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Medieval Morons
- 261 statements
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Medieval people are morons. Whenever you see medieval people in fiction, particularly peasants, they will always be depicted as stupid, small-minded, xenophobic, savage but cowardly, superstitious, gullible, and primitive. And of course, all men treat all women like crap all the time - the Old World equivalent of stereotypical American rednecks. Thus, time travelers are advised to avoid The Middle Ages (or as we call it, The Dung Ages) at all costs, lest they be burned as witches. This trope was popularized by the Enlightenment due to the "Medieval Stasis" trope, their perception on the world after Rome as a post-apocalyptic, war-ridden, anti-intellectual dystopia, and how they saw themselves as paragons of progress recovering the glory of the classical world. Of course, reality is more complex than that. Not only did Enlightenment thinkers harbor their own misconceptions and prejudices (some of them far worse than anything previously believed), but medieval people were just as intelligent on average as any other representative person living in any other period of history; they simply did not have the accumulated experience and knowledge that people take for granted when their world includes things like universal education and literacy, plus extensive trade and travel infrastructure connecting them to most other parts of the known world (case in point, do you know how to build a computer?). Basically, unless you were very special or belonged to an organization with some of these features, you had to spend most of your time surviving in a way that didn't require these things. What's more, The Fundamentalist was actually just as much a Vocal Minority then as now. The Vatican, for example, has actually held to a non-literal interpretation of Genesis as early as the time of St. Augustine (who compared God to a farmer planting seeds to watch them grow), and it is in fact these very writings of his that got him canonized as a Saint in the first place. In fact, medieval Christian monks were some of the earliest proto-scientists, operating under the logic that learning more about God's world would allow them to learn more about God! Heck, not even The Fair Folk were as widely believed-in as many think they were. For example, that aforementioned St. Augustine guy was once asked how they fit into the Adam and Eve narrative, and his response was "We can worry about that once we know for certain that there are any [Fair Folk]." In other words, they tempered their beliefs with critical thinking and evidence-oriented skepticism. Occasionally people living in another widely disliked time will get this depiction. The 1950s have long been favorite targets, and increasingly the 1970s and '80s have been getting this too (when it comes to more contemporary issues such as homophobia). Compare: Humans Are Morons. Also compare The Dung Ages, when the Middle Ages is filthy. The two tropes usually go hand in hand, but sometimes you can have one without the other (and Real Life did; The Dung Ages is far more Truth in Television, as the contemporary sanitation was more often than not inadequate, to say the least). Compare and contrast Stupid Future People. When writers forget one particular aspect that is accurate you get Medieval Universal Literacy. |
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The two protagonists of Les Visiteurs, Godefroy de Montmirail (Jean Reno) and his squire Jacquouille "La Fripouille" (Christian Clavier), and especially Jacquouille. It's not helped by the fact that they have travelled time from their era, the 12th century, to the 20th century. The medieval way they interact with 20th-century life constantly gets them in trouble. For instance, they utterly destroy a postal van, thinking it to be a devil-powered cart driven by a Saracen (he's a black postman actually). Pretty much every peasant and the inquisitor in the sequel. The inquisitor gets scared by a moo box, thinking it's an artifact of the devil, and condemns Jacquard to be burnt at the stake for carrying it. In the remake, Just Visiting, they destroy a VW Beetle, thinking it's a dragon. Upon seeing the displaced villain from the present time, they gaze at him with stupid wonder while wielding crosses. They flee in terror when the cellphone they took from him starts ringing. |
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In The Unknown Supergirl, Kara Zor-El travels to the year 1692 and arrives at a poor, little British colony. Settlers are portrayed as ignorant, unhygienic people, and regarded by Kara as gullible, superstitious fools because they believe in witches (even though she knows for a fact that witches are real) | |
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In the remake, Just Visiting, they destroy a VW Beetle, thinking it's a dragon. Upon seeing the displaced villain from the present time, they gaze at him with stupid wonder while wielding crosses. They flee in terror when the cellphone they took from him starts ringing. | |
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Averted in The Name of the Rose. Some of the characters are outright brilliant, and even those whose beliefs seem backwards by modern standards generally have the learning and rhetorical skill to defend them. Granted, almost all of them are monks, so it follows that they are educated. | |
