Gone Medieval

In the Middle Ages, animals were often the means for survival and the source of great wealth. No wonder then that in the medieval imagination, animals are not just animals. Animals were thought to have traits and characteristics that meant that they could be sorted into moral categories - good and bad, righteous and evil - that dominate the Christian imagination. Ants could be monsters and panthers could be your friend, dog-headed men were as real as elephants and whales were as sneaky as wolves. In this episode of Gone Medieval, Dr. Eleanor Janega is joined by Hana Videen, author of The Deorhord: An Old English Bestiary to discuss animals, language, and how - when it comes to thinking about the animal kingdom - we actually have a lot in common with our Medieval ancestors. This episode was edited by Ella Blaxill and produced by Joseph Knight.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code MEDIEVAL - sign up here.You can take part in our listener survey here.

If you are planning - or dreaming of - your next holiday, have you stopped to wonder whether our medieval counterparts did exactly the same thing? Why did people travel in the Middle Ages, and what was the experience like for them? Were there any similarities with travelling today?In this edition of Gone Medieval, Matt Lewis talks to Anthony Bale.  His book A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages invites the reader to journey alongside scholars, spies and saints, from western Europe to the Far East and the Antipodes, giving an insight into how medieval people understood their world.This episode was produced by Rob Weinberg.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code MEDIEVAL - sign up here >You can take part in our listener survey here >

Did you know we have our medieval ancestors to thank for whisky? It wasn’t exactly a medieval invention but the process of making distilled alcohol and the idea that it might be fun to drink was.In this episode of Gone Medieval, Dr. Eleanor Janega finds out more from whisky journalist Matt Chambers about how we got from desalinating seawater in the Ancient period to enjoying a dram or two today. This episode was edited by Ella Blaxill and produced by Rob Weinberg.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code MEDIEVAL - sign up here.You can take part in our listener survey here.

Dating from 1467-1603, the Sengoku or ‘Warring States’ period is known as the bloodiest in Japan’s history; an era of continuous social upheaval and civil war which transformed the country. Shogun-led authority was shattered and 150 years of murder and betrayal followed as fearsome warlords ruled local territories with unflinching ruthlessness. In the first episode of this series delving into the history behind the latest Assassin’s Creed game, Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Matt Lewis and Dr Christopher Harding discuss the origins of the Sengoku Period. Together, they explore how political power was organised in Japan during this time, introduce some of the key players, and discuss how the seeds were sown for Japanese unification. Echoes of History is a Ubisoft podcast, brought to you by History Hit. Hosted by: Matt LewisEdited by: Ella BlaxillProduced by: Joseph Knight, Peta Stamper, Matt LewisProduction Coordinator: Beth DonaldsonExecutive Producers: Etienne Bouvier, Julien Fabre, Steve Lanham, Jen BennettIf you liked this podcast please subscribe, share, rate & review.

King Richard I of England - Richard the Lionheart - is one of those historical figures whose reputation stands out so much that the legends cover up the myriad of complex details that we have about their lives. After all, you don't get a name like Lionheart without a serious amount of artful effort, both on the battlefield and in the halls of power.In this episode of Gone Medieval, Dr. Eleanor Janega talks to Dr. Richard Huscroft - author of Ruling England: 1042 to 1217 - about the tumultuous and fabled life of one of medieval Europe's most famous men.This episode was edited by Ella Blaxill and produced by Rob Weinberg.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code MEDIEVAL - sign up here.You can take part in our listener survey here.

The supernatural in the Medieval world was always close at hand. In this episode of Gone Medieval, Matt Lewis pays a visit to the only two residents still at History Hit Towers at the witching hour - After Dark’s presenters Dr. Anthony Delaney and Dr. Maddy Pelling - to regale them with some Medieval stories of the mythological and paranormal.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code MEDIEVAL - sign up here.You can take part in our listener survey here.

