October 1, 2025 • 37 mins
The fourteenth-century is one of the most turbulent periods in European history. Famine, war, plague, royal depositions – you name it, this century’s got it. This week, Danièle speaks with Helen Carr about how England fared in these wild times, what her take is on some famous Plantagenets, and why we need to take a fresh look at this calamitous century.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hi everyone, and welcome to episode three hundred and nine
of the Medieval Podcast. I'm your host Danielle Sebalski. The
fourteenth century is one of the wildest times in European history,
(00:24):
which is exactly why I've always loved it so much. Famine, war, plague,
you name it, this century's got it. Fifty years ago,
Barbara Tuckman wrote a beautiful book about the fourteenth century,
which is still an enjoyable read. But we've learned a
lot since the seventies, so maybe it's time to take
another look. Enter my next guest. This week, I spoke
(00:48):
with Helen Carr about England in the fourteenth century. Helen
is a postgraduate researcher at Queen Mary University and the
author of The Red Prince John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster,
as well as What Is History Now, which she co
edited with Susannah Lipscomb. In addition to writing for various
publications and appearing on History Hit and other podcasts and specials,
(01:11):
Helen mentors writers on all things medieval and narrative history.
Her new book is Sceptred Isle, a New History of
the fourteenth Century. Our conversation on how England fared in
these wild times, why we need to take a fresh
look at the past, and what her take is on
some famous plantagenets is coming up right after this. Well,
(01:35):
welcome back, Helen. I've just realized it's been four years
since we talked, so it's great to talk to you.
We've already been talking for like half an hour, so
it's time to get to work.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
We had a lot to catch.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Up on.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
For sure. Okay, so time to get to work. You
just wrote a wonderful book called Sceptored Isle and it's
about The subtitle is a new History of the fourteenth century.
So I need to ask what made you think we
need an a new history of the fourteenth century?
Speaker 2 (02:02):
I know I think is it's a bit of a
sort of void title, and it's often one that people
pick up on and say, well, what's new about it?
But the fact is, when we're writing history, it's always new.
It's a new because it's a new perspective. This is
my perspective of the fourteenth century. There is new research
in there that hasn't been done, but it's mostly a
collection of events and stories and characters that I have
(02:25):
found fascinating about this particular period put into this narrative
history of the century. And even though there have been
lots of academic work on the fourteenth century, there's been
lots of volumes of essays about the fourteenth century, the
only real popular history about the fourteenth century was Barbara
Tuckman's Distant Mirror, which was written a long time ago
(02:47):
and actually only started in thirteen forty, and it was
also focusing on England and France, whereas this book, Sceptidile
is focusing on England, even though there's talk of the
relationship with France in it. So it's a new history
really in a sense that this is my version of
the fourteenth century. And I'm sure there will be more
(03:09):
in the future.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
I mean, there should be more. This is the best century.
And so it's great that there is a new history because,
as you're saying, Barbaratagun wrote that like fifty years ago,
so it's time for a new one. So you really
kept that type focus on England. What was the reasoning
for that, because like these are are connected, you have
to make decisions about this. What was it that made
you decide to keep that type focus on England?
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Sure, well, it was already a massive project in itself.
You know, you're talking about a period of nearly one
hundred years, and a lot happens just in England in
that time. And if I was sort of casting my
net wider, rather than making these sort of references to
Europe or France or Spain and trying to include those
stories as well, it would have been too big. It
(03:54):
would have been too big a project for me, it
would have been too big for the reader, and it
also would have just been surface level. And what I
love about being a historian is digging down into the record,
into the archives, trying to recover lost voices, trying to
really get into the detail around certain certain events or
(04:15):
certain circumstances or characters. And so there are tough decisions
when you are when you're writing a book. And off
the podcast just now we were talking about those difficult
decisions as to where do you stop, where do you start,
where do you focus? And I think when you are
covering such an extensive period, I think the focus needs
to hone in a bit more.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Yes, I was looking at the fourteenth century, am tating
of course on it right now, and there is so
much information you have to figure out where am.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
I going to start?
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Where am I going to start? Especially with the center
where so much is happening. So sort of along those lines,
you've divided this into five parts. I think what made
you decide you're going to divide them into five parts?
Because so much is happening? What was your thinking along that?
Speaker 2 (05:00):
That's a really good question. It was a while ago,
but I did that, So I'm trying to remark what
was my thinking? Well, I think, just purely stylistically, I
think that it's really nice to read history books like
that to sort of create those dividing moments, And for
me that came often with a change of kingship, but
it also came with a change of themes. So there was,
(05:20):
for example, when the Black Death hit in thirteen forty eight,
for me, that was a real catalyst for major change
going into the second part of the fourteenth century. And
even though the monarch didn't change in thirteen forty eight,
the feel of the realm, the human experience, the what
it was to live in this period dramatically changed. So
(05:42):
I felt like that deserved. It's a section that had
been separate to the previous one, which was all about
how Edward the third had gone to war in France
and won lots of battles and wasn't he wonderful and
chivalry and you know, it's a very different take on
the period. So it felt like a natural point to
create that divide.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Okay, so while run Kingship, we're going to get into
more individual kings in a moment. One of the things
that you've gone with that might get people talking is
you talk about Richard the second, he's at the end
of this period being the last Plantagenet.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
Wow, you threw down. What's this about?
Speaker 2 (06:17):
I know I'm being canceled. That's really interesting because no
one else has really asked me about that. I think
people just just assume that I'm right, or they just
haven't really focused on it. So yeah, in my mind,
I consider Richard to be the last Plantagenet because Richard
is the last monarch who goes through that unbroken line.
(06:38):
So his father was not the king, but he was
the black prince who was the heir. So it's not
the first deposition in this period. I mean, we see
that with Edward the Second, but what it's his son
that inherits the crown, So it is kind of still
carrying from through this line, and what you see in
thirteen ninety nine is the first Lancastrian And so for me,
(07:01):
that is the time where the sort of age of
the Plantagenets ends, even though Henry of course has Plantagenets blood,
but he then starts his new dynasty with the House
of Lancaster really as monarchs rather than magnates. So that's
why for me it felt like a natural conclusion.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Yeah, it's interesting that more people haven't gone there, and
I think that probably has to do with wanting to
connect a great king like Henry the fifth with a
great king like Edward the third. I think people wanted
to make sure that these guys get included in the
title of Plantaget, even though sure as you're saying, it's
not not father to son anymore.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Yeah, I mean, even their name Plantagenet was a later creation,
so you know, it wasn't like Edward the third was
going well, I'm a Plantagenet because he was. He wasn't
saying that at all. That happened later in the fifteenth century.
So I suppose it helps for narrative purposes as well
to be able to create those connections. But I think
there's so many different argus to be had, and it's
(08:00):
all full of nuances, and I'm sure there's lots of
papers and academic journals about it.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
If there aren't, there will be, right. Well, so where
did you decide to start? You start New Year's Day,
thirteen hundred. Where do you start this book?
Speaker 2 (08:16):
So start the book in thirteen oh seven with the
death of Edward the First And it felt like a
natural point to start the book because Edward the First kind,
to be honest, deserved a book in his own right.
