Link. (http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/137363/kelly-devries/game-of-thrones-as-history)
QuoteFor half a century, fantasy has essentially been a series of footnotes to Tolkien. Until George R.R. Martin, that is. Martin's epic A Song of Ice and Fire series -- now five novels and counting, with the first two dramatized by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss on HBO as Game of Thrones -- ventures boldly outside the Tolkien box and has revitalized the entire genre in the process. Gone are hobbits, elves, orcs, non-human dwarves, ents, balrogs, and most magical items (although not all magic or magical creatures). Gone too are the Manichaean simplicities of a world in which most characters can be quickly identified as good or evil. Martin's saga has few one-dimensional heroes but many fully fleshed out people.
A Song of Ice and Fire is set in a world modeled after medieval England, and many claim that the series' genius and popularity stems from its accurate and sensitive portrayal of medieval life. Millions of readers and viewers have formed a passionate bond with Martin's creation, this argument runs, precisely because it is not simply made up but, rather, rooted in actual human experience. Martin himself has encouraged this line of thinking, claiming he reads "everything I can get my hands on" about medieval history and even including a bibliography on his Web site for those interested in his source materials. But is the argument correct? Just how realistic is A Song of Ice and Fire?
The short answer is "not very." Before hordes of angry fans launch their trebuchets in my direction, however, let me hasten to add that this is a good thing, not a bad one. As a historian of the period, I can assure you that the real Middle Ages were very boring -- and if Martin's epic were truly historically accurate, it would be very boring too. I'm glad Martin takes all the liberties he does, because I prefer my literature exciting. Medieval people did also, which is why their own most popular literary creations were nearly as fantastic as Martin's.
No Geat named Beowulf ripped the arm off a monster named Grendel and then fought the monster's mother in a cave. It is conceivable that there was an actual early medieval Scandinavian warrior-chief named Beowulf, but if so his life was likely spent farming, herding, hunting, fishing, and perhaps judging a few minor local disputes or doing some raiding. There probably was a warlord named something like Arthur living in post-Roman Celtic Britain, but at most he might have led a short, unsuccessful defensive campaign against Saxon invaders. Merlin, Excalibur, the Lady of the Lake, the Grail, Lancelot, Guinevere, Galahad, and all the rest were sketched in by Geoffrey of Monmouth in the twelfth century and his various successors later on. St. George did not slay a dragon; Robin Hood didn't rob from the rich or fight the Sheriff of Nottingham. Just like Martin, the authors of those tales made things up rather than taking their cues from actual life, because the reality around them was so dull and drab.
During the Middle Ages, most peasants and townspeople led a pretty static life. They worked as children, worked as adolescents, and worked as adults; they got married, had children themselves, and died, either quite young or possibly after living to the grand old age of 55. Not much violence interrupted their existence. They could not read, went on no adventures, and had little entertainment except for church services and holy days.
A medieval peasant working in the fields or a laborer toiling in the towns certainly had a more onerous life than a farmer or blue-collar worker today, but the degree of misery should not be overstated. Mundane and boring does not necessarily mean harsh, and harsh does not necessarily mean unhappy. Contemporaneous literary depictions such as Chaucer's Canterbury Tales do not portray the daily existence or mindset of the lower classes as terrible, and the merciless brutality regularly suffered by the lower orders in fantasy works such as Martin's does not reflect reality -- not least because it would have been economically ludicrous for nobles to so abuse the people on whose productivity their own livelihoods depended.
As for the nobles themselves, they had it a bit better. They ate a more varied diet, had more possessions, and met a broader range of acquaintances; they might also have had more education and entertainment. But their lives were still boring. Most men of noble birth would train in military arts that they would never use, and most women would train in domestic arts they would use, repeatedly (although only after their fathers or brothers had bartered them to the most politically well-connected suitor). Violence may have been more diverse at this level of society, but it was unlikely to have been more frequent. There was no incest (at least none recorded), no dwarves, few assassinations.
[Spoiler Alert] Some of the incidents and characters in A Song of Ice and Fire are indeed drawn from actual medieval history. Dragons, for example, were all over the place, especially in England and Scandinavia. They were not real dragons, naturally, but metaphors of evil. Religious icons often depict Saints George and Michael defeating dragons, by lance and feet, respectively. Scandinavian gods and heroes such as Beowulf often slew them in the course of their duties protecting weaker people. And in 1388 the generally trustworthy chronicler Henry Knighton even noted that a "fiery dragon" was seen flying around the north of England.
