The Life of The People - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

1 / 34
About This Presentation
Title:

The Life of The People

Description:

The carnival season highlighted many of these traditions. 21. ... Carnival was the main season of recreation. Carnival preceded Lent, and culminated in fat Tuesday. ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

Number of Views:57
Avg rating:3.0/5.0
Slides: 35
Provided by: mal2
Category:
Tags: carnival | demons | life | people

less

Transcript and Presenter's Notes

Title: The Life of The People


1
The Life of The People
2
1.)
  • Contrary to common belief, the extended family
    in the Asian of African sense was not that common
    in preindustrial Western or Central Europe.
    Recent studies of parish registers reveals that
    the nuclear family was the most common type of
    family.

3
2.)
  • An early marriage like this would have been rare.
    Going back to the middle ages, people usually had
    to wait until they could afford to be married for
    several reasons
  • In serfdom, the permission of the lord had to be
    given.
  • Later, men had to develop a means of supporting
    his family.
  • Usually this was done by waiting for his father
    to die to inherit land and property.

4
  • Women also had to have a suitable dowry, which
    meant more waiting.
  • Local village customs usually prevented young
    men and women from marrying before they had means
    of support, to keep poverty ad illegitimacy rates
    down.
  • Thus may people in the preindustrial age were
    married quite late, maybe in their mid-twenties.

5
3.)
  • This tradition began to change the Industrial
    era
  • The growth of cottage industry and the putting
    out system meant that younger people had a
    little money, so they were motivated to begin
    relationships earlier.
  • Likewise, when young men and women began to
    leave the villages for the cities and factory
    work, they were no longer subject to the old
    customs and supervision of the village elders.
    They did what they wanted.

6
  • When the enclosure movements occurred, many
    rural girls moved in with upper-class families to
    serve a domestic help, where they were introduced
    to sex through illicit relationships or even
    abuse by the men of the household.

7
4.)
  • Birth control most often meant the rhythm method
    or coitus interruptus. These are primitive and
    relatively undependable. Some upper-class people
    did use sheaths.
  • The primary method of birth control was
    abstinence. If there was premarital sex, then the
    local community pressured marriage. As a result,
    illegitimacy was practically unheard of.

8
  • Furthermore, divorce was forbidden by Catholics
    and basically forbidden by the Protestant
    churches. Marital scandals and adultery were fair
    game for village was and degrading rituals at
    carnival and festival time. So, people stayed
    married through thick and thin.

9
5.)
  • Around 1750 the Industrial era emerged. Young
    people moved to cities where they were on their
    own, away from rural custom. Fewer young woman
    abstained from premarital sex and fewer young men
    married the girls they got pregnant. Also the up
    and down cycles of the early industrial age
    caused men to be jobless for long periods, making
    it hard to support a family.
  • As a result, illegitimacy boomed, from 2 to 25
    in some places. Poverty soared, and the
    Dickensian industrial image took hold.

10
6.)
  • Not really. The idea that they were more
    liberated is a modern idea. Rural and urban
    women were subject to the same economic changes
    and patterns which left them all vulnerable to
    many soldiers, day laborers, and male servants
    who promised marriage but were unable or
    unwilling to take on the burden of supporting a
    family.

11
7.)
  • Infant mortality has always been a scourge of
    civilization. In Medieval Europe, 1 in 3 rural
    babies would die, 1 in 5 in the cities. Disease
    was usually the culprit, but famine and
    infanticide also were to blame. The medieval
    church had done well in eliminating the tradition
    of infanticide as a pagan practice, but the
    practice of eliminating extra mouths to feed
    continued in Europe, especially once illegitimacy
    boomed.

12
(No Transcript)
13
8.)
  • Poorer women breast-fed for longer periods to
    delay the resumption of ovulation, occasionally
    2-3 years (!) Because they had a supply of milk
    and because the upper-class women considered
    breastfeeding to be crude, these poor women were
    mistreated, in the hopes of making the living.

14
(No Transcript)
15
9.)
  • Abortions were not common but they were
    available. They were very dangerous. If she
    wasnt willing to commit infanticide or leave her
    child to starve in the street, she often left it
    on the steps of a church or a foundling home.
    These homes offered some hope if they were well
    run, but some of them were killing mills were few
    infants ever grew into childhood, due to neglect,
    disease, and malnutrition.

16
10.)
  • In earlier times, children were quite detached
    from adults. They were put to hard labor at an
    early age in nearly all societies. In Europe,
    because of the high IMR, many parents of all
    classes were conditioned not to grow attached to
    them. Doctors did not place great priority on
    learning to treat them. Pediatrics was unheard
    of. Discipline of children sometimes bordered and
    abuse, by modern standards. (Spare the rod and
    spoil the child). Loving ones child as an
    emotional investment was rare.

17
  • In the middle-eighteenth century this began to
    change. Rousseau called for tenderness and warmth
    in dealing with children. Parents were encouraged
    to invest emotion in their childs development.
    These changes were enlightened ideals and reflect
    the idea of optimism and progress the enjoined
    the Enlightenment.

18
11.)
  • Common people were illiterate from the Dark Ages
    through the mid 1600s. the Reformation, and the
    Protestant belief that the people should
    interpret the Bible for themselves, was the
    catalyst for a new growth in literacy. Later
    Catholic reformers also pushed literacy,
    especially in border areas where there was
    religious conflict.

