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- [00:02]
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From long lost Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Elena Jarninger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life. Only on History Hit with your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com subscribe.
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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 that tell us how we got here, find out who we really were with Gone Medieval Elena and I have spent a couple of previous episodes talking about the periodization of the Medieval era. We've covered the early and high Middle Ages, so it's time to complete the set and consider the late medieval period. What marks the transition from high to late? What are some of the defining events and themes of the late medieval period? Or what brings the medieval world to a close? And how useful are these terms when thinking about history beyond Europe? All of these questions and more have been on our minds, so now we're going to thrash it out. It's always a good day when I get to welcome Elena to an episode we're doing together. This is the kind of stuff we talk about whenever we chat, only it's not usually recorded. I love discussing these kinds of things with the Queen of Gone medieval, and I never leave a conversation with Eleanor without feeling like I've learned something. So I'm looking forward to this and I hope that you'll enjoy it too. Well, it's another fantastic day because it's another Matt and Eleanor day.
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It's the best type of day, isn't it? It really is what's not to love?
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A
And we're back here to kind of round off this little series that we've been doing about kind of the periods of the Middle Ages. So we've done the Early Medieval period, we've done the High Medieval period. If you haven't listened to those, please go back and find those. You can have a listen to us waffling about what they were and what they meant. And that brings us kind of to the. The Late Middle Ages, which, you know, spoiler. It's the end. And I guess the first thing we ought to deal with is. And I don't. I don't even know if I have a good answer to this, but what causes the transition from the High Medieval period to the Late Medieval period? What changes?
- [03:19]
C
I think for me, you know, part of it is sort of just historians attempting to periodize, you know, like periodization. It's something that we do for ourselves. But I think that the 14th century is just a really different time purely because of the number of things that go wrong. And so as a result of that, it's not the same thing as the High Middle Ages. I think I sort of relate to the High Middle Ages in Europe as when everything is going correctly, you know, everything is kind of ticking over nicely and. And society is behaving in the best way that it can for the people who construct it. There are many things that are out of people's control, and so the. For me, I suppose the bases of everything are rocked, and then as a result, nothing is the same. And I don't think we can class the 14th century with the High Middle Ages, even though socially things are really different. And then I think in the 15th century, we're really seeing what happens as a result of. Of this knocking loose.
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A
Yeah, I think I really like the idea that the 14th century is so bad that we can't call this the High Middle Ages. That implies it's good, you know, that implies it's the best of everything. And this century is so bad we're going to have to change it. You know, this. Let's just call it late. I mean, that implies it's. It's no longer around, it's done. It's so bad we're going to have to call it something else.
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C
It's simply too difficult.
- [04:49]
A
Yeah, yeah. And so I guess, you know, your specialism really is the, the 14th century. So, you know, roll your sleeves up and let's get into just how bad it really is, what's going on and how this changes the world because I think one of the early things that, that all of Europe is hit by, that people don't tend to talk about too much is the Great Famine.
- [05:10]
C
And the Great famine. So just to, to kick off, the great famine starts in 1315. So yeah, we're really talking beginning of the 14th century here. And it's part of an outgrowth of another big thing that happens in the 14th century, which is we slip out of the Medieval Warm Period and into the Little Ice Age. And that has a lot to do with the Great famine which is kicked off because basically we have really bad weather for three years. That's, that's essentially, that's essentially what it is. It's literally something that I bring up every time someone is complaining about British summertime. I'll always say, oh, it's nothing. It's nothing compared to 1315. And essentially what we have is two years, particularly 1315 and 1316, where weather conditions are incredibly rainy and very cold. And as a result, basically all of the crops fail. And because the crops have failed, all of the animals begin to die. We see incredible blights for sheep and cows as well because they're walking around in these mucky fields, they're not eating enough and they all begin to have diseases. And the knock on effects are such that we have rumors of cannibalism, that people are starving so badly, we know it even reaches as far as royal courts. There are complaints here in England that when the king is on procession, he is unable to get bread. And so that's when, you know, things are really serious. Because there is a difference between famines and just starvation more generally. And yeah, we do see that the rich people tend to make it through a little bit better. But we see mass dying off and also just ruination of rather a lot of cropland. And, you know, what a way to start a century. Great vibes for everyone. We could say that, you know, I
- [07:07]
A
mean, we could talk about the beginning of the 21st century, I guess, couldn't we? And what we ought to worry about in the future. But. And I think there's a couple of really important things that come out of the great famines. It's kind of affects Central Europe and Western Europe really, really badly for, for several years. So even when the weather improves, you know, it doesn't instantly go away. You get a tail end of all of that problem. And there are two things that, you know, I, I think people really pick up on and it's the reaction of states, of kingdoms, of governments, of rulers. And in particular, you know, you mentioned in England, Edward II is struggling to get bread, but his government is still hugely criticized for failing to help people. There is no mobilization of government, state support to help those who are literally starving to death at the side of the road. And rulers attract a lot of criticism for that. And then the other side of it is the beginning of something that I think kind of comes to define maybe the late medieval period. And that's the beginning of the shaking of trust in the church as the way to fix everything. Because the church tells everyone to do stuff. They all do it, and it does not work.
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C
Yeah, exactly. Because, you know, there's the two places that you can go for an explanation of what's happening. You've got the on the ground people, which are the royals, who in theory, you know, in theory, part of the reason that they rule is because God wants them to. And so therefore, they need to be doing things that are good. You know, like, let's not go so far as in the early modern period where you have this idea that, you know, you have divine right. They don't have that, but they do have this idea that you're supposed to be there advancing the cause of God. Right. And so this is why we see constant criticism of royals from the church. And quite right, too, because everybody notices they have rather a lot of money and poor people don't. And so they're constantly attempting to nudge royals into doing the right thing. The church, on the other hand, are supposed to, in theory, be intercessors with the divine and intercessors with God. And in a world where we certainly have this idea that things happen as a result of either God willing it or God allowing it, which that's two different things. You have to be able to explain why all of these terrible things are happening right now. And the church simply doesn't have a great answer for that. I mean, the church's answer for most things is you were sinful, you know, question mark. And then everybody, okay, well, yeah, understood. But also, I'm sort of starving to death right now. So what sins am I really getting up to currently? And the church doesn't have two years into a famine.
