4


DiScOvErInG HiStOrY Sickness and illness in the Middle Ages


During the Middle Ages there was no understanding about how diseases spread. Illness was explained as being divine punishment. The dirt and lack of hygiene in homes, villages and towns meant that it was very easy for disease to spread. Treatments for disease were usually based on superstition, prayers or herbal remedies. People believed that the body was made up of four ‘humours’ – blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile. Each of these humours needed to be in balance and the body became ill when they were not. To help rebalance the body, cures would include ‘bloodletting’ where blood was drawn from the patient using a knife or leeches. Amputations were a common solution but operations were carried out using dirty equipment and without any anaesthetic. Understandably, operations were often fatal.


Crime and punishment


Punishment was very severe in medieval towns. Town councils decided if someone deserved to be punished. Thieves could have one of their hands cut off or even be hanged for their crime. People were put into stocks (planks of wood with holes cut into them for the person’s feet) or a pillory (holes cut for the head and hands while the person stood) and had rotten food or sometimes even rocks thrown at them. If a craftsman was caught selling a bad product, he was dragged through the streets on a huddle (a wooden sleigh) holding his produce. Women who gossiped were tied to a ducking stool and lowered repeatedly into water.


RECALL


1. Who governed a town if the local lord granted a charter?


2. What might you find for sale at the annual fair in a town in the Middle Ages?


3. List three diseases common in medieval towns. 4. Why were the towns so dirty? 5. List three treatments used on people who were sick in the Middle Ages.


6. Why was bloodletting encouraged as a treatment for ill people?


102 Fig 4.26 Stocks Fig 4.25 Ducking stool


Fig 4.24 A doctor applies leeches to the back of a female patient as a means of letting blood.


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