Lessons From 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail'

Arthur gets his mighty, magical blade in Arthurian legend.Excalibur.Vivienne, the Lady of the Lake, gives Arthur Excalibur. Excalibur serves multiple roles. First, Arthur uses the blade in a battle against the Saxons. Then, it becomes a symbol of Arthur's virtue and power as he leads the people of Briton justly and valiantly.

Some people, including Arthur, claim his kingly power comes from the blade. Kings from the late medieval and early modern eras gained legitimacy through divine right. But where does power actually come from?

Dennis, the 37-year-old peasant Arthur mistakes for an old woman, says, "Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government." He argues that supreme executive power comes from the masses' mandate. Dennis suggests the anarcho-syndicalist commune is not better than the monarchist tyranny he opposes. Dennis makes a point: "You can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you."

Anyone else claiming the same would likely be seen as crazy.

What is more heroic than a knight storming a castle to save a damsel? Monty Python suggests almost anything else. "The Tale of Sir Lancelot" flips this common idea, showing it might not be as heroic as the story suggests.

Sir Lancelot reads a note on an arrow that hits his squire in the chest. The brave knight runs to the nearby castle to save what he thinks is a princess forced into marriage by her father. He storms the gates, kills the guards, and defeats the castle inhabitants. He finds his princess is actually a pale young man who prefers singing to ruling a kingdom.

His failed expectations show the whole situation. He killed many innocent people for little reason. Sir Lancelot gets nothing from his story. He has no princess, no heroism, and since his squire survives the arrow, he gets no tale of sacrifice or revenge. Even his "dramatic" escape fails; he hangs on a rope above a wedding party singing and dancing.

Knowing the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow is important for a king, especially when using them for coconuts. The two castle guards King Arthur meets at the film's start show a 5-ounce European swallow cannot carry a coconut from the tropics to England. African swallows might carry them, but they do not migrate.

The animal carrying coconuts across the world leaves a mark on King Arthur. When asked, "What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?" near the film's end, Arthur tricks the old man from Scene 24 into admitting he does not know the swallow breed. Arthur then throws the old man into the gorge, hoisting him with his own petard.

Arthur never answers the airspeed velocity question. Some diligent fans have made estimates. In his personal blog, writer Jonathan Corum...Jonathan Corum estimated a European swallow flies at 11 m/s (24 mph). Could such a small bird carry a coconut across continents? The answer remains unclear. Sir Bedivere, Camelot's Master of Science, shows us that...A European swallow flies at 11 m/s (24 mph). Can this small bird carry a coconut across continents at that speed? The answer remains unclear, pointless because Camelot's Master of Science Sir Bedivere shows us that.dovesDoves transport coconuts, not swallows.

The French, King Arthur's main enemy, mock the English knights. They deny them lodging and fire livestock. Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table retreat temporarily after the French "fetchez la vache." Sir Bedivere devises a clever plan: Copy the Greeks.

Squires use loud power tools to raise a giant wooden rabbit to the French castle. After some talk and French guard confusion, they bring the "Trojan" rabbit into the keep. This sets up Launcelot, Gallahad, and Bedivere to jump out of the rabbit at nightfall and surprise the French.The plan might have worked if the three knights were actually in the wooden rabbit.The plan wasn't very cunning. The knights were not in the rabbit. Also, the strategy was poor. It might have worked for the Greeks in the semi-mythological story of The Iliad.

The plan failed because the knights were not in the rabbit, and the strategy was bad. It might have worked for the Greeks in The Iliad.The IliadIf an army leaves a giant wooden figure at the enemy's doorstep, any army should not trust it without checking. The French guards might seem "strange," but they are not fools. They immediately catapult the rabbit back at the English knights.

The British Library states that...85% of all people in medieval Europe were peasants.Monty Python points out that 85% of people in medieval Europe were peasants.Monty Python points out that 85% of people in medieval Europe were peasants.Arthurian legend suggests most people in the Middle Ages (or important ones) were knights and nobles. Peasants in Monty Python and the Holy Grail are rarely mentioned.Peasants in Monty Python and the Holy Grail are rarely mentioned.Those who appear in Monty Python and the Holy Grail are minor, incredibly stupid, and disgusting. Some wallow in the muck. Others suggest making a bridge from someone to prove they are wood and thus a witch. One appears in a scene smashing a cat against a wall.

Arthurian legend shows peasants as a passive group. Monty Python pushes this idea to its limit. Dennis, the only named peasant, fights the system's control. Although his speech mixes Marxist critique of medieval politics, it shows the same repressed class is suppressed in many legends.

