Episode 300!

This week, in celebration of Episode 300, Danièle answers your questions on everything from Hastings to hose, with a couple of surprises along the way.

You can support this podcast on Patreon - go to https://www.patreon.com/medievalists

And join on This is History's Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/thisishistory and use the code 'glassking' to get 20% off your first month 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hi everyone, and welcome to episode three hundred of The
Medieval Podcast. I'm your host, Danielle Sebalski. So here we
are at episode three hundred, and I can hardly believe it.

(00:23):
Three hundred sounds like just such a huge number and
nothing that I would have ever guessed I would get
to when I started this just using garage band in
twenty nineteen. And as I've said before, in my first
episode with Kathleen Kennedy had to record twice because I
was just so bad at this. So this is pretty incredible.

(00:44):
Three hundred episodes. Thank you for being here for three
hundred episodes, and what did you think of the new music?
First of all, I want to thank Geefrog, whoever they are,
wherever they are, for creating that beautiful music beyond the Warriors,
which I was able to use royalty free. And I'm
so grateful for composers who will put their music out

(01:05):
and allow it to be shared, because when I was
starting up, I had nothing, I had no budget for
this sort of thing, and so I'm very grateful to
composers like gee Frog for allowing people to use royalty
for you music. So shout out, salute hats off to Gefrog.
Thank you for allowing us creators to use your beautiful music. Now.

(01:27):
I'm so excited about having some new music, not only
because I wanted original music for a long time, but
because this is actually composed by my really talented little brother,
Christian Overton. He is an amazing composer. And you might ask, like,
why didn't I ask Christian beforehand? Because he's really busy.
He's booked all the time. He is a jazz drom

(01:49):
bonis in Toronto, and he's an amazing composer. And if
you ever want to have a great night out listening
to jazz, keep your eyes peeled for the composer's collective
big band, which he leads. You can see some really
amazing original music in Toronto, which is just awesome. So
shout out to Christian. I've already sent him a bunch

(02:09):
of heart emojis, but you know, send him your virtual
heart emojis. Christian was the person who performed trombone, recorder
and tambourine on this track, so this is very exciting,
especially because it gives me an opportunity to tease him
about playing the recorder. But also a shout out to
Maya Kiltron, another amazing Toronto musician, for playing strings on

(02:31):
this track. I've seen Maya perform as a vocalist and
she's amazing, so check out her music as well. So
I hope that you love this music. I love it.
Definitely stick around to the end of the episode because
I'm debuting new end music as well, also composed by Christian,
performed by Christian and Maya. So I'm super excited about this.

(02:54):
I know how lucky I am to have a really
supportive family. And when you're doing something that is creative,
that puts yourself out there, that means taking a bunch
of risks, it's awesome to have your family have your back.
So Christian is one of my little brothers who's been
supporting me all along. And you may not know this,
but my five minute Medievalist logo was designed by my

(03:16):
other little brother, Eric Overton, who is an amazing illustrator,
and he took this thing that I'd cobbled together through
baby Photoshop and he made it this beautiful graphic design
that I just can't get enough of. And not only
is my five minute Medievalist design awesome, but it also
is the inspiration for the woodcuts that ended up in

(03:39):
How to Live Like a Monk and Chivalry and Courtesy.
So Eric's work was able to inspire Annelo Banova as well.
So two brothers are already awesome. I actually have an
older brother too, who I haven't roped in to helping
me with the podcast yet, but he is also another
awesome person. So yeah, I need to guess about my

(04:00):
family for a while. I hope that when you're listening
to this, you're thinking about all the people that support
you as well in your projects. There is one more
family member who I want to give a shout out to,
although he prefers to remain anonymous, and that is the
person who does the editing for this podcast so makes
me look good, makes my guests look good, makes Peter
look good every week. He prefers to remain anonymous. As

(04:22):
I've said, by a shout out to you editor for
making us all look amazing every week. And there is
one more person I want to give a shout out
to who I'm not related to, but they are from
northern Ontario, so close enough. And that is Virginia, who
I hired oh a year or so ago to help
me get this organized. So Virginia helps me a few

(04:44):
hours every month to make sure that this podcast keeps going.
So if you've noticed over the last year or so
there are fewer gaps in my episode production schedule, that
is because of Virginia. So shout out to you, Virginia.
Thank you so much for helping me with all that stuff.
No woman is an island, No podcaster is an island.

