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- [00:00]
Verizon Advertiser
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- [00:31]
Thumbtack Advertiser
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- [00:51]
Verizon Advertiser
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- [00:56]
Podcast Host
That's X E R O.
- [01:00]
Verizon Advertiser
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- [01:14]
Simon Winchester
Search Xero with an x or visit.
- [01:15]
Verizon Advertiser
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- [01:25]
Podcast Producer/Announcer
Hello, I'm Dr. Eleanor Jaenega, and welcome to Gone Medieval From History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human 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. Picture this it's the autumn of 1066, and William of Normandy's invasion fleet sits trapped in French ports, waiting, watching the skies. Harold Godwinson's scouts scan the horizon from English shores, not just counting ships but reading the very air itself. When the wind finally shifts to a perfect southerly breeze, it doesn't just fill Norman sails it will determine the future of England forever. This is one of those moments where atmospheric pressure becomes political power and a gust of wind can crown kings or condemn them to defeat. Because centuries before weather satellites and storm.
- [02:55]
Podcast Host
Warnings arrived on the scene, medieval people.
- [02:58]
Podcast Producer/Announcer
Lived intimately with the Wind's moods. And myster monks in their scriptoria recorded not just saints feast days, but wind days, moments when violent arctic gusts could destroy entire harvests. Islamic physicians in Granada created mathematical tables linking wind direction to the speed of fever. During the Black Death, Scandinavian sailors traded in magical wind knots, believing they could bottle tempests in knotted cords and release them at sea. In this episode of Gone Medieval, I'm joined by the remarkable Simon Winchester, the.
- [03:39]
Podcast Host
Brilliant author of, among many others, the.
- [03:42]
Podcast Producer/Announcer
Professor and the Madman and Krakatoa. His latest book, the Breath of the Gods, sweeps across five millennia to reveal the hidden force that has sculpted civilizations, toppled empires, and decided the fate of nations.
- [03:59]
Simon Winchester
Wind.
- [04:01]
Podcast Producer/Announcer
In it, Simon traces how ancient Sumerians first named the winds alongside their gods. How Chinese astronomers measured monsoons with bamboo flutes. And how medieval Europeans believed certain breezes could carry not just weather, but moral corruption itself. They didn't just fear the wind, they read it like scripture, harnessed it for trade and wove it into their deepest magical beliefs. This is history written in the invisible ink of atmospheric pressure, where the fate of civilizations hung on the direction of the breeze, where wind isn't just weather, it's the breath of the gods themselves, shaping every aspect of medieval life, from the mundane to the miraculous.
- [04:55]
Podcast Host
Simon, welcome to Gone Medieval.
- [04:57]
Simon Winchester
Well, thank you so much.
- [04:59]
Podcast Host
I absolutely loved this book in the way that I always love these big thematic exercises when we are thinking about medieval history, because I, or history in general, because I think that it's really easy to get stuck in the sort of old fashioned idea that history is a series of names and dates and places. And I think that as good a place as any to get stuck in is with language as you start the book out itself. So I suppose my first question for you is when and where do we first start recording ideas about wind?
- [05:39]
Simon Winchester
Well, obviously we don't know before the language was written down, but once it was written down, then it sort of accelerates quite rapidly. And Sumerian is the first language that has a word, a character, a cuneiform character. I could draw it for you, but in the pixels. But the pronunciation as far as one can gather is lil. Lil, we would say lil. And then it's about four horizontal lines with of course the. It's done by a reed in clay. It's ends with a little triangle and a little tick on one of those lines. So then it takes off, then it goes through Assyrian and Chaldean and all the other languages and then becomes a rather fetching Egyptian hieroglyph, which actually is comprehensible to non linguists in that it shows what wind does. It's a little sailing ship, it's a master. And what looks like a felucca on the Nile with the sail slightly bowed under the pressure of the wind. And then the Chinese, similar thing. It's actually because the Chinese connected wind to the blowing of insects. And so there are little characters which are comprehensible as small bees. And after that, then it becomes a regular insertion into the language. But Mesopotamia first, Egypt second, China next.
- [07:06]
Podcast Host
I tell you, isn't that just the story of recorded history? Yeah, there it is. You know, but see, you've already kind of hinted at the fact that wind is understood in slightly different ways. You know, in China we have this connection to the idea that insects are involved. Would you say that wind is understood in the same way globally, or that we have a lot of different ways of thinking about it?
- [07:32]
Simon Winchester
A lot of different ways. I mean, most notably, I suppose, the Vikings, who believe their wind was created by an enormous eagle floating over what is now Norway, and the pharaohs and so forth and fluttering or doing what? Eagle, I guess they don't flutter really, but anyway, waving their wings and causing us gusts and gales and all those sorts of things. So, no, it's a variety of different forces create winds, exhalations from the earth, of course. Volcanoes create hot winds, sand dunes slip and fall and create their own breezes. A multiplicity of origin myths, all myths, of course, as we all know now, because wind is very simply Hot air rises that we know, and cooler winds or cooler gusts of air move in to fill the gap where the hot air once was, and that is the wind, the movement of air. Simple as that.
- [08:35]
Podcast Host
Would you say that these ideas about wind are tied to emerging projects of, for example, agriculture, or even our developments of things like astronomy or politics or. I mean, I don't think that we tend to find that often just straight evocations of what's happening in the natural world. By the time we're writing things down, they usually have something to do with something else. Or am I just being a pathetic historian and wanting to tell a story?
