Plague, famine and chivalry: a human history of the 14th century

Summary

History Extra Podcast Summary: "Plague, Famine and Chivalry: A Human History of the 14th Century"

Release Date: June 3, 2025
Host: Immediate Media
Featured Historian: Emily Briffet

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Introduction

In the episode titled "Plague, Famine and Chivalry: A Human History of the 14th Century," historian Emily Briffet delves into one of the most tumultuous periods in English history. Presented by Immediate Media on the History Extra podcast, this episode explores the intricate lives of three English monarchs—Edward II, Edward III, and Richard II—and examines how plague, famine, and evolving concepts of chivalry reshaped society in the 14th century.

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Edward II: A Tumultuous Reign

Start of Edward II’s Reign ([03:35])

Emily Briffet begins by setting the stage with the transition of power from Edward I to Edward II in 1307. She describes Edward II's ascension as a daunting task, especially in the shadow of his formidable predecessor, known as the "Hammer of the Skull" or "Longshanks." Unlike Edward I, Edward II lacked military prowess and political acumen, focusing instead on his personal relationships within the court.

"Edward II was just not the same man as his father. He didn't really have the taste for war. He didn't have political nous." ([03:49])

Destabilizing Power Structures ([05:59])

Briffet explains how Edward II's favoritism towards Piers Gaveston destabilized established power hierarchies. By elevating Gaveston to positions of power, Edward II undermined traditional nobility, leading to significant political unrest.

"When you start handing out power to people that are just your favorite people, that's going to be a real problem." ([05:59])

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The Wheel of Fortune: Metaphor for Unpredictability

Metaphor Explanation ([07:14])

The episode introduces the "Wheel of Fortune" as a metaphor to illustrate the volatile nature of 14th-century politics. This concept reflects the rapid shifts in power, where nobles could swiftly ascend to prominence or fall into disgrace.

"One moment you're at the top of the wheel and then the goddess Fortuna turns, and then you're crushed beneath its spokes." ([07:14])

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Opposition and Civil Strife

From Gaveston to Despenser ([08:31])

Following Gaveston's downfall, Edward II turns to Hugh Despenser the Younger for support, further exacerbating tensions. Despenser's greed and ambition lead to increased oppression and eventual civil war between loyalist factions and rebel nobles, culminating in the eventual beheading of Thomas of Lancaster.

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Isabella of France: A Power Shift ([12:34])

Emily Briffet highlights Queen Isabella's pivotal role in overthrowing Edward II. Initially a dutiful queen, Isabella's alliance with Roger Mortimer marks a dramatic shift as she invades England, leading to Edward II's deposition and the rise of Edward III.

"Isabella brings an army over to England and she invades. And this is all the turning point for Edward and his power then completely starts to crumble." ([12:37])

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Edward III and the Age of Chivalry

Establishing Order and Chivalry ([15:23])

Edward III's reign is portrayed as an era of renewed hope and chivalric valor. By founding the Order of the Garter and promoting tournaments, Edward III fostered a sense of national identity and martial excellence.

"Another important thing that he does is he rehashes it into this equally very pious state of being." ([15:32])

The Hundred Years War ([18:05])

Briffet touches upon the origins of the Hundred Years War, emphasizing Edward III's claim to the French throne and the ensuing battles, including the significant Battle of Crecy and the Siege of Calais.

"Edward wanted to be sovereign of England, but also France, part of France." ([18:05])

Warfare and Its Atrocities ([19:57])

While Edward III is celebrated for his military successes, Briffet does not shy away from discussing the brutal realities of war during this period, including widespread destruction and atrocities committed by English forces in France.

"He does not want women to be raped and children killed and people be tortured. Of course he didn't want that." ([19:57])

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Social Catastrophes: Famine and the Black Death

Impact of Famine ([24:32])

The episode delves into the devastating famine that preceded the Black Death, highlighting severe agricultural failures and their catastrophic effects on the population.

"There was a lot that went on, two regicides as well. So I think it's reasonable that it has been called the calamitous century." ([03:35])

The Black Death ([25:38])

Briffet provides a comprehensive overview of the Black Death's profound impact, detailing mortality rates, societal upheaval, and the psychological toll on survivors. She emphasizes that the Black Death was not a singular event but a recurring series of outbreaks that deeply scarred medieval society.

"Immeasurably. I mean, it completely turned the world upside down." ([25:38])

Human Responses and Societal Changes ([27:41])

Through vivid descriptions and references to literary works like Boccaccio's Decameron, Briffet illustrates how individuals and communities grappled with fear, loss, and attempts to find meaning amidst widespread death.

"It's the historical record that we rely on to give us the facts of what history ends up being." ([48:17])

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Richard II: The Fragile Monarch

Early Reign and Vulnerability ([37:56])

Richard II's ascension as a child king exposed England to unprecedented vulnerabilities. Briffet explores how his perceived innocence and lack of preparedness contributed to political instability and his eventual downfall.

"He couldn't cope through adolescence and age and responsibility because he had not been equipped for it." ([40:04])

The Peasants Revolt ([40:09])

The discussion covers the 1381 Peasants Revolt, framing it not merely as a peasant uprising but as a broader social movement involving various classes demanding fair treatment and resisting oppressive taxation.

