I get the medievalists responding angrily to the recent viral tweet “what would you have already died of in the Middke Ages” because so many people regurgitate false tropes, but lets not forget you only had a fifty/fifty shot of making it to age ten.

At least in pre-1000 England, about half of women who survived that were dead by age forty, almost always from childbirth (makes joining a nunnery a lot more attractive sounding). Fleming does a good job of laying out the archaeological stats in her book.

The children who survived were about four years developmentally behind what we would expect due to crushing malnutrition, in part from starving, in part from parasites. A sixteen year old would have looked like a twelve year old. Childhood starvation shows in your teeth.

Living conditions did improve in the eleventh century, especially for the rich. A shift to stone house construction dramatically reduced parasites. But life in the MAs was really hard, and getting enough calories to survive was a constant struggle for a greater % than today

These aren’t the facile, and factually wrong, “Nobody took a bath” nonsense, but sometimes medievalists overcompensate in response.

It is absolutely worth pointing out, however, how often our own modern society still fails to protect its citizens, especially women and minorities, from these same conditions. Infant mortality may not be as bad today, but the high rate among WOC in the USA is a national shame.