The allotted lifespan is measured only briefly. The main risks are hunger, epidemics, war and childbed fever. So festivals are celebrated with all the more devotion. Every occasion is used to experience well-being and abundance for a short time. The year provides a wide range of occasions: in the countryside as well as in the residence city, from the consecration of churches to the birth of a prince.
The exuberant hustle and bustle in the taverns offers a distraction from the harshness of daily life. Yet the numerous inns on the highways, in villages and towns are not only places of rest and recreation. They are a hive of rumours, news and espionage. Of course, many taverns are of ill-repute: as places of drunkenness, fornication and crime they are a regularly recurring motif in art.