Cersei Lannister's walk of shame in A Dance with Dragons has both medieval and ancient precedents. Capital punishment was permissible in the Middle Ages really only for one crime: treason. Noble traitors were usually beheaded -- as Ned Stark was -- while non-noble ones were executed in more creative ways. (In 1305, William Wallace was hung until almost dead, then emasculated, ripped open, and, finally, beheaded, after having his intestines wrapped around a pole.) For adultery, humiliation was a standard punishment, and walks of shame were used for noble women. After her capture, Joan of Arc was taken throughout English-occupied France on a very lengthy walk of shame before her trial and burning at the stake for treason (to the Church). Martin has said that he based Cersei's walk on that of Jane Shore, mistress of Edward IV, in the late fifteenth century (although his treatment seems to owe more to William Blake's later representation of it than to the actual penance Jane was forced to endure).
Martin gives Vargo Hoat, the sadistic leader of the Bloody Mummers, the trademark gesture of chopping off his victims' hands and feet. King John of England did that to wounded rebels during his siege of Rochester Castle in 1215, and John of Worcester says that Harold Godwinson did it to Alfred Aetheling and his companions in 1036.
As Martin notes, swords were important. They were the weapons of leadership, both ceremonial objects and effective military tools. A sword could be given to a boy as a gift at birth or naming, and he would grow up playing with it and with other, lighter swords until it became a weapon he could wield with strength and agility. A sword could also be presented when a man proved himself worthy of it, just as Longclaw is given to Jon Snow by the commander of the Night's Watch in A Game of Thrones. And like Longclaw, swords could be named and could have their pommels replaced as necessary or desired.
At the Battle of the Blackwater in A Clash of Kings, Stannis Baratheon's fleet is defeated by canisters of "wildfire" and a massive chain stretched across the river. Here Martin probably has in mind Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. The Byzantines had in their arsenal Greek fire, a petroleum substance that could be pumped over open fires to create a flame-thrower. The natural beds that produced Greek fire seem to have dried up by the early thirteenth century, but later Muslim armies managed to produce a synthetic version and put it in canisters that could then be thrown by hand or catapult. Such incendiaries were rarely effective and rarely used.
Chains across rivers or harbors, on the other hand, were very effective. A long chain crossed the Golden Horn, protecting Constantinople. How early it was placed there is unknown, but Icelandic sagas record it as a hindrance that had to be overcome when Harald Hardrada, later king of Norway, escaped from the city in the mid-eleventh century: his ship managed to make it over the chain with difficulty, although a companion vessel sank trying to do the same. Other chains protected the harbor on Rhodes, the city of York, the Golubac Fortress on the Danube, and even, centuries later, West Point, on the Hudson.
Martin's depiction of medieval warfare certainly has some accurate points, but, like his description of medieval life more generally, it is far more action-packed than its historical counterpart. The desired result of medieval warfare was usually not death but flight. Trying to kill the enemy was costly and potentially risky; it was easier just to get him to run away. Battles often turned on chance factors such as a leader's death or heroism or the combatants' relative enthusiasm. Good strategy involved finding a way to challenge perceived weaker forces, causing them to panic and rout, and then quickly claiming victory. Often medieval battles took no more time than 20 or 30 minutes from start to finish; longer fights were unusual.
The battle of Courtrai, fought between the French army and rebellious Flemish townspeople on July 11, 1302, was one of the bloodiest of all medieval battles, in part because the townspeople knew that if they lost they might well be massacred. The Flemish army prepared the field for expected French cavalry charges, digging ditches that were often flooded or concealed, and established their lines along a bend in a river to make their own soldiers' desertion difficult. Flemish soldiers did not break and run when the French charged and the battle took several hours to fight. Flemish forces were armed with spears and spike-tipped staves; these were used to knock French cavalry from their mounts, after which a coup de grace could be administered with a dagger. Hundreds of men were killed, perhaps as many as a thousand.
But for every Courtrai there were several Patays (1429), with English troops lying in ambush but being revealed and flushed quickly from the field by the French, and Towtons (1461), with a brief archery exchange followed by a single Yorkist charge that routed the Lancastrians. Neither Patay nor Towton -- nor the endless routine campaigning that involved little violence but lots of boredom, logistical troubles, and dysentery -- makes for good fantasy literature. Martin knows this -- which is why he treats the highly unusual Courtrai level of violence as his norm.