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Miracle Workers: Alexandra learns a mere three "facts" at the university (the Earth is flat, the Devil is real, the sun is crazy) before graduating. | |
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Johan and Peewit: When Johan is chasing Boustroux, two peasants spotted them. They wonder who they should be helping and eventually settle for Boustroux despite his sinister look and dark clothes. Since his clothes are fancier, he's probably a noble in distress while the young man must be a ruffian. | |
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Time Squad. In one particular episode, they manage to quickly convince Copernicus to stop being a farmer and write about how the Earth moves around the sun. He promptly agrees and goes to research under the basis that "That sounds important!" only to be seen at the end of the episode running back to where the Squad had just gone, screaming, "Wait! I forgot to ask! WHAT IS THIS 'SUN'?!" | |
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Cracked has If Disney Cartoons Were Historically Accurate - Disney Musical Parody - With Rachel Bloom. It shows a horrific medieval life rife with disease and backwards attitude. | |
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In Two for the Death of One, Superman gets dragged to the Middle Ages. Fourteenth-century English villagers are depicted as superstitious dullards who mistake Superman with a demon and shout "Demons!" and "Witchcraft!" every time they see something slightly unusual. | |
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In The Scrameustache it is invoked by Uncle Georges, and predictably the heroes get in trouble because of medieval peasants. | |
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Taking place as it does in a quasi-medieval mishmash of an era, Discworld plays around with this trope quite a bit. That said, even towards the more peasantry circa 1400 mindset parts people tend to just be people. | |
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Monty Python and the Holy Grail: Doubly subverted when Sir Bedevere is approached by a mob of superstitious villagers who think they have caught a witch and accordingly want permission to burn her. When Bedevere asks them the obvious question of how they know the woman is a witch, they only come up with nonsensical non-evidence ("she looks like one", "she has a wart", and a perfectly human-shaped man claiming she turned him into a newt). The impression that Bedevere is a voice of reason trying to talk the villagers out of their superstitious fury is soon scattered when Bedevere instead uses a string of equally nonsensical "logical" conclusions to "prove" that witches are made of wood (because they burn), and therefore weigh the same as a duck (because ducks float on water like wood). By use of a pair of giant scales, Bedevere and the villagers proceed to determine that the suspect weighs the same as a duck, and accordingly the woman is hauled off as a witch. Subverted it in the "peasants digging filth" scene: Not an active subversion, but in the DVD commentary Terry Jones noted that while researching the era it appeared that human remains had mostly intact teeth (albeit with ground down molars). Jones surmised that this was due to a diet without refined sugar but lots of coarse grain. |
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In the Time Scout series, this is how downtimers are initially portrayed, but the portrayal becomes more nuanced and positive as the story progresses. | |
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Played straight with The Name of the Rose, the film version. Everyone but the narrator and the hero William of Baskerville is a moron or a fanatic or both. It is averted in the novel. | |
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A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court: Mark Twain was trying to portray the evils of aristocracy, but it's exaggerated and unhistorical, with most of the characters just generally acting Too Dumb to Live. | |
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Defied in Godslave as Edith tries to explain mirrors and make-up to Anpu, who angrily retorts that yes, they did have those in Ancient Egypt. He does hide behind her when he sees water running from the tap, though. | |
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Mostly avoided in the TV series Legend of the Seeker, based on the books. | |
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Averting this trope is one of the major themes in The Lay of Paul Twister. All of the main characters seem to be of above-average intelligence, and the main difficulty they have in understanding the technological concepts Paul is familiar with is unfamiliarity with the basic concepts, not an inability to comprehend them. | |
