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Terry Jones' Medieval Lives

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Genre
  
Documentary

Directed by
  
Nigel Miller

Country of origin
  
United Kingdom

First episode date
  
February 2004

Cast
  
Terry Jones

Writers
  
Terry Jones

8.3/10
IMDb

7.1/10
TV

Written by
  
Terry Jones

Composer(s)
  
David Mitcham

Original language(s)
  
English

Presented by
  
Terry Jones

Networks
  
BBC, BBC Two

Terry Jones' Medieval Lives wwwgstaticcomtvthumbtvbanners295906p295906

Similar
  
Terry Jones' Barbarians, Crusades, Ancient Inventions, What the Tudors Did for Us, Blood of the Vikings

Terry Jones' Medieval Lives is a 2004 Emmy award nominated television documentary series produced for the BBC. Written and hosted by Terry Jones, each half-hour episode examines a particular Medieval personality, with the intent of separating myth from reality.

Contents

The episode The Peasant was nominated for Outstanding Writing for Nonfiction Programming at the 2004 Emmy Awards.

Dr. Faye Getz acted as consultant for the series.

Alternative takes on History

Being a comedian as well as an historian, Terry Jones takes an established belief, turns that around, and presents proof for his assertion. For example, peasants did not live in complete squalor, owning some valuable property. Also class divisions were not as severe as thought; there are cases of low-born people who rise to quite high positions.

In the episode on kings, he says, "History isn't necessarily what happened. It's often what people want us to think happened." He uses the following examples:

  • Richard the Lionheart was actually a bad king, who only saw England (which he hated) as a means to finance his warmongering, whereas Richard III did a lot of good for England. Modern perceptions of these kings are reversed because chroniclers of the time were commissioned to write what was politically most convenient.
  • Louis, count of Artois (later King of France), was acclaimed as King of England yet appears in no history books as such (see First Baron's War).

    • Terry Jones explained his motivation for making this series in the article in The Observer "The main reason I wanted to make Medieval Lives was to get my own back on the Renaissance. It's not that the Renaissance has ever done me any harm personally, you understand. It's just that I'm sick of the way people's eyes light up when they start talking about the Renaissance. I'm sick of the way art critics tend to say: 'Aaaah! The Renaissance!' with that deeply self-satisfied air of someone who is at last getting down to the Real Thing. And I'm sick to death of that ridiculous assumption that that before the Renaissance human beings had no sense of individuality."

    Episode list

    The eight episodes were as follows:

  • The Peasant
  • The Monk
  • The Damsel
  • The Minstrel
  • The Knight
  • The Philosopher (Alchemist)
  • The Outlaw
  • The King

    • Companion book

  • Jones, Terry & Alan Ereira (5 February 2004). Terry Jones' Medieval Lives. BBC Books (hardcover). ISBN 978-0-563-48793-7. 
  • Jones, Terry & Alan Ereira (5 May 2005). Terry Jones' Medieval Lives. BBC Books (paperback). ISBN 978-0-563-52275-1. 

    • References

    Terry Jones' Medieval Lives Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA