The good old, old days

In Michael Crichton’s book Timeline, one character, Andrė, decides to remain in the past, specifically the year 1357, because he finds life then much more to his taste. Many readers probably identified with the longing for idyllic past with all of its simple charm and without any of modern life’s stresses. Alas, life in the pre-industrial age was not a bowl of cherries.  It may be that it was slower and less stressful but it involved much hard work and many limitations unimaginable today.

Let us discuss the basic needs for heating, cooking and light. Pre-electricity means wood or charcoal stoves, which often served all three functions. Someone, generally a lower-class woman, had to get up before dawn and get the fire going. Depending on the size of the house and its design, this limited heat did not necessary get to all of the rooms. Cooking and baking on a wood stove is an art that takes year to learn in terms of controlling the temperature. As for light, aside from the fire, people only had relatively expensive candles to extend their day.  To give a perspective, for the wedding of the daughter of the French King, Louis Phillippe (the Bourgeois) in the early 19^th century, the cost of lighting the ballroom was higher than the cost of the bride’s dress.

On the subject of clothes, pret-a-porter had not been invented, meaning you could not just go to the store and buy a pair of pants or a dress, not to mention underwear. Someone, a tailor or seamstress, had to make it specifically for you.  Each item was expensive, meaning that even the wealthy had very limited wardrobes.  As for cleaning it, without any washing machine, each item had to be taken to the river and cleaned by hand.  Talk about time-consuming and strenuous work.

The other great necessity, food, was also rather limited.  Food transportation was by wagon or boat only. Anybody distant from the few good roads or a body of water lived on what was locally available, which could lack variety and even quantity depending on the area and season. It is no surprise that most local peasant recipes involve maximum effort to attain the most benefit from any locally available food.

Of course, money solves most problems, even then. Unfortunately, money was also an issue.  The pre-industrial age was a time without bank credit, credit cards, checks or even paper money. Money was all about valuable metals and weight. Spain became rich because it plundered lots of millions of pounds in gold and silver, literally.  However, given the limitations of weight, transportation and raw materials, peripheral locations often lacked the money to conduct basic financial transactions. Those fur farmers in North America in the 17^th and 18^th century even traded in buck skins to complement the limited number of British, Dutch, French and Spanish coins they could get their hands on.

So, I personally am less excited about living the cold, dark, dirty and difficult life of 400 years ago. I am willing to put up with cell phone calls at inappropriate times, around-the-clock emails, bank account vigilance and even smog for the privilege of feeling warm, clean and fed and being capable of buying almost anything and going anywhere in this world. 2018 ain’t so bad, really.