# Hard to believe medieval factoids- True or false? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 7, 2003, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-to-believe-medieval-factoids-true-or-false/153400 "2003-02-07T05:03:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Short\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Short\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Short_Guy)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2003, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-to-believe-medieval-factoids-true-or-false/153400/21 "2003-02-08T17:52:27Z")
Friday is indeed regarded as an unlucky day by Christians because it was the day Jesus was crucified (in the same vein, there were 13 people present at the last supper and the 13th person betrayed Jesus). Whether or not friday is or was considered unlucky in non-christian cultures I don’t know. ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2003, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-to-believe-medieval-factoids-true-or-false/153400/22 "2003-02-08T18:15:41Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Evil Captor \* > \*\* Due to the exceedingly high infant mortality rates, some toddlers were kept in barrels until they were old enough to survive most childhood diseases and work usefully on the farm (about six) in hopes they would survive. \*\* Infants may not have been kept in barrels, but they might as well have been. The practice of [swaddling](http://babyparenting.about.com/library/weekly/aa011000c.htm) was worse than putting children in a nice, roomy barrel. > [@](#): > > Traditional swaddling consisted of, “entirely depriving the child of the use of its limbs, by enveloping them in an endless length bandage.” The skin was sometimes excoriated, the infant’s circulation nearly arrested, the body dangerously compressed and rendered virtually powerless to move. Often the infant’s head was formed through continual, adjusted compression to meet the fancy of the midwife. Tight swaddling often including strapping to carrying-boards, which continued throughout the Middle Ages. \ > > The process of wrapping an infant was a long and tedious task, which could take up to two hours to complete! Lloyd deMause, Director of the The Institute for Psychohistory, suggests that swaddling was considered a great convenience, as the infant demanded little attention once bound. However, one has to wonder how many times the wrappings had to be removed and replaced within one day. DeMause also sites historical sources describing children as being laid for hours behind a hot oven, hung on pegs on the wall, placed in tubs, and in general, “left, like a parcel, in every convenient corner.” Yet, during the sixteen and seventeenth centuries, he writes that regular enemas, both before and after nursing, were systematically given to infants. If that be the case, then the process of swaddling an infant may have been an all-consuming part of the day for the mother or wet-nurse. In some books, I have read that due to the time-consuming nature of removing and changing the swaddling, children were sometimes hung on pegs above pans to catch the “drippings.” Sometimes, according to these sources, the swaddling was not changed for days. The diaper rash must have been truly a sight to behold. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2003, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-to-believe-medieval-factoids-true-or-false/153400/23 "2003-02-08T18:27:57Z")
Lloyd deMause, Director of the The Institute for Psychohistory? The Institute for Psychohistory [http://www.psychohistory.com/](http://www.psychohistory.com/) Psychohistory Section [http://www.primalspirit.com/psychohistory\_section.htm](http://www.primalspirit.com/psychohistory_section.htm) “The History of Childhood As the History of Child Abuse” by Lloyd deMause [http://www.primalspirit.com/deMause3-1\_ChildAbuse.htm](http://www.primalspirit.com/deMause3-1_ChildAbuse.htm) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-to-believe-medieval-factoids-true-or-false/153400.md?page=1)