this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2025
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[–] Justas@sh.itjust.works 143 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

Tbh milkmaids were the prettiest women because they would get mild cases of cowpox instead of skin wrecking smallpox and it was the origin of the smallpox vaccine (vacca means cow in latin).

[–] Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 55 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

And they had to be clean, so washed daily, and were always inside, in a very clean environment.

[–] remotelove@lemmy.ca 32 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

You are a milkmaid?

Edit: My joke was based on a corrected typo, "we're". IDGAF about online typos unless they have a humorous aspect. Cheers!

[–] CluckN@lemmy.world 25 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Huh I didn’t know humans could get mild cowpox

[–] LillyPip@lemmy.ca 25 points 2 days ago

Yes, it’s super interesting. The reason the word ‘vaccine’ derives from the Latin ‘vacca’ (cow) was because we observed that people who contracted the cowpox gained some protection from smallpox. We investigated that connection, did a bunch of testing and research (which included early scientists infecting themselves on purpose in some rather gross ways), and developed the theory of vaccines.

The history of early modern medicine is very cool.

[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 50 points 2 days ago (1 children)

A great many pathogens can be "weakened" with various processes, heat is one, but also the surviving strains in a living being that beat the disease via immunity may also carry weakened strains and this is where we learned to deliberately contract smallpox via poking someone's skin pustule and poking ourselves with that pus.

Gross but highly effective. This is how George Washington inoculated his army. (Which of course he learned about through a Reverend in Boston who learned about it from his slave, Onesimus, which makes sense as smallpox was ravaging Africa for over 10,000 years, they figured it out eventually.)

[–] Batmancer@sh.itjust.works 12 points 2 days ago

Thank you so much for sharing this interesting information.

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[–] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago

Milkmaids famously shaved their armpits after lathering them with double cream.

[–] christian@lemmy.ml 15 points 1 day ago (2 children)

The girl's shirt in the first panel is my favorite part of this comic.

No bag of hot chip though

[–] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] TheMissingNumber@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Oh.
Thanks.

[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 28 points 2 days ago (2 children)

This is a trope in all middle ages media I've seen. I've been watching someone play KCD2, and it's not as bad... but still there and jarring.

The only place where I can think of where it seems more fair is, ironically, some animation? Barring anime's sexism... problems, there's less incentive for that, heh. I liked Avatar's peasants:

[–] leftzero@lemmy.dbzer0.com 29 points 2 days ago

Help! Help! We're being repressed!

Anarcho-syndicalist commune.

[–] RebekahWSD@lemmy.world 23 points 2 days ago (1 children)

But that's because Avatar was good and stuff! I like the peasants though. They all seem at like the same level of dress and stuff! Look at that (Earth Kingdom?) people in the first picture! That's real nice!

[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 15 points 2 days ago

It's Bolin/Mako's Lower Ring family! And, clockwise, Jang Hui fishing folks and Republic City homeless.

Folks like this (along with some notably badass women) are the bread and butter of the shows, though. I don't ever remember hitching to think 'huh that farmer lady looks like a skimpy model'

[–] anyhow2503@lemmy.world 74 points 2 days ago (5 children)

Do medieval shows only hire conventionally unattractive men? I always thought the convention was to have attractive people play important parts or "good" characters, regardless of gender, but admittedly I don't really watch many medieval shows.

[–] TwoBeeSan@lemmy.world 49 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Witcher?

Game did a good job of having the ugliest polish man with a pitchfork in the town...

Then the local alchemist has a dump truck ass with eyeliner on.

[–] OneOrTheOtherDontAskMe@lemmy.world 31 points 2 days ago (2 children)

If you're talking about my girl Keira Metz, she's a witch, not a standard alchemist. Woman definitely engages in performance enhancing magic

[–] TwoBeeSan@lemmy.world 30 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Had to look up. Got alchemist and herbalist confused.

