We're Not So Different

folks, we're back after a brief hiatus, and back into our series on Constantinople. this time, we take a look at the beginning of the decline of Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire, which started in 567 after Justinian I's death. but, as civilizational declines go, it wasn't so bad for the first 500 years or so. however, the myriad factors that would lead to the fall of Constantinople were beg...

we decided to take a look at some Holy Roman Empire and Habsburg news that has come up in the past month. first, and more seriously, we look at a study of how Holy Roman Emperors governed from the road through a practice known as itinerant rule and it can be used to trace the rise and decline of the power of the imperial office. then, we move onto the real fun: an article about the recent Habsburg...

folks, we're continuing our series on Constantinople. last time we introduced the city via its geography, Constantine making it the capital of the Roman Empire, and the Theodosian Walls. this time, we get into the early Medieval history of the city, which also happens to be the real golden age for Constantinople. beginning under Emperor Justinian I, Constantinople took the mantle of "Rome" serious...

folks, we were delayed one week due to the storm of the century in the American southeast but things have thawed a bit and we're back on track just in time to start a series on the Queen of Cities, Constantinople. Eventually, it would become the crown jewel city of Medieval Europe, a hub of culture, religion, trade, defense, and more, and, briefly, the most important city in the world before falli...

folks, here is an unlocked bonus episode because a winter storm of the century in the American southeast made recording impossible this week. enjoy! the bonus is back for a new year and Luke and Eleanor have been thinking about things and stuff and it's time to ruminate on them. first, Eleanor talks about the way in which rationality and a loss of spirituality supposedly went hand-in-hand with the...

folks, we all love trains. they're great for moving people and cargo and famously not as bad as cars but did you know that the first railways and trackways were built in the Classical and Medieval eras. that's right, despite what Victorian era propaganda would have you believe, the train didn't simply appear fully formed in the English mind in the 18th century where it was then bestowed upon the r...

folks, so this is the new year? well, we could start with a new series or something but a lot of shit has happened the past few weeks and Eleanor and Luke haven't chatted in a while, so they take some time to catch-up on recent events, both hilarious and horrifying. then, to get back into the swing of Medieval things, we talk about an excellent new academic paper that sheds light on a truly bizarr...

folks, it's our final episode of 2024 and our 200th regular episode of the show and to celebrate, we've got the conclusion of our year-end mailbag episodes. we answer questions about how cathedrals were cleaned in the Middle Ages, favorite Star Wars ship, banishment, Medieval takeout, mountaineering, early Church politics, and more! enjoy and have a happy new year from us here at the show!

folks, it's no secret that 2024 has been a bit of a bummer, to say the least. however, it's not terribly healthy to always focus on the bad, so we decided to talk about some our favorite stuff we saw, did, read, and heard this year. Luke and Eleanor each chose four things and they go back and forth discussing them, riffing, you know how it goes. feel free to play along leave some of your own favor...

folks, it's the end of the year and that means we're having holiday fun and making merry but also that we're crunched for time, so we won't be starting any new series or anything like that. instead, we're diving back into the backlog of questions from our patrons for not one but two episodes here at the end of the year, though there will be an unlocked bonus episode for the week of Christmas stuck...

folks, we've made no secret that we love mysticism on the show. we've talked about it on various episodes and some of our faves were mystics including Hildegard, Marguerite Porete, St. Francis, and more. so we were naturally interested when philosopher Simon Critchley published a new book, entitled On Mysticism: The Experience of Ecstasy in October 2024, and he agreed to come on the show. we talk...

folks, Ridley Scott has just released another one of his patented, late-era slopfests and we couldn't be more ready. that's right, it's your Gladiator II review, wherein we are forced to admit that we sometimes really enjoy the slop. so we brought returning champion Patrick Wyman back on the show to use his Roman history expertise to break down this oddly-paced, mess of a film with an anemic plot...

folks, we're back with more fun with part two of our review of the 2024 Hulu series, Shogun. last time we learned that a soulful white boy in a strange land can listen and learn and even find a nice, soulful Japanese girl who's just emo enough to fall for him. but this time, we learn that all of that was simply a ruse to draw us deeper into the Yoshii Toranaga show! Hiroyuki Sanada gives one of th...

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...

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 stori...

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...

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 scar...

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...

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 thro...

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 Medieva...

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...

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...

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 an...

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 d...

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...