@@charlieclark9552 Or I could start my own religion. I'd base it around video games because obviously they didn't exist in the middle ages so when the prophecy is fulfilled and the world starts filling up with games they'll know which god to thank.
I like how everyone in these old school paintings have a smirky little smile on their face no matter what was going on with them. That dude getting a sword crammed through the top of his head seemed high on life.
No need to ruin a merry moment with a frowny face. When a bunch of smiling people that are enjoying themselves stab you in the head, might as well make the best of it.
Stealing a horse, bolts of cloth and other items is not similar to a youth steeling a cloak. One stole someone's means of livelihood etc and one just stole a garment.
Stealing a horse is like stealing someones new plate Mercedes. A horse showed wealth in those days. And probably most important if the person needed the horse to earn a living. Which was measured between life and death in those days.
@@HdHd-cg4nz a better example would be stealing a contractor truck. Imagine a self employed plumber with a van. All his gear is inside and someone steals it. Effectively the thief look his job/livelihood and placed a huge burden on him.
"The crimes [of theft] were quite similar, but the punishments were worlds apart." Horses were expensive as hell and hanging was the penalty unilaterally for millennia - possibly into time eternal. Namely because having a horse vs not having a horse was the difference between life and death for the persons it was stolen from.
Yeah, one was petty theft, the other was grand theft, in the same category as burglary or highway robbery, a crime that carried the death penalty in both Britain and America well into the 19th century.
Stealing a horse verses stealing clothes are very different for preindustrial society. Clothes can easily be remade. A horse on the other hand cannot. You have to train it, groom it, feed it, keep it healthy for riding and work including trading, plowing fields, traveling between towns or cities. These horses were used in warfare and many people would require a specific type of horse for their way of making a living. A horse is much more than a car it's practically a family member to the person also. In my town in the 1870's they hanged someone for horse robbery. Horses were important into the 19th century.
"Easily remade" is not true. Most people could not go and buy or produce the bolt of cloth. Nor where tailors that common. Giving someone your "old cloth" was a big gift even for wealthier people.
I mean relatively speaking easily remade. All you need to make cloth is materials and time, but for a horse, you need far more time, resources, and dedication, as well as a large permanent storage space.
@@mbr5742 Doesn't matter one is messing with one's livelihood which could also be considered attempted murder I mean wars started for such things while the other is a piece of clothing and 3 month banishment seems harse enough for the crime lol
I think some people are forgetting why these punishments were so severe. They were living in a time where people had almost nothing. They lived in a time where if someone stole your socks, your feet would freeze off in winter, because it was your only pair of socks and you don’t have enough money to buy another pair.
@@iconickid2397 no, that barely had anything to do with it. The ability for individuals to get richer is what caused punishments to become less severe. Not a decrease in religiosity.
@@iconickid2397 this is the single greatest misconception about the middle ages. The truth is, most ordinary people were not very religious. The clergy and nobility to some extent were very religious. The clergy could read, unlike ordinary peasants, and so they could interpret the scriptures. Even religious services and prayers were barely understood by most people as they could not understand the Latin in which they were recited. Bedroom activities were seldom monitered and sodomy was nearly impossible to enforce on a broad scale. Only if you were caught in the act were you typically punished. For most people, the goal was to keep your family alive and have enough food in your belly and a warm enough shelter to survive the night.
Most modern court of laws still take your reputation into account. If someone with no record commits murder, they tend to have a higher burden of proof and get a lighter sentence than if they had a criminal background.
Those crime figures are shocking! My local town has a population 42X that of Lincoln, which would equate to almost 4800 murders! As a yearly average, we usually have 2-3 at most!
@4:07 You have to remember the time frame you are talking about. In the previous example, the man just stole some clothing. But in this example, he stole a horse, clothes, and other goods. A horse at the time could be used for transportation & also probably tilling fields. I am not a historian, but stealing clothes is not the same thing as stealing a car, tools from a tradesman, and 6 to 8 months of work. Thats probably why this individual was hanged. He essentially stole someone else's livelihood. It's not like those items could be easily replaced in the Middle Ages.