"The Black Death actually really is the initiator of the Peasants Revolt." ([40:09])

Downfall and Aftermath ([43:14])

Richard II's inability to effectively rule and his retreat into intellectual and artistic pursuits contributed to his loss of power, leading to his eventual overthrow.

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Power Dynamics in the 14th Century

Community of Power ([43:30])

Briffet synthesizes the reigns of Edward II, Edward III, and Richard II to illustrate how power was deeply intertwined with established hierarchies and the support of the nobility. Effective rule required a delicate balance between personal authority and noble alliances.

"Power relied hugely on community of power." ([43:30])

Varied Approaches to Kingship

• Edward II: His willingness to delegate power disrupted traditional structures, leading to instability.
• Edward III: Leveraged chivalric ideals and military prowess to consolidate power, though not without ethical compromises.
• Richard II: His detachment and idealistic pursuits weakened his authority, making his reign precarious.

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Humanity Behind the Crown

Emotional Depths of Monarchs ([46:01])

Emily Briffet emphasizes the human aspects of these monarchs, exploring their personal struggles, relationships, and psychological complexities. This humanization provides a nuanced understanding of their actions and decisions.

"They were human beings who had deep love. The relationship between Edward II and Piers Gaveston ... was a relationship of deep love." ([46:01])

Understanding History Through Humanity

Briffet argues that recognizing the human experiences behind historical events enriches our understanding of the past, moving beyond mere dates and facts to appreciate the emotions and motivations that shaped history.

"Human experiences are what makes history... It's a history of humanity because that is what his historians we write about." ([48:17])

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Conclusion

The 14th century in England was a period marked by profound upheaval, from political strife and social revolutions to devastating plagues and the rise of chivalric ideals. Through the detailed exploration of monarchs Edward II, Edward III, and Richard II, Emily Briffet presents a vivid tableau of a society grappling with power, survival, and identity. By focusing on the human elements behind historical events, the episode underscores the enduring relevance of understanding history as a tapestry of individual and collective experiences.

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This episode's write-up is featured in the June 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine.

Transcript

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[Helen Carr]

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[Emily Briffet]

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[Emily Briffet]

Dip it in your McFlurry. Your dip is your business. McCrispy strips at McDonald's this Father's Day helped dad be all he can be with a gift from the Home Depot. Because he's not just dad, he's the handyman of the house, the plumber in a pinch and the emergency mechanic. Upgrade his gear this Father's Day with The Husky Mechanics 270 piece tool set from the Home Depot. Now on Special buy for $119. A $695 value for every kind of dad. Find the perfect gift this Father's Day at the Home Depot. Welcome to the History Extra Podcast. Fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine. Plague, war, regicide, famine, revolt, the 14th century turned the world on its head for those living in England. In her new book, Septidile, historian Helen Card charts this turbulent period through the lives of three very different monarchs, each with their own idea of what it meant to wield power. Exploring the humanity of those behind the crown, she speaks to Emily Briffet to shed new light on this pivotal era of English history and the people who lived through it.

[Helen Carr]

Now we're here to talk all about your new book, Scepterdial. It's all about the 14th century. It's a new history, a human history of the 14th century. But the 14th century has often been dubbed the calamitous 14th century. Why has it got such a bad reputation?

[Emily Briffet]

Well, I think it's fair to say that some pretty bad things did happen in the 14th century. I mean, the greatest human catastrophe, the Black Death, happened in the 14th century. That was also a period of famine, two major wars. There was a lot that went on, two regicides as well. So I think it's reasonable that it has been called the calamitous century, in that it was a century jam packed full of calamity. And it was called that because there was a very famous book written by Barbara tuckman about the 14th century that she really actually only covers just before the Black Death and then into the end of the century. But that's where this idea of it being calamitous comes from, because her book was called the calamitous 14th century.

[Helen Carr]

Now, your book begins with the death of Edward I in 1307 and the start of the reign of Edward II. Can you describe the world that Edward II walks into with the death of his father and predecessor?

[Emily Briffet]

So filling the shoes of Edward I is a monumental job for Edward ii. I mean, he was the famous hammer of the skull. He was famous for being tall and fierce. He was called Longshanks. He was an intimidating figure, and he was a king that people didn't really want to mess with. He started a war with Scotland, although in his mind he would probably say they started the war with him and he was as close to any monarch in England, had really come to being King of all of the Isles. So Great Britain as we know it today. He spent the latter part of his reign trying to conquer Scotland and obviously had some opposition with very famous figures like William Wallace and then later Robert Bruce. Edward II was just not the same man as his father. He didn't really have the taste for war. He didn't have political nous. He was far more interested in the interworkings of his own court, his particular relationship with his favorite courtiers, namely Piers Gaveston. And I think his father probably knew this, and he was likely deeply concerned about his son's accession to the throne. And I think what he really wanted was Edward to take on this mantle, hammer Scotland. And he just really was doomed to fail from the word go. And he very much did fail in that task. And one of the key moments just after the death of Edward I, Edward II dashes north because Edward I died whilst en route to Scotland on campaign. He comes north and one of his first acts is to promote Piers Gaveston, his favorite, as the Earl of Cornwall, which is sort of elevating him to a hierarchical standard of, say, a member of the royal family. It's quite an extraordinary act. And he was so fresh to the role. He didn't even have his own seal, he had to use his father's.

[Helen Carr]

It really sets the scene for his reign. It's so often considered a really tumultuous reign, that of Edward ii. How were accepted power structures, social stability? How are they thrown off balance?

[Emily Briffet]

This really interesting question, because the thing about kingship, and it's maybe not something that we can comprehend as much as a modern society, is that this hierarchy, it did also create a sense of stability. You had the king at the top, he was God's representative on earth, and then you had the members of the nobility that came beneath him. So you always had this power at the top, the higher power, and then everybody knew their place below that. And the problem is with Edward II is that he wanted to share his power. When you start handing out power to people that are just your favorite people, that's going to be a real problem. And so that causes all sorts of rifts and political destabilization. And so there is a massive problem that emerges quite quickly in the reign of Edward ii, in that he basically crushes this existing power structure by promoting people like Piers Gaveston.

[Helen Carr]

And, of course, he then faces massive opposition. It's at this point in your book that you introduce the really popular 14th century motif, the wheel of fortune. Why is this such a good metaphor for this stage in Edward II's reign and for the 14th century as a whole? I guess.

[Emily Briffet]

I think it's a really interesting metaphor for life, and it's something I think that we can all identify with even now. I mean, we all go through undulations of positive things happening and then something really negative. That's how medieval people saw the wheel of fortune. One moment you're at the top of the wheel and then the goddess Fortuna turns, and then you're crushed beneath it spokes. It is a case within the first part of the 14th century, in the first 25 years or so, that it was a real twist and turn of power. One minute you had a great nobleman who was seemingly at the top of his game, and then the next minute he's there on the scaffold and he's about to be executed. And it's a. Where people are grappling for power and it really does emerge, as you were just saying, with Edward starting to give his power away. Because that's at the point where his queen, Isabella of France, decides that she's no longer accepting the way that Edward is handing away his power, so she invades England with an army. It's the moment where a king can be toppled from power and be crushed under the spokes of the wheel of fortune, just as his nobleman could be.

[Helen Carr]

So tell us more about this opposition to Edward ii.

[Emily Briffet]

So, initially, Edward promotes his friend Piers Gaveston, and Gaveston becomes incredibly, incredibly popular with Edward, incredibly popular in his immediate circle of friends. And he gives power to Gaveston. For example, he goes off to collect his queen from France before her coronation and to marry her, Isabella, who is the daughter of the King of France. And he leaves Gaveston as Custos Regni, which is effectively regent of England, which really a job that should have gone to someone like Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, who is within the royal family. He has royal blood pulsing through his veins. But no, Edward's not going to do that. And so that's a real problem. That starts the initial issue with people having real beef with Edward ii. And then Gaveston becomes more of a problem to the nobility, because he's always there. He's like a thorn in their side. He's just kind of irritating and he's rude and he doesn't respect any of the nobility. He makes up all these funny nicknames for them and he's. And you can kind of imagine him and Edward II giggling together in private and not really taking anything particularly seriously. And Gaveston comes to a very sticky end. And that's when things get really serious. Cause it tips from political unrest to literal backstabbing. Gaveston goes through a show trial, he's captured, and then he gets beheaded. And Edward is obviously completely beside himself. He's devastated. But at that point, he realizes he needs to sort of step back a bit and start doing as he's told. He doesn't like that very much. And as soon as somebody else comes in and steps into the position that Gaveston was in, who's saying, hang on a minute, you're King, you can get your power back, let me help you. And that is, in this case, through a much more dangerous individual with Hugh Despenser the Younger, who is another powerful nobleman at the time, and he eventually emerges to be sitting on the shoulder of the king and whispering into his ear. And Edward does everything that dispenser wants him to do, and. And Despenser is an Incredibly dangerous individual. He is incredibly avaritic. He's a greedy, greedy man and he will not stop at anything to gain levels of power that he thinks he is entitled to. And all of this results in what becomes a civil war. So you have the Earl of Lancaster in one faction with a group of powerful nobles, particularly those from the Welsh borders, and then you've got Edward and Despenser. It's not particularly long lasting. Edward and de Spencer do actually succeed and they are victorious. And then, classic case of the wheel of fortune turning again. Thomas of Lancaster, who was once at the top, is then at the bottom and of course, he is then beheaded, much like Edward's dear friend Piers Gaveston. But Despenser is so bad, he's this incredibly ambitious individual. He will not stop at anything. And one of his favorite things to do is snatch land from women. And so he goes on this absolute mission to take as much land from wealthy widows as possible. And he doesn't stop there. He also tries to take land from the Queen. Isabella, understandably, is not very happy about this. And so she is given the opportunity to go to France. She goes there on a diplomatic mission for Edward. And up until this point, Isabella has played her part with aplomb. She does everything she's told to do. Something happens when she's at the court and she famously meets up with Roger Mortimer and a plan is hatched. Isabella decides she's not going to come back. And there's this exchange of fiery letters that go across the channel between Isabella and the King. And the Pope gets involved and she says, I'm not coming back because you have a Pharisee within his immediate circle. And she's basically pointing the finger at Hugh Despense the Younger. And she knows that if she's going to come back and be safe, Despenser has to go. And so Isabella brings an army over to England and she invades. And this is all the turning point for Edward and his power then completely starts to crumble.

[Helen Carr]

So Isabella's invading. What next?

