Summary: Pat Thane’s book explores the harsh realities faced by the elderly in pre-industrial societies, including early aging, high mortality rates, and widespread elder abuse. The book reveals that old age, often accompanied by physical disability and poverty, was generally marked by isolation, familial neglect, and societal contempt. Thane’s volume challenges the romanticized notion that the elderly were once universally respected, showing that industrialization brought both longer lifespans and improved intergenerational relationships.
A History of Old Age, edited by the British historian Pat Thane, features contributions from several scholars exploring old age in different eras, from antiquity to the recent past. The volume reveals that in the pre-industrial era, premature aging, early death, and elder abuse were far more common than today.
In the 17th century, “due to inadequate diet and poor living standards . . . poor women [were considered] to have entered old age around age 50.” “Mother” became an honorary title for women over 50, such as the famously ugly “Mother Shipton” of Yorkshire, born toward the end of the 15th century and who, like many old women of the era, was “reputed to be a witch.” In 1754, one author noted that “the peasants in France . . . begin to decline before they are forty.” For ordinary people, the injuries of old age reflected a lifetime of painful toil. There was a “high probability of some physical disability stemming from earlier, work-related injuries.” For example, female lacemakers “suffered debilitating blindness and stiff fingers.” “The ‘Dowager’s Hump’ of osteoporosis was the stereotypical hallmark of the elderly women in the 17th century, as were the broken hips and arms of the aged male.” Given the harsh toll that the challenges of preindustrial life took on the body, and the prevalence of early aging, it is not surprising that fewer people survived to old age.
While a preindustrial adult had a much better shot at reaching old age than did a preindustrial child (owing to the latter group’s horrifically high rate of early death), it was still a long shot relative to today. The 16th-century French philosopher Michel de Montaigne observed, “To die of age, is a rare, singular, and extraordinary death, and so much lesse naturall [sic] than others.” In the preindustrial era, “the elderly generally constituted not more than 8 per cent of the population, and in some regions and periods it was not more than 5.” (Although after outbreaks of bubonic plague, which disproportionately killed off the young, the elderly share of the population temporarily increased). With industrialization, the relative rarity of older adults began to change; “in England and the Low Countries, the numbers of elderly began to increase earlier” than elsewhere.
Even among royalty, living into old age was once relatively rare. “Of all the kings of Europe from the 11th to the beginning of the 15th century, the longest living king was Alfonso VI, king of Castile and León (1030–1109), who reached the age of 79. Of all his predecessors and successors only two made it to their 60s. Only three of the kings of Aragon reached their 60s, and only four of the German emperors. Three of the kings of England reached their 60s, but only one of the Capetian kings of France—Louis VII (1120–80). All other kings, in all European countries, died younger.” That bears repeating: For a king to live past 70 was extraordinary, and most kings did not live to see age 60. Among common peasants, typical lifespans were, of course, shorter still.
In antiquity, old age was also relatively rare. There were, of course, exceptions, such as the famed stoic philosopher Diogenes the Cynic, who lived to be 96, and the philosopher Chrysippus, who is said to have died around age 80, but such longevity was unusual. In the classical past, most of the population was young. “For example, around 6–8 per cent of the population of the Roman empire in the 1st century AD was over the age of 60.” This had many repercussions, including that fewer people ever knew their grandparents. “By the age of ten years, the average ancient individual had only a one-in-two chance of having any of his grandparents still alive. Fewer than one in a hundred Greeks or Romans of the age of 20 would have had a surviving paternal grandfather.”
Close, long-term relationships between grandchildren and their grandparents were thus relatively rare. “Most adult Greeks or Romans would have had only shadowy memories of their grandparents.” In fact, it was not until industrialization began in parts of Europe in the latter half of the 18th century that close grandparent-grandchild relationships such as those that are typical today started to become more common, as “longer lives meant greater opportunity to play the roles associated with the aged.” The archetypes associated with grandparents are newer than many realize, although they do slightly predate industrialization. “Only at the end of the [17th] century does the social, ‘spoil-the-child’, modern-looking ‘grandparent’ appear.” In other words, “the modern social role of the grandparent was just beginning to develop at the end of the century.” One might imagine that doting grandparents have existed since time immemorial, and some likely did, but high rates of early death and widespread material poverty deprived most ordinary people of the experience prior to the wealth generated by the Industrial Revolution. “A new representation of grandparents can be recognized in French culture in the late 18th century, preparing the way for the great stereotype of 19th-century grandparents spoiling their children’s offspring.” That was a consequence of more grandparents living long enough to form deep bonds with their grandchildren, and greater prosperity enabling the former to lavish gifts on the latter, as wealth and longevity spread: “Old age, traditionally viewed as a period of social isolation, was being experienced by greater numbers.”