You know, he's such a formidable king. There was a
lot about his reign that really shaped the fabric of
how we consider the British Isles today. But I thought
(08:37):
starting with his death is kind of starting with the
end of something, because it's also in thirteen oh seven
when Edward dies, it's very dramatic death. He's in the
middle of He's in the middle of something else. He's
in the middle of this war with Scotland, which Edward
the Second is supposed to take up the Mantle four
and to go into battle and win big victories like
his father had done. It also starts in the middle
(08:59):
of when things were looking pretty prosperous. England was a
realm that was generally quite wealthy. Edward had successfully conquered
whales in the century before. It was the rise of
the universities. There was a population increase, things were looking good.
And as soon as Edward inherits the crown, it almost
it's almost immediately starts to go very wrong.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
How much of this can we lagh at Edward the
second feet so tell us what happens during Edward the
Second's reign. It's not all his fault, although it's not really,
because well.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
I think when I was writing this, I wanted to
take interest, take more of an interesting characters rather than
looking at these figures as kings and what they did
or didn't do right, and trying to understand the psychologies
of them and why they would make the decisions they make.
And I think Edward the Second is fascinating because he's
a perfect example of somebody who just didn't have the
(09:57):
skills that the role of kingship reques. He lacked confidence,
he wasn't a natural military leader, and you do have
people who fail to inspire admiration from their contemporaries. And
even though Edward was revered as a king. I think
people struggled to warm to him as a monarch and
(10:20):
feel like they want to be ruled by him. It
felt like he was always needing to be ruled by them,
and so there was a real clash of personalities. And
Edward's greatest error was the fact that he could not
rule independently. And instead of doing this, I suppose on
a more diplomatic way, which would be having a counsel
(10:40):
that he relied on heavily with a group of noblemen,
which is how they would have wanted it to be.
He instead always seemed to gravitate towards a favorite, and
his most famous favorite being Piers Gaveston. And I think
this is because he needed that sort of fraternal support.
He needed somebody to say to him, this is the
(11:03):
right decision, you're good enough, I'm supporting you, I'm behind you.
He needed that affirmation of who he the very fabric
of who he was. And the problem with that is
you're elevating somebody of comparatively low status to a status
at his level. He was allowing Gaveston to you effectively
(11:24):
act as regent when he wasn't around. He was allowing
Gaveston to wear certain it have a dress code that
was not really relative to his station. He gave him
the Earldom of Cornwall, which was something that was usually
reserved for members of the royal family or had royal
blood pulsing through their veins, and he had none of
(11:45):
those things, and so it was sort of a how
to guide to Irk the nobility in his relationship with
Gaveston in that first fifteen years of his kingship.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Well, I think that you're getting out something really important
that maybe we don't see very much in discussions about
Edward the second that he needed this bromance. He needed
that affirmation, and he needed it from a man, because
he could have gotten it from his wife. In fact,
most kings lean on their wives for this sort of affirmation, validation,
all of those sort of emotional things. But Edward needed
(12:20):
this from a man. I think that has a lot
to do with culture, perhaps even more than his perhaps
attraction to Pierce Gaveston or later Hugh Despiser.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
I think that too, And I also think that it
was because his father was a bully. I think Edward
the Face was a formidable man. He was terrifying, and
I think can you imagine being the only surviving heir
to a man like that. He was very hard on him,
and you know, you only have to look at people
today who have had that sort of experience growing up.
(12:50):
He didn't share that with brothers. He had too much
younger brothers when his father remarried, but he didn't have
anybody to lean on in that respect. He had close
relationships with his sisters, but he was quite starved of
that sort of male affection and male love, which to
think that people did not need that in the Middle
(13:11):
Ages is just incorrect. Everybody's needed it always.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Yes, yes, And I think that a lot of people
maybe are too hard on Edward. He was terrible in
a lot of ways. But if we take him as
a person, which is what you're trying to do in this,
but we do need to give him a little bit
of grace, I think, human to human.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
I think also what's so interesting about Edward is Gaveston
sort of brought out the best in him. He was
very kind and generous when he was in a relationship
we can call it, with Piers Gaveston. You only really
see this change in Edward with his second favorite, and
that's Hue Dispenser. The younger who was awful. He was
an awful individual. Like if we think of baddest people
(13:50):
in history, Hugh Dispenser will be right up there. He
was a very grabbing, avaricious, cruel individual and what he had,
though was the ear of the king. And it was
really only after time spent and this close proximity and
close relationship with you Dispenser, that you see a shift
(14:12):
in Edward's character to becoming paranoid, much more aggressive, and
much more punitive as well, and just making feckless decisions.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
I think that's right in that the tone of the
relationship is very, very different, and of course this is
when things start to move. So I just mentioned Isabella.
What happens, what happens with Edward? What happens with Isabella?
Speaker 2 (14:36):
I know, she's such an amazing character. Isabella and Edward,
which is not what everybody would think they always hated
each other. They didn't at all. They had a very
good relationship again up until Edward became particularly close to
Hugh Dispenser the Younger and Hugh Dispenser the Younger became
more powerful. What was unfortunate was that around thirteen twenty five,
(14:58):
Edward started to he started to fall out with the
King of France, who was Isabella's brother, and this prompted,
probably incited by Huter Spencer, a bit of a personal
vendetta against Isabella simply for being French, because her brother
was an aggressor against Edward, and it was all over Gascony,
as the rest of the Hundred Years War was pretty
(15:19):
much but certainly in the fourteenth century. But Isabella then
went to France and he diplomatic mission in thirteen twenty
six to try and smooth all of this over. And
what happened was Edward neglected to realize that in France
(15:41):
she had allies, she had support, and she also reconnected
with Roger Mortimer, who had fled England. He had managed
to escape from the Tower of London after the Battle
of Boroughbridge. And what was even worse Redwood and more stupid,
was that he allowed his son to go over to
France to pay homage for Gascony, therefore giving him into
the hands of his mother, the heir to the throne.
(16:01):
This is and as soon as Isabella has her son
and the future king of England and her possession, she
has everything in her arsenal she needs as an army,
which was something she found reasonably simple to come by,
and so she invaded England. But it's important to note
this was not to overthrow Edward. It was to overthrow
Hugh Dispencer the Younger, because overthrowing the king was treason us.
(16:22):
So they had to pin it that they were overthrowing
Hugh Dispencer, who was already really unpopular. Nobody really liked him.
He was just popular with the king, which is what
kept him alive. So when Despencer was disposed of and
Edward was there effectively under house arrest, Isabella and Roger
Mortimer installed the new young king, Edward the Second relinquished
(16:45):
his crown to his son. But what the issue was
was you still had a king who was alive, and
then you had a new king. And as long as
Edward the Second is alive, Isabella and Mortimer are not safe.
So at some point I believe Roger Mortimer gave an
order to have Edward murdered. And that's what I believe
(17:07):
that happened. He knew that there had already been multiple
attempts to rescue him from house arrested. He had been
moved from Kenilworth to Berkeley, Castle, and I think it
was in Barkley Castle he was murdered.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Well, I mean, speaking of relationships, you mentioned that Isabella
is pretty powerful, she's pretty independent. Then she gets involved
with Roger Mortimer and then things go south. Tell us
about this relationship, because this is one that you spent
a bit of time one in the book.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Yeah. So I find this fascinating and I refer to
this period. I use the motif the wheel of Fortune
in this period because it really is a particular political
time where somebody is at the top of the wheel,
they're doing really well politically. The idea is it's a
fourteenth it's a medieval motif. You've seen a lot of
manuscript culture in the fourteenth century, and the idea goes
(17:59):
that you have the god Fortuna who spins the wheel,
and whoever is at the top of the wheel gets
spun off the top and they're crushed by the spokes
at the bottom. And that's something that you see repeatedly.
