Afleveringen
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folks, after a brief weather delay, we're here to close out our Day in the Life series with a grab bag of Medieval jobs we haven't gotten to thus far. this time, we jump around between five different topics suggested by our patrons: how were the famous English archers trained? what did ladies-in-waiting wait on all the damn time? what backbreaking chores did household servants do? how bad was life for a Medieval sailor? and what was life like for the construction worker shaping the monumental structures we can still see today? check it out as we wrap up this series in style.
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In this introduction, we bring you up to speed on the background you need before we get into the book itself next time. We start with a question that is simple in theory but not in practice: what genre is this book? Could be murder-mystery, could be postmodernist ruminations on the nature of academia, who's to say? Next, we talk about that author Umberto Eco and the frankly insane number of things he was trying to get across in the book. Then we discuss what you need to know about liturgical hours, a concept that is foreign to us but quite important to the story. Then there's the very detailed historical setting of this historical fiction, which Eco was obsessed with: a combination of political, social, cultural, and religious factors that form the basis for the unfolding narrative. Finally, we unravel some of the secrets of the unnamed abbey, which serves as the physical setting for The Name of the Rose, including the Aedificium and its mazelike, 56-room library, which is modeled after the Sacra di San Michele abbey near Turin, Italy (see the cover image). There's a lot here but it's a fantastic novel and we can't wait to cover the whole thing along with you over the next few months!
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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so far in our Day in the Life series, we've covered peasant farmers, knights, merchants, and royalty, which means that the only major group in Medieval Europe we've yet to cover is the clergy. but the clergy wasn't just stuffy archbishops in their giant cathedrals, the humble parish priest provided spiritual comfort as well as social services and material aid to his parishioners while the monks and nuns of the holy orders were working away in their abbeys and convents. this episode, we take a look at three separate levels of the clergy to get a flavor for what their daily lives were like: the parish priest, the archbishop, and the monk/nun. check it out!
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folks, we're back and continuing our Day in the Life series and this time we're talking about those fat cat royals in their palaces. sure, their positions could only exist based off the exploitation and suffering of like 98% of the populace but still, what the hell did they do all day? What did it mean to hold court? How were early Medieval courts different from their later counterparts and when did that start to change? What were things like at the court of Holy Roman Emperor, Charles IV? Join us as we answer all these questions and more talking about the lives of Medieval royals.
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folks, we're back and continuing our run of answering patron episode requests and our Day in the Life series by talking about what a normal day was like for a Medieval merchant. how was city life different from living on a farm? what was it like to live on a continent where most people made transactions on the barter system but also use coins for trade? what was Medieval currency like and how did Medieval currency exchanges occur without set standards? what was travel like in the Middle Ages? and, what was it like to be one of the vanishingly small number of people who traveled more than a couple miles from home on a daily basis? we talk all that and more as we look at the Medieval merchant
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folks, after consulting our very own sacred chickens, we decided to turn a few of these patron episode requests into a short series, focusing on a Day in the Life of various medieval European people. Last week was the peasant farmer, and this time, it's the High and Late Medieval tournament knight. we discuss the differences between earlier conceptions of knights, the whole chivalry thing, jousting as a social phenomenon, and what it's like to be knight tilting on the jousts. because if there's one thing humans have always loved, it's watching other humans run headlong into each other and develop lifelong but vague allegiances because of it. thanks to our patron Gaffsey for the question.
link to Eleanor's History Hit video on Medieval sports and tourneys: https://youtu.be/909Bo9_1jOU?si=0vT4zlJocoifvOZX -
folks, throughout the history of the show, we've gotten a ton of questions that we answer at the beginning of almost every episode but we also get episode requests on broader topics. since we have something of a backlog of these, we figured we would start to address them and so we answer a request from our patron Dogspotter, who asked us to do an episode about what life was like down on the farm for the peasant and what kind of animals they had around. so we decided to take you through an exhausting day-in-the-life of a Medieval peasant on a farm.
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folks, we're back with the 6th and final episode in our series on the Norman Conquest and English Anarchy. we close our the Anarchy in style by talking about the strange course of the conflict, Empress Matilda's high point of power in England, London's rejection of the Empress, the stalemate that followed, the eventual rise of Matilda's son, Henry FitzEmpress, and the eventual collapse of Stephen's rule as the nobles refused to crown his son king and instead opted for Henry. turns out, even if they didn't want Matilda as queen, that doesn't mean anyone actually liked Stephen all that much either. so his rule becomes a 19-year-long aberration that runs the length of the Anarchy before King Henry II takes over, rebuilds the realm, and sets it up for future political strife during his long reign.
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folks, it's part 5 of our series on the Norman Conquest and English Anarchy and we're finally getting to the Anarchy part. We talk about the state of England in 1135 at the time of Henry I's death, what kind of anarchy we mean here, the main players and their claims to the throne, early political jockeying, and then the formal outbreak of civil war in 1138. Of course, we also make a few comparisons to House of the Dragon since George RR Martin used the English Anarchy as his rough template for the Targaryen civil war.
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folks, we're back with part four of our series on the Norman Conquest and English Anarchy. this time, the best laid succession plans of mice and men go awry. Despite a decade of relative peace toward the end of his reign and dying with three male heirs in line, William the Conqueror's sons immediately begin quarreling with the help of some more rebellious barons. William Rufus wins the right to the English throne, defeating his older brother, Robert Curthose, for the prize before reconciling with him. Then, after William Rufus's death, William the Conqueror's youngest son, Henry, would defeat old brother Robert again and then have a nice thirty-five year reign. Until his succession plans were thrown out of whack and he had to turn to his daughter, Matilda. After that, Anarchy won't be far behind.
