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- [00:01]
Matt Lewis
Hello, I'm Matt Lewis.
- [00:03]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
And I'm Dr. Eleanor Yonega and we're.
- [00:05]
Matt Lewis
Just popping up here to tell you some insider info.
- [00:08]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
If you would like to listen to Gone Medieval ad free and get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to.
- [00:14]
Matt Lewis
History Hit with the History Hit subscription. You can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries such as my new.
- [00:21]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Series on everyone's favorite conquerors, the Normans.
- [00:25]
Matt Lewis
Or my recent exploration of the castles that made Britain.
- [00:29]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
There's a new release to enjoy every week.
- [00:32]
Matt Lewis
Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com subscribe or find the link in the Show Notes for this episode. Thanks for listening to Gone Medieval. You can get all History Hit podcasts ad free early access and bonus episodes. Head over to historyhit.com subscribe or you can sign up on Apple Podcasts with.
- [01:04]
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- [02:05]
Kate Lister
What a difference a day makes.
- [02:09]
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- [02:37]
Matt Lewis
Hello, I'm Matt Lewis. Welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We've got the most intriguing mysteries, the gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research. From the Vikings to the printing press, from kings to Popes to the Crusades, we cross centuries and continents to delve into rebellions, plots and murders to find the stories, big and small that tell us how we Got here. Find out who we really were with. Gone medieval 18, such a long time ago now I'm reminded of Baz Luhrmann's Everybody is free when he says, you will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. Okay, I'm showing my age. I know, in sentiment and in cultural reference points. It might be closer for you than it is for me. Or maybe a little further away. Perhaps it's looming on your horizon, wherever it is. Alice Loxton's new book, eighteen A History of Britain in eighteen Young Lives, is a fascinating new look at what it's been like to be 18 over the past millennium or so. Alice is a former history hitter, now carving a path across social media, print media and television screens. So it's a pleasure to welcome her to Gone Medieval. Welcome to Gone Medieval. Alice, I can't believe it's taken this long to find an excuse to get you on here.
- [04:12]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Thank you so much for having me. It's very exciting day and how's life.
- [04:15]
Matt Lewis
Outside of history hit?
- [04:17]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Yes, well, obviously history hit was wonderful when I was there, but you know, it's lots of exciting things happening and lots of making tiktoks about churches and cathedrals and castles and that sort of thing. So, yeah, very busy.
- [04:30]
Matt Lewis
And your new book, 18. So this is a look at the lives of various people across time and what they were up to when they were 18 years old. Why did you feel like that was a good way to look at people? And why is 18 a good age to pick out two?
- [04:47]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Well, I suppose basically what I did was pick this totally modern concept. So turning 18 is not something that historically is an important age. And you know, in general, say in the medieval period, people might have had all the markings of adulthood much earlier on. So they might have got married, you know, in their early teens, say, or had a huge amount of responsibility or taken people to, to battle when they're 15. So I think 18 is a modern concept, actually, this kind of marking of adulthood. And what I wanted to do to kind of make sense of what that means for us today is look at a thousand years of 18 year olds in history and see what they're up to. And the big takeaway really is that in the past, because 18 year olds have had this enormous amount of responsibility, you know, say Nelson has gone to sea for six years already. It's interesting that actually young people are capable of so much. And it's this kind of demonstration of the extraordinary things that if put in the situation, 18 year olds would step up the mark and achieve quite remarkable things.
- [05:47]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, I guess in the medieval world, as you said, lots of people have loads of responsibility way before the age of 18. They could be married, they could be fighting and all that kind of thing. But they also had this weird notion that you don't come of age till you're 21, you don't inherit your lands and all of that sort of stuff until you're 21, which I think is why we still have a hangover interest in the age of 21, which is much less important today than 18 probably is. But they did it for this weird kind of sense that you could do lots and lots of adult stuff, but actually wait till you're 21 for some of it.
- [06:17]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Well, one of the questions that I asked in the book then is about. I suppose there's adolescence with this biological thing about puberty, but then there's also kind of maturity. Some kind of. Scientists today don't think that our brains are fully developed until our 30s. So obviously I'm waiting for that moment still. But they. But, you know, there's all actually all these different kind of quite complex markings of when we've fully become adults. So it's quite a tricky question to answer. You know, when does adulthood, when does maturity start? And especially over a thousand years. But, you know, just using this kind of marker of 18 of one age group. And I think it would be an interesting book to do it with any age. You know, you could write this book about people who are 60 and see what they've achieved or haven't achieved. But, yeah, it kind of brings up all sorts of quite surprising stories of what people are up to.
