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The thing that immediately struck me in many of these programmes was how much walking your average historical presenter has to do. Endless marches across hills and fields, down streets and church aisles, along battlements and up beaches: it is a fitness regime in itself, especially as you have to talk at the same time without seeming out of breath!
In recent weeks, one ace walker, Professor Robert Bartlett, has glowered out of our screens as he has recounted both the rise of The Normans (BBC2) and taken us Inside the Medieval Mind (BBC4). He is a dour man, with a face not built for smiling, but he certainly knows his stuff and has helped bring us knowledge of, firstly, the Norman influence on our present day society, and secondly given us an insight into how our medieval forebears would have seen and experienced their world.
Dan Snow has also had his walking boots on, this time for the aptly named Dan Snow’s Norman Walks (BBC4). These three half hour programmes have added a little depth to Bartlett’s The Normans by giving the viewer a tour of some of the landscapes mentioned on BBC2. These included the original battle site at Hastings, the troublesome Welsh borders and areas of Yorkshire, which rebelled against Norman rule and was spectacularly slapped down for it. These snippets have proved an interesting and informative companion show.
In keeping with the Norman theme, BBC2 presented us with an hour on Domesday, William the Conqueror’s infamous catalogue of the towns, villages and smallholdings of his realm. Presenter Stephen Baxter, another great walker, showed us how the Norman gentry quickly gained a foothold in England after the conquest by taking, or being gifted by the King, land from the English Saxon nobility. Few successfully stood against the incoming landlords and many ended up working the land they previously owned, but for a Norman master.
Reaching back into the archives, BBC4 has repeated a couple of Michael Wood fronted programmes from a few years ago. In Michael Wood on Beowulf, he traces the roots of the famous Saxon poem, studying the history of the times and the region of Britain it is likely to have sprung from, while in a recreated Saxon hall, actor Julian Glover read selected passages from the work. This made for effective television, the mixing of narration and fact.
Wood also brought us face-to-face with the life of a medieval peasant woman in Christina: A Medieval Life. Many might think it would be virtually impossible to tell the life history of one person, especially one of such low standing within society as it was then, but not so. Using local court roles of the time it was indeed possible to trace this woman through her father giving her his meagre possessions, her two marriages, the birth of her two children, her successful claim on the goods of her late second husband and her eventual death, just months before The Black Death reached the shores of Britain. It was a fascinating journey through a short, and often brutal, period of history.
Add to these such BBC4 programmes as How to Build a Cathedral with architectural historian Jon Cannon, Treasures of the Anglo-Saxons fronted by Nina Ramirez, The Making of King Arthur and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, both from poet Simon Armitage and you get a busy summer of history, totalling almost sixteen hours of television for the dedicated viewer.
And now we have Digging For Britain (BBC2), six hours of archaeology spread over as many weeks, with the dependable Doctor Alice Roberts (Don’t Die Young, The Incredible Human Journey) at the helm. She brings her usual mix of enthusiasm and knowledge to this venture, showing us a number of Roman digs across the country in the first show. Her in-depth knowledge of anatomy and medicine is handy, as most of these sites have at least one human skeleton on view, and she asks just the kind of questions an informed member of the public might ask of the archaeologists. I look forward with interest to the next five weeks.
All in all, enough telly to make this archaeology student a very happy viewer!
For more detailed information, including recent and upcoming airings, click on each programme name.
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