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From long lost Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Elena Jarninger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life. Only on History Hit with your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with with a brand new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com subscribe.
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law Today we're talking about how you don't have to earn more when you can save more. So you brought me this stat. T Mobile customers had the lowest wireless bills versus Verizon and AT&T over the past five years. That that seems surprising.
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Yeah, when I first heard it I thought mmkay. But when the experts at Harris X broke it down, it was true for millions of families. Five years of the lowest wireless bills versus Verizon and AT&T. And in this area where every monthly bill gets noticed, that kind of savings makes a real difference.
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Plus a five year price guarantee on Experience plans on America's Best network. I'm not hearing any sacrifice here, which
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savings based on Harris X billing snapshots from Q3 21 to Q4 25 compared to average AT&T and Verizon bills. Comparison excludes discounts, credits and optional charges. For more details, see harrisx.comT mobile bills
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Hello, I'm Dr. Eleanor Jennaga, and welcome to Gone Medieval From History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We uncover the greatest mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and the latest groundbreaking research. From the Vikings to the Normans, from kings to popes to the Crusades, we delve into the rebellions, plots, and murders that tell us who we really were and how we got here. Erfurt, Germany, 1184 in the Holy Roman Empire, a group of nobles gathers in the city on a hot summer's day for what should be a routine assembly. It's an opportunity to settle disputes, reaffirm alliances, and conduct the usual business of power. Gathered in the upper room of an ancient church, the hall fills with men of rank and influence, lords and landholders, a cacophony of voices rising and falling and greeting and argument. The heat is thick and heavy within the old stone walls, but beneath the press of bodies unseen but ever present, is a cesspit overflowing from neglect. The floorboards creak as more men arrive, and something about the structure begins to feel less certain. Quietly at first, imperceptible to those in the heat of politics and power making. Then, without warning, the story takes a turn no one could have anticipated. Between 60 and 100 of those gathered are about to meet their maker, submerged and swallowed up in, well, the most unappealing possible way. Listen, everybody makes mistakes. We've all done something daft, something ill judged, something that didn't quite go to plan. And medieval people were no different. But what if your actions, or lack of them, are so terribly misguided, or the situation you find yourself in is so negligent that it doesn't just finish badly with people basically dying, but it ends up in the historical record, remembered for centuries for Just how gruesomely bizarre it is today. I've bribed the guards to release Matt Lewis from his duties cleaning out the cesspit beneath history, hit towers and swilling out the pigs for a special game of Top Trumps in which we try to outdo each other with the most absurd deaths and foolish fatalities of the medieval period. These are the deaths that make you pause, wince and maybe just feel a little bit better about your own worst decisions. Okay, Matt, here we go. Listen, we are letting you up from the dungeon so we can gamble, right?
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Okay, absolutely. I'm going to start us off. Okay. I've been allowed up from the dungeon, but I'm going to take us down even further than that. I'm going to start us off with the Aefur latrine disaster, which means there is not a word of that that doesn't sound like an amazing story, is there?
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D
I mean, this has got to be one of the most classic tales of how not to die from the medieval period, right? Like this has got to be up there in terms of ways that you don't want to go. It's got household recognition for medievalists. I think we could say that. Why don't you talk the lovely listeners through the specifics?
- [07:31]
A
How to die in a toilet. I mean, not for the last time today, how to die in a toilet. So we are here in the summer of 1184. So right in July, it's lovely and warm. Imagine everything is steaming and, and smelling lovely. Henry VI in the Holy Roman Empire is trying to arbitrate a land dispute. Couple of his nobles are arguing, nothing too new there. He decides to get them all together in a big room, bang their heads together and sort it all out. And they all get together in this room on a kind of second floor of a building. There seems to be some dispute about which building precisely it was. So not 100% sure, but they're apparently on a second floor of a building. Everybody crams in there and you can only imagine, I think, that there's this kind of creaky, breaky noise because it turns out there's some rotten joists in the floor that they're standing on. So as these kind of 60 or more people pile into this room, creak, creak, crash, bang. The floor falls through. A whole load of people fall through the floor with it. And we're told they also, the weight of them crashes through the first floor as well. And underneath the first floor is a great big stinking underground cesspit. All of the toilets for this place are directed in here. So the accounts tell us that maybe 60 people die during this from a variety of crush injuries. Drowning in a pile of poo. I mean, that's a pretty bad way to go. Broken bones, all kinds of injuries. Interestingly, though, Henry VI and one of his. I think his archbishops who were there are kind of safe because they're sitting in a stone alcove in a window. So, you know, they're chilling out by the window and the floor falls out and they're sort of left there sitting thinking, whoopsie daisy, what do we do now? And they have to sit there till people turn up with ladders up to the windows to try and rescue them. And, yeah, you know, it's a pretty horrible way to go. So the way we're going to try and work some of these, we're going to give them all kind of scores on our little Top Trumps game. So the first category that we've got is kind of a level of absurdity out of five. And I've gone for five here because it's impossible not to laugh at 60 noblemen falling into a pile of poo.
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D
You know, it couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of people. Look silly.
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A
Absolutely.
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D
Yeah, yeah.
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A
The second category that we've got is the political impact of the. The absurd death that we're talking about. And I've kind of gone for a two here in that it has fairly local significance. The Holy Roman Empire does. Emperor doesn't die. So there isn't that kind of huge crisis that that would cause. There's some local. You know, several counts are. Are killed in this disaster, so there is some local kind of fallout from it, but it doesn't seem to cause a big political disaster. So I've gone pretty low on the political impact for it. And then the third category that we've got for each of these is kind of believability. How sure are we that this actually happened? And I've gone for a four out of five on this because we do have several accounts that give us the details of it. Again, they're not sure where it happens precisely, but they seem pretty clear, but both about the details and the fact that this, this did really happen. So we've got a kind of total score of 11 out of 15 for the air, for latrine disaster, which seems pretty low for. For essentially posh people dying in a toilet.
- [10:58]
D
Well, listen, we simply love to see it to a certain extent. You. You just know the peasants were laughing for months. But I do think fundamentally it is just kind of like a. A fun factoid, right? And it is a pretty fun factoid. Like, I mean, no, shade. I don't want to die in a pile of poo either. That. That would be awful. But I think that you are bang on here. It doesn't have any wide reaching ramifications. It mostly just is something that gets brought up as a bit of a laugh. Which also kind of goes to show you how people really feel about nobility generally. I mean, even now they're like, you know, no, no one was really saying, oh, we should all feel awful for all these nobles, even at the time. So I think. I think you're pretty bang on there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [11:46]
A
I mean, I think toilet humour, you know, is timeless. So true. Posh people dying in a toilet feels like a strong start for us, I think. So you now need to come up with something. You need to come up with an absurd medieval death. That beats one of my categories there.
- [12:04]
D
Okay, well, get ready with me because I am bringing to the table Godfrey the Hunchback. Does this ring a bell? What a name.
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A
To begin.
