Studies in Medievalism XII: Film and Fiction. Reviewing the Middle Ages 12

Essays on the continuing power and applicability of medieval images, with particular reference to recent films. The middle ages provide the material for mass-market films, for historical and fantasy fiction, for political propaganda and claims of legitimacy, and these in their turn exert a force well outside academia. The phenomenon is too important to be left unscrutinised: these essays show the continuing power and applicability of medieval images - and also, it must be said, their dangerousness and often their falsity. Essays on the continuing power and applicability of medieval images, with particular reference to recent films.The middle ages provide the material for mass-market films, for historical and fantasy fiction, for political propaganda and claims of legitimacy, and these in their turn exert a force well outside academia. The phenomenon is tooimportant to be left unscrutinised: these essays show the continuing power and applicability of medieval images - and also, it must be said, their dangerousness and often their falsity. Of the ten essays in this volume, several examine modern movies, including the highly-successful A Knight's Tale (Chaucer as a PR agent) and the much-derided First Knight (the Round Table fights the Gulf War). Others deal with the appropriation of history and literature by a variety of interested parties: King Alfred press-ganged for the Royal Navy and the burghers of Winchester in 1901, William Langland discovered as a prophet of future Socialism, Chaucer at once venerated and tidied into New England respectability. Vikings, Normans and Saxons are claimed as forebears and disowned as losers in works as complex as Rider Haggard's Eric Brighteyes, at once neo-saga and anti-saga. Victorian melodramaprovides the clichés of'the bad baronet'who revives the droit de seigneur (but baronets are notoriously modern creations); and of the'bony grasping hand'of the Catholic Church and its canon lawyers (an image spread in ways eerily reminiscent of the modern'urban legend'in its Internet forms). Contributors: BRUCE BRASINGTON, WILLIAM CALIN, CARL HAMMER, JONA HAMMER, PAUL HARDWICK, NICKOLAS HAYDOCK, GWENDOLYN MORGAN, JOANNE PARKER, CLARE A. SIMMONS, WILLIAM F. WOODS. Professor TOM SHIPPEY teaches in the Department of English at the University of St Louis; Dr MARTIN ARNOLD teaches at University College, Scarborough. The middle ages provide the material for mass-market films, for historical and fantasy fiction, for political propaganda and claims of legitimacy, and these in their turn exert a force well outside academia. The phenomenon is too important to be left unscrutinised: these essays show the continuing power and applicability of medieval images - and also, it must be said, their dangerousness and often their falsity. Of the ten essays in this volume, several examine modern movies, including the highly-successful A Knight's Tale (Chaucer as a PR agent) and the much-derided First Knight (the Round Table fights the Gulf War). Others deal with the appropriation of history and literature by a variety of interested parties: King Alfred press-ganged for the Royal Navy and the burghers of Winchester in 1901, William Langland discovered as a prophet of future Socialism, Chaucer at once venerated and tidied into New England respectability. Vikings, Normans and Saxons are claimed as forebears and disowned as losers in works as complex as Rider Haggard's Eric Brighteyes, at once neo-saga and anti-saga. Victorian melodrama provides the cliches of "the bad baronet" who revives the droit de seigneur (but baronets are notoriously modern creations); and of the "bony grasping hand" of the Catholic Church and its canon lawyers (an image spread in ways eerily reminiscent of the modern "urban legend" in its Internet forms). Contributors: BRUCE BRASINGTON, WILLIAM CALIN, CARL HAMMER, JONA HAMMER, PAUL HARDWICK, NICKOLAS HAYDOCK, GWENDOLYN MORGAN, JOANNE PARKER, CLARE A. SIMMONS, WILLIAM F. WOODS. Professor TOM SHIPPEY teaches in the Department of English at the University of St Louis; Dr MARTIN ARNOLD teaches at University College, Scarborough. Editorial Note / Tom Shippey 1 Arthurian Melodrama, Chaucerian Spectacle, and the Waywardness of Cinematic Pastiche in 'First Knight' and 'A Knight’s Tale' / Nickolas Haydock 5 Modern Mystics, Medieval Saints / Gwendolyn Morgan 39 Seeking the Human Image in 'The Advocate' / William F. Woods 55 Harold in Normandy: History and Romance / Carl Hammer 79 The Day of a Thousand Years: Winchester’s 1901 Commemoration of Alfred the Great / Joanne Parker 113 'Eric Brighteyes': Rider Haggard rewrites the Sagas / Jóna Hammer 137 “Biddeth Peres Ploughman go to his werk”: Appropriation of 'Piers Plowman' in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries / Paul Hardwick 171 What 'Tales of a Wayside Inn' tells us about Longfellow and about Chaucer / William Calin 197 Bad Baronets and the Curse of Medievalism / Clare A. Simmons 215 “The Bony Grasping Hand”: Nineteenth-Century American Protestant Views on Medieval Canon Law / Bruce Brasington 237 Notes on Contributors 255 CONTENTS 8 EDITORIAL NOTE 10 Arthurian Melodrama, Chaucerian Spectacle, and the Waywardness of Cinematic Pastiche in First Knight and A Knight's Tale 14 Modern Mystics, Medieval Saints 48 Seeking the Human Image in The Advocate 64 Harold in Normandy: History and Romance 88 The Day of a Thousand Years: Winchester's 1901 Commemoration of Alfred the Great 122 Eric Brighteyes: Rider Haggard Rewrites the Sagas 146 “Biddeth Peres Ploughman go to his Werk”: Appropriation of Piers Plowman in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries 180 What Tales of a Wayside Inn Tells Us about Longfellow and about Chaucer 206 Bad Baronets and the Curse of Medievalism 224 “The Bony, Grasping Hand”: Nineteenth-Century American Protestant Views on Medieval Canon Law 246 Notes on Contributors 264 Edited By Tom Shippey With Martin Arnold, Associate Editor. Includes Bibliographical References.