The so-called “Dark Ages” is a myth historians have spent years trying to disprove. Myth: the medieval period was a 'dark' time of irrationality In fact, some women became leaders in war, musicians, scientists, scribes, and political power players-though education was still off-limits to most women. Historians point to evidence of gender nonconformity and close same-sex relationships in medieval artwork and literature.Īnd not all medieval women were confined to domestic duties. Though the Catholic Church taught that homosexuality was sinful, attitudes toward same-sex desire varied. Nor were queer people absent from Middle Age societies. The analysis of 41 people revealed seven different places of origin, people of African ancestry, and people with dual white European and black African heritage. One 2019 study, for example, used DNA from bones in a Black Death cemetery in London to reveal a more diverse city than previously thought. Though travel was rudimentary compared to the modern age, racial, gender and even sexual diversity could be found throughout medieval society. Myth: Medieval Europe was homogenous and provincial So why does the myth persist to this day? Blame Washington Irving, a 19th-century American writer whose fantastical biography of Columbus was so well-loved that the myth of medieval flat-earthers stuck. That’s patently false: People knew the planet was a sphere as far back as ancient Greece (12th to 9th centuries B.C.), and had relatively complex astronomical and planetary knowledge by the time Christopher Columbus made his voyage to the Americas in 1492. Myth: Medieval people believed the world was flatĪ myth persists that during the Middle Ages, the unenlightened believed Earth was flat and worried that ships might even fall off the planet’s edge. Modern historians believe that handwashing only faded during the supposedly more enlightened 16th century, when the fork began replacing diners’ washed fingers at Renaissance tables. If dining with the king, they would wait for the monarch to publicly bathe his hands before sitting-proof of his powerful status. While peasants washed their hands, too, members of the aristocracy used lavish lavatories where they washed their hands as minstrels serenaded them. They even had elaborate rituals around handwashing before meals, especially in aristocratic circles. Of particular interest are the insights into the empire's relations with the Latin West, the Slavs, the Arabs, the Turks, and other neighboring peoples.Please be respectful of copyright. Geanakoplos not only covers the traditional areas of political, ecclesiastical, socioeconomic, administrative, and military life, but also provides a vivid picture of Byzantine culture-education, philosophy, literature, theology, medicine, and science. His selections from Byzantine writers as well as from more obscure documents and chronicles in Latin, Arabic, Slavic, Italian, Armenian, and French reflect all the diversity of Byzantine life-the military tactics of the long-invincible cataphract cavalry and the warships armed with Greek fire, the mysticism of Hesychast monks, the duties of imperial officers, the activities of daily life from the Hippodrome and Hagia Sophia to the marketplaces, baths, and brothels. letters), but haveĭeno John Geanakoplos here offers a prodigious collection of source materials on the Byzantine church, society, and civilization (many translated for the first time into English), arranged chronologically and topically, and knit together with an analytical historical commentary. Published at the time of their creation (e.g. Posters, advertising images, paintings, prints, and illustrations),Īnd literary works. Lives, charters, legal codes, maps, graphic material (e.g. Institutions, treatises and polemical writings, chronicles, saints' Range of publications, including first-person accounts, memoirs,ĭocuments, court records, reports of associations, organizations and In general, published primary source material covers a wide Look for subject headings in the library catalog that use the following terms: Include diaries, letters, family records, statistics, speeches, interviews, A primary source is a document, recording or other source of information createdĪt the time being studied, by an authoritative source, usually one withĭirect personal knowledge of the events being described.
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