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D
Yeah. All right, cast your mind back. We're going. We're going back in time from the air for latrine disaster. We are going to 1076. Okay, and we have got Godfrey IV, and he is the Duke of Lower Lorraine, right? And he is attacked while on a latrine, okay? So they're like, listen, we got a latrine, the bridge to the latrine, right? And this happens in Antwerp. So, you know, we are talking about, like, a really incredibly fancy place. You know, being the Duke of Lower Lorraine is rather a big deal. These are towns that are incredibly important in terms of the cloth trade. So it is kind of odd to have, like, a fancy lad of this caliber struck in such a way. So, okay, listen, more particularly, the way that he is attacked is him from below. Ew. So.
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A
So this not. This isn't him falling into the toilet. This is the toilet coming to get him.
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D
That is right. So, you know, he's. He's using the toilet, as one does in perfect oblivion. And an assassin hits him with a spear from underneath, which. Yikes. You know, listen, we don't love it. It's not exactly the way that anybody wants to be attacked at all. You don't want to feel vulnerable even anyway, you know, like, as a general rule of thumb, but certainly not when you got your literal pants down. I mean, come on. Right? And also, what kind of sucks for him is this? Is sort of a sl death. Right? You know, getting poked with a spear, it's not very nice. It's not very nice, but it's also not very fast. Right. You know, there are internal injuries, there's bleeding out. Also, probably, I would imagine, if you're poked with a spear from within a latrine, we are probably going to be looking at some infection issues. So it's not a very fast thing, which isn't particularly great for poor old Godfrey here, Right?
- [14:32]
A
Yeah. I mean, I kind of feel. I feel two things with this. I mean, can a man not even go to the toilet in peace anymore? I mean, of all the places in the world where you might have expected to enjoy a little bit of me time and not have to worry about anything else. But I feel like we need a shout out to the assassin as well. I mean, this is clearly a guy who's sitting under the toilet, waiting for the right bottom to appear above him. How do you spear into.
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D
Right, like, this is. This is one of the things I'm like. I'm like, was he given a lineup? Do you think that someone, like, you know, drew the bum in question and was like, take a look out for that one.
- [15:08]
A
Or, you know, did he impression of Godfrey's backside?
- [15:12]
D
You know, who's doing the research on this? How many people did they have working on the case? Right.
- [15:18]
A
It seems like a bit of a mission. I mean, is this a Private Godfrey toilet, or are you passing over several people who are above you, relieving themselves and thinking, this isn't my time?
- [15:27]
D
I mean, because this is the thing, right? I. I don't think that we have that many examples of absolutely perfectly private toilets at the time. You know, this is the Middle Ages. Like, that's not. That's not usually how things go. You've just sort of got a latrine that is handy now, maybe if it's the middle of the night, you know, this is the latrine that is closest to Godfrey's bedroom. But even then, people don't sleep alone, Right? So they. Yeah, like, how do we. How do we know that's the bum? Did he just get lucky? There are so many questions surrounding this particular. This story. But I mean, also, I think it's important to point out that this is kind of happening as a result of a lot of the power struggles that are happening in the Holy Roman Empire at the time. Right. Like, you will know, for example, that my good friend and yours, Matilda of Tuscany, is very particularly embroiled in some issues with Godfrey at the time, because Bra, that's her husband. Right. So there. There were some people who were saying that Matilda might have been involved.
- [16:38]
A
For example, we know who's done the research, we know who's drawn the bum to aim for.
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D
Exactly. Right. They're like, listen. And you know what? To an extent, I'm like, yeah, I guess that, that does make sense. But I don't know. I think that. I think Matilda is a little too religious for all of that. Maybe I'm being naive, but I. I do think that she's kind of too afraid of the literal fear of God to get involved in that. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, it's a lot.
- [17:02]
A
So given that we're still in the toilet, where are you? Where are you beating down my air for latrine disaster. Okay, so where are you trumping.
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D
Okay, listen, it. Is it as absurd. No, right. It's still pretty absurd. I'm saying that we're at a four here. You know, we are murdered in a toilet by a spear. Come on, it's. It's funny, right? And if we hadn't just had the air for latrine disaster, it would probably seem higher. But like, let's just be honest now, where we're definitely getting higher, though, is political impact, Right? Because one of the things that happens as a result of this is, is Godfrey is on the side of the imperial faction of the investiture contest, right? So he's kind of like pro Henry. And now we are one more guy down and suddenly the Pope's stock is rising. Right? So I'm putting political impact here at A four, which definitely.
- [18:01]
A
So there is an international dimension to this, which there wasn't before.
- [18:04]
D
Yeah, absolutely. Like, this has wide reaching implications, whereas the Erfurt situation is just kind of funny. Right? So, but where it does fall down in comparison to the latrine disaster is in the believability stakes. So we're at about a three here, Right? And this is because there are those who say that this is kind of like a dramatic story that is surrounding an attack on Godfrey. Now, one. One way or another, we do believe that Godfrey was attacked and he died. Right? So he absolutely was assassinated. Whether or not that happened in this way is up for debate. Because, you know, to a certain extent, again, this is embarrassing, Right. You know, the idea of being caught with your pants down, that is something that these guys could be poking fun at. This might be satirical. So believability here is a 3.
- [19:05]
A
And I guess his not dying a Noble death is he? You know, he's not dying a warrior's death, he's not dying a peaceful death in his bed. So are we thinking that it could have been embellished, it could be a little bit apocryphal to embarrass him and all of those kinds of things. And again, it's not the first or last time we're going to hear about a medieval death that involves something entering the fundament. It seems to be a fairly favourite thing of medieval people who don't know how people died. To imagine it was something like this. This.
- [19:35]
D
Listen, medieval people and bums are a match made in heaven. They have never met a joke about a bum they didn't like. They have never seen an opportunity to make that joke that they didn't like. So what I absolutely do believe about this is medieval people were giggling. Right, so shout out to them like they're allowed to have a fun time, too.
- [19:56]
A
Absolutely. Another nobleman dead on the toilet. Who's going to cry over that? I think having. Having put Godfrey, I was gonna say firmly to bed, but firmly on the toilet, but I don't know a lot. I'm gonna move on and I'm gonna try and outdo you on unbelievability, and I actually think this is one that I might be able to outdo you on political impact as well. But I'm here for believability and I'm gonna talk about Henry I of England.
- [20:21]
D
Oh, this is so good. It should have been mine. Oh. Oh, Matt. Oh.
