History of the World According to the Movies: Part 14- India

Posted by historymaniacmegan on
Image

Perhaps no movie defines the history of India in the Western mind than Gandhi. Perhaps he may be portrayed too much of a saint than he really was. Perhaps this movie isn’t 100% accurate. However, there are very few movies about Indian history that aren’t based on some literature written by Kipling so this one fits. Also, this features Ben Kingsley who’s actually part Indian himself (but you wouldn’t know it.)

India is perhaps one of the oldest known places of civilization as well as home to a variety of cultures, religions, languages, and peoples. From the old planned cities of Harappa and Mojengo Daro to Mahatma Gandhi and the Nehrus, Indian history has perhaps spanned for thousands of years, with it’s state base kingdoms to it’s vassalage under empires like the Magdhas, the Mauryas, Alexander the Great, the Guptas, the Mughals, and the British. There are also plenty of other empires India was under that Wikipedia lists which I haven’t heard of. Yeah, Indian history is complicated. Still, we know India is known for yoga, Hinduism, the notion of sacred cows, saris, modern Arabic numerals, yogurt, curry, and Buddhism. There’s a lot of ugly stuff associated with India but let’s not go there. And of course, plenty of Indian animals like elephants, tigers, and monkey as any other creature featured in a Rudyard Kipling story (sure he may be some British Imperialist, but whenever a Hollywood movie is set in India, it’s usually based on one of his stories.) Still, this doesn’t mean that movies about Indian history are being made, for they certainly are since they have a big film industry known as Bollywood (which actually cranks out more movies than Hollywood). Naturally, these movies are best known by westerners for their singing and dancing routines as well as their epic love stories. Of course, many of these errors I list do come from some better known Bollywood movies as well since they tend to have the old Hollywood notion of not letting facts ruin a good story, especially if it’s a romance containing music and dancing (just like Disney, well, not really).

Mauryan Empire:

Ashoka killed his half-brother Susima in a vicious rage. (It’s said he tricked him into stepping on hot coals. Also, he probably knew his half-brother was going to kill him anyway since Susima was the designated heir to the Maurya throne. Ashoka was his main competition. Killing relatives was the norm in many ancient civilizations.)

The vengeful and violent Ashoka converted to Buddhism and became the stable and peaceful Mauryan Emperor in his later reign out of his love for the warrior princess Karuwaki after finding her alive during the Kalinga War. (It’s said it had more to do with his profound sorrow for being responsible for having to slaughter hundreds while conquering the region. It may have had nothing to do with a love for a princess there, but simply out of being horrified over his actions. Also, it’s said Karuwaki was probably a fisherman’s daughter turned mendicant Buddhist convert before she married Ashoka {according to one historian} though she was from Kalinga but she wasn’t the love of his life nor was a factor in his conversion to Buddhism {that may go to his first and most beloved wife Devi who allegedly left him before Kalinga for a Buddhist convent}. )

Devi was a rebound woman for Asoka who he married while getting over his ex Karuwaki. (She was his first and favorite wife as well as perhaps the intellectual inspiration for his conversion to Buddhism.)

Ashoka was kicked out of the Mauryan palace for being too violent and wandered through India disguised as a common soldier. (This never happened. Seemed his dad used his ferociousness to his advantage like suppressing riots.)

Mughal Empire:

Jodhaa was a Rajput princess who was married to the Mughal Emperor Akbar the Great and called Jodha Bai. (Akbar’s commissioned biography doesn’t list this, though he had a Rajput princess as his chief wife but her name was Heer Kunwari best known as Jahangir’s mother. Then again, Jodha might just have been a nickname. Also, some Rajput groups claim she was his daughter-in-law as well as Jahangir’s wife {and mother of Shah Jahan}. Historians note that Akbar’s wife was never referred to as Jodha Bai until the 18th or 19th century.)

Jodhaa was Akbar’s favorite wife. (His chief wife was his cousin Ruqaiya Sultan Begum who he married when he was fifteen.)

Akbar the Great was a great lover as well as only had one wife. (Like his predecessors and ancestors, he had a great lust for women. One of his many intentions of his wars of belligerence against several rulers was to gain their sister, daughters, and women. He’d even go after his Amirs’ wives {ordering these guys to divorce and send them to him}. He also had a harem of 34 wives {or mutah nikah meaning wives with no legitimacy or ceremony} and 300 concubines from different races and religions. So he was probably a guy women would want to avoid, not that his women had any choice. Still, he probably made Hugh Hefner look like a choir boy.)

Though Prince Salim was a heavy consumer of opium and alcohol from childhood, he was also a mischievous boy as well as a gentle and romantic hero. (He consumed a lot booze and opium from age 18, but he was a brutal drunk who would often beat servants {he beat one to death as well as castrated another}. Oh, and it’s said he had a writer flayed alive while he watched.)

Prince Salim lead a rebellion against his father Akbar the Great, tried to replace him as emperor, and had his dad’s friend Abu al-Fazl murdered in 1602 all because he wanted to marry a court dancer. (Yes, he did all that, but not because he wanted to marry a girl his dad didn’t like. As a side note, he’d later succeeded his father as Jahangir and his son would build the Taj Mahal.)

Anarkali was Akbar the Great’s court dancer and Prince Salim’s girlfriend. (She’s said to exist and may have been a dancer. Yet, she could’ve been a painter, courtesan, or one of Akbar’s wives making her Salim’s stepmother. She may possibly be the mother of Prince Daniyal. Whether the two were intimate in a relationship is based on legend, and therefore, has no basis in historical fact.)

Imperialism and The Raj:

Mangal Pandey’s prime motivation for attacking British officers in 1857 was because the new cartridges were cased in animal fat which violated religious taboos of Hindu and Muslim soldiers alike. (It also had to do with India being annexed by the British Empire and the general discontent of the sepoys. Let’s just say it was an accumulation of factors over time including one in Pandey’s regiment pertaining to a British officer attempting to convert the sepoys to Christianity.)

Mangal Pandey fought in the Anglo-Afghan War in 1853. (He joined up in 1849 as well as was part of the 34th Bengal Infantry which didn’t see action in Afghanistan and the Anglo-Afghan War ended in 1842.)

Mangal Pandey fell in love with a prostitute forced to work at a whites-only brothel. (This may not have happened though there’s a legend that Pandey had an affair with a married woman whom he rescued from committing suicide in the Ganges.)

The British East India Company was a free market. (It was a monopoly and Adam Smith was one of its staunchest critics.)

British East India Company soldiers murdered and enslaved Indian civilians in 1857. (Slavery was already banned in the British Empire by this point, for over 20 years.)

British East India Company soldiers would massacre Indian villages if they refused to grow opium. (The British East India Company was the biggest drug dealer of all time but no historical record says they did this.)

British East India Company officers issued animal fat cased cartridges to the sepoys and threatened them with a cannon unless they agreed to use them. (One historian says that they withdrew the cartridges in light of the concerns and didn’t issue them to a single sepoy. Pandey’s colonel {Colonel Mitchell from The Rising} did order artillery to surround the sepoys but only after they had looted the arsenal, which was at night not day. Yet, Mitchell wasn’t in charge of his regiment unlike in the Mangal Pandey biopic.)

Mangal Pandey’s premature mutiny was prompted by the arrival of the ships from the Rangoon regiment. (It was actually brought on by the arrival of just 50 soldiers from Calcutta when he was under the influence of opium and bhang. And unlike The Rising, it wasn’t difficult to find anyone who wanted to hang him afterwards.)

Modern:

Mohandas K. Gandhi was as much a saint in public as he was in private. (Gandhi was also difficult and demanding, a tyrannical and emotionally abusive father {he even disowned one of his sons}, obsessed with the workings of everyone’s bowels, slept naked alongside his female disciples, and subject to long bouts of depressing that he wouldn’t speak to anyone, which led to his closest associates to fight amongst themselves. He denied his wife medicine while she was dying from pneumonia because he didn’t believe in germs, thought Hitler could be redeemed, and believed rape victims weren’t “pure enough.” Not to mention, he viewed himself personally responsible for the Hindu and Muslim chaos that accompanied Independence. Also, he was killed by a Hindu extremist.)

Mohandas K. Gandhi and his wife Kasturbai had a loving relationship. (Gandhi’s autobiography tells a different story, especially pertaining to their early years.)

Mohammed Jinnah was a languid and malevolent fop. (Yet, like Gandhi he was British trained lawyer, yet he wasn’t a devout Muslim since he drank, had a non-Muslim wife, wore Savile Row suits, as well as spoke Urdu only with difficulty. However, he was all for Hindu-Islamic alliance for Indian independence and only called to form a separate nation of Pakistan in 1940. However, he thought Gandhi’s influence on the council was too dominating. Not to mention, the Congress Party committed many wartime blunders during the independence movement such as the precipitous withdrawal from the interim provincial governments {that might have led to a united Indian independence} and its demand that the British largely “Quit India” while the Japanese were closing on eastern India’s borders. Gandhi enthusiastically supported both of these which put him and the Congress Party’s leaders in prison. This left Muslim League Leader Jinnah and his fellow Muslims to whip up support for carving Pakistan.)

“Qaumi Tarana” was the original national anthem of Pakistan. (It was a different song {written by a Hindu only days prior to the independence ceremony} which only lasted for 18 months.)

Mohandas K. Gandhi and his associates were arrested and beaten by police for burning passes protesting the Pass Law in South Africa. (He was arrested but not beaten by police for doing this.)

The Indian flag was hoisted in broad daylight during the independence ceremony. (It was hoisted at midnight.)

Colonialism and imperialism were largely to blame for the Hindu and Islam hostilities following independence. (Gandhi claims this. However, it may go deeper than that. There’s considerable debate on this. However, British intrusion probably didn’t help matters.)

Mohandas K. Gandhi liberated India. (Most historians agree India’s independence was inevitable. Also, he was just one of several independence leaders and his civil disobedience was only a small part in the movement.)

Gandhi was above the social prejudices of his time and place. (He was more concerned with Indian welfare in South Africa than with the situation with the Africans, which he ignored. Also, sometimes could be paternalistic or even sexist.)

The country of Bangladesh was created in 1971 after a thirteen battle with India. (It was actually during an 8 month struggle between East Pakistan {Bangladesh} and West Pakistan {Pakistan} which cost 3 million Bangladeshi lives. India was just receiving collateral damage.)

Jinnah told Gandhi and Nehru to go to hell. (He never did that and always treated them with courtesy and respect. Also, he mourned Gandhi’s loss.)

India was independent in 1945. (It won it’s independence in 1947.)

Pakistan existed in the 1930s. (It wasn’t formed until the Partition of India in 1947.)

Miscellaneous:

Kali worship was like Satanism. (Sure she was the Goddess of destruction, but she’s not Hinduism’s Satan since her realm is time and natural change as well as righteous destruction. She never really smiled at warfare, torture, and human sacrifice. Yet, Shiva was like God in a way since he’s considered a god of creation and rebirth but Hindus have a lot of them.)

In Nair tradition, caste was and family identity was inherited from the paternal line as far as the region of Kerala was concerned. (Both of these were inherited through the maternal line in the Indian region of Kerala. In these matrilineal societies with male dominance, ruler succession would be passed from the male ruler to his brother and eventually his sisters’ sons.)

Asian Subcontinent Indians didn’t have guns until the arrival of Europeans. (Some kingdoms did since the 13th century, thanks to the Chinese and Arab traders.)

Yogis and Buddhist monks were always wise and holy men. (Yeah, well, even eastern religious leaders have their problems.)

Siddartha Gautama was either Indian or Asian looking. (His aristocratic family was of Indo-Iranian ethnicity possibly from Central Eurasia and it didn’t mixed with the lower castes so the Buddha would’ve looked like them. He more likely had wavy black or dark brown hair, light reddish skin, and a long pointed nose. An artistic rendering of him with these features makes him look surprisingly European but good luck finding him looking like that in movies, especially made in Asia.)

Indians ate monkey brains. (No, and gross.)

Subcontinental Asian Indians were dark skinned. (There are also plenty of light skin Indians as well.)

India has been a monocultural society. (It hasn’t been. Look what I said in my introduction.)

Hindu temples were all filled with thousands year old working machinery and lots of booby traps. (Of course, only as far as Indiana Jones is concerned. I highly doubt this.)

Indians were kind and obedient servants. (Really? Have you heard of the Independence Movement or the Sepoy Rebellion? Perhaps this is just a British imperialistic myth.)

History of the World According to the Movies: Part 13 – Japan

Posted by historymaniacmegan on
Image

No movie could be more appropriate in capturing the spirit of historical Japan than Akira Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai. Sure it’s not as colorful as Memoirs of a Geisha but at least it was made in Japan with Japanese actors as well as gets a lot more things right about Japanese culture. Of course, in this case, it’s all about samurai. However, Toshiro Mifune’s character technically is just pretending to be one which is considered a capital offense. Nevertheless, this inspired movies like The Magnificent Seven and The Three Amigos.

Believe it or not, Japanese civilization as we know it is actually a late comer in world history. I mean the Mayans were actually a flourishing civilization while Tokyo was still a backwater fishing village. Nevertheless, it is the culture we associate with samurai, kimonos, ninja, geishas, and Pearl Harbor. For much of its history, Japan has always been ruled by an emperor seen as a living god in the eyes of the people, but was really nothing more than a figurehead and real power was usually held by an entity like the Fujiwara clan of the Heian period, the shoguns, or other government infrastructure. Of course, many Japanese movies tend to be structured like westerns usually set in the time of the samurai, especially in the films of Akira Kurosawa since he was from a samurai family. Still, it’s also a culture known for producing one of the world’s first novels called The Tale of Genji written by a lady in waiting named Murasaki Shikibu, one of history’s early female authors. Nevertheless, there are plenty of aspects of Japan that are greatly mythologized in movies with aspects not really stack up to what it was really like. Whether pertaining to samurai and ninja, geishas, or modern times, here are some things that movies pertaining to Japanese history tend to get wrong.

Medieval and Shogun Eras:

Okita Soji was a youthful looking leader of the badass samurai group called the Shinsengumi. (He was seen as a tall, dark, and thin man with high cheekbones, wide mouth, and flat face. Also though the Shinsengumi once started as shogun bodyguards, they soon transformed into a ruthless secret police force with an extremely strict code of conduct and an unflinching readiness to kill. Though they were charged with keeping the peace, they could be occasionally seen as a threat with inter-factional violence and assassinations being frequent. Yet, these guys are heroes in Japanese media.)

Odo Nobunaga was a ruthless and brutal warlord. (Yes, he was, which is why he’s been the bad guy in many Japanese films ever since even though he’s also more like a Japanese Otto von Bismarck known for his genius and cunning. However, unlike Japan’s other leaders at the time as well as the xenophobic tendencies, he was a patron of Western culture and food as well as very lenient toward Catholic Christians and gave missionaries living space to set up churches. Of course, this might’ve contributed to his reputation. Still, he also tried to modernize the Japanese military, opened borders {perhaps to hire foreign mercenaries and buy rifles from Christians}, and attempted to start a Japanese Renaissance.)

Samurai and Ninjas:

Anyone in Japan could become a samurai. (Samurai were born from samurai families, not made. However, anyone could be a ninja.)

Ronin were traveling swordsmen and mercenaries. (Some might’ve been but they were mostly bandits and pirates.)

Ronin were usually nice to peasants and willingly defended them. (Though ronin occupied one of the lowest rungs of society, they mostly treated everyone beneath them like crap and refused to work like normal people).

Being a samurai was cool in any era. (Well, maybe at a time when Japanese nobles were at each other’s throats, yet it basically sucked during the Edo of peace and prosperity since they couldn’t change jobs or earn money {especially if they were ronin with no master, but many ended up becoming bureaucrats} and could only make a living with their martial powers. Also, the possibility of death was very high. And if they were daimyos, they had to spend six months away from their families in Tokyo, who were required to live there.)

During the events of the 47 Ronin in 1701, Lord Asano Naganori was a wizened old man while Lord Kira Yoshiniaka was a young upstart power hungry noble. (It was the other way around since the power-hungry Kira was 60 and the Confucian Asano was 34.)

It was perfectly fine for a commoner to don Samurai armor and pretending to be one. (Commoners who did this were executed. Even touching a samurai was a death penalty offense.)

A half-white Japanese man participated with the 47 ronin. (Sorry Keanu Reeves, but this wouldn’t be a realistic possibility since it’s very likely his dad wouldn’t be a samurai. Oh, and there’s no way in hell he’d have a romantic interest in Asano’s daughter because he died at 34.)

Samurai wives were usually of noble birth. (Any woman in Japan could be a samurai wife which mostly consists of being a sexually available maid 24/7. But a common woman wanting to marry one had to pay.)

Ninjas dressed in black. (Ninjas did not dress in black outfits. They were spies, assassins, contract killers, and covert agents. The last thing they’d want to do is to walk around in something that reveals them instantly. Instead, they dressed up as normal people of the time- anything that’d help them blend in. On occasions when they did need to move around during the night undetected, they wore dark blue, not black, which blends better with the darkness.)

The samurai were brave and noble warriors who followed the bushido serving loyalty to one’s master, self-discipline, respect, and ethical behavior. (Many of them were brutal thugs who used their higher power and social status to oppress the weak. Also, samurai adhering to the bushido varied considerably like how European knights obeyed chivalry {and European codes also had room for honorable suicide}. Basically it was a nebulous code of rules samurai kind of followed when they felt like it. Oh, and some of them practiced “shudo” or pederasty viewed as a very high and noble form of love {in their mind anyway}. Still, Bushido as we know it might’ve originated as a mistake made by a Japanese historian Nitobe Inazo in his 1905 book and it was used as a method of social control when Japan was placed under a military dictatorship between the 1920s and WWII.)

Samurai didn’t just kill anyone. (Actually they’d kill anyone under their domain for simply insulting them or meeting them in traffic as long as they could get away with it.)

Samurai were willing to die a honorable death and happy to die in battle than surrender. (While many samurai did commit suicide, most of the time they were forced to due to disgrace. Also, many of them were willing to surrender and be taken prisoner. Not to mention, apart from the samurai, most Japanese soldiers in general were conscripted by their warlords. Sort of like medieval Europe.)

Samurai would never betray each other. (Treachery and backstabbing among samurai was commonplace even it was over money or being sore losers.)

The katana was the standard weapon of the samurai. (The weapon didn’t come out until the late Middle Ages, and before then, samurai usually used the tachi or the uchigata. Also, for the greater part of Japanese feudal society, using a sword was usually a last chance weapon for the samurai and they didn’t start carrying swords around until after the fighting was over and usually used it as a fashion accessory to show off their status. Not only that, before the sword became the symbol of the samurai, the samurai were more or less identified as mounted archers and their symbols were a sword and a bow but during the Warring states period, most samurai couldn’t afford a steed. Also, for melee, their first weapon was usually a spear or a naginata. However, to us it would be impossible to imagine a samurai without his long badass sword, even in Japan. Actually as far as weapons go, samurai used just about everything at their disposal. One was known to kill a guy with a homemade wooden oar.)

Samurai thought using firearms was dishonorable. (Samurai were more than willing to use firearms and the Satsuma rebellion was so dangerous because the place was a manufacturing center for cannons. Paintings show Takamori had plenty of guns while the Imperial forces only had swords. Also, he even had a school including weapons training and artillery {which they had since the 16th century}. Not to mention, it’s said the Japanese were designing better guns than the Europeans by the 1870s.)

Samurai and ninjas roamed Japan chopping each other with katanas and shuriken at the slightest provocation. (They were much more disciplined than that. Katana duels were rare and even frowned upon. However, didn’t stop them from fighting butcherfest battles or publicly lopping off peasant heads.)

Ninjas were members of elite government special forces. (They’re more like invisible assassins, spies, contract killers, and covert agents. Think snipers.)

Ninjas got their reputation for invisibility and infiltration because they were very good at hiding as well as possessing mysterious powers like ninjitsu. (They obtained their reputation because they were willing to dress as members of a lower class when no one else in Japan would do such a thing. Peasants were ignored, dismissed, or noticed at all by the upper classes even though they had fierce travel restrictions. Thus, the “invisibility” was psychological. They also had to be expert in survival skills, actual stealth, poisons, assassination techniques, and unorthodox tactics. Not to mention, they used anything they could get their hands on as weapons. Still, many ninjas encouraged rumors of them having magical powers.)

Ninjas originated in Japan. (They may have originated in China. And Japanese ninjas called themselves “shinobi.”)

Ninjas could catch arrows in flight. (No they couldn’t. But they could lie in carp pools all night breathing with a blowpipe before shooting their victims with a poison darts the next morning {though this probably would be in a last ditch effort} and use their sword to deflect arrows shot 30 yards away.)

Ninjas came from the lower classes and were often hired to do dirty deeds honorable samurai wouldn’t do. (Most were actually samurai or mercenaries who worked for them so apparently they would fight in any way they could. And no, they weren’t born in hidden villages and trained to obey nindo.)

Anyone in Japan could own a sword between the 16th and 19th centuries. (Only the samurai were.)

Samurai wives did not have to kill themselves if their husbands royally messed up. (They were expected to commit seppuku.)

Ninjas would jump around on rooftops in ridiculous clothing. (Real ninja would more likely infiltrate the household staff and poison a meal.)

Daimyo lords had court jesters. (Contrary to Ran, they didn’t. But Ran is a feudal Japanese version of King Lear so it’s forgivable.)

Mori Motonari’s two oldest sons were real jerks. (Well, while Ran is somewhat based on the Motonari legend, his three sons were loyal and talented in their own way. And all were unable to break the 3 arrows together. Still, Motonari was a real guy and daimyo family disputes like in Ran did happen. So Akira Kurosawa didn’t need to stray too much from historical accuracy to set Shakespeare in Japanese history.)

Ninja fighters used nunchuku as well as hidden blades and clawlike weapons. (They never used nunchucks. They only used a clawlike Neko-te but only for climbing. And no, they probably didn’t use swords taller and wider than a grown man.)

The Ninjas outlasted the samurai. (Ninjas faded away in the 1600s after existing for 200 years while the samurai were abolished in 1868.)

Ninjas fought the shogun. (The shogun was their #1 customer.)

Ninjas were a single group. (There were various clans who had their signature techniques.)

Ninjas used suriken and swords. (Samurai used the former. However, historians believe ninjas used a standard wakizashi or chokuto type swords of the period.)

By the 19th century, samurai had been “protectors of Japan” for 900 to a 1,000 years. (They originally started out as rent collectors and estate protectors for the Kyoto nobility and later evolved into an aristocracy in its own right. Also, they were only considered protectors of Japan during the two thwarted Mongol invasions. Oh, and they only became prevalent in Japanese society in the 11th century.)

Japanese people were still frightened of samurai by the 1870s and bowed to them en masse. (Urban Japanese had gotten over treating common samurai as lords for a long time.)

