I`m currently reading a book on german medieval literature and finished the chapter on "Parzival". Wich is a kind of german King Arthur, wich tells the story of a knight called Parzival who is the seaker and later protector of the holy grale. But before that story is told the writer tells the story of his father "Gahmuret", who went to Bagdad, were he marries the black "Belakane" and has a son with her, now this is where it get`s weird.
That child, called "Feirefiz" has white skin with black spots. ............. like a dalmatian.

Since coming across the character "Caliban" in Shakespears "The Tempest", I have never seen such a obvious depiction of Ignorance!

I tried to find a pic on the internet and failed.
When usualy arguing with christians i always at some point say: "Well we no longer believe that the earth is flat, that we must go on crusade and burn wiches."
Now I can add: "Barack Obama is not a Dalmatian"

Here's an odd thing I picked up from St. Augustine. It's in Book XVI, Chapter 9 of "The City of God."

Apparently, the people in the middle ages believed that the heat at the Equator was so unbearable, and couldn't believe that it didn't get hotter. Therefore, they believed that the lands below the equator were virtually uninhabitable. This was believed right up until the days of Columbus, although, of course, it was only a minority position by that point. That said, in 748 AD, Pope Zachary declared belief in the antipodes heretical.

The entire medieval period was ignorant due to the despotism of the catholic church. There are numerous ignorances.
Needless to mention Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Newton. The fact that disagreeing with the church on anything, disagreeing with Aristotle or decrying revelation as a means of knowledge was punishable by death, are all good examples of this, but I'm interested to see what others dig up because these are rather general.

More specifically, perhaps, is the belief that a supernova was within the atmosphere. not as if that would have any adverse effects, eh boys?

(September 30, 2012 at 5:32 pm)Rev. Rye Wrote: Here's an odd thing I picked up from St. Augustine. It's in Book XVI, Chapter 9 of "The City of God."

Apparently, the people in the middle ages believed that the heat at the Equator was so unbearable, and couldn't believe that it didn't get hotter. Therefore, they believed that the lands below the equator were virtually uninhabitable. This was believed right up until the days of Columbus, although, of course, it was only a minority position by that point. That said, in 748 AD, Pope Zachary declared belief in the antipodes heretical.

things like these just boil my brain. i do understand why copernicus for example was throwned upon, because afterall for the everyday fool when he observes the sky and has no interest in questioning anything, he or she might believe that the sun goes around the earth.

but that places south of the equator are inhabitable? that a chilld from a black mother and white father would be like a dalmatian?

these are things wich are not eaven in need of much observation.
various arab tribes have been kidnaping people from as far away as madagasca during the medieval era - and one can at least assume that that "knowlege" - that people lived south of the equator must have made it to europe.
and it is eaven harder to believe that for 1000 years no black person had a child with a white person.

The_Germans_are_coming Wrote: it is eaven harder to believe that for 1000 years no black person had a child with a white person.

It is harder still to believe that, even though we knew of black people intimately, we did not allow it for around 400 years simply due to prejudice.

(September 30, 2012 at 6:20 pm)liam Wrote: It is harder still to believe that, even though we knew of black people intimately, we did not allow it for around 400 years simply due to prejudice.

didn`t jefferson father a child with his slave Sally Hemings?

(September 30, 2012 at 6:24 pm)The_Germans_are_coming Wrote:

(September 30, 2012 at 6:20 pm)liam Wrote: It is harder still to believe that, even though we knew of black people intimately, we did not allow it for around 400 years simply due to prejudice.

didn`t jefferson father a child with his slave Sally Hemings?

But did they advertise it at the time? It didn't become well-known until about the 1970s.

This may be apocryphal and complete bullshit, but I'm going to tell it anyway.

A friend once told me of a popular game in medieval times. You would hang a cat by its tail from a pole or tree so that its body hung down at about head height. The objective of the game was to run at the pole and bash the cat against the pole with your head, thus killing the cat.

Yeah, it's probably bullshit, but it usually gets a laugh. As a consequence of my in-depth research at Wikipedia, it appears that the consensus of modern historians was that there was no actual "dark ages" caused by the Catholic church, but I'll leave it to historians and historically minded folk to fight that one out. A number of relevant points: 1) the ascendancy of Latin as the lingua franca of the literate classes, particularly within the church, meant that many of the texts on math, natural philosophy and philosophy were inaccessible, being written in Greek, 2) there were bright spots, the Carolingean renaissance for one, 3) there are other factors to bear in mind, such as the mini Ice Age and the impact of the plague.

Anyhoo. I've heard this book recommended enough times that it's probably worth passing along the recommendation: A World Lit Only By Fire, by William Manchester

Oh, and as long as I'm here editing, geocentrism was not an absurd position of the time, and the tale of Copernicus and Galileo is often told with mythological elements incorporated. One of the most important bits of the tale that is left out is that Galileo was forming his conclusion based on observations using the newly invented telescope. Astronomers prior to Galileo simply did not have access to the same data. Even then, Galileo still presumed the heavenly bodies to circulate in perfectly circular orbits, thus inheriting the age old assumption. It would have to wait for Kepler to correct this error. (It's also worth bearing in mind, too, that the predictions of Galileo and the Copernican model at that time were actually less accurate than Ptolemaic models used by Muslim astronomers of the time.)