I mean, look at Hugh Dispenser, He's right at the
top of the wheel gaining loads of land and wealth,
and then in comes Isabella and off he goes from
the top of the wheel and then Isabella and Mortimer
(18:19):
are at the top of the wheel of fortune. But
with their success comes greed and their own avarice. You know,
they don't act in a dissimilar fashion really to how
Hugh dispensed it. And what they try to do is
continuously control the young king, and their control and their
grip over him becomes tighter and tighter and tighter the
(18:43):
older he gets and the more paranoid they become. Their
regime is going to be overthrown, which spoiler alert it is,
and they tumble from this wheel of fortune into wealth. Certainly,
Roger will his case to the scaffold, so you really
(19:03):
see this change in circumstance. But it's interesting because that
is a theme that follows and you see it with
Edward as well. It's with that power and that desire
for power, particularly if you are not king, there is
paranoia and cruelty that comes with trying to maintain that position.
And we talked about Edward the Second's greatest fault. I
(19:26):
think what made him a failure as a king, and
his greatest fault was destabilizing the very structure of monarchy
in the early part of the fourteenth century, where you
had a king at the top, and you had the nobility,
and the king was always revered by pulling people up
to rule effectively alongside him who were not meant to
be there. He completely destabilized that structure and in doing
(19:50):
so allowed this age of really quite literal political backstabbing
to take place.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
Yes, about that?
Speaker 1 (20:01):
So we were talking about the wheel of fortune. Eventually
Isabella and Mortimer are thrown from the top of the
wheel and Edward the Third comes to the throne. What's
your take on him, because when we talk about the Third,
I think you're one of the people who's like, what is.
Speaker 4 (20:15):
He that great?
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Is he the pa?
Speaker 4 (20:18):
Why you think about.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
I know I'm being canceled again because I don't like
Edit the Third. No, I do like Edward the Third.
I think he was fun. I think there's a lot
to like about Edward the Third. But what my problem
with how Edward the Third has been treated with a
lot of writing and historical writing is that he has
been so revered, over revered, I think, and I don't
think that he has faced enough criticism by historians as
(20:44):
to how much of a warmonger he was and how
much damage he did to the very fabric of French society.
And I know it could be argued, okay, but is
that not just part of war. Well, yes, it's part
of war. But equally, this is a country that he
claimed to be king of and he's not treating who
(21:09):
his people would be with any level of respect or fairness.
I think it was cruel. And you know, the armies
that he led through France and the damage that they did.
This idea that oh, chivalry can be applied, Oh, we're
so chivalrous because we take prisoners. No, you don't to
the poorer members of society. These people were treated as
(21:30):
fodder and they were killed. And there's many accounts of
the most awful incidents where townspeople were murdered. And I
think that as so much focus has been put on
Edward as this very Victorian hero, you know, it's still
this lingering Victorian reappraisal of Edward. Is it still exists?
(21:54):
And I think that I am just being critical of
that particular idea of who he was as a character
because what he achieved, Yes, he managed to obtain a
lot more land for England, but at what cost? I
think that that was my point about Edward as a
war leader, as a warrior and as a warrior king.
You know, he created this incredibly masculine cult around Arthur
(22:17):
and Saint George and chivalry, and he established the Order
of the Garter. And what he was very good at
was creating a unity and a unity with his nobility,
which resulted in the same thing that happened with his
father not happening with him, and he in that sense
made England a strong realm. But I do believe that
(22:40):
his ego was a real problem in his kingship and
this idea of considering Edward and the Black Prince as
a hero and something to aspire to. I have a
problem with that.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Well, I think that's a very assessment. So how much
do you think this had to do with culture and
how much do you think this had to do with personality,
Because it's something that you had to think about it
hard if you're going to push back against this Victorian ideal. Right,
So what do you think You've mentioned that this might
be his ego. Do you think this comes direct from
culture with this everyone's drinking the kool aid about Arthur
(23:17):
or you think that this was like a personality type thing.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
I think it's a combination of two things. I think
that the culture was incredibly powerful, and I think that
you know, if you study the court of Edward the Third,
it was a pretty hedonistic, fun place to be. There's
no secret that he was really trying to reignite this
cult arand King Arthur. Before the Order of the gartera
was established, he founded an earlier order called the Order
(23:43):
of the Round Table, which is all based on these arsurianisms.
You know, he wanted to rule in Arthur's image, as
per the ideal model of kingship in the Middle Ages
was to rule in the image of this mythical king.
But I also think it is about character. That all
of these kings had very individual characters, and I think
(24:07):
that they always brought their character to their kingship. I
mean Edward, I think got a lot from his mother
in relation to his love of dressing up and pageantry
and spending money. I there was a contemporary poem written
about Edward called Winner or Waster, and it talked about
how actually he was being too frivolous and he was
(24:29):
spending money too readily. And really we always criticize Richard
as a king, but he spent an early part of
his reign, so much energy was spent mopping up the
issues that had been the hangover of Edward the Third's
fun years fighting in France, which actually ended up costing
the country a fortune. It was in the end it
(24:51):
was the people who were having to pay for that.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Yes, well, we've spent a fair amount of time with
Richard over the course of the last you're on this podcast.
I'm you know, leave Richard to the cibe for a
second and ask you more questions about your research in
this book. In that you've worked in the fourteenth century before,
you've worked with John of gand who are some of
the people that you really enjoyed sort of coming back
to again?
Speaker 4 (25:14):
Are looking at again?
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Yeah, when I encountered this, I got to the point
where I when I started to feel like I was
covering material again, for example, having to do thirteen eighty
one again. And I initially came to it thinking, oh,
you know, I've got to do to how am I
going to make this more interesting? But actually I found
(25:37):
it so much more interesting. The people of thirteen eighty
one there was a brilliant project led by one of
my old supervisors, actually Adrian Bell, So he was one
of my old supervisors when I did my Medieval History masters,
and he has worked on this brilliant project called The
People of thirteen eighty one, and that was an extensive
project into understanding who the rebels were, and so I
(25:59):
used a lot of that. I went back to the
original records that Adrian had uncovered and whilst this was
all being digitized, and I looked at the people and
the characters who were part of that rebellion, reconsidering who
they were as people, as their motivations, women as well
as men, where they came from. And I really enjoyed
(26:20):
that aspect of it. So those was I suppose that
was an event that I actually I enjoyed coming back
to more than I thought I would. The people that
I enjoyed returning to. I think I enjoyed researching the
characters that I'd never really looked into more than I
enjoyed the characters I came back to. I did enjoy
(26:41):
looking at Richard in more depth because I didn't with
John F. Gaunt because the focus was on him. So
that was interesting to the time when I wrote about
Gaunt being in Spain, for example, I was able for
this book to focus on what Richard was doing in
England and thinking about the culture of his reign, you know,
the emergence of the Renaissance and how he responded to
(27:02):
that was interesting to me. And thinking about Richard as
a patron was very interesting to me. But yeah, I
think I would say in relation to the characters, I
think it was the characters that I started to work
on more in the earlier part of the century that
I found, I would say, the most academically rewarding in
(27:23):
what I was researching with them.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Well, one of the characters that you pulled out that
hasn't gotten all that much love, and you really gave
a lot of love to here is Joan, who is
the princess who died the place? Why did you want
to put a lens on Joan here?
