Gone Medieval

Medieval England’s relationship with the Jewish community was complex and, at times, brutally violent and cruel. In 1290, the entire population of some 3,000 Jews was expelled from the country by King Edward I.  In this edition of Gone Medieval , Matt Lewis talks to Dr. Dean Irwin, whose research into Jewish moneylending activities sheds a fascinating light on the life of Jews in Medieval Eng...

Humanity's relationship with the wilderness has been a theme of myths and legends for thousands of years. Such stories can offer a unique insight into the medieval mind and its concept of the wild. In this episode of Gone Medieval , Dr. Cat Jarman ventures out into ancient Selwood Forest in Wiltshire with Amy Jeffs - author of Wild: Tales from Early Medieval Britain - to reflect on our ancestors’...

The Crusades are well-known but only part of the complex history of the medieval Near East. During the same era, the region was completely remade by the Mongol invasions.  In a single generation, the Mongols upended the region’s geopolitics.   In this edition of Gone Medieva l, Matt Lewis talks to Dr. Nicholas Morton, author of The Mongol Storm: Making and Breaking Empires in the Me...

Growing from a few North German towns in the late 12th century, the Hanseatic League — a powerful network of merchant guilds and market towns — dominated trade across almost 200 settlements in seven modern-day countries. But how did it function and manage to become so successful over such a vast region? In this edition of Gone Medieval , Dr. Cat Jarman finds out...

In the fourth century AD, the Christian faith exploded out of Palestine, overwhelming the paganism of Rome, converting the Emperor Constantine in the process. Almost a thousand years later, all of Europe was controlled by Christian rulers, and the religion was deeply ingrained within culture and society.  In this edition of Gone Medieval , Matt Lewis talks to Professor Peter Heather, author o...

878 AD witnessed a pivotal moment in the history of England as an emerging, unified nation, with the defeat of the Vikings by Alfred the Great at the Battle of Edington. Now, a new immersive history experience is opening in Winchester, titled 878 AD . Winchester featured heavily in the world of  Assassin’s Creed Valhalla , and the experience draws heavily on imagery and assets from the game t...

Public executions were a major part of Londoners’ lives from the 12th century right through to the 19th. Now the Museum of London Docklands has brought the rarely told and often tragic human stories behind these events to a superb new exhibition, containing a range of fascinating objects, paintings and projections, many of which have rarely been seen in public. In this edition of Gone Medieval , M...

Britain was once a mosaic of small kingdoms, some of which have vanished without a trace. In his new book  Lost Realms , Thomas Williams, uncovers the forgotten stories of nine kingdoms that fell while others - such as Wessex, Mercia, Northumbria and Gwynedd - prospered. In this episode of Gone Medieval, Dr. Cat Jarman talks to Thomas Williams whose close scrutiny of Britain’s ancient landsca...

Jan Žižka is the legendary Czech national hero who led Hussite forces against three crusades and never lost a single battle. His rise to military greatness is now told in the feature film titled  Medieval , starring Ben Foster and Sir Michael Caine - the most expensive Czech film ever made. In this episode of  Gone Medieval , Matt Lewis finds out more about Jan Žižka and the film from it...

Archeological evidence of the Vikings as far north as Northumbria has practically been non-existent. On Gone Medieval in May 2021, Dr. Cat Jarman reported on a brand-new Viking site in Northumberland, 15 years after metal detectorists started carefully documenting their finds in the area.  In this edition of Gone Medieval , Dr. Cat Jarman is joined by Dr. Jane Harrison and Dr. Jane Kershaw wh...

Vlad the Impaler - Vlad Dracula - is one of history’s most brutal figures, who has enjoyed a bizarre afterlife as a cult character. Although a hero to his Romanian countrymen, the name Dracula has since become a global byword for horror. In this Hallowe’en edition of Gone Medieval, Matt Lewis finds out more about Vlad the Impaler’s dramatic life and career from Gavin Baddeley, co-author of  P...

Earlier this month, it was reported that DNA analysis of the skeleton of a 10-year-old girl buried in Kent in the 7th century showed she was of West African descent. Thirty-three per cent of her DNA suggests that the girl’s grandfather or great-grandfather was probably from the Esan or Yoruba people. As Black History Month draws to a close, Dr. Cat Jarman explores what is known about the presence...

