In both my scholarship and my fiction, my mind has been on war of late.
I think that’s why I’ve decided to take a breather from my workloads by queuing up Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven: The Director’s Cut (2006).
First, I must tell you that I saw Kingdom of Heaven when it first came out in theaters in 2005. It was both disappointing and exhausting: the main arc of the protagonist made no sense, the pacing was odd, and the historical events were portrayed, well, super wrong. Also, and I must get this out of the way upfront, I’m not a fan of Orlando Bloom in this kind of role. I don’t know what Hollywood was thinking by casting him as a crusader knight. It’s especially odd when so much of the rest of the cast is perfection.
Anyway, I saw it in the theaters, was very much not impressed, and that was that.
But then you, my dear readers, in comments to previous Medieval Matters columns, asked me again and again to review Kingdom of Heaven: The Director’s Cut. It’s better, y’all insisted.
So fine. Let’s give this a shot. God wills it!
Somber music plays. It’s 1184. As our opening historical note says: “It is almost 100 years since Christian armies from Europe seized Jerusalem.”
Unlike that farce of an opening from Braveheart, we have no mistakes here so far! The First Crusade was called by Pope Urban II in 1095, and within a year lords from France, the Low Countries, and Norman-controlled Italy were assembled with the intent of wresting control of the Holy Land from the Muslims. They weren’t a very organized lot, but neither was their opposition. And luck—they would say the Lord God—was with them. In 1099, when they needed wood to construct siege towers and engines to take the walls of Jerusalem, for instance, Tancred (one of the Christian leaders) “miraculously” found some in a cave where he went to relieve himself privately as a result of a severe bout of dysentery. Anyway, they took Jerusalem, indiscriminately slaughtered untold numbers of human beings in the name of God, and more or less established a cycle of violence begetting violence that continues to this day.
All that to say that, yeah, 1184 is about 100 years after 1099. The math checks out.
The movie informs us that lots of folks are goin’ to the Holy Land, but one knight is actually coming home from there to see his son in France. The knight is Godfrey, the baron of Ibelin, a holding in the Holy Land. He’s played by Liam Neeson, who Neesons the heck out of his role.
The France that Godfrey passes into—the holding of his brother, we learn—is colorless and dismal. The people are cold, dirty, poor, and, outside of our forthcoming hero, not pretty at all.
This is one of our first clues that this film has an angle that will override historical accuracy: the filmmakers are working hard to depict Western Christendom as morally, intellectually, culturally, and spiritually backward.
So you can put away that book on the very real Twelfth Century Renaissance.
Meanwhile, amid all this gloom, looking quite Orlando Bloom-y, Orlando Bloom plays Balian, a blacksmith mourning his wife, who committed suicide after the death of their infant son. Balian’s brother (Michael Sheen) is the parish priest, and he’s the sort of man who hides his horrifying greed and thirst for power beneath the veil of religious fanaticism. In other words, he’s a total dick.
And here we get the root cause of almost every historical flaw in the film, including its decision to debase Western Christendom: its unceasing stance of attack against religious fervor.
I’ve heard rumors that Ridley Scott was planning to create a biopic of the enormously successful Muslim leader Saladin, and that the events of 9/11 pushed him to alter this vision into an epic centered on Balian of Ibelin, the man who defended Jerusalem against Saladin in 1187. I don’t know if this rumor is true, but it would make a great deal of sense: 9/11 haunts almost every frame of this film, which in the end argues that no one is free of sin, and that those who most fervently proclaim themselves the arbiters of God’s judgment on Earth—Christian and Muslim alike—bring death and destruction in their unceasing quest for power. This is a movie that tries to declare a pox on both their houses, while paradoxically holding up as its hero a scrawny Orlando Bloom who kills an enormous number of Christians and Muslims alike but that’s fine since, um, he’s a “pure” knight—so his heart is in the right place when he slashes a man’s life-blood across the camera lens.
Seems legit.
Anyway … where was I?
Oh, right, Balian’s brother the priest is a dick.
So along comes Godfrey, who confronts the sad-faced Bloom as the young fellow is working in his forge: “Word is your baby just died, and your wife committed suicide and your brother keeps sleazily whispering about how she’s in Hell now,” he says. “Thoughts and prayers.”
Balian-Bloom gloomily broods in his blooming silence.
“Right,” says Godfrey, doffing his woolen hoodie-cap. “Anyway, you’re also a literal bastard because I had sex with your mom, and while she didn’t say ‘no’ she couldn’t exactly say ‘yes’ since she was a blacksmith’s wife and I was her lord, which is a bit of an issue with consent. But, again, thoughts and prayers. Want to come to the Holy Land?”
Balian declines. Neeson takes off. Then Balian’s brother the priest is an even bigger dick and Balian rage-murders him.
So we’re off to Jerusalem with dear ol’ dad!
Ok. Pausing here to say y’all are right. Kingdom of Heaven: The Director’s Cut is definitely better than the theatrical version. Already I can see how there are pieces here and there—like a line about how Balian previously served as a soldier and an engineer and was praised for his siege works—that were missing from the original release and contributed to some of its nonsensical plot developments. So thanks, gang!
Back to the show …
Surprising no one at all, Godfrey’s wicked nephew—it’s pre-Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), everybody!—attacks in order to (1) kill Balian for revenge, and (2) kill Godfrey for his lands.
What results is a bloody battle of swords and crossbows in which Godfrey takes a horrific bolt to the side but still manages to cleave the skull of his nephew. And Kevin McKidd, the man who will surely reprise his role as Lucius Vorenus when they make The Shards of Heaven into a film trilogy, goes far beyond his credited role as “English sergeant”: when one survivor asks to be ransomed, McKidd unceremoniously drives the spike of his warhammer into the top of the man’s skull.
Regarding this, I should like to note that I own that warhammer. It hangs in my office.
And, hey! That’s because it’s a decent replica of a 15th century warhammer!
Oh, right. This is supposed to be the 12th century. Yeah. That’s not good.
That said, I’m generally impressed with the accuracy of the arms and armor in this movie. Yeah, there are a few eyebrow-raisers, and yeah, the battle scenes suffer from the main characters continuously and inexplicably losing their helmets—sweet baby Jeebus, people, use the friggin’ buckles!—but what they’re wearing and swinging is more often than not spot-on excellent. Kudos!
Buy the Book
The Ruin of Kings
It takes a bit, but that bolt to the side finally takes Godfrey’s life, though he does manage to knight Balian and make him the new lord of Ibelin before dying. Indeed, by the time Balian the blacksmith-turned-baron gets to the Holy Land, everyone else in Godfrey’s group is dead, too (::pours one out for Vorenus::), except an awesome knight hospitaller (David Thewlis). Inexplicably, everyone Balian meets not only accepts his unsubstantiated claim to be Godfrey’s heir, but they also welcome him into the upper echelons of society. Stranger still, they pretty quickly start giving him important army posts—with not the slightest evidence that he’s qualified to do anything impressive besides somehow managing to sulk and smirk simultaneously.
