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folks, you asked and now you shall receive. we're here to review the 2024 Hulu series, Shogun, based on the 1975 novel by James Clavell. we talk about the first five episodes this time and then we'll talk about the second five on next week's show. but first we start with the historical basis, as is our wont, and tell you about how a series that takes place in the year 1600 is actually Medieval and also Feudal, with a capital-F. then we dive in headfirst and ask the question that has long plagued mankind: is it truly possible for a soulful white boy to learn? does he smoke too good? is his girl too bad? are they going to try and kill him? will he be gifted a kimono? well, join us to find out as we review the first half of the excellent Hulu series, Shogun.
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folks, you know we love great folklore, traveling, and delightful accents and we've combined all three today as we talk to Welsh author, writer, and activist, Russ Williams. Russ has recently released his first traditionally-published novel, entitled What the Folk?, in Great Britain (forthcoming in the United States). It's a travelog wherein Russ visits the locations from dozens of old Welsh stories to see what they're like, how they informed the stories, and what pieces remain for us today. Russ joins the show to talk with us about all manner of fun and interesting Welsh things like a giant beaver demon, the holiday tradition of Mari Lwyd, and some Arthuriana discussion, of course! we had a lot of fun and we're sure you'll enjoy and be sure to check out Russ's book if you're interested.
https://www.russwilliams.org/ -
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folks, we're back with another mailbag episode. our patrons have written questions and now we're going to answer them. we discuss a wide range of topics from wedding rings to mylings to the Charter of the Forest to why Medieval European empires couldn't really expand out like Asian and African empires and more!
but first, we talk about the US election for about 15 mins, so skip right ahead if you don't want to hear that. then we talk about breaking news as a full accounting of the land and property holdings of the British royal family was published in The Sunday Times last week that includes a number of shocking revelations, not the least of which is that the royal duchies still receive feudal levies and dues and other taxes from agreements that date back as far as the Hundred Years War. check out the report here if you want more info: https://www.thetimes.com/uk/royal-family/article/how-royals-make-millions-king-charles-prince-william-27lkftd2n -
folks, it's spooky season and we've reached back into the Middle Ages to find twelve ghost stories to celebrate. actually, these twelve were already compiled together and are known as the Byland Abbey ghost stories, which is where the manuscript containing these stories was initially discovered. these stories, all written around the year 1400 give us a great view into how Medieval people told scary stories. spoiler: there's obviously a whole lot of Christianity but there's also some truly metal shit and storytelling elements we still use today in our own horror fiction. we've got everything: ghosts carrying beans, a teleporting stocking, biblically-accurate bales of hay, ladies rocking, and so much more! so get in the mood for Halloween or All Saints Day or whatever fall celebration you like, and join us for twelve Medieval ghost stories. you can check them out here: https://archive.org/details/YAJ0271924/page/362/mode/2up
but first, we follow up on our Opus Dei episode by discussing Pope Francis pulling out and sitting on a throne that hasn't been publicly displayed since just after the American Civil War and what it means for his ongoing cold war with reactionary forces in the Church.
if you have questions about the Patreon note at the beginning, please see this FAQ. nothing will change for current patrons, don't worry! https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/27992151772813-iOS-in-app-purchases-FAQ?utm_campaign=241031-IAPSB-Migrated&utm_medium=email&utm_source=iterable -
folks, it's time to talk about Opus Dei, the shadowy "church within a church" of the Catholic Church. why are we talking about Opus Dei? well, mostly because it's been in the news and we were chatting about it via text and decided to do an episode about it. so we talk about the brief history of Opus Dei, some of the controversies surrounding the organization, how it differs from other clerical and monastic orders within the Church hierarchy, why the popes are so friendly with it, and more. then we talk about the recent news stories involving Opus Dei and its supposedly contentious relationship with Pope Francis, how recent changes will effect Opus Dei, and why everyone is fighting about a mountain in rural Spain.
Links: the first is to a Financial Times article that describes a lot of the history of Opus Dei, it is paywalled, just FYI. the second is about the Torreciudad question and the third is about recent changes between the Church and Opus Dei.
https://www.ft.com/content/a62202ea-1897-4847-8e49-9deab4fa507chttps://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/259779/conflict-between-opus-dei-and-spanish-diocese-to-be-mediated-by-papal-commissionerhttps://catholicvote.org/pope-francs-meets-opus-dei-prelate-adaptations-statutes/ -
folks, we're back with part two of our miniseries on the life and travels of Ibn Battuta, the most well-traveled man of the Middle Ages, and Derek Davison is back to help us out. this time, we look at the final two big journeys of Ibn Battuta's life that take him from Turkey to India to China and back over a 15-year span and then a much shorter one from Tangiers up to Al-Andalus and then down through West Africa to Mali and back home again over 5 years. we also talk about the spread of Islam in the 14th century, how Ibn Battuta managed to avoid the Black Death, and why his arrival was always very bad news for the remaining fragmented parts of the Mongol Empire. it's a lot of fun and we want to thank Derek once again for taking the time to come on the show.
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folks, we're talking Medieval travelers today and that means we're talking about the man, the myth, the legend: Ibn Battuta. Even if he doesn't have quite the same western name recognition as Marco Polo, Ibn Battuta traveled much more extensively, taking three huge journeys that took him through Africa, Europe, and Asia. He walked the Silk Road and touched the Rock of Gibraltar, he was the Medieval traveler extraordinaire. but to properly do Ibn Battuta justice, we needed a guest who could speak to his extensive journeys and what they meant to the Medieval world, so we brought in Medieval and Modern Muslim scholar Derek Davison of the American Prestige podcast and the Foreign Exchanges substack.
Part one of the interview covers the general details about Ibn Battuta, his early life, and first major trip from 1325-1332, Derek will be back next week for part two where we will finish up the story.
Foreign Exchanges: foreignexchanges.news
Derek's twitter: @ dwdavison -
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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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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