A life expectancy of around 30 did not mean people grew old at 30.
High child mortality dragged the average down: medieval people who survived childhood often lived into their sixties or beyond.
More amazing facts
- 1299 · 1903 The Ottoman state, founded around 1299, still existed when the Wright brothers made the first airplane flight: the sultanate was abolished only in 1922.
- 1300 · 1303 Dante booked a place in Hell for a living pope.
- 1300 · 1944 Coins of the Kilwa Sultanate in East Africa were found in Australia.
- 1300 · 1910 On finding a bronze head at Ife in 1910, the German ethnologist Leo Frobenius decided it was a relic of Atlantis.
- 1300 Medieval people did drink water; beer was not a forced substitute for 'unsafe' water.
- 1300 Medieval cooks did not use spices to hide rotten meat.