Those military posts would be important at any point, but at the moment they’re a super big deal, since Jerusalem is enveloped in political infighting while an enormous Muslim army under the leadership of Saladin (Ghassan Massoud) is gathered at the border. The main players in Jerusalem are the leprous King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem (a masked Edward Norton), his marshall Tiberias (Jeremy Irons talking like Scar and sporting a literal scar), the king’s sister Sibylla (Eva Green), her husband Guy de Lusignan (Marton Csokas), and Guy’s blood-lusting ally Reynald of Châtillon (Brendan Gleeson).
Everyone has motivations. Balian wants to be a pure knight. Sibylla wants to look at Balian with a patented Eva Green wide-eyed-but-sultry stare. Reynald wants to kill Muslims. Guy wants to be king and to kill Muslims. Baldwin and Tiberias want to keep the peace and keep possession of Jerusalem. Saladin’s generals want to kill Christians, while Saladin wants to keep the peace but also have possession of Jerusalem. You can see there’s gonna be some tension. Especially when Balian starts having an affair with Sibylla because she’s in a loveless marriage and he’s very dreamy and she’s apparently into hairless chests.
As I said above, there’s a message in this film, and that’s Ridley Scott’s prerogative. Ain’t saying it’s right or wrong. Just wanting to point out that it very clearly overrides historical fact in all this.
What are the facts? Hang onto your red-crossed tabards …
Balian is based on a real guy: Balian of Ibelin. But he wasn’t a mourning bastard-son-of-Godfrey/blacksmith from France. Not even close. He was the noble son of Barisan, lord of Ibelin in the Holy Land (who himself is confusedly called Balian in some of our sources), and in the movie’s year of 1184 he was in truth around 41 years old, married to the widowed step-mother of King Baldwin and Sibylla, and for all his adult life had been deeply enmeshed in the politics of the kingdom of Jerusalem.
He was also unusually tall, strong, and, according to his contemporaries, really hairy. This means a big beard for sure, but almost assuredly pelt-like in overall body hair, as well. We’re talking semi-lupine here, people.
::looks at picture of non-muscular and chest-shaved Orlando Bloom again::
::curses::
Alas, you’ll not be surprised at all to hear that it is really super unlikely that the real Balian had an affair with Sibylla and that it looks like the filmmakers ginned up the affair and erased their family connections just to add some sexy stuff into all the slaughter.
A lot of the historical accuracy of the plot is this kind of thing: a seed of truth buried beneath a whole lot of fiction. From what evidence we have, Reynald really was crazier than an outhouse fly, for instance. But Guy de Lusignan was hardly his ally; they didn’t even like each other. And lord knows they wouldn’t have been dressed up as Knights Templar: they couldn’t have been in the brotherhood and still held title and inheritance. For that matter, the Templars weren’t the blood-thirsty killers the film imagines. To the contrary, they tended to focus on protecting Jerusalem by keeping the peace with the Muslims.
Speaking of keeping the peace, Baldwin and Tiberias were hardly the “Jerusalem belongs to everybody” progressives that the movie implies. For that matter, neither was Saladin, originally.
And Sibylla? Hoo-boy. She wasn’t with Guy against the longing of her heart. In fact, a condition of her becoming queen after the death of her brother and her young son (Baldwin V) was that she annul her marriage to Guy. She agreed to do this on the sole condition that she be allowed to choose whomever she wanted as a new husband once she was crowned. After her coronation, she freely chose Guy again…which is one of those really wild things in history that begs to have a movie made about it.
Alas, though, we’ve got Kingdom of Heaven instead.
I wanted to love this movie. I really did. I adore a lot of Ridley Scott’s work, and this movie is visually stunning in almost every way. Many of the sets are spectacular, and a lot of the battle tactics depicted are fabulous. The cavalry charges are astonishing, and the siege of Jerusalem does a great job revealing the scale of such an undertaking.
It bears repeating that the Director’s Cut is enormously superior to the original theatrical release in that it explains some of the most egregious aspects of Balian’s character arc. In the theatrical version there was essentially zero explanation for how blacksmith Balian knew anything about siege warfare, much less knew enough to lead the defense of Jerusalem against Saladin. The Director’s Cut at least offers some vague hand-waves at explaining that particular problem, though it still doesn’t explain why in the name of all that’s holy everyone around him automatically trusts him with everything that they find holy. And it also doesn’t do squat to explain how Balian also knows how to do all the other things he does, like leading a cavalry charge or finding water in a desert and then constructing a complex irrigation system to take advantage of it.
Given that last point, the film winds up being a bizarre mix of Western White Savior nonsense—the folks who’ve been surviving in the desert for generations don’t know how to find water here, but the newly arrived French blacksmith does—alongside a kind of anti-Western piece of propaganda. Yes, the film takes a few potshots at Islamic religious extremism, too, but it’s barely a drop in the bucket compared to the bloodied paintbrush with which it paints the other side. The crusaders weren’t angels, of course: the horrors committed by the Christian crusaders in the First Crusade reverberate in the memory of the Holy Land still today. Yet there were horrors committed by Islamic forces, too, and horrors upon horrors that each of those two sides committed upon members of their own faiths. In truth, no one can claim clean hands when it comes to the imperial urges of men.
Simply put, the Crusades demand a nuanced view of history. That Kingdom of Heaven fails to give us that—and that it presumably fails to do so because the filmmakers assumed nuance was beyond the reach of its audience—is easily the most disappointing thing in this disappointing movie. Because, in the end, that means that its failure is ours.
Mike’s Medieval Ratings
Authenticity: 1 out of 2 white-man wells in the desert
Just Plain Fun: 1 out of 2 Liam Neesons saying, “I once fought two days with an arrow through my testicle.”
Michael Livingston is a Professor of Medieval Culture at The Citadel who has written extensively both on medieval history and on modern medievalism. His historical fantasy trilogy set in Ancient Rome, The Shards of Heaven, The Gates of Hell, and The Realms of God, is available from Tor Books.
I have a vague memory to the effect that the real-life Balian was one of history’s moderately good guys as well, for some small value of ‘good guy’. That is, he seemed to be less completely psychotic than Reynaud de Chatillon and some of his other peers (low bar, admittedly), and he did a good job of negotiating the surrender of Jerusalem with Saladin. The accounts I’ve read portray him as a practical man and a fairly capable diplomat, whose actions — plus, of course, Saladin’s willingness to go along with his proposals — may have helped to prevent a massacre of the city’s inhabitants.
Care to comment?
“Simply put, the Crusades demand a nuanced view of history.”
This raises the question–what is the best one-volume history book on the Crusades?
I watch the Director’s cut once a year. Shame you weren’t a fan. Would you do a similar review for the Arn show/movie?
Well they got Baldwin IV right, he was totally awesome. And Reynald de Chatillon really was crazy pants AND killed by Saladin personally. And the movie is very pretty to look at if you can ignore the agenda and false history.
