Once people were in their 40s, they usually got sicker and sicker. From working so hard in the fields, men and women got arthritis in their joints. Often they would get weak enough to catch pneumonia and die. People who needed nursing care often moved to monasteries or convents, where Christian monks and nuns took care of them as in nursing homes today.
Only a few people - and mostly rich people who had warm clothes and plenty of good food - lived to be as old as most people do now.