What was on the table in medieval Poland (plus medieval height stuffs)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

In the interest of fighting ignorance, I have fought against the attitude that medieval Europeans were markedly stunted on several occasions on this board, as summarized:

Medieval English skeletons, c. 10th-16th centuries
Medieval English diet

So as to provide some comparison, I will also cite some medieval Norse heights, as evidenced by skeletons exhumed and measured in Denmark. This data is provided by the Anthropological Date Base Odense University (ADBOU), the collection of which is made up of more than 7,000 medieval Danish skeletons.

Also, before we begin, I want y’all to understand these are the MEAN heights for medieval adults, divided by gender. That means some of these people were 6 foot plus, and some were five nuttin’, but averaged together you get the mean heights.

Medieval Danish heights
Sct. Mikkel cemetery, Viborg. Urban. 12th century-demolished 1529.
Mean height (males): 5’7.
Mean height (females): 5’2.

Tirup. Rural. 11th-14th centuries.
Mean height (males): 5’6.
Mean height (females): 5’1.

Ribe. Urban. 13th-14th centuries.
Mean height (males): 5’6.
Mean height (females): 5’1.

Sct. Mathias, Viborg. Urban. 12th century-demolished 1529.
Mean height (males): 5’3*
Mean height (females): 5’1*

Source: The biological standard of living in comparative perspective, 1998, ed. Komlos/Baten.

Now lets compare to their descendants. Up first we have the average height for male conscripts from 1896-1900 was 5’6. The average height for male conscripts in 2006 was a whopping 5’11. So the average height for Danish males jumped about 5 inches between 1900 and 2006, but did not noticeably increase or decrease between the 11th and 20th centuries. Source: Danish Statistical Yearbook 2007.

*The Sct. Mathias figures are based on a sample size of 3 males and four females, substantially smaller than the other cemeteries.

Now onto the other thing I wanted to talk about. I found an interesting article on medieval Polish diets, Preliminary evidence for medieval Polish diet from carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes (Journal of Archaeological Science 37, 2010) by Laurie Reitsema. Unfortunately, this article, while citing evidence from medieval Polish cemeteries, does not provide the heights, mean or otherwise, for the skeletons. I really hope someone gets around to giving us a thorough study of the Slavic lands at some point, focused on medieval graves.

Anyway, the skeletons Reitsema discusses were all exhumed from Giecz, not far from Poznan, and are dated from the 11th-12th centuries. Reitsema points out that the individuals she studied are likely to be peasants, not nobles, as they were buried outside the nearby stronghold. Nobles were more likely to have been buried next to the parish church within the stronghold, and those remains are not studied in this article. So Reitsema’s findings give us a pretty good idea of what every-day, common Poles ate in the medieval era.

Reitsema discusses archaelogical remains found in contemporary digs in Giecz and in Ostrow Lidnicki, a bit north of Giecz, which have shown that millet is the most common food remains found in medieval sites. This backs up period texts from Poland, which describe millet fried in butter and millet gruels and porridges as daily fare. Wheat, barley, rye, and legume remains are commonly found in medieval sites.

As for meat, the most common bones found by far are cows and pigs. Sheep bones account for only 15% of the animal bones found in medieval sites, and fowls (chickens, geese, and ducks) account for less than 4% of the bones. Wild game such as deer and hare account for less than 3%. Reitsema’s results from testing the human bodies suggest that fish made up a very small part of the average Polish peasant’s diet. This is in contrast to medieval England, Belgium, and Scandinavia where fish was a common food source.

2

I don’t know about medieval Poland, but when I went to the British Army museum in London, most of the exhibits had actual uniforms and armor- it was all uniformly what I’d think a small teenager would be wearing, until about the Crimean War period or shortly thereafter, at which point the vintage uniforms jumped up to more or less normal.

I can’t imagine that it’s not the same elsewhere; even at San Jacinto, there are 1836 era Mexican officer uniforms that I would have been able to wear at 12, but not afterward.

3

Do you know of any good articles or readings that put forth theories as to why height shot up all over the world 100 to 150 years ago? I mean, presumably nutrition played a role, but would it be the amount of calories, different sources of calories, or something completely different like sanitation reducing childhood diseases, etc…?

4

Passing thought and probably not valid but…wasn’t that around the time of the Industrial Revolution? Could it be that because people were working less strenuously, their caloric intake could make them larger rather than just keep them alive?

