Two block-buster fantasy series currently airing across the globe are unique takes on medieval times and impart our culture’s particular interpretation and values on that period, a historian says.
An intriguing screen battle between HBO and Amazon Prime is underway with the hugely expensive House of the Dragon, the prequel to Game of Thrones, and the Rings of Power, a prequel to Lord of the Rings, going head to head.
George RR Martin and JRR Tolkien based their works somewhere in the Middle Ages, as have dozens of other writers who’ve followed.
Saint George and the Dragon (detail), from Book of Hours, about 1450–1455, Master of Guillebert de Mets. Tempera colors, gold leaf, and ink, on parchment. Getty Museum, Ms. 2 (84.ML.67), fol. 18v Photo:
Tolkien was attracted to medieval literature and ideas, as well as medieval armour, weapons, customs, heraldry and languages. He was also adroit at embroidering Old English and Old Norse.
Martin was fascinated by the Wars of the Roses, while both men envisaged fantasy versions of medieval times, adding dragons and magic to their stories.
An exhibition at the Getty Center in Los Angeles called The Fantasy of the Middle Ages depicts how people have reimagined the medieval period in the centuries since.
Their re-imagining of this period, and the current TV dramatizations reflect parts of the culture and are being used as a vehicle to play on modern concerns and narratives, says art historian Anne Wallentine.
The Middle Ages spanned 1000 years, between 500 to 1500 AD.
Wallentine, an LA-based writer, tells Sunday Morning the two shows draw on other historical periods too, but the medieval period takes centre stage.
The House of the Dragon story has a medieval flavour.
“I think in terms of the history that they're pulling from, it definitely feels like there's a lot of parallels with Henry VIII succession and the problems of fathering a male heir,” she says.
“I think that's kind of interesting to see how they're moving beyond what we think of as medieval into obviously pulling from all different eras of history.”
Rings of Power also features an array of visual references to periods beyond the medieval ages, Wallentine says.
“The landscape is stunning, and the investment they've made with the visuals, but I do think it's cool to see how they've been drawing from different periods of history as well. I've noticed there are references to Greco-Roman antiquity, as well as the medieval elements of the costume.
“I think the kernel of many of our myths and legends are really rooted in the medieval. So that's like stories of King Arthur and Robin Hood. A lot of that's been passed down. But the concocted part is really how we see them - that's both their visuals, how they get costumed, and depicted, like what we've been talking about is a bit more of a mish-mash.”
Our cultural interpretation of those myths is not authentically medieval, she says. She uses the story of Tristan and Iseult, a medieval chivalric romance told since the 12th century. It is based on a Celtic legend and is a tragic tale about the illicit love between the Cornish knight Tristan and the Irish princess Iseult.
“The moral that we might take away from the medieval story of Tristan and Iseult, who are star-crossed lovers would be quite different,” she says.
“In that instance, the lesson, I suppose, would have really been about duty and about having to sort of fight against their love and that, you know, succumbing to temptation. Whereas I think today we have different conceptions of how relationships might change over time. And I think the duty, the religious undertones, the conceptions of honour, those are just very different moral frameworks that we operate in. There are different choices and lifestyles.”
We may also not appreciate how widespread literacy was too, and the fear of fairies and witchcraft happened at the end of the medieval period, she says.
“I think that's something that we tend to overlook about how these stories were transmitted orally and that that is a big part of it. But also, I think they didn't have, in terms of the imaginary, they didn't have quite the same conception of fairies and witches, which tend to appear more often in our contemporary fantasies.".
Our view of the medieval period as a place of black and white simplicity is also skewed, she says.
“The idea that the past was the time of good and evil or right and wrong and power, powerlessness - we can project onto that a lot of our own ideas and fantasies,” she says.
“I think it's also a very human impulse to want to romanticise the past and to assume that it wasn't as complex or challenging perhaps as the world seems today.”
