Here’s an interesting list from Lists Unlimited: Top Ten Myths About the Middle Ages. It’s pretty good.
I dislike the modern definition of “myth” to mean “false belief,” but I guess that ship has long sailed.
One point I’d modify is the one about bathing in the Middle Ages. The term “Middle Ages” covers a whole lot of territory, and is used in different ways by different historians. My particular period of interest, the Viking Age, used to be considered part of “The Dark Ages.” The Dark Ages were reckoned to cover (more or less) that part of European History commencing with the fall of Rome and ending with the Norman Conquest of England. The designation was not, technically, meant as a moral judgment, but just a reflection of the fact that records from the period were sparse. Rulers tended to just do stuff, without bothering about writing it down, or if they did, those records were likely to have gotten lost or destroyed. So the history was dark in terms of being hard to see.
Nowadays the term “Dark Ages” has gone out of fashion. Historians now generally call it “The Early Middle Ages.” There’s some justification for this, as new discoveries, especially in the field of archaeology (where they’re now able to learn amazing stuff through the use of modern technology) have shed a lot of light on the period.
But if the Dark Ages is considered part of the Middle Ages now, I know for a fact that bathing was not, in fact, common in England during that period. Gwyn Jones, in his A History of the Vikings, says:
It is reported in the chronicle attributed to John of Wallingford that the Danes, thanks to their habit of combing their hair every day, of bathing every Saturday and regularly changing their clothes, were able to undermine the virtue of married women and even seduce the daughters of nobles to be their mistresses.
The Anglo-Saxons, you see, considered bathing unnatural, unmanly and immoral. I’ve read that St. Francis (centuries later), an admirable fellow in other respects, considered bathing an actual sin. So you’ve got to ask, “Where in the Middle Ages?” and “When in the Middle Ages?” And “Who in the Middle Ages?” too, if you want to be fulsome.
But I don’t care to nitpick too much. Generalizations are good things, properly employed, and when not expected to bear more weight than they were designed for.
The Norwegian word for Saturday, by the way, is lørdag, which means “washing day.” It goes all the way back to the cultural tradition mentioned by John of Wallingford.
Good observations. I enjoyed the “10 Myths” list, and as a writer of educational materials, I’ve actually often written to dispel some of those same myths. I believe that the myths persist as part of the hubris of the 20th century combined with the determined efforts of many to undermine opinions of “dead white European males,” especially during a period viewed by many as being particularly religious. If they were European and Christian, and they can be made to look horrible, then it’s easier to dismiss Christianity and hate men (or at least not want men to be heads of families).
As for not bathing in England, with no central heating, taking off your clothes and getting wet in winter could be lethal. But perfumes, “strewing herbs,” and pomanders kept things from getting too unbreathable.
Hot water down the back is one of God’s good gifts. I would have had a hard time in any era that discouraged it.
Anti-medieval prejudice is certainly popular in the 20th Century, but I think it actually first appeared in the Enlightenment, with its passion for eliminating “superstition.” An Age of Faith, in the view of men like Voltaire, must necessarily have been an age of squalor and cruelty.
I was going to touch on the issues of the death penalty and witch hunts too. I think I pointed out in Wolf Time that, while most people think of witch hunts as a medieval thing, they actually were fairly rare during that time. They reached their fullest flower (a very ugly flower) during the Renaissance.
20th century hubris is something we should all rally against. We cannot allow ourselves to be so foolish as to think we are the rare few in civilization’s history to see things clearly. Maybe we one thing clearer than our forefathers, but we have our blind spots too. And any new morality of the current day is doing a great job spoiling our liberty and pursuit of happiness.