In the early era of our country as in the Middle Ages there was less for people to fall back on than there is now:
"There was less relief available for misfortune and for sickness; they came in a more fearful and more painful way. Sickness contrasted more strongly with health. The cutting cold and the dreaded darkness of winter were more concrete evils. Honor and wealth were enjoyed more fervently and greedily because they contrasted still more than now with lamentable poverty."
This is an Archival Quality Quotation from Johan Huizinga, The Autumn of the Middle Ages (trans. 1996), p. 1.
This you may read online at: HERFSTTIJ DER MIDDELEEUWEN, 1919
If you prefer English you may read the first translation, which is incomplete and somewhat misleading, and devoid of footnotes and other documentation: The Waning of the Middle Ages (1924)
The new English translation is available from Amazon for under $2.00. If you are interested in history written by a master historian I suggest you get and read this book. Just a few months before his death one of my professors, Dr. Chanan Brichto, a literary master, told me that this is one of the books he would like to re-read; that is an excellent recommendation for any book.
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