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Courtesy Eric Slyter, knights.arador.com. Medieval suits of armor and military records of new recruit heights suggest that Europeans were once shorter than they are today. |
Low doorways and laughably small suits of armor led to conventional thinking that people in the middle ages were significantly shorter than we are. After an exhaustive study of hundreds of churchyard skeletons, British archaeologists Charlotte Roberts and Margaret Cox say that height discrepancy is little more than a tall tale. Although medieval children were in fact shorter – 10-year-olds then were around 8 inches shorter than 10-year-olds now – most likely due to poorer nutrition and slow growth, adult European heights really haven't changed much over the past few centuries. Adult heights of men and women have remained constant at about 5 foot 7 inches for men and 5 foot 3 inches for women. The shorter heights of military recruits and smallish suits of armor probably reflect a younger army, while lower doorways may simply have been a way to conserve heat.
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