Of all the epochs of European history, the Middle Ages are without a doubt the most prejudiced. Prejudices and simplifications are in our blood because they help us to understand the world better, including historical epochs. In the case of the Middle Ages, however, this is much more extreme than in other periods. Let's try it. What comes to your mind when I throw the word "ancient" at you? You probably first think of Greek philosophers, then the Roman Empire and maybe Alexander the Great. Of course, antiquity is much more than that, but these associations are not completely wrong. Unfortunately, things are different in the Middle Ages.
But let's try the self-experiment here as well. Try to conjure up the first three associations that come to mind when you hear the word "Middle Ages". Three... Two... One... Were there some of these things:Dirt, poverty, low life expectancy, poor hygiene, violence, and the Inquisition? Or was it perhaps knights, castles and tournaments? For me it's a bit of both. Chances are pretty good that you feel the same way. There are numerous reasons why these associations with the Middle Ages run so deep within us (and I'm talking about exactly that on the podcast this week). However, one factor plays a huge role in our time:the depiction of the Middle Ages in film.
The Middle Ages and their general characteristics
Film is an interesting medium, especially when it comes to depicting the story, but also, for example, when it comes to literary adaptations. There is a very simple reason for this:the limited length of the format. After all, a classic film (although no director seems to care much about that these days) is only ninety minutes long. The whole story has to be packed into this short time, the characters should develop as much as possible, pass some difficult tests and a slowly developing romance would be nice too... ninety minutes isn't much time to fit all that. Much less time is left for the description of all the trappings. Or to put it very briefly:there is precious little space in medieval films for a description of the Middle Ages.
However, there is a way for filmmakers to almost completely avoid describing the living conditions. Instead of going into great detail as to what the life of the people treated in the film was like in their part of the world during their lifetime, one can also rely on well-known symbols. It's also logical! If we viewers go to the cinema to see a medieval film, it is probably not the first film we watch about this period of history. We have certain expectations and a film can cover them very quickly. When I think of a classic opening sequence of a historical film, a camera flight over a dark-looking forest and meadow landscape comes to mind, for example, a massive castle can be seen in the background, dirty people dressed in rags are crowding around on the streets of a small town or town... And immediately I know:Ah! We are in the Middle Ages!
Braveheart is a good example of this. At first you can see where we are. The Scottish Highlands are shown to us before we get to see the filthy, impoverished people and the little boys dressed in little more than rags. Add to that a pinch of violence in the form of the nobleman who shortly thereafter wants to kidnap the clan's newly-wed wife for a night, and the whole plot is pretty clear. Scotland, Middle Ages, fight against the English and their excessive violence. However, it is less clear to me why Braveheart is in such a hurry to do so. After all, the film still allows itself a length of three hours afterwards. I like him anyway. You can really hate England there. In times of Brexit, I think it's a nice job.
Poverty, dirt and backwardness
The general hallmarks of the Middle Ages in film can be roughly divided into two groups:the positive and the negative. The age is presented as either backward and barbaric, or hopelessly romantic. There doesn't seem to be much in between. The filmmakers can't do anything directly for that. These ideas about the Middle Ages are much older than the films about them. But because of them, the old clichés live on. Let's look at the negative associations first. I've already mentioned some of them using the example of Braveheart, although almost any other example would serve the same purpose. A Knight's Tale, The Name of the Rose, Robin Hood, you name it. The three magic words are poverty, dirt and general backwardness. If you see them at the beginning of the film, you already know where you are.
Unfortunately, this usually has little to do with the actual living conditions of the time. But the Middle Ages have not just been struggling with these clichés since yesterday. In fact, it began as early as the Renaissance. In the 15th century at the latest, the first authors and scholars began to disparage the preceding centuries. After all, this was the time when the ancient Greeks, their philosophy, art and architecture became really fashionable again in Europe. The Renaissance - the rebirth - referred directly to this antiquity. After centuries of delusion, the intellectual mind had finally managed to get back to the pure and true. So everything in between was free, a complete waste of time! The useless age in the middle. And of course, as time went on, every imaginable negative was projected onto this Middle Ages in order to make the modern age seem... well... more modern in comparison.
The Europeans of the 16th century probably wouldn't be too surprised if we showed them one of our contemporary films about the Middle Ages. So yes, they would be very surprised where this moving image came from and throw us on the pyre as witches. But substantively, they would probably agree. Dirt, backwardness and poverty, yes, that was unmistakably the Middle Ages! For the entire thousand years from AD 500 to 1500, there was really nothing else. Although this is completely wrong, it has remained a prejudice to this day. It would be fairly easy to prove the opposite. How can the Middle Ages have been so backward and stagnant when in present-day Germany they went from the small settlements of the Migration Period to Cologne in the 12th century? Poverty in the Middle Ages was also at times much less overwhelming than it was a few centuries later, and there were still bathhouses. Nevertheless, everyone was dirty and stank to high heaven, that's for sure.
Knights, castles and the fair maiden
A little later, another version of the tale of the Middle Ages emerged, which we still find in today's films:the romantic idea of noble knights striving for the fair maiden. The pompous and exciting jousting tournaments, the adventures that must have been lurking around every corner. Movies like Robin Hood or Excalibur send their regards. This idea is somewhat more recent than the notion of the dark, backward, and thoroughly hopeless Middle Ages that has been preached since the Renaissance. At the latest with the Romantic period of the 18th and 19th centuries, however, this story gained momentum. Actually, one has to ask oneself how these extremely contradictory ideas are supposed to fit together at all. For the filmmakers of our time, however, this does not seem to be a problem at all. I think we've collectively agreed as a society that a mixture of these two elements perfectly expresses the Middle Ages and is shown to do so.
But at least that's not entirely unrealistic. There will probably have been love stories at all times and everywhere. The fact that neither the relationships were as romantic nor the living conditions as pathetic as we imagine today is irrelevant. Historical films also do not claim to be “authentic”, whatever that is supposed to mean. It is instructive to question where our ideas of the Middle Ages, as we find them in films, come from. It's also exciting to see how old many of these ideas are. At the end of the day, films always tell a story first. The fact that it takes place in the Middle Ages is irrelevant. After all, we only have one and a half to three hours to tell all of this! The plot, the characters and their challenges, if at all possible a romance... Let the Middle Ages be Middle Ages. Even if that doesn't necessarily correspond to historical reality.
On the podcast this week, as mentioned at the beginning, I am talking about the myth of the Dark Ages in and of themselves. There I go into detail about all the ideas and prejudices mentioned here and talk about where exactly they come from. I'm happy if you listen! And if you need more history now, I can put your mind at ease as well. That's exactly what the Déjà-vu story newsletter is for! I would love to welcome you there!