On 21 October 1422 - 600 years ago - King Charles VI of France died at the age of 53 after reigning for 42 years. He was known as both Charles le Bien-Aimé (the Beloved) and Charles le Fou (the Mad) - the latter a reference to the mental health episodes that frequently dogged his life. Because he was a king, his health is better documented than most cases of mental illness in the Medieval period....

For centuries, the pub has played a central role in our lives and communities. Throughout Britain, there are many pubs saying that they are the oldest - some of them even claim to have Medieval origins. In this episode of Gone Medieval , Dr. Cat Jarman welcomes back award-winning buildings archaeologist Dr. James Wright to explore how long we have actually had pubs and which of them can truly clai...

Were sub-Saharan Africans present in Medieval Europe? Despite their absence from many histories, they were. Arriving as traders, as explorers, as warriors, or - for those only known from archaeological discoveries - for many reasons that we may never find out. In this episode of Gone Medieval , Matt Lewis marks Black History Month with a look at the challenges of researching this largely igno...

Across the world, a wide range of writing systems developed in diverse societies and Medieval Europe was no different. Apart from the Latin alphabet, many will be familiar with the use of runes. But did you know that in Ireland and Britain, right at the start of the Medieval period, a different alphabet emerged by the name of Ogham? To find out more about this fascinating script, Dr. Cat Jarman is...

When the skeletons of six adults and 11 children were found at the bottom of a Medieval well in Norwich in 2004, they were thought perhaps to be the victims of plague or famine or civil unrest. Now scientific advances in DNA analysis have made it possible to not only age the victims, but identify their Jewish origin and - in combination with historical sources - the precise day they died. In this...

Charles III recently became King at the age of 73 - the oldest man ever to become a British monarch. That might not seem so odd to us today, but had he been a child it would certainly have raised eyebrows. The idea of a child monarch is today practically unthinkable; in the Medieval period it was relatively common. But the rule of a boy king did not necessarily mean political disorder. In fac...

The emergence of the Gothic style in twelfth-century France - with its pointed arches, flying buttresses and stained glass windows - triggered an explosion of cathedral-building across western Europe. But behind every great cathedral lay human stories of competition, triumph and tragedy. In today’s episode of Gone Medieval , Matt Lewis talks to Dr. Emma J. Wells, whose new book Heaven on Earth: Th...

Dr. Cat Jarman concludes her month-long series about her favourite, specialist subject - the Vikings. Cnut the Great became King of England in 1016, King of Denmark in 1018 and King of Norway in 1028, creating the North Sea Empire. In today’s episode Cat talks to Dr. Caitlin Ellis about Cnut, his impact and legacy, and the end of the Viking Era. The Senior Producer on this episode was Elena Guthri...

Castles have held a pivotal place in British life, many of them remaining today as powerful reminders of our history and sources of inspiration. But castles were also homes and status symbols as well as hubs of life, activity, and imagination. In today’s edition of Gone Medieval , Matt Lewis discusses the castle’s early genesis from the Norman Conquest onward with John Goodall, whose new book The...

Few people in European history have had as many stories told about them as the Vikings. We know about them from novels, films, TV series and games. But telling stories about the Vikings is nothing new. In fact the richest stories come from the Middle Ages in the form of sagas that were mainly written down in Iceland. As part of her special month of episodes exploring the Vikings on Gone Medieval ,...

Dan Jones is world-famous for writing swashbuckling factual history. But now he’s turned his hand to historical fiction with a debut novel  Essex Dogs . It’s the first of a trilogy set in the Hundred Years War, in particular during the Crécy Campaign when England conducted large-scale raids throughout northern France. In today’s episode of  Gone Medieval , Matt Lewis talks to Dan about h...

September is Vikings month on  Gone Medieval , as Dr. Cat Jarman presents a mini-series about her favourite, specialist subject. Over four episodes, Cat is taking a deep dive into the Viking age, looking at how it all started, how it all ended, and the stories we tell about those people from the north in between. In this second episode, Cat tells how raiders, traders and settlers from Scandin...

Queen Elizabeth II has died after 70 years on the British throne. Born in April 1926, Elizabeth Windsor became heir apparent, aged 10, when her uncle Edward VIII abdicated and her father George VI became king. In 1947 – She married navy lieutenant Philip Mountbatten, a Greek Prince, at London’s Westminster Abbey before being crowned there in 1953 in the world’s first televised coronation. In this...