ABSTRACT
In his history of life in medieval France, Robert Muchembled (1985) portrays a world in which there were many threats and dangers to human health and life for both peasantry and aristocracy alike. During this era, death was ‘on display everywhere, to the point of banality’ (Muchembled 1985:31). The most extreme of these threats and dangers were hunger, cold, epidemic disease and war. Food supply at the end of the Middle Ages in Europe was very tenuous. Grain provided the basis of the diet, and production was vulnerable to the vicissitudes of the seasons. Infant mortality was very high and lifespans short (reaching the age of 40 being considered a fair lifespan). Epidemics of such diseases as smallpox, whooping cough, typhoid, syphilis, dysentery and the plague regularly struck villages and towns, decimating their populations. People living in rural areas faced other dangers, such as wolves, who were known to attack children and sometimes adults in the fields and near their cottages. Wild dogs presented the threat of rabies should they bite and wild pigs were known to attack and eat small children. Bands of brigands roamed the forests and high roads, regularly attacking and robbing peasants. Feuds and battles between family clans were frequent and violent, often resulting in murder.
