>>19937107If we're strictly speaking about Europe, it was not as great as you make it sound. A huge loss of knowledge and technology obviously occurred after the fall of the Roman empire and the burning of several very important libraries (especially in Alexandria), so progress got halted for centuries. You just have to look at the art, it looks very crude during the early middle age compared to what it looked like during the classical era. And it was the same for all aspects of society, be it medicine, politics, philosophy, science, and so on. Even medieval lords were generally uncultured brutes compared to most roman citizens since they didn't even know how to read. Only the clergy had any semblance of scientific knowledge. You have to wait until the Renaissance era to see human progress going forward with new discoveries and inventions. Serfs were also actual slaves, and the child mortality rate (which is always a good indicator for progress) was very high even amongst nobles, and much higher than during the Roman empire. Famines were also pretty common, and potatoes (that actually come from the New World) were a big improvement over other vegetables thanks to their long storage life. Not to mention the incessant wars, the plagues, and other unpleasant events.
So maybe life as a free man was cool, but it was certainly not the case for everyone. And there was also unrest during the middle age, just in small scale because each Lord had relatively small land.