[Emily Briffet]

Isabella is incredibly interesting because she gets this real taste of power alongside her lover, Roger Mortimer, and she invades and she manages to overthrow Dispenser. I don't think the intention was always to overthrow Edward. I think that becomes something clear to her during the invasion. It's something she has to do. But the important thing for Isabella is she has something very, very powerful in her arsenal, and that is her eldest son, the future Edward iii. And so when it becomes abundantly clear that Edward is not going to be able to continue his kingship. Because the problem is, if you get rid of dispenser and kill dispenser, it's like whack a mole. There's gonna be somebody else who and is like, oh, let me help you get your power back to Edward II again. And then who is on the block? So she's very aware of this, but what she has is the heir to the throne. And so, for the first time in history, Edward is deposed and his son becomes effectively the next ruler of England, even though there is a brief period where Edward is still alive at some point, Edward is killed, he's likely murdered, and he was replaced by his son, Edward iii. But the thing is, for Edward, he's quite young at this point. He's a teenager. He's recently married to Philippa of Hainault. He has some power, but he's not able to exercise it even though he's king, because his mother as regent refuses to let it go. And she's there with Mortimer and they become this sort of power couple. But they become increasingly toxic. They become so obsessed with their own power, they start to panic, that is, somebody is going to take it away from them. They start to fear everyone around them and it becomes another wave of a bloodbath akin to the reign of Edward ii, until Edward III decides to take power back in the only way he possibly can. And that's through a coup. And he manages to overthrow Mortimer and his mother in one fell swoop in a very dramatic episode in Nottingham Castle. But he knows that he has to change the way that the country is run if he's going to be a successful king. He's very clever. He's watched what has happened as he's grown up. He's watched his father sort of grappling for power, completely unable to regain it. And he knows that the best way to do this is to unite the nobility. It's to recreate this power structure that has been lost. But what Edward does very effectively is creates a nightly fraternity. It's kind of like a big lads cat where they all love him, he's top dog, he's fun, he's like, let's do jousts, let's have lots of tournaments, let's do the things that we do really well and make it a big practice for the art of war. And this starts the age of chivalry.

[Helen Carr]

It's so often seen as this age of new hope. It's heralded as such. Can you dive into this a bit more? Why was this the case.

[Emily Briffet]

So Edward was very effective at making war a popular and national incentive. And it was kind of like the glory years of the English nobility. It was the point where he's starting to make tournaments a very attractive proposition. It's kind of like the age of the celebrity. The best way to visualize this and think about it is hark back to that brilliant movie that's completely correct in every way. A Knight's Tale. Obviously there's lots that's wrong with it, but I think it's really nails this sense of jubilance, the sense of a growing national identity, the importance of making war look glamorous and look fun. It's, you know, the celebrities in the tilt, they're jousting in tournaments, dressed in their armor and their finery, with all of their shields and their heralds, and that's exactly how it was. Another important thing that he does is he rehashes it into this equally very pious state of being. We'll come to the Order of the Garter because this is like the pinnacle of this. The closest thing you could probably compare it to would be the templars. He creates St. George as the patron saint of England. He's a dragon slaying, armor clad hero. And he does this as well with King Arthur. Windsor Castle becomes the major seat of his kingship and it was compared to Camelot. He creates these tournaments which he calls round tables. And so you would have knights from across the realm coming and competing in this round table. And actually he was compared to Arthur. His contemporaries called him Arthur Redivus, which means Arthur reborn. They did think that he was a new hope for England. And of course this is very successful, as he proves in 1330 when he, he puts his money where his mouth is and he goes to war and he does that in Scotland and he reclaims English authority in Scotland. He recaptures Berwick Castle, which is this incredibly important fortress on the Scottish borders. And then he has the Battle of Haladon Hill, which is against the Scots. He eliminates his opposition and he is incredibly successful. And this is all just a prequel to the big war, the Hundred Years War that he starts only a few years later.

[Helen Carr]

This is an era ravaged by war. England has been rocked by conflicts. Can you tell us more about the start of the Hundred Years War?

[Emily Briffet]

In a nutshell, it was all over Gascony, which is a pocket of land that England kind of owned in France, but it wasn't quite English. The English were still vassals to the French king. The men in the 14th century. Who in positions of power, had great ego too, funnily enough. And they always. Every English king up until this point was always avoided having to go and pay homage to the French king. It's kind of akin to saying, you're in charge, you are my overlord. And acknowledging that. And Edward didn't want to do this anymore, to put it very, very briefly. And he refused to do this. He refused to pay homage for Gascony. He said, no, we want to hold it independent of the French crown, wanted these lands, Gascony and Aquitaine, which is this portion around the south of France. And so the Hundred Years War started over this dispute over land in Gascony. There was a lot of other things in the lead up to it. It's quite dull to go into in detail. So Edward wanted to be sovereign of England, but also France, part of France. And he did this by claiming that he was the rightful king of France by rights of his mother, who was Isabella of France. She was the daughter of Philip iv. After the death of her brother, Edward claimed that he was the rightful king of France. And Philip vi, who was the first of the Valois kings, was like, no, I'm the rightful king of France. And, I mean, it's quite a claim if you think about it. Edward's ego is showing itself in pure form here. And so that's how the Hundred Years War started. And the first major battle of the Hundred Years War took place. It was a naval battle took place in 1340, the Battle of Sluys. And then the famous battles that came thereafter was, of course, the Battle of Crecy, the Siege of Calais, and then the Battle of Poitiers later, at which point the King of France was captured.