- [20:27]
A
Here is a man who has pretty much stolen the throne, you know, was never meant to be king. Youngest son of the conqueror, steals the throne from his older brother, imprisons his older brother for his entire life, has more illegitimate children than any, any other monarch of England has recorded. It's supposed to be something like 22 for certain, and maybe some more are floating around out there as well. So this guy is well into the twenties of illegitimate children, famously has an issue with less legitimate children. But he, you know, he is desperately trying to hang on to the throne, I think, until his grandson, his oldest grandson, Henry, who is probably named for him, is old enough to take over from him, because otherwise he's going to end with a succession crisis because he only has a legitimate daughter. And I think he envisages that that's going to cause all kinds of problems. So in 1135, by this point, he's been king for 35 years. He's in his mid-60s, but generally, you know, a fairly robust kind of guy. He's been active all of his life. There's no real sense that he's ill. But in 1135, we get him sitting down to a feast, and he seems to have ordered a bunch of lampreys. You know, one of his favorite foods, these kind of big, I don't know, like, shrimpy things. I, I don't even want to think what a lamprey tastes like. I've never tried one, and I don't want to know. Apparently, Henry the first loves them. And we're told that his physicians have said, you know what, Henry, you shouldn't, you shouldn't be eating this. It's bad for your cholesterol, bad for your blood pressure. I don't know what it is, but at your age, Henry, you shouldn't eat them. And I like to imagine it being, you know, at your age, you shouldn't eat them. And Henry saying, get stuff, guys. I'm pretty robust for a guy in his mid-60s. I'm going to have a go at these lampreys and I'm going to show you. And he eats himself into sickness and dies from what the chronicles describe as a surfeit of lampreys eating too many lampreys, which, I mean, you know, I think they told you, Henry, and you, you bought this kind of on yourself. So in terms of, of scoring this, I've gone for a three on the absurdity. So our lowest score on absurdity yet. It's not, it's, it's daft, isn't it, eating stuff that your doctors have told you not to eat to the point that you kill yourself. Kind of daft, but not the most absurd thing we've heard because it doesn't involve a toilet. Yeah, we can't give it a really high score.
- [22:57]
D
Yeah, absolutely. I agree with you there. Also, I think one of the things we have to keep in mind is doctors that, you know, physicians in the middle Ages, they're probably like, oh, yes, if you eat too many lampreys, it's going to make you colder and wetter. And as a result, you know, your, your humors are going to be out of alignment. So really, is that what killed him or was it just overeating? So, you know, I do think that, like, it brings the absurdity level down because it's not like this is a direct medical intervention that may or may not have worked. Right. We do need to keep that in mind.
- [23:31]
A
Yeah, yeah. And this one scores really highly as well on political impact. It's got a five for political impact. Which is as as high as it can get because as I said, Henry was kind of holding on for his oldest grandson to be old enough to. To succeed him. And he fails to do that. You know, his oldest grandson is still a baby when he dies. And so his, his death in this unexpected way before anyone was. Was thinking they were going to have to worry about all of this kind of thing really sparks one of the most serious succession crises in medieval England.
- [24:05]
D
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is going to have a huge impact on the political life in England for the next, you know, what would have been a reign of someone, Right. This is setting us up for the anarchy. This is where all the trouble comes from. Right. So this is kind of as bad as it gets in terms of how things can shake out if you are an English person. So, yeah, I think we have to. We have to give it to the political impact. It's pretty big. It's pretty big.
- [24:39]
A
Yeah, I think so. Because, you know, we're talking about 19 years of basically civil war that follows it. The end of the Norman dynasty, the arrival of the Angevin dynasty. At the end of all of that. It's pretty seismic in terms of the. The impact that it has. But I. I went for trumping you on believability just because it's got a 4 on believability. So everyone seems pretty sure that, you know, he ate too many lampreys, got a bit of a tummy ache and died in the night. There doesn't seem to be too much doubt about the fact that it happened. Quite why the lampreys killed him might be up for grabs. Nobody's too sure about that, but it seems pretty certain that he ate all of these Lampreys. Physicians had told him not to, and that seems to have been what finished him off.
- [25:18]
D
Listen, you know, whomst among us has not overindulged and thought they were dying, right? So a relatable king. What can we say?
- [25:27]
A
I mean, I may well be found dead one day from a surfeit Pringles or something, I don't know.
- [25:31]
D
But I have to say also, just shout out on this particular one, a surfeit of lampreys. One of those phrases that lives rent free in my head. And also, you know, if anyone's got an aspiring indie band out there, Great name for a band. Great name for a set like a difficult second album, Surfeit of Lampreys. Go for it, guys.
- [25:50]
A
I like it. Yeah.
- [25:52]
D
What's your overall score here then, Matt?
- [25:55]
A
Uh, so we've gone for an overall 12 out of 15 for this, which is a pretty high score. You know, Henry, the first death, I think, as we've pointed out, is. Is pretty silly and pretty disastrous for England as well.
- [26:09]
D
Well, Matt, I'm coming at you with a story to warm the hearts of Czech people, okay? Because today I want to bring you the tale of your friend and my. Well, no, he's not our friend. He's not our friend. He's my enemy. This is John of Luxembourg. He's sometimes known as John of Bohemia. I wish you wouldn't. Okay, I wish you wouldn't call him that, but he is the father of my favorite Czech guy, the Emperor Charles iv. And he is also known in the Czech lands as Kit or the foreign king. Right? Okay. So bad guy, in my opinion, not a great dude. Treats the noble kingdom of Bohemia as though it is a bank account and spends all his time basically chasing ladies and going to tournaments, right? But he is a consummate soldier, and he, because he has great ties with the French court, ends up on the 26th of August, 1346 at the Battle of Crecy, as so many noblemen and royal people do. Now, here's where this gets stupid, because being killed at the Battle of Chrissy. Look, many such cases, that's hardly new, right? It's not a weird thing to be killed at the Battle of Chrissy, but he really seems to have wanted this, right? As the name John the blind might indicate. My good friend could not see at this point in his life, and the tide is already turned against the French. Things have gone really, really badly. And many people, including his son, who is much smarter than he was, are beginning to retreat. But not John. No. No. Because he is a king. And what he decides to do is order his knights to tie their horses together with his and then charge at the English cavalry, which I. I cannot stress enough, are being protected by a great number of Kentish bowmen. And the entire point is, it's very difficult to get near them in this particular battle.
- [28:31]
A
But in fairness to Jon, he can't see that, can he?
- [28:34]
D
He doesn't know. He's like, I would simply. I would simply charge. Why hasn't anyone done that? Right? And his belief is that he can still strike a blow. His words, not mine, against the English. Spoiler alert. Maybe he did strike a blow, but he also died, and he also got his men killed. And, you know, we don't know exactly how he died because, you know, is he just one of the hundreds upon hundreds of people who was killed by the arrows, Quite possibly. If you can't see, it's pretty easy to get your bell rung in the melee as well. Or if you can't see and you get knocked off your horse, very, very easy to get trampled in all that mud at. Crazy, right? But we do know about this one because, like, depending on who you ask, some people are like, oh, isn't it heroic? Right? And some people are like, oh, it's like, quite tragic. And I think if you asked English people, they'd be like, that seems quite stupid. And I mean, interestingly, if you ask Czech people, they're like, oh, thank God, finally. This is brilliant. Okay, this guy is out of the way. Can we just kind of, like, get on with things with his son? Which they do immediately. But I don't know. I suppose if you were John and you were such a terrible king, maybe this is the only way you can get yourself a good reputation. So, I mean, to be fair, maybe it's just a form of PR that I don't really understand. Right.
