什么历史“事实”经常被人提起但根本不是真的？_风闻

【来源龙腾网】

评论原创翻译：

Jean-Marie Valheur

, political aficionado & former journalist

There is a belief held by many people that people in the Middle Ages died at extremely young ages, that they almost never made it to what we would now describe as old age. This is not true, at all. Infant mortality was high, yes. You had a good chance of dying early. But if you made it past a certain age, and you were wealthy? You could make it to your seventies, even your eighties.

A nice example of this would be Eleanor of Aquitaine, the mother of the English Kings John and Richard the Lionheart. Eleanor married twice and survived childbirth a staggering ten times(!) in an era where giving birth was often among the main causes of death for young women. She lived to see two of her sons become Kings. And died in 1204 at the age of 82, a great-great-grandmother several times over.

The great knight William Marshall made it to either 72 or 73, depending on his birth year. This in spite of numerous battle wounds and injuries in the field, and a very high-stress life, much of it spent on horseback charging enemy armies — even as a child he was a hostage, threatened by a rival lord to be shot out in a trebuchet at his father laying siege to the castle… not an easy life, and still made it to his seventies!

There are actually quite a few examples of historical figures who lived… quite long lives. I would argue that a nobleman in the Middle Ages often lived just as long as a nobleman in 19th century Victorian England. And even a farmer, if luck was on his side and famines and plagues stayed clear of him, could easily make it into his seventies even a thousands years ago.

很多人都认为中世纪的人死得非常早，他们几乎没有活到我们现在所说的“老年”。这完全不是事实。婴儿死亡率很高，确实。你有很大的机会会早夭。但是如果你过了一定的年龄，而且你很富有？你可以活到七十岁，甚至八十岁。

这方面的一个很好的例子是阿基坦的埃莉诺，她是英国国王约翰和狮心王理查德的母亲。埃莉诺结过两次婚，在那个生育往往是年轻妇女死亡的主要原因之一的时代，她在分娩中幸存了10次（！），令人吃惊。她活着看到她的两个儿子成为国王。她于1204年去世，享年82岁，数次成为曾曾祖母。

伟大的骑士威廉-马歇尔活到了72岁或73岁，这取决于他的出生年份。这是在战场上受了无数次战伤，生活压力很大，大部分时间都在马背上向敌军冲锋陷阵的人--甚至在他还是个孩子的时候，他就成了人质，被对手的领主威胁要在他父亲围攻城堡的时候用投石机射出去……生活并不轻松，仍然活到了七十岁!

实际上，有不少历史人物活得……相当长的例子。我认为，中世纪的贵族往往和19世纪维多利亚时代英国的贵族一样长寿。甚至一个农民，如果运气好，只要饥荒和瘟疫不找上门来，甚至在几千年前也能轻易活到七十岁。

Gábor Kiss

It is very interesting. Does this mean that, disregarding child mortality, famine and death in battle, the life expectancy did not increase that much? (Implying that modern diet and lifestyle are not healthier than older ones?) Or is it only to demonstrate that long life was achiveable in the middle ages as well?

This topic piqued my interest. Could you recommend reading material?

这非常有趣。这是否意味着，如果不考虑儿童死亡率、饥荒和战死，预期寿命其实并没有增加那么多？(暗示现代的饮食和生活方式不比以前的更健康？)还是说这只是为了证明长寿在中世纪也是可以实现的？

这个话题引起了我的兴趣。你能推荐一下阅读材料吗？

Jean-Marie Valheur

I suppose that’s how you could say it, yes — disregarding child mortality, famine and death in battle, the life expectancy did not increase that much since then. No one calls the newspaper when someone turns eighty these days, and in the Middle Ages someone turning eighty, likewise, would not have been the biggest deal. It would be unusual-ish, but not out of the norm.

The fact that Ramesses II, pharaoh of Egypt, made it well into his nineties thousands of years prior, after surviving many wars and ruling for six decades, is telling in this regard. There are records of ancient Romans reaching the age of 100 and up. Terentia, the wife of Cicero, made it to 103.

We are nowhere near as healthy and unique as we think we are.

我想你可以这样说，是的--不考虑儿童死亡率、饥荒和战死，从那时起到现在，预期寿命并没有增加那么多。现在没有人在某人年满八十岁时当作一件大事给报纸打电话，而在中世纪，某人年满八十岁，同样也不会是什么大事。这挺不寻常的，但并不超出认知的常规。

埃及法老拉美西斯二世在经历了许多战争和六十年的统治后，在几千年前就活到了九十岁，这一事实说明了这一点。有记录显示，古罗马人的年龄达到了100岁以上。西塞罗的妻子特伦提亚活到了103岁。

我们现代人远没有我们所认为的那么健康和独特。

Luke Hatherton

We are unique. People from the Middle Ages or earlier would be staggered by the sheer number of healthy 90-year-olds out there. It’s far beyond anything anyone saw back then. Centenarians were legendary.