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Superman: In Two for the Death of One, Superman gets dragged to the Middle Ages. Fourteenth-century English villagers are depicted as superstitious dullards who mistake Superman with a demon and shout "Demons!" and "Witchcraft!" every time they see something slightly unusual. In The Unknown Supergirl, Kara Zor-El travels to the year 1692 and arrives at a poor, little British colony. Settlers are portrayed as ignorant, unhygienic people, and regarded by Kara as gullible, superstitious fools because they believe in witches (even though she knows for a fact that witches are real) Batman/Superman: World's Finest: As stranded in the year 1892, Robin tries to solve the murder of two circus workers. Dick insists to his co-workers that the circus's bear and lion are innocent, but he does not explain why, since he assumes those folks cannnot even begin to understand 21st century science... even though his first clue -if the bear and the lion had mauled those men, their fur should have been covered with blood- requires no understanding of modern forensic science. Notheless, he assumes 19th century people are too backwards for simple common sense. Legion of Super-Heroes: In their first appearance, the 30th century teenagers offhandedly admit they consider the 20th century primitive people to be obviously stupid and backwards. |
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Whatifalthist: Rudyard often attacks, shreds, and destroys this trope. In some videos, like "How Does the West Work", he notes that many important features of Western Civilization, like property rights, the scientific method, individualism, and the limits on executive power came from the Middle Ages and are legacies of the Catholic Church. In other videos, he shows how ancient societies like Song China and Classical Greece came up with things like steam engines, computers, and iron mills. note The reason why these societies never developed industrialization is because of culture: ancient Greek society rejected technology as crass, while Song China's bureaucratic structure held back innovation and made it unprofitable. |
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Varies between worlds in BattleTech. Most nations in the setting operate in Feudal Future, with some worlds having it better or worst than others. Planets such as Terra, or the Capital planets have the best technology available, with a well educated population. Whilst backwater worlds that have low level tech tend to have a populace that have little to no knowledge of the advance technology available to other worlds. One instance is an acting troupe was preforming Hamlet to an audience of regular farmers, and used holograms for special effects on depicting the ghost of Hamlet's father, the farmers never seen holograms before were scared out of their seats thinking the holograms as actual ghosts. | |
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"The Man Who Came Early": Poul Anderson further subverted this trope in this short story, in which the eponymous man Trapped in the Past fails to impress medieval Icelanders. They aren't even particularly fazed by his handgun. On the other hand, he comes across as completely useless due to his complete lack of skills which they consider basic, such like crop-planting, horse-ridding or knitting. | |
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Army of Darkness saw the zombie-fighting hero Ash thrown back in time with a chainsaw in one hand (or, as one hand) and a shotgun in the other. The peasants were not amused, though they were rather impressed with his "boomstick". | |
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Brave: Look no further than the scene at the royal court where almost everyone is fighting like children. | |
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Averted in George Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. We don't see that many peasants, but those we do are just people. Some are smart, some are stupid, most are fairly level-headed. Most of them are simply denied education and stay illiterate for most of their lives because the glass ceiling only allows such privileges for the nobility. In The Sworn Sword, Dunk even tells Egg (who is royalty) to be respectful to them. They might not be able to read or argue about the politics of the realm, but they know when to plant their crops and how to deliver a calf. And then there are the members of the aristocracy like Littlefinger or Tyrion who could possibly be smarter than anyone ever. Littlefinger may count as even more of an aversion; he is aristocratic only by title, his family's lands were small and poor, and he is apparently mostly self-educated beyond a basic level (which would have been provided when he was fostered at Riverrun), but he's one of the smartest cookies in the series. Varys' background is even poorer and he's at least as smart, but his rise to power involves some unsavory things. |
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Parodied in Futurama. Characters from The Future commonly refer to the 20th century as "The Stupid Ages." Leela even tells Fry that being a dropout of a 20th-century college is the equivalent of being a high-school drop-out in the 31st century, so Fry ends up enrolling in a college in order to drop out properly. | |
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The Lord of Bembibre: The narrator states the rumors about the Templar Knights being heretics and sorcerers were believed by the 14th century peasants because medieval people were obviously superstitious, ignorant and gullible. Nonetheless, both aristocrats and commoners are shown to be perfectly capable of using logic and common sense, and educated characters don't believe the charges of witchcraft. An abbot bluntly tells his enmity towards the Templars is not based on rumors of them being sorcerers, since he dismisses such tales as nonsense, but he considers the stories of them being arrogant and despicable moneylenders absolutely credible. | |
