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Medieval Studies, 200C

Spring Quarter 2015

9 May 2015 version


Thursdays, 7:00+, HSSB 4020
Edward D. English

Office Hours by appointment,


HSSB 5058
english@history.ucsb.edu

This part of the course will cover how the Middle Ages and medievalism have
interacted and been portrayed in film. We will ask the question whether and how
these films might influence our views of the past and just how much we know or
think we know about the Middle Ages from the movies and popular culture. We will
view as many as five films in class and discuss them. Remember you are required
to write an essay of 12-15 pages with scholarly apparatus by the end of this
quarter of the course. They can be on any aspect of our topics and discussions
but you let the instructor know of your choice. If you choose to do the film quarter,
you will have a choice of a movie and its topic. It could be one we view in class or
not.
The films we will study may include: The Advocate, The Sorceress, The
Messenger, El Cid, The Decameron, The Kingdom of Heaven, The Seventh

Seal, The Anchoress, and The Return of Martin Guerre. This will be decided at
the first meeting on 2 April 2015.
We will watch one film in each of our five meetings and discuss it the next time we
meet. There will be a list of three or four readings for each film and often a
supplementary one posted on my web site.
Additional readings will be posted on my web site on the history department site
and are marked in the syllabus by PDF:
http://www.history.ucsb.edu/courses/course.php?course_id=1582. If you find an
article marked by you would like to read on the supplementary lists and those
below and marked by PDF, please let me know and I can forward you a copy.
Some Recommended Text Books
John Aberth. A Knight at the Movies: Medieval History on Film. New York:
Routledge, 2003.
Laurie A. Finke and Martin B. Shichtman. Cinematic Illuminations: The Middle Ages
on Film. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010.
Nickolas Haydock. Movie Medievalism: The Imaginary Middle Ages. London:
McFarland & Company, Inc., 2008.
General and Supplementary Readings
John H. Arnold. What is Medieval History? Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008.
Marcus Bull. Thinking Medieval: An Introduction to the Study of the Middle Ages.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
Nickolas Haydock and E. L Risden, eds. Hollywood in the Holy Land: essays on Film
Depictions of the Crusades and Christian-Muslim Clashes. London: McFarland
& Company, Inc., 2009; note especially the introduction by Haydock and the
epilogue by Risden PDF.
Medievalism and Film
Stuart Airlie, Strange Eventful Histories: The Middle Ages in the Cinema in The
Medieval World. Eds. Peter Linehan and Janet L Nelson. New York: Routledge,
2001, pp. 163-83. PDF
Greta Austin, Were the Peasants Really So Clean? The Middle Ages in Film, Film
History, 14:2 (2002), 136-41. PDF
Anke Bernau and Bettina Bildhauer, eds. Medieval Film. Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 2009.
Kathleen Biddick. The Shock of Medievalism. Durham: Duke University Press, 1998.

Richard Burt. Medieval and Early Modern Film and Media. New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2008.
Richard Burt, Getting Schmedieval: Of Manuscript and Film Prologues, Paratext,
and Paradies, Exemplaria, 19:2 (Summer, 2007), 217-42. PDF
Richard Burt, Re-Embroidering the Bayeux Tapestry in Film and Media: The Flip
Side of History in Opening and End Title Sequences, Exemplaria, 19:2
(Summer, 2007), 327-50. PDF
Martha Driver and Sid Ray, eds. The Medieval Hero on Screen: Representations
from Beowulf to Buffy. London: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2004.
Martha Driver, Writing about Medieval Movies: Authenticity and History, Film and
History, 29:1/2 (1999), 5-7. PDF
Martha Driver, Teaching the Middle Ages on Film: Visual Narrative and the
Historical Record, History Compass, 5:1 (2007), 259-74. PDF
Martha Driver, Teaching and Learning Guide for: Teaching the Middle Ages on
Film: Visual Narrative and the Historical Record, History Compass, 6:3
(2008), 1000-1009. PDF
Andrew B. R. Elliott, Remaking the Middle Ages: The Methods of Cinema and
History in Portraying the Medieval World. London: McFarland & Company,
Inc., 2011.
Alison Ganze, ed. Postscript to the Middle Ages: Teaching Medieval Studies through
The Name of the Rose. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2009.
John M. Ganim, Framing the West, Staging the East: Set Design, Location and
Landscape in Movie Medievalism in Haydock and Risden, eds. Hollywood in
the Holy Land, pp. 31-46. PDF
Kevin J. Hardy. The Reel Middle Ages: American, Western and Eastern European,
Middle Eastern and Asian Films about Medieval Europe. London: McFarland &
Company, Inc., 1999.
Kevin J. Hardy, ed. The Vikings on Film: Essays on Depictions of the Nordic Middle
Ages. London: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2011.
Nickolas Haydock, Introduction: The Unseen Cross upon the Breast:
Medievalism, Orientalism and Discontent in Haydock and Risden, eds.
Hollywood in the Holy Land, pp. 1-30. PDF
David Herlihy. Am I a Camera? Other Reflections on Films and History, The
American Historical Review, 93:5 (December, 1988), 1186-92. PDF
Marnie Hughes-Warrington. History Goes to the Movies: Studying History on Film.
New York: Routledge, 2007.

