Richard the Lionhearted with Matthew Gabriele (Subscriber Preview)

Summary

Podcast Episode Summary

This Guy Sucked: Richard the Lionhearted with Matthew Gabriele

Host: Claire Aubin
Guest: Prof. Matthew Gabriele
Release Date: May 7, 2026
(Subscriber Preview – covers the first ~22 minutes)

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Episode Overview

In this episode, historian Dr. Claire Aubin welcomes back medievalist Prof. Matthew Gabriele to dissect the legacy of Richard the Lionhearted (Richard I of England). While popular culture remembers Richard as a valiant hero and the absent-but-rightful king of “Robin Hood” legend, Aubin and Gabriele challenge these myths, unpacking the real, often brutal man behind the lion moniker. The pair explore how mythmaking, selective memory, and misleading epithets have shaped Richard’s historical image—and why, in their expert opinion, “this guy sucked.”

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Guest Introduction and Banter

• Claire introduces Matt Gabriele as a historian specializing in religion, violence, and the Middle Ages, known for his books The Bright Ages and Oathbreakers, and for co-hosting the Multitude podcast American Medieval.
• They exchange stories about having doppelgängers with nearly identical names and joke about email mishaps.
• Matt shares updates since his last appearance: launching a podcast and embarking on a book about Christian religious violence.
• Both agree jokingly that nobody should follow their career path:
  • “That's literally... You know what I say to my students is, don't be like me. Whatever you do, just don't be like me.” – Matthew Gabriele [05:18]

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2. Setting the Stage: Richard the Lionhearted in Myth and Memory

• Claire sets up Richard’s popular image:
  • The “good” king in Robin Hood tales, the absent hero whose return will set things right, versus his villainous brother John.
• Pop culture’s Richard, especially the Disney Robin Hood (1973), is key to how modern people imagine him.
  • “Is that why in the animated Robin Hood, they’re lions?” – Claire Aubin [07:02]
  • “Richard the Lionheart is portrayed as a lion. That is correct.” – Matthew Gabriele [07:10]
• The real Richard is far more complex—ruthless, violent, devious, and “actually kind of sucked,” Matt insists.

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3. Biography & Historical Context

a) Who Was Richard?

• Lived in the 12th century (1157–1199), the second surviving son of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine.
• Inherits a pan-European “empire”—from Scotland to the Mediterranean—after older brother Henry’s death.
• Spent only ~10 years as king (1189–1199), most of it away from England.

b) Turbulent Familiy & Political Background

• His family ruled extensive French territories and England, intermarried with other powerful dynasties.
• “By the time that we get into the middle of the 12th century, there’s kind of a breakdown in the dynasty...” – Matthew Gabriele [09:17]
• Richard and his brothers repeatedly revolted against their parents and each other.
• Richard only inherited after a series of deaths and betrayals, always feeling marginalized but ultimately becoming the sole survivor.

c) Richard’s Reign

• Spent the bulk of his reign abroad—most notably fighting in the Third Crusade (1189–1192).
• Captured on his way back from crusade, held for ransom.
• Ruled in absentia, beset by constant revolts and familial intrigue.
• Died besieging a French castle, shot by a crossbow bolt.

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4. Absentee Kingship & Language Myths

• Claire asks how normal it was for medieval rulers to be absent:

  • “Was it common for a ruler to just not be in the place he's ruling?” [14:33]
  • Matt explains it was relatively common for kings with large, multi-regional holdings (especially cross-Channel monarchs) to rule remotely through local stewards.
  • Richard stands out only because his entire reign was marked by absence; his predecessors and successors were more present rulers.

• On Richard’s language:

  • He did not speak English—he spoke French and Latin, which was standard among the elite.
  • “Nobody spoke English... I meant kind of the aristocracy and the nobility of England. French was the lingua franca.” [17:22]
  • English monarchs did not usually speak English as a first language until well into the 14th century.

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5. Deconstructing the “Lionhearted” Epithet

• Claire highlights how “the Lionhearted” often gets retrofitted as evidence of moral virtue by the “great man” tradition of history writing.
• Matt points out it was not a comment on his niceness or morality:
  • “No, it's because he wanted to murder. He wanted to kill a lot of Muslims.” – Matthew Gabriele [21:08]
  • The name comes from a crusader chronicle describing Richard’s courage (or rage) before the siege of Acre—he “didn’t flinch” before battle.

