The first canopy beds were suspended from the ceiling, with the canopy and drapes covering and surrounding a bed for privacy and warmth. In the 15th century, four-post beds were coveted and the curtains, sometimes embroidered of fine heavy cloths, were very expensive. We know they were valuable because wealthy landowners often included these beds in their wills.
Since roofs were thatched in these days, it is assumed that canopy beds served an additional purpose which was to protect the sleeper from droppings from the ceilings, ranging from water to pest excrement. It was a useful invention, no doubt, and nowadays we can enjoy canopy beds for the aesthetic, and thankfully not the practical use.
Trepanning: The Medieval Lobotomy
Trepanning is a barbaric form of medical treatment from the Middle Ages. Intended to cure mental illness, migraines, epilepsy, and other brain ailments, some patients survived the so-called cure. The procedure entailed drilling into the side of the patient’s skull, without anesthesia, to expose the outer membrane of the brain.
As the oldest form of surgery known, predating the Medievalists by thousands of years, it was thought to relieve pressure in the brain so that “the humors and air may go out and evaporate.” Yeah. We guess, when you're working with next to no concrete knowledge of how the human body works, this wasn't such a leap.
His Royal Throne
The king’s padded potty was tended by a loyal servant. Known as “The Groom of the King’s Stool,” the coveted position required moving the throne from place to place so it could be at the king’s constant disposal. Duties also included wiping the royal bum whenever the king relieved himself. Towels, water, and a washbowl were at hand.
The keeper of the Stool was one of the king’s closest confidants, highly compensated, and usually a son of noblemen. His duties often led to higher positions. The bedazzled porta-potty was invented for King Henry VIII and wasn’t abolished until 1901 by King Edward VII.
Lice Thrived in the Dark Ages
Lice were so prevalent and so ubiquitous in Medieval times that people could not escape it. What they called “worms with feet” were a part of life, so much so that medical experts believed lice and other parasites were produced by the body at certain times. Lice were everywhere, not just in hair. Some swarmed around eyes.
Far from lice only afflicting the peasantry, Pope Clement V was reported to have a cavity in his tooth where a louse tossed about. King Henry IV’s head was found squirming with lice by Adam of Usk who crowned him in 1399.
The Black Death was the King Kong of Plagues
The medieval period was racked with epidemics, plagues, and disease, but none were as merciless as the Bubonic Plague, or what we know as the Black Death. Between 1328 and 1351, it tracked trading routes, wiping out a full 50 percent of Europe’s population, killing 200 million people. That is equivalent to the entire U.S. population in 1967. Life expectancy plummeted to age 17.
The pandemic brought symptoms that included high fever, delirium, vomiting, bleeding in the lungs, and, most notably, painful swelling in the lymph nodes. The painful swollen boils in the neck turned red and eventually black—large black boils oozing with pus and blood—hence the name. It was transmitted by fleas on vermin to humans.