- [07:08]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, you could do an Adele. So your next one could be 21. And then.
- [07:11]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Yeah.
- [07:12]
Matt Lewis
And for what it's worth, I'm 48 and my wife is still waiting for me to grow up. So for some of us, it takes a little bit longer. I guess it's also an interesting way to try to connect younger people with history, to give them a window into what is happening. You know, your book came out on a level results day. People are going through a lot at the age of 18 at the moment, and it's perhaps an interesting way for them to view history. What are people doing at my stage of life throughout the last thousand years?
- [07:39]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Yes. I mean, in some ways it demonstrates that young people are capable of huge things. So they are capable of Empress Matilda who will get onto, you know, wielding a huge amount of responsibility, basically being a kind of queen figure. Already this Amazing diplomat. But on the other side of the coin, I also wanted to show that lots of young people or lots of people in history who go on to become incredibly famous, all successful, okay. As, say, Vivian Westwood, had no idea that they were going to do that at the age of 18. So I didn't want it to be one of those books that you read it and think, oh, no, I messed up, because all these people have tubed so far, 218.
- [08:19]
Matt Lewis
But actually I'm 19, it's over, I'm past it.
- [08:22]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
So I hope it will offer people this kind of perspective that actually, you know, things in life happen in all sorts of unexpected ways. Say, like Flora MacDonald is one of the people I write about and she, at the age of 18, had absolutely no idea that this random weird event of Bonnie Prince Charlie arriving where she was would happen several years later and that would transform her life. And so there's a mixture of some things where, like Vivienne Westwood, she kind of creates her career. There's other things where these weird events are kind of thrust upon people like Floren MacDonald. And also it's not just kind of a career thing, it's also personal and family relationships. So the example of Elizabeth the First, that lots of people might think she had a wonderful life because she was born into royalty, but actually I think she had a pretty awful upbringing because, you know, all of these pretty traumatic events that happened. For example, her father dying, her mother being executed, four stepmothers being caught up in the Thomas Seymour scandal, all before the age of 18. And so, yeah, I think it hopefully offers them new and interesting for young people today.
- [09:27]
Matt Lewis
Yeah. And the first kind of medieval person that appear. Well, the first person that appears in the book is Bede. And I was really interested in that because we, we have this image of the venerable Bede, this ancient elderly Father Christmas looking figure sitting in a room, squinting at a book by candlelight. And quite interesting to think about Bede at the age of 18, because I think, you know, we don't do that. We have this image of people in history. Bede is an old man, almost as if he was born 60 years old. Why was he a good candidate to start with?
- [10:02]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Well, literally for the reasons that you've just set out in that we always perceive people in history. I think it's a general thing. We always perceive people in history, or we often do, in the kind of moment of their success. So that might be. Be being this old guy in the scriptorium. It might be the moment that people's Portraits are painted, and so you always visualize them in that way. And I basically wanted to emphasize that these actually, these were real people. You know, I think so often in history, at least, I find this from that you think about people like Henry viii and they sometimes think like. You sometimes think about them like characters in a story. But actually they were real people, just as real as you and I. And so I guess what I wanted to do is match, is make it really believable for people that someone like Bede was a real person who actually did live near Newcastle. I mean, what's interesting is that actually lots of historians are quite surprised that I wrote a whole chapter on Bede's young life, because there's pretty much no evidence about what he was up to. But it's amazing how much you can piece together. Like, we know that he would have gone to this monastery around the age of seven, which is a pretty crazy thing for our modern standards, that, you know, you'd be taken away from your family to be sent to this monastery. And I'm kind of just explaining what the monastery was, this arrival of Christianity, like, that had been a pretty exciting and cool place to go at that point in history, even though we think about a monastery as being like a very old, you know, old world angry sort of thing. But it was very exciting at the time and just explaining, you know, or imagining what it been like for that little boy to walk into the monastery for the first time to see things he'd never seen before, things like stained glass. They had this amazing stained glass there, had these amazing paintings and decorations on the walls. So kind of really trying to evoke what that might have been like in a way that a film might today. But the big, big moment in be's young life is that there's this terrible plague that comes from the monastery, and everyone in the monastery dies, apart from this guy who's a kind of teacher, and then this young lad. And we think that young lad is be. And so I think that's a pretty extraordinary thing to happen if you actually imagine a plague coming. You know, you seeing this entire monastery of people dying, you probably having to carry the bodies out, having to go through this pretty traumatic thing. And most historians will just. And loads of biographies will just mention that in the first chapter or so, and then move on to all of Bede's writings and, like, the rest of his life. But actually, I just wanted to really focus in on that because I guess if you think that you've survived this terrible thing and you're a man of faith, you probably come out about being like, wow, I've been chosen, you know, there's a reason that I am here. And then he goes on and he's, he stays in the monastery his whole life and he's really prolific at writing all these books. So I do think there is this link between his later life and his childhood that's quite important. But yeah, I loved, I love writing about Bede and I've always loved, I've always had a soft spot for Bede. I think I've always found it funny that he's called the Venerable Bead and lots of people do find him quite a funny character. So I don't know, maybe it was just. I was just fond of him and I really wanted to exclude him.