19
  • Prussia led the way in developing universal
    education, mandating compulsory elementary
    attendance as early as 1717. Scotland and England
    soon followed. By 1800, 9 of 10 Scots men could
    read, and fully half of Englishmen. Common people
    had little interest in Enlightenment ideas. They
    tended to focus on

20
  • -The Bible and chapbooks, small pamphlets
    devoted to stories of a religious nature.
  • -Fairly tales, fantasy, stories that have entered
    our imagination like Cinderella, Snow White,
    Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretel.
  • -Practical literature dealing with mundane
    matters like farming and craftwork. Farmers
    Almanacs are a holdover of this type.
  • Their reading did not challenge the established
    social order, however.

21
13.)
  • Typical peasants ate coarse, dark bread, lots of
    vegetables such as peas and beans, carrots and
    cabbages. They drank lots of beer. They rarely
    had meat and eggs, when they did it was often
    mutton. They had little cheese and butter.
    Actually a pretty healthy diet in normal times.

22
  • Rich people ate quite differently. Their diet was
    extremely rich meats of all kinds, sweets and
    cheese, creams and gravies. They drank
    excessively. No wander that they often suffered
    from the gout, and that they considered
    portliness to be desirable as it signified wealth
    and power.
  • The small middle classes ate somewhere in between
    these two worlds.

23
14.)
  • The advent of the potato form the new world
    changed things tremendously. It is very
    nutritious if the skin is eaten, you can grow
    lots of potatoes on a small plot of land. In some
    areas like Ireland, the potato replaced grain as
    the primary crop.

24
15.)
  • Practitioners of medicine also grew more skilled.
    The enlightenment forced a focus on natural
    causation, whereas medieval healers often
    believed that illness was caused by a jinx or
    curse, or worse, devils and demons. Believing
    that the only cure was to drive out the demons,
    rural people especially placed great store in
    these faith healers.

25
16.)
  • Hospitals were horrible places where those of
    varying degrees of illness were thrown together,
    often 6 to a bed. Infectious disease ran wild
    sterilization and sanitation were unknown. Going
    to a hospital was often a death sentence.

26
17.)
  • Smallpox inoculation was and still is
    controversial because there is a risk that a
    percentage of those inoculated will die, as
    healthy people are exposed to small doses of the
    disease to build some resistance. 2 of those
    exposed will die.

27
  • Edward Jenner is one of the great figures in
    medicine. Following the rural belief that
    milkmaids wouldnt contract smallpox, he used
    these women to provide material for vaccinations.
    These proved a success and soon smallpox
    practically disappeared in Europe and later,
    globally.

28
18.)
  • The way mentally ill people were treated was
    deplorable, going back through Western history.
    Often they were considered possessed by demons.
    It was commonly believed that the full moon
    caused crazy behavior-thus the word lunatic. Also
    it was commonly held that masturbation caused all
    manner of mental unbalance. Later, huge
    sanitoriums and asylums were opened, the most
    well known being St. Mary of Bethlehem (Bedlam).

29
19.)
  • In both Protestant and Catholic countries, the
    secular governments sought to control religion.
    Despite this, the local church was the focal
    point of rural communities. Church was the scene
    of baptism, marriage, funerals, weekly
    congregation and gossip. Going to church was the
    high point of weekly life for most. However, the
    secular control had caused many churches to
    become watered down. This caused some reformers
    in the 18th century to seek new vitality and
    passion in religion.

30
20.)
  • The baroque style had woven religious themes into
    art and architecture. But on a simpler level,
    local customs, traditions, and holidays, most of
    dubious, pagan origin, remained common. The
    carnival season highlighted many of these
    traditions.

31
21.)
  • As noted, Protestant churches had settled into a
    basic routine after the close of the major
    religious wars. To wit, it might have been said
    to be stale or even uninspiring. The 18th century
    reaction o this was pietism. Pietism called for
    warm, emotional, enthusiastic religion. Also, it
    stressed the idea of a universal priesthood,
    meaning that all members were encouraged to
    explore the meanings of he Bible. Bible study and
    Sunday school were the result. Lastly,
    born-again Christian were supposed to be active
    in working Gods will, a life of involvement.

32
  • John Wesley was a vigorous follower of these
    beliefs. He and his fellows were called
    sneeringly called Methodists because of the
    steady devotion (their Method of worship). He
    later had an emotional transformation and began
    to travel around England by horseback, preaching
    to huge mass rallies in open fields. This
    movement was a backlash against he cold logic of
    the Enlightenment, and in America was called the
    Great Awakening. Wesleyan cells emerged in
    Europe and America in the colonies especially,
    the Methodist circuit rider was a common
    fixture.

33
22.)
  • Carnival was the main season of recreation.
    Carnival preceded Lent, and culminated in fat
    Tuesday. There was a wild drinking, dancing,
    costumes, plays, processions, and rowdiness.
  • The rest of the year set the pattern. In winter,
    stories and songs were preformed by the
    fireplace. Women would get together to spin and
    chat. For men, the local tavern was the place to
    be.

34
  • In towns, urban fairs became popular, featuring
    acrobats, freak shows, foods. Bull baiting and
    bearbaiting were popular, as were cockfights.
  • The differences in recreation among hose of
    different classes drove a wedge between them.
    Even today, certain types of recreation are
    considered to be common to different classes.
Write a Comment
User Comments (0)
About PowerShow.com