korrents

korrents · piece

On what Americans know about medieval history

Eleanor Janega · 30 Apr 2025

Others here said this too

The Renaissance and early modern period were not a better time to be alive than the Middle Ages they are said to have rescued Europe from.

Their wordsI am not here to tell you that the medieval period is a specifically peaceful time, but it pales in comparison to what goes down in the early modern period, in which both the apparently beloved Renaissance and Enlightenment periods lie.

Also said by Ada Palmer

Read the piece on going-medieval.com ↗

2 korrents from this piece ↓

Eleanor Janega did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

  1. Our reading

    The Renaissance and early modern period were not a better time to be alive than the Middle Ages they are said to have rescued Europe from.

    Their wordsI am not here to tell you that the medieval period is a specifically peaceful time, but it pales in comparison to what goes down in the early modern period, in which both the apparently beloved Renaissance and Enlightenment periods lie.

  2. Our reading

    How harshly people judge the Middle Ages tracks how little they know about it.

    Their wordsClearly as well we see that the more people know about the medieval period, the more likely they are to be correct about it.

Keep reading

The other pieces are the ones whose claims are worded most like this one's. That measures language, not agreement: they may argue the opposite.