- [13:03]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, yeah. Any excuse. A bit of Anglo Saxon Geordie Shaws.
- [13:07]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
No, but that's the other thing though, that because he. What I write about in the book is that because he would have spent loads of time like preparing all these skins as someone. And that's the other thing that I write about in the book that because he was writing these books, he was probably spending all this time preparing the skins, going down in the river, having to carry these really kind of heavy and wet skins and you know, it's quite like a labor intensive work to prepare that. And it drew me to the conclusion that he'd probably be quite muscly and he probably could quite ripped. I did actually think of Geordie Short. I was thinking about those shows. He's basically this Geordie, he's like really hunky. That's how I want to like rewrite Bede into the history books.
- [13:46]
Matt Lewis
I'm never going to think of Bede the same again now. I'm never going to look at that image of him as an old bearded man. The same. I mean Bede, you know, he's someone who has this huge reputation, the father of English history, a prolific writer. The reason that we have the anno Domini system of dating and he's looking at the stars and all of these incredible things. How much of that potential had he realized at 18? I'm guessing I know the answer. But it's interesting, I think that he will become such a significant figure yet by the age of 18, how much of that would he realistically have seen in his own future?
- [14:26]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Maybe, I think first of all, I think it's impossible to say and impossible to know because we actually just don't know. And this is where I have to be kind of have limitations with the book in that I have to just say, this is what we think of his life, and this is the conclusion that I can draw from all these things. But ultimately, we don't know for sure. But I think the plague that he survived has a massive impact. I also think we forget that monasteries were this really exciting new thing, and they were really on a mission to build these and to spread the word. In Bede's young life, the age of 18, they've built. They've already started building another monastery. So he's on this mission to start another monastery near New Castle. So this is the Jarrow and the Weymouth monasteries, which you can still go to state, go and see the churches today and see the kind of remains of where Bede was. But I don't think anyone in history could ever have a sense of ending up being known as things like the father of English history 1400 years later. But I do think he has a kind of big mission to create these amazing books and do all this amazing writing. And I think he possibly had it a sense of that legacy.
- [15:36]
Matt Lewis
Interesting how that experience in his childhood with the plague and everything might have shaped his desire to achieve a lot. You know, he had an awareness, I guess, of the fragility of life, that the plague could come along and wipe you out at any moment. That sense that you only have a limited amount of time is sometimes the big compulsion to actually get lots of stuff done.
- [15:54]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Yeah, he was wasting no time, and he definitely. I think you're right. Like, he did definitely have a sense of that. And if it was me, I know that that would make me be quite busy.
- [16:04]
Matt Lewis
Empress Matilda also makes an appearance in your book, as she should. Quite rightly, she should be in almost every book. What was Matilda up to on her 18th birthday? What is she doing when she's 18?