Speaker 2 (27:40):
I loved talking about Joan, writing and researching about Joan,
and I actually what happened to Joan was one of
my most It was a real point of determination in
my focus for the book. So nobody really knows what
happened to Joe and I find that quite extraordinary. And
I thought, well, who's looked at this? And it turns
(28:01):
out that it's not been really looked at in a
huge amount of detail. There have been some published works
on Joan. She was part of a book on the
Plantagenet Princesses, The Lives of the Princesses, written a very
long time ago, and that assessment of what happens to
Joan I have found to be incorrect. And my approach
(28:22):
was to go back to the archive, to go back
to all of the original material, using any of the
more up to date scholarly research around this time around her,
around the Black Death, to try and understand what happened.
And I think I've probably come to what I think
is the most reasonable conclusion as to when she died
and where it took a while. I spent a bit
(28:46):
of time in the archives working through it, but it
made for probably one of my favorite parts of the book.
And I was just incredibly touched by following what happened
to her, and then also just being able to see
now through the record how much her family grieved her,
because that's not something you see very much, particularly when
we're dealing with medieval records. You don't have letters and diaries,
(29:10):
you don't have that. You have to look at these
incredibly governmental, more rigid documents but there is a one
instance in the Calendar's the Calendar of Close Roles, where
Edward writes to Alfonso of Castile to say that his
daughter Joan, who was traveling to Castile to be married
(29:33):
to Alfonso's son when she died, was not going to arrive.
And he talks about how we I'm understanding that to
be himself and Philippa, his queen, were touched by the
sting of grief, the bitter sting of grief, and he
uses those words. And what I found so affecting by
that as well, is that anyone who has lost somebody
(29:56):
they love, anybody who's gone through grief, it is bitter
and it stings. And for me it just felt like
one of those amazing temporal moments is a historian when
you really sort of feel like you're touching the fingertips
of somebody who lived seven hundred years ago.
Speaker 4 (30:11):
Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
And this brings me to my last question for you,
which is your life has changed a lot since you
started this book, and you put this in the book,
You let us know, give us windows into this. So
how did that change how you looked at this century?
You're doing a new history, you're bringing yourself into it.
What do you think that brings to the work.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
I think there is nowadays a real cold It might
be a commercial trend, or it might be necessity, and
it's not something I judge at all for kind of
writing books really quickly and pumping out books and you've
got to finish it in six months, you've got to
finish it in the year, and all of these thirty
hundred thirty lists and just drives me mad because one
(30:55):
of one of the things that is so wonderful about
being a historian is the you get better with age,
and your life experience can in some ways not inform
how you look at the record, but you have more
time and space to sit with the material that you're
engaging with, and it's something that you shouldn't rush. And
(31:19):
I think that life happens around writing books and you
go through all of these undulations yourself, be it life,
be at death, be it hardship, be at incredibly positive moments,
and I think what is wonderful is that the record
doesn't change, but you come back to it every time
a slightly different person. And that's why I think I
(31:40):
really am trying to counter this idea, particularly for young
historians now working now that you have to do everything
now because you don't and it takes time, and that
time is a wonderful gift when you are writing history,
and it will only make you better. That's what I
(32:01):
would say about that. So how it informed my writing,
I think that's just entirely self conscious.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Well, I think that is a lovely way to end this,
because I think you're absolutely right. We just get better
with age and what we can bring to this as humans,
because as you're saying, the portraits that you're creating of
these characters, they become richer the more you understand about
yourself and life and all of these things.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
So yeah, and your own experiences matter in this. Like
I had a baby just before I wrote this, and
one of the women I encountered in this book was
Elizabeth de Berg, And you know, I could not believe
that nobody had picked up on the fact that she
had a baby with a husband who had died six
(32:51):
weeks later after giving birth. She married Roger Damerie, and
she would have been expected to go to bed with
him that night. One who has had a baby, That
is that's mind blowing to me. That is on any
level and this isn't just applying my feelings being living
in the modern day to the past. That is just
(33:11):
objectively and biologically a trauma for a woman.
Speaker 4 (33:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Well, I mean this is why we need new histories
to come back with, because we need these different perspectives.
We need people to bring themselves to history, and I
think that is something that you have really illustrated for us,
both in the book and today. So thank you so much, Helan.
So great to see you again and to see you
on the book.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Thank you so much, Daniel. Thank you for having me.
It's always a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
To find out more about Helen's work. You can visit
her website at helenhcar dot com. Her new book is
Sceptred Isle, a New History of the fourteenth Century. Before
we go, here's Peter from Middie will start Net to
tell us what's on the website.
Speaker 4 (33:53):
What's up, Peter?
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Hey, Hey, I've got some Canadian content for you.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
What is it.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
There was a sharp eyed a shopper in a thrift
store in British Columbia and they spotted some rings and
a couple of medallions that had kind of this historical
look to them and big bottom for thirty bucks donating
to Simon Fraser University, and it is very likely these
are medieval in origin.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Yes, a friend sent me that, because you know Canadians,
we all know each other, right, So a friend told
me all about this, and I think it's pretty amazing
that somebody found these and recognized their worth in the
charity shop. First of all, I mean great the people
are donating stuff to charity, and also great that people
are taking medieval objects and donating them to museums as well.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
Yeah, so it's going to take a few more months
to can't figure out what they are, but if you
want to take a look at them, you've got some
pretty high quality photos on the website. Maybe you can
lend a hand out there. Awesome, So we've got that.
Plus I found some new medieval riddles to share with everybody.
Speaker 4 (34:55):
All right, have you got a sample for us?
Speaker 3 (34:58):
Yeah? This is from a fourteenth century check monk and
he went by named Clarett, and he's like one hundred
and twenty riddles, all sorts of fun stuff. The one
I like the best is what did the whole world hear?
Speaker 4 (35:11):
What did the whole world hear?
Speaker 3 (35:14):
Okay, the horse when it farted in Noah's Ark.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
I don't think I get it, but okay, but it
sounds funny.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
It does. It's pretty good I think about it. It
makes sense. I think it makes sense. So we put
up twenty of them as a quiz that you can take.
So go ahead, and I prove your medieval chops. Listeners.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
There you go, Everyone run out and see if you
can solve these check riddles.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
Indeed, indeed, So we have that plus a piece by
David Backrack about the latest book he wrote. It's called
Warfare in the Global Middle Ages, and it's a kind
of personal piece because he wrote this with his father,
the late great Bernie Backrack, and this was the final
book that they worked on together.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
That must have been such a meaningful project, I imagine,
indeed indeed was.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
So he talks about the behind the scenes on how
that whole book developed.
Speaker 4 (36:09):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
So he's shared his personal journey on the website.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
Yeah, yeah, he's got his personal journey and that the
book is coming out this week.