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6. Why Richard Sucked: Preview to Deeper Critique

• Before the preview ends, Claire pivots to a core question:
  • “Let’s move to why he sucks. What’s bad about this guy?” [22:02]
• Matt agrees—and sets up a deeper dive into Richard’s violence and notorious acts, such as the execution of prisoners at Acre:
  • “He sure does.” (referring to Richard executing Muslim prisoners at Acre) [21:58]
• Unfortunately, the preview ends before this full analysis.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On PhDs and Disney Movies:

  • “It takes a PhD to figure out that's why he's a lion in that movie.” – Claire Aubin [08:39]

• On Medieval Careers:

  • “It's just a series of accidents which gets them excited about a topic, sometimes positive and... sometimes negative experiences about the past as well.” – Matthew Gabriele [05:15]

• On the Morality of Kings:

  • “There’s not a lot of kings called the good or the just or anything like that.” – Matthew Gabriele [20:23]
  • “Richard the Lionhearted is not that [good] because he was like a nice guy? ...It doesn’t mean he’s sweet.” – Claire Aubin [20:59]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:43 – Show & guest introductions, banter about academic names
• 03:55 – Matt’s recent projects; the unpredictability of a career in medieval history
• 06:05 – Introduction to Richard the Lionheart in legend and pop culture
• 09:17 – Political and dynastic background: Henry II, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Plantagenet empire
• 14:33 – On absentee monarchs and ruling a sprawling medieval empire
• 16:50 – Did Richard speak English? Language of the aristocracy debate
• 20:28 – The “great man” myth and the meaning behind “Lionhearted”
• 21:52 – Executing prisoners at Acre; preview to why Richard “sucked”
• 22:09 – Preview ends, cue for the Patreon pitch

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Summary Tone & Style

• The banter is scholarly but irreverent—both experts keep the mood light and witty while not shying from sharp criticism of their subject.
• There’s a clear emphasis on critical history: overturning heroic myths, spotlighting dark truths, and bridging pop culture perceptions with rigorous scholarship.

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Takeaway for New Listeners

This episode is a myth-busting, accessible, and often funny conversation that challenges everything you think you know about Richard the Lionhearted—reminding us that “lion-hearted” doesn’t mean humane, and that historical legacies rarely resemble the legends. For the full deep dive into his violence and the real reasons “this guy sucked,” listeners are encouraged to subscribe via Patreon.

Transcript

[Claire Aubin]

Hi there, it's Claire. If you're hearing me, that means you're listening to the free preview of one of our Patreon episodes. We switch off every week between free and Patreon exclusive episodes. So if you'd like to hear the rest of this conversation, head over to patreon.com thisguysucked and join our honorary Haters club. A list of sensitive themes and topics included in this episode can be found in the episode description.

Welcome to this Guy Sucked the show where we prove it's never too late to have haters and you can't liable to dead. I'm your host, Claire Aubin, and I'm a historian, writer, and most importantly, certified hater. As we all know, on this show we talk about people from throughout history with legacies that need a little updating. Whether it's because of their politics, their, their behavior, or their impact on society and culture, these guys actually kind of sucked. And we bring in a new scholar, or in this case, a returning scholar every week to tell us why. With us today is number one Charlemagne hater, Matthew Gabriel. Matt Gabriel, if you're his friend, which

I marginally a professor at Virginia Tech

and a guy who knows a lot about, as I said in the first time he was on religion, violence, apocalypse, nostalgia, the Middle Ages, et cetera, you might know him from lots of different things, including the or his two books with co author and Petri Arcader, David Perry, the Bright Ages and Oathbreakers. Or perhaps his excellent podcast with Multitude American Medieval. Or if you're one of my students this semester from his guest lecture in my class.

Welcome back to the show.

[Matthew Gabriel]

Thanks Claire. It's so good to be here. Please, please call me Matt. And I think anybody who listens to the podcast really can certifiably call me Matt. That's totally fine as well. It's just that all my publications are under mat. There are Matt Gabriels other Matt Gabriels out there. Most of them are like in medical fields for reasons I don't entirely understand. So it's pretty, it is pretty easy to disambiguate, but I do like to keep it consistent. So. But anyway, I'm so excited to hate once more.

[Claire Aubin]

Back on the podcast you have the

same problem as me because there's a Claire Auburn or Aubin somewhere out in the world and she's a French biologist and so sometimes I get emails for her so I have to publish with the E in my name.

[Matthew Gabriel]

I totally forgot about the other Matthew Gabriel that's out there. He kind of almost ruined my life for a while because he thought he had my Gmail account for a little while and he lived in Connecticut. Maybe you still do if you listen out there. Matt, how you doing? It was nice to talk to you that one time.

