In 1965, Charleton Heston appeared in The War Lord (dir. Franklin J. Schaffner), a surprisingly gritty little medieval drama. It’s not a well-known film, and while it has some serious problems from a historical standpoint, it is in many ways a better film about the Middle Ages than much of what Hollywood has released since then (other than The Lion in Winter, of course). In 1991, the American Historical Association honored it as one of the best films about the period ever produced.
Heston as Chrysagon
The Story
The opening narration (by Orson Wells) sets the story some time in the 11th century. Heston plays Chrysagon, a Norman knight, just back from “the wars” (the suggestion is that he’s been on crusade, but unless the film is set around 1099, that’s not possible, especially since he’s been fighting for 20 years). His lord, the Duke of Ghent (historically actually the Count of Flanders), has sent him to hold a small tower somewhere near the coast, by a small village. He discovers that the villages are ‘druids’, by which the film means that they follow old pagan customs, although the village priest insists that they are good Christians.
Early in the film, the village is attacked by Frisian raiders. Chrysagon and his brother Draco (Guy Stockwell) drive them off, managing to capture the Frisian leader’s unnamed young son. As luck would have it, this unnamed Frisian captured their father years ago and reduced his family to poverty by demanding a stiff ransom.
The village headman, Odins (Niall McGinnis) asks permission for his son, Marc (James Farentino), to marry his foster daughter, Bronwyn (Rosemary Forsyth). Chysagon gives permission, but immediately regrets the choice, because he has become infatuated with Bronwyn. Draco suggests that Chrysagon should exercise his “Droit du Seigneur”, the supposed right of feudal lords to sleep with new brides on their wedding night. Chrysagon decides to do so, but refuses to return Bronwyn to Marc the next morning.
Furious, Marc sails to Frisia and alerts the Frisian lord to the fact that Chrysagon has his son. The Frisians return and set siege to the tower. Draco rides to get the duke’s support, and ultimately saves the tower from being overrun by Frisians. But he has betrayed Chrysagon by telling the duke that the whole problem is Chrysagon’s fault; as a result, the duke has granted the tower to Draco. The two fight, and Chrysagon kills Draco.
Chrysagon is disgusted by everything that has happened. He returns the Frisian boy to his father without asking for a ransom, and asks that Bronwyn be allowed to seek shelter with them. Marc tries to kill Chrysagon, but is killed by Chrysagon’s right-hand man, Bors (Richard Boone). The film ends with Chrysagon and Bors riding to meet the duke of Ghent in an attempt to fix things with his lord.
Chrysagon, wounded, rides off to seek reconciliation with his lord
The Good
Heston was the driving force behind this picture, having optioned the script of a play, and it was a small enough project that he was able to exercise considerable artistic control over the film. Thanks to his interest in history, The War Lord is one of the first Hollywood films to attempt a more historical treatment of the Middle Ages (and in that sense, might be seen as a precursor to The Lion in Winter’s treatment of the period). The film does not try to romanticize the period the way that earlier films about Robin Hood or King Arthur had generally done. Chrysagon is not referred to as ‘Sir Chrysagon’, perhaps because it would seem too Arthurian.
Instead, The War Lord seeks to be fairly accurate. The clothing and armor worn by the Norman knights is all reasonably accurate to the 11th century (long tunics, chainmail hauberks, open-faced Norman helmets, kite shields). The peasants get generic tunics, and the Frisians look rather like stock Vikings, but there are no helmets with horns on them or other obviously anachronistic details. During the siege of the tower, the Frisians use both a battering ram with wheels and a cover, and a siege tower; these are perhaps a little improbable for a film set so early in the history of castles, but not outrageously so. When he returns, Draco brings a catapult with him that throws the ever-popular flaming missiles, but this is the only really jarring note in terms of technology. The tower, although perhaps a little too large on the inside, is shown as a cramped, smelly space, and Chrysagon’s men sleep on the floors and staircases of the tower, with only Chrysagon have the privilege of a private chamber. Chrysagon’s haircut is a stab at a genuine 11th century style, but without the fashionable mustaches of the period.
The film also attempts a more historical treatment of the social dynamics of the period. The knights and the peasants are shown as having different values and not fully trusting each other, even before Chrysagon upsets the situation by taking Bronwyn. Most of the knights, particularly Draco, show contempt for the peasants, and the peasants consistently demonstrate an understanding of their social inferiority and need to show deference to the knights.