Speaker 4 (36:17):
Perfect.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Well, thanks Peter for stopping by and telling us what's
on the website.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
Banks.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Okay, maybe I was thinking just a little too hard
about Peter's riddle because I actually do get it. But
one thing I never have to think hard about is
just how grateful I am to all of you for
being here each week, supporting independent history and yours. Truly,
whether you're sharing your favorite episodes, letting the ads play through,
(36:45):
or becoming patrons on Patreon, you are very appreciated because
it's all the little things that you do that makes
this work possible. To find out more or to become
a patron, please visit patreon dot com slash medievalists for
everything from scepters two specters, follow medievalist dot net on
Instagram at medievalist net or blue Sky at Medievalists. You
(37:09):
can find me Danielle Sabalski across social media at five
min Medievalist or five minute Medievalist, and you can find
my books at all your favorite bookstores. Our music is
by Christian Overton. Thanks for listening, and have yourself a
wonderful day,
Hi everyone, and welcome to episode three hundred and nine
of the Medieval Podcast. I'm your host Danielle Sebalski. The
fourteenth century is one of the wildest times in European history,
(00:24):
which is exactly why I've always loved it so much. Famine, war, plague,
you name it, this century's got it. Fifty years ago,
Barbara Tuckman wrote a beautiful book about the fourteenth century,
which is still an enjoyable read. But we've learned a
lot since the seventies, so maybe it's time to take
another look. Enter my next guest. This week, I spoke
(00:48):
with Helen Carr about England in the fourteenth century. Helen
is a postgraduate researcher at Queen Mary University and the
author of The Red Prince John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster,
as well as What Is History Now, which she co
edited with Susannah Lipscomb. In addition to writing for various
publications and appearing on History Hit and other podcasts and specials,
(01:11):
Helen mentors writers on all things medieval and narrative history.
Her new book is Sceptred Isle, a New History of
the fourteenth Century. Our conversation on how England fared in
these wild times, why we need to take a fresh
look at the past, and what her take is on
some famous plantagenets is coming up right after this. Well,
(01:35):
welcome back, Helen. I've just realized it's been four years
since we talked, so it's great to talk to you.
We've already been talking for like half an hour, so
it's time to get to work.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
We had a lot to catch.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Up on.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
For sure. Okay, so time to get to work. You
just wrote a wonderful book called Sceptored Isle and it's
about The subtitle is a new History of the fourteenth century.
So I need to ask what made you think we
need an a new history of the fourteenth century?
Speaker 2 (02:02):
I know I think is it's a bit of a
sort of void title, and it's often one that people
pick up on and say, well, what's new about it?
But the fact is, when we're writing history, it's always new.
It's a new because it's a new perspective. This is
my perspective of the fourteenth century. There is new research
in there that hasn't been done, but it's mostly a
collection of events and stories and characters that I have
(02:25):
found fascinating about this particular period put into this narrative
history of the century. And even though there have been
lots of academic work on the fourteenth century, there's been
lots of volumes of essays about the fourteenth century, the
only real popular history about the fourteenth century was Barbara
Tuckman's Distant Mirror, which was written a long time ago
(02:47):
and actually only started in thirteen forty, and it was
also focusing on England and France, whereas this book, Sceptidile
is focusing on England, even though there's talk of the
relationship with France in it. So it's a new history
really in a sense that this is my version of
the fourteenth century. And I'm sure there will be more
(03:09):
in the future.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
I mean, there should be more. This is the best century.
And so it's great that there is a new history because,
as you're saying, Barbaratagun wrote that like fifty years ago,
so it's time for a new one. So you really
kept that type focus on England. What was the reasoning
for that, because like these are are connected, you have
to make decisions about this. What was it that made
you decide to keep that type focus on England?
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Sure, well, it was already a massive project in itself.
You know, you're talking about a period of nearly one
hundred years, and a lot happens just in England in
that time. And if I was sort of casting my
net wider, rather than making these sort of references to
Europe or France or Spain and trying to include those
stories as well, it would have been too big. It
(03:54):
would have been too big a project for me, it
would have been too big for the reader, and it
also would have just been surface level. And what I
love about being a historian is digging down into the record,
into the archives, trying to recover lost voices, trying to
really get into the detail around certain certain events or
(04:15):
certain circumstances or characters. And so there are tough decisions
when you are when you're writing a book. And off
the podcast just now we were talking about those difficult
decisions as to where do you stop, where do you start,
where do you focus? And I think when you are
covering such an extensive period, I think the focus needs
to hone in a bit more.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Yes, I was looking at the fourteenth century, am tating
of course on it right now, and there is so
much information you have to figure out where am.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
I going to start?
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Where am I going to start? Especially with the center
where so much is happening. So sort of along those lines,
you've divided this into five parts. I think what made
you decide you're going to divide them into five parts?
Because so much is happening? What was your thinking along that?
Speaker 2 (05:00):
That's a really good question. It was a while ago,
but I did that, So I'm trying to remark what
was my thinking? Well, I think, just purely stylistically, I
think that it's really nice to read history books like
that to sort of create those dividing moments, And for
me that came often with a change of kingship, but
it also came with a change of themes. So there was,
(05:20):
for example, when the Black Death hit in thirteen forty eight,
for me, that was a real catalyst for major change
going into the second part of the fourteenth century. And
even though the monarch didn't change in thirteen forty eight,
the feel of the realm, the human experience, the what
it was to live in this period dramatically changed. So
(05:42):
I felt like that deserved. It's a section that had
been separate to the previous one, which was all about
how Edward the third had gone to war in France
and won lots of battles and wasn't he wonderful and
chivalry and you know, it's a very different take on
the period. So it felt like a natural point to
create that divide.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Okay, so while run Kingship, we're going to get into
more individual kings in a moment. One of the things
that you've gone with that might get people talking is
you talk about Richard the second, he's at the end
of this period being the last Plantagenet.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
Wow, you threw down. What's this about?
Speaker 2 (06:17):
I know I'm being canceled. That's really interesting because no
one else has really asked me about that. I think
people just just assume that I'm right, or they just
haven't really focused on it. So yeah, in my mind,
I consider Richard to be the last Plantagenet because Richard
is the last monarch who goes through that unbroken line.
(06:38):
So his father was not the king, but he was
the black prince who was the heir. So it's not
the first deposition in this period. I mean, we see
that with Edward the Second, but what it's his son
that inherits the crown, So it is kind of still
carrying from through this line, and what you see in
thirteen ninety nine is the first Lancastrian And so for me,
(07:01):
that is the time where the sort of age of
the Plantagenets ends, even though Henry of course has Plantagenets blood,
but he then starts his new dynasty with the House
of Lancaster really as monarchs rather than magnates. So that's
why for me it felt like a natural conclusion.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Yeah, it's interesting that more people haven't gone there, and
I think that probably has to do with wanting to
connect a great king like Henry the fifth with a
great king like Edward the third. I think people wanted
to make sure that these guys get included in the
title of Plantaget, even though sure as you're saying, it's
not not father to son anymore.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Yeah, I mean, even their name Plantagenet was a later creation,
so you know, it wasn't like Edward the third was
going well, I'm a Plantagenet because he was. He wasn't
saying that at all. That happened later in the fifteenth century.
So I suppose it helps for narrative purposes as well
to be able to create those connections. But I think
there's so many different argus to be had, and it's
(08:00):
all full of nuances, and I'm sure there's lots of
papers and academic journals about it.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
If there aren't, there will be, right. Well, so where
did you decide to start? You start New Year's Day,
thirteen hundred. Where do you start this book?
Speaker 2 (08:16):
So start the book in thirteen oh seven with the
death of Edward the First And it felt like a
natural point to start the book because Edward the First kind,
to be honest, deserved a book in his own right.
You know, he's such a formidable king. There was a
lot about his reign that really shaped the fabric of
how we consider the British Isles today. But I thought
(08:37):
starting with his death is kind of starting with the
end of something, because it's also in thirteen oh seven
when Edward dies, it's very dramatic death. He's in the
middle of He's in the middle of something else. He's
in the middle of this war with Scotland, which Edward
the Second is supposed to take up the Mantle four
and to go into battle and win big victories like
his father had done. It also starts in the middle
(08:59):
of when things were looking pretty prosperous. England was a
realm that was generally quite wealthy. Edward had successfully conquered
whales in the century before. It was the rise of
the universities. There was a population increase, things were looking good.
