Honestly, our collective obsession with middle ages tv series is getting a little out of hand. We crave it. The mud. The clanking steel. The weirdly specific political marriages involving people who are basically cousins. It’s a strange phenomenon when you think about it because the actual Middle Ages—roughly the 5th to the 15th century—was a time of dysentery, incredibly heavy wool clothing, and a distinct lack of indoor plumbing. Yet, here we are in 2026, still scrolling through streaming platforms to find that one show that gets the "vibe" right.
Medieval TV isn't just one thing anymore. It’s a massive, sprawling genre. You’ve got the gritty realism of The Last Kingdom, the high-fantasy politics of House of the Dragon (which, let's be real, is just the Middle Ages with fire-breathing lizards), and the historical biopics like The White Queen.
Why do we do this to ourselves?
Maybe it’s the stakes. In a modern legal drama, if you lose a case, you lose your license. In a show set in 1348, if you lose a "case," your head ends up on a spike near the city gates. That kind of narrative pressure is hard to beat.
The problem with "Historical Accuracy" in middle ages tv series
Let’s get one thing straight: most of what you see on screen is total nonsense. If a show were 100% accurate, you probably wouldn't want to watch it. The lighting would be terrible because candles were expensive. Everyone would have skin conditions. The dialogue would be incomprehensible.
Take Vikings on History Channel. It’s iconic. Travis Fimmel’s Ragnar Lothbrok is a legend. But historians like Dr. Jackson Crawford have pointed out that the leather-and-biker-gear aesthetic is basically "biker chic" rather than actual 9th-century Norse attire. Real Vikings loved bright colors. They wore silks they traded from the East. They weren't just wearing dirty brown leather vests 24/7.
Then there’s the "mud" trope. For some reason, every director thinks the Middle Ages didn't have colors. They desaturate the film. They put soot on the actors' faces. This is what we call the "Grimdark" filter. While the era was definitely tough, people still liked aesthetics. Medieval manuscripts are some of the most vibrantly colored objects in human history.
Breaking the "Dark Ages" myth
We often hear the term "Dark Ages" applied to the early part of this era. It's a bit of a misnomer. The term was coined by Renaissance scholars who were basically just bragging about how much smarter they thought they were than their ancestors. Middle ages tv series often lean into this by making everyone look stupid or superstitious to a fault.
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In reality, this was a period of massive architectural innovation. Think about the Gothic cathedrals. You can't build those if you're living in a state of constant intellectual darkness. Some shows, like the adaptation of Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth, actually do a decent job of showing the sheer technical genius required to keep a stone vault from collapsing on a congregation. It wasn't all just plague and peasants shouting about being repressed.
Why The Last Kingdom changed the game for the genre
If you want to talk about the gold standard for a middle ages tv series, you have to talk about Uhtred of Bebbanburg.
The Last Kingdom, based on Bernard Cornwell’s Saxon Stories, did something very difficult. It managed to be fast-paced and "cool" without completely abandoning the historical context of Alfred the Great’s vision for a united England.
It feels lived-in.
When Uhtred loses a friend, you feel the weight of a world where life is cheap but loyalty is everything. The show captures the tension between the encroaching "Danes" and the fragmented Saxon kingdoms. It also avoids the trap of making the religious conflict one-dimensional. Alfred isn't just a "pious king"; he’s a sickly, brilliant, often manipulative strategist who understands that a kingdom needs more than just swords—it needs a shared story.
The battle scenes in The Last Kingdom or Vikings often use something called "stunt-walling." It’s not always perfectly accurate to how a shield wall worked—which was more of a grinding, suffocating push than a series of individual duels—but it captures the claustrophobia.
The "Game of Thrones" effect and the rise of Fantasy-Medievalism
We can't ignore the dragon in the room. Game of Thrones fundamentally shifted how networks greenlight middle ages tv series. Before 2011, medieval shows were often "educational" or low-budget. After GoT, everyone wanted high-production value, political intrigue, and "prestige" violence.
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This led to a surge in shows that aren't technically "historical" but use the Middle Ages as a skin. The Witcher, Wheel of Time, and Rings of Power all draft off the aesthetic of the 12th to 14th centuries.
But there’s a downside.
The "Thrones-ification" of history means that real historical figures are now often written as if they’re playing a game of 4D chess. Sometimes, history was just a series of accidents. Sometimes a king died because he ate too many lampreys (looking at you, Henry I). Real history is often weirder and less "cinematic" than the scripts suggest.