Scott Alan Metzger, Pedagogy and the Historical Feature Film: Toward Historical
Literacy, Film & History, 37:2 (2008), 67-75. PDF
John OConnor, history in Images/Images in History: Reflections on the
Importance of Film and Television Study for an Understanding of the Past,
The American Historical Review, 93:5 (December, 1988), 1200-1209. PDF
William D. Paden, I Learned at the Movies: Teaching Medieval Film, Studies in
Medievalisms, 13 (2004), 79-98. PDF
Tison Pugh and Angela Jane Weisl, eds. Medivalisms: Making the Past in the
Present. New York: Routledge, 2013.
Lynn T. Ramey and Tison Pugh, eds. Race, Class, and Gender in Medieval Cinema.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007; especially Introduction: Filming the
Other Middle Ages, pp. 1-12. PDF
Robert A. Rosenstone, History in Images/History in Words: Reflections on the
Possibility of Really Putting History onto Film, The American Historical
Review, 93:5 (December, 1988), 1173-85. PDF
Tom Shippey with Martin Arnold, eds. Film and Fiction: Reviewing the Middle Ages.
Studies in Medievalism, 12. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2002.
Note also Professor Teo Ruiz of UCLA on movies and history:
http://www.historians.org/perspectives/issues/2008/0812/0812fil2.cfm
Robert Brent Toplin, The Filmmaker as Historian, The American Historical
Review, 93:5 (December, 1988), 1210-27. PDF
David Williams, Medieval Movies, Yearbook of English Studies, 20 (1990), 1-33.
PDF
David John Williams, Looking at the Middle Ages in the Cinema: An Overview,
Film and History, 29:1/2 (1999), 8-19. PDF
Recommended Medieval Films:
Some more than others.
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938).
Alexander Nevsky (1937).
The Anchoress (1993).
Andrei Rublev (1966).
The Black Death (2010).
The Black Rose (1950).

Braveheart (1995). This one would be difficult to write about.


Brother Sun/Sister Moon (Zefferelli). If you can handle the music by Donovan
The Crusades (1935).
The Decameron (Pasolini) (1971).
El Cid (1961).
Excalibur (1981). If you are familiar with Arthurian material Malory.
First Knight (1995). Sort of Arthurian.
Gawain and the Green Knight (1973).
Henry V (1989).
Henry V (1944). (Larry Olivier)
Ironclad (2011).
A Knights Tale (2001). If you like music by Queen.
Lancelot du Lac (1974) (Luc Bresson). Again Arthurian.
Magnificat (1993).
The Name of the Rose. (1986). Especially if you like Umberto Eco.
The Navigator (1988).
Passion of Joan of Arc (1928).
Pope Joan (1972). Extra credit if you can find it.
The Reckoning (2006).
Richard III (Larry Olivier).
Romeo and Juliet (1968) (Zeffirelli).
Robin and Marian (1976) (Richard Lester).
The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the waters of the Great Sea
Serpent (1957) (Roger Corman).
Saladin (1963).
The Secret of Kells (2009).
Stealing Heaven (1988). Bad version of relationship between Heloise and Abelard.
The 13th Warrior (1999).

Tristan and Isolde (2006). If you know the medieval story.


The Vikings (1958).
The Virgin Spring (1960).
Vision (2010).
The War Lord (1965).
Several possibilities from among the movies of Akira Kurosawa.

