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- [00:01]
Matt Lewis
Hello, I'm Matt Lewis.
- [00:03]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
And I'm Dr. Eleanor Yonega.
- [00:04]
Matt Lewis
And we're just popping up here to tell you some insider info.
- [00:08]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
If you would like to listen to Gone Medieval ad free and get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit.
- [00:15]
Matt Lewis
With the History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original.
- [00:20]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Documentaries, such as my new series on everyone's favorite conquerors, the Normans, or my.
- [00:25]
Matt Lewis
Recent exploration of the castles that made Britain.
- [00:29]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
There's a new release to enjoy every week.
- [00:32]
Matt Lewis
Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com subscribe or find the link in the show notes for this episode. Thanks for listening to Gone Medieval. You can get all History Hit podcasts ad free, early access and bonus episodes. Head over to History Hit or you can sign up on Apple Podcasts with just one click.
- [01:07]
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- [01:36]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
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- [02:01]
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- [02:04]
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- [02:12]
Hello, I'm Dr. Eleanor Yanaga and welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the.
- [02:17]
Podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history.
- [02:21]
We uncover the greatest mysteries, the gobsmacking.
- [02:25]
Details, and the latest groundbreaking research.
- [02:28]
From the Vikings to the Normans, from.
- [02:30]
Kings to popes to the Crusades, we.
- [02:33]
Delve into the rebellions, plots and murders.
- [02:36]
That tell us who we really were and how we got. Here at Gone Medieval, we are constantly giving you as much information as you can possibly stand about any medieval subjects, and particularly about medieval England, because, you know, well, this is where we podcast from. But we are very, very excited because today I have brought my co host, Matt Lewis on to talk about his new book, the History Hit Guide to Medieval England, from the Vikings to the Tudors and everything in between. It gives you a chance to just slow down and focus more particularly on England, you know, just about 500 years of it or so. And I have dragged Matt on today to talk to me all about it. Matt Lewis, welcome to Con Medieval.
- [03:37]
Matt Lewis
Thank you so much for having me on, Ellen. It's an absolute pleasure. It's a dream of mine.
- [03:40]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
I bet it is, you know, and you are welcome, you know. But Matt, I've dragged you on today to talk about your new book, Medieval England from the Vikings to the Tudors and everything in between, which you have got out now. It's a history hit guide, so, you know, one of our babies. But I suppose my very first question for you with this is, when do you sleep? Because you're just, you are cranking these books out, my man. You're putting me to shame. How am I supposed to thrive in your shadow?
- [04:10]
Matt Lewis
The question is whether it's any good, what I write, isn't it? You know, I write a lot. That doesn't make it very good, but I think, you know, this book was something it just partly doing this podcast feeds into writing a book like this because you just hear so many incredible stories all of the time and you file them away. And then when work said, can you write a medieval history book? It's like, you better believe I can.
- [04:32]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Like, please try to stop me from writing a medieval history book right now. One of the things that I really love about it is your very first full chapter is called the bit before 1066, which matters just as much, which I think will be near and dear to the hearts of every gone Medieval listener. Because here on Gone Medieval, we really stan pre Norman England, don't we?
- [04:54]
Matt Lewis
Absolutely. And you know, we managed to get Vikings and Tudors in the subtitle without it being too much about Vikings or Tudors, which is a little bit naughty, I guess. But it's impossible to tell the Taurus 1066 without saying why 1066 happened. And it happened because of Anglo Saxon England, the Vikings arriving, the upheavals in England before that. So that chapter is just meant as a primer for what you might need to know roughly what happened before 1066, why William the Conqueror invaded, why he thought he had a claim to the throne.
- [05:25]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
And I think it's really a savvy chapter as well. Because if we are considering the idea of medieval England, well, it didn't really exist know until 1066, until you have this big consolidation of outside forces. But that doesn't mean that that's when history begins. Right. You absolutely have to have these incredibly intricate and complex roots.
- [05:45]
Matt Lewis
You do. And the story of England is the story of the Heptarchy. And the story of the Heptarchy is the story of all of the little kingdoms that came before that, that eventually became absorbed into seven. And the story of those kingdoms is the story of the arrival of the Anglos and Saxons and Jutes, and the story of that is the evacuation of Rome. And, you know, it goes backwards and backwards and backwards into antiquity, I guess.
- [06:06]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Yeah. I mean, this is the trouble with a book like this is where you even start. But the answer is yes, obviously, we're starting with the Heptarchy. We're starting with these really gorgeous roots that we always like to talk about. So I think that all of our fans are gonna be hype, Frankly, I'm hyped. So, you know, what can I say? But then we get into the Frenchifiedness. So we gotta start out, obviously with our boys, the Normans. You know, are they French? Are they Vikings? Yes. And now they're English.
- [06:37]
Matt Lewis
Absolutely. I'd imagine there's a pretty good, maybe two part documentary that people might be able to watch on history hit about the arrival of who the Normans are. Something. Yeah, something. I remember seeing something.
- [06:47]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Yeah. But more particularly, you really get into the nitty gritty of Norman England in this chapter, because I think it's really easy for us to just say, oh, wow, Battle of Hastings. And wow, what a time to be alive, when there's actually all this really interesting administrative and cultural stuff that you are actually able to talk about here.
