November Mailbag

folks, we're back with another mailbag answering questions dutifully submitted by our amazing patrons. we do these every month to catch up on things and we're back to hit a broad range of topics including: ninjas, siege weapons, Leon Trotsky(?), dancing plagues, papal gifts, and the Peace of God. enjoy!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Yeah, my cats, I think. So we've got a Biscuit
and Rugby and they are brothers. And if you've ever
if you remember the the drill tweet, you know, anytime
I see two guys together for any reason whatsoever, Well, well,
well if it isn't the Blowjaw brothers, that's those two cats.

(00:26):
They like they're jobs. They're so cute. No, they just
like hang all over each other. Like I have to
separate them when I feed them. I have to separate
them from the dog because they'll try to go off
the dog's food and she'll be like because she's old
and you know, doesn't want anybody messing with their food

(00:46):
or whatever and whatever. So I have to separate them.
So I go back in there last night to like
let them out after you know, like fifteen minutes or whatever,
and I find the two of them laying on a
blanket that's in the floor that they have, and Biscuit
is on top of Rugby like licking his ear like
he I mean, he's clearly grooming him. But I'm just like, oh,

(01:07):
I caught you two in fra grante deleto. That's so cute.
They're adorable. They are not real brothers. I mean, not
that it matters they're cats, but like like, but they
are just like. So Rugby is. He was a he
was his mom was a Farah and she unfortunately died

(01:30):
uh after giving birth to them, and her kittens were
rescued and so he got him. And Biscuit is a Siamese.
He looks like a pure bredin I don't know, I
don't really care, but uh, Rugby is they're like Pinky
in the brain and Rugby is the brain. He's smart,

(01:51):
he's a tuxedo cat. He does not like he's been
out on the street. He does not want to be
back out on the street. He does not go outside.
I could leave the door wide open and he would
not go out there. He is terrified of it. Whereas
his brother Biscuit, who I say this, I love this.

(02:12):
I love these cats so much. Biscuit is one of
the dumbest animals I've ever seen in my life. He's adorable,
he's sweet, there's there's nothing wrong with that. But he's
just a dingus like he like, we have to put
up these baby gates because a dog is old and

(02:33):
she's kind of incontinent sometimes and I'll peel on the carpet,
and you know, I mean it just stinks. You know,
I don't want that. So we put up the baby
gates and they can both easily jump over these things.
Rugby does. Biscuit, on the other hand, cannot figure it out.
He still tries to like kind of put his head
and arms through it. And if you open the gate

(02:55):
like so, if you open it to the inside where
he is waiting, he will sit there behind the gate
with it actually open. He will no, he will just
sit there behind it like he puts himself in prison.
He could walk around the edge of the gate and
walk right into the room, but he will just sit
there until like I go, you know, move go around

(03:16):
and get for you know, walk three inches to your
left and move around the gate. And he's like, wow,
he's so sweet. I love him. I love him so much.
And they're so cut together. So earlier they were biscuits
outside like lounge, we have a screen and porch. Not
it gets people letting their cats outside. I'm not letting

(03:38):
my cats outside. But the kind of raptors we have
around here, I've seen hawks carrying very large prey. Yeah,
I'm not not here for that. No, thanks, unnecessary risk
in my opinion. So, but we have a screen in
porch and everything, and so he'll go out there and
lay in the sun, and Rugby will sit at the
back door and just there through the bottom of the

(04:01):
thing at him, like, why aren't you inside? Why are
you out there out there? Scary? It's it's warming here.
What do you do? Like, it's very cute if I
have if they have to be separated at all, like
they go through withdrawal, it's they're adorable. Oh the dude,
they're so cute. Poor Rugby was so sick. He had pip.