- [16:16]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Well, I wanted to include Matilda because in her late teens, her whole life is turned upside down. So she already has a remarkable life that you know from our modern perceptions in that she grows up in England, but she is taken away to marry the Holy Roman Emperor. And that's quite a remarkable thing. And she's given huge amounts of responsibility. Like, she's basically in charge of Italy, and, you know, she's. She's ruling on behalf of her husband in lots of different ways. And, you know, she probably thought when she was a teenager that that was where her life would be forever and she would have children there and she would create the great dynasty and be part of that story. Being an empress but of course, the White Ship disaster happens in 1120 and that changes everything. And suddenly she's brought back. Well, it also happens because her husband, Heinrich V dies, but she is brought back eventually to England and then she's kind of embroiled in the anarchy, that civil war. But that's all because of this random freak accident of the White Ship disaster, where all of the cream of aristocratic youth, they all perish in the English Channel. So I thought she was quite a good example of someone who's, you know, everything was, everything changed in a way that she could never predicted or prepared for. And I guess that's like a good example for 18 year olds today, is that so often in life, you know, it's not actually if you do really well in your GCSE or your A levels, because there's actually all these random events, you know, that you can't control, that even Empress Matilda couldn't control, that will shape the course of your life. And it's actually more about how you can overcome these unpredictable challenges than the things that you can prepare for. But yeah, she's a great character. I mean, she's just so impressive by the age of 18. And I always think about these characters like, would I have been able to do that at the age of 18? Is it a nature thing? Is it a nurture thing? But from what I read about her, it seemed like she had this amazing training to be a kind of diplomat, to be a politician, in that she was growing up with her parents and meeting such important people at such a young age and being in the court and being very familiar with all these kind of diplomatic figures, I suppose. Yeah, I think she's an amazing character and not many people seem to know about her. I don't think she made the kind of cut as the really famous medieval queens or the famous women from history. So hopefully we can, we can do something to change that.
- [18:43]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, set that right. Everyone ought to know about Empress Matilda.
- [18:46]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Yeah, yeah.
- [18:47]
Matt Lewis
And there is a really strong sense that her husband, Heinrich V, Henry V, the Holy Roman Emperor, is really crafting her to be a partner in his power. She receives this intense education. She's taught languages, she's taught politics, she's, you know, she's shipped off to Italy in her teens and allowed to rule part of Henry's empire on his behalf in her kind of mid teens. And you're right, you think, you know, could I have done that? Would I have had enough about me to have done that? Was it the training? And I think, like I said, the interesting thing, and perhaps the comparison with Bede, or the juxtaposition with Bede, is that Empress Matilda was prepared for a really significant, important life in the Holy Roman Empire, as you said, as a wife, a mother, part of a dynasty. But what she turned out or the ways in which she turned out being important weren't what she was expecting. And there was a big need to adapt what she'd planned. So she thought her life was planned out. Those plans get ripped up.
- [19:54]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Yeah, I know. It's just everything's changed completely. And would she have known that this terrible civil war, this anarchy, would have been playing out? I don't think she would have done, and I don't think she would have thought that she would be so involved in it as well.
- [20:08]
Matt Lewis
Yeah. And I guess it's an interesting examination of how the experiences that you've had by the age of 18 can prepare you for the troubles that will come later in life. You know, Matilda does go through the anarchy. She. She struggles in parts, but she essentially makes sure that her son becomes king of England. And it's interesting to think how much of that ability and determination and focus was instilled in her by the age of 18, by this incredible education that she had.
- [20:37]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Yeah, definitely. And also, I mean, she, you know, later on in life, I think she's dealing quite a lot with a lot of European parties. And I suppose that that influence of being once the person who was the wife of the Holy Rome emperor and having that kind of more international experience must have been pretty useful throughout her life. I mean, I see her as this amazing kind of diplomatic figure. You know, when you look at some of the events later on in life with Thomas Beckett and things like that. Yeah. I mean, I know she had some failings, but I think. I think it is quite impressive what she does. Yeah. I think you can talk about her as this kind of political figure, and if you were writing a book, like the greatest politicians or the greatest diplomats in history, like, she could be one of those. I think.
- [21:38]
Kate Lister
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Dr. Eleanor Yonega
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Ryan Reynolds
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Dr. Eleanor Yonega
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- [24:05]
Matt Lewis
On a slightly broader note, while we're still Anne and Prismatilda, how different did you find the experiences of men and women? Maybe, you know, during the medieval period, but also throughout the book. How far apart have the experiences of men and women at the age of 18 been throughout history?
