Terry Jones, best known for lampooning knights and peasants in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, turns his attention to the real medieval world he spent decades studying. Each episode of this BBC series takes one stock figure from the period, the Peasant, the Monk, the Damsel, the Minstrel, the King, and pulls it apart against manuscripts, court records, and surviving buildings. Jones argues that the popular image of the Middle Ages, filthy serfs grovelling before pious lords, is largely a Victorian invention, and he uses specific cases to make the point: peasants with more holidays than modern workers, monks running profitable businesses, damsels managing estates and lawsuits in their husbands' absence. He hosts on camera throughout, walking through castles and archives and talking to historians rather than simply narrating over footage. The tone is dry and often funny, in keeping with his Python background, but the research underneath is genuine. Eight episodes in total, each rebuilding one medieval stereotype from the ground up and finding it wrong in an unexpected direction.