All throughout the 1980's, Holy Grail and Jabberwocky were feted by historians as not historically accurate but way closer than anything the BBC had made.
I've seen a meme that states that Holy Grail is a D&D game where the Dungeon Master gets fed up and says "Okay, then the cops come and arrest everyone. Go home!"
I once saw a RUclips video titled something along the lines of “Egyptologists rate movies about Ancient Egypt/archaeology” and most of them got lambasted. But when they got to “The Mummy” every one of them was like “11 out of 10, no notes” because for whatever faults it may have and fantastical license it may have taken, it was the inspiration for their becoming Egyptologists in the first place. This video has the same energy. 🧡
Hey, I appreciate the whole "I don't care" thing. It's totally possible to discuss inaccuracies in movies for the sake of the discussion, without hating on the movie itself. It's just using the movie as a springboard.
@@marveloussoftware4914 For sure. I also appreciate experts going over inaccuracies, partly because it's just fun and I often learn something, and partly because some people are just very credulous.
I heard that the Holy Hand Grenade and maidens of Castle Anthrax were on the list of topics originally, numbers four and five to be exact but when they had the production meeting someone brought the medieval guide to podcasts about the Holy Grail which clearly stated that the number of topics shalt be three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number of topics there shalt be, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. So they had to cut them... sadly.
I saw Terry Jones at a showing of MPHG years ago. After the film he did a Q and A. A lady stood up and asked " why did you hate cats so much?" His reply " No, I love cats, I have one.... ...for breakfast every morning." I don't think she was happy with his answer.
Respect! I thought that the cats being whipped against the walls (in this scene, and again later when they were looking for a shrubbery) was HILARIOUS, precisely because it was both unthinkable and nonsensical - the idea of someone doing something ridiculously cruel with no recognizable reason somehow elicits laughs - as long as no one is actually doing it.
@@jeffcampbell2088 "the idea of someone doing something ridiculously cruel with no recognizable reason" You mean like a cat? 5,000,000 dead songbirds A DAY in Amerika for what? So women can have something else in their lives that hates them.
Math teacher here. THANK YOU for explaining the life expectancy myth accurately. I keep battling this over and over. Well done! (Also enjoyed the rest of the reaction and learned a lot! Just wanted to give you props for the math.)
I don't know how they managed it, but somehow every single scene in this movie, without fail, is just iconic. It's a string of masterful absurdity nonstop from start to finish. This is a video I never expected to see, but I'm glad to have seen it.
I'll bet Terry Jones was aware of these killer bunnies in medieval paintings. He was a medieval historian. And the blurring out of breasts by youtube in paintings that are 100s of years old is hysterical.
I would bet money that there was some back and forth where the rest of the gang wanted stone castles, and Jones was like, "You know stone castles didn't come to England until after the Norman conquest" and had to cave because of being outnumbered
I took a class on early English literature. Had the pleasure of studying Sir Gawain and the Green Night. I was blown away by the similarities to Monty Python and the Holy Grail. At the end of the course, we could choose one of our assigned readings to compare to a modern retelling. Of course, I did a full PowerPoint showing scenes that were directly and indirectly inspired by the story. The teacher loved it.
My World Civilizations professor showed us this movie in class, it was a free day you could skip if you wanted. He had a small plot quiz at the end for extra credit on the final exam. So everyone showed up and we had a fun time. He stopped a couple times to explain how some jokes pertained to lessons we learned during our class that semester. It was amazing. He loved the the "I thought we were an autonomous collective" joke.
My understanding of the story is that Arthur's father gets his wizard, Merlin, to magically disguise him as his enemy, Gorlois of Tintagel (Duke of Cornwall), and then sleeps with his wife Igraine. Then later kills Gorlois and marries Igraine, becoming, I suppose, step father to his son's half-sisters.
I was mildly pleased, until I noticed the video was 58 minutes long. At that point, I settled down, with a big grin and a mental rubbing together of the hands.
I think Monty Python and the Holy Grail is brilliant and I don't think they ever try to be historically accurate. On the contrary, they are taking all the modern tropes that we have about middle ages and making fun of them. Thats why we have scenes like "He must be king, havn't got shit all over him", "Bring out your dead", the witch scene, rescuing maidens from castles, getting a quest to bring you shrubbery and why everything is dark and muddy and more. All of these represent some sort of modern tropes many people believe and Pythons are showing you how ridiculous they really are and making fun of them. In other words, it's a satire. But it's not a satire of Middle ages, it's a satire of what we think of middle ages today.
Makes sense; if I remember correctly the Monty Python members are all college educated. Not to mention people have a tendency to mistake things that happen in the early modern era with the medieval like confusing the 1665/1666 plague outbreak in London with the Europe wide Black Death in the 1300s. For example plague doctors with the bird mask came out in the 1600s but sometimes used in medieval settings. Likewise the killing of cats was done in the 1665 outbreak but not in the medieval one.
A lot of that is contemporary satire too, I always felt the scene with anarcho-syndicalists being proud of owning their "filth" is just upper-class monarchist Brits literally mocking people in republics ("you don't vote for your king"... actually our ancestors did in Rzechpospolita). They're posh twits and being snobby about it. Life of Brian also has the "what the Romans ever did to us" scene where they stereotype Middle Eastern people as uncivilized savages that Westerners needed to colonize, that monologue is ENTIRELY just "white man's burden" apologetics and is extremely ridiculous when it pretends bloody Levant didn't have running water before Europeans colonized it (you know, the place that had monumental temples back when British were running naked across the fields). It's just Holy Grail has the LEAST amount of "British" humor and almost watches like a Mel Brooks movie*, that's why it's the one thing from Pythons that's not art house weirdness but an actually funny commedy with just a few WTF scenes when they decide to make a horrible political statement. *from Temu
Fantastic response. The poster is verbally masturbating to try to show how clever they are but the film makes absolutely no claim, direct or implied, that anything at all is a reflection of actual history. It is , in context, surprising that she hasn't reviewed "The Life of Brian" and examined the factual minutia of when the flying saucer with One-Eyed creatures rescue Brian and take him on a joy-ride through space. While my comment may seem flippant it is equally valid, in context, in comparison to all of her other observations. Such nonsense. Looking for clicks, nothing more.
Definitely disagree. You can't have satire if you're not accurate about the things you're making fun of, otherwise none of the jokes are on point. Which defeats the purpose.
I really like when historians are willing to engage with something as "Maybe it was just a joke. Because people back then were like us and the like laughing and they understood irony and maybe this doesn't have any deeper meaning than a bunch of people collectively being in on a joke that we as modern people are no longer in on". Because the people who can't go that place of "maybe people used to do stuff just for the hehe of it" are usually the ones arguing that people must have had contact with aliens or something silly like that, as if that's a more likely explanation than "humans are lovably weird and always were"
About 10 years ago I was at a gaming convention with around 50000 people in the convention center and the hallways were elbow to elbow. Suddenly the sounds of horses hoves and someone shouting "Make way make way for the king!" and the crowd parts for two guys cosplaying as Arthur and Patsy, coconuts and all. They were able to move around this massive crowd with ease. It was brilliant!
There was a witch trial in World of Warcraft. You had to ask the peasents what test they should perform. I was soooo disapointed that "Build a bridge out of her." wasn't one of the responses.
Dr Janega asked the question how might we be as stupid as the witch burners in history? Tennessee just passed a law banning chemtrails (contrails). The comments to the TV news report shared on YTube would be hilarious if they weren't so incredibly, and willfully, ignorant. One commenter said he first saw them in 1999, as though there haven't been contrails as long as there have been aircraft. One argument was that the news anchors were 'smug.' (They weren't). The actual history of science would be 7000 years of intentionally ignoring not only cause and effect, positive outcomes.
One of the insults in EU IV is "Your mother was a hamster etc". Also python related when the Spanish inquisition is enabled the byline "No one expected that" is scripted.
What makes it even more funny, not only England but all over Europe, until 1000AD you have this MASSIVE stone ruins of roman palaces, Coloseums, fortresses, concrete roads, houses with water and central heating. And somehow people "forgot" to build these things for about 1300 years, thats insane. We know today, that the Coloseum in Rome had a closable roof. Thats a techniqe, they literaly forgot for 2000 years. How is that possible. In germany, we still have roman buildings in use. The "Basilica of Constantin" was build over 2000 years ago as the aula/forum to the emperors palace. It still has some of its original paint. Today its one of the oldest building in use and the oldest building housing a church, in the world.
