BBC Normans 3

So the BBC’s Norman series flagship presented by Prof. Rob Bartlett is now complete, with the Normans doing their best Julius Caeser impression before living the original American Dream. After a good start and a superb follow-up, how did this measure up?

BBC Normans 2

Such an imaginative title to follow on from my first post on the BBC series whose central plank is Prof. Rob Bartlett’s three episode extravaganza. However, I’ll also compare Dr. Stephen Baxter’s single programme on Domesday Book.

BBC Normans 1

Apparently gesta believes that a review of the BBC’s new series on the Normans, which started with the main programme last night presented by Prof. Rob Bartlett, will be more interesting if done by the ignorant rather than the informed. Up to the current standards of journalism, then…

Normans on the BBC

Just a quick post to flag up the forthcoming ‘Normans‘ season on the BBC. I expect I shall have some views on the content, presentation style etc. (please, please, please let there be nothing from Channel 4) and will blog in due course. The main series will be presented by Prof. Rob Bartlett who fronted the excellent BBC ‘Inside the Medieval Mind’ and will undoubtedly be better than the materials for families put out by the BBC. I’ll be discussing those later when I blog the Battle conference.

A medievalist watches the television…

There is a favourite book of Reivers by John Allen Paulos called A mathematician reads the newspaper (Anchor, 1996) in which the author highlights the misuse of maths in everyday journalism and how to improve it. In the same vein, I get particularly irritated by the misuse of the word ‘medieval’ in reporting (particularly referring to anything in the Middle East), which is generally used to mean ‘bad’, ‘unenlightened’, ‘evil’, ‘barbaric’: I could go on. Recently though, the BBC has started a whole season devoted to the middle ages and things medieval in their proper sense. So, as I might ask my first years, are these programmes good journalism, good history or good entertainment? Or, is the best part the rather cool trailer and medieval Hendrix?