We're Not So Different

www.standwithminnesota.com folks, we invited Logan Weimer onto the show to talk about patriarchal violence against Jane Boleyn but ended up talking about the fascist occupation of Minneapolis by the federal government. Logan, who is a resident of Minneapolis, gives us a firsthand account of the feeling on the streets, the horrors they've faced, and the way people have come together to protect each...

folks, Greenland is in the news for fairly stupid, very American reasons, so we decided to take a look back at Greenland during the Middle Ages. how did the Norse setup a colony on Greenland and keep it going in relatively European style for so long? what were their interactions like with the indigenous American groups? what were their lives like? and what happened to cause the end of the Greenlan...

folks, it's January and time for another dive into the Patron mailbag. if you would like to ask questions like these, you can subscribe for just $5 a month at patreon.com/wnsdpod. today, we talk about Medieval understandings of the Roman Republic, confirmations, Medieval Home Alone, Glup Shittos, and a counterfactual about friends of the show, the Mongols and the Theodosian Walls.

folks, happy 2026! we're back and we'd love to talk about the Middle Ages but current events have overtaken us and we are forced to talk about the dying empire that is America. we chat about the illegal and baffling kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro and his wife, the ramifications of the event on global politics, the murder of Renee Nicole Good by ICE agents in Minneapolis, and th...

we're unlocking this bonus episode because it's the week of New Year, it was originally published in early 2024. if you like it, why not subscribe at patreon.com/wnsdpod. in this episode, we actually talk about a way in which we're very very fucking different from the people of the past, not just those in the Middle Ages, but even our own parents and grandparents: Irony. obviously, dramatic and rh...

folks, it's time to talk about some fun, important, and symbolic dates from the Middle Ages. we discuss what days of the year they found significant, their attempts at numerology, the fact that the Anno Domini calendar system is off by a few years, and then talk about some of our favorite Medieval dates and what they mean. enjoy and happy holidays!

folks, we're back with another installment of our patron mailbag episodes. we get a lot of great questions from our patrons and so dive in every month to do some catching up. this time, we talk Medieval parades, 9/11 conspiracies, Medieval views on animal and plant extinction, an alternate history, and what TV shows would Medieval people like. enjoy and have a happy holiday!

folks, it's episode 250 and since we love our big, round numbers, we take the time to celebrate. we look back at the show, talk our favorite segments, series, bits, and more. thanks so much for listening to 250 episodes, we're excited to do 250 more in the future!

folks, today we talk about a couple of real big Medieval blunders. Incredibly stupid, shortsighted, and ill-fated decisions that resulted in outsized disasters that changed the course of history. first, Eleanor discusses the White Ship Disaster, which finally answers the age-old question: is it smart to be the heir to the throne, get stinking drunk, have the crew get stinking drunk and then race b...

folks, Luke just returned from a vacation to Disney and is here to give us a firsthand update on how the normies are doing and whether they're ready for the return of woke or not. then we catch up on some news of the past week or so, focusing on the continuing decline of the Labour govt in England, the new Epstein files info, the total breakdown of the American Empire, what's going on with the AI...

folks, this week we review 28 Years Later, Danny Boyle's 2025 film about the horrors of being British and, a sneaky Medievalist tale, although with a twist. we go in-depth about the Medieval aspects of the small community on Lindisfarne and why the film turns this bucolic nostalgia on its head. but there's more, including talk of zombie members, life finding a way, memento mori, and the horrific i...

folks, we're back with another mailbag answering questions dutifully submitted by our amazing patrons. we do these every month to catch up on things and we're back to hit a broad range of topics including: ninjas, siege weapons, Leon Trotsky(?), dancing plagues, papal gifts, and the Peace of God. enjoy!

folks, it's time to talk about music. friend of the show, Dr Eleanor Chan, recently released a new book entitled Duet: An Artful History of Music. so we had her on the show to talk about the universal appeal of music, cave music, Hildegard of Bingen, bagpipes, and much more. enjoy and check out Dr. Chan's work at https://eleanorchan.com/

folks, it's spooky season again and we take a look at the revenant, a lesser-known monster today but one that positively terrified Medieval people. we take a look at a number of stories spanning across all of Northern Europe about dead bodies rising from the grave and causing mischief and horror in the physical world. they were so worried about this that they even did so-called deviant burials, wh...

folks, we're back after convalescing for a week and it's time to get rage-baited into reviewing a Dan Brown book. the latest entry in Brown's ongoing series about Robert Langdon is called The Secret of Secrets and it's set in Prague, so it's tailor-made to really annoy Dr. Eleanor. we review Brown's most recent bad Umberto Eco ripoff, talk about the Dan Brown mania of early-2000s America, bad hist...

folks, it's time to talk about dragons! we love them, we've always loved them, they are the best. we got a question from Ollie Cant about dragons and decided to answer it with a full episode. we talk about the earliest dragons, why humans all across the globe seem to create them in some form, the differences between Eastern and Western dragons, and then name some of our favorite folkloric dragons...

folks, we decided to talk about Medieval assassinations, mostly as a way to talk about the Hashashshin, the Order of Assassins, that existed in Syria and Iran from 1090-1275. we talk about some ancient assassinations that had a large impact on the Middle Ages before turning to a number of Medieval cases such as Thomas Beckett, Wenceslaus I, Pope John X, and a bunch of Byzantine guys. then, finally...

folks, we had a whole different episode planned for today but due to a series of extremely annoying technological problems and frustrating audio issues, we decided to switch topics and do a little catharsis. we talk about the new rapture predictions, which are supposed to happen on either September 23 or 24, why it's silly to predict the Second Coming, and why most people who have ever been involv...

folks, we're back and opening up the patron mailbag for September to address the backlog of questions we have. we cover a bunch of topics today, ranging from Medieval parenting to mariners to video games to derogatory terms for AI to Joan of Arc and more. check it out and enjoy! Gaza charities mentioned: Sameer Project linktree: https://linktr.ee/thesameerproject Medical Aid for Palestinians: http...

folks, we just released a new bonus episode for our First Crusade series with the boys from American Prestige and so we're releasing this episode for free to hopefully get more people interested in the 12-episode series we did, which you can find for just $10 at welcometothecrusades.com . this is the third episode, Cairo, which discusses the Muslim perspective on the First Crusade. if you haven't...

folks, we reach the end of our series on Medieval Scotland, in which war were declared. at long last, we finally meet Scotland proper, just in time for them to fight for their very lives. a succession crisis in the Kingdom of Alba gave way to English impositions, which forced the Scots to wage the First War of Scottish Independence to break from the tyrannical English yoke and then a Second War of...

folks, we're back with part 2 of our series on Medieval Scotland wherein we encounter the Kingdom of Alba, which is what the English called Scotland back then. we don't know what they called themselves because they weren't too fond of writing, which is a big theme this time. we look at the rise and fall of Alba, the historical MacBeth, and the Normanization of Alba by the royal court against the w...

folks, we haven't ever focused on Scotland. much like the Roman Empire, we've been scared to do it thus far but now we surpass the Romans in every way by going into Scotland and figuring out what the hell was going on in there before, say, 1500 or so. we start a short series on Medieval Scotland by talking about how they got the Highlands, why the Romans put up two walls to keep them out, try to s...

folks, we got a bit of a split episode today. we start with talking about the state of the world in the cold open before moving to a discussion about periodization and efforts to move away from western conceptions and why it's really hard to make broad, accurate periods sometimes. then, we turn to the world of modern Christianity and talk about all the baffling and insane things people are cooking...