Nobody reached 30 in the Middle Ages – that's a maths error.

Question on this card

Why was medieval life expectancy about 30 years?

1. Because hardly anyone got older
2. Because high infant mortality drags the average down
3. Because of the plague alone
4. Because nobody could count

Related cards

• The iron maiden is younger than the steam engine.No source mentions an iron maiden before the 19th century. The famous Nuremberg version went on …
• The medieval chastity belt is a museum fake.There is no credible evidence for chastity belts before the 15th century – so crusaders cannot have …
• How our year count began, and why there's no year 0.In 525, the monk Dionysius Exiguus in Rome wanted to calculate Easter tables and counted years from …
• Medieval people already knew the Earth was round.Educated people had known the Earth was a sphere since Aristotle in the 4th century BC; medieval …
• Tally sticks: medieval receipts that burned down Parliament.Before paper was common, debts were cut as notches into a wooden stick, which was then split …
• Zero as a number is only 1,400 years old.Earlier systems knew zero at most as a placeholder; Roman numerals didn't even have that. In 628 …
• Oxford University is older than the Aztec Empire.Teaching in Oxford is documented from 1096; the university grew rapidly after 1167, when English …
• Why rich merchants were nicknamed 'pepper sacks'.In the Middle Ages, pepper travelled thousands of kilometres from India to Europe, through many …

Keep reading

This card belongs to the topic History & Culture. Every card is short, cites a source and can be saved – due ones come back by themselves later.

About Doomlearn · Projects · Legal notice · Privacy · Terms