- [24:22]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Well, yeah, that's a good question. Especially in light of the medieval period. Because when I was writing the book, I wanted to have a good range of people, you know, a mixture of men and women, a mixture of people from different periods of history, a mixture of people from different areas of the country. Like a real range. Some people who were prepared for what they. For what life would throw at them. Some people who had no idea what was coming. But in the medieval period, I was Struck. Even after working in the kind of history world and research and lots of things for a while now, I was struck at how hard it was to find a woman who wasn't a royal, like Empress Matilda, who. And there were records of her life in her younger years. And so often there were accounts of people. They would say things like, oh, we don't know anything about them until they're 35 or something, when this important thing happened. So I did find it really hard to kind of find someone to write about in that period to represent that period, you know, and the other person I talk about is Geoffrey Chaucer. So there are lots of men who we know about their lives, and they're not necessarily royals or anything. So that was quite striking, I think. What's the kind of interesting women that I write about? Basically, the ones before the Georgian period say they are interesting because things have happened to them that I guess there's, like, not that much agency. So it's people like Empress Matilda, Elizabeth I, who are both born into quite extraordinary things. And then the other one's Flora MacDonald, who, again, this quite crazy thing happens to her, and she's a pretty unusual character. And so actually, for the female figures in the book, the ones that have more agency are much later on, and that's people like Vivian Westwood or Lisa Saxel west or Rosalind Franklin or Mary Anning. And so. And that's because that's a kind of reflection of society, I think. So, yeah, it was hard to. I mean, I think that the medieval. The medieval and Tudor men that I write about have definitely more chunities and more agency. So that's a kind of interesting pattern of history. That's why there's two queens, Elizabeth and Matilda, and there's no other royals in the book, because I just wanted to make sure that it wasn't like another. You know, we hear so much about kind of royals and things like that, so I just wanted to expand that story, really. But, yeah, they're definitely. It was quite hard to make it an even reflection of women's experiences. Like, I would love to have included a woman who's just doing something quite normal in, like, the 1400s or something. But it's just really hard to find people like that. Yeah.
- [26:47]
Matt Lewis
Yeah. You mentioned Geoffrey Chaucer is another medieval figure who crops up into the book who, you know, will become a legend. Did it look like he was going to be a legend when he was 18?
- [26:59]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
I don't think so, but I think all of the markings of his future success were There. So Geoffrey Chaucer was living in London. He was the son of a vintner. He survived the Black Death in his childhood. So, again, that's quite an amazing experience. And then he was in a royal household, and then he goes to France, and he's on this campaign, and he's in the siege where he does actually get captured by the French. And I don't know how that happened, but I like to imagine him kind of causing trouble and making a nuisance of himself. I think I sort of imagine it like, you know, they're all there in the camp. Like, oh, no, why has Jeffrey Chaws that been captured? Is kind of feels quite unnecessary. But he's an interesting character because I think, obviously a great strength of his writings, which comes much later on, is that he had this amazing understanding of people and different types of people. And growing up as a vintner's son in central London, he'd have gone down to the shoreline, to the docks, to the, you know, the port, if you like. And you've seen all of these products coming in from all around the world, heard all these different voices. You know, he's really in the heart of the hustle and bustle of the city. And then he goes to France. I mean, imagine him walking through France, probably. You know, he must have talked to all the different people who had been on that campaign, all kinds of backgrounds, and then he was, you know, captured by the French, and he must have been exposed to, you know, their lives in a way that many people would never have been. And if you think about him as this amazing writer and a kind of someone who was so able to capture the follies and foibles of. Of all kinds of different people's experiences, then I feel like actually that upbringing was really, really good for that.
- [28:42]
Matt Lewis
Yeah. Yeah.
- [28:42]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
I. What do you. What do you think I'm going to say?
- [28:44]
Matt Lewis
First, I struggle with Jeff Chaucer in the sense that I love the film A Knight's Tale. So when you say, imagine Jeff Chaucer walking through France, I'm seeing Paul Bettany naked. I'm struggling to get that out of my mind now.
- [28:54]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
I love. Yeah, and he's naked in it, but.
