marzipanandminutiae:

it seems like nowadays debunking historical myths is mostly a question of dealing with popular, false ideas perpetuated to dispel earlier romantic notions

except you can avoid romanticizing the past without being wildly inaccurate

people in the Middle Ages didn’t have a legal loophole about beating your wife with a sufficiently narrow stick (“the width of the husband’s thumb” is the most common variant) but they still disrespected women in a variety of ways

courtiers at Versailles didn’t go around defecating in hallways and making the servants clean it up, but many of them still had a fine disregard for the struggles of ordinary people

Victorians didn’t stink all the time or intentionally drink polluted water, but they still died left, right, and center from diseases that are now preventable or curable

the past doesn’t have to be either a total rancid dung heap or a shining golden age. it was a time like any other, with good things, bad things, and just plain weird things. full of people who weren’t so different from us today

and I’m sure in 100 years, they’ll be claiming that everyone in 2018 saw accusations of sexual assault as proof that a man was a good leader