(05:04):
And it's my pleasure to be able to bring forward
some of the people who have helped me so much
over the years. Am I getting too mushy, maybe, but
I think it's important to send out appreciation to the
people who help us get where we are. And I'm
really really grateful to the people I have named, as
well as all sorts of people that I haven't named,

(05:25):
including a huge number of guests on the Medieval Podcast,
like so many guests. And what is awesome about this
and one of the reasons why everyone should take an
opportunity to reach out to people who you think are interesting,
is that I've made all sorts of new friends through
this podcast and that is one of the best parts
of the whole thing. And over the mushiness, okay, let's

(05:48):
get to your questions. Because I promised for this episode
I would answer your questions, and I did realize that
a lot of people were pretty shy and they didn't
want to put their questions out there. But I will
answer the ones that were sent into me through Patreon,
through Instagram, and then just personally. There were a couple
questions that were asking me personally, so let's get to them.
The first one is from Luke Gauchi on Patreon and

(06:11):
he says, we say that Rome fell in four seventy
six CE, well, the Western Empire, but we also know
that it didn't really because the Goths kept institutions such
as the Senate. My question to you is this, how
long did the idea of the Western Roman Empire linger
in the collective memory? Did Justinian's reconquest in the sixth
century revive the idea of the empire in the mind

(06:33):
of the people or was the Western Roman Empire just
a distant memory that lived on in the east in
the minds of the people who were living at the time. Okay,
good question, the Roman Empire. How often, Luke, do you
think about the Roman Empire? So this is a good question,
and the answer is that everybody thought they were Roman

(06:54):
all the time. So when we talk about the Western
Roman Empire receding or falling or collapsing, or whatever expression
we want to use, and Rome really moving to Byzantium,
Anthony called Dellis on the podcast talked about the people
in Byzantium really considering themselves Romans. Even when they were

(07:15):
speaking Greek more often than they were speaking Latin, which
was most of the time in the West, people still
thought of themselves as Romans. And this is really interesting
because it comes back to the idea of legacy. So
even though people are calling themselves Romans, it's because they
want to attach themselves to the legacy, not because they

(07:38):
want to live as the Romans did. So in the
West you have what became the Holy Roman Empire because
people were still thinking of themselves as descendants of Rome,
even though they did things differently. So like, we are Romans,
but we're going to have a different system of government.
So we have people like Charlemagne, who's an emperor, considered

(08:01):
an emperor, called an emperor, but his structure around him
was more like that of a king. And so this
again is more to do with what do we want
to call ourselves in terms of the identity that we
want to present. We want to associate ourselves with the
learning of Rome, the power of Rome, the might of Rome.

(08:23):
So I think for people who were living in the
west what used to be the Western Roman Empire, they
never really let go of the idea of Rome or
the hope of it, and they really felt themselves to
be the successors of that, which of course creates conflict
when you have an emperor that isn't Byzantium, that says,
wait a second, I'm the emperor of the Romans. So

(08:44):
there is a tension always, But basically everybody still thinks
that they are Roman no matter what, even though they're
going to do things differently. And if this sounds crazy,
think about how many people today want to think of
themselves as descendant of the Roman Empire as well. Like
that question, how often do you think about the Roman
Empire has to do with people wanting to access that

(09:07):
legacy and really elevating it whatever they want it to mean.
They are part of this legacy of the Roman Empire
because of whatever reason they come up with. So the
Western Roman Empire may not have looked at all like
the actual Roman Empire had when we get into the
Middle Ages. But I think for the people that were

(09:28):
living at the time, the fact that they were the
successors of Rome was very real to them. It was
something that they wanted to believe and that they integrated
as part of their identity, and that sort of changed
over time is the parts of what had been the
Holy Roman Empire start to break up. So that's my
take on it, and I hope that answers your question.

(09:50):
It's a good question because all of these things are messy, right,
All these things are messy. The dates that we use
to delineate between one time period and another, and the
labels that we use. Is this an empire, is it
a kingdom? All of these things are messy. So it's
a good question and one that I think people are
going to disagree with me about and that will continue

(10:12):
to be in debate. But that is history. That is
what we should be doing when we are talking about history,
is to keep investigating, keep asking questions. So thank you
for yours. So the next question on Patreon is from
butt Elf. Hello butt Elf, thank you for your question
and thank you for the congratulations on episode three hundred.

(10:34):
I appreciate your kind words. Thank you so much so.
But Alf's question is, if I had to pick a
favored figure, would I choose William the Conqueror or Harold
Godwinsin which one do I prefer? Or Harold Hardrata out
of the three? Who is my favorite? Well, but Elf,
this is a difficult one because I think that I

(10:55):
really wouldn't want to have a beer with any of
these guys. They are the kind who cares about conquering things,
and I am not a person who cares about conquering things.
So there is that, so a tough question. We have
Harold Hardrada who is trying to take over Britain. He's
attacking in the north of England, and Harold Godwinson is

(11:16):
heading up there to take care of business up there
before heading down to Hastings to take care of William
the Conqueror. So it's hard to know much about these
people as people are the people that we would want
to care about, that we would want to succeed. Hard
to know, especially because the people who write about historical

(11:38):
figures are usually people who are glazing them right saying
these people are awesome of the three, with the caveats
that you know not into conquering people or killing people
at all, not into conquest. I might have to go
with William the Conqueror, because for all that he's a

