Medieval Studies, 200CSpring Quarter 20159 May 2015
versionThursdays, 7:00+, HSSB 4020Edward D. English Office Hours by
appointment, HSSB [email protected]
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 DonovanThe 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 DecameronDiscussion of The Seventh
Seal
7 May 2015: Viewing of The MessengerDiscussion 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-pc-soldiers/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/Ridley-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_director.27s_cut.
D. S. Richards, transl. The Rare and Excellent History of
Saladin or al-Nawdir al-Sultniyya 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/kingdom-of-heaven-definitive-edition.html