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Life for peasants in the Middle Ages was difficult, to say the least - Medieval peasant jobs could often involve long hours of back-breaking labor in less than sanitary conditions - but it wasn’t all bad. Peasants actually had a lot more free time than you might expect. They got every Sunday off, as well as special holidays mandated by the church, not to mention weeks off here and there for special events like weddings and births when they spent a lot of time getting drunk
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Being a peasant in medieval times was challenging
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Their lives revolved around agriculture and other tasks assigned by their lord
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They owned their strips of land with homes and livestock and worked together to achieve their goals
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But it wasn't constant back-breaking labor and unsanitary conditions all the time
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Medieval peasants got more off time than most Americans do, working only 150 days per year
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They had more free time than you might think. So, today we're exploring how medieval peasants spent their free time
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In the absence of video games and the internet, medieval peasants entertained themselves in
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creative ways. One of them involved bobbing for apples. It isn't just that game you have to randomly play at a Halloween party
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In medieval times, peasants made a fun game out of it by mixing in some romance
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This courting ritual worked like this. Each apple was assigned the name of some handsome lad from the village
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Peasants threw all the apples into a bucket of water and let the game begin
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One of the women would risk drowning herself to snag one of the love apples in her teeth
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If she caught the apple on her first attempt, that meant the two were destined to be together
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If it took two tries, then the relationship probably wasn't going to work out
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They usually wouldn't make a third attempt. And after she snagged the apple, eating it wasn't part of the game
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Instead, she'd take the fruit home, place it under her pillow, and enjoy pleasant dreams of her future partner
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How long they'd keep the apple there is up for debate. But hopefully, they removed it before it got all appley, mealy, nasty
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Everyone loves a good game of football, or American soccer, even medieval peasants
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Today's football fans are passionate and occasionally resort to antics during a match
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But during the Middle Ages, it was the players who went a little crazy during the game
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One might even say they put on a ludicrous display on most nights. The logistics of the game were a mess
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There was no field or even a defined number of players. Basically, anyone who showed up could play
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Sometimes that could be hundreds of people or even a whole town. The game's ball was a blown up pig's bladder
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The goal was a bit different too. Instead of kicking the ball through a goal
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the idea was to be the first team to kick it to the other village's church. It was a rule-free
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affair with great potential for violence during a match. Injuries and death were routine, so
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naturally the game was popular. English and French kings tried to ban the game, but only because
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they believed it took peasants away from doing other important things, like practicing archery or
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going to war. But that didn't stop the peasants and mob football from being popular for the next
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few centuries until it declined and gave way to the more modern sport we know today
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Archery was kind of a big deal during the Middle Ages It was so essential that lower class men were required to practice it by law Some used crossbows but most relied on their trusty bow and arrow for their training Becoming a seasoned archer took a ton of practice
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and time-consuming training in areas known as butts. Men between 15 and 60 years old had
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to spend significant time practicing each week in training. Kings even tried to ban other activities
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that took away from the men's valuable training time. Eventually, the standard bow and arrow gave way to the longbow, which required even more training
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But it all eventually paid off, at least for the English. At the Battle of Cressy in 1346, longbow archers decimated French forces while suffering minimal casualties
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Some things throughout history are unique to the human experience. Gambling is undoubtedly one of them
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Lotteries go back to ancient Rome. Bible readers will find mention of them in the Old Testament, too
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But in the Middle Ages, they took on an entirely new meaning
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It wasn't exactly scratch tickets and little numbered balls rattling around in a cage
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Selling tickets with a chance to win money had its origins during the Middle Ages
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Lotteries, back then, just like now, were basically a form of taxation
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In small towns, lotteries were held to help the poor. In other cases, they could be used to determine spots in a marketplace or selecting public officials
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It was costly to enter the lottery in England, but it was attractive for many reasons
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Some were indeed in it for the money. Others were probably attracted by the immediate pardon of any past nonviolent crimes given to ticket holders
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That's a cool perk. Lotteries that resemble the kind we know today began in the 1440s as a means to raise money to reinforce fortifications
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Later, Milan used lotteries to help fund their war effort against Venice
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England even used them to strengthen the might of the Royal Navy. It's amazing sometimes what a bit of gambling can do
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During the 16th century, private lotteries became popular in England. One of them even funded the founding of Jamestown, Virginia
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Governments began regulating ticket sales, and lotteries eventually transformed into the extensive industry they are today
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Not bad for something that started during medieval times. Everyone loves a good dice game
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This was especially true during the Middle Ages, when dice games were one of the most popular pastimes
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That holds true today, considering the popularity of craps and the insane sales Hasbro's Yahtzee sees each year
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50 million Yahtzees, they can't be wrong. Medieval dice games were pretty standard
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Rolling dice carved from bone, people played like highest points. One of the most popular dice games was Hazard
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The game's official rules came from King Alfonso X in his 1283 treatise, The Book of Chess, Dice, and Tables
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Its origins are murky, but it probably came from soldiers returning to Europe from the Crusades Players rolled three dice intending to earn between 3 and 6 points or 15 and 18 points Any other point range resulted in a losing score Hitting these scores wasn easy and the odds were stacked against players