- [28:57]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, I think so. You know, Chaucer is very similar to Dickens, I guess, in that sense that he captures a spirit of a time, and his experiences mean that he understands what normal people are going through. So however high Chaucer rises, you know, he will get into royal households, he will have some really good jobs, he'll be really close to the Duke of Lancaster and all of those kinds of people. His sister in law marries John of Gauntlet, the Duke of Lancaster. So he. He has all of these roots into power, but it's ordinary people that interest him. When he comes to sit down and write about people, he doesn't write stories of great dukes and kings and wars and battles. He writes about a bunch of random people going on a pilgrimage to Canterbury and things like that. Because that's clearly what his interests are. And I think you're right that his upbringing around those busy ports in London and a mercantile background means that he is exposed to loads of people. Experience in France puts him in camps with soldiers. You know, he's not at this point in his own tent somewhere as a kind of general figure. He's with the ordinary people. And I think it's striking that that seems to be what sticks with him for the rest of his life, is that ordinary people's stories are actually the interesting ones.
- [30:17]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Yeah, because he could have been writing, you know, he was pretty exposed to the kings and queens of the day. You know, he could have been writing kind of great tales of the royal courts and things, but he doesn't really tend to be interested in that.
- [30:32]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, he sort of shuns the chivalric romance to some extent in favor of just writing ordinary stories. And he shuns French or Latin to write in vernacular English. And all of those things you think may well be a direct result of what young Geoff has seen up until he's 18?
- [30:51]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Yeah, I mean, I think so, but it's all speculation in some ways. The other thing about Geoffrey Chaucer is that though Marion Turner wrote an amazing book about him, the European Life, she's the kind of expert at Oxford about Chaucer. And she. She picked up on the fact that the first record we have of Chaucer is when he was given this piece of clothing in the court that he was in that in the household that he was working in. And it's this really risque piece of clothing, the paltock, and it was like this tunic, and it was basically really exposed below the waist, so it's like really tight. And people blamed this kind of clothing on causing the Black Death and inciting God's wrath and stuff. So that was one of the kind of funny things that you can pick up on in the book, is that actually in these early years, I mean, you might think about Chaucer as the diplomat, as figure as a poet, but actually the first record we have of him that's of eyes Is him wearing this outrageous piece of clothing.
- [32:03]
Kate Lister
I'll have to keep my voice down because right now I'm between the actual bedsheets of some of history's most famous figures. Want to know more about what Hitler might have been like in the sack? Or Julius Caesar? Or our very own Billy Shakespeare? You wouldn't believe the details I'm able to uncover here on Betwixt the Sheets, a podcast by history hit because sexuality explored through a historical lens can reveal a surprising amount about the human experience, warts and all, if you'll excuse the pun. And we don't just stop at sex. Expect outrageous scandals throughout the century as well as probing into everyday issues. The nitty gritty of human life that really connects us to all people throughout history. Join me, Kate Lister, every Tuesday and Friday on Betwixt the Sheets to find out more. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Right, time to slide out of here and avoid the bedpan.
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Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Yeah.
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- [33:42]
Matt Lewis
I like the idea. So far we've got a ripped bead and we've got Chaucer wearing high fashion, risque fashion. And I guess if I were allowed to allow you to move away from the medieval period, which you shouldn't ever want to do, obviously. Who would you say is your favorite figure in the book at the age of 18?
- [34:01]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
I think Mary Anning's a really interesting figure because she has actually achieved a huge amount. She is the woman who was born in 1799 and she was living in Lying Regis on the south coast of England and she was collecting fossils. So she's an amazing paleontologist. And even by the age of 18, she had collected some of the most impressive specimens which are still on display in the Natural History Museum, still a big part of their collection. So she already made this amazing contribution to, you know, our understanding of that and our understanding of fossils. But what was so remarkable about her is that she was basically self educated in that she hadn't gone to a really smart school. She didn't have loads of connections, she didn't have loads of money. And they basically lived in a very humble way on the south coast. You know, they didn't have any money, they were very poor. But she just went out and she stepped out in the house that she was living in and she just looked at the natural world around her and she just looked carefully and long and hard and came to these amazing conclusions. And she was years before Darwin. And so actually she's kind of thinking it's not just collecting these old fossils and kind of, you know, wow, isn't that like, physically this amazing thing, she is actually opening our eyes, or she was actually opening people's eyes to the entire origins of the world. And to have that understanding at the age of 18, you. There would be men, learned men from London would come and talk to her because she was generally considered as an expert on the topic already by the time 18. So she's. She's pretty impressive. But I think I just like how low key she is in that it kind of proves that anyone could achieve something like that because, you know, you just got to think really carefully about things and just be determined and focused. But it's funny, you must find this as well when you write about people, Matt, is that you become really fond of people or you kind of get. Feel like you get.