Modern:

In the late 19th century, the Japanese government hired American advisers to modernize their army and these consisted of Civil War veterans. (The Japanese in the late 19th century did hire foreign advisers to modernize their army, but they were mostly French and German, not American. That is because they looked to France and Prussia as their military models {though other countries did have American military advisers after the American Civil War}. Oh, and five chose to stay and participate in the Satsuma Rebellion and the inspiration of the Tom Cruise character actually didn’t surrender to the Emperor {though the Japanese government would unsuccessfully demand extradition to punish him for 12 years}.)

Saigo Takamori died from Gatling gunfire. (He committed seppuku which was ritual suicide or hari kari.)

During WWII, Japanese kamikaze pilots were ordered to use their planes as missiles because it was disgraceful to face defeat. (Actually the kamikaze pilots were ordered to run their planes into American ships during WWII because it was the first time that Japan ever used planes in war and the training the pilots received was hardly adequate. In other words, running a plane into something was just an effective way to use the plane.)

The Japanese samurai sword was easy for Americans to master. (It’s doubtful that a 40-something alcoholic Civil War vet, even one with great hair, would master chopsticks much less the samurai sword. And I’ve tried chopsticks which are very hard to master.)

The geisha coming of age in Pre-War Japan was much more of a makeover, it also involved her getting intimate with a client and wowing patrons with dancing prowess using platform shoes, fake snow, and strobe lights. (From Moviefone: “The geisha coming-of-age, called “mizuage,” was really more of a makeover, where she changed her hairstyle and clothes. It didn’t involve her getting… intimate with a client. In the climactic scene where Sayuri wows Gion patrons with her dancing prowess, her routine – which involves some platform shoes, fake snow, and a strobe light – seems more like a Studio 54 drag show than anything in pre-war Kyoto.”)

Commodore Matthew Perry was given a sword by the shogun which was stolen by Japanese isolationists. (Not a likely story.)

Samurai fought the Meiji modernization out of noble goals. (From Wikipedia: According to History professor Cathy Schultz, “Many samurai fought Meiji modernization not for altruistic reasons but because it challenged their status as the privileged warrior caste. Meiji reformers proposed the radical idea that all men essentially being equal … The film {The Last Samurai} also misses the historical reality that lots and lots of Meiji policy advisers were former samurai, who had voluntarily given up their traditional privileges to follow a course they believed would strengthen Japan.”)

The Meiji Emperor was referred as Emperor Meiji in his lifetime. (He wasn’t called Meiji until after his death. While living, he would’ve been called Emperor Mutsuhito.)

General Omura Masujiro was still alive by the 1870s. (Sure he developed a Western-style army during the Meiji Restoration, but he was killed by a conservative samurai in 1869.)

The Americans agreed to sell their guns to open trade with Japan. (This is utter fiction.)

Rebelling samurai during the Meiji Restoration would be perfectly willing to wear their own traditional armor. (They’d actually be wearing more modern style garments like western-style uniforms.)

General Bonner Fellers had to convince General Douglas MacArthur to exonerate Emperor Hiriohito. (Exonerating Hirohito and the Imperial family was originally MacArthur’s idea though it was a far more complex issue than portrayed in Emperor. Oh, and the process to investigate him took five months instead of 10 measly days.)

General Bonner Fellers had an affinity for Japanese culture and was in love with a Japanese foreign exchange student during his college years. (He was actually a commie-fearing member of the ultra-right John Birch society. There’s no evidence whether he had a romantic relationship with any foreign exchange student in college {the Japanese exchange student he met at Earlham was only a mere friend and probably a guy} but he was more of a psychological expert who designed MacArthur’s strategy to demoralize the Japanese people. Oh, and his wife accompanied him on some of his visits {who he’d been married to since 1925}. Also, his effectiveness as an intelligence officer was questioned during the American Occupation of Japan.)

Emperor Hirohito and his family were exonerated from being tried as war criminals because they were innocent. (Their exoneration had more to do with American post-war planners fearing that executing him would cause cultural and political chaos across Japan.)

General Douglas MacArthur had his photo taken with Emperor Hirohito as a diplomatic expression of Japanese-American cooperation. (It was also used as American propaganda to convince the Japanese people that the Emperor was a very small man {who many considered a god}. He also convinced Hirohito to renounce his status as a god-on-earth.)

The Meiji Emperor spoke English, had people see him without invitation, and made important political decisions at the spur of the moment. (Only the most senior advisers were allowed to see Emperor Meiji without invitation, everyone else no way. Also, he didn’t speak English nor make any important spur of the moment decisions.)

Japanese industrialists had the Emperor’s ear and Imperial advisers conducted job interviews in other countries. (Imperial advisers did no such thing. Also, industrialists had no need of the Emperor’s support since they had close ties to samurai oligarchs anyway.)

Miscellaneous:

Kimonos were easy to remove. (Modern kimonos, yes. However, many Pre-modern Japanese aristocrats would wear layers upon them. A stripper in a Heian period court kimono style would have a long time taking the whole outfit off.)

Geishas fully painted their lips in historical Japan. (They’d either paint only the top, bottom, or center of both. Fully painting of lips didn’t come into Japan until after WWII.)

Geishas were prostitutes. (Sort of but not anymore, they were primarily entertainers, hostesses, and conversationalists at teahouses where men went to unwind after a day at the office, though love affairs and sex trades did occur. Still, until Japan banned prostitution in the 1950s, it was only just one of their many services but they spent most of their working time playing music, dancing, storytelling, and reciting poetry.)

Geishas wore a beehive as their traditional hairdo. (The wrapped their hair in a bun and wore a large wig over it. Maiko wear it in a very different fashion.)

Only women were geisha. (The earliest were men.)

Carrying weapons in the Emperor’s presence was perfectly all right. (No one was allowed to bear weapons in the Emperor’s presence in historical Japan.)

Seppuku was completely voluntary and common in historical Japan. (Sometimes samurai were ordered to commit ritual suicide if  one failed miserably and brought disorder to the clan. Still, it was very rare.)

Japanese men didn’t do any housework. (Many did a great deal around the house and rarely referred themselves as a collective, particularly on cultural matters.)

Most Japanese ate fluffy white rice. (This was only a regular grain staple for the most wealthy. Rural samurai and commoners probably would’ve eaten rice gruel and other grains such as barley, millet, and buckwheat, either as porridge or noodles.)

Tokyo had its name in the 17th century. (Tokyo wouldn’t be referred by its present name until 1868. At that time, it was called Edo.)

History of the World According to the Movies: Part 12- China

Posted by historymaniacmegan on
Image

Perhaps no western movie encapsulates Chinese history more than the Award-Winning film, The Last Emperor, which accounts the life of the boy emperor Puyi whose life was profoundly affected by the governmental changes that embarked China in the early 20th century. Interestingly, he ended his days as a gardener under the Communist regime.

In many ways, Chinese history is about as old a civilization itself since it has existed with much of its culture intact for thousands of years though developed separate from Mesopotamia. However, this has not been the same in recent years with imperialism, the collapse of the last dynasty, the time of the republic, Communism, and whatever China has now. However, China is nevertheless consists of a rich history with dynasties, invasions, intellectuals, scandals, wars, and court intrigue. Two of China’s dynasties have been under foreign rulers such as the Yuan of Kublai Khan and the Ching under the Manchurians. China has also been credited with inventing things like paper, gunpowder, and fireworks. Still, movies about Chinese history tend to reflect that of a very large country that resides a billion people on earth. And yet, China is home to so many other cultures, traditions, and languages than what the Chinese government would like to admit. Nevertheless, many movies based in China aren’t a stickler for accuracy since they tend to be based on historic legends chronicling real life incidents (like Romance of the Three Kingdoms.) Still, even movies about a country with a glorious past still has inaccuracies which I’m willing to list.

First here’s a guide to the Dynasties to determine the time periods (and that everyone understands what I’m talking about):

Xia (c. 2100 B.C.E. – c. 1600 B. C. E.) -may be mythical but it’s inscribed in Chinese historical records.

Shang (c. 1700 B. C. E. – 1046 B. C. E.) -earliest Chinese Dynasty as far as archaeologists are concerned.

Zhou (1046 B. C. E. – 256 B. C. E.) – longest dynasty in Chinese history as well as the one where a lot of Chinese culture aspects are based. Also, Confucius, Sun Tzu, Laozi, and many of the early Chinese thinkers lived in this period. Many of their ideas would soon influence later Chinese thought in years to come.

Spring and Autumn Period (722 B. C. E. – 221 B. C. E.)- Zhou power is decentralized and wanes as feudal lords vie for local power in their own region sometimes with the king being ruler in name only.

Warring States Period (476 B. C. E. – 221 B. C. E.) – China is divided and local entities are fighting against each other. Zhou Dynasty falls, while the state of Qin eventually takes over.

Qin Dynasty (221 B. C. E. – 206 B. C. E.) – mostly encompasses the reign of Qin Shi Huangdi, first Emperor of China and builder of the first Great Wall. Fell a few years after his death.

Han Dynasty (206 B. C. E. – 220 A. D.) – one of the defining Chinese dynasties which established the Han Chinese culture. Confucianism becomes China’s official philosophy as well as saw the invention of paper and advances in metallurgy. Had a brief overthrow for 14 years but was later restored. May have had contact wit the Roman Empire. China was divided for decades after collapse.

Three Kingdoms Era (220 A. D. – 280 A. D.) – China is divided into three kingdoms and a period of feuding warlords. Romance of the Three Kingdoms covers this and is seen as a very famous time period in China.

Jin Dynasty (265 A. D. – 420 A. D.) – ruled Northern China and is famous for its decadent court, defeats by nomads, and line of incompetent emperors. Area was soon divided into sixteen kingdoms after it fell.

Southern and Northern Dynasties (420 A. D. – 589 A. D.) – a period of civil war and division but saw the development of Chinese Buddhism and pagoda. Han Chinese heavily colonized and developed the south while the north was constantly at war.

Sui Dynasty (589 A. D. – 618 A. D.) -united the country after centuries of fragmentation, set up a long lasting government system and coinage, and extended the Great Wall. Fell after two generations.

Tang Dynasty (618 A. D. – 907 A. D.) – encompasses China’s Golden Age of civilization as well as when gunpowder is discovered. Becomes a cultural influence in Korea, Vietnam, and Japan with embassies as far away as the Byzantine Empire.

Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period (907 A. D. – 960 A. D.) – another period of unrest and civil war. Former based in the north, latter in south.

Song, Liao, Jin and Western Xia Dynasties (960 A. D. – 1279 overlapping) – though one of contending dynasties, war, and eventual Mongol Conquest, was a period of great technological innovation as well as economic and cultural prosperity.

Yuan Dynasty (1271 – 1368) – basically this is Genghis Khan’s family and founded by his grandson Kublai Khan. Of course, they wanted to run China their own way so brought their own bureaucrats from the West who were mostly Muslim (though western Mongols brought Chinese administrators). Great period  for Chinese literature and drama.

Ming Dynasty (1368 – 1644) – last ethnically Chinese dynasty which built the most current Great Wall standing today. Famous for novels, porcelain, isolationism, and flourishing economy and urban life. Yet, marred by political troubles, national disasters, civil unrest and corruption by eunuchs.

Qing Dynasty (1644 – 1911) – China’s last dynasty founded by the ruling family of Manchuria. China takes it’s largest form. Early years mark great conquest and prosperity. Later years marred by European Imperialism, opium, civil unrest, delusions of nationalistic grandeur, failed policies, and other things. Still, this is the dynastic period most covered in movies since documentation was more readily available.

Dynastic Periods:

The Forbidden City stood in Beijing around the time when China was under assault by the Huns. (The Forbidden City was built during the Ming Dynasty and by that time the Huns were integrated in Chinese society. Also, Mulan existed during the Han Dynasty.)

Fireworks were used in China during the Han Dynasty. (It was during the Sui.)

China was fighting the Huns during the later Han Dynasty. (The Huns were invading Europe at the time and hailed from Russia. The “Huns” depicted in Mulan were probably Mongols who were habitual invaders anyway and they were called the Xiongnu. However, they wouldn’t take over China until the 1200s.)

Chinese Imperial horsemen rode using stirrups on their horses. (They would’ve done no such thing. The Mongols, on the other hand….)

The Chinese Imperial Army rode on Arabian horses. (Maybe but no common peasant would own one. Mulan could never have such a majestic horse like Khan.)

Gunpowder existed during the Han Dynasty. (It was invented during the Tang.)

Chinese people were free to hug the Emperor. (No one would really be permitted to hug the Emperor, since his subjects had to keep respectful distance.)

Mulan was discovered as a woman after she was wounded and was kicked out accordingly. (She’s actually said to expose her breasts willingly to her fellow soldiers who were totally cool with it. Oh, and she had been a general for a while, served in the army for 12 years gaining great respect, and had literally saved the Empire before that, too. Of course, while China has had a reputation for treating women harshly, this only comes later since the Chinese had no law to execute any woman impersonating a man to join the military, at least during the Han Dynasty.)

Marco Polo actually went to China. (There’s some debate about this. The Yuan Dynasty kept pretty meticulous records even of those of foreign visitors far less important and illustrious than the Polos, and he’s not in them. However, there were other non-Chinese explorers who went to China during the Middle Ages. Still, Polo never mentioned things like foot binding, chopsticks, tea, gunpowder, or the Great Wall {though it might’ve disintegrated by that point}. Not to mention, they said that he didn’t understand much of Mongolian or Chinese at all such as the units. Thus, he may just have been a “conman” who might’ve tried to pass the stories of other foreign travelers as his own.)

The Eight Nation Alliance put down the Boxer Rebellion which wasn’t really about imperialism. (It was so about Imperialism and though the Boxers were violent and attacked civilians, they really had something to rebel against. I mean it was imperialism that basically got much of their country hooked on opium as well as make China a ruined mess, basically.)

Those who took part in the Siege of Legations were actively chose to stay in order to make a principled stand during the Boxer Rebellion. (They were more than willing to get the hell out of there but couldn’t because the countryside was swarming with Boxers.)

Chinese men had to shave their hair in a pigtail during the Mongol invasions. (This isn’t until the Qing Dynasty. Before then, they wore their hair long and bound it together on the top of their head or under a hat.)

Marco Polo was the first European in China. (He was the first to write a detailed account of it, assuming he did visit it. Also, he’s said to have traveled with his father and uncle {who weren’t there first}. There’s said to be Roman embassies in China during the 3rd and 4th centuries, but its fuzzy. )

Marco Polo only traveled from Venice with a servant. (He traveled with is father and uncle assuming he did go to China.)

Kublai Khan was a single dad with a daughter. (He’s said to have 4 wives and 22 sons. He’s also said to have at least 2 daughters, one who became a Buddhist nun and another who married a king of Korea. Neither ran off with Marco Polo, however.)

Everyone in Song China spoke Mandarin Chinese in what is now Central and Western China even by non-Chinese. (Only in Manchuria. Mandarin Chinese wouldn’t be spoken in mainland China until the Qing Dynasty. And those living in present day Central and Western China who aren’t Chinese would speak a Turkic dialect.)

Cao Cao was a scheming chancellor who ran China with an iron fist through the young Han Emperor. (Though he’s represented in Chinese media as a cunning and deceitful man, he was said to be a brilliant ruler who did a lot of good in the realms of education and agriculture. He also wrote poetry.)

Liu Bei was a compassionate and righteous leader endowed with charismatic potency who built a state on the basis of Confucian values though he was kind of a weeping wreck. (He was actually a competent commander while some of the strategies in popular media attributed to Zhuge Liang were actually his own. Not to mention, he was warlord and more Legalist than Confucian though he came from modest means rising through the ranks. And though he’s depicted as a loyal servant to the Han Empire, he probably would never have ascended to becoming emperor of his own state without the Han collapse. Also, he’s said to make a lot of mistakes like irrationally leading a disastrous attack on Yi Ling, slamming his infant son to the ground which doomed his future empire. Nevertheless, he’s a popular folk hero in China as well as has a cult following as a deity.)

Zhuge Liang was a wise and competent administrator who can perform fantastical achievements like summoning advantageous winds and devising magical stone mazes. (Sure he was a brilliant guy but he wasn’t the supreme tactical and strategic genius he’s depicted in Chinese media. He was actually more of a top political and domestic administrator.)

Zhang Fei was a blundering drunkard with a short temper who can be of hindrance on the battlefield though still smart enough to utilize great strategies. (He was the most strategically accomplished of Liu Bei’s main generals.)

Guan Yu was a righteous and loyal warrior. (His image is perhaps one of the most altered and aggrandized in Chinese pop culture, especially in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which is like the Chinese equivalent to the works of Homer.)

Xiao Qiao was a badass who walked right into enemy territory and had tea with Cao Cao. (We don’t know much about her and it’s very unlikely this ever happened.)

Qin Shi Huangdi was a ruthless despot who ruled China with an iron fist making the country a cyrpto-totalitarian legalistic dystopia. (Of course, this is China’s first Emperor and mostly responsible for what makes China the country it was during the later Dynastic years. However, he’s depicted as such villain in Chinese media that his would-be assassin and a concubine who conspired against him are shown in much more favorable light than he is. Still, his reputation may have to do with the fact that his dynasty was overthrown three years after his death despite the fact that archaeological findings relating to his dynasty may reveal that the Qin Emperor may not have been as brutal as previously thought. Nevertheless, his fear of assassination may be perhaps justified.)

Kung Fu broadswords and jians were often used in a lot of Chinese battles. (These swords were first made in fairly modern times. Neither were used in ancient Chinese combat.)

Guan Yu used a Gundao during the Three Kingdoms Era. (He more likely used a dagger axe since these weapons came out in the Ming era.)

Dowager Empress Cixi was a dominating and power hungry evil matriarch. (She’s certainly no saint and certainly did a lot of morally reprehensible things, there’s still debate on whether certain things about her are true or just stemmed from Chinese politics using her as as scapegoat.)

The Tang Emperors lived in the Forbidden City. (It wasn’t built until the Ming Dynasty.)

Emperors were all noble, wise, and grandfatherly. (Sometimes they were anything but.)

Big hulky brocade wearing brutes used to mow down peasants by the thousands with flashy musou attacks. (I’m not sure this is possible.)

Fair maidens were either skilled enough to kick butt in martial arts or supernatural creatures in disguise. (Hey, didn’t they have something called footbinding? I’m sure the latter is certainly not true. Still, how did some of these women managed to learn kung-fu after having their feet crushed? I mean some of these films take place after the Song Dynasty at least. Seriously, footbinding could really get in the way with a young girl’s martial arts training. And it doesn’t help that many of these martial arts wielding waif fus are from prominent families where footbinding would definitely be practiced. Of course, most Chinese families were peasants, but if a family could afford a well off lifestyle without doing manual labor, you can bet the girls would have had their feet bound.)

Tang Empress Wu Zetian imprisoned Di Renjie for eight years for opposing her rule. (She had him demoted to a province for three over another official accusing him of contempt. He later helped run the government under her, which makes him more of court favorite than anything. Of course, this guy is best known for getting his own western detective series.)

Empress Wu Zetian was a ruthless tyrannical ruler willing to off family members. (Maybe but she was probably no worse than her male counterparts. Chinese historic record tends to be biased against strong female rulers.)

Modern:

Chinese villages were ruled by wise and benevolent landlords who were loyal to their country during World War II. (Actually, they weren’t nice guys to China’s vast peasant population and exploited them whenever they could. Also, many of them did cooperate with the Japanese during World War II.)

The Ip Man was a bourgeois martial arts teacher who escaped from the mainland to flee the Japanese during the invasion as well as worked as a laborer. (He was actually a police officer who supported the Kuomintang and fled to Hong Kong to escape the Communists. Also, he never worked as a laborer before becoming Bruce Lee’s teacher. However, this doesn’t stop the Chinese from portraying him this way in the movies.)

Simplified Chinese characters came in around the 1930s. (They were introduced after the Communists came into power in order to improve literacy.)

British journalist George Hogg led 60 orphan boys through China fleeing from the Japanese secret police and nationalists who wanted to conscript some of them with an Australian nurse. (He was actually assisted by friends from New Zealand, particularly a known Communist named Renwie Alley who’s absent from a film relating to this incident.)

Puyi was a playboy and had a lot of sexual interest in women. (Evidence in his romantic interest in women is scant {to the point he was rumored to be gay} though he had five consorts which he referred to as his wives “in name only.”)

Puyi was a tragic hero, especially in his private life. (He flogged eunuchs as part of his daily routine by age eleven. During his reign in Munchukuo, he went nuts, became obsessed with consulting oracles, injected himself, and beat servants for trivial offenses.)

Traditional Chinese music was endorsed by the Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution. (Traditional Chinese music was illegal in China during the Cultural Revolution considered as one of the four “Great Olds.” Western music was considered “bourgeois.”  Actually the only music allowed in Maoist China were Socialist slogan songs. How horrible.)

Mao Zedong was depressed about his legacy as well as bored with his political life by the 1970s. Yet, he was more interested in why Henry Kissinger was such a ladies’ man. (Contrary to Nixon, he may have been more optimistic about his legacy than how it turned out, yet he had a good reason to be depressed about his legacy since so many people in China got killed under him and the fact that he left China in terrible shape. Not only that but his wife would be jailed after his death. But at least China was unified and the Chinese people had better lives so he remains a controversial figure. As for Kissinger, yeah, I’d probably wonder the same thing. Yet, we need to understand that Mao was married four times and had terrible hygiene habits like not brushing his teeth and going 25 years without taking a bath according to one account. He was also a chain smoker. Yet, he’s said to have a lot of sexual partners.)

Bruce Lee started taking martial arts lessons after having a childhood nightmare. (Contrary to Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, he started training at 13 after being beaten up by a street gang. He would also get into a lot of fights as a teenager that his mother decided to ship him off to America. Also, he had been taking occasional acting jobs since he was a child since his dad was an actor and singer in the Cantonese Opera Company. Yes, one of the biggest martial arts stars ever had a dad who was an opera singer.)

Miscellaneous:

China has always consisted of homogenous Han Chinese. (Han Chinese usually live in the southeast of China and even they were a mixed lot before the Sinicizing Han Dynasty. China is also home to Manchurians, Muslim Uighurs, and Buddhist Tibetans. Actually China has been quite a bit multicultural than it usually makes itself out to be.)

Older and/or wealthy or noble Chinese women could walk in a normal fashion unassisted by a cane. (Since their feet were bound as children, they couldn’t without wobbling unassisted. Also, some of those women who could walk unassisted were Manchurian, not Chinese.)

Chinese traditionally wore a qipao that opened at that side. (The Manchurians did. Chinese robes open at the front. The modern qipao doesn’t look like something pre-20th century Chinese would wear at all.)

The Great Wall has always looked the same. (It was renovated several times from the Qin to Ming Dynasty.)

China has always been a unified entity. (There have been times when it hasn’t, particularly between dynasties.)

Chinese people had good hygiene and dental care. (It depended on status naturally. Since most of China has comprised of poor peasants for most of its history, this wouldn’t be the case. Also, Mao Zedong was notorious for having poor personal hygiene {he had green teeth} as well as certainly didn’t practice safe sex {most of the women he slept with got infected with STDs because of him}. Oh, and every day he used to take a swim in one of China’s major rivers {take it what you will}.)