(04:24):
He he had pip, and he was so bad. He
was blind like he he already has one bad eye
because he had an infection from when he was born,
and he is basically jet black except for his stomach
and a couple of his paws. And so sometimes call
him Odin because he has a bad eye and he
looks like and he's smart, uh and uh. But he

(04:48):
had PIP and we thought he was going to die.
He had lost so much weight, he was so thin,
and the fit made him blind. He couldn't see anything.
He couldn't see biscuits like he he just it was
so sad, and we got him these shots, which are
now legal in the country, I think. But we had
to basically use a black market source to do this,

(05:10):
to get these shots that are legal elsewhere, and they
saved by eighty nine eighty nine straight days of shots with.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
Big names on the dark web.

Speaker 1 (05:20):
I love it anyway, Yeah, eighty nine days of shots
for this poor tiny cat. But they fucking worked and
he can see again out of his one eye. He's
perfectly healthy. Now. It's insane. I've never seen anything like it.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
I love it. That's so aspiring.

Speaker 1 (05:39):
Yeah, they're good kids. See there, you go look at
that everything you know. People are like, everything's bad, folks,
It's not bad. There are cute pies and puppies and
everything else in the world, you know. I yeah, I
don't know. Pretty pretty good mood all things kids say.

Speaker 2 (06:03):
I love it. I love this for us.

Speaker 3 (06:04):
It's gonna get It's the perfect time to do mail
bag Baby.

Speaker 4 (06:08):
Let's fucking go.

Speaker 1 (06:43):
Hello, and welcome back to We're Not So Different podcasts
about how we've always been idiots. My name is Luke's
Always I'm joined by doctor Eleanor, and we are here
to talk about the mail so folks, it's that time
once in for our monthly mail bag where we spend
the whole show answering questions from our patrons Patreon dot

(07:06):
com slash wnastpod. It's just five dollars a month. It's
great from our large pile of questions in addition to
those that we answer at the beginning of most episodes.
Today we're covering a broad range of topics from weird
Catholic shit to ninjas, to siege weapons, to Leon Trotsky
to papal gifts and much more. Enjoy Patreon dot com

(07:29):
slash w anstpot five dollars a month. It's fun, you'll
like it. Bonus episodes you can listen to eleanor talk
about serious things and me talking about the video game Fallout.
It's great. On the last bonus episode or whenever we
do the next Cameron episode, which is episode ten in
that series for day nine, so we're getting we're getting
towards the end anyway, onto the show, so uh yeah,

(07:55):
we Our first one is from Gaffzie, who says I've
read historical sources. The Europa universalis for wiki refer to
the refer to the dith Martian uh and several other
places as peasant republics. What did this mean in terms
of practical governance? Was it significantly different from the self
government of free cities in the Holy Roman Empire? Was

(08:17):
there even one single form of peasant republic that happened
to emerge as it a general term to describe a
variety of circumstances and arrangements.

Speaker 3 (08:25):
Uh, the latter, and I guess you know, it's a
dictatorship of the proletariat, is.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
What's going on of a sense?

Speaker 2 (08:35):
Yeah, you know.

Speaker 3 (08:36):
One of the big differences between Death Martian and like
other Holy Roman Imperial city states is other Holy Roman
Imperial city states are as a general rule of thumb
governed by the bourgeois.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
You know. So it's like they.

Speaker 3 (08:50):
There is a class of people who are allowed to
vote and they elect other people from their class, and
you know that that's what's going on, Like uh, you know,
laborers day laborers aren't voting, you know. So that's one
difference between it and Death Martian.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
The other thing about like.

Speaker 3 (09:12):
Death Martian, it's very unbowed, unbent, unbroken over there, Like
there were multiple attempts to take it over and put
it under the rule of varying usually bishop's occasional you know,
dukes and this sort of thing. But the reason that
they're able to do that is again because like unlike

(09:32):
city states, they don't have a charter for this shit,
Like they're just doing it. Like city states are able
to govern themselves ordinarily by imperial decree. So they've got
like a specific deal going on with the Holy Roman
Emperor where they kick taxes his way, and then they're
allowed to do whatever the fuck it is that they
want to do.

Speaker 2 (09:51):
The death Martian, they just did it.

