Reply to: democracy

[fckvwls]

Oi! Ferret, did you delete my post?

[Gonzo]

Go read some history books instead of posting boys own fantasy bollocks about how medieval England was more democratic then 21st century Britain, or that somehow living in the feudal system was a pleasant experience.

I always found it delightful that the City of London is still (ceremonially) organised in the medieval fashion and that didn't change after 1066 because the City of London told William the Conquerer to **** off*.

Walking around the City today you still come across the plates listing the Alderman and other officers.

http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/Corpo...boundaries.htm



*Strictly speaking I believe the City of London told the new King that if he kept his nose out of their business they wouldn't cause any trouble over him being king. Either way, the City of London is not in the Domesday Book.

[Gonzo]

I think there's a phrase used for life back then, when you weren't one of the landed gentry: nasty, brutish and short.

That phrase was actually used in the seventeenth century by Thomas Hobbes in his book Leviathan to describe what life would be like if humans existed in a state of anarchy and therefore why a government (of some sort) is needed.

He wasn't using it to describe life in the past.

If you want an insight to life in the nineteenth century then I think Dickens is a good place to start because he was concerned about how bad urban life was for people. It was bad.

Hobbes himself lived to the age of 91.

[xoggoth]

It's a new enlightened state beyond senility and approaching godhead.

[sasguru]

PS Good bloke Hoxha. First officially atheist state.

Going senile, old chap?

[xoggoth]

PS Good bloke Hoxha. First officially atheist state.

[sasguru]

It dismays me to read Threaded being mocked - he is without question one of the most valuable contrubutors on this board.

.

Well certainly one of the largest.

[AlfredJPruffock]

It dismays me to read Threaded being mocked - he is without question one of the most valuable contributors on this board.

That's it.

[xoggoth]

A complete @rse and not for the first time I'd have said.

Unless you can control what citizens are saying and doing and especially what children are taught you can't change a tribal society even in decades. Societies evolve at their own pace and it takes generations.

A Stalin or a Hoxha might have managed it, putting spies in every village, making kids inform on their parents and meting out harsh punishments. It's the only approach that would work.

[DimPrawn]

snaw's a bit feisty today.

I blame Thatcher.

[EternalOptimist]

What are you wittering on about?
So they lived to 50 or 60 if they were lucky.
If extremely lucky, some of their children survived.
Whoopety do dah!

Perhaps you should go on a medieval diet - as they were mostly hungry (if they weren't rich), at least they probably weren't lardy.

oooooh
no potatoes = no chips = no fish n chips
no curry

I dont think I would have lasted

[threaded]

What are you wittering on about?
So they lived to 50 or 60 if they were lucky.
If extremely lucky, some of their children survived.
Whoopety do dah!

Perhaps you should go on a medieval diet - as they were mostly hungry (if they weren't rich), at least they probably weren't lardy.

That's what I'm saying, that's not nasty, butish or short...

[snaw]

OK, another way to tackle the life expectancy myth. If child mortality was so high. and they lived such short lives, then there are simply not enough years between puberty and death for the population to replace itself. So they must have lived longer lives.

Another way to look at it, is that words for grand parents are quite embedded in languages, and are were not used in the past form, but in present forms. So grandparents must have been around commonly.

Go on. I'm enjoying you today.

Really? So say puberty is around 12/13 and life expectancy was around 33, that's 20 years of child bearing years, with no contraception, so even if 20% of your kids die there's a fair chance you'll leave behind more of them than there are of you (Parents) No? Plus men tended to marry more as wives tended to die fairly young.

Actually, as it happens there's a theory that most of us are descended from better off people in the past because they had far higher chances of survival than the poor, and the general rule over time is that generations get poorer, in a primogeniture system, like wot we have.

Not really interested in semantics around the use of the words grandxxx, pointless and really really poor reasoning.

[sasguru]

OK, another way to tackle the life expectancy myth. If child mortality was so high. and they lived such short lives, then there are simply not enough years between puberty and death for the population to replace itself. So they must have lived longer lives.

Another way to look at it, is that words for grand parents are quite embedded in languages, and are were not used in the past form, but in present forms. So grandparents must have been around commonly.

Go on. I'm enjoying you today.

What are you wittering on about?
So they lived to 50 or 60 if they were lucky.
If extremely lucky, some of their children survived.
Whoopety do dah!

Perhaps you should go on a medieval diet - as they were mostly hungry (if they weren't rich), at least they probably weren't lardy.

[threaded]

Show me some proof of the bollocks you're spouting, beyond you doing walkabout in a 13th century burial ground (Yet to answer that one btw) and making some massive assumptions based on the epitaphs and I'll start reasoning with you.

OK, another way to tackle the life expectancy myth. If child mortality was so high. and they lived such short lives, then there are simply not enough years between puberty and death for the population to replace itself. So they must have lived longer lives.

Another way to look at it, is that words for grand parents are quite embedded in languages, and are were not used in the past form, but in present forms. So grandparents must have been around commonly.

Go on. I'm enjoying you today.