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A
It's like, I haven't got the energy to sin. Yeah, I haven't been able to sin for a good year now.
- [09:48]
C
It's like, can't even go down tavern, right. You know, it's not even like I'm. I'm drinking too much because the. The wheat crop failed and we're not, we're not doing that now. So it's really just a situation where the church begins to find itself criticized. And also, we are at the point where ordinarily the church would do another reorganization. It tends to happen once a century, maybe every 150 years or so. In the 13th century, we saw them invent mendicants about this. Right. They invent Dominicans, they invent Franciscans. But now it's the 14th century and things are going badly again. So what is it that we need to do? And the Church simply doesn't have an answer for that, but ordinary people really, really do, which is going to be one of the big differences between the late Middle Ages and the high Middle Ages is the number of heresies that begin to spring up, which is when I get really interested and always cheers.
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A
A heresy.
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C
I love it.
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A
And I guess, I guess while things are pretty awful in the 14th century and everybody is dying, they managed to, to begin to recover from this famine. But you know, you've got to imagine this has left a scar on the, the health of the population who have endured all of this. And you know, not a million miles away from coming on the heels of this, we get the Black Death as well.
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C
Yeah. And I think that it's really difficult to not extrapolate some connection between the two. Not because they happened right after each other, but knowing what we know now about epigenetics, we do know that because people were starving for a couple of years, it does have a knock on effect for your progeny. You know, your own health means something for the next generation. And the next generation basically become adults and you are then hit by the Black Death. Right. So we know that the Black Death. Now our, our latest guess is that it's coming to us from Kyrgyzstan, straight out of Kyrgyzstan. And we are basing this on some graves that we have found that give the date and say that the people killed by pestilence. So this is about 1326, I believe. And so this is also a major stop on the Silk Road. Well, one of them anyway, obviously. And basically what is happening out there is there's a local population of marmots who get this Yersinia pestis off of their fleas. Those fleas then move from the marmots onto whatever animals are moving through, including humans. And that is how you get Yersinia pestis. Now, to be fair, we've had Yersinia pestis before. Who remembers the Justinian Plague? Like, cast your minds back to the 6th century and the Justinian Plague but this is a new mutation that is much more virulent, and that's what we've sort of figured out now via DNA research. And it moves out of Kyrgyzstan in both directions. You know, you can get Black Death in Baghdad, you can get it on the Crimean Peninsula, you can have it in Spain, you can get it in Beijing. It doesn't matter where you go. Basically from Saharan Africa and then east to west, you can come into contact with the Black Death, which will result in 25% of the Earth's population dying. And when we consider it only hits Afro, Eurasia and then not even Africa below the Sahara, presumably just everyone who was on a boat going to Kenya on the Silk Roads, which was like a major port, was just dead before they got there. So they managed to be spared down there somehow. But it's just such an incredible dying off of people that it takes about two centuries for the population of Earth to recover. So we literally can't get our heads around it. You know, we've just lived through a pretty extensive pandemic ourselves. But none of us saw, you know, in London the death rate was 50% and certainly we didn't see that during COVID which is good. And I, I appreciate that personally.
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A
Yeah. And it's an interesting combination of trade routes that have been flowing for centuries by this point and, and have been opened up nice and wide in part by the Mongols. And then also the continued warfare of the Mongols that begins to spread it, particularly to Europe. You know, it's their attacks in, in around Crimea that caused the Venetians to sail away in a panic and take the plague with them. And we get these, these stories of the Mongols, you know, using effectively germ warfare and catapulting dead plague victims over the wall to poison the city. And all the Venetians getting on their boats and going, none of this, thank you, and just carrying it back to Europe with them. But again, similar to the great famine, you have this issue of what is the government's response and how is the church going to fix this for us?
- [14:46]
C
And the answer is no and no, basically. And when we have such really interesting relationships to it. So, for example, you see, the King Louis in France demands that the university explain what is going on here, which it is effectively the Church, but it's a highfalutin part of the Church. Right. And it's very cute. It's my favorite explanation of the plague. They say that there's a conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter and Mars in Scorpio, and that has brought out poisonous air onto the earth. And I'm like, so true besties. Like that's absolutely it, right?
- [15:24]
A
Flipping planets.
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C
Oh, every time, right. Meanwhile, the church writ large, they're like, this is you people. And again, you have been too sinful. Some of my favorite plague sermons come to us from Bishop Thomas Brinton in Rochester and he says that everyone is simply too sexy with it. And he says that men are wearing ridiculously pointy shoes, women are wearing dresses that are too tight, you're all having affairs and God is punishing us. So that's a really great one. And you know, again, like from the royals, there, there is no answer because, like, what can you do until we invent antibiotics, which is going to take quite some time, you know, so we don't even know germs exist until the 19th century. Right. There isn't anything that anybody can do really, except quar quarantine, which they try, but it's just sort of a little bit too late. The cat's out of the bag. And so this, you know, I think both of us would argue contributes to the destabilizing of trust in the church writ large. That is going to have massive knock on effects in the late 14th century and then in into the 15th century. Because, well, if the church can't even explain why we are enduring these situations that are essentially apocalyptic, then what good are they?
- [16:45]
A
Yeah. And I think once everyone has to endure this and those who've survived it, once they come to grips with that, they can look around and, and wonder at the fact that the great famine was something of a leveler. We've talked about even royals struggling to find food. But here is the great leveler. The nobility are dying every bit as much as the common people. You know, princes and princesses are, are dying. Edward III loses supposedly his favorite daughter Joan, on her way to go and get married. So nobody is safe from this. And I can't help wondering how much this affects people's mindset. And as we move forward, I think it's something that will only increase. Does it affect their mindset that, you know, if kings and princes are dying of this and monks are dying of it in their, they're, they're literally sitting there all day praying to God and they're still dying of it. What is special about either the nobility or the church? What, what actually makes them different? For me, that they're not any different. They're no better than me.
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C
Absolutely. And why do we have these privileged parts of society where, you know, ordinary people are the ones who are Paying for them to live the lives that they live. You know, and churchmen live very nice lives indeed, where they have a lot less manual labor that they have to do. Obviously, nobles and kings are living very well. Yeah. They occasionally have to go to war, and there's rather a lot of that to indulge in the 14th century, to be fair. But the idea is that they are providing some sort of social lubricant in a way that is supposed to make the world keep ticking. And when that stops, how do you explain what it is that they are doing? And that is incredibly powerful. I think that one of the major things that ends up coming out of this, and we see it in movements, for example, of the flagellants. Right. Who are the guys who originally come out of the German and spend a bunch of time traveling around Europe stripping to the waist and beating themselves and praying to God?