At times, Martin clearly invokes the Wars of the Roses, what with the house of Lannister (Lancaster) locked in a rivalry with the house of Stark (York), and there are parallels to Mongol invasions (the Dothraki), the Hanseatic League (the Free Cities), and so forth. But searching too intensely for the "real" elements beneath the text is pointless, since what is truly captivating about Martin's world -- the detailed descriptions, the strong dialogue, the multifaceted characters, the intricate plots and subplots -- stems from not from his source material but from his own imagination. That turns out to be the true magic.
In terms of battles, maybe. In terms of intrigue and politics, the Middle Ages were probably even more exciting, as there's likely a lot of medieval intrigue that we don't know about.
Quote from: Solmyr on March 30, 2013, 01:05:21 PM
In terms of battles, maybe. In terms of intrigue and politics, the Middle Ages were probably even more exciting, as there's likely a lot of medieval intrigue that we don't know about.
So it was more exciting, but no one knew enough about it to get excited? Okay.
I imagine any country experiencing civil war is far too exciting for it's inhabitants. Where the novels differ most from real history (with the exception of the supernatural), is in religion. People treat religion closer to the way we treat it in the modern age. Wildly different religions seem to coexist peacefully and people have little problem converting, at least compared to the real middle ages. If a English pretender converted to Islam in the midst of a civil war it would not only scandalize the whole of Europe, but quickly end his chances of taking the throne and likely shorten his life.
The author is somewhat deceptive about the Treason thing, since the definition of treason has changed quite a bit. Poaching a deer might be considered treason.
Executive summary?
Quote from: The Brain on March 30, 2013, 05:36:50 PM
Executive summary?
The Middle Ages were boring. :smarty:
Quote from: Queequeg on March 30, 2013, 12:35:21 PM
As for the nobles themselves, they had it a bit better. They ate a more varied diet, had more possessions, and met a broader range of acquaintances; they might also have had more education and entertainment. But their lives were still boring. Most men of noble birth would train in military arts that they would never use, and most women would train in domestic arts they would use, repeatedly (although only after their fathers or brothers had bartered them to the most politically well-connected suitor). Violence may have been more diverse at this level of society, but it was unlikely to have been more frequent. There was no incest (at least none recorded), no dwarves, few assassinations.
That claim seems pretty unlikely considering the endemic warfare throughout most of the Middle Ages.
As for no dwarves, I'm sure Peter the Great didn't invent them.
If it was anything like GoT, no wonder euros are so fucked up. :P
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on March 30, 2013, 06:50:30 PM
Quote from: Queequeg on March 30, 2013, 12:35:21 PM
As for the nobles themselves, they had it a bit better. They ate a more varied diet, had more possessions, and met a broader range of acquaintances; they might also have had more education and entertainment. But their lives were still boring. Most men of noble birth would train in military arts that they would never use, and most women would train in domestic arts they would use, repeatedly (although only after their fathers or brothers had bartered them to the most politically well-connected suitor). Violence may have been more diverse at this level of society, but it was unlikely to have been more frequent. There was no incest (at least none recorded), no dwarves, few assassinations.
That claim seems pretty unlikely considering the endemic warfare throughout most of the Middle Ages.
As for no dwarves, I'm sure Peter the Great didn't invent them.
Well, that's another thing we can credit Peter the Great for not inventing.
Now that I think of it, wasn't Charlemagne rumored to have engaged in incest? That was recorded. No clue if it was true. Cousin incest was extremely common.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on March 30, 2013, 05:52:30 PM
Quote from: The Brain on March 30, 2013, 05:36:50 PM
Executive summary?
The Middle Ages were boring. :smarty:
In terms of entertainment options, they were more limited than we are today. They probably worked a lot harder, died a lot earlier, and ate a lot crappier food.
But is life boring when death was always around the next corner? A life where you have a dozen kids, with three wives (because the first two died in childbirth), and only 3 of the kids lived to adulthood doesn't seem boring. Especially when you die at 40. Violence was also off the charts compared to today.
Quote from: Razgovory on March 30, 2013, 06:53:16 PM
Well, that's another thing we can credit Peter the Great for not inventing.
Point being that he liked to "collect" them, so they were clearly around. The author clearly knows enough about GoT to know that Tyrion is a human and not some other species like Snow White's dwarfs, so his "no dwarves" claim is rather odd; there have always been humans with stunted growth.