- [07:07]
Matt Lewis
Instead, there's a danger in saying that lots of moments in history are kind of pivotal, because you could say that about almost anything. But the Battle of Hastings does feel like one of those genuinely pivotal moments in at least English history. But it also isn't definitive. That single day in Hastings doesn't change everything. It's the beginning of change. But it takes William a long, long time, even just to get into London, never mind to be recognized as king. And then, of course, there's his botched coronation that all goes horribly wrong. And then you get this administrative machinery rolling because suddenly you've got this tiny minority, foreign minority trying to rule the majority population without any concept of who that population are, how many of them there are, the extent of the kingdom. They know nothing about England. Doomsday. Is William trying to catalog what it is that he's actually won, because who knows how many men you can Raise from England if you're under attack, William doesn't.
- [08:03]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
And I think that this is such an interesting way of looking at things, because it's so easy from here in the 21st century to look back and say, oh, yes, and then the Battle of Hastings and everything fell down easily. And that belies all of the things that William had to do, some of which are fairly horrifying in order to consolidate the power after said battle.
- [08:25]
Matt Lewis
Absolutely. I mean, the Harrying of the north is the obvious thing that has a devastating impact for generations to follow. You know, the north is decimated, and it's questionable how long it takes the north to not only to revive, but to ever feel like it's under royal control again. You know, the. The royal writ rarely reaches into the far north of England and it becomes almost, almost independent. You know, they. People can get away with things up there. You've got kind of the Welsh marches, but you've got the Scottish marches too. You get to those borderlands and law and order struggles to reach you, which means it attracts a certain type of person, which is never a very pleasant type of person. And so some of the things that William does have this really long lasting, often devastating impact. But then you also get stories like Harry Wood, the Wake, who is one of my all time favorite people in this period. He's absolutely fascinating, an incredible story.
- [09:22]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Well, okay, go on. Like, don't, don't. Come on. Don't cliffhanger me like that.
- [09:25]
Matt Lewis
No, that was it. Buy the book. Read the book.
- [09:27]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
True, true. Buy the book, everybody. But. All right. The third chapter is my favorite chapter. And you knew I was going to say this.
- [09:35]
Matt Lewis
Are we really not gonna do heroin?
- [09:36]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Yeah. No, we should do it. Yeah. You cannot cliffhanger me like that. Everyone's buying the book. Let's go. Come on.
- [09:43]
Matt Lewis
I mean, Heriwood, I'm gonna show my age here because reading his story reminds me of watching an episode of the A Team. It's that idea that, you know, you get. You get backed into a corner, you disappear into this manky old shed, and you come out with a bulletproof armored car that you've welded together and managed to strap guns to. It's that kind of utterly ridiculous, extreme story. But this is a guy who, I mean, his stories are written a little bit later. How much of this is true? Really, really hard to tell. I want it all to be true because it's a brilliant story. But the sources will tell us that, you know, this is a guy who was out, he was in exile when The Norman Conquest took place. He comes back home a few years later to find that his dad's land's been taken. His manor is full of Normans, his brother and his father have been killed. So he goes on a bit of a rampage, kills the people who are in his manor, becomes an outlaw, goes to the Isle of Ely. And Ely at this point is an island in the middle of the marshes, which is incredibly treacherous, difficult to get to. You know, think of Frodo and Sam being led across the marches into Mordor by Gollum. It's that kind of thing. If you don't know the path, you're not getting into Ely. So it becomes a real haven for people who are trying to avoid William. But Hereward just goes on this whole series of adventures. You know, he sneaks into the royal court and people are sort of, oh, he looks a bit like Hereward. Isn't that funny? And they. They sort of tease him a little bit. They strap cloth across his face to blind him, put pots all over the floor. I should have said he's arrived, as in disguise, as a pot seller. So they spread these pots all around the floor, blindfold him, make him walk around the kitchen smashing all his pots. Apparently that passes for Norman fun, but he eventually kind of loses his rag, ends up in a fight, kills a couple of guards, manages to escape, sits in a pub for a while, overhears some local witch talking to a Norman lord about how they're going to storm the Isle of Ely. And then a bit later on, they build this tower for the witch to stand on. She's reciting this curse three times. The third time she recites it, all of Herewood and his men burst out from the rushes shooting fire arrows. They set fire to this tower that she's on, set fire to the bridge that they've built across it. Everything's in flames. The witch falls off the top and breaks her neck and they all escape again. And, you know, and eventually he comes to terms with William. William is hugely impressed by this guy who's a rebel he just can't defeat. Seems like a really honorable opponent, but it's just. It's just a great adventure story.
- [12:08]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
I think that it's a really important one to include because as you say, look, we can choose to take this or leave it as historians, but even if we say this is a form of literature, this isn't necessarily a quote, unquote true story. It tells us something about what culture is like at the time, that people are still seeing this as unfinished. Business as the idea that William is still an invading force and people are telling stories about plucky upstarts and what they are up to.
- [12:37]
Matt Lewis
It's not a million miles away from the Arthurian legends, that idea of a once and future king who will come back and save the country when it's in peril. So the idea that the. The Anglo Saxons didn't just go quietly into the darkness when the Normans arrived, they fight back. They were looking for a hero who could overturn Norman rule. And eventually Norman rule stays because the Anglo Saxons decide to come to terms with it. They just decide to allow it. They decide to stop fighting it anymore. So it's not so much that they're conquered as they just accept it.