Poor people continued working as long as possible—no matter how long they lived. “Bridget Holmes [(1591–1691)] was a servant in the Stuart royal household who was still working hard at the age of 96.” Beetty or Betty Dick, the town-crier of Dalkeith in Scotland continued to work until her death at age 85 in 1778, wandering the town beating a wooden plate with a spoon to draw public attention and making local announcements. This lengthy working life took a heavy toll. “The lifestyle of the poor was physically and mentally demanding even for those in the pink of health” and could be devastating in old age. Nonetheless, working until one’s dying day or the arrival of debilitating infirmity was a common fate among poor people, who once comprised the greater share of humanity.
The idea of a leisurely retirement being within ordinary people’s reach is a modern concept. For most of history, ordinary laborers worked until they became bedridden or died, owing to the extreme poverty of the preindustrial world. “Most of them were unable to save enough for their old age during their working years. They could thus not afford to retire and were obliged to continue working as long as they could.” Old age and poverty were practically synonyms. “As women generally worked in more poorly paid occupations than men, they were even more exposed to dire want in their old age.” By the 17th century, “at a certain stage in his life the peasant handed over his farm to one of his offspring [and] moved from the main room to a back room, or to the attic, or to a spare cottage.” After the handover, he would still assist with farmwork to the extent of his abilities. For women, living with family in old age was less common, at least partly because women who avoided childbirth had better chances of surviving to old age than women who had children.
A common narrative maintains that in the past, the elderly received far better treatment, enjoying greater respect and more familial support than today. “Insofar as old age is thought to have a history, it is presented as a story of decline . . . [in the past, the elderly] were valued, respected, cherished and supported by their families as, it is said, they are not today.” Nowadays, in contrast, the narrative holds that disrespect and loneliness are more likely to characterize the last years of life than in ages past. Yet in reality, “none of [the evidence] suggests that comfortable succour in the household of one’s children was the expected lot of older people in pre-industrial . . . Europe.” The evidence suggests quite the opposite, in fact.
Contrary to popular belief, preindustrial people were far less likely to have any surviving children or grandchildren to care for them in old age than modern people. That is partly because even though birth rates were higher in the past, children died with such horrifying frequency that they often predeceased their parents. “Given the higher rate of death at all ages before the later 20th century, older people could not be sure that their children would outlive them. In the 18th century just one-third of Europeans had a surviving child when they reached their 60th birthday.” Hence, the majority of those who lived to old age had no surviving children. In the modern world, in contrast, that is only the case for a minority. For example, US Census Bureau data suggests that among adults age 55 and older, over 83 percent have living adult children. Despite “today’s pessimistic narrative of old age [that] stresses the increasing loneliness of older people in the modern world,” loneliness was more pervasive in the preindustrial past.
What became of the childless majority of elderly people in the preindustrial era? “If they had no surviving children, they entered hospitals and institutions for the poor, which, throughout pre-industrial Europe and early America, were filled with older people without surviving relatives. Or they died alone.” Conditions in the hospitals were famously unsanitary and overcrowded. “There, sharing a bed with whoever else needed one, the destitute elderly lived out their final years.” Despite the poor conditions, demand for a hospital bed far exceeded the supply. “Seventeenth-century Brunswick had only 23 beds for every 1,000 inhabitants, Rheims had 24.94 for every 1,000; and in Marne, they were particularly scarce, with just 2.77 beds per 1,000. Furthermore, the elderly were only one of many eligible groups vying for accommodation. . . . It has been suggested that 74 per cent of all applications were denied.”
Some were even less fortunate: Older people without relatives also often faced harassment and even accusations of witchcraft. While old men also suffered through such allegations, old women were particularly likely to be targeted. That is at least in part because, then as now, women often outlived men, so there were more elderly women around. (Although in some times and places, men outlived women, such as Quattrocento Venice). “A physician in 17th-century south Germany explained why old women were so often accused of witchcraft: ‘They are so unfairly despised and rejected by everyone, enjoy no-one’s protection, much less their affection and loyalty . . . so that it is no wonder that, on account of poverty and need, misery and faint-heartedness, they often . . . give themselves to the devil and practice witchcraft.’ A 70-year-old woman said at her trial, ‘The children call all old people witches.’”
In other words, many communities violently scapegoated the aging. Any local misfortune, from illness to a house fire, could be blamed on supposed witches, usually impoverished older women without surviving children. Superstitions related to menopause did not help matters. “It was said that a menopausal woman could cause grass to dry up, fruit to wither on the vine, and trees to die. Dogs would become rabid and mirrors crack by her mere presence. Such women, without even trying, could cast the evil eye. With malice and aforethought, the glance of the post-menopausal woman could kill.” In reality, it was the aging women themselves who were killed by such delusions. From the 14th century through the 17th century, between 200,000 and 500,000 alleged witches—over 85 percent of them female and mostly middle-aged or elderly—were executed. Public shaming, harsh interrogations, and torture often preceded witch burnings.
