I watch a lot of telly, some of it of dubious quality, and in the spirit of open-mindedness I test out most television programmes set during the Middle Ages. I have yet to watch Merlin, though for obvious reasons this can hardly be accurately representative of any part of the period, and in any case I am still scarred by memories of Camelot, starring Jamie Campbell-Bower as teen-idol King Arthur and running under the tagline ‘Inspired by the works of Thomas Malory’. I very soon realised that this was akin to describing Showgirls as ‘Inspired by the works of John Cleland’.
Anyway, I will try to watch almost anything, especially if it stars an actor who appeared in Spooks. A few years ago, this bill was fitted by The Pillars of the Earth, an adaptation of Ken Follett’s bestseller about cathedrals and the White Ship disaster, which starred Matthew MacFadyen (Tom Quinn, series 1-3) as Prior Philip. I had earlier tried and failed to read the novel, although cliff-hangers, clunky dialogue and hidden identities had the potential to work better on screen.
I wasn’t disappointed – which is to say, I was extremely disappointed. Aside from the obvious prettying-up of the cast [‘Now, I know the book says scrofula, but can’t we just give her a birthmark instead?’], the levels of casual sexual violence, the wilful neglect of contemporary sources for the White Ship account, the extraordinary misuse of plainchant and the heroine’s agreement with her father (Donald Sutherland, no less) to allow her to marry ‘for love’, I remember being particularly incensed by the tiny but glaringly obvious problem of Bishop Waleran’s portable, leather-clad Bible.
He describes it as ‘the Bible’. If he had said ‘Psalter’ or ‘Gospels’, I would still have been amused by the size of it, but teeny Psalters, and indeed small Bibles, are not unknown from later centuries. We have to assume that he means the Vulgate. I have a Vulgate with pt.6 font, printed on the grease-proof tissue modern Bibles tend to use, and it’s bigger than the one (supposedly vellum, probably not pt.6 font) that Waleran carries. It may contain fewer books; naturally Waleran doesn’t say much about Apocrypha, but still. The Bible is a big book, and before the 13th century full-sized Bibles – understanding these to consist of most or all of the canonical books from Genesis to the Apocalypse, with the likely inclusion of apocryphal books like Maccabees and Tobit – were both very rare and very big.
St Jerome and homies writing some Bibles
The fourth-century Greek Codex Vaticanus survives on 759 folios of vellum, animal skin, and measures 27cm x 27 cm. The first volume of the twelfth-century Dover Bible (547 mm x 372 mm) takes 273 folios to get from Genesis to Malachi, and the second (532mm x 360 mm) gets to the Apocalypse in 283; meanwhile the Bury Bible of the same century, now divided into three, takes 343 folios (522 mm x 360 mm) to get through the Old Testament, with some commentary. These last two contain a number of exquisite illuminations and are undoubtedly high-status books – but Bishop Waleran was a high-status character. Clearly he carries a Bible so that we know (if robes and tonsure do not suffice) that he is a churchman, and also to bring his villainy more sharply into relief against his pious appearance. I would have preferred a running sight-gag wherein his Bible was indeed portable, by a cohort of four or five acolytes.
Codicology is one of the first ships to sink when the props department gets choppy. When the next Kingsbridge Cathedral tome, World Without End, was adapted earlier this year, I should have known what I was getting myself in for. Yet it boasted not one but two Spooks actors: Peter Firth (Harry Pearce, series 1-10) as wicked Earl Roland and Tom Weston-Jones (Sasha Gavrik, series 10) as the improbably-named dreamboat Merthin. It also starred Blake Ritson, who was so excellent in God On Trial and various Jane Austens, and Tom Cullen, who played Russell in the superb Weekend. Cast-wise, it had a lot in its favour.
Again, I was brutally disappointed – by the plot, the characterisation, the voyeuristic attitude towards female nudity in a violent context, and of course by the complete failure of the production team to convince me (even drunk and on lemsip) that I was witnessing the fourteenth century.