Suggestions for analyzing and writing essays on films on the


Middle Ages:
Does the film have any relevance to contemporary life or modernity?
Do you understand the Middle Ages better after seeing a particular film with its
own requirements as an art form??
For some movies do they have any links with a particular text?
How does its aspect as a visual media interact with its medieval story or setting?
Filmmakers versus historians?
What can film help us to know about the past or medieval people that we might
not have known before?
Is there a political, commercial, or another modern agenda informing a movie
about the Middle Ages?
How might that add or detract from its subject matter? Or change its subject
matter? Does it tell you what historians actually do?
How does the film reflect historical reality or visual history? As a popular or
romantic or tactile communicator of history?
Which is more important or valuable, authenticity or accuracy? Does it look
authentic to you? Standards of hygiene or dental care?
What do we mean by authenticity or accuracy in different media?
What are the limitations of a particular film in representing the past? Be specific.
How do people talk in these movies?
What are some new ways in which film creates immediacy or a sense of
participation in the past? Be specific.
Can you gain any insight from watching and analyzing a movie into what the past
means to us? Or does it mystify you?

9 April 2015: viewing of The Advocate


Readings for next class meting and based on The Advocate.
Topics for discussion or an essay: animal trials, bestiality, Gypsies, anti-Judaism,
the legal system, rights of lords over peasants, village life, Gilles de Raiss life and
trail.
Georges Bataille. The Trial of Gilles de Rais. Transl. Richard Robinson. Los Angeles:
AMOK Books, 1991 [1965].
Piers Beirnes, The Law is an Ass: Reading E. P. Evans The Criminal Prosecution
and Capital Punishment of Animals, Society and Animals, 2:1 (1994), 27-46. PDF
Alan Boureau. The Lords First Night: The Myth of the Droit de Cuissage. Transl.
Lydia G. Cochrane. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1998 [1995].
Esther Cohen. Law Folklore, and Animal Lore, Past and Present, 110 (February,
1986), 6-37. PDF
Peter Dinzelbacher, Animal Trials: A Multidisciplinary Approach, Journal of
Interdisciplinary History, 32:3 (Winter, 2002), 405-421. PDF
Jody Enders. The Medieval Theater of Cruelty: Rhetoric, Memory and Violence.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002.
Jody Enders, Death by Drama in Death by Drama and other Medieval Legends.
Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2002, pp. 182-95, 286-89. PDF
E. P. Evans. The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals. New
York: E. P. Dutton and Company, 1906 [rpt. 1998, 2009].

Paul Friedland, Beyond Deterrence: Cadavers, Effigies, Animals and the Logic of
Executions in Premodern France, Historical Reflections/Reflexions historiques,
29:2 (2003), 295-317. PDF
Jen Girgen, The Historical and Contemporary Prosecution and Punishment of
Animals, Animal Law, (May, 2003), 97-133. PDF
Nicholas Humphrey, Bugs and Beasts before the Law in The Mind Made Flesh:
Essays from the Frontiers of Psychology and Evolution. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2002, pp. 235-54. PDF

23 April 2015: Viewing of The Seventh Seal


Readings for 30 April 2015
Aberth, Knight at the Movies, Welcome to the Apocalypse, pp. 197-255, 312-13.

Jonathan Baldo, Narrative Foiled in Bergmans The Seventh Seal, Theatre


Journal, 39:3 (October, 1987), 364-82. PDF
Finke and Shichtman, Cinematic Illuminations, Apocalyptic Medievalism: Rape and
Disease as Figures of Social Anomie, pp. 288-334, 399-403. PDF
Haydock, Movie Medievalism, pp. 40-46. PDF
Denise Ming-yueh Wang, Ingmar Bergmans Appropriations of the Images of
Death in The Seventh Seal, (2009), 41-62. PDF
Paden, The Monks Sermon. PDF
Stinson Preparing for Death. PDF

30 April 2015: Viewing of The Decameron


Discussion of The Seventh Seal
7 May 2015: Viewing of The Messenger
Discussion of The Decameron
Readings for Discussion of The Decameron:
Jill M. Ricketts. Visualizing Boccaccio: Studies on Illustrations of The Decameron,
from Giotto to Pasolini. Cambridge: Cambridge University press, 1997, pp. 1-11,
90-164, 165- 175-94.

15 May 2015 Viewing of second part of and


Discussion of The Messenger
Readings for The Messenger:

