One of the silliest (but also rather strangely accurate) films about the Middle Ages comes from the woefully irreverent British comedy troupe, Monty Python.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) is one of those films that you either love or hate and will be vociferously willing to discuss either way. As the title indicates, the film sends up Arthurian legends about the Holy Grail-but it has a lot of fun skewering the Middle Ages in the process. There are, for example, the hilariously surreal cartoon interludes, based on medieval marginalia (the originals were often exceedingly rude), that break up the various scenes. And then there is the abrupt ending, which reflects those frustratingly incomplete works where parts of the manuscript were lost-or the author died before completing it. Medieval authors had a very different concept of deadlines than modern writers.
Monty Python came by their obsession with history (especially Medieval History) honestly. Both Terry Jones and Michael Palin went to Oxford, where Jones got a degree in Modern History. Since the breakup of Monty Python, Jones has gone on to do two medieval themed series: Crusades (1995) and Medieval Lives (2004). In 2005, Eric Idle, with the blessing of the other surviving Monty Python members (Graham Chapman died of cancer in 1989) produced Spamalot, a Broadway show based on the film.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail, like Terry Deary's Horrible Histories (this week's book review) sends up all sorts of otherwise sacrosanct medieval myths. There is, for example, the mob baying for a witchburning (witch trials became common only toward the very end of the Middle Ages and witches were usually tried by courts, not killed by mobs). Then, there is the temptation of Sir Galahad by a castle full of sex-hungry nuns, which sends up all sorts of modern ideas about the sexual repression of medieval women. Medieval people-men and women--could be shockingly bawdy by modern standards and some medieval writers told nasty stories about both priests and nuns that make it clear they were not at all naïve about the difficulties of maintaining lifelong celibacy. Then, there are the politically aware peasants who refuse to bow down to Arthur and his knights as they pass by. While peasants weren't the budding socialists of the film, they were also not nearly as idiotically impressed by nobility as Sir Walter Scott portrayed them, either.
And who could possibly forget that immortal meditation (i.e. skit) upon darkness and solemnity of death: "Bring out your dead"?
Irreverent? Sure. Disrespectful? You bet. And thank God for that.
