Middle Ages Archives - Page 4 of 5 - Tales of Times Forgotten

No, Medieval Staircases Weren’t Designed to Give Right-Handed Defenders an Advantage

Chances are, if you have ever visited a medieval European castle or read about such castles online, you have probably heard that newel staircases in these castles were intentionally always designed in the form of a clockwise spiral to give the most space to the right-handed defenders at the top of the stairs to draw and swing their swords while simultaneously restricting the space available to the right-handed attackers attempting to ascend the staircase.

This is something that tour guides often tell people visiting castles. It is also one of those “fun facts” that are often repeated on the internet. Unfortunately, for reasons I am about to explain, it is also almost certainly wrong; there is no compelling evidence to suggest that medieval staircases were intentionally designed this way for this reason and there is a great deal of evidence to suggest the opposite. A far more parsimonious explanation is that the majority of staircases were designed clockwise simply so that a right-handed person could keep their right hand on the wall for balance while descending the staircase under everyday circumstances.

Is Krampus Really Pagan?

I recently wrote a very long, detailed article debunking the idea that many modern Christmas traditions have ancient pagan origins. In that article, I talked about how Christmas traditions such as gift-giving, decorating Christmas trees, and decorating with mistletoe have actually all originated in modern times and are not nearly old enough to have pre-Christian pagan origins.

With all of those traditions, there are at least some other debunkers out there pointing out that these traditions are not really old enough to have their origins in pre-Christian paganism. There is, however, one Christmas tradition that people routinely describe as having pagan origin that no one else seems to be debunking that I think really needs to be debunked.

The Christmas tradition I am talking about is Krampus. In case you haven’t heard of Krampus, he is a monstrous demonic figure with horns who, according to Bavarian and Austrian folklore, is said to accompany Saint Nicholas. While Saint Nicholas is said to reward the children who have behaved well with presents, Krampus is said to punish the children who have misbehaved, either by dragging them away to Hell where they must burn for eternity for their sins, by shoving them in a bag and dumping them in the woods to find their way home, or by beating them with the bundle of birch sticks he carries.

The Truth about the Archimedes Palimpsest

If you have an interest in ancient science or mathematics, chances are you have probably heard at some point about the Archimedes Palimpsest. According to the narrative that New Atheist writers and media outlets keep pushing, the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes of Syracuse (lived c. 287 – c. 212 BC) wrote groundbreaking mathematical treatises that were millennia ahead of their time.

Then, according to the standard narrative being pushed, in the thirteenth century AD, ignorant, obscurantist Christians who did not care about science or mathematics erased the text of the manuscript containing the last known copies of several of Archimedes’s treatises and reused the parchment to make a prayer book. Now—or so the story goes—Archimedes’s previously lost groundbreaking works are being recovered through the brilliancy of modern secular technology.

Unfortunately, this narrative that I have just outlined is deeply, deeply misrepresentative and based on an extremely selective presentation of the evidence. If the media would tell the full story of the Archimedes Palimpsest, we would be getting a very different narrative—a narrative not about how religion is inherently dangerous and destructive, but rather a far more complex narrative in which religious individuals are neither inherently evil nor inherently good but simply human beings capable of both good and evil.

Why Most So-Called “Medieval Torture Devices” Are Fake

We’ve all heard of so-called “medieval torture devices.” You can find tons of clickbait-y articles online and videos on YouTube and so forth talking about the most gruesome of these alleged devices. For instance, here is a YouTube video from BuzzFeed titled “5 Of The Most Gruesome Medieval Torture Devices.” It lists the “scold’s bridle,” the “rack,” the “iron maiden,” the “pear of anguish,” and the “brazen bull.”

Unfortunately for those who love reading about gruesome torture devices, most of the so-called “medieval torture devices” you hear about never existed at all during the Middle Ages. In fact, of the five devices listed in the aforementioned video, only the rack actually existed during the Middle Ages and, even then, it seems to have been rarely ever used.

Many alleged “medieval torture devices” were actually made up by hoaxers, showmen, and con artists in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. These hoaxers would display these phony instruments of torture for commercial gain, telling people they were real medieval torture devices and charging people to see them.