Such violence was enabled by attitudes toward the elderly that were often grotesquely negative. “Literary depictions of old men in epics and romances [show] the old man is an object of contempt.” In the 17th century, “the Italian theatrical genre of Commedia dell’Arte reflected the Europe-wide characterization of old men as objects of mockery and disdain,” featuring a prominent stock character called Pantaloon, who was meant to represent a decrepit and ridiculous old man. “The 17th-century stage, elite literature and the sayings of peasants belittled and mocked the old in ways that few groups are targeted today.”
Old women often fared even worse in the public imagination. “Generally old women were feared or held in contempt.” To give an example, in the allegorical text Le Pèlerinage de la vie humane, “The Pilgrimage of human life,” written in the 14th century by the monk Guillaume of Deguileville, the virtues are all personified by beautiful young women, while ugly old women represent the vices. Even in the 17th century, women “were thought to grow increasingly evil and dangerous as menopause set it.” A literary genre popular from the 13th century onward known as “sermones ad status”—sermons divided according to their audience (i.e., sermons to the nobility, to merchants, and so forth)—reveals how the people of the past viewed different groups. In this classification scheme, “the elderly, like women and children, were represented as a single marginal group irrespective of social stratum, rank, profession or lifestyle. In some texts they were classed with invalids, foreigners or the very poor, the emphasis being on their . . . social inferiority.”
Public ridicule of the elderly was also commonplace and considered an ordinary pastime for children. A description of each decade of life “popular in Germany in the 16th century and probably familiar still in the 17th” describes a man of 90 years as ‘the scorn of children.’” A Viennese woodcut from 1579 depicts a nonagenarian man derided by a young child.
The minority of old people who did have surviving children were not necessarily much better off, as treatment of the elderly was often appalling, even by close family members. One “popular . . . tale, already old in medieval Europe, told of a man who, tired of caring for his old father, starts to carve a trough from which the old man is to eat, instead of sitting at the family table, or, in another version, starts to exchange his father’s bedding for a piece of sacking.” Similar stories abounded that depict cruelty toward the elderly. “In another, bleaker version, the old man is gradually demoted from a place of honour at the head of the table to a bench behind the door, where he dies in misery.” In some areas, this power imbalance was reversed. “In late 17th century Upper Provence, for example, until the death of his father, the heir was ‘completely subservient to his father economically, socially, and legally, just as though he were still a child.’ He could not, without his father’s permission, buy, sell, trade, make a will or complete any legal contract. Trouble arose repeatedly as a consequence.” In most areas, however, elder abuse was likely more frequent than aging parents legally tyrannizing their adult children.
Of course, individuals varied, and many adult children dutifully supported their aging parents and maintained positive relationships with them. But economic stress made it hard even for willing adult children to support their parents. “As the younger generation was typically poor themselves and overburdened by children, leaving little food or money to spare for an aged parent. Barbara Ziegler, from Bächlingen in southwestern Germany, described what the 1620s had been like for her: ‘I stayed with my son for four years, but the food was bad and [he] supported me only with great effort.’” Far from the romantic notion that the past offered greater familial support to older adults, the prevailing attitude toward any older person relying on their adult children was often one of bitterness and disgust.
This is true even in antiquity, despite the “common myth about the classical past . . . that older individuals enjoyed something of a golden age when they were treated with great respect.” The reality was that attitudes toward the elderly were often cruel. Classical literature often depicted the old as “witches or alcoholics.” In Greek and Roman mythology, the personification of old age, Geras or Senectus, is said to be “the offspring of Night, and has siblings Doom, Fate, Death, Sleep, Blame, Nemesis and Deceit, among others.” The philosopher Juncus noted that even to his friends and family, an aging man is nothing but “an oppressive, painful, grievous and decrepit spectacle: in short, an Iliad of woes.” The Greek satirist Lucian in his work On Grief points out, albeit jokingly, that one benefit of a man’s untimely demise is that “by dying young, he will not be scorned in old age.” In fact, “it was a common proverb that old age and poverty are both burdensome—in combination they are impossible to bear.” Even when adult children took care of their parents, it was often with great resentment. In the playwright Aristophanes’ comedy Wasps, a son is depicted supporting his father but without any hint of the filial respect often imagined to characterize the past. The son character says with disgust, “I’ll support him, providing everything that’s suitable for an old man: gruel to lick up, a soft thick cloak, a goatskin mantle, a whore to massage his . . . loins.” At the beginning of Plato’s Republic, the elderly Cephalus says this of “old men”: “Most of them are full of woes [and] grumble that their families show no respect for their age.” The old were often despised as “marginal members of society.”
Even in the later 18th century, “the town gates of some cities in Brandenburg hung large clubs with this inscription: ‘He who has made himself dependent on his children for bread and suffers from want, he shall be knocked dead by this club.’”
These facts and more can be found in this fascinating book.