- [18:43]
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Not people who fart a lot.
- [18:44]
C
No, unfortunately. Although that might be involved. They're medieval. I can't rule it out, Matt. I can never rule it out. Okay. But you know, what we're seeing with that is this response by ordinary people who are saying, well, I guess it's on me. The salvation of my soul is clearly going to be down to me, because the church can't do anything. The royals are useless. So I'm going to have to change my relationship and my spirituality, and I'm going to have to go out and do something different. And in this case, corporeally. Right. So that's quite interesting, because what it is doing is it's planting a seed of this idea of individual religious responsibility as opposed to more of a collective way of relating to spirituality. And that is profound in terms of the medieval psyche.
- [19:37]
A
Yeah. And I think also that notion that the medieval. Let's pretend feudalism exists for a moment and just use the word feudal. But that kind of medieval feudal social contract has been broken. The nobility are there. They get loads of money. They live a privileged life, but they're meant to protect you. When it comes to the crunch, the church is there. They get tithes from you, they get money from you. You turn up at church every Sunday and they, you know, they may not get involved in manual labor as much as you do, but they're there to protect your soul. And all of a sudden, by the middle of the 14th century, we're seeing a point where the nobility can't save you and the church can't save you. So the people have to wonder, what is the point of this deal now?
- [20:18]
C
And certainly we're also seeing. Because now that we've got to the late Middle Ages, you know, one of the reasons historians like the Middle Ages, the late Middle Ages is we have rather a lot of sources, don't we? Because it's closer in time. And I'll tell you what, the things that I'm seeing in the 14th century coming out of Prague, they're like, yeah, our clergy are running a brothel. Like, my local priest runs a brothel out of his house. My priest's got a secret wife. My priest is patronizing sex workers. It's like, it's crazy stuff. And so people are looking at it and just saying, what? Like, what do you mean? These men somehow are able to intervene with the salvation of my soul? I mean, I'm telling you, I have a record from 14th century Prague of some priests who have erected wooden huts in their churchyard that you can rent out in order to see sex workers in them. Like, that's what's going on in Prague. And then you're like, oh, yeah, for sure. These guys are going to get my soul out of trouble. No, like, it's a very, very complex situation. And I think we now have this tendency to. To relate to the clergy. Oh, well, all these guys must have been incredibly holy. Not what we are seeing when we get to hear from ordinary people in the 14th century. And one of the great things about the 14th century is we. We get to hear from ordinary people suddenly.
- [21:41]
A
Yeah, yeah, the cracks are appearing and the hypocrisies. And I guess, you know, we've talked about famine, we've talked about plague. I guess we ought to deal with some other horsemen of the. I mean, should we just deal with war straight off? There's no shortage of war in the 14th century. Is this.
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C
Let's. Let's do it.
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A
Yeah,
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C
there's some really. I mean, you've already mentioned one. I think we do kind of have to shout out what's going on with the Mongols, because, you know, part of what really allows the silk roads to proliferate, as we talked about in our high medieval bit, is the Pax Mongolica and the fact that everyone's getting on quite well. You know, shout out to your friend and mine, Temujin. Genghis Khan really does a great job of making sure that you can move some caravans through Asia easily. But we have the appearance of another friend of the podcast Tamerlane at this point in time, and things are getting a little bit more crunchy. You know, it turns out this is actually a huge amount of land for one guy to try to rule. So we see varying groups of Mongols sort of carve up territory. So Yani Beg, who rules the Golden Horde, as we call them, he's the one who's responsible for bringing plague to the Crimea. But we've got Tamerlane, for example, quite famously doing things like attacking, ooh, Baghdad. There's some rumors of skull pyramids. There are some light war crimes that are happening around the shop. And that's a really big difference in terms of how trade works in Asia at the very least.
- [23:16]
A
Yeah. And I think we're also getting to the point where we're seeing the end of that or the, the creeping up of the end of that medieval myth of Preston John, aren't we, that the, the world is mysterious and it has beyond its bounds, particularly with Prester John. You know, there's this mythical Christian king who has dragons. He's going to come and save us. And as. Just as the Christian crusaders in the Holy Land think the, the arrival of the Mongol horde might be. Presta John coming. They get a bit of a wake up call.
- [23:43]
C
Yeah, it's a real shame, isn't it? They really wanted that one. You know, it's a. It's sort of been like a nice kind of like end of the movie. Here comes Prester John and saves you all. But we're also, I guess, knowing a little bit more about the world, knowing a little bit more about Ethiopia. And it's like, oh, it turns out there's nobody down here that's a dragon that's gonna come save me, you know, so that's happening and, you know, Europe
- [24:07]
A
is not short of its own War in particular, I guess we have to talk about the 100 Years War. And I still love to imagine Edward III one day saying, let's start the Hundred Years War and everyone going, the what now? Let's not do that. But again, we're in a position where war is going to define England and France and their relationships with all of the nations around them. So it's going to have a huge impact on not just England and France, but Europe more widely too. And I think one of the things that we see out of this, that comes to define this era is the increasing emergence of gunpowder weapons on the battlefield, which is going to completely change the way war is done in Europe.
- [24:46]
C
Absolutely. Because we are going to be moving from siege warfare where you can in theory, just sort of hole up in your castle and hope that the other side starves first. You know, when you have Kadan and it turns out they can bring down the wall of a castle, that that's a really different ball game, you know, and, you know, by the time we get to the 15th century, we will see we have to completely replan the way that we make castles. You know, you start to see star forts and things like that come about and eventually we'll just say, oh, never mind. We'll invent the state for warfare instead of doing the castle thing, you know. But this makes a huge difference. Having said that, you know, 100 years war, we're still doing some pitched battles. I would argue that part of the reason that the French side does really poorly is that they are a little more wedded to this old concept of battle. You know, they are very wedded to the idea of war is rich guy tag, aren't they? You know, the way that the French see the conflict is, well, it's a shame that there's a bunch of English people over here, but. But this does mean that I have an opportunity to kidnap the highest ranking ones and make rather a lot of money, which is then in turn going to be invested in doing up my castle, you know, or I can get some more warhorses. This is the traditional medieval way of doing war. The English are a little bit more interested in killing people, I would argue, on the battlefield. And we certainly see that play out, for example, at the Battle of Crecy, right? This real confusion on the part of nobility who are like, wait a minute, I'm dying. No, no, no, no, no, no. The pikemen die, not guys on horses.