(11:59):
terrible person, some of the things that he did to
establish new rules, new law, new ways of doing things
in England, I think are very interesting, very organized, very
forward thinking. And again I just have to be so
careful here, because obviously conquering people is bad. William did

(12:22):
things like creating those big, strong, beautiful castles, like taking
an inventory of everything that's going on in Britain. So
I think that what I could maybe quote unquote appreciate
about the project was that he takes on this new
territory and he immediately sets about organizing it so that

(12:43):
it makes sense. And maybe this has something to do
with me being a person who just loves organization. I
love things that are sort of neat and clean so
that I can think, I think clearly, So maybe this
is something to do with it. Obviously, would I back
the conquest of another land, No, I wouldn't. But there
are some things about William the Conqueror as a leader

(13:07):
that maybe I would prefer in a leader over the
other two as leaders. A tough question, but a good question.
And I know people always want the answer to those questions,
who do you prefer with all of the caveats, With
all of the caveats, I think I would have to
go with William the Conqueror. Okay, So the next question

(13:29):
is Glennis Campbell, and Glennis had emailed me earlier in
the year to talk about medieval novels. So shout out
to Glennis. She is a fiction writer for people who
love romantic stories about the Middle Ages. This is not
a question about romance. This is a question about women's work.
So Glennis asks, since needlework was traditionally considered a woman's occupation,

(13:53):
could women have been responsible for the design and embroidery
of early pieces like the Bay Tapestry. First of all,
I have to say, well, spotted glynnis because the bio
tapestry is not a tapestry. It is actually an embroidery,
and so increasingly in the scholarship in medieval studies we
are calling it the bio embroidery. We still acknowledge that

(14:17):
people are calling it the bio tapestry, and probably always
well so for people who are like, why can't we
just call it the bio tapestry? Anymore. It's because a
tapestry means something different. So creating a tapestry means you
are putting the design in the actual weaving itself. Whereas
with the Baya embroidery, and I'm probably gonna call it
the tapestry again, but the Bio embroidery, the design was

(14:39):
put on top of something that had already been woven.
So the biotabestry, and I had to look this up
because it's not stuff that I know right off the
top of my head. The Biotabestry, according to its official site,
is two hundred and twenty four feet long and it's
made up of nine linen panels. I have to also

(15:00):
appreciate Glynnis because this gave me the opportunity to go
back to one of my favorite books, which is The
Medieval Clothier by John Lee, who was on the podcast
a while back and was just an absolutely lovely person.
So I got to look back at The Medieval Clothier
and see that this would definitely have been made on
a vertical loom, at least the weaving part, the linen part.

(15:22):
So when you're picturing how this was created, picture a
vertical loom. If it's before the thirteenth century, people are
using vertical looms. They start to use horizontal looms after that.
So you can see this in different images from the
medieval period. If it's a horizontal loom, it is thirteenth
century or later. And this is really cool. If you

(15:43):
go back to John Lee's book, you can see how
much faster production was once the horizontal loom came about.
So it's made from linen. Often things that are made
from linen. Panels made from linen are less wide, and
that's the case with the biotepy as well. So to
give you a sense of the size of this, two

(16:04):
hundred and twenty four feet long nine panels means each
of the panels is twenty five feet long, so that
is huge. The person who knows maybe the most about
the Bayou Tapestry is a woman called doctor Alexander Lester Macon,
and she actually has her PhD and early medieval embroidery,
so this is how much of an experts she is

(16:26):
on the Bayou Tapestry. She's got a really cool article
out that makes all of this stuff really clear in
history extra It's about six years old now but worth
looking at. So in a nutshell. The Vyue embroidery is
created on linen, it is stitched in wool, and it's
stitched in a way that is very very precise. It's

(16:47):
probably the work of women because women were the ones
who have these skills in Norman, England. And doctor Lester
Makin has found that this is probably created somewhere around
canterbir She believes from her research that this was probably
created by teams of people under a professional manager. So

(17:07):
your question, Glennis was could this have been designed and
embroidered by women? It was probably embroidered by women. It
may have been designed by a man. In that embroideries
like this sometimes or often people would create the design first,
so they would sort of sketch out the design on
top of the panel and then it would be embroidered.