- [35:57]
Matt Lewis
So I think people will be very well aware that that's a trap I fall into all the time. I write books about people that I actually quite like. One day I ought to write a book about someone I hate and see how it goes.
- [36:07]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Yeah, yeah. Well, that's the thing. I mean, when I selected the people that I was writing about, I do like them all because I wanted it to be quite an inspiring book. And because of that, there are some people you have to leave out. Like, I thought it'd be really interesting to look at Guy Fawkes. Like, how did this young man who is living in York, how did he become so, you know, ended up doing this incredibly extreme thing. But of course, you don't actually want to encourage people to. You want to encourage people to follow in the footsteps of the people they're reading about. And Guy Fawkes is not someone you should hold up on a pedestal. So there are some people you had to leave out because of that, but you do become fond of them and you go and visit their houses. And I've realized that even more so than before, that visiting the places where these things happened is so important. You know, for Mary Anning, just walking along that coast in Lyme Regis is quite an extraordinary place. Or there's this other woman I write about, Sarah Biffin, who is this disabled woman, and she becomes this amazing artist. She learns to paint with her, with a paintbrush in her mouth. And she's born in this village in North Somerset called East Quantox Head. And when you go there, you're like, this is absolutely extraordinary that she did become so famous and successful because it's like such a sleepy little place. You know, you would have no idea that. I mean, even like the idea that this woman, this little baby girl, was born there in 1784. This disabled baby from a very poor background who is also a woman, but so much was against her, and yet she did so well. So, yeah, it's. It's been really interesting to write about it and just have, like, open up these kind of different glimpses into. Into all parts of British history.
- [37:39]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, yeah. It's a really interesting way to look at it all. I wondered as well, writing the book, did you get a sense of how being 18 has changed over all of the centuries that you cover? Is it harder now? Is it easier? Has expectations kind of grown or shrunk or have they just changed? Because you could put medieval people were on battlefields at the age of 16, but they didn't have to deal with social media and being trolled in their bedroom and all of that kind of stuff and the pressures of exams that we have today. So is. Is it easier, harder, or just different?
- [38:14]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
I think the big thing about the modern age that people don't tend to think about, you know, we always talk about social media and how difficult that is, but actually the big thing is that we. In the past, when whatever annoying thing that you have to deal with today, people in the past would have been doing that, but they would have had, like, a terrible toothache or they'd have had gout, or, you know, they would have been in pain a lot of the time, or they wouldn't have been able to see very well, or more likely, they would have been dead like most people today. Like in the past, if you made it to the age of 18, you're doing pretty well already. So I think we can be grateful at least that our health is, you know, the situation of our health is much more favorable, so I'm grateful for that. But I think it is. Obviously it is. It is different today. I think in. It is a blessing in today's world that we can go to school and we spend our youth in school and we have the space to be learning about the world. And this kind of safe 18 first years where in the past people would have been working or they were forced to basically be an adult at a very young age. You know, maybe in the Victorian period you might be working as soon as you could work, you know, working under a cotton machine or something like that. But I think what I've sort of written about a lot with this book in terms of articles for the paper, so they keep asking me this, you know, like in terms of GCSE and A level results, how should we think about the past? Is that what it, you know, it is, it is much better for 18 year olds today, despite all of the social media and everything. And people have so many opportunities in a way that even in the last 100 years people didn't have. So Vivian Westwards, the most recent one I write about in the book, and she doesn't go on. She, she's an art school, she drops out of art school, she becomes a typist, then a teacher, she trains in all these different ways, but she was just, she couldn't even consider that there was a career in art that wasn't just her being an artist with a paintbrush. And so I think today we have. People are much more open to these ideas of different careers and that's been an amazing thing. But I would also say that the big like takeaway from the book for me for 18 years today is that though it's wonderful that you can just kind of focus on school exams and that is a blessing of modern society, the past does show us that Asian year olds have the capability to achieve so much and that you probably are capable of a lot more than you think, which is an exciting thing. And I also think that the school exam system today, although it's very good at measuring academic success, can you write an essay? When you look at the course of history and the 18 year olds in that it is not the kind of skills that tested in school exams which get people ahead in life or which save them in moments of difficulty, it's actually markings of character. So the courage of Elizabeth I when she was tested in the Thomas Seymour scandal, that is a better skill to have. Or the kind of daring of Nelson, even at the age of 18, or the kind of, I suppose, entrepreneurial spirit of Sarah Biffin or the deter, you know, Mary Anning just going out and kind of teaching herself this kind of understanding of the world. So I think actually it does show that with A levels. And you know, we're very focused on academics today, but I think there's so many wider markings of character that are more important to get right. And you know, I was saying to lots of people who have, if you failed your GCSE results or A level results, don't worry. The most important thing is that you can overcome a difficulty like that because that be, that's a better achievement, I think, than a maths paper, even though that is important.