Terry Jones was a medievalist, and wrote a monograph on the Widow of Bath, so the killer rabbit being inspired by marginalia and the correct old English pronunciation of “knight” could be more than just an offhand joke…
I heard one Middle English scholar pronounce it "Ku-nisht" (this was from a reading of Canterbury Tales in the original language). Of course, that's 400 years or so after the events in this film.
Agreed. I was always under the impression that the members of Python used the extensive factual knowledge gained from university as a jumping off point for their comedy. Ofc, for Jones that knowledge would also include historical myths, rumours & folktales. Start with something that's both absurd & true, then explore & elaborate on the absurdity. Done well, it results in a multi-layered joke that works with different types of people. Some audience members may not know the reference & it may be nearly unrecognizable to those who do, but that doesn't mean there isn't a kernel of historicity at the heart of the joke.
There are still languages that pronounce “kn” including the k. In German for example it’s extremely common as in Knie, knabbern, Knabe, Knoten, Knecht, knicken… I always assumed it was them making fun of English making the k silent when there isn’t really any reason to.
"We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune" is another surprising dose of historical reality. That's basically how a typical medieval village would operate: limited connection to the reigning monarch, and self-governing by a revolving committee. My medieval history professor used this exact scene to make his point about what "government" meant to the average peasant.
I've loved this film since I was a kid! My husband and I incorporated it into our wedding. We "rode" from our wedding venue to our dinner with our guests cloping hollowed coconuts.
I love Dr. Janega every time she hosts podcasts or documentaries. Especially fun stuff like this. Despite the silly subject, she never fails to be informative while also fun.
A stealth catapult ! To catapult a cow over the wall of the castle at an ideal 45 degree angle would require a catapult as big as the castle. The cunning of the French has long been underestimated.
according to John Cleese, the men in the witch scene accused her of being a witch because she wouldn't sleep with them, but they couldn't figure out how to make that clearer
In a version of the tale (from before the main witch-burning period which was recent) Arthur was going to burn Guinevere at the stake. I dont think anyone ever burnt wizards at the stake, they would be court advisers/masters of some court or other.
Canon to many of the early written Arthurian tales is the fact that Merlin was given powers by Satan when he was born (and may be a pseudo-Antichrist). God then gave him additional powers.
1:40 In my mind, MPATHG Arthur was not really meant to be the "real king", but a "Don Quixote" kind of a king Arthur. Hence why he has no horse, nobody takes him seriously, and he has only other lunatics as followers. That is my head canon.
While the Black Death didn't arrive until the 14th century, there was an earlier medieval plague described by Bede which lasted for 2 years in the mid-7th century. Some scholars have suggested that it is related to the Plague of Justinian from the mid-6th century and it just took that long to arrive in England.
One thing I noticed, regarding the plague victim collections, is that "ninepence", presented as a trifling amount, would have been a huge sum in 932. The UK inflation calculator only goes back to 1209, but 3.75p (the equivalent of 9d) in 1209 would be about £65 now, so 300 years earlier might see it be equivalent of nearly £100 now.
Fun fact! In the witch scene, Sir Bedevere asks the crowed "Why do witches burn?" and John Cleese takes so long to answer, that everyone around him has to hold in their laughter! Eric Idle even bites down on a scythe!
A modern legal scholar began one of his books by referencing the witch scene from the Holy Grail. He says that in 500 years, scenes from TV’s Law and Order will seem as absurd to them as this witch scene does to us.
During the “cats” section I called for my cat. Who was behind an armrest of my couch. He has now come to cuddle to watch more of this video. I agree that kitties are great and I am glad medieval people loved them.
There were a surprising number of people accused of Witchcraft during the Early modern period who 'confessed' without being tortured. It was pretty common to 'curse' people you got into disputes with, and sometimes when something bad happened to someone you'd cursed you might feel responsible for what had happened to them. Probably the most infamous example is Alizon Device, who encountered a Pedlar, John Law near Pendle, Lancashire, England in 1612. She asked him to give her some pins, and when he refused, she cursed him. He walked on, but had a stroke and collapsed within seconds. He partially recovered, but Alizon was absolutely convinced she'd injured him through witchcraft and publicly begged his forgiveness. Alizon and most of her immediate family ended up being accused of Witchcraft and either being executed or dying in gaol. So yeah, quite a few people actually did say 'fair cop' thanks to the belief system they lived with.
@@chrisball3778Cool story bro. I couldn't resist, but really, cool story... you have to feel bad for the girl what an awful situation to damn yourself like that through your own superstitions. And sometimes it feels like we're slipping back in some ways towards such magical thinking unfortunately.
Part of the coconut joke that no one ever gets is that they do, in fact, migrate. Coconuts float. When they fall from the palm tree they roll down the beach into the water and float off in the current until they wash up on a random beach somewhere in the world and try to grow a new tree. England is too cold for them to grow, but they can certainly wash up on the beach there.
Coconuts originated in Southeast Asia. For an ocean current to drag a coconut to Brittan, it would have to go around Africa or South America and then across the equator. I won't say it's impossible, but it is certainly extremely improbable. I would guess that exceptionally few coconuts have ever, naturally, made it into the south Atlantic and none ever made it past the equator and into the north Atlantic.
@@anthonyward8853they only really last in ocean water for a few months, which makes it even more improbable that they would be able to grow if they ever made it to England's shores.
Devon and Cornwall have lots of palm and yucca trees. The mediaeval period climate was warmer than today. So while they were probably brought by people they live nicely here.
I ignored this video for two days, because I expected it to be a non-fan waspishly crapping on the whole film. When I finally watched this, I found it instantly engaging, entertaining, and educational. Your presentation is excellent and I really enjoyed your video. I’ve subscribed and look forward to seeing your other videos.
Love the Monks complaining about cats weeing on their parchment ... great to see cats sitting on laptops, newspapers and books has a long human history!
I saw a picture of a gravestone for a cat from like the 1880s or something, and it said "even though he was a cat, to me he was human" or something like that. IDK if it's real but it seemed like the past people really loved their pets just like we do, which we always have a tendency to think of the past peoples as so cruel and heartless and uncaring for animals which is clearly not true.
Terry Jones being a medievalist as he was, I'm sure there were references to all kinds of stuff. In particular, I've always wondered if Sir Robin was in any way a reference to the Knight Coward from the Old French Arthurian romance Perlesvaus.
Thank you. I'm glad someone else noticed that. Also, apparently flagellation was more of a continental thing, and it didn't really catch on in England.
@@MonkeyFarmFrankensteinI don't know about then, but growing up in a Cornish household, it definitely caught on later. My father taught me that there was no point being a martyr if nobody knew you were one.
Yes, the cats are vindicated! I love cats, and I love the Middle Ages. I even at one time wanted to study Middle Dutch literature in uni. I love this video!
Love it! An excellent critique of the history, very informative, without slagging on the humour!! If anything, you've enhanced it! I have no doubt John Cleese, et al would 100% approve!
It's actually not called "Blackadder 1" It's called "The Black Adder" The next series/stage play/tv movie(s) are called Blackadder II, the Third, Goes Forth etc. The first season is a little problematic because it does start with the premise of "these historical figures didn't die like everyone says they did, but..."
@@user-ow4pv2ff2p In Australia we do a lot of WWI history (both in History and English because it is a significant event for Australia) in High School and a significant time was spent on trench warfare. When we got to the retreat from Gallipoli we covered some things the Anzacs did to elude the Turks and hide that they were retreating. Someone in class said "oh Miss, so they had a cunning plan?". Half the class was in giggles, but the teacher hadn't seen Black Adder and took it seriously.
Glorious. At age 14 in the 70s I and my school friends could - and frequently would - recite the entirety of “the album of the soundtrack of the trailer of the film of Monty Pithon (PYthon) and the holy grail.” A formative experience. I showed the film to my kids on the day of Charles’s coronation, too.
You talke about the killer Rabits in medievil art and my brain is like: "It sounds like them showing around a viral meme... Wait..." Also. Good to see you survived the movie.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail has always been among my favorites of the Monty Python films and I love Eleanor Janega's breakdown of it. Thank you Eleanor Janega, this was magnificent!
The information missing here is that Terry Jones was very much into his medieval history, he read English at Oxford and got interested in the medieval period while reading Chaucer. He wrote books and presented television documentaries on medieval and ancient history. This enabled him to take the piss out of it while still keeping real elements in the movie. Also, have a go at pronouncing Cornwall again? That's uhhh, unique🤣
I know of an Arthurian scholar who adores this movie. He says it's evident that the Pythons really knew their Arthurian tales, well beyond the common knowledge and Thomas Malory, and that the movie has an extra level of hilarity for those in the know.