​Do you know the difference between a church and a chapel? A bishop and an archbishop? An abbey and an abbess? In this episode of Gone Medieval, Dr. Eleanor Janega is joined by co-host Matt Lewis to chat all things churches. They will demystify church hierarchy, walk you through the basics of architecture, and answer questions you sent in about all that religious jargon that medievalists are constantly throwing around. This episode was produced by Rob Weinberg.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code MEDIEVAL - sign up here.You can take part in our listener survey here.

The Vikings continue to fascinate us because their compelling stories connect with universal human desires for exploration and adventure. But recent advances in excavation and archaeological science, coupled with a re-evaluation of oral traditions and written sources, are furthering our understanding of the Viking Age. In this episode of Gone Medieval, Matt Lewis meets Dr. Davide Zori, Associate Professor of History and Archaeology in the Honors College at Baylor University. In his new book Age of Wolf and Wind: Voyages through the Viking World, he integrates history, archaeology, and new scientific techniques to shed new light on the Vikings. This episode was produced by Rob Weinberg.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code MEDIEVAL - sign up here.You can take part in our listener survey here.

The image we usually associate with a Crusader - of a dashing nobleman on a mighty steed heading out for Holy War - often obscures all of the other medieval people who went to the Holy Land, especially the countless women.In this edition of Gone Medieval, Dr. Eleanor Janega talks to Dr. Natasha Hodgson - author of Women, Crusading and the Holy Land in Historical Narrative - about the women who went everywhere that men went, and what our own expectations lead us to overlook in history. This episode was edited by Ella Blaxill and produced by Rob Weinberg.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code MEDIEVAL - sign up here.You can take part in our listener survey here.

The Mongol Empire that rose in the early 13th century was fractured and in crisis by the mid-14th. But then a new warlord arose who sought to rebuild what had once been the most powerful empire in the world.  Operating in Genghis Khan’s shadow, Tamerlane deliberately drew parallels between himself and his great precursor. And as a Muslim, Tamerlane waged wars as jihad and had a more powerful impact than those of any Muslim Mongol ruler before him.In this episode of Gone Medieval, Matt Lewis uncovers the full story with Professor Peter Jackson, author of From Genghis Khan to Tamerlane: The reawakening of Mongol Asia.This episode was produced by Rob Weinberg.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code MEDIEVAL - sign up here.You can take part in our listener survey here.

Because of William the Conqueror’s victory at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, the Normans have remained a familiar and important name in British history. But who were they? And how did they come to change culture across the European continent?In this explainer episode of Gone Medieval, Dr. Eleanor Janega tells the fascinating story of the rise of the Normans.This episode was edited by Ella Blaxill and produced by Rob Weinberg.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code MEDIEVAL - sign up here.You can take part in our listener survey here.

Athelstan, grandson of Alfred the Great, was a great king who united what was once a collection of petty Anglo-Saxon kingdoms into one vast English domains. Having brought together rival polities with a history of fractious relations into a unified whole, Athelstan needed to centralise government if he was going to keep the crown on his head and hold England together. Anglo-Saxon rulers had often consulted their senior nobles and clergy in councils. With Athelstan’s rule came the emergence of a national form of this council, the Witan, an early precursor to Parliament, and one of the first forms of English government.In this episode of Gone Medieval - the final part of our mini-series on the kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England - Matt Lewis talks to Dr. Levi Roach about the Witan, and whether it can be considered to be the first form of English governance. This episode was edited by Ella Blaxill and produced by Rob Weinberg.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code MEDIEVAL - sign up here.You can take part in our listener survey here.

The huge peninsula of what we today call Italy saw waves of invasions and sweeping changes over the course of the Medieval period, with huge differences between, say, Milan in the north stretching to Sicily in the south. They spoke different languages, had different rulers, and were settled by very different groups of people. In this episode of Gone Medieval, Dr. Eleanor Janega tries to make sense of Italy’s complex history in the Middle Ages with Ross King, critically-acclaimed author of the new book The Shortest History of Italy, to sort out the Visigoths from the Vandals and the Papal States from Pisa. This episode was edited by Ella Blaxill and produced by Rob Weinberg.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code MEDIEVAL - sign up here.You can take part in our listener survey here.