- [41:50]
Matt Lewis
Well, I mean I was going to end by sort of saying you've been gathering in the book and across social media and stuff, you've been gathering advice from people that they would give to an 18 year old in the world today. And I was going to kind of end by saying what would be your advice to an 18 year old? And maybe you've covered a bit of it there.
- [42:10]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
But yeah, so in the book I asked a few celebs at the back to give their advice and I also did some interviews with lots of historians at some of the festivals I was at this summer. What advice would you give to 18 year olds today? And the big takeaway that lots of them said was don't worry. They just said don't worry about not knowing what you want to do. They said, follow the thing that you're passionate about and that will be, you know, that will take you to whatever the end point is. And I think when I think about myself and my career when I was 18, the career that I've had didn't exist in that social media wasn't a thing. Instagram and TikTok wasn't a thing when I was 18. But what I have done is just follow my interest in history and making videos and making content and then I ended up with history hit and then I ended up doing lots of similar things and writing bits and things. So in hindsight it all makes sense. But obviously hindsight is a useful thing. But you know, you're also, you followed your interest and now you're working as a presenter and having a podcast and stuff. So I think in terms of the history world and people who are writing and presenting that does that is often the case that they just always follow this kind of passion for history. But yeah, it's quite hard to give advice because it's so. I mean, it's also hard to draw confusions from this book of like over a thousand years of 18 year olds and like draw a simple conclusion from that. But it is inspiring seeing people in the past, you know, it is inspiring reading about someone like Empress Matilda or Mary Anning or Elizabeth. I think she's an amazing figure because of what she has gone through in a kind of emotionally traumatic way. And it's all of that trauma and difficulty and learning to kind of hold that and overcome that or at least deal with it, that makes her an amazing queen. I mean, she had that middle way and she was, you know, she never, she never got married and she never kind of committed herself in to anyone. And she was in some ways very cautious, but you could argue that that was the making of her. Yeah.
- [44:07]
Matt Lewis
Yeah. Wonderful. Well, it's been absolutely fantastic to talk to you, Alice. It's been great to find an excuse to get you on Gone Medieval and you have to do some something else medieval so you can come back and talk to us again.
- [44:18]
Dr. Eleanor Yonega
Okay? Okay. That's the deal. Well, thank you so much for having me.
- [44:21]
Matt Lewis
Thanks very much, Alice. Alice's new book, eighteen A History of Britain in eighteen Young Lives is out now and offers a fresh way to look at history through the eyes, achievements and experiences of 18 year olds. If you've enjoyed this episode, you can find out more about Bede's achievements that earned him the venerable title in an episode we did with Michelle Brown. We've got a great chat with Cath Hanley on Empress Matilda and a bit of Chaucer for you too with Marion Turner. There are new installments of Gone Medieval every Tuesday and Friday, so please come back and join Eleanor and I for more from the greatest millennium in human history. Don't forget to also subscribe or follow us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts from and tell all of your friends and family that you've gone medieval. You can listen to us and all of History Hits podcasts ad free and watch hundreds of TV documentaries when you subscribe@historyhit.com subscribe as a special gift. You'll get 50% off your first three months if you use the code Medieval at checkout. Anyway, I better let you go. I've been Matt Lewis and we've just Gone medieval with history hit.
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Dr. Eleanor Yonega
But to you it's an entrepreneur.
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Dr. Eleanor Yonega
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