this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2026
910 points (98.7% liked)
memes
19000 readers
2209 users here now
Community rules
1. Be civil
No trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour
2. No politics
This is non-politics community. For political memes please go to !politicalmemes@lemmy.world
3. No recent reposts
Check for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month
4. No bots
No bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins
5. No Spam/Ads/AI Slop
No advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live. We also consider AI slop to be spam in this community and is subject to removal.
A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment
Sister communities
- !tenforward@lemmy.world : Star Trek memes, chat and shitposts
- !lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world : Lemmy Shitposts, anything and everything goes.
- !linuxmemes@lemmy.world : Linux themed memes
- !comicstrips@lemmy.world : for those who love comic stories.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Are we assuming a 6 month journey didnt come with exhaustion and certain death from starvation, pneumonias, dysentery, disease, infections, freezing and trauma from attacks on the way ? In cooler moist climates a mere cut could be life or death back then. There was not any penicillin.
Have you not heard the horror stories even of today’s boat slaves who die packed in?
I think video games filled with light quests of picking moss might be deluding a few people with how the medieval times actually were.
Open a book.
Certain death? Of course not, that's absurd. I think you've got a very warped "pop-history" view of what the world was like long ago. Of course it depends entirely on when and where we're talking about (some periods in some places common folk practically never traveled, other times and places people were traveling all the time) but if we assume a time and place where traveling was common, a traveler could expect:
What part of these conditions reminds you of the tightly-packed, underfed, sedentary life of a slave being transported as cargo on a boat?
You’re being absurd. Cleanliness was not what it is today. Even in war marches more died from water born disease as recent as 1800s just trudging rather than war itself. This is our history and how some of our lineages may have been entirely terminated.
Bring oblivious to this is actually really insulting for some who know very well what it took for our own lineage just to travel to safety.
It absolutely was not a walk in the park like you’re selling it. Some people were hunted for years before getting safe.
People like to be clean—that's part of our nature and wasn't invented in the year 1900. Ash can be used as soap and is extremely abundant.
You say that like war matches are less likely to be deadly. Medieval military logistics were extremely difficult to manage. The needs of an entire army are massively different to the needs of a small band of pilgrims or other travelers. It is more difficult to maintain food supplies, clean drinks, and safe lodging when you're traveling in an enormous group of (sometimes unwelcome) armed men.
For a lot of people in a lot of places in a lot of time periods, it really was. Towns were close together, people were generous with travelers, and the roads were safe.