Chinese people were very polite and courteous prudes. (Just because their Confucian ethic encourages them to be nice to others doesn’t mean the country has exercised in polite behavior in society at least by Western standards. I mean there’s a No Spitting campaign there and some of their literature can get quite spicy. Also, some of the things Chairman Mao once said can put Howard Stern to shame.)

Chinese aristocrats had Fu-Manchu mustaches. (Well, maybe some did.)

Chinese people didn’t eat any weird things. (Uh, much of what you see in a Chinese restaurant doesn’t really consist of what someone in China would eat.)

Kung-Fu fights were a common occurrence. (Of course, most of the movies set in historical China are kung-fu movies despite it being a culture of intellectuals. You were more likely to hear government officials staging Chinese philosophy debates than kick punching each other. Seriously, how often would kung-fu fights occur during that time?)

China was an isolated entity for much of its existence until Europeans arrived there. (It’s said that the West knew of China’s existence for centuries even before Marco Polo {even if he didn’t actually go there}. Sure China was isolationist at times but it also engaged in foreign policy with other entities, just not European. Then you have the Zheng He voyages during the early Ming Dynasty.)

Family and filial piety was the most important thing in Chinese society. (Yes, but apparently there were emperors who didn’t see it that way. And then there’s Dowager Cixi poisoning her nephew.)

Funerals were modest affairs in China. (Actually Chinese people spend much more on funerals for family members than most Americans spend on weddings, especially in Taiwan. Oh, and it’s not uncommon to hire strippers for those occasions either.)

China had samurai in the 19th century. (Samurai were exclusively from Japan. However, China did have ninjas though.)

History of the World According to the Movies: Part 11- Middle Eastern and Islamic History

Posted by historymaniacmegan on
Image

Though I don’t get into Lawrence of Arabia until World War I, I think this is probably the best movie about Middle Eastern history to post since it’s basically the only movie about the region that many people have seen which doesn’t have genies or magic carpets in them. Also, it’s a film that takes place at a very transitional time like WWI between the waning days of the Ottoman Empire and the modern Middle East of today.

Of course, Hollywood history has usually been biased toward Western Civilization with the later years strongly focused on Europe and later the Americas. Prehistory is geared to pretty much the world, ancient history usually toward the Middle East and Mediterranean, and medieval history mostly focuses on Europe. However, there were so much other things happening elsewhere in the world but Hollywood just doesn’t seem to pay much attention to them. For the next several posts, I’ll devote to discussing the historical inaccuracies set in the Middle East post-biblical times, Asia, Africa, and the Pre-Columbian America. Of course, I’ll get into things based in modern times but I’ll also cover earlier aspects as well (except with Pre-Columbian America). Nevertheless, many of these places still contain important history worth mentioning which has changed the world. Also, I am talking about “world history” which should include other areas not under the Western radar. Still, anything relating to Oceania or Australia will be under colonial history since people there don’t have much of a history to begin with. History of the Caribbean will be under Latin American history, Pre-Columbian America, or Colonialism depending on era.

Of course, the best place to start with non-Western history will be in the Middle East. When we left off from there in Ancient History, it was the cradle of civilization as well as a place of biblical events. Sure much of it was part of the Roman Empire but by the time the Western Empire fell in the 400s, the Eastern Empire would continue to exist for another thousand years until Turks sack Constantinople in 1453. Yet, during the Middle Ages, what we call the Byzantine Empire was very much in decline by the Crusades. However, the Middle East would continue to be dominated by empires until recent times mostly by outsiders like the Turks, Mongols, and the British and French. Yet,  during the Middle Ages, the Middle East also saw the birth of a new religion called Islam founded in 622 A. D. by Muhammad which would later become a dominant faith in much of the world alongside Christianity. Of course, movies about Muhammad will never show him in accordance with Islamic custom. Still, this area was a great place of civilization while the Europe was being beseiged by German invaders but it has become a shithole in modern times (well, by our standards). Still, here is a list of errors I shall list from movies set in the Middle East post-biblical times.

Islam:

The crescent moon and star was a Muslim symbol from the Crusades. (It wasn’t adopted until the 14th century. During that time, Muslims armies would usually carry black, green, and white flags.)

Mullahs wore Quran inscriptions on their clothes. (Islam forbids writing Quran verses or “Allah” on clothing but permits it on flags.)

Muslim women wore transparent headscarves. (See through headscarves are forbidden in Islam.)

Muslim women were treated as objects, confined to their homes, and serve their men. Not to mention, there weren’t many notable Muslim women. (Actually though Muslim women didn’t have as many rights as men but not all Muslim women were harem girls, princesses, or housewives and they weren’t really considered as property. They also had more property rights than other women during the Middle Ages and could inherit and earn money. They had rights to be educated and even teach. They also had a right not to be punished if she had been raped and was permitted to kill her rapist should the creep go after her again. Female infanticide was banned as well. As for notable Muslim women, there were a lot of women in Islam who made considerable contributions. There’s a women who started the nursing profession in the Middle East, a woman who founded a university, one of Muhammad’s wives was a businesswoman, two others were scholars, one a poet, and another a nurse, a couple women were war leaders, and some were regents and queens. Also, before Islam, many women in the region had no legal status at all and were considered proper and many of Muslim women had their rights constrained more by tribal custom than Sharia Law.)

Muslims address their god as “Father.” (They use “Allah.”)

Byzantine Empire:

The last Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI was a hedonist. (He was celibate.)

In 1453, Constantinople was a magnificent city. (It had been far from it, especially since it was sacked by the Crusaders in 1204.)

In 1453, the Byzantine Empire was one of wealth and power whose rulers lived in decadence and luxury. (This wasn’t really the case since it had been on a long and drastic decline since the Middle Ages.)

The Byzantine Emperor resided in the Great Palace in 1453. (The Great Palace wasn’t in use at this time.)

Giovanni Giustiniani was killed in a single combat while defending the walls of Constantinople from the Ottoman Turks. (He was wounded by cannon or crossbow bolt. He died of the effects later in June 1453.)

Pre-Islamic:

The Pre-Islamic Sassinid Persians wrote in Arab script. (The Sasssinid Empire predates Muhammad.)

The Hashashins were a sect of crazed and chaotic assassins that resided in the city of Alamut and a vizier named Nizam was the very first man they killed, which was during the Sassinid Empire. (Yes, but their presence in history begins as an esoteric Islamic cult -an offshoot of the Isma’ili sect of Shia’ Islam and they were seen as protectors of the Nizari in other communities as well. Oh, yeah, and their existence began during the Crusades and were even allies of the Crusaders {since they had common enemies}. Also, they were said to be quite friendly towards the common folk since their killings were carefully targeted and planned. However, there’s no evidence whether they drugged their recruits with marijuana {well, other than for medicinal purposes}. Not to mention, they met their downfall during the Mongol conquest of Persia.)

Golden Age:

Saladin’s was the Islamic leader’s original name. (It was actually his nickname by the Christians. His actual name was Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub.)

Saladin snuck into a Christian camp to cure Richard the Lionheart. (He would’ve done no such thing.)

Saladin was an honorable man. (By the standards of the day, sure. Yet, he only behaved this way when it suited him. Once he had 200 Knight Templars and Hospitallers executed by Sufis and Islamic scholars {who were unfamiliar with weapons}, which led to a clumsy and agonizing death to many prisoners. Not to mention, he intended to sack Jerusalem but didn’t when Balian threatened to destroy Islamic holy sites and execute thousands of Muslim prisoners. Also, before beginning his conquest in Jerusalem, he put down a Sudanese revolt in Egypt by burning down their Cairo quarter with their women and children still inside their homes. After the Sudanese troops surrendered, he promised them safe passage up the Nile only to have them massacred when leaving Cairo in smaller disorganized groups.)

Saladin was a well-known figure in Middle Eastern history who was willing to negotiate with the Christians and was respected by both sides. (Until the late 19th century he was mostly forgotten figure in the Muslim World because the empire he created barely outlived him and the fact that he was a Kurd. Also, modern lionization of him flows from the Europeans.)

Saladin knew nothing about the existence of ice prior to the Crusades. (The people in the Middle East knew well of the existence of ice and used it in drinks. Also, Saladin is known to give King Guy Lusignan ice water at the battle of Hattin, which led to the killing of Chatillon.)

Sultans were usually idiots who were only preoccupied with their toys and harem girls while the evil Grand Vizier basically ran everything. (History tells us that this wasn’t true part of the time and Grand Viziers weren’t always evil either.)

Grand Vizier Ja’far ibn Yahya of the Barmakids was a powerful and evil Grand Vizier. (He could possibly be the greatest Grand Vizier Persia had ever had. He was also a polymath who sponsored building libraries and introduced the use of paper in Baghdad {which helped start the Golden Age of Islam}. Unfortunately, because many film Grand Viziers tend to be named Jafar in movies {who are evil}; his name will live in infamy. He’s seen as a bad guy in Sunni tradition as well as an inspiration for villains. The fact he was depicted as evil in some of the Arabian Night Tales is that his boss Caliph Harun al-Rashid killed him and his family because Jafar allegedly had an affair with the Caliph’s sister Abbasa {though it had more to do with Harun fearing that the Barmakids had become too influential for their own good. I mean why execute a right-hand man and his entire family for shagging a Caliph’s sister?})

Arabs in the early Islamic era used curved swords. (Curved swords are Turkish {and wouldn’t be used until the Turks arrived from Central Asia} not Arab. They’d more likely use straight swords at the time.)

Arabian princesses were only children. (Jasmine probably wouldn’t be the only female member of the sultan’s family living in the palace and most definitely had other brothers and half-brothers vying for the throne so Aladdin probably wouldn’t become sultan anyway.)

Arabs sold tomatoes in their marketplaces during the 13th century. (Tomatoes are a New World plant and wouldn’t be known to anyone in the Old World until at least the 15th century.)

The Arabs knew of the existence of gunpowder in the 1100s. (It wasn’t known to the Arabs until at least 1240.)

Caliph Harun al-Rashid was a loveable adventurer who traveled in and out cities in disguise as well as led a great empire. (Sure he’d go in and out of cities in disguises nor was he an extraordinarily bad ruler {dates are from 786-809, which means he ruled a good twenty-three years}.  He killed Grand Vizier Jafar and his entire family, which led to a political crisis taking years to resolve.  He wasn’t an extraordinarily good ruler either and is usually depicted in the Arabian Night Tales as good guy because of the greatness of his empire {which was due to the efforts of many} not the man himself. Still, he was good to his workers except maybe his right hand man as well as attracted poets. Yet, in Hollywood, he’s played by Rock Hudson.)

Omar Khayyam romanced a sultan’s bride and saved a sultan’s son from an assassin sect. (Sure he was a poet and invented a calendar, but it’s highly unlikely that he’d thwart assassins or romance a sultan’s bride. Also, I’m not sure if Persia even has sultans.)

Ottoman Empire:

All Ottoman Army soldiers were Turkish Muslims. (The Ottoman Army was very diverse which included Balkan converts to Islam, Christian levies, and armies of the sultan’s Christian vassals.)

Sultan Mehmet entered Constantinople right after it was sacked by his army. (He entered three days after the looting of his army.)

Modern:

Shah Reza Pahlavi was a corrupt, uncaring fool who tried to escape his country to avoid Iranian civilians. (Sure he was a dictator but he also tried to grant equal rights for women and modernize Iran’s economy.)

Shah Reza Pahlavi was installed as Shah of Iran in the 1953 coup by the UK and the CIA. (He was already Shah at the time of the coup. The coup began when the Shah dismissed Prime Minister Mohammmad Mossadegh and replaced him with Fazlollah Zahedi.)

During the Iranian hostage crisis, both British and New Zealand embassies refused to help American embassy staff. (Contrary to Argo, they sheltered Americans before passing them to the Canadians. The British ambassador in Iran at the time was commended for his actions.)

It was through the help of Congressman Charlie Wilson that the Afghans were able to drive the Russians out of their country. (It was also through the help of Charlie Wilson that some of these Afghan freedom fighter who received American weapons helped launched al-Qaeda and the Taliban, which also led to 9/11.)

Getting the US Embassy hostages out of Iran was mostly an American effort. (Actually the Canadians {90% of the time} and the British helped, too, a lot. As for the airport scene in Argo, well, the Canadians actually bought the tickets well ahead of time and the escape went off without a hitch.)

The Israeli government used “an eye for an eye” retaliation with a hit list of eleven suspects after the 1972 Olympics Massacre in Munich. (The events in Munich relating to anything other than the killing of Israeli athletes in Munich has been subject to much controversy. Also, there’s no way of knowing whether the Eric Bana character was a reliable source of information.)

Giving weapons it Middle Eastern nations always worked out in the end. (Yeah right.)

The US has always been able to solve Mideast problems. (Sometimes it has made the whole situation worse.)

It wasn’t unusual for Mossad agents to have any doubts hunting down the Munich assassins. (It may be difficult to establish but according to author Aaron J. Klein, “”In interviewing more than 50 veterans of the Mossad and military intelligence, I found not a single trace of remorse. On the contrary, the Mossad combatants thought they were doing holy work.” Then again, they could be trying to come to terms with what they did. But of course, there’s the blunder of mistakenly shooting a Moroccan waiter in Norway thinking he was a Black September mastermind named Ali Hassan Salameh. Six Israelis were arrested while five were convicted. Spielberg doesn’t include this in Munich.)

There were 53 American hostages during the Iranian hostage crisis. (There were 53 hostages that were held until the end in 1981. Also, they were released in January of 1980, not March.)

Saddam Hussein’s name struck fear into the Iraqi people. (To tell you the truth, there are plenty of people in the Middle East {including Iraq} that carry the name of Saddam Hussein. It’s very common in the region. It’s just that the Saddam Hussein who ruled Iraq for over 2 decades managed to attract notoriety to be in the Western news media. Not to mention, Arabic names are very long as Saddam Hussein’s real name is Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti.)

Middle Eastern and Islamic Life:

All Muslim terrorists were violent Islamic extremists. (Sure there is religious terrorism in every religion and Islam is no exception but there are also Muslim terrorists whose motivations are purely political and not all violence is religiously motivated either even to Westerners.)

Muslim countries were usually ruled under theocrats or strongmen dictators. (There are plenty of Muslim nations that have fully functioning democracies or at least most of the time. Nevertheless, there was very little separation of church and state in the early Islamic era because much of the state structures derived from it.)

Most Muslims were Arabs. (Actually Muslims are a very diverse group consisting of Asians, Eastern Europeans, Central Asians, Indians, and Africans. Not to mention, the biggest Muslim nation in the world is Indonesia, and many people from the Middle East and North Africa don’t consider themselves Arabs even though they’re Muslims and speak Arabic.)

The Harem consisted of the sultan’s love nest where he was feted on by his beautiful concubines. (Sultans did have concubines but that was more for ensuring the birth of competent sons than fulfilling sexual pleasure. And for the sultan, monogamy wasn’t optional for the notion of having multiple sex partners was part of the job. The harem wasn’t just home to his concubines either but also his family along with female servants who weren’t very attractive and eunuchs. Most of the women consisted of the sultan’s older female relatives. Also, the women there weren’t just lounging around all day either. Sure the sultan did have a lot of women to sleep with but the Harem wasn’t the Islamic version of the Playboy Mansion as depicted by Hollywood. As for odalisques, they were servants to the older inhabitants, not concubines and most of them were left to wither on the branch due to the sultan being too old, too drunk, or too disinterested to make use of them.)

Muslims were cruel to their slaves. (Actually they treated their slaves better than the Europeans and Americans treated theirs {in some ways though sometimes they could be cruel to them}. For one, they didn’t use slavery to subjugate a whole race of people. Second, slaves actually had certain rights that slaves in the West didn’t have. Third, slavery in the Muslim world was more or less like indentured servitude than the kind of slavery we’re familiar with since there were more ways for a slave to gain his or her freedom.)

Sultans usually had dark hair. (Because of the Ottoman sultans’ preference for Eastern European women in their harems, there’s a good chance that a sultan would have blond or red hair as well as European features.)

It wasn’t unusual for an Islamic ruler to offer his daughters to marry a man of a different religion. (While Islam allows men to marry up to four wives and concubinage, it doesn’t allow men to marry two closely related women at the same time. Also, Muslim women can’t marry guys of a different faith than their own, if the guy doesn’t agree to convert. Muslim men, on the other hand, can marry women outside their faith though.)

Muslims have been hostile to those outside their religion. (Well, occasionally but during much of Islamic history they’ve been pretty tolerant of other religions {for they sometimes had to be and to a certain extent}. For instance, Muslim Spain was a haven for Jews during much of the Middle Ages. Not to mention, many of the non-Islamic invaders actually ended up adopting and expanding the religion throughout Asia {which actually brought the end of Christianity in Central Asia}. Still, they wouldn’t kill Christians unless they absolutely had to. Also, many Muslim nations have a significant population of Christians today like Lebanon and Egypt.)

People in the Islamic Middle East actually wore turbans, harem pants, sheikh outfits, and Jasmine set up. (We’re not sure what people in the Middle East wore during that time period. though we’re kind of sure about the turbans and veils. Also, Aladdin caused a lot of controversy among Muslims. Then again, movies set in the era of genies and flying carpets tend to consist of people dressed in a mishmash of Islamic clothing anyway.)

Every old time Mideast ruler was a sultan. (Some were caliphs. Also, in Persia, the old rulers didn’t go by sultan.)

The Muslims were a radical and fanatical sect. (There have been plenty of Islamic notables who contributed a lot to science, medicine, architecture, and mathematics. They also helped translate Greek Classics as well as had institutions of learning.)

History of the World According to the Movies: Part 10- Life in Medieval Europe

Posted by historymaniacmegan on
Image

I couldn’t post anything about medieval France without posting a picture of Maria Falconetti in The Passion of Joan of Arc of 1928 by Danish director Theodore Dreyer. This is a very historically accurate film yet also a very emotionally intense one as well. Definitely one of the last masterpieces in silent film.

Finally, the Middle Ages, I’d like to devote this post to medieval life as well as to history in other medieval countries. Whenever medieval movies, don’t take place in England, they’re usually set in France, since England has history with it. However, unlike medieval Scotland, which is presented fairly inaccurately on the screen, movies on medieval France don’t have as many historical errors on screen. Of course, Joan of Arc is a popular subject who existed in the later Middle Ages (where the medieval outfits and weaponry are depicted more accurately) and that much of the script for Joan’s trial is usually taken from the actual transcripts. Still, there’s also a movie called The Advocate which recalls the story of pig being accused of murder during the 15th century, which actually happened. In Medieval Spain (which you wouldn’t call it yet), you have the subject of El Cid, one of the great Spanish heroes played by Charlton Heston. Also, in this post, I’ll talk about the historical errors in movies on medieval life, which have been shaped by popular perceptions in the media.

Medieval France:

King Philip II Augustus was hot. (Sorry, Lion in Winter fans, but he in no way resembled Timothy Dalton. He was hunchbacked and ugly. However, unlike his handsome but ineffectual dad, he was an admirable warrior and wily politician who annexed to France most of Henry II and Eleanor of Acquitaine’s lands. In Lion in Winter, it’s correct to assume that Philip II is spending Christmas with the Plantagenet because he knows that once Henry II dies, his sons won’t measure up to him, making it the perfect time to take over their lands, which he did. Also shared a bed with Richard the Lionheart, but this doesn’t prove anything about their sexual orientation since bed sharing was a common historical occurrence.)

Giles de Rais was one of Joan of Arc’s companions, an all-around man’s man, and a successful soldier. (Yes, but he was also known as a serial rapist and killer of children which did him in at the end and was an inspiration for Bluebeard. However, some historians claim he was framed though.)

Joan of Arc was burned at the stake as a witch. (Officially she was burned at the stake for relapsed heresy like cross-dressing and even though she agreed to wear a dress, her captors stole her skirt and replaced it with pants as part of a set up. In reality, she was burned by the English {the English side, she was actually burned by the Burgundians} because she led the French to victory during the Hundred Years’ War, so the English were just looking for any excuse.)

Joan of Arc was burned at the stake by the English. (She was burned at the stake by the Burgundians. However, the heresy charges were very much trumped up.)

French King Philip Augustus tried to invade England. (Actually his goal was to retake French soil from the English. Thus, unless you count the French lands England occupied at the time, he didn’t. However, his son did when King John broke the terms of the Magna Carta.)

Notre Dame had a full flight of stairs from the square to the front entrance. (It has always been level with the square.)

Joan of Arc’s gender was her downfall. (Her downfall was political and would’ve happened whether she was male or female. Being a woman just made it easier for her enemies.)

Horseshoes were used in France in the 12th century. (They were first used in France a century later and shoeing horses didn’t become practice until the 17th century.)

Charles VII was a foppish prince who fought at Agincourt. (He actually didn’t fight in Agincourt and wasn’t really a fop or mocked by a constable of France behind his back. Also, he’s the one who enlisted Joan of Arc so he was probably doing something right.)

Joan of Arc actually fought in battle. (Yes, she served on the front lines to rally her troops to victory but she never killed anyone as well as functioned more like a mascot than anything else. Still, she did help reform the army by expelling prostitutes and mandating confession {probably the closest thing her troops will ever have to therapy} and Mass attendance, banning swearing, looting, and harassing. She also played a major role in her army’s tactical decisions as well.)

When Joan of Arc was 8, she saw English soldiers burn her village as well as raped and kill her sister. (This is in The Messenger but this incident has no basis in reality. However, Joan’s village was raided in 1425 and 1428. The raid in 1425 was carried primarily by Burgundian soldiers in which they burned a church and stole some cattle. The 1428 raid forced the d’Arc family to flee to another village. Yet, as far as we know, Joan’s family went unmolested in both incidents.)

Joan of Arc was a borderline psychotic. (Joan may have been a saint but she wasn’t known for being polite since she was known to be rude to clergy, royalty, and military commanders alike. She was a teenage peasant girl after all. Yet, unlike her depiction in The Messenger, Joan was also brave, quick-witted, and charismatic. Milla Jovovich’s portrayal doesn’t show these qualities. Still, no one in the 15th century thought she was nuts.)

Joan of Arc was a true saint. (Well, as lovely as she was Joan wasn’t above threatening her enemies with massacres and actually carried it out on one occasion with hundreds of civilians killed in the process. Also, she told at least one woman to stay in the kitchen. And one of her confidantes would later become a famous medieval serial killer. No Mr. Rogers, but Joan certainly would qualify as a living saint by 15th century standards.)

Joan of Arc was pretty. (I think the Maria Falconetti portrayal is probably the closest to what you’d expect a 15th century teenage peasant girl to look like. However, she certainly looked nothing like Ingrid Bergman for she was said to be quite short with dark hair.)

Medieval Spain:

Alfonso and Urraca were an incestuous couple. (Historians still debate that. However, their father King Ferdinand did manage to have five kids who fought each other, made Muslim allies, shagged Muslim princess, hatched world domination conspiracies, and assassinated each other. So their family life was like Game of Thrones.)

