Misconceptions of Medieval Times in Media

[Avilan the Grey]

Heh, heh. I would definitely recommend staying away from anything purportedly written by Terry Jones. In my opinion, he is an entertaining storyteller, but not a good historian. I watched his crusade series when it first aired over here, and being about fifteen at the time, I believed everything he said. At university, I was gutted when I found out how much disinformation it contained. My first encounter with the unreliability of television history.

I quite enjoyed his more recent Medieval Lives, but being less familiar with the events he portrayed, I cannot speak to the veracity (though I seem to recall noticing a fair number of questionable assertions).

Admittedly I am in no way an expert on the Crusades, but what I do know don't really make me feel the need to "correct" common picture of them. As I said above they might have been benificial to Europe, and that we should be glad for, but it doesn't make them any less bloody, or any more morally right.

Sweden's economical, military and cultural growth was accellerated by several 100% by the 30 year war, but I would not argue that clensing the germanic states from Holy Roman Catholics was the right thing to do.

That's all I'm really saying, regarding the crusades.