What are some other misconceptions about the "Middle Ages"?

@thomasinefitzpatrick

2 ай бұрын

Neato ^.^

@davea6314

2 ай бұрын

You didn't mention that salmon was plentiful and considered cheap poor people's food in England (and other places) in the Middle Ages.

@weepingscorpion8739

2 ай бұрын

Well, there was the Nordic renaissance. So in the 12th and 13th centuries you have people writing things like The First Grammatical Treatise and then you have people like Snorri Sturluson writing down Nordic stories; in fact most of what we know of Medieval Nordic culture is from this period.

@davea6314

2 ай бұрын

Most knights in the middle ages were permitted to be brutal in their treatment of peasants.

@theanimerican

2 ай бұрын

The lack of cannons and firearms. Sure it wasn't around during the earlier centuries of what this video defines as Middle Ages, but they showed up on battlefields as early as the Battle of Crecy in the Hundred Years War when full plate steel armor was still around and used. They also predate certain swords, like the rapier.

"final thoughts" *outro plays lol

The Columbus thing came from Washington Irving writing about him to create an Italian American hero for the children of Italian immigrants. And, yeah...he didn't care about actual history or even where Columbus was from at all.

@MW_Asura

2 ай бұрын

Trying to make an Italian/Genoese guy from the 16th century an "Italian American" lmao. The projection and attempt at claiming someone from another country is strong with that one

@Merennulli

2 ай бұрын

@@MW_Asura He wrote several historical fictions that got passed off as history. He treated history like Michael Bay treats movies from the 80s.

well guess we'll never know those final thoughts, video just cut to the end credits/suggested videos. Good video though Mr Terry

Not just the Greeks but the Abbasids who also calculated the circumference of the earth and came pretty close

Europe really wasn't closed off at any period. Charlemagne corresponded not just with the Byzantine Empress/Emperor but also with the Caliph in Baghdad (and the one in Cordoba). Parts of Europe (most of Spain, southern Italy) wre at various times part of the Byzantine or Arab empires. There's even Arab coinage in Viking graves. As for another myth, there are still people who appear to think that all battles were was a bunch of knights on each side charging each other and fighting it out. And that commanders weren't really thinking about anything but finding the enemy army and having a battle. That's really not true.

@theanimerican

2 ай бұрын

From what I remember, Charlemagne also attempted to marry into the Byzantine Empire, which may have united the Roman Empire into a one again. (Doubtful, plus he got turned down.) One of the more interesting things that was said to have happened was Charlemagne receiving exotic animals animals as gifts, such as elephants. Goes to show that all those routes and knowledge didn't just completely disappear. If anything, Europe as a whole didn't get closed off, but populatiosn of people that migrated away from the cities after the fall probably were.

@davidtherwhanger6795

2 ай бұрын

I blame Hollywood for that last one.

I believe you forgot to add the final thoughts lol 😂

Bravo Mister Terry! Allow me the ONE time this year I get to use my MA in Byzantine History: THANK YOU for remembering us! LOL Byzantine Literacy rates are thought to be between 25%-30% - FAR above the 10%-15% in the West, but BOTH rates are waaaaay higher than most think. As for spices, I can't TELL you how many people have told me about the "it covered the taste of spoiled meat". Really now. When Cloves were being used, it was common for the mistress of the home to literally count them out to her cook and after the meal demand every single spike be returned. The nobility and wealthy used spices heavily (seriously, try some mediaeval French recipes... WHOA weird) - but 1) they were new and exciting and 2) they were EXPENSIVE and when one's status depended on display, you had to display your wealth, so while Venison spiced with Cloves, Nutmeg, Cinnamon, Saffron, Allspice, etc. might seem horrid to modern tastes, at the time it was a way of FLAUNTING your wealth and status (also, some spices were forbidden to lower classes). Okay, I'll shut up. Thank you for bringing a BIG smile to my day!

You didn't mention that salmon was plentiful and considered cheap poor people's food in England (and other places) in the Middle Ages.

@thomasmacdiarmid8251

2 ай бұрын

Shrimp was also poor people's food. Look at Murillo's most famous orphan-in-the-street painting. The boy has at his feet some fruit and shrimp. These were cheap but healthy foods available to feed the poor. It was mammal meat, and maybe fowl, that were either explicitly limited to the wealthy/nobility or too expensive for anyone else. There were laws at most periods of English history prohibiting hunting, apparently so the king's (or other nobility?) hunters could put feasts of venison on the tables. Perhaps the most common protein for the peasantry was salted fish.

@LGBTQLegend

2 ай бұрын

I imagine anything that can be caught in large quantities relatively easily would be very accessible food. That's kind of how markets work.

Honestly I love those final thoughts, they just add so much context to the video

Byzantines were definitely killin it, until they didnt.