- [09:07]
Simon Winchester
You're being historian, but not pathetic. I suppose all, at least temperate zone inhabitants had cause to eat substances made from grain. And to get the good stuff from the grain, you have to both separate the grain from the stalks and so forth, and then you have to separate the good stuff from the husks. And that's done in two processes, threshing. That's why you Have a threshold so it doesn't spill out of the room in which you're doing the threshing, which is beating, and then taking advantage of the wind by throwing it up in the air and winnowing, let wind. Because if you notice, certainly in New England, where I live, I dare say back in Old England, barns are normally with their open doors facing the prevailing wind, which in both this part of the world and the United Kingdom are mostly westerly. So barns have the open doors on the western side. You thresh the grain, you throw it up in the air. The westerly wind, if you're lucky, blows through the barn and the grain that you're going to eat or make into flour or whatever settles on the granary floor at the lee end. And so wind and early agriculture intimately connected. It gets a bit more complicated when you talk about astronomy. And I go into it in some, I hope not tedious detail in this book, looking at the various planets and the various planetary bodies that the moons of those planets, most notably in Jupiter, which you can now see with sophisticated telescopes, if they have atmospheres, you've got to have an atmosphere, and you've got to have a source of heat to produce changes in the atmosphere that will stimulate wind. Well, Titan and Triton and Saturn itself all have winds. In fact, the only windless planet of ours is Mercury, as far as we can see. But no, astronomy gave us some indication on a much greater scale of wind politics. I'm not so sure. Maybe we can develop that as we talk. There are a lot of wind gags out there. We know that.
- [11:14]
Podcast Host
I'll tell you. Well, this is just a consequence of having gone to uni in Chicago. I'm afraid so. You know, it's a windy city, but that's not why we call it that, is it? It's about politics.
- [11:23]
Simon Winchester
Well, I dedicated writer friend of mine, who, and I think I say in the dedication, who, coming from Chicago, knows a thing or two about wind. I tell you, if you want to go to a windy city, Winnipeg's the one, not Chicago at all. And standing at the corner of Maine and somewhere else, people are known to have frozen to death waiting for the traffic lights to change.
- [11:46]
Podcast Host
I know a really great Canadian phrase about the wind there, which is that there's nothing between you and the North Pole but a barbed wire fence, and even that's blown down.
- [11:59]
Simon Winchester
Quite right.
- [12:00]
Podcast Host
I find that delightful. But, yeah, do we ever see. You know, you've already mentioned that we have these connections to wind that are associated with the gods or with great eagles. Is there any evidence that people are ever thinking about the wind in a sort of natural, philosophical or rudimentary scientific way? Or is this always mythology and in association with the power of gods?
- [12:28]
Simon Winchester
Well, I mean, it's a wonderful question and it leads into a whole universe of knowledge. And Aristotle encapsulated it nearly all with his book Meteorologica. And he wrote extensively about wind and had a very good scientific idea of why wind blew, absent all the gods. I mean, yes, the gods, of course, are what give us words like anemoi, which leads to anemometer. And the wind gods are collectively the anemoi. And if you go to the tower of the winds in just on the. I think the north side of the Acropolis in Athens still stands. It looks like an eight sided public lavatory. It's the most extraordinary building, but very durable that has the main eight wind gods written inscribed on the marble. But while all this was going on and winds ascribed to deities, Aristotle was pondering and thinking and working it all out and producing really sensible explanations, similar to our own today, based on physics, of why winds happen.
- [13:29]
Podcast Host
And I think that one of the things you've highlighted really well here is that oftentimes when we have especially our more ancient ideas about the wind, one of the big things that people tend to concentrate on is the effect on trade or transport that the wind has, especially in a world without motors. So when do people begin to understand or write about what the wind can mean for them economically or in terms of transportation? And does this change the more they learn to use the wind?
- [14:04]
Simon Winchester
Well, I think it's probably fair to say that the Portuguese are the ones who most of all in the 14th century began to use the wind, understanding how it could work to their advantage. And if you plot on a map the places where the Portuguese colonized, you can see that they're all the places that they ended up having set their vessel sails to allow them to go in more or less straight lines. And so you have Angola on the west coast of Africa, you've got Mozambique on the east coast. And then you've got this ports all the way to Maau in, in China. And all of them on a line that you can plot the winds and show that the winds with the engine that drove initially Portuguese colonization, but then the Dutch and the Spanish and of course then us, shamefully so. And the big break as far as the Portuguese were concerned was in the middle of the 14th century, 15th century rather, when they rounded, came down from Portugal, as they say. Such a small country to live in, but the whole world to die in. Which I just think is such a poignant remark about Portugal going down the west coast of Africa in their caravels, powered of course entirely by wind, no oarsmen, nothing like that. And then they came across this cape called Cape Bordor, which they couldn't get round. There was foam, there were weird sounds. There were evidently rocks that were believed to be sea monsters. But eventually they did In I think 1451, I think it was, when a savvy sailor dispatched by Henry the Navigator worked out what was happening and said, instead of hugging the coast of Africa, you have to go against the winds and head out to sea and then come south and then come back towards the coast. And that having been breached, it's a huge wind related navigational barrier. Then it was, as far as the Portuguese were concerned, it was off to the races and they did what they did. So 1400 to 1500, that was the moment when wind was realized as being an enormously useful tool for colonization. And of course initial motives of colonization rather than subjugation were trade. And it's interesting that the first thing that Henry the Navigator asked Gil Iannis, who was this savvy navigator, to get for him was flowers from the sub Saharan desert. And he brought him back to Lisbon a little bunch of roses from central western Africa. I've done it. I've beaten the wind. Well, no one beats the wind anyway. I've used it to my advantage.
- [16:46]
Podcast Host
I love it. I love the romance of sailors. You know, these big tough men doing these things that are frankly terrifying. You know, you wouldn't catch me even today trying to navigate entirely by the wind out into the Atlantic Ocean. And then to have the wherewithal to do things like collect roses. It's just beautiful.