El Cid was selfless and hostile to Muslims. (The historical El Cid was said to be more self-seeking and less hostile to Muslims than his legend. Actually he was willing to work for Muslims if they paid them he enough and actually fought both sides equally. Still, he was a mercenary who was more interested in establishing his own fiefdom in Valencia as well as cared more about being paid than in anything relating to Christendom and war.)

Navarre was a poor kingdom. (It gave Richard the Lionheart an impressive dowry when he married Berengaria, which wouldn’t have happened if it was poor. Also, Richard could always use the money.)

Castile and Leon were a united kingdom in the 1180s. (They were united in the 1230s.)

El Cid called victory for Spain. (Spain didn’t exist until the 1400s, and El Cid lived in the 11th century.)

Emir Yusuf al-Mutamin of Zaragoza wanted to conquer Castile and Leon. (He didn’t attempt to because he was at war with his own half-brother. Also, he didn’t give Rodrigo Diaz the nickname of El Cid and they didn’t become close until Diaz joined Yusuf’s army as a mercenary.)

Dona Jimena hated Rodrigo Diaz for killing her father but she married him anyway. (This may not have happened but it’s in the poem about El Cid, so I’ll forgive the filmmakers for it.)

El Cid took Valencia by giving bread to its people. (Aw, that’s sweet but it’s bullshit. He actually ransacked the surrounding villages, starved the city, took it by assault, and seized all its riches. Still, he didn’t offer the crown to Alfonso but ruled the area himself.)

El Cid died in agony on the battlefield. (He died in 1099 during peacetime of some unknown cause.)

Yusuf ibn Tashufin was defeated at Valencia. (He managed to lead the Almoravids to victory at Valencia in 1102. Not bad for a 96 year old man.)

Medieval Scandinavia:

Flagellantism was prominent in Sweden during the Black Death. (It never made it there.)

Medieval Russia:

Gavrila Alexich participated in the Battle of Ice. (He was killed in 1241 while storming the fortress of Koporye.)

Alexander Nevsky refused to ally himself with Batu Khan of the Golden Horde. (He actually did enter into a controversial alliance with him, but only 10 years after the Battle of Ice. Of course, Sergei Eisenstein knew this and wanted to put it in, but the Soviet government wanted none of that.)

Alexander Nevsky clashed with the boyars over proletarian revolution and redistribution of wealth. (Yes, he did clash with the boyars but not over concepts that would be as authentic to them in the 13th century as electronics. Obviously, Soviet propaganda here.)

Holy Roman Empire:

Alberto da Giussano killed a boar just before it gored Frederick Barbarossa. (Alberto da Giussano was said to have been a great warrior of the Guelph faction leading the Lombard League to victory at the Battle of Legnano in 1176. That is, if he ever existed, which there’s no firm evidence for that.)

Frederick Barbarossa was an old man when he married his 13-year old wife. (Yes, he married a 13 year old girl but he was 34 at the time. However, in his biopic he’s played by a 65 year old man which makes the relationship much creepier than it really was.)

The Battle of Legano was a decisive battle. (It wasn’t. Frederick Barbarossa was considering a truce during it.)

During the siege of Milan Frederick Barbarossa strapped prisoners on the siege towers so the Milanese couldn’t attack him without killing their fellow citizens. (He actually did this but not at Milan. Rather it was at the siege of Crema in 1159. And he only did this because the Cremese were hacking imperial prisoners in front of his army.)

Medieval Life:

Medieval Europeans were dirty, smelly, and rarely bathed. (This is only true in towards the end of the Middle Ages when it was rumored that bathing mad e a person more susceptible to disease. Yet, for most of the Middle Ages, people usually washed their hands before and after dinner and took communal baths so they probably didn’t lead the most sanitary lifestyles but they didn’t smell like shit either.)

Life in the Middle Ages was nasty, brutish, and short and peasants worked nonstop for lords who cared nothing about them. (This only partly true considering the high child mortality, wars, and lack of medicine but if a person managed survive childhood and if other things didn’t kill him or her first, he or she could managed to live to his or her seventies. Also, peasants worked eight hour days and were off the third of the year including Sundays.)

Everyone except nobles and clergy wore rough brown clothing. (Actually, even ordinary people were skilled and knowledgeable in making clothes that some authorities had to ban certain dyes were only reserved for royalty and nobility. They were also well made, had buttons, and pockets.)

In the Middle Ages there were only two classes that consisted of nobles and royals and peasants. (The Middle Ages also saw the formation of a middle class which consisted of traders, skilled tradesmen, performers, artists, and investors.)

Women were treated as second-class citizens whose place was in the home caring for household and children as well as making babies on demand. (Though women weren’t allowed fight in battle, run for office, or become a priest, this didn’t mean that women were just baby making machines since most women did almost the same thing their husbands and fathers did and even ran estates and businesses. There was even a woman who ran England’s entire beer industry. They also became nuns which allowed them access to education that even kings didn’t have. Not to mention, they didn’t wear chastity belts either. Also, read the Wife of Bath’s Tale. Yes, people in the Middle Ages were sexist but not to the degree that is depicted in movies. Still, there was much more discrimination based on religion, ethnicity, and social class than on sex.)

People in the Middle Ages were prudes. (Actually, these were the days when a whole family would sleep naked together in one room and even little children knew where babies came from for there wasn’t much privacy at the time. Not to mention, most people would assume any couple living together was married whether that was true or not. Also, even though priests were expected to be celibate, most people wouldn’t be shocked if their priest fathered an illegitimate child with his housekeeper which was not uncommon either. Then we have Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales which isn’t the most family friendly literature out there. Oh, and fart jokes are some of the oldest ones in the book.)

Real Men Don’t Wear Dresses. Costume designers often fear that actual male medieval clothing looks like a dress and will confound the gender expectations of their audience. Medieval tunics and robes can end up morphed into short jackets, smoking jackets (Knight’s Tale) and dusters (Timeline). Hosen tends to turn into pants (Knight’s Tale) and trousers (Branagh Henry V) [From A Common Place Book]

Bad Hair. The modern filmmaker is really reluctant to put their characters, and particularly protagonists, in hairstyles they think their audience will find unflattering. (Thus the unmedieval bangs in Timeline and the ’30s mustaches in the Errol Flynn Robin Hood. Olivier’s Henry V and The Warlord show rare courage in putting their heroes in appropriate haircuts that look unflattering to many modern eyes.) [From A Commonplace Book]

The antagonists are Yucky. Cardboard Villains can be unattractive in other ways, to make them even less sympathetic. The Edward II in Braveheart is a weak and mincing effeminate. (The historical Edward II was physically strong, well-formed and vigorous, whatever his moral faults.)The Commodus in Gladiator was a dark, puffy faced dissolute. (His historical model was an athletic blond.) Alternatively, the Cardboard Villains can have bad teeth or other deformities. (The Messenger) [From A Commonplace Book]

Droit de Seigneur, the legal right to deflower unwilling virgins would have been a great way to be a Cardboard Villain if the institution had actually existed in the Middle Ages.  [From A Commonplace Book] (Well, if it did, it was called feudalism in which nobles and royals could do anything they wanted to the commoners. And no Lords wouldn’t claim any right to “rape” another man’s wife {saying this could mean excommunication and a peasant revolt}, they would just simply pressure the woman to have sex with them or he’d have her loved ones killed {which he could actually do}.)

The king had the right prima nocta which was the right to sleep with any man’s bride on her wedding night. (Actually, this may be true if it referred to his own right but he also had the right to screw any woman he wanted, regardless of the woman’s marital status. And women had no right to say no to him. Also, lords can do the same thing to their subjects.)

If you are a princess, you always have a favorite lady in waiting, and you always send her to warn the hero of the evil king’s intention just in time. [Movie Cliches List]

Corollary: the lady in waiting is never quite as beautiful as the princess; however, she still always catches the eye of the hero’s sidekick. [Movie Cliches List]

Horses never get winded, throw a shoe, etc., until the pursuing sheriff is right behind the hero. [Movie Cliches List]

Corollary: the wagon that breaks an axle or gets stuck in the creek is always the one carrying the king’s entire treasury, which he totes around with him every time he goes gallivanting through bandit-infested countryside. (Kings would never carry their entire treasury with them.) [Movie Cliches List]

Everyone in the Middle Ages lived in a lovely half-timbered house with two bedrooms and a stone fireplace.

Noblewomen were passive and were never taught how to fight. (Just because noblewomen were taught to stay at home didn’t mean that they were passive damsels in distress either. Noblewomen actually did learn the basics of combat and siege defense. You wouldn’t want the lady of the manor be unprepared in case the enemy attacked when the lord wasn’t around. So this means Merida and Fiona were more like real medieval princesses than Snow White and Sleeping Beauty and Eowyn only deviates from the norm because she wants to fight with the boys in battle.)

Trial by ordeal was a common judicial practice in the late Middle Ages. (Since Pope Innocent III and the Fourth Council of the Lateran had banned clergy from participating in the practice, it had been in decline since 1215 as well as been used rarer and rare in the official capacity. Compurgation or “wager of law” was more often used in which an accused would swear an oath and get at least 12 people to swear that they believed them was more or less the standard practice in the Late Middle Ages.)

The Black Death first came to Europe in the 1300s. (Actually there were plague was behind many major epidemics in ancient times. So, there probably was a plague around the time of King Arthur.)

Almost every medieval state was a monarchy. (Venice was a republic while a good chunk of Italy was ruled by the Pope.)

Everyone in the Middle Ages was an uneducated moron. (Actually the reason for the lack of education was because most people in that time were peasants and books were expensive for they were copied by hand {making universal education almost impossible}. They didn’t have extensive trade and travel infrastructure either. Also, most people during the Middle Ages were just as smart as anyone else in any other time period of history.)

The Iron Maiden was a medieval torture device. (It was invented after the Middle Ages, and there’s no record on whether it was used even though Uday Hussein had one.)

No one ever had sex outside of marriage or before marriage. Also, that all marriage ceremonies — even of peasants in small outland communities– were performed by priests in a church. (Cohabitation was common in the Middle Ages that some couples got married in a church before middle age. Also, most women didn’t have any right to refuse sex from their resident lord if he wanted it regardless of the moral standards of the time.)

The drapery not only kept the draft out of the castle but was often used for people to hide behind while eavesdropping on a conversation which was usually about them.

Medieval outlaws were generous Robin Hoods who stole from the rich and gave to the poor. (They were more or less self-serving rogues who caused a lot of trouble in their local towns and skipped trial. Still, many outlaws in England did manage to become knights. Yet, they usually came from all walks of life.)

Medieval people had no table manners. (From Medievalist: “While food was eaten with hands, spoons, and knives (forks weren’t popular in most of Europe until the seventeenth century – they were considered “too Italian” and effete), then, as now, eating was a communal activity, and (since people most often shared plates and cups) was not enjoyable if your companion had no manners. Entire treatises were written on correct etiquette, and encouraged things such as offering the best of the food on your plate to the lady, wiping your fingers on cloth, and wiping your mouth before taking a sip from your shared cup, so that you did not leave a slick of oil on top of the wine.”)

Men tried to control their women with chastity belts. (There’s no evidence chastity belts were ever made or used in the Middle Ages. Rather there’s no evidence of chastity belts until the 18th century.)

People used spices to cover up the taste of rotten food. (From Medievalist: “I suppose this might have been useful when there was very little food to be had (although, in that case, why would you have expensive spices hanging around?), but it was by no means the norm. Most people at this time were involved in agriculture – they knew when food was good and when it wasn’t. There was little point in eating food that had gone bad, since it was risking making yourself dangerously sick, or worse. It is much more likely that spices, if used for camouflage, were used to make staple foods more interesting (much like ketchup).”)

Druidism still existed in Western Europe during the 11th century. (Paganism had largely been eradicated by the 8th century there while druidism died out in Pre-Christian Imperial Rome.)

Paper was a standard medieval correspondence material in the 12th century. (It was invented in China in the 2nd century and didn’t make it to Europe until the 13th century.)

Syphillis existed during the Middle Ages. (Didn’t make its first appearance in Europe until 1494 and wasn’t coined until 1530.)

People in the Ages could accurately tell time. (Mechanical clocks weren’t around until much later.)

Condemned criminals had tomatoes thrown at them. (They didn’t exist in Europe until after Columbus.)

Some people in the Middle Ages wore glasses. (They were invented in the 16th century.)

Torches were used a lot in the Dark Ages. (From Policy Mic.com: “Torches were certainly used now and then, no doubt about that, but they were not used anywhere near as liberally as Hollywood would have you believe. First of all, most torches would not be able to be lit for more than an hour, ruling out having them lining the walls of castles to provide light. Secondly, having torches inside would be a terrible idea given the small issue of smoke.

“Most importantly, torches do not really provide much light. Movies are full of mobs carrying torches as they run through the darkness looking for someone, or people using torches to light their way. While a torch can certainly help you see the area immediately around you and cast light on large objects, it is not all that great for seeing more than a few feet ahead. If you were looking for someone outside in the dark, you would be better off ditching the torch, using the moonlight, and letting your eyes adjust to the darkness. If trying to get around your castle at night, a simple candle would suffice.”)

Medicine was mostly best on superstition. (Yes and no. Sure it was bunk, dangerous, as well as depended on humoral theory and astrology. But you also had some effective treatments and some of the first medical colleges.)

Executions were used for almost every offense imaginable. (From Policy Mic.com: “In reality, the Middle Ages typically saw the death penalty reserved for only serious offenders who committed the crimes of murder, treason, or arson. Torture was not really widespread. The most common forms of punishment included public humiliation and fines. Repeat offenders were usually exiled. The Middle Ages also maintained trials for those accused of crimes; verdicts were not strictly the decisions of kings and noblemen.”)

The most frequent form of execution was beheading. (From Policy Mic.com: “Beheadings were usually reserved for the noble classes and done in the privacy of courtyards rather than in the town square. Also, it was very rarely one swing and done; the typical beheading took 4 or 5 swings to decapitate the head. If the executioner was unable to kill the convicted by that point, the person usually just ended up bleeding to death.

“The most common form of execution in the Middle Ages was hanging. It was easy, it did not cost much, and you could let the bodies hang out for a bit as a warning to others. If a criminal was particularly hated, he would be hanged, drawn, and quartered, a very unpleasant form of punishment that popped up in 14th-century England as a penalty for high treason.”)

Turkey legs were a favored medieval dish. (People in the Middle Ages would know nothing about turkeys since they lived in North America. Diets usually consisted of eggs, bread, fish, cheese, oats, vegetables like cabbage and turnips, and ale.)

People in the Middle Ages thought the world was flat. (No one in Medieval Europe ever believed this.)

People ate off of pewter plates and threw bones to the floor. (Peasants ate from wooden plates while nobles usually ate from silver and locked since it was a good way to carry if one needed to make a hasty departure. Also, no they didn’t throw bones to the floor for the dogs to eat.)

Blacksmiths made horseshoes and swords. (Most of the time, they’d be making farming implements.)

Most people didn’t eat rats in the Middle Ages. (This was a common meat among poor people.)

Noblewomen were sent as diplomats in the 14th century. (Royal women had little privacy even under the best circumstances and would certainly not be left alone with an enemy {unless they were her relatives, but still}. Of course, they were sent as diplomats {well, as marriage partners in political alliances} usually in circumstances where they’d be related to the family. As for noblewomen, they were more or less needed to take care of the home like protecting it from invaders.)

Nobles raised their own children during their school years. (The kids would normally be sent to somewhere else for their education like another noble’s home, convent, or monastery. Fostering was very common back then.)

Courtly love was a popular theme in the Middle Ages. (Yes, but so were stories of war, religious stories, and ones that may not be suitable for children. Also, medieval women also loved their filth, too.)

Feudalism was a hierarchical and harmonious way of living. (It was anything but because royal power was rather decentralized and the nobles usually fought amongst themselves. Also, it’s not unusual to put feudalism as another reason for the Crusades.)

Skilled craftsmen can end up impoverished if unemployed. (Skilled craftsmen had guilds to help them out and usually didn’t face much poverty. And if a master craftsman died, his wife may run his business for him or one of his journeymen might marry her.)

Primogeniture was the rule in medieval society. (Only in the later Middle Ages.)

Kidnapped women were often damsels in distress. (Sometimes women would arrange their own kidnappings to get out of an arranged marriage. Sometimes they may even do the kidnapping, which is how Robert Bruce’s parents ended up together.)

All servants were peasants. (High ranking nobles had high ranking servants, especially when primogeniture was the main inheritance rule. Many of these were younger sons of nobles. Also, they were overwhelmingly male.)

People ate with forks since the 12th century. (Only for a few Italy and in the Byzantine Empire, they were teased mercilessly for it. They didn’t become more in style until the 16th century.)

Medieval men wore practical and functional clothing. (Aristocratic men’s fashion of the era could get pretty ridiculous in the later years).

Cremation was a common practice in medieval Europe. (It wasn’t and in some place it wasn’t even legal.)

Inns were public houses with big common rooms below and rooms above. (It’s more complicated than that. Some inns had bars. Some didn’t. Some had only a single room with several beds that could fit 3 people each. Only upscale places had rooms with one or two beds. You also had alehouses where you can have some drink as well but no rooms. Yet, they can function less like the fantasy inns you see and more like the Mos Eisley Cantina. But a tavern can also be someone else’s home. People can even stay at other people’s houses or at a hospital.)

Medieval castles had bare stone walls inside. (A lot of castles had murals inside since nobles wanted to impress visitors with their wealth.)

Most people stayed home during the Middle Ages. (This is true for a lot of Medieval people. However, some did go on pilgrimages and participated in war. So that counts.)

History of the World According to the Movies: Part 9- Medieval England

Posted by historymaniacmegan on
Image

Of course, no post about medieval England is complete without a picture of Laurence Olivier who’s very much identified with such films of this time and place. This is him playing Richard III in his adaptation of the eponymous and highly historically inaccurate play by William Shakespeare. Sure he may look evil but he doesn’t seem to a good job being grotesque since he still looks pretty hot. Nevertheless, he may actually look closer to the real Richard III than in other portrayals though he was much older than the late king could’ve been.

If you ever see a movie set in the Middle Ages, chances are it will take place in England mostly because it will focus on Robin Hood, King Arthur, or something by William Shakespeare. Then sometimes there are movies based in the Middle Ages produced in Great Britain and most of the time, they’d like to do their own history. Yet, since Hollywood is situated in a place where there was no medieval history, then England usually has to do. Of course, there’s a lot history covered in medieval England, especially when it pertains to the royal family. There’s Henry II with his mom Empress Matilda who tried to take the throne from her cousin. Then he has a wife named Eleanor of Acquitaine who’s very much a formidable woman like himself who incited a rebellion among her sons and ended up in prison (only to be released when she outlived him but she also outlived most of her kids, too). Then you have Henry II’s sons Richard and John who were as different as night and day as well as at each other’s throats. Oh, what great family soap opera that would be. Then you got Henry II’s relationship with Thomas Becket which would later lead to his murder in Canterbury Cathedral and Philip Augustus who’s bitter about Henry stealing lands under his dad (and Eleanor’s ex-husband). After that is the post-Magna Carta era usually consisting of kings Henry III, Richard II, and the first three Edwards (many movies errors from this category will also be from Braveheart). After that, is the Wars of the Roses when England becomes engaged in civil war between the Houses of Lancaster and York after Richard II is deposed. You get kings like Henry IV, Henry V (“We happy few, we band of brothers.”), Henry VI, and Richard III (who wasn’t as evil as Shakespeare depicted him, “Now is the winter of our discontent.”). Nevertheless, historical errors will still abound in these movies, which I shall list here.

English was spoken in the same way as it is today despite the fact that you had to get version of Canterbury Tales with a translation for you didn’t understand what the hell Chaucer was saying in its original form.

English commoners were still resisting their Norman overlords at least a century or two after the Norman Conquest. (This was started by Henry V during the Hundred Years’ War as Anti-French propaganda and it was also picked up during the Reformation. Also, William the Conqueror and his fellow Normans didn’t really invade England since he had been promised the throne by the previous King Edward the Confessor who was his cousin but was passed on in favor of the late king’s brother-in-law.)

English nobles and royalty spoke English. (Between 1066 to 1453, English was considered a language for peasants. Most English nobles during that time spoke French.)

Lady Godiva rode naked through Coventry in order to get her husband Leofric to lower taxes. (Godiva was a real noblewoman but she never did this.)

Sons and daughters could inherit at the same time. (Daughters were forbidden to inherit anything unless they didn’t have legitimate brothers living.)

English marriage ceremonies were set to the Book of Common Prayer. (It would’ve been conducted in Latin.)

English kings were addressed as “Your Majesty.” (That title wouldn’t be used until the 1390s. So this is part right.)

There was an actual King Arthur of England. (Well, if you count Geoffrey of Brittany’s son Arthur as Richard’s successor maybe {who King John later had killed}, but that’s as close to an actual English King Arthur as you’re going to get. As for the Arthur of Camelot, very much a mythological figure.)

The English had no reason to start the Hundred Years’ War. (Read your history books. Many of the early English kings since 1066 were French of some sort of another. Also, The Lion in Winter would’ve been more historically accurate if you have the English royal family speaking in French. Heck, you could’ve easily called Henry II as the real king of France during his kingship because he ruled almost all of it. Not to mention, it even takes place in France.)

English civilians could freely hunt in the forests. (Hunting game in the English forests later in the Middle Ages might carry a harsh punishment.)

Henry II and Co:

Richard the Lionheart was a good king and John was a bad king. (Actually Richard was anything but a good king at least in peacetime, hated England, and saw it was only good for financing his coffers so he can go on Crusade and fight the French. John, by contrast, probably wasn’t the best king England ever had and wasn’t a nice guy but at least his interests were in running England even though he managed to piss off everyone that he ended up putting his seal on the Magna Carta. He also did good things as write many books on law and was considered a legal expert before his kingship. Oh, and he treated the Jews better than his brother. But since Richard the Lionheart was often away, the nobles had free rein, which put up resistance when King John tried to take control. Not to mention, Richard the Lionheart had a better personality and he wasn’t stupid either. Nevertheless, their dad Henry II was a far better king than either of them put together who’s remembered as England’s greatest Medieval King {as well as his portrayal by Peter O’Toole.})

Thomas Becket and Henry II had a platonic homosexual relationship prior to Becket’s appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury. (There’s no historical data that they were more than just friends. Besides, Henry II married Eleanor of Aquitaine out of love {and her lands that consisted of half of France} as well as had a succession of mistresses {though Eleanor was probably the love of his life}. Also, Becket was said to be celibate.)

Henry II slept with Richard the Lionheart’s fiancee. (There’s no definitive evidence of this though Richard later resisted marrying his fiancee on the basis of the claim.)

Thomas Becket was a Saxon and Henry II was Norman. (Becket was a Norman and Henry II was Angevin on his father’s side. However, his mother was Norman.)

As Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket didn’t desire special legal privileges for the clergy. (Many people said he did, especially if clergy members committed secular crimes, which was one of the things he and Henry II disagreed on. And Henry II was quite justified and has been known for replacing trials by combat with jury trials.)

