6 myths about the Middle Ages that everyone believes - Stephanie Honchell Smith
Medieval Europe.
Where unbathed, sword-wielding knights
ate rotten meat,
thought the Earth was flat,
defended chastity-belt wearing maidens,
and tortured their foes
with grisly gadgets.
Except... this is more fiction than fact.
So, where do all the myths
about the Middle Ages come from?
And what were they actually like?
The “Middle Ages” refers
to a 1,000-year timespan,
stretching from the fall of Rome
in the 5th century
to the Italian renaissance in the 15th.
Though it’s been applied
to other parts of the world,
the term traditionally refers
specifically to Europe.
One misconception is that medieval people
were all ignorant and uneducated.
For example, a 19th century biography
of Christopher Columbus
incorrectly purported that medieval
Europeans thought the Earth was flat.
Sure, many medieval scholars describe
the Earth as the center of the universe—
but there wasn't much debate
as to its shape.
A popular 13th century text was literally
called “On the Sphere of the World.”
And literacy rates gradually increased
during the Middle Ages
alongside the establishment
of monasteries, convents and universities.
Ancient knowledge was also not “lost”;
Greek and Roman texts continued
to be studied.
The idea that medieval people ate rotten
meat and used spices to cover the taste
was popularized in the 1930s
by a British book.
It misinterpreted one medieval recipe
and used the existence of laws
barring the sale of putrid meat
as evidence it was regularly consumed.
In fact, medieval Europeans
avoided rancid foods
and had methods for safely
preserving meats,
like curing them with salt.
Spices were popular.
But they were oftentimes pricier
than meat itself.
So if someone could afford them,
they could also buy unspoiled food.
Meanwhile, the 19th century
French historian Jules Michelet
referred to the Middle Ages as
“a thousand years without a bath.”
But even small towns boasted well-used
public bathhouses.
People lathered up with soaps
made of things
like animal fat, ash, and scented herbs.
And they used mouthwash, teeth-scrubbing
cloths with pastes and powders,
and spices and herbs
for fresh-smelling breath.
So, how about medieval torture devices?
In the 1890s, a collection of allegedly
“terrible relics of a semi-barbarous age”
went on tour.
Among them: the Iron Maiden, which
fascinated viewers with its spiked doors—
but it was fabricated,
possibly just decades before.
And there’s no indication Iron Maidens
actually existed in the Middle Ages.
The “Pear of Anguish,” meanwhile,
did exist—
but probably later on and
it couldn’t have been used for torture.
It may have just been a shoe-stretcher.
Indeed, many ostensibly medieval torture
devices are far more recent inventions.
Medieval legal proceedings were overall
less gruesome than these gadgets suggest.
They included fines, imprisonment,
public humiliation,
and certain forms of corporal punishment.
Torture and executions did happen,
but especially violent punishments,
like drawing and quartering,
were generally reserved
for crimes like high treason.
Surely chastity belts were real,
though, right?
Probably not.
They were first mentioned by a 15th
century German engineer, likely in jest,
alongside fart jokes
and a device for invisibility.
From there, they became
popular subjects of satire
that were later mistaken
for medieval reality.
Ideas about the Middle Ages have varied
depending on the interest
of those in later times.
The term— along with the
pejorative “Dark Ages”—
was popularized during
the 15th and 16th centuries
by scholars biased toward the
Classical and Modern periods
that came before and after.
And, as Enlightenment thinkers celebrated
their dedication to reason,
they depicted medieval people
as superstitious and irrational.
In the 19th century, some Romantic
European nationalist thinkers— well—
romanticized the Middle Ages.
They described isolated, white,
Christian societies,
emphasizing narratives
of chivalry and wonder.
But knights played minimal roles
in medieval warfare.
And the Middle Ages saw
large-scale interactions.
Ideas flowed into Europe along Byzantine,
Muslim, and Mongol trade routes.
And merchants, intellectuals,
and diplomats of diverse origins
visited medieval European cities.
The biggest myth may be
that the millennium of the Middle Ages
amounts to one distinct, cohesive period
of European history at all.
Originally defined less by what they were
than what they weren’t,
the Middle Ages became
a ground for dueling ideas—
fueling more fantasy than fact.
