want to go back in time to live then? I wouldn't want to be royalty or a knight, let alone a peasant in medieval times *g*
The rest of the month's questions can be found under the cut on day 1's post.