@@CDAWG199313 Oh, just look at that ratio between your comment’s likes and the likes of the guy verbally slapping you for it underneath! Truly beautiful. Your type are annoying. You must regret opening your mouth.
yes and no ! all felonies were capital misdemeanour crimes were not! thus not all theft was felony ! and no felony is not american either ! however the larceny act 1916 made all theft felony only offences until 1968 then replaced with the theft act
Whenever I hear mention about blasphemy all I can ever think about is the line “I had a lovely supper, and all I said to my wife was ‘That piece of halibut was good enough for Jehovah’” from Monty Python’s The Life of Brian.
His representation of it is so dumb. You can't accidentally commit blasphemy. The way he makes it sound it would be so common you wouldn't have had anyone alive today. There is a specific definition of the word it isn't some vague thing. "any word of malediction, reproach, or contumely pronounced against God" Saying some remark about a person, even a Saint, will not rise to that level. It may be a sin (Sacrilege) but you're not getting your head lopped off.
A man robbed our local pharmacy thinking the blue pills were narcotics, but they were actually viagra. Police were asked whether the perpetrator was arrested. “No, he is still at large.”
I mean those kids were all acquitted centuries ago and he just talks about them as if they are just clearly guilty, and it couldn't have just been family feuds. Maybe they were, but its not hard to use the valuable term alleged, but people today aren't really like that, no.
@@jackiereynolds2888 Literally taught and a bread and butter principle of the legal system everyone on the planet, openly. The drug dealer who kills someone gets worse treatment than the housewife defending her children. Both are homicides, one is defensible. Dealing drugs that are intended to heal has usually been protected, although the last few decades have been an exception, big pharma and all. The issue you guys are complaining about is legal politics, literally. Lawyers are bound by political laws, and by law need to fight them outside of court, in the political sphere. If only some powerful elites controlled both parties hmmmmmmmmmmmm
@@davidjohnson8655 I don't think we are talking about lawyers. All my experiences of having been declared "guilty" simply because of either me, or someone else, having a terrible reputation thanks to the very extensive smear campaigns of the actual criminals, did not involve lawyers. You think people are not like that nowadays...??? You got a lot to learn!
As usual, amazing content! I'm obsessed with medieval history and the subjects you cover are really interesting and informative, have been following since day one and each video gets greater 😀 x
Should probably find a better source than this guy who thinks stealing a cloak and horse are equal. This guy has no bearing on what life was actually like back then and just recycles things he hears and doesn't understand.
This isn't amazing at all. He misrepresents blasphemy as if it's some easy thing to do accidentally and no one was executed for stealing a piece of clothing. He doesn't actually know what he's talking about. Like at al
Sanctuary was next to hopeless for the criminal in medieval England if the charge was serious. Records are littered with villians being forcefully dragged out and priests and clergy bribed or sometimes beaten if any resistance was shown.
Maybe late medieval times but prior to Henry's revolt against God no man would beat a priest. It was an excommunication to do so and the man that ordered it would stand to lose his holdings through revolt
Permanant exile was a form of slow death. Unless you had sufficient funds to live abroad your life would be short. Once the sentence of exile was pronounced, you were given several days to put your affairs in order. Upon the day of departure, you would present yourself to the sheriff, the sentence read to the assemble mob. You were then shown the road to the nearest port and sent on your way. Now, if you had murdered someone, you probably didn't make it much past the first turn in the road, as relatives of the murder victim were usually waiting. Should you arrive at the seaport, you were required to report to the sheriff. Your next task was to find transport to where you wanted to go. If the winds were against sailing, if you found a captain willing to take you, you were then required to walk into the sea up to your knees, every day until you sailed. Once on the other side you had to make a living, not knowing the language made it almost impossible, unless you came from a wealthy house, and/or had contacts. Usually, your body would be found a few weeks after arrival, stripped of everything usable.