- [30:12]
A
I mean, I. I think a couple of things on John, I. I am very well aware of your hatred of Jon, so I'm not going to get you to try and feel sorry for him or think anything nice about him. I feel like there's two things here. This could have been hugely heroic. The guy who's lost his sight just wants to die as a medieval knight in a battle, desperately trying to fight, trying to craft that legacy for himself. There's something admirable in that. Dragging two men down with you and forcing them to die, tied to you in a weird kind of bondage session of melee. Death makes this not very heroic. It makes this pretty horrible, you know? Did these two guys volunteer to be strapped to the king and ridden to their death? I don't know. I very seriously doubt it. But it can't have been pleasant for them. So the fact that he wants to do this, fine, I can get down with that. The fact that he feels the need to drag two people along with him is not good.
- [31:17]
D
This is John all over. I'm sorry. This is just. This is just how he is. Just so selfish. He's always thinking about himself. He's never thinking about the good people of Bohemia or indeed his own knights. Okay. So, like, I. I mean, I do. That is something that I think about often, though, is. Is those nights. I know, to be fair to him, this tends to be the thing. If you. If you don't know Czech history, which most people don't, this is Usually the thing that people know about John, so to an extent, I mean, he's actually played a blinder because, you know, at least people know this story. But I mean, whether or not you go along with his romanticized view is, is another thing entirely. Right. And yeah, I mean, accordingly, I think I'm, I'm giving it a pretty high absurdity level in that I think it's a four. Now, I'm not awarding it all five points because for all five points I need you to not drag those other nights down with you. Right? It's like, it's just a little too sad to be fully.
- [32:19]
A
He can't even do absurd properly for you, can he?
- [32:21]
D
Now this man, this is all the only thing he ever did for me was die. But you know, fair enough, fair enough. Political impact. I am going for a three because it does have a political impact in that finally Charles is able to take the throne in his own right. But the impact that it makes is everyone is pretty happy about it. Right? So this is like, this is generally one where everyone is like, woo, great, you know, and so, you know, I don't, I think that when we kind of mean political impact, we mean that it has a destabilizing influence, whereas this particular death has an actual stabilizing influence influence which, you know, and then unbelievability. We're giving it a four. Everyone pretty much agrees that this happens. John's detractors say that this happens. John's supporters, of whom there's presumably one or two, like basically people that Charles pays off to write about his family are like, yeah, isn't that heroic?
- [33:28]
A
Quite.
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D
Question mark. Right, like so, yeah.
- [33:31]
A
And we do get the story that, you know, even the Black Prince, Edward the Black Prince is so impressed, he, he, he comes across Jon's body on the battlefield and there is this legend that he takes Jon's ostrich feather badge and his motto of Ick Dean as the Prince of Wales's badge and motto, as they have been ever since, which I, I, you know, people dispute whether that's true or not. But you know, even his enemies are. Are you having some sense that he's done something fairly striking? Maybe not clever, but striking?
- [34:01]
D
Listen, he would be spending all his money on ostrich feathers. This guy, this guy. Why don't you see to the safety of the roads in Bohemia, John? No, it's just all ostrich feathers and eating this guy.
- [34:15]
A
I feel like I need to drag you down off your soapbox, otherwise you're gonna get a really long rant about Jon.
- [34:20]
D
Listen, it's an 11. It's an 11 out of 15. That's what, that's what we need to know. We can move on. Like the point is I'm right and I'm glad John is dead. Thank you.
- [34:46]
B
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- [35:22]
E
The to do list doesn't stop and neither does the pressure to keep up with it if you've been running on fumes. Grow Therapy makes it easier to find care that's covered by insurance and actually built around you. Whether it's your first time in therapy or your 50th, grow makes it easier to find a therapist who fits you, not the other way around. You can search by what matters like insurance identity or availability and get started in as little as two days. And if something comes up, you can Cancel up to 24 hours in advance at no cost. Grow helps you find therapy on your time. Whatever challenges you're facing. Grow Therapy is here to help. Grow accepts over 100 insurance plans. Sessions average about $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. Visit growtherapy.com acast today to get started. That's growtherapy.com acast growtherapy.com acast availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.
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C
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- [37:25]
A
Right I am next going to pick out something that I think Trumps your. Your political impact with John maybe has a bit more of an impact than that. And this is the death of James ii, the King of Scotland. And people may know kind of roughly what happens to him. It's a fairly well known story. So James becomes King of Scotland at the age of about 6. He inherits from his father, so he has this big, long minority. There are, as all, as always, there are families that try to dominate the government in Scotland who are, you know, trying to keep him. Keep him forever young. And he ends up, effectively, he ends up using his marriage to Mary of Gelders as a way to sort of emancipate himself from his minority, to declare himself of age and to take control of the government himself. And one of the things that James is really into is guns and stuff that go bang. Because he's a boy who isn't. You're in a world where you've suddenly got all of these things that make loud noises and go bang. James loves artillery and he's obsessed with all of these things. And so kind of by 1460, James is focusing on Roxburgh Castle, which is a place that the English have still held onto after the Scottish wars of Independence. The English are still there and it's just kind of bugging James and he's thinking he wants to drive the English out of Roxburgh and what better way to do it than all of his new toys. He's got new toys and he's going to bring them out to play. And so he turns up there in the summer of 1460 and wheels out all of his cannon and begins to bombard Roxburgh castle. And on the 3rd of August in 1460, we're told that he's standing next or near to one of these cannons and it backfires, it explodes, and he is taken out by his own gun that he had invested all of this money and all of this time and in the belief that it would help him get Roxburgh Castle back and. And help him make a name for himself. And I think it makes a different name for himself than he would have wanted it to because he dies at the hands of his. I mean, literally hoist by his own petard, I guess.
- [39:41]
D
Oh, yes. Oh, yes. I mean, it is one of the. These stories where you're just like, yeah, well, that, that's that. Right. And I think it is important to keep in mind that at this point in time, in the 15th century, you know, canon are a relatively new invention. They. And they do blow up. Right. It is not that unusual for them to misfire, backfire, blow up and take people along with them and they have to therefore be approached with a surfeit not of lampreys but of caution. Right. And James, I, I think probably just because, you know, he's, he's a lad, just doesn't think about it that way. And so this is one of these things that this all could have been avoided just by not being this hands on with a gun. But on the other hand, you know, you know how dudes are, they love a cannon. What can I say? I, you know, if you put a cannon out there that people could fire. Right. Now I think that the number of dudes who would perhaps injure themselves is not in the zeros. Right. You know, it's.
- [40:49]
A
Yeah. And I wonder how many people listening if, if you're a man, have you done this? If you're a woman, do you know a man who's done this? Going back to a lit firework because it doesn't look like it's gone off yet. It's that kind of thing, isn't it? You know, I can imagine the aftermath with, with the, the inquiry beginning almost immediately into A, who made this cannon that just blew the king up, but also B, who told James he could stand there? That was a really bad idea.
