Terry Jones' Medieval Lives

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Terry Jones' Medieval Lives is a 2004 Emmy award nominated television documentary series produced for the BBC. Written and hosted by Terry Jones, each half-hour episode examines a particular Medieval personality, with the intent of separating myth from reality.

Being a comedian as well as a historian, Terry Jones takes an established belief, turns that around, and presents proof for his assertion.

In the episode on Kings, he says, "History isn't necessarily what happened. It's often what people want us to think happened.", with the following examples:


Richard the Lionheart was actually a bad king, who only saw England (which he hated) as a means to finance his warmongery, whereas Richard III did a lot of good for England. Modern perceptions of these kings are reversed because chroniclers of the time were commissioned to write what was politically most convenient.
Louis, count of Artois (later king of France), was acclaimed as king of England yet appears in no history books as such (see First Baron's War).

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historian michael wood delves through medieval court records to follow the fortunes of a village in hertfordshire and, more particularly, the family of peasant christina cok.

The 14th century was a perilous time in british history, shot through with famine, plague and war. It was a time of climate change, virulent cattle diseases and, above all, the black death. But it was also the time when modern mentalities were shaped, not just by the rulers but increasingly by the common people. It was the beginning of the end of serfdom, the growth of individual freedom and the start of a capitalist market economy.

Michael chooses an everyday story of a medieval country family through which to illustrate the bigger picture of how the character and destiny of ordinary british people was being shaped. It is history told not from the top of society but from the bottom - and especially through the eyes of the forgotten half of the workforce, women.

Michael brings to life the story of a 14th-century extended family: Peasant christina cok, her father hugh, estranged husband william, and her children john and alice. Michael shows us that though their lives might at first seem quite alien, you only have to scratch below the surface to find uncanny connections with modern-day britons. In them, you can see our beginnings as a nation of shopkeepers and the roots of the british love affair with beer and football. Perhaps more importantly is the triumph of that sturdy and cussed streak of individualism that has been a characteristic of 'britishness' down the centuries.

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