Topics for possible discussion or an essay: Joan and warfare, virginity,


transvestism, legal proceedings, her feminism, her representation as traditional,
as a violent warrior and saint, relationships with men captains and soldiers,
concepts of sainthood, her responses to accusation, her rehabilitation, her modern
reputation, how to portray her in a film, and her adoption by the French right wing
political movements.
Basic readings and posted on web site:
Readings
Aberth, Movies and the Maid: Joan of Arc Films in A Knight at the Movies, pp.
257-98, 313-14. PDF
Finke and Shichtman, The Politics of Hagiography: Joan of Arc on the Screen in
Cinematic Illuminations, pp. 109-155, 378-85. PDF
Haydock, Shooting the Messenger: Luc Besson at War with Joan of Arc in Movie
Medievalism, pp. 111-33, 213-16. PDF
At least two of these from a general Bibliography on Joan:
Edward Benson, Oh, What a Lovely War! Joan of Arc on Screen in The Medieval
Hero on Screen: Representations from Beowulf to Buffy. Eds. Martha W.
Driver and Sid Ray. London: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2004,
pp. 217-36. PDF
Anke Bernau, Girls on Film: Medieval Virginity in the Cinema in The Medieval
Hero on Screen: Representations from Beowulf to Buffy. Eds. Martha W.
Driver and Sid Ray. London: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2004,
pp. 94-114. PDF
Robin Blaetz. Visions of the Maid: Joan of Arc in American Film and Culture.
London: University of Virginia Press, 2001.
Susan Crane, Clothing and Gender Definitions: Joan of Arc, Journal of Medieval
and Early Modern Studies, 26:2 (Spring, 1996), 298-320. PDF

Kelly DeVries. Joan of Arc: A Military Leader. Thrupp, Stroud, Gloucestershire:


Sutton Publishing Limited, 1999.
Deborah A. Fraioli. Joan of Arc and the Hundred Years War. Westport, CT:
Greenwood Press, 2005.
Mary Gordon. Joan of Arc. New York: Penguin, 2000, especially Saint Joan, pp.
166-73. PDF
Kevin J. Hardy, Jeanne au Cinma in Fresh Verdicts on Joan of Arc. Eds. Bonnie
Wheeler and Charles T. Wood. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1996, pp.
237-64. PDF
Susan Hayward, Performance, Camp, and Queering History in Luc Bessons
Jeanne dArc in Queering Movie Medievalisms. Eds. Kathleen Coyne Kelly and
Tison Pugh. Farham, Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2009, pp. 129-46.
Daniel Hobbins, transl. The Trial of Joan of Arc. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 2005.
Henry Ansgar Kelly, Joan of Arcs Last Trial: The Attack of the Devils Advocates
in Fresh Verdicts on Joan of Arc. Eds. Bonnie Wheeler and Charles T. Wood.
New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1996, pp. 205-236. PDF
Nadia Margolis, The `Joan Phenomenon and the French Right in Fresh Verdicts
on Joan of Arc. Eds. Bonnie Wheeler and Charles T. Wood. New York: Garland
Publishing, Inc., 1996, pp. 265-87. PDF
Nadia Margolis. Joan of Arc in History, Literature, and Film: A Select Annotated
Bibliography. New York: Garland, 1990.
Gwendolyn Morgan, Modern Mystics, Medieval Saints, Studies in Medievalism, 12
(2002), 39-54.
Rgine Pernoud. The Retrial of Joan of Arc: The Evidence for Her Vindication.
Transl. J. M. Cohen. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1955.
George Bernard Shaw. Saint Joan: A Chronicle Play in Six Scenes and an Epilogue.
Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1951 [1924].
Karen Sullivan. The Interrogation of Joan of Arc. Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1999.
Craig Taylor, transl. and annotated. Joan of Arc: La Pucelle. Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 2006.
Larissa Juliet Taylor. The Virgin Warrior: The Life and Death of Joan of Arc. New
Haven: Yale University Press, 2009.

Matthieu Chan Tsin, Teaching Knighthood and the Late Medieval Battlefield using
the Knights of The Messenger, The Once and Future Classroom, 7:1 (Spring,
2009): http://www.teamsmedieval.org/ofc/F09/messenger.php
Marina Warner. Joan of Arc: The Image of Female Heroism. New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1981, especially Saint or Patriot?, pp. 255-75, 326-33. PDF
Bonnie Wheeler and Charles T. Wood, eds. Fresh Verdicts on Joan of Arc. New
York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1996.

Commercialization: Joan of Arc goat cheese

Readings for The Kingdom of Heaven


The Kingdom of Heaven

You might find a link to Salladin the Victorious, directed by Youssef Chahine
(1963), but most versions seem blocked for copyright.
You should watch the directors cut version of The Kingdom of Heaven!
Basic Readings:
Aberth, God (and the Studio) Wills It in Knight at the Movies, pp. 63-146.
Finke and Shichtman, War of the Cross or Gods Own Bloodbath? in Cinematic
Illuminations, pp. 195-241, 389-95. PDF