[Helen Carr]

How did war play out in France during this time then?

[Emily Briffet]

So it's interesting. I feel like there's a real high low to the reign of Edward III when you think about chivalry and war. And he really did employ these chivalric qualities and the chivalric ethos when he took it to France on campaign with his armies. And the thing is about chivalry is it applies to the nobility. It didn't really apply to the people who were living in France. And France was the stage in which the Hundred Years War played out. Apart from the coastline, England didn't really suffer. And so Edward brought repeated armies on multiple campaigns into France, and he conducted what became known as the Chevachet. The Chevachet was probably one of the most brutal acts of war committed during the Middle Ages. We consider war crimes today. So it was fast moving troops of men on horseback who would move through the French countryside, through towns and villages and destroy them. And the people would often be victims. They would, if they put up any resistance, they would be killed. Women were raped, people were tortured. Edward did not want women to be raped and children killed and people be tortured. Of course he didn't want that. I don't believe that that was something he sanctioned at all. In fact, there were penalties for that. But he could not control his army in the same way as armies acting today. Rape, torture, the killing of innocents is an appalling atrocity, but it is warfare. And it looked like that in the 14th century too. It's often been glamorized, this idea of these armies coming over in their plate armor and it's all very dramatic and with their swords and Crecy and for England and St George. But it's often forgotten that with that, people's homes were destroyed, their very existence destroyed, their families were wiped out. Petrarch was traveling through France during the Hundred Years War, slightly later than Edward's first campaign. But he talked about a country that was blackened by war. So this is literally a country that has been set alight. It's a country that was impoverished by war. It was appalling what the English did in France and at the behest of Edward iii. And he's often been called the greatest king. I don't think this is great. I think it's quite atrocious, actually. And they have famous battles like the Battle of Crecy, of course, in which he famously won. And everyone talks about how England were at the disadvantage, but look, they won over the French. Isn't that wonderful? And they did. But they left all of the Frenchmen apart from the nobility, and threw them into pits at the end of the battle. These are sort of, you know, mass burials of French men who were just protecting their homeland as feudal vassals to the lords they served, the lords that were given a proper burial, but they weren't. There's not a lot of humanity in that. And then later he goes on to Calais and there's the famous Siege of Calais which he creates and builds this whole town, Brave New Town as it was called, Le Villeneuve de Hardy. Brave New Town for his English soldiers to live in his fortification outside the walls of Calais. And the people inside Calais, over a period of about a year began to starve. And people being forced to eat rats and vermin. They say unclean things. The French king wouldn't come to help them because he had just lost his whole force at Crecy, so he really had nothing to play with. And eventually they surrendered. And there's this remarkable and poignant and very affecting moment where the burghers of Calais, these are the leading men of the town, come out and they ceremonially hand over the keys of the town to Edward iii. And they come out with nooses around their necks to say, we acknowledge that you are now going to kill us. And it's only apparently at the desperate request of the pregnant Philippa of Hainault that she says, please show these men mercy. It's not the success and the victory of Edward III that is memorialized and immortalized in this event. It's the bravery and the humanity of these men emerging from Calais. It's those moments when we think about warfare in the 14th century, we don't really think about yet. They're so important, and they do endure.

[Helen Carr]

It's so important to get those glimpses of that humanity, of that suffering. There's another calamity that occurs in the mid 14th century, and that's famine. What impact did this have?

[Emily Briffet]

The famine was an appalling situation, which often gets overshadowed by the Black Death. But the famine was pretty bad as well, and it affected all of northern Europe. And it was a period of time where it just constantly rained, nobody could plant anything. And then after there was no harvest for something appalling three years in a row, there was a moraine, as they called it, a moraine of cattle and a moraine of livestock. So they were losing sheep and cattle. People's entire livelihoods were wiped out by famine. There' sort of ceasing to exist because of famine. It preceded the Black Death, but it had a very similar impact on the poor. Prices were inflating to extraordinary levels. And so for the rich, they were always able to pay. But for the poor, that just became impossible to do because the price of grain rose up so much. And there was things they did try to cap it, but it didn't really work, unfortunately. It was just a case of waiting for the harvest to improve before things started to level out again.

[Helen Carr]

And also, we need to talk about the Black Death. How did the Black Death change the fabric of society in the 14th century?

[Emily Briffet]

Immeasurably. I mean, it completely turned the world upside down. 50 to 60% of the population were killed by the Black Death. More of the poor were wiped out than the wealthy, but it still killed the wealthy. I mean, the king and the queen lost three children to the Black Death. Over the course of time. And what's really important to remember about the Black Death is it wasn't just one wave. It wasn't just the 1348 that was the most virulent, but it was not the last. And this went on and on and on into the 17th century. And it came from around the Kazakhstan region and it traveled through trade. And they think that it actually originated with marmots and in marmot fur. And they contained the bacteria Yersinia pestis, which was something that was not compatible with human beings. And what happened was, because the marmots were the marmots, bacteria was existing within the grain sacks of the Mongol hordes. The rats were then starting to become infected with it, and they were existing in the grain. The grain was transported through Genoa and through into Italy. And then, you know, it just spreads. It goes through the Silk Roads and it becomes impossible to stop. And I think what's really interesting about the Black Death, I mean, there's been so much work done about where it comes from. But for me, like all the history, what interests me is emotions and how people responded to this, how people moved through the world when there was so much death and grief and loss around them. And I think something that, when we think about death in the past, that it was so potent, it was something that happened all the time, that people were in some way became immune to it. And I just don't think that was the case. From the evidence that is available, I think that people lost and grieved and they suffered in the same way as we would now. We are just very blessed that we don't have to go through that.