[Claire Aubin]

Connecticut hive.

Rise up.

[Matthew Gabriel]

But like yeah, I would get all his doordash order like receipts and I would get like, I ended up getting like some of his like phone bills, like his mobile bills and stuff like that. And like, like a heat and water bill at one point and it was finally like, oh my God, man. Like you gotta stop doing this. Like I could really ruin your life. Yeah, it all got resolved. He figured his actual email was. And anyway, if you're out there still. Or maybe it was me, I don't know. So who knows?

[Claire Aubin]

You're like the Naomi Wolf, Naomi Klein doppelganger.

[Matthew Gabriel]

Yeah. But incredibly more boring than that.

[Claire Aubin]

Much more tame. So I have.

I always start with a pattery question type situation and I couldn't really come up with something because you and I already talk on slack and like for

people who haven't or aren't in the

multi crew or haven't seen this, I now have accidentally developed a reputation for insulting Matt

Streams, which is terrible. But my pattern question is how has

your life changed in the last year since you were last a guest on tgs?

[Matthew Gabriel]

So well, I mean I started a podcast so that's changed things since last year.

[Claire Aubin]

Don't we all?

[Matthew Gabriel]

Don't we all? I mean, like, you know, I'm a white guy of a certain age. So as you've pointed out, of my certain age. So several times in the slack. Which is, you know, if you see again like most people are listening. But if you ever see pictures of me, like it is very clear I am of a certain age. So you know, with the white beard and white hair all over the place. So I started a podcast that's been really great. I started a new research project which I'm very excited about. Announced that on social media. It's. It's a long book project or I should say a book project. A long history of Christian religious violence which was, you know, not at all in the news nowadays.

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah.

Pointless.

You know, you should switch to stem.

[Matthew Gabriel]

Who cares about that nowadays? Yeah, retrain. I should learn to code as everybody has. Has said, no offense to coders out there. I'm really sad for all the jobs you're losing right now. But anyway.

[Claire Aubin]

Well, wasn't that a thing? Right. They were telling everyone to learn to code and then everybody in the market got so saturated that then it's like,

[Matthew Gabriel]

yeah, the market got saturated. Then an AI came, and then it turns out that AI can actually code pretty well, so. Or at least people think that AI could code pretty well is what I understand. So.

[Claire Aubin]

But it's not that good at medieval stuff, so.

[Matthew Gabriel]

It is not.

[Claire Aubin]

You know what they say, Safe from economic. Safe from economic decline. If you want a job, that's big, that's terrible advice.

No, yeah.

[Matthew Gabriel]

No, don't.

[Claire Aubin]

Don't nobody follow in our footsteps.

[Matthew Gabriel]

That's literally. You know what I say to my students is, don't be like me. Whatever you do, just don't be like me. And that's been really fun, actually. Going back to the podcast thing. Something that's changed is one of the things I really like about the podcast is with. Talking with the guests, is asking them how they became medievalists. And it's such a weird, interesting journey that people take when they become professional historians or lit scholars or art historians or authors or anything like that. It's like there's. It's just a series of accidents, which gets them excited about a topic, sometimes positive and, you know, going with the theme of the show, sometimes negative experiences about the past as well.

[Claire Aubin]

So thank you for that beautiful segue.

[Matthew Gabriel]

This is what we in the biz call the segue.

[Claire Aubin]

That's right, the segue. Those of us who've been in the biz for a very long time, like

you and I,

who are we talking about today on this show?

[Matthew Gabriel]

Today, I'm gonna tell you why I hate Richard the First England, also known as Richard the Lionheart, Richard Coeur de Lion, if you prefer the French, because that guy sucked. So if you're unfamiliar, I mean, Richard's one of the kind of more familiar figures, kind of, if you know anything about medieval European history, a lot of it. Because he figures so heavily, I think, in the Robin Hood legends as kind of the good, absent King Robin Hood is, you know, rebelling against the treacherous King John, who has kind of usurped the kingdom away from his brother Richard, who is away on crusade or is under captivity or something like that. And then once he gets back, Robin will kind of hand things over, and Richard will set things right. So most people kind of know about him that way.

[Claire Aubin]

Can I ask a stupid question?

[Matthew Gabriel]

Of course.

[Claire Aubin]

I'm piecing together something in my head that I don't think I've ever thought about until this moment.

[Matthew Gabriel]

Okay.