- [17:05]
Simon Winchester
I love the Phoenicians from this, I mean, the Phoenicians sailed happily around within the Mediterranean basically looking for Murex shells so they could grind them up and from them extract the color purple which clothed the Athenian and Roman nobilities. And they made a lot of money, did the Phoenicians, but they never went out initially of the Mediterranean, which was relatively benign to sea. I mean relatively nasty because there were the pillars of Hercules, there was Gibraltar on the starboard side and there were mountains of northern Morocco on the left. They dare not go into this windblown wilderness of sea. They thought it was terrifying. But then one day two of them did and they entered into the Atlantic Ocean. Yes, they got blown about a bit, but they turned left and went to Essoira and found hundreds of thousands of these shells. And then they suddenly felt confident. They came back rich and brimming with these whelk like things, made a lot of money and went out again. And this time they turned right and went up to England and went started mining tin and all the rest of it. So it's often, as with Gilianish, off the west coast of Africa, now, the Phoenicians, it's the myth that kept them in port, the terrifying notion of what the gods might do to them. And then once you confronted that myth, dealt with it, then they went anywhere then. So the age of sail became the age of exploration, discovery, colonization and all these sorts of things.
- [18:39]
Podcast Host
I'll tell you, wealth is a really great reason to try to test your luck at times, you know. But of course, you know, one of the things that the wind is carrying, other than just people, just people, I say as that that's nothing at all, but it also carries lots of other things. So there are some really interesting things in your book, very specifically about the way medieval people think about the wind as a carrier for things like pollen or locusts or disease, which I found this bit absolutely fascinating. So what examples do we have of medieval people being conscious of what the wind transports and how do they respond to this?
- [19:25]
Simon Winchester
Well, initially, I suppose, I think, anyway, it's a very complicated field, this. But sand, I mean, before you get to locusts and before you get to butterflies and before you get to pollen and flowers and seeds and things, things. They were concerned early on about destruction, particularly on the south side of the Sahara, the spreading of sand by wind. The sand behaves like a liquid, but it isn't a liquid, it's solid and it engulfs, overruns villages and destroys them. So that was one of the early things that they were concerned about, wind bringing noxious, damaging, dangerous things, germs they weren't really aware of until much later on. And of course, what I write about in some detail is much more modern, which is about the spread of radiation from atom bombs and atomic testing. It's a complicated field, but in Africa particularly, there is much commentary about how the wind ruins their fields, brings, yes, locusts, of course, but as much as anything, sand, very inimical to agriculture, of course, and to civilization that's based upon it.
- [20:42]
Podcast Host
A few years ago here in London, there was a terrible sandstorm in the Sahara and the sky turned orange, even up here. And we had all this dust coming up from the Sahara, and I can Only imagine how much more horrid it would be if you were actually living next to it. And here we are, you know, theoretically up in northern Europe, and we're still affected by what the wind can do with the desert. It's really incredible.
- [21:05]
Simon Winchester
Well, and of course, back in the 1930s, I know this is beyond your field of interest, but it's the huge amounts of dust from Nebraska and Kansas and Oklahoma in New York City having been blown by that particular year, hugely powerful winds. And the jet stream up higher still. Incidentally, I just should mention something which I found terribly amusing. The jet stream was discovered in the 1930s by a Japanese scientist who put up aerosol balloons and found them being at about 60,000ft, whipped at ferocious speeds into the Sea of Japan, where the balloons died. He discovered a new wind and wrote about it, published a paper saying, I've discovered this new window. No one responded, not at all. So he wrote, I think, 14 more papers saying that he had discovered this amazing new wind which had huge effects on the world's climate. And the reason that no one responded is that he didn't write it in English and he didn't write it in Japanese. He wrote it in Esperanto, believing Esperanto was the next great global language. And of course, nobody read it.
- [22:18]
Podcast Host
Oh, God bless him. This is just that, you know, I absolutely. I think that Esperanto. I'm with him in spirit. I think it would have been a great idea. It's fair enough, but. So you've mentioned already a little bit about Aristotle's works on the wind. To what extent would you say that these ancient Greek ideas and indeed manuscripts of ancient Greek thought, or indeed Islamic tracts on meteorology, had an influence on medieval people's understanding of the wind?
- [22:52]
Simon Winchester
Hugely. Particularly Islamic meteorologists, and particularly those who worked because they came at his invitation in the court of Kublai Khan in 13th century China. I mean, he was an extraordinary fellow. Yes, very violent in many ways, but because of his enthusiasm for the. For the Silk Road trade between Antioch and Xi', An, a lot of Muslims came to China, and among them were a significant number of mathematicians and astronomers, many astronomers and meteorologists. And so they taught Kublai Khan a good deal about weather, about rainfall, about the planets, about the stars and about wind did not necessarily work to his advantage, because a little learning being a dangerous thing. He learned a little, but it got him into a lot of trouble. And I know that sort of sets up the next part of the story, and I didn't mean to put it like that. But if you want to talk about China, wind and disaster, then this is.
- [24:08]
Podcast Host
One of those things, right? Because you chart really well the Chinese interest in measuring wind or defining the wind, and in. In particular, you know, the incredible ways that the Chinese are interested in developing forms of navigation for it. And that's one end of the story, right? That. How do we. How do we use this to our advantage? How do you get porcelain out of Guangzhou and into Basra? Right?
- [24:34]
Simon Winchester
That's.
- [24:35]
Podcast Host
That's one end of the scale. The other end of the scale is this is a massively threatening force that we still have absolutely no control over, right?
