I've been fascinated by this for a while, ever since I started becoming obsessive with documentaries on the Medieval world... (and by obsessive, I mean like...every single night!)
There's been a fw good ones, the most interesting I have seen is this series Inside the Medieval Mind:
Anyways, so the Medieval Christian mindset was filled with folklore, supersititon, and we derive a lot of our modern folklore from them. It was all within the Christian cosmological mindset of the Great Chain of Being, a chain of proper order and the place of all beings starting with God leading all the way down to inanimate stones. Ofcourse, the world was a lot different and not well understood and was populated by some rather curious beings.
The first was the Dogheads, a race of beings of whom serious philosophical arguments were made as to whether they were more human or animal and whether they had souls. Dogheads were like Humans, but had dogs-heads and were always living somewhere far away. The other major myth was that of Prestor John, probably a bastardized form of Tibetan Buddhist establishment in Tibet or the establishment of Ethiopian Christianity in Africa, various Nestorian Christian communities or the Thomas Christians found in India. Prestor John was said to be a Christian Prince or Bishop somewhere in Asia. It was so believed that several Popes sent ambassadors out to try and find Prestor John.
Ofcoruse there were also the many stories and myths related to Giants and fairies, and the types of hobgoblins and house-brownies, and the various chivalric myths like King Arthur. The water goddess Melusine, recently quite popular because of the White Queen books.
So, I'm just curious of our members here are there any of you who are interested in this and if so what's your favourite medieval myth?
There's been a fw good ones, the most interesting I have seen is this series Inside the Medieval Mind:
Anyways, so the Medieval Christian mindset was filled with folklore, supersititon, and we derive a lot of our modern folklore from them. It was all within the Christian cosmological mindset of the Great Chain of Being, a chain of proper order and the place of all beings starting with God leading all the way down to inanimate stones. Ofcourse, the world was a lot different and not well understood and was populated by some rather curious beings.
The first was the Dogheads, a race of beings of whom serious philosophical arguments were made as to whether they were more human or animal and whether they had souls. Dogheads were like Humans, but had dogs-heads and were always living somewhere far away. The other major myth was that of Prestor John, probably a bastardized form of Tibetan Buddhist establishment in Tibet or the establishment of Ethiopian Christianity in Africa, various Nestorian Christian communities or the Thomas Christians found in India. Prestor John was said to be a Christian Prince or Bishop somewhere in Asia. It was so believed that several Popes sent ambassadors out to try and find Prestor John.
Ofcoruse there were also the many stories and myths related to Giants and fairies, and the types of hobgoblins and house-brownies, and the various chivalric myths like King Arthur. The water goddess Melusine, recently quite popular because of the White Queen books.
So, I'm just curious of our members here are there any of you who are interested in this and if so what's your favourite medieval myth?