[Claire Aubin]

Is that why. Is that why in the animated Robin Hood, they're lions?

[Matthew Gabriel]

Yeah.

[Claire Aubin]

Okay, great.

[Matthew Gabriel]

Richard the Lionheart is portrayed as a lion. That is correct. I mean, that was an amazing kind of symbiosis of minds right there. Because I was just gonna bring up the 1978 Disney Robin Hood, which is formative in so many, again, medievalists of a certain age, kind of paths towards medievalism. And in that case, I mean, it makes it very clear too. Robin is fighting against King John, the kind of cowardly lion. But Richard has actually been kind of hypnotized by John's advisor, the snake, to kind of go on crusade and leave the kingdom in John's hand. And then he comes back at the end, and it all usually kind of works out so

[Claire Aubin]

easy.

[Matthew Gabriel]

But in the real history, one of the reasons that I am not a fan of this guy, one might say I hate him, is because the story is much more complicated. And Richard was a guy who was ruthless, incredibly violent, and also kind of very devious in some of his kind of political maneuverings. And I think that's really something that I wish more historians would pay attention to and certainly more people who care about the Middle Ages in popular culture would pay attention to.

[Claire Aubin]

So now that I've established that I do actually know something about him via Disney.

[Matthew Gabriel]

Yeah.

[Claire Aubin]

Which, by the way, that me piecing that together.

That's why we get PhDs.

[Matthew Gabriel]

That's right.

[Claire Aubin]

It takes a PhD to figure out that's why he's a lion in that movie.

Can you tell me, everyone, a bit about his life? And we know that he's famous for some of this mythology, which, much like the previous episode we did on Charlemagne, I think there is something happening here in terms of myth making around him both during and after he's alive.

[Matthew Gabriel]

Absolutely.

[Claire Aubin]

But for someone who doesn't know anything about him and needs to kind of understand the landscape of his life and also the historical context in which he's living in, what are the things that you would need to explain to them?

[Matthew Gabriel]

Sure. So Richard primarily. Well, he lives exclusively in the 12th century. So in the 1100s, he is the second son, or. Well, technically, I think there was another son in there. So technically the third son, but the second surviving son of Henry II of England, King Henry II of England. So just to give a little background, first of all, is that the king of England in this period has intense and really deep ties with what we now call France. And this starts with William the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy who conquers England, becomes King of England in 1066. But then it kind of extends kind of beyond that as well. And by the time that we get into the middle of the 12th century, there's kind of a breakdown in the dynasty, in William's dynasty, in which there's a contested succession where. Because medievals, especially French medievals, really did not like to pass power through a wife or a daughter's line, through the line of women. And so they always needed kind of a guy, and so they always tried to find kind of the nearest male relative. So immediately preceding Henry ii, there's a period that we know of as the anarchy in English history, in which there's kind of a persistent civil war in which Queen Matilda and her husband Stephen are in. There's kind of revolts and things like that going on.

[Claire Aubin]

Stephen.

[Matthew Gabriel]

Stephen, yeah. Steve to his friends.

[Claire Aubin]

Sometimes I forget that these names have just, like, existed for.

[Matthew Gabriel]