And as soon as Edward inherits the crown, it almost
it's almost immediately starts to go very wrong.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
How much of this can we lagh at Edward the
second feet so tell us what happens during Edward the
Second's reign. It's not all his fault, although it's not really,
because well.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
I think when I was writing this, I wanted to
take interest, take more of an interesting characters rather than
looking at these figures as kings and what they did
or didn't do right, and trying to understand the psychologies
of them and why they would make the decisions they make.
And I think Edward the Second is fascinating because he's
a perfect example of somebody who just didn't have the
(09:57):
skills that the role of kingship reques. He lacked confidence,
he wasn't a natural military leader, and you do have
people who fail to inspire admiration from their contemporaries. And
even though Edward was revered as a king. I think
people struggled to warm to him as a monarch and
(10:20):
feel like they want to be ruled by him. It
felt like he was always needing to be ruled by them,
and so there was a real clash of personalities. And
Edward's greatest error was the fact that he could not
rule independently. And instead of doing this, I suppose on
a more diplomatic way, which would be having a counsel
(10:40):
that he relied on heavily with a group of noblemen,
which is how they would have wanted it to be.
He instead always seemed to gravitate towards a favorite, and
his most famous favorite being Piers Gaveston. And I think
this is because he needed that sort of fraternal support.
He needed somebody to say to him, this is the
(11:03):
right decision, you're good enough, I'm supporting you, I'm behind you.
He needed that affirmation of who he the very fabric
of who he was. And the problem with that is
you're elevating somebody of comparatively low status to a status
at his level. He was allowing Gaveston to you effectively
(11:24):
act as regent when he wasn't around. He was allowing
Gaveston to wear certain it have a dress code that
was not really relative to his station. He gave him
the Earldom of Cornwall, which was something that was usually
reserved for members of the royal family or had royal
blood pulsing through their veins, and he had none of
(11:45):
those things, and so it was sort of a how
to guide to Irk the nobility in his relationship with
Gaveston in that first fifteen years of his kingship.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Well, I think that you're getting out something really important
that maybe we don't see very much in discussions about
Edward the second that he needed this bromance. He needed
that affirmation, and he needed it from a man, because
he could have gotten it from his wife. In fact,
most kings lean on their wives for this sort of affirmation, validation,
all of those sort of emotional things. But Edward needed
(12:20):
this from a man. I think that has a lot
to do with culture, perhaps even more than his perhaps
attraction to Pierce Gaveston or later Hugh Despiser.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
I think that too, And I also think that it
was because his father was a bully. I think Edward
the Face was a formidable man. He was terrifying, and
I think can you imagine being the only surviving heir
to a man like that. He was very hard on him,
and you know, you only have to look at people
today who have had that sort of experience growing up.
(12:50):
He didn't share that with brothers. He had too much
younger brothers when his father remarried, but he didn't have
anybody to lean on in that respect. He had close
relationships with his sisters, but he was quite starved of
that sort of male affection and male love, which to
think that people did not need that in the Middle
(13:11):
Ages is just incorrect. Everybody's needed it always.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Yes, yes, And I think that a lot of people
maybe are too hard on Edward. He was terrible in
a lot of ways. But if we take him as
a person, which is what you're trying to do in this,
but we do need to give him a little bit
of grace, I think, human to human.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
I think also what's so interesting about Edward is Gaveston
sort of brought out the best in him. He was
very kind and generous when he was in a relationship
we can call it, with Piers Gaveston. You only really
see this change in Edward with his second favorite, and
that's Hue Dispenser. The younger who was awful. He was
an awful individual. Like if we think of baddest people
(13:50):
in history, Hugh Dispenser will be right up there. He
was a very grabbing, avaricious, cruel individual and what he had,
though was the ear of the king. And it was
really only after time spent and this close proximity and
close relationship with you Dispenser, that you see a shift
(14:12):
in Edward's character to becoming paranoid, much more aggressive, and
much more punitive as well, and just making feckless decisions.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
I think that's right in that the tone of the
relationship is very, very different, and of course this is
when things start to move. So I just mentioned Isabella.
What happens, what happens with Edward? What happens with Isabella?
Speaker 2 (14:36):
I know, she's such an amazing character. Isabella and Edward,
which is not what everybody would think they always hated
each other. They didn't at all. They had a very
good relationship again up until Edward became particularly close to
Hugh Dispenser the Younger and Hugh Dispenser the Younger became
more powerful. What was unfortunate was that around thirteen twenty five,
(14:58):
Edward started to he started to fall out with the
King of France, who was Isabella's brother, and this prompted,
probably incited by Huter Spencer, a bit of a personal
vendetta against Isabella simply for being French, because her brother
was an aggressor against Edward, and it was all over Gascony,
as the rest of the Hundred Years War was pretty
(15:19):
much but certainly in the fourteenth century. But Isabella then
went to France and he diplomatic mission in thirteen twenty
six to try and smooth all of this over. And
what happened was Edward neglected to realize that in France
(15:41):
she had allies, she had support, and she also reconnected
with Roger Mortimer, who had fled England. He had managed
to escape from the Tower of London after the Battle
of Boroughbridge. And what was even worse Redwood and more stupid,
was that he allowed his son to go over to
France to pay homage for Gascony, therefore giving him into
the hands of his mother, the heir to the throne.
(16:01):
This is and as soon as Isabella has her son
and the future king of England and her possession, she
has everything in her arsenal she needs as an army,
which was something she found reasonably simple to come by,
and so she invaded England. But it's important to note
this was not to overthrow Edward. It was to overthrow
Hugh Dispencer the Younger, because overthrowing the king was treason us.
(16:22):
So they had to pin it that they were overthrowing
Hugh Dispencer, who was already really unpopular. Nobody really liked him.
He was just popular with the king, which is what
kept him alive. So when Despencer was disposed of and
Edward was there effectively under house arrest, Isabella and Roger
Mortimer installed the new young king, Edward the Second relinquished
(16:45):
his crown to his son. But what the issue was
was you still had a king who was alive, and
then you had a new king. And as long as
Edward the Second is alive, Isabella and Mortimer are not safe.
So at some point I believe Roger Mortimer gave an
order to have Edward murdered. And that's what I believe
(17:07):
that happened. He knew that there had already been multiple
attempts to rescue him from house arrested. He had been
moved from Kenilworth to Berkeley, Castle, and I think it
was in Barkley Castle he was murdered.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Well, I mean, speaking of relationships, you mentioned that Isabella
is pretty powerful, she's pretty independent. Then she gets involved
with Roger Mortimer and then things go south. Tell us
about this relationship, because this is one that you spent
a bit of time one in the book.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Yeah. So I find this fascinating and I refer to
this period. I use the motif the wheel of Fortune
in this period because it really is a particular political
time where somebody is at the top of the wheel,
they're doing really well politically. The idea is it's a
fourteenth it's a medieval motif. You've seen a lot of
manuscript culture in the fourteenth century, and the idea goes
(17:59):
that you have the god Fortuna who spins the wheel,
and whoever is at the top of the wheel gets
spun off the top and they're crushed by the spokes
at the bottom. And that's something that you see repeatedly.
