at understanding the vanished world of our forebears." These ideas were picked up by later authors and incorporated into criticism of medieval films, most notably by Nickolas Haydock and Andrew B.R. Elliott, in order to establish a starting position which accepts the inevitable falsification of the period in film, and instead focuses on what these changes reveal about modern attitudes to the period. Haydock achieves this by arguing for a "medieval imaginary", a Lacanian idea which suggests that there exists a collected body of ideas about the Middle Ages to which filmmakers (and perhaps historians themselves) refer. Elliott, on the other hand, suggests that modern images of the period are based on semiotics, in which both images and paradigms are signifiers of an earlier medieval referent. Both of these ideas connect back to the theory of historiophoty, in that they rely on a kind of history which is written in images, and not in words. Historiophoty today, therefore, is an ongoing process which recognises the inherent problems in bringing history in general- and medieval history in particular, given its vulnerability to be hijacked by the fantasy genre- to life on the screen. One of the major breakthroughs has been in finally overcoming the reluctance to accept film as history by the recognition that it is not a 'type' of history, but rather that cinema makes use of its own cinematic techniques in order to narrate its history, proposing not a challenge to historical records but simply an alternative way of narrating them. Select films At over 900 films listed by Harty in 1999, it is beyond the scope of this article to create a complete list. Listed here are some of the best and most significant films in both quality and historical accuracy as determined by a consensus poll of medieval students and teachers. See also Middle Ages in history List of films based on Arthurian legend List of films and television series featuring Robin Hood Joan of Arc in film Notes Further reading Books John Aberth, A Knight at the Movies: Medieval History on Film, 2003, . Anke Bernau and Bettina Bildhauer, ed. Medieval Film (Manchester: Manchester UP, 2009), Amy de La Bretèque, L'imaginaire Médiéval Dans Le Cinéma Occidental (Paris: Champion, 2004). Richard Burt, Medieval and Early Modern Film and Media (Palgrave MacMillan, 2008) Andrew Elliott, Remaking the Middle Ages: The Methods of Cinema and History in Portraying the