Only after you lot have a crack at pronouncing "pasta" correctly. The Brits butcher almost any word that isn't Germanic in origin. You also say tacos wrong. British snobbery is one of your least attractive traits. Especially since the posh version of English only developed because Brits wanted to be snobbish and differentiate themselves from Americans. The current West Viginian dialect is considered closest to how average Brits sounded before 1800. 😂😂😂
Lots of love from Finland, absolutely love every video where Dr.Janega is in. She is my fav historian - fun, sassy, incredibly knowledged and cool. Someone I'd love to have a beer with and listen her talk all evening about medieval history. Just love her! *chef's kiss*
Western Expansion and Colonization of North America historian here..thank you so much for covering the life expectancy math. We deal with this at our museum all the time. Seriously people this was a time when you started the day with 9 kids and could end it with none!
LOVE this film (since I was like 13 years old.... ), LOVE Eleanor Janega, LOVE this episode. Also, props to whoever pulled all the illustrations used in this video. They are great!!!!!
I love this so much! Would love to see you do more on other definitely-not-100%-historical things, like Galavant, The Court Jester, or even evaluating the accuracy of medieval-inspired (rather than straight fantasy) elements of DnD.
Ms Janega you are officially my favorite narrator. I loved MP and was impressed with your presentation. Side note: The witch was played by Connie Booth, who was also in the MP TV series and later in "Fawlty Towers". Despite her wonderful English accent, she was born in Indianapolis.
@@petercanberra9056 It may depend a little on their breed, but none of them are anywhere near 43 beats/second -- rather nearer to 43 beats/minute, and they're mainly known for gliding anyway. A humming bird is presumably so-called because its wings flap so fast that they make a humming noise (though very low-pitched, around two octaves below a bee). No other bird flaps fast enough that the human ear detects it as a hum, rather than individual wooshes.
I hope you take this as a compliment, but I love falling asleep to this woman. I have trouble falling asleep in silence or even with just music because I tend to get racing thoughts, so I need to fall asleep to someone talking. And she is really fun and casual and relaxing. This video is interesting enough to distract me from my racing thoughts, but laid back enough that I can just close my eyes and soak it in. Thank you for a great video!
I have the same issue. I now have an ADHD diagnosis, is that a possibility for you? It makes it a lot easier to deal with when you know what’s causing it :)
At the beginning of this film it’s not 932 AD it’s 93 squared. Just one many small comedic moments put into the film. Like the scene with the witch there is a guy who has shaving cream on his face.
I'm that old too. Back when we had to walk barefoot in the snow, in July, uphill ,to get to the theater. I remember after , maybe 30 years of watching this movie a few hundred times, I got an anniversary DVD and it had an option to read the original script and script notes, like subtitles, during the movie. At the start of the bring out your dead scene the notes described the scene and mentioned nuns beating a man with mallets. I said what? Played the scene again and in the background there are nuns beating a man with mallets. I never noticed it before. The movie that keeps on giving.
Can you believe it was 50 years ago? Released in 1975 but I don’t know the exact date. What an incredible movie to stir be funny after such a long time, and so many viewings!
@@firstmkb To still be funny 50 yrs after being made makes it very good, but not "incredible". To take a few, Laurel & Hardy, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and the Marx Bros were considered funny 50 yrs after their films were made, while more recently, Morecambe & Wise and Tom & Jerry were, and also Ken Dodd (I'm not aware of any films, but AFAIK he never changed his style). What will be more interesting will be whether they are still funny at 70 or 80 yrs old, because several of the acts I've mentioned are no longer universally seen as funny. Again, I've never heard a belly laugh from someone watching one of Shakespeare's comedies, Sheridan's "The Rivals" (250 yrs old) seems rather slow and odd by today's standards, but used to be considered exceptional, while Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest" at 130 yrs old is still thought clever and funny by most. Similarly, PG Wodehouse, who first wrote of Jeeves and Wooster a little over 100 yrs ago is apparently more popular now than when he died 50 years ago. Hopefully, Monty Python will also still be popular in another 50 yrs. I suggest a 100 yr test is appropriate to test whether humour is incredibly funny. I remember another bit of humour, not so different to MPs, which although this recording is in 1958 (and the delivery is odd by today's standards) is much the same as is found in a 1918 joke book. In fact, although I can't find the full pedigree today, IIRC it originated, with slightly different wording in a spoof letter to a 19th century (approx 1880) journal of the UK Institution of Civil Engineers. ruclips.net/video/zZUJLO6lMhI/видео.html It was a monologue to a 1958 student audience and the ready laughter is because he had already warmed them up by a set of jokes such as replies to requests for room reservations in french hotels, written in poor and inappropriate English, eg "There are French widows in every bedroom, giving delightful prospects", and recommendations to visitors to London, eg "Have you tried the famous echo in the Reading Room of the British Museum [in those days the very-academic-and-serious British Library was based there], which are also on RUclips if you want to hear them.
In relation to 'Team Peasants' - I love hearing the accounts and records from everyday people; traders, travellers and the like.... So much more grounded, often relatable but also hilarious. Also learned valuable lessons about buying copper from shonky merchants....
I assure you all, "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries" was a common french taunt for french men in England. Also, it was common to build large wooden rabbits to gain acces to a french castle in England. Not being actually inside, was an oversight. Plus, there is no evidence that swallows didn't carry coconuts.
Swallows are normally noted for relatively slow wingbeats and gliding, but for a 40 g swallow to carry a 1,400 g coconut, it might indeed need 43 beats/second!
If Dr Janega is in a thumbnail, I smash the play button. Holy Grail is one of my absolute favorite movies and probably the one I’ve watched the most. Put them together and I’m one happy nerd!
"Bring out your dead!" is associated with the London Plague of 1665, though. The bellman associated with the dead-cart taking the dead from plague-struck houses does use these words in Defoe's _Diary of a Plague Year,_ his dramatized account of the plague. This early Modern plague deeply affects British views of plague.
One of my top 3 movies of all time, comedic genius. I had a published copy of the script with liner notes but loaned it out and never got it back (😢). Long ago when my ex-in-laws got together this was always a Thanksgiving must showing. I also read that the former NFL coach Joe Gibbs indicated that MP&THG was his favorite movie.
27:56 - best scene because Eric Idle was about to start laughing and had to start gnawing on his scythe to not break character hahah - that just makes the whole thing 10 times funnier
Dr Janega is just my absolute fave. Taking a vid about Monty Python and managing to make it educational but still great fun. More of this, for the love of God more!
The other thing about the rabbit scene - is that outwardly it is just funny that they shout 'Run Away! Run Away!!' ( well it is funny ) but of course this is pre Norman invasion so the word 'Retreat' would not have entered the Lexicon it being a French word - so all they can shout is 'Run Away! Run Away!!' 🤣🤣
And, technically, it wouldn't have been a rabbit because they weren't in England yet then, only Hares ... Although I've never thought it was all that big of a deal about it being 2 different things, like turtles/tortoises, allegators/crocodiles, sheep/goats, etc.
On the one hand, the Pythons are very, very silly and use absurdist humor very, very well. On the other hand, there are things like this that really shows they also have deep appreciation for the material. Another one that comes to mind is the very in-depth Latin lesson in Life of Brain.
One of my favourite things about this movie that I love is that they ran out of money before they could do the big final battle at the end so they had the police plot line put in for a cheap ending
Oh it wasn't the original plan? I had always assumed it was, because of how postmodern it is, all "hey, you remember this is all artifice, right? The stories arent REAL, we get to tell them"
It is entirely in line with the way Chapman used to interrupt a sketch, deem it "too silly", and the show would just move on. Sketches didn't need an actual ending that way.
there was very little deviation from the final script (which was revised and polished with an eye towards the tiny budget they had), because they didn't have the money to pay for extra cast, excessive numbers of takes and longer equipment rental time while on location. so, budget DID play a big role in the script (including the coconuts and the castle model), but those changes were made well BEFORE shooting started.
@@JHN12x12 It's a testament to the genius of the team. When given a bigger budget they were still funny but there was less edge to the humour imho. In some ways it's similar to the Blackadder quadrilogy. The second series/season shines well over the first because they had to work with a small budget and thus relied on superb scripting plus great performances.