Empress Matilda was an annoyance to Henry II. (Actually she was instrumental for shaping her son, Henry II into the fierce warrior and skilled administrator he was and was the sole parent for much of his childhood. Also, Henry II adored his mother and relied heavily on her guidance and advice until her death in 1167. Not to mention, she was the reason why Henry II was able to get the throne and is best known for her war against King Stephen after she was passed over when her father Henry I died.)

Eleanor of Aquitaine’s father was alive when she was married to Henry II. (Her dad died when she was 15 years old, which made her Duchess of Aquitaine as well as the most eligible bride of the 12th century.)

Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine had four children all boys. (They had eight children that included five sons and three daughters. Also, Eleanor had two daughters while married to King Louis VII and Henry II had at least eight illegitimate children to several long term mistresses.)

Richard the Lionheart died immediately from a crossbow wound from a cook. (He lived for more than a week and died from gangrene. Also, the guy responsible for shooting him was a boy with a crossbow and a frying pan whom he ordered to be set free, forgiven, and rewarded 100 shillings for a lucky shot. However, the pardon was retracted when he died by a mercenary captain and the boy was flayed alive. Jesus Christ!)

Richard the Lionheart was very fond of England. (He had no attachment to the place and only spent six months of his reign there. Most of his ten year reign was spent in either on Crusade or in France fighting Philip Augustus. Also, he forgave John for running England for him.)

Richard the Lionheart was a wise old king. (He was only 41 when he died.)

King John signed the Magna Carta early in his reign. (It was actually near the end.)

Isabella of Angoulmene was a young woman when she married King John. (She was twelve. Don’t worry; it’s very likely that he waited until she was sixteen to have sex with her which was normal in such marriages.)

King John had a title called Defender of the Holy Sepulcher.  (He was offered the title but his dad turned it down for him and sent the boy to Ireland.Also, it was the title of Godfrey de Boullion, a Christian ruler of Jerusalem who had nothing to do with England at all.)

Henry II referred to himself as Plantagenet. (The name didn’t come to use until close to the end of the dynasty and was first used by the father of Edward IV and Richard III.)

King John had brown hair. (He was a flaming redhead like his dad and brothers.)

King Henry was ten years older than the pope in 1183. (The actual pope at the time was 36 years older than him.)

Richard the Lionheart married Berengaria of Navarre for love. (He more likely married her for money and lands. It was more of a political marriage. Though they went on Crusade together and she tried to raise money for his ransom, we’re not sure whether the marriage was ever consummated. Also, Richard spent so much time away from her that the Pope had to tell him spend time with her, which he did by taking her to church. Not to mention, she was very much overlooked as Queen of England and Cyprus during Richard’s reign.)

Richard the Lionheart had an affair with Philip Augustus. (There’s little evidence supporting this though Richard might’ve went both ways. Also, he had at least one illegitimate son as well as had a reputation as a womanizer while Philip had two. Either way, he was certainly not faithful to his wife. Historians are divided over his sexuality and the gay allegations began in the 1960s. As for Philip Augustus, well, he was much closer to Geoffrey than Richard {he was bawling in Geoffrey’s funeral after he got trampled by a horse}. Not to mention, he was absolutely furious with Richard when he broke his engagement with his sister.)

King John was middle aged during Richard the Lionheart’s reign. (These two kings have been played by middle aged men in the Robin Hood films but both died in their forties {Richard died at 41 while John died at 49} and John ascended the throne at 33. At least The Lion in Winter gets their ages mostly right.)

King John and the Knights Templar were bitter rivals. (They were buddies. He exempted the Templars from all taxation and gave them extraordinary protection of property. In return, the Templars let John use their New Temple in London headquarters as a treasury.)

King Henry II married Eleanor of Aquitaine when she was young. (She was 30 at the time.)

Post-Magna Carta:

King Edward I was a brutal conquer who oppressed his subjects and was a pagan. (King Edward I was a Christian {who had been on a Crusade} and didn’t oppress his English subjects nor did he kill his son’s lover by throwing him out the window {he was said to be a great husband and father as well as a charitable man}. Edward I also set up Parliament as a permanent institution, set up a working tax system, and ushered in a more progressive system seemed radical in most European circles. Even today he’s seen as one of England’s best kings and even well thought of by Dante. Still, he was a brutal conqueror {which is why the Scots and Welsh don’t like him}, ruthless with his enemies{killed his noble prisoners at the Battle of Evesham which was taboo at the time}, and hated the Jews.)

Edward II was sickly looking and gay. (He probably went both ways {had at least one illegitimate child as well as four kids with Isabella} but he was said to be rather athletic and handsome {not a walking stereotype}. Also, during the time of William Wallace {at least at his death}, he was most likely a teenager.)

Edward I planned to cause the racial death of Scotland. (He didn’t. He just wanted to control Scotland. Also, his getting control of Scotland was partly the Scottish people’s fault since they agreed to relinquish their independence until a new king could be appointed after their designated child queen died on the way there from Norway. Yet, the divisive Scottish noble families made it difficult to select a satisfactory candidate as every option seemed to lead to civil war. And when an appropriate candidate was selected by the name of John Balliol who proved to be a weak king {as well as wouldn’t cooperate with Edward I}. He was later captured during a war with the English in 1296 as well as forced to abdicate. The Scots just didn’t bet on Edward Longshanks backstabbing them since he probably felt sick over the business end and thought the only competent candidate Scotland had available was himself though he never claimed the crown.)

Edward I was the first king to name his son Prince of Wales. (First record of this comes from the 16th century.)

Isabella of France was the first Princess of Wales. (She married Edward II when he was already king and she never met her father-in-law.)

Edward I treacherously hanged Scottish noblemen. (Never happened.)

Edward I wanted to sleep with Princess Isabella. (This would never have happened. Also, he opposed the marriage between her and the future Edward II, explaining why they tied the knot after he was dead {granted the marriage was a disaster}. Still, her conspiring to kill her husband did help bring Scottish independence.)

Edward II was unable to impregnate his wife. (Apparently he was at least able to impregnate somebody and she was able to have kids so you may figure it out {though she had a lover named John Mortimer}.)

Queen Isabella of England was ashamed of the English cruelty toward the Scots. (She had her husband King Edward II imprisoned and murdered for refusing to advocate in favor of their son and launched her own invasion of Scotland.)

Queen Isabella of England was a sweet and kindly princess. (She was called the She Wolf of France and plotted to kill her husband as well as considered invading Scotland as a nice mother and son activity.)

Edward I reinstated prima noctis in Scotland. (He never did this.)

Edmund Mortimer was Richard II’s true heir. (It’s very likely Henry IV was but he and and Richard had a massive falling out resulting in Richard being deposed and imprisoned.)

Edward the Black Prince was married to Lady Joan Holland who was kidnapped by the French. (Actually his wife’s name was Lady Joan Holland but she was also the Countess of Kent and a widow. However, she was never kidnapped by the French, and no, Edward never had to rescue her. Interestingly, he was known as Edward of Woodstock. However, he and Lady Joan did love each other for his parents opposed the match since she was once their ward.)

William Wallace killed the Duke of York. (It wasn’t a title for a younger son at the time of King Edward I.)

Edward II abdicated the throne. (He was more likely imprisoned and killed.)

Edward II was disemboweled with a red hot poker. (He more likely died from being smothered in his bed.)

The Wars of the Roses:

King Richard III was a terrible king who imprisoned and killed his nephews in the Tower of London, had his brother drowned in a vat of wine, poisoned his wife and bumped off her father and first husband, bumped off two cousins and planned to marry a third, had a crippled arm and a hunchback. And his last words were, “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!” (He actually wasn’t grotesque looking and didn’t do anything that I just mentioned {with the possible exception of imprisoning his nephews in the tower}, which was cooked up by the Tudors. The only physical deformity he had was real bad scoliosis which isn’t as recognizable. Though Prince George did drown in a vat of wine {allegedly, but it’s more likely he starved}, it was on King Edward IV’s insistence not Richard’s. And as how Richard III became king, he simply said that his nephews were illegitimate because Edward IV married his wife while engaged to another woman which was very much like being married {and since King Edward IV was such a horndog and everybody hated the Woodvilles, he could get away with it easily and Parliament would just give the crown to him}. The English were also no fans of child kings at this point as well and the prospect of having another one terrified the country. And he was already running the country anyway so he might as well take the throne while at it. Any king would’ve done the same thing. He also had George’s kids declared illegitimate as well. Also, he was said to be a rather reasonable and competent king with a reputation of bravery justified by his death in battle in which he went down fighting at thirty-two. He was probably not much cruel or ruthless than most kings of his day and was well thought of by his contemporaries. Rather, he was said to be loved by the lower orders and improved conditions in Northern England {especially York} though he didn’t make many friends among the nobility. Oh, and he liked to use an ax. Shakespeare may be one of the best writers who ever lived but he’s about as good of a historian as Mel Gibson.)

King Richard III was an unpopular king. (Not only did he have one of the best attended coronations in years, he had quite a following in York where the people mourned his death. Still, what did him in is that he was king during a civil war, reigned 2 years, and died with no surviving legitimate children).

King Henry V was a wild vagabond when he was heir to the English throne. (He was always the same, duty bound, serious man his whole life. Also, had a nasty scar on his face which explains why his portrait is usually in profile.)

King Henry V was a badass warrior king and a great hero. (He also captured enemy knights {but had some good excuse since it was Agincourt, he was heavily outnumbered, and could’ve opened the battle on two fronts resulting in a massacre of his own men}, burned proto-Protestant heretics alive {including the inspiration for Falstaff but this was done to unite Catholicism under one pope after a series of antipopes as was the case in Europe}, doomed both sides into fighting a pointless war {which was an age old war he could’ve won if he hadn’t died so early}, and had a nasty scar across his face. Still, like any medieval king, he was ruthless when he needed to be and didn’t tax his subjects to the highest bitter to pay for his conflicts. Actually he doesn’t come worse off than most kings of the time.)

Henry VII effectively ended the Wars of the Roses. (Yes, but there were still major revolts against him which he tyrannically suppressed. This made him very unpopular and many nobles were glad to see him go. Yet, he did marry Elizabeth of York which helped secure his throne as was a rather intelligent woman in her own right. Perhaps this is why Shakespeare didn’t write a play about Henry VII. Then again, any king would do the same and Henry VII was a rather competent king that England needed at the time and did whatever needed to be done. Still, despite the fact he has a small role in Richard III doesn’t mean that he was a boring guy.)

Richard III killed the Duke of Somerset. (The guy died when Richard was three.)

Hotspur was a childhood friend of King Henry V. (Actually he was three years older than his dad.)

Henry V was the kind of guy you’d want to have a beer with. (It’s said he had little charm, no sense of humor, and was truly terrifyingly convinced he was an instrument of God. Still, he really did care about his soldiers yet Shakespeare’s portrayal of him is a reasonable break from reality. It’s unlikely Princess Catherine of Valois would’ve found him entertaining. Interestingly her second husband was Owen Tudor, the keeper of the Queen’s wardrobe from Wales. Of course, we know what that family amounted to.)

The Duke of Buckingham rebelled to have Edward V on the throne. (He wanted to put himself on the throne but ultimately decided to join Henry Tudor instead. Besides, he’s suspected of having the Princes in the Tower killed to begin with and probably knew the kids were dead).

Duke George of Clarence was a doddering fool. (He was an opportunistic bastard who switched sides. There’s a reason why Edward IV had him killed).

Richard III tried to marry himself to Elizabeth of York after Lady Anne Neville died. (While marrying your niece wasn’t unusual in some royal families at the time {as in the Hapsburgs}, Richard was actually trying to arrange marriages for both himself and his niece with the Portuguese royal family. Also, he was suffering a succession crisis since Lady Anne and his son had both died during his reign).

Richard III had Lady Anne Neville’s first husband and father killed. (Her father died in battle. As for the first husband, he was either slaughtered with his army or executed on Edward IV’s orders. They were Lanscastrians and Richard marrying Lady Anne wasn’t an advantageous match since she was known as a daughter and widow of traitors. Still, he wouldn’t be trying to woo her over her dad’s corpse.)

Duke George of Clarence was drowned in a vat of wine on Richard’s orders. (He was more likely smothered on Edward IV’s orders because of his backstabbing behavior, armed rebellion, lunacy, and murdering a servant girl. In fact, despite previous feuds, Richard argued against George’s execution and left court during the verdict but Edward was simply sick of him that he wanted him dead. So you can probably say that George was the bad brother from the trio, not Richard).

Edward IV was a frail old man when he died. (He was in his early 40s and his death was unexpected).

Richard III’s wife Anne Neville reviled him. (Contrary to Shakespeare, it’s said that their marriage was a love match and they were childhood sweethearts {and he obviously didn’t kill her her dad or first husband who were most likely not executed at all}. Besides, though he had 2 illegitimate kids, he waited to marry her. Not only that, but he was said to be a man of unimpeachable moral character who shared none of Edward IV’s vices. They also had a 10 year old son by the time he was crowned. However, Richard’s sister-in-law Elizabeth Woodville despised him. Oh, and contrary to Olivier’s portrayal, he was only 5’8.”)

Richard III drove his oldest brother Edward IV to an early grave. (He was out of town when Edward IV died).

Richard III died on the field. (He had his head sliced off from the back while surrounded by soldiers in a swamp. Still, he killed a lot of Henry Tudor’s best men and almost killed the guy himself.)

Henry V spent a lot of his early life in a tavern with his drinking buddies. (It’s not very likely.)

Hotspur was killed by a single combat with Henry V at the Battle of Shrewsbury. (He was killed by a single arrow. Still, Hotspur was a traitor since he was on the side of Owen Glydwr of Wales.)

Henry IV killed Richard II. (Richard II died in prison and more likely starved, yet he may have been murdered by his cousin.)

The Earl of Richmond was the battlefield commander at Bosworth Field. (He confined himself to politicking and left the fighting to the Earl of Oxford.)

History of the World According to the Movies: Part 8- Medieval Scotland

Posted by historymaniacmegan on
Image

Braveheart: How Mel Gibson killed history for the sake of entertainment. Sure it has inspirational tidbits like “You can take our lands but you’ll never take our FREEEEEDDDDDOOOOMMMMMM!” Yet, it’s notoriously one of the most historically inaccurate movies ever made, which is sad considering that there aren’t a lot of movies about medieval Scotland. Yet, use any image of Mel Gibson in a kilt and blue paint, and medieval historians will scream in absolute horror. A historic travesty of 1995.

While most medieval movies usually take place in either England or France, movies on medieval Scotland deserve special mention since the most historically accurate movie on anything related to Scotland in the Middle Ages is a Disney Pixar film. Yes, you hear me. Scotland during the Middle Ages may not get much attention in movies, but when it does, they usually tend to be very historically inaccurate. Of course, most historians don’t mind when it comes to filming Macbeth because it’s a notable Shakespearean play with great literary value (though it makes Richard III look historically accurate in comparison). Besides, most people don’t know that Macbeth was a real guy. However, Macbeth was a real Scottish king who did come to power through killing his predecessor Duncan as well as ended up dead when Duncan’s son Malcolm challenged his rule. However, the historical Macbeth was never the guy depicted by Shakespeare nor were some of the characters either. Also, who knows what Lady Macbeth was like for there’s little information about her. Still, though a more historically accurate Macbeth would merit a very different story, most people don’t watch the play on its lack of historic merits anyway. Besides, Shakespeare probably had some excuse to depict such events as inaccurately as he did like James I, for instance. And then you got Braveheart which managed to win Oscars despite being one of the most historically inaccurate movies of all time that most of the errors I will list come from this very movie. And no other movie has ever made medieval historians cry in sheer anger and disgust over what Hollywood would ever consider such historical disasterpiece as something worthy of critical acclaim, let alone film awards. Many historians would think that Monty Python and the Holy Grail has more historical merits than this. And when you’re historical epic has more inaccuracies than a movie with killer rabbits, you have a problem. Sure, Gibson probably wasn’t aiming for historical accuracy and used the screenplay from a guy who claimed descent from William Wallace. However, now that this historical piece of shit may now be on its way on becoming a classic, most people unfamiliar with William Wallace and the Scottish Wars of Independence may now actually take Gibson’s vision of Scottish history seriously. Yes, unfortunately, people tend to believe things presented in historical movies regardless of the weight of inaccuracy. At least the guys making Spartacus had some concern for accuracy which is why the 1960 film is actually more historically reliable than the Howard Fast novel it’s based on. But you don’t see the concern for authenticity in Braveheart. And this it will be forever by trashed by medieval and Scottish historians as well as anyone who actually cares about history in general. I mean, I don’t expect historical movies to be 100% accurate, but not with an inaccuracy level like Braveheart. Nevertheless, here’s what Hollywood gets wrong about Scottish history.

Scottish men like William Wallace wore kilts during the Middle Ages. They also painted their faces and all armies wore uniforms in battle. (William Wallace’s men actually wore saffron shirts, not kilts for they didn’t come around until much later and so did army uniforms. Not to mention, they haven’t painted their faces since the Dark Ages.)

Prior to the 13th century, Scotland had always been subject to English rule. (Actually it had enjoyed a century of peace before Edward I tried to take it for himself when Scotland was in a messy political crisis regarding succession. The English were backstabbing encroachers, not overlords.)

Banquo and Fleance are the ancestors of the Stuart monarchs. (Shakespeare made up these guys to satisfy James I who was descended from Duncan.)

Bagpipes were outlawed in 13th century Scotland. (They weren’t and were very popular in England.)

There was no Stirling Bridge in the Battle that bears its name. (There too was a bridge, but Gibson wanted to save money. Also, Andrew Moray, the man instrumental in that battle is absent from the film.)

There were Irish conscripts at the Battle of Falkirk. (There’s no record of this.)

Most noblemen in Scotland were Gaels. (They were culturally similar to English nobles and would’ve dressed more like their English counterparts. Also, many of them were related to English royalty, spoke a Scottish dialect of English and/or Anglo-Norman French.)

The sons of Scottish knights dressed in rags. (Even poor Scots would know how to sew or at least was related to someone who did. Even poor people couldn’t afford to have their clothes disintegrate for being unhemmed.)

13th Century Scottish men had long hair they braided as well as tied bits of fur and feathers even though it was messy most of the time. (There’s no reason to think this.)

Pikes were used against the English at the Battle of Stirling Bridge. (They were at Falkirk though.)

Macbeth:

Macbeth was only King of Scotland for two years after he killed Duncan in his bed just to get his throne. (For one, Macbeth ruled Scotland for 17 years {which proves he wasn’t a weak ruler} and even spent a several month trip to receive a blessing from the Pope. He was also known as a good king known for his charity, not a bad king who slaughtered his friends {he was actually good to his friends}. As to Duncan’s death, Macbeth killed Duncan in battle because Duncan was encroaching on his territory so the motive was self-defense after a failed invasion in England. And it was Duncan who was the young, violent tyrant but Shakespeare couldn’t say that because King James I was descended by him. As for Lady Macbeth, she is almost a complete fabrication in which nothing is known about her than her name {Gruoch}, the fact she was married before, and that she had at least a son from that marriage. And that son would later succeed Macbeth before Duncan’s son Malcolm gained power and killed him mostly because he didn’t think the guy was a legitimate king.)

King Duncan was a wise old king. (Duncan was younger than Macbeth and was a worthless wastrel who the latter killed in a fair fight in battle on his land. So in reality, Duncan got what he deserved.)

King Malcolm III:

Everyone in Scotland seemed to accept Malcolm’s kingship. (He was able to seize the throne of Scotland because England was able to support him. Scotland actually resisted his rule because their standards differed considerably from England on what consists of royal legitimacy. Also, Macbeth’s stepson and friends also campaigned against Malcolm.)

King Alexander III:

King Alexander III died in 1280 without a son. (He died without a son in 1286 after falling off his horse {since the Scottish throne went to his young granddaughter Margaret of Norway [so the country was ruled by regents] until she died in 1290 on the way there} but he and his two sons were still alive by 1280. It was only after Margaret’s death in 1290 when his brother-in-law King Edward I got involved because the Scottish noblemen couldn’t trust each other and Scotland was in a political crisis as well as headed for civil war.)

William Wallace:

Scottish men like William Wallace wore kilts during the Middle Ages. They also painted their faces and all armies wore uniforms in battle. (William Wallace’s men actually wore saffron shirts, not kilts for they didn’t come around until much later and so did army uniforms. Not to mention, they haven’t painted their faces since the Dark Ages.)

William Wallace grew up as a poor man who became a great liberator and had an affair with English  Queen Isabella, which resulted in Edward III. He ended up captured by the English because of Robert Bruce’s betrayal and was hanged drawn and quartered. (Actually, William Wallace was a well-educated minor aristocrat whose dad actually fought for the English and owned land {though we don’t know who he was} and might have been a scholar or been on his way for a career in the Church. He may have used a longbow as a weapon of choice {unlike the sword he’s usually depicted with in Braveheart}. He briefly served as a Guardian of the Kingdom of Scotland {it’s kind of like being a Steward of Gondor except that they didn’t rule by themselves} until his military reputation tanked at the Battle of Falkirk. He engaged in diplomatic correspondence with Lubeck and Hamburg as well as went on a diplomatic mission to France and Rome before returning to his home after the Scottish surrender in 1302. Not to mention, he was said to be Welsh since his name either means “Welsh” or “foreigner” so the notion of growing up a Scottish highlander is out of the question. Also, he certainly didn’t have an affair with Queen Isabella of England for she was ten and wasn’t even living in England yet {and younger than that during the Battle of Falkirk}, didn’t father Edward III who was born seven years after he died, Edward II was only thirteen, and he wasn’t directly betrayed by Robert Bruce either. And as for his method of execution, Wallace was hanged, cut open, castrated, chopped to pieces, and finally beheaded. And before that, he was stripped naked and dragged by a horse carriage by a rope around his ankles and afterwards dipped in tar and put on public display.)

William Wallace had easy access to large quantities of gasoline. At the battle of Falkirk, he apparently has a tanker truck parked behind the lines, so that he can wet down a broad stretch of the front-line as a death trap for the enemy. It was then set alight by flaming arrows, to set the enemy stuntmen on fire so that they can run around screaming while the flammable stunt clothing blazes merrily over their Nomex jumpsuits. William Wallace can also generally get his hands on fire starter whenever he wants to burn English soldiers to death in a cottage. [From A Common Place Book](You should know this isn’t true at all.)

William Wallace was called Braveheart. (Actually that was a nickname of his contemporary, Robert Bruce who would become Scotland’s eventual king and he only acquired the nickname after his death when his heart was carried by a general around his neck into battle. It was Robert Bruce’s heart that led the Scots into battle not Wallace’s.)

