Got a source for the baby parts thing?
Dirty, nasty and diseased filled sounds more like a Python movie than any medieval literature I’ve read. Have you read much from the time period? I’m not trying to be combative here, I’m just wondering where your impression came from.
This was the civilization that invented the Gothic cathedral and the University.
Do a quick google on it, there is a long history of using baby parts in medicine.
Baby parts are currently used in some makeup (mostly for age reduction) and in research. For example pepsi is using cells from aborted babies to create artificial taste receptors. By using these cells they can determine if their products have the exact taste they are looking for. In the Ukraine they’ve actually discovered baby mills where the babies are harvested at about 7 months for their parts as testified by doctors who were involved with it. Collagen, stem cells, and the placenta seem to be the most commonly used.
Ring around the rosy is a children’s rhyme with some very sinister connections. Yes some great architecture and art came out of this time. They also jailed people for believing the earth wasn’t the center of the universe.