- [13:08]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Well, and that is how you make in England, isn't it? The third chapter is my favorite. Of course it is, because it's about the anarchy and the rise of the Plantagenets. And now you and I are both anarchy heads. So I suppose I was thinking as I read it, this is gonna be one that is gonna be really difficult for Matt because how complex the issue is and how you get this across very quickly, which you do very well indeed. But how do you choose which darlings to include in such a complex issue?
- [13:42]
Matt Lewis
Yeah. Thank you. Wait till we get to the wars of the Roses. I know it is hard because there is the Anarchy is another time that is filled with so many stories of so many different people who are doing really interesting and exciting things. This woman, Petronella, who puts on armor and rides into battle to support her husband, gets knocked off into the water and has to be saved by a knight in shining armor. Boohi. But it is a case of the overarching story is Henry I is succeeded by Stephen. Matilda arguably should have been queen. Instead, the two of them fight for Stephen's reign, and he's succeeded by Matilda's son, Henry ii, who he's adopted. So everybody's happy. That's the end. But how you get from point A to point B is really complex and tells us so much about what nobles think about when rulers fight. They are willing to be involved to a certain extent, but that does have limits. And you get this moment late in the anarchy, when you begin to see all of these earls creating these pacts between themselves to not fight each other anymore. They say, you know, we won't put more than 20 knights in the field if we're commanded to fight each other, and I won't let my master attack you from my castle. And all of these Kinds of things. And if we capture anyone during the battle, we'll set them free with no ransom immediately at the end of the battle. So the anarchy, I mean, particularly if you, if you read CAD file and stuff like that, you know, we have an image of the anarchy as literally that anarchy. There is no law and order, there is no rule, and people are behaving incredibly badly, particularly the barons who, you know, you just get these wicked bunch of guys having a great time by torturing peasants left, right and center. And realistically, most noblemen get rich from peace, from farming their land, getting the produce to market, making the poor people work really, really hard. War actually doesn't suit them. So they do reach a limit. You know, they will fight if they need to, but they aren't just martial creatures who will want to fight and do nothing else. There is this other side to them. And I think by the time we get towards the end of the anarchy period, you're really seeing this idea of the nobility trying to restrain the king and would be queen and saying that we just don't want to do this anymore. This isn't fun anymore, it's not working for anybody. And when you get Henry come along and while Stephen's oldest son Eustace is still alive, there's a real danger of this carrying on to the next generation. And I think you can clearly see everyone thinking, we've got to bring an end to this. There are sources that talk about, you know, Stephen and Henry will have these conferences hilariously, obviously on an island, on their own in the middle of a river. But everybody knows exactly what was said as you do. And the sources will tell us, you know, they're berating their men and they're saying, you know, what are we going to do with these guys? They won't even fight for us. It's ridiculous. So I think it just gives us a different window into the anarchy, but a different window into what we think the nobility were, because they're not just violent thugs only interested in squabbling. They're definitely that as well. But they actually benefit more from peace than they often do from war, particularly civil war.
- [16:51]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
I think this is a really important thing to talk about as well, because one of the things that I get asked about often from non historians is, well, how do you get this detente that actually settles in with, you know, Stephen ruling rather a lot of England, but Mattel having these big swaths of land like out west and in the south? And the answer is, well, nobody wants to do this anymore. They're just quite tired. And so it's just like, oh, yes, you're the King, you're the queen. Are you having a fun time? You know, and everyone kind of has to step back in this way in order to just get the bloody harvest in, isn't it?
- [17:25]
Matt Lewis
Well, that's it, you know, how are you going to make any money? How are you going to eat if the fields aren't being tended, if everybody is just stomping across crops on their way to another fight somewhere else, no one is really interested. And the other side of it, I guess, is we call it the anarchy and we think of it as being lawless. But there is no part of England during this period that isn't ruled and isn't under the rule of law. A big chunk of it by Stephen, the southwest and slightly up, the Welsh marches by Matilda, and in fact the north of England by David of Scotland, who just comes in and says, if nobody's looking after this bit, I'll take care of this for you for a while. And bases himself at Carlisle for an awfully long time, hanging around Durham a little bit. So the King of Scotland is ruling the north of England and the north of England is absolutely fine with that because what's going on down south is looking pretty unpleasant anyway. So there is no real anarchy. There is always rule. It's different rule in different places, but it's always rule.
- [18:23]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
I suppose that's what rule has to offer, isn't it? Is saying that there's a series of laws. Now, granted, if you go 20 miles down the road, it might be a different series, but hey ho, one of.
- [18:32]
Matt Lewis
The things about the anarchy period as well is so many of the sources that we do have are written on the frontier between some of those regions, particularly between Stephen's and Matilda's, or in hotspots. You know, one of the Anglo Saxon chronicle versions comes from East Anglia, where there's very particular trouble with Roger Bigot, you know, he's causing all kinds of trouble for Stephen there. And lots of them are places like Malmesbury and the Jester Stefani, probably written by someone attached to the Bishop of Bath. So again, down in the southwest, so these are quite often written, right, where the two frontiers clash and where it probably is looking the worst. But they extrapolate that across the whole country and you get these comments by monkish chroniclers who are saying, you know, you can't even walk across the street without getting mugged. And at the same time there is a massive explosion of monasticism In England during Stephen's reign, with houses being set up amongst traveling from across the country to go and populate these houses. Which just gives the lie to this idea that you can't even cross the street without getting mugged. You know, which one is it, guys? You can't have it both ways.