William Wallace was the architect of Scottish independence and was an all-around nice guy. Robert Bruce is overrated. (Wallace also raped women and burnt down schools with kids and monks still inside. Not only that, but he used conscription and was willing to hang those refusing to serve. As with Robert Bruce, he’s still one of Scotland’s national heroes and was far more successful than Wallace ever could be {though he still could be brutal to his enemies and manipulative if need be as well as got excommunicated for murdering his rival in a church}. Not to mention, Bruce never personally betrayed Wallace, ever because they never met in the first place. Also, Wallace didn’t initially support Bruce’s claim to the throne and backed the exiled Scottish King John Balliol who was held prisoner in the Tower of London {and later sent to France} who Bruce and his family considered an usurper. Not to mention, Bruce was originally playing on both sides for a while {for personal reasons} until the Battle of Stirling Bridge and didn’t establish full claim to the Scottish throne until after his Carlisle governor father died in 1304.)

Malcolm Wallace had two sons named John and William in 1280 in a town of Paisley. (He had three including his eldest also named Malcolm and he wasn’t a commoner either, assuming that Sir Malcolm of Elderslie was William’s father. Then again William Wallace’s dad could be named Alan of Ayershire {yet no contemporary evidence links him to either location}. Still, William Wallace only appears on the historic record from 1297 when he killed an English sheriff in Lanark {said in order to avenge his wife’s murder} to his death in 1305. So how many kids William’s father had was anyone’s guess.)

William Wallace’s father and brother John were executed by the English when William was a boy. (William lost his father as an adult while his brother John was executed a year after him.)

William Wallace returned to Scotland in 1296 after spending his adolescence abroad. (He never stepped foot out of Scotland until his 1297 invasion of Northern England.)

William Wallace carried out large-scale raids in the north of England and killed Edward I’s nephew in York. (While he did stage long scale raids in Northern England, he didn’t make it as south as York.)

William Wallace’s wife Murron died shortly after their wedding. After this, he killed the English Sheriff by slitting his throat. (It’s said they had two sons, if he had a wife which is very likely. Yet, legend says her name was Marion Braidfrute, though there is no solid evidence if he was married. As for the Sheriff, Wallace cut him to pieces with a sword while his men proceeded to burn two houses with English guards inside of them.)

William Wallace’s best friends were Hamish and his dad Campbell as well as Stephen of Ireland. (The first two are fictional characters while the latter’s existence is questioned. Also, Andrew Moray may be a better candidate though he’s absent in Braveheart though they did join forces before the Battle of Stirling Bridge.)

William Wallace was executed around the same time Edward I died. (Edward I would live for a couple more years and would die on campaign {not in bed as depicted in Braveheart}.)

The Irish fought with William Wallace. (Most Irish fought against him and certainly didn’t switch sides at Falkirk {though the Welsh archers threatened to but only out of fear}.)

Scottish nobles deserted William Wallace. (There’s no report of this happening, well, maybe with John Comyn and his supporters who did abandon him there but there’s no solid evidence. Oh, and he was opposed to fighting at Falkirk because it didn’t offer the advantages at Stirling Bridge.)

William Wallace was captured by the English at Edinburgh after being betrayed by Noble Craig and Robert Bruce’s old man. (The old man Robert Bruce was dead by Wallace’s capture while Craig never existed. Also, he was captured near Glasgow after being betrayed by Scotsman John Menteith.)

William Wallace had no intention to fight the English to free his country until his wife was killed by them. (He was already an outlaw against the English since he refused to sign the Ragman Roll from the very beginning. The English killing his wife would’ve angered him even more. Oh, and William Wallace would’ve never whipped out a concealed nunchaku, which is from China for God’s sake!)

William Wallace was clean shaven. (He had a beard and was at least 6 feet tall. But he’s played by Mel Gibson so I’ll let this slide.)

William Wallace was knighted after Stirling Bridge. (He was knighted a few years later.)

Robert Bruce:

Robert Bruce disowned his leprosy afflicted but dominating father. (There is no evidence Bruce’s old man had ever contracted it though it’s thought that Bruce himself might’ve suffered from it. Also, there’s no evidence whether Bruce disowned his father or whether he was dominated by his dad. Still, he was quite capable of making his own decisions and choices.)

The Scots won their independence when Robert Bruce changed his mind about a peace parley. (It was at the battle of Bannockburn after an English army arrived to lift the siege at Stirling Castle, nine years after Wallace’s death while engaging in guerrilla warfare for years, though Bruce would be crowned king a year after Wallace’s execution {though he was dead by the time actual independence would be won}. Also, Scottish independence didn’t last and Edward III managed to conquer more of Scotland than his grandfather ever had.)

Robert Bruce was the 17th person with the name in his family. (He was the 7th with the name and the 7th Lord of Annandale.)

Robert Bruce was present with King Edward I at Falkirk. (It’s likely he wasn’t there or at least did nothing significant. He was more likely at home in Carrick.)

History of the World According to the Movies: Part 7 – The Medieval Church

Posted by historymaniacmegan on
Image

From Kingdom of Heaven, which is probably a movie about the Crusades we’re all familiar with as well as one that says that these wars of religion weren’t as holy as many say they were. However, this picture does encapsulate the idea of the religiosity of the time period. Still, though Orlando Bloom’s character actually did exist, he wasn’t the widowed French blacksmith as depicted in the beginning at all. However, he did end up with a Queen consort of Jerusalem, just not Queen Sybilla.

While fighting is one of the many aspects of the medieval landscape, the Middle Ages would never be what it s without the Church. Sure it was a dominant force in medieval life and a very misunderstood one as Hollywood is concerned. Still, though Christianity began in ancient times, it really came into its own in the Middle Ages as an institution (as long as the Catholic Church is concerned but there were Orthodox churches in the east as well). Medieval monasteries and convents were places of great cottage industries and learning with monks being among the intellectuals of their day and churches became not only centers of devotion but also places for community. Not only that, but we also see the rise of the Gothic cathedrals which are still used for worship today (even if it’s on the decline in Europe these days). And without the Church, we wouldn’t have universities, the institution of medicine, theology, and all those ancient writings that would’ve been lost if monks didn’t spend all day copying them. Of course, because of the medieval Church, we also have antisemitism, heresy, and the Crusades which is a series of religious wars in the Middle East geared to capturing the Holy Land from the Muslims. Still, Hollywood always tends to screw up a few things about the medieval Church which I shall list here.

Medieval Christianity:

The Catholic Church was a backward institution that discouraged education and scientific research. (The Catholic Church actually saved science and is the main reason why we know anything about the Middle Ages at all even though they did lock their books but there weren’t many books in Europe anyway and were very expensive since they were all written by hand or printed from wood carvings which were tedious to make {but many monasteries and nunneries had large libraries of them full of the works of Rome and Greeks and monks spent a lot of time copying them}. Furthermore, they even set up universities all over Continental Europe, started formalized higher education with advanced degrees, and saw no problem with dissection {the Knights Hospitaller did this and the Church was fine with it}, at least in the basement anyway, which helped set the foundation of modern medicine. They started the first medical and law schools as well. They even educated children in monastic and convent schools when education became a higher demand and that was before the printing press. Not to mention, the Crusades also allowed Europeans to come into contact with Muslim ideas and Arabic numerals. And their massive cathedrals were marvels of medieval craftsmanship and engineering. Furthermore, monks were usually the most educated people in Europe of their day. Actually it would be more accurate to say that the Catholic Church was a great medieval engine of scientific progress. Not to mention, most medieval scientists were monks and/or priests as well. Still, doesn’t stop filmmakers from making movies set in the Middle Ages in which the Catholic Church is hostile to scientific inquiry which really wasn’t the case {especially with the Galileo Affair which isn’t as much a science vs. religion case as most people think}.)

Monks locked their Bibles to keep people from hearing the true word. (No way in hell. Monks locked their Bibles so churches could guarantee that people could hear the Bible on a daily basis as well as prevent it from getting stolen. A stolen Bible would’ve taken many months to replace since books at the time were copied by hand.)

Europeans were highly religious during the Middle Ages. (Despite the Crusades and the powerful presence of the Catholic Church, most people in the Middle Ages were probably just as religious as I am, observant yes, but with a more laid back approach like many Catholics today. Sure religion was important but it wasn’t the only thing in life and it wasn’t altogether incompatible to the modern notions of the day either. In other words, medieval Europeans may have went to church on Sundays but they weren’t religious fanatics, at least in general. Of course, religiosity would increase later in the Middle Ages as well as in the early Renaissance in Northern Europe since they were people who cared enough about religion to break off from the Catholic Church.)

The Catholic Church discouraged scientific research and progress. (Actually, quite the contrary. For one, most medieval scientists in Europe had a religious vocation. Second, while the Middle Ages wasn’t the best time for science {which wasn’t a big subject at the time}, it was nevertheless studied for practical reasons. The Church understood that scientific study can benefit them and help monks and nuns do their jobs better. Needing to care of the sick led to the study of medicine. The fact monks and nuns needed to schedule prayer times as well as find out when Easter is led to the study of rudimentary mathematics and the motions of the Sun and the Moon. Third, contrary to popular belief, the High Middle Ages was a really good time for science with the rise of Scholasticism and Aristotlelianism.)

Medieval cathedrals were often dark places. (Actually, they were places with large glass windows that let tons of light in. Churches were painted in bright colors. Still, today tourists tend to complain every time these places are washed because it’s too bright. Not to mention, it was inspired by Indian and Arab/Muslim building styles also from the Crusades.)

All nuns were virgins admitted into a convent as lovely, nubile waifs. (They could also be an ugly daughter of a lord or women who didn’t want to get married or have kids.)

Monks were benevolent men who devoted their lives to God. (Well, not quite for many monasteries enjoyed great wealth in the Middle Ages and many monks didn’t live too badly either {especially in the later Middle Ages}. In many ways, they were not just clergymen, but also businessmen, scribes, scientists, intellectuals, as well as some of the smartest guys around {same goes for nuns, too, for the most part}. Oh, and many monasteries had their own armies.)

Monks could hear confessions. (If they have taken holy orders since a lot of monks are priests. If not, then no.)

Monks were dissolute hypocrites who used religion to make money. (This isn’t 100% accurate either for though monks weren’t perfect human beings and the Church did have some degree of corruption, they were just as flawed like everyone else. We just tend to put them on a higher pedestal since they tend to be religious figures. Besides, every religion has their share of hypocrites and jerks as any institution and I’m sure medieval Christianity was no exception. Sure you may have a few bad and corrupt monks, but you also had a lot of cool ones as well. However, it was true enough for Henry VIII to convince the masses on why he had to dissolve the monasteries {which was to finance a war in France}, even though the actual debauchery and corruption of monks wasn’t nearly as bad as Henry made it out to be.)

Medieval Russia had no religious insignia in the 13th century. (Russia had been Orthodox Christian for quite some time and would continue to be the dominant church in the country until the Russian Revolution {though it’s still around}. Russian churches would usually have crosses on top and their banners would contain an icon of Christ {ditto priests in the army}. Of course, Eisenstein knew that the Soviet government wouldn’t accept this while filming Alexander Nevsky. Also, Nevsky is a saint in the Russian Orthodox Church.)

Clergymen were forbidden to shed blood so they didn’t fight. (Sure but there were militant churchmen as well as military religious orders like the Knights Templar, the Teutonic Knights, and the Knights Hospitallers.)

“Dies Irae” was a Christian standard hymn in the 1100s. (It was written by a Thomas of Celano who lived around 1200-1260 so, no.)

Saint Francis of Assisi was known as “Jester of the Lord.” (It was his disciple Brother Juniper.)

Saint Francis of Assisi was originally referred to as Francis. (His real name was Giovanni di Pietro Bernardone. Francis was a nickname derived from Francesco {“Frenchy”} which he obtained when he was a little kid. Actually, Francis wouldn’t be used as a legal name until after he became a saint.)

Pope Innocent III had a full beard. (He was clean shaven.)

Everyone in Europe was Catholic during the Middle Ages. (Everyone west of Poland, that is. In Russia, the main church was Russian Orthodox Christianity while the Greeks in the Eastern Roman Empire were Greek Orthodox. Not to mention, before the Mongols you also had quite a few Christian sects in the Middle East and Central Asia like the Coptics, Armenian Apostolics, the Nestorians, the Maronites, Ethiopian Orthodox Rite, and others. When you really get down to it, medieval Christianity was quite diverse.)

The Catholic Church pretty much ran everything. (Yes, it was a powerful institution, but it also got into clashes with secular rulers who wanted to make their own decisions in religious affairs. Not to mention, secular monarchs can and did appoint bishops {Henry II appointed Thomas Becket as Archbishop of Canterbury}. Sure medieval society didn’t exactly have a lot of separation between church and state. And yes, the Catholic Church did mettle in politics as well, but it wasn’t always without a secular ruler’s consent either. They also crowned kings as well as married and annulled their unions {back when marriages were a form of diplomacy}. So while there wasn’t a lot of separation between church and state but it wasn’t exactly a theocracy either. Also, there was less church and state separation in the Russian government and the Russian Orthodox Church, than in any European Catholic country.)

There was an actual Pope Joan. (She never existed.)

The Catholic Church participated in witch hunts and witch burnings. (Maybe in the 1400s but they mostly considered belief in witches as highly heretical. Still, witch hunts did happen under secular governments though and only much later {and they only took witchcraft seriously in cases of murder and treason}. However, there were actually few witch trials during the Middle Ages and many were usually nothing but simple lynches.)

Inquisition guards wore nearly full plated armor in the 1300s. (Only a century later.)

Medieval monks could enter each other’s cells freely. (For a monk entering another’s cell without permission was normally forbidden as well as grounds for excommunication.)

Monks addressed each other as “Your Grace.” (This wouldn’t be appropriate address for a monk under any circumstances but rather for nobles and high members of the Catholic Church.)

Inquisitor Bernard Gui was killed in an Italian monastery in 1327. (Yes, he was a real person and was said to have sentenced 900 people as well as executing 42 of them during his 15 years in office. However, he died in the castle of Laroux in 1331. He also doesn’t die in Eco’s original novel In the Name of the Rose.)

Medieval clergy men and religious orders were highly superstitious. (Yes, but not as much as the laypeople in their domains. Of course, they probably did believe in demon possession and that writing with the left hand was a sin. For instance, most medieval clergymen believed in a round earth from its earliest days. So did most people at the time with an education. We should also account for the fact that most medieval scientists were monks and priests.)

Pagan philosophy was considered difficult to reconcile with Christianity as well as considered borderline heretical. (There is no way that William of Baskerville would need to worry about saving a book by Aristotle because Saint Thomas Aquinas had already embraced embraced several ideas put forward by the Greek philosopher as well as said it was perfectly all right for Christians to read works by non-Christian authors {and had been influenced by the Jewish philosopher Maimonides as well as Muslim philosophers Averroes and Avicenna}. This was in the 13th century. Not only that, but most of the European mythology we know about now was recorded by clergyman themselves, which were only referred just as stories.)

Some European monasteries had African monks. (This would be highly unlikely considering the circumstances.)

The Holy Grail was of great significance in Christianity at this time. (There’s no mention of it in any canonical Christian text and wasn’t spawned until the 12th century. Also, it’s more of a product of Arthurian legend than anything.)

Pagan practices were considered anti-Christian. (Except with the worship of other deities, many pagan practices weren’t considered anti-Christian, but were commonly carried out by Christians as well as became Christianized practices. Kind of like how some people celebrate the holidays with their own personal traditions just to make themselves feel comfortable with the faith. However, this doesn’t stop some people from believing that Christianity was based on earlier religions other than Judaism, of which there is no historic proof as well as nothing in what we know of the original pagan beliefs that we can draw a respective parallel with. In other words, to say that the story of Jesus was based on the myth  of Horus would be like saying it’s based on Harry Potter. Not to mention, those who believe that Christianity was based on pagan religions don’t tend to consider that a certain culture’s mythology doesn’t have a lot of consistency and that mythological stories sometimes tend to vary with location or change over time. And it doesn’t help that the prolific people who tend to believe this are high profile atheist intellectuals, who may be smart and experts in their respective field but that doesn’t mean they’re experts in religion, religious history, or even mythology.)

The Crusades:

There was no reason at all to recommend the Crusades. (Well, there kind of sort of was, at least in some of those people’s minds but I wouldn’t call it the best solution. Still, remember medieval society was a feudal and warlike culture so if these knights weren’t killing Muslims in the Holy Land, they were probably killing each other and then some {though the first Crusade’s primary enemy was the hostile Seljuk Turks who’ve just captured Jerusalem from the Fatimids who didn’t care as long as the Christians spent their money}. Not to mention, the Crusades were called to also help out the dwindling Byzantine Empire, the last remaining Christian stronghold of the Middle East at the time {though they were Greek Orthodox, not Catholic}. Also, Pope Urban II’s predecessor was kidnapped by Normans and were wreaking havoc all over Europe by the first Crusade. Besides, “bring the Cross to Jerusalem” was a much better slogan than “Save the Greek Empire” which nobody in Europe cared about.)

Crusaders taught desert dwelling Muslims how to irrigate their land. (Actually this was the other way around. They also taught them medicine, windmills, round towers, and others even though knights did participate in civil projects during the Crusades.)

Members of the Knights Templar could marry, own land, and be crowned king. (They were forbidden from marrying or owning land. Also, no Templar would ever be crowned king.)

Renaud Chatillon and Guy Lusignan were Templars. (No, they weren’t or never have been. Lusignan was actually king of Jerusalem at the time Chatillon launched his attack. Also, King Baldwin had been dead for several years.)

Sybilla’s marriage to Guy Lusignan was an arranged one. (Her family opposed the match and it was her second marriage.)

Balian was a heroic everyman knight who embodied the best of the chivalric ethos. He was also a blacksmith and an illegitimate son of a knight. (He was raised noble and wasn’t a blacksmith so he probably wasn’t illegitimate. Not to mention, he was part of the most important families in the Kingdom of Jerusalem but of a moderate faction known as the Ibelins {and he wasn’t born illegitimate, but as a younger son}. And he wasn’t born in France but in Jerusalem as a second generation crusader nobleman and would’ve definitely know who his father was. Not to mention, his dad was Italian, not French. Also, though he is known for making the courageous decision to negotiate with Saladin, he also betrayed his oath not to fight him on more than one occasion, sold many peasants in the siege into slavery, and refused to release his Muslim prisoners if Saladin wouldn’t accept surrender. He also threatened the destruction of Muslim holy places under the threat of a repeat of the 1st Crusade capture of Jerusalem. He was ruthless but Saladin would forgive his oath breaking due to prior excellent relations and even helped mediate a peace between him and Richard the Lionheart. Still, Balian wasn’t all that bad for he did pay ransoms for thousands of poor out of his own pocket and offered himself as a hostage for all the rest. Still, he was prone to taking power whenever he could find it, sided with Chatillon, and his dynasty fathered most of the royal families of Europe.)

Guy Lusignan was a foppish, racist douchebag and ax crazy Reynald Chatillon was his dragon. (Chatillon wasn’t ax crazy but he was the worse of the two, much worse. Also, though Lusignan may have been racist, so were many of the European Christians who participated and him and Reynald hated each other {leading to the disaster at Hattin} even though he tried to get him to apologize to Saladin which didn’t work. As what TV Tropes and Idioms says about Chatillon, “Raynald once had a man tortured by smearing him in honey and putting him on top of a tower in the hot sun, simply because the man refused to fund a military expedition Raynald was plotting. Oh, and the best part — the man was the Latin Patriarch of Antioch, a religious leader of the Crusaders — and the expedition was against Cyprus, an island held by the Byzantine Empire, inhabited by Christians. Of course, Raynald had what he thought was a perfectly good reason for this—he felt they owed him money. Or pretended he felt they owed him money. It’s tough to be sure. So — a “bit of a mustache twirling supervillain” is something of an understatement.” Also, Chatillon led a pirate fleet that threatened to burn down Mecca and flayed the Patriarch of Antioch alive.)

The Catholic Patriarch of Jerusalem was a cowardly, self-absorbed jerk, blinded by his faith, and mostly spent his time spreading his prejudice against Muslims. (Actually it was he and Balian who negotiated the surrender of Jerusalem and rounded up the money to ransom the citizens who couldn’t afford to ransom themselves. They also offered themselves as ransom for those who they couldn’t afford to ransom which Saladin declined. He even stripped the silver and gold from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to pay the city’s defenders knowing it would’ve gotten him in big trouble.)

Sybilla was a member of the moderate faction in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. (As TTI puts it, “The historical Sybilla was actually part of the extremist camp within the Haute Cour, while the film places her squarely on the moderate side. The moderates, such as the Ibelins, attempted to blunt the ambitions of Lusignan and his supporters by refusing to allow her to take the throne after the death of her son (Baldwin V) unless she first divorced him. As a concession they allowed her to marry any man of her choosing afterwards, but unfortunately neglected to add “Except Lusignan,” who she then turned around and picked as her consort. Not because she was in desperate need of his military support as the film depicts, but entirely because of her devotion to him, and because she sided with him and the other extremists politically.” So a romance between Balian and Sybilla most likely didn’t happen.)

Guy Lusignan was an utter bastard who would do anything for power and was willing to wage a war for profit. He was also a terrible King of Jerusalem. (As TTI explains, “Historically, while he may have been ambitious, he was no more so than the next noble, and his decision to go to war was less a matter of Ax Craziness and more a matter of “Saladin’s already attacking, we need to do something about it.” While he was a bad king, it was not because he was nuts and evil, but because he was incompetent: He could listen to reason, and he even did so when Tiberius cautioned him to stay near a source of water and let Saladin come to him, but he allowed himself to be swayed by the over-zealous elements among the nobles and made the decision to march across the desert, exhausting his army and causing its downfall. He was also much better to his wife than in the film: historically, he treated her well enough that when she was given the chance to keep the throne and choose any husband for herself and make him King, she went right back to Guy.”)

Teutonic knight crosses were the same on shield and coat of arms. (They were different in shape and color.)

Returning Crusaders had to face the Black Plague. (Maybe they had to face plague, but the Crusades were long over before the Plague began.)

Russians participated in the Crusades. (There were no Russians in the Crusades.)

King William of Sicily fought in the Crusades. (He sent ships but never went personally.)

Frederick Barbarossa and his son the Duke of Swabia participated in the Crusades at the same time as Richard the Lionheart. (They were both dead by Richard’s arrival. Barbossa died en route in Turkey and his son of dysentery some months before.)

The Count of Montferrat spent more considerable time plotting in the French and English courts. (He was fighting in Tyre. Also, he’s from Piedmont, not Venice.)

Queen Berengaria spent some time in Saladin’s harem. (Really? No way in hell. Besides, there’s no record of Queen Berengaria ever stepping foot anywhere further than Cyprus where she married Richard the Lionheart.)

The Crusades were mostly against the Muslims in an effort to reconquer the Holy Land. (Yes, but there were also Crusades against the Moors in Spain, the Baltic pagans, and even the Albigensian heretics {though that can be considered an Inquisition, too.})

Crusaders eagerly went to the Holy Land on behalf of their God. (They also did it out of self-interests as well such as glory, self-enrichment, and adventure.)

Both sides seemed to get along with each other during the Crusades. (Just because Muslims fought with Muslims and Christians fought with Christians doesn’t mean they liked each other.)

