The daily life of a medieval king

Reliability and Purpose of the Account

• Several comments question how literally the king’s “day in the life” can be taken.
• The text is seen as partly idealized and didactic: a model of how a “good” king should behave, possibly contrasted with a mentally ill successor.
• Some liken it to modern PR / lifestyle pieces that smooth over messy reality.
• Others frame it as medieval propaganda: informative about ideals, but weak as a strict diary of actual behavior (e.g., daily church attendance, listening to commoners).

Comparison with Other Medieval Rulers

• This king is described as relatively sedentary; other monarchs spent more time hunting, on campaign, in mobile courts, or at seasonal residences.
• Discussion notes that many medieval rulers weren’t linguistically or culturally aligned with their “national” subjects (e.g., French‑speaking English kings).
• Legal reforms like mandating contracts in plain English are cited as examples of practical, competence‑oriented governance.

Daily Routine, Wine, and Leisure

• Commenters highlight the late start, limited work hours, and structured mix of piety, audiences, and rest.
• The morning glass of light, “well cut” wine draws attention; multiple replies clarify this meant wine diluted with water, a common historical practice.
• The jewel‑admiring segment is compared to modern car or collectibles culture—time with close companions plus conspicuous luxury.

Modern vs Medieval Living Standards

• A substantial subthread compares a 15th‑century king to someone in today’s global 5th wealth percentile.
• Consensus: modern poor almost certainly have longer life expectancy and better medical options, but a king had unmatched food security and status (though tightly constrained life choices and obligations).
• Several people reflect on “living like a king” today via indoor plumbing, refrigeration, varied diets, and drastically lower child mortality.

Health, Life Expectancy, and Medicine

• Cited data for medieval English monarchs gives an average death age in the 40s; commenters stress how much this overstates life expectancy at birth due to high child mortality.
• Others emphasize that even elites were vulnerable to infections that are trivial today and to violent deaths in war, hunting, or coups.
• There’s debate over painkillers: one side claims “no painkillers,” others note long‑known remedies like opium, nightshades, willow bark, and herbal medicine.

Food Security, Preservation, and Diet Variety

• Kings had guaranteed food but limited by pre‑Columbian ingredients and seasonality.
• Participants list extensive preservation techniques (salting, pickling, drying, smoking, fermenting, sugaring, confit) and long‑keeping crops, arguing winter diets could still be varied by their standards.
• A side debate challenges the common trope that medievals avoided water in favor of alcohol and disputes the idea that people were constantly drunk.

Global Hunger and Malnutrition Debate

• One thread claims hunger has worsened for ~25 years and cites large annual death tolls from hunger and related disease.
• Others contest this, pointing to data showing decades of improvement, a plateau, and only recent reversal; they demand more precise sourcing for large mortality numbers.
• Malnutrition’s changing nature is noted: undernutrition now coexists with rising obesity, even in poorer countries.

Work Hours, “Four‑Hour Days,” and Fulfillment

• Some note the king seems to do ~4 hours of overt “work,” comparing this to modern managers or knowledge workers.
• Others argue much of what looks like leisure (religious services, public displays, audiences) was in fact required labor to maintain legitimacy.
• There’s a parallel drawn to hunter‑gatherer “original affluent society” claims, with pushback that “work” is often defined too narrowly in those arguments.

Power, Delegation, and Productivity

• A long branch contrasts how kings/CEOs accomplish much via delegation versus ordinary individuals.
• Commenters debate the value of human secretaries versus tools like email and calendars: some see tech as clearly superior; others emphasize that a good assistant exercises judgment and acts as a force multiplier.
• The underlying point: people with large staffs and authority can “get a lot done” without personally doing most tasks.

Monarchy, Government Ideals, and Contact with Subjects

• Several note that this king appears to spend more time hearing petitions than some modern politicians do with constituents, though population and logistics were very different.
• Comparisons are made between monarchs and mafia dons in terms of personal rule and patronage.
• A philosophical thread argues that absolute monarchy has very high variance (best and worst regime type), while democracies are more middling but safer.
• Others draw an analogy to modern civics teaching: idealized descriptions of how systems should work (separation of powers, accountability) often diverge sharply from practice, yet revealing those ideals is still historically informative.