- [19:35]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Well, I mean, I guess it's in the monk's interest to say, won't some brave, strong ruler who could also endow a religious house come and save us all?
- [19:44]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, we're sitting here praying for you guys, you know.
- [19:45]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Yeah, well, come on. But a brave, strong ruler does come to save us all in the form of our man, Henry II as well. And then we see, you know, I would argue, a pretty good time, all things considered, to be an English person. Come in.
- [20:01]
Matt Lewis
I think so. I have said before that I think Henry II is probably the most competent and capable person who has ever sat on the throne of England and probably Britain too. This guy, there's nothing he can't do. You know, he is incredible. His sons are a different man.
- [20:18]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Yeah.
- [20:18]
Matt Lewis
Make his sons behaviors may be the one thing he can't do. There is almost nothing that Henry II.
- [20:24]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Can'T do with garbage sons like these. Yeah, yeah.
- [20:27]
Matt Lewis
But this is a man who controls an absolutely vast kingdom. He takes back the parts of northern England that David's been looking after, because David dies around the same time as Stephen does and is succeeded by his grandson, who's a small child. So Henry's just, you know, while you're little, I'll look after that bit of land for you, and don't expect to get it back. But he brings with him this vast conglomeration of lands on the continent, too, from Aquitaine up to Anjou Maine into Normandy. He's very interested in Brittany and getting that under the control, you know, he will position Brittany as being subservient to Normandy throughout his reign. And then you add England and you make him a king as well. And this guy is something special. He particularly develops a reputation for being able to bring down castles faster than anybody thinks is possible. It almost reaches the point where he turns up at a castle and the garrison just go, oh, God, it's Henry. Might as well just give up. He reduces castles faster than anybody else, and no one seems to know how he does it. It's obviously just he's developed a knack for this kind of thing, but he's just good at everything. He's good at the warfare, but he's also good at the administration. He's good at the Law. He's good at the rule. He's not particularly interested in the displays of kingships. You know, he's not rubbing everybody's nose in the fact that he's rich and wealthy. He'd rather be wearing his dirty riding boots back from the hunt and leave all of the display to someone else, notably Thomas Beckett, for a long time. But, yeah, you know, I think Henry is incredible. And at this point, England sits as the crown jewel in this vast empire. So to be an Englishman is to be part of a huge continental empire that hasn't really been seen since maybe Charlemagne, but the Roman Empire, you know, we're verging into that kind of territory.
- [22:11]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Absolutely. And it's enormous. It's a lot to administrate. And he does it with real aplomb, I would say.
- [22:18]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, absolutely. And he seems to leave most of those places with their own laws and customs. So we remember Henry II as largely responsible for the common law in England. And I think that maybe leads to this misconception that he standardized the law across all of the lands that he ruled, but that was never what he was interested in doing. He knew places like Aquitaine is fiercely independent place with all of its own customs, all of its own little quirks, its own way of doing everything. And he's happy to leave that alone because they're happy with that. And if they've got a lord who's going to leave them to get on with it, one more reason not to rebel against him. And so I think he's very, very good at keeping all of those separate things. Makes more work for him and his administration, because one law across all of that land would be much easier. But he's willing to take the hard route. You know, he's willing to do the hard yards to have a settled kingdom. I mean, he doesn't have a settled kingdom, obviously. Everyone is always rebelling against him everywhere, but he puts them down incredibly quickly and incredibly well.
- [23:27]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
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- [25:42]
Professor Susanna Lipscomb
I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb and on not just the Tudors from history hit we do admittedly cover quite a lot of Tudors from the rise of Henry VII to the death of Henry viii, from Anne Boleyn to her daughter Elizabeth I. But we also do lots that that's not Tudors. Murderers, mistresses, pirates and witches. Clues in the title really. So follow not just the Tudors from history hit wherever you get your podcasts.
- [26:16]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
What a difference a day makes.
- [26:20]
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- [26:42]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Decisions, decisions. Wait a minute. Are you still looking for cars on Carvana?
- [26:47]
Matt Lewis
Yeah.
- [26:48]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Decisions, decisions.
- [26:49]
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- [26:51]
Matt Lewis
Exact car I was looking for in minutes. Bought it on the spot.
- [26:55]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Electric or full diesel? Decision.
- [26:59]
Matt Lewis
Come on, you've been at it for weeks.
- [27:01]
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- [27:03]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
You're Right. Crossover. It is decisions decided whether you know exactly what you want or like to.
- [27:09]
Matt Lewis
Take your time, buy your car the.
- [27:10]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Convenient way with Carvana. But then, unfortunately, you get to the terrible son zuh portion of this book, because we got two chapters on absolute garbage men, Terrible boys, starting with. What are these other household names? Richard the Lionheart. Yeah.