- [41:16]
D
Oh my God. You know, it's, it is. There is a death, a fairly horrible death. So you can't laugh that hard. But listen, I'm giggling, I'm giggling. What can I say?
- [41:26]
A
Yeah, I mean, I. So in terms of scoring this, it's got a three for absurdity because it falls into the daft category rather than being hilarious. You know, it's silly, it's something that could have been avoided, as you said, but maybe isn't the most absurd thing that we've heard so far today.
- [41:45]
D
There's no poo involved in this at all, Matt.
- [41:49]
A
Can anything win without the involvement of Pooh?
- [41:51]
D
That's the question we have to see.
- [41:56]
A
We've got a while to try and find out where. I think it does better than John's death is maybe the political impact because here is the King of Scotland dead. So we've got another king who is dead to some extent. John had willingly, voluntarily gone to his death. This is the King of Scotland dying on a military campaign without actually wanting to. And also because he leaves behind a son in James III who is only nine years old. So Scotland, having had a long minority with James ii, is now thrown back into a long minority with James iii. And that's Just going to allow all of those factions to emerge again, all of those families to try and assert themselves over the king. And you've again got the issue of a child king and how does he get out of his minority and what kind of king is he gonna be when he gets there? Because the traditional view is that child kings are never ever a very good idea. So here we've got a child king who's made its adulthood, who has died but left behind him another child king. So I think it's got a four for the political impact because it's, it's pretty significant for Scotland and it's got a, a five for believability because there doesn't seem to be any doubt about what happened here. James stood too close to a cannon that exploded and he died. There is, there is complete unanimity about this. I've never seen it disputed or doubted. So we've gone hard with a 5 on believability. This, which gives it a total score of 12 out of 15. So I think it's fairly significant. Not the daftest thing we've heard, but pretty significant.
- [43:24]
D
Yeah, and I think that it's an important one to get in the conversation because it is a bit of an absurd death, you know, maybe not a funny haha absurd, but as you say, you know, listen, we gotta, we gotta cover all the parameters here, right?
- [43:38]
A
But look, there's different ways to be
- [43:41]
D
stupid and I'm trying them all, Matt. But look, I feel as though this is not sufficiently absurd, so I'm gonna come at you with something more.
- [43:56]
A
What if he got.
- [43:56]
D
Let's bring it back, let's bring it back to the silly one. Now this is one of my very, very favorite stories from the Middle Ages generally. Baby, we gotta talk about Peter Bartholomew, right?
- [44:06]
C
Coming in hot.
- [44:07]
A
It's okay, you got this one.
- [44:09]
D
Coming in hot.
- [44:11]
A
I wanted this one.
- [44:12]
D
So good, Right, okay, in the first place, shout out to one of our few non royal or noble guys involved. And now Peter Bartholomew, right? He in the year of our Lord 1099, is involved in the First Crusade. And more particularly he is bogged down in Antioch, as so many Europeans are at the time. They are underneath a terrible siege. Everybody's starving, morale is in the gutter, right? But you know what Peter decides is going to turn this ship around is he believes, or at least he states, that he has found the Holy Lands under the floorboard church, right? And which is interesting because there's, there are already a few holy lances floating around Europe at the Time. But, you know, hey, what's one more listen? You know, if you have a curious mind, you can think of lots of varying possibilities. To his credit, we do see from the sources that this has provided a fair morale boost to the troops, where everyone says, yay. Yay, we've got the Holy Lance. Now, whether or not everybody knows the story of, like, he just found it just now, that's another question. But they all decide they've got the Holy Lands. Everybody rallies around. They manage to get on out there and break the siege.
- [45:42]
A
As I say, before we go any further, what is the Holy Lance? I mean, it sounds like something from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. We've got a holy hand grenade. What's the Holy Lance?
- [45:50]
D
Okay, so the Holy Lance is, you know, when Jesus is being crucified. And at the end, they start feeling sort of bad for him with all of the pain. And one of the soldiers decides to pierce Jesus's side, which ends his suffering, right? So this becomes a relic, first of all, because they decide that the guy who pierced his side, who they start calling Saint Longinus, which literally just means Saint Lance, but, like, okay, cool. Go for it, bro. But so, you know, you've got a relic associated with him, and also you've got something that touched Jesus, right? And because Jesus ascended into heaven, we don't have a whole lot of bodily relics associated with him. I say we don't have a whole lot. We've got, like, eight of his foreskin and, like, mouths and mouths and mouths full of baby teeth. But listen, we're. We're taking what we can get apart from that.
- [46:41]
A
And so interesting that Peter would decide he's found this in particular. While all of the Christians are suffering in the Holy Land and want their suffering to end, he's managed to find the relic that ended Christ's suffering on the cross.
- [46:52]
D
Exactly. So, you know, it is a very poetic move. And whether or not he is intentionally doing that is up for debate. But listen, it kind of works. It raises everybody's spirits. They charge out of the city. They manage to break the siege. Hooray. Couple days later, everyone starts going, buddy, listen, great work. Great work, cheerleading. But is that really the Holy Lance? And Peter's like, yeah, it is. Shut up. That's direct quote. Direct quote. That's what it says in all the sources. And he says, not only is this the Holy Lance, but I am willing to undergo an ordeal by fire in order to prove this. Now, in this case, what we mean by that is, essentially, they light A huge, huge fire. And he walks through it carrying the lance and a branch. Guess how this goes, right? Like, his idea is that for a
- [47:57]
A
guy who I was kind of assuming is. Is probably making this up, it's a bit of a, you know, a bit of a PR stunt. Good for morale and all that kind of thing. This is really extreme. In an effort to prove that. That it's genuine. This is making me wonder whether he did think that he had found something serious. Because why not, you know, why not go, oh, I've lost it now. It must have disappeared. It arrived when we need it and it's gone now. What can I say? The end. But he's. He's going in hard on. This really is the holy lance that I.
- [48:25]
D
You know, I suppose that there's kind of rather a lot in it for him. I know maybe he genuinely believes this, you know, or maybe he thinks that he can kind of like get things through the fire. But the theoretical idea behind this is that if he's telling the truth, since he's got this holy relic, it will protect him. It does not protect him. Spoiler alert.
- [48:50]
A
I mean, oh, what? He walked into a fire with two pieces of wood and it didn't work?
- [48:53]
D
Oh, is that crazy? And so he suffers some fairly severe burns and he takes a while to die. All right, It's. It's not a pretty way to go. It is pretty drawn out. My favorite thing about this though, right, is that he insists, as he is dying from these terrible burns from walking through this fire, that it's not. It's not the burns that are killing him. He's like, no, I'm just sick, honest. Dill, that's.
- [49:27]
A
Yeah. Something else.