- [26:34]
A
Yeah, I love the idea that all of the French nobility are there, you know, as the arrows rain down on them, thinking, hang on, this is not how we do this, gentleman, I'm afraid this is most unsportsmanlike. This certainly is not cricket, exactly.
- [26:47]
C
It's in many ways, you know, the French are the British of the medieval period. Expand on that. No, I won't. Thank you.
- [26:56]
A
Leave that one hanging, Please, please, at Eleanor on all social media platforms. And, and so, you know, the 100 Years War is gonna, is gonna hang around for longer than 100 years and we'll, we'll no doubt crop up in our conversation again. But I wanted to move on to one of the. The side effects of probably the great famine, the Black Death, the Hundred Years War, everything else, particularly in England. We have the peasants revolt in 1381, but that's by no means that a singular event in England. That's happening in other places too. So France will have something very similar Way before the Peasants Revolt, actually. And are we seeing here the change of the mindset of the peasants, the reaction to that perceived breach of the contract?
- [27:44]
C
Oh, absolutely. And, you know, one of the big things that we are seeing is. Is peasants, you know, with the jackery rebellion in France, with the peasants uprisings here, they're questioning the entire social order of things, you know, quite definitively. We certainly see a lot of preachers as well, who are very specifically stoking this way of thinking. So here, you know, it's John Ball, right, And there's the possibly apocryphal quote, you know, when Adam Delft and Eve Spann, who was then a gentleman, whether or not he actually came out with that banger of a quote, to be fair, we. We all. We all love it. And he was so real for that. But somebody came up with that, right? And it does show us that there is a particular questioning of just the very concept of gentility, the very concept of nobility at all. And we do see rather a lot of peasants attack the nobility. And, you know, quite rightly, too, to an extent, you know, these things kind of don't change in the medieval period, otherwise. And, you know, the Peasants Uprising here, one of the reasons we talk about it a lot, incredibly successful for quite some time, you know, until Richard II gets his. I mean, one of our worst kings, it really has to be said. But, you know, like, his eyes are letting up. He's like, yeah, it's interesting again, isn't
- [29:11]
A
it, to look at the reaction, because you've got the. The people, having spent most of the century questioning the point of the government and the church and getting no satisfactory answer, kind of really give voice to that protest. And what do they get? Well, in England, with the President's revolt, the government turns up and says, you're quite right, you can have everything you want if you just go home peacefully. They go home peacefully and then find they're under arrest and being prosecuted because they've whipped the carpet from underneath them and changed the law back again. And the church's response, whenever you get a preacher like John Ball, who seems to be reflecting the complaints of the ordinary people, John Ball is. Is cast out from the church, he's excommunicated, he's persecuted until he's caught and executed in front of Richard ii. So there you've got, you know, the. The state and the church coming together to say, we have absolutely no sympathy for your position and we are not willing to negotiate you changing it, even though we can't provide you with the things that are our reasons for being here. We won't accept a renegotiation of that deal, that contract that exists between us. And I feel like I don't expect any nobility in the late 14th century did this, but it's hard to believe that nobody looked at this and thought something is going to have to change, otherwise we're going to find ourselves in real trouble. We either give a little bit or we're going to have a lot taken away from us.
- [30:33]
C
Yeah, absolutely. And there is a real unwillingness, I suppose it's a head in the sand sort of thing. And granted, I say that with the benefit of hindsight and you know, we see everything that comes down as a result of it, so we know that it is inevitable, but they are just kind of hoping to lean back on the thing that they have, which is a monopoly on violence. Right. You know, that is what the nobility have. They are the ones who are allowed to be violent and to do violence. And the Church is essentially saying, you know, when they are willing to see John Ball killed. Yep, yep, absolutely right you are. That, that's a, that's a gimme. Go ahead and kill anyone who is fermenting unrest of this sort. And that doesn't make it go away. You know, we certainly see these sorts of things be coming back to. For example, if you read Piers plowman, the great 14th century poem, it expressly talks about ordinary people's disgust with the situation that they find themselves in. And you can't actually put this genie back in the bottle. There is this understanding that something has gone wrong here and indeed soon we are also going to lose a more, more of the idea of the Church as a moral arbiter because we get to the great Western schism. Oh, I love it. I, I simply. How many popes would you like? I say at least three. I want the peas in. One pope for you and a pope
- [32:11]
A
for you and a pope for everyone.
- [32:12]
C
I think it's, it's so great. So, which, I mean, I guess we have to talk a little bit about that. It's an interesting one because essentially, you know, in the 14th century, the Papacy is in Avignon. The papacy are in Avignon because Rome, that's a, that's a direct quote about a 14th century Rome. There are rather a lot of civil wars. We have some attempts at creating a new triumvirate. The plague hits Rome really badly, everything is on fire. And the papacy says, you know, I'd really rather not. And I heard, I heard the south of France is lovely at this time of year. So off they go to Avignon and they build a new papal city. Much is made of this because people are saying, well, yeah, okay, though I agree, Rome is on fire and not very good. But you're the clergy, you're not supposed to care about having a nice time. Your comfort actually isn't the most important thing. The most important thing is your connection to this history, to God. And Rome is the site of, you know, all these important martyrs. And indeed, you know, the pope is the bishop of Rome, but that's what he is, right? So everyone is like, yeah, guys, I think that's kind of weird. And everyone spends a lot of the 14th century trying to convince popes to go back to Rome. They eventually do this. The Romans then want a Roman pope very badly. There was a succession of French popes while the popes were in Avignon. And they don't actually get one. They end up getting a Neapolitan pope. But the election of this Neapolitan pope, according to a great number of the cardinals, happened because there are a bunch of Romans outside who were directly threatening their lives. And they elect this new. This new pope, and by all accounts, really terrible guy, physically violent, sometimes will beat a messenger within an inch of his life if this person rubs him the wrong way. So as a result of this, the French cardinals hightail it back to Avignon, and they say that election was moot. The reason that that happened was under duress. And we're going to get to electing a new pope who is, lo and behold, once again, French. And they install him in Avignon. And there you go. The Western schism is born.