The film never really figures out the economics of peasant-lord relations. There is no sign that the peasants farm; mostly they just wander around, gather plants, and look peasant-y. But the film understands that the lord of the manor needs to hold a court to address problems with the running of the estate, and so we get a scene in which Chrysagon gradually grows frustrated with his administrative duties. Marc and Bronwyn ask permission to marry, which if they are serfs is historically accurate, although Chrysagon simply grants permission instead of demanding a payment for his permission the way a historical lord probably would have.
Chrysagon holding court over his peasants
The film also explores Chrysagon’s complicated relationship with his brother, and here again it seems to capture something of the complexities of medieval families. Their father was evidently a more important noble, but ransoming him beggared the family. Draco evidently resents his older brother for standing between him and success, while Chrysagon resents the fact that his brother has lived relatively comfortably at the duke’s court while Chrysagon has been off fighting in the duke’s service. Given the Norman system of primogeniture, in which the oldest son received nearly everything of the father’s estate, this tension between them feels very plausible. Draco’s betrayal of him is exactly the sort of crime on which a medieval chanson de geste would have focused.
Instead of an Arthurian romance between a knight and his lady, the plot turns on Chrysagon’s obsession with Bronwyn. The film directly acknowledges the fact that by taking her on her wedding night, he is raping her, although it refuses to acknowledge the full ramifications of that act. In doing this, the film was rejecting Hollywood conventions, and this may well have been a part of the reason the film did poorly at the box office, failing to break even.
Perhaps the best thing about this film is that so little is at stake. It is the story of one unimportant knight, the tiny fief he has been given, and his struggle to keep what he has been given by his lord. Most films set in the Middle Ages seek to tell grand stories about kings and great heroes, and Chrysagon is neither, just a middle-aged man feeling exhausted and disillusioned with his life. The siege sequence, which occupies close to a third of the film’s running time, dramatizes the challenge of attacking and defending one very minor fortification. As such, Chrysagon stands in for the countless minor nobles of the period, and the siege is one of the many inconsequential little conflicts that littered the 11th century.
Chrysagon’s tower
The Bad
While quite a good treatment of the Middle Ages in some respects, the film is not perfect. It has two serious historical flaws. The plot makes heavy use of the “droit du seigneur” (also variously known as “jus primae noctis” and “the right of the first night”). As the film presents it, feudal lords have the right to sleep with a newly-married bride. While a common myth about the Middle Ages, there never was such a right; it is essentially the invention of 16th century French authors. While some nobles undoubtedly abused their legal authority by raping peasant women, at no point anywhere did they have a legal right to do so.
To its credit, the film at least shows this concept as being socially contested between different groups. Chrysagon seems unaware of the idea until Draco suggests it. The priest says that it would be a sin to do so, but when Draco presses him, the priest reluctantly admits that it is lawful. Odins counters Chrysagon’s assertion of his right by saying that if Chrysagon does it the way Draco suggests, it would be rape, but that it was also a custom practiced by their ancestors when they followed “the old ways”. He lays out a set of rules for how to do it acceptably (it has to be done at night, with the bride returning at sunrise, there have to torches, men have to stand watch, and so on). Nevertheless, even with this gloss on it, this element of the film is entirely ahistorical.
Equally problematic is the film’s depiction of the villagers as pagans. They are flat out described as “druids”, they maintain a sacred grove of trees and a sacred stone, and Marc and Bronwyn’s wedding ritual involves pagan garlands, dolls being waved around and kissed, taking bites out of a piece of bread, and dancers dressed as bulls, roosters, and a wild man ( inspired perhaps by Welsh morris dancing). When they are declared married, the villagers shout for joy and jump into a PG-rated orgy, with lots of indiscriminate dancing, kissing, and wine being poured on people. At various points, Chrysagon accuses the villagers of working magic, and repeatedly suggests that Bronwyn might be a witch.
In doing this, the film was drawing off a semi-scholarly tradition dating back to the 19th century that medieval peasants were only thinly Christianized during the Middle Ages. Much attention was given to so-called ‘pagan survivals’ in which medieval practices that did not seem to be clearly Christian, such as morris dancing or maypoles, were explained as surviving pagan rituals, usually fertility rituals. The assumption was that medieval missionaries had paid comparatively little attention to the religious beliefs and practices of the people they were converting, as long as those people made a show of performing the basic Christian rituals. Thus, in this view, peasants attended church as needed, but continued worshipping ‘the old gods’ as well, particularly when it came to matters involving sex and fertility. Margaret Murray, an early-20th century scholar, added the dubious notion that witches were actually crypto-pagans, so that magic and paganism came to be seen as the same thing, and accusing a woman of witchcraft was really accusing her of being pagan.