- [49:28]
D
I've got a bit of a. I have dysentery. Yeah, everybody does, right? So he does end up dying. I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist that he did indeed die of the burns, which everyone pretty much agrees on in April of 1099. Shout out. One of the best to ever do it. One of the stupidest deaths. Completely self inflicted. I'm going all the way. I think the level of absurdity of this is five, because as you say, Matt, he could have just.
- [50:00]
A
I think he may well be wrong.
- [50:01]
E
You didn't have to do it.
- [50:01]
D
You didn't have to do it, bro. Like, come on.
- [50:04]
A
He did it to himself. I think one of the favorite bits of the story that I came across was there was a papal legate who was around at the time called Adhemar of Le Puy. And this guy was like, peter Bartholomew is a charlatan. He's lying. He hasn't really found the Holy Lands. And Peter's like, no, I have. I really have. And then Adhemar dies kind of in 1098, at which point Peter starts saying, do you know what? I've had a vision of Adhemar. And it turns out that he knows now that I was right. I really did find the Holy Lands. He's visited me in my visions. The guy who called me a charlatan has been proven wrong. I mean, he's really going two feet all in on this, isn't he? And then to walk through fire, to willingly do that, seems crazy. I mean, we can talk about a world where there is much more religious conviction that perhaps you will get protected from these kinds of things, but it still feels like it has to be a five for absurdity, doesn't it?
- [50:54]
D
It is just bonkers to be fair to him, you know, much in the way that the story everybody knows about John the Blind is that he dies in this silly way at Chrissy. This is the thing we know about Peter Bartholomew, right? He enters the historical record because he just goes all the way. He's like, I stand ten toes down on this. Right? But look, you know, where it falls down is a political impact, because this is just some guy, right? And. And to his credit, the. The politically impactful thing that he already does is, you know, rallying the troops in terms of kind of helping to break the siege of Antioch. It doesn't do anything after he dies, though. Right. And the believability on this is pretty high. It's at a four. Everyone does kind of believe that he did this to himself. Yeah, but he disputes why he died. Right. Which is why I'm giving it a
- [51:45]
A
four, not a five. Because there's that one holdout person who's utterly convinced it wasn't the fire that killed him after he walked through the fire.
- [51:52]
D
And it's him. It's the guy, right? You know, so. So fair enough. But that is so important, because I think it bumps the absurdity up. You know, it is really the icing on the cake. So listen, it's another 11 out of 15. But you got to talk about it. It's too funny not to.
- [52:10]
A
Absolutely. And at least we're not talking about the believability of whether or not he actually found the Holy Lance. Maybe we don't want to get into that. He definitely walked through fire and died from the fire. Unless you believe Peter.
- [52:37]
B
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.
- [52:57]
E
The to do list doesn't stop and neither does the pressure to keep up with it if you've been running on fumes. Growtherapy makes it easier to find care that's covered by insurance and actually built around you, whether it's your first time in therapy or your 50th. Grow makes it easier to find a therapist who fits you, not the other way around. You can search by what matters like insurance, specialty, identity or availability and get started in as little as two days. And if something comes up, you can Cancel up to 24 hours in advance at no cost. Grow helps you find therapy on your time. Whatever challenges you're facing, Grow Therapy is here to help. Grow accepts over 100 insurance plans. Sessions average about $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. Visit growththerapy.com acast today to get started. That's growtherapy.com acast growtherapy.com acast availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.
- [54:16]
A
I am going to come back at you then with something that I think has a pretty significant political impact because Peter's death has very little impact. So I'm going to go hard next on some political impact. And a person that I didn't know very much about this is a guy called King Martin of Aragon and he is around in the kind of the late 14th century into the early 15th. He dies in 1410. And there is lots of dispute about why he actually dies. But he's King of Aragon and you know, he's been on the throne by the time that he dies for, for kind of 14 years. And there's lots of disputes about the way that he dies. But the story we're going to go with, because it's the funny one, which may or may not be true, but has been reported and recorded ever since, is that someone who I presume is a jester at his court tells him a joke. Unfortunately, nowhere is it recorded what this joke was. And perhaps, perhaps that's a good thing because this report claims that having been told this joke, King Martin of Aragon laughs himself to death. He gets an absolute fit of uncontrollable laughter and dies as a result of it. I mean, what is what is this killer joke? I mean, there's some sources that say it's something to do with the goose, but I mean, a geese that funny? I. I don't know.
- [55:41]
D
Listen. I mean, my guess would have been bum again, knowing medieval people, but fair enough. Goose, sure.
- [55:49]
A
I mean, geese have bums. It could be a goose's bum.
- [55:52]
D
Goosebump. Ah, see, now we're cooking. All right.
- [55:55]
A
Okay, this is historical investigation Live. This is.
- [56:00]
D
We're doing important work here. Right. Look, I will say good for him. What a way to go. You know, like, we should all be so lucky as to laugh ourselves to death. That's pretty ideal in terms of, you know, all the horrors that we've seen, you know, dying slowly of burns, drowning in poo, things of this nature. This is. That's a pretty nice one. Right? So, you know, good for him. He secures a. A nice way out of this life. And. And we love that for Martin. Yeah.
- [56:31]
A
I mean, yeah, there's other sources that say he could have died of the plague or it's possible that he's kind of slipped into a coma or even that he was poisoned. But I'm just gonna stick with Guy laughed himself to death.
- [56:43]
D
Yeah.
- [56:44]
A
So. So I've gone for. For this one. I've gone for a level of absurdity of 4, so less than Peter Bartholomew. But it's hard not to laugh at someone who laughs themselves to death. There's clearly a funny joke being told, and I kind of want to know what that joke is.
- [57:00]
D
I would believe it more if I knew what the joke was. How about that? How about that?
- [57:04]
A
Yeah. Yeah. And I'd have gone for a political impact here of a five. We've gone in high at a five because his death causes a huge succession crisis. All of his heirs, his. Of his body are already dead. They've pre deceased him. And that ends up being a huge succession dispute that eventually ends with his nephew taking the throne. But we have to have this huge agreement called the compromise of Casp, which kind of sets out who's going to rule which of the territories and all of this kind of thing. And there was a huge palava that kind of reshapes the politics of the Iberian Peninsula because King Martin has gone and left himself to death. But where this one really does fall over is the believability. So this, it's got pushed to a two and a half unbelievability. And maybe it doesn't even deserve that because there are so many different accounts of how Martin died. But as I Said before this is recorded. And it does persist, this idea that he laughed himself to death. So he's ended up kind of pretty high with an 11 and a half out of 15 because it's pretty absurd and it's pretty significant politically, but it might well not have happened.
- [58:14]
D
I would be more likely to believe the story if I knew what the joke was. Tell me the joke. Tell me the joke, guys, even out of context, I just want to know. I'm going to come with you on this if you tell me the goose joke. Because, like, otherwise I have to be like, yeah, it couldn't have been the plague, right? It's gotta be. It's gotta be the joke.
- [58:33]
A
History says it's a goose. We're suggesting it was probably a bum as well. And that's as far as we can
- [58:38]
D
get, the old goosebump. All right, well, listen, I'm bringing it back to the silly stuff, okay?
