Did You Know?

Plenty of effort was expended creating lances that would splinter convincingly without taking out the stunt riders as well. The body of each lance was scored so it would break easily, and the tips were made of balsa wood. Each was also hollowed out, and the hole filled with balsa chips and (obviously uncooked) linguini to make convincing splinters.

A medieval version of The London Eye (a large Ferris wheel) can be seen in the aerial shot of London. The shot is not computer generated but is of a model which cost $500,000.

The video version of the film, released prior to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001, was recalled because it contained a Spider-Man preview that included a shot of the World Trade Center.

Two of the characters in the film, Peter The Pardoner and Simon The Summoner, are characters from Geoffrey Chaucer's work, "The Canterbury Tales".

When Chaucer first introduces "Sir Ulrich" in his speech, the crowd does not react at first because the Czech extras could not understand the speech. Mark Addy's loud prompt was what tipped them off to start cheering. This awkward moment was left in because it made the scene funnier.

The phrase that Chaucer tells Will when they get to the first tournament, "I've got to go see a man about a dog," is an archaic reference for going to the bathroom. Although unlikely to have seen use in Chaucer's day, it was in use in the early-1900s.

For the scene when William follows Jocelyn into the cathedral, the sounds of his horse's hooves were produced using coconuts on Charles Maynes' garage floor.

The terrific crunching sound heard whenever a lance shatters in the film is largely made up of the sound of a howitzer being fired. In order to produce the long crunching impact, the sound of the howitzer was slowed down by half.

Gelderland is a real region covering a part of Germany and the Netherlands. Therefore Sir Ulrich's name caused many unplanned laughs in the cinemas there.

The expression "it's sixes and sevens" (which now means a state of confusion), is used in its original gambling context (Simon the Summoner to Geoffrey Chaucer) in a gag to say that this was how the modern expression came into existence. In fact, the phrase was coined about 1495, and in a rather different context. Two London guilds were quarreling over the order of precedence among London guilds, each claiming their right to be sixth in rank. Eventually the Lord Mayor decided that they should take turns, one year the Merchant Taylors would be sixth and the Skinners seventh, and the next year they would switch places - a rule which is observed even now. This was considered complex enough, hence the expression "in sixes and sevens", meaning in utter confusion.

In the movie, Chaucer uses the phrase "gilding the lily". The real Chaucer died in the year 1400. However, the first documented reference of the phrase is from the USA in 1895. It probably derives from a 1565 Shakespear play where Shakespear writes "To gild refined gold, to paint the lily".