I mean, look at Hugh Dispenser, He's right at the
top of the wheel gaining loads of land and wealth,
and then in comes Isabella and off he goes from
the top of the wheel and then Isabella and Mortimer
(18:19):
are at the top of the wheel of fortune. But
with their success comes greed and their own avarice. You know,
they don't act in a dissimilar fashion really to how
Hugh dispensed it. And what they try to do is
continuously control the young king, and their control and their
grip over him becomes tighter and tighter and tighter the
(18:43):
older he gets and the more paranoid they become. Their
regime is going to be overthrown, which spoiler alert it is,
and they tumble from this wheel of fortune into wealth. Certainly,
Roger will his case to the scaffold, so you really
(19:03):
see this change in circumstance. But it's interesting because that
is a theme that follows and you see it with
Edward as well. It's with that power and that desire
for power, particularly if you are not king, there is
paranoia and cruelty that comes with trying to maintain that position.
And we talked about Edward the Second's greatest fault. I
(19:26):
think what made him a failure as a king, and
his greatest fault was destabilizing the very structure of monarchy
in the early part of the fourteenth century, where you
had a king at the top, and you had the nobility,
and the king was always revered by pulling people up
to rule effectively alongside him who were not meant to
be there. He completely destabilized that structure and in doing
(19:50):
so allowed this age of really quite literal political backstabbing
to take place.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
Yes, about that?
Speaker 1 (20:01):
So we were talking about the wheel of fortune. Eventually
Isabella and Mortimer are thrown from the top of the
wheel and Edward the Third comes to the throne. What's
your take on him, because when we talk about the Third,
I think you're one of the people who's like, what is.
Speaker 4 (20:15):
He that great?
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Is he the pa?
Speaker 4 (20:18):
Why you think about.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
I know I'm being canceled again because I don't like
Edit the Third. No, I do like Edward the Third.
I think he was fun. I think there's a lot
to like about Edward the Third. But what my problem
with how Edward the Third has been treated with a
lot of writing and historical writing is that he has
been so revered, over revered, I think, and I don't
think that he has faced enough criticism by historians as
(20:44):
to how much of a warmonger he was and how
much damage he did to the very fabric of French society.
And I know it could be argued, okay, but is
that not just part of war. Well, yes, it's part
of war. But equally, this is a country that he
claimed to be king of and he's not treating who
(21:09):
his people would be with any level of respect or fairness.
I think it was cruel. And you know, the armies
that he led through France and the damage that they did.
This idea that oh, chivalry can be applied, Oh, we're
so chivalrous because we take prisoners. No, you don't to
the poorer members of society. These people were treated as
(21:30):
fodder and they were killed. And there's many accounts of
the most awful incidents where townspeople were murdered. And I
think that as so much focus has been put on
Edward as this very Victorian hero, you know, it's still
this lingering Victorian reappraisal of Edward. Is it still exists?
(21:54):
And I think that I am just being critical of
that particular idea of who he was as a character
because what he achieved, Yes, he managed to obtain a
lot more land for England, but at what cost? I
think that that was my point about Edward as a
war leader, as a warrior and as a warrior king.
You know, he created this incredibly masculine cult around Arthur
(22:17):
and Saint George and chivalry, and he established the Order
of the Garter. And what he was very good at
was creating a unity and a unity with his nobility,
which resulted in the same thing that happened with his
father not happening with him, and he in that sense
made England a strong realm. But I do believe that
(22:40):
his ego was a real problem in his kingship and
this idea of considering Edward and the Black Prince as
a hero and something to aspire to. I have a
problem with that.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Well, I think that's a very assessment. So how much
do you think this had to do with culture and
how much do you think this had to do with personality,
Because it's something that you had to think about it
hard if you're going to push back against this Victorian ideal. Right,
So what do you think You've mentioned that this might
be his ego. Do you think this comes direct from
culture with this everyone's drinking the kool aid about Arthur
(23:17):
or you think that this was like a personality type thing.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
I think it's a combination of two things. I think
that the culture was incredibly powerful, and I think that
you know, if you study the court of Edward the Third,
it was a pretty hedonistic, fun place to be. There's
no secret that he was really trying to reignite this
cult arand King Arthur. Before the Order of the gartera
was established, he founded an earlier order called the Order
(23:43):
of the Round Table, which is all based on these arsurianisms.
You know, he wanted to rule in Arthur's image, as
per the ideal model of kingship in the Middle Ages
was to rule in the image of this mythical king.
But I also think it is about character. That all
of these kings had very individual characters, and I think
(24:07):
that they always brought their character to their kingship. I
mean Edward, I think got a lot from his mother
in relation to his love of dressing up and pageantry
and spending money. I there was a contemporary poem written
about Edward called Winner or Waster, and it talked about
how actually he was being too frivolous and he was
(24:29):
spending money too readily. And really we always criticize Richard
as a king, but he spent an early part of
his reign, so much energy was spent mopping up the
issues that had been the hangover of Edward the Third's
fun years fighting in France, which actually ended up costing
the country a fortune. It was in the end it
(24:51):
was the people who were having to pay for that.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Yes, well, we've spent a fair amount of time with
Richard over the course of the last you're on this podcast.
I'm you know, leave Richard to the cibe for a
second and ask you more questions about your research in
this book. In that you've worked in the fourteenth century before,
you've worked with John of gand who are some of
the people that you really enjoyed sort of coming back
to again?
Speaker 4 (25:14):
Are looking at again?
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Yeah, when I encountered this, I got to the point
where I when I started to feel like I was
covering material again, for example, having to do thirteen eighty
one again. And I initially came to it thinking, oh,
you know, I've got to do to how am I
going to make this more interesting? But actually I found
(25:37):
it so much more interesting. The people of thirteen eighty
one there was a brilliant project led by one of
my old supervisors, actually Adrian Bell, So he was one
of my old supervisors when I did my Medieval History masters,
and he has worked on this brilliant project called The
People of thirteen eighty one, and that was an extensive
project into understanding who the rebels were, and so I
(25:59):
used a lot of that. I went back to the
original records that Adrian had uncovered and whilst this was
all being digitized, and I looked at the people and
the characters who were part of that rebellion, reconsidering who
they were as people, as their motivations, women as well
as men, where they came from. And I really enjoyed
(26:20):
that aspect of it. So those was I suppose that
was an event that I actually I enjoyed coming back
to more than I thought I would. The people that
I enjoyed returning to. I think I enjoyed researching the
characters that I'd never really looked into more than I
enjoyed the characters I came back to. I did enjoy
(26:41):
looking at Richard in more depth because I didn't with
John F. Gaunt because the focus was on him. So
that was interesting to the time when I wrote about
Gaunt being in Spain, for example, I was able for
this book to focus on what Richard was doing in
England and thinking about the culture of his reign, you know,
the emergence of the Renaissance and how he responded to
(27:02):
that was interesting to me. And thinking about Richard as
a patron was very interesting to me. But yeah, I
think I would say in relation to the characters, I
think it was the characters that I started to work
on more in the earlier part of the century that
I found, I would say, the most academically rewarding in
(27:23):
what I was researching with them.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Well, one of the characters that you pulled out that
hasn't gotten all that much love, and you really gave
a lot of love to here is Joan, who is
the princess who died the place? Why did you want
to put a lens on Joan here?
