She wondered if people had better vision then, or if glasses of some sort were a thing, or people just had to deal.
An average person would just suffer poorer eyesight - but there are two important things to note regarding this:
Modern North Americans and Europeans have much worse eyesight than historical peoples would because of consistently focusing on things relatively close to their face - computer screens, books, etc. EDIT: Corrected by /u/Papa_Lemming - it seems that the current consensus is that sunlight is the protective factor - the bottom line is that we've known for a long time that something about the indoor-heavy lifestyles of man modern, urban people weaken distance eye-sight.
The other big thing to remember is that fine distance acuity simply wasn't as important to the average person. Literacy rates were low, so most folks weren't spending a lot of time reading, and if they were they were reading something close to their face. Most people were living agriculturally and didn't need good distance vision.
While your waiting for new answers from new people, I'd just like to point out that questions similar to this have been answered and are listed in the FAQ of this subreddit.