If you Really want to nitpick, you might say "But surely there were little people living in the middle ages (a la GOT), so maybe they were called dwarves/that's where the idea came from!!"
Ok, sure, but I have seen strictly zero evidence to support that claim.
Frankly, knowing Medieval Europe, I suspect actual "dwarves" were probably murdered, or simply abandoned. I really, really doubt there were terribly many Tyrion Lannister's about.
Or "disabled" people in general, for that matter. It just wasn't that kind of world...
Both very large people and very small ones have all kinds of problems that Medieval medicine just wasn't prepared to cope with. So, even if they were accepted, and actually I think they would have been more than you suspect, they probably didn't survive very long.
If you Really want to nitpick, you might say "But surely there were little people living in the middle ages (a la GOT), so maybe they were called dwarves/that's where the idea came from!!"
Ok, sure, but I have seen strictly zero evidence to support that claim.
Frankly, knowing Medieval Europe, I suspect actual "dwarves" were probably murdered, or simply abandoned. I really, really doubt there were terribly many Tyrion Lannister's about.
Or "disabled" people in general, for that matter. It just wasn't that kind of world...
Both very large people and very small ones have all kinds of problems that Medieval medicine just wasn't prepared to cope with. So, even if they were accepted, and actually I think they would have been more than you suspect, they probably didn't survive very long.