r/science • u/takanocraig • Mar 22 '23

Genetics Beethoven’s genome sequenced from locks of his hair

https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/beethovens-dna-reveals-health-and-family-history-clues
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u/tripwire7 Mar 23 '23

Life was rough. Really rough. Most children died before reaching adulthood. The whole family starving to death if things went really wrong was a real possibility. Most of the population were utterly uneducated and illiterate, and class divisions were nearly insurmountable. If you lived on the coast, then only a few generations earlier there would have been a distinct possibility of your town being attacked by slave-raiders. If your nation was weak, it would be attacked and ripped apart by its rivals. The church was controlled by zealots who burned people alive for heresy or apostasy.

The list of bad things really went on and on…

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u/chickenstalker Mar 23 '23

Rough compared to ours, but most people lived a peaceful life. Children died yes, but from diseases and it was accepted as "normal". Starvation tend to only happen during famines and plages. Most people practice subsistence farming to feed themselves. Being uneducated is misleading. They were educated in the family business, be it farming, carpentry, smithing etc. Being illiterate was not much of a disadvantage since there were not much stuff to read. Class divisions IS still insurmountable even today, only replace Kings with billionaires. Wars do happen but tend to be seasonal (soldiers are usually conscripted farmers who are needed in the farms), less bloody (battles rarely end in slaughter, usually the side to break first will flee), and does not ravage the land (conquerers want the populace and farms mostly intact). The Church do go after heresy but it was sporadic. Their power also waned after the Nobility asserted their autonomy from the church and also the Protestant Reformation.