The scholarly foundations of this notion were always rather shaky, and in the past thirty years or so, these ideas have been substantially disproven. There is little evidence of provably pagan rituals surviving for centuries, although Christians did re-purpose many pagan holy places as churches. Even when practices might have pagan origins, there is no evidence that medieval people saw them as anything but Christian. Rituals such as maypole dancing are today generally seen by scholars, not as pagan fertility rituals surviving from the ancient period but rather as fertility rituals developed in the later Middle Ages. The fact that they are concerned with fertility does not automatically make them pagan in nature, and since the evidence points to them developing within a Christian society, they are therefore seen as Christian fertility rituals. And Murray’s claim that accusations of witchcraft were actually accusations of paganism completely disintegrated as her evidence was re-examined and found to be deeply flawed and often flat-out misrepresented. So while the film’s treatment of the villagers as pagans was perhaps in accordance with mid-20th century ideas on the issue (though not really with the scholarship of the period), it is certainly completely wrong.
The screenwriters also seem to have essentially pulled the characters’ names out of a hat. “Chrysagon” is a Greek name, although St. Chrysagon is an obscure saint venerated by Catholics, and so it is perhaps imaginable that his father named him after the saint. But Draco is a Graeco-Latin word meaning ‘dragon’; so far as I know, it wasn’t used as a name in this period. The Flemish peasant Odins is named after a Norse god associated with kings, while his son Marc sports a Roman and therefore Christian name, and Bronwyn gets a Welsh name. Three important characters, the priest, the Frisian leader, and the Frisian boy, don’t even get names.
The Ugly
The biggest problem with the film, however, is its sexual politics. Bronwyn clearly does not want to have sex with Chrysagon, and the film situates his claim on her as rape. But he refuses to actually force himself on her, and somehow his reluctance to rape her softens her heart and she willingly submits to him. When he refuses to give her back, she says that their relationship “can never be,” but does not otherwise protest. Although she never says so, the film strongly implies that by the end of the film she has fallen in love with Chrysagon. He gives her his father’s ring, an action which infuriates Draco, but which clearly symbolizes a commitment like marriage.
The romantic pose typifies the film’s depiction of Bronwyn
Throughout the film, Bronwyn is essentially passive. She protests a little bit here and there, and her reluctance is clear, but at no point does she enjoy any sense of true agency. The film presents Chrysagon’s obsession with her as an expression of his love and suggests that his feelings for her slowly redeem him, leading him to simply give the Frisian boy back to his father without demanding a ransom, after having fought the siege to keep him. She goes with the Frisians when Chrysagon tells her to, and he promises her that he is going with her in spirit, but needs to fix things with his lord before he can rejoin her. In essence, his rape of her becomes the means of his emotional redemption, and the fact that being married to him will essentially ennoble her is presented as a reward for everything he has done to her. Thus while the film seeks to de-romanticize the Middle Ages and acknowledges that what Chrysagon is doing is virtually rape, its plot stubbornly clings to a ‘true love conquers all’ pattern, and achieves its admittedly ambivalent ending mostly by ignoring what is really going on here. But that’s Hollywood for you.
Want to Know More?
The Warlord
If you’re interested in my critique of the concept of ‘pagan survivals’, one good place to start is Ronald Hutton’s The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles: Their Nature and Legacy, which surveys what we can actually say we know for a fact about ancient paganism in Britain, and which offers a history of the idea of ‘pagan survivals’. I highly recommend it
An Historian Goes to the Movies 
“The fact that they are concerned with fertility does not automatically make them pagan in nature, and since the evidence points to them developing within a Christian society, they are therefore seen as Christian fertility rituals.”
Is there any evidence that the Church addressed these rituals in any meaningful way, to your knowledge?
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That’s a huge question. There certainly were fertility rituals in which parish priests participated, such as blessing fields or plows. There were others that Christian authorities disapproved of but which are undeniably Christian, such as using a consecrated host to encourage fertility or something similar (there’s a sermon story about a man who steals a host and puts it in his beehive, because he’s been told it will attract bees. The bees build a little shrine around the host and sting the man when he tries to take the honey.) Other rituals, such as maypole dancing, may not have been situated in an explicitly Christian context (by which I mean there’s no formal role for a clergyman, for example), but emerge out of a Christian society.
