May 10, 2022 • 46 mins
Dan Jones is a historian, television presenter, the author of a dozen books of history and the upcoming novel ESSEX DOGS. We chat about medieval history, the truth behind Arthurian legends, and castles, in honor of Noble Blood's 75th episode!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio
and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. Hi,
this is Danis Schwartz and this is the seventy five
episode of Noble Blood to celebrate this monumental anniversary. I
(00:21):
am so excited to be joined by the incredible historian
Dan Jones, the author of I think a dozen books.
His latest Power and Thrones, A New History of the
Middle Ages, is basically just the most readable, interesting book
about the entire thousand year period of the Middle Ages,
Like if you have ever had any like questions or
(00:42):
misunderstandings about what actually constitutes the Middle Ages and what's
important about it and what isn't dance book is just phenomenal.
And his first novel, Essex Dogs, which is about a
platoon of soldiers during the Hundred Years War, comes out
later this year. You should absolutely look it up. I've
read a chapter. It's just phenomenal. I'm basically star struck
(01:03):
that he's here. Dan, Welcome, Thank you so much for
being here. Oh I'm star struck as well. So conversation
is going to be stilted for listeners who maybe recognize
your voice. You are also on the number of Netflix programs.
Do you want to numerate which ones to those are? Well,
there's a series called Secrets of Great British Castles. We
made two series of it, seasons of it, I guess
(01:24):
you'd call it back in sixteen, and they were great.
Each episode I'd go to a castle and tell some
stories and wander around and like look like quite sort
of earnest at times and other times jocular and like
wave my hands in the TV presented style, and do
you know what. It was like super fun to make,
and they've lived on Netflix for some years now and
(01:45):
I believe like forty territories so in really improbable places,
I'm like the castle guy. We're going to be going
into depth talking about the Middle Ages and Nate of
the Crusade. But tell us a bit about your background.
How did you become a historian? Well, I had a
really good history teacher in school. And that sounds kind
(02:08):
of banal, I guess, but it tends to be make
or break. I think history is a subject where charismatic
teachers can get someone interested in history for life, and
the opposite is also true. For no reason other than
I liked my history teacher and did okay in history
at school. I went to study history at Cambridge and
then specialized in the Middle Ages there. And I would
love to say that I had had this like burning
desire to be a medievalist, but really the day I
(02:30):
had to fill in my form detailing this isn't June.
That's how old I am. I bet you weren't born then,
just barely, just barely, okay, so well you were saying
sort of goo goo gaga. I was filling in a
form that said what I wanted to study when I
went to Cambridge was Cambridge give you enormous freedom to
study what you want within the history history tribos, which
(02:51):
is great. And I didn't take it very seriously, which
is sort of the story of my life. On the
way and I asked my teacher, Hey, what should I study?
And you want to add medieval and yeah, that will do.
So I take the box. And then some months later
October I went to university and I was presented with
like a bunch of medieval history to study. But I
studied under Helen Caster, who is one of the greatest
(03:14):
She's the o g really, and so she taught me
pretty much everything I know about the Middle Ages, and
she was such as again, you know, the story is
of phenomenal teachers. I was taught by her. I was
talked to right by David Starkey, Juday historian, and those
two people were highly influential. Helen on getting me hooked
on the Middle Ages and David on just teaching me
(03:36):
how to write the joy of narrative writing and of
argumentative essay writing and a public performance. So that that
was kind of my background. And then I did a
lot of journalism, and I read a newspaper column after
university for ten years, and I suppose that journalistic style
fed somewhat into the narrative history writing style I've developed.
And once I started writing books, I started getting TV
(03:58):
work as well. And here I am, you're looking at it,
listening to it. There is when you're starting a new book,
now that you're eleven or twelve in, as you said,
what's your process like when you have an idea and
then what's your research process? Like? How long does it
take you? I guess I've got like a pool of
ideas at any one time that I know one of
(04:19):
them is going to develop, And I'm usually relatively certain
about what I'm gonna be doing for the next two
or three books. Well that's the way it is now anyway.
The very first the sort of primordial pool of idea
forming is just like thoughts kind of ambiently buzzing around
my head as I go about my day to day business,
usually while I'm working on something else, and then the
(04:40):
time will come when I've actually got to start writing
a book. I tend to write a book a year,
not a big book every year, but I tend to
have a big book one year and then a different
project the next year, and I alternate like that. So
I'm extremely architectural as a writer. So the first phase
of any book work that I do involves no sitting
at my laptop typing at all, not really very much reading,
(05:03):
just a lot of thinking around the subject and trying
to build a framework of how I would envisage your book.
So Powers and Thrones, which is my most recent nonfiction book,
while the subject matter was a history of the Middle
Ages and so in all I really had by way
of a brief from my publisher was we start with
a sack of rown four ten and go to the
sack of room seven, and then it's like fill your boots. So, okay,
(05:25):
I've got two bookends for that's I think it, Well,
how do we create this thematically? Then I approached that idea.
I thought, what's what's important in the history of the
Middle Ages that will talk to a twenty one century audience,
because of course these history is the business of communicating
across the years. So I came up with some a
list of five themes I thought were Germaine, both to
the subject matter around to the audience, And then I
(05:46):
started like breaking it down. I have weird and it's
fairly arbitrary numerical obsessions. So with Powers and Thrones, I
was absolutely certain it had to be sixteen chapters, four
parts of four. I mean, there's a real reason why.
I just decided. At some point when I was doing Creasing, yeah,
I mean it probably makes you could okay, you could
(06:06):
rationalize it, you could post rationalize it, but I can't
tell you that that's how it feels. At the time
when I was doing Crusaders, I was like, this book
is twenty seven chapters, three lots of nine. I don't
know why. I just felt the story felt like you
get a feel for it after a while. You just
feel you know what the shape of the story is.
You can chuck all of that out the window. When
it comes to fiction, I've just written, as you kindly
(06:28):
pointed out, a novel, and that that was a completely
different matter. You're much more adapted that, so I should
ask you the questions. Really, No, absolutely not. I feel
like I'm already learning. I have no idea how many
chapters my nextbook is going to be. I'm so behind.
Are you gonna be writing fictional nonfiction both? I have
both in the can right now. I have no idea
how many chapters either, as this is maybe why I'm struggling. Well,
(06:52):
do you know what? A few years ago I had
dinner with George R. R. Martin right, who created a
Game of Thrones, and George and I while I interviewed
him in front of a big audience, and then we
had dinner afterwards, and George said something that really stuck
in my mind. He said, there's two types of writer.
He said, You've got architects and gardeners. And you said,
the architect plans that everything very meticulously and then starts
(07:15):
to build. And I thought, that's the type of writer, right,
And it's true nonfiction. That is the type of writer
I am. And he said, the gardener just plants seed
and lets it grow. Now he spoke much more favorably
about the gardener. So that's the type of writer he is.
And I thought I could never be that writer. Okay,
So when I sat down to at Essex Dogs, which
is the novel later this year, I was like, well,
(07:36):
here comes an architect writing and writing a novel. I
found a plan the hell out of this. And I
sat and I planned, and I tried to like have
it all in its shapes and forms for us started
and I sat there and for the first time in
my life, I looked at a blank page and I thought,
I don't know what to do with this. And I
realized that the thing to do, and this is everyone's
process is completely different. So just may resonate with you.
(07:58):
We may resonate with your listeners. It may not. You
may think what a load of nonsense. But my process
now is to do some yoga and then to just
sort of lie about with my feet on that sofa
that like in the back of my office, to just
sort of lie there. I want. Sorry. There was like
this jay Z trailer for one of his albums once
(08:19):
it was from Mgmacarter, Holy Grail. There's a bit of
jay Z in the studio. Okay, yeah, there's There's always
gonna be medieval and he's he talks a little bit
in that video to Rick Rubin, the legendary rock and
sometime hip hop producer, and Rick Rubin in that video
is the comfious looking man I've ever seen. He's just
lying stroking his big long beard on a sofa while
all the other producers were kind of uptightens in there.
(08:41):
Rick Rubens just like back like this, and so I
gotta I call it the Rick Rubin pose. I've got
to get into before him in any position to write fiction,
and wants them in the Rubin pose, and you're like
almost half asleep, like in communion with your dream state.
Then and only then am I ready to write It
looks it's completely different. I like to do a lot
(09:03):
of brainstorming in bed horizontal before I go to sleep,
where I'll like turn off the light and it'll be
like ten o'clock and my fiancee will think I'm like
going to bed. He'll be like, okay, well you're asleep,
and I'm like, I'm not asleep, I'm working. It's all
part of the process. Sometimes you just need to let
the ideas come. You've got to be in that state
and it's about you know, sound this is gonna sound
(09:24):
super woo. But I really think there's a different mental frequency,
maybe even a different party of brain at play writing
fiction and nonfiction, which is weird because the trick I've
always tried to pull in nonfiction is to make it
feel like fiction. But that said, a lot of what
I've drawn on in writing nonfiction does not come from novels.
That comes from screenwriting. Its school screenwriting technique that sits
(09:45):
under my history books, so that that's very structural. I'm
interested in George R. Martin, particularly because he seems very
inspired by history. Do you know for a fact if
he's read Or of the Roses. I don't think he had.
So I did a thing for the season five DVD
of Thrones which was like the real history. It's like,
(10:06):
it's a pretty good documentary. Actually, there's me and Kelly
to Resent, a couple other historians and George and the
HBO people. When I went to New York to shoot
that were like, George is just your greatest fan. Dan
in Santa Fe He's got your books on his desk,
and I really believe that at the time, and then
in retrospect I think they were just flattering me. Well, look,
he was writing about Game of Thrones when I wasn't
(10:28):
far off Google Baby, so I was a long way
from having written Wards of the Roses at that point.
Well back to the Middle Ages, I admit it's a period.
