Common myths about the Middle Ages

[Evie]

Writing Tips may seem an odd section to put this thread in, but I'm posting this here in an effort to keep the same tired old misconceptions about medieval life from being perpetuated in our fictional medieval world. (Not that I've seen it happen here, but in Hollywood depictions of the medieval period...Oy!  And even people with a strong love of the period sometimes still parrot misconceptions about it, like "In the Middle Ages, peasants thought the Earth was flat even if the monks didn't, and people didn't bathe.")


https://www.quora.com/What-are-examples-of-things-that-are-common-knowledge-about-history-that-historians-almost-universally-consider-incorrect

What set me off this time was an online article asserting that medieval wines were all so vile that they had to have spices added to make them drinkable. Um, no. They had good wines and bad wines, just as we do, just not our ability to preserve them for years, and no amount of spicing will make a bad wine miraculously taste good. And even today, a lot of people still enjoy mulled wine. At least I do. But only if it's made with good wine!