- [58:48]
A
So unlike you.
- [58:49]
D
Yeah, I know. I'm such a serious person, Matt, but I think we have to shout out really quickly the Duke of Clarence. And you know, you know where I'm going with it.
- [58:59]
A
Oh, I know where this is going. Good old George, bad old George.
- [59:03]
D
Ah, so our friend George Plantagenet, in 1478 is arrested and he is in the Tower of London, as is the style of the time. Listen, he was just trying to do some light treason against his brother Edward iv. And you could blame him, you know, everybody loves it. It is the thing to do. We love a bit of treason. Now. Allegedly, allegedly, because he is told that he is going to be killed for said treason, which is. Yep, that's the punishment. He is allowed to choose how he is going to die because he is, you know, a royal. So he gets to have these little niceties. His brother's gonna kill him, but, you know, make your decision up. And also allegedly, he says, because he is a gourmand, he is a bon vivant, he is a man on the town. He says, okay, I want to be drowned in a barrel of sweet malmsy wine, baby.
- [60:09]
A
If I'm going out, I'm going out
- [60:10]
D
Magaluf style, you know, and good for him, good for him. It's a great idea in terms of delicious taste. I still wouldn't want to drown myself. Like, that's. It's not very nice. I think I'm gonna. I'm gonna choose head cut off every time, but I just don't have the style of a duke, let's be so honest about it. And look, it's a Great story. It's one of those ones that gets brought up all the time. If you go to the Tower of London, you are going to hear someone muttering about it, possibly me, if I'm there at the same time. But we have to give it a 5 on the absurdity scale because it's just such a rich guy thing. Like it's so silly.
- [60:50]
A
Come on. Because if it happened, he chose it for himself as well, which is a weird way to choose to die.
- [60:56]
D
He died like he lived as a fancy little lad. Okay, Right. Political impact on this, pretty high. It's a four. I mean, one way or another, this is a Plantagenet that we're talking about here. This is a result of a conspiracy and it is going to help to destabilize the Plantagenets at the time, which is going to lead to your favorite thing in the world, Matt. But.
- [61:25]
A
Yeah, but, but it is pointed to as one of those things that drives a wedge between Edward IV and his younger brother Richard. You know, that they disagree over what should have happened to George. So perhaps the, the significant impact that we see of this is, is its role in what happens in 1483. You know, Edward IV's son is deposed. Is George's fate playing into that at all? Quite possibly.
- [61:48]
D
And, you know, so we have to. We can't discount that. Right. Believability on this, though. I'm gonna be so real with you. It's low. I don't think this actually happened. I think that this is. This is an apocryphal story, in my opinion. But it does tell us a little bit about George himself and his proclivities. So there is still a little bit of truth to it in that we know how he might feel about things. So it's an 11 out of 15.
- [62:18]
A
Yeah. Yeah. And there's an interesting story that his. There's a portrait believed to be of his daughter Margaret. And the. The portrait has a barrel charm around a wrist. And the. The suggestion is that that's a pointing to the way that her dad died. But yeah, we don't really have any concrete evidence to. To make us believe that it really happen that way.
- [62:37]
D
Maybe she's just also a chill chick who loves to chug wine. You ever think about that? What? Girls can't have hobbies.
- [62:44]
A
Maybe she takes after her dad in.
- [62:46]
D
That's right.
- [62:48]
A
I'm going to come at you with, with something a bit more believable, but only a little bit more believable. I'm not sure I can beat you on absurdity or political impact with this. But I can, I can maybe shade it on believability. And this is Louis III of France, who was around in the 9th century. He's. Crikey, what is he like a great, great grandson of Charlemagne. So he's, you know, around when the time of Charlemagne's empire is fracturing and there's lots of disputes about all these different patchwork of territories that will one day become kind of France and Germany and all of that kind of thing. And he's also dealing with some Vikings because he's round about the right time for a load of Vikings to be attacking his territories too. And the thing about Louis is he, unusually for the period, he's doing quite well against the Vikings. He's managing to push them back. He's managing to defeat the Vikings at a time when nobody else is, is able to do that. But in 882, we're told that, you know, he's a, he's a young man, he's having some military success. What he really wants now is a woman, but not a wife. You know, he's obviously just having a moment. He spots a young woman who he, he quite likes the look of and begins to ride after her on his horse. She runs away for reasons best known to her, but probably completely understandable.
- [64:02]
D
Yeah, chicks love it when you are chasing them down on horseback. What could I say?
- [64:06]
A
I mean, does it get more romantic than being pursued through the streets by a strange man? She does the natural thing and she runs home. Runs in through the doorway of home. Louis is determined that he is not gonna give up on this chase. Spurs his horse on and rides through the doorway of her house at full pelt on his horse and cracks his head on the lintel of the door, smashes his skull in, spills his brains and dies from the injuries. He's 18 years old and he's literally just killed himself in an effort to chase a woman. Dudes are crazy.
- [64:45]
D
What could I say?
- [64:47]
A
Oh, yeah. I mean, what could possibly go wrong when the world is run by people like this? Hey, we've gone for this. Not being too absurd. I mean, it's got a two for absurdity. It's a little bit daft. But it's also, he bought it on himself a little bit. He's behaving in a pretty creepy way. The political impact, we've gone for a three. It doesn't have a huge long term impact. But, you know, he had been having success against the Vikings, which stalls, you know, the Vikings begin to do a little bit better in his area when he's gone. And all of his stuff, all of his lands go to his brother, which unites a bunch of territory in West Francia and maybe starts the, the movement towards this consolidation of lands that will eventually become something like France. So there's a bit of a political impact there, but not a huge one. And the believability, it's got a three, so it kind of just shades. George, George had a 2, this gets a 3. Because there seems to be more consensus in the sources that it could be an anecdote. But it's generally broadly accepted that he dies by smashing his head on the lintel of a door, riding his horse.
- [65:57]
D
Like you know, the wise and wherefores are another thing entirely. But you know, he did bonk his bonnet, we can all agree on that. Okay, well look, I am going to go in with a higher absurdity rating. Okay, listen, this is Sigurd the Mighty. Do you know this one? This is, this is quite a fun one. Okay. He is the Earl of Orkney, also in the 9th century. And he, as many earls of Orkney are wont to do, is involved in some hand to hand combat with a rival. And he bests said rival to celebrate, as Vikings are wont to do, he cuts the dude's head off. Now also as Vikings are want to do, he very much decides he's gonna flaunt it, right? Like this is how we butter our bread, baby. This is how you know, not to mess with the Earl of Orkney, right? I'm gonna, I'm gonna ride around with a severed saddle and show you people what's what, right? So he's got this head, he puts it on his horse and he's having a little bit of a parade about going, you like that severed head killed my rival. But here's the thing. It is alleged that as he is riding, the teeth of the head sort of scratch his leg and there's a resulting wound which becomes nastily infected and as a result Sigurd then dies soon after. And look, you and I have got to say now this, now that's absurd baby, right? Like what do you mean?