Other supposed “medieval torture devices” were made up more recently. For instance, the notorious “Spanish tickler” (not mentioned in the video linked above) was only made up in 2005 as a hoax article on Wikipedia. Meanwhile, other supposed “medieval torture devices” are real torture devices, but they didn’t exist during the Middle Ages. Let’s go through in alphabetical order and debunk supposed medieval torture devices one-by-one.

Were Cats Really Killed En Masse During the Middle Ages?

The Middle Ages always seem to be the most misunderstood period in history. I wrote an article in May 2019 debunking a number of popular misconceptions about the Middle Ages, but now I think it is time for me to debunk another. There is something of a widespread notion these days that, in the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church hated cats because they associated them with witches and that they instigated a massive pogrom to exterminate them. Supposedly, according to the major proponents of this story, this mass killing of cats either resulted in the Black Death or promoted the Black Death’s spread across Europe.

I will admit that my hands are not entirely clean here, since, when I was a freshman in high school, I gave a presentation in one of my classes about the Black Death in which I claimed that people during the time of the Black Death blamed cats for the disease and killed them, thus inadvertently allowing the disease to spread further. Since then, however, I have learned better. The idea people in the Middle Ages killed cats en masse is a misconception. Although some people in the Middle Ages may have killed cats occasionally, the idea of a massive pogrom instigated by the Catholic Church that resulted in the spread of the Black Death is 100% pure fantasy.

Who Were the Green Children of Woolpit?

The story of the so-called “Green Children of Woolpit” is one of the strangest stories that has come out of medieval England. It is the story of two children, a boy and a girl, with green skin who were, according to two chroniclers writing independently, discovered outside the village of Woolpit in around the middle of the twelfth century. Although all kinds of bizarre explanations have been proposed, I think that the most mundane explanation is probably the most likely.

Debunking the So-Called “Dark Ages”

There is no period in all of human history that gets quite so much bad press as the Middle Ages. Popularly known as the “Dark Ages,” most people imagine that this was the worst possible time to be alive—a thousand years of poverty, backwardness, stagnation, superstition, and obscurantism.

It is popularly believed that, during this era, obscurantist Christians deliberately rounded up classical texts to destroy them, people burned witches, no one ever bathed, everyone thought the world was flat, people were constantly slaughtering and torturing each other for no reason, all people were fanatically orthodox Catholics, scientific and technological advancement was virtually nonexistent, doctors knew less about medicine than doctors in all other eras, and everyone was always miserable.

There is very little truth to any of these notions, however. The real Middle Ages are very different from the barbarous caricature that most people are familiar with. Although some historians do use the term “Dark Ages,” they use this term to refer to a specific period in medieval western European history lasting a little over three hundred years from the collapse of the western Roman Empire in the fifth century AD until the rise of the Carolinian Empire in the late eighth century AD.

In this article, I will debunk some of the most popular misconceptions about the Middle Ages. Then, at the end, I will explain why I, like many historians, believe that the term “Dark Ages” should be retired altogether.

Thoughts on the Tragic Burning of the Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral

The Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral in Paris, France is widely considered one of the greatest examples of medieval Gothic architecture, an international symbol of French culture, and a testament to over seven hundred years of human history. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and attracts millions of tourists and pilgrims every year. Tragically, however, at around 6:45 p.m. Paris time on 15 April 2019, the historic cathedral was engulfed in flames. The fire blazed for around fourteen hours before it was finally put out completely, completely consuming the cathedral’s iconic spire and most of its roof, as well as wreaking massive damage to other parts of the cathedral as well.

Debunking the Misconception of the Flat Earth

Hardly anyone nowadays believes the earth is flat. Many people, however, wrongly believe that people during the Middle Ages thought the world was flat. In reality, however, the sphericity of the earth was common knowledge throughout the entire Middle Ages. The idea that people in the Middle Ages thought the earth was flat is a canard invented in the Early Modern Period by authors who wanted to portray the Middle Ages as a time of backwardness and superstitious regression.

Misconceptions about the Witch-Trials

Everyone is familiar with the concept of a witch-hunt. Witch-hunts appear in books, movies, television, and plays. The idea is so familiar that it has become metonymic for any situation in which a person is persecuted without evidence. But there is also a prodigious number of misconceptions about what witch-trials were, who led them, when they took place, and what they were really about.

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