The Crusades consisted of Christians vs. Muslims. (It didn’t become a Christian vs. Muslim conflict until French King Louis VII took a detour in the Second Crusade where he sacked Damascus, betraying his Muslim allies out of greed. Prior to this, it wasn’t unusual for Christians to have Muslim allies or Muslims to have Christian Allies. Not to mention the “Crusaders” in the later stages were mostly just adventurers and mercenaries more interested in glory and loot than defending Christian kingdoms or recapturing holy places.)

Christian Europeans weren’t okay with Muslims controlling Jerusalem. (Actually quite the contrary since prior to the Crusades, it had been controlled by the Muslims for nearly 500 years. It’s just that until the Crusades, Jerusalem was controlled by the easygoing Fatimid Muslims who were perfectly fine with Christian visitors on pilgrimages as long as they paid. And as long as Muslims were fine with Christian visitors in Jerusalem, Christian Europe didn’t care whether the Holy Land was under Christian control or not. However, the Christians weren’t all right with the Seljuk Turks invading the city since they were more prickly and devout than their Fatimid predecessors and had been treating Christian pilgrims poorly {since they didn’t particularly care for religious minorities anyway}. Not to mention, the Seljuk Turks have been trying to take advantage of the weakening Byzantine Empire in a land grab. So the Crusades were initially less of a religious conflict with Christians against the general Muslim population and more of a conflict against more fanatical Muslims who had already proven themselves as Christendom’s enemies and showed it. However, such characteristics only apply to the general Fatimid and Seljuk populations since not all Seljuks were bad and not all Fatimids were good.)

The Crusades were no help to Muslims at all. (Having Christians kill Muslims in the name of God actually gave something that could unite the Muslim world after being locked in a period of infighting which resulted in stronger and larger Muslim states and the end of Shiism as a political force for the next 300 years {until the Safavids converted Iran}. Still, the worst thing the Crusades did for the Muslims was being a major distraction for 2 bloody centuries that neither side even paid attention to what was happening in the east during the 1200s where a little known guy Mongolian named Temujin was making a name for himself. He was also known as Genghis Khan. For the Christians though, they led to a weakening of the Byzantine Empire and a permanent division of Christianity along east and west, while the already shaky alliances of European monarchies crumbled. By 1250, the west was no longer a significant threat to the Muslim world since Europe had suffered a massive drain of manpower and resources. )

The Crusades teach the notion that “religion is bad because people kill each other over it.” (There’s a lot more to the Crusades than religion. Also, remember this is the Middle Ages so if Christians weren’t killing Muslims in the name of God, they’d probably be killing each other over something else. Not to mention, being Christian didn’t stop the Normans from sacking Rome in 1060, which gave Urban II a good reason to fear them. Besides, it’s said Pope Urban II called the First Crusade to keep Christian invaders out of his own town, which would put their aggressive impulses to more constructive use at the time. Also, the Byzantine Emperor had petitioned for help. In some way, knowing that you and your potential enemies have the same religion can help. Not to mention, the Crusades didn’t stop Christians from attacking each other in the Middle East either out of greed or when it pleased them, being the knights they were {since they also sacked Byzantine cities, too even when they weren’t allowed to}. In the Fourth Crusade, Western European Christians actually sacked Constantinople in 1204 that made the schism between Eastern and Western Christianity all but absolute. Not only that, but it massively pissed off Pope Innocent III that he excommunicated all who participated in it {well, he threatened to before to deter the Crusaders from attacking fellow Christians, but it didn’t work}.)

The Catholic Church had no qualms with Christian crusaders killing Muslims in the name of God. (Actually the Church was perfectly fine with Christians killing Muslims in the name of God as long as they were seen as enemies of Christendom {while killing fellow Christians and allies was a sin}. But despite what you might’ve heard, this didn’t mean that the Catholic Church allowed Christians to kill Muslims indiscriminately, since the Christians initially had Muslim allies like the Arab Fatimids. Thus, this only applied at least to the Seljuk Turks who weren’t nice to Christians to begin with, at least in the First Crusade {though it might apply to Fatimids, too, at least later}. But being the raping and pillaging knights they were, even the stipulations against killing allies didn’t stop them  from killing Arab and Byzantine Christians eventually. As for the Muslims, the Crusades didn’t stop them from attacking each other either, at least initially.)

The Knights Templar had a relationship with the Freemasons. (There are claims of this but it’s unlikely they existed at the same time.)

The Knights Templar existed in 1539. (They were dissolved in 1312 by King Philip IV of France and Pope Clement V mostly due to the Templars’ wealth.)

The Knights Templar were a fanatical and ruthless militant fighters. (Yes, but so were a lot of people in the Middle Ages and they were initially like this in the early days. However, they were also skilled, pious, and occasionally highly educated fighters, cavalry, and bankers. When they became wealthier, they became less involved with fighting.They were also notoriously tolerant organization that cultivated diplomatic contacts with the Muslim world, worked with Muslim architects {influencing Gothic architecture}, merchants, and even theologians as well as disapproved slaughtering enemies if they agreed to surrender. These guys also invented dual accounting, credit cards, holding companies, corporations {they might’ve been the world’s first}, insurance, travel agencies, and modern banking. Oh, and many of these points were used against them by French king Philip IV who just wanted their gold and there were persistent rumors {that still go on to this day} that the Templars were corrupt despite most evidence to the contrary. They’re actually not as bad as most Hollywood portrayals depict.)

The Templars knew that Jesus had a relationship with Mary Magdalene resulting in the Merovingian line. (This is utter Dan Brown nonsense.)

Christian crusaders only massacred Muslims during the Crusades. (They massacred every Muslim and Christian in Jerusalem in 1098. Oh, and they even sacked Byzantine cities.)

The Knights Templar used a Roman cross in the 12th century. (They used a Maltese Cross until a century later when they were forced to change to a Roman Cross.)

The Knights Templar wore a white surcoat and black cross in the 12th century. (This is the outfit of the Teutonic Knights: the arms of Saint Mary of the Germans which was founded in 1190.)

There were a lot of casualties among the defenders of Jerusalem during the siege in the Third Crusade. (There were relatively few until the final fight.)

Balian had just lost a wife and child during the Siege of Jerusalem. (He was married with two children who were with him at the time. During the siege, he was trying to get them out of the city.)

Balian and Sybilla had an affair. (There’s no way this happened. For one, Sybillia and Guy Lusignan were definitely devoted to one even though people didn’t like them being together. Second, Balian’s wife was very much alive though she was a widow to a previous king of Jerusalem. Actually they were more likely enemies since Balian supported his stepdaughter’s {who also happened to be Sybilla’s younger half-sister} claim to the throne of Jerusalem as well as got her to annul her first marriage and marry a more suitable king.)

Balian’s wife committed suicide after delivering a stillborn baby. (She was alive and with her husband in Jerusalem. Also, she managed to give birth to two kids to Balian and would later have two more {who all survived}. Oh, and she had a daughter from a previous marriage with a previous king Jerusalem no doubt. Balian’s wife Maria Kommene was actually a daughter of a Byzantine nobleman and a great-niece of Emperor who bestowed a rich dowry in her first marriage {though the Komenes were known to experience a lot of family activities such as assassinating one another}. Oh, and they were enemies of King Richard the Lionheart.)

Teutonic Knights had swastika logos on them. (They didn’t use swastikas on anything. Still, they’re used in Alexander Nevsky as stand-ins for the Nazis.)

The Knights Templar helped pass down wisdom of ancient geometry derived the Ancient Egyptians during the Crusades. (They wouldn’t have done this.)

History of the World According to the Movies: Part 6- Vikings and Fighters

Posted by historymaniacmegan on

This is from a 1928 silent technicolor movie called The Viking which focuses on Leif Ericson. The accurate details about his life featured here are that he was the son of Eric the Red and discovered North America that we know of. Still, this picture shows a popular image of Vikings wearing horned helmets, which is not only historically inaccurate but also a stupid idea. Still, this doesn’t stop teams from having such images on their sports logos.

The Middle Ages isn’t one of the most accurately depicted times in movies. Much of how we view the medieval era isn’t shaped by actual history but by how it was viewed by later generations like in the Renaissance or the Victorian era. The Middle Ages lasted for about a thousand years or show as well as experienced lots of changes, but many medieval movies may take place in one era. Yet, they may have the people wear clothes and use weapons from a later period as well as large scale battles conducted in ways that would make most medieval military minds scratch their heads. Not to mention, some aspects of the Middle Ages are more likely to be filmed than others. Movies set in the Early Middle Ages tend to be about Vikings even though they were among many of the Germanic tribes wreaking havoc all over Dark Age Europe {mostly because few surviving writings from this era exist}. Well, that or King Arthur {who may just be a mythological figure}. Also, many of them tend to focus on fighting {like large scale epic battles} and most of them would be set in England {mostly because of Shakespeare, Robin Hood, and King Arthur} though there was plenty happening throughout Europe as well. This post will devote itself to the Vikings and the Medieval warfare inaccuracies portrayed in movies since these revolve around fighting which was common place in the Middle Ages.

No group gets more movie depictions in the Early Middle Ages than the Vikings, the fearsome Scandinavian raiders that bring any settled early medieval village to its knees. Many of these guys were pagans who worshiped the Norse Gods, wore awesome gear and carried gnarly weapons, sailed on ships with gruesome figureheads, and had long light hair and beards. Of course, this is the Hollywood depiction. Yet, the Middle Ages was a time where warfare was common place, of knighthood and chivalry, castles, battles, and tournaments. However, when it comes to Hollywood, there of plenty of things that movies get wrong which I shall list accordingly.

The Vikings:

The Vikings wore horned helmets and treated their women as objects. (The Vikings didn’t wear horned helmets, it was made up by Wagner when he did his operas on Norse and German mythology. Besides, a horned helmet wouldn’t be of any practical use whatsoever. Still, the Teutonic Knights and the samurai did though. And the women didn’t wear cone bras either. Also, Viking women held more rights than most other women did at the time.)

The Vikings were a savage people who raided and pillaged in areas all over Europe. They were also filthy as well as large and muscled. (Raiders, yes, but the Vikings weren’t uncivilized savages. They also were traders, explorers, artists, sailors, craftsmen, settlers, as well as a lot of other things. They also discovered Iceland, Greenland, and North America. And as for hygiene, evidence shows they were keen on personal hygiene unlike some European peoples. And they weren’t always hated and feared either.)

Vikings were tall, big, and blond. (Actually, though they came from Scandinavia and blond was seen as ideal, they took slaves from a great many ethnic groups who later joined them. So maybe there were Vikings who looked like Tony Curtis and Ernest Borgnine after all. Also, the average Viking man’s height was 5’ 7” which is not tall but fairly average.)

Viking was an ethnicity. (It was more of a job description derived from their method of raiding. Also, they did carry their weapons in normal life which they used for other purposes. They referred to themselves as Norsemen. All Vikings were Norsemen but not all Norsemen were Vikings. Also, most Norsemen would stay in villages all their lives.)

Vikings were clean shaven. (Male Vikings had beards.)

All Germanic tribesmen looked and dressed alike.

Viking women usually stayed home. (Many actually did accompany their husbands on invasions and sometimes fought according to recent evidence.)

Viking funerals consisted of a warrior being burned on the boat with all his possessions. (There was also a slave girl thrown in, too, but no one wants to film that.)

The Vikings were feared from all those they invaded. (Sometimes, but they weren’t bad rulers as well as accepted as traders. Also, they and the Slavs got along much nicely in what is now Russia and the former Soviet Union. It’s said Kievan Rus was founded by a man named  Rurik and his Viking band {who was a Finn raised in Swedish society} though it was already an urbanizing culture when those guys came.)

Leif Ericson fell for an English princess.( No, he didn’t. Nor did he land in Rhode Island {he landed in Canada, specifically, New Foundland or Nova Scotia}. Also, he didn’t speak Algonquin either.)

Hrothgar was a king of Denmark who met Ahmed ibn Fadlan. (Both these men existed in different eras. The Danish king mentioned lived during the 500s and wouldn’t have any contact with Muslims in the first place since Islam was founded in 622. The latter existed in 922. Of course, Vikings could’ve met Muslims though.)

The Vikings only used axes. (Vikings were all legally required to own weapons and the vast majority of Viking men and women used swords.)

The Vikings were unusually bloodthirsty and barbaric. (Well, they were living in a violent age and non-Viking armies were just as bad. However, they usually get special mention because of their willingness to destroy objects of religious value and kill churchmen, earning them a lot of hatred in a highly religious time. Also, they kind of enjoyed the reputation they had.)

Vikings were hated everywhere. (Some respected them like French king Charles the Simple who gave a Viking chief named Rollo Normandy and his daughter. In return these Vikings protected France against their wilder counterparts. Also, the Byzantine Emperors if the 11th century were protected by Swedish bodyguards in Constantinople.)

The Vikings lived only in Scandinavia and later settled in Iceland, Greenland, and the Faroe Islands. (They started settlements reaching as far as North Africa, Russia, and Constantinople.)

The Vikings used crude and unsophisticated weaponry. (They were actually very skilled weapons smiths. They could make extremely sharp and flexible swords.)

Viking funerals were solemn occasions. (Yes, but after the deceased was sent in a blazing glory, it was basically a party with feasting and fighting afterwards.)

A Viking weapon of choice was the doubled axe. (No double axe has ever been found in early medieval Europe. Also, Viking axes were light and single handed and spears are the most common weapons found on their sites.)

Viking drank from skull cups. (They drank from horns.)

Vikings were a nation. (They were a groups of warriors, explorers, and merchants headed by a chieftain.)

Viking men had tresses. (They shaved the backs of their heads like a reverse mullet.)

Barbarians:

The Huns were Asian looking. (They were from Eastern Europe or Central Asia not Mongolia. Yet, we’re not sure what the Huns looked like.)

Attila the Hun visited Rome and fell in love with Valentinian III’s  sister Honoria. (He never visited Rome nor even met the Roman princess. However, he did consent to marrying her before invading the Roman Empire after she was caught in bed with her brother’s chamberlain. Yet, this had less to do with love than wanting her brother Valentinian III dead. Oh, and instead of being exiled to a convent in Constantinople, she was forced to marry a senator.)

Attila the Hun never had a bath. (He did bathe.)

Knights and Warfare:

Knights were honorable, chivalrous, warriors who wooed damsels, were faithful to their wives, and treated their subjects with respect. (Actually, many knights usually entered into arranged marriages and many of them would hump pretty much anything that moves. Also, many of these knights raped peasant women and took their aggression on the local population which was one of the reasons why the Catholic Church called for a Crusade. Oh, and prostitution was legal because it was believed to deter rape among the general population and even the Vatican had brothels. In the Middle Ages, knights in shining armor were more the exception than the norm.)

Knights followed a specific code of chivalry which depicted unwavering pillars of justice. (Knights basically followed chivalry whenever they wanted to and only respected those above them. Most of them did whatever they wanted such as rape, looting, pillaging, and killing peasants. In fact, they looting was their right since they thought the booty was owed for their services. Hell, they’d hang out at bridges and rivers in large groups where they’d pick fights with passing knights, kill peasants, and harass women.)

Good knights treated peasants and serfs like human beings. (Knights treated serfs incredibly terrible since they were at the lowest rung of society. Serfs were usually key targets of knights since they were responsible for the upkeep of an estate. And though they might not be killed by a rival knight, they’ll likely be severely wounded or dismembered so they’d be a drain on estate. If a knight killed another lord’s serf, he’d have to pay or receive a beating.)

Armor was surprisingly useless against most forms of attacks. Whenever the plot requires, arrows and sword thrusts will punch through armor with ease. This is related to:

Braveheart Brigandine: This consists of metal plates riveted beneath a leather covering with a gap between the plates. This as flexible and easy to make, and virtually useless as protection, because any thrust will slide along the plate until it reaches the gap, slides into it, and kills the wearer. Its most perverse variant is the Braveheart Pajama Bottom of War: trousers with metal plates riveted to them with *large* gaps between them so the wearer can move. These gaps allow William Wallace to chop the wearer’s legs off with ease.  [From A Commonplace Book] (It’s unlikely that actual medieval fighters wore this.)

Studded Armor. Leather armor with decorative studs. This is designed to look like brigantine or similar armor to someone who doesn’t have a very good idea what brigantine looks like. The studs offer approximately the same protective value as loose change in the wearer’s pocket. However, the combination of metal studs and leather is very popular in bad historical movies, as well as the kind of bar where the patrons like that sort of thing. [From A Commonplace Book] (Armor wasn’t really useless in forms of attacks since many medieval soldiers used it in the form of chainmail, which was very heavy.)

For a medieval hero, a helmet is an encumbrance to be discarded as soon as possible, so that the hero’s face can be more easily seen and recognized. Unless it is desirable to wait until later to suddenly reveal that the armored figure is female, evil or somebody who we have already met. (Soldiers usually wore helmets in battle for good reason.) [From A Commonplace Book]

The Antagonists are Eeeeevil. Particularly if the protagonists are killing large number of the antagonists, having completely evil bad guys helps avoid any nasty moral ambiguity to the body count. Cardboard Cliche Villains don’t hesitate to promiscuously slaughter random civilians (Timeline), rape and kill women (Braveheart), not necessarily in that order (The Messenger) or toss babies into the fire (Alexander Nevsky) [From A Commonplace Book] (You see that many medieval movies operate on protagonist morality though both sides usually engaged in this.)

Protagonists can do no wrong. If a historical protagonist has actually made a belt from the skin of an opponent, or carried out a campaign of burning and pillage aimed at civilians, this will not appear in the movie (Braveheart)[From A Commonplace Book] (This was relatively common in the Middle Ages but this is right.)

Amazing Portable Siege Weapons. Enormous munitions siege weapons can always be deployed from somewhere else over medieval roads to where they are needed in whatever time is required by the plot (Timeline) [From A Commonplace Book] (These would take a lot of time and resources to assemble.)

Random Melee. Some modern fight choreographers like to show the chaos of battle by scattering fighters of both sides randomly about the field in a series of mostly single combats. (Braveheart, Branagh Henry V, etc, etc, etc.). (If you have gotten yourself into this kind of situation on a medieval battlefield, you, your companions, and/or commander are incompetent and will probably be dead in a few minutes. If you’re doing it right, you are standing in good formation with an ally on your left and your right, and you won’t break formation until your enemy is fleeing in rout, if then. Alexander Nevsky is one of the few movies that comes close to getting this right.) [From A Commonplace Book]

Only nobles fought battles. (Actually nobles were officers but medieval soldiers came from all backgrounds and most were drafted peasant foot soldiers.)

In a swordfight, you can always parry behind your back, and you must always find a set of stairs to fight on so that the loser can roll down them and die at the bottom. [From A Commonplace Book]

Knights could easily get up by themselves after falling off a horse. (Of course, wearing armor didn’t make this job easy.)

Knights fought in tournaments to win a lady’s favor. (It was battle practice and they weren’t fighting for girls as prizes. Sometimes there were prizes you wouldn’t expect.)

Knights never cheated in tournaments unless they were evil. (Cheating in tournaments was very common.)

Storming the castle through the front door was the best way to defeat an enemy. (In medieval warfare, this is the absolute worst thing you can do since it basically made the castle forces’ job a whole lot easier. Most medieval armies would usually surround the castle and hold it under siege until the resident lord or lady surrendered {though some did try to sneak in through the toilets which is also a dumb thing to do, which goes without saying}. This could take months or years. This is why so many nobles built castles back then because they were very effective defenses.)

Swords were a preferred weapon of choice for most of the Middle Ages. (Those living in the Early Middle Ages would rather use a spear or a battle axe {since they were easier to make and lighter than wood axes}. Besides, steel blades were rather expensive and difficult to make on swords. The Dark Age Europe weapon of choice was blade on stick, which they’d use for everything. Many Dark Age weapons were even passed down generations.)

Castles existed during the Dark Ages. (They didn’t in Britain at least until William the Conqueror. So if King Arthur existed, he wouldn’t have one.)

Early medieval knights were clad in full armor. (Knighthood as we know it didn’t exist yet in the early Middle Ages. Also, most knight armor we see came from the 13th century or later.)

Open fighting was a daily occurrence consisting of two armies on a big field. (From Medievalist: “Warfare was very common in the Middle Ages (as in pretty much every other age), but medieval strategists were too sensible to frequently attempt the type of battle we often see in the movies. Having two big armies charge each other in the field was a little too risky – the outcome could go either way. Because of this, the most common type of warfare was siege warfare: an army would attack a stronghold, and their opponents would try to withstand the attack. For some entertaining views of siege tactics, check out The Lord of the Rings trilogy (you’ll find sieges in The Two Towers and The Return of the King). While there weren’t a lot of orcs and goblins running around medieval Europe, J.R.R. Tolkien was a medievalist, so some of the tactics are borrowed from history.”)

Squires assisted the knight as a sidekick. (They also had to clean the knight’s armor as well as assist him in other ways.)

Medieval armor made knights slow. (From Writing Is Cake: “Somehow, somewhere, somebody started the idea that a fully armored knight was about as nimble as lead statue.  A lead statue high on quaaludes.  The cliche is an unhorsed knight was ‘as helpless as a turtle on its back’.  It’s not even close to true.  It is true that in the late middle ages, when tourneys were big money, specialized jousting armor was made.  These suits were designed for only one thing, riding a horse in a straight line with a lance.  They were never designed for any kind of real war (most had helmets that you couldn’t see out of)  Every other kind of armor was designed to keep a warrior alive on a field of battle and survival meant protection, mobility and vision.  Even the full plate was fully articulated and knights were expected to perform all sorts of acrobatics in them; leaping into a saddle, climbing up siege ladders with only their arms (think monkey-bars), and doing somersaults.”)

Medieval swords weighed 15 pounds. (From Writing Is Cake: “Your average sword was under four feet long and under three pounds.  A professional warriors sword would typically be more like three feet and about a pound and a half to two pounds.  The mechanics and physics of what a sword does is based on velocity.  Swords are light and balanced so the six to ten inches near the tip go as fast as possible with the least amount of effort from the end you’re holding.  Even the big two-handers like a Scot’s claymore or landsknecht’s pike breaker are much lighter than you might think.”)

There was one type of battle axes. (There were two consisting of a fighting axe for close combat and a throwing axe for distance.)

Soldiers never used guns in the Middle Ages. (They did in the later years.)

Flaming Arrows were often used in battle, particularly by those at castles. (They weren’t as often used as medieval movies claim it to be. I mean before you can set the arrows on fire, you had to wrap them in a flaming material first which may make them heavier, reduce their range, and inhibit its ability to penetrate the enemy’s skin. Also, may pose as a fire hazard. So flaming arrows wouldn’t be a handy way to kill someone and medieval soldiers didn’t use them to do so. Yet, whenever they did use flaming arrows, it was usually to frighten the enemy, letting archers know how to adjust their shots, and setting targets on fire.)