Was talking to another history nerd, and his understanding was that the "anarchist collective" peasants were a parody of the "Diggers" from the 2nd English Civil War (1600s)
I love her attitude. "This definitely didn't happen like this but I love this movie so I don't care." Just right. We can have an interesting conversation about history but still love the comedy.
Further on witches, medieval people were so unconcerned with them that in Hungary in 1100 the reigning king, Kálmán I “the Booklover” issued the following decree: “Witches are not real, let no queries be made about them.”
Then, just as now, there are gullible and delusional people who have fringe beliefs. Now, just as then, governments and organizations sometimes have to issue ridiculous statements refuting such things. Humans were and are the same.
@@ralphmacfadden606 Yeah. Generally, belief in witchcraft was seen as pagan superstitution. There was even a Pope who complained to a scandinavian king that he should do something against the blaming of women for bad harvests by his pagan population.
The castle that is used for all castle shots, in the film, is Doune Castle, in Perthshire Scotland. Its open to the public most of the year. In the castle shop they sell Monty Python and the Holy Grail fake horse galloping sound effects, which are a couple of coconut shells, which have a official Monty Python and the Holy Grail tag. Which is coincidental as many believe King Arthur may actually have come the Brythonic speaking, southern part, of what is today Scotland, of the fifth or 6th century. The castle shop also sell Outlander and Game of Thrones merchandise. I believe Doune Castle was also used in both TV series. I didnt buy anything.
And they didn't really have permission to use it and that's why the camera angles are so weird; they are trying not to show that they aren't really at a castle.
Went to an Eric idle presentation in Sydney a few weeks ago. He was telling us how someone had the idea that they sign coconuts for people. Apparently it's like writing on a scrotum.
@@kathyjohnson2043 I believe they did have permission to use Douane Castle. it's just that was the only one they could get (National Trust wouldn't allow their castles to be used in a way that "demeaned their heritage"), and they were trying to stretch the one place they had to look like several different places.
Stone construction: Portchester Castle, near Portsmouth, UK, consists of a Norman Keep and chapel, but the impressive and extensive surrounding wall is the wall ofa fort of very late Roman construction, as patched up by Saxons. I know this is not the same as a stone castle as shown in MPATHG, but worth mentioning. As a child playing there, I never even imagined there was an 800-year gap in the ages of the two elements of the whole.
I grew up in the ancient borough of Christchurch, there are a couple of Anglo-Saxon stone buildings. Also it is suspected the church used recycled stone from an earlier one at the same site
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If Monty Python is not historically accurate, I don't know what to believe anymore.
It’s 100% accurate but “the system” doesn’t want you to believe it so they call it “a parody”
All throughout the 1980's, Holy Grail and Jabberwocky were feted by historians as not historically accurate but way closer than anything the BBC had made.
How it can be not historically accurate, they even had a Famous Historian on board
IKR? I mean, obviously, they had flying, killer rabbits in the medieval period.
@@cadderley100 Jimmy Carter was attacked by one of those back in the 1970's.
I was hoping to know if strange women lying in ponds distributing swords was how kings were selected in medieval england
The lady of the lake...May she rise again one day.
“…some moistened bink…”
lobbed a scimitar at me in some farsicle aquatic ceremony...
@@dtschuor459 bint*, appropriated from an Arabic word for girl or daughter into British military slang.
Ya mean the watery tart throwing a sword at you !?
I've seen a meme that states that Holy Grail is a D&D game where the Dungeon Master gets fed up and says "Okay, then the cops come and arrest everyone. Go home!"
As I understand it, they ran out of money, so needed to finish it quickly.
Hehe. Clever meme.
@@robhogg68couldn't come up with a good ending, so they "copped out"
😁😁😁 be honest… ALL DM’s have pulled ‘that’ card🥰🥰🥰
It’s a cop out.
"That's nerd shit you don't need to worry about"
Respectfully, we are absolutely here for the nerd shit.
@@DocAcher 😆
I once saw a RUclips video titled something along the lines of “Egyptologists rate movies about Ancient Egypt/archaeology” and most of them got lambasted. But when they got to “The Mummy” every one of them was like “11 out of 10, no notes” because for whatever faults it may have and fantastical license it may have taken, it was the inspiration for their becoming Egyptologists in the first place. This video has the same energy. 🧡
There are two videos where Dr. Janega reviews medieval women's and men's clothing, and she's basically just like "fight me, mf'er," it's brilliant.
Like pilots and Top Gun
Hey, I appreciate the whole "I don't care" thing. It's totally possible to discuss inaccuracies in movies for the sake of the discussion, without hating on the movie itself. It's just using the movie as a springboard.
If you chose to hate a movie for inaccuracies then you would hate 90% of all movies.
Use a movie for what it is and use history for what it is.
@@marveloussoftware4914
For sure. I also appreciate experts going over inaccuracies, partly because it's just fun and I often learn something, and partly because some people are just very credulous.
@eastvandb yeah, i like this lady, i learned stuff from her. History with entertainment.
@@eastvandb Yet this "expert" misses a lot, in the sense that she states a lot that simply is incorrect.
@@marveloussoftware4914 I hope not.....Americans and European history,...Bad combo.
Sadly no evaluation of the Holy Hand Grenade or discussion about the maidens of Castle Anthrax.
We need a 'Part 2'
I can't believe she skipped the head-bashing monks and the Holy Hand Grenade.
I heard that the Holy Hand Grenade and maidens of Castle Anthrax were on the list of topics originally, numbers four and five to be exact but when they had the production meeting someone brought the medieval guide to podcasts about the Holy Grail which clearly stated that the number of topics shalt be three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number of topics there shalt be, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. So they had to cut them... sadly.
Castle Anthrax as well.
She will resume the discussion after the spankings.
She also failed to mention whether people back then farted in each others' general direction.
I saw Terry Jones at a showing of MPHG years ago. After the film he did a Q and A. A lady stood up and asked " why did you hate cats so much?"
His reply " No, I love cats, I have one....
...for breakfast every morning."
I don't think she was happy with his answer.
Respect! I thought that the cats being whipped against the walls (in this scene, and again later when they were looking for a shrubbery) was HILARIOUS, precisely because it was both unthinkable and nonsensical - the idea of someone doing something ridiculously cruel with no recognizable reason somehow elicits laughs - as long as no one is actually doing it.
@@jeffcampbell2088 "the idea of someone doing something ridiculously cruel with no recognizable reason"
You mean like a cat? 5,000,000 dead songbirds A DAY in Amerika for what? So women can have something else in their lives that hates them.
Math teacher here. THANK YOU for explaining the life expectancy myth accurately. I keep battling this over and over. Well done! (Also enjoyed the rest of the reaction and learned a lot! Just wanted to give you props for the math.)
I liked that explanation too. Never heard it put that way.
@@romanbaird1625 Same, I always got frustrated cuz median would work so much better here than arithmetic average
I don't know how they managed it, but somehow every single scene in this movie, without fail, is just iconic. It's a string of masterful absurdity nonstop from start to finish. This is a video I never expected to see, but I'm glad to have seen it.
I'll bet Terry Jones was aware of these killer bunnies in medieval paintings. He was a medieval historian. And the blurring out of breasts by youtube in paintings that are 100s of years old is hysterical.
ruclips.net/video/4o-Vqu6Z5fY/видео.htmlsi=sDN1Q6A-MBfgUCJB
@@coachhannah2403 Thanks for that. I had no idea about any of this a week ago, now I'm ready to be tested on medieval, killer rabbits.
Or the Pope who cut the dicks off the statues in Rome....& he called them Edouard...
Bunnies aren't just cute like everybody supposes
I would bet money that there was some back and forth where the rest of the gang wanted stone castles, and Jones was like, "You know stone castles didn't come to England until after the Norman conquest" and had to cave because of being outnumbered
Fun fact: In German the movie is actually called "die Ritter der Kokosnuss" meaning knights of the coconuts
I would like to see a face off between knights of the coconuts and the knights of the cocopuffs.
"knights of the coconuts" would be "Ritter der Kokosnüsse"
_You put de lime in de coconut and mix it all togedda..._
Interesting! In Spanish it's called "The Knights of the Square Table"
I took a class on early English literature. Had the pleasure of studying Sir Gawain and the Green Night. I was blown away by the similarities to Monty Python and the Holy Grail. At the end of the course, we could choose one of our assigned readings to compare to a modern retelling. Of course, I did a full PowerPoint showing scenes that were directly and indirectly inspired by the story. The teacher loved it.
