Jayson_Virissimo comments on Interlude with the Confessor (4/8) - Less Wrong

27 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 02 February 2009 09:11AM

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Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 17 March 2015 10:32:29PM 1 point [-]

Your own Wikipedia link seems to be quite clear that this right did exist at certain times in certain cultures.

I am not claiming that it never existed anywhere. Merely, that it very likely didn't exist (as a common practice) in the European Middle Ages.

Interestingly enough, Wikipedia states "There is no evidence of the alleged right in medieval Europe", but as support links to Britannica which says a very different thing: "The custom is paralleled in various primitive societies, but the evidence of its existence in Europe is all indirect."

The text is behind a paywall, so I don't know what indirect evidence they refer to, but the only evidence I've seen is hearsay from Enlightenment thinkers that otherwise had a track record of making exaggerated or outright false claims about the Middle Ages.