The Medieval World Had Its Own 'Deepfakes' -- Church Officials Cited a Fake Imperial Decree for Centuries
At least 10 medieval popes cited the forged decree to expand church authority before scholars exposed it as a fake.
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With deepfakes on the rise, forgery and deception are often viewed as distinctly modern problems—a new era of misinformation made possible by artificial intelligence. One of the first alarming cases occurred at the start of the war in Ukraine, when a doctored video appeared to show President Volodymyr Zelenskyy telling his soldiers to lay down their weapons.
Medieval 'deepfakes': Church officials cited a fake imperial decree for centuries
Searching for truth amid falsified documents is not limited to our current era; a skeptical eye about sources' authenticity was just as important in the 15th century as it is today.
Deep forgeries may seem like a new technology problem, but people have been fabricating evidence long before cameras, the internet, and artificial intelligence. In the Middle Ages, a forged document could be as powerful as a manipulated video today, especially when used to justify power and land holdings. One such text survived for centuries and was even quoted by popes. It wasn’t until the Renaissance that scholars began to carefully examine wh…
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