More importantly, the list of chronic illnesses people suffered from was appalling. They usually didn’t make it to 80 like we think of it today. A lot of them dragged themselves into old age. Indeed, the very concept of ‘middle age’ didn’t really exist. You wore out so fast and were burdened with ill health for so long that you didn’t have a prolonged period of vigorous health between being young and being old such as we have today. People’s cause of death was often labelled as ‘exhaustion’. Ancient skeletons show a grotesque array of diseases, often brought on by lack of vaccination, antibiotics, overwork and maluntrition. In Shakespeare’s time, from various written sources, it has been estimated that ‘old age’ began at 55. Even in the early 19th Century, Thomas Paine’s death at 72 was notable enough that he was said to have “passed the legendary limit of life”, as in, the Biblical threescore and ten years. (“and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years…”)

In the book ‘The Longevity Dividend’ (2006), the writers, including biogerontologist S. Jay Olshansky, estimate that the decades of greatly increased well-being for so many people in middle age in the 20th Century have added up to perhaps 1/3 of all economic growth the world has experienced since 1900.

我们确实很独特。来自中世纪或更早的人们会对外面健康的90岁老人的数量感到震惊。这远远超出了当时人们所看到的一切。百岁老人是个传奇。

更重要的是，人们所患的慢性病清单是令人震惊的。他们通常不能像我们今天认为的那样活到80岁。他们中的很多人只是拖着病躯进入老年。事实上，“中年"的概念并不存在。你损耗得如此之快，并长期被健康状况不佳所困扰，以至于你在年轻和年老之间没有一个像我们今天这样的长时间的健康状态。人们的死因往往被称为"疲惫”。古代的骨架显示了一系列怪异的疾病，通常是由于缺乏疫苗、抗生素、过度劳累和损耗而导致的。在莎士比亚的时代，根据各种书面资料，人们估计"老年"是从55岁开始的。即使在19世纪初，托马斯-潘恩72岁时才死亡也足够引人注目，以至于他被说成是"超过了传说中的生命极限"，就像《圣经》中的六十又十岁。(“如果由于力量的原因，他们能达到八十岁…”)

在《长寿红利》（2006年）一书中，包括生物老年学家杰伊·奥尔尚斯基在内的作者们估计，20世纪许多中年人的福利大大增加的几十年，加起来可能占1900年以来世界所有经济增长的1/3。

Angela Birch

The fact that a few very rare people made it to old age doesn’t mean that the overall life expectancy was anywhere near as long as it is today. We are not unique but we on average sure live longer.

Ramesses II? Trust me he lived a much better life that did anyone else at the time and the average Egyptian didn’t live to be 90 or anything close.

In the middle ages it was rare for a person to live to be 80 even if one was wealthy and had for the time the best medical care and was male. In about 1200 if one made it to 25 ( thus excluding infants and childhood mortality) one could expect to live to 48. Yes a few people were lucky enough to live longer but when checking actual records Romans and Egyptians actually had a slight;y longer life expectancy, probably because of better Sanitation and overall a better diet than did your average human in the middle ages The average age for Egyptians who made it to adulthood was 53 and for Romans it was about 57. In 1850 in the UK, a quite advanced country at the time, less than half of those born in 1850 made it to their 50th birthday. Today 97% of those born can expect to make it to their 50th birthday and 80% can expect to make it to their 60th birthday

Yes overall our diets are better, and we have better sanitation and better and more effective health care. In countries today with good medical care the average life expectancy is over 80. not just the rare lucky person but Average.

It is less in the US but then our medical care isn’t that good.

古代少数非常罕见的人活到了老年，并不意味着整体预期寿命接近今天的长度。我们不是独一无二的，但我们平均来说肯定活得更长。

拉美西斯二世？相信我，他的生活比当时的其他人都要好得多，而埃及人的平均寿命并没有达到90岁或接近90岁。

在中世纪，一个人活到80岁是很罕见的，即使他很富有，在当时有最好的医疗服务，而且是男性。在1200年左右，如果一个人能够活到25岁（因此不包括婴儿和儿童的死亡率），他可以预期活到48岁。是的，少数人幸运地活得更长，但当检查实际记录时，罗马人和埃及人的预期寿命实际上略长，可能是因为更好的卫生设施和总体上比中世纪的普通人有更好的饮食。1850年，在英国这个当时相当先进的国家，1850年出生的人中只有不到一半能活到50岁生日。今天，97%的人可以活到50岁生日，80%的人可以活到60岁生日。

是的，总的来说，我们的饮食更好，我们有更好的卫生设施和更好、更有效的医疗保健。在今天拥有良好医疗服务的国家，平均预期寿命超过80岁，不仅仅是少数幸运的人，而是平均。

在美国则较少，我们的医疗服务并不那么好。