Oh, yeah, no, they're. Yeah, there's. Yeah, they're kind of all over the place. So one of his great rivals is this guy, Geoffrey Plantagenet, who has a son by the name of Henry. And so by the time that we get. Cause Stephen is. He's originally from the area of Blois, which is in kind of central France, and Geoffrey is from Anjou, which is kind of near central France. So their families had kind of been at odds for a long time. This carried over when they have lands in England as well. And so Stephen dies without an heir, and he names Henry, in order to stop the civil war, his heir. So he takes over and he unites, basically, an empire which is the largest in Europe at the time. It's much larger than what would become kind of the Holy Roman Empire in the east. It's much larger than the lands held by the king of France at the time as well. It stretches all the way from, you know, Scotland all the way down to the. The Mediterranean coast, including most of northern and western France at the time. Henry is an incredibly able and astute ruler. Marries the most beautiful, most learned, most gifted, most intriguing, most amazing of her age, Eleanor of Aquitaine, who brings with her not just immense kind of lands in the region of the incredibly wealthy region of southern France of Aquitaine, but is also incredibly learned and powerful in her own right. This seems to be a real love affair, certainly initially. She's initially married to the King of France, and then they have their wedding annulled. And several weeks later, very, very quickly, she marries Henry, who is a count at the time, but seems kind of ready to. To inherit these things. And so she becomes Queen of Eng, addition to all the lands that they have in France, their second surviving son is Richard. This is important, that he's the second son, because there's another Henry, their first son who survives, who's known as the young Henry, dies before his father. But it seems very clear. In fact, it's incredibly clear. I shouldn't say seems very clear. Like it just is clear. He's the one who's supposed to succeed his father to all these lands, but he dies. And so Richard is always felt kind of marginalized throughout all of this, but at the end, he's the one who solely inherits this kind of massive empire. And what he does is he spends the 10 years of his reign, from 1189 to 1199, kind of trying to consolidate things, but doing so oftentimes at a distance. Because one of the conditions of him inheriting the kingdom and making peace between his father and the King of France, there's lots of revolts that are happening kind of, you know, at this time, he revolts against his father several times, aided by his mother, at times aided by the King of France at other times. So it's a tremendous kind of tumultuous time, is that he agrees to go on crusade. And so from 1189 until the middle of the 1190s, he is off in the Holy Land fighting the Muslims, conquering the island of Cyprus and doing all sorts of things back there. On his way back, he gets captured by the Duke of Austria, and so can't even return to his lands at that same time. So all of these things are kind of happening. And then he kind of finally gets back. He rules for a short period of time, besieges another castle, is hit by a crossbow bolt and dies. So this is part of why kind of the mythology kind of builds up is like he's just this kind of great warrior who's been there the whole time. You know, he was absent in, maybe not because of his fault, because if he felt a sense of duty, and things would have been better if he had been kind of the ruler of, you know, in England or in his counties at the same time. So, and in the middle of that, we have marriage plots, we have revolts against, you know, by his brothers, we have revolts against his fathers, we have massacres that he commits. There's crusade things. There's kind of noble and highly mythologized connections with the great Islamic ruler Saladin. At the same time, like, so all this kind of stuff is kind of happening around him in the middle is this kind of little shit named Richard.

[Claire Aubin]

How normal is it in the medieval period or in what, the 12th century for a ruler to just not be

in the place he's ruling?

[Matthew Gabriel]

No, that's, that's a great question.

[Claire Aubin]

And like, that's a genuine question.

[Matthew Gabriel]

No, no, it's a great question and it's really pretty common in a lot of ways. I think one of the things that distinguishes Richard is it wasn't the case for his predecessor or his successors. So he kind of stands out in that particular way. Part of that is because the Crusade is, you know, even though, you know, he goes on what's known as the Third Crusade in 1189, but he is one of the first English. He's not the last, you know, to do it, but he's one of the first English kings to do so. And it's actually odd by the time to the Third Crusade that a king would go on Crusade. Usually this was something that was reserved for the high aristocracy. So again, I think that that kind of sets him off as different. But that being said is again, Richard is ruling in a territory that is massive, like north to south, again from Scotland all the way to the Mediterranean coast. So he is not in any of the, Even if he's in, you know, in his home or something like that, he's not in any of those, like all of those places all at the same time. So it's, it's really common for lords to have had very diffuse kind of land holdings that they would administer remotely. So they would have a trusted agent or a, you know, somebody else who would kind of collect rents and make sure that everything was kind of going away and they might not visit there very often. And in fact, I was reading something kind of earlier that said that he spent most of his time even when he was in his territories in France and only about 30% of his time in England, like on the, the island itself, because the French lands were much more important to his family and to really, you know, much wealthier and much more resource rich and things of that nature. So this is a long way of saying, like, y, it was pretty common. There's something kind of unique, I think, about kind of Richard's situation. But it wouldn't be uncommon for people to be absent or medieval lords to be absent from the places that they were in charge of.

[Claire Aubin]

I mean, that makes sense. I also, and like I said before we started recording, we should talk about this, but I watched a TikTok about him. I watched lots of tiktoks about him because I was curious about what the kids are saying. And one of them was saying that he also did not speak English of any kind. Is that true?

[Matthew Gabriel]

Yeah, no, that's. That's probably true. He probably spoke French and Latin. He seems to have been quite learned. Right. I mean, he was literate. He wrote poetry, you know, wrote histories and all sorts of stuff like that. He seems to have been very well educated. And that's probably a product of his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine. But also his father, Henry ii, was also kind of a noted, well educated person and a scholar kind of in his own right. But the English thing is, it's a little bit of a kind of a head fake, though, because nobody spoke English kind of at that time. And. And I meant kind of the aristocracy and the nobility of England.

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah.