- [27:40]
Matt Lewis
So Richard is, in many ways, I think Richard is one of those sons who is so much like his dad that they just can't get on. There is just this big clash of personalities. Richard is destined to have Aquitaine, and I think the idea that he's his mother's favorite, Eleanor of Aquitaine's favorite, really comes from the fact that Aquitaine is her baby. Richard is going to get Aquitaine. Therefore, she focuses a lot of her energy on making sure Richard is capable of ruling her precious Aquitaine. I don't think he's necessarily a favorite son. I think he's Aquitaine's next ruler. And that's what Eleanor is really interested in. These brothers all squabble with each other as much as they squabble with their dad. So we go from four of them. We lose the eldest, Henry, the young king, we lose Geoffrey. And they're all falling into these traps that the Capetian kings of France are laying for them, because I think, for me, the Capetians view Henry II and all of his lands and all of his success as the greatest existential threat the Capetian crown has ever faced. You know, they've been desperately trying to extend royal authority from Paris, and suddenly this guy comes along, takes half of what we would call France today. And on top of that, he's a king now as well in England. And I think the rift, the weakness that they see that they can exploit is his sons. And they're quite right, because they're a bunch of idiots.
- [29:03]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
That's so true.
- [29:04]
Matt Lewis
Henry, the young king falls for it hook, line and sinker, rebels against his dad, ends up dead. And then his brother Geoffrey does exactly the same thing. And by the end, Richard has done exactly the same thing. He falls in with the French king, and, you know, and this is Philip, who is going to steal all of Richard's lands while he's away crusading. They are not your friend. When will they ever learn? They are not your friends. And Richard essentially chases his dad to death, chases himself through France as Henry is getting increasingly ill. And Henry, you know, doesn't make it to 60 years old. You think what he achieved in his lifetime, he's relatively young to have done all of that, but he's fallen ill, perhaps from the hassles and the strain of these four sons. To be perfectly honest, he's literally pursued into the grave by Richard, who comes to the throne and has wanted to go on crusade. Incredibly noble pursuit during this period. His dad has tried to avoid him going, tried to stop him leaving. So the second that Richard gets free from under his dad, the first thing he does is, like, write them off on crusade. And I think everyone's probably like, hang on, you've got a kingdom to rule and all of these lands. And everyone's like, nope, nope, I'm going, I'm off. This is what I've always wanted to do. I've got my freedom now. I'm off. I'm off to Ibiza. This is where we get the idea that he abandons England. In fact, I would argue that if he had gone on crusade, done what he did, very successful on crusade, really come home, he could well have been remembered in the same kind of ranks of kingship as his dad. It's the fact that he gets captured on his way home, that a ransom has to be raised that is kind of two times the annual revenue of England to set him free. Philip starts stealing all of his lands in France while he's in custody. And you get, you know, John, the youngest of the four sons, now falling in with Philip just to complete the set. You know, he's obviously feeling left out. All of my other brothers have fallen in with the French king and betrayed everybody. Why can't I? And he's trying to pinch Richard's throne, trying to set himself up with a whole load of land and everything else. You get to the point where when the ransom is raised, you've got Philip and John writing to the Holy Roman Emperor, saying, don't do it. How about we pay you more to keep him a bit longer? You know, just. Just keep in prison a little bit longer. Yeah. This letter that Philip writes to John when Richard is actually released, saying, you know, look to yourself, the devil is loose. They know that Richard is a very capable and very scary man in the mold of his father. It's just the fact that, you know, he's almost bankrupted the country, lost all of this territory while he's in captivity, and then goes and gets himself killed without a son, without an heir, trying to get back some of those lands. You know, he's just remembered as someone who abandons and then bankrupts England and leaves it in a mess. It could have been a very different story for Richard, I think. I think he had the capability to be a very, very good ruler, albeit I can't stand him because he pursued his dad into the grave.
- [32:01]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Yeah. I'm afraid that I will never like Richard. And I always like to say I think it was better to leave Eleanor in charge and just to get him out of here. But I always think of it as, like, succession, as I say, you know, I look at these terrible sons and I just think, you are not serious people. Every time, you know, you wonder how.
- [32:19]
Matt Lewis
A couple like Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine came up with four such duds.
- [32:25]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
And all the girls seem to have their heads screwed on, too, which is.
- [32:28]
Matt Lewis
Their daughters are incredible. You know, they do an incredible job. And some of the most interesting or most touching moments during Henry II's life, just to go back, to bring him back from the grave a little bit, because I want him back, are when his daughters come to visit. And, you know, he's just spending time with the grandkids, he's just chilling out, and he must have been a fun granddad to be around. And, you know, when one of his daughters comes back, she's married to Henry the Lion, the Duke of Saxony, he gets exiled, and Henry's like, just bring the whole family over, you know, come and spend some time with us. And you imagine him enjoying moments like that. So his daughters, I think, were probably the source of all of his pride. His sons were the sources of all of his troubles.
- [33:10]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Speaking of sons, of his being a source of all of our troubles, you get to this chapter where you discuss possibly the most garbage son, Jon. But I don't want to talk about the obvious things. You know, the obvious things. Magna Carta, the barons. What I think you do really well in this chapter is touch on my favorite thing about Jon, which is when he gets excommunicated. Really? Which nobody talks about.
- [33:35]
Matt Lewis
No. And it's because, again, like, the stuff before 1066, this is the stuff before Magna Carta, that everyone will focus on 1215. And Magna Carta, you know, 1215 isn't even really the story of Magna Carta, but they forget how you arrive there. And John ends up being. We remember him as the biggest idiot, probably nastiest bloke ever to sit on the throne of England. Absolutely right. I'm not going to argue.