The nuance of the "Strong Female Lead" in medieval settings
A common critique of modern middle ages tv series is that they "anachronistically" insert powerful women into the narrative. This is actually a misunderstanding of history. While the Middle Ages were undeniably patriarchal, women like Eleanor of Aquitaine, Catherine of Siena, or Matilda of Tuscany wielded immense power.
The show The Serpent Queen or the various Starz series like The White Princess actually highlight a truth: women in the Middle Ages had to be twice as smart to survive half as long. Their power wasn't usually on the battlefield, but in the diplomacy of the court and the management of massive estates while their husbands were off on Crusade.
When a show gets this right, it’s fascinating. When it gets it wrong, it feels like a 21st-century person in a costume party.
Realism vs. Entertainment: Where to draw the line?
You’ve probably noticed that armor in TV shows is basically made of paper. A sword swing hits a guy in full plate mail, and he falls over dead. In reality, plate armor was nearly impenetrable to a sword. You had to use a mace, a war hammer, or find a gap in the armpit.
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Does it matter?
For most people, no. We want the drama. We want the "clink" sound effect. But for the nerds—and I count myself among them—it’s refreshing when a show like Knightfall (for all its flaws) or the film The King actually shows the exhaustion of fighting in 60 pounds of steel.
The Middle Ages were loud. They were smelly. They were colorful. They were deeply, deeply religious in a way that most modern people can't truly grasp.
Most middle ages tv series struggle with that last part. They treat religion as a plot device or a "villain" rather than the literal atmosphere that everyone breathed. To a person in 1200, the supernatural wasn't "fantasy." It was just part of the geography. Angels and demons were as real as the trees.
Spotting the "fake" Middle Ages
If you want to be a savvy viewer, look for these three things that usually scream "low effort" in a production:
- The "Everything is Gray" Palette: If the sky is always overcast and the clothes are all charcoal gray, the director is relying on clichés.
- The "Reverse Grip" Sword Fighting: If someone is holding a longsword backward like a dagger, they’d be dead in five seconds.
- The "Clean Teeth" Paradox: This is a bit of a myth, actually. Medieval people used linen cloths and herbs to scrub their teeth. They didn't have sugar in their diets like we do, so their teeth were often surprisingly okay—just worn down from grit in the bread. If an actor has blindingly white, perfectly veneered teeth, it can break the immersion.
What to watch right now if you're bored
If you've already exhausted the big names, there are some deep cuts worth your time.
- El Cid: A Spanish production that actually feels Spanish. It covers the life of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar and gets into the complex overlap of Christian and Muslim cultures in the Iberian Peninsula.
- The Hollow Crown: If you can handle Shakespearean English, this is the peak of the genre. It’s basically the real-life Game of Thrones (the Wars of the Roses) performed by the best actors in the world (Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hiddleston).
- Marco Polo: It was canceled too soon, but its depiction of the Mongol Empire is breathtaking. It moves the "Middle Ages" focus away from Europe, which is a breath of fresh air.
The Middle Ages wasn't just a "time." It was a thousand years of human evolution, art, and war. We keep coming back to these shows because they represent a world stripped of its modern safety nets.
Actionable steps for the medieval enthusiast
If you're looking to dive deeper into the world of middle ages tv series and the history that inspires them, don't just stop at the screen.
- Follow the "Actual" Experts: Look up Dr. Eleanor Janega or the Medievalists.net podcast. They tear apart shows with a mix of love and academic fury. It makes watching way more fun.
- Check the Source Material: Most of the best shows are based on books. Bernard Cornwell’s Saxon Stories or Dan Jones’s non-fiction work The Plantagenets read like high-octane thrillers.
- Visit a Living History Museum: If you're in the UK or Europe, places like Guédelon Castle in France (where they are building a 13th-century castle using only period tools) will ruin TV for you in the best way possible. You'll see how long it actually takes to sharpen a tool or haul a stone.
- Look Beyond Europe: Search for "Heian period" dramas or "Three Kingdoms" series from Asia. They offer the same medieval "feel"—castles, armor, succession crises—but with entirely different cultural stakes.
The genre isn't going anywhere. As long as we have a fascination with power, honor, and the struggle to survive against the odds, we'll keep making middle ages tv series. Just keep an eye out for the biker leather and the suspiciously white teeth.