- [24:45]
Simon Winchester
No control at all, other than sheltering ourselves, building shelters. I mean, that's, of course, the western Midwestern America is peppered with shelters and notices or advice what to do if the wind gets totally out of hand. And the Chinese were fully aware of it, but it led them into, as I say, this little learning, particularly of the great Khan, led him into trouble because he thought he could master the wind and use it to his advantage. But what he was unaware of was a signal feature of wind, which is its unpredictability. And things went badly for him.
- [25:22]
Podcast Host
Well, can you expand on that? Because I think this is such a great story. It's such a wonderful story of hubris. That's the thing.
- [25:30]
Simon Winchester
A wonderful story of hubris. There he was sitting in his pleasure dome in Xanadu and thinking, now I've sort of united all of the 17 or whatever it is, Chinese provinces, now I'll go and expand China. And so he expanded it into what is now Vietnam and Indochina and Burma and said, the place I really want to go to is Japan. I mean, these people are so separate from me. He already had Korea, that was part of his continental empire. So he mounted these expeditions, two of them in, I think, 1274 and 1281, to conquer and annex the islands of Japan. But he thought the wind would easily, because it was predominantly from the west, take him across the Sea of Japan and land. And they'd fight the samurai because they had enormous numbers of sailors and soldiers and Mongol warriors. So they went first of all to. I always forget, but there's a little island in the Sea of Japan called Tsushima. And their fleet, which had a modest size, the first one, 1274, had about 900 boats, which is pretty large. But the problem was they were nearly all riverboats made by Korean sailors in a hurry, so not particularly well built either, but boats without keels. So when they got out into the open ocean and the winds became powerful, they would tend to have a tendency to capsize. They wouldn't capsize if the wind was relatively benign, as it was when they set out. So they set out and entered in. Well, they first of all got to Tsushima. And oddly enough, the restaurant in the street next to where I live in New York City is Tsushima, which the Japanese are still very proud because they may have conquered it, but only for a very short while before disaster fell them. They went into Hakata Bay, I think it was, and most of them left their boats and rushed onto land to deal with the samurai, who were not at all courageous, not like Karasawa film. And they scampered off into the forests. And the Koreans were. The Kublai Khan thought, well, I've done it. I've got Japan. But during the evening, the Korean sailors who were out in the bay saw the winds picking up and noticed some signs of an evidently big storm coming. And they tried to send signals onto the land to get the soldiers back, but they didn't. I mean, the Korean soldiers didn't come back. And they woke in the morning to see wrecked ships trying desperately to get out into the open ocean to ride out the storm. But most of them were damaged beyond repair because they were so badly built. And the soldiers were now slaughtered by the samurai and told not to come back. So that was the first of these advantages for the Japanese point of view. Wins the second. 1281. A little bit further west, Imami Bay, I think near Nagasaki, much the same thing happened. That's typhoon. Because this was typhoon season. What had happened initially, not to get too boring about it, was that the samurai this time met the incoming fleet on the little islands that pepper Di Mami Bay and held them off something like six months. But that six months led the incoming fleet into typhoon season. Summer, and I think it was June, July. And then they noticed once, as before, a big storm coming. And this time the samurai had the advantage. They tried to push them out to sea, but the wind scattered the fleet, destroyed the fleet, and the Japanese were saved for a second time, which is why kaze being the word for wind, and the kami are the gods, the divine wind. And so that was. Or those were both divine winds that saved Japan and of course, never been invaded since. And so the word was applied sort of savage, cruel irony into their suicide planes in the latter months of World War II. But to this day, the gods of the winds, the holy winds, are what saved Japan, and so are seen as a blessing.
- [29:51]
Verizon Advertiser
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- [30:21]
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- [30:52]
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- [31:20]
Thumbtack Advertiser
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- [31:58]
Podcast Host
Do you know when I lived in Tokyo, my friends would during the typhoons go out and surf because they were crazy People, which I was always saying to them, guys, it's just not worth it. But they. Were they listening to me? No.
- [32:12]
Simon Winchester
So.
- [32:12]
Podcast Host
But because for sure, you know, there's kamikaze and there's kamikaze, you know. But you also mentioned in terms of talking about. And thinking about wind as being connected to the gods, that even Maajid writes this thing that is that the sea has its own calendar, marked not with saints days, but with the breaths of God, which I found terribly evocative.
- [32:36]
Simon Winchester
I love it. That is. I didn't get it from that. Interesting. So there you go. I thought I made it up.
- [32:43]
Podcast Host
Well, do you know what? But this is the thing, right? It's such a universally understood idea in a lot of ways, right, that there is some sort of divine force that can be behind wind, you know, and to the point that, you know, you've used the title for your book, the Breath of God. Do we see this, though, in things like Christian traditions? You know, so we've got Islamic people who are willing to put this down. Obviously the Japanese are right up for it. But is this something that, you know, we would see getting thrown around in Europe?
- [33:17]
Simon Winchester
Yes, you do. I mean, there's a. I can't remember his name now, Ilmaren, I think, which is a Finnish statue of him. The Eternal Hammerer, he's called. Significant in the long history of Finland, with which I'm sure we're all intimately familiar, but very much propelled by a wind God. But the one that I suppose most of us know about because of television recently was the force of God that drove St. Brendan and his monks from southwest Ireland up to the Western Isles of Scotland and then to the Faroe Islands and then to Iceland and then to Greenland and then to Newfoundland, where they eventually ended up indicating that a heavenly wind could drive people with sufficiently right minds, as far as God was concerned, to populate the New World. And this indicates, or that we should. I try and every time I approach this subject, to try and proselytize on behalf of Scandinavian settlements or European settlements of America other than Christopher Columbus, because Columbus was such a shabby character. Whereas Leif Ericson, who definitely landed once again propelled by the heavenly forces of the wind, to northern Newfoundland and then St. Brendan, southern Newfoundland. They were the ones that first settled in North America. The first European child to be born in North America was from Leif Erikson's settlement in l' Anseau Meadows in northern Newfoundland, and he was called Snorri Thorfinson. So Snorri Thorfinsen who then went on to be a teacher in Iceland and then came back to Stavanger in Norway to die. He is the first, not anyone related to Columbus, who never landed on the European mainland. Anyway, so 9th of October over here, where they celebrate Columbus Day. I sulkily do not.