I mean, it's such an intimidating period, one that I
never really felt like I've gotten a handle on. To
listeners who maybe don't know what actually constitutes the Middle Ages,
(10:49):
and why is it called the Dark Ages, I would argue,
and I think you would argue incorrectly. Maybe the best
place to go to answer that is sixteenth century, which
is the end of Middle Ages, and that's sort of
where we first start hearing the term the Middle Age,
if not the Middle Ages. So in fifteen sixty three,
(11:10):
I think maybe four, John Fox, the great Protestants writer,
write his Book of Martyrs, Acts and Monuments. It's it's
most problem more propertyle It's called Fox's Book of Martists,
and it's a it's a it's an ecclesiastical history, basically
leaning into the subject of martyrdom, and particularly of the
Protestant Martyrst. Fox, in the course of vacts of Monuments,
(11:31):
tries to like salami slice up history, and he says,
it's not salami sce beIN. It's really big chunks. He says,
there's three ages in history. He says, there's the primitive age,
by which he means if really pagan Rome and everything
proceeding and in Christian Nicolesia scal terms, that's sort of
(11:52):
poor old persecuted Christians be hiding from Romans and catacombs.
And Fox says, and there's our present age, you know,
just as we think of our sols now as being
differentiated by being alive or you know, we are quite
quite modern. So Fox thought about his own time in
the fifteen sixties and he said that, well, between these
two bits, that's the terribly enlightened post Reformation sixteenth century
(12:15):
and the pagan classical world. There's like the Middle Age,
he says, the Middle Age, and it's like it's just
this sort of lump in the middle. Now. Of course,
if we define that as I have slightly more tightly
as being saccarone four ten Sacar seven, we're still talking
about eleven hundred some years. That's a big chunk of
recorded human history. And why is it then to the
(12:37):
Dark Ages? Usually it's the early Middle Ages that defines
the Dark Ages, so everything up to about from the
five hundred through nine hundred, with some very very slight
justification in that the written record tends to be much much,
much much patchier in Western Europe, certainly at that time.
There is a sense, if you read the history again
(12:58):
of Western Europe, that there's a retreat in the Christian
world from the scientific and learning of the ancient world,
and that seems, you know, anti progressive to many people.
And there's just a sort of sense that it's already
difficult and far away, and no one wants to have
very much to do it. It's gross, I mean, why
would you how would you like get dirty in the
(13:21):
Middle Ages, which can be pretty intimidating and weird when
far pretty of bits of history to look at, you know,
the sort of glories of Republican Rome or the great
scientific advances brackets minus dreadful imperialism of the nineteenth century.
You know, these things are probably more attractive to most
sane people. They were terribly unattractive to me as subjects
to study when I was growing up. I don't really
(13:42):
know why that's mad. That's mad. Well, let's flip it around.
Say what's attractive about the Middle Ages? The Middle Ages
is inherently and although this is I'm just saying this
to be look at it through the prism of the
Victorian Age, which created this reputation. It is sort of
inherently romantic. I mean, I realized all the problems with
statements are not stupid. But be that as it may.
(14:03):
We do happen to live after the nineteenth century, and
we are still stuck with many of the preconceptions of
the nineteenth century. In our general worldview, the Middle Ages
does seem romantic, or it seems ramantic to a child
who wants to study things. It's got nights, and it's
got princesses, and he's sort castles, and it's got daring
do and everyone goes about a horse. Tell me that's
not a world that it seems like on the surface
of things attractive to you. Perfect segue, because I would
(14:26):
love to talk to you about the historical basis of
our Thurian legend. I feel like I was one of
those children who grew up in you know, Chicago, reading
our Thurian legend and thinking like, oh, this is this
is magical, this is purely fictitious. These are fairy tales.
And of course you get older and you discovered that
(14:47):
there's been, you know, historical figures who have been proposed
as the real king Arthur probably didn't look like we
imagine in story books. Yeah, I think there are certain
figures from the Middle Ages. Arthur is one of them,
Robin Hood is another. They're kind of perfect bridges were
getting people into the Middle Age because there's there's a
(15:07):
huge volume of fiction about them, which has in itself
a nearly a thousand year history in the case of
Arthur at any rate, and there is the tantalizing prospect
that some of this might actually be true. Now I
have read so you don't have to the many, many
books which go looking for a real historical basis for
King Arthur, for Merlin, for at Lancelot, for person, for
(15:30):
whatever whatever, the Camelot. And you know, it doesn't take
very long immersed in that early medieval literature, earnest as
it is to say, well, it's very clear what's going on.
There is nobody in history who meaningfully resembles the Arthur
we know from a fiction. So really, what are we
(15:52):
looking for? Well, are we looking for a person whose
example was the original basis for the very first Arthurian stories?
And I've concluded I think over the years even that
is really a sort of misapprehension of the problem. These
stories were not created by and large in the twelfth century,
from you know, creating dat onwards it's like saying, well, no, wait,
(16:14):
who was the real iron Man? Who was this real
spider man you speak of? Like, well, you know, you
haven't really understood that what's going on here? The primary
purpose of storytelling was not to elaborate on the real
deeds of a known historical figure. That was just to
kind of tell a story. It gets a kind of
asked backwards to go looking for the real Arthur. However,
(16:36):
like I said that, the initial prospect that there might
be a real, real King Arthur was this a real
person is sexy enough to get people into the Middle Ages.
The same for Robin. It the same for Robin. I
suppose The question is when did the fictional accounts begin.
That's that's a much more interesting and better question, because
the fiction that the real kind of the cradle of
(16:57):
our thuryana if you like twelve early twelfth cent true
creating to Perceval of wolf Bach Perceval, is it flourishing
Jeffrey Monmouth to an extent in the history of the
Kings of Britain. I have to already interrupt and say,
I'm already furious and how well you pronounced those French names,
because as any listener to this podcast knows, it's absolutely
(17:18):
impossible to me, and here you come in just effortlessly
dropping all of those French names, teaching listeners that it
is possible. Well, I've been I have been in Morocco,
in France for the last two weeks. I mean, my friends,
is pretty horrible. Like if if you'd see me in
France struggling my I to negotiate buying an umbrella in
a shop in m Bois the other day, and it
(17:40):
was a very torturous conversation. I went through trying to
buy this umbrella and a pair of nail clippers, may
I add, and there was a problem with the card machine,
and I got to like, I got so far with
this conversation, like hacking my way in French, and then
just like I was just hit my limit, and I
was like, excuse me, belivionly, and she went, oh, yeah,
I'm American. And I was like dumbfound and I thought,
(18:01):
was my friend really so good that I tricked? You know,
you were just being weirdly polite for an American. And anyway,
put all that aside, Let's go back to the early
twelfth century. This is the cradle of Artherian and what's
the context for all of these stories Suddenly like flourishing
and becoming you know, used the analogy already, but like
the Marvel movies of the day, at this end, this
(18:24):
this sort of open world where stories can be retold
and characters and pitched up in each other stories and
all that. It's it's the high point of sort of
nightly chivalry in a way, the concept of the night,
that is, the heavy cavalry, the warrior on mounted on horseback,
armed with sword and lance, that had sort of come
into European military and political society from the early tenth century.
(18:53):
By the mid eleventh century, if we think, you know,
we're talking about ten sixty six Norman invasion of England,
the even then, nights are still it's still a work
in progress if you can, if you can think of
the bear tapestry, the horse mounted warriors, they're still have
spears in their hands rather than couch lances, which is
the sort of you know, the essence of nightly combat.
(19:15):
So it takes a long time for firstly, what is
the essence of a night on horseback as as a
military entity, that take that takes a while to develop
technologically and strategically. What takes even longer to develop is
this kind of cast mentality and common social code among
those warriors, which we call knighthood, a set of principles
(19:36):
and beliefs and code of conduct and worldviews and if
even if we want to be pretentious and memes, that
takes a little bit longer to develop. But by the
early twelfth century, you know, the aftermath of the First
Crusade really even this sort of you know, the Second
Crusades coming around. The way knights are in business and
knighthood has really become bound into noble culture and our
(20:00):
aristocratic culture in Western Europe. And part of the consequence
of a cast mentality, or part of what reliable historical
features of the cast mentality or a group in a
group culture of that sort is that you start to
have origin stories. You start to have fables of knighthood
and these imaginary deeds and nights from a past that's
just over the horizon. You know, we can't quite grasp
(20:21):
who these people really were, but we know they lived
in a great time when the land was populated by
giants and scary beasts, and they did heroic deeds, and
we the nights and today should tri and emulate them.
So that's what's going on in the early twelfth century.
Knighthood's on a roll, and along with it come these
these wonderful stories. Well, and and once that's established, once
nighthood has its own literature, really interesting things start to happen.
(20:44):
So people grow up listening to primarily listening to these,
you know, these stories of Arthur and the Knights, the
round table and chivalry. A good example be William Marshall,
who you probably talked about before. We can talk about
in some more detail if you want. Men like this
grow up hearing these stories, then start to try to
absorb these ideas within the ar theory and legends into
(21:06):
their own behavior, and almost the tropes of fiction start
to inform the realities of warfare and then William Marshall's case,
the deeds of these real people are then written up.
So you have this sort of popular eat itself thing
going on where not to just becomes such a self
referential phenomenon. That's that's full of stories being told of
generation to generation and people growing up feeling that they
(21:29):
are both existing in the real world and existing in
this kind of old turnate fantasy reality that goes along
with the profession Who is William Marshall? What is the
cliff notes version of that story? So William Marshall, by
his own estimation or certainly the estimation of his sons
and friends who commissioned his biography The History of William
(21:52):
Marshall in the early thirteenth century of nineteen as a
massively long old French verse account of the Marshal life
idealized somewhat. But Marshall was a man of the late
twelfth and early thirteenth century who was one of the
younger sons of a night called John Marshall, who was
fighting in the eleven thirties in the anarchy between Stephen
(22:13):
and Matilda, the English Civil war for the throne between
rival descendants of King Henry the first both grandchildren. William
the Conqueror and Marshall was five years old during that war,
and his first encounter with warfare, according to this story
of William Marshall, was his father was holding a castle
against King Stephen, one of the belligerents in the anarchy
(22:37):
in that civil war. And King Stephen had hold of
young William because he was being held as a sort
of hostage for honorable behavior. And Steven's men put young
William in the bucket of a trebor share, you know,
one of those giant siege catapults, and said, oh right, John,
we're gonna we're gonna hurd your kid at this castle
wall and his prospects of not being you know, ketch
(22:57):
up after we finished our slight um paraphrase, and John
Marshall said, do what you please. I've got loads of kids.
