How were past times so violent?

[The Grand Nudger]

Agriculture stands out. Armies to feed and taxes to pay on fiefdoms and all that. Alot the the tools and methods we still used today (in one form or another) find their origin in that period. The exception that proves the rule, right, lol?

-For the OP
In the grander scheme of things, whatever specific brutality we have in mind as arising from that period was not representative of human life before or after - which is pretty much how we circumscribe periods of human history. "Past times" in the general probably weren't as violent as the crusades, or at least we have no reason to assume they were, and times since have been more violent as well. We could add up all of the wars in all of recorded history, ignore that they weren't usually global, and we'll only be talking about the last few thousand years of 50k or more. Mans ability to wage war has certainly increased over that span.

A huge portion of idea of the brutal past comes down to a certain pessimistic viewpoint that holds human nature in contempt, and interprets (or invents) history and pre-history to suit that belief. We're goofballs that spend the majority of our time sleeping and shitting, literally. Waging war (or any act of violence, really) is a fraction of our time spent by a fraction of our populace even at it's height. I'd be more impressed with the amount of people waging war while others were pumping out fun shit than I would be at the artists who painted through wars. We're going to paint regardless. Beating the other guy to death is a shit job, and it rarely pays well, if at all.

[Mr Greene]

Agriculture stands out.  Armies to feed and taxes to pay on fiefdoms and all that.  Alot the the tools and methods we still used today (in one form or another) find their origin in that period.  The exception that proves the rule, right, lol?

-For the OP
In the grander scheme of things, whatever specific brutality we have in mind as arising from that period was not representative of human life before or after - which is pretty much how we circumscribe periods of human history.  "Past times" in the general probably weren't as violent as the crusades, or at least we have no reason to assume they were, and times since have been more violent as well.  We could add up all of the wars in all of recorded history, ignore that they weren't usually global, and we'll only be talking about the last few thousand years of 50k or more.  Mans ability to wage war has certainly increased over that span.

A huge portion of idea of the brutal past comes down to a certain pessimistic viewpoint that holds human nature in contempt, and interprets (or invents) history and pre-history to suit that belief.  We're goofballs that spend the majority of our time sleeping and shitting, literally.  Waging war (or any act of violence, really) is a fraction of our time spent by a fraction of our populace even at it's height.  I'd be more impressed with the amount of people waging war while others were pumping out fun shit than I would be at the artists who painted through wars.  We're going to paint regardless.  Beating the other guy to death is a shit job, and it rarely pays well, if at all.

  You have something specific in mind? Beyond the alterations to land ownership agriculture in the medieval period seems generally similar to that in the Roman period here.

[The Grand Nudger]

I'll just drop a quick link and a short comment because I geek out out this stuff. Don't wanna fully derail.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultur...iddle_Ages

Highlights would include the heavy plow, the harrow, the hoe, the horse collar, tandem harnesses, horseshoes, and three field rotation schemes. The tillage and fertility that modern industrial agriculture are based on are all right there. They used manure instead of oil - and we use machines to pull the tools.

The villa rustica model was different from the labor used, to the tools available, to the management practices involved. As a result, medieval ag was tremendously more productive and could support conflict the likes of which the roman empire, at it's height, could never have imagined. It took fewer and fewer of us to support the rest, including soldiers, and many farmers were also soldiers (though in strictly fuedal divisions of labor the serfs would not be expected to wage war against the military caste - basically sending livestock to slaughter). That continues to this day.

When we add the advent of credible ranged weaponry that was simple for a peasant to use - we've completed every necessary step for the current state of war.

[Mr Greene]

The harrow is referenced in Babylonian sources.
The hoe is Sumerian.
Crop rotation and manure is known from Carthaginian descriptions.
As for the plough... The middle ages plough was essentially the same as the one The Greeks and Romans used, the Dutch produced a more advanced version in the 17th Century, which isn't the middle-ages.

[Ranjr]

There is a military component, likely PGM and proxy wars, a diplomatic component, maybe mutually assured destruction, and a social component, I'd like to buy the world a coke. It's a very complex question, beyond my knowledge and attention span.

This has bumped my jonesing for the next season of The Last Kingdom. Guess I'll fire up a new game of Civ 6.

[The Grand Nudger]

Noting that there was a medieval agricultural revolution is not to say that this revolution occurred out of a vacuum.  Pre med warm period ag and post med warm period ag are fundamentally different - with what came after being the basis of modern ag. Villas did not possess the needs, the tools, or the management principles - so this shouldn't be taken as a criticism of that system either.

Just a credit where credit is due thing. Huge swaths of the world might have been covered in a feudal morass, and those serfs who worked the land were at the bottom of the social order...but they did produce an innovative agricultural system that we use to this day. It was a significant achievement for humanity.

[Mr Greene]

Noting that there was a medieval agricultural revolution is not to say that this revolution occurred out of a vacuum.  Pre med warm period ag and post med warm period ag are fundamentally different - with what came after being the basis of modern ag.  Villas did not possess the needs, the tools, or the management principles - so this shouldn't be taken as a criticism of that system either.  

Just a credit where credit is due thing.  Huge swaths of the world might have been covered in a feudal morass, and those serfs who worked the land were at the bottom of the social order...but they did produce an innovative agricultural system that we use to this day.  It was a significant achievement for humanity.

The bread basket of the Roman Empire was the former Carthaginian Empire. The tools and know how were there whether or not the European villas chose to take advantage of them. Of course once the Empire started going to **** they imported the tools and methods (adapted for local circumstances). 
Carthage of course always existed on a precarious position, and was able to develop it's agriculture by drawing from a glacial aquifer. Of course they eventually drained it producing the largest desert on the planet...

[The Grand Nudger]

Yup, people have been coming up with creative ways to meet their needs since pretty much forever, everywhere. I'd even note that our own system, like the draining of a glacial aquifer, has also produced thoroughly sub-optimal consequences. Environmental damage, ofc, but also our current capacity for industrialized warfare. Not just all the extra food for all the extra bodies, but the tractors and the pesticides that become tanks and chemical weapons to use on those bodies, and the chemical compounds we use to make fertilizer and bombs to deliver or disperse them.

If we ever get around to genetic warfare as a rule..we'll point back to early crop modifications in our lifetime.