"Pain fort et dur" means being pressed to death. They lie you on your back, put a board on top of you, and put heavy weights on the board. It can take days to die.
@@jhaz89 i'm really not interested in having a conversation predicated on you stabbing at the possible motivations behind someone else's decisions, man. if you find these videos helpful for that reason, fantastic -- jog on.
To get sanctuary you didn't always need to reach the church. At Beverley in Yorkshire all you needed to do,was get within 1 mile of the Minster to get sanctuary.
"The Crimes were quite Similar" No...one was a Cloak (Petty Theft Misdemeanor) and the other was a Horse and significant valuables (Grand Theft Felony).
Dude, you voice overs and jokes are solid entertainment. You have us wondering where you're getting your "actors" from....medieval fairs or just kinky friends.
Don't forget that communities were much smaller than now. A community may only exist of two or three families. The population of England and Wales in 1300 was around 2.5 million, just over a quarter of the population London today. There was no police force, at best there was a watchman (who was probably related to the malefactor or was corrupt or only got the job because they were useless at everything else). The local Lord could intervene if he considered that the crime was not worth bothering about (murder victim got their just desserts, etc) or the accused was thought to be of value to the Lord (Yes, you say that he torched the next village, murdered all the inhabitants and nicked everything not nailed down, but he is my blacksmith so you can sod off!). There was also the "Benefit of Clergy"; which meant that the accused had taken holy orders. A member of the clergy was immune from prosecution by any authority other than the church. Proof of holy orders was provided by the ability to read and write. Finally, after being convicted, a criminal could escape punishment of a person good standing made representation to the court; sort of, "All right, we know that you did it, now bugger off and don't do it again and stay away from that sodding blacksmith!".
The stealing of a horse and the stealing of a cloak are quite similar? 4:20 I don't understand how you come to the conclusion that those crimes are at all on the same level. stealing a horse was a hanging offence in most of europe.
stealing a horse still was a hanging offense in the wild west in the US only 150 years ago so it didn’t really change until the last 120 years in most countries
What was hilarious about it? It was all about crime, punishment, torture, and medieval barbarism. If that's hilarious to you, you must thought the Spanish Inquisition was a real belly laugh.
I find how bizarre and cruel medieval punishments were absolutely hilarious. Especially the whole concept of sanctuary and putting animals on trial makes me laugh 😂
@@AW-kr9fl I mean sanctuary is somewhat sensible. A place to flee to if you're afraid you were framed or the situation isn't as clear cut as cold blooded murder, and to negotiate and explain your situation
I just came across your channel and I've been binge watching the videos all day. I love the content. I guess the Utube algorithm gets it right sometimes 👍🏻
Its crazy knowing people back then could do fire , ice and electric magic spells out of their hands must have been handy to have them skills cant believe we lost them .
Horse theft has commonly been solved by hanging because it was considered taking away someone's ability to get food, travel, make money or have a livelihood.
Sounds to me like being banished from your village for three months is like sending a person directly into areas where you run into potential danger all of the time. areas where you are safe around the people you know into an unfamiliar could be somewhat of a brutal punishment in itself.
There was actually acceptable terms of killing oneself in the middle ages by the church (and in the Catholic Church is still acceptable). Madness, so you aren't really in control of your actions, or if you don't want to do it as a rejection of life, since life was considered a divine gift and rejecting it was rejecting God. This act was rare but considered acceptable. It was supported by the act of a knight falling on one's sword for an act of dishonor. In so doing, his honor was restored, and it wasn't considered the same as a suicide from grief, fear, or weakness, and they still received a Christian burial. The most similar act in the Catholic Church in recent years was probably when an Iranian bishop killed himself on the steps of his church to protest the mistreatment of Christians and other religious minorities in Iran. It was determined not to be from despair and thus he was still allowed a Christian burial. And a lot of these seem very Anglo or Francocentric. There were more cultures in medieval Europe.
