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Not the sole culprits by any means, but certainly the major contenders at present.

Add to that semi-educated teachers, ie ones with a broad and shallow depth of knowledge across a very wide field who read the same old crappy 'history' books we used to read before we got really interested.

In another place a similar thread is running, but about films rather than poor history in general.

I sometimes feel that those of us with the varying levels of interests are the guardians of a lost lore, slowy over time our numbers will dwindle, but one day someone somewhere will dig all this stuff up and it might mean something.

But I will have you know I have a tradition of wearing plastic Viking horned helmets at significant fucntions, my stag party, my Bro' in Law's and another, great fun as we used the plastic horns to drink beer from - so it isn't all bad.

Mm, hungry, I shall see if my mud soup is ready......

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From your description, it doesn't sound like much has changed since I went to secondary school. Sounds like they need a new crop of history teachers.

I can remember the dark ages and how Medievals were a bunch of war mongering savages that wallowed around in their own feces and didn't have a brain in their head. Little more than better dressed neanderthals that still liked slapping puddles with sticks for entertainment. And did you know that it wasn't until the 16th century that everything turned around? That's 16th century England. Europe no longer existed until Louis and Marie Antoinette lost their heads and Nappy took over the world.

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Here I was, sitting in the scribe shop in nice middle-class fashions, surrounded by countless tools of the trade and examples on the wall of complicated images, various scripts, gold leaf, etc., working on a little gilding.

A group of young adults asked me a few questions, looked around, but didn't stay long. On the way out, the 'educated' one of the bunch was loudly explaining to them about how the Renaissance was when "people started thinking again" and the "dark ages" was when art, philosophy, religion, and politics simply stopped developing.

I wish they'd remained in my shop, as I'd have been able to set them straight without dropping character pretty easily.

The amount of sheer, illogical ignorance is staggering. I do my very small part to fight that when I can, but I really wish school textbooks could be filtered a little better and the classes wouldn't get taught by the local football coach.

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