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Do you have any useful knowledge or skills you could bring back in time?

SafeSurfer

If you were suddenly transported back in time to say, the Middle Ages. Would you have any skill or knowledge that would convince people that you were from the future or could improve their lives?

I could describe electricity, flight etc but I don’t think there is any practical skill I have that would be useful. Similarly predicting future events would be unconvincing unless you had a lot of knowledge about the Middle Ages.

Doctors, scientists, engineers may have useful knowledge but if the average Joe Soap was transported back in time they would be pretty useless in my opinion.

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AMKC

looksee wrote: »

I think by medieval times they had a good grasp on all of those things - except toilets.

Dammit I'm fecked so lol.

corner of hells

AMKC wrote: »

Dammit I'm fecked so lol.

That's you and Candie both in the bonfire , if anything we'd burn a few before they starved to death.

A least there'll be some entertainment.

looksee

Maybe a bit of research on chronology wouldn't go amiss. Most of the skills listed were already well known by Medieval times. And in fact a lot of practical skills that were known then have been pretty much lost.

Crochet wasn't known, the nearest skill, if you lived near any Norse people (ie Vikings), would have been Naalbinding, a skill somewhere between knotting and knitting but done with a needle and a length of wool. Very hardwearing and comfortable, but slower than knitting. Crochet would have probably been well received and not strange enough to get you in trouble as a witch. Whether people would have been able to deal with innovation sufficiently to take on a completely new concept is another matter.

Hygiene would not have had immediate enough results to convince people to try it.

I don't know much about ploughing, but inventing a curved blade that would turn the sod instead of just cutting through the ground might have been appreciated.

Yes I know, I am taking this far too seriously, I'm just interested in Medieval life.

Carry

I would teach the ordinary people to read and write, plus basic maths, set up hedge schools, maybe.
Most of them, as far as I know more than 90%, couldn't read and write. So that would be a useful skill to better themselves and less being taken for a fool by the ruling classes.

I'm afraid though that would get me on the death list for witches as well

CelticRambler

looksee wrote: »

Maybe a bit of research on chronology wouldn't go amiss. ...

I don't know much about ploughing, but inventing a curved blade that would turn the sod instead of just cutting through the ground might have been appreciated.

Already done by the Middle Ages too! The curved/soil-inverting blade first appeared around the 8-10th Century.

Of course if you were to lay claim to that invention, you'd be burnt at the stake today for your contribution to climate change!

Other than techniques and equipment related to the manipulation of electrons, there was very little real innovation in most disciplines from Roman times until the Industrial Revolution, and even then, it was limited to serious "heavy" industry. Most of our new-and-improved lifestyle is based on a better knowledge of our place in the world (geographical and ecological) and that'd be a difficult thing to explain to people who rarely felt the need to leave their townland.

The other real challenge for any of us heading back (assuming our immune systems could cope, which they would if you didn't lob yourself into a city full of filth on Day 1) would be sourcing and paying for the materials you'd need to demonstrate your skill. Even getting food would be a challenge unless you were prepared to do regular hard labour in the early days.

I think I would use my 21st C knowledge of what materials and produce used to come from where, and set myself up as a merchant once I'd figured out how to get a bit of capital together.

topper75

Twister2 wrote: »

warn them about donald trump

No - he's not going there.

He is going to Kenya in the 1960s to snap Obama being born - like Dougal snapping Ted kicking Len up the arse.

is_that_so

Could do loads of stuff, including the aforementioned bread making, and very adaptable but the bugs would probably kill me first!

nkl12xtw5goz70

Carry wrote: »

I would teach the ordinary people to read and write, plus basic maths, set up hedge schools, maybe.
Most of them, as far as I know more than 90%, couldn't read and write. So that would be a useful skill to better themselves and less being taken for a fool by the ruling classes.

Mass literacy wasn't possible until Gutenberg introduced the printing press in the mid-15th century. Books to that point had to be copied by hand by medieval scribes, and were rare, expensive, and inaccessible to the average person. Of course, you could introduce printing at an earlier stage, but that would throw off the entire course of history, since printing was key to the Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment, and scientific revolution.

Mr Tickle

You could probably do a lot for medicine even with limited knowledge. Just simple things like using alcohol or boiling to sterilize equipment and wounds. And maybe suggest using slightly fewer leeches.

nthclare

I once caught a trout with a hawthorn hook and worm, and bark skin tied into knots making line...

Small trout no doubt.

I know how to make nets and weave willow fish traps and lobster pots.

I can trap rabbits and make bows and arrows.

I am the alpha and omega

endacl

corner of hells wrote: »

Did we have something similar to this recently, where most of us agreed we'd have have all ended up dead fairly quickly apart from the bloke who owned a sharp pointy stick ?

I could definitely make a sharp pointy stick.

Sir Guy who smiles

Mr Tickle wrote: »

You could probably do a lot for medicine even with limited knowledge. Just simple things like using alcohol or boiling to sterilize equipment and wounds. And maybe suggest using slightly fewer leeches.

You would be taken out quickly by the Big Leech conspiracy.

Gynoid

Its not the fricking stone age people are going back to. In the middle ages a lot of things were far better than we have now, eg fabrics, furniture, some might even say art and music. They had lots of weird stuff too like alchemy and tarot and complicated metaphysics. In many ways they had more complexity than us. Mostly they did not have steam power and onwards

nthclare

Gynoid wrote: »

Its not the fricking stone age people are going back to. In the middle ages a lot of things were far better than we have now, eg fabrics, furniture, some might even say art and music. They had lots of weird stuff too like alchemy and tarot and complicated metaphysics. In many ways they had more complexity than us. Mostly they did not have steam power and onwards

I love Steam power and all that Steam punk stuff.