Speaker 3 (09:53):
Yeah, So it's kind of about like who's allowed to
do what, And that's the difference, I.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
Think the broad thing with peasant republics. First of all,
it's just like a term that we you know, people
in the early modern and modern era have applied to
these things. But they were places that were within they
were within the general auspices of an empire or kingdom

(10:22):
of some kind, but they power was insufficient to read
the main power was insufficient to reach out to them
typically either because you know, it's just distant it's very
hard to get to, or it's like somewhere you know,
mountainous or whatever, where like you know, you you're just

(10:45):
in a valley somewhere, and you know it's really hard
to get to the king's power or whatever is not
going to reach you very well. So it was kind
of like that, and they kind of loosely governed themselves.
And I mean mostly you would see these in and
the Holy Roman Empire because it was diffuse by nature,
so it would lend itself to these things, and a

(11:06):
little bit in Scandinavia as well, and it's just like,
you know, you have to govern, like you know, people
understand that they have to govern themselves in some way.
And you know, if nobody, if you only hear from
the you know, royal whatever every month and a half,
you know, you got to make some decisions for yourself.

(11:29):
And you know, maybe there isn't there aren't a ton
of lords around for you know, geographic reasons or whatever,
just come together and decide things that you know, now,
it's not you know, this wasn't something where they were like, oh, yes,
we are, you know, forming communist societies on purpose. But

(11:50):
I mean these people are these are the peasants governing themselves,
and that is an extreme rarity throughout history, like very
very rare. Yeah, So yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's the that's
the peasant republic. Another unique facet that makes the Holy
Roman Empire so fun. You know, why just have counties

(12:12):
and cities and shires and whatever when you can have
all of them, When you can have an empire and
a kingdom and mar Gravier and a free city and
you know everything in between. You know, when you can
have that much fun, why would you do Why would

(12:32):
you break that up and then form it into Germany?
Of all things? Good god man? Why when we had
so much fun they could still you could still be
the Holy Roman Empire. Now you don't have to you
don't have to be this, you know, it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter if you're not holy anymore. Oh oh

(12:52):
Voltaire's one third Rite three hundred years later whatever, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (12:56):
Like I don't care, Just do it again for kicks, ye.

Speaker 1 (12:59):
Also the added bonus of breaking up Germany and when
we break up the United States, we can have the
Holy Roman Empire to electric.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
Boogle right right.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
I'm we're already the direct successors to that. That the
Electoral College alone assures it. Anyway, Gussie, thank you very
much for the question. Next, we got one from Dog spotter.
Any thoughts on the toladt tola dot yeshue, what's going
on with that in medieval people? Was there anything that

(13:29):
transferred from this into what we generally considered the usual
Catholic faith.

Speaker 2 (13:34):
I mean there's nothing.

Speaker 3 (13:36):
Okay, So for those who don't know, the tot issue
is like a satirical text about the life of Jesus
written by Jewish people, all about how like, you know,
like Mary's an adulterer, and Jesus is not the son
of God, he's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy.

Speaker 1 (13:54):
That's right, that's right. It's quite just redded atheism, early
reredded atheism. Thank you guys.

Speaker 3 (14:00):
Yeah, you know, it's I think it's kind of meant
as a joke or whatever it gets around. We're not
exactly sure when it was penned sometime in the early
medieval period. I've seen some people argue for like the
sixth century. I've seen people argue for the ninth century
and anywhere in between.

Speaker 2 (14:18):
Right, we definitely know that.

Speaker 3 (14:21):
It gets into Europe through like all things Iberia.

Speaker 1 (14:26):
Right, so.

Speaker 3 (14:29):
We have a number of manuscripts that we can kind
of trace to steal and the things there, and the
major thing that it does is encourage anti Semitism.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
That's like, that's the main thing that.

