Historic failure

If you care about truth, beauty or goodness, I have bad news for you: the BBC has just created a historical drama set in the Middle Ages. Yes, this is the arrival of King and Conqueror, which depicts the events leading up to the Battle of Hastings and the Norman Conquest. The raw matter of the historical record is incredibly promising: ferocious royal intrigues, hagiographical piety, civil and not so civil war, and all the strange poetics and ceremony of French and Anglo-Saxon courtly life. The culture that gave us Lincoln Cathedral and the culture that gave us Sutton Hoo, should be reason alone for the most spectacular of costumes, battles and speeches. 

But anyone hoping for a moving epic or a gripping thriller would be equally disappointed, as the brainless BBC tramples cheerfully into a sordid pastiche even more gormless than Game of Thrones (which at least had a decent budget). Future King of England Harold Godwinson (played by James Norton) is introduced to audiences uttering the admittedly pretty Anglo-Saxon phrase “it’s a fucking massacre”, in the manner of someone commenting on an especially brutal 3-nil football match. 

I could induce miserable groaning from readers at this point by listing every meta-level historical inaccuracy from the almost entirely fictitious events of the coronation, to the succession of geographical and biographical distortions that rain down on viewers like so many 11th century arrows, to the inexplicable but inevitable (it’s the BBC) presence of black Anglo-Saxons. But none of these departures from the historical record are inherently unforgivable and might in theory be justified in the name of telling a compelling story. 

What is truly egregious is not the fictionalisation of details, but the outright misrepresentation of the morals, manners and minds of medieval man. If the past really was a foreign country, then the BBC would be rightly besieged by those outraged at the bigoted, hate-filled and slanderous portrayal of that alien nation in this drama. Edward the Confessor, a man who has been quite literally beatified, is depicted beating his own mother to death. Duke William of Normandy, is shown murdering a man in broad daylight for setting a captured enemy free. Later on, when the enemy — rebellious vassal Guy of Burgundy — is recaptured, he is personally tortured by William’s wife Matilda. 

The modern imagination has rendered these figures, and the times they lived in, as more brutal than they truly were. Even the famously ruthless William, who grew up dodging assassins and facing down rebellious barons, is not the thuggish hard man the series would present. The historical accounts suggest that he was a strict adherent to chivalric custom and a deeply pious man. In the real world, William banishes Guy then declares the “peace of God” in Normandy, bringing an end to violence and retribution for the crimes of the past decades. King Edward, who is presented as a snivelling, cowardly mother’s boy, was by every contemporary account a heroic, forceful and gregarious ruler, one who had his mother exiled, and certainly not murdered. 

If the moral landscape is unrecognisable as medieval reality, so too is the psychology and language of the programme’s characters. Quite apart from a script that resembles something from Eastenders, the most startling element is the utter lack of ceremony and ritual. Characters abruptly enter and leave rooms without excusing themselves, dinner is taken in the manner of a rowdy pub, individuals address each other without regard for sex or social status. This is not merely utterly unrealistic, but it destroys the very drama that it is trying to construct. Not only does the lack of ritual rob scenes of tension and nuance, but they eliminate the social superstructure of rank, friendship and family that makes sense of events and defines the stakes of the drama. 

The tragedy of bad historical drama is that it renders our shared past as both forgettable and contemptible

All the worst and most idiotic cliches of historical dramas are indulged in the place of accuracy. A washed out colour palette replaces the rich colours and textures of medieval life, whilst members of the higher nobility wander around with grubby faces. Two of the most important elements of early medieval society of the time — the importance of aristocratic rank and the centrality of Christian faith — are essentially missing. No characters offer prayers or blessings to departing guests, nor is any reference made to the regular cycle of days of fasting and feasting which would have defined not only the daily life of courts, but also determined whether battle could be joined. The elaborate world of oaths, gifts and marriages, of honour and piety, dignity and disgrace, is flattened into a dull procedural punch up over political power. 

It is painfully obvious that the creators of King and Conqueror set out to make the Sopranos with swords, yet it is the particularity and attention to detail of even gangster dramas that captures the imagination. It is an attitude neatly summed up by the show’s star, who told reporters that when it comes to the events of the 11th century, “nobody knows. It was, like, a thousand years ago, it might as well be a science fiction film.” The tragedy of bad historical drama is that it renders our shared past as both forgettable and contemptible, spreading complacency and ignorance. 

Really good historical dramas can veer from the historical record, but always in the name of communicating the underlying spirit and character of a lost age. There is a wealth of narrative walled up behind the centuries, a treasury only waiting to be plundered by authors of imagination and genius. History once sparkled in the brightest of colours on our screens, from the Lion in Winter, to I Claduius, from Lawrence of Arabia to Dr Zhivago. What past decades had, and we lack today, is not pedantic accuracy, but rather a sense of earnestness and curiosity about the past — a capacity we desperately need to relearn

King and Conqueror is currently available on BBC iPlayer