FACTUAL ERRORS

It seems a little uncharitable to call out how modern artists get things wrong about the long-past, but many viewers will only ever look at the Middle Ages through the lens of modern storytelling, which means their understanding of history and thus of the wider world will be shaped by what they see through that lens even as changing ideas about history shape the kinds of stories we tell. Carrying around ideas like “the greatest king of England during the fourteenth century was actually the son of William Wallace, a rebel ahead of his time who was murdered for his republican ideals of freedom” (from Mel Gibson’s 1995 Braveheart) or “if only the children of vikings had the benefit of a modern, scientific way of thinking, then their inherently violent and exploitative bigotry could be abandoned in favor of an ideal society” (Dreamwork’s whole How to Train Your Dragon franchise) reinforces the idea that the Middle Ages was a time of abject barbarism and ignorant, authoritarian bigotry.