Speaker 3 (14:47):
I'm very pissed off. References to it that we get
possibly we think in the kind of ninth century maybe
by the Bishop of Leon, but we're not exactly sure
if he's talking about it. We definitely know that by
the fifteenth century, like the Church is attempting to ban it, right,

(15:10):
but which is also you know quite a long time.
You know, it's like, you know, fourteen oh nine or
so the Church bans it. So it's like one of
these things that like he kind of comes up again
and again and again, and you know, it's like one
of those things kind of like the Protocols of the

(15:32):
Elders of Zion later, except that it's real in that
like it definitely was a real text kind of satirizing
Christian stuff. But it's like one of those things that
mostly it just serves to piss people off, you know,
like Martin Luther has a whole thing about it.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
For example, Yeah, well, I mean, but Martin believe that
mart I can't believe that he would have an issue
with Jews, Martin Luther.

Speaker 3 (15:55):
No, yeah, no, right, Like so he really really hates it,
and so like this is the major thing. Like I mean,
Catholicism mostly just gets mad at it. It doesn't in
any way influence it or are different ways of seeing it.
And I mean, like fundamentally, I don't think that the
telegeny issue has anything to do necessarily with antisemitism in

(16:21):
the medieval period because everybody was already being it correct.
You know, it's like they're like, Okay, here's just like
another reason, here's another reason to like go for it. Like,
I don't think that it in and of itself necessarily
sparks anything.

Speaker 2 (16:35):
I think it's.

Speaker 3 (16:35):
Already there and people kind of glom onto it as
an excuse to be anti semitic. But you know, like
most things, we tend to see more of a reaction
to it in the later medieval period in early modern
period because that's just how these things go. So like
it kind of exists, it's floating around. We've got like
around about one hundred manuscripts of it, so.

Speaker 1 (16:54):
Yeah, there are a lot of them.

Speaker 2 (16:56):
So it's it's pretty it's pretty popular. It's pretty there.
That's because it's kind of funny, you know.

Speaker 1 (17:02):
So yeah, right, yeah, there are man, what is it?
I had it just a minute ago. There there's from
from like the eleventh century alone. There's something like eighty
eighty manuscripts of like I get. I mean, maybe it
just come out it was the new hotness or something
like that, but like people were fucking, you know, in

(17:24):
on it. But yeah, I think it's just one of
those things that was a historical you know, oddity, you know,
and people recognizing a common thing that like, you know,
if you don't take the if you don't take this
stuff seriously, the story of Jesus is very ridiculous. And
I mean it just sounds like a you know, a
woman sleeping around on her husband or whatever. I'm not

(17:46):
insinuating that, I'm just saying that's what it sounds like
if you don't meet the story where it is. And
so people were like poking fun at that, and it
has unfortunately been used for just a host of of
horrible things. Like Eleanor's right, it doesn't start anything, it's
just another reason. But unfortunately it was picked up by

(18:08):
history and by Christians, not just I'm sorry, not just
by history. It was picked up by Christians at the
time too, But like it was one of the things.
I guess because there are so many surviving copies of it,
and it was kind of it was considered especially scandalous
when the church got all Book Banny towards the end
of the fourteen hundreds, in the beginning of the fifteen hundreds,

(18:29):
Like I guess, you know, that was a thing, And
I mean that in that mil you you know, Martin
Luther sees it and is horrified after he realizes the
Jews aren't just gonna up and follow him. Good Lord Martin.
But it's a yeah, I think it's it's an interesting
historical curiosity that has been used to very bad ends

(18:52):
for a long time. It still is unfortunately. Yeah, I
mean it would be like it. I mean, I I
said redded atheism earlier, but it would be like if
you know one of those like late aughts, you know,
kind of like new atheist types who was like, oh
Jesus' mom was just this gank. But you know, like

(19:15):
if you found one of those posts in like five
hundred years and we're like, look at these people hated
Jesus and you're like, what, that's just some like you know,
that's just some guy who's either now just like a
normal atheist or like some weird inseel like that's it's
not like these it's yeah, yeah anyway, yeah, uh that's uh,

(19:36):
that's the total of debt yeshue unfortunately. Uh, let's talk
about something a bit cheerier. But Dogspotter, thank you very
much for the guest. Is a good thing, uh and
something we haven't I don't think we've actually ever talked about,
so thank you.