5

bump, sometimes I think people overestimate what they think an average height should be. I’m a 5’7 female, and I tower over most women, and I’m taller than maybe half the men I meet. And uniforms look quite different on than off. My clothes look tiny on the hanger. The armor in the Metropolitan Museum in NYC, which I’ve been to numerous times, looks like it would fit an average sized man today.

Quarkchild, I will be back with some articles as soon as I can. My thought is that sanitation and better medicine took out a lot of childhood diseases that weakened or killed children, so children had better opportunities to grow and grow healthier.

Becky2844, the Industrial Revolution was from about 1750-1850, so the Danish recruits from 2006 were born over 100 years after the end of the Industrial Revolution. The IR was a… really unhealthy time in human history, anyway. People were crowded into dirty cities with inadequete sanitation, children as young as 4 and 5 worked in factories and mines and on looms, losing fingers and feet and other body parts, etc.

6

As a fellow history buff I always find these discussions so interesting.

There’s a really good book about life in the year 1000 that makes many of the same points.

7

The books I’ve read seem to agree that prior to around1700, average heights for males in England were at around 5’6" for rural workers and for nobility they are taller by around 2 inches.

Then there is a decline both in height and also in lifespan throughout much of the first industrial revolution, deep into the the second phase.

There was also a notable difference in height that went with class, and it was noted that during WW1 absolute proof of the link between height and poverty came when measuring men for uniform as it was found that these sizes differed from regiment to regiment - for those not in the know, this was at a time when it was thought that colleagues would fight better together with others from their social grouping and towns, hence the PALs regiments.

8

I wonder too, if the access that people had to vegetables and fruits improved with the advent of the industrial revolution. For example, steamship and rail transit meant that people could get oranges and bananans -with the benefit of vitamins, children didn’t suffer from nutritional deficiencies.
Just having an adequate supply of vitamin C probably had a huge effct on children’s heath and growth.

9

That looks like a fascinating book, thanks!

10

And there’s the whole vitamin D thing. Children growing up in dark tenements or smoggy cities often had rickets, IIRC.

11

[QUOTE=Mississippienne]
I’m a 5’7 female, and I tower over most women, and I’m taller than maybe half the men I meet.

[/QUOTE]

Do you hang out with a lot of jockeys? :smiley: Less than 10% of men in the U.S. Are shorter than 5’7"

12

The Danish food historian Bi Skaarup has done extensive research on historical Danish food. There are probably differences between Danish and Polish cuisine, but not too big, I imagine; especially in the areas of both countries bordering the Baltic Sea. Here is a link to some authentic medieval recipes from her website (Google translate - I hope it is somewhat useful). It is surprisingly diverse and quite flavourful (I had the pleasant experience of dining at Bi’s place last summer). Another site with Danish medieval cuisine.

13

In my OP I posted about the medieval English diet. They ate quite healthily – they could hardly help it, when they ate from gardens and fields, fished from streams and the ocean, and ate wild game and pork and beef. Very little sugar in that diet. And all this in a world that had no industrial pollutants. City people would’ve had the hardest time getting fresh fruits and vegetables to eat. One thing that should be noted is that medieval Europeans drank wine and ale in ASTONISHING quantities; this was a world where milk was more commonly used for cheese-making, and water would often give you stomach bugs. It wouldn’t surprise me if the alcohol consumption was responsible for some or a lot of the infant mortality rates in medieval Europe.

A listing of medieval cookbooks available online, from France, Italy, Netherlands, and Arab lands.
Gode Cookery– more medieval recipes.

14

Got a cite for that? The average height of American males 20-29 is 5’10, only a couple inches taller than myself, according to the National Health Statistics Report 10, 2008. Average height for American females in the same age range from the same report was 5’4 1/2.

According to that study, American males 20-29 standing at 5’4 are in the 5th percentile for height, standing 5’5 are in the 10th percentile for height, standing 5’6 in the 15th percentile for height. On the other end of the extreme, American males 20-29 standing at 6’2 are in the 95th percentile for height.

15

It was probably bigos, or hunter’s stew that was served as early as the 14th century and maybe sooner.

16

Could the Little Ice Age have anything to do with it? There being less food and thus people being smaller?

17

Mississippienne - Would that include infants and children? Because the increased mortality in the very young would really bring down the height stats.

StG

18

So my timing was wrong, but the reasoning might work: i.e. nobility didn’t work as hard?

19

I would say the reason would be that noble children had access to a steadier food supply and better medicine.

20

You mean the skeletons? All the skeletons are of adults.