(17:28):
And doctor Lester Megan has figured out that for the
Bayo embroidery, people had created the outlines first and then
they filled them in and they did this in a
way that was really consistent, which implies that it was
done by teams of people over time, the same people
in the same spot, so not just being farmed out

(17:49):
all over the place by random people. That this was
a collective effort, commissioned by a person, executed by a
team of people. So this is really interesting work. Again,
like check out doctor Alexander Lester Makin's work on this
so cool. So was it designed by a man or

(18:10):
a woman? I don't know. For the people who were
interested in how many naked men or happy horses were
in this, perhaps that implies that there were people who
cared about that. So maybe not nuns embroidering this or
designing this. We don't really know. The consensus, as much
as you can get a consensus in history is that
this was commissioned by William the Conqueror's half brother, Bishop

(18:34):
Odo for maybe the new cathedral at Bay, the Cathedral
Nohadame at Bay at the end of the eleventh century.
But there is a lot that we still don't know about.
By you embroidery, But yes, well spotted things like this
would have been created by women because they were the
ones who had this skill. So even though in a

(18:54):
lot of the guilds throughout the medieval period, the biggest
highest up professionals, just like and culinary skills today, tended
to be men weavers. For example, for this work, it
would have been done probably by a team of women.
And again doctor Lester Makin thinks this was happening in Norman, England,
probably somewhere around Canterbury. Really interesting stuff. And again this

(19:19):
really shows why it's so important to go back to
things that we've already looked at before and have another
look at them now that we know more things. So
thank you for this question. Really awesome. So the last
question on Patreon is from Fraser, and Fraser asks me
another tough one, why do Europeans know so little of

(19:40):
the spread and resilience of Christianity in Asia and Africa
for more than a millennium? And how can it be rectified?
Good question, and this is a tough question because it
brings us into territory that maybe we don't like to
look at too closely. So whenever we look at something
a big question like this, it's important to ask the

(20:01):
same question that investigators ask when they're doing police work,
and that is crebono. So who benefits who benefits from
us not knowing a lot about the spread of Christianity
in Asia and Africa? Well, the answer is Europeans at
this point. So when it comes to the actual medieval period,

(20:24):
we have to think about how many people may have
been reading, what were they reading, where would they get
information from. And there's an episode I have coming up
with doctor Sharon Kinoshita talking about Marco Polo, So listen
up for that one because it tells you a little
bit about the type of information that was being passed
around medieval Europe. But when we think about rising literacy

(20:46):
rates sort of chasing the printing press, and when we
think about the printing press appearing at the end of
the fifteenth century, around the time when people are exploring
and finding new places and building up what we now
call the Transatlantic slave trade, when we think about people
starting to read and be educated by books around this time,

(21:09):
it's really bad for the Transatlantic slave trade as a business.
For anybody to think about the people in Africa or
Asia as being the same as quote unquote us as
in Europeans. So it's much easier to enslave people and
trade them for money if you don't think of them
as people, if you don't think of them as the

(21:31):
same as US. So the first answer to your question
is that when it comes to Christianity in Africa, it
was bad for the slavers and the people who were
profiting from the enslavement and sale of people to humanize them,
and we see this throughout history. It is much easier
to treat people badly when you dehumanize them, and so

(21:52):
I would imagine that not teaching people about the Christianity
of African peoples who we know were Christian during the
medieval period, if we don't talk about that, then it's
a lot easier to exploit these people. So this is
part of your question here. When it comes to Asia,

(22:13):
I think that there is also sort of an economic
interest that is backing, not chasing, the threads of Christianity
that have spread throughout Asia. And part of that is
it is easier to sell things that are coming from Asia,
so things like silk or tea or that kind of thing.
If you make it sound exciting and exotic, if you

(22:36):
make it sound different, this is a really great selling
pitch for the people who are trying to get you
to buy the things that they are importing from Asia.
And again, the more people start to recognize that people
from Asia are just like people from Europe, the less
attractive it might be from a marketing perspective. So I
think a lot of it has to do with economics,

(22:59):
and not in a pretty way. People don't want to
think too hard about the moral complexities of exploiting people.
It's just easier to shut your eyes and let this happen.
And so when it comes to later, so no I
was initially talking about the printing press and the early
part of the Transatlantic slavetory. When it comes to the

(23:22):
nineteenth century, when people are starting to really dig up
stuff about the Middle Ages and think about Europe and
it's past and all of that stuff, these are national projects, right,
So this is going to prove our frenchness, or prove
our Germanists, or prove our italianness. And so I spoke
to Robert Bartlett. That's going to be an episode coming
up in a few weeks again about nationalism and how

(23:44):
that really informed the project of bringing up information from
the Middle Ages. So again from a nationalistic point of view,
where you're trying to figure out what makes us us,
what makes us different, it's better to exaggerate the differences
between you and someone else. And these are projects that

(24:04):
again are very very fraught. When you look at them,
you always have to look at who benefits, and honestly,
it is white Europeans that tend to benefit from this
sort of thing by not looking too closely at the similarities,
in this case the Christianity that was being practiced in
Africa and Asia. And then there is another piece to that,

(24:26):
which is I think people just like simple stories, and
I see this as the voice of experience here. I've
had lots of conversations with people, and I've told you
about relatives who are very supportive of my work, and
I've had relatives that are very supportive of my work
while also not wanting to hear it. That means I've

