The Medieval Misinformation Detox Thread

[Sturgeon]

This is for posting resources that refute common misinformation about the Medieval world. Boy is there a lot of it; I expect this thread to last virtually forever.

To start:

[LostCosmonaut]

I was considering posting THE GRAPH, but since I'm not that much of an asshole, I'll just mention the phantom time hypothesis, as I find it quite amusing.

 

If you want to disprove the whole shtick about science advancement stopping in the middle ages, simply remember the existence of the Arab world at the time.

 

Also,

 

[Toxn]

Geez, we could be doing this one for a while.

 

It doesn't help that 'medieval' is a real lumper sort of term - it covers a shit-ton of history, area and development.

[Sturgeon]

LET THE GAMES BEGIN, TOX

[xthetenth]

I was considering posting THE GRAPH, but since I'm not that much of an asshole, I'll just mention the phantom time hypothesis, as I find it quite amusing.

 

If you want to disprove the whole shtick about science advancement stopping in the middle ages, simply remember the existence of the Arab world at the time.

 

Compare the scale of iron and steel production at the start of the early modern to the classical period. Compare the ability to make large castings and the like. The industrial steam engine has way more in common with the early modern cannon than the classical aeolipile.

 

Or if you want to be a real jerk, compare post third century Rome to Pax Romana Rome. They're vastly different creatures, and The Graph™'s hypothesis falls apart totally when confronted with late Western Rome having as much in common with the early medieval as the height of the empire. The collapse of trade and devolution to a local economy was a huge change, and the end of the crisis only somewhat ameliorated things.

 

But the start of the feudal manor with workers tied to the land was Domitian's reforms at the end of the Crisis of the Third Century, and a lot of the social structures in the previous western empire's territory are a much smoother progression from the late empire than usually presented because face it, what the barbarians wanted more than anything else was to become Romans. Stuff like the Vandal kingdom and the Visigothic Kingdom are trying to be successor states to Rome and continue on, but the final destruction of the Roman trade network during the Arab expansion finally hosed that plan.

[Toxn]

LET THE GAMES BEGIN, TOX

 

I'LL SEE YOUR 'INQUISITION' AND RAISE YOU A 'KNIGHTS HAD TO BE HOISTED INTO THE SADDLE'.

[Sturgeon]

Fun fact: The Inquisition at its height killed people at a lower rate than the State of Texas.

[Toxn]

A fact which, fittingly enough, nobody expects.

[xthetenth]

I'LL SEE YOUR 'INQUISITION' AND RAISE YOU A 'KNIGHTS HAD TO BE HOISTED INTO THE SADDLE'.

 

Knights had to be hoisted into the saddle is one of my favorites. Fencing in a full harness bears as much resemblance to wrestling or judo as the sort of dramatic swordfighting where the heroes wade through bad guys with the sort of cuts that'd only really work against unarmored opposition. When the guys wearing that sort of armor attack each other's balance so you can get to where you can hit the other guy in his weak points as much as anything else, you'd better well be able to move in it. Some things are clumsy or awkward, but if you can't move you can't fight.

 

 

 

I mean you're not going to be doing things like assaulting walls with dudes in full harnesses if they can't move pretty well. It's like effete Victorian fencers not being able to wave a real sword around with their fingers and proclaiming weapons that people actually used with their lives on the line were unusably heavy and incompatible with Technique and all sorts of lovely victorianisms.

[Sturgeon]

I think a lot of the armor myths come from bad reproductions from the 16th century onwards.

I can only imagine what sort of myths will become common about guns in a few hundred years.

[Donward]

As always relevant. 

 

[xthetenth]

I think a lot of the armor myths come from bad reproductions from the 16th century onwards.

I can only imagine what sort of myths will become common about guns in a few hundred years.

 

I'd kind of be surprised if the mythology became quite that bad because we've got a huge amount of documentation of the things in use, so if they decide to use them in cripplingly moronic ways there's evidence that no, they're bad and wrong.

[Sturgeon]

You underestimate the incompetence of the theater, X.

[Toxn]

I'd kind of be surprised if the mythology became quite that bad because we've got a huge amount of documentation of the things in use, so if they decide to use them in cripplingly moronic ways there's evidence that no, they're bad and wrong.

Documentation fades.

Anyway, I think it's more a case of future people doing things that are completely, obviously stupid to modern folk out of ignorance and the fact that a lot of knowledge was so obvious that it never got written down. To see a simulation of this, invite some completely unexposed people over for paintball, then wince as they do every bad gun handling thing at once.

[xthetenth]

This is very true. However, has there been any culture so dedicated to the generation of reams of information regarding the everyday and the banal as the current one? Actually it's going to be interesting, because we keep so much data but we keep our data with such impermanent methods.

 

You underestimate the incompetence of the theater, X.

They already grossly misrepresent, and yet there's plenty of information out there on how to do things well and how things really work. There's stuff giving perspectives on things that got no ink in antiquity these days. A huge amount of what we know about the lives of anyone who wasn't an elite is kept in what they used and their stuff, but now basically anyone can write at length. You've got all sorts of video of people shooting well and discussing the nuances of modern guns, for example. It's got to be a lot easier dealing with biased sources when they aren't literally the only source on the matter at hand.