Finally, here's man getting his by brick: https://x.com/LukeRenshaw/status/1818384899469910349 -
folks, we're back with part three of our series on the Norman Conquest and English Anarchy where we finish up the rest of 1066 and see William the Conqueror crowned. then we turn to William's rule of England, which was mostly absenteeism except when he was responding to the numerous but sporadic and disconnected rebellions with extreme force. we'll see all the rebellions fail, even the Revolt of the Earls, and watch as the Norman yoke fully descends on England once and for all. finally, William dies and, perhaps unsurprisingly, there's a contested succession between his two sons, Rufus and Robert.
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note: yes, there is echo on Eleanor's audio because she is travelling and the only place where she could record had tall ceilings and thus an echo. this also caused some weird feedback on Luke's track too. we have done our best to minimize it, so please just bear with us.
folks, we're back with part 2 of our series on the Norman Conquest and English Anarchy. last time, we introduced you to pre-Norman England and the Norman themselves as we worked our way up to 1066 CE. but now it's time for conquest! four claimants threw their names in the ring after Edward the Confessor's death in January 1066 and they would fight it out to see who would rule England. or at least they will fight it out but only after waiting for about nine months before making any offensive moves against the island. but once the party starts, England will be invaded by Norse and Danish Vikings, warriors from Orkney, perfidious Frenchmen, Bretons, and, of course, Normans. so join us as we watch William of Normandy become the Conqueror and find out why his conquest almost failed and he wasn't accepted even after his victory at the Battle of Hastings. -
folks, we're back with a new series, this one covering the Norman Conquest of England and then the Anarchy that followed about seventy years later. we were originally just going to do the Anarchy but decided to do the Conquest as well because it's kind of a big deal. this episode serves as an introduction to pre-Norman England and the Normans themselves. we talk about prehistoric England, Roman Britain, the Heptarchy, Christianization of the island, Viking invasions, and more. then we turn to discuss how the warlike Normans came to dominate the northwestern part of modern-day France, all leading up to the reign of a bastard named William.
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folks, we're back with another patron mailbag episode, as promised. in this one, we answer a bunch of questions ranging from the justifications for predestination, usage of the term "Anglo-Saxon," the culture shock of being a Chinese visitor in Medieval Europe, historical murder rates, and whether Neo-Feudalism is actually a thing or not. check it out, it's a lot of fun and if you want to submit your own, just sign up.
audio note: if you hear a slight buzzing behind Eleanor's audio, that is because she needed to have a fan on in the background during the heat wave. We've done what we can to minimize it but it is what it is. enjoy the show! -
folks, it's time for another mailbag episode to answer some of our backlog of patron questions! in fact, this is the first of two mailbags we're doing in a row, so there's more to look forward to next week. this time, we answer questions on investigating forged Medieval documents, Medieval views on allergies, whether an ironing board would make a good early Medieval shield, a bit about the Euros, and then one on whether the upper crust of society really believed in Christianity. it's fun, check it out!
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folks, we're back and this time, we're going to the Early Modern period to discuss the Galileo Affair. an odd, 23-year-long saga that saw the Catholic Church and Galileo Galilee go head-to-head over heliocentrism in the early 1600s. this is the moment when the modern views of religion and science as implacable enemies and the Church as this pervasive group of thought police are truly born. this is the time when the Church censored real scientific discovery in the name of preserving the status quo and when they began insisting on biblical inerrancy as a doctrine. in short, it's when the modern misconceptions of the Medieval Church comes into being but it happens in the Early Modern period. so how and why did it get retroactively applied to the Middle Ages? let's find out!
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folks, we're back and we're talking once again doing another entry in our occasional series on large adult fail sons of the Middle Ages. Last time, we discussed Charlemagne, one of the most important rulers of all-time, his legacy, and his Carolingian Empire. however, the Carolingian Empire would only survive its founder by about 80 years thanks to the attempted coups, early deaths, and tragic misrule of Charlemagne's four sons: Pepin, Charles the Younger, Pepin of Italy, and Louis the Pious. so let's take a look at how it all went so wrong for Charlemagne's territorial and imperial legacy
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folks, we're back and it's high time we talked about good ol' Karl the Great. no, not Marx, the Medieval Karl the Great, Charlemagne. though he's one of the most important figures in world history, we haven't ever done an episode dedicated to him, so we decided to remedy that. we talk about his early life, his rise to power, his military victories, his massive cultural interests, how he ruled over the only fully "feudal" society (as we understand that word today) in history, and the historiographical battles over legacy. however, if you're just a huge Charlemagne hater, that's ok too, because next week we're going to talk about how his vaunted and much renowned Carolingian Empire only survived his death by about 70 years than to Karl's 4 incompetent fail sons.
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folks, we're back and we've got Paul Bavill, co-host of the History Rage podcast, to talk with us about dueling, trials by combat, honor, and demands for satisfaction. we discuss why duels and trials by combat were actually fought, what the difference is between honor and reputation, and even some of the most interesting duels in history. check it out and check out Paul's work on History Rage to hear more from him.
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folks, we're back and it's time to talk about saints. tho we have often touched on the lives of various saints, we've never really talked through the whole process of canonization and how it changed quite drastically during the Middle Ages as the Catholic Church began to consolidate and centralize its power in Europe. we also talk about the types of miracles needed to become a saint and how those are investigated. finally, we take a look at a few of the more popular Medieval saints: St. Louis, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Afra of Augsburg, and the martyred saints of Cordoba. enjoy!
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