(24:48):
had people push back at me for things that I've said,
like people in the Middle Ages didn't think the earth
was flat, or that chinghis Khan didn't just kill everyone
he ever met. Like, I've had a lot pushback from
people about that, because they like the stories as they
are they don't want to change them. The number of
people who have asked me questions about the Middle Ages

(25:10):
have then been disappointed with my answers is immense. Because
people like simple stories, and they like stories that have
magic in them, stories that are surprising or shocking or whatever.
When we think about the Middle Ages, we think about
it as being maybe a violent time, because that's exciting.
If we think of these people as being just like us,

(25:30):
like just ordinary people who put their pants on one
leg at a time, maybe that's less exciting. So when
it comes to looking at other continents, the stories that
they want, the stories that they remember, the stories that
they want to keep, are stories of exoticism, stories like wow, fantastic.

(25:51):
And once those stories are entrenched, it's very hard to
dislodge them. Again, this is just my take on it,
But examining our own conceptions about things it's uncomfortable work,
which is why a lot of people will avoid it.
But the second part of your question is how do
we fix this? And we fix this by looking at

(26:12):
our own misconceptions, by looking at things that have been
blind spots for us personally in the past. And so
when I talk to people about how I approach the
medieval podcast and mythbusting and all of this stuff, one
of the things that's important to me is to not
really bang on about people being wrong and stupid and
shame people for the things that they believed before. And

(26:33):
the reason for this is that we don't come out
of the womb having beliefs about the middle ages. We
learn them from somewhere, and so it's not really our
fault if we've learned something wrong. But it is our
responsibility to have a look at things that we think
we know and investigate whether they are true or not.
So how do we get people to learn more about

(26:55):
the spread of Christianity or how it was practiced in
other places in the world. Just keep talking to them
about it. And not everyone is going to want to
hear this. Not everyone's going to believe us. People are
going to push back. That is just all part of
the process. But the more we do it, the more
we have discussions, the more we talk about our similarities
and our differences, and the information that keeps being discovered

(27:20):
every day in the archives, from archaeology, all of these things.
The more we discuss it, the better it is for everybody.
And so this is part of my mission here at
the Medieval Podcast to bring forth the things that people
are discovering in the Ivory Tower, to show them to you,
to us, so that we can discuss them, so that
we can re examine what we thought we knew and

(27:40):
hopefully change people's worldview, change people's ideas and conceptions, not
only about the Middle Ages, but about each other in
a way that hopefully makes us more compassionate, makes us
understand each other's perspectives better. And I know that this
is very idealistic, but it is the reason that I
do what I do. So I hope this gets at

(28:01):
what you're asking. I hope this answers your question, or
at least the best that I can do. And thank
you for asking that question. So the next question is
from Instagram and it's from Ruby not Studying, And this
is a spicy question. So if you have little kids around,
maybe you want to cover their ears for a second.
But it's a good question. It's a good question. Ruby

(28:23):
not Studying says, I just cannot understand men's hoes and jerkins.
What exactly was covering the ass and the eggplant emoji?
Good question? Okay. I think this is really interesting because
fashion is interesting. It tells us so much about society.

(28:44):
People who have studied recent history, modern history in the
last century or so talk a lot about hamlines going
up and down, and when it comes to the past,
we tend to be talking about men's hamlines coming up
and down. So that's interesting. Already, fashion changing over time
and it being about how short or how long your
tunic is. So tunics are ancient. People are used to

(29:08):
having people bending over in the fields and their tunics
and maybe seeing too much of your relatives or neighbors,
and you want to this is just something that has
been happening for a really long time. By this point,
people in the ancient world hanging around by the Mediterranean
weren't wearing their togas all the time, they were wearing tunics.
So this is something that people have been used to

(29:28):
for a really long time. When it comes to the
medieval world around the fourteenth and fifteenth century, tunics yet
pretty short. In fact, they really do show sometimes some
well defined buttocks in medieval manuscripts. You could check those out.
One of the articles I did for medievalistunt and a

(29:49):
long time ago, Peter found a really good picture of
somebody with these slipper socks and you can really see
everything he's gone display at the back. And so people
at the time work a little bit that these things
were too revealing. But I do think that this is
probably a matter of high fashion. So when we're talking

(30:09):
about fashion, there is the fashion that is creative in
on display and stuff worn by the elites, and then
there's the stuff worn by everybody else. So I don't
think that you have like super short tunics being worn
around the marketplace by most people. I think most people
would have their bits covered by their tunic. By the way,
they are wearing woolen hose which is tied at the top.