- [35:20]
Podcast Host
I mean, I think that you're not going to find anyone on this show who is going to disagree with you in that matter. Yeah, on this podcast, we celebrate the Vikings first and foremost. You know, I've no, I've no interested in lesser gentlemen from, you know, Italy. No, thank you.
- [35:41]
Simon Winchester
I would be happy of the. The Vikings to sail up the Seine into Paris. That wasn't so kind.
- [35:46]
Podcast Host
Well, I mean, yes, obviously, look, you know, there's Vikings and there's Vikings. You have to take. You know, there are real different outcomes of all of these varying things. One of the things that you do a great job of talking about, which I've really enjoyed in the book, which is how medieval monasteries think about wind. And of course, we're going to hear from our friends, the monks, because that's who we hear from in the medieval period. Would you characterize the way they understand weather and how it influences, for example, the way that they harvest or plant for the year.
- [36:23]
Simon Winchester
Also good on harvesting. But certainly cooling of cathedrals and monasteries is a big thing. The sighting of cathedrals in a way that employs what's called the Venturi effect. Let us say you have a big cathedral like Chartres or something like that, if you sight it with its shoulders to the wind, as it were, make the windows at the top of the cathedral sufficiently narrow that when the wind comes through it, it's compressed. What then happens is it speeds up and cools down at the same time. A phenomenon recognized by this scientist called Venturi, and that keeps the cathedral cool. It's a principle that's employed in a lot of houses, oddly enough, in Hawaii. I mean, modern houses that have been built with very narrow windows on the trade wind side, the northeast side of the house, and big picture windows on the leeward side never need air conditioning. So, yes, the monks ripped this knowledge of the cooling effect of winds large into big cathedrals made from the 10th century onwards. Chartres is a good example. Always cool.
- [37:34]
Podcast Host
No aircon in Chartres, you know, and it's one of these things that I think still any tourist in France, you know, if you make the unfortunate mistake of showing up in August, you know, you can always go into a cathedral and everything is going to be fine by the time you get in there. It's everything else up until then and you know, trust a monk to figure that out. But it's not just them that are thinking about the wind or using the winds. Do we have other signs that more ordinary people are organizing their lives in the Middle Ages around wind, just as have influence, I suppose, on everyday activities.
- [38:13]
Simon Winchester
You know, I'm not entirely sure about that. I went spent a lot of time in Marseille and then again in Trieste, both cities deeply affected by unusual winds. The Mistral in Marseille, the Bora in Trieste. And the ordinary person is well aware of the ferocious, the dangerous aspects of wind, particularly katabatic winds, like winds that pour down mountaintops, down a slope and then explode into a city. They. Until fairly recently, you go to Trieste, which is of course very ancient city. It would still have ropes attached by big iron rusting stanchions to walls you could grab onto if a borer suddenly decides to blow and it'll throw you across the street. I mean, it's a very dangerous thing. So I would think this must go back further than that apprehension of dangerous winds rather than using more benign winds. It's a story, a part of the story I didn't look into in great detail because I was very interested to see how these winds are dealt with today and aren't used for reasons that we've already talked about in trade, commerce and colonization.
- [39:30]
Podcast Host
Absolutely. I mean, I think it is quite interesting because this is still an ongoing story. Right. You know, we have these amazing links to the past in that we are still completely dependent on the wind for any number of things, like whether that be, you know, the jet stream or now increasingly, for example, generating power. And you know, medieval people are quite similar in that they're using. They're using the wind for all sorts of reasons. But do we have any links, for example, between the way that wind is considered to perhaps influence the health? You know, you do a great turn in talking about how, you know, fresh air and how that is sort of used in a modern context for ideas about health. Do we see anything similar from medieval people at the time thinking that the wind.
- [40:18]
Simon Winchester
Well, we do, because although yes, it blew sand, it clogged up your lungs, clogged up. I mean, horses nostrils and things clogged by wind. Bone sand was vexing and written about a very long time ago. But most frequently people talk about the wind nowadays anyway, the winds blowing away germs, making increasing amount of ozone in the post thunderstorm air, a feeling of health and cleanliness. So many winds are known in their colloquial names as such and such a doctor, the Cape Doctor, the wind that blows off the top of Table Mountain in Cape Town is known as the Cape Doctor because it cures, it seems colds and makes people feel healthy and content. So I have no doubt that it was true in medieval times, but I didn't look into it the depths that I shouldn't know.
- [41:20]
Podcast Host
Do you know what, I'm always trying to get people to talk about the.
- [41:24]
Simon Winchester
Medieval period, but you can never force.
- [41:25]
Podcast Host
Everyone to be as obsessed as I am.
- [41:27]
Simon Winchester
That's fine.
- [41:28]
Podcast Host
It's absolutely fine. So. But it is interesting, right, because when you have this idea that wind can simultaneously make people healthier. But you know, we also see in the medieval period, for example, worries about contagion. You know, obviously they don't know anything about germs yet. But in particular during Black Death outbreaks, there is some concern that malodorous fumes have come out of the earth after earthquakes or indeed come out of the sky from varying conjunctions of stars and that the winds are moving these, these terrible pestilences through. So it is this idea about miasma and how that can possibly move on the wind. So, you know, on the one hand you've got this idea that, oh, the freshing breeze can come through and make you healthier, but you've also got the worry that there's going to be bad things in there too, I suppose.