- [33:59]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Go for it. Like, talk all the trash you want about John. I'm not going to stop.
- [34:02]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, yeah, go for it. But what he also is, is probably the richest king who ever sat on the throne of England, too. And he gets that way because he Falls out with Rome. And this is largely over the appointment of a new Archbishop of Canterbury. He wants his man. The monks at Canterbury want their man. And John is promising them a free election, whilst also saying, you're free to elect my man.
- [34:26]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Oh, thank. That's so big of him.
- [34:28]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, he's good like that, you know, the monks elect someone that they want and they secretly send to Rome to have him confirmed. And then the Pope ends up getting involved, and what he does is pick his candidate, this kind of third candidate, Stephen Langton, who John just won't accept because this is too much like papal interference in his kingdom now. So the Archbishop of Canterbury. And, you know, I think John's probably fair here, most kings would feel the same way about the Pope appointing the most senior churchman in your kingdom. For you, it's a very political role as well as one in the Church. So I'm going to allow John being annoyed by this one, but what he does is just increasingly fall out with Rome to the point where you won't allow the Archbishop of Canterbury in. The Pope is saying, well, fine, we'll put England under an interdict. And John's like, okay, sweet.
- [35:15]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Fine.
- [35:15]
Matt Lewis
Yeah. And an interdict means the end of church services. So for a culture where religion is at the absolute core of everything that you do, for the church bells to go silent, the idea that you can't receive Mass, that you can't get married, that you can't get a proper funeral, I mean, they'll baptize babies, and that's kind of the limit of what the Church are willing to do. This was massive for every single person in England. A genuine spiritual crisis that must have made them think, I'm going to hell if this isn't fixed because I'm not doing the things that God expects me to do. It's difficult, I think, for us to get ourselves into that mindset sometimes, but we need to remember just how central those notions were in the medieval mind. But what John is realizing is that while the country's under interdict and it's cut off from Rome, none of the tax money has to go to Rome anymore. Where should that tax money go? Well, John's got a nice little space over here. You can just pop that there. So you get all this, you know, St. Peter's Pence and whatever else, all the tithes that should have been hived off and sent to Rome, they're going into John's coffers. And so John now has a vested interest in maintaining this interdict. And England's severing of the connection with Rome to the point where the Pope excommunicates John. And John's like, okay, that's fine, I've got enough money for this. I don't do what you like. And he's literally seems to be reveling in being cut away from the Church. He's reaching the point where money in this period is silver coins, silver pennies. And he has so much. He has barrels of silver pennies stacked in various castles around England. He can't move this stuff easily because it is tons and tons and tons of stuff, but he is absolutely loaded. He's bringing in more money than any king of England ever has previously. And for John, he's seeing this as a war chest to go back and get the lands in France that have been lost. He sees a way of rebuilding his dad's empire from all of this, completely oblivious to the fact that lots of his subjects are having an absolute meltdown at the idea that they can't get their church services. John doesn't care about that. He's getting absolutely he's found the loophole, he's found the glitch in the matrix and he's getting rich from doing what he's not supposed to do, but something which actually in world has no consequences for him.
- [37:50]
Professor Susanna Lipscomb
I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb and on Not Just the Tudors from History Hit we do admittedly cover quite a lot of Tudors, from the rise of Henry VII to the death of Henry viii, from Anne Boleyn to her daughter Elizabeth I. But we also do lots that's not Tudors. Murderers, mistresses, pirates and witches. Clues in the title really. So follow Not Just the Tudors from History Hit Wherever you get your podcasts.
- [38:20]
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- [39:10]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Well, I think that this is such an important thing to talk about because we all know the regular reasons to hate John. But these are the del this is the bespoke reason to hate John, because it's not just about oh, you know, someone think of the poor barons. I don't care about the barons. The barons are fine. They are rich, they have castles. I really don't care about Magna Carta at all. What I care about is some peasant in the field dying unchurched, which is horrid for them.
- [39:38]
Matt Lewis
Yeah. And for all of their family who are now concerned about what is going to happen to their loved one and to all of their loved ones and to them when it comes to their turn as well, if John doesn't get this sorted out. So, yeah, you know, the. The base game of Hating John is well known. This is the dlc. This is the. The advanced downloadable content that you can add on Bolt onto your hatred of John and play it some more, because there are so many hours of reasons to hate Jon.
- [40:03]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
But eventually he dies, luckily for everybody, you know, and what a day it was. Rip do a real one, I guess. But me and all my homies hate John. So you get to this point, then, where there has to be this real reckoning, I suppose, for what it is that England's going to be and how the royals are going to address that.
- [40:23]
Matt Lewis
Yeah. So he's succeeded by his son, Henry III, who is 9 years old. So we've got a. A child on the throne of England. In many ways, that is the salvation of John's dynasty because this child is blameless. He can't be associated with all of the things that his father's done. This is a clean break. If he was a little bit older, if he'd been helping his dad along the way, this could have been a lot more complicated. What it allows the English polity to do is say, here is this innocent child. We need to protect him and protect his crown. And in doing so, we're protecting England because by this point, John has left an England invaded by France. The south of England is under the control of the King of France's son, who is on the verge of having himself crowned king. We very nearly have King Louis the First of England. I don't actually know why Louis doesn't have himself crowned. It's weird.
- [41:14]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Big mistake that he makes.
