Open Question Time

[gillpolack]

Given the bizarre week we're having, I'm re-opening my Question Time here and keeping it open til the end of the month. I'm happy to be asked about politics and Judaism (including personal things) but I'd appreciate courtesy and I will stick to my right to say "Sorry, this hurts so I can't answer" if a particular question cuts too close. I'll try

Comments

[sue_bursztynski]

Okay, tell me about 13th century currency, country of your choice. And while you're about it, perhaps you're familiar with early currency. I've just been rereading Kerry Greenwood's delightful novels set in the era of Greek mythology, before and during the Trojan War, some time after the Thera explosion, perhaps a couple of generations, because she mentions that the Trojans had been refugees from there, with Cretan backgrounds. She has characters using coins and I'm fairly certain that they weren't using coins that long ago, and probably not riding horses either, though I could be wrong. I'm no expert, but I read a lot and hoard interesting bits and pieces of fact. What do you know of this?

[gillpolack]

What do you want to know about 13th century currency? If you just want to know what it was, then I'll choose England and say it was pounds, shillings and pence and that the mark was money of account ie not an actual coin. A century of information about coinage, though, is a lot (and you can go to Peter Spufford for a lot of information - he writes accessible books on the subject), so what do you actually want to know

[sue_bursztynski]

They had horses, AFAIK, but did they ride them as opposed to driving chariots? I will look that up myself. I asked the currency question because you said that was a question you wanted to answer, and I always love learning something new. ;-) I always did wonder about "marks" so thanks. Pounds would have been originally the weight, wouldn't it? So a pound of silver coins would really have been a lot of money...?

[gillpolack]

I was angling for specific questions - I am not so good with general questions, for I want to write 10k word answers.

if it helps to know the amount money would buy, a penny would be 2/3 of the day wage of an unskilled laborer in the early 13th century. That's a lot easier than thinking in terms of pounds. It wasn't the actual weight of the money, though. It came from the Roman measures and was the same multiple of pennies/shillings that we used pre-metric. The French terms (livre, sous, denier) are much easier for remembering that Roman link. LSD is pounds, shillings and pence.

[ext_3905022]

This is genuine curiosity.

How (if we know) did Medieval people smell (with regard to body odor).

I ask this, because I know that regular washing isn't necessary to avoid body odor, but clean (washed at regular intervals, but not as often as we wash them in the present) are also necessary.

Is it true or a myth that peasants stank?

I imagine it may have varied with both social class and the time of year. Really expensive clothes must have been very difficult to wash, but very poor people would have had few changes of clothing.

I can't help feeling that there may be useful things we can learn. The amount of energy used to heat water for washing is an enormous waste, both of people's money and a cause of CO2 emissions.

(I almost never bath or shower -I just rub down with a clean dry cloth. And I still have friends willing to dance in close proximity with me!)

[gillpolack]

We don't know, really,how often adults bathed but we do know they did. The thing about people not bathing is a furphy. Someone wrote down the complete belongings they would expect to see a peasant have (in the 13th century) and it included a bath. And there were public baths in London until the 15th century (when they were closed down because they'd become places to solicit etc). The Beast has more, but it doesn't have the answer to your question which is... we really can't know.

Your mode of cleanliness derives from a later (non-medieval) medical theory which became fashionable and was very popular at royal courts for about a century (but don't quote me on that - not my period, just my deduction). I know this because there is a theoretical treatise talking about how dangerous baths are and prescribing linen instead.