May This is a classic story we see from tale telling.
But what does young William Marshall do. Well, he's so
naive and kind of charming. He charms King Stephen and
makes him laugh, which is dearly a key skill in life,
which I know you possess. So he charms King Stephen
(23:20):
to such an extent that Stephen goes Oh no, we can't.
We can't reduce this poor childhood catch up. Let's let
him hang around with me for a bit. And that's
the start of young William Marshall's career in royal service,
and he goes on to be raised as a knight
at the family of one of the Marshall of the
friends of one of the Marshall family in France. He
then enters the service of the Plantation as the early Plantations,
(23:42):
so at various times in his career he writes in
tournaments with Henry the Young King, that's the eldest son
and peustive successor of Henry the Second, the first Plantation
the King. He serves Henry the Young King, he serves
Henry the Second, he serves Eleanor of Aquitaine. He serves
Richard the Lionheart, he serves King John, and eventually Sir
John's son, Henry the Third. He is the man who's
(24:03):
sort of responsible for saving the Plantagenet crown so that
Henry the Third can wear it when King John's at
war with both the French and his own parents. So
Marshall's career is a really really good way to look
at the first two to three generations of the Plantagenets,
and the history of William Marshall is one of our
most entertaining and important sources for that time. You know,
(24:23):
we're talking here temporarily between the eleven fifties and the
twelve tens. Marshall's biography is brilliant because he's such a
charismatic and entertaining character. You know, his central moral precept
is loyalty, and loyalty is what his entire story over
(24:44):
these tens of thousands of old French verses supposed to
supposed to make us meditate upon. He gets in all
sorts of entertaining scrapes. He's you know, he is a
very very talented knight, you know, and and typical of
Nights in many ways. As a young man, as I said,
he's right on the tournament circuit, and you know, being
on a tournament team and being a well known tournament
it was a very good way to make money, connections
(25:06):
and prestige in the world in which those values were
highly regarded by polities in general. So Marshall's very tuned
to tournament. He's just he's got the ability to get
on with people, and he's he has a great military
skill set at a time when the business of politics
is largely goes on crusade, on Third Crusade, or that
that weirdly is not really mentioned, actually doesn't go in
(25:28):
the Third Crusade. I'm sorry. He goes to the Holy
Land around the time of the Third Crusade, probably not
on the Third Crusade, but that's that's a weird little
sort of gap in his history. And anyway, you know,
so look, we get to see all the plantagants through
Marshall's eyes, and then his biography has already said is
written up in It's not our theory arena, but it's
a sort of new version of our theory ana. It's
(25:49):
like saying, hey, here's another epic, sort of romantic poem
about the deeds of the night. Only guess what this
one is absolutely true. I mean, it's fantastic read. You know,
when you mentioned that the jousting sort of circuit of
that time in your book, you sort of trace the
history of jousting up until the festival joustings of like
you know, King Henry the Eighth, which I think modern
(26:12):
people most often associated like that's what jousting is. It's
sort of like just for fun. It's sort of celebratory.
What were those early jousting circuits, like, you know a
few hundred years before that. So when we say jousting,
that's immediately going to bring to mind your listeners. I'm
sure Heath Ledger in a Night's Tale, right, like you know,
(26:33):
we will rock you. And they're in the lists and
they sort of they ride at each other and then
bash the lances into shields and someone falls off or doesn't. Okay, century,
absolutely that's tournaments. It's fighting in front of an audience.
It's a bit like m m A or boxing today.
It's just organized violence and quite a contained environment with
(26:53):
some sense of an ethical code and some Unless you're
Henry the Second of France, right, yes, well all bets
are off at that point. I mean all bets are
off in France in general. Go way back to where
we're talking about William and Marshall in the twelfth century.
Tournaments look absolutely nothing like that, and quite many times,
(27:18):
at many times and in many places they're actually a
legalist that are so dangerous. The tournament at that point
is conducted over a very large open space which could
stretch dozens of miles in either direction. Maybe even scores
of miles in another direction. Teams turn up and the
(27:38):
name of the game is, over the course of several days,
to ride one another down, not kill one another, you know,
that's that was very bad form. But to fight at
about eight percent capacity and capture one another. And once
once you've captured somebody, then they would have to buy
back from you their liberty, their horses, and their armor,
(28:01):
which were the three things which were the most important
to a night. And they could be quite violent, quite rough.
They obviously attracted large crowds of hangers on, ranging from
well to do support as well wishes and spectators through
to you know, the hangers on that were always accompanied
any festivities or festivals sort of dealers and spieves and
(28:22):
drunkards and thieves and the usual crowd the people you
find me hanging out with. If I guess, what's the
sport itself? Like, I guess you've got to be quite
rich to take part in it. So it's a little
bit like Formula one motor racing, but with the casual
violence of mixed martial arts. Yes, of rugby or American football.
(28:43):
You know you need horsemanships. It's a bit like polo
I suppose that the horsemanship plus wealth makes a little
bit like the polo circuit, but with the with the
violence and danger of Formula one and rugby, it must
have been great fun. I think, enormous fun. And if
you've got involved in this, you know, if you can
get a start, if you get on a team and
you're any good, you could really make quite a lot
of money because you could capture people, you own money
(29:03):
ransoming the gear back, or you could lose your shirt
as well. This happens to William Marshall. You know, he's
early on in his tournament career, gets a bit cocky,
and then he's captured and he loses pretty much everything.
And at that point you're relying on your team sponsor
or captain. You know, it's element of Aquitaine or Henry
the Young King to bail you out or you're in
bother and Marshall at various times ends up a prisoner
(29:24):
for quite a while. There's a great story in his
biography where he's a prisoner and he's been injured in
one of these tournaments. You think he's had I think
he's had a lanced through his leg and he's got
a very painful wound in his leg and it's sort
of bandages stuffed in it and it's dressed. He's got
to be really careful because it's a serious round and
he's being sort of taken around servery borying by whoever's
(29:45):
captured him. I can't remember it. And one night the
people have captured him having this competition of who can
throw this giant stone, the furthest it's very good, it's
good boys stuff. There was an HBO they had to
entertain themselves somehow exactly. You know, if we get Netflix
and Chill has chuck a massive stone and Chill or not,
(30:07):
and so they're chucking a massive stone about and Marshall
he can't like he's he just can't sit there and watch.
It's like, come on, guys, give me a go. But
I don't think you want to go. I don't think
you want to play at this. Give me a passed
me to stone, really passed me to stone. So he
gets the stone, of course, because he has to win.
(30:27):
Just laughs. He throws it so hard that all the
stitches and the badges bast out of his leg and
he's worse off afterwards. In the other one's before but
that's that's told us a relatively comical story in the
history of William Marshall, which is like his desire, his
nightly prowess occasionally got the better of him. Pride. Pride
(30:48):
comes before a burst leg as they say, Yeah, that's
what they say. One other thing I'm interested in speaking
to you about, obviously because you're the expert on English
and British castles, the idea of the evil castle, When
does that really come about? I think we're picturing like,
you know, cartoon castle of like the stone turrets and
(31:08):
archers through the slits. I think I know what you're
talking about, you know, like think about the cartoon castle,
which surely even if King Arth there was you know,
quote unquote real that wouldn't have existed in the fifth century.
But when do we get the classic stone castle. Well, yeah,
the story of the castles, story of of several important
(31:28):
phases of evolution. So beginning really around the turn of
the first millennium tenth century, I suppose you start to see,
particularly with the Normans, a lot of the drivers of
a lot of medieval history that is still familiar to
us today often tend to be the Norman's. This group
of sort of Viking descended Francified roughnecks from Normandy, which
(31:50):
is a little bit to the west of Paris center
on Room in modern France. The Normans are great castle builders,
and during the tenth eleventh century you start to see
it a typical Norman castle, which would be a well
called a motte and bailey castle. So you're going to
have a keep, which is a sort of stronghold, usually
(32:11):
built on a sort of artificial or natural hill, and
then round it an enclosure with other wooden palisades or
you know, even stone walls in some instances, and within
that's the bailey. So that's that's the sort of basic
form of a castle, and it serves pretty well. For example,
during the Norman invasion, after the Norman invasion of England
ten sixty six, William the conqueror comes over and builds
(32:33):
castles absolutely everywhere, and of this sort. You know, you
throw them up pretty quick. What are they fought? Well,
they're really garrison's. This is where Norman knights are stationed
and they have a sort of a radial circle of
a day's ride. That castle can then control the land
around it because you can send knights out from it
(32:53):
to wherever you choose. But the heyday of the castle
of the sort that you're talking about is somewhat later.
So in British terms, probably the greatest castle builder is
Edward the first, Edward Longshanks in the Hammer of the Scots.
So Edwards is king at the turn of the twelve
into the thirteenth century. He is a crusader, his son
(33:17):
of the not enormously successful Henry the third and therefore
a grandson of bad King John, very very talented military
general commander, and carries out in the British Isles a
sort of an Arthurian inspired attempt to conquer Wales and
Scotland and add them formally and permanently to the Kingdom
(33:39):
of England. Prior to end of the First Reign, the
main focus of sort of territorial expansion or a trenchment
or defense from England had been France had been to
the so holding on to Gascony, but also trying to
get back the bits that we lost by King John
Njou main terrain normally whatever whatever, all that's sort of
finished fired with the Austrain. England still has Gascony, which
(34:01):
is in southwest around who centered around the city of Bordeaux.
