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.
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The King They Couldn't Kill -Want to know why Henry VII is remembered as an intensely suspicious king, wracked by paranoia? The answer, writes Nathen Amin, lies in his death-defying rise to power
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.
The Spy Who Hoodwinked Hitler - Dummy tanks at El Alamein. Bogus generals in Algiers. Sham armies on D-Day. All were ruses masterminded by Dudley Clarke. Robert Hutton tells the story of the British soldier who made an art form of duping the Nazis
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″
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Parthian chicken
ELEANOR BARNETT recreates an ancient Roman dish that borrowed flavours from a rival neighbouring empire in the Middle East
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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
EASTERN PROMISES
Lured by rich trading prospects, from the 17th to the 19th centuries Britain attempted to cultivate relations with China sometimes successfully, but often disastrously. Kerry Brown explores the troubled but ultimately vital links between two ambitious realms
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?
The long road back The election was tough for the Conservatives - but the past holds clues on how parties can return from the brink
It’s election night 1997, and Jeremy Paxman is grilling Tory grandee Cecil Parkinson.
