Facts About The Middle Ages (12 pics)

1

Many castles had built-in “murder holes.”
Openings above the gate where defenders could drop boiling oil, rocks, or, cheapest option, sand heated white-hot.

2

The average medieval “knight in armor” wasn’t clumsy at all
A fully suited knight could run, jump, cartwheel, and even climb ladders. Armor weighed about the same as a modern soldier’s gear.

3

Medieval people were not actually tiny.
Average height for men was around 5'7&, basically the same as many countries today.

4

Books were so rare that some were chained to shelves.
A single handwritten manuscript could cost as much as a house, so libraries literally chained their books down.

5

Being a knight was insanely expensive.
A knight’s armor, horse, weapons, and servants could cost equivalent to hundreds of thousands of dollars today.

6

Medieval Europeans thought beaver tails were fish.
Because the tail looked scaly, monasteries classified it as “fish,” so monks could eat beaver tail on fasting days.

7

Medieval surgeons performed cataract surgery.
Using a method called “couching,” they pushed the cloudy lens out of the way. Brutal but it sometimes worked.

8

The average medieval Londoner drank more beer than water.
Water was filthy, so people drank “small beer”, which was very low alcohol but safer than river water.

9

Medieval “killer rabbits” were a thing in art.
Monks drew rabbits murdering knights and hunting humans in the margins of manuscripts. No one knows why.

10

Many medieval swords had inscriptions people still can’t decode.
The mysterious “+NDXOXCHWDRGHDXORVI+” inscription appears on multiple swords across Europe.

11

Medieval barbers performed surgery.
They pulled teeth, bloodlet, lanced abscesses, and amputated limbs. The classic barber pole represents blood and bandages.