Clerical reactions range from accepting and participating in them (blessing fields), to disapproving of them (the sermon about why stealing the host won’t be rewarded) to flat-out trying to quash them. I can think of one 14th century English bishop who seems absolutely convinced that his parishioners are “enemies of God” as he puts it. At one point, he gets upset that his parishioners are making pilgrimages to the tomb of one of his predecessors, because he can’t figure out why anyone would regard that particular person as a saint. So he forces them to stop the pilgrimages.
So there’s a wide range of responses, largely because the clergy aren’t a unified group in the Middle Ages anymore than they are a unified group today.
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Aren’t there a lot of Catholic saints associated with pregnancy and childbirth? Invoking them could be viewed as a fertility ritual of sorts. Here’s a list I found via google:
Barren Women: St. Anthony of Padua, St. Felicitas, St. Gerard Majella
Childbirth: St. Margaret of Antioch, St. Raymond of Nonnatus, St. Leonard of Noblac
Childbirth Complications: St. Ulric
Expectant Mothers: St. Margaret, St. Raymond Nonnatus, St. Gerard Majella
Infertility: St. Rita of Cascia, St. Gerard Majella
Miscarriages, Invoked against: St. Dorothy of Montau, St. Bridget of Sweden
Pregnancy: St. Anne
Pregnant Women: St. Margaret, St. Raymond Nonnatus, St. Gerard Majella
Safe Childbirth: St. Margaret of Antioch, St. Raymond Nonnatus, St. Gerard Majella
Sterility in Women: St. Giles
Women in Labor: St. Anne, St. Leonard, St. Erasmus
Women Wanting Sons: St. Felicity
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Xtal: There definitely are lots of examples of medieval Christian fertility rituals, such as praying to a particular saint or going on pilgrimage to a saint’s tomb in hopes of getting pregnant. Because these have an explicit Christian component, they were always understood to be Christian fertility rituals.
But there are lots of medieval practices focused on fertility that don’t clearly have a Christian component, and 19th and 20th century scholars often made the assumption that if they didn’t have explicit Christian elements, they must have originated hundred of years earlier, before Christianity, and just been adopted by Christians. The idea that rituals such as maypole dancing were fertility rituals invented by Christians was resisted by many scholars who wanted to see evidence of pagan survival or crypto-paganism.
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I’ve been enjoying these. Do you take requests? I’d love to read your analysis of “The Hour of the Pig”, rebranded in the US as “The Advocate”.
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Jeremy: I do take requests. At the moment, yours in the third I’ve gotten, so it may take me a while to get to it. I’ll have to see if I can track that film down. I’ve never seen it, but I’ve always wanted to, so this is a good opportunity.
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Jeremy, as per your request, I’ve reviewed The Advocate. Enjoy!
https://aelarsen.wordpress.com/2014/04/28/the-advocate-an-ok-film-hurt-by-miramax/
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Hello. While I enjoyed reading your review of “The War Lord,” a movie which I have watched several times, I must take exception to some of your descriptions and conclusions. I’m glad that you appreciate the many accurate and cinematically powerful elements of the movie, but I would like to set the record straight about some other matters.
I strongly disagree with you regarding what you call the “sexual politics.” The reactions of Bronwyn to Chrysagon are very believable by the standards of the 11th Century. Bronwyn is of course “passive” with the knight, because of her very subordinate social position. It’s hard to imagine a peasant women of that time who would have launched some sort of feminist protest against his advances.
I also find the growing love between Bronwyn and Chrysagon to be very plausible. Surprising, shocking and unusual love affairs have happened throughout history. Male conquerors have often had mutually respectful love affairs and marriages with women who were amongst the conquered. Stranger yet, countless battered women of today return willingly and repeatedly to men whom they insist they love, and to whom they unquestionably feel a certain devotion. They return to men who act much more violently towards them than Chrysagon ever was to Bronwyn.
It’s also not surprising that Bronwyn would be profoundly impressed by Chrysagon’s refusal to force himself upon her. This is a man who has substantial physical and social power over her, yet he follows his conscience and respects her. She has already seen how he restrained himself on her behalf another time, when he allowed the marriage of Marc and her to proceed, after he had shown obvious interest in her. And Chrysagon is relatively refined, cultured, and successful as a defender of the community. I would be surprised if a young woman of the time would not be impressed by him. Before their relationship is consummated, Bronwyn actually tells him that she is “bewitched” by him, clearly meaning in this case that she is deeply attracted to him.