Quote from: alfred russel on March 30, 2013, 07:03:49 PM
In terms of entertainment options, they were more limited than we are today. They probably worked a lot harder, died a lot earlier, and ate a lot crappier food.
Actually, the average medieval peasant probably worked less than most people do today. Most of the work was during planting and harvesting, they didn't have as much to do for the rest of the year, so they broke out the ale and celebrated various saints' days.
Is the OP text from a cereal box?
Quote from: The Brain on March 30, 2013, 07:15:26 PM
Is the OP text from a cereal box?
Porb written by someone with too much time on their hands. If they do have that much time, they should probably do something constructive like study the MA.
Their openning paragraph sounds like they want to blow George R R or something.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on March 30, 2013, 07:04:09 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on March 30, 2013, 06:53:16 PM
Well, that's another thing we can credit Peter the Great for not inventing.
Point being that he liked to "collect" them, so they were clearly around. The author clearly knows enough about GoT to know that Tyrion is a human and not some other species like Snow White's dwarfs, so his "no dwarves" claim is rather odd; there have always been humans with stunted growth.
I was wondering why you brought that up. "Collecting" human oddities was fairly common in Europe for hundreds of years.
QuoteThe battle of Courtrai, fought between the French army and rebellious Flemish townspeople on July 11, 1302, was one of the bloodiest of all medieval battles
Can someone confirm this?
Quote from: 11B4V on March 30, 2013, 07:23:38 PM
QuoteThe battle of Courtrai, fought between the French army and rebellious Flemish townspeople on July 11, 1302, was one of the bloodiest of all medieval battles
Can someone confirm this?
No, because that's a lie.
Does the author really use Towton as an example of a brief and relatively bloodless battle? I hope I'm just too drunk and tired to understand.
Quote from: Grey Fox on March 30, 2013, 07:25:50 PM
Quote from: 11B4V on March 30, 2013, 07:23:38 PM
QuoteThe battle of Courtrai, fought between the French army and rebellious Flemish townspeople on July 11, 1302, was one of the bloodiest of all medieval battles
Can someone confirm this?
No, because that's a lie.
Figured that didnt sound right.
Good to know that Foreign Affairs is garbage.
Quote from: 11B4V on March 30, 2013, 07:28:30 PM
Quote from: Grey Fox on March 30, 2013, 07:25:50 PM
Quote from: 11B4V on March 30, 2013, 07:23:38 PM
QuoteThe battle of Courtrai, fought between the French army and rebellious Flemish townspeople on July 11, 1302, was one of the bloodiest of all medieval battles
Can someone confirm this?
No, because that's a lie.
Figured that didnt sound right.
Well, more nobles than usual died in that battle, because the Flemish didn't care about ransom.
Dude claims to be a "historian of the period", but can't think of many examples of violent warfare or interesting events from the entire Middle Ages (even from the high and late Middle Ages only, as his analysis seems to exclude the early MA)? :huh:
Well, yes.
In the Middle Ages Tywin Lannister would probably have had to wait an extra 4-5 months before his army was fully assembled and requisitioned, leaving a relatively short campaigning season. So instead of being able to roam over the country he would have to content himself to a chevauchee somewhere. Game of Thrones is fictional and about moving a plot forward. In the Medieval period war was expensive, incredibly difficult to organise and pretty unpredictable because no plan would ever, ever work.
But a series of Tywin meeting local dignitaries and making plans while writing feverish letters for Tyrion to speed up recruitment and send more money would be terribly, terribly dull.
Which isn't to say the period isn't interesting or didn't have violence.
In the Middle Ages, George RR Martin would have been torn apart by geese, who would chase him through the village, until he collapsed in a heap.
He already is a heap. :hmm:
Quote from: Sheilbh on March 30, 2013, 08:37:25 PM
Well, yes.
In the Middle Ages Tywin Lannister would probably have had to wait an extra 4-5 months before his army was fully assembled and requisitioned, leaving a relatively short campaigning season. So instead of being able to roam over the country he would have to content himself to a chevauchee somewhere. Game of Thrones is fictional and about moving a plot forward. In the Medieval period war was expensive, incredibly difficult to organise and pretty unpredictable because no plan would ever, ever work.
But a series of Tywin meeting local dignitaries and making plans while writing feverish letters for Tyrion to speed up recruitment and send more money would be terribly, terribly dull.
Which isn't to say the period isn't interesting or didn't have violence.