But really the job of conquering anymore of France by
that stage is just too expensive and too difficult. So
Edwards starts to i mean somewhat inspired by the legends
of Arthur, who'd be the king of the Britons and
not the English, starts to look to conquer into Wales,
(34:21):
in Scotland and in Wales, launch this enormous series of campaigns,
particularly to Northern Wales, Snowdonia, which is the very mountainous
bit of of North rest world, typically the heartlands of
the native Welsh kings, extremely inhospitable to reign, very difficult
to conquer, but Edward decides conquers twelve seventies, twelve eighties,
(34:43):
twelve nineties. Edwards sends in enormous armies with enormous cause
of engineers to cut these super highways into northern Wales,
conquer the land, to get rid of the native princes
and kings, and builds these vast, vast stone castles at
(35:05):
unbelievable expense into the mountain sides of North Wales. One
of the most famous one we featured on Secrets of
British Castles is Carnavon, which is right up in the
northwest tip of Wales, just across the Meni straight from
Anglesea which is the big island of Norlands to the
Northwest Worlds, and Carnarvon Castle is still an incredible, incredible
(35:27):
place to visit. Lots of these places were never quite finished,
but they were all were almost all the architectural brain
child or an engineering brainchild of a castle builder called
Master James of St George, who was just, I mean
the greatest castle builder of his day. And they look
nothing like a Norman castle. They are these sort of
(35:50):
often two sets of concentric walls. In the case of Carnarvon,
these walls are built in alternating horizontal bands of stone,
which is supposed to resemble the wall Constantinople. You've got
palatial apartments. You've got these very very large inner whether
they're not courtyards, I suppose they call them bailey's where
(36:10):
hundreds of people could congregate. They often have small towns
erected around them, you know, new towns built to host
a population to supply the needs of garrison the castle.
They're the fairy tale castles and they're built all over
North Wales during the time of Edward the First, and
the expenses truly, truly, truly phenomenal. They don't actually serve
(36:35):
for a very long time as effective military outposts because
the conquest of Wales is sort of but you know,
it's it's almost completed underhead with the first. I mean,
there are further conflicts in the fifteenth century Henry fourth
Fester to find Wales, but but really the job is
(36:55):
sort of done. And the castles I think quite quickly
asked from having a primarily a military function to primarily
an intimidatory function. They're sitting there as a sort of
a deliberately painful reminder of the might of the English crown,
and they are symbols of conquest. These days they will
be torn down and thrown in the sea because they
(37:16):
will be triggering and they would be very offensive. In fact,
that that might well happen. So I'm sure somebody will
come along and well else soon and so these are
terrible symbols of colonialism, or we need to chuck them
all in the sea. But in terms of intimidation, the
Tower of London, I mean, maybe the most famous castle
in England would have obviously served the same purpose when
William the Conqueror comes in builds this massive castle in
(37:39):
the middle of London. Yeah, that's right, I mean the
White Tower. The original bit of the Tower of London
very much was designed to overall Londoners. But again, well
maybe it's a slightly different story with the Tower of
London because it's soon there's not much need for a
generation after William the Conquered. There's really not much need
to have a castle in London to overall the Londoners.
(38:01):
I mean that the relationship between London and the Crown
is only occasionally one of a military antagonism in the
rest of the English Middle Ages. The tar of London
is a great example of a castle that that quickly
passes to have a sort of more palatial administrative role.
With the first of the Royal mint, they're making coins
in the Tara, London becomes a prison, it becomes a menagerie.
(38:23):
You know, this is where under Henry the Third, I
think you have a polar bear that swims in the
Thames every day that's kept in the Tower of London,
has a little leash that goes out and catches its
fish in the Thames, And there are at various times,
elephants and lions. It's only under the first Duke of
Wellington nineteenth century that that London zoo moves out of
the Tower of London, so it forms it's a very
(38:43):
it's a it's a very odd castle to Tara London.
It's a wonderful one and rightly the most famous. But
if you think about it's in its fifteen sixteenth century history,
what's it most famous as being used for. It's a prison.
It's where the printers in the tower go. It's where
you've done an episode, and that it's where Anne Berlin
is acuted. That becomes it's it's more important function. Yeah,
I think people probably associated with the Tutors more than
(39:06):
William the Conqueror. Now, yeah, I think so. I think so.
I mean, but all of the like all of these
castles there are there are certain points in history where
castles are very important for different reasons. If we look
at the eleventh century, the Normal Conquest, ten sixties, through
a couple of generations, Yes, castles are there for polonizing
(39:27):
and subduing the English and their projection of Norman power
from the other side of the English Channel into England itself.
And then you have this period in the you're talking
about in the thirteenth century were underhead with the first
there's this kind of revival of castle building, mainly on
the places that the English trying to conquer within Britain.
And then in the Tudor era we start to see
(39:49):
castles perform a different function again. You know, they are
there their palaces, their administrative, their prisons. And then the
sort of final great throw of castle use in England
is in the Civil War in the seventeenth century, after
which that's why many of the castles in England are
in ruins, because they were slighted by Cromwell's side in
(40:09):
the Civil War, so they couldn't be used as royal
fortifications thereafter, and that's why so many castles in englanduties
rather clamorous ruins in the same way that so many
or what we can see if so many monasteries in
England are these haunting Gothic ruins, thank because they were
left that way deliberately after the Reformation under Henry the
eight There are very few castles which don't just become
(40:31):
sort of private, stately homes or just ruins after the
seventeenth century. But there's one very interesting exception, which is
Dover Castle on the south coast, and that still had
a military function in the Second World War. It was
where if you've seen the film dun Kirk with Mark
Ryland's very nobly sort of chugging chugging across the channel
(40:53):
in his little ship, that the command center for dun
Kirk was Dover Castle. In fact, if you visit over
Castle when you're in England, you can go down and
then it has a military or a quasi military function
after that, because there are nuclear bunkers underneath cliffs underneath
Dover Castle which were intended and may god still be
intended for use as regional command center for the southeast
(41:14):
of England in the event of World War three, fought
with nuclear weapons. It's pretty weird done that, but that
that's a very unusual guy. It's kind of one of
my favorite castles in a way because it's so unusual
that it retains a serious purpose for a thousand years almost.
I remember when I was, you know, much younger, the
first time I went to Edinburgh, went to Edinburgh Castle.
(41:34):
I was so astonished because up until that point my
understanding of castles was like Disney Neu Schwinstein castles, you know,
the fairy tale castles that are sort of the castle
equivalent of the Arthurian legends. And the Edinburgh Castle, which
is very much like a small town and feels like
a military garrison. Yeah, got it. I mean Edinburgh Castle
(41:56):
is one of the most wonderful places in the whole
of the whole the UK. And I don't need to
man explain in Edinburgh to you. He's written a novel
set at in a very brilliant one. By the way,
that that too is quite unusual in that part of
its function as a royal palace is still to have
this ceremonial military thing and with the tattoo and with
(42:18):
the bag of the gun, And that's part of its charm,
I suppose. But part of its charm is also, like
so many of the best castles, it's the glamor of
its location, you know, on that craggy volcanic precipice, I suppose,
overlooking one of the most beautiful cities in northern Europe.
It's almost unbelievably charming, isn't it a wonderful place? Well,
(42:38):
I feel like I've kept here for a long time.
But before I let you go the Middle Age. The
Middle Ages, which spans a thousand years, is sort of
an intimidating chunk I think for amateurs to look at.
Is there a specific period that you think is your favorite? Well,
I mean, like with my children, I have a different
favorite depending on which day you asked me. But I'm
(43:01):
back into the fourteenth century at the moment, which was
kind of where I begun. My first book was about
the Peasants Revolt tht eighty one, and the Peasant Rot
eighty one is a sort of almost like a culminating
events was what we now call a populist rebellion or
rising that comes near the end of a century where
there's been famine followed by animal moraine, followed by the
(43:22):
Black Death, pandemic, pestilence, followed by war, the Hundred Years War,
and then you get to the populist rebellion. And so
the fourteen centuries where I started, and it's where I've
gone back to. So that the novel Essex Dogs you
mentioned is set in thirty six towards the beginning of
the Hundred Years War. And you know, for one reason
or another, I've just been I've been on a fourteenth century. Tip.
(43:44):
You know, it's not that cheerful at time. You know,
you don't go into the fourteenth centuryship a good time,
but but it is incredibly dramatic, and you see in
the fourteenth century really what feels like apocalypse coming. But
you also see the beginnings of you know, literature in
(44:07):
the vernacular traditions that we recognize today, you know, Chaucer
or Pacaccio, these sort of father like figures of the
vernacular literature that became adopted by nation states. It's all
there in the fourteenth century and the very very early
stirrings of the Renaissance, the early stirrings of religious protests
(44:28):
that will coalesce in the Reformation. It's it's the beginning
of the end of the Middle Ages, and it's a
time where for a lot of well a lot of people,
it was the end of days. But it's the closest century,
maybe barring the early twentieth century, that you've ever had
too genuine apocalypse. That's interesting. Well, with that, I think
(44:48):
that's an optimist take place to leave us. Dan, thank
you so much for taking the time out. Everyone you
should absolutely read one, two to three of all of
Dan eleven or twelve books. Before the interview, I asked
him how many books he had written and he wasn't
sure there was another one. Thank you, Dana, it was
(45:09):
so much fun talking to you and everyone preorder his
novel Essex Dogs if you're interested in that romantic world
of the fourteenth century. He's a brilliant writer. And remember
this is the episode and starting now, Noble Blood is
going weekly, so look for an episode every single Tuesday
on your podcast app. Dan. Thank you so much, thanks
(45:33):
and congratulations. Noble Blood is a production of I Heart
Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky. Noble Blood
is hosted by me Danish Sports. Additional writing and researching
(45:56):
done by Hannah Johnston, hannah's Wick, Mura Hayward, Nie Sender,
and Laurie Goodman. The show is produced by Rema al Kali,
with supervising producer Josh Faine and executive producers Aaron Manky,
Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from I
Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
(46:18):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio
and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. Hi,
this is Danis Schwartz and this is the seventy five
episode of Noble Blood to celebrate this monumental anniversary. I
(00:21):
am so excited to be joined by the incredible historian
Dan Jones, the author of I think a dozen books.
