Why was the life expectancy so low in the middle ages?
Poor diet, Not enough variety to provide a full range of vitamins and supplements. Poor Hygiene. With no concept of germs, cleanliness was not a high priority, and in a large number of cases people lived literally with their livestock. In addition, the art of sanitation had been largely lost, and people walked through their own urine and feces. Workload: We can often tell from the skeletons of people of the period how much physical labor they did, and apparently it was a fairly tough life. Add that to the diet and hygiene and it’s not surprising they suffered. Violence. Especially in the early middle ages, violence was something not limited to the noble classes. Indeed, often the nobles were the ones committing the violence on the commoners, in order to get them to submit to the rule of those nobles. All these factors added up to a shorter life expectancy.
