FACTUAL ERRORS

Top 5 Mistakes Content Creators Make About the Middles Ages

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. 

Here’s how we’re going to crack into this: Over the next few weeks I’ll post up one the five most egregious mistakes modern content-makers make. Here they are at a glance: 

5. Basic Historical Facts

4. Grim, Grandiloquent Vikings

3. Religion vs. Science

2. Dirt

1. Material Culture

Some of these can be pretty controversial, so if anything jumps out as wrong or unfair just post it in the comments and I’l address it! 

#5 - Basic Historical Facts

The most obvious but probably least harmful of all misrepresentations in modern movies is simply getting facts wrong. I don’t include simplifying history or changing and/or combining characters to make a great story – a technique exemplified by Ridley Scott’s historical films Gladiator (2000), Kingdom of Heaven (2005), and Robin Hood (2010) to great effect – even though this is done probably more than necessary. No, this refers to getting the history so wrong that it gives completely false ideas about what happened and when, misleading audiences into potentially harmful conclusions. 

Edward I - Longshanks

The poster-child for this is Mel Gibson’s wonderfully entertaining but laughably erroneous film Braveheart (1995). Just look at the Wikipedia page for the movie to see the tip of the iceberg, but not even the screenwriter’s appeal to using the account of Blind Harry as his basis excuses the construction of a narrative that presumes English oppression through “a hundred years of theft, rape, and murder.” (The Jews of England could very much complain of this abuse, however, but having been expelled from England in 1290 they weren’t saying much.) The reality was that Wallace was appointed the Guardian of Scotland in 1297 to protect the country during a contention over who should succeed as the Scottish king. Edward “Longshanks” I, who was a master of leveraging medieval law in his favor, offered to decide the question for them, but the nobles realized this would mean the king would then hold power over Scotland by virtue of Longshank’s authority. 

Wallace was appointed Guardian because he and the Earl of Moray stopped an English army that had been sent to enforce Longshank’s “support” of the Scottish king. This was the Battle of Stirling Bridge, and in the movie not even the bridge remains. 

The point is that William Wallace wasn’t a rebel. He was fighting to maintain Scottish independence, not win it. Screenwriter Randall Wallace’s historical alterations completely alter our perception of not only what really happened but the political and cultural reality.

And incidentally, saying that setting the Battle of Stirling Bridge on an actual bridge “would’ve made it too puny” is a little absurd. Clearly Mr. Gibson has never seen any Victorian engravings of medieval bridge-battles …

Battle of Stirling Bridge

Speaking of getting things wrong, this general approach to medieval history that looks to make a modern point rather than cultivate an authentic discovery can lead to some problematic stereotyping, and the best example of this is how vikings tend to be portrayed. That’s where we’re going next!