- [67:53]
A
Getting bitten to death by a dead person is pretty absurd.
- [67:57]
D
Like he's not a snake bro. Like come on, it's not, he's hardly just like sitting there giving it a gnaw afterwards. Now I, I, I will say, okay, like yeah, humans mouths are filthy and it is pretty easy to get infected if someone does give you a bit of a Chomp. Now, whether or not that can happen as you are riding around town trying to show people what a big bad warrior you are, that's. That's another question. But we gotta say that's a five out of five. That's just stupid. That is an absurd and very silly way to go, right? Like, hats off to Sigurd, right? Political impact on this medium. It's about a three. Like, right, like he's the Earl of Orkney, so of course this is going to have some impact. But let's also be so for real, these are Vikings we're talking about. They're. They're constantly killing each other, right? Like, there's a new Earl of Orkney,
- [68:51]
A
there'll be another one in the next ship.
- [68:53]
D
Yeah, exactly. Like, you know, though you wait ages for one to come along at once, right? That's how it is. Unfortunately, though, the believability on this one is low. This is a saga story, you know, and the sagas will also be like. And then Thor showed up, right? And like, listen, and I love. I simply love to see it. Do I think Thor actually showed up? No. Do I think that a guy got bitten or at least scratched by a severed head? Probably not. But I still like the story. I still like to talk about it because it's funny. So look, it's a 10 out of 15, but let's be so for real, it's. It's a good giggle as well.
- [69:31]
A
It is. It's a good story. Right? I. I've got kind of a last card to play. And you know how in a deck of top trumps, there's always that one that's almost undefeatable. I think you might have arrived at that card because this kind of affects someone that we've already spoken about a little bit. But this is 25th of November, 1120, which may well be a date that rings bells all over the place.
- [69:54]
D
Do not. Oh, come on, man. I can't.
- [69:57]
A
We have. We have wheedled in at the end of this, the White Ship disaster. I mean, it rightly positioned us as a disaster. So there's a fantastic episode of. Of Gone Medieval with Charles Spencer all about the White Ship disaster, if you want to learn loads of detail about all of this. But essentially you've got a bunch of young blokes and we're going to end up in a third story. Who'd a thunk? Bunch of young guys gonna race a ship over the channel. So the King of England is Henry the First, who we've mentioned earlier. He has already set sail for home across the channel from Barfleur to England. His only legitimate son and heir, William Adeline is going to get on this white ship, which is kind of newly fitted, newly appointed. It's kind of like giving 17 year olds the keys to the Ferrari and telling them to go knock themselves out. And as they're preparing to get on the ship, they're bringing on barrels of wine, tons of stuff. They're getting drunk. They're encouraging the crew to get drunk. What could possibly go wrong? So as, as night falls, as it turns dark, all of these drunk people sail out from Barfleur Harbor. They make it, I don't know, like 50 meters before they smash the side of the ship into this rock that everybody knows is there. It's still there today. Everybody knows that this is a hazard, but guess what? They're all drunk and they don't manage to avoid this rock. They are, you know, all pulled down into the sea. Nobody really swims at this point. They're all wearing their lovely fine silk clothes that give them zero protection against the November channel waters. So they can't swim. They're freezing to death as well. We get odd bits of stories of people bobbing up. You know, 1.1 Chronicle says that the captain, the ship bobs up and says, oh, where's the prince?
- [71:40]
D
And.
- [71:41]
A
And somebody else who's bobbing around still says, he died, he's gone to the bottom of the sea. And the captain is so convinced that he's going to be in trouble for this that he just allows himself to sink. And he's like, I might as well just go now, because I hate to think what the King's going to do to me for this. There's one survivor, a man named Bero, who's a butcher from Rouen. He was kind of chasing the royal court to get some bills paid. And he's saved by the fact that he's wearing this lovely big fecie woolen coat that protects him from the, the cold and helps him to float a little bit. So all of the rich people sink. One of the very few poor people on board is the only person that survives. So, yeah, it's a, a terrible, terrible story. We've gone for a level of absurdity of four, so not undefeatable, but it is a bunch of young blokes getting drunk and getting the crew of their ship drunk too. And then probably in their last moments wondering why on earth they've got crashed a ship. What could they have done to avoid this? Who knows? Political impact. I mean, we've gone hard on a five because this is what drives Henry I to try and appoint Empress Matilda as his heir. So she is his only surviving legitimate child. By that point. He's aware that there's going to be a huge succession problem because he hasn't got a son. And so this is a thing that. That feeds into the. The anarchy and everything that comes after that. So we talked about. Henry's death is kind of sparking all of that off. But this is the. This is the fuse being lit on all of those things that are going to come. And we've also gone hard with the believability of 5. So top score on that too, because all of the Chronicles are pretty adamant about what happened. The ship definitely sank. William Adeline definitely died in there. And they were definitely drunk as well. So this gets a 14 out of 15. It's a. It's a hard score. It's probably the. The undefeatable card in the deck you're gonna have to come up with with one of your stupid absurdity fives just to beat this card, I think.
- [73:39]
D
Well, Matt, I can't do that, so it's even a point. There's no point, Matt, showing me up. This is why I keep you in the dungeon. Okay, look, no. What am I meant to do with this? But I mean, honestly, mate, I think that one's so good, there's just nowhere to go. I'm calling it in. You win. You are in so many ways my superior, but this is just one more example. So what a treat.
- [74:08]
A
What do I win? A week in the dungeon?
- [74:10]
D
Four days in the dungeon. All expenses paid, babe. Yeah, well, listen, you know what? If I gave you any money, you just spend it on drink. And as we've all seen, when mixed with boats, that can lead to a disaster. So we're calling it in.
- [74:27]
A
Get me a barrel of malmsy wine and some fireworks that don't go off immediately.
- [74:33]
D
Matt, pleasure as always. You're a scholar and a gentleman and apparently a bit of a card shark. Thank you so much for coming to visit.
- [74:42]
A
Always an honor, always fun. Thanks for having me.
- [74:47]
D
Well, there you have it. Gall Medieval's official ranking of some of the most foolish unfortunate deaths the Middle Ages has to offer. Let us know in the Spotify comments what you think about the rankings or if you have any honorable mentions that we've missed. Thanks to Matt for coming to chat. And thank you for listening to Gone Medieval from History hit. Remember, you can enjoy unlimited access to award winning original TV documentaries, including my recent film the Trials of Joan of Arc, by signing up@historyhit.com description and if you like Matt and I's foolishness, we have got a special something coming up for you in the next few weeks, so watch this space. You can follow Gone Medieval on Spotify, where you can leave us comments and suggestions, or wherever you get your podcasts and tell all your friends and family that you've gone Medicine Evil until next time,
- [76:01]
B
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- [76:46]
A
and Lowe's Lowe's Nosotros Ayudamos 2 Ahoras.
- [76:55]
E
Master canoe.