5) Pooping – A Never Ending Horror Show!
What is the worst you can find or experience while pooping in today’s era? A
giant spider staring at you while sitting at the edge of seat? Well, guess
what? You are lucky. Because pooping and live fire went hand to hand in ancient
Rome. Fire under damp and awful stone closets were the modern toilets in Rome.
Inhabitants back then did not take pain to use water or other means to wash it
off. With rampant methane fumes result in fueling flames on body, Romans drew
the image of “Fortuna” the goddess of luck. As medieval times revived,
inhabitants started living in close quarters resulting in congested
neighborhood. This posed serious problems of disposing poops. People came up
with ingenious ideas of digging underground passages which threw all the mess
onto streets. People with less fortunate financial status did not care where
poops were disposed off. One of the historians writes that floors were rarely
cleaned resulting in layers upon layers of poop, animal wastes, ale droppings
etc. The only solution was to create a new layer upon the filth covered
layer.
4) Have a Minor Disfigurement? Out You Go!
Do you have acne or psoriasis in today’s world? If yes, better treat it. But if somehow you were born centuries ago and had these minor health problems, you could have been a deformed outcast. With our advancement in medial sciences we can treat skin problems and other unsightly features. The best remedy we have these days is plastic surgery but back then any such disease was destined to have you outcast. Leprosy for instance, plagued European empires for quite long where even having a rash on your skin resulted in complete social isolation and mass killings. Another disease was Syphilis, a nasty condition that rotted the flesh (of the nose in particular) and smelled like dead fish.
3) Are You Unemployed? How About A few Whips?
Joblessness has been common throughout human history. It breaks
people down both emotionally and socially. But one of the worst historical account in
this regard is found centuries ago when not being able to find a living was
considered a fate worth a punishment i.e. whipping bare flesh until bloody. For
example, in 16thcentury England, being unemployed was considered as
a punishable crime when people wandered from place to place in search of
living, they were considered as vagrants. In 1547, the law was altered so that
instead of whipping, people would be branded like cattle and forced into
slavery. In early 1600s new laws were implemented as per which rewards and
bounties were announced for whosoever captures a vagrant. The governments back
then did provide some sort of assistance but that also came with an outcast
branding tactic i.e. a jobless person was forced to wear a badge with letter
“P” to distinguish them from the rest.
2) Brawls At School Turned Into DeadlyFight Offs
In the darkest era of the 13th Century in Paris,
brawls in the streets were not the one we see in our today’s world. Brawls
starting on meager arguments ended up with guts on swords and hammers. This was
not being done by kids, but adult mobs taking onto streets with kill or be
killed motives. An historical record of one of such incidents is found in 1299
when a group of students went inn-hopping and, started to argue on the price of
wine. The argument escalated to an extent that townspeople had to come and
rescue the day. Next day the group came back with even large numbers equipped
with swords and hammers. The turned the innkeeper’s wine jugs and then took on
the streets, killing whosoever came in the way. During medieval times, Oxford University (yes,
the same iconic Oxford) witnessed these deadly fights on routine. Factions from
Southern and Northern nations ended up killing dozens with swords during
fights. One of the famous accounts occurred in 1355 a few days before
Valentines. Once again, the catalyst was wine, though this time it was over its
quality and not its price. Oxford church rang its own bell when city’s bells
were ringing to call out on people to fight student body. When the dust
settled, thirty townsmen and 63 students were dead.
1) Species were Treated Like Narcotics