[Helen Carr]

This is obviously majorly catastrophic. It's difficult to imagine what it must have been like. How close can we get to people's reactions to this?

[Emily Briffet]

It's very difficult. In Italy, you have Boccaccio's Decameron, which does give some idea as to how people responded. Even though it's a fictional volume of 100 stories, which. Talking about how people responded in all sorts of weird and wonderful ways. I mean, that is fiction. But at the very beginning, Boccaccio does talk about how people physically responded to the Black Death. And you do get a sense of the fear in that. And there are all sorts of sources that emerge from the east all the way through to the West. As to talking about the initial wave of plague and what it did and fear, people seeking remedies in the papacy, in Avignon, which was the a hub for medicine and exploration, they were trying to understand what was happening? Where did this come from? How can we stop it? People did understand that through human contact, people would close themselves off. Places were like ghost towns and you have sources talking about the dead sort of moving through villages and towns on carts, you know, literally pits being dug and the dead sort of being thrown in, fires being lit. It was like an apocalypse. And I think that's what people thought it was, they thought it was an apocalypse. But naturally this was a God fearing world. They thought it was the wrath of God and this was a divine punishment. So you had a lot of penitential acts starting to take place. Some things that are incredibly prosaic and ridiculous, like the church blaming the length of people's shoes or fashion of the age, where men wearing too short poltox or tunics, which is obviously ridiculous, but they were looking for everything. There's even this fantastic source which talks about children who have, do not listen to their parents, they have caused the wrath of the Black Death. But then you also have more seriously a group of people known who came from northern Europe known as the flagellants. And the flagellants are very famous because they come over and they process through the country, probably spreading plague. And they would self flagellate so they would ritually whip themselves with scourges which had. They were man made, it was like DIY scourges which had little shards of glass or thorns that they'd tie into the end of each knot. So this was very bloody. They would whip themselves and they would chant as they processed through the country and then they would lie down in the shape of the cross and then they would carry on. Completely bizarre to modern day sensibilities. But for this, this was a very public, very affecting, fearful, fearsome demonstration of penitence and trying to recover some sort of favour from God and divine favours. In regard to surviving sources you get very practical demonstrations of people's response in things like wills, which some do exist from this period. And it can be quite difficult to identify if they are marked by plague or not because of the speed and the frequency of death. Yet you can make a general assumption if it's around 1349-50, that they have plague in mind. And what you get in these wills is a lot of very affecting demonstrations of care towards communities and loved ones and gifting of belongings in the way that wills are created today. But they are incredibly thoughtful and detailed. There's a fantastic example of a man in the city of London who writes his will in the knowledge he may well die and he talks about giving his material wealth in coinage to his community's parish and it being looked after in the church. And when people need money, they come and the church gives them the money. And it's this idea of communal effort. So when they can afford to pay it back, they pay it back and it's then used by somebody else who's in need. And I think that's such a wonderful example of community and help and humanity in this period. So at Cambridge, so many people were dying, another order was established in order to be able to pray for the souls of the dying. When that's Corpus Christi Collins, which is a college at the university that still survives today. They wanted to be able to support that transition from life to death, which was a transition that people took very seriously in the 14th century. They saw it as a stepping stone into a different existence, a different world almost. And that became attached to a local church called St. Bennet's Church. And what I think is one of the most remarkable and affecting and beautiful symbols of humanity and death during this period was, and it still exists today, if you go to Cambridge, there's a walkway which students walk through and they're going into Corpus Christi. And underneath that walkway there was an archaeological excavation a few years ago that discovered there was a plague burial site underneath that walkway. And they deliberately buried people there. So it felt like the dead were still walking with the living. On other terms, it's very hard to access exactly what people felt, I mean, because so many people were dying. The artistic representations of how people felt emerged much later into the 15th century. You have these famous transitombs or cadaver monuments, where you have the image of somebody alive on the top and then they're being sort of worm eaten and decaying underneath. So it's this idea of the death being close. And it became popular and became named in a sort of cult that emerged in the later 14th century, which was called Memento mori, which means remember you will die. And it's something that people living in the later 14th century, it was part of their life, more so I think, than before the Black Death. And then in literary terms in the later 14th century, you start to see some demonstrations of how people were impacted by death from plague and loss. And I think the most profound example of this is in a very famous poem that is an unknown poet. It was written probably in the later part of the 14th century. People are still dying from it. And it's the poem Pearl. It's alliterative. It's a dream vision which is a very popular style of poetry during this period. But the general theme is that a man has lost his child, his daughter, in a garden. She is Pearl. So you worry initially, has he lost a thing? Has he lost this little. This pearl? Or has he lost his daughter called Pearl? And then you find out later that his daughter is Pearl. And he goes. He falls asleep in this garden where he claims he's lost her, perhaps where she was buried. And it's the repeated line, is my pearl without a spot? And the repeated. The word spot and often relation to the spot being black. It's this idea that she died of black death. The black spots that were all over her body. The bubonic plague. And he finds himself in his dream at the edge of the river. But he. Because it's unaffordable, it's not possible to step into the kingdom of heaven until he finally is at the point where he can. And he has a conversation with her at the water's edge. And it's deeply moving and deeply sad. And I think it was written by somebody who was grieving a child.