One of the problems I have personally is Sibylla’s euthanizing her son. I can believe that a woman who watched her brother die slowly and hideously of leprosy would painlessly kill her innocent child before he could suffer the same. What I cannot believe is that a medieval woman would ever forgive herself for doing so to the extent of running away and enjoying a simple life with her lover.
For the record Guy was a lousy king but he wasn’t a coward or evil and Sibylla loved him madly. Sibylla did not run away to Europe after the fall of Jerusalem. She was the bloody queen. She stayed right there in what was left of her kingdom, in the military camp of her followers, and died there with her two small daughters of camp fever.
The Ibelins were apparently regarded as over-mighty subjects and potential political threats by Baldwin IV who was undoubtedly less than thrilled by Balian’s marriage to his stepmother, and control over his half-sister Isabella, and refused to marry Sibylla to Balian’s brother Baldwin. This undoubtedly annoyed Balian, as did the King’s betrothal of his little half sister to another nobleman, removing her from the Ibelin’s control.
My specific problem with Orlando Bloom in this movie is that I cannot imagine anybody who looks less like a medieval blacksmith.
Shame about the history; I guess (as with Gladiator) I’ll just keep occasionally watching it as an entertaining piece of ahistorical fiction, then. With a great soundtrack.
Any thoughts on the Terry Jones Crusades documentary series from the BBC?
Personally I was deeply perturbed by the humorous spin Jones gave the forced conversion Christian prisoners to Islam – including circumcision.
Imagining an alternate history where this was a more accurate movie and Balian was played by a young Brian Blessed…
H.P. wrote: “… what is the best one-volume history book on the Crusades?”
I don’t know if it’s the best, but I’d strongly recommend Amin Maalouf’s “The Crusades Through Arab Eyes” (“Les Croisades vues par les Arabes”). It’s a slim volume but it covers a lot of ground. Maalouf doesn’t favor one side over the other, and it gives you a perspective that you may not find elsewhere.
@2: Pretty much anything by Jonathan Riley-Smith is probably worth reading.
@8 & @9: You’ve filling up my Kindle with book samples. Now if I only had time to read them all. (I’ll get to them. I promise.)
Speaking of historical accuracy, I just got the Taron Edgerton Robin Hood from Netflix.
I second the recommendation of The Crusades Through Arab Eyes. Very good book.
If this movie was trying to be an accurate Crusades movie, I’d agree with the review. But it was obviously trying to be a movie relevant to current events at the time it was produced, which means it’s also an Iraq War movie. The vague message of “Muslims aren’t all villains, and when Christians invade their lands they tend to do a lot of war crimes” is probably more about that than about historical accuracy.
As a side point, I think “the Crusades demand a nuanced view of history” is probably code for “the Christian and Muslim sides of the Crusades were basically equally bad”, and that is not an uncontroversial view among historians.
@8 and @12, thanks for the recommendation. I love Maalouf’s fiction but haven’t read all of his non-fiction.
“Simply put, the Crusades demand a nuanced view of history.” Well maybe for the Christians and Muslims there is a nuanced story to be told, but for one innocent set of bystanders, the Jews, it wasn’t so nuanced. It was an excuse for the powers that were, to slaughter said Jews. And the powers that were took great delight in fulfilling that task.
“And Kevin McKidd, the man who will surely reprise his role as Lucius Vorenus when they make the Shards of Heaven into a film trilogy, […]”
PLEASE.
He really said that? You’d think he’d take a break to snap it off (the arrow, not the testicle, though either way would be better than actually trying to fight with the arrow still there).
Steven Runciman’s A History of the Crusades is still regarded as the classic starter history for these matters. Later scholarship has revealed more information, which has also made for shifts in perspectives on these matters too, but Runciman is never ‘wrong’ so to speak.
He was a great historian.
I just love Sibylla’s costumes, nutty and inauthentic as they are.
Unlike, say, Russell Crowe, Orlando Bloom never had the gravitas to carry this kind of role, in my opinion. He’s just not very convincing as a great warrior and leader of men. That said, no amount of dramatic gravitas was going to save Kingdom of Heaven from its formulaic script and mawkish attempts at a MESSAGE. A big budget, well written and researched, non-patronizing film about the Kingdom of Jerusalem at the time of Saladin and King Baldwin could be amazing. I hope someone makes it.
I am constantly surprised that people are constantly surprised by inaccuracies in movies, whether that’s history or, well, every single profession. I mean, movies don’t even get “making movies” right and all they have to do is literally look around at what they’re doing.
In some cases the inaccuracies support the themes of the true story — the soldiers using watermelons on stakes to train in Glory, for instance, underscores the battle against racism — but in most flicks they just want to amp up the drama by lazily relying on tropes rather than finding interesting ways to do that based on true events (Historical Fiction) or unique worlds (Science Fiction). Ridley Scott is especially bad at both, with the exceptions of Black Hawk Down and Alien.
I choose to ignore the historic inaccuracies and if you can get beyond that it is one of the movies I like the most ( I have seen it half a dozen times so far)
We want to see a picture of your warhammer. Err, no double entendre there.
I have always loved this movie despite its faults and inaccuracies, and not just because of the fact that I enjoy watching Orlando whatever he does.
Also, even if nothing else good came of the movie (but as I understand, there are others besides me who still like to watch it), then at least Orly rescued Sidi from the streets of Morocco while shooting it. So there.
(Oh, and I do enjoy the review! Thank you for answering our pleas!)
The thing is though, that he wasn’t just a ‘blacksmith’.
It’s made clear near the start that he was actually a Military Engineer and a veteran of at least one campaign.
Moving water around is something a multidisciplinary engineer at the time would do.
Was it a sidelong nod to the fact that Europe was by the 12th century technologically more advanced than the Islamic world? I know popular myth claims the opposite but in fact Europe was ahead in the harnessing of wind and water power,in agriculture and in metallurgy. There’s a reason Europe was invading the Middle East not vice versa.
I had no idea that “Norman-controlled Italy” was a thing.
I also had no idea that Michael Sheen was in this movie. Probably because I didn’t know who he was at the time I saw it. I mainly watched it for David Thewlis.
So what are some of the crazy things Reynald did?
Basically Reynald was a pirate on land. He always needed money and he got it by raiding and plundering. He attacked other Crusader states and he percipitated Saladin’s attack on Jerusalem by plundering caravans against treaty. He seems to have been a thoroughly nasty piece of work . But attractive to rich women.
Can a baron just knight someone? Can a baron just make his bastard the next baron in 12th century France? I ask because I don’t know, but I would have thought it would require sending him home with a letter saying dear king, this is my bastard, please knight him/make him heir to my barony. I don’t think they did field promotions. I thought the value of a baron as a boss to a would-be knight was as a sponsor only.
I’m also unsure of the value of both knighting and ennobling someone. It feels like “I’m promoting you to sergeant, and also colonel”.