- [41:16]
Matt Lewis
If he'd done it, it could have changed the face of everything. I don't know why he doesn't. Fortunately for Henry iii, he doesn't. And so then you get this moment in which, you know, William Marshall, we get to talk about William Marshall a little bit. And this is so late on in his career. You know, he's. He's knocking on the door of 60, but he is appointed regent to the new young king. It's him who comes up with the idea of reissuing Magna Carta as a way to take the sting out of what the barons are fighting against. And as soon as he does all of these things, he manages to create this position in which England is now not looking at itself as part of a continental empire, it's looking at itself as a country. Because one of the effects of John losing all of the continental lands is that he's the first king of England who has nowhere else to go but England. For a very long time, they sort of forge this notion of England as a separate entity, of Englishness, as an identity, because it's a way of saying, we need to get rid of the French. It wasn't all that long ago that the English and the French, at least the English elite and the French were the same people. What Marshall and the group around him do very effectively is sort of dissect England from that and say, we need to protect our country and our way of life, our nation and our kingdom against France and the French and this continental invasion, they managed to drive it all out. But in doing that, what they've crafted is this notion of being English.
- [42:39]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Yeah. And that being tied very specifically to the island. You can't go down to Aquitaine and be English any longer, which you absolutely could before.
- [42:49]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, that's it. It's compressed it. But no longer are they kind of Anglo, Norman, Angevin, the elite, having land spread all across the continent and various different interests. You are now all English. The elite are as English as the Englishman in the field.
- [43:06]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
I mean, I just suppose it's just as well that they've figured this out, because there's this real difficult period in England at the time, and it's not like the kings become kinder or anything like that, because we get into, you know, the Black Death. We get into this real period of economic stagnation. And the average individual at this point in time is suffering under the Crown.
- [43:32]
Matt Lewis
Yes. I mean, the. The 14th century is a time of almost perpetual crisis. You know, there are floods, there are crop failures, there are famines all over the place. And then you bolt onto that. Things like the Black Death turning up. You bolt onto that, the Hundred Years War, which is great if you're a nobleman who wants to get rich, not so good for everybody else whose lives are being disrupted. And if you're anywhere near parts of France that the English are charging across on their horses, burning crops, life is pretty rubbish. So the 14th century is really, this entire. This cycle of crisis after crisis after crisis after crisis. And you think people must have wondered, when is this going to end? What have we done to deserve this?
- [44:17]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Absolutely. And I really feel for them. And you can completely understand, you know, you and I are both team peasant in the peasants rebellion that happens at this point in time, but you completely understand why they're like, this is just not going to do. I do not see a way out of this other than coming and burning down the Savoy, which got burned down not far from where we are sitting right now. But I would do it too, especially when you're like, oh, yeah, what are you gonna do, kill me? You're killing me all the time already, buddy. Like, what am I gonna do? Oh, die here or die in France again. Brilliant. Brilliant.
- [44:47]
Matt Lewis
Yeah. You and I made the Peasants Revolt documentary. It turned into a three part monster eventually because there was so much to say. And it was kind of this sense of, they're living 1381, they're living in a post pandemic world with incredibly high taxation, confusion and disruption in government. No one's quite sure who's in charge and everybody feels like a bit of an idiot. And you kind of sit there, war in Europe, all of these kinds of things, and you're thinking, hang on, we're very, very close to that kind of world today. It's a mindset that you could get yourself into for the people in 1381 to get you closer to understanding why they did what they did. And that idea, you're right, you're absolutely killing us. What are you going to do if we rebel? If you kill us, you put us out of our misery effectively.
- [45:28]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
And so I think it's really affecting. And you touch on that so well in the book because I think it's easy to turn the history of England into a history of rich guys. But you managed to not do that, which I very much appreciate.
- [45:41]
Matt Lewis
Oh, good, thank you. I'm glad that comes out of it, because the rich guys are the big names in the stories. They're the people everybody knows. We benchmark things. By the reign of. I knew Simon de Montfort is a huge figure in Henry III's reign and all of these people. But it's important to remember that there are millions of people living in England under all of those folks. And what is life like for them? If there is civil war, what does that mean for you? Are you getting called up to go and fight? Are they trampling your crops? Because if they do, that's how you're going to feed your family this winter. What happens now? You know, when. When the Black Death arrives and you see half the population maybe being wiped out in the village that you live in, if you manage to survive that you're all of a sudden presented with lots of opportunity because you're inheriting land, more land than you could ever have possibly dreamed that you were going to inherit. This feels like a new beginning for you. You finally are not going to struggle anymore. And then the government comes along and says, nope, none of that. We're going to suppress wages. We're going to stop you benefiting from all of those things because it suits the elite to stay as we are, thank you very much. And so you get this glimpse of opportunity and you have the government rip it away from you. And it's the reaction to that and it's the reaction of the normal people. So I'm glad that comes across because they are always there. Their stories aren't always written in the same way as king stories are written, but you can see them and you can see the effect this has on them. And the Peasants Revolt, when we. When we made that documentary, you know, we talked to the. The People behind the people of 1381 project, which. Which looked for the ordinary people in the Peasants Revolt, the ones who were taken to court afterwards, the one who made submissions to courts. You absolutely can, you know, drag these people into the light and see the ways in which all of these things have affected them and driven them to do what they do.