I sent the following message to my friend Francesca, also a fan of both Spooks and Blake Ritson:
So have now watched 3 more episodes. Quite aside from the exceptionally clunky dialogue, improbable plots, stereotypes, revolting levels of casual (and factually inaccurate) sexual violence, anachronistic Saxon names, and a complete lack of understanding of both canon and civil law – all of which is the author’s fault – these are some goofs I have identified:
automatically reloading crossbows, women with hair down and uncovered, bridge secured by rope rather than splints or nails, the layout of London, the excessive and utterly wrong use of paper, beeswax candles in secular settings, size of apparently portable Bibles, palaeography in general, layout of maps, forward-facing pews, lack of tonsures on monks, beards on monks, clear glass windows in domestic settings, rooms far too large, incorrect terms of address to monarchs, Edward’s then-2-year-old daughter as a tween playing chess (softened by the line ‘look how you’ve grown!’), general availability of books, inaccurate bookbindings, wills written in English, inaccurate use of the term ‘Italy’, incorrect prayers for a funeral, meat being cooked in the hall rather than in the kitchen, confusion over what makes something legally binding, incorrectly shaped quills, nuns doing chores in monasteries, nuns travelling without a male companion, excessive armour for archers, lack of understanding as to the role of quarter and ransom-taking in high medieval warfare, and too many candles in all scenes.
The matter of Edward’s daughter was unfortunate, much in the way that the depiction of Queen Isabel in Richard II is unfortunate. Isabelle de Valois was ten when her husband was deposed, but sometimes it’s just nice to have an adult actor playing an adult role with adult sentiments and cognitive abilities. Unfortunately Isabella, daughter of Edward III, did not have much of a role, so her powering-up just seems lazy and inaccurate. Of course, who cares? Who even notices?
My caring about this derives from two facts. 1) I take an interest, academic and general, in the Middle Ages, and therefore notice and mind when matters are poorly represented, or are just plain false. I had particular apoplectic fun when a monk in a mixed scriptorium in 1331 was copying the first lines of Chaucer’s 1390s General Prologue in a modern English translation in a mock sixteenth-century hand. 2) I am grumpy.
I understand that television dramas and blockbuster novels do not generally cater to specialists, but nor really do they seem to cater even to intelligent amateurs. Whether through props, costumes, dialogue or correlation to historical events, inaccuracy suggests that the audience is not expected to know the difference between, for example, Operation Dynamo and Operation Neptune, or Latin and Greek, or France and Belgium. Either the audience is assumed to be idiots, or we have utterly to suspend our disbelief.
A few weeks ago I watched the first episode of The White Queen. Philippa Gregory, it is well-documented, does phenomenal amounts of research for her novels. So I blamed the production team for the reckless pan-medievalism of the opening credits, the crushed velvet, the hairdos and the frankly profligate numbers of beeswax candles being burned during daylight hours. [The magic subplot may be the author’s.] I waded through the exposition-heavy dialogue, the frightfully unsexy sex scenes and the tiresome overuse of the word ‘whore’ to the end of the episode, and then swore Never Again. I gained nothing from it that could not have been gained from reading 3 Henry VI while watching Ella Enchanted, and as much as I admire Janet McTeer, there weren’t even any actors off Spooks.
Should we expect novelists and screenwriters to be cleverer than us, to challenge us intellectually (or at least satisfy us intellectually) as well as entertain, amuse or horrify us? I think so, but have come under criticism in the past for intellectual elitism. It is not as simple as the question ‘If someone reads one book a year, should that book be by Katie Price?’ I am not dealing with an individual’s choice of reading or viewing matter, nor questioning their right to make that choice. I’ve already admitted to watching a lot of trashy telly, and remember fondly the days when two former members of Atomic Kitten would present BBC3 makeover shows on the same night.
What I struggle with is the apparent choice of big-budget television programmes or films, or authors and editors of projected bestsellers, not to take the content and appearance of their period works as seriously as they would their modern, not to ask themselves the equivalent of ‘Would someone in 1994 really use an iPhone? Would someone really talk about the Iraq War like that?’ Counter arguments can be made. People criticise Gladiator for inaccurately representing late-2nd-century Rome, without considering the overlap between imperial and modern imperialist imagery. Likewise, The Kingdom of Heaven came under fire for too much tolerance and interfaith dialogue, without considering that the clearest message of that film is that at present tolerance and dialogue may be the only things that can prevent us from spiralling into a series of bloody conflicts. One mustn’t boil these films down to mere allegories, but this element of them should be considered. And some productions get it so right: last year’s The Hollow Crown was placed during the period of its sources’ setting and not their writing, and made a wonderful commentary on the role of myth-making in the creation of history. It also starred Simon Russell Beale (The Home Secretary, series 9-10) as a magnificent Falstaff.
Though I’m not holding my breath, I always hope that the next time a television programme set during the Middle Ages is broadcast, it will either be largely accurate (language aside – although I would definitely watch something in Middle English) or thought-provoking enough that such things don’t matter. Preferably starring Rupert Penry-Jones.
noon auctoritee 