[Helen Carr]

The Black Death seems so completely transformative in terms of the medieval mindsets. What was life like for those lucky enough to survive?

[Emily Briffet]

So it's a really interesting period following the Black Death. And for me, I would call it sort of the nadir of the book, because it really does change thereafter. The very sense of what it is to be England and be around changes. The major change is there is no serfdom anymore. Serfdom was sort of the bottom of the food chain. It was people who lived on the land of a lord and they worked the land for the house. It was a slavery, effectively. It ceased to exist because so many serfs, because they were impoverished and they were closely confined, they died. And those who did survive no longer would chain to this very fatalistic idea of life. Because, guess what? With so few people, they suddenly were quite worth something. And they could demand higher wages, and that's what they did. There has been some idea that this was a golden age, and it was a golden age, particularly for women. So women were stepping into the workforce to replace men as armorers and as butchers and doing traditionally male roles and creating their own businesses and communities of women, which was, in a way that they didn't necessarily have before. It was far more domestic before, for example, Brewsters, which were women who brewed ale. It was a very traditional role for women. Brewsters would normally work from the home. And then after Black Death, they started moving out and working and having. Having sort of these effectively warehouses. It became an industry run by women. Obviously there were fewer people, but London became a much more of a commercial hub. People left the countryside and flocked into London and it became a real centre of industry. The merchant class boomed. The merchants became a very powerful class of person. There was a lot more globalization happening. People were traveling, the people were working seasonally. But it was negative in certain ways in that in 1352 you had the Statute of Labourers come in because people are demanding such high wages. It was becoming problematic for the noble classes. The gap between them was becoming thinner, the space between them was becoming thinner. And they didn't like that very much. They didn't like that these people were able to afford the same length shoes that they had. And there's a very famous poem about its peers, Plowman, which was written by William Langland. And it jokes about how people were starting to turn their nose up at some of the things that they were sort of forced to eat or drink before because they wanted the finer things in life.

[Helen Carr]

The change seems phenomenal. Now we should probably come on to talk about the third king that you bring up in your book, and that is Richard ii. He's so often considered this really tyrannical king. How vulnerable and fragile was England really during his reign?

[Emily Briffet]

I think England was very vulnerable during his reign. Possibly more vulnerable than England was during the reign of Edward ii. No country wants a child king. And when Edward III died, the Black Prince had died the year before. The Black Prince was his natural heir. When Edward died, he was an old king. He had had a long reign and England had been incredibly secure. The natural successor was Richard II, who was very young. He was a 10 year old boy. But the thing about Richard, it's not so much that he was a young man. I mean, it's not unheard of for there to be young kings. But Richard was so cosseted and coddled and you have to just look at symbols like his coronation. He was just bathed in white. Everything was white and angelic and he was so innocent. And it was such a propaganda that it's like a new age. It's almost like this, this Christ like child coming and being your king, because you've gone from this very powerful, very secure warrior king who's able to keep the country safe from French invasion. But now, oh, we've got a child on the throne, what are we going to do? And so his counsellors, including powerful men like John of Gaunt, decided to create a rhetoric of innocence. Richard was innocent. He was this sort of divine child to make people feel connected and safe and secure in his kingship. And the fact is, it wasn't a secure kingship. England was on the cusp of invasion from France. Richard was. They were very lucky that they weren't successfully invaded. And Richard took this sense of divine importance into his adulthood. And I think that that was the real problem with Richard. He was psychologically trapped in this childlike perfection and he couldn't cope through adolescence and age and responsibility because he had not been equipped for it. That was the real problem with Richard, psychologically. He's a fascinating king.

[Helen Carr]

How then did the latter 14th century become this space for great radical change?

[Emily Briffet]

Well, I think the most famous episode was the Peasants Revolt, as It's called in 1381. And I think at the moniker, the Peasants Revolt is an unfair one, because it wasn't peasants. If you actually look at the record and look at people who were involved in the uprising, it was soldiers, it was clerics, it was merchants, it was women, children. It wasn't sort of pitchfork wielding peasants at all. I would say it would be the labouring and working class of this age. And their rebellion was a reasonable one because they were being punitively taxed for a war that they had never wanted. Didn't ask for the war against France. Edward had left the country in a lot of debt. The country was being mismanaged financially and it was the poorer classes that were expected to bear the burden of that. And so they did rebel. And the Black Death actually really is the initiator of the Peasants Revolt, because it was the shifting of the class system and the development of these social groups that enabled the Peasants Revolt to take place. And people wanted. They wanted a reasonable. They didn't want to be taxed as much. They wanted something akin to Magna Carta. They wanted to draw up another charter similar to say, we won't be taxed unfairly. To Richard, you will dismiss your corrupt advisors. And initially it looked to be like it could have been a success. But then, as we know, dramatically it wasn't a success. Richard is interesting in this period and in this moment, because this is when he sort of steps into his kingship. Cause he famously goes and stands in front of the crowd of rebels and he manages to disband them. And he says, I'll do everything you want me to do, please go. And I think this moment for him, psychologically, he saw himself as this prophet almost, really. His sense of kingship was so intertwined with this sense of Divinity and importance. But I think this moment with the peasants revolt in 1381, the moment where Richard manages to disband the rebels, I think was hugely important to the development of him as a king, but also for the people and society, because it showed that despite this great rebellion, nothing was going to change. And in many ways, it didn't really change for the people. What Richard didn't do, though, is he was not a king interested in war. War was not something that was important to him. He was an aesthete. What he did develop and what took great interest in was the early phases of the Renaissance that was happening in Italy. And he commissioned art, he was hugely interested in science and the stars and astrology. And he owned an astrolabe, we know, which was a way of reading the sky. Richard was interested in geology. He was a very learned young man, but he wasn't interested in war. And for history, for posterity, people tend to have more interest and associate greater values with kings that were good at war.

