Historiansplaining: A historian tells you why everything you know is wrong Teaser -- Myth of the Month 20: Conspiracy Theories
8 snips
Aug 14, 2022 A brisk dive into why conspiracy theories arise and who tends to believe them. A historical case from 1320 France shows how panic, scapegoating, and symbolism turned outsiders into imagined villains. The conversation traces recurring themes—poisoning fears, projection, and social crisis—and links medieval panics to modern targets like vaccines and 5G.
AI Snips
Chapters
Transcript
Episode notes
Medieval Lepers Became Scapegoats During Crisis
- Conspiracy narratives often arise during social crises as explanations that project societal decay onto marginalized groups.
- Sam Biagetti uses the 1320–1321 French leper plot where lepers were accused of poisoning wells during crop failures and disease outbreaks.
Raiders Found Rotten Bread And Sparked Poison Rumors
- Sam Biagetti recounts raiders finding rotten bread in a leprosarium and speculating it was for making poisons to contaminate wells.
- That rumor spread into arrests and confessions that linked leprosaria to a nation-wide poisoning plot in 1321.
Torture Expanded Conspiracy Webs Into Wider Enemies
- Accused groups were forced under torture to confess expanded plots linking Jews and Muslim rulers to sacrilege and poisoning.
- Sam Biagetti details arrests and burnings of lepers after confessions under torture implicated Jews, Granada, and Egypt.