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Kaamelott is based almost entirely on this, with King Arthur as the Only Sane Man due to his Roman upbringing. His knights are forever bickering about finding the Grail instead of actually looking for it, his father-in-law builds a catapult in the main courtyard and wants to knock down the gate so it can be taken outside, and then you have Guethenoc and Roparzh, two peasants with a mutual case of Sitcom Arch-Nemesis who don't mind setting fire to half the land or poisoning most of the livestock to get back at each other despite it meaning starvation for them and the rest of the country. Lancelot's betrayal isn't even due to kidnapping the queen she leaves of her own accord, to Arthur's delight, it's because the knights are as bad as the peasants so he sets up his own army. The fact that his soldiers are just as inept as Kaamelott's never seems to occur to him. Things haven't gotten any better ten years later by the time of The Movie, Kaamelott: Premier Volet. | |
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Played straight and subverted in the original The Time Traders series. One male lead tells the other that the 'primitives' they meet with in pre-history may be able to deduce scientific or mechanical principles from a rifle or other item, and therefore everything the Time Traders take with them to the past must fit the era, even to the point of disguising antibiotics in the form of local medicines. But most of the past folk we actually see do not come across as very intelligent, even the two characters, one a priestess and the other a chief's wife, who are interested in learning about the world beyond their doorstep. | |
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Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. No matter where they went in history, no matter which historical figure they abducted, nobody really seemed to care that they'd fallen out of the sky in a phone booth and absconded with Beethoven. That is of course until they ended up in medieval England, where they were put on the chopping block to the sound of a man screaming that they came from the sky, and just barely escaped with their skins. Also subverted in the fact that neither Bill nor Ted are the sharpest knives in the drawer... | |
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In his more extreme moments, Saturday Night Live's Grumpy Old Man character (who was actually called A Grumpy Old Man) became the early-20th-century equivalent. He would rant about how back in his day, people amused themselves by staring at the Sun until their eyeballs burst into flames, went door-to-door screaming until they coughed up blood because Christmas carols weren't invented yet, etc. At one point, he says that this was "'cause we were ignorant morons." | |
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Similarly present in Maid Marian and Her Merry Men, where Marian and the Sheriff are the only characters with two brain cells to rub together. | |
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Legion of Super-Heroes: In their first appearance, the 30th century teenagers offhandedly admit they consider the 20th century primitive people to be obviously stupid and backwards. | |
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Warhammer 40,000: The average inhabitant of the Imperium is this IN SPACE. They consider the Emperor to be a god and the government to be his priesthood, and mutation is the new "witchcraft", with mutant persecution widespread. What's more, the existence of the Mechanicus ensures that, while lasguns and starships are everywhere, nobody is actually qualified to build or repair them, and most believe that praying to them is what makes them work. This does vary a lot by depiction and planet, with the above description fitting the most flanderised versions or less advanced planets. The prayers and rites circulated by the Mechanicus are mostly actual, if ritualised instructions to maintain the equipment, and only the more prestigious tech is monopolized by the Priesthood of Mars. In a slightly lighter depiction, your typical Civilized World resident has an education on par with a modern first-world country. | |
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Strongly subverted in The Secret of Kells, showing how highly intelligent monks preserved everything carefully and artistically. | |
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This trope is present in Blackadder, but makes it clear that people in all time periods are equally moronic. Baldrick's initial characterisation in the first series is a notable subversion, as he's a grubby medieval peasant who happens to be the Only Sane Man. | |
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Subverted in the Doctor Who episode "The Awakening," with a 17th-century farmboy named Will Chandler, who, while illiterate and only just aware of what year it is, proves to be quite bright. | |
