Medieval Europe. Where unbathed, sword-wielding knights ate rotting flesh, thought the earth was flat, defended chastity-clad virgins, and tortured their enemies with hideous instruments.
Except... it's more fiction than fact. So, where do all the myths about the Middle Ages come from?
And what exactly were they? "Middle Ages" refers to the period of 1,000 years, spanning from the fall of Rome in the 5th century to the Italian Renaissance in the 15th century.
Although it is applied to other parts of the world,
the term traditionally refers specifically to Europe. A common misconception is that medieval people were all ignorant and uneducated.
For example, a 19th-century biography of Christopher Columbus incorrectly stated that medieval Europeans believed the Earth was flat.
Sure, many medieval scholars described the Earth as the center of the universe—but there wasn't much debate about its shape. A famous 13th-century text was literally called "On the Sphere of the World."
And with the establishment of schools, convents, and universities, literacy rates gradually increased during the Middle Ages. Ancient knowledge was not "lost" either. Greek and Roman texts continued to be studied.
The idea that medieval people ate rotten meat and used spices to mask the taste was popularized by a British book in the 1930s. He misinterpreted a medieval prescription and used the existence of laws that prohibited the sale of tainted meat and regulated its use.
In fact, medieval Europeans shunned dirty foods and had ways to safely preserve meat, such as curing it with salt. Spices were popular. But they were often more valuable than meat.
So if one can afford it,
one can buy unadulterated food. Meanwhile, 19th-century French historian Jules Michelet called the Middle Ages "a thousand years without a bath." But even small towns boast well-used public baths.
People shunned soaps made from things like animal fat, ash, and aromatic herbs. And they used mouthwashes, toothpastes and powders along with cleaning cloths, and spices and herbs for fresh-smelling breath. So, what about medieval instruments of torture?
In the 1890s, a collection of "terrible relics of a semi-barbaric age" reportedly went on tour. Among them: Iron Maiden, which mesmerized audiences with its speedy doors—but it was fictional, possibly only decades ago.
And there is no indication that Iron Maidens actually existed in the Middle Ages. Meanwhile the "Peer of Anguish" existed—but probably later and could not be used for torture. It might just have been a shoe stretcher. In fact, many medieval instruments of torture are very recent inventions.
Medieval legal proceedings were on the whole less terrifying than these gadgets suggest. These included fines, imprisonment, public humiliation, and some forms of corporal punishment.
Tortures and executions took place,
but particularly violent punishments, such as drawing and quartering, were usually reserved for crimes such as high treason.
Of course chastity belts were real, though, right? maybe not. They were first mentioned by a German engineer in the 15th century, probably jokingly, with fart jokes and a device for invisibility.
From there, they became popular subjects of satire that were later accepted as medieval reality. Ideas about the Middle Ages vary depending on people's interest in later times.
The term—along with the derisive "Dark Ages"—was popularized by scholars during the 15th and 16th centuries as a bias toward the classical and modern periods that preceded and followed it.
And, as Enlightenment thinkers celebrated their dedication to reason, they portrayed medieval people as superstitious and irrational. In the 19th century, some romantic European nationalist thinkers – well – romanticized the Middle Ages.
He described isolated, white, Christian societies, emphasizing stories of heroism and wonder. But knights played a minimal role in medieval warfare. And the Middle Ages saw massive interactions. Ideas entered Europe through Byzantine, Muslim and Mongol trade routes.
And merchants, intellectuals,
and diplomats of various races visited medieval European cities. The biggest myth may be that the medieval millennium equates to a distinct, coherent period of European history.
Originally defined less by what they were than by what they were not, the Middle Ages became an arena for competing ideas—fueling more fantasy than reality.
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