Castles were easy pickings when the adult males were away. (If you think you could easily take castles in which the resident nobles occupying it are women and children, think again. Women of noble or royal birth in the Middle Ages had sufficient knowledge of warfare and combat training for defending their turf while their men were away. Also, many tradesmen of the era had their wives helping them in their craft so women armorer is possible. So the medieval notion of damsel in distress was probably a myth unless she’s trapped in a castle and being besieged by a force significantly outnumbering her. In that case, you might want to bring reinforcements.)

Swords made a clinking sound. (From Medieval Sourcebook: “From Cathy Hanley  [Here is a myth, or rather] an inaccuracy which appears in every medieval film I’ve ever seen. Why is it that whenever anyone picks up or draws a sword the filmmakers feel obliged to add that annoying “ching” sound, even when the sword is drawn from a leather scabbard or picked up off a table? Anyone who has ever tried to draw a sword (I have several) will know that it’s almost impossible to produce this sound. The only way I’ve found is to deliberately pull the sword across the back of a mail glove, but this isn’t very authentic!I know it’s probably more dramatic, but it sounds so false and is highly annoying.”)

Armor was too heavy. (A knight in full harness weighed up to 60 to 120 pounds. All he couldn’t do in it was swim.)

Sword fights lasted a long time. (Most usually lasted a few minutes even if it didn’t result in killing or seriously injuring one’s opponent.)

Only knights used swords. (All soldiers used them in battles and these guys weren’t all knights either.)

All European swords were straight blades. (Most were but some did use scimitars from the Middle East, especially after the Crusades.)

Swords were easy to make. (It took many years for a skilled master craftsman to forge a high quality blade.)

Swordfights were always honorable affairs. (Sometimes they were just about trying to win and survive and a lot of knights wouldn’t hesitate to use dirty tactics.)

Knights were helpless without their swords. (Each knight had significant training in self-defense and martial arts from the time he was seven. Of course, he may not be as proficient or as encompassing against an Asian kung-fu master, but if he lost his sword, he’d still be formidable foe. Also, historic records and manuals of such do exist.)

Stronger swords were better swords. (They also needed to be durable and flexible.)

Swords always stayed sharp. (All blades need to be sharpened.)

Knights were highly likely to be killed in battle. (Conscripted foot soldiers could be killed if they killed a knight even he fought on the other side. Capturing one was better since they could fetch a handsome ransom. Captured foot soldiers were instantly slaughtered).

Swords cut through armor. (Chainmail was quite impervious to swords.)

Medieval armies amassed thousands of people. (Depends on the setting. Maybe in national wars but in situations between two lords, it’s more likely a few thousand at most.)

Trebuchets were very effective weapons that caused a lot of widespread damage. (They weren’t effective at long distances or at low arc {they threw projectiles at a high arc}. Also, the biggest damage they’d do to a large castle wall is creating a huge dent and a thump upon impact.)

Medieval soldiers had no problem fighting at night. (Fighting at night is what most medieval soldiers tried to avoid for obvious reasons, except in stealthy sneak attacks if possible.)

The Longbow killed the knight. (The cost of putting him on the field did. From Lonnie Colson.com: “It cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in today’s currency to field one knight along with the necessary supplies and retainers he would need. Even more importantly, he had to be extensively trained from the age of 5 to deftly wield sword and lance while wearing armour. That is in stark contrast to the small sum that it cost to put an arbequs–early firearm–in the hands of a common soldier with very little training. Thus it was that with the dawn of the age of gunpowder we saw the sun set on the age of chivalry.”)

Any man can become a knight. (The vast majority of knights were born into wealth. Unless a foot soldier did something exceptionally badass in battle like saving a lord’s life perhaps. But they were just as likely to be killed by embarrassing someone born with money.)

Battle axes and wood axes looked about the same. (Battle axes were lighter than wood axes since it took much less force to cut people’s heads off than cut down trees. Simple physics, really.)

History of the World According to the Movies: Part 5- Early Christianity

Posted by historymaniacmegan on
Image

Of course, I had to post a bloody Jesus picture from The Passion of the Christ directed by Mel Gibson. Though most historians agree Jesus really existed, he probably didn’t look like this at his crucifixion (save for the blood). I mean he’s just too white but I thought you already knew that. Still, this post is all about him and the religion he founded.

In my post of Ancient Rome, I deliberately left out the history of early Christianity because not only does it play a key role in Roman history and history in general (as well as one of the most prominent religion with so many sects and followers of different denominations), but it’s also a popular subject with filmmakers and one of the reasons why so many movies take place in Ancient Rome. There have been countless movies made about Jesus as well as take place in first century Palestine (including Life of Brian pictured in my last post). Heck, there are even movies about people even remotely associated with Jesus like Salome, Judah Ben Hur, Marcellus who crucified him, or Brian born down the street from Jesus. Don’t forget to see appearances of St. Peter and St. Paul (who should totally get his own movie), Pontius Pilate, the Virgin Mary, Judas Iscariot, St. Joseph, and those three kings of Orient are. Nevertheless, while Christianity began as a religion of martyrs as well as an offshoot of Judaism, it soon became the dominant and official religion of the Roman Empire (and later the one of the most dominant religions in the world). Yet, even filmmakers can get things wrong in the life of Christ as well as the early years of Christianity which I shall list as follows to make sure you understand why God may inflict his wrath on some of them over wrong information (of course, some of it was taken from the Bible and many of these movies do well at the box office but still).

The Story of Jesus:

Pontius Pilate remained neutral during the trial of Jesus and even says that he found nothing treasonable in Jesus’ actions. (Out of most of the biblical characters in the Passion narrative, I’ve always had a problem with the characterization of Pontius Pilate. In the gospels, Pilate seems all too reluctant to condemn Jesus to death, which I don’t find believable. I mean would someone in Pilate’s stature be all too reluctant to sign the death warrant of a man who has basically spoken against almost everything he and the Roman Empire stood for? I think he’d either not give a damn or be all too happy to crucify him. Perhaps his portrayal was the intent of the authors to characterize him in one of least offensive way possible but not make him seem like a good guy or maybe the whole thing was an act, at least in the Gospels anyway for perhaps the writers were playing it safe to depict Pilate that way. The Jewish perception of Pilate seems much more believable as well as their notion that Pilate didn’t last long in Jerusalem after Jesus’ crucifixion because the Romans thought he was too brutal.)

Jesus was a rather good looking man. (In the Bible, it’s best to say that he wasn’t very remarkable looking but certainly not butt ugly either. Thus, Jesus’s looks were about average that he wouldn’t stand out as far as history and the Gospels were concerned. He looked no different than what you’d expect from any Palestinian Jew in his 30s with tan skin, dark eyes, short dark hair, and a beard. Yet, most actors who portray Jesus look straight out of a fitness magazine. If he was seen as attractive, the events in the Gospels might’ve went quite differently, particularly when he greets his disciples after the resurrection.)

Mary was a teenage girl when she had Jesus. (She probably would’ve been no younger than 16, though it was possible that she would’ve been between 12-14 during her betrothal to Joseph, maybe even younger than that {like when they were kids}. St. Joseph probably would’ve been no older than 30 and most likely would’ve never married or have any kids. Thus, Jesus’s “brothers and sisters” would’ve been actually his cousins and other close relatives like aunts or uncles {this is according to my religious interpretation}.)

Herod the Great ordered the slaughter of babies in a mad quest to find the baby Jesus. (This is said in the Gospel of Matthew but there’s no record to support this. Besides, it’s fair to say it’s only included in Matthew because the author was writing for a Jewish Christian audience with his Gospel portraying Jesus as a “new Moses.” Herod slaughtering infants around Jesus’ birth was included to draw parallels with Moses’ birth birth story under the Pharaoh. However, though Herod may not have slaughtered any infants, this doesn’t mean he was a crazy or brutal king for he certainly was. In fact, he’s known for killing members of his own family out of paranoia, including a wife and 2 sons.)

Pontius Pilate was bullied by the Sanhedrin to crucify Jesus. (This is very unlikely for the Sanhedrin were only Roman puppets of the period and knew they only existed at Rome’s pleasure. Also, it would’ve been very unlikely for a Roman prefect to accept such actions. It’s probably safe to say that Jesus’ execution was one thing that he and the Sanhedrin could agree upon.)

Mary was with Jesus during most of his ministry. (Movies tend to depict this, but her appearances vary in the Gospels {in terms of certainty}. In Matthew, she’s only present in the infancy narrative. In Luke, she only appears up until Jesus is 12. However, Luke has her appear at the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles for the Ascension and Pentecost, so it’s possible she traveled with him during his ministry in his Gospel. In John, she’s at the Wedding of Cana and present at Jesus’s crucifixion {the only Gospel she’s present at this event}. However, in Mark, she’s only seen in Nazareth with other family members who were obviously not happy with what Jesus was doing. Nevertheless, having Mary with Jesus during his ministry seems to make a lot more sense.)

Salome was the voluptuous stepdaughter of Herod Antipas who had designs on John the Baptist and his refusal was the reason why he lost his head. (Of course, Salome has suffered the same fate as many women in history like Pocahontas, Cleopatra, and Catherine the Great, called the sex up, which consists of making historical figures much more physically attractive than they were in real life. Yet, unlike the characterization, the Gospels portray Salome as a young girl who probably never met John the Baptist but asks for his head on a platter at the request of her mother and she presented his head to her when the deed was done. She was her mother’s pawn and she wasn’t a sexy young woman either.)

Mary Magdalene was a prostitute. (She wasn’t but she was from a sea town which didn’t have the best reputation. And she wasn’t the woman who anointed Jesus either. She was probably the Mediterranean Jewish equivalent to the American white trash girl from a trailer park. The mentioned “harlot” in the Gospels is another woman. Also, the woman who anointed Jesus’s feet was Mary of Bethany who was the sister of Martha and Lazarus.)

Jesus was crucified with a loincloth over him. (In most crucifixions, the victim was completely naked, which was done to disgrace and humiliate the victims. I know Jesus wasn’t depicted as such in religious art but there’s probably no reason to believe he was spared of this. Still, I don’t think religious authorities should be upset at a naked depiction of Jesus on the cross for some say that shame and humiliation was an issue that Jesus dealt with as separation from God. But hey, to each his own, but I know how Hollywood has striven to make history family friendly and I would preach against depicting Jesus’ crucifixion in that historically accurate fashion for you will never hear the end of it. Yet, at least Jesus gets depicted on the cross nearly naked for whenever someone other than Jesus is crucified, he or she usually has their clothes on like Spartacus or anyone crucified in Life of Brian except Brian but that was due to cold temperatures.)

Jesus and his disciples drank out of a metal chalice during the Last Supper. (The Holy Grail is never mentioned in the Bible. Besides, I think he and his disciples probably drank out of a wooden chalice which didn’t look anything special.)

Jesus was white. (He was Jewish and had Semitic features. If you saw him at the airport in the US, it’s possible he’d be subjected to extra profiling by the TSA to see he wasn’t an Islamic terrorist.)

Jesus had long hair and a beard. (He had dark hair and beard, but most men of his day had short hair. Also, remember that Judas Iscariot had to kiss him in order to identify them. So if you were to see Jesus at the Last Supper, he’d probably look almost indistinguishable from his disciples.)

Jesus and Joseph were carpenters. (We’re not sure whether they were or just itinerant workers.)

Judas didn’t really believe Jesus was the son of God. (Who knows if he did?)

Mary didn’t want to marry Joseph. (Her view on her impending marriage to Joseph did not matter at the time, even after she became pregnant when he was the only one who took her in as his wife. Still, she could’ve done worse. Nevertheless, according to tradition, being the mother of Jesus was ultimately Mary’s decision {though she was chosen by God out of many different women}.)

Jesus spoke Aramaic which is a language that can be spoken today. (Yes, Jesus spoke Aramaic, but the “Aramaic” you hear in Mel Gibson’s holy gore fest is mostly educated guesswork on what it might’ve sounded and is probably as “authentic” as it’s going to get. However, the real pronunciations and intonations are lost to time that even linguists don’t exactly know how it sounded. Besides, the New Testament was originally written in Greek.)

Jesus celebrated the Passover with a seder of leaven bread sitting upright at a table. (It would more likely be matza or stuff made for Communion wafers. Also, a Seder is supposed to be eaten while reclining not in dining room fashion. Of course, you may have plenty of artists to blame because this is how the Last Supper is usually depicted.)

The crowd of Jews and Sanhedrin gave the order to crucify him. (Despite the Bible may tell you, there are only four death penalties permitted according to Jewish Law- beheading, stoning, burning or strangling. Crucifixion wasn’t one of them, yet it was probably more or less Pilate’s idea. Thus, no Jew would ever give the order to crucify Jesus, assuming if other execution methods were available then. Also, the Sanhedrin had no authority to execute anyone since Jesus was a kid and had to turn Jesus to Pilate to be judged by Roman law {and the Roman governor probably wouldn’t hesitate to crucify him whether the Jews wanted it or not}. Also, only the Temple security could use deadly force and only to those caught trespassing. Then the Torah says part of the death penalty was to hang a criminal’s corpse on a tree until evening after killing him so perhaps this is what the crowds and Sanhedrin chanted for instead. Then again, “Kill him and hang him to a tree!” doesn’t seem to have the same ring to it as “Crucify him!” Besides, Rome would rather save time by killing Jesus by hanging him on a tree anyway.)

Jesus was nailed to the cross with nails driven through his hands. (Nails would be driven through is wrists since palm tissue is too soft to support the weight of the victim.)

Romans and Judeans would speak to each other in their native tongues. (They’d more likely be communicating in Koine Greek to each other, the lingua franca of the Mediterranean.)

Herod Antipas was a depraved homosexual. (There’s no way of knowing this. However, according to the Gospels, he ran off and married his sister-in-law, Herodias while she was still technically married to his brother {also called Herod} and was his niece. John the Baptist was put in prison and later executed for criticizing Herod over this, {explaining why Herodias wanted Salome to ask her stepfather for his head}. Then again, Josephus says that Herod was worried that John the Baptist’s public influence would instigate a rebellion so he had him put to death. Still, he was said to have a notorious reputation for womanizing and Hellenizing royalty, which the Jews didn’t like. Also, dumping his first wife would later lead to a war between him and her dad.)

Herod Antipas only beheaded John the Baptist at the insistence of Salome as Herodias’s pawn. (Only in Mark’s Gospel he’s personally reluctant. In Matthew’s Gospel, Herod wants John the Baptist dead but worries that executing him might start an insurrection. Thus, in Matthew, Herod is reluctant to kill John the Baptist because he doesn’t think it’s good policy.)

Peter was a middle aged man with graying hair at the time of Jesus. (He’s usually depicted this way {save in The Robe} but he was probably not much older than Jesus. Also, Jesus and his disciples all looked alike, remember?)

“Christ” is Jesus’ surname. (It’s a descriptive title used by the Greeks to mean “anointed one.” Also, Jesus didn’t actually have a surname like most people of common birth at the time. Surnames were reserved for nobles.)

There were three magi. (Matthew doesn’t necessarily say how many they were, but most nativity usually go with three for gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Oh, and he says they visited him when he was two years old in a house somewhere else.)

Peter, James, and John were tempted by snakes as Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane. (They were tempted by sleep, not snakes. And yes, Peter, James, and John all fell asleep anyway. Also, Jesus wasn’t tempted at all.)

Jesus invented the dining table. (Dining tables existed before Jesus and there’s quite a lot of evidence for that.)

Early Christianity:

Christians were martyred at the Roman Coliseum. (Yes, there were possibly Christians martyred on the land before the place was built but they weren’t martyred in the building. It is said that Pope Benedict XIV made that up because he didn’t want the coliseum to be destroyed by developers who wanted to build a wool factory there. Still, he was right to say that it was a historically significant place even if he did make a few things up.)

Hypathia was a scientist and atheist. She was killed by Christians in the name of knowledge and science and because she was a woman. Her death ushered the Dark Ages. (She was a philosopher and a monotheistic pagan and she was killed as sixty-five, not young and pretty as in most depictions. I mean she believed in God in some sense, but she didn’t believe in Jesus or in the Bible. She believed in Neo-Platonism and her teachings appealed to a broad range of people whether they be Christian, Jew, or fellow pagans like herself. Also, Germanic tribes ushered in the Dark Ages since they were the ones who sacked Rome, not Christians and that happened in Hypathia’s lifetime. Besides, the ancient Christians weren’t against science either and she even had Christian students, one later becoming a bishop. Not only that, but Orestes and Socrates Scholastics were also Christians and she was known to be respected by Christians and pagans alike because of her learning, virtue, and dignity. As to the motive of death, she was killed on account of politics and revenge {or because her friend Orestes tortured and killed a monk and that Cyril of Alexandria saw her as an obstacle for reconciliation between the two of them}, not science, not philosophy, not because she was a woman, and certainly not rationalism. Not to mention, despite the fact that Cyril of Alexandria was a bishop and that she was killed by a Christian mob, religion had nothing to do with her murder since it was a feud between two prominent Christians fighting for power. Besides, everyone was horrified upon hearing her death, at least in Alexandria. As for the female part, there was another highly renowned female scientist a generation later named Aedisia who practiced science unmolested. Sorry, atheists, but Carl Sagan lied on this one. Just because he’s a scientist doesn’t mean you can believe him when it comes to history.)

The Great Library of Alexandria was destroyed by Christians and Jews. (It was more likely burned down by Julius Caesar in 48 B. C. which was way before Christianity or Hypathia. Actually the destruction of the Great Library of Alexandria was part of a long process of degradation and decline. Also, I’m not sure if the peoples of the antiquity ever cared for their libraries at all and I don’t think people in Hypathia’s time would’ve used scrolls either since books were available. However, there was a temple called the Serapeum which served as a “daughter library” at some point, but in 391, it was said to have contained only pagan idols. Also, the Christians were more interested in destroying pagan religious artifacts, not books. Nevertheless, the librarians of Alexandria weren’t said to be more like thugs concerned with securing power and prestige in Egypt than with the place being a haven of knowledge during the Ptolemic period. Whenever a ship came to port, the librarians would seize all the books on board, take them to the Library, and made rushed, cheap copies which they returned. This book-stealing stunt almost caused a war with Athens. In times of plague and famine, they would pressure book owners in exchange of food or medicine. And even then, there were repeated attempts to burn the place down.)

Christians were a single united sect during the time of the Roman Empire. (Even in the time of Saint Paul, there were different Christian sects depending on how closely it should be tied to Judaism. Paul’s original letters reflect this, particularly to the Galatians. Also, there were movements of Gnosticism, Arianism, and Nestorianism but they took storm outside the Empire and were later swallowed up by orthodox movements and Islam. Then there’s the presence of the Orthodox Church in the Byzantine Empire. Interestingly, the guys who brought upon the Reformation didn’t know this.)

The Romans persecuted Christians because they didn’t understand Christianity and acts performed by Christians. (This may be true but it’s misinterpreted. The Romans were sickened by Christians rescuing newborns not because they thought they were performing a human sacrifice, but because they believed saving exposed newborns was immoral and indecent for they saw the weak, disabled, and illegitimate as a drain on the Empire’s resources and keeping them alive was viewed as stealing food from the healthy. And they didn’t persecute Christians who refused to sacrifice because they didn’t understand the Christian viewpoint but because to a Roman, refusing to sacrifice was equivalent to an American refusing to say the Pledge of Allegiance or stand for the national anthem or flag burning {or worse as TTI says, “many Romans believed that if humans failed to perform sacrifices the gods would destroy the earth via earthquakes, volcanoes, plagues, and other disasters.” Not to mention, some Christians were persecuted because they avoided conscription and there was no such thing as Conscientious Objector status exemption then. Once Christianity became the official Roman religion, the Christians would end up persecuting the pagans. Other reasons why as TTI implies are:

     “The Romans also felt that Jews and Christians were probably the most intolerant religion ever, since they did not accept other gods as real. They could understand a god having other gods as rivals or enemies, but not one claiming to be the only God of all creation.

    Romans also believed that Christians performed brother-sister Incest because followers addressed each other as “Brother” and “Sister” and said that they loved each other, and believed that Christianity was some kind of death cult, because they used an execution platform as one of their symbols and their followers were often eager to be executed. Let’s not even get into how Jesus being his own father impacts his relationship with his mother.

       The Roman rumor mill managed to combine the Christian practice of calling their savior “the baby Jesus” (which despite popular belief isn’t a carryover from Christmas, but a reference to his child-like innocence) and their eating the “body and blood of Christ” during communion, and led Romans to think Christians ceremonially killed and ate babies.

        Which makes it all more ironic that blood libel became a very common accusation against Jews in Medieval (and early modern) Europe.

        Romans were extremely disturbed by the phrase “washed clean by the blood of Christ,” taking it to mean that Christians (as essentially a springoff of Judaism) had murdered their own god and bathed in his blood.

        This was further propagated by the Jewish tradition of having no idols, or emptiness where an idol would be. The Roman reaction ranged from horror at the implication to said belief that the Christians had killed Him.

        To Romans, religion was mostly done out in the open (or in publicly accessible temples), unless it was a mystery cult, which usually were offshoot religions that still worshiped well-known gods (Isis, Marduk, etc.). Christians only celebrated indoors, away from the public eye, and this was viewed as highly suspicious.

        Early Christians also had a tendency to require recent converts to essentially cut themselves off from their non-Christian relatives and only associate with their new Christian brothers and sisters. Today, that would be viewed as classic cult behavior.”})

St. Paul was originally known as Saul. (He had both names throughout his life. Saul was his Hebrew name while Paul was his Roman name. He was a Jewish Roman citizen by the way. As an Apostle to the Gentiles, we mostly call him Paul.)

Constantine the Great and the Council of Nicea made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. (Constantine the Great only made Christianity a legal religion while the Council of Nicea decided on questions like the divinity of Christ. Emperor Theodosius would only declare Christianity the state religion 65 years later. Oh, and Constantine approached Christianity as if it was just an inclusive pagan religion.)

Peter and Paul met each other in Rome. (I don’t know whether they were in Rome at the same time or whether they did meet there. However, Peter and Paul did meet in Antioch though and it didn’t end well. It’s in St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians {which is one of the seven Pauline letters actually written by him}.)

The Roman Empire was run by the Church near its end. (Actually it was more like the Empire was running the Church. Check your religious history.)

Christianity brought on the fall of the Roman Empire. (Even if someone like Edward Gibbon said this, doesn’t mean it’s true. Also, he actually didn’t since Rome’s seeds of destruction were present before Christianity became the Empire’s official religion anyway {and Rome had been on the decline by then, too}.)

Catacombs existed in Rome during the early first century. (They didn’t exist until decades later when there was a larger Christian community. Actually would’ve been more accurate if Roman Christians met in each other’s houses.)

The first Christian persecution was under Caligula. (It was under Claudius.)

St. Peter was in Rome at the same time as Caligula. (Peter mostly spent Caligula’s reign as prisoner in Judea and wasn’t in Rome until after the guy’s reign.)

Persecution of Christians in Rome was continual. (It was intermittent and rare with periods of many decades between attacks. Well, state sponsored persecutions anyway. Hate crimes may have been a different story.)