- [47:35]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
I just think it's so interesting and really shows why historians do what we do, right? To learn about these people and get their stories out of the quagmire of time, you know, is so interesting, and I absolutely love that bit. But then, of course, you get back into rich people being rich people, you know, and it's not long until there's total upheaval again, you know, just skipping right over the hundred years war, that little bit. And then like, here you are at the wars of the Roses, and it's like, hey, who's ready to do succession wars again? Like, don't worry about it, peasants. There's just an army in your backyard.
- [48:08]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, you thought the Anarchy was fun.
- [48:10]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
See, this is much more anarchic, I think, the wars of the Roses.
- [48:14]
Matt Lewis
It absolutely is. Law and order breaks down. I think, probably much more in the wars of the Roses than it really does in the period we remember as the Anarchy. It's an episode in English history where you get noblemen dragging cannons to other noblemen's. Castles and just firing at the wall saying, I want your castle, give it to me. And there is nobody to stop them because they're too busy fighting about who should be king again. And the wars of the Roses again, you know, we keep talking about everything is a, is a follow on from something else, is the result of something else. The wars of the Roses is largely a result of the Hundred Years War. It's great while it's going well, Edward III does a great job. Henry V comes along, starts it all again, is doing a great job until he pops his clogs. And then when it all starts to go wrong and we lose people, when we talk about 100 years war, people often forget England lost it. I don't know if this is a spoiler for everybody.
- [49:01]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Oops.
- [49:02]
Matt Lewis
We tend to remember Cressy and Poitiers and Agincourt and we don't talk about the massive reversals and Castillon in 1453, the end of the Hundred Years War, which we lose. And losing that and losing any hope of regaining that lands drags problems back to England. You've got a population who've been ejected from their lands coming home. You've got soldiers who've been unpaid, who have only known fighting in France for potentially years of their lives. And this is all piling into England. The nobility who have been working in France are coming home and trying to find a place for themselves in the world again. You get personal feuds growing up. So the beginning of the wars of the Roses for me is a private feud between the Duke of York and the Duke of Somerset around who should be chief advisor to Henry vi. Henry VI is rubbish, you know, he's not quite John, I guess, because he's inoffensively rubbish, but he's a rubbish king. So you get these two great magnates arguing about who should be leading Henry's government for him. And the first part of the wars of the Roses is never about. It's not a dynastic struggle, it's not about who should be king, it's about who should be at Henry's right hand side. And this will end in violence at the Battle of St Albans, which, you know, really rare medieval battle that takes place in a walled town in the narrow cobbled streets. And it's effectively, it's not far off, you know, a mafia hit. York is going after Somerset, who dies. His allies, the Nevilles are going after the Earl of Northumberland, who is the Percy, who are their great rivals in the north. So vendettas are Being settled kind of in the streets. And you get this source afterwards, written by Abbot Wheatemstead, the abbot of St. Albans, who talks about walking through the town afterwards. And so, you know, walking down all of these cobbled streets and he's kind of, you know, there you'll see a guy with broken arm over there, one with his brains dashed out there, someone with an arm chopped off. You know, utterly bewildering to this abbot walking through the streets that there has been such violent bloodshed in the streets that he knows so well. But that ends up being, you know, they think they've settled some things at St. Albans. All they've really done is caused more trouble because you get. The sons of all the people killed at St. Albans now want their vengeance. And so the new cycle of kind of private feuds begins again.
- [51:22]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
It's just all of these little details that really make the book sing. And, you know, other than just the grand course of English history, I think one of the things that I really love about the book is how you've got great maps, there's fantastic pictures and also I love that you've got QR codes for whenever. We've already done a podcast on this if you want to go more in depth on any idea.
- [51:46]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, I mean, that was James Carson's idea. And the point of that really was that this book covers centuries and it's not big enough to cover centuries. So it's necessarily, it's a fairly high level overview if you want to know how we get from 1066 to 1485. The idea is it will help you navigate those things and plot some key points, some key names, hopefully give you some interesting tidbits along the way. The point of the QR codes is that Magna Carta, there's maybe a page or two on Magna Carta, but there's so much more to say. So if you want to know more about Magna Carta, follow the QR Code. Go and listen to an episode of Gone Medieval with David Carpenter telling you all about Magna Carta. If you're not interested in learning more, then you can keep going. You know, we're not going to bog you down in hours and hours of Magna Carta. If that's not your bag, I don't know why that wouldn't be your bag. I'd definitely go and listen to David Carpenter because he's always brilliant.
- [52:37]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Oh, yes.
- [52:38]
Matt Lewis
But the idea was, you know, you can pick and choose what you're more interested in and you can go and find 45 minutes of an expert talking about that subject. If you want to know more.
- [52:47]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
I just think that it's so brilliant. As I said to one of my friends, it comes across as what I want students in a medieval England survey course to understand when I get to the end of term. And now that's available to everyone. And I think that's just such a wonderful thing. Well, thank you so much for coming on to chat to me about it, Matt, and congratulations.
- [53:08]
Matt Lewis
Thank you very much. It's been an absolute pleasure to try and survey several centuries. So hopefully, you know, like I say, it's a short book to try and do that in, but hopefully it will give people an overview of what medieval England was and how we arrived at where we are today.
- [53:21]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
It's an even shorter podcast and you nailed it, mate.
- [53:44]
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- [53:59]
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