- [34:46]
A
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- [37:55]
A
Just what the century needed. You know. There's not enough chaos, is there? Let's chuck in a bit of a religious schism and put that into the mix as well. And I guess, you know, religion was something I wanted to to talk about to bridge the the kind of the 14th and the 15th century too. But just before we get to the end of the 14th century, it's striking as well because in England we've had the deposition of two kings. You know, Edward II and Richard II have lost their crowns and been removed from the line of succession and it's been shifted and altered. We've had John II of France being an English prisoner for a period as well after the, the Battle of Poitiers. And I wonder whether we're seeing a slight weakening of the institution of kingship here or is that maybe stretching that point a bit too far.
- [38:40]
C
I think that we are, because I think that what we are beginning to see is this questioning of how it is that kings are made and who decides on what they are. And now to be fair, England, we're a weird case. Right. We just get rid of kings because we feel like it. Right. That's not normal. Yeah, I don't, don't like that one getting a new one in, you know, but to have a particularly pitched war in France over this is crazy work. You know, like you, that is one of the lodestar kingdoms, you know, in the medieval period there the French specialists would tell you it is the kingdom in the medieval period. You know, I'm, I'm a holy Roman imperialist person. So I'm like that's cute. They think, they think they're big, but you know, they're like those are the two major elements on the continent and certainly in Europe it's the French, it's the Holy Roman Empire. And in the Holy Roman Empire things are different because you elect people, but nobody goes to battle over these things. And now that it is going to battle, that is really crazy. You know, it takes ordinarily a really weird succession crisis in order for there to be a battle. Like in Bohemia we have one in the 14 century because the shi sleds die out. So like our load bearing governments are sort of France in the Holy Roman Empire. And you know, I'm not saying that there was never a war over king. And indeed like in the 14th century Bohemia we have a war over this because the dynasty dies out and so we've got to figure out who's going to be king. But that is because you have an extinct line. That's when you have wars over kingship. It's not just because, you know, the English are feeling kind of uppity today. Incidentally, I support the English claim to the French throne. I, I that it was actually stronger but you know, that's neither here nor there.
- [40:30]
A
Yeah. And so I wanted to use, as I mentioned, I wanted to use religion to kind of bridge the, the two centuries because the increasing impetus for reform is something that kind of links the end of the 14th century with the beginning of the 15th. And so in the late 14th century in England, we particularly have John Wycliffe emerging, demanding the reform of the clergy, pointing out that they've all got far too much money and they're living far too comfortable a life. And that's not what Jes has had preached, that's not what they're supposed to be doing. And I think alongside that in England, we, we see the heresy that what will become known as his heresy, Lollardy, is kind of being harnessed as well for political benefit. So we see people like John of Gaunt hopping onto the, the Lollard cause. Not necessarily, I think, because he believes in religious reform, but because he can make some political capital out of it.
- [41:21]
C
Oh, absolutely. And I mean, he was so real for that, it has to be said. I mean, I'm a Hu at work, but it, you can make political capital out of it because we are seeing, you know, these new pushes for these ideas of reform, these, this idea that, you know, maybe individuals are kind of responsible for their own spiritual well being because how can we rely on the Church? I mean, which, which part of the Church? Right. And this is a very intellectual movement, Lawler. You know, it's inextricably bound up with, with Oxford and the idea's there and it's incredibly popular. And because it is so academic, it takes quite some time for it to be condemned outright. You know, it does end up becoming a heresy, but for a while everyone is just saying, shut up, John, shut up, John. You know, and they, they don't actually do anything about it because it turns out my man was making some points, you know, and it isn't, you know, the things that get him in real trouble in terms of the heresy are ideas like consubstantiation, which indicates that bread is both the body of Christ and bread at the same time. Instead of just being the body of Christ following, you know, the communion process, you, you know, it's intellectual, things like that. And that's what the Church can get him on. They kind of have more trouble with everything else because, yeah, everyone's mad, everyone's mad at the Church, you know.
- [42:53]
A
Yeah, yeah, and he's raising some points and, and as we move over into the 15th century, you know, Wycliffe will eventually be kind of hushed up, silenced a little bit, but it's only, what, 15, 10, 15 years into the, the 15th century that this emerges again kind of on the, the other side of Europe in the Far east with the, the Hussite rebellions led by Jan Hus. Who is saying some very strikingly similar things to Wycliffe. And this is the point, I think, maybe at which we see the Church start to panic. You know, someone saying it once in England is one thing, but this is starting to look a little bit more like a movement now.
- [43:32]
C
Yeah. And I mean, that is, again, the thing that gets Jan Host in trouble is he really likes Wycliffe and the Church says, jan, shut up, Jan. You know, same thing again. And they say, jan, we've condemned all those texts and you have to get rid of them. And he says, no, I won't. These are my emotional support Wycliffe texts. And he's teaching these things at the Prague University. And it's actually the Wycliffe stuff that. That gets him in trouble because they can get. It's such a by the book thing. And granted, he has other and slightly more radical beliefs than. Than John Wycliffe does, but that's what gets him called before the Council of Constance. And, you know, the Council of. Constitutes such a, what a great council. They're trying to deal with the fact that there are too many Popes. They're trying to deal with the fact that. That Janus is converting an entire kingdom to a heresy. You know, they've got a lot on their plate, God bless them. But it really does go to show us how ideas travel in Europe in the late medieval period. You know, we, because we have a Czech empress Mary, the King of England, suddenly you get English texts that come into Bohemia and it turns out that it's really difficult to get ideas out.
- [44:50]
A
Yeah.
- [44:50]
C
Once they get in.
- [44:52]
A
And again, one of the things I think we see in the late medieval period is the idea of what had worked previously in the high medieval period. In particular, the idea of a crusade kind of being misused or overused, you know, now, now anything that. That Rome doesn't like is the subject of a crusade. So Jan Hus says, I'm not sure I quite believe everything that you say in the crusade.
