Dragonheart Setting

Dragonheart

When and where was the movie set?

The movie Dragonheart was set in England in the 10th century.

What was life like in the 10th Century?

Everyday life in Anglo Saxon England was hard and rough even for the rich. Society was divided into three classes. At the top were the thanes, the Saxon upper class. They enjoyed hunting and feasting and they were expected to give their followers gifts like weapons. Below them were the churls. Some churls were reasonably well off. Others were very poor. Below them were a class of slaves called thralls. Their lives were very hard. Some churls owned their own land but many ‘rented’ land from a thane. They ‘paid rent’ by working in the thane’s land for part of the weed and by giving him part of their crops.

Kinship (family ties) were very important in Anglo Saxon society. If you were killed your relatives would avenge you. If one of your relatives was killed you were expected to avenge them. However, the law did provide an alternative. If you killed or injured somebody you could pay them or their family compensation. The money paid was called wergild and it varied according to a person rank. The wergild for killing a thane was much more than that for killing a churl. Thralls or slaves had no wergild. If the wergild was not paid the relatives were entitles to seek revenge. At first, Anglo Saxon society was relatively free. There were some slaves but the basis of society was a free peasant. In time Anglo Saxon churls began to lode their freedom. They became increasingly dependent on their lords and under their control.

The Anglo Saxons lived in wooden huts with thatched roofs. Usually, there was only one room shared by everybody. (Poor people shared huts with animals divided from them by a screen. During the winter animals' body heat helped keep the hut warm). Thanes and their followers slept on beds but the poorest people slept on the floor.

There were no panes of glass in windows, even in a Thane's hall and there were no chimneys. Floors were of earth or sometimes there were dug out and had wooden floorboards placed over them. There were no carpets. Rich people used candles but they were too expensive for the poor. Instead, poor Anglo Saxons used rushlights (rushes dipped in animal fat). Anglo Saxon toilets were just pits dug in the ground surrounded by walls of wattle (strips of wood is woven together). The seat was a piece of wood with a hole in it.

How did we see that in the film?

• In the movie, there were villages being taxed for basically anything.
• There were slaves that had to work for the Rich
• The houses they had in the villages had the same design as in real life in the 10th century.

Where was the movie filmed? 
The movie Dragonheart was filmed around Slovakia in central Europe, particularly to the east of the country in the beautiful landscapes of the Slovak Paradise National Forest.

How does that link to the historical Setting?
In central Europe, they had castles as well as ruins and open fields which would be great for the movie
since it is set in the tenth century.

In this task, I am learning about the importance of setting to a film.
The work I have above shows that I understand about the setting of the film Dragonheart.