His latest Power and Thrones, A New History of the
Middle Ages, is basically just the most readable, interesting book
about the entire thousand year period of the Middle Ages,
Like if you have ever had any like questions or
(00:42):
misunderstandings about what actually constitutes the Middle Ages and what's
important about it and what isn't dance book is just phenomenal.
And his first novel, Essex Dogs, which is about a
platoon of soldiers during the Hundred Years War, comes out
later this year. You should absolutely look it up. I've
read a chapter. It's just phenomenal. I'm basically star struck
(01:03):
that he's here. Dan, Welcome, Thank you so much for
being here. Oh I'm star struck as well. So conversation
is going to be stilted for listeners who maybe recognize
your voice. You are also on the number of Netflix programs.
Do you want to numerate which ones to those are? Well,
there's a series called Secrets of Great British Castles. We
made two series of it, seasons of it, I guess
(01:24):
you'd call it back in sixteen, and they were great.
Each episode I'd go to a castle and tell some
stories and wander around and like look like quite sort
of earnest at times and other times jocular and like
wave my hands in the TV presented style, and do
you know what. It was like super fun to make,
and they've lived on Netflix for some years now and
(01:45):
I believe like forty territories so in really improbable places,
I'm like the castle guy. We're going to be going
into depth talking about the Middle Ages and Nate of
the Crusade. But tell us a bit about your background.
How did you become a historian? Well, I had a
really good history teacher in school. And that sounds kind
(02:08):
of banal, I guess, but it tends to be make
or break. I think history is a subject where charismatic
teachers can get someone interested in history for life, and
the opposite is also true. For no reason other than
I liked my history teacher and did okay in history
at school. I went to study history at Cambridge and
then specialized in the Middle Ages there. And I would
love to say that I had had this like burning
desire to be a medievalist, but really the day I
(02:30):
had to fill in my form detailing this isn't June.
That's how old I am. I bet you weren't born then,
just barely, just barely, okay, so well you were saying
sort of goo goo gaga. I was filling in a
form that said what I wanted to study when I
went to Cambridge was Cambridge give you enormous freedom to
study what you want within the history history tribos, which
(02:51):
is great. And I didn't take it very seriously, which
is sort of the story of my life. On the
way and I asked my teacher, Hey, what should I study?
And you want to add medieval and yeah, that will do.
So I take the box. And then some months later
October I went to university and I was presented with
like a bunch of medieval history to study. But I
studied under Helen Caster, who is one of the greatest
(03:14):
She's the o g really, and so she taught me
pretty much everything I know about the Middle Ages, and
she was such as again, you know, the story is
of phenomenal teachers. I was taught by her. I was
talked to right by David Starkey, Juday historian, and those
two people were highly influential. Helen on getting me hooked
on the Middle Ages and David on just teaching me
(03:36):
how to write the joy of narrative writing and of
argumentative essay writing and a public performance. So that that
was kind of my background. And then I did a
lot of journalism, and I read a newspaper column after
university for ten years, and I suppose that journalistic style
fed somewhat into the narrative history writing style I've developed.
And once I started writing books, I started getting TV
(03:58):
work as well. And here I am, you're looking at it,
listening to it. There is when you're starting a new book,
now that you're eleven or twelve in, as you said,
what's your process like when you have an idea and
then what's your research process? Like? How long does it
take you? I guess I've got like a pool of
ideas at any one time that I know one of
(04:19):
them is going to develop, And I'm usually relatively certain
about what I'm gonna be doing for the next two
or three books. Well that's the way it is now anyway.
The very first the sort of primordial pool of idea
forming is just like thoughts kind of ambiently buzzing around
my head as I go about my day to day business,
usually while I'm working on something else, and then the
(04:40):
time will come when I've actually got to start writing
a book. I tend to write a book a year,
not a big book every year, but I tend to
have a big book one year and then a different
project the next year, and I alternate like that. So
I'm extremely architectural as a writer. So the first phase
of any book work that I do involves no sitting
at my laptop typing at all, not really very much reading,
(05:03):
just a lot of thinking around the subject and trying
to build a framework of how I would envisage your book.
So Powers and Thrones, which is my most recent nonfiction book,
while the subject matter was a history of the Middle
Ages and so in all I really had by way
of a brief from my publisher was we start with
a sack of rown four ten and go to the
sack of room seven, and then it's like fill your boots. So, okay,
(05:25):
I've got two bookends for that's I think it, Well,
how do we create this thematically? Then I approached that idea.
I thought, what's what's important in the history of the
Middle Ages that will talk to a twenty one century audience,
because of course these history is the business of communicating
across the years. So I came up with some a
list of five themes I thought were Germaine, both to
the subject matter around to the audience, And then I
(05:46):
started like breaking it down. I have weird and it's
fairly arbitrary numerical obsessions. So with Powers and Thrones, I
was absolutely certain it had to be sixteen chapters, four
parts of four. I mean, there's a real reason why.
I just decided. At some point when I was doing Creasing, yeah,
I mean it probably makes you could okay, you could
(06:06):
rationalize it, you could post rationalize it, but I can't
tell you that that's how it feels. At the time
when I was doing Crusaders, I was like, this book
is twenty seven chapters, three lots of nine. I don't
know why. I just felt the story felt like you
get a feel for it after a while. You just
feel you know what the shape of the story is.
You can chuck all of that out the window. When
it comes to fiction, I've just written, as you kindly
(06:28):
pointed out, a novel, and that that was a completely
different matter. You're much more adapted that, so I should
ask you the questions. Really, No, absolutely not. I feel
like I'm already learning. I have no idea how many
chapters my nextbook is going to be. I'm so behind.
Are you gonna be writing fictional nonfiction both? I have
both in the can right now. I have no idea
how many chapters either, as this is maybe why I'm struggling. Well,
(06:52):
do you know what? A few years ago I had
dinner with George R. R. Martin right, who created a
Game of Thrones, and George and I while I interviewed
him in front of a big audience, and then we
had dinner afterwards, and George said something that really stuck
in my mind. He said, there's two types of writer.
He said, You've got architects and gardeners. And you said,
the architect plans that everything very meticulously and then starts
(07:15):
to build. And I thought, that's the type of writer, right,
And it's true nonfiction. That is the type of writer
I am. And he said, the gardener just plants seed
and lets it grow. Now he spoke much more favorably
about the gardener. So that's the type of writer he is.
And I thought I could never be that writer. Okay,
So when I sat down to at Essex Dogs, which
is the novel later this year, I was like, well,
(07:36):
here comes an architect writing and writing a novel. I
found a plan the hell out of this. And I
sat and I planned, and I tried to like have
it all in its shapes and forms for us started
and I sat there and for the first time in
my life, I looked at a blank page and I thought,
I don't know what to do with this. And I
realized that the thing to do, and this is everyone's
process is completely different. So just may resonate with you.
(07:58):
We may resonate with your listeners. It may not. You
may think what a load of nonsense. But my process
now is to do some yoga and then to just
sort of lie about with my feet on that sofa
that like in the back of my office, to just
sort of lie there. I want. Sorry. There was like
this jay Z trailer for one of his albums once
(08:19):
it was from Mgmacarter, Holy Grail. There's a bit of
jay Z in the studio. Okay, yeah, there's There's always
gonna be medieval and he's he talks a little bit
in that video to Rick Rubin, the legendary rock and
sometime hip hop producer, and Rick Rubin in that video
is the comfious looking man I've ever seen. He's just
lying stroking his big long beard on a sofa while
all the other producers were kind of uptightens in there.
(08:41):
Rick Rubens just like back like this, and so I
gotta I call it the Rick Rubin pose. I've got
to get into before him in any position to write fiction,
and wants them in the Rubin pose, and you're like
almost half asleep, like in communion with your dream state.
Then and only then am I ready to write It
looks it's completely different. I like to do a lot
(09:03):
of brainstorming in bed horizontal before I go to sleep,
where I'll like turn off the light and it'll be
like ten o'clock and my fiancee will think I'm like
going to bed. He'll be like, okay, well you're asleep,
and I'm like, I'm not asleep, I'm working. It's all
part of the process. Sometimes you just need to let
the ideas come. You've got to be in that state
and it's about you know, sound this is gonna sound
(09:24):
super woo. But I really think there's a different mental frequency,
maybe even a different party of brain at play writing
fiction and nonfiction, which is weird because the trick I've
always tried to pull in nonfiction is to make it
feel like fiction. But that said, a lot of what
I've drawn on in writing nonfiction does not come from novels.
That comes from screenwriting. Its school screenwriting technique that sits
(09:45):
under my history books, so that that's very structural. I'm
interested in George R. Martin, particularly because he seems very
inspired by history. Do you know for a fact if
he's read Or of the Roses. I don't think he had.
So I did a thing for the season five DVD
of Thrones which was like the real history. It's like,
(10:06):
it's a pretty good documentary. Actually, there's me and Kelly
to Resent, a couple other historians and George and the
HBO people. When I went to New York to shoot
that were like, George is just your greatest fan. Dan
in Santa Fe He's got your books on his desk,
and I really believe that at the time, and then
in retrospect I think they were just flattering me. Well, look,
he was writing about Game of Thrones when I wasn't
(10:28):
far off Google Baby, so I was a long way
from having written Wards of the Roses at that point.
Well back to the Middle Ages, I admit it's a period.
