Medieval Myths and Misconceptions

The thousand years between 500 and 1500 get a bad reputation they only partly deserve. People were not stupid. They were working with the tools they had, which did not yet include the microscope, the printing press, or the idea that you should test a claim before repeating it. So they believed disease came from bad air, that the Earth sat fixed at the centre of everything, that barnacle geese hatched from trees, and that the right balance of bodily fluids would cure almost anything. Some of these ideas came straight from the ancient authorities, quoted with such confidence that questioning them felt like arrogance. The medieval mistake was not inventing nonsense. It was trusting old books over fresh observation. We still do it.