Middle Ages facts

While investigating facts about Middle Ages Timeline and Middle Ages Definition, I found out little known, but curios details like:

When the Nazis burned Sigmund Freud's books he said, "What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now, they are content with burning my books."

how middle ages ended?

The original word for 'bear' has been lost. People in middle ages were superstitious and thought saying the animal's name would summon it. They called it 'bear' which means 'the brown one' to avoid saying its actual name.

What happened in the middle ages?

In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across answering what time period was the middle ages. Here are 50 of the best facts about Middle Ages Time Period and Middle Ages Brewery I managed to collect.

what was life like in the middle ages?

1. About Perpetual Stew, common in the middle ages, it was a stew that was kept constantly stewing in a pot and rarely emptied, just constantly replenished with whatever items they could throw in it.

2. There was a group of middle aged women called “Snapists” who believed that they were married to Severus Snape on the ‘astral plane’ and that he controlled their lives. An independent researcher published an in-depth paper on the matter.

3. In the middle ages Christian priests would recite "hoc est corpus", meaning "this is the body", during mass when turning bread into the body of Christ. Since nobody spoke or understood Latin, this chant was garbled into "hocus pocus", which we still use when performing magic tricks today.

4. Fried Chicken was invented by the Scottish and dates back to the middle ages.

5. During the Middle Ages, members of guilds were referred to as “masters.” Artisans who wanted to join a guild were required to prepare a “master piece” to be judged for qualification. If the masters approved of the piece, that artisan would be accepted into the guild.

6. A man born premature with cerebral palsy, was unable to swallow on his own until the age of 1, is blind, was unable to speak or walk until the age of 16, began playing Tchaikovsky's Concerto No.1 on piano in the middle of the night at age 16. He now can play any song after hearing it only once.

7. During the middle Ages saffron was so expensive some traders would try to increase their profits by bulking up the herb with yellow marigold petals. When authorities in Nuremberg, where the herb was mainly traded, found out about these tainted parcels of saffron, the traders were burned alive.

8. During the early Middle Ages, almost every scholar thought the Earth was round, not flat. The myth that they thought earth is flat back, picked up steam in the 1800s, right around the same time the idea of evolution was rising in prominence — and religious and scientific interests clashed.

9. In the Middle Ages, being lovesick was a considered real disease, caused by humoral imbalance, and treated by exposure to light, gardens, calm and rest, inhalations, and warm baths, as well as with a diet of lamb, lettuce, eggs, fish, and ripe fruit.

Middle Ages data charts

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Why middle ages were dark?

You can easily fact check why middle ages called middle by examining the linked well-known sources.

The Spanish Flu, which killed 5% of the world’s population, was especially lethal to healthy adults. This happened because their strong immune reactions ravaged the body, whereas the weaker immune systems of children and middle-aged adults resulted in fewer deaths among those groups.

In the middle ages some kings had clothes made from "Salamander fur" which were completely fire-proof and bright white. The name likely comes from the common belief that Salamanders were "born from fire". The clothes were actually made out of asbestos. - source

According to data from the 2017 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), Americans 55 years and older are now more likely to be regular cannabis consumers than middle- and high school-aged teenagers. - source

People of the Middle Ages widely accepted the Earth was spherical. The notion they thought the world was flat is actually a misconception.

Tony Iommi lost the tips of his middle and ring finger in an accident at the age of 17. He ended up tuning his strings to lower pitches so that the thimbles he had fitted could bend the strings more easily. This lead to Black Sabbath's distinctive sound and the invention of heavy metal. - source

When middle ages ended?

One of the Popes was a 100% accident. In the Middle Ages, cardinals would often vote for a random candidate on the first papal ballot in order to see how the other cardinals were leaning, but in 1334 this backfired when they all voted for the same person: the very surprised Pope Benedict XII.

How did the black death end the middle ages?

Tom Hanks in Castaway allowed himself to gain weight to fit the role of a middle-aged man. Production was then halted for a year so he could lose 50 pounds and grow out his hair for his time spent on the island. During the hiatus, Robert Zemeckis used the same crew for What Lies Beneath.

Virtually all Middle Ages scholars believed that the Earth is spherical. The myth that people in the Middle Ages thought the earth is flat appears to date from the 17th century as part of the campaign by Protestants against Catholic teaching.

An unassuming middle-aged Texas woman who dressed as a male cowboy and robbed several banks without using a weapon. She was eventually caught and served 15 years. Upon her release, "Cowboy Bob," now 60, robbed another bank and was killed during her escape when she pulled a toy gun on police.

Mark Whalberg served 45 days for attempted murder after beating a middle-aged Vietnamese man unconscious while calling him "Vietnamese f**king sh*t"

Mrs. Miller, a middle-aged housewife with no formal music training, whose first album "Mrs. Miller's Greatest Hits" consisted of badly sung covers of popular pop songs from bands such as The Beatles. Her album reached #15 on the Billboard's Top Albums chart in 1966.

Middle ages infographics

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