(30:32):
This is homespun will. It could be really fine, could
be really coarse, but it's probably not quite as revealing
as bike shorts today as spandex can be. And it's
also important to remember that when you're walking down the
street you see a cyclist that stopped for a second
to have a drink, you notice that they're wearing bike shorts.
Maybe you're a person who takes an extra look at them,

(30:54):
but then you just move on with your day. So
I think that this is part of it as well,
Like there it is, but then we just move on
with our lives. But when I'm talking about high fashion,
I think these are the ones where you have pretty
tight leggings that are made of really fine wool, and
maybe they're showing things off and this is a different thing.

(31:16):
And when I think about that, it helps to think
about the things that people are doing in fashion today.
So right now, what I'm thinking of is Jeff Bezos's wedding,
which is in some sense is a very medieval event
because it's a wedding that takes several days. It's got
this massive budget that people complain about because that money
could have been used for something else. I mean, this

(31:37):
is a tale is old as time. But one of
the things that happens at Jeff Bezos's wedding, from what
I've heard, is that there is a pajama party. And
so I've seen pictures of this pajama party because I
was like, what do celebrities wear to sleep, or at
least what do they want people to think they were
to sleep? You know what I'm trying to say. And
Kim Kardashian showed up wearing something that I am one

(32:00):
hundred percent sure that she doesn't sleep in. This is
a very revealing outfit, it's very sexy. It's meant to
catch people's attention. But this is not what normal people wear.
It's certainly not what normal people wear to sleep. So
when I think about high fashion and the type of
fashion that priests are complaining about, this is normally the elites.

(32:20):
It's not everybody every day just wearing super tight hose.
But one of my favorite things about this fashion for
super tight hose is David Green, who was one of
my earliest guests on the Medieval Podcast. In his book
on one hundred Years War, he talks about a priest
who blamed the Black Death on men wearing hoes that
was too tight. In fact, it was so tight that

(32:42):
they couldn't kneel down to pray. So whild people were
wearing really tight hose, you probably didn't see a lot
of things on me every day, and even if you did,
it was probably not something that's required a lot of comment.
There are people who are showing things off and there
are people who are not showing things off. So I

(33:04):
don't know if this answers your question about why people
would wear such short tunics, such tight hose, except for
that it's fashion and sometimes people like to do things
that are a little bit risque and put themselves out
there as being fashioned forward. Being fashion forward, or wanting
to be is certainly something that is not exclusive to
us today. So Ruby, good luck with your studying. I

(33:26):
hope that you get back to studying at some point.
Thank you so much for your question. So, coming to
the end of our questions, I was asked a question
by my friend Emily Nichols. Who is this amazing public speaker.
So if you want someone who's going to bring super
enthusiasm to your event, check her out. She's my friend
on Instagram. You can find her there. Emily asked me

(33:49):
if I could get any recognition for my work through
the Medieval Podcast or my books, or my writing for Medievalistnet,
all of that stuff, if I could get recognition for it,
what would that look like? What would the ideal recognition
look like? And this is an interesting question I think
maybe we should all ask ourselves at some point. When

(34:10):
I was in my twenties, I ended up going to
a lot of funerals, just sometimes this happens in our lives, right,
And when I went to those funerals, of course, I
was left thinking about legacy, about what I would want
to leave behind, what I would want people to say
about me. And so this has sort of formed and
informed how I have lived in those years since. And

(34:33):
this is something that has become sort of a trend
as well. Think about your last days, how would you
want people to remember you? Although come to think of it.
This is something that medieval people were telling us already,
so certainly not something that came out of my own
brain fully formed like Athena from the head of Zeus.
But when I think about legacy, when I think about

(34:53):
the things that I have done in my career, there
are things that I am proud of, and I think
that's a wonderful thing to have. Like I finished my
TED talk in twenty seventeen, and I thought, even if
all of the things that I talked about become updated
in the way that people are talking about history and

(35:14):
the years to come, I know that I've done something
that I really believed in. And I feel the same
way about this podcast. So even if I stop doing
this podcast tomorrow or I get abducted by aliens, I
feel like I've done something that contributed positively to the world,
and that is enough in and of itself. So I

(35:35):
don't really look for recognition, like am I going to
get a podcast a word?

Speaker 2 (35:40):
Like?

Speaker 1 (35:40):
Probably not, But that's not why I do this, And
I mean, I think that is true of so many
people who do work that they love. They do it
because they love it. But it made me think about
speaking to someone the great Deborah McGrady, who's going to
be on the podcast in a couple of weeks. She's
lovely and I sort of said to her, without really

(36:02):
thinking about it, that one thing I've always wanted to
get is my PhD. So I finished my masters. I
stopped my education so that I could have my children
because I didn't want to be having children, you know,
much later in life, and wanted to have them while
I was still in my twenties. So I had my
children with the thought that I would come back and
do my PhD. And I never did because when I

(36:26):
looked at it from that perspective, it was going to
be super expensive and there was not going to be
any work. So I chose not to do my PhD.
But it was something that I had always wanted to do,
and at this point I recognized I probably will not
get my PhD. Maybe I'll be able to work on