I mean, it's such an intimidating period, one that I
never really felt like I've gotten a handle on. To
listeners who maybe don't know what actually constitutes the Middle Ages,
(10:49):
and why is it called the Dark Ages, I would argue,
and I think you would argue incorrectly. Maybe the best
place to go to answer that is sixteenth century, which
is the end of Middle Ages, and that's sort of
where we first start hearing the term the Middle Age,
if not the Middle Ages. So in fifteen sixty three,
(11:10):
I think maybe four, John Fox, the great Protestants writer,
write his Book of Martyrs, Acts and Monuments. It's it's
most problem more propertyle It's called Fox's Book of Martists,
and it's a it's a it's an ecclesiastical history, basically
leaning into the subject of martyrdom, and particularly of the
Protestant Martyrst. Fox, in the course of vacts of Monuments,
(11:31):
tries to like salami slice up history, and he says,
it's not salami sce beIN. It's really big chunks. He says,
there's three ages in history. He says, there's the primitive age,
by which he means if really pagan Rome and everything
proceeding and in Christian Nicolesia scal terms, that's sort of
(11:52):
poor old persecuted Christians be hiding from Romans and catacombs.
And Fox says, and there's our present age, you know,
just as we think of our sols now as being
differentiated by being alive or you know, we are quite
quite modern. So Fox thought about his own time in
the fifteen sixties and he said that, well, between these
two bits, that's the terribly enlightened post Reformation sixteenth century
(12:15):
and the pagan classical world. There's like the Middle Age,
he says, the Middle Age, and it's like it's just
this sort of lump in the middle. Now. Of course,
if we define that as I have slightly more tightly
as being saccarone four ten Sacar seven, we're still talking
about eleven hundred some years. That's a big chunk of
recorded human history. And why is it then to the
(12:37):
Dark Ages? Usually it's the early Middle Ages that defines
the Dark Ages, so everything up to about from the
five hundred through nine hundred, with some very very slight
justification in that the written record tends to be much much,
much much patchier in Western Europe, certainly at that time.
There is a sense, if you read the history again
(12:58):
of Western Europe, that there's a retreat in the Christian
world from the scientific and learning of the ancient world,
and that seems, you know, anti progressive to many people.
And there's just a sort of sense that it's already
difficult and far away, and no one wants to have
very much to do it. It's gross, I mean, why
would you how would you like get dirty in the
(13:21):
Middle Ages, which can be pretty intimidating and weird when
far pretty of bits of history to look at, you know,
the sort of glories of Republican Rome or the great
scientific advances brackets minus dreadful imperialism of the nineteenth century.
You know, these things are probably more attractive to most
sane people. They were terribly unattractive to me as subjects
to study when I was growing up. I don't really
(13:42):
know why that's mad. That's mad. Well, let's flip it around.
Say what's attractive about the Middle Ages? The Middle Ages
is inherently and although this is I'm just saying this
to be look at it through the prism of the
Victorian Age, which created this reputation. It is sort of
inherently romantic. I mean, I realized all the problems with
statements are not stupid. But be that as it may.
(14:03):
We do happen to live after the nineteenth century, and
we are still stuck with many of the preconceptions of
the nineteenth century. In our general worldview, the Middle Ages
does seem romantic, or it seems ramantic to a child
who wants to study things. It's got nights, and it's
got princesses, and he's sort castles, and it's got daring
do and everyone goes about a horse. Tell me that's
not a world that it seems like on the surface
of things attractive to you. Perfect segue, because I would
(14:26):
love to talk to you about the historical basis of
our Thurian legend. I feel like I was one of
those children who grew up in you know, Chicago, reading
our Thurian legend and thinking like, oh, this is this
is magical, this is purely fictitious. These are fairy tales.
And of course you get older and you discovered that
(14:47):
there's been, you know, historical figures who have been proposed
as the real king Arthur probably didn't look like we
imagine in story books. Yeah, I think there are certain
figures from the Middle Ages. Arthur is one of them,
Robin Hood is another. They're kind of perfect bridges were
getting people into the Middle Age because there's there's a
(15:07):
huge volume of fiction about them, which has in itself
a nearly a thousand year history in the case of
Arthur at any rate, and there is the tantalizing prospect
that some of this might actually be true. Now I
have read so you don't have to the many, many
books which go looking for a real historical basis for
King Arthur, for Merlin, for at Lancelot, for person, for
(15:30):
whatever whatever, the Camelot. And you know, it doesn't take
very long immersed in that early medieval literature, earnest as
it is to say, well, it's very clear what's going on.
There is nobody in history who meaningfully resembles the Arthur
we know from a fiction. So really, what are we
(15:52):
looking for? Well, are we looking for a person whose
example was the original basis for the very first Arthurian stories?
And I've concluded I think over the years even that
is really a sort of misapprehension of the problem. These
stories were not created by and large in the twelfth century,
from you know, creating dat onwards it's like saying, well, no, wait,
(16:14):
who was the real iron Man? Who was this real
spider man you speak of? Like, well, you know, you
haven't really understood that what's going on here? The primary
purpose of storytelling was not to elaborate on the real
deeds of a known historical figure. That was just to
kind of tell a story. It gets a kind of
asked backwards to go looking for the real Arthur. However,
(16:36):
like I said that, the initial prospect that there might
be a real, real King Arthur was this a real
person is sexy enough to get people into the Middle Ages.
The same for Robin. It the same for Robin. I
suppose The question is when did the fictional accounts begin.
That's that's a much more interesting and better question, because
the fiction that the real kind of the cradle of
(16:57):
our thuryana if you like twelve early twelfth cent true
creating to Perceval of wolf Bach Perceval, is it flourishing
Jeffrey Monmouth to an extent in the history of the
Kings of Britain. I have to already interrupt and say,
I'm already furious and how well you pronounced those French names,
because as any listener to this podcast knows, it's absolutely
(17:18):
impossible to me, and here you come in just effortlessly
dropping all of those French names, teaching listeners that it
is possible. Well, I've been I have been in Morocco,
in France for the last two weeks. I mean, my friends,
is pretty horrible. Like if if you'd see me in
France struggling my I to negotiate buying an umbrella in
a shop in m Bois the other day, and it
(17:40):
was a very torturous conversation. I went through trying to
buy this umbrella and a pair of nail clippers, may
I add, and there was a problem with the card machine,
and I got to like, I got so far with
this conversation, like hacking my way in French, and then
just like I was just hit my limit, and I
was like, excuse me, belivionly, and she went, oh, yeah,
I'm American. And I was like dumbfound and I thought,
(18:01):
was my friend really so good that I tricked? You know,
you were just being weirdly polite for an American. And anyway,
put all that aside, Let's go back to the early
twelfth century. This is the cradle of Artherian and what's
the context for all of these stories Suddenly like flourishing
and becoming you know, used the analogy already, but like
the Marvel movies of the day, at this end, this
(18:24):
this sort of open world where stories can be retold
and characters and pitched up in each other stories and
all that. It's it's the high point of sort of
nightly chivalry in a way, the concept of the night,
that is, the heavy cavalry, the warrior on mounted on horseback,
armed with sword and lance, that had sort of come
into European military and political society from the early tenth century.
(18:53):
By the mid eleventh century, if we think, you know,
we're talking about ten sixty six Norman invasion of England,
the even then, nights are still it's still a work
in progress if you can, if you can think of
the bear tapestry, the horse mounted warriors, they're still have
spears in their hands rather than couch lances, which is
the sort of you know, the essence of nightly combat.
(19:15):
So it takes a long time for firstly, what is
the essence of a night on horseback as as a
military entity, that take that takes a while to develop
technologically and strategically. What takes even longer to develop is
this kind of cast mentality and common social code among
those warriors, which we call knighthood, a set of principles
(19:36):
and beliefs and code of conduct and worldviews and if
even if we want to be pretentious and memes, that
takes a little bit longer to develop. But by the
early twelfth century, you know, the aftermath of the First
Crusade really even this sort of you know, the Second
Crusades coming around. The way knights are in business and
knighthood has really become bound into noble culture and our
(20:00):
aristocratic culture in Western Europe. And part of the consequence
of a cast mentality, or part of what reliable historical
features of the cast mentality or a group in a
group culture of that sort is that you start to
have origin stories. You start to have fables of knighthood
and these imaginary deeds and nights from a past that's
just over the horizon. You know, we can't quite grasp
(20:21):
who these people really were, but we know they lived
in a great time when the land was populated by
giants and scary beasts, and they did heroic deeds, and
we the nights and today should tri and emulate them.
So that's what's going on in the early twelfth century.
Knighthood's on a roll, and along with it come these
these wonderful stories. Well, and and once that's established, once
nighthood has its own literature, really interesting things start to happen.
(20:44):
So people grow up listening to primarily listening to these,
you know, these stories of Arthur and the Knights, the
round table and chivalry. A good example be William Marshall,
who you probably talked about before. We can talk about
in some more detail if you want. Men like this
grow up hearing these stories, then start to try to
absorb these ideas within the ar theory and legends into
(21:06):
their own behavior, and almost the tropes of fiction start
to inform the realities of warfare and then William Marshall's case,
the deeds of these real people are then written up.
So you have this sort of popular eat itself thing
going on where not to just becomes such a self
referential phenomenon. That's that's full of stories being told of
generation to generation and people growing up feeling that they
(21:29):
are both existing in the real world and existing in
this kind of old turnate fantasy reality that goes along
with the profession Who is William Marshall? What is the
cliff notes version of that story? So William Marshall, by
his own estimation or certainly the estimation of his sons
and friends who commissioned his biography The History of William
(21:52):
Marshall in the early thirteenth century of nineteen as a
massively long old French verse account of the Marshal life
idealized somewhat. But Marshall was a man of the late
twelfth and early thirteenth century who was one of the
younger sons of a night called John Marshall, who was
fighting in the eleven thirties in the anarchy between Stephen
(22:13):
and Matilda, the English Civil war for the throne between
rival descendants of King Henry the first both grandchildren. William
the Conqueror and Marshall was five years old during that war,
and his first encounter with warfare, according to this story
of William Marshall, was his father was holding a castle
against King Stephen, one of the belligerents in the anarchy
(22:37):
in that civil war. And King Stephen had hold of
young William because he was being held as a sort
of hostage for honorable behavior. And Steven's men put young
William in the bucket of a trebor share, you know,
one of those giant siege catapults, and said, oh right, John,
we're gonna we're gonna hurd your kid at this castle
wall and his prospects of not being you know, ketch
(22:57):
up after we finished our slight um paraphrase, and John
Marshall said, do what you please. I've got loads of kids.