Supernintento Chalmers

Alannah Ripe Brush wrote: »

With 35 years military service I'd make a pretty good mercenary leader.

I'm also a Judo black belt so if I chanced across Monty Python's Black Night I'd just throw him out of my way, break a limp or choke him out

Private Mitty reporting for duty, Sir!

Ash.J.Williams

Alannah Ripe Brush wrote: »

Musicians had a very important roll in combat up to recent times. There are stories of pipers leading the lads over the top in the trenches of France in WWII

Then there was the little drummer boy during the US civil war.

In the Irish DF bandsmen and women are non combatants, they don't serve alongside us either at home or abroad so they're not even Military First Responders, but since the thread is history your friend who have played a very important roll in war.

without an amplifier though "jangle jangle jangle" into battle

[Deleted User]

I'd be killed because of my 21st century bathroom dependencies alone.

stoneill

Paper airplanes.

rECTAL fLAKE

The prodigy step. Would fookin blow their minds!!

Woke Hogan

Whether it's from nuclear holocaust or the increasing rate of climate change, I have long believed that society will collapse within my lifetime and as I near sixty I remain firm in those beliefs. Therefore I am a practitioner of basic survivalist skills and I have a rudimentary knowledge of metalwork.

If I would brought back to, say, the medieval era, I would run to an isolated part of the woodland and immediately start building shelter for myself. It's not as difficult as you would think, I honestly believe more of the nerds on this website should put down their Playstation controllers and try camping in the woods every once in a while. In fact, they might be well suited for it: bathing is unnecessary when you're forced to live off the land.

Once I have established a little place for myself to live, I would tentatively approach a village nearby and offer my skills as a blacksmith or farrier. Assuming I'm not immediately murdered by the villagers for some perceived slight or killed by some illness I do not carry an immunity for, I should be fine once I have mastered the local dialect.

That's the best anyone can hope for. Some of the people on here have incredible delusions about their usefulness, imagining themselves leading a century of Roman soldiers into battle and so on.

Sleepy

I can think of a few skills I might be able to offer: knowledge of things like Four-field crop rotation, fish farming, modern plumbing, the production line etc.

I'm fairly certain that with access to a forge I could create a basic steam engine and kick-start the industrial revolution, if not, I could probably construct a water or wind powered power loom. General mechanical knowledge would no doubt go a long way (though I'd probably end up conscripted into weapons manufacturing for the local overlord.

Ten of Swords

The middle ages covers a generally accepted timeframe of roughly 1,000 years and while technology and science moved at a fairly glacial pace compared to now there was still a lot going on, give us a better timeframe :pac:

Early 500-1000
Middle 1000-1200
Late 1200-1500

If I landed in the (very) late period I'd be off to The New World to find my fortune

Work on coal and steam op, it was the next big thing!!

[Deleted User]

If I landed in the (very) late period I'd be off to The New World to find my fortune

Work on coal and steam op, it was the next big thing!!

You've played Sid Mieir Games.

[Deleted User]

Supernintento Chalmers wrote: »

Private Mitty reporting for duty, Sir!

Well, I suppose I could compose a theatre play along the lines of the movie Forest Gumo.

Instead of being a solier in Vietnam, Footsoldier Gump is in The Crusades.

Then retires back to Britain as a monk.

Gynoid

Im really leaning towards being a teller of scary and dystopian science fiction in the middle ages.

The Tetrarch

The square on the hypothenuse is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides. 3 squared + 4 squared = 5 squared, and we have all the right angles we want. No more leaning towers.
That would blow their minds.

CelticRambler

Deleted User wrote: »

Then retires back to Britain as a monk.

In fact, for anyone "returning" to the Middle Ages from our current times, this would probably be the best first step. The mediaeval monasteries accepted all kinds of fools and visionaries, gave them food and shelter, and provided them with a relatively safe environment in which to live and work. Most of our modern skills (especially reading, writing, basic first-aid and medicine, learning/speaking foreign langauges, knowledge of far-away places) would be welcomed in such a community. The auld monks weren't afraid to get involved in business ventures either.

I've changed my mind: I think I'd try to find a lively monastic community and apply for a job there as chief librarian.

SafeSurfer

Ten of Swords wrote: »

The middle ages covers a generally accepted timeframe of roughly 1,000 years and while technology and science moved at a fairly glacial pace compared to now there was still a lot going on, give us a better timeframe :pac:

Early 500-1000
Middle 1000-1200
Late 1200-1500

If I landed in the (very) late period I'd be off to The New World to find my fortune

Work on coal and steam op, it was the next big thing!!

I was thinking of the late Middle Ages, up to the early modern era.

Graces7

looksee wrote: »

I think by medieval times they had a good grasp on all of those things - except toilets.

The upper echelons certainly had " stool rooms" ie rooms where they sat on stools with holes atop buckets, then a servant would empty the bucket.

Oh and I just remembered the tower here in west Mayo where Grace O'Malley lived. She had a toilet that got washed out by the tide twice a day... They were not as backward as some think. Carrickahowley near Newport;; Mid 15th century

And potties and "gozundas" go way back.

As they already knitted ( chain mail) I would introduce innovations …

nkl12xtw5goz70

The Tetrarch wrote: »

The square on the hypothenuse is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides. 3 squared + 4 squared = 5 squared, and we have all the right angles we want. No more leaning towers.
That would blow their minds.

Pythagoras figured that out long before the Middle Ages.