- [42:22]
Simon Winchester
No, I think you're absolutely right. And what blows away a London fog, what blows away a miasmic surface of a canal in Venice for instance, is a good and robust wind. Sort of God's way of cleaning house.
- [42:36]
Podcast Host
Could you talk a little bit about the way that people decided to attempt to harness the wind for their benefit? You know, obviously we, the ships is the obvious idea here, you know, but what else are people using the wind to do? You know, now we're generating power with it, we're, we're using it to move airplanes a little bit faster, things of this nature. But in a historical context, what kind of examples do we have for the same idea?
- [43:03]
Simon Winchester
Well, clearly wind in the first case in Mesopotamia, blowing from the northwest, blowing people along the rivers Tigris and Euphrates is sort of a no brainer as it was with the Nile and the invention, the creation of the Felucca, the single sail, single mast boat that could go obviously downstream, northwards. The trick was to create some sail design that would allow a skilled boatman to go back both against the current and against, if there was a wind from the south and against the wind. And that the development of early sails, the harnessing the wind to enable navigation in any direction. You obviously used oarsmen that would give you the ability to change direction very quickly, which is very difficult in a big sail driven ship until the technology advanced and they could trim their sails and they could tack and all those other things. Different sail designs. I'm fascinated by the single mast, the single sail in Egypt and then the development of the outrigger in Polynesia, which meant that boats could heel way over under the pressure of a very powerful wind and not sink or capsize because you had these one or later on two outriggers. And then the development of the square sail, see them in the big clippers and so forth that crisscross the Atlantic. So that's certainly one way, but that we harness the wind and learned how to use it. The construction of windmills not just to generate electricity, but in northern Europe particularly to raise water. So water pump is a relatively easy thing to design to power it with. A wind driven mill. That was a hugely important development and enabled Holland to withstand constant invasion by the sea and the creation of places like Flevoland and entirely new Polder Dryas. It's the desert today, but all the water raised from it and sent somewhere else on pipes by windmills. And of course that goes to the whole grinding of grain, creation of foodstuffs and so forth. So I develop a fairly lengthy chapter leading from early European windmills right up to the mills you find in Texas today, still made by a company called the Air Motor Company in San Angelo, Texas. You see a windmill on a farm in Nebraska and you know they're going to have water to allow their cows to drink and the grass to grow. So it's been, well, a long time since the first windmill was made. Foreign.
- [46:16]
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- [47:23]
Podcast Host
Tell you what, sometimes tech's just good, you know, if it's not broke, you don't need to fix it. Can you talk to us a little bit about winds and their understanding as influencing human behavior? Like so, for example, I know this of Californians. They always say that the Santa Ana wind makes people behave strangely. And this is, this is kind of a modern thing. Do we see similar ideas about the wind historically? Like is there, you know, the idea of an ill wind that controls people's actions? Is that anybody other than modern Californians.
- [48:02]
Simon Winchester
I suppose it should be remembered that I think what did Raymond Chandler say of the Santa Ana when the Santa Ana, which is another katabatic wind coming down from the high desert towards the coast, when one is blowing a normally docile housewife. I know this is a phrase that will irritate you, but nonetheless this is Raymond Chandler writing a century ago. She takes her sharpest kitchen knife from the drawer, feels its edge and looks hungrily at the back of her husband's neck. That's the kind of mood that settles in a place where there certain types of wind. And this has been true for a very long time in southern France in Provence, when the mistral. Mistral is a cold northwesterly wind generated effectively by a circulation pattern in the Bay of Biscay and another one over the Alps. And when one is blowing, it blows tiles off roofs and it makes the sea off Marseilles very rough. But more than anything, it has and has for many, many years changed the mood of the people. And so it is said, and it's for a thousand years nearly it's written about a thousand years ago, judges, police, people in southern France will take a more benign attitude towards people that commit crimes of passion. When a mistral is blowing. And will it said regard that as a mitigating circumstance. You used to be able to plead until 30 or 40 years ago there were mistrals blowing. So that's why I murdered this person no longer but 100 years ago most certainly was true.
- [49:46]
Podcast Host
Well, I'll tell you what we definitely in AP composition, you know, back in the dark days when I was in American high school, we had to learn The Santa Ana and the housewives and kitchen knives thing as a, as a great example of American literature. So it's nice to know that it's not just Americans being violent when it comes to wind. That's something, I'll take it, you know, so you might be able to get off a crime because the wind is blowing, but is there ever this idea that the wind itself is, you know, an instrument of judgment? You know, does wind come in, you know, as a result of God being unhappy with people?
- [50:23]
Simon Winchester
Very much so. I mean, in the same way that earthquakes prior to the Enlightenment were regarded as indications from God of his displeasure. San Francisco, I mean, the origins of Pentecostalism had to do with the belief that natural forces were God's punishment. Visited on the coast of San Francisco in 1905 before the earthquake was regarded as a den of iniquity and cleansing wind, to go back to what we were talking about earlier, was sent by God to blow down their houses, drive them out of town and scourge them. After all, one of the most potent forces that he with a capital H has at his disposal. So yes, for a very long time, I know I keep using that phrase over and over, but for hundreds of years, a punishing divine wind for ill in this case as opposed to divinity for good reasons. In Japan in 13th century was often a feature of contemporary literature and poetry, of course, and Shakespeare made use of it. And look at King Lear raging against the wind.