My World Civilizations professor showed us this movie in class, it was a free day you could skip if you wanted. He had a small plot quiz at the end for extra credit on the final exam. So everyone showed up and we had a fun time. He stopped a couple times to explain how some jokes pertained to lessons we learned during our class that semester. It was amazing. He loved the the "I thought we were an autonomous collective" joke.
extra credit to watch a funny movie? now that gets people motivated!
The distinction between witches and heretics in this period is such a powerful distinction.
Thanks so much for bringing this out.
5:11 "There's a really weird story about how he's conceived, let's not get in to it right now" WHAT NO PLEASE GET IN TO IT RIGHT NOW!?!?!
My understanding of the story is that Arthur's father gets his wizard, Merlin, to magically disguise him as his enemy, Gorlois of Tintagel (Duke of Cornwall), and then sleeps with his wife Igraine. Then later kills Gorlois and marries Igraine, becoming, I suppose, step father to his son's half-sisters.
@@kinofrosty And Arthur then had a son with his half sister, Morgana.
Watch Excalibur. It does a good job of telling that initial story.... and it's an awesome movie regardless.
@@earthknight60
Patrick Stewart, Liam Nelson and lots of other future stars in that movie.
@@earthknight60 I loved Excalibur, that brings me back about 45 years!! 🙀
Dr. Janega and Monty Python! “And there was much rejoicing. (Yaaaaaaaay)”
WELL SAID!!!
fehehehehehelix conjunctio
"Bring out Your Dead!"
I was mildly pleased, until I noticed the video was 58 minutes long.
At that point, I settled down, with a big grin and a mental rubbing together of the hands.
@@davefellhoelter1343 "Oi, I'm not dead!" "Yeesss you are, shut up..."
I think Monty Python and the Holy Grail is brilliant and I don't think they ever try to be historically accurate. On the contrary, they are taking all the modern tropes that we have about middle ages and making fun of them. Thats why we have scenes like "He must be king, havn't got shit all over him", "Bring out your dead", the witch scene, rescuing maidens from castles, getting a quest to bring you shrubbery and why everything is dark and muddy and more. All of these represent some sort of modern tropes many people believe and Pythons are showing you how ridiculous they really are and making fun of them.
In other words, it's a satire. But it's not a satire of Middle ages, it's a satire of what we think of middle ages today.
Makes sense; if I remember correctly the Monty Python members are all college educated. Not to mention people have a tendency to mistake things that happen in the early modern era with the medieval like confusing the 1665/1666 plague outbreak in London with the Europe wide Black Death in the 1300s. For example plague doctors with the bird mask came out in the 1600s but sometimes used in medieval settings. Likewise the killing of cats was done in the 1665 outbreak but not in the medieval one.
A lot of that is contemporary satire too, I always felt the scene with anarcho-syndicalists being proud of owning their "filth" is just upper-class monarchist Brits literally mocking people in republics ("you don't vote for your king"... actually our ancestors did in Rzechpospolita). They're posh twits and being snobby about it. Life of Brian also has the "what the Romans ever did to us" scene where they stereotype Middle Eastern people as uncivilized savages that Westerners needed to colonize, that monologue is ENTIRELY just "white man's burden" apologetics and is extremely ridiculous when it pretends bloody Levant didn't have running water before Europeans colonized it (you know, the place that had monumental temples back when British were running naked across the fields). It's just Holy Grail has the LEAST amount of "British" humor and almost watches like a Mel Brooks movie*, that's why it's the one thing from Pythons that's not art house weirdness but an actually funny commedy with just a few WTF scenes when they decide to make a horrible political statement.
*from Temu
@@KasumiRINA
But the Levant didn't have running water. Yes, they were ahead before, but they regressed.
Fantastic response. The poster is verbally masturbating to try to show how clever they are but the film makes absolutely no claim, direct or implied, that anything at all is a reflection of actual history. It is , in context, surprising that she hasn't reviewed "The Life of Brian" and examined the factual minutia of when the flying saucer with One-Eyed creatures rescue Brian and take him on a joy-ride through space. While my comment may seem flippant it is equally valid, in context, in comparison to all of her other observations. Such nonsense. Looking for clicks, nothing more.
Definitely disagree. You can't have satire if you're not accurate about the things you're making fun of, otherwise none of the jokes are on point. Which defeats the purpose.
I really like when historians are willing to engage with something as "Maybe it was just a joke. Because people back then were like us and the like laughing and they understood irony and maybe this doesn't have any deeper meaning than a bunch of people collectively being in on a joke that we as modern people are no longer in on". Because the people who can't go that place of "maybe people used to do stuff just for the hehe of it" are usually the ones arguing that people must have had contact with aliens or something silly like that, as if that's a more likely explanation than "humans are lovably weird and always were"
They did it for the lols
"They understood irony".
Yeah, understanding irony is on its way out.
About 10 years ago I was at a gaming convention with around 50000 people in the convention center and the hallways were elbow to elbow. Suddenly the sounds of horses hoves and someone shouting "Make way make way for the king!" and the crowd parts for two guys cosplaying as Arthur and Patsy, coconuts and all. They were able to move around this massive crowd with ease. It was brilliant!
There was a witch trial in World of Warcraft. You had to ask the peasents what test they should perform. I was soooo disapointed that "Build a bridge out of her." wasn't one of the responses.
"Bring out Your Dead!"
Dr Janega asked the question how might we be as stupid as the witch burners in history? Tennessee just passed a law banning chemtrails (contrails). The comments to the TV news report shared on YTube would be hilarious if they weren't so incredibly, and willfully, ignorant. One commenter said he first saw them in 1999, as though there haven't been contrails as long as there have been aircraft. One argument was that the news anchors were 'smug.' (They weren't).
The actual history of science would be 7000 years of intentionally ignoring not only cause and effect, positive outcomes.
She turned him into a newt! Oh but he got better😂
One of the insults in EU IV is "Your mother was a hamster etc". Also python related when the Spanish inquisition is enabled the byline "No one expected that" is scripted.
Eww. I had gladly forgotten about "the purging of the viscera".
"You can't have 932 and a big ol' stone castle."
It's only a model.
Shhh!
'Tis a silly place.
The guy hanging in the dungeon, clapping along to "Knights of the Round Table" would beg to disagree.
"Nice fuckin model!" *honkhonk*
oh wait different movie
What makes it even more funny, not only England but all over Europe, until 1000AD you have this MASSIVE stone ruins of roman palaces, Coloseums, fortresses, concrete roads, houses with water and central heating. And somehow people "forgot" to build these things for about 1300 years, thats insane. We know today, that the Coloseum in Rome had a closable roof. Thats a techniqe, they literaly forgot for 2000 years. How is that possible. In germany, we still have roman buildings in use. The "Basilica of Constantin" was build over 2000 years ago as the aula/forum to the emperors palace. It still has some of its original paint. Today its one of the oldest building in use and the oldest building housing a church, in the world.
Terry Jones was a medievalist, and wrote a monograph on the Widow of Bath, so the killer rabbit being inspired by marginalia and the correct old English pronunciation of “knight” could be more than just an offhand joke…
Kuhnigget
@theaxer3751 that looks like it could sound like a slur lmao
I heard one Middle English scholar pronounce it "Ku-nisht" (this was from a reading of Canterbury Tales in the original language). Of course, that's 400 years or so after the events in this film.
Agreed. I was always under the impression that the members of Python used the extensive factual knowledge gained from university as a jumping off point for their comedy. Ofc, for Jones that knowledge would also include historical myths, rumours & folktales.
Start with something that's both absurd & true, then explore & elaborate on the absurdity. Done well, it results in a multi-layered joke that works with different types of people. Some audience members may not know the reference & it may be nearly unrecognizable to those who do, but that doesn't mean there isn't a kernel of historicity at the heart of the joke.
There are still languages that pronounce “kn” including the k. In German for example it’s extremely common as in Knie, knabbern, Knabe, Knoten, Knecht, knicken… I always assumed it was them making fun of English making the k silent when there isn’t really any reason to.
"We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune" is another surprising dose of historical reality. That's basically how a typical medieval village would operate: limited connection to the reigning monarch, and self-governing by a revolving committee. My medieval history professor used this exact scene to make his point about what "government" meant to the average peasant.
Fast forward a couple of hundred years and the "diggers" would fight enclosure. Same story, different day
I've loved this film since I was a kid! My husband and I incorporated it into our wedding. We "rode" from our wedding venue to our dinner with our guests cloping hollowed coconuts.