@@kenboulder212 not sure what your comments adds, we're talking about pronunciation and you've only gone and respelled it, but the word is definitely said uhn · dai · tuhd in British or American dialects
Could you get medication and therapy for your anxiety? If you get scared because someone mispronounces a word, you'll be a nervous wreck for the rest of your life if you don't do something about it.
@@LittleKitty22 I didn't say anything about anxiety. When someone says "that scares me" in reference to something being grossly misused, such as information or sheer stupidity, as in your case, they're being hyperbolic and not actually in a state of fear. Is English not your first language, I assume?
@@bbluva21 Is it yours? You clearly don't understand sarcasm. In English speaking countries we use it a lot. You need to improve your English if you want to understand a basic conversation. We also don't usually comment on someone mispronouncing a word because our language is not phonetic, so mistakes can happen.
@@LittleKitty22 Honestly, I think you simply have low standards and a white-knight complex. Whereas my complaint came from a place of worry over source accuracy on a fact-based video, yours was the need to (erroneously) feel superior - and also defend someone on the internet whom simply doesn't require your misplaced heroics. Calm yourself, Little Kitty. Nobody here is your enemy, except mayhaps your own hostility. Go in peace - but be sure to go.
I'm glad we have at least one data point for crime in the pre-industrial era. Really highlights how fortunate we are now. The current worst murder rate in the world is in Celaya, Mexico due to the drug war at 109 per 100,000. High enough for travel bans, states of emergency, and deployment of military resources but FIFTEEN TIMES safer than a medieval English town.
04:00 "Similar crimes"? A cloak VS a horse and multiple square meters of cloth ... but the only thing that's different is the location ... are you okay? That's like saying "but my neighbor burned his trash, why am I being punished harsher" after burning down several building.
@@leolego2 read my comment again! I'm comparing "burning garbage" with "burning down a house". This guy compared "stealing a cloak" to "stealing a horse + a ton of stuff" I never compared arson to theft, I just pointed out that "location" is not the important factor here! And while I'm at it: stealing a cloak is "petty theft" , stealing a horse + a ton of stuff "grand theft". They are literally different crimes!
0:14 That’s so close to how America sees law and order today, it’s not even funny. Like in the 80s and 90s America’s approach to weed was just- “O was this guy caught with weed? Let’s put him away for 1/3 of his life that’ll make America stop smoking it…right?”
It would have been interesting to tie these crimes to the development of English Common Law. Granted this would have been applied inconsistently, the ideas survived and served us well today.
just common law also statutes of then are still the law today for example the justice of the peace act 1361, Observance of due Process of Law (1368) and the treason act 1381
And yet it still remains impossible with any certainty to ensure that punishment is dished out specifically and exclusively to those who commit the crime. This may sound a little twisted because most people don't look at the system this way, but here it is: We don't punish people (my familiarity is with the system in the U.S.) because they committed a crime. We punish them, absent a guilty plea, because two storytellers put on a performance featuring conflicting stories for an audience of twelve, and the twelve were more convinced by the "prosecution" storyteller than the "defense" storyteller.
So I haven't watched yet but I'm intrigued to find out whether you can just relocate to the next village and say " oh uh yeah my name is Jeff." When you were actually born as Henry and people just shrug and go "ok, grab a shovel Jeff. "
“Why were the medieval so murderous?” Dude you try living back then. Entire culture riddled with PTSD. Every one of them, regardless of social status, could die at any second: If you have to ask why that would make someone violent, you would not understand the answer.
Stealing a horse vs. Stealing a cloak are VERY different crimes... even in the usa a horse thief was about as bad as a murderer because you were in some cases basically killing the owner by taking his horse.
Let me guess, the word 'warrant', as we understand it today, has its origins in the surname, you guessed it, the 'Warrant' family. Oh, by the way, was there a warrant issued for the warrant family?
The practice of sanctuary seems to have a modern analogue, that is the practice of seeking asylum in an embassy. It reminds me of when Julian Assange fled to the Ecuadorian embassy to avoid being extradited to the US.