- [51:34]
Podcast Host
I mean, quite so. And I guess we do have all these fantastic medieval ideas about this. I mean, quite fantastic in the case of the kamikaze. But also, you know, these ideas that I suppose that God can be acting through the weather, that I'm not sure that it's entirely gone either. You know, certainly whenever there's a really bad hurricane, you see, Americans kind of say things still, you know, even in the year of our Lord 2025, I've certainly heard those things that. Is there any evidence that these winds have knock on effects? I suppose, in terms of other natural examples. So for example, you know, in the 14th century here in Europe we have the great famine of 1315. And is this in any way this, this terrible weather that leads to everyone starving, Is this something that is connected to the wind at all? Or is this just kind of a bad happenstance?
- [52:31]
Simon Winchester
No, I think, I think you're right. I mean, connectivity between various natural phenomena are legion. I mean, the classic example in the world that I inhabit, which is largely geology, was the eruption of Tambora volcano in the Philippines. Or rather Indonesia in 1815. I think it might have been 1805, I think it was 1815. That created vast atmospheric storms with huge winds because of all the particulate material thrown up into the stratosphere. An uneven heating by the sudden through this disturbed atmosphere which causes these ferocious winds, which led to crop failures in northern Europe, which led to endless rains and misery and storms. And of course the popular thing, I'm sure you know, is that Mary Shelley, who was then in Geneva, was so miserable by this weather that she wrote Frankenstein. So ill winds give us a lot of things, including rather good literature.
- [53:31]
Podcast Host
I'm not sure if she's tired of the wind or Lord Byron, but you know, same old, same old. What can I say? Is there any understanding that you see, especially in the pre modern world, that there's a possibility of God interceding to influence the winds or weather if people are praying hard enough? Or does this kind of run up against the idea that God is doing this in the first place?
- [54:00]
Simon Winchester
Well, ask Voltaire, I suppose.
- [54:03]
Podcast Host
I never want to ask Voltaire anything. No, you should have him on.
- [54:11]
Simon Winchester
Well, the parting of the Red Sea of course comes to mind. The wind acting on oceans, on whirlpools, these things was certainly seen. The maelstrom, the whole myth of the maelstrom off the Lofoten Islands in western Norway, that's a wind caused event whose effects are principally seen in the sea. Much the same things happens in Iceland. I mean the Icelandic sagas are peppered with stories about winds that break up fights or I mean Haldor Laxness, one should read him to look at medieval Icelandic attitudes to the wind. Yes, a punishment, an intercession and a reward. I mean benign, wonderful winds sent by God as an icon of gratitude. It's a multifarious thing, the wind. And at the moment, you may know, we're said to be in the midst of what's called the great terrestrial stilling, whose wind speeds in Europe particularly have declined over the last 15 years by something like 10% and no one is quite sure why. We know that tornadoes and cyclones and things are getting more extreme. But in the mainland of all the continents, Russia most especially, the wind speeds are dropping. No one quite knows why, although you assume it's something to do with global warming. But then those people that are concerned about it, because ultimately what could be worse than a world without wind? I mean to be. I've spent quite a few days trapped on a little sailing boat in the Indian Ocean in the doldrums and believe you me, it is not merely dull, which is where the word comes from, the judge, but it's lifeless. Nothing happens. No rain is brought, no fresh air comes, no seeds, no birds, no nothing.
- [56:09]
Podcast Host
I find that terrifying.
- [56:11]
Simon Winchester
It is terrifying. That painted ship on a painted ocean.
- [56:15]
Podcast Host
Now, speaking of. You've mentioned the Icelandic sagas and the way that the wind is interpreted there, but, you know, going back a little bit in time to the Viking ancestors of the good people who have inhabited Iceland, would you say that one of the big advantages that they have is their understanding of the wind? You know, obviously they've got these incredible boats that allow them to move around in shallow water and things like that. But is their understanding of how the wind works part of what gives them the upper hand when it comes to, I don't know, floating down the Seine or finding Iceland in the first place?
- [56:52]
Simon Winchester
I would, and I do, and I think. But it's a sort of dangerous idea in a way, among those who are rightly critical of eugenics and so forth, that there are certain people that are blessed with certain unique intelligences who are in some way advantaged over those who don't have those skills. And this was all drawn out by this now completely derided book by Aelsworth Huntington in the 1920s, who said that people that live in climates that are very varied, that have storms and winds unexpectedly, are much more intelligent than those who live in places where the wind is much more benign. And I think it was called climate and humanity or something. And nowadays, of course, you can't say such a thing, but a while ago, you would say that people that live in Norway, Sweden, and as Trump, of course, would very much agree with this somehow, because they have to deal with a variety of wild, unexpected weather, are more adept, are more curious, are less content with their lot, and consequently are striving to improve it and looking for a much more curious than others who live in benign climates.
- [58:16]
Podcast Host
I suppose that that's a cultural thing, though, you know, like if. Yeah, yeah. I tell you what, if the wind's coming down out of the north and you're stuck in Norway, you might be thinking about getting a boat, too.
- [58:27]
Simon Winchester
Yeah, I'm going somewhere else. Like Morocco.
- [58:29]
Podcast Host
Yeah, absolutely. And certainly, I mean, the. The ancestors of the Vikings, you know, once they Frenchify a little bit, by the time we hit 1066, wind is playing quite an important role, no?
- [58:43]
Simon Winchester
Oh, hugely important. It goes back to what we were talking about earlier with the colonization of the Portuguese sailing boats. But of course, the role that the wind played, most significantly in English history, we allowed ourselves to be invaded by the Normans. Yes, yes, but then come 1588 and King Philip's attempts to overthrow Elizabeth, it was the wind, the Protestant wind, as King James ruefully declared it when his defeated fleet limped back into harbor. Spanish Armada expedition ended. It was the wind that was blamed. So the wind saved England. As we was reminded from when I was about six years old, I think the five W's were this wet, warm westerly winds in winter. They did for the Spaniards.