Yes to the first, maybe to the second. Theoretically any knight could make another knight but by the 12th century the right was unlikely to be exercised by any below the rank of feudal Lord. The inheritance part is much more dubious. By the 12th c. Illegitimacy was a serious impediment but I don’t know what rules applied in the Crusader kingdoms. Possibly Godfrey could make Balian his heir if he had no other but he’d almost certainly need the approval of his overlord. And Balian would definitely have to present some evidence that he was A, Godfrey’s biological son. And B, Godfrey wanted him to inherit.
Knight and Lord were separate and discrete statuses. It was normal to hold both. Even Kings were knighted
@26: “There’s a reason Europe was invading the Middle East not vice versa.” That reason is largely Constantinople. Even the Ottomans never really got very far into Europe before they finally managed the impossible and took the Queen of Cities, after which point they were able to go as deep as Vienna.
@29: From what I understand, though the best answer would be “it varied,” the common understanding insofar as there was one is that any knight can freely knight anyone else, though for many obvious reasons they wouldn’t make a regular practice of it. Moreover, IIRC the simple act of saying “I acknowledge you” was sufficient to legitimize a bastard. Again, the better but less helpful answer is that it varied depending on time, place, person, and context, like everything else surrounding feudalism (or indeed most topics during most periods of history).
Yes, Constantinople was a vital bulwark whose loss was a disaster for eastern Europe.
I’m not a history buff, so I enjoyed the film very much. I feel like when filmmakers decide to take a piece of history and put it on the big or small screen, it’s the same as when they decide to adapt a book to the screen. A narrative is chosen to serve a theme, idea or vision. It’s completely fine that the portrayal of real-life people isn’t dead on, especially when events unfolded so long ago.
The disaster for the Balkans/Eastern Europe was already going on for a century before the fall of Constantinople on a scale vastly greater than the Crusades.
I watched it once. I noticed some resemblance with real history, and tried to squint hard enough to miss the inaccuracies. Some of the performances were OK, but others were kind of off, and I got the impression it was more a matter of direction than their individual acting choices. In the end, it was just a bit too grim and joyless.
@34, I am not sure what you are talking about. I’m afraid I don’t know much about Eastern Europe. What was going wrong before the Ottoman conquest?
Lovers Guy and Sibylla’s fight to stay together in the face of powerful people working to break then up for political reasons could have made a good movie. Baldwin IV’s fight against mortal illness, over mighty subjects and to secure his succssion would have been fascinating too. But history isn’t good enough.
Was it a sidelong nod to the fact that Europe was by the 12th century technologically more advanced than the Islamic world? I know popular myth claims the opposite but in fact Europe was ahead in the harnessing of wind and water power,in agriculture and in metallurgy. There’s a reason Europe was invading the Middle East not vice versa.
No, 12th Century Europe was not more technologically advanced than the Middle East. They were, on balance, at roughly the same level, which means that one region might be a little more advanced in one area but behind in another. (Overall, the Middle East was probably a bit more advanced at this point.) Certainly the Middle East was ahead in things like medicine (and paper-making), and probably metallurgy as well — Damascus steel, after all, was produced in Syria. And I doubt Europe was ahead in agriculture, either — see, e.g., the Arabic Agricultural Revolution.
(As for who was invading whom — would you argue that Hunnish and German barbarians were more technologically advanced than the Roman Empire they overran? That the Jurchen and the Mongols were more advanced than Song Dynasty China?)
@36
The Ottoman invasion of the Balkans began aprox a century before the fall of Constantinople in 1453. By the 1360s large areas were already conquered or were ravaged annually.
That reason is largely Constantinople. Even the Ottomans never really got very far into Europe before they finally managed the impossible and took the Queen of Cities, after which point they were able to go as deep as Vienna.
No, the Ottomans had crossed over into Europe in the 1350s, and in fact relocated their capital to Adrianople/Edirne (in Thrace) in the 1360s. In 1389, they defeated a Serbian-Bosnian-Albanian army at the Battle of Kosovo, after which much of the southern Balkans was open to them; in 1396, they smashed a Hungarian/Crusader army at the Battle of Nicopolis in northern Bulgaria. The fact that their base was now firmly in Europe probably helped them survive the onslaught of Tamerlane in Anatolia in the early 1400s.
Long before its conquest in 1453, Constantinople had become an irrelevant and isolated backwater; its conquest was important mainly for its symbolic value.
@39, Ah, actually I knew that. I am embarrassed. Constantinople was surrounded then conquered.
“Damascus” steel as a material was made in India. Syria was the end of the trade route where Europeans and Arabs bought it, and finished goods made from it, such as swords. So Syria was doing fine metalwork, but India can take credit for the metallurgy. Syria would no more have known how to make the material they were trading in than they would porcelain or silk.
Tragically, Constantinople never recovered from being attacked and sacked in 1204 by a Venetian fleet built under the guise of contributing to the Fourth Crusade (they’re like wait, why are you turning left, Jerusalem is that way, guys!)
This was partly business, nothing personal, but probably a bit personal. The 90 year old blind Doge had the fleet built and personally came along for the campaign. He is supposed to have been so badly beaten when he was an envoy negotiating for the return of Venetian prisoners in the Massacre of the Latins in 1182 that he lost his sight.
This in turn was a pogrom by Constantinople against the Venetian and Genoese communities in the city, when many were killed and many others sold to the Turks as slaves. Which in turn was partly provoked by internecine violence among the Italians upsetting the Byzantine citizens.
This is some Game of Thrones stuff, you’ve got Turks at the gates of Europe, and Europeans were settling scores with each other.
@40 Peter Erwin, But we shouldn’t underestimate the importance of symbolism when we’re talking about human beings and their inter-civilizational rivalries. Or the fact that Constantinople ceased to be an isolated backwater, and returned to its prior status as a fulcrum of Eurasian economic, military and political power, when Mehmed made it the new capital of the Ottoman empire. Or that an influx of Byzantine scholar and artist refugees into Europe after the conquest helped facilitate the Renaissance.
Del @@@@@ 42:
“Damascus” steel as a material was made in India. Syria was the end of the trade route where Europeans and Arabs bought it, and finished goods made from it, such as swords. So Syria was doing fine metalwork, but India can take credit for the metallurgy. Syria would no more have known how to make the material they were trading in than they would porcelain or silk.
The steel ingots were likely wootz from India, yes. (Though the crucible-forging process behind wootz steel was also being practiced in Islamic Central Asia around this time.) But the forging of said ingots into swords involved aspects of what we would now call metallurgy as well.
Ironically, silk was produced in Syria at least as far back as the 6th Century, and possibly even in the 5th Century. The cultivation and production of silk expanded significantly after the Arab conquests of the 7th Century, and Syria became one of the major producers of silk in the Middle East. (True Chinese porcelain was not produced there, though Syrian glazed pottery could be very high quality, as in so-called Raqqa ware.)
