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History is absolutely filled with eras where life was hard. Technically speaking, that can be said of any era, but it is hard to compare the challenges that the average person today (at least in the Western World) has to over come with, for example, living through the era of the Black Death plague.
Even in well known difficult times such as plagues or large wars, the problems were often at least somewhat isolated to specific countries or specific regions.
In the 17th century, however, that was not really the case. To make matters worse, it wasn’t just one thing that made living through that century hard.
For this reason, historians often refer to the 17th century as, “The General Crisis.”
Not surprisingly, one of the many factors that contributed to the challenges is wars. And there were lots of them. The English Civil War, The Polish-Swedish Wars, the First Anglo-Dutch War, The Eighty Years’ War, and many others throughout Europe. Perhaps the worst was the Thirty Years’ War, which was spread across almost all of Europe and killed as many as 8 million people.
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Of course, Europe isn’t the whole world, so don’t forget the Mughal-Maratha Wars in India, the Ottoman-Safavid conflicts, the fall of the Ming dynasty, and many other conflicts throughout Asia.
While historical records aren’t very good, we can pretty much bet that there were a variety of wars among the indigenous people of North America, South America, Africa, and Australia as well. Maybe Antarctica was the place to be in the 17th century?
So, the wars were awful during the century, no doubt about that. Those wars also led to extensive illness, a lack of crops that led to going hungry, and all the other issues that arise during and after major conflicts.
As if the wars weren’t enough, NASA reports that the entire 17th century in Europe, North America, and Asia was exceptionally cold.
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There are stories from this time period, for example, where London would hold ‘Frost Fairs’ on the Thames river because the river was frozen over. This happened frequently throughout the 17th century, and while it does occasionally still happen today, it is very rare.
Cold weather isn’t just uncomfortable, it is deadly, especially back then. People would die of starvation, exposure to the elements, and a variety of other things related to the weather.
The bottom line is that while most people don’t hear about The General Crisis in their history books, it is arguably one of the most horrific times to live.
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