It was tomira. I did remember the ass lol

[–] GTac@lemmy.world 18 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I looked her name up on google and half the images are indeed about said dump truck lol

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[–] SonOfAntenora@lemmy.world 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

When your entire idea of middle ages comes from people funking around marginalia creatures this is what happens. But the middle ages were an early-capitalistic moment with more dynamism than you're told. Even under feudalism people must have had personal interocurses, private and economical. Imagine the scams of the time.

[–] wieson@feddit.org 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yep just look at the guilds. The Hansa (Hanseatic Trade League) owned several cities and harbours in the Baltic and North sea.

In Frankfurt, an inventor developed an early form of steam engine, but was bullied and denied by the boatsmakers guild.

Many interesting stories who are more than just peasants rolling in filth.

And even the city republics would destroy the primitive view of Hollywood on the freedoms of the medieval person. Not to speak of the Dithmarschen peasant republic or the swiss confederation and their wars of independence against the HR Emperor.

[–] SonOfAntenora@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

The one thing that went down would be international travel, because the Roman infrastructure was left to rot or became dangerous to use. On the other hand naval travel became more important, the gold standard was replaced by silver, with the exception of the Islamic empires of the time that still used the gold coin as the default.

The years following the fall of the Western roman empire up to the year 1000 were arguably the most unstable and maybe this is where a certain imagery comes from. Even than there had to be local markets.

The evolution of language and culture alone is interesting enough on its own. Than, there's the whole deal with castle and fortresses. Castles were not these in the fairytales, early castles were settlements reminiscent of your minecraft builds. A set of enclosures, walled of course, with a central building followed by lesser houses and activities.

The kind of castle you're thinking of used to belong to higher ones like princes or important people, the kind of thing you imagined in the Ivanhoe. The average feudal settlement was the aforementioned set of enclosures, that also served as an administrative layer.

Feudal Lords were absolutely vile in the way they used their right over the people under them. Occasionally even inbred. That is somewhat true. Also the more sophisticated castle were not funny places to be in if you weren't the right person.

[–] tetris11@lemmy.ml 34 points 2 days ago

*Attractive evil villain enters scene*
"...they're gonna get a tragic backstory and sacrifice themselves for some noble cause."
*3 seasons later*
"Oh goddamit."

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[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 76 points 2 days ago (5 children)

they're both drunk, though. so that's more than normal.

[–] rockerface@lemmy.cafe 60 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Alcohol would be considerably safer to drink than most water you could find

[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 21 points 2 days ago

This is largely a myth. It would only apply to large cities, and then, the fresh water sources were frequently protected by law in cities.

Alcohol itself doesn't actually destroy the pathogens in question- booze was made by microbes, after all, and as for bacterial... only beer and liquors was boiled, and simply adding it to already-contaminated water wouldn't make it safer; since that only happens at much higher concentrations of alchohol than you'd find, even in liquors. It does inhibit bacterial growth, though, usually people were mixing booze into water to make things taste better. (Similar to how modern restaurants will frequently add lemon slices to cover the taste of tap water.)

in terms of maintaining hydration, alcohol- even weak alcohols- are very much not good for that, even 3% alcohols, particularly in high-heat or under activity.

Boiling water was discussed in Roman and Greek writings well before the medieval period, as well- mostly in the context of making it not taste funky; and usually they were talking about filtering it to remove contaminants (for example, near mining operations.)

Again, streams rivers flowing were generally safe for consumption and would only become unsafe as a result from urban pollution, of which, there were controls in place to protect at least some water ways and wells.

[–] massive_bereavement@fedia.io 33 points 2 days ago (2 children)

And it was way tamer than what we commonly drink now.

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[–] vga@sopuli.xyz 34 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (6 children)

This is what bothered me slightly in the Witcher games.

[–] diffaldo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I had the witcher on my mind when I posted the comic.

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[–] hsdkfr734r@feddit.nl 33 points 2 days ago (5 children)

What's wrong with their noses?

[–] Ephera@lemmy.ml 41 points 2 days ago (1 children)

That's just the comic artist's style.

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[–] Wolf@lemmy.today 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

They're all drunk

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