Ask Lemmy

Well I'm already doing the former, so I might as well try out the latter.

I see everyone worried about hygiene in European countries. So I would ho with a monarch in an Islamic region because of higher standard in hygiene. Muslims clean themselves Fromm 1 to 5 times a day. Take full baths after having sex. They also avoid eating dirty foods or animals that could cause disease like pigs. They also had a somewhat better medicine and medical practice.

At the time some of the monarch had a good time, and some of them lived in a constant state of unrest.

So if I had to respawn my same territory it would be great. I would have some occasional attempted assaniation or coup but its just a but more than what we see today. But having my own guard and stuff would make me feel less worried. Even if I endup getting assassinated I would have lived a better life than today maybe.

For sure we have many technologically induced freedoms like travel and telecommunications but I don't have the means to travel. But as a monarch, while it would take me longer than today, I would still manage to travel as I want. In fact Arabs are known to be biggest travelers.

I’d rather live today. Why? Toilet paper and antibiotics. That’s why.

I'll pick the today option. My reasons have already been stated by many: political instability as a monarch, medicine, modern day commodities, etc.

But also, think about entertainment. Today we have a nearly infinite stream of entertainment at our disposal. Movies, songs, videogames, books. 500 years ago none of that existed. So there's yet another reason.

If there's one thing I've learned from history, it's that the monarchs who didn't constantly plot and scheme were at risk to being overthrown by their noble subjects. I hate politics; I hate incessant meetings, and being a monarch always sounds like just constant meetings, all day, every day. Everyone wants to talk to you, get something from you, scheme with you; and it they aren't scheming with you, you really have to worry, because they're off scheming against you.

It sounds tedious and horrible.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z3jb3j6/revision/2

Heresy

increased in early modern England because of the introduction of the Protestant Church during the reign of Henry VIII. As the official religion in England changed from Catholic to Protestant, and back again, the decades following Henry VIII’s reign saw an increase in heresy-related crime. Those people who committed heresy were known as heretics and were often burned at the stake.

Those who refused to accept the new Protestant Church during the reign of Henry VIII were executed. Mary I (a Catholic) ordered the execution of nearly 300 Protestants during her reign, and Elizabeth I (a Protestant) had nearly 250 Catholics executed.

Not much by way of religious war today.

Vagabondage

During this period, the population increased, wages fell, food prices rose and people moved around the country searching for work. As a result, people became concerned about vagabonds, or vagrants,

who committed crimes such as theft, assault and murder. People in early modern England wanted to help poor people who lived in their community and were known to them. However, they viewed vagrants as suspicious, sinful and potential criminals because they were unfamiliar to the community.

There was an increase in vagrants during times of poor harvests and economic hardships. For example, the poor harvest in 1597 caused widespread poverty and suffering.

Famines are pretty much gone in the modern world. We kind of take for granted that it would be extremely unlikely for us to see large-scale starvation. Even if you probably wouldn't starve as a monarch, not the nicest environment to be in.

The Vagrancy Acts

New laws were passed to deal with the perceived threat of vagrants. In 1547 a harsh Vagrancy Act was passed by the government. An able-bodied vagrant - man or woman - who had been out of work for more than three days was branded with the letter ‘V’ and sentenced to two years of slavery if this was their first offence. For their second offence, they were sentenced to slavery for life or execution.

In 1550 this act was repealed because it was deemed too harsh. The government instead used corporal punishment, such as whipping. After being whipped, offenders were returned to their birthplace or place of residence.

A further Vagrancy Act was passed in 1597. It stated that vagrants who did not change their ways could have an ear burned using a hot iron and be sent into exile or executed.

Even North Korea, which is about as authoritarian as it gets today, probably won't go that far.

By modern standards, the world 500 years back was not a very pleasant place in an awful lot of respects. You can maybe try to avoid running into a lot of that as a monarch. But it's gonna surround you.

I'd rather live as a dirt poor person in a modern western country than as someone whose filthy rich in the middle ages. Our lives nowdays are better on pretty much every measureable metric.

https://www.history.com/articles/royal-palace-life-hygiene-henry-viii

The Western European belief that baths were unhealthy did not help matters, either. Although neat freak Henry VIII bathed often and changed his undershirts daily, he was a royal rarity. Louis XIV is rumored to have bathed twice in his life, as did Queen Isabella of Castile, Herman says. Marie-Antoinette bathed once a month. The 17th century British King James I was said to never bathe, causing the rooms he frequented to be filled with lice.