- [45:15]
C
Oh, man, I'll tell you what, it kind of really brings the franchise down, you know, like they're. They're 0 for 7 on Crusades against Bohemia. It's like, buddy, just stop calling them. You're not. You're not gonna win this one. And it gets harder and harder to try to call people into it, because I think there was one thing about using the concept of a crusade when, you know, we're going to the Holy Land, we are going to be doing this big, incredible, interesting deed, and we're going to get hold of Jerusalem. It's another one when you're like Prague. Well I've been there on holiday, you know. Right. You know, because people, people have been there. It's much more difficult to rally your neighbors to go attack their other neighbors. Especially because you're, you're really drawing from a population in Central Europe and they've all been to Prague. They don't like, I'm not gonna go burn it down. What? That's strange, you know.
- [46:13]
A
Yeah, yeah. It's a bit like the Police Academy series of films, isn't it? You know, it starts off incredibly well, seems like a great idea. A couple of sequels that, so that's not too bad. And then it's just gone a little bit it too far and nobody's buying it anymore.
- [46:29]
C
Everyone at Matt Lewis on social media, tell him, get him to explain why the Crusades are like the Police Academy movies in more detail. I want a one to one ranking.
- [46:39]
A
I'll stand by it.
- [46:40]
C
Yeah, that's good, that's really good.
- [46:42]
A
And I guess, you know, as we move through the 15th century, we're going to get some more 100 years war rearing its head again. We get, you know, Henry v in England vs Charles VI in France. Charles VI has all kinds of mental health issues. Henry has lots of internal political issues that he needs to deal with and he falls back on that age old tactic that I don't think has gone away in the world yet today of the way to solve trouble at home is to pick a fight abroad and kind of get, try and get everybody to unite behind you to go and bash somebody else instead. So this kind of reignition of the Hundred Years War around what becomes the Agincourt campaign, 1415, it's actually less to do with Henry V believing that he's the rightful king of France and more to do with the fact that his dad has had what, 13 years of endless trouble. And Henry sees the best way to resolve that as picking a fight abroad. So although we'll call it the extension continuation of the Hundred Years War, probably something a little bit different going on, albeit that France is in a really bad position and, and Henry happens to be very good at this kind of thing.
- [47:51]
C
Yeah, I think Henry has noticed the problems. Right. You know, the, the, the French are just having a terrible time with it. We have the Burgundians and the Armaniacs at each other's throats and you know, it is a really smart time to make a plate for the French throne. Although, how do you feel about this Because I sort of feel like I'm not even sure that. That Henry thought he was going to get the throne. I thought that he was just going. I feel like he thinks that he' more favorable trade positions, he's going to get out of some of his feudal duties to the crown. Again, let's pretend feudalism exists, but it's more like, to me, it seems like he's attempting to renegotiate, not necessarily make a play for the whole thing, but then they kind of accidentally do really well, and it changes the vineyards.
- [48:42]
A
Yeah, I mean, which, which may not be. Which may not be a million miles away from what Edward III was doing. You know, can I negotiate differently from a position of surprise strength? Did Henry V think he would go in and take a few towns in Normandy and force the French to. To renegotiate stuff about Gascony in particular? Did he maybe think he might get his hands on Normandy and that he could, you know, reunite the dukedom of Normandy with England and extend English presence into the. The north of France for a bit? But, yeah, I would probably agree that. I'm not convinced he set off for Agincourt. Although he does it under the guise of claiming that he's the rightful king of France, I'm not sure he ever really thought that he was going to make that stick. And when he gets to the Treaty of Troyes a few years later, at which he is appointed heir to the crown of France, I can almost imagine him thinking, oh, what have I done? Because if this goes wrong, it's a major problem. If this goes right, it's a major problem. How does one king rule two kingdoms like that? And you see the English, you know, almost immediately having this existential crisis about France is, is kind of the premier kingdom is considered more important. It's richer, it's bigger than England. If the king of England becomes the king of France, does England then become subservient to France because he'll identify himself as the king of France? And you see the English beginning to navel gaze about all of this and thinking, I'm not sure this was a really good idea. Henry.
- [50:30]
D
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- [51:02]
C
With Instacart Support is available 247 with Verbo Care. We're here day or night. Night ready whenever you need help. Because a great trip starts with the right support. Yeah. And I mean, I completely agree with them. I think that, that if Henry had actually become the king of France, I think that we would probably be speaking French right now. You know, like, let's think about James the First here in England. You know, what happens is that Scotland becomes more subservient to England. Right. Like he's the king of England and Scotland, not Scotland and England. That that's how that that ends up being. And it's just kind of how cultural hegemony works. Who's got the money, who's got the power? And the French had it, it. So, you know, maybe it's best for, you know, the English nobility that it didn't go the way that they wanted it to. But you know, it not going the way that it wanted it to. You know, I wouldn't say that it calms things down in England.
- [52:23]
A
Well, no, because again, you get continuation of the problem that you had in the 14th century of, of bad kingship. You know, Charles VI is a bad king for reasons that were beyond his control really. But nevertheless it causes problems and, and people have to wonder whether this is a really good way of picking who is going to be in charge of your, your kingdom by accidents of birth. And then England ends up with Henry vi who is equally bad. You know, he's another terrible king who will end up getting deposed not once, but twice.
- [52:57]
C
I mean, imagine.
- [52:57]
A
Yeah. And you know, the failures, the ultimate failures of the Hundred Years War. Because, you know, the English are great at talking about the victories of the Hundred Years War. We won at Crecy and Poitier and Agincourt and they forget to mention all of the times that they lost and the fact that they lost the whole thing altogether. And it's the problems of that, that kind of import, the wars of the Roses back to England, you know, that's a kind of internal reaction to the external failures of the Hundred Years War.
- [53:27]
C
Yeah, I mean, I guess that's how I've always related to it is it's a sort of knock on effect. It has a destabilizing process here as well. Right. And I think for the same reasons that we've been talking about in the 14th century, it's like, well, who are these guys? Right? And do they even understand how to run a kingdom? And yeah, also, we're kind of looking at. Well, I don't know. When you have a king. Yeah, like. Like the French did, who isn't really able to rule because he's experiencing what you and I would consider a mental health crisis. You know, what does that mean? And I mean. Well, you know much more about this than I do, Matt, obviously. I mean, like, for you, what is the real. What's the match that lights the powder keg of the wars of the Roses for you? Is there one causes belli, or what are we looking at here?
