Friday, July 23, 2021

The Truth about the Middle Ages


 From El País:

So much so, that Spain’s top scholars of medieval history have signed a manifesto defending the good name of the period they have devoted their career to. The Middle Ages, they say, are an essential time to understand the world we live in today. Without medieval times, we wouldn’t have the majority of languages that we speak today, there would be no time measurement, or many of the recipes that we use to prepare our favorite meals, or even some of the cities that we live in. We wouldn’t even know about the ancient Greek and Roman classics, since these works were preserved in medieval monasteries.

“We can say that ‘medieval’ has been used to describe anything related to backwardness, ignorance, lack of culture, unwholesome habits, barbarity, cruelty, fanaticism, horror, poverty, monstrosity, violence...” reads the manifesto that emerged from a seminar titled The medieval legacy, organized by María Jesús Fuente and held at the Julio Caro Baroja Historiography Institute at Carlos III University in Madrid, where De la Fuente is an emeritus professor in medieval history. (Read more.)
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1 comment:

AJ said...

Happy to see more people defending the middle ages. Underrated period.