@38: “No, 12th Century Europe was not more technologically advanced than the Middle East. They were, on balance, at roughly the same level”. If so, it was only in passing, as Islamic civilization began its long decline and Christendom, its long rise.
This may have had to do ultimately with theological battles within each religion. The more open-minded side, represented by scientist-monks like Robert Grosseteste and Roger Bacon, won in Europe but lost on the other side of the Mediterranean.
The villain of the story is usually named as al Ghazali, who in 1095 wrote in The Incoherence of the Philosophers that it was vanity, amounting to apostasy, for philosophers to try to explain events by natural causes, when God continually causes all events, and can cause any event he wants. In 1180, around the time of our film (which I fear we’re wandering from) Averroes writes his counterblast, The Incoherence of the Incoherence (oh, snap!). But it’s more influential in Europe than in Islam.
Del @@@@@ 47:
I think al-Ghazali’s baleful influence has been a bit exaggerated. He was opposed to philosophical speculation in what he considered strictly theological areas (things we might consider metaphysics — e.g., has the universe existed forever, or was it created at a particular point in the past?). But he was very clear on the validity of medicine, mathematics, and mathematical sciences (including astronomy), and even criticized attempts to dispute the astronomical explanation of eclipses (e.g., that solar eclipses are caused by the Moon passing between the Sun and the Earth): “Whosoever thinks that to engage in a disputation for refuting such a theory is a religious duty harms religion and weakens it.” He even complained at one piont that too many Muslims were neglecting medicine in favor of religious interpretation. See here for more discussion of this.
(I do agree that the title of Ibn Rushd’s book is a lovely example of medieval snarking…)
I agree with princessroxana on technology. I put the Muslims ahead on Astronomy, Mathematics, and Classical Reception, but Europe is levelling up on food production, industrial power, and ironmaking. If this was a game of Civ 4, I’d advise player Saladin to revise his Research priorities.
Complaining that a historical film is wrong and bad because it gives one character the wrong amount of body hair is a level of nitpicking that I had not previously seen reached. Well done.
(And complaining that a film about the Crusades seems to have a real downer about religious fervour is also pretty good. I too was annoyed that Downfall didn’t spend more time talking about how great the autobahns are.)
Let’s not forget the numerous Byzantine-Seljuk conflicts earlier in the 11th century – or the Arabs conquering Jerusalem from the Byzantines in the 7th c.
@49/Del: Who was ahead in medicine? That’s pretty important, isn’t it?
Nobody. Both Christians and Muslims based their medicine on Galen’s theory of humors and inaccurate anatomy.
@49, that’s exactly what I was talking about, Del. Technological improvements were raising the general standard of living in Europe and continued to do so dispite the check of the Great Plague.
@51, Julie, for reasons never clear to me the initial Islamic conquest of the Eastern provinces of the Roman Empire, North Africa and Spain is generally passed over in silence when discussing East West conflict.
@51/Julie_K: “the Arabs conquering Jerusalem from the Byzantines in the 7th c.” When I think about the Crusades, I wonder how Muslims would have reacted if Christians had conquered Mecca. Probably faster.
It’s curious to discover that Saladin spent the vast majority of his time fighting other Muslims, not Crusaders. And that in the period after the movie, the Crusaders came roaring back under Richard Lionheart, who basically beat Saladin like a drum.
@53/Roxana: Thanks!
Del @@@@@ 49:
If by “levelling up” you mean “catching up from behind”, sure. But that doesn’t mean they were ahead, as princessroxana suggested.
The Islamic lands in the 12th Century were plausibly ahead in astronomy, mathematics, medicine,[*] agriculture, chemistry, and a number of other technologies (e.g., paper-making). Possibly ahead in metallurgy (e.g., crucible steel production in Islamic Central Asia), glassmaking, and ceramics.
(“Classical Reception” is not a technology, though mentioning that does suggests you’re maybe still trapped in the “Muslims just preserved Classical Greek accomplishments, they didn’t really make any advances on them” mindset.)
Since I have it at hand, let me quote briefly from Arnold Pacey’s Technology in World Civilization, which is an excellent overview of technological development in the last thousand or so years:
[*] Note that European universities were using translated Arabic works (e.g., Ibn Sina’s 11th Century Canon of Medicine) as standard medical textbooks into the 16th Century.
@@@@@ 51 & 53
As someone coming from lands that “benefited” from the peace, love, and scientific advancement of the Ottomans for 5 centuries we find it rather galling when well meaning Westerners bemoan the Crusades but don’t bat an eyelid on the reverse- of which there was vastly more of.
But yeah, whilst I enjoy the discussion, it did go astray. Despite it’s many flaws the movie did shine a light on the defense of Jerusalem which is an amazing and unlikely event in history. Relatively accurately as well, though I can’t remember the aftermath of the siege in the movie.
As others have alluded, the real events between 1175-90 (starting with Saladin’s first campaigns vs the KoJ all the way to the 3rd Crusade) are incredibly fascinating in all aspects. For those liking military history. Or politics. Or historic characters. Or romance. Or conspiracies. Or culture. Or systems of governance…
You can’t lift the tiniest pebble without finding a swarm of creepy-crawlies beneith it. If someone wrote a fiction novel of the events following the Battle of Hattin for e.g., they’d be laughed out of the publishers’ office. Life stranger than fiction indeed.
The movie didn’t do it justice, IMO. Perhaps the era was too “eventful”, plus the producers had particular agenda already, rightly or wrongly.
Islamic scholars wrote a lot about medicine, but I don’t think the writing had any great value. It was just the usual warmed over Galen and semi-superstition. Which is no good when what you want is for people to get well and not die.
Which means that using translated Arabic medical texts into the 17th century is nothing to be proud of. Medicine didn’t stop being a liability until we learned to throw that stuff away.
Haha, I didn’t see princessroxana throwing shade on Galen too.
@@@@@ 53 & 57 Or the Umayyad Caliphate’s invasion of France, over 350 years before the start of the Crusades. Or the Arab sack of Rome, over 200 years before. Such events are passed over in silence, I suspect, because they’re not well known.
@58, I gather from wikipedia that an Arab scholar discovered pulmonary circulation in the 13th century. But Europeans medical students were dissecting human bodies in Bologna just a little later.
Honestly I sometimes wonder if it isn’t a pity we didn’t lose everything from the Classical period. Reverence for the Ancients pretty much froze scientific investigation for centuries in both Europe and the Arab world.
The Black Death is in the future, presumably exacerbated by population density, but for now life is good. As Prof Livingstone says in this article, the Twelfth Century Renaissance is totally a thing. There’s a reason they call it the High Middle Ages.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the combo of soaring numbers and prosperity was a cause of the Crusades, with more Christians going on pilgrimages, causing more ill feeling, and coming home complaining of being hassled. I also wonder if they were struggling to find employment for young men as fast as they were raising them. If so, a papal call to arms would look tempting as an outlet.