[Matthew Gabriel]

Like, French was the lingua franca. Like, it was. It was literally kind of the language that was spoken that united the aristocracy against them. Because, you know, as I mentioned, kind of in my brief little history there, is that the ruling aristocracy were Normans. Yeah, right, Normans. Or from Anjou or from, you know, Poitou or from Bois or something like that. Like, they were people who grew up on the continent and then, you know, had lands or spent some. You know, there's exceptions to that, of course, like native people from England in this period. But the way that they would communicate is through the learned language today. You know, it would be akin to, you know, if you're traveling around, like, the common language that you often find when you're traveling in Europe is English. Yeah. You know, because not everybody can learn German or Dutch or something like that. And so it's easier sometimes for people just to communicate in a second, another language in French. And Richard was very much like a product of the continent. Like, he. He got his start as Duke of Aquitaine when he was the second son and he wasn't going to become king of England, you know, spent most of his time there and then on crusade with French troops, and then, you know, came back and spent most of his time kind of in France as well. So it would not have been out of the ordinary for him to speak English. So. And it's really not until much later, probably, you know, I would say, like, maybe even the 14th century, 1300s or so, that you start to get English kings who speak English.

[Claire Aubin]

Again, this is just good for clarification for people. I like sometimes, especially when we're talking about Thai periods that feel like, like, much further away from our own to establish, like, what is the baseline understanding of how kings are behaving? Are they in the land that they're ruling, are they speaking the language of their subjects? Like that kind of thing. I think is. Is useful.

It's certainly not because I don't know the answer to any of these things.

[Matthew Gabriel]

No, I think you're absolutely right. Like, because I think and those are like huge assumptions because we still have kings in.

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah.

[Matthew Gabriel]

You know, the 21st century and we have images that are given to us from, you know, from fantasy literature, from historical fiction or, you know, kind of textbook associations. Is that you assume a king is in a castle, in a capital, speaking the language of his people and somehow connected to the land, to the people or something like that. And this is just kind of the way that it's always been. And in fact that's an imagination like that, that's a total aberration across kind of history is that very often people were ruled by people who were not from there because they were conquering, conquered. And so that is absolutely true throughout the Middle Ages as well.

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah. And also like part of the imagined thing, I think within the worlds that you're talking about is also that the king or the ruler in a given space is like even particularly interested in

what's happening in the place that they're

ruling and that they have like some

vested interest in the life and well

being of people around them. And sometimes they do. But the people who we do remember that way are often, we think of them as like, this is amazing.

A king who cares about what's going

on, a king who's interested in what farmers are doing. You know, like, that's actually the reason we remember them for that is because that's strange rather than because that's the assumption.

[Matthew Gabriel]

There's not a lot of kings like called the good or the just or anything like that. So.

[Claire Aubin]

No, and I mean it fits. Also, I've mentioned this a few times on the show now, but like I'm working on a book right now that's related to this and thinking about the idea of like what it means to be like a great man in great man history. And it is interesting how people often map calling someone the great or like the lion hearted, et cetera onto like

somehow some moral, like some moral authority,

some moral justness, which is not what

these things mean by any stretch of the imagination.

No, like Richard the Lionhearted is not that because he was like a nice guy?

You know, like, it doesn't mean he's sweet.

[Matthew Gabriel]

No, it's because he wanted to murder. He wanted to kill a lot of Muslims. Well, yeah, like the first instance. The first Evidence that we have of anyone calling him Coeur de Lion, like, with a. The heart of a lion is from a chronicle of the Third Crusade in which Richard arrives in the Holy Land and he sees the city, the city of Acre, which is a modern akko in. I believe it's in Lebanon, but I'm not sure about that. It's still there. It's on the coast. It's a huge port city, very important in the 12th century. And he sees the Muslim army, Saladin's army, kind of encamped around him, and he doesn't flinch. And the chronicler, who is kind of the jongleur, like this kind of storyteller kind of chronicler guy, he says, like, he stood there fierce, like, with a heart, a lion. That's it. That's why he's called that.

[Claire Aubin]

Okay, he doesn't.

Okay, maybe I'm skipping ahead a little bit here, but doesn't he also, like, execute a bunch of prisoners at Ocar? And that's like a big.

[Matthew Gabriel]

He sure does.

[Claire Aubin]

That's a big thing. Let's move to why he sucks.

[Matthew Gabriel]

Yeah.

[Claire Aubin]

What's bad about this guy?

Thanks for listening to this preview of a Patreon exclusive episode. To subscribe and listen to it in full, head over to patreon.com this guy sucks.

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