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Recent x-rays of some medieval bone dice show they were weighted with tiny bits of mercury
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These were likely used at inns or taverns to separate travelers from their money under the guise of a friendly game of dice
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During the Middle Ages, one couldn't simply head downtown to knock back a few beers and bowling pins
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whenever they felt like it. Instead, they played an early version of bowling called Skittles
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and they played it a lot. In Skittles, you hurl a wooden or rubber ball at nine pins in an attempt
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to knock them over. Huh, sounds familiar. Whoever knocked over all the pins with the fewest number
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of throws was declared a winner. The precursor to the Midwest's favorite pastime was big in
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Great Britain, but had different rules depending on the part of the country in which it was played
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In London, for instance, they used a different kind of wooden ball called a cheese. Sometimes
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people played Skittles with 10 pins, which eventually gave way to the modern version of
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bowling we know today. Modern day golf is a strategic sport that many love. But what could
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be more fun than shooting 18 holes on some beautifully manicured links
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Well, how about a relaxing game of kolf, complete with broken church windows
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and injured pedestrians? Mainly played in the Netherlands during the Middle Ages
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kolf used a wooden club to hit a small ball to a predetermined target
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The game was popular in towns and villages, where it was often played in the streets
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This caused some problems. Wayward kolf balls caused damage, hit unsuspecting passerbys, and broke plenty of windows
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So it was probably a good thing the game eventually moved to play in open fields
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In the 1500s, a mini ice age made it possible to play on frozen lakes and rivers
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Who knew golf could be so much fun on skates? Since it was more challenging to hit the ball a certain distance on the ice
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golf became a game of precision instead. While some medieval pastimes were all fun and games
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some of them were straight-up blood sport. Bull baiting and cockfights were widespread, but nothing compared to the medieval fascination
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with bear baiting. In this grisly sport, a bear was chained to a post to prevent it running off or mauling
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some random spectator. Then the bear was attacked by dogs. The dogs would either kill the bear, or the bear would prevail and kill the dogs
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It was not the sport of animal lovers, and things got pretty weird from there
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Dedicated bear baiting arenas existed along the Thames at Bankside. The sport became an entire industry
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with specialized breeding, licensing, and celebrity bears. Winning bears received the old Roman gladiator treatment
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and even had names like George Stone or Blind Bess It was a profitable business with tremendous popularity People came from far and wide to see bear baiting events Everyone from the poorest classes to the wealthy elite and royalty
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enjoyed a good bear baiting event. The event was such a part of the culture
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it even made its way into Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor. And it continued for a very long time
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While bear baiting was outlawed in Great Britain by 1835, it persisted in other parts of the world until quite recently
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Sometimes, being a member of the lower classes meant you weren't allowed to participate in certain activities
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This included that famous knight's sport, jousting. In an attempt to mock the knights
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and enjoy a little bit of jousting for themselves, the peasants took to water jousting
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A glorious parody of the famous knight's sport, water jousting, used boats instead of horses
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Mm-hmm, jousting on boats. That sounds pretty cool. the sport became massively popular all over Europe
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If you wanted to play some water jousting, all you needed was a river, a boat, a pole
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and a couple of like-minded buddies. Most of the team's participants manned the oars
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while one designated individual performed the actual jousting. It was much safer than the land version
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Actual jousting typically resulted in broken bones or even death. In water jousting, however, the worst-case scenario
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might be getting knocked into the water and emerging soaking wet, or drowning
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So I guess there's still a pretty big downside. Ice skating and skiing are always fun in the wintertime
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But back in medieval times, things got a little crazy. These activities didn't start out as a way to have fun
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They were born out of practicality. Places like Finland were icy for most of the year
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And ice skating or skiing offered a means to get from place to place quickly. Skating across large bodies of frozen water
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was useful for transporting goods during the wintertime. But at some point, folks realized skating
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could be a fun activity, too. Ice skating eventually reached England, where skaters often crashed into one another
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And a headfirst fall onto the ice could spell certain doom. Broken limbs weren't uncommon, either
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It probably didn't help that ice skates were completely different from those we have today
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While you can go down to the ice skating rink and rent out a nice pair of metal skates today
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those luxuries didn't exist in the distant past. Instead, ice skates were fashioned from carved bones
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that were attached to shoes with leather cords. They worked pretty well, since animal bones
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have their own natural oils and wax that enables decent ice skating ability
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But they definitely weren't safe. Medieval peasants, however, wouldn't just leave it at that
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They just had to find a way to turn ice skating into some kind of jousting match
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And that's precisely what they did. Some ice skaters used poles to push themselves around the ice
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Someone got the bright idea to repurpose those poles as jousting equipment
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And ice jousting was born. Ice jousting is exactly what it sounds like
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having a jousting match on the ice. Kind of a flimsy excuse to break a few bones
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But in the absence of hockey matches and football games, it was probably a great substitute sport
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