The Shambles in York gives a good impression of what a medieval town's street would have looked like. The streets are very narrow and signs outside shops would have helped people who were largely illiterate to identify what they sold, or what trade was practised there.
The main construction materials used to pave roads were wood, gravel or cobblestones, which occurred in combination with various structures such as drainage ditches, retaining walls, as well as bridges over water or valleys.
What age did girls get pregnant in the Middle Ages?
Boys came of age at 14 and girls at 12. This was the age at which they could be married, although most girls weren't expected to consummate their marriage until they were 14.
So you would have streets given the name to the city it lead to. The name would then switch once you got to the border of the other city. Other streets would be named after the guild, main building or who lived there, so butcher street, roper street, jew street, church street, mill street, school street,etc.
The main materials used for street surfacing during the medieval period were: gravel or flints, wood, stone in the form of cobbles or slabs, and, at times, brick.
London produced about 50 tonnes of excrement per day, so muck-rakers were hired to clean the streets. They were paid much better than the average working man. There were also gong farmers, who cleared out cesspits. and latrines.
A groma was a simple but effective instrument and every Roman surveyor would have one. It consisted of a long stick with a cross of two more sticks fixed at right angles to each other mounted on top. From the end of each arm of the cross hung a string with a weight on it, making a plumb line.
In the Middle Ages, cities used a combination of torches and lanterns to light up the streets. The torches were made by soaking dried wood in oil and lighting them up, while the lanterns were made of metal or glass and held candles or oil lamps.
These towns were crowded, noisy and smelly. At dawn, a bell would ring to begin the day. Townspeople would attend their first religious mass of the day. Towns were not healthy places to live.
The oldest verified mother to conceive naturally (listed currently as of 26 January 2017 in the Guinness Records) is Dawn Brooke (Guernsey); she conceived a son at the age of 59 in 1997. Mangamma gave birth to twins at the age of 74 through in-vitro fertilisation via caesarean section in Hyderabad, India.
Although trends are apparent in both sexes,1 the evidence in females (where biological markers are clearer) suggests that, for instance, in northern Europe the age at menarche (first menstruation) fell during the 1800s, then further reduced by up to 3 years over the last century (fig 1).
If a child over seven committed a crime they were sent to court and punished exactly the same as adults were. Children between seven and twelve were not always punished, but their parents were often blamed for their poor behaviour! Men could also be challenged to Trial by Combat to settle criminal cases and insults.
Medieval villages came in various forms and structures, depending on the region and the nature of the landscape. Clustered villages grew irregularly, while settlement villages often had denser buildings. Street villages were oriented around a central street, while hillside villages were grouped around a common square.
The structure of Roman roads varied greatly, but a typical form was an agger, or bank, forming the road's core, built of layers of stone or gravel (depending on what was available locally). In areas of soft ground the road might be built over timber piles and layers of brushwood.
Almost all medieval towns were protected by gated walls. Open squares in front of public buildings served as gathering places. Most streets were very narrow.
In the Middle Ages, the average life span of males born in landholding families in England was 31.3 years and the biggest danger was surviving childhood. Once children reached the age of 10, their life expectancy was 32.2 years, and for those who survived to 25, the remaining life expectancy was 23.3 years.
As London became more crowded houses grew taller and the streets narrower. By the end of the 1200s three storey houses were common. The upper floors partly overhung the street. London suffered many fires and laws were introduced banning thatched roofs, but many people ignored them.
For peasants, daily medieval life revolved around an agrarian calendar, with the majority of time spent working the land and trying to grow enough food to survive another year. Church feasts marked sowing and reaping days and occasions when peasant and lord could rest from their labors.
An episode of the 2011 BBC TV documentary Filthy Cities describes the streets of London in the 1300s. They were ankle-deep in a putrid mix of wet mud, rotten fish, garbage, entrails, and animal dung. People dumped their own buckets of faeces and urine into the street or simply sloshed it out the window.
In Medieval England, names developed gradually, helping to identify a place such as a pond, a hilly place or river, the farm at the end of the road, or the inn on the corner. Other streets were named to locate where you might reach if you followed them. For example, London Road, Bath Road.
It has been called the 'Dark Ages' because many suggest that this period saw little scientific and cultural advancement. However, the term doesn't stand up to much scrutiny – and many medieval historians have dismissed it.
As in neighbouring city-states, the early Romans were composed mainly of Latin-speaking Italic people, known as the Latins. The Latins were a people with a marked Mediterranean character, related to other neighbouring Italic peoples such as the Falisci.
In Roman times, the so-called ′Tiger Eyes′ small white stones were placed among the stones on the road so that they could be seen at night. See more: themindcircle.com/architecture-in-the-ancient-world/ Were they actual gemstones or just bright white?
Gladiators could be prisoners of war, enslaved people and those freed from bondage, or volunteers (auctoritas) from society's lower classes. They were occasionally joined by former aristocrats, who enrolled on their volition after losing their fortunes and in need of other means of income.