@63 I’m pretty sure stop fighting each other and go fight heathens was an explicit justification for the Crusades. They were also a giant money sink since most of those who went couldn’t really afford to go. It’d be a good way to skim off excess prosperity.
There was definitely a desire to channel the warrior class’s violence in a constructive direction that didn’t inconvenience the rest of the population. Retaking the Holy Land seemed custom made. Going on Crusade was popular but one of the reasons the Crusader states failed is while a lot of people went to fight for a few years, for profit and the sake of their souls, few settled permanently in Outremar. It was definitely not a successful colonial venture.
I don’t know if this was one of the problems fixed in the director’s cut but I remember a reviewer saying about the original film in theaters that our hero is originally offered a deal in which all the Christians can leave Jerusalem if they surrender the city (and never mind how many people that means who have lived there for ages and are a major part of what keeps it a functioning city. The film seems to assume all the Christians in the area are soldiers who won’t be leaving the only homes they’ve ever known behind).
He leads a defense getting tons of people killed so that, in the end, he can accept a deal in which all the Christians can leave Jerusalem.
So, our hero’s brave defense resulted in the exact same deal that he had at the beginning only with more dead bodies. Yet, I got the impression the film treats this as a really great accomplishment.
“more or less established a cycle of violence begetting violence that continues to this day.”
In the Middle East , “history” almost inevitably means “a sequence of recorded events beginning immediately after the last bad thing that my side did”.
The famous flat desert around Jerusalem. Because if there’s one thing Jerusalem is known as, it’s “the city in the middle of a flat sandy void”.
Which isn’t so much a lack of attention to exact historical accuracy as it is a complete lack of any interest in the subject.
Movie History: When it comes to making a blockbuster, nobody is less bothered with accuracy than me!
Movie Geography: Hold my beer.
Del @@@@@ 58 and 59:
Islamic scholars wrote a lot about medicine, but I don’t think the writing had any great value. It was just the usual warmed over Galen and semi-superstition. Which is no good when what you want is for people to get well and not die.
In addition to the discovery of pulmonary circulation by Ibn Al-Nafis that princessroxana pointed out (though he lived in the 13th Century, a bit after the time we’re considering), there was the breakthrough optical work of Ibn al-Haytham in the early 11th Century, which laid the foundation for a proper understanding of vision; possibly related to this is the large number of Arabic writings on opthalmology, including records of surgical techniques for removing cataracts. And there’s the work by the 10th Century Spanish surgeon Al-Zahrawi, who wrote a detailed, illustrated textbook on surgical techniques and tools and is general credited with inventing or improving a number of these (including forceps, pincers, scalpels, retractors, catheters, cauteries, lancets, and specula, as well as the use of catgut for sewing up internal surgical incisions).
I think there are two points to consider:
1. Contemporary (e.g., 12th Century) European medical understanding was sufficiently backwards that they adopted translated Arabic works as textbooks and the basis for their subsequent studies for several centuries afterwards;
2. There was a fair amount of incremental progress in terms of diagnosis, surgical treatments, and (to a lesser degree) anatomy by Islamic doctors and scholars, even if the general state of medical theory and treatment didn’t advance very much, and remained based on fundamental misconceptions like the four-humors model. The widespread construction of hospitals in major cities, with a specific mission of treating all who were ill regardless of wealth or religion, was a significant feature of Islamic medicine as well during this period.
Medieval Islamic medicine was, by our standards, terrible; but it was not as terrible as Greco-Roman medicine.
Medical science everywhere remained pretty awful until they dropped the humors theory and astrological component.
My understanding was that Roman understanding of how to treat combat wounds* was not equaled until the late 19th century?
* As evidenced by contemporary accounts and number of remains from the period with old healed wounds where the blow touched the bone.
You should watch/review Arn The Knight Templar. It’s a better look into the Templars and throws in a dash of Swedish history (its accuracy I haven’t researched) plus it’s got some lovely casting choices!
My understanding of the bit with Bloom and the well was that it was probably a reference to artesian wells, the invention of which used to be a regular feature in various ‘time-lines of invention/progress’ where they were usually credited as an invention of Carthusian monks in France, roughly near where we meet Balin a few decades before the date of this movie.
I have 0 faith in the validity of that being a thing that was _strictly_ discovered at that time and by those communities or that it makes sense in the place Balin is moving into, _but_ it does line up with the kind of Whiggish history you can see in the background here and that makes up like 90% of Scott’s turrible Robin Hood movie.
I have always really liked this movie (and Braveheart as well). Why I can’t argue about the historical accuracy of any movie, Braveheart and Kingdom of Heaven made me want to learn more about the timeframe and the characters involved. It sparked an interest in these subjects, that I have on my own read about and researched.
So, even if the movie is historically awful, it still helped me to learn about the actual history.
@72, I understand one of the most successful Medieval and Early Modern wound treatments involved smearing the physician’s vile concoctions on the WEAPON that inflicted the wound, employing sympathetic magic. Obviously it worked so well because the patient and his wound were left strictly alone and nature was allowed to work in peace.
“Raymond wants to kill Muslims”
Who’s Raymond, then? :)
@77: “Raymond” seems to be auto-corrected “Reynald.” Fixed!
My only issue with the entire article is this early sentence: “Anyway, they took Jerusalem, indiscriminately slaughtered untold numbers of human beings in the name of God, and more or less established a cycle of violence begetting violence that continues to this day.”
That First Crusade didn’ start a cycle of violence. They responded to a Muslim invasion of Jerusalem. I suppose you could say they retook Jerusalem.
Otherwise, lots of good stuff in here.
For what it’s worth, I do remember reading that the Templar uniforms were wrong for the period as well. They wore a much different cross at that time than the classic red one shown in the film.
I’m not sure I should even suggest this, but I really want you to review Ironclad. It’s set in my hometown, and Sweet Christmas, just like Kingdom of Heaven it takes an awesome moment of history takes monumental liberties. I just want to read the snark.
Oh, and I wouldn’t mind seeing the 15th Century Warhammer either.
When we compare the taking of Jerusalem by the Crusaders to the taking by Saladin we should keep in mind the former was a taking by storm and the latter a negotiated surrender. That of course explains the difference in the death toll. One thing Kingdom of Heaven doesn’t tell you is that Saladin demanded a ransom for the Christian population and when about half of it failed to materialize took several thousand Christian commoners, refused offers by Balian and the Archbishop of Jerusalem to become hostages until paid, and sold them as slaves.
Will, I just read the synopsis of ‘Ironclad’ on wikipedia. What the HELL????
princessroxana @@@@@ 76:
The “weapon salve” actually originated in the late 1500s, as a development of Late Renaissance magical thinking; medieval people wouldn’t have been familiar with it.
My mistake. That’s what happens when you depend on memory. But you can certainly see why it worked so well!
Hi,
I saw this movie. I don’t remember which version I saw (probably theatrical). I don’t remember enjoying it, and I think I fell asleep while watching it. I appreciate you taking the time to give us a run-down of the historical faux pas of this film. I also appreciate you noting the message bias of the film and countering it with historically accurate summaries.