Haydock, Theaters of War: Paracinematic Returns to the Kingdom of Heaven in


Movie Medievalism, pp. 134-64, 216-19. PDF
Contextual Readings
Richard Burt, Cutting and (Re)Running from the (Medieval) Middle East: The
Return of the Film Epic and the Uncanny Mise-hors-scnes of Kingdom of
Heavens Double DVDs in Medieval and Early Modern Film and Media. New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, pp. 107-36, 214-22. PDF
Peter W. Edbury. The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade: Sources in
Translation. Crusade Texts in Translation, 1. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing
Limited, 1998.
Ronnie Ellenblum. Crusader Castles and Modern Histories. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2007; especially Part I: National Discourse and the Study
of the Crusades, pp. 1-39.
Bernard Hamilton. The Leper King and His Heirs: Baldwin IV and the the Crusader
Kingdom of Jerusalem. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Nickolas Haydock and E. L Risden, eds. Hollywood in the Holy Land: Essays on Film
Depictions of the Crusades and Christian-Muslim Clashes. London: McFarland
& Company, Inc., 2009; note especially the introduction by Haydock and the
epilogue by Risden. PDF
Carole Hillenbrand. The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives. London: Routledge 2000;
especially Chapter 4: Jihad in the Period from the Death of Nur al-Din until
the Fall of Acre (569/690/1174-1291), pp. 171-255.
Norman Housley. Contesting the Crusades. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006.
Benjamin Z. Kedar, ed. The Horns of an (Proceedings of the Second Conference
of the Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East, Jerusalem and
Haifa, 2-6 July 1987). Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, Israel Exploration
Society; London: Variorum, 1992, see especially Benjamin Z. Kedar, The
Battle of an Revisited, pp. 190-207. PDF
Benjamin Z. Kedar, H. E. Mayer, R. C. Smail, eds. Outremer: Studies in the History
of the Crusading Kingdom of Jerusalem Presented to Joshua Prawer.
Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Institute, 1982; especially the articles by Smail
on Guy of Lusignan and Kedar on the Patriarch Eraclius. PDF
Arthur Lindley. Once, Present, and Future Kings: Kingdom of Heaven and the
Multitemporality of Medieval Film in Race, Class, and Gender in `Medieval
Cinema. Eds. Lynn T. Ramey and Tison Pugh. New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
2007, pp. 15-29. PDF
Malcolm Cameron Lyons and D. E. P. Jackson. Saladin: the Politics of Holy War.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.

Amin Maalouf. The Crusades through Arab Eyes. Transl. Jon Rothschild. New York:
Schocken Books, 1984.
See the articles published in the National Review On Line by Thomas F. Madden at:
http://www.nationalreview.com/author/211192 but especially On Ward PC
Soldiers at http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/214554/onward-pcsoldiers/thomas-f-madden. He has more articles referenced at
http://www.crusades-encyclopedia.com/thomasmadden.html. He has also
published general works on the Crusades and particular studies on the Fourth
Crusade.
Hannes Mhring. Saladin: The Sultan and His Times, 1138-1193. Transl. David S.
Bachrach. Baltimore: the Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008 [2005].
Helen J. Nicholson. The Chronicle of the Third Crusade: The Itinerarium
peregrinorum et gesta Regis Ricardi. Crusade Texts in Translation, 3.
Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 1997.
Jonathan Riley-Smith. The Crusades, Christianity, and Islam. New York: Columbia
University Press, 2008; among several other standard works on the Crusades
by this author.
See Jonathan Riley-Smiths comments on the Kingdom of Heaven at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1452000/Ridle
y-Scotts-new-Crusades-film-panders-to-Osama-bin-Laden.html.
See the Wikipedia article on Kingdom of Heaven for more references to reviews in
the notes at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Heaven_(film)#Extended_directo
r.27s_cut.
D. S. Richards, transl. The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin or al-Nawdir alSultniyya wa`l-Mahsin al-Ysufiyya by Bah al-Din Ibn Shaddd. Crusade
Texts in Translation, 7. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2002.
Sylvia Schein, `The Terrible News: The Reaction of Christendom to the Fall of
Jerusalem (1187) in Gateway to the Heavenly City: Crusader Jerusalem and
the Catholic West (1099-1187). Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2005,
pp. 159-87. PDF
Christopher Tyerman. The Debate on the Crusades. Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 2011.
William of Tyre, Archbishop of Tyre, ca. 1130-ca. 1190.
A History of Deeds Done beyond the Sea. 2 vols. Transl. Emily Atwater
Babcock and A. C. Krey. New York: Columbia University Press, 1943;
especially II.397-509.

For a blog about the film see: http://jrc-1138.blogspot.com/2008/04/kingdomof-heaven-definitive-edition.html

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