Medieval art kicks ass. By the way, the word "indicted" is pronounced "in-DITE-ted" Not "in-DICK-ted." Although....back then....maybe they were in-dicked-ted a lot. Different times. Good video.
I'm loving your videos, but am kind of a stickler for pronunciation. Again, Aquinus is pronounced ah QUINE us, and indict is actually en DITE. The C is silent. Apparently this comes from the early English endite, but somewhere along the line the decision was made to make it look more like its Latin roots, and the spelling became indict from the Latin root word indictare. But modern pronunciation kept the original English ENDITE.
@9:37, I'm confused... Lawrence is the goldsmith and he fled to the church, and he was found hanging, but it shows Ralph's character hanging... And then Lawrence's character is seen with the mistress.
The way that many of these brutal punishments were sanctioned by the religious authorities, supposedly in the name of Jesus Christ, shows that they knew next to nothing about their own Christian faith, or about Christ Himself. I doubt very much that He would have approved of dungeons, floggings, brandings, torture, burning at the stake, etc. Jesus believed in fair and humane treatment for everyone, even those considered outcasts, like criminals, for example. He said that people should "visit" prisoners, just as they would look in on the sick, the injured, the poor, the starving, and so on, and the subsequent course of history proves His point, because, contrary to what the religious and civil authorities felt, cruel and unusual punishments do not deter people from crime or sin. As this video shows, robberies, thefts, assaults, and murders still ran rampant across Europe despite the harsh penalties that these offenses warranted under the laws of the period. Indeed, studies have shown that crime rates actually decrease when punishments become less violent and sadistic, and more humane and reformative. The involvement of the Church in these atrocities also shows the need and necessity of a separation of Church and State, which, in spite of what these religious Fundamentalists think, is essential to the survival of a free country.
So sorry to hear about your terminal case of anachronism and your inability to understand the Bible. Your cherrypicking and utter ignorance is a shame.
@@generalwillwelsh7926 In the first place, it's "got their hands cut OFF," not "got their hands cut OF." Second, I think you meant to say "there WOULDN'T be as many (thieves)," not "there WOULD be as many." Third, cutting off people's hands is an outdated and barbaric form of punishment, even if it's only applied to thieves. Therefore, it has no place in the modern and civilized world, especially in the United States, where the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution forbids "cruel and unusual punishments."
I was fascinated with medieval times when I was a kid. I knew Monty Python’s movie by heart. I played medieval board and computer games. Even wrote my own “proving grounds” BBS game in 1988 and had over 50 users. Then one day my dad said “kid, you really wouldn’t want to live back then” and I realized that MY OLD MAN WAS SO WRONG AND STUPID.
I did this in Whiterun. I killed that guy Nazeem that was all snooty, saying "Get to the cloud district very often? Oh, what am I saying, of course you don't." A bunch of guards came out and attacked me with swords and bows. I ran out of town, then like a week later, came back, paid a guard some money, and was off the hook.
I dont think it was location was main factor that determined the punishment for theft but what you stole. Theft of a horse was punished more harshly than that of a sheet from a washing line.
The idea that anyone could offend a god (heresy) makes no sense. How can an all powerful, all knowing, ever present, and perfectly good god ever be offended by anything a human being did or believed? It seems more likely to me that humans are the ones offended because such beliefs challenge the power of those religious institutions.
@@Glitter_H_Hoof Nah, Justin makes perfect sense. You should question things in this world, especially law and religion. How can another man tell you you've offended an all power being that neither you nor him has ever seen or met?
@@ricky-sanchez God is perfectly just before being perfectly good, what He prescribed of commandments are for the common and individual betterment of all, to transgress against God is to transgress against justice, virtue, and our fellow man, and as the final judge, he leaves no transgression unpunished and no good deed unrewarded, it would make less sense for an all-good, all-just God to create Mankind and abandon it like a deadbeat father.
