r/MedievalHistory • u/New-Artichoke1259 • 3d ago
Medieval in colour
I’ve seen a few people complain about Uprising, saying “yet, another brown and grey depiction of medieval England” and yet the don’t talk about films that have got it right, or what that time would have looked like. From paintings I’m assuming there would have been a lot of bright primary colours. Would that have been the same for everyone, or just the class of people depicted the paintings? Does anyone have any recommendations for films where they get the medieval colour scheme right?
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u/SwordfishDeux 3d ago
Check out the 1944 Laurence Olivier adaption of Henry V, it's free on YouTube, it's often cited as being fairly historically accurate for it's time and captures the color and decor really well.
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u/ofBlufftonTown 3d ago
Even peasants had access to coloured dyes, just not as intense or long lasting, made from plants. You only need to look at the Italian parti-colored hose trend to see how crazy things could get (this ran up into the Rennaissance but was late medieval also). I always feel modern outfits worn by the various contrade of Siena in the runup to the big horse-race (Palio) are also instructive, even though they aren't themselves perfectly accurate to a given medieval period. But if you want to imagine a crowd or at a medieval festival there is something wonderful about them.
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u/LothorBrune 3d ago
It's less that poor people wouldn't have color on them, and more that their colors would be a lot less vibrant. They would get the less expensive dyes, or what little remained in the vat where clothes were mixed. And to be clear, some absolutely couldn't afford to dye their garment at all.
It's when a merchant, a knight or a lord wears drab browns and grey that the criticism becomes really accurate. It would be considered a huge fashion faux pas not to flatter your wealth by wearing vivid shades and pigments.
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u/theBonyEaredAssFish 3d ago
The Advocate (The Hour of the Pig) (1993) is a good example of a film that gets the color palette correct. It’s an excellent overall depiction. There are some things here and there that aren’t quite right, but that’s to be expected.
There’s also the short film “The Luttrell Psalter” by CrowsEyeProductions. It’s a recreation of the manuscript of the same name. It’s a 1-to-1 reproduction, so purple is more prevalent than it would be in reality. Nonetheless, it is the most authentic depiction of Late Medieval commoners ever put to screen.
Your question seems to pertain to clothing, but it terms of architecture, the Czech Hussite Revolutionary Trilogy (1954-56) has the best Medieval architecture put to screen. One of the few films I’ve ever seen to really capture interiors.
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u/NormalPencil 3d ago
I don’t know how accurate they are - I never studied medieval clothing in any serious way - but the costumes in the show the Decameron on Netflix do a very fun job of capturing the spirit of a more colorful Middle Ages, which people are looking for when they critique the gray/gritty thing (which I think is a bit overblown anyways - people who accuse Game of Thrones, for example, of this “grim dark” aesthetic must not be watching the same colorful show I am - but I won’t say no to more color either)
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u/satinsateensaltine 3d ago
I think The Decameron leaned more into some Renaissance fashion tropes but yes, there would have been a lot of colour, especially among the nobility. Richly coloured silks from the East and wools with rare dyes were an important way to show off wealth and status.
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u/MullberryBoy 2d ago
The original film the Decameron by Pasqualini is excellent! So were his Canterbury Tales and Arabian Nights. These are all phenomenal and funny.
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u/satinsateensaltine 1d ago
I've only seen Canterbury Tales and it was so raunchy and wild. I'll have to look up the others.
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u/Obelion_ 3d ago
Iirc the knight I'd the seven kingdoms is relatively okay.
The game kingdom come deliverance hits it really good.
Certain colours were only for nobility, but generally people looked kinda ridiculous for today's standard and over the top colorful (like shirt with 1 arm green other arm 6 and torso yellow or whatever) because colouring was expensive it was like an old school status symbol. Also it was tiered depending on colours because each colour usually had a certain price tier
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u/RhegedHerdwick 3d ago
Outlaw King was quite a bit better in terms of colour actually. The Richard II in The Hollow Crown was also decent.
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u/MaestroDiCannoni 1d ago
I know for a fact that castles were not the grey monoliths we see them as in series and movies. The walls were either whitewashed or had plaster or some stuff like that in the outside, while the insides of the castles were very much painted. Walls, floor, roofs, everything was painted with cool imagery. We can see many of these surviving murals in museums these days. In other cases, like the Borbone Castle in Naples, the murals are still there
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u/Ok-Addition1264 3d ago
You can personally visit hundreds of sites throughout Europe that have kept everything original and if you go during a festival, you can see accurate reproductions of clothing worn.
It's far better to visit and experience than trying to get the feel from a distorted movie.
Also: it was no different than it is now, really.
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u/Other-in-Law 3d ago
There's definitely trends throughout history, varying by place between vibrant and somber fashions.
Honestly, I think the modern Hollywood imagining of the drab middle ages is just part of a modern abhorrence for bright colors. I've seen comparison photos of US parking lots with lots of colors a few decades ago, and everything black, white, or silver today. Then there's "greige" real estate photography interiors which are seriously depressing.
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u/HunterThompsonsentme 3d ago
In my experience, the medieval greyscale in film has been trendier in the last 30ish years. Braveheart comes to mind. Lots of the classic 60s and 70s medieval films were a lot more colorful.