Speaker 2 (27:40):
I loved talking about Joan, writing and researching about Joan,
and I actually what happened to Joan was one of
my most It was a real point of determination in
my focus for the book. So nobody really knows what
happened to Joe and I find that quite extraordinary. And
I thought, well, who's looked at this? And it turns
(28:01):
out that it's not been really looked at in a
huge amount of detail. There have been some published works
on Joan. She was part of a book on the
Plantagenet Princesses, The Lives of the Princesses, written a very
long time ago, and that assessment of what happens to
Joan I have found to be incorrect. And my approach
(28:22):
was to go back to the archive, to go back
to all of the original material, using any of the
more up to date scholarly research around this time around her,
around the Black Death, to try and understand what happened.
And I think I've probably come to what I think
is the most reasonable conclusion as to when she died
and where it took a while. I spent a bit
(28:46):
of time in the archives working through it, but it
made for probably one of my favorite parts of the book.
And I was just incredibly touched by following what happened
to her, and then also just being able to see
now through the record how much her family grieved her,
because that's not something you see very much, particularly when
we're dealing with medieval records. You don't have letters and diaries,
(29:10):
you don't have that. You have to look at these
incredibly governmental, more rigid documents but there is a one
instance in the Calendar's the Calendar of Close Roles, where
Edward writes to Alfonso of Castile to say that his
daughter Joan, who was traveling to Castile to be married
(29:33):
to Alfonso's son when she died, was not going to arrive.
And he talks about how we I'm understanding that to
be himself and Philippa, his queen, were touched by the
sting of grief, the bitter sting of grief, and he
uses those words. And what I found so affecting by
that as well, is that anyone who has lost somebody
(29:56):
they love, anybody who's gone through grief, it is bitter
and it stings. And for me it just felt like
one of those amazing temporal moments is a historian when
you really sort of feel like you're touching the fingertips
of somebody who lived seven hundred years ago.
Speaker 4 (30:11):
Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
And this brings me to my last question for you,
which is your life has changed a lot since you
started this book, and you put this in the book,
You let us know, give us windows into this. So
how did that change how you looked at this century?
You're doing a new history, you're bringing yourself into it.
What do you think that brings to the work.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
I think there is nowadays a real cold It might
be a commercial trend, or it might be necessity, and
it's not something I judge at all for kind of
writing books really quickly and pumping out books and you've
got to finish it in six months, you've got to
finish it in the year, and all of these thirty
hundred thirty lists and just drives me mad because one
(30:55):
of one of the things that is so wonderful about
being a historian is the you get better with age,
and your life experience can in some ways not inform
how you look at the record, but you have more
time and space to sit with the material that you're
engaging with, and it's something that you shouldn't rush. And
(31:19):
I think that life happens around writing books and you
go through all of these undulations yourself, be it life,
be at death, be it hardship, be at incredibly positive moments,
and I think what is wonderful is that the record
doesn't change, but you come back to it every time
a slightly different person. And that's why I think I
(31:40):
really am trying to counter this idea, particularly for young
historians now working now that you have to do everything
now because you don't and it takes time, and that
time is a wonderful gift when you are writing history,
and it will only make you better. That's what I
(32:01):
would say about that. So how it informed my writing,
I think that's just entirely self conscious.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Well, I think that is a lovely way to end this,
because I think you're absolutely right. We just get better
with age and what we can bring to this as humans,
because as you're saying, the portraits that you're creating of
these characters, they become richer the more you understand about
yourself and life and all of these things.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
So yeah, and your own experiences matter in this. Like
I had a baby just before I wrote this, and
one of the women I encountered in this book was
Elizabeth de Berg, And you know, I could not believe
that nobody had picked up on the fact that she
had a baby with a husband who had died six
(32:51):
weeks later after giving birth. She married Roger Damerie, and
she would have been expected to go to bed with
him that night. One who has had a baby, That
is that's mind blowing to me. That is on any
level and this isn't just applying my feelings being living
in the modern day to the past. That is just
(33:11):
objectively and biologically a trauma for a woman.
Speaker 4 (33:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Well, I mean this is why we need new histories
to come back with, because we need these different perspectives.
We need people to bring themselves to history, and I
think that is something that you have really illustrated for us,
both in the book and today. So thank you so much, Helan.
So great to see you again and to see you
on the book.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Thank you so much, Daniel. Thank you for having me.
It's always a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
To find out more about Helen's work. You can visit
her website at helenhcar dot com. Her new book is
Sceptred Isle, a New History of the fourteenth Century. Before
we go, here's Peter from Middie will start Net to
tell us what's on the website.
Speaker 4 (33:53):
What's up, Peter?
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Hey, Hey, I've got some Canadian content for you.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
What is it.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
There was a sharp eyed a shopper in a thrift
store in British Columbia and they spotted some rings and
a couple of medallions that had kind of this historical
look to them and big bottom for thirty bucks donating
to Simon Fraser University, and it is very likely these
are medieval in origin.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Yes, a friend sent me that, because you know Canadians,
we all know each other, right, So a friend told
me all about this, and I think it's pretty amazing
that somebody found these and recognized their worth in the
charity shop. First of all, I mean great the people
are donating stuff to charity, and also great that people
are taking medieval objects and donating them to museums as well.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
Yeah, so it's going to take a few more months
to can't figure out what they are, but if you
want to take a look at them, you've got some
pretty high quality photos on the website. Maybe you can
lend a hand out there. Awesome, So we've got that.
Plus I found some new medieval riddles to share with everybody.
Speaker 4 (34:55):
All right, have you got a sample for us?
Speaker 3 (34:58):
Yeah? This is from a fourteenth century check monk and
he went by named Clarett, and he's like one hundred
and twenty riddles, all sorts of fun stuff. The one
I like the best is what did the whole world hear?
Speaker 4 (35:11):
What did the whole world hear?
Speaker 3 (35:14):
Okay, the horse when it farted in Noah's Ark.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
I don't think I get it, but okay, but it
sounds funny.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
It does. It's pretty good I think about it. It
makes sense. I think it makes sense. So we put
up twenty of them as a quiz that you can take.
So go ahead, and I prove your medieval chops. Listeners.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
There you go, Everyone run out and see if you
can solve these check riddles.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
Indeed, indeed, So we have that plus a piece by
David Backrack about the latest book he wrote. It's called
Warfare in the Global Middle Ages, and it's a kind
of personal piece because he wrote this with his father,
the late great Bernie Backrack, and this was the final
book that they worked on together.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
That must have been such a meaningful project, I imagine,
indeed indeed was.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
So he talks about the behind the scenes on how
that whole book developed.
Speaker 4 (36:09):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
So he's shared his personal journey on the website.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
Yeah, yeah, he's got his personal journey and that the
book is coming out this week.
Speaker 4 (36:17):
Perfect.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Well, thanks Peter for stopping by and telling us what's
on the website.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
Banks.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Okay, maybe I was thinking just a little too hard
about Peter's riddle because I actually do get it. But
one thing I never have to think hard about is
just how grateful I am to all of you for
being here each week, supporting independent history and yours. Truly,
whether you're sharing your favorite episodes, letting the ads play through,
(36:45):
or becoming patrons on Patreon, you are very appreciated because
it's all the little things that you do that makes
this work possible. To find out more or to become
a patron, please visit patreon dot com slash medievalists for
everything from scepters two specters, follow medievalist dot net on
Instagram at medievalist net or blue Sky at Medievalists. You
(37:09):
can find me Danielle Sabalski across social media at five
min Medievalist or five minute Medievalist, and you can find
my books at all your favorite bookstores. Our music is
by Christian Overton. Thanks for listening, and have yourself a
wonderful day,
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