It was the Sun King himself, Louis XIV, whose choice to no longer travel from court to court would lead to a particularly putrid living situation. In 1682, in an effort to seal his authority and subjugate his nobles, Louis XIV moved his court permanently to the gilded mega-palace of Versailles. At times over 10,000 royals, aristocrats, government officials, servants and military officers lived in Versailles and its surrounding lodgings.

Despite its reputation for magnificence, life at Versailles, for both royals and servants, was no cleaner than the slum-like conditions in many European cities at the time. Women pulled up their skirts up to pee where they stood, while some men urinated off the balustrade in the middle of the royal chapel. According to historian Tony Spawforth, author of Versailles: A Biography of a Palace, Marie-Antoinette was once hit by human waste being thrown out the window as she walked through an interior courtyard.

The heavily trafficked latrines often leaked into the bedrooms below them, while blockages and corrosion in the palace’s iron and lead pipes were known to occasionally “poison everything” in Marie-Antoinette’s kitchen. “Not even the rooms of the royal children were safe,” writes Spawforth. An occasional court exodus could have reduced the wear and tear on Versailles, perhaps leading to fewer unpleasant structural failures.

This unsanitary way of living no doubt led to countless deaths throughout royal European households. It was not until the 19th century that standards of cleanliness and technological developments improved life for many people, including members of royal courts. Today, many European royals still move from residence to residence—but for pleasure, not to try and outrun squalor.

My answer is current era regardless, but do we keep our memories and go back, or is it as if we were born in that era? If you went back 500 years with the knowledge that the Super Nintendo and the Internet exist (the two inventions we have that they didn't have in the 1500s), that would be unpleasant. But if you didn't know that and were accustomed to getting your entertainment from court jesters and public hangings, I guess that would be slightly less awful.

Like everybody else has said, there's a lot of things we have now (by which I mean two) that are better than anything there was 500 years ago, even for monarchs. Regardless of whether I knew about those things in monarch form, the version of me that's making the decision knows, so ... nah.

100% now, I'm an average person and so many average people I know live a far better life than most kings 500 years ago.

they can travel around the globe at whim, enjoy different cultures, learn just about any subject without restriction and don't have any responsibilities they don't choose to carry.

No Toilets and ac is a deal breaker

Modern era. Living 5 centuries in the past would suck. No germ theory of disease so everyone is ignorant regarding the importance of washing hands and basic cleanliness. Anything wrong with you? Better get the leeches to balance your humors. Uh oh, stubbed my toe. Guess I'll just die.

The only caveat is if you get to know what you do now and can transform society because of it. As King I'd either bring about the Renaissance within a decade instead of centuries unless I was branded a heretic by the Church and beheaded for flapping my mouth.

The parasitic hell everyone lived through back then I'll gladly take today.

Can we live as neither and poof from existence?

For context in 1525:

King of England: Henry VIII (with all the wives)

King of France: Francis I (with all the fighting the Holy Roman Empire and Pope)

King of Spain: Charles V (with all the being Holy Roman Emperor and inbreeding)

Emperor of China: Jiajing (with all the torturing and murdering dissenters)

Edit: I chose these 4 because between them they were monarchs of the 4 most powerful countries in the world at the time, especially Charles of Spain and Jiajing of China but France and England were soon poised to eclipse the others.

Current era. No question.

Before antibiotics, the most common cause of death was infectious disease.

Definitely now considering I wouldn't have even made it to 10 years old before dying if it wasn't for modern surgery. Would have probably died for unknown reasons to them and I probably would have been marked as having been possessed by some sort of evil spirit or demon if for whatever reason they cut me open and found the weird growth attached to my heart.

I'd like to believe that I have it in me to be a benevolent monarch, but I know myself well enough to tell that I am entirely too human for that.

I'd rather not see how rotten I could get with power unbound, and my current conscience wouldn't let me impose that on whoever I'd be ruling over, so modern-day-meh life it is.