The Iron Maiden. Usually this brings up one of two mental images for most people. One's a band.
That's not the one this post is talking about.
This is about this one:
This is one you'll hear a lot. Medieval Torture Instrument # 1. The Iron Maiden.
There's only one problem. It's not medieval.
When asked to list what foods people ate in the middle ages, most people think of huge feats of meat, bread, and copious amounts of alcohol.
Something like this, really:
But when pressed for details, those details can get a little... odd.
The most common "fact" to crop up was that people ate a lot of meat, but the meat was usually spoiled, but seasoned with a lot of spices so you couldn't taste it.
It's arguably the most famous painting in the world. Leonardo da Vinci's painting Mona Lisa is instantly recognizable -- even people who have no interest in art can still identify it.
For all of its fame though, (or perhaps because of it) there are a lot of myths about the Mona Lisa. I'm not going to list all of them (we'd never get done here!) but some of the main ones are:
1) The identity if the woman in the painting is unknown or is Leonardo in drag.
2) Leonardo carried the painting with him for the whole of his painting career.
3) The woman in the painting has no eyebrows or eyelashes because women in her time removed them for being "too sexual."
For the record, I never thought I'd have "eyebrows" and "sexual" together on this blog.
Anne Boleyn is arguably the most famous of Henry VIII's wives. She's one of the few queens of England that most people can name who never reigned in her own right.
When pressed most people can list a few things about her:
1) She was a wife of Henry VIII.
2) She had six fingers.
3) She had red hair.
4) She was executed for witchcraft.
For once, they're not all wrong! Just... three out of the four.