I honestly remember being taught in school that people before Columbus discovering America believed that t he earth was flat. I mean I have a clear memory of that being taught in school. I even remember the slide show of Columbus arguing with people about the earth being a ball and set out to prove it and discovered America instead. I even remember the slides having the people he was arguing with laughing at him and saying he was going to fall off the earth.

@orlock20

2 ай бұрын

Yes and there was at least a school cartoon explaining that. My guess is that people were confusing the telescope with people thinking the world is flat. Galileo sold telescopes to the military to fund his projects. The selling point was that people would be able to see enemy flags farther away including ship flags as they came over the horizon.

@CrisSelene

2 ай бұрын

There's a Mel-O-Toons cartoon about Columbus from the '60s that is exactly like you described those slides. I think they your teacher took some inspiration from that

@fredsvlogandreviews5867

2 ай бұрын

@@CrisSelene ​ @orlock20 I do remember the cartoon as well. I was thinking of this video last night and thinking ok is this another case of the Mandela effect where I remember something different than everyone else. Also I do think the Mandela effect is related to Mondegreen and Eggcorn . I just kind of feel that all 3 are the same type of deal but could be wrong.

@Novice9241

2 ай бұрын

In my school, where Columbus was touched on, I remember that the history book only said that he wanted to find a sea route to India through west.

@fredsvlogandreviews5867

2 ай бұрын

@@Novice9241 Hmm interesting I do not recall that at all. Then again it was over 30 years ago.

correction: nobody "knew" the earth was round until Ferdinand Magellan's expedition had successfully reached Asia via the Pacific ocean. many people believed or correctly assumed it to be round, but nobody actually knew.

Well, meat wasn't actually rare in a medieval diet. Depending on the place and the period, there are estimates that meat consumption in the Middle Ages was at times even considerably higher than today. The thing is, by far most of the meat that was consumed had been preserved - think of bacon and sausages, for instance. Fresh meat was rare indeed, and for most people it was only available during slaugthering seasons, such as the beginning of winter.

@rsync9490

2 ай бұрын

I heard crab and lobster was dirt cheap but chicken was for the nobles.

One thing to note is that while people from back then probably didn't bathe as often as we do today (they still bathed regularly, just not daily), they were still cleaner and smelt better than most people now-a-days think since they regularly changed and washed the layer of clothes closest to their skin. The chemise/smock was the undermost garment and was made of linen, which is naturally very absorbent and can easily stand multiple washes, and everyone wore it. Go and watch any video on fashion history, and really, people wore this piece of clothing from early Medieval times through to the early 20th century, and we can see similar garments from different cultures all over. Remember: these people were still people, and were just as smart as we are today. They just didn't have the same level of cumulative knowledge or opportunities to learn that we have in our modern day.

@tylarjackson7928

2 ай бұрын

We have better nutrition, understand the importance of sleep, and know much more about illnesses that effect the brain. I think we're probably much smarter on average than the typical person back then. I'm speaking of both "processing power" and actual crystallized intelligence here. We're better on both accounts for the reasons I mentioned.

TedEd : an 18th century biography of Christopher Columbus MrTerry: I don't know where that idea came from

@Myomer104

Ай бұрын

What he meant was why that biographer put in that idea.

The idea that people in the past were too stupid to wash themselves 😂

@LGBTQLegend

2 ай бұрын

How does one put water on self? I can't figure it out.

Something interesting about your statement that peasants rarely got to have meat in their diet: That actually depends on how you define the word "meat." What the word meat tended to mean back then, and what purists today continue to keep as the only thing they accept as meat? Yes, absolutely, the actual muscle tissue of animals was a rare treat for peasants, except in places where hunters could ply their trade legally (as opposed to the crown saying "no, all the animals of the land are mine to hunt, you can't do that!"). But, like...all those non-muscle fleshy bits that are fully edible to human beings? Like, the liver, lungs, intestines, etc.? As long as they came from an animal they raised, themselves, (like a sheep or a pig), peasants were generally allowed to keep those parts. So, as long as your definition of meat includes any fleshy bits that humans can eat, even if it's not actual muscle tissue, then meat was actually a fair bit easier for (some) peasants to come by, than many people have been lead to believe.

@DaZebraffe

2 ай бұрын

Heck, it was even something not unheard of, for some members of nobility to only want the choicest cuts of meat for themselves, so some peasants were even allowed to keep some actual muscle tissue, that their Lords/Ladies/etc. just didn't have any interest in.

Regarding medieval literacy: A reason why it was believed to be so low is that several scholars defined it as being able to read and write *Latin*, which wasn't that common (and still isn't). Most people could read and write in their own languages just fine.

