ABSTRACT
Centuries before rumors and legends came to circulate so widely and rapidly over the Internet and in various print media, the medieval and Renaissance worlds had their own ways of disseminating largely fictitious narratives that wove their way into the social fabric of legal, political, and religious life. At a historical moment when reputation was everything and when the dreaded rumor mongers were stock characters in courtly poetry and romance, medieval audiences gathered together in myriad ways to consume fictional and nonfictional information. The alleged psychological disorder of Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome gets its name from the more fanciful "Munchausen Syndrome", in which sufferers induce real illnesses in themselves. Finally, the play reinforced its desperate message of hate by deploying one of the most inflammatory tactics of all time: it raised before its community the specter of the dead babies.