😂🎉
I love Dr. Janega every time she hosts podcasts or documentaries. Especially fun stuff like this. Despite the silly subject, she never fails to be informative while also fun.
It’s a FUN subject that she turned into an education. Such a gift!
Yes we need more Dr. Janega!
Her analysis of The Last Duel was awful the last time she was on, sadly.
Me too! She's amazing. I want to be her friend, or maybe her student.
Dr Janega?? nwant to meet her!!
A stealth catapult ! To catapult a cow over the wall of the castle at an ideal 45 degree angle would require a catapult as big as the castle. The cunning of the French has long been underestimated.
Anyone else hearing this in the voice of Dennis?
You will never run my catapult!
What sort of cow? An African midget cow or a full size limousin?
A trebuchet could manage it, or a large Onager. You are thinking of a child's elastic catapult, I assume?
The ending was a literal cop out, that just tells you how brilliant the Pythons were
Didn’t get that until now. It makes total sense.
Believe it or not, they simply ran out of money and that was the best thing they could conceive of. A tiny budget makes you think creatively.
@@mikitz YES. And those costumes WERE everything they could round up and a lot of the guys in the 'army' furnished their own stuff!
How else do you end filming when you run out of permits, time, and money? Police arresting the cast and crew is the perfect ending.
@@robashley8216 I also love how the film runs out and that ends the movie. No closing credits or anything.
according to John Cleese, the men in the witch scene accused her of being a witch because she wouldn't sleep with them, but they couldn't figure out how to make that clearer
Monty Python & the Holy Grail is, unintentionally yet unironically, the best ever depiction of what it's like to live with Asperger's.
the idea of burning witches in an arthurian story is funny when dudes like merlin were walkin around
In a version of the tale (from before the main witch-burning period which was recent) Arthur was going to burn Guinevere at the stake. I dont think anyone ever burnt wizards at the stake, they would be court advisers/masters of some court or other.
Canon to many of the early written Arthurian tales is the fact that Merlin was given powers by Satan when he was born (and may be a pseudo-Antichrist). God then gave him additional powers.
@@TOBAPNW_ In the earliest versions Merlin is literally the son of a demon and a virgin nun (however that worked).
1:40 In my mind, MPATHG Arthur was not really meant to be the "real king", but a "Don Quixote" kind of a king Arthur. Hence why he has no horse, nobody takes him seriously, and he has only other lunatics as followers. That is my head canon.
It’s 1066 And All That: The Movie
While the Black Death didn't arrive until the 14th century, there was an earlier medieval plague described by Bede which lasted for 2 years in the mid-7th century. Some scholars have suggested that it is related to the Plague of Justinian from the mid-6th century and it just took that long to arrive in England.
...and as the Justinianic plague broke out in AD 541, that's around the limit for a historical Arthur, so feasible.
@@johnleake5657 I was thinking the same thing.
@@johnleake5657 also the Plague of Cyprian .. 250s. Cyprian writes of it in “On The Mortality”.
One thing I noticed, regarding the plague victim collections, is that "ninepence", presented as a trifling amount, would have been a huge sum in 932. The UK inflation calculator only goes back to 1209, but 3.75p (the equivalent of 9d) in 1209 would be about £65 now, so 300 years earlier might see it be equivalent of nearly £100 now.
Fun fact!
In the witch scene, Sir Bedevere asks the crowed "Why do witches burn?" and John Cleese takes so long to answer, that everyone around him has to hold in their laughter! Eric Idle even bites down on a scythe!
A modern legal scholar began one of his books by referencing the witch scene from the Holy Grail. He says that in 500 years, scenes from TV’s Law and Order will seem as absurd to them as this witch scene does to us.
Yikes. Really explains what is happening in the legal system in America.
At this rate 500 years from now it will be just like the witch scene, lol....
Except the witch scene would have been absurd to the people 1000 years ago as well. Law and order seems to us to be idealised but not absurd.
I mean, scenes from early seasons of the first CSI show already look more absurd than Monty Python does now, so...
I don't know what you're talking about, the witch's trial was just pure science.
During the “cats” section I called for my cat. Who was behind an armrest of my couch. He has now come to cuddle to watch more of this video. I agree that kitties are great and I am glad medieval people loved them.
“It’s a fair cop.”
Is the most underrated line in the entire film.
It's easy to miss, but it makes the whole scene work even better - she really was a witch the entire time.
There were a surprising number of people accused of Witchcraft during the Early modern period who 'confessed' without being tortured. It was pretty common to 'curse' people you got into disputes with, and sometimes when something bad happened to someone you'd cursed you might feel responsible for what had happened to them. Probably the most infamous example is Alizon Device, who encountered a Pedlar, John Law near Pendle, Lancashire, England in 1612. She asked him to give her some pins, and when he refused, she cursed him. He walked on, but had a stroke and collapsed within seconds. He partially recovered, but Alizon was absolutely convinced she'd injured him through witchcraft and publicly begged his forgiveness. Alizon and most of her immediate family ended up being accused of Witchcraft and either being executed or dying in gaol.
So yeah, quite a few people actually did say 'fair cop' thanks to the belief system they lived with.
My vote goes for, "Are you suggesting that coconuts migrate?"
@@chrisball3778Cool story bro.
I couldn't resist, but really, cool story... you have to feel bad for the girl what an awful situation to damn yourself like that through your own superstitions. And sometimes it feels like we're slipping back in some ways towards such magical thinking unfortunately.
But that wasn't her nose. It was a false one.
"Knees-bent running-about advancing behaviour" is one of the funniest phrases ever used in a film.
Those who accept Monty Python as history are never doomed to repeat it!
Part of the coconut joke that no one ever gets is that they do, in fact, migrate.
Coconuts float. When they fall from the palm tree they roll down the beach into the water and float off in the current until they wash up on a random beach somewhere in the world and try to grow a new tree. England is too cold for them to grow, but they can certainly wash up on the beach there.
Coconuts originated in Southeast Asia. For an ocean current to drag a coconut to Brittan, it would have to go around Africa or South America and then across the equator. I won't say it's impossible, but it is certainly extremely improbable. I would guess that exceptionally few coconuts have ever, naturally, made it into the south Atlantic and none ever made it past the equator and into the north Atlantic.
@@anthonyward8853they only really last in ocean water for a few months, which makes it even more improbable that they would be able to grow if they ever made it to England's shores.
They somebody would have seen it and thought, "A WITCH PUT THIS HERE!"
Eleanor is so likeable. Loved this review
Devon and Cornwall have lots of palm and yucca trees. The mediaeval period climate was warmer than today. So while they were probably brought by people they live nicely here.
I ignored this video for two days, because I expected it to be a non-fan waspishly crapping on the whole film. When I finally watched this, I found it instantly engaging, entertaining, and educational. Your presentation is excellent and I really enjoyed your video. I’ve subscribed and look forward to seeing your other videos.
glad you enjoyed it!
yeah thats what i wanted to say
I had the same feeling. So pleased that it wasn't that. Should have known better as her other videos are great and the Python gang are fabulous.
Dr Eleanor Janega is amazing! She never allows accuracy to ruin the fun 😂
Me too! But it was good!
Love the Monks complaining about cats weeing on their parchment ... great to see cats sitting on laptops, newspapers and books has a long human history!
That’s why 3 scenes had a person flogging cats!!
I saw a picture of a gravestone for a cat from like the 1880s or something, and it said "even though he was a cat, to me he was human" or something like that. IDK if it's real but it seemed like the past people really loved their pets just like we do, which we always have a tendency to think of the past peoples as so cruel and heartless and uncaring for animals which is clearly not true.
Coconuts do migrate in a way, they can float in water for a few months to travel to other islands.
Terry Jones being a medievalist as he was, I'm sure there were references to all kinds of stuff. In particular, I've always wondered if Sir Robin was in any way a reference to the Knight Coward from the Old French Arthurian romance Perlesvaus.
I’m so glad to hear medieval people loved cats.
...but I'm sure that they preferred their cats well de-dusted...
No wonder they call it the Dark Ages
I'm actually surprised Dr. Janega did not address the flagellants at the beginning of the witch scene, which was also Late Medieval.
Thank you. I'm glad someone else noticed that. Also, apparently flagellation was more of a continental thing, and it didn't really catch on in England.
agree, maybe she did and it got cut. I also expected her to talk about the virgins all wanting to be spanked. :)
@@MonkeyFarmFrankensteinI don't know about then, but growing up in a Cornish household, it definitely caught on later.