May This is a classic story we see from tale telling.
But what does young William Marshall do. Well, he's so
naive and kind of charming. He charms King Stephen and
makes him laugh, which is dearly a key skill in life,
which I know you possess. So he charms King Stephen
(23:20):
to such an extent that Stephen goes Oh no, we can't.
We can't reduce this poor childhood catch up. Let's let
him hang around with me for a bit. And that's
the start of young William Marshall's career in royal service,
and he goes on to be raised as a knight
at the family of one of the Marshall of the
friends of one of the Marshall family in France. He
then enters the service of the Plantation as the early Plantations,
(23:42):
so at various times in his career he writes in
tournaments with Henry the Young King, that's the eldest son
and peustive successor of Henry the Second, the first Plantation
the King. He serves Henry the Young King, he serves
Henry the Second, he serves Eleanor of Aquitaine. He serves
Richard the Lionheart, he serves King John, and eventually Sir
John's son, Henry the Third. He is the man who's
(24:03):
sort of responsible for saving the Plantagenet crown so that
Henry the Third can wear it when King John's at
war with both the French and his own parents. So
Marshall's career is a really really good way to look
at the first two to three generations of the Plantagenets,
and the history of William Marshall is one of our
most entertaining and important sources for that time. You know,
(24:23):
we're talking here temporarily between the eleven fifties and the
twelve tens. Marshall's biography is brilliant because he's such a
charismatic and entertaining character. You know, his central moral precept
is loyalty, and loyalty is what his entire story over
(24:44):
these tens of thousands of old French verses supposed to
supposed to make us meditate upon. He gets in all
sorts of entertaining scrapes. He's you know, he is a
very very talented knight, you know, and and typical of
Nights in many ways. As a young man, as I said,
he's right on the tournament circuit, and you know, being
on a tournament team and being a well known tournament
it was a very good way to make money, connections
(25:06):
and prestige in the world in which those values were
highly regarded by polities in general. So Marshall's very tuned
to tournament. He's just he's got the ability to get
on with people, and he's he has a great military
skill set at a time when the business of politics
is largely goes on crusade, on Third Crusade, or that
that weirdly is not really mentioned, actually doesn't go in
(25:28):
the Third Crusade. I'm sorry. He goes to the Holy
Land around the time of the Third Crusade, probably not
on the Third Crusade, but that's that's a weird little
sort of gap in his history. And anyway, you know,
so look, we get to see all the plantagants through
Marshall's eyes, and then his biography has already said is
written up in It's not our theory arena, but it's
a sort of new version of our theory ana. It's
(25:49):
like saying, hey, here's another epic, sort of romantic poem
about the deeds of the night. Only guess what this
one is absolutely true. I mean, it's fantastic read. You know,
when you mentioned that the jousting sort of circuit of
that time in your book, you sort of trace the
history of jousting up until the festival joustings of like
you know, King Henry the Eighth, which I think modern
(26:12):
people most often associated like that's what jousting is. It's
sort of like just for fun. It's sort of celebratory.
What were those early jousting circuits, like, you know a
few hundred years before that. So when we say jousting,
that's immediately going to bring to mind your listeners. I'm
sure Heath Ledger in a Night's Tale, right, like you know,
(26:33):
we will rock you. And they're in the lists and
they sort of they ride at each other and then
bash the lances into shields and someone falls off or doesn't. Okay, century,
absolutely that's tournaments. It's fighting in front of an audience.
It's a bit like m m A or boxing today.
It's just organized violence and quite a contained environment with
(26:53):
some sense of an ethical code and some Unless you're
Henry the Second of France, right, yes, well all bets
are off at that point. I mean all bets are
off in France in general. Go way back to where
we're talking about William and Marshall in the twelfth century.
Tournaments look absolutely nothing like that, and quite many times,
(27:18):
at many times and in many places they're actually a
legalist that are so dangerous. The tournament at that point
is conducted over a very large open space which could
stretch dozens of miles in either direction. Maybe even scores
of miles in another direction. Teams turn up and the
(27:38):
name of the game is, over the course of several days,
to ride one another down, not kill one another, you know,
that's that was very bad form. But to fight at
about eight percent capacity and capture one another. And once
once you've captured somebody, then they would have to buy
back from you their liberty, their horses, and their armor,
(28:01):
which were the three things which were the most important
to a night. And they could be quite violent, quite rough.
They obviously attracted large crowds of hangers on, ranging from
well to do support as well wishes and spectators through
to you know, the hangers on that were always accompanied
any festivities or festivals sort of dealers and spieves and
(28:22):
drunkards and thieves and the usual crowd the people you
find me hanging out with. If I guess, what's the
sport itself? Like, I guess you've got to be quite
rich to take part in it. So it's a little
bit like Formula one motor racing, but with the casual
violence of mixed martial arts. Yes, of rugby or American football.
(28:43):
You know you need horsemanships. It's a bit like polo
I suppose that the horsemanship plus wealth makes a little
bit like the polo circuit, but with the with the
violence and danger of Formula one and rugby, it must
have been great fun. I think, enormous fun. And if
you've got involved in this, you know, if you can
get a start, if you get on a team and
you're any good, you could really make quite a lot
of money because you could capture people, you own money
(29:03):
ransoming the gear back, or you could lose your shirt
as well. This happens to William Marshall. You know, he's
early on in his tournament career, gets a bit cocky,
and then he's captured and he loses pretty much everything.
And at that point you're relying on your team sponsor
or captain. You know, it's element of Aquitaine or Henry
the Young King to bail you out or you're in
bother and Marshall at various times ends up a prisoner
(29:24):
for quite a while. There's a great story in his
biography where he's a prisoner and he's been injured in
one of these tournaments. You think he's had I think
he's had a lanced through his leg and he's got
a very painful wound in his leg and it's sort
of bandages stuffed in it and it's dressed. He's got
to be really careful because it's a serious round and
he's being sort of taken around servery borying by whoever's
(29:45):
captured him. I can't remember it. And one night the
people have captured him having this competition of who can
throw this giant stone, the furthest it's very good, it's
good boys stuff. There was an HBO they had to
entertain themselves somehow exactly. You know, if we get Netflix
and Chill has chuck a massive stone and Chill or not,
(30:07):
and so they're chucking a massive stone about and Marshall
he can't like he's he just can't sit there and watch.
It's like, come on, guys, give me a go. But
I don't think you want to go. I don't think
you want to play at this. Give me a passed
me to stone, really passed me to stone. So he
gets the stone, of course, because he has to win.
(30:27):
Just laughs. He throws it so hard that all the
stitches and the badges bast out of his leg and
he's worse off afterwards. In the other one's before but
that's that's told us a relatively comical story in the
history of William Marshall, which is like his desire, his
nightly prowess occasionally got the better of him. Pride. Pride
(30:48):
comes before a burst leg as they say, Yeah, that's
what they say. One other thing I'm interested in speaking
to you about, obviously because you're the expert on English
and British castles, the idea of the evil castle, When
does that really come about? I think we're picturing like,
you know, cartoon castle of like the stone turrets and
(31:08):
archers through the slits. I think I know what you're
talking about, you know, like think about the cartoon castle,
which surely even if King Arth there was you know,
quote unquote real that wouldn't have existed in the fifth century.
But when do we get the classic stone castle. Well, yeah,
the story of the castles, story of of several important
(31:28):
phases of evolution. So beginning really around the turn of
the first millennium tenth century, I suppose you start to see,
particularly with the Normans, a lot of the drivers of
a lot of medieval history that is still familiar to
us today often tend to be the Norman's. This group
of sort of Viking descended Francified roughnecks from Normandy, which
(31:50):
is a little bit to the west of Paris center
on Room in modern France. The Normans are great castle builders,
and during the tenth eleventh century you start to see
it a typical Norman castle, which would be a well
called a motte and bailey castle. So you're going to
have a keep, which is a sort of stronghold, usually
(32:11):
built on a sort of artificial or natural hill, and
then round it an enclosure with other wooden palisades or
you know, even stone walls in some instances, and within
that's the bailey. So that's that's the sort of basic
form of a castle, and it serves pretty well. For example,
during the Norman invasion, after the Norman invasion of England
ten sixty six, William the conqueror comes over and builds
(32:33):
castles absolutely everywhere, and of this sort. You know, you
throw them up pretty quick. What are they fought? Well,
they're really garrison's. This is where Norman knights are stationed
and they have a sort of a radial circle of
a day's ride. That castle can then control the land
around it because you can send knights out from it
(32:53):
to wherever you choose. But the heyday of the castle
of the sort that you're talking about is somewhat later.
So in British terms, probably the greatest castle builder is
Edward the first, Edward Longshanks in the Hammer of the Scots.
So Edwards is king at the turn of the twelve
into the thirteenth century. He is a crusader, his son
(33:17):
of the not enormously successful Henry the third and therefore
a grandson of bad King John, very very talented military
general commander, and carries out in the British Isles a
sort of an Arthurian inspired attempt to conquer Wales and
Scotland and add them formally and permanently to the Kingdom
(33:39):
of England. Prior to end of the First Reign, the
main focus of sort of territorial expansion or a trenchment
or defense from England had been France had been to
the so holding on to Gascony, but also trying to
get back the bits that we lost by King John
Njou main terrain normally whatever whatever, all that's sort of
finished fired with the Austrain. England still has Gascony, which
(34:01):
is in southwest around who centered around the city of Bordeaux.
