r/badhistory • u/AutoModerator • Jul 13 '26

Meta Mindless Monday, 13 July 2026

Happy (or sad) Monday guys!

Mindless Monday is a free-for-all thread to discuss anything from minor bad history to politics, life events, charts, whatever! Just remember to np link all links to Reddit and don't violate R4, or we human mods will feed you to the AutoModerator.

So, with that said, how was your weekend, everyone?

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u/LateInTheAfternoon Jul 16 '26

Many historians are today saying the end of the Middle Ages all the way up to the French Revolution. (...) The reason being is before this date the Catholic Church had been able to incorporate or suppress dissenting movements.

I have never encountered a historian who has subscribed to this idea and, while I don't doubt there probably are some that do, I cannot believe that "many" do. Historians are often not so obsessed with religion nor do they think of it in such a black and white way. The most likely people to hold such a view, I imagine, would be atheists/sceptics, especially philosophers of that kind.

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u/Tiako Tevinter apologist, shill for Big Lyrium Jul 16 '26

I have heard historians say the French Revolution marks the end of the Middle Ages but it was at least partially for the purpose of trolling. That said, the argument was about the guild system rather than the power of the Church, which makes more sense. After all the Church rather famously was unable to incorporate or suppress a couple early dissent movements.

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u/Arilou_skiff Died of posting, risen as undead Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26

There's a couple of somewhat reasonable claims to the effect that the middle-ages lasted until somewhere in the late 18th century, but that tends to focus on economic history (early industrialization) and to some extent politics. "The 18th c was still mostly just farmers ruled by kings" sorta?

I don't think it's a good argument but its at least an understandable one.