Being a medieval historian is weird, in general. I spend a lot of time reading and thinking about a thousand years of history which is largely ignored. When I do manage to then attempt to share my love (or obsession, if you want to be a dick about it) I am often met very specifically with pushback from people who have a deeply held, preconceived idea of the medieval period as ‘violent, dark, and dirty.’ Admittedly my experience could be anecdata. Maybe there is something about being so so cute and fun that makes haters flock to me, specifically, to say incorrect things. However, luckily for me I had a chance to actually look at some honest to god data about this, thanks to the hard work of David Montgomery, Senior Data Journalist at yougov, who blessedly took the time to poll a bunch of Americans to see what they thought about the best millennium. In my opinion these results say a lot about society, so we’re gonna look at them today.
So let’s start off with the first poll. Now I am not a huge fan of attempting to demarcate the so-called Dark Ages, or early Middle Ages, from the rest of the Middle Ages, but overall this is instructive. I … am not unhappy with the number of people who view the Middle Ages positively? Thirty-four percent is pretty good, given the amount of bad press we are constantly having to work against. What is not good is that an equal number of people still have an unfavourable opinion of the medieval period. Even worse, the poor Dark Ages are languishing at only seventeen-percent favourability, with fifty-two percent of people being ignorant weirdos about it. I know I go on about this all the time, but it is hugely ironic that a bunch pf people who literally don’t know anything about the Early Middle Ages therefore blame that period for their own laziness. Like yeah man, those were the stupid people. Not you, the person who probably couldn’t even point to the period on a timeline.
It’s also interesting to see how influence propaganda has on these opinions. We have a sixty-two percent favourability rating for the god-damned Renaissance. The irony here is I am almost certain that if I asked these Renaissance lovers why they liked it so much they would say something about emerging from the superstition, bigotry, and ignorance of the medieval period. Like yeah man, I simply love the period when *checks notes* persecution of gay people increases, life expectancy decreases, Europe experiences the witch trials, and the Church goes full Borgia Pope. What’s your favourite thing about the Renaissance? The advent of syphilis? Or the violent subjugation and colonisation of the Americas? It’s so hard to pick because it’s just a really beautiful time to be alive, you know?