(36:46):
it when I'm sixty five, and here in Canada, I
think we get to do university for free. I'll have
to look into that. It may be different when I
get to sixty five, but it would be really cool
to get that brass ring to ring the bell, to
say that I actually did it. I got all the way.
So that's something that I don't think about every day,
but sometimes sometimes I have a secret thought that comes

(37:10):
up that maybe something I will get an honorary one.
So if there was ever any recognition that I would want,
I think that would feel pretty good. But this isn't
something that people just hand out, so it's not something
I expect to get. But since you asked, Emily, and
you really challenged me to answer this, because thinking about
recognition for myself is not something that I do very comfortably,

(37:33):
as you can probably tell from how my voice is
coming across now. But yeah, I think if I finished
out my life at ninety five or one hundred and
five or one hundred and fifteen or whatever, and I
had my PhD, I think that would feel pretty awesome. So, yes, Emily,
you challenged me to answer this question. I hope that

(37:54):
you were happy with the answer in the end. So
that is the one of the questions that were sent
to me. Apparently Peter from medievalis don Net has one
more question for me, so let's get to that. Well,
it wouldn't be episode three hundred if we didn't have
Peter here to tell us what's on the website. But

(38:15):
first he has a question for me, right, Peter, what's
your question?

Speaker 2 (38:19):
Well, first, congratulations on three hundred episodes.

Speaker 1 (38:22):
Thank you. Yeah, it's isn't it. Yeah?

Speaker 2 (38:26):
I know, I know, I think I kind of dreamt
that we get to two fifty or something by three hundred. Wow,
you're doing pretty good.

Speaker 1 (38:34):
Thanks. Just keep moving, Just keep moving.

Speaker 2 (38:37):
So my question for you is, basically, because we've been
chatting here and there about you know, Cauer plans and such,
I was kind of wondering, where do you see yourself
by the time episode six hundred comes around?

Speaker 1 (38:51):
So if this is three hundred episodes and we've put
in I've put in six years doing this, then six
hundred episodes is another six years of doing this. And
I'm not one for five year plans, and that like,
in the last six years, my life turned completely upside
down and I hit a couple branches on the way

(39:11):
down before I bounced back up again. In terms of
personal life, my career has been like moving along so wonderfully,
and I can't complain about that. But the point I'm
trying to make here is that I never know where
I'm going to be in five years. It's always a
surprise to me. So I have no idea. I do
know that I'm really enjoying doing this podcast, and I

(39:33):
just want to keep doing fun things. So I have
a book proposal in the works, which I think is
really fun, but I have to get that finished so
I can get it out. So i'd really like to
have another few books out in six years. I'd like
to keep doing this podcast. I've really enjoyed my time
working with Sony. Maybe a couple more projects like that

(39:53):
that are a surprise to me but super fun. And
it would be nice to do some video, I think.
But yeah, I mean, who knows, because I started this
when my oldest daughter was like one year old, and
now she's going to be moving out of the house
soon my kids. In six years, my kids will be
launching out onto lives of their own, and so who

(40:15):
knows what's going to happen. So you've actually asked me
probably the toughest question today. I have no idea, but
I hope it's fun.

Speaker 2 (40:23):
Okay, Yeah, I know I always want to give you
a stumper, but yeah, I guess you know. It's your
journey has been like lots of ups, a few downs,
and challenges and things like that. There's all seems to
be like some exciting thing that comes along.

Speaker 1 (40:36):
Yeah, but it's always been a surprise, like a lot
of the projects that I've done, things like when I
was on Simulation Mode, which was a live streaming thing,
and then when I was doing this This is History
projects with Sony, Like, none of these things were things
that I necessarily sought out or expected. So yeah, I'm

(40:57):
always it's one of those things where the people who
have been listening to this podcast for a long time
know that I learned a lot when I was working
through things in my personal life. A lot of that
stuff is in how to live like a monk. But
one of the things that I've learned is to have goals,
have intentions, but really hold them lightly because you just
don't know what's going to happen. And that's exciting, but

(41:20):
it means that, like I don't have a five year plan.
All right, not the answer you were expecting.

Speaker 2 (41:26):
Right, Well, I say, good, good luck with the next
three hundred episodes.

Speaker 1 (41:31):
Oh thank you.

Speaker 2 (41:32):
Fine, So man, I'm gonna have to be doing three
hundred more episodes.

Speaker 1 (41:35):
Oh, poor Peter, You're gonna have to keep putting content
out on Medievalist on net. So what have you got
out there this week?

Speaker 2 (41:43):
Yeah, a computer is backworking so I can repost material.
And one thing we have is k Philly Castle has reopened.

Speaker 1 (41:52):
Yay nice. This is one of the big beautiful castles
in Wales.

