First of all, I am a huge fan of the first wave of English Gothic literature (which is often dated from 1764 with the publication of Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto to 1820 with Charles Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer, although this periodization is certainly debatable).
As the name of the genre itself suggests, many Gothic novels were set in the Middle Ages (or in the Early Modern Period). The Gothic novel also coincided with a broader revived interest in the Middle Ages in Great Britain.
However, I imagine that their depiction of the Middle Ages was often far from historically accurate. A seemingly obvious example to me of historical inaccuracy is that they often describe Medieval castles and abbeys as lying in ruins during the period when they were in use. Furthermore, 18th c. English people, who either saw themselves as pious Protestants or enlightened Deists, had strong ideological reasons to paint Medieval Catholics in a very unflattering light.
With that preamble, I'd like to know of some historical inaccuracies about the Middle Ages in such novels, be they obvious or subtle.
As a related question, I'd like to ask, to what extent is the present popular conception of the Middle Ages in Anglo-American countries based on the period's depiction in Gothic novels?
Let me know if there is anything I can clarify about my question(s). I look forward to your responses! Thanks!
For Medievalists and Early Modernists who are not very familiar with Gothic novels, I've included some guiding questions that address common situations in such novels. Gothic novels usually take place any time from the 12th to the 17th centuries, and common locations in Southwestern Europe or Germany, although Medieval England and Scotland are also frequently used locales.
How easily could a powerful feudal lord kidnap a young woman to force her to marry him?
In turn, how easily could a feudal lord immure his wife in a distant part of his castle, fake her death, and remarry?
How easily could feudal lords imprison and kill rivals within their castle walls and still remain undiscovered for years?
While the risk of bandits on the roads and highways has already been addressed in this forum, I would like to know if bandits were still a problem in the Early Modern Period.
Were people superstitious enough that one could pretend to be a ghost in the dark of the night and make people believe they actually saw a ghost? Did nobles ever use the superstition of their servants to enforce greater compliance?
Are there any cases where nobles who had bitter, envious rivals wanting to destroy their line (mainly to inherit their holdings) entrusted their children to peasant families to protect them and inform them of their rightful titles once they came of age?
How common was the murder of noble heirs by their next-of-kin in order to inherit their titles and land (I suppose that Richard III would be a royal example of this if it could be proved that he actually killed his nephews)? How much should a noble heir fear his younger brother who had everything to gain, materially speaking, from his death?
I know these questions may seem silly, but I am very interested in knowing whether or not conventional Gothic novel plot points are founded on at least a grain of truth about darker Medieval behavior.
I would argue that that gothic literature of the period doesn't so much get the middle ages wrong as not talk about them at all. Otranto is allegedly set in the mediaeval kingdom of Naples, but it is actually set in the dark Italy of the 16th and 17th century English imagination, the land of poisoning, tyrants, wicked clergy and corruption which features in revenge drama such as The Duchess of Malfi. Likewise, The Monk is set in the Spain of the Black Legend and it wouldn't matter for the story if it was 1385 or 1785. The Central Europe of the novels is likewise a never-neverland or Ruritania, drawn as much from the contemporary and recent HRE and the Habsburg lands (and enlightenment and revolutionary propaganda about the rulers of those areas) as anything mediaeval. Likewise the castles and abbeys are informed by Strawberry Hill and the new interest in the picturesque and tourism to mediaeval (rather than classical) ruins.