Yeah, the big thing in the novels is that events move much quicker. Pitched battles were uncommon, commanders preferred to engage in siege warfare and raids. You wouldn't have several major battle in quick succession. That isn't to say that knights didn't get to use their capabilities very often. There were doubtless countless smaller actions and raids that were never recorded.
There's also the issue of ease. Towns and castles don't move so they're easy to find, two armies roaming in the same general vicinity could miss each other. Even if they arranged a battle (and they often did) something else could happen that required one or other to move somewhere else and so on. Which is the other thing, very often they did try to arrange battles because that was the chivalrous thing to do.
Well the Seven Kingdoms seem much more centralized than medieval Europe, more so than is realistic given how closely their feudal social system mirrors Europe's. There are plenty of preindustrial empires that could have waged such campaigns, but they were organized quite differently.
Quote from: Razgovory on March 30, 2013, 08:57:45 PM
Quote from: Sheilbh on March 30, 2013, 08:37:25 PM
Well, yes.
In the Middle Ages Tywin Lannister would probably have had to wait an extra 4-5 months before his army was fully assembled and requisitioned, leaving a relatively short campaigning season. So instead of being able to roam over the country he would have to content himself to a chevauchee somewhere. Game of Thrones is fictional and about moving a plot forward. In the Medieval period war was expensive, incredibly difficult to organise and pretty unpredictable because no plan would ever, ever work.
But a series of Tywin meeting local dignitaries and making plans while writing feverish letters for Tyrion to speed up recruitment and send more money would be terribly, terribly dull.
Which isn't to say the period isn't interesting or didn't have violence.
Yeah, the big thing in the novels is that events move much quicker. Pitched battles were uncommon, commanders preferred to engage in siege warfare and raids. You wouldn't have several major battle in quick succession. That isn't to say that knights didn't get to use their capabilities very often. There were doubtless countless smaller actions and raids that were never recorded.
In the Wars of the Roses you had many pitched battles, often several in a season. The dynamic was very different from say the war in France.
TBH I think the author of the article overstates the impact medieval Europe has on the world of the series. Essos draws quite a bit from the ancient near-east, and most of the free cities have far more in common with Carthage and Venice than the Hanseatic League. TBH, I think the entire world has quite a bit in common with ancient China or Japan (Japan during the Age of the Country at War in particular, with the Fire-worshipers standing in for Christianity.) Feudal families in Japan and China tended to have ownership of a certain region for far longer periods than families in the west.
I'm not totally sure how much that post made, I've had a pounding fever headache for the last 24 hours and the fact that it is dulled now with massive amounts of ibuprofen is probably not helping my coherency.
Quote from: The Brain on March 30, 2013, 07:27:55 PM
Does the author really use Towton as an example of a brief and relatively bloodless battle? I hope I'm just too drunk and tired to understand.
Yes. Yes he does; he claims that most medieval battles lasted 20-30 minutes them states Courtrai was an exception and compares this fight with Patay and Towton as being more "normal" battles. Oh, and he also argues that most medieval warfare was aimed at encouraging the enemy to flee, not killing them; which while having a modicum of truth does beg the question of how Towton can be touted as an example of this either!
Which means his knowledge of medieval military history is pretty shit; I can't immediately comment on the rest though.
Meh. The politics of the Wars of the Roses, which is clearly a big influence on Martin, were every bit as deadly and unpleasant (read, "exciting") as his fictional creation.
Just look at the life and death of Richard the 3rd. And what happened to his brothers. And his nephews ...
Also, are battles in Game of Thrones really that common as some people have claimed? It seems to me that 95% of time, military campaigns are about people chasing each other and burning stuff down.
Besides, I don't think the campaigns really last that long, to be honest, either.
The entire campaign of the Northerners lasts around two years, and they have a pretty good reason to keep the banners up, but begin to grumble about the length of the campaign anyway.
Stannis's campaign is pretty short and he sails to the Wall eventually only with a handful of very loyal men.
Only Lannisters seem to be able to keep their bannermen in the field for a longer period of time, but they have gold and everybody is scared shitless of them.
Quote from: grumbler on March 30, 2013, 02:38:01 PM
Quote from: Solmyr on March 30, 2013, 01:05:21 PM
In terms of battles, maybe. In terms of intrigue and politics, the Middle Ages were probably even more exciting, as there's likely a lot of medieval intrigue that we don't know about.
So it was more exciting, but no one knew enough about it to get excited? Okay.