- [54:21]
A
I think it's. It's a. A slow progression, I think. I tend to think the wars the Roses started later than most people do. I wouldn't put it till about 1460, really. And I think it's just that, you see Henry vi, his mental health is failing. I think you see him becoming increasingly paranoid. And I think he starts to set up all of these straw men who then start to come to life in his worst nightmare. And he almost creates the crisis that he fears the most. And then it leads to him particularly singling out York as someone he's afraid of as an enemy. And the more he pushes York, the more York, I think, feels forced to push back. And as soon as he pushes back, he looks like everything Henry thought he was. And you've got a huge crisis that becomes a dynastic kind of battle and ends up again. You know, if we thought the 13th. Sorry, the 14th century was bad because we had a couple of kings being deposed, well, here's a whole spate of depositions and replacements and diverting of the line of succession that begins to demonstrate to everybody that crowns simply can't offer stability anymore.
- [55:30]
C
Absolutely. I mean, I often think of the ordinary people in the Hundred Years War and the wars of the Roses, and you would just think that royals and nobles were monsters. You know, all they do is run through your farm, steal your pig, burn things down, and then tax you about it. Right. You know, it's a really. The people have a kind of very romanticized view of what royals and nobles do. But in the 15th century and 14th century, they're a really difficult bunch to get on with. Let's just say that, you know.
- [56:03]
A
Yeah, yeah, I think we can all agree on that. I'm conscious that time is pressing upon us. And one other thing that I did want to talk about in the 15th century is the emergence of the Ottomans and the capture of Constantinople. Because I think we have to see that as a fairly seismic moment in the medieval world as well, don't we?
- [56:20]
C
Oh, absolutely. You know, this is one of the things that medieval historians will bring up if you ask us. When does the medieval period end? You know, it's very vibes based, right? Like we like to have the nice neat date of 476 for when it begins because we say, well, western Rome falls. I think that the fall of Constantinople is kind of. I mean, if we are going to say there's one thing that does it, I feel like that's, that's nice and neat, isn't it? It's like, well, if you no longer have eastern Rome either, then I'm sorry, you're not in the medieval period anymore. There's no Romes at all other than the Holy Roman Empire, obviously, which counts. Shut up everyone. But I think that it makes a really huge difference existentially, you know, to the idea of Christendom, to the idea of what is controlled by whom. And certainly that's what we're seeing people write about at the time. They really do feel like this is intensely meaningful.
- [57:20]
A
Yeah, it's almost the inversion of previous crusading experiences for the, for Christian Europe as well, isn't it? Now you've got Muslims coming into Europe and taking what has long been Christian lands. And you know, the Ottoman Empire will endure for centuries after that. It's not a flash in the pan. It's a very serious moment. And I think you're right that, you know, that is a moment that we can see a serious change that perhaps brings to an end the medieval world, although obviously gone medieval, is going to hang onto it for a few more decades after this.
- [57:54]
C
And also we will not stop talking about things.
- [57:58]
A
Absolutely not.
- [57:58]
C
Never listen. Okay, So I think that we can do so for me, like as a bohemianist, I also kind of think that it's like, I would say the end of the Hussite wars for me. I'm like, okay, well we're done now. That's the end of it.
- [58:13]
A
If you burn Jan Hust, it's over.
- [58:15]
C
That's it. I will be so mad every day I'm thinking about my boy. But what do you think about the argument that the Reconquista is another one of these, these points?
- [58:29]
A
Yeah, I mean, 1492 is kind of an interesting one, isn't it? In that we get Ferdinand and Isabella kind of bringing to an end this centuries and centuries long effort to drive the Muslims out of the south of the Iberian Peninsula, and to kind of re. Christianize the whole peninsula and create what we would recognize today as Spain and Portugal on that peninsula. So that's a real seismic shift. You know, only a few decades after Constantinople has fallen to the Ottomans, you've got Iberia being taken back by the Christians and the Muslims being driven out. And at the same time, you've got them then finding they have the freedom to invest in things like the age of exploration. They will literally hire some random Italian sailor called Columbus and send him off to go and find a passage to the. The trade routes in the east that doesn't involve having to go across land which isn't necessarily the. The friendliest. So you see the end of that, the end of the Reconquista kind of coinciding with his freedom to do something else that leads to a radical change in the world.
- [59:36]
C
Oh, absolutely. And I think that for me, that's another one of the big ones. By the time you are reaching the Americas, we are not medieval any longer. That. That's done. And, you know, and I do kind of think one of the hallmarks of the medieval period is this Islamic presence on the Iberian peninsula. And yeah, okay, you can go ahead and say anything you want about the Visigoths who controlled the Iberian peninsula before them, but also, name me one Visigothic thing. You know, everyone is like, longing for this Christian period. The Iberian Peninsula, Switzerland. I'm like the Visigothic kingdoms. I mean, like, no shade against my boy is your door of Seville. I love his fake etymologies, but, like, what are we pining for here, guys? Like, let's. Let's be so honest. Right? But that makes a really big difference. And I think also, you know, if we are looking further east, you know, outside of Europe, I think that we're seeing in Japan another one of Yona's pet interests. We're seeing pretty seismic shifts in. In the way things are ruled, wouldn't you say?
- [60:45]
A
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you've lived in Japan for a while, which I'm incredibly jealous of. I got to do lots of Japan stuff for. For Echoes of History, for the. The Assassin's Creed Shadows game. And I found it absolutely fascinating. So they're. They're in a period loosely called kind of feudal Japan, the Sengoku era, the Warring States period. Call it what you will, but this is a point at which Japan is. Is kind of looking to. To redefine itself. And. And I think, if anything, the. The big change for Japan comes almost a century after what we're talking about it's the, the very end of the 16th century and the very beginning of the 17th century when Japan is unified. And you can almost see medieval Japan enduring until then. You know, medieval Japan is a. A very Western construct. I guess it's not a way that Japanese history identifies itself. But the change in Japan comes kind of almost a century after the dates that we've been talking about for. For Europe, which I guess just speaks again to the thing we've spoken about before. The difficulty of applying any of this periodization across any kind of large geographic area. You know, things happen in different places at different times. And you might think in the medieval age ends with the fall of Constantinople. You might think it ends with the end of the Reconquista. You might think it ends. I mean, the very Anglocentric view has long been it ends at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, which seems kind of. Of crazy. You can push it around as far as you like. And I think if you head to places like Japan, you can push it another century if you wanted to. I think by the time we're getting across to. To The Americas in 1492 is seeing a big, big change for civilizations there too, because of the arrival of Europeans who aren't going to be very friendly to the people that they find there. So there are, there are things that are changing at the same time in the world, but there are also things that are changing at very different rates and at very different times.
