Throughout the medieval period, intellectual life suffered greatly, and this can be seen in the way people lived. During what was once the "Dark Ages" (now the Medieval Times), there was much despair and poverty, and money was unequally balanced between the lower and upper classes. For this reason, the lives of the lower classes were incredibly different from those of the upper classes. Reading A World Lit Only By Fire by William Manchester described the differences in life between these classes through food, the houses they lived in, and health. One of the main separating factors between the two classes was the food they ate and even how they sometimes ate it. Throughout history, food has always been the key to wealth and the upper class, and the medieval era is no exception. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Peasants, the lowest class, harvested the fields and ate part of what they collected while part went to those for whom they harvested. But during the worst seasons, Manchester wrote that peasants were "forced to sell everything they owned, including their pitifully inadequate clothing, and to be reduced to nakedness in all seasons." » (Manchester 54). But in the days when they no longer had to sell, they ate “bark, roots, grass; even white clay” and Manchester goes on to say: “Cannibalism was not unknown. Foreigners and travelers were rounded up and killed to be eaten, and there are stories of gallows being torn down – up to twenty bodies are said to be hung from a single scaffold – by men frantic to eat the hot, raw flesh. »(Manchester 54). Manchester tells the story of a peasant brought back to life by the smell of animal droppings after passing out to the smells of a perfume shop, intended to show the level of filth the peasants were accustomed to. But the higher the class, the more secure the food supply, and the kings would never go hungry, because thanks to their immense wealth they could purchase even the smallest morsels of food. And Manchester writes that they only ate “black bread” because “white bread was the prerogative of the patriciate” (Manchester 54). The classes also ate in an incredibly messy and horrible manner. Manchester describes their diet in these terms: "They habitually ate with their hats on and frequently beat their wives at the table, while chewing a sausage or gnawing a bone" (Manchester 57). Cutlery was only invented later, in 1520, by Jacques LaSaige, merchant recorder: “These lords, when they want to take the meat, use a silver fork. » during a Venetian banquet. In medieval times, classes were sharply separated mentally and physically. They were physically separated because, depending on their class, they had a specific place to live. Men and women born into the lowest class, serf (peasant), would live on the outskirts of the fiefdom, in the fields. They would work, under the orders of a member of the upper class, in the fields where they lived. Their houses were said to be large but very dirty, and William Manchester writes of the condition of the houses in the book, saying: "Under the sagging roof were a pigsty, a hen house, stables, corn troughs, straw and hay and, last but not least, hay. , the family's apartment, was actually a single room whose walls and beams were covered in soot. »(Manchester 53). The peasants lived in., 16(2), 129-142.