During those times people were still travelling by boat and, horse and cart.
During those times people could at least escape and there was no world government being formed. There was no passports or papers to travel abroad.
There was no palm readers or nano-chips that could be inserted to do payments. Its a very different prescendent.
There was no meglomaniac psychopaths telling us the world is overpopulated and that the we can become Gods through transhumanism by merging man with AI.