- [62:42]
C
Oh, absolutely. You know, and that is the trouble with periodization as an idea. And, you know, indeed, both you and I struggle with this. Right. Because we both have research interests that drag into the early modern period. You know, because of my research interests, you know, I'm quite interested in the witch persecutions, but those are technically early modern. Right. And I say, oh, yeah, but you've got to look at what the circumstances are in the 15th century or you won't understand why everyone has just lost their minds in the 17th century. Right. You know, you have to, you have to trace these things through. And so for historians, yeah, we can kind of come up, I guess, with some rough and ready descriptions of what this all means. But, you know, none of this is ever going to be perfect. These are supposed to just be shorthands that are going to make things more understandable. And unfortunately, if you look at them, it makes them even less understandable, I think.
- [63:42]
A
Yeah, yeah. And I mean, I was trying to think of what it is that I would say brings to an end the medieval Period and what flips the switch over to being early modern. And I think as we've just been talking about, you know, it's really hard to pin it on one thing. So I was just coming up with an ever increasing list and it included things like the age of, of, of exploration, the emergence of the printing press. You know, that will be a revolutionary change at the end of the medieval period. The, the increased use of gunpowder, weapons will change the face of warfare. The emergence of more recognizable nation states with kind of a machinery of government that is beginning to change. The, the corruption, the crumbling of feudalism and the, the desire to end serfdom. Also all of those religious tensions. You know, I, I quite often think about the medieval period being the, the complete ascendancy of the Roman Church and that is breaking. And we're seeing those heresies that we've talked about eventually lead to Martin Luther. You know, Martin Luther is viewed as the completion of Jan Hussy's work and Jan Hus is building on John Wycliffe's work. So I, I find it really hard to think. I can't think of a date that's the perfect end to the medieval period everywhere. And I can't even think of a, a thing that causes the end of the medieval period everywhere. I've got a long list of things, but I can't pin it down to one.
- [65:07]
C
Yeah, I, I agree with you. You know what I tend to say, my flippant answer is if you see Protestants, you've gone too far. I know that, that, that tends to be the answer because by the time we have a group of people who are referred to as Protestants, it's over. Right. Because we know that by this point in time, Constantinople has fallen, you know, the Hussites have taken Bohemia, we have, the age of exploration has kicked off. You know, all of these things happen. And I do think the kind of hegemony of one overarching form of Christianity, you know, which also downplays the importance of orthodoxy. I'm not saying that. But in Western Europe that does make a difference. You know, we have a now splintering of society and we're going to have to imagine new, new ways to run governments. Because listen, if the Pope isn't the police of the kings, then what are we doing here? You know, and that is going to be one of the, the huge questions that we come up against in the early modern period.
- [66:09]
A
Yeah, well, I think across these three episodes, I think the thing I'm clinging to is the fact that the medieval period is just so completely fascinating because it's so different. It's a millennium in which you can view, in some ways, not very much changes, especially if you're an ordinary peasant working in your field. And yet the early medieval period, the high Medieval period, and the late Medieval period are so different. They're so distinct. There is so many different things going on there that you can't just lump it all together and call it the Medieval period, because that ceases to make sense then. So. So I guess what I'm clinging to at the end of this episode, in which we've been so uncertain about where the medieval period might end, is it that's part of its fascination.
- [66:56]
C
Oh, absolutely. You know, it's the. The annoying historian's answer that we always give, which is, it's more complicated than that. Right. And there is nothing that shows that more than really trying to break down the medieval period. And, you know, I do. I do think that someone who lives in 550 probably has more in common with someone who lives in 1312, you know, than otherwise, but someone who lives in 1312 has more in common with someone who lives in 1650, you know, so it is very. It's a very complex thing, and we are just sort of using it in order to explain a really difficult era of history. And I think that's what all medieval historians love about medieval people. They're really, really different to us, but still recognizable. You know, they've got these human interests and emotions and things that push them forward, but they're living in a really different context, and that's what makes it fun.
- [67:58]
A
Yeah. Yeah. And I think the key takeaway for me about periodization is that, you know, it's an utterly imperfect system, but we have to put things in a box. And the box might be a bit battered, and it might not quite be the right shape for the things we're trying to put in it all the time, but it's somehow helpful to store those things on a box on a shelf. It's easier than just having it scattered all around the floor, everywhere. So periodization is kind of an imperfect answer to a problem, but maybe the best one that we have at the moment.
- [68:27]
C
Listen, for now, we are keeping the box until we can afford some better storage mechanism. If anyone write in, if you have ideas of what to replace the box works with.
- [68:39]
A
Yeah, that would be great. Well, thank you so much for joining me again, Elena. I. I love doing these episodes with you. It's always a joy to talk to you and to. To thrash out these ideas and to to chew the cud with you. I absolutely adore it. Thank you very very much for for joining me for this episode and I look forward to the next time that I will get to speak to you.
- [69:01]
C
Absolutely. You are welcome to Trident. Hide out in my tower anytime.
- [69:06]
A
Fabulous. Thank you so much Ella.
- [69:08]
C
Thank you.
- [69:10]
A
You can find those episodes on the early and high medieval periods in our back catalogue, along with episodes on the Hundred Years War, the Black Death, Agincourt, the Wars of the Roses, and several of the other events that we've mentioned during this chat. There are new installments of Gone Medieval every Tuesday and Friday, so please come back to join Elena 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 and tell all of your friends and family that you've gone medieval. You can also sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a new release every week@historyhit.com subscribe anyway, I better let you go. I've been Matt Lewis and we've just Gone medieval with History Hit.
- [70:17]
D
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- [70:18]
C
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D
Was she brave?
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C
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D
Was it scary?
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- [70:40]
D
Okay, good story.
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C
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D
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