@51 @53 Yup, it’s been the position of teaching history in American schools for several decades to essentially ignore the quite long period of Muslims running roughshod over everywhere from India to southeastern Europe and north Africa before the Crusades.
They were getting along with technology, especially in mathematics. Everyone uses their numbers, which displaced the Roman system. But then the clerical class pretty much took over and decided to quadruple down on things like not depicting people and animals in art. There are a few surviving early works by Islamic scientists that have illustrations of people and animals, but they predate the time when the super-religious fervor started.
They backslid hard and ISIS and their ilk are working hard today to drag the region kicking and screaming back to the 7th century, except with AK-47’s, RPGs and assorted other 20th century weaponry.
Contrary to latter-day propaganda (I’m looking at *you* Seth McFarlane and that certain episode of Family Guy) scientific R&D was almost exclusively the province of monks, priests, and clerics well into the 19th century. They were the guys who knew how to read and write, and they had most of the books, and the free time to experiment. They believed that by learning to better understand God’s Creation, they could better understand God. In the doing, they produced large amounts of practical knowledge for the betterment of humankind.
It takes work to counter the anti-theist propaganda that religion, especially Christianity, “held back” scientific progress.
@81/princessroxana – I know! And it doesn’t even mention the flaming pigs (one of the few elements of them film to approach historical accuracy) used to collapse one of the castle’s corner towers…
Flaming pigs?!!! How do you fail to mention that??? Personally I had no idea the Templars were such a big part of the Baron’s Revolt or that John used pagan Danish mercenaries. And where did he find pagan Danes in the early 13th century?
To be fair to Wikipedia, they do mention the pigs, because I went in after princessroxana did. And I too was like “yes, the famous pagan Danes of the 1200s”
Ironclad seems to be suffering the Robin Hood Prince of Thieves and Braveheart problem, of just not being able to tell centuries apart. King Alfred was fighting pagan Vikings, but he was also baptising them, in the 800s, and the Danish Canute didn’t need to be baptised by any Englishman in the early 1000s. Although I’m glad I checked before asserting he was baptised at birth, because he appears to have been baptised as a young man.
Back to the late 1100s, speaking of pagans I wanted to find a spot to mention that Jerusalem wasn’t the only direction in which popes were sending Christians: they were giving indulgences for fighting in Spain, where they were pushing Islam back, and also up in the Baltic, where there were still pagans at that time.
@@@@@ 85
But then the clerical class pretty much took over and decided to quadruple down on things like not depicting people and animals in art.
Which requires ignoring all the depiction of people in Persian and Mughal books and miniatures, for example.
… scientific R&D was almost exclusively the province of monks, priests, and clerics well into the 19th century.
Wow, no. That hasn’t been true since probably the 15th Century.
Unless you’re going to try to argue that Tycho Brahe, Galileo, Kepler, Cassini, Huygens, Newton, Halley, and William and Caroline Herschel (just sticking mostly to astronomers) were all monks and priests. (Hint: none of them were.)
@88/Del – I could have sworn it didn’t mention the pigs when I read it. <shrugs> either I missed it or it was added yesterday… :)
And we haven’t even mentioned how the film decides to follow Beowulf’s lead, and have all the “Danes” sound like they come from the east end of London. :)
Hard to believe I could have missed flaming pigs but I didn’t read very carefully after the pagan Danes. I had a brief hope spot when I saw the name Marshall but it wasn’t William.
@91/PrincessRoxana – Yes, sadly they decided to make the protagonist completely fictitious. <sigh>
Yeah, and Templars. I can’t recall Templars involvement in the Baron’s War.
@93/PrincessRoxana -They tacitly supported John. No troops, but did loan him money, as I recall.
So these Tenplars are on the wrong side? At least the mvie mentioned Prince Louis, I still remember how shocked I was to learn the Baron’s had called in the French.
@95/PrincessRoxana – Yes, it depicts the Templars on the wrong side, though it should be noted they might have hedged their bets and loaned money to some of the rebel barons. We don’t have any evidence they refused loans to the barons, but neither do we have evidence they did, given it’s unlikely to be the sort of thing people would talk about after the rebels defeat.
As to inviting Prince Louis over, finding that out didn’t surprise me, but then I was already aware of how messy the feudal system had got at that point. <shrugs>
For those reading this that aren’t up on that part of English history: The English nobility were almost a different ethnicity to the people they ruled. The spoke a different language, had different customs and culture. They were still practically French nobility, practiced fostering between English and French scions to bolster links between the countries’ nobility, with many of them owning land and titles both sides of the channel. This meant that some of them had feudal relationships with both monarchs, and neither the French or English King was strong enough at the time to enforce a monogamous “partnership”. Prince Louis has married into English nobility (granddaughter of one of the previous English kings, I think), so I’m guessing they didn’t really regard him as “foreign”, and also saw how the heir to the French throne becoming the English Monach (and then later the French Monach) would simplify the feudal structure. Or they wanted to gamble that the current French King would then see Louis as a threat, and play them off against each other, a balancing act to keep their autonomy. After King John’s death, there’s speculation that some of the rebels switched sides because they saw a boy King as less of a threat to their power than Prince Louis. <shrugs>.
John’s brother Richard I is said to have declared he’d sell England if he could find a buyer (or was that only London?).
I have a suspicion Edward III invented the English as a nation with a rivalry with the French, and he was long after John and the Barons. Until then it was more a country with a nobility some of whom had a rivalry with some of the nobility of France, because they wanted the French nobility’s possessions.
Long after, the aristocracy of England was to call in the Scottish (James I), the Dutch (William III), and the German state of Hannover (George I), not to mention calling back contenders who had been enjoying the generous hospitality of France while waiting the call (Henry IV, Henry VII, Charles II)
I’ve seen arguments that John’s loss of Normandy and most of his other French territories to Philippe Auguste played a role in setting English identity in motion, because it forced the previously cross-Channel aristocracy to pick a side, as it were. Before, you could be a (French-speaking) noble and potentially hold lands in both Exeter and Normandy (for example) while only having to acknowledge the King of England as your overlord. Afterwards, you had to make a choice: acknowledge the King of France as your overlord in order to keep your Norman lands — thus likely having to give up your English lands — or vice versa. So after John the English aristocracy tended to be confined to England, even if they continued speaking French to each for a while.
I’ve seen those arguments too. It makes sense. As I understand it at this time nobody had a strong sense of national identity. Nobles held land in England and on the continent. Commoners’ loyalties tended to be highly local, their village/town/city. I was shocked because I was accustomed to the later English/French rivalry.
Love to see, for example, Kenneth Branagh’s take on Henry V in this series
I’ve often thought the traditional English rap against Richard Lionheart for spending too much time overseas was unjustified. He was merely defending his lands and asserting his claims where they were in jeopardy; i.e., on the Continent.