My father taught me that there was no point being a martyr if nobody knew you were one.
I did wonder why she showed them but didn’t mention them.
Also, there was a glimpse of the Black Knight in the intro, but she didn’t bring him up.
Maybe it was cut for length?
This woman is awesome. Didn't expect such a funny, eclectic mix of Python appreciation and historical facts. Well done Eleanor
Yes, the cats are vindicated! I love cats, and I love the Middle Ages. I even at one time wanted to study Middle Dutch literature in uni. I love this video!
Love it!
An excellent critique of the history, very informative, without slagging on the humour!!
If anything, you've enhanced it!
I have no doubt John Cleese, et al would 100% approve!
My favorite medieval historian and Monty Python. This is just beautiful!
Would love Dr Janega to cover Blackadder 1 so much ❤
Dude, that would be the BEST!
I second this
I have a cunning plan!
It's actually not called "Blackadder 1"
It's called "The Black Adder"
The next series/stage play/tv movie(s) are called Blackadder II, the Third, Goes Forth etc.
The first season is a little problematic because it does start with the premise of "these historical figures didn't die like everyone says they did, but..."
@@user-ow4pv2ff2p In Australia we do a lot of WWI history (both in History and English because it is a significant event for Australia) in High School and a significant time was spent on trench warfare.
When we got to the retreat from Gallipoli we covered some things the Anzacs did to elude the Turks and hide that they were retreating.
Someone in class said "oh Miss, so they had a cunning plan?". Half the class was in giggles, but the teacher hadn't seen Black Adder and took it seriously.
I think it's fair to say I know most of the dialogue in this movie by heart 🤔 I loved this highly unnecessary yet thoroughly enjoyable break down! 👌👍
"Bring out Your Dead!"
This is by far the best one of these yet. The host has such a vibrant personality and engages with the work brilliantly!
Glorious. At age 14 in the 70s I and my school friends could - and frequently would - recite the entirety of “the album of the soundtrack of the trailer of the film of Monty Pithon (PYthon) and the holy grail.” A formative experience. I showed the film to my kids on the day of Charles’s coronation, too.
I love a professor of medieval history with a great sense of humor. Who’s a fan of Monty Python.
We really *can* have nice things
It's humour*
Idk why but when Arthur says, "Good idea" to God, I die.
Course it's a good idea!!!
"Sire! The peasants are revolting!"
"They certainly are!"
George Wyner: "Sire! The peasants are revolting!"
Mel Brooks: "You're telling me! They stink on ice!"
-- "History of the World, Part I"
You talke about the killer Rabits in medievil art and my brain is like: "It sounds like them showing around a viral meme... Wait..."
Also. Good to see you survived the movie.
I like that she makes it very clear that this is just for fun and all of the historical inaccuracies don’t matter
Monty Python and the Holy Grail has always been among my favorites of the Monty Python films and I love Eleanor Janega's breakdown of it. Thank you Eleanor Janega, this was magnificent!
The information missing here is that Terry Jones was very much into his medieval history, he read English at Oxford and got interested in the medieval period while reading Chaucer. He wrote books and presented television documentaries on medieval and ancient history. This enabled him to take the piss out of it while still keeping real elements in the movie. Also, have a go at pronouncing Cornwall again? That's uhhh, unique🤣
"Bring out Your Dead!"
YES! That he knew what it all really should be was what made it so great!
I know of an Arthurian scholar who adores this movie. He says it's evident that the Pythons really knew their Arthurian tales, well beyond the common knowledge and Thomas Malory, and that the movie has an extra level of hilarity for those in the know.
Mistaken for an author who wrote a bloody good book with loads of shooting in it.
Only after you lot have a crack at pronouncing "pasta" correctly. The Brits butcher almost any word that isn't Germanic in origin. You also say tacos wrong. British snobbery is one of your least attractive traits. Especially since the posh version of English only developed because Brits wanted to be snobbish and differentiate themselves from Americans. The current West Viginian dialect is considered closest to how average Brits sounded before 1800. 😂😂😂
Lots of love from Finland, absolutely love every video where Dr.Janega is in. She is my fav historian - fun, sassy, incredibly knowledged and cool. Someone I'd love to have a beer with and listen her talk all evening about medieval history. Just love her! *chef's kiss*
Western Expansion and Colonization of North America historian here..thank you so much for covering the life expectancy math. We deal with this at our museum all the time. Seriously people this was a time when you started the day with 9 kids and could end it with none!
What?! YES!! I have zero expectations of historical relevance here. Love it
LOVE this film (since I was like 13 years old.... ), LOVE Eleanor Janega, LOVE this episode. Also, props to whoever pulled all the illustrations used in this video. They are great!!!!!
what a treat! I feel like I've been waiting for THIS very video ever since i first discovered History Hit, thank you so much!
There's no proof that King Arthur's mother wasn't a hamster.
and there are second hand sources which suggest his father did smell of elderberry
Ahhh. So this is how religions started.
I love this so much! Would love to see you do more on other definitely-not-100%-historical things, like Galavant, The Court Jester, or even evaluating the accuracy of medieval-inspired (rather than straight fantasy) elements of DnD.
Ms Janega you are officially my favorite narrator. I loved MP and was impressed with your presentation. Side note: The witch was played by Connie Booth, who was also in the MP TV series and later in "Fawlty Towers". Despite her wonderful English accent, she was born in Indianapolis.
Dr Janega has a gift for combining knowledge and humor. Amazing. And History Hit is great 👍🏼
@8:39 biggest inaccuracy in the movie: "a swallow needs to beat its wings 43 times every second" It's not a hummingbird!
Does it depend on the breed of swallow? Perhaps african swallows have different physiology.
@@petercanberra9056 It may depend a little on their breed, but none of them are anywhere near 43 beats/second -- rather nearer to 43 beats/minute, and they're mainly known for gliding anyway. A humming bird is presumably so-called because its wings flap so fast that they make a humming noise (though very low-pitched, around two octaves below a bee). No other bird flaps fast enough that the human ear detects it as a hum, rather than individual wooshes.
I hope you take this as a compliment, but I love falling asleep to this woman. I have trouble falling asleep in silence or even with just music because I tend to get racing thoughts, so I need to fall asleep to someone talking. And she is really fun and casual and relaxing. This video is interesting enough to distract me from my racing thoughts, but laid back enough that I can just close my eyes and soak it in. Thank you for a great video!
Simon Whistler is also great for this. And with so many different channels to choose from you can listen to anything.
I know what you mean - Real Civil Engineer puts me to sleep every time.
People Profiles and Fall of Civilizations are great for this also
Drachinifel
I have the same issue. I now have an ADHD diagnosis, is that a possibility for you? It makes it a lot easier to deal with when you know what’s causing it :)
13:32 You sure it wasn't just the monks using it as an excuse for procrastinating? "the cat peed on my homework" 😂
At the beginning of this film it’s not 932 AD it’s 93 squared. Just one many small comedic moments put into the film. Like the scene with the witch there is a guy who has shaving cream on his face.
Eleanor is one of my favorite historians :) She makes history interesting.
and she wears a zip tie for. a ring.
I am old enough to have watched this film when it first came out in cinemas. It is still as hilarious today as it was then.
me too. I find it humorous that some of the commentators thought they were trying for historical accuracy. kids.
I'm that old too. Back when we had to walk barefoot in the snow, in July, uphill ,to get to the theater.
I remember after , maybe 30 years of watching this movie a few hundred times, I got an anniversary DVD and it had an option to read the original script and script notes, like subtitles, during the movie.
At the start of the bring out your dead scene the notes described the scene and mentioned nuns beating a man with mallets. I said what? Played the scene again and in the background there are nuns beating a man with mallets. I never noticed it before.
The movie that keeps on giving.
Can you believe it was 50 years ago? Released in 1975 but I don’t know the exact date. What an incredible movie to stir be funny after such a long time, and so many viewings!
@@firstmkb To still be funny 50 yrs after being made makes it very good, but not "incredible". To take a few, Laurel & Hardy, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and the Marx Bros were considered funny 50 yrs after their films were made, while more recently, Morecambe & Wise and Tom & Jerry were, and also Ken Dodd (I'm not aware of any films, but AFAIK he never changed his style). What will be more interesting will be whether they are still funny at 70 or 80 yrs old, because several of the acts I've mentioned are no longer universally seen as funny.
