History Inaccuracies in Films about the Middle Ages

Films about the Middle Ages are profoundly modern creations. They tend to reflect the concerns and preoccupations of their modern creators rather than those of the people who lived throughout the Middle Ages. It can be argued that it is only natural for societal situations at the time of producing such films to influence the cinematic decisions made by their creators, however this in turn results in the overall message of the film being somewhat misleading. With that being said, medieval films allow for medievalists and historical researchers to envision the past- enabling historical imagination, albeit through depictions that fail to fully represent what the middles ages was actually like.

It is through weighing up factors contributing to the writing and production of films about the Middle Ages that the degree of misleadingness will be discusses. Ultimately arguing that the above question is correct. The problem with films about the Middle Ages There are several problems with films about the Middle Ages. One of which is that there are essentially two different types- the first implies to represent the reality of the Middle Ages. including fictional films and historical dramas, they claim directly or indirectly to depict to their audience’s how things really were all those thousands of years ago.

Recent examples of such films would include Braveheart and The Name of the Rose (1986), as well as the many films about Joan of Arc. The second type is more ironic – this type of film makes no fabrications of depicting the Middle Ages as they ‘really were’.

For instance, in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the knights, instead of riding horses, pretend to ride them as one bangs coconut shells to imitate the sound of hooves. Similarly, in First Knight, at the jousting, the crowd all take part in ‘the wave’, mirroring modern American football crowds. Both of these examples are evidence for the argument of this essay – that films about the Middle Ages are misleading. Medievalists, as mentioned in the introduction, gain an ability to imagine the past to some degree through cinematic depictions of the Middle Ages.

However, the first type of film spoken about – the ones which attempt to produce some type of historical realism – compared to scholarly articles, essays and books, are flawed in three ways. The first flaw is a lack of transparency resulting from a heightened difficulty in telling whether or not a film is historically true in relation to already existing sources. Unlike scholarly articles, films have no need for references such as footnotes, meaning they don’t tell us where they got their information from. (give example of a film maybe making something up)

Whereas medievalists and historians will regularly contextualise their arguments and opinions whilst making clear their own biases, films about the Middle Ages are more commonly imprecise and indistinct about their sources of information, resulting in it often being more difficult to ascertain a films reliability. To this criticism, however, it can be disputed that any historian or medievalist curious enough, can quite easily research the film and check up on its production. An example of this would be various Joan of Arc films. We do not know for certain whether Joan witnessed a rape – its possible that she did – but the available records about her do not tell us.

While the story in The Messenger may not be 100% trustworthy, the story of Joan of Arc is so accessible that the film can quickly be fact-checked. Furthermore, another problem with films about the Middle Ages that try to represent medieval life and culture: their historical accuracy is often questionable. Specifically, fewer efforts are made to represent the Middle Ages reliably and consistently with existing written sources for the period.

For Instance, In Braveheart, Mel Gibson’s character William Wallace, is shown with clean, shiny hair – something unrealistic for someone living with no indoor running water or shampoo. Moreover, films about the Middle Ages take liberties with historical sequence or reproduce events in an inconsistent order or manner as the textual historical archives record them. As Robert Rosenstone says: most historical films ‘are almost guaranteed to leave the historian of the period crying foul’.

This again reiterates the argument of this essay – that films about the middle ages are misleading. ---(add In another film contextually wrong) Of course, written records and modern accounts are also guilty of ignoring and altering history as it ‘really was’ as each medium is limited in its knowledge of the reliability of every source previous. Yet it cannot be denied that many films about the Middle Ages fall down in the reliability category, thus making them misleading.