Speaker 2 (41:58):
Indeed indeed the largest cast in Wales, and they have
been doing a two year conservation project which costs eight
million pounds.

Speaker 1 (42:07):
Worth it though worth it. Have you got pictures?

Speaker 2 (42:12):
We do thanks to Codway, the you know, Welsh Heritage
branch of the government. So yeah, it looks like they
do wonderful work. Some beautiful gardens that they've created within
the castle, some nice rooms as well, the kind of
showcasing what it was like when they were partying in
the fourteenth century.

Speaker 1 (42:27):
I mean, I love a good fourteenth century party, that's
my jam.

Speaker 2 (42:31):
Indeed, so we've got that. Plus we have a piece
that is doing very well on the website right now
called twelve Medieval Life Tips from a twelfth century genius.

Speaker 1 (42:40):
Twelfth century genius who are we talking about here?

Speaker 2 (42:43):
We're talking about Ali and Delille, one of those twelve
century Renaissance scholars wrote various works. His fellows really looked
up to him. One of his works called the Paraballe,
which has these little comparables of life, wisdom and things
like that, and I picked twelve that I really liked.

Speaker 1 (43:01):
Awesome. Well, I know that he had some kind of
spicy ideas at times. The first time I ever met
Alain Noveill was in Susanne Conklin at Bartie's class University
of Toronto. I don't know that I'm his biggest fan,
but I'm looking forward to seeing what Tipsy has for us.

Speaker 2 (43:17):
My favorite is this one. You can hope for a
day after night, sun after clouds, a smile and happiness
after tears.

Speaker 1 (43:27):
Yes, I mean that is what makes life worth living.
Is that hope that we have for sun after clouds? Okay, Okay,
he's termed me.

Speaker 2 (43:36):
He's given us hope for the next three hundred episodes.

Speaker 1 (43:41):
I wouldn't call the first three hundred at cloud Jeez, Peter,
why are you here anyway? Well, thank you for stopping by,
Peter for three hundred episodes, and I will see you
again next week.

Speaker 2 (43:56):
Thanks.

Speaker 1 (43:58):
I'm so grateful to all of you for hanging out
with me for three hundred episodes, and I'm hoping you'll
want to hang out with me over on This is
History this summer, where I've taken over the regency for
Dan Jones. Starting next week, I'll be telling the story
of Francis Charles the Sixth in a mini series called
The Glass King, and to give you a sense of it,

(44:19):
Sony has sent over the trailer for the series, so
check this out. He was a young, dashing king, married
to a beautiful queen and adored by the people. Together
they ruled a kingdom that had finally won its territories
back from its ancient arch rival. It's late fourteenth century

(44:39):
France in the court of Charles the sixth, a king
who will come into his own as Charles the Beloved.
But the fairy tale can't last. Soon Charles becomes someone
who is feared and then pitied in a forest near Lemont,
the Beloved King snaps, attacking his brother and feeling five

(45:03):
of his own men. In time, even the slightest touch
gives the king chills. Charles believes his body is made
of glass, ready to splinter at any moment. As the
king's mind falls to pieces, the princes of France fight
for dominance and slowly tear Charles's Kingdom Apart. I'm Danielle Sebowski,

(45:31):
a historian and author, and over six gripping episodes, we'll
step inside the kingdom that's moments away from shattering. There'll
be feuding families, decadent parties, powerful queens, rebellions a plenty,
and ambushes that would make the Mafia blush. This is
a story of power, greed, and brazen ambition. But the

(45:54):
question is who's breaking first. Listen to This Is History
Presents The Glass King wherever you get your podcasts From Tuesday,
July twenty ninth. In celebration of The Glass King and

(46:15):
my episode three hundred, Sony is giving my listeners a
twenty percent discount for the first month of a subscription
to This Is History over on Patreon, which will give
you access to early episodes of my new series, the
whole back catalog of This Is History, including The Iron King,
and bonus episodes where Dan Jones and I talk history

(46:35):
and get ridiculous as we tend to do. So thank
you to Sony for recognizing the awesomeness of my amazing listeners,
and if you're interested in getting that discount, head over
to Patreon dot com. Slash this is History and use
the coupon code glass King all one word before August
one to get twenty percent off your first month. I

(46:56):
hope to see you there and speak of Patreon, this
is the moment where I send out big thanks to
all the people on patreon dot com slash Medievalists for
supporting my work, because without you, this podcast just would
not exist. I can't thank you enough for being there
and for helping me bring medieval history to the airwaves

(47:17):
every week. And thank you to each and every one
of you who lets those ads roll through and who
shares my work with your friends, because honestly, every little
bit helps not only me but our collective knowledge of history,
and that brings us to the end of episode three hundred.
So for everything from podcasts to Canonblastfollowmidievalist dot net, on

(47:40):
Instagram at medievalist net or blue Sky at Medievalists. You
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

(48:04):
wonderful day.