[Helen Carr]

We've examined the lives of three very different kings. Edward ii, Edward iii, Richard ii. Vastly different people by looking at all of them. What can this tell us about what it meant to have power in the 14th century?

[Emily Briffet]

That's a really good question. And I think that it tells us that power relied hugely on community of power. I think it tells us that the hierarchy of kingship was deeply important and keeping the nobility happy was incredibly important. A king couldn't have this entirely autocratic power where they just did what they wanted to do because they were king. They had to work within a body of noblemen and have a king council and work as a powerful community in order to rule effectively and to keep the nobility on board. Appeals the egos of the nobleman, as Edward III did so well when he established his Order of the Garter, which was this elitist fraternity that did also include some women. But he made being part of his kingship something that was aspirational. It was something that you can be part of this great club and together we're going to rule the country. But I'm still at the top and I'm still the person who is pulling all of the strings. So I think power within these kings is interesting. You had Edward ii, who seemed determined to give part of his power away and therefore destabilizing the realm. You had Edward iii, whose idea of power was quite a macro idea of power. He had a great community around him, but he also wanted to have power across into Europe. He had real interest in conquering France. He was starting to create relationships with Italy and Castile, and this was something that was becoming quite successful and effective. His idea of power was power in war. Yet how successful was that, really? It ended with the Treaty of Bretigny, which actually. What did it really. What did that do? All of that life lost. To give him power over France in this Aquitaine, to hold Aquitaine as sovereign. I'm not sure if that was really. If that was really worth it. And then Richard, his idea of power was tyrannical. It was to rule without question, to be unequivocally right about everything, unquestioned, untempered. And that isn't real power, because it's so fragile.

[Helen Carr]

What, then can we learn about their humanity? This is a theme that we've been discussing throughout this and it's throughout your book as well.

[Emily Briffet]

I think it's about seeing that these monarchs were people, they were human beings. They were human beings who had deep love. The relationship between Edward II and Piers Gaveston has been questioned. Was it homosexual? What we can say for certain is it was a relationship of deep love. He was a man that Edward loved and respected and needed in his life. He was incredibly insecure. He had a father who was a bully and that impacted him as a person going into his kingship. He didn't go into kingship with metal, he went into his kingship deeply, deeply insecure about his own sense of self. And Gaveston was a person who bolstered that and made him feel enriched. He was a human being. Edward iii, he was, I suppose, the closer you think about Ed III was a bit of a lad. You know, he was funny, men liked him, he was fun to be around. He was the sort of man that attracted that male energy and that's what made him popular. But equally, history is quite a misogynistic discipline. That is why characters like Edward III are looked on with so much more value and pride. And people are proud of him in some way. But actually, was he any better? Was he any kinder? That's questionable. And Richard. I've already talked about how Richard is psychologically fascinating. You know, it's very hard to put modern sentiment on a king or any person who's existing in the 14th century or in any period of history. But I think it's reasonable to look at some of Richard's behaviours and see that as deeply, quite psychotic in certain ways. He was incredibly quick to act and he was incredibly violent when he wanted to be. And I think that Richard is a great example of a child who's told he's absolutely perfect and brilliant from the word go. And what can happen to a person if that is how they begin their life?

[Helen Carr]

Why do you think it's so important to consider history as a human experience rather than just a timeline of names and dates and events?

[Emily Briffet]

Human experiences are what makes history. I mean, just us being in this room is creating our own history and our own collective memory. And human experiences are rarely but sometimes put into the historical record. And it's the historical record that we rely on to give us the facts of what history ends up being. You know, 1066, the Battle of Hastings happened, yada, yada, yada. But isn't it more interesting to think about who fought at the Battle of Hastings? How did they feel about it? How were they memorialized? How did the fabric of their world change after the Battle of Hastings? What happened when William the Conqueror harried the North? What did that look like? How did the demographics of that whole society start to shift and change? History is humanity. The most interesting thing about it is it's what's not written down that is the stuff we don't know. And it's about how we can look for these little nuggets of evidence and how we interpret it as human beings. That is exciting because when we go to an archive and we look at what's in front of us, we are always going to go with our own bias, unconscious bias in mind. So I think we come at it as humans. We're looking at a history of human beings and human relationships, human emotions. It's all history. And I think that that it is a history of humanity because that is what his historians we write about. That was Helen Carr, historian and the author of A New history of the 14th century. A write up of this episode is featured featured in the June 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine. Thanks for listening. This podcast was produced by Jack Bateman.