4:22 meet was certainly not as plentiful as it is now, but peasants could get a hold of some meat. You did a lot of pottage for your main meal, lots of stews to make the meat stretch. But yeah they weren't eating steaks and hamburgers every day.

The man who invented the brazen bull was the first victim as the king didn't think it would work

My understanding of chastity belts is that they were an early modern anti-masturbation device from after science had figured out losing lots of blood was bad for you but before they realized semen wasn't concentrated blood. The name comes from a spiritual discipline to avoid prostitutes etc. that was shown by a belt. According to legend, it began with Thomas Aquinas receiving a belt from an angel after chasing off a prostitute.

@thomasmacdiarmid8251

2 ай бұрын

I have also heard that they were actually a device that women used to protect themselves from rape, but that they would have known where any key was, as they would have needed it for bathroom and menstruation times.

Those were some controversial final thoughts there, Mr. Terry

Maybe the most maligned era is the dark ages but learning more about it, so much was going on. The ostrogoths were popping off for example

There are actually interesting cooking youtube channels like "Modern History TV" and "Tasting History with Max Miller" that delve into what peasants ate. Could be interesting reaction videos too perhaps.

@claudelorrain-bouchard6941

2 ай бұрын

Look up "What did Peasants eat in medieval times", it contends that "Salmon" was "peasant food" in some regions.

BA medieval history here. One of the myths I still see popping up now and then is the jus primae noctis.

We can radio-carbon date artifacts and match them to their era. Like you can be sure that when some artifact from caesar's time ends up dating to more or less precisely 2025 years ago or whatever then that there aren't any "missing centuries".

Not many people realize this but most of our medical science we have happened in the last 100 years. Before the 1900s our medical knowledge was extremely limited. Death by disease/chronic conditions was the most common killer among most of history. Many people think war was the biggest killer but disease killed far more.

@poochyenajones1362

2 ай бұрын

That's why the discovery of penicillin was followed by such dramastic boost in population worldwide.

This isn't just related to the Middle Ages but the idea that people think washing yourself without soap does nothing. I've seen sooo many times people not realizing you can wash yourself with just clean water.

@poochyenajones1362

2 ай бұрын

Yeah, I mean we do wash fruits and vegetable with just water and then eat it and that's seems to be enough.

Your final thoughts are getting snappier, I have to say

In Danish history, I was taught that our middle age period was from around 1050 to 1500, as we had the Viking Era from around 700 till around 1050. So some of the people in other comments that mentioned the years 500-1000 being darker due to barbarians and such... our ancestors might have helped make those years darker.

@reineh3477

24 күн бұрын

I think we were pretty civilized, after we settled in different places (Danish in England and Swedish in Ukraine / Western Russia) we brought law and order. Vikings had courts where a group of people (today jury) decided what the punishment should be. Viking women also had the right to vote.

i always wanted to know where the dragons came from or the knight in shining armour

Uneducated and illiterate are two very different things! Arguably young people were better educated for the lives that they would live in the middle ages than they are today. Apprenticeships stretching from age 9-13 going through to 18-20 would set you up to immediately enter the work force once you were of age.

@paha4209

2 ай бұрын

The illiterate thing is also debateable for a big part of the middle ages. For a lot of areas and times during the middle ages illiterate ment not being able to read and write Latin. We do have some evidence of working class people writing letters or notes. Also i guess it would be very hard for most craftsmen to do their job without having a basic concept on how to read/write their native language (dialect) and do math. Even a servant in a household like a maid would have a far easier time if the could write things down and didn´t have to do her chores or buying groceries from memory.

Medieval peasants had access to lots of pork. They also sometimes got fish.

If the "Byzantine" empire was not a continuation of the Roman Empire then what was it? a greek empire that popped up suddenly after the collapse of the Roman Empire? The Eastern Roman Empire had been existing in its current form a hundred years before the west fell, and it continued governing itself the same exact way until 1453. The only reason we call it the Byzantine Empire is because of the inability of the papacy to recognize female empress Irene of Athens

no final thoughts i guess

so in essence, it was a bunch of city folk (renaissance italians) who thought rural life was 'oh so terrible' without their luxuries

@poochyenajones1362

2 ай бұрын

Yeah, centuries pass but people seem to remain the same.

My 40s were pretty rough, too. Oh, wait, those Middle Ages.

Fun fact, hygiene was actually better during the "Middle Ages" than during the Renaissance in the upper classes. xD

I think with the Flesh consum its depends extrem about when in the end of the medieval era Flesh consum was extremely high! And about Medieval Peasant Food isnt not much known!

Washington Irving wrote about Columbus proving the earth was round

It's the brazen bull

@killerkraut9179

2 ай бұрын

And was more a antiquity thing!