Pop culture often romanticizes medieval kings, queens, and knights, making them look clean. The Monty Python troupe shatters this fake image. Peasants in the film live in dirt, sickness, and filth. Knights are covered in their own blood or someone else's. King Arthur cannot maintain a clean look when French people dump feces on him late in the film.

Medieval European hygiene.Hygiene was poor. People washed hands and faces, but full-body bathing was rare. Soap appeared seldom. People cleaned teeth with twigs. They cleaned themselves as much as they could, but lacking running water or expectations like in Byzantium or the Arabic empire, medieval Europeans could not stay clean from dirt and bodily fluids.

Monty Python shows this during the "Bring out your dead" scene. King Arthur rides by a collector with a cart full of corpses. The collector tells a peasant, "He must be a king."

"Why?" the peasant asks.

"He hasn't got sh*t all over him."

When a village screams, "A witch! Burn her!" believing they must remove her, people find it hard to resist joining the excitement. Monty Python shows that crowd power overcomes logic, even without solid proof.

During one ofMonty Python and the Holy GrailIn early scenes, a village dresses a woman in a funnel hat and a carrot nose to convince Sir Bedivere she is a witch who must be burned. Bedivere, though smart, does not accept their demands. One peasant was clearly not turned into a newt, despite his claim. So, Bedivere makes a logical plan: Wood burns. Witches burn because they are wood. Wood floats. Ducks float. Therefore: "If she weighs the same as a duck, she's made of wood... A witch!"

Follow this logic,as some academics haveThe rationale is unsound, but that doesn't affect anyone. The fact that Bedivere's scales are not evenly weighed also doesn't matter. Everyone succumbs to the hysteria and condemns the woman, lacking evidence for her accusation.

In "The Tale of Sir Robin," Sir Robin, who is not quite as brave as Sir Lancelot, faces a major danger. Signs tell the unbrave knight to flee—three other knights lie pinned to a tree by a lance—but Robin and his minstrels gallop right into a three-headed giant's path. Robin tries to talk his way out, but his minstrels provoke the giant and Robin by singing about Robin's nonexistent bravery. Sir Robin faces a fight against a monster terrorizing the countryside, a common event in legends.

Why would he fight? Every person before him died by the giant's hand. Many signs warn that any traveler faces the same fate, and this giant just threatened him. He has two choices: fight or run. Fighting means he will likely die, like everyone else. He picks the smarter path.

Sir Robin might look like a coward for choosing to run, but Monty Python shows how absurd the common story of "heroism" really is.

Sir Robin's minstrels annoy the Knights of the Round Table. They constantly sing about Sir Robin's wins (and more often his losses) while following the knight everywhere, never stopping even when danger looms. Though funny, their presence comments on bards in medieval stories.TaliesinThe great bard of Arthurian legend.

Taliesin sang in the courts of three kings. He predicted the evil king Maelgwn Gwynedd would fall and urged Celtic Britons to fight Saxon invaders. A bard's skill does not stop him from irritating people by singing about everything they do.

In the case ofMonty Python and the Holy Grailthose minstrelsdoget annoying for the entire party, and knights eat them while struggling for food - "There was much rejoicing."

Tim the Enchanter stands on a hill, setting fire to every rock, shrub, and small creature. When he teleports to Arthur's hill, he keeps burning everything in sight, creating two explosions next to him without looking around. Tim the Enchanter summons fire without flint or tinder; he does so because he can.

Tim possesses magic. Though he satirizes Merlin from Arthurian legend, the Monty Python crew correctly showed that anyone with those powers would use them constantly. You might not set a bear on fire. But could you launch fire or fireworks from a staff? Could you blow up a tree? Of course you could.

The film starts setting a tone. Viewers should not take anything too seriously—not even the movie they watch now. Grand music and traditional opening credits feature Swedish subtitles. These start serious, then quickly turn into a story about a moose biting the subtitlist's sister after she tried carving her initials into it with a broken toothbrush. The problem ends when they fire everyone responsible for the subtitles. Then, they fire those who fired them. Finally, they fire the firm hired for the credits. The credit sequence continues with title cards about llamas, causing seizures.

Nothing in the movie, Arthurian legend, or history demands your seriousness. The Python troupe makes clear they will mock everything that builds what they satirize. They mock the film medium itself.

Do the knights know about the old man in Scene 24? Does a knight cut down a modern historian's discussion about the legend in the film? The animator has a heart attack, ending the Black Beast of Aaaaargghh? Local, 20th-century police arrest an army of English knights before they charge the Castle of Aaargh.

Sure, why not?