George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones has many real-life inspirations. The conflict between Starks and Lannisters clearly pays homage to the Wars of the Roses, between Yorks and Lancasters:
Both English families were branches of the House of Plantagenet who vied for the throne after the deposition of the last Plantagenet king, Richard II, in 1399 and before the establishment of the Tudor dynasty in 1485. There’s no one-to-one correspondence between the characters in “Game of Thrones” and actual historical figures, but Martin was clearly inspired by Edward IV in creating, say, Robert Baratheon, the great, strapping warrior who became a stout, ailing king. There’s a dash of Edward, too, in Rob Stark, a brilliant commander who makes an impetuous, disadvantageous marriage.
Cersei Lannister, Robert’s ambitious, conniving widow, is thought by many to have been inspired by the hot-headed Margaret of Anjou, wife of Henry VI, the king Edward IV helped depose. Henry’s bouts of insanity left him frequently unable to rule, and Margaret, a leading Lancastrian, fought ferociously against those she saw as threatening her family’s hold on the crown. Historians view her as a prime driver in the Wars of the Roses, just as Cersei is substantively responsible for the War of the Five Kings in “A Clash of Kings.” Cersei also resembles Isabella of France, an earlier medieval English queen, who conspired with her adulterous lover to dethrone, and possibly to murder, her (bisexual) husband, Edward II, in the 1300s.
Cersei is a crude, incompetent politician, however, which cannot be said of Isabella. Although unpopular in England, where she was nicknamed “the She-wolf of France,” Isabella has acquired some sympathizers over the years, including the indefatigable Alison Weir, who wrote a contrarian biography of her in 2006, “Queen Isabella: Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England.” Weir has also written novels about various women in the Tudor era, no doubt aspiring to the success of Philippa Gregory, whose romantic historical novels routinely land on the New York Times Bestseller List.
For her own part, Gregory has already published three books in a series set during the Wars of the Roses, “The Cousins’ War” (an apt title, given the intricate blood relationships among the many combatants). The most recent of these, “The Lady of the Rivers,” may even be infused with enough magical elements to appeal to some “Game of Thrones” readers: In it, the character of Jacquetta, Duchess of Bedford, possesses psychic abilities (the real duchess was tried for witchcraft by her political enemies) and is initiated into the mysteries of alchemy by her first husband. For those who prefer a more grounded view, Gregory collaborated with two historians, David Baldwin and Michael Jones, on a nonfiction book, “The Women of the Cousins’ War: The Duchess, the Queen, and the King’s Mother,” published last year.
You may have noticed that most of these books are about women, despite the fact that, with very few exceptions, the women of the Middle Ages had little power. Much of today’s popular historical fiction about the rulers of the Middle Ages is read by women who are primarily interested in the lives and problems of women. Since the historical record contains next to no information on this topic, fiction has stepped in to fill the breach.
Another, more manly, popular contemporary historical novelist, Bernard Cornwell, has set a series of novels, “The Grail Quest,” during a slightly earlier period. His hero, an archer named Thomas of Hookton who gets caught up in the Hundred Years’ War, is an entirely fictional commoner in search of that fabled relic. What Cornwell’s novels lack in historically based, Machiavellian aristocrats they make up for in action-packed, blood-soaked battle scenes.
For the ultimate in medieval scuttlebutt, however, you can’t do better than Barbara Tuchman’s prizewinning 1978 history, “A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century.” This account of the Hundred Years’ War centers around the life of a French nobleman who married an Englishwoman, but it’s more expansive than any novel, taking in such fascinating details as the bizarre fashion for long-toed shoes in court (so long, they had to be tied up with strings and were inveighed against by puritanical clergymen) to the legendarily brutal rampages of British mercenary John Hawkwood through Italy. If you really want to know how the peasants fared while their rulers skirmished, the peculiar challenges of sewage-management in a stone castle, what the real agenda was behind the Crusades, or just how dastardly the highborn and royal can behave when it suits them, then look no further.
The comparisons to Britain and nearby Europe are obvious, but I didn’t know there were medieval references to real people.
Unfortunately, Martin seems to have lost interest. It took 20 years to get 5 books, and he’s only halfway through the story. I doubt he will ever finish it. Maybe one more book that leaves everyone stranded. His publisher should hire someone to finish it.
The book and the HBO series are nihilistic in the extreme and so have no real staying power. Contrast it with the Lord of the Rings, which has Catholic themes and medieval references, too, and which may actually enter the English Canon.
Apparently the Red Wedding has real precedents in Scottish history. Unsurprising perhaps that the real-life exemplar for that particular bloody incident was the Scots — as the saying goes, “The Scots, locked in eternal combat with their mortal enemies, the Scots.”
Hmmm — those strike me as rather bad picks.
Phillipa Gregory writes anachronistic chick lit nonsense, Cornwell’s medieval novels have always been his weakest and Tuchmann is pretty out of date.
My pick for the finest historical medieval novelist is probably Alfred Duggan. He was the hell raising stepson of Lord Curzon who lost all his money and converted to Catholicism. Most of his characters would eat George R.R. Martin’s for breakfast.
The stuff about women strikes me as nonsense. Medieval women might have lacked power but medieval aristocrats, regardless of their sex, had plenty.
Religion was also a great leveler — not just Joan of Arc but all the Hussite warrior women.
I am not sure how a historian writing about the Middle Ages can be out of date. I have read several of Tuchman’s books and found them very interesting as well as entertaining.
Out of date = dated scholarship.
She’s also overly Anglocentric and miserabilist.
That isn’t to say that she isn’t interesting or well read, only that “A Distant Mirror” has limitations that become more obvious each year.
And another one, not mentioned in the article:
Wildfire, the magic substance that saved King’s Landing, is based on Greek fire.
“Greek fire was an incendiary weapon used by the East Roman or Byzantine Empire. The Byzantines typically used it in naval battles to great effect as it could continue burning while floating on water.”