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There were aslo no rules for spelling in the past, so you would have to sound out words much more (out loud or in your mind) to connect them to their meaning.

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I see the comment is getting downvoted and I’d like to know why. AFAIK many languages had really very vague spelling rules and often several being used at once.

Exactly. You don't have to go back many hundred years before the only spelling rules are "this letter represents this sound". Then feel free to piece together those sounds so they become words.

Also there were lot more regional differences. So in lot of cases entirely different words were used for same thing. Actually unified vocabulary is pretty late thing all things considered.

Exactly regional differences were the norm, todays Papua is a perfect example, where the country has thousands of languages. Cross river, or travel over a mountain and the peoples there could and be speaking a language that is completely different from their neighbours.

I heard during the Times of Napoleon, less than 20% of France proper actually spoke and understood French.

Spelling was different because peoples all over any country were actually speaking very differently. Someone in London was quite different from someone in Birmingham and so on.

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