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Played with in El Conquistador. When Quetza discovers the Spanish port of Huelva, he first notices the bad smell, then the idiocy of the people that are willing to believe anything he says as a representative of "Cipango" (Japan). The only one that sees through his lie is an actual Japanese maiden, who became a prostitute due to her kidnapping by a pirate ship. | |
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Wolfsmund: Significantly Averted. Being smart was just as important in the Middle Ages as it was in any other period, and any characters playing the game of subterfuge have to be quick with their wits. | |
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Discussed at one point in Safehold, when Merlin quotes Arthur C. Clarke for Cayleb and tells him not to feel like an ignorant savage because, within the framework they have, the people of Safehold are every bit as clever and creative as the people of the high-tech society Merlin came from. It also helps that the people from Merlin's time that founded Safehold's civilization helped them be able to be better than the time they're trying to emulate (Age of Sail-esque where they have muskets and use galleys and galleons). For instance, the sanitation problems of that time period are essentially nonexistent due to one of the holy books of the setting's religion talking about how in this case cleanliness is literally next to godliness. | |
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In No Game No Life, most of Disboard is in a medieval society, with some exceptions- the Warbeasts have made a virtual reality game that is vastly more advanced than anything in real life. Perhaps the most shining example of this trope is when Sora becomes enraged that the king of Elkia bet his country's library in a game with the Flugels without copying down the information beforehand, only to realize that only about 10% of Elkia can actually read and write and the task would have been impossible. | |
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Pax Romana: Averted in this comic, which involves a paramilitary group sent into the time of Constantine the Great. The Romans are shocked and amazed by the technological power displayed, but they're by no means idiots. Neither do they blindly follow the newcomers or their advice, though they nonetheless accept them eventually. | |
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Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The episode "Selfless" shows how Anya, once a Swedish peasant girl in circa 880AD, became a vengeance demon after she turned her unfaithful husband Olaf into a troll, who is immediately attacked by the fearful villagers. | |
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Jin: Averted. The title character's medical skills are frequently not trusted as much as they really ought to be, but that's because he's doing things so far and above the pre-Meiji period that the only way they can believe it is to see it. Doctors get a fair amount of respect, Jin is eventually able to get Cattle Punk versions of 2000-era medical tools made, etc. Neither are the denizens of Tokugawa Japan portrayed as ignoramuses. | |
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Batman/Superman: World's Finest: As stranded in the year 1892, Robin tries to solve the murder of two circus workers. Dick insists to his co-workers that the circus's bear and lion are innocent, but he does not explain why, since he assumes those folks cannnot even begin to understand 21st century science... even though his first clue -if the bear and the lion had mauled those men, their fur should have been covered with blood- requires no understanding of modern forensic science. Notheless, he assumes 19th century people are too backwards for simple common sense. | |
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Subverted in the book 1632, in which the doctor of a time-displaced modern American town has to consult with his "downtime" counterpart. It becomes clear that the "local" doctor not only doesn't use leeches and ground bat's wing, but has a medical library in nearly a dozen languages, all of which he speaks fluently. Some of those books are even in English. Uptimer doctor James Nichols, who is fluent in English and... English, is completely dumbfounded. The local high school history teacher, Melissa Mailey, breaks down laughing and says "You didn't actually think you were smarter than him, did you?" In addition, although they have their initial fears, the early modern characters are extremely quick to recognize and appreciate American technology instead of writing it off as witchcraft and even logically deduce why it cannot be magic. | |
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In The Sword of Truth one of the morals is "People are stupid" and boy does it show. From the first book, there's a crowd of people being moved to tears by Michael's impassioned speech about the evils of fire. The Mud People, despite living for generations in a place where it rains all the time, have somehow never figured out how to make roofs that don't leak. And there's the group of peasants sent by Darken Rahl to attack Zedd in the belief he's a witch. First he tells them the term is warlock. Then he talks the angry mob into having a brainstorming session about all the terrible things warlocks can do until they get scared and give up. Mostly avoided in the TV series Legend of the Seeker, based on the books. |
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