Again, I've never heard a belly laugh from someone watching one of Shakespeare's comedies, Sheridan's "The Rivals" (250 yrs old) seems rather slow and odd by today's standards, but used to be considered exceptional, while Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest" at 130 yrs old is still thought clever and funny by most. Similarly, PG Wodehouse, who first wrote of Jeeves and Wooster a little over 100 yrs ago is apparently more popular now than when he died 50 years ago. Hopefully, Monty Python will also still be popular in another 50 yrs. I suggest a 100 yr test is appropriate to test whether humour is incredibly funny.
I remember another bit of humour, not so different to MPs, which although this recording is in 1958 (and the delivery is odd by today's standards) is much the same as is found in a 1918 joke book. In fact, although I can't find the full pedigree today, IIRC it originated, with slightly different wording in a spoof letter to a 19th century (approx 1880) journal of the UK Institution of Civil Engineers. ruclips.net/video/zZUJLO6lMhI/видео.html It was a monologue to a 1958 student audience and the ready laughter is because he had already warmed them up by a set of jokes such as replies to requests for room reservations in french hotels, written in poor and inappropriate English, eg "There are French widows in every bedroom, giving delightful prospects", and recommendations to visitors to London, eg "Have you tried the famous echo in the Reading Room of the British Museum [in those days the very-academic-and-serious British Library was based there], which are also on RUclips if you want to hear them.
One of my all time favorite movies, so glad to have the opportunity to hear a historical review of it.
In relation to 'Team Peasants' - I love hearing the accounts and records from everyday people; traders, travellers and the like.... So much more grounded, often relatable but also hilarious.
Also learned valuable lessons about buying copper from shonky merchants....
I assure you all, "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries" was a common french taunt for french men in England. Also, it was common to build large wooden rabbits to gain acces to a french castle in England. Not being actually inside, was an oversight. Plus, there is no evidence that swallows didn't carry coconuts.
Swallows are normally noted for relatively slow wingbeats and gliding, but for a 40 g swallow to carry a 1,400 g coconut, it might indeed need 43 beats/second!
As an avowed Gen Xer and nerd, the influence this movie had on me in high school cannot be overstated. Glad to see this.
If Dr Janega is in a thumbnail, I smash the play button. Holy Grail is one of my absolute favorite movies and probably the one I’ve watched the most. Put them together and I’m one happy nerd!
"Bring out your dead!" is associated with the London Plague of 1665, though. The bellman associated with the dead-cart taking the dead from plague-struck houses does use these words in Defoe's _Diary of a Plague Year,_ his dramatized account of the plague. This early Modern plague deeply affects British views of plague.
One of my top 3 movies of all time, comedic genius. I had a published copy of the script with liner notes but loaned it out and never got it back (😢). Long ago when my ex-in-laws got together this was always a Thanksgiving must showing. I also read that the former NFL coach Joe Gibbs indicated that MP&THG was his favorite movie.
I thoroughly enjoyed your video. Lots of interesting facts and hilarious laughs. Kudos.
My favourite historian, Holy Grail, at Christmas for nearly an hour!!!!!
Hell yes!
Hope you enjoy it!
27:56 - best scene because Eric Idle was about to start laughing and had to start gnawing on his scythe to not break character hahah - that just makes the whole thing 10 times funnier
EVERY time I watch that scene, I sit with bated breath, waiting for the bite. And I lose it every time (also because of the hilariously long pause).
Dr Janega is just my absolute fave. Taking a vid about Monty Python and managing to make it educational but still great fun. More of this, for the love of God more!
It’s actually factual that horses aren’t real and knights rode around on imaginary ones while making horse trotting sounds with coconuts.
Ha! That's my cousin! She absolutely knocked it out of the park!
Way to go Nora!
The other thing about the rabbit scene - is that outwardly it is just funny that they shout 'Run Away! Run Away!!' ( well it is funny ) but of course this is pre Norman invasion so the word 'Retreat' would not have entered the Lexicon it being a French word - so all they can shout is 'Run Away! Run Away!!' 🤣🤣
And, technically, it wouldn't have been a rabbit because they weren't in England yet then, only Hares ... Although I've never thought it was all that big of a deal about it being 2 different things, like turtles/tortoises, allegators/crocodiles, sheep/goats, etc.
I just love the way they are shouting "run away!". I use that all the time...when I'm running away...
On the one hand, the Pythons are very, very silly and use absurdist humor very, very well. On the other hand, there are things like this that really shows they also have deep appreciation for the material. Another one that comes to mind is the very in-depth Latin lesson in Life of Brain.
One of my favourite things about this movie that I love is that they ran out of money before they could do the big final battle at the end so they had the police plot line put in for a cheap ending
Untrue unfortunately.
Oh it wasn't the original plan? I had always assumed it was, because of how postmodern it is, all "hey, you remember this is all artifice, right? The stories arent REAL, we get to tell them"
It is entirely in line with the way Chapman used to interrupt a sketch, deem it "too silly", and the show would just move on. Sketches didn't need an actual ending that way.
there was very little deviation from the final script (which was revised and polished with an eye towards the tiny budget they had), because they didn't have the money to pay for extra cast, excessive numbers of takes and longer equipment rental time while on location.
so, budget DID play a big role in the script (including the coconuts and the castle model), but those changes were made well BEFORE shooting started.
@@JHN12x12 It's a testament to the genius of the team. When given a bigger budget they were still funny but there was less edge to the humour imho. In some ways it's similar to the Blackadder quadrilogy. The second series/season shines well over the first because they had to work with a small budget and thus relied on superb scripting plus great performances.
Was talking to another history nerd, and his understanding was that the "anarchist collective" peasants were a parody of the "Diggers" from the 2nd English Civil War (1600s)
This is such quality stuff. She has a combo of knowledge and charisma that's rate.
I love her attitude.
"This definitely didn't happen like this but I love this movie so I don't care."
Just right. We can have an interesting conversation about history but still love the comedy.
Just wonderful 😂 Thank you.
I particularly love "this is not accurate for 932, but I don't care!" 😂😂
"Bring out Your Dead!"
Further on witches, medieval people were so unconcerned with them that in Hungary in 1100 the reigning king, Kálmán I “the Booklover” issued the following decree: “Witches are not real, let no queries be made about them.”
Sounds like something a witch would say.
If they were completely unconcerned, there would have been no point in making the statement.
Then, just as now, there are gullible and delusional people who have fringe beliefs. Now, just as then, governments and organizations sometimes have to issue ridiculous statements refuting such things. Humans were and are the same.
@@ralphmacfadden606 Yeah. Generally, belief in witchcraft was seen as pagan superstitution. There was even a Pope who complained to a scandinavian king that he should do something against the blaming of women for bad harvests by his pagan population.
The castle that is used for all castle shots, in the film, is Doune Castle, in Perthshire Scotland. Its open to the public most of the year. In the castle shop they sell Monty Python and the Holy Grail fake horse galloping sound effects, which are a couple of coconut shells, which have a official Monty Python and the Holy Grail tag. Which is coincidental as many believe King Arthur may actually have come the Brythonic speaking, southern part, of what is today Scotland, of the fifth or 6th century.
The castle shop also sell Outlander and Game of Thrones merchandise. I believe Doune Castle was also used in both TV series. I didnt buy anything.
And they didn't really have permission to use it and that's why the camera angles are so weird; they are trying not to show that they aren't really at a castle.
The castle in the last scene on the island is Castle Stalker off the western coast of Scotland.
Went to an Eric idle presentation in Sydney a few weeks ago.
He was telling us how someone had the idea that they sign coconuts for people.
Apparently it's like writing on a scrotum.
@@kathyjohnson2043 I believe they did have permission to use Douane Castle. it's just that was the only one they could get (National Trust wouldn't allow their castles to be used in a way that "demeaned their heritage"), and they were trying to stretch the one place they had to look like several different places.
@@bobs_toys - LOL! I did not expect to read that impression today. 😄
Stone construction: Portchester Castle, near Portsmouth, UK, consists of a Norman Keep and chapel, but the impressive and extensive surrounding wall is the wall ofa fort of very late Roman construction, as patched up by Saxons. I know this is not the same as a stone castle as shown in MPATHG, but worth mentioning. As a child playing there, I never even imagined there was an 800-year gap in the ages of the two elements of the whole.
I grew up in the ancient borough of Christchurch, there are a couple of Anglo-Saxon stone buildings. Also it is suspected the church used recycled stone from an earlier one at the same site
This is so much fun, I am watching again. 😊