But really the job of conquering anymore of France by
that stage is just too expensive and too difficult. So
Edwards starts to i mean somewhat inspired by the legends
of Arthur, who'd be the king of the Britons and
not the English, starts to look to conquer into Wales,
(34:21):
in Scotland and in Wales, launch this enormous series of campaigns,
particularly to Northern Wales, Snowdonia, which is the very mountainous
bit of of North rest world, typically the heartlands of
the native Welsh kings, extremely inhospitable to reign, very difficult
to conquer, but Edward decides conquers twelve seventies, twelve eighties,
(34:43):
twelve nineties. Edwards sends in enormous armies with enormous cause
of engineers to cut these super highways into northern Wales,
conquer the land, to get rid of the native princes
and kings, and builds these vast, vast stone castles at
(35:05):
unbelievable expense into the mountain sides of North Wales. One
of the most famous one we featured on Secrets of
British Castles is Carnavon, which is right up in the
northwest tip of Wales, just across the Meni straight from
Anglesea which is the big island of Norlands to the
Northwest Worlds, and Carnarvon Castle is still an incredible, incredible
(35:27):
place to visit. Lots of these places were never quite finished,
but they were all were almost all the architectural brain
child or an engineering brainchild of a castle builder called
Master James of St George, who was just, I mean
the greatest castle builder of his day. And they look
nothing like a Norman castle. They are these sort of
(35:50):
often two sets of concentric walls. In the case of Carnarvon,
these walls are built in alternating horizontal bands of stone,
which is supposed to resemble the wall Constantinople. You've got
palatial apartments. You've got these very very large inner whether
they're not courtyards, I suppose they call them bailey's where
(36:10):
hundreds of people could congregate. They often have small towns
erected around them, you know, new towns built to host
a population to supply the needs of garrison the castle.
They're the fairy tale castles and they're built all over
North Wales during the time of Edward the First, and
the expenses truly, truly, truly phenomenal. They don't actually serve
(36:35):
for a very long time as effective military outposts because
the conquest of Wales is sort of but you know,
it's it's almost completed underhead with the first. I mean,
there are further conflicts in the fifteenth century Henry fourth
Fester to find Wales, but but really the job is
(36:55):
sort of done. And the castles I think quite quickly
asked from having a primarily a military function to primarily
an intimidatory function. They're sitting there as a sort of
a deliberately painful reminder of the might of the English crown,
and they are symbols of conquest. These days they will
be torn down and thrown in the sea because they
(37:16):
will be triggering and they would be very offensive. In fact,
that that might well happen. So I'm sure somebody will
come along and well else soon and so these are
terrible symbols of colonialism, or we need to chuck them
all in the sea. But in terms of intimidation, the
Tower of London, I mean, maybe the most famous castle
in England would have obviously served the same purpose when
William the Conqueror comes in builds this massive castle in
(37:39):
the middle of London. Yeah, that's right, I mean the
White Tower. The original bit of the Tower of London
very much was designed to overall Londoners. But again, well
maybe it's a slightly different story with the Tower of
London because it's soon there's not much need for a
generation after William the Conquered. There's really not much need
to have a castle in London to overall the Londoners.
(38:01):
I mean that the relationship between London and the Crown
is only occasionally one of a military antagonism in the
rest of the English Middle Ages. The tar of London
is a great example of a castle that that quickly
passes to have a sort of more palatial administrative role.
With the first of the Royal mint, they're making coins
in the Tara, London becomes a prison, it becomes a menagerie.
(38:23):
You know, this is where under Henry the Third, I
think you have a polar bear that swims in the
Thames every day that's kept in the Tower of London,
has a little leash that goes out and catches its
fish in the Thames, And there are at various times,
elephants and lions. It's only under the first Duke of
Wellington nineteenth century that that London zoo moves out of
the Tower of London, so it forms it's a very
(38:43):
it's a it's a very odd castle to Tara London.
It's a wonderful one and rightly the most famous. But
if you think about it's in its fifteen sixteenth century history,
what's it most famous as being used for. It's a prison.
It's where the printers in the tower go. It's where
you've done an episode, and that it's where Anne Berlin
is acuted. That becomes it's it's more important function. Yeah,
I think people probably associated with the Tutors more than
(39:06):
William the Conqueror. Now, yeah, I think so. I think so.
I mean, but all of the like all of these
castles there are there are certain points in history where
castles are very important for different reasons. If we look
at the eleventh century, the Normal Conquest, ten sixties, through
a couple of generations, Yes, castles are there for polonizing
(39:27):
and subduing the English and their projection of Norman power
from the other side of the English Channel into England itself.
And then you have this period in the you're talking
about in the thirteenth century were underhead with the first
there's this kind of revival of castle building, mainly on
the places that the English trying to conquer within Britain.
And then in the Tudor era we start to see
(39:49):
castles perform a different function again. You know, they are
there their palaces, their administrative, their prisons. And then the
sort of final great throw of castle use in England
is in the Civil War in the seventeenth century, after
which that's why many of the castles in England are
in ruins, because they were slighted by Cromwell's side in
(40:09):
the Civil War, so they couldn't be used as royal
fortifications thereafter, and that's why so many castles in englanduties
rather clamorous ruins in the same way that so many
or what we can see if so many monasteries in
England are these haunting Gothic ruins, thank because they were
left that way deliberately after the Reformation under Henry the
eight There are very few castles which don't just become
(40:31):
sort of private, stately homes or just ruins after the
seventeenth century. But there's one very interesting exception, which is
Dover Castle on the south coast, and that still had
a military function in the Second World War. It was
where if you've seen the film dun Kirk with Mark
Ryland's very nobly sort of chugging chugging across the channel
(40:53):
in his little ship, that the command center for dun
Kirk was Dover Castle. In fact, if you visit over
Castle when you're in England, you can go down and
then it has a military or a quasi military function
after that, because there are nuclear bunkers underneath cliffs underneath
Dover Castle which were intended and may god still be
intended for use as regional command center for the southeast
(41:14):
of England in the event of World War three, fought
with nuclear weapons. It's pretty weird done that, but that
that's a very unusual guy. It's kind of one of
my favorite castles in a way because it's so unusual
that it retains a serious purpose for a thousand years almost.
I remember when I was, you know, much younger, the
first time I went to Edinburgh, went to Edinburgh Castle.
(41:34):
I was so astonished because up until that point my
understanding of castles was like Disney Neu Schwinstein castles, you know,
the fairy tale castles that are sort of the castle
equivalent of the Arthurian legends. And the Edinburgh Castle, which
is very much like a small town and feels like
a military garrison. Yeah, got it. I mean Edinburgh Castle
(41:56):
is one of the most wonderful places in the whole
of the whole the UK. And I don't need to
man explain in Edinburgh to you. He's written a novel
set at in a very brilliant one. By the way,
that that too is quite unusual in that part of
its function as a royal palace is still to have
this ceremonial military thing and with the tattoo and with
(42:18):
the bag of the gun, And that's part of its charm,
I suppose. But part of its charm is also, like
so many of the best castles, it's the glamor of
its location, you know, on that craggy volcanic precipice, I suppose,
overlooking one of the most beautiful cities in northern Europe.
It's almost unbelievably charming, isn't it a wonderful place? Well,
(42:38):
I feel like I've kept here for a long time.
But before I let you go the Middle Age. The
Middle Ages, which spans a thousand years, is sort of
an intimidating chunk I think for amateurs to look at.
Is there a specific period that you think is your favorite? Well,
I mean, like with my children, I have a different
favorite depending on which day you asked me. But I'm
(43:01):
back into the fourteenth century at the moment, which was
kind of where I begun. My first book was about
the Peasants Revolt tht eighty one, and the Peasant Rot
eighty one is a sort of almost like a culminating
events was what we now call a populist rebellion or
rising that comes near the end of a century where
there's been famine followed by animal moraine, followed by the
(43:22):
Black Death, pandemic, pestilence, followed by war, the Hundred Years War,
and then you get to the populist rebellion. And so
the fourteen centuries where I started, and it's where I've
gone back to. So that the novel Essex Dogs you
mentioned is set in thirty six towards the beginning of
the Hundred Years War. And you know, for one reason
or another, I've just been I've been on a fourteenth century. Tip.
(43:44):
You know, it's not that cheerful at time. You know,
you don't go into the fourteenth centuryship a good time,
but but it is incredibly dramatic, and you see in
the fourteenth century really what feels like apocalypse coming. But
you also see the beginnings of you know, literature in
(44:07):
the vernacular traditions that we recognize today, you know, Chaucer
or Pacaccio, these sort of father like figures of the
vernacular literature that became adopted by nation states. It's all
there in the fourteenth century and the very very early
stirrings of the Renaissance, the early stirrings of religious protests
(44:28):
that will coalesce in the Reformation. It's it's the beginning
of the end of the Middle Ages, and it's a
time where for a lot of well a lot of people,
it was the end of days. But it's the closest century,
maybe barring the early twentieth century, that you've ever had
too genuine apocalypse. That's interesting. Well, with that, I think
(44:48):
that's an optimist take place to leave us. Dan, thank
you so much for taking the time out. Everyone you
should absolutely read one, two to three of all of
Dan eleven or twelve books. Before the interview, I asked
him how many books he had written and he wasn't
sure there was another one. Thank you, Dana, it was
(45:09):
so much fun talking to you and everyone preorder his
novel Essex Dogs if you're interested in that romantic world
of the fourteenth century. He's a brilliant writer. And remember
this is the episode and starting now, Noble Blood is
going weekly, so look for an episode every single Tuesday
on your podcast app. Dan. Thank you so much, thanks
(45:33):
and congratulations. Noble Blood is a production of I Heart
Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky. Noble Blood
is hosted by me Danish Sports. Additional writing and researching
(45:56):
done by Hannah Johnston, hannah's Wick, Mura Hayward, Nie Sender,
and Laurie Goodman. The show is produced by Rema al Kali,
with supervising producer Josh Faine and executive producers Aaron Manky,
Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from I
Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
(46:18):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Dana Schwartz
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