The Youtuber who’s living history
His ‘living history’ video channel has made Jason Kingsley an online hit, finds Cara Mcgoogan
In a time when children would much rather be watching videos posted by their favourite Youtubers than just about anything else, it can be difficult for parents to know if “vloggers” are teaching their acolytes anything, well, useful. Fortunately, a knight in shining armour has arrived on the scene. Quite literally. Jason Kingsley, a millionaire British businessman who moonlights as a practising medieval knight, intends to inspire a new generation of history buffs with his recently launched Youtube channel, Modern History. Each compelling little episode is a case of showing, rather than simply telling.
“I’m interested in challenging people’s perceptions, especially armchair historians. Rather than theorise it, let’s try it,” says the long-haired 53-year-old.
In one video, for example, Kingsley tests whether it is possible to put a lance through the eye slots of a medieval helmet while charging at full speed on a steed. Charging at full gallop on one of his 13 personally owned “war horses”, he manages to spear the eyes on a gel head with a metal-tipped lance, proving that, yes, it could have been done. It is safe to say that fellow Youtube phenom Zoella has never done that.
“The kernel of the idea is to ask a question of the audience, then have a go and see what the outcome is,” he says. Generally, videos last for no more than five or 10 minutes – short, sharp and very entertaining.
When not clad in chain mail and poking things, Kingsley is chief executive and co-founder of Rebellion, the Oxford-based video game development company behind the Sniper Elite series and which, since 2000 has owned the sc-fi comic 2000AD. Kingsley founded Rebellion – one of the biggest independent developers in Europe – 25 years ago with his brother, Chris. Turnover last year was around £40million.
A Judge Dredd television series is currently being made. It is in conjunction with that production company, and using his personal wealth from Rebellion, that Modern History is coming to fruition. “I thought it would be fun with the TV production team to do a series of challenge documentaries, and the first of these is the Modern Knight series, in which we look at assumptions and then challenge them and see if they’re true or not,” he explains.
The host’s personal interest in the subject certainly helps. Fully kittedout in a helmet and armour, Kingsley has been taking part in jousts and battle re-enactments with other history enthusiasts for the past decade, training his own horses (he used to play polo) in medieval equestrian techniques on his farm in Hampshire, and researching the truth about our fabled knights.
Often working with English Heritage, he gives up several weekends a year to appear in oneknight shows at castles around the UK, enriching visitors’ experiences. A further “four to eight” weekends are given over to jousting competitions. Now, he’s taken that passion online.
“I don’t think there are many presenters around who could even stand a chance of getting on a horse at speed and try to get out,” he says. “That’s the added value I’ve got. I can talk to the audience then get on a horse and show people what it’s like. And I can talk about it with personal experience.”
A graduate in zoology at Oxford, Kingsley believes young people’s passion for history could be invigorated not only by the method of communication (Youtube, the UK’S second most-visited website after Google, rather than on his own website), but also the type of content delivered.
“I’m interested in real history, not lists of kings and princes, but what it was like to live in the past and train a medieval battle horse. Will a war horse trample on dead bodies or not? The answer is yes, they will” – one of many things Kingsley has tested in his videos, albeit using fake corpses. “I hope it’s educational, I hope it’s fun as well and entertaining. History is often about war and politics, and we don’t get the human stories very often.”
Like many of the best educators, Kingsley, who took a step towards a real knighthood with an OBE for services to the economy in 2012, is self-taught. He hasn’t studied history formally since his O-levels, but “reads a lot of books and [does] a lot of primary research” at Oxford University’s libraries, often with his partner, who is passionate about Far Eastern martial arts.
“I’ve always been interested in history. I have footage of me on my pony dressed in chain mail for the school film we did when I was 12 years old,” he says, looking back fondly.
Now, Kingsley wants to inspire a whole new generation of excitable young historians. And if it means becoming a Youtuber in shining armour, then so be it.
“The best lessons at school were so exciting and filled with ideas that you didn’t want the lesson to end,” he says.
“Anything that can inspire a younger generation to get enthused by stuff is good.”