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Western Civilizations

Jared Aquilina
November 18, 2005
Western Civilizations
Book Review/ Term Paper

"As the shadow of the Millennium descended across England and Christendom, it seemed as if the world was about to end. Actually, it was only the beginning…Welcome to the year 1000."(Robert Lacey) The main purpose of The Year 1000 is not to show the hardships of this day and age but to show the actual portrayal of what life was like and although ways of life has significantly changed from the year 1000 to the present, human nature has not.
The book takes you through many ideas, strategies, and unordinary techniques that 1st century people used in an Englishman's world (Anglo-Saxon). How clothes were fastened in a world without buttons. How dolphins could forecast weather. What the recipe was for medieval form of Viagra. Body parts that married women had to forfeit if she committed adultery and some of the rules and fundamentals of 1st century warfare.
What were people like at the first millennium? Well often we assume that people were smaller and less developed as we are today, that is false. The bones excavated from the graves of Englishmen in the 1st and 2nd centuries show signs of strong and healthy folk. Not until the few centuries that followed is when we began to see overpopulation, overcrowding and malnourishment, which resulted in, weaker, less developed humans. Most of the devastation that can be found from the Black Death can be placed upon the remains of weak, and unhealthy skeletal remains. Most people wore sack like tunics and leggings that we often laugh at in Monty Python movies.
What was life like in the year 1000? Life was simple yet complicated. Simple in a way that no one exactly went to work but most of your life was based on the workings of the Julius Work Calendar. Findings of arthritis in bones shows that most men endured a lifetime of hard manual labor that we, in present day, cannot even imagine. For the most part life was short. A boy, 12 years of...