I think that you also misunderstand the “rape” aspect. Firstly, as you acknowledge, Bronwyn willingly submits to Chrysagon, so one couldn’t reasonably call the result rape, either by early medieval standards or by reasonable standards of today–those reasonable standards which haven’t gone down a Politically-Correct rabbit hole. And the movie-makers do not “acknowledge” what Chrysagon does as “virtually rape.” Chrysagon painstakingly tries to avoid the semblance of rape. He understands Odins’ admonition about “your way” as “rape,” so he proceeds fully in the pagan villagers’ way, which Odins calls “our way,” with torches, men standing guard, etc.
You are right to criticize the “droit du seigneur” feature. In defense of the movie, though, and as you did mention, Chrysagon, who is a conscientious yet fairly worldly man of the time, is unfamiliar with such a custom. And the village priest obviously doesn’t recognize it as licit in the Christendom of the time. So, considering that the film is a piece of fiction, I’m not as troubled by the use of that fictional custom.
It also should be emphasized that the movie does not end on a typically Hollywood note. It seems very likely that Chrysagon has been mortally wounded. The facial expressions and embrace of Bors, his subordinate companion, strongly suggest this. Bors too is no stranger to warfare, and he clearly seems to be considering that his lord will not live much longer. The relationship between Chrysagon and Bors is a very significant part of the movie. They both obviously have a deep love and respect for each other, which I find perfectly plausible too, considering human nature again. Bors knows and accepts his place in the society of the time, but he also knows when he can speak up, in the way that a proven, loyal fighting man of the day would likely do occasionally.
Another point, which might be relatively minor, is that not all of the locals are shown as full-blown pagans. Early in the movie, after the battle with the Frisians, the local priest leads several villagers to meet Chrysagon, and the priest suggests that these particular locals are relatively pious. These appear to be different peasants than the ones in Odin’s circle. Other parts of the movie do suggest that most of the nearby peasants tend more to the pagan side, so this point could be more arguable. “The War Lord” does do very well, at least, in showing the piety of the Normans, especially Chrysagon and Bors. Draco, of course, is an exception.
Also, I don’t find the lack of mustaches amongst Chrysagon and his knights to be anachronistic. The vast majority of Normans in the Bayeux Tapestry are shown as clean-shaven. This is also the case in some other fairly contemporary images of the time. And, there is at least one knight among Chrysagon’s men who is mustachioed.
Thank you for your work. I look forward to reading your other reviews.
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Thank you for the kind words about the blog. But I’m afraid I disagree with your reading of the film, for a couple reasons.
1) Contrary to popular imagination, peasants were not automatically submissive to knights, especially when their legal rights were involved. There are numerous cases of peasant resistant to noble/knightly control during the Middle Ages, taking the form of riots, assassinations, outright revolts, law suits, refusal to do work, and so on. Medieval people were at least as aware of their legal rights as modern people are, and did not hesitate to bring complaints and lawsuits when they felt their rights were being violated. So Bronwyn’s passivity is not a given.There are many cases where medieval women were not passive, finding ways to express their views and desires, even if those brought them into conflict with other people.
2) The film is not a retelling of some genuine medieval event, but rather an entirely fictional construct of the 1950s, a period in which women were generally encouraged to be passive and submissive to men. So what we’re seeing is not a medieval tale representing medieval social values but a 20th century story representing 20th century social values. As an entirely fictitious story, the screenwriter was free to write any story he chose, presenting Bronwyn in any way he thought would be realistic, appealing to audiences, and within the expectations of his studio and director. The fact that he chose to depict Bronwyn as entirely passive was a choice, probably a choice made collectively by him, the studio heads, the director, and Charleston Heston, though probably not at a specific meeting. So the screenwriter was free to make Bronwyn as feisty, clever, outspoken, or defiant as he wished; instead he made her entirely passive and almost completely lacking in agency. At no point does she ever truly exercise agency in the film, or even express a strong opinion except once to tell Chrysagon that their relationship “can never be.” So in the one moment of resistance that we see (sofar as I remember–it’s been a while since I watched it), her agency is ignored.
3) I am quite skeptical of your claim that historical conqueror routinely had “mutually respectful love affairs” with conquered women. Given that these women are, in that situation, pretty much forced into the relationship or may have pursued the relationship for simple reasons of survival means that there’s no way to support your claim, no way for the conquered women to declare genuine consent and affection for their conquerors, because the consequences of refusing consent are generally catastrophic in such situations.
4) Furthermore, the point about conquest is irrelevant. Chyrsagon is not a conqueror; he and Bronwyn are operating within the bonds of a shared culture. She is not his slave or captive.