Good morning

3:56 That is false afaik. Peasants ate meat regularly because the were the ones raising the animals. Also working as a farmer the whole day through out the year needs a lot of energy and is not likely to be achieved with a mostly vegetarian diet. Another myth I know of is that the people only drank beer and whine because the water was polluted. It would have been very hard to even pollute a bigger stream in the middle ages and it's hard to brew good beer from polluted water. The reason is more likely that water that has been in a bucket for a while became stale while beer and whine have a taste.

@thomasmacdiarmid8251

2 ай бұрын

I had always thought the pollution spoken of was infections, especially cholera. Water can seem very clean but still have cholera, particularly near population centers. There is, however, a lot more to medieval sanitation than most people are aware, though it could be spotty and some areas did better than others. They did not have the germ theory, but the 'miasma theory' (literally bad air) was a 'first cut' at germ theory, though very crude and incomplete. At least it recognized the connection between disease and those things which stink.

@paha4209

2 ай бұрын

@@thomasmacdiarmid8251Cholera didn´t exist in medievil europe. Cholera came from India in the 18th or 19th century via british ships. People also knew that running water is far better than water that doesn´t move. Most wells in cities were fountains. Yes germs could´ve been a problem but simple trial and error could solve that problem without loosing too many people due to unsanatary water. Some areas might have had water sources that weren´t clean but people then simply didn´t use that water for drinking water. Still people consumed a lot of water via Beer, Tea, Soup or Stew or drank it from a fountain or the source.

7:43 I mean the first 500 years, or at least the first 300 were pretty dark with all the barbarian invasions, but once you get to the high medieval times of 1100s and 1200s. It's certainly a lot less dark

I wonder what someone like this thinks of biracial marriage. My wife is from the Philippines so does that mean I'm appropriating her culture everytime I eat her cooking or celebrate the holidays in Filipino style?

no final thougths lol

Rome never fell, the pope is still the legitimate power in the city after having been given land by the emperor. He just changed the government from a monarchy to a theology

The whole dark ages was just the Gen X ridiculing baby boomers but those jokes were taken seriously by the millenials

Most knights in the middle ages were permitted to be brutal in their treatment of peasants.

@RLKmedic0315

2 ай бұрын

Even then it was more "casual brutality" then specific torture. But being landed gentry was certainly allowed to get away with a lot we would find reprehensible

☦️Byzantium☦️

people get it wrong all the time. it isn't the fall of rome in the 5th century until the the renaissance in the 15th century. its actually the fall of rome in the 5th century until the rise of the english/british empire in the 15th century. my evidence? 1) both brought great advancements to the world. 2) both had a smaller highly trained army plus colonial/auxiliary forces 3) they both wore the iconic red. 4) it upsets the other countries who aren't, but want to be the successor to rome. 5) im biased.

@killerkraut9179

2 ай бұрын

It depends on the criterias! Was the english empire even so powerfull arround the Year 1501? Point 1 the advancement in Book printing came from Germany! Did the british not start with the red in the 17.century!

@bigenglishmonkey

2 ай бұрын

@@killerkraut9179 -zero colonies, the empires official start is 1583 -frankly, thats nothing compared to the industrial revolution, britain is literally credited with creating the modern world. -didn't care, they're both iconic looks in red. -i was taking the piss, hence the bias comment at the end.

I’m 103yrs old and my story is related, well I can’t say much but I finally got to retire thanks to LUCAS ERICK KZread CHANNEL!!!!!

@LGBTQLegend

2 ай бұрын

Bots. Mr Terry remove this. These are spam bots.

@tylarjackson7928

2 ай бұрын

​​@@LGBTQLegendYeah, and that "I'm 103" is definitely the reason for a lot of these likes. People just see it and say "Oh how cute, no clue what he's talking about, but he's just old so it's not his fault". Dang crafty scammers. This is the top comment under this video. Really needs to be deleted. Also, the man in that pic is max like, 55.

@LGBTQLegend

2 ай бұрын

@@tylarjackson7928 They're most likely fake likes. Scammers can create bot accounts that just like their scam comments. Happens all the time.

@s.alexander3869

2 ай бұрын

They are probably victims of phishing Emails

1800_1900 Islamic history bye jabzy

argh... sry, I always get riled up when I hear Americans talking about historic events in Europe before the discovery of America, as if those are totally alien and odd to "Americans". Please, remind me, where did early "Americans" emigrate from ? American history is European history. America did not fall out of the sky, their people came from other places, many from Europe. So, please, replace the phrase "Europeans did" or "Europeans believed" with "our grandfather did" and "our grandfathers believed".

OF COURSE they had to shoehorn in a message about diversity, hahahahaha

@yingfortheking

2 ай бұрын

gonna cry about it?

@v0rtexbeater

Ай бұрын

​@@yingforthekingI'm quite literally laughing, stop projecting