Well, intrigue is going to be exciting to those directly involved, but if people not directly involved know enough about it to get excited about it, someone's doing it wrong.
Also, a lot of what people scheme and plot isn't going to be all that interesting to anyone else even if it becomes known. Most intrigue wasn't about someone plotting to overthrow the king, or even about someone scheming to marry their oldest daughter to the duke's son--it was about someone in the court trying to move from being the king's fifth most favored advisor to being the king's fourth most favored advisor. Important to the people directly affected? Sure. Historically significant? Very rarely. And for a lot of plots, if you have any sense at all, you aren't putting anything in writing, 'cause if things don't work out, you don't want any evidence of what you were doing. And often, even the nobles involved couldn't read and write anyway (though that was more true of the Dark Ages than the high Middle Ages).
Quote from: Martinus on April 01, 2013, 11:44:22 AM
Also, are battles in Game of Thrones really that common as some people have claimed? It seems to me that 95% of time, military campaigns are about people chasing each other and burning stuff down.
Besides, I don't think the campaigns really last that long, to be honest, either.
The entire campaign of the Northerners lasts around two years, and they have a pretty good reason to keep the banners up, but begin to grumble about the length of the campaign anyway.
Stannis's campaign is pretty short and he sails to the Wall eventually only with a handful of very loyal men.
Only Lannisters seem to be able to keep their bannermen in the field for a longer period of time, but they have gold and everybody is scared shitless of them.
If you consider all the battles that were fought during the period of say roughly 700-1000 in Ireland, Scotland and England (both internally and against the Vikings) and then consider all the battles that were fought on the Continent by Charlemagne and then throughout his empire as it disintegrated (both internally and against Sarcen pirates, magyars, etc) you would have a large number of battles competing for the title of bloodiest battle.
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 02, 2013, 09:48:30 AM
Quote from: Martinus on April 01, 2013, 11:44:22 AM
Also, are battles in Game of Thrones really that common as some people have claimed? It seems to me that 95% of time, military campaigns are about people chasing each other and burning stuff down.
Besides, I don't think the campaigns really last that long, to be honest, either.
The entire campaign of the Northerners lasts around two years, and they have a pretty good reason to keep the banners up, but begin to grumble about the length of the campaign anyway.
Stannis's campaign is pretty short and he sails to the Wall eventually only with a handful of very loyal men.
Only Lannisters seem to be able to keep their bannermen in the field for a longer period of time, but they have gold and everybody is scared shitless of them.
If you consider all the battles that were fought during the period of say roughly 700-1000 in Ireland, Scotland and England (both internally and against the Vikings) and then consider all the battles that were fought on the Continent by Charlemagne and then throughout his empire as it disintegrated (both internally and against Sarcen pirates, magyars, etc) you would have a large number of battles competing for the title of bloodiest battle.
Was your post in response to mine you have quoted? :huh:
Quote from: dps on April 02, 2013, 07:10:54 AM
Quote from: grumbler on March 30, 2013, 02:38:01 PM
Quote from: Solmyr on March 30, 2013, 01:05:21 PM
In terms of battles, maybe. In terms of intrigue and politics, the Middle Ages were probably even more exciting, as there's likely a lot of medieval intrigue that we don't know about.
So it was more exciting, but no one knew enough about it to get excited? Okay.
Well, intrigue is going to be exciting to those directly involved, but if people not directly involved know enough about it to get excited about it, someone's doing it wrong.
Also, a lot of what people scheme and plot isn't going to be all that interesting to anyone else even if it becomes known. Most intrigue wasn't about someone plotting to overthrow the king, or even about someone scheming to marry their oldest daughter to the duke's son--it was about someone in the court trying to move from being the king's fifth most favored advisor to being the king's fourth most favored advisor. Important to the people directly affected? Sure. Historically significant? Very rarely. And for a lot of plots, if you have any sense at all, you aren't putting anything in writing, 'cause if things don't work out, you don't want any evidence of what you were doing. And often, even the nobles involved couldn't read and write anyway (though that was more true of the Dark Ages than the high Middle Ages).
This is a good point and also indicative of a broader issue - we have this tendency to retroactively view history in terms of certain grand narratives, and discard everything that does not fit or is not relevant for the purpose of such narratives.
For example, a lot of pre-modern European history is taught from the perspective of the emerging nation states, and countries that were not relevant for that are often ignored - the high medieval Duchy of Burgundy is a great example of that.