5) The notion that a woman would be genuinely moved by a man’s refusal to not rape her and would thereby fall in love with him is, frankly, appallingly sexist. Men don’t get points for not raping. That’s entirely a male-centric way of thinking about how men and women should relate. I have yet to met a woman who fell in love with someone because he didn’t rape her.I think you need to do some serious reading on the whole concept of Rape Culture to see how heavily skewed your thinking is on this issue.
6) You’re also forgetting that she’s engaged to be married. Chrysagon takes her away just before her wedding. We have no information about what role she might have played in choosing her husband, but there’s no suggestion that she’s unhappy about her marriage. Chyrsagon is the interloper in an established relationship and in that sense would normally be viewed as a villain in movies of the time. It’s only the film’s insistence on telling the story for his point of view and entirely occluding Bronwyn’s own desires that keeps his actions from seeming reprehensible.
7) The film’s narrative is clearly about the redemptive power of Chrysagon’s desire for Bronwyn. His choice to not rape her morally redeems him and leads him to return the boy at the end of the siege.So the film explicitly structures ‘not raping’ as a spiritually uplifting decision, as if raping is just the default option and only a hero would make the choice to not do it. ‘Not raping’ is not the opposite of raping the same way that good is the opposite of bad. Choosing not to do something bad is not a morally virtuous action, merely the absence of a morally evil action. The film entirely fails to understand this, and so I think we have to view this as a toxic male fantasy.
I don’t think we can assume that Chrysagon is going to die at the end of the film. Although he’s injured, his decision to go speak to his lord suggests that his narrative continues off screen after the film is over, although it’s certainly true that he could die on the way. But the only hints the film gives us about his eventual fate is his intention to make that journey. So I think that’s just a place where we can freely disagree about the ambiguous ending.
I will grant your point about not all of the peasants being pagan. But apart from the priest, the film gives no real attention to any non-pagan peasants; they’re passing details that don’t contribute to the plot in any way. Virtually everything we see about the peasants suggests they’re essentially pagans; certainly the wedding rituals bear no resemblance to Christian rituals.
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I thought this movie was fairly authentic, at least by Hollywood standards. Granted, I’m not educated beyond high school, so very possible that I’m just too ignorant to really know what it was like back then. So to get a feeling for it, could you tell us what you believe to be the most historically accurate film representing the middle ages?
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As I acknowledge in the review, there are things the film gets right, and Heston was given an award years ago by an important historical association for his work here. But for my money, a better take on the Middle Ages is the Lion in Winter, which I review here as well.
But also see my posts about Why There’s No Such Thing as an Historically Accurate Movie.
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Very excellent review! I agree with pretty much everything you said. However, there is one tiny insignificant detail I just wanted to set right: the moustaches. You pointed out how Heston and his Norman cohorts wore their hair to somewhat resemble the hairstyle of the 11th century Normans, but then added that they did not wear moustaches. Taking cues from the Bayeux Tapestry, it is quite easy to quickly identify who in those panels were Anglo Saxon and who were Norman simply by their hairstyles.
The Normans had a very unusual and unique style where they shaved the back of their heads clean all the way up to the top of the head, but then left the top longish to hang down to the ear level. They also did not wear any facial hair, but were clean shaven, hence: no moustaches.
The Anglo Saxon men (and likewise most Northern Europeans of that time) wore their hair long, sometimes in braids, sometimes loose – it was considered a mark of masculinity and virility to show that you had lots of hair, if indeed you did, instead of suffering from male pattern baldness, which was considered a sign of ill health or lack of masculine strength (physically and sexually). But also, yes, they wore moustaches. In fact, few Northern European men of the 11th century wore beards, and if they did, it was considered barbaric and primitive (the Scots, of course, wore beards frequently).
Here’s a panel from the Bayeux Tapestry showing the point in the story when Harold is in Normandy under William’s protection, and they all go out for a friendly day of hunting with their pet falcons. Harold is riding in the front, and is shown with his long hair hanging down the back of his head, and his enormous moustachios sticking out to the sides.
Behind him comes William, and behind William are five of their companions – two Anglo Saxons, and three Normans. The Anglo Saxons again may be quickly identified by their long hair and moustaches, and the Normans with clean shaven faces and their head shaven clean at the back.
So, given the time period this film was made, I do actually give them huge credits for trying to make an honest attempt at historical accuracy, given the way things were at that time. I don’t think they went far enough with the haircuts (they didn’t shave their hair all the way up the back), but they did shave it up a little, giving an overall impression of shaveness, I suppose.
Anyway, thanks for the review. Well done!
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