Men probably had much shorter life expectancy than women did across late medieval Europe.

Violence against men in medieval England explains why men expected to have much shorter lives than women did. If men dying from violence are excluded from the life-expectancy calculation, men and women at age twenty had nearly the same expected additional years of life. The share of violent deaths to all deaths for men ages 15 and older was 46%. Men at age twenty thus expected to have 9.4 less additional years of life than women had. For such persons born from 1330 to 1479, men’s and women’s expected additional years of life at age twenty were 21.7 years and 31.1 years, respectively. The best available data are for the legitimate offspring of British kings, queens, dukes, and duchesses. Violence against men in late medieval England made men’s life expectancy much less than women’s. Whether that anti-men bias continues may determine the future of civilization. Reducing gender inequality that disfavors men has never been of public concern. These facts of gender difference in life expectancy are largely unknown.

But men’s lifespan shortfall subsequently grew to about five years in late-twentieth-century England. Men achieved near equality with women in life expectancy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Elite men’s life expectancy in medieval England was perhaps nine years less than elite women’s. This progress of civilization wasn’t associated with a secular reduction in gender inequality in life expectancy. In England, homicides per capita fell roughly by a factor of thirty from the fourteenth-century to the late twentieth century.

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Middle ages life expectancy