I have great challenges whenever I consume some of my favorite types of visual media: movies/shows/YouTube depicting historical or fantastic medieval societies. M will tell you how often I work myself into a state of apoplexy concerning the armor and weapon sets portrayed in such shows. (Studded leather was not, is not, and never will be a thing!!!)

Another great challenge to me is the portrayal of the western Church in these medievalish times, including the depiction of the papacy. Apparently, Hollywood screenwriters are taught that from the Fall of Rome until…The French Revolution?? the Pope was a mastermind, crouching like a giant masculine Shelob at the center of a highly effecient bureacratic web whose tendrils extended through every portion of Europe and likely beyond. A parish priest in furthest Scandanavia whispered a heretical thought and suddenly the papal assasins were on him…

Particuarly as an Early Medievalist, I find these assumptions truly bizarre. Do people really not know that the Roman popes were under the thumb of and often picked by the Roman Emperor (in Constantinople) until some point in the 8th century?? Sure, when Boniface wanted a final word on what degree of consanguinity was acceptable for Saxon marriages, he’d send a letter asking the pope. But that’s a missive from the periphery in—most certainly not the other way around! And as for political power and control in Latin-speaking Europe, you don’t get the first inkling of that until Leo III’s turn toward Charlemagne and away from the Eastern Emperor (and yes, Leo’s crowning of Charlemagne as “Holy Roman Emperor” was fully intended to be a middle finger to Constantinople!), and it isn’t actually realized until Gregory VII–from Frankia–was brought into Rome and who conceived of himself as above all other earthly authority. But even then you don’t begin to get an actual extension of the papal arm until the legate system got up and going around the 13th century or so—and even then it was sort of iffy at best…

Sometimes I almost feel like we need Adult Forum materials entitled “BS People Believe about the Church and Why it’s BS” including popes, Galileo and science, the “Lost” Gospels, and all sorts of silly things people are taught in modern media.