The 1890s turned out to be a significant decade for William Wallace, Richard the Lionheart and Joan of Arc. That’s because it witnessed the birth of an art form, one that would present their extraordinary stories to a global audience: the moving picture. The pioneers of this new medium went quickly from single-shot novelty pieces to short narratives, to films an hour or more in length. Meanwhile, thousands of custom-built venues popped up across America, Europe and beyond. In the dying days of the 19th century, a new industry was born.
That industry was greedy for stories, and by the dawn of the 20th century, it was mining many of these tales from the distant past. There has never been a genre of ‘medieval film’ in the way that there has been of westerns or ‘sword-and-sandal’ epics like Ben Hur or Gladiator. But the past 130 years have witnessed a deluge of movies inspired by the Middle Ages. These have been based on real persons or events, such as El Cid or Joan of Arc; inspired by medieval legends (King Arthur and Robin Hood); or, if we stretch our definition, have been set in imaginary worlds with medieval features, like The Lord of the Rings.
What kind of Middle Ages do these films present to us? The technology of moving pictures may have been new in the 1890s but cinema was marked by the culture into which it was born: late Romantic European nationalism. This is clear both from the music of early cinema (‘silent films’ were never silent) and from the acting styles of those early films, which borrowed from theatre and opera and often strike modern audiences as melodramatic. It is also evident from the film-makers’ assumptions about heroism, nationalism and romantic love.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der March 2024-Ausgabe von BBC History UK.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der March 2024-Ausgabe von BBC History UK.
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The Long Road Back - The Election Was Tough for the Conservatives but the Past Holds Clues on How Parties Can Return From the Brink
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"We Need a Meaningful Story for the New Generation - Our Composite Union"- There has been much talk of national renewal, and in due course we'll see what that means. But it felt like a watershed.
What a summer it’s been so far, with an astonishing election result. There has been much talk of national renewal, and in due course we’ll see what that means. But it felt like a watershed. The new prime minister’s dad was a toolmaker, his mum a nurse; the cabinet is majority comprehensive-educated, with more alumni of Parrs Wood High School than of Eton. Among commentators – not just on the left – there’s been a growing feeling that 14 years of Tory rule, compounded by Brexit, have undermined what the great medieval historian Ibn Khaldun called asabiyyah: group feeling – the glue that makes societies work. And watching TV on election night, I found myself wondering whether, like sediment settling in a glass, the time has finally arrived for a new national narrative
Parthian Chicken - Eleanor Barnett recreates an ancient Roman dish that borrowed flavours from a rival neighbouring empire in the Middle East
According to ancient Roman natural philosopher Pliny the Elder, Apicius was “the most gluttonous gorger of all spendthrifts”. The cookbook attributed to him, known simply as Apicius or as De Re Coquinaria (On the Art of Cooking), is one of the oldest collections of recipes surviving from antiquity. Its author may have been Marcus Gavius Apicius, a Roman gourmet of the first century AD who reputedly travelled all the way from Campania to Libya on the hunt for the largest, juiciest prawns.
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Henry’s wary nature is typically attributed to his shaky claim to the throne. The first Tudor monarch was unable to escape the taunt that he was a usurper with no right to call himself king. In fact, his renowned paranoia was the inevitable consequence of a traumatic youth – a trait ingrained long before he harboured ambitions to wear a crown. If we delve deeper into Henry’s background, we can draw a fuller picture of one of our most circumspect of monarchs – one that might elicit sympathy for a long misunderstood king.
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Examining the reconnaissance photos, Behrendt was convinced that the Allies weren’t in any hurry. They were constructing some kind of pipeline towards the southern end of their line, probably to carry water, which was barely halfway completed. There were supply dumps appearing in the south as well – always a telltale clue about where an attack would come. True, a large number of trucks were parked at the northern end of the line, about 25 miles back from the front, but they hadn’t moved for weeks.
"People have achieved all kinds of crazy things at the age of 18″
ALICE LOXTON talks to Danny Bird about her book on 18 individuals who left an indelible mark on British history before they were out of their teens
A Pole apart
ROGER MOORHOUSE is absorbed by a little-known but politically significant Polish princess whose life encompassed the major events of the later 18th and 19th centuries
Medieval England's p olitical miracle
From Magna Carta to parliament, taxation to the law courts, the 13th and 14th centuries laid the foundations for the modern British state
THE GENIUS IN THE SHADOWS
Æthelstan is one of the greatest of all Anglo-Saxon monarchs. So why, asks Michael Wood, does the first king of the English remain so fiendishly elusive?
