page_title: List of common misconceptions
section_title: Middle Ages and Renaissance
hierarchical_section_title: List of common misconceptions / History / Middle Ages and Renaissance
caption_attribution_description: English: Illustration of the spherical earth in a medieval manuscript. The figure shows two men walking around the spherical earth, one going to the East and the other to the West, and meeting on the opposite side.[1] 14th century copy of a 12th century original
context_page_description: This is a list of common misconceptions. Each entry is formatted as a correction; the misconceptions themselves are implied rather than stated. These entries are meant to be concise, but more detail can be found in the main subject articles.
context_section_description: It is true that modern life expectancies are much higher, by any measure, than they were in the Middle Ages and earlier; however, "life expectancy" is commonly, and incorrectly, confused for the average age an adult could expect to live. This confusion may create the expectation that an adult would be unlikely to exceed a given average life expectancy, even though, with all statistical probability, an adult who has already avoided many causes of adolescent mortality should be expected to significantly outlive the average life expectancy calculated from birth. Age specific forecasts, particularly life expectancy after childhood, can be dramatically different from life expectancy at birth, especially in preindustrial times.
  There is no evidence that Vikings wore horns on their helmets. In fact, the image of Vikings wearing horned helmets stems from the scenography of an 1876 production of the Der Ring des Nibelungen opera cycle by Richard Wagner.
  Vikings did not drink out of the skulls of vanquished enemies. This was based on a mistranslation of the skaldic poetic use of ór bjúgviðum hausa (branches of skulls) to refer to drinking horns.
  Vikings did not name Iceland "Iceland" as a ploy to discourage others from settling it. Naddodd and Hrafna-Flóki Vilgerðarson both saw snow and ice on the island when they traveled there, giving the island its name. Greenland, on the other hand, was named in the hope that it would help attract settlers.
  King Canute did not command the tide to reverse in a fit of delusional arrogance. His intent that day, if indeed the incident did occur, was most likely to prove a point to members of his privy council that no man is all-powerful, and we all must bend to forces beyond our control, such as the tides.
  There is no evidence that iron maidens were used for torture, or even yet invented, in the Middle Ages. Instead they were pieced together in the 18th century from several artifacts found in museums in order to create spectacular objects intended for (commercial) exhibition.
  There is a common misconception that spiral staircases in castles rose in a clockwise direction to hinder right-handed attackers. While clockwise spiral staircases are more common in castles than anti-clockwise, they were even more common in medieval structures without a military role such as religious buildings. Studies of spiral stairs in castle have concluded that "the role and position of spirals in castles ... had a much stronger domestic and status role than a military function" and that "there are sufficient examples of anticlockwise stairs in Britain and France in [the 11th and 12th centuries] to indicate that the choice must have depended both on physical convenience and architectural practicalities and there was no military ideology that demanded clockwise staircases in the cause of fighting efficiency or advantage".
  The plate armor of European soldiers did not stop soldiers from moving around or necessitate a crane to get them into a saddle. They would as a matter of course fight on foot and could mount and dismount without help. In fact, soldiers equipped with plate armor were more mobile than those with mail armor (chain armor), as mail was heavier and required stiff padding beneath due to its pliable nature. It is true that armor used in tournaments in the late Middle Ages was significantly heavier than that used in warfare, which may have contributed to this misconception.
  Whether chastity belts, devices designed to prevent women from having sexual intercourse, were invented in medieval times is disputed by modern historians. Most existing chastity belts are now thought to be deliberate fakes or anti-masturbatory devices from the 19th and early 20th centuries. The latter were made due to the widespread belief that masturbation could lead to insanity, and were mostly bought by parents for their teenage children.
  Medieval Europeans did not believe Earth was flat. Scholars have known the Earth is spherical since at least 500 B.C. This myth was created in the 17th century by Protestants to argue against Catholic te
caption: Medieval depiction of a spherical Earth.
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