On what Americans know about medieval history

Eleanor Janega · 30 Apr 2025 · 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.

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.

Interesting
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.

Interesting