Six Plantagenet kings ruled between 1199 and 1399 - two centuries that witnessed civil war, deposition, the murder of kings and the ruthless execution of rebel lords. There was also international warfare, a devastating national pandemic, economic crisis and the first major peasant uprising in our history. Yet those two centuries and six kings were the blocks upon which the English nation was built.In this episode of Gone Medieval, Matt Lewis talks to Dr. Caroline Burt and Richard Partington, about the period as recounted in their acclaimed new book, Arise, England: Six Kings and the Making of the English State.This episode was edited by Ella Blaxill and produced by Rob Weinberg.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code MEDIEVAL - sign up here.You can take part in our listener survey here.

In Gone Medieval’s special series exploring some of Anglo-Saxon Britain’s most influential kingdoms, we reach Wessex - the last kingdom left to stand against the Great Heathen Army. Under the command of Alfred the Great, Wessex achieved what no other kingdom could before it: victory against the Vikings.In this episode, Eleanor Janega is joined by Dr. Rob Gallagher, a historian of early medieval Britain, to explore the key figures of the Wessex ascendency and the legacy the kingdom left behind.This episode was edited by Ella Blaxill and produced by Rob Weinberg.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code MEDIEVAL - sign up here.You can take part in our listener survey here.

In Gone Medieval’s special series examining some of Anglo-Saxon Britain’s most significant kingdoms, we arrive at the kingdom of Mercia, which once enjoyed supremacy over not only Wessex but all of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. At its peak, Mercia controlled what is now Birmingham and London, but it ceased to be a kingdom when Alfred the Great came to power. But its history did not end there. In this episode, Matt Lewis speaks to Annie Whitehead, author of Mercia: The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom, to discover the important role the Mercians - including such renowned characters as Penda, Offa and Lady Godiva - played in the forging of the English nation.This episode was edited by Ella Blaxill and produced by Rob Weinberg.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code MEDIEVAL - sign up here.You can take part in our listener survey here.

Accounts of the Crusades were usually commissioned by wealthy and influential people about themselves, to make their piety and righteousness known to others. But what about the less glamorous people who went on Crusades? And what was life like when they did so? In this episode of Gone Medieval, Dr. Eleanor Janega finds out about ordinary crusaders and their experiences from Dr. Simon Thomas Parsons.This episode was edited by Ella Blaxill and produced by Rob Weinberg.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code MEDIEVAL - sign up here.You can take part in our listener survey here.

From Hugh Capet to Eleanor of Aquitaine, the Capetian dynasty considered itself divinely chosen to fulfil a great destiny. From an insecure foothold around Paris, the Capetians built a nation that stretched from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean and from the Rhône to the Pyrenees, founding practices and institutions that endured until the French Revolution. In this episode of Gone Medieval, Matt Lewis explores the Capetians’ dramatic rule and legacy with Professor Justine Firnhaber-Baker, author of House of Lilies: The Dynasty that Made Medieval France.This episode was produced by Rob Weinberg.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code MEDIEVAL - sign up here.You can take part in our listener survey here.

In a time of in-fighting and tribal warfare, what did it take to form the politically dominant, culturally rich and geographically vast kingdoms that led to the creation of England?This month, over four episodes of Gone Medieval, we explore the rise and fall of the key kingdoms of the Heptarchy: Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex, and the formation of an Anglo-Saxon government, the Witan.This week Dr. Eleanor Janega is joined by historian, archaeologist and author Max Adams to delve into the story of the kingdom of Northumbria.This episode was edited and mixed by Ella Blaxill and produced by Rob Weinberg.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code MEDIEVAL - sign up here.You can take part in our listener survey here.

In medieval times, Britain was criss-crossed by pilgrim routes, that took in such world-famous sites as Canterbury and Lindisfarne as well as out-of-the-way locations along paths not so widely travelled. But why did people undergo pilgrimage? What were its benefits? And why did some send people in their honour?In this episode of Gone Medieval, first released in September 2021, Matt Lewis is joined by architectural historian Dr. Emma Wells as they discuss the practice that some might consider the beginning of tourism.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code MEDIEVAL - sign up here.You can take part in our listener survey here.