- [59:35]
Podcast Host
Well, I'll tell you what, James the first, he's a one for the winds and who he will blame for them, you know, if his particular issue is that, you know, he's had a bit of a rough crossing, then there's witches. If the Spanish are blown off course, then God loves England, you know, he's always got an answer to everything. That one.
- [59:52]
Simon Winchester
Impossible. Yeah.
- [59:54]
Podcast Host
Did the, the wind ever have any influences on European exploits further abroad? So for example, here I'm thinking about Richard the Lionheart's little escapade against the Mamluks. Does the wind come into play in these later Crusades at all?
- [60:14]
Simon Winchester
Yeah, I certainly did, but specifically I can't tell you because maritime expedition and subsequently any land born expedition is bound to be affected for good or ill by the wind, particularly if they were cold winds. And you've only got to look at Napoleon's retreat from Moscow to know the effect of wind much later. So yes, the Crusades hugely affected by winds and a number of winds are named in memorial to that episode or those episodes.
- [60:44]
Podcast Host
You mentioned a little bit about the development of sails over time. Do we see any sort of cross cultural cooperation when it comes to sharing knowledge about wind? Or is this the sort of thing that is jealously guarded? You know, do the Vikings want people to know?
- [61:02]
Simon Winchester
I think it is something of a surprise to me that I mean Polynesians who developed these fragile boats without triggers and relatively slight amounts of sail, achieved so much navigational skill and populated certainly in the triangle between Easter island and Hawaii and New Zealand, of superb navigational skills. Did they ever translate their skills? Were they ever to be found in the Indian Ocean by the Arab daos, by the sea going Portuguese merchantmen? No, they were not. So it does seem that certain ship designs, I mean the big square riggers that would come down from carrying tea back to Britain or ships going from Germany to Cape Horn, they were not copied by any other cultural. So yes, I would say that once any culture in history developed a particular type of sail, the Portuguese with their caravels, Spanish galleons and the galleasses. There was very little until the end of the era, age of sail in the early part of the 20th century, when, you know, ships could go anywhere because they had motors, not sails. So sail design was peculiar to the countries that had particular wind patterns.
- [62:30]
Podcast Host
I love that. I like a little. A little bit of nativism about, you know, how. How we are rigging things. You know, I think it's. And I'm incredibly partial to a Polynesian outrigger because I think it's one of these great medieval inventions. And so I. I think that they're a little bit unsung, which luckily, the. The book goes a long way to redressing. So as to close us out. I want to talk about one of my favorite topics. I'm going to force. I'm going to force you to talk a little bit about the wind and magic. And do you see any kinds of spirits that are associated with wind or carried in the wind over time and culture?
- [63:10]
Simon Winchester
Well, I once got an assignment from a magazine that will remain nameless to follow the making of a hurricane. From Mali, where hurricanes are born, the bite of Benin, over to the Cape Verde Islands and then to the Caribbean and then to usually the Gulf of Mexico, which I insist on still calling it, or the east coast of the United States. The magic involved in these little whirligigs, these little dust devils which are seen and have been seen for centuries and observed and written about, poems devoted to in places like Mali and northern Senegal. They're the origin to Fonsett Origo, of a robust hurricane. And I love the idea of a magical little wind turning into a devilish, mighty wind that excites me.
- [64:05]
Podcast Host
I like that. There is something about humans in general that we have this desire to think about this. What can be a really terrible force, but ultimately is something that we are dependent on in so many ways as having its own nature, having its own sort of animus inside it. I think it's nice that humans have this desire to do that.
- [64:29]
Simon Winchester
We love the wind. I think we don't know what it is. We're still not 100% certain what causes it. I mean, science is certain. We cherish it in a way. I want this book to be a sort of celebration. People would say, why on earth write a book about the wind? It's not tangible, not easily tangible, except, of course, when there's a tornado and then you can actually see. See it in action. Mostly wind is known by its effects, not by its sheer existence. I urge you. Maybe this has nothing to do with this broadcast, but there's a little film made by a BBC Radio engineer called Tim Dee, trying to record the sound of the wind because all you the sound it makes is it going through leaves or trees or brushing against house or window pane. But he goes into the wash, deeply into where Canute tried to beat back the sea with his microphone, holding it up into the pure, strong northerly wind. His microphone, the first thing that the wind had hit since its generation, somewhere way up near the North Pole. He holds the stick right into the air and records what he hears. And he said it confirms his belief that the wind is the spirits of the dead being wafted away into heaven. It's a lovely image.
- [65:58]
Podcast Host
I love that. And I think that it's something that really connects us to our ancestors, medieval and otherwise. You know, there is still this magic there for whoever wants to see it. Simon, this has been an absolute joy. Thank you so much for joining us today.
- [66:15]
Simon Winchester
Oh, it's a great pleasure. As I say, it was the first time I've spoken about the book, so I feel I sort of got a little spring in my step thanks to you. So thank you.
- [66:26]
Podcast Host
Thank you.
- [66:29]
Podcast Producer/Announcer
My thanks again to Simon Winchester. And if you enjoy enjoyed this episode, why not listen to our recent episode on the Medieval Moon, which also had a profound effect on the way people understood their lives and the forces that shaped them. Remember, you can enjoy unlimited access to award winning original TV documentaries, including my.
- [66:50]
Podcast Host
Recent film How Do I Look? The History of Body Modification and my.
- [66:55]
Podcast Producer/Announcer
Series Meet the Normans as well as ad free pop podcasts. By signing up@historyhit.com subscription, you can follow Gone Medieval on Spotify where you can.
- [67:05]
Podcast Host
Leave us comments and suggestions or wherever you get your podcasts and tell all.
- [67:10]
Podcast Producer/Announcer
Your friends and family that you've gone medieval.
- [67:13]
Podcast Host
Until next time.
- [67:35]
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