I don’t think his French possessions were larger in area than his English, but it’s likely they were more valuable, given the fertility of “the world’s best garden”.
Darn it, missed making the one hundredth comment! :)
speaking of One Hundred, the later concept of English and French nationalism (and rivalry) coalesced (like so many other things we take for granted) during the One Hundred Years War, as I understand it, with Henry IV being the first English king to take his Oath in English. Arguably therefore being the first post-Norman Invasion King to acknowledge he was Sovereign to the English before any other allegiance. <shrugs>. By then of course English had evolved and incorporated a load of Anglo-French into itself, kind of like a language equivalent of the Borg.
@97/Del – the three big difference between all those examples you cite and Prince Louis is that:
a) he lost and was sent packing;
b) the other did bring their own troops, but they met up with their supporters, and their English supporters provided the bulk of their troops. Prince Louis actually had to invade and was resisted pretty much as soon as he landed;
and c) he was the heir to throne of France.
@101/taras – I think Richard made the same mistake leaders like Jimmy Carter and Ted Heath made, which is to concentrate on foreign policy while being perceived as not caring about domestic issues. I don’t think they would have gotten such a bad rap for pursuing foreign policy if they’d ensured it at least *looked* like they cared about domestic issues. Take Richard, he left John in charge, and made a bunch of off-hand remarks (much like Heath) that did not help make him look like someone who cared. Many things can be said about John, but a people person he was not.
@101 It seems a very recent thing to criticise Richard “The Lionheart” of England. When I was at school it was still all “Good King Richard” and all that. In fact it was seen as a very shocking and new thing when a BBC kids show (Maid Marian and Her Merry Men) actually showed him as being more or less as rotten as Prince John the Baddie in 1989. I mean, seriously, they got a lot of complaints about it because the narrative of Richard the Good was still so strong.
I’m not arguing against the better interpretation of Richard in the more recent materials, but I wouldn’t call it a traditionally bad rap.
@103: Good, but neglectful. In The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Robin makes the incognito King Richard’s ears burn with his denunciation of a monarch who has failed in his primary duty to look after his people, leaving the job to outlaws like him.
Richard got his reputation as Good King Richard because his contemporaries admired a warrior King. Fighting Crusades and in France was what they liked to see. And of course John’s loss of the continental possessions and his poor personal skills made it easy to romanticize Richard in retrospect.
@103/random22 – I loved the “Emperor’s New Clothes” moment when everyone’s gaining over how handsome King Richard is, and one of the children point out he’s as ugly and sloppy looking as his brother Prince John (to the point at which they are played by the same actor, who allowed himself to be “uglied-up” for the role of John).
I think ITV got there first in depicting King Richard as corrupt. In the 80’s Robin of Sherwood, an obviously-pre-Gimli John Rhys-Davies plays King Richard as closer to a medieval Michael Corleone. Or possibly (with all the supernatural overtones of that series) Mephistopheles, making Robin and the crew an offer they can’t refuse…
Not sure if the ITV got any complaints, or how many.
In a lot of the Robin Hood tales, King Richard seems to be treated as a kind of ex machina ending to each story. In fact it kind of feels like episodic television. At the end of the episode, King Richard turns up, rights wrongs by fiat, reprimands his employees, tells his brother off (but doesn’t imprison or execute him, because he’s his brother and heir, what are you gonna do?) then at the start of the next episode buggers off to foreign climes to teach Johnny Foreigner what for, and the blokes he leaves in charge do something which forces Robin to go rogue again, restoring the status quo. <shrugs>. Possibly he got his reputation for being good simply in contrast to John. (Who wasn’t that bad, but really, really wasn’t a people person, and had a really bad PR team).
Movie does get some things right Saladin really despised guy and especially Reynald the 2nd battle of hatins horns was quite factual in that the Saracens wiped the Christians quite literally out leaving Jerusalem virtually unfriended. Saladin was a very forward thinking leader and I think the movie did a very good job relating this and he and Balian did have a very odd relationship ex1 Balian was ransomed after capture by Saladin and had to ask the shot and permission to defend Jerusalem during a charge Balians forces were simply allowed to charge in be encircled and simply held for the battle although the movie got a lot wrong there are several facts they got right btw an excellent read on 1st crusade from the get go is the crusades by Zoe oldenbourg excellent translation from French circa 1966 a very factual very in depth look at the crusades in their entirety but the 1st especially
“Long after, the aristocracy of England was to call in the Scottish (James I), the Dutch (William III)”
Though both William and his wife Mary were grandchildren of Charles I, and in essence William was asked to put his wife on the throne over her new Catholic baby brother.
As to ‘knowing how to lead a cavalry charge’. Balian does say in the beginning that he fought in multiple campaigns first as ‘horse’, and then as an engineer.
Although, he does seem too young and fresh-faced to have both been a professional mercenary and a master artificer by apparently, 25.
While I was studying for my BA in History in the 1980s, I remember I had a professor who advised me that “one should not go to historical movies to learn history. At best, such movies are good entertainment.” Nothing has changed in over 30 years.
Whilst I enjoy reading critiques that open my eyes to flaws in films, I think that sometimes the critics take the fun out of films. They are supposed to be entertainment nothing more. You want a factual, accurate retelling of a story go look on the documentary channels!!
The documentary channels are all ghosts and ancient astronauts.
@111 — My impression is that while historical novels tend to be careful with their real history, filmmakers feel authorized to play ducks and drakes.
Now that I think about it, the situation is similar where science fiction is concerned. Books tend to take the science seriously, while movies go for pretty pictures and emotional impact.
Part of it may be that movies simply don’t have enough time to get the details right. Part of it, that the movies began as a sort of low-brow, carnival entertainment for the masses.
We’re not talking about a few minor changes here, compression of the timeline or fictional characters inserted, we are talking about a complete rewriting of history. The real Balian of Ibelin was an over mighty subject viewed warily by Baldwin IV. The real Sybilla was very much in love with Guy and kept him as her husband in the face of her nobles opposition. What was wrong with that story?
“Anyway, they took Jerusalem, indiscriminately slaughtered untold numbers of human beings in the name of God, and more or less established a cycle of violence begetting violence that continues to this day.”
So many things wrong with that sentence. The number of human beings is actually told, it numbers about 3000, which is surprising low for the times. As for establishing a cycle of violence, the ones who started were, actually, the muslims. Remember the sieged Rome twice beforehand ? Assaulted Tours and Poitiers ? Ravaged southern France campaigns ? Put the spanish peninsula to fire and sword during centuries ? Murdered millions in northern Africa ? So who started the cycle of violence ? Be serious for a minute and stop repeating stupid historical clichés, it discredits your paper.
As I believe I said before the difference between the Christian capture of Jerusalem and Saladin’s is the difference between taking a city by storm and a negotiated surrender. It’s got nothing to do with Saladin being more humane. He didn’t kill the Christians but he did sell them as slaves unless ransomed.