The Knight

Terry Jones examines the romantic notion of the Knight in Shining Armour had little interest in rescuing damsels in distress. They were far more interested in the fine arts of killing people, making money and becoming famous. Terry discovers some unsavoury truths.

Category:

• Documentary

Starring:

• Terry Jones

Directed by:

• Paul Bradshaw

Produced by:

• Paul Bradshaw

Written by:

• Terry Jones

[YWKMNITLWILMVAT]

@IronCoredKnight The whole knightly system in those days was easily comparable to today's mafia. The mafia is actually based on that system. Everything to everyone who was considered at all important was a power struggle. Furthermore, the idea of military professionalism as we might know it didn't really hit until the 1400s, and that was mostly in the east. The whole knightly system was really just a bunch of thugs fighting over turf, with no higher government to get in their way.

[SuperGreatSphinx]

During the Renaissance, the genre of chivalric romance became popular in literature, growing ever more idealistic and eventually giving rise to a new form of realism in literature popularised by Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote. This novel explored the ideals of knighthood and their incongruity with the reality of Cervantes' world. In the late medieval period, new methods of warfare began to render classical knights in armour obsolete, but the titles remained in many nations.

[nellie2581]

Beautiful

[StellandBlood]

@AlternityGM

Exactly,Africa still lives in the feudal age.

[Protherium]

The Maciejowski-Bible animations are hilarious!

[Ralfast]

"Give her a battleaxe!" :D

[mikrotuber]

"Terry Jones examines the romantic notion of the Knight in Shining Armour had little interest in rescuing damsels in distress." Dear BBCWorldwide: read that sentence aloud. Then FIX IT.

[DrCruel]

@lauracida Um, the Armenian nation predated the rise of Islam by centuries, so did the Egyptians, so did the Sassanids - but let's assume people don't know anything about history and blame the conquest of Africans and Asians by Arab religious fanatics on European "colonists". Maybe we can get away with blaming the genocides of Islam on Germanic barbarians stuggling for their livelihood through the Dark Ages ...

Let me guess. You're the product of an American public school education.

[lauracida]

@DrCruel um dude what led to the present situation of "the muslims" (i assume you speak of the middle east) was mostly western colonization. but never mind, let us not take responsibility, eh! they just became conservatives, just like that! it was totally not a backlash against western imperialism!

[lauracida]

@b15h4m0n he's referring to the double meaning of the picture. he is liberating her, but he is also strong, armoured and in a position of advantage, while she is sexually objectified, bound and helpless. and naked. so the scene represents the myth that knights were supposed to do good to all, but it also shows very obviously that they were powerful, and that women for them were sexual objects. in this context, the cutting of the ropes seems even violent.