So you play a medieval character at SCA. Want to know how you really lived and what you looked like and thought? This series is a well done documentary of medieval life and filled with plenty of tong-in-cheek humor as told by Terry Jones of Monty Python fame.

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Product Description

The Emmy-nominated Medieval Lives by legendary Monty Python star and medieval scholar, Terry Jones, finally arrives on DVD! Terry Jones has been leafing through the history books to find out what the medieval world was really like. What he discovered is a treasure trove of extraordinary stories and characters that challenge the tired traditional stereotypes we all grew up with. With the help of animated medial paintings, these wonderful tales bring the Middle Ages vividly to life in all its corruption, violence and greed, courage, enterprise and learning. Anyone who enjoys Chaucer and Rabelais will be familiar with the early humor of the time, but few people know about the dark side of chivalry or that women and serfs were not downtrodden creatures at all. Each episode explores the role and function of a different medieval archetype.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8584 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 2008-04-01
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 231 minutes

Features

• The Emmy-nominated Medieval Lives by legendary Monty Python star and medieval scholar, Terry Jones, finally arrives on DVD! Terry Jones has been leafing through the history books to find out what the medieval world was really like. What he discovered is a treasure trove of extraordinary stories and characters that challenge the tired traditional stereotypes we all grew up with. With the help of an

Amazon.com
Terry Jones brings his inimitable style, a mix of goofy humor and scholarly inquisitiveness, to the subject of the Middle Ages in Terry Jones' Medieval Lives. While best known as an alum of Monty Python's Flying Circus, Jones is also somewhat of a historian, and it's obvious that he loves delving into the past, bringing to life the characters of antiquity with as much enthusiasm and skill as he brought to comedy sketches with Python. In this adventure he is focusing on the medieval world to find out what it was really like, and dispels some tired old misconceptions and brings to light new discoveries. The series is broken up into individual episodes focusing on one social class of the time: kings, priests, peasants, knights, and so on. Interspersing documentarian moments of research with goofy skits and Terry Gilliam-esque animations to illustrate his point, Jones assumes the roles himself (a bumbling priest, a weary peasant) and presents the mini skits in his particular comedic style as a supplement to his narrative. The result is a very entertaining and easy-to-absorb program that never takes itself too seriously, and though some of the editing is a bit rough and clumsy, and some of the skits seem to actually detract from the overall flow of the show rather than contribute to it, Medieval Lives succeeds in bringing the subject to life in a novel way. As an added bonus for parents and educators, it's also appropriate for young children without being too heavy for them to absorb its historical lessons. --Daniel Vancini

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Customer Reviews

Totally worth the purchase
Though he's best known for his Monty Python stuff don't be fooled into thinking this series is comedy. Terry Jones is an expert on this topic and presents some very compelling detail about roles in medieval society. The real gem of the series is that with each profession you watch another piece of the whole puzzle fits together to give you a broad picture. Finding real information about this time period that isn't about nobility or war is virtually impossible and Jones fills that gap admirably. Invaluable (and very entertaining) knowledge for anyone with a casual or professional interest in this sort of thing.

If I were pressed to find a negative about this series, it feels like a few ends are left dangling- I'm left wanting to see more chapters about the daily life of professional soldiers or lesser nobles. Some chapters, such as the one about kings, is more concerned with interesting trivia over daily life. All in all, minor complaints.

well made!
I've enjoyed Terry Jones's Hidden History Series (Egypt, Rome, History of Weapon technology) and purchased the "Barbarians" documentary. This one is enjoyable and educational like the other ones but adding the animation is brilliant! Considering that Monty Python always had animation, they should have done this on all the Terry Jones documentaries! There is also a bonus documentary on gladiators in Rome which is about an hour or so. Nice!

Very well done and so enjoyable - but take another look at monastic spiritual life, and spiritual life in general
I echo all the praise of the previous reviews. As a medieval historian turned businessman, and a multimedia producer, I can't say how impressed I am with Mr. Jones' treatment of the subject, with his beloved humor and creativity - challenging our misperceptions and revealing details of medieval life we can appreciate through our shared humanity with people who lived so long ago. Thank you for caring so much about history, and sharing your enthusiasm!!

I challenge Mr. Jones to take another look at medieval monastic life and medieval spirituality. His episode on monks leaves the viewer with no sense of the value of spiritual life in general, or medieval or monastic life in particular. Mr. Jones' criticism of religious institutions and their worldly nonsense is most welcome, but can he look beyond these diversions from spirituality toward the real values and benefits that genuinely attracted people from all strata of society, and still do today? For a very different look at monastic life, I recommend the DVD "Into Great Silence" by Phillip Groning - a glimpse into the lives of Carthusian monks today, at the Grande Chartreuse monastery in the French Alps, founded by St. Bruno and his followers in 1084.

I think one of the most important jobs of a historian is not just to present the facts as accurately as possible, but actually help us see the world through the eyes of the people studied - and most medieval people lived in a world profoundly centered around religious belief and practice. Could he share with us something of the personal experience of devotion and spirituality, in a way that doesn't seem to assume that medieval people were too ignorant to know better? The medieval world was rich with imagination and meaning that, in my personal opinion, makes our modern experience, for all the real benefit of modern science and technology, seem somewhat pale and shallow. I can't think of anyone better able to help us rediscover and appreciate those things about the medieval worldview and medieval spirituality that have stood the test of time, if only Mr. Jones would turn his attention to them. Please do!