The point of my original question was intended to promote a survival based discussion, with no hope of "rescue."

If anyone would like to discuss time travel means, getting there/back, leaving messages for future inhabitants, etc., please feel free to start a new thread.

Also, if you happen to carry a knife with you all the time, that doesn't go with you. No jewelry, watches, wallets... just clothing and shoes.

I would disagree with anyone thinking that shelter, water, and food would be anything like a trip to the wilderness today. Any place you would attempt to hermit yourself away is going to be owned by a local noble or goverend by some type of prefect. In order to build a fire, you're going to have to cut down their trees (or harvest dead wood that belongs to them). The subsequent fire may very likely attract attention to your location. I wouldn't think the nobels would appreciate squatters, even though your existance there would be relatively harmless. Food: anything foraged or killed would constitute theft from a noble. And drinking the water without boiling it? Not even the locals would do that, drink the water I mean. They didn't know about boiling anything of course. They all would drink a local brew because without sanitation the water supplies are mostly contaminated.

And again, if you're a circumcised male, I don't think there's much chance of you passing yourself off as a monk who has taken a vow of silence. Upon discovery, you'll immediately be tagged as a jew or a muslim (if not a heretic or a which). I'm not sure of the possibility of conversion, but the complexity of that issue would most likely warrant the need to speak the local language first before that could happen.

As far as long term existance, I would go for either brewing or medicine. The knowledge of basic sanitation would put anyone who knows basic first aid in a league above any of the medical scientists of the dark ages. I've read that brewing recipies were closely guarded secrets and one had to know how to read in order to make anything, thus it was the monesteries where all the brew was made. And I don't think the distillation process was known then. Making a basic distilled spirit would likely create quite a sensation, even with the nobility. You could become a minor celebrity just by making some rot-gut sour mash!