Speaker 3 (19:49):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (19:49):
Next we got one from dog God. What's your favorite
holiday to celebrate?

Speaker 2 (19:54):
Hm?

Speaker 3 (19:55):
Great question. You know, I like long Christmas. I like
medieval Christmas a lot. I don't like Christmas in the
kind of common sense, but I like, you know, the
twelve days and eating too much trifle and that's kind
of like lazing about.

Speaker 2 (20:13):
That's what I'm really into.

Speaker 3 (20:15):
Also a big fan of Thanksgiving because I like how
there isn't like much to do other than eat.

Speaker 2 (20:22):
I still kind of have Thanksgiving.

Speaker 3 (20:23):
Here because I think it's it's a nice thing to do.
But like I would have said, if I was still
in America.

Speaker 2 (20:30):
It would be Halloween. Halloween, because I fucking love Halloween.

Speaker 3 (20:35):
But you know, like Halloween here in the UK, it's
just kind of like, you know, like it's catching on,
but like I mean, it's just like, you know, British
people trying to do Halloween is like you know, because
like when Irish people do Halloween, they're doing something else,
you know, sooy is like kind of different and yeah
that's yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:53):
You know, that's a different one.

Speaker 3 (20:55):
Yeah, and that's cool, but like you know, people in
London trying.

Speaker 4 (20:59):
To do it, it's just not the same.

Speaker 1 (21:02):
Like it.

Speaker 3 (21:02):
Don't get me wrong, I'll put on a costume and
go to the pub. Like I absolutely went as like
the hot god dog guy to the pub a couple
of years ago. You know, like that's something I have
done and we'll do again, right, Like I did I
wear dog.

Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yes, I wore the hot dog costume to the pub.
It was great. I was the only one there in
a costume. Was fucking great. I do it again. It's good.

Speaker 1 (21:26):
Shit here, you have to do sexy hot dog hot
dog guy.

Speaker 3 (21:30):
Okay, So the reason the hot dog costume exists in
this house is that for a while I was obsessed
with sexy food outfits that you could find online. And
there was like sexy corn and like sexy whatever, and
there was like one that was sexy hot dog and
I like constantly made jokes for years and years and
years about sexy hot dog.

Speaker 2 (21:48):
This is before I think you should leave ever existed.

Speaker 3 (21:51):
And then one year we were having a Halloween party
and uh, I kept asking Blair what he was gonna be,
and he kept saying a sexy hot dog, and I
kept saying, no, shut up, what are you really gonna do?
But then he came as a sexy hot dog, like
he actually so he did. He secretly ordered the hot
dog outfit.

Speaker 2 (22:08):
And then he and then he wore he wore like
a fish.

Speaker 3 (22:12):
That and a pair of like and like a pair
of my boots. And I've never laughed harder in my
entire fucking life. And it was like it was so funny,
Like it was so funny sexy hot dog, and but
it's just like it is the hot but he just
did it by getting like the hot dog, like the
iconic hot dog outfit, which would later become used and

(22:36):
I think you should leave, whereas like I was talking
about like slutty sexy hot dog, which was smaller. But anyway,
it was just such a high point and it's like
such a it was such a high point for me.

Speaker 2 (22:47):
That still when I'm too.

Speaker 3 (22:51):
Look like, if I'm like in my feelings about something,
Blair will just put the hot dog outfit on because
like it never fails to crack me up. And then
it got like a secondly thought Lisa on life when
I think you should leave, came out and so it's
like this hot dog outfit. So anyway, I love Halloween,
but you know it's fraught here. It's sort of like

(23:11):
you have to make your own fun around Halloween.

Speaker 1 (23:15):
It's much funnier to imagine Blair in like this extreme
form fitting like.

Speaker 2 (23:22):
He probably do it. He would probably do it.

Speaker 1 (23:24):
You work work it girl, home.

Speaker 2 (23:27):
Boy, homeboy. You know he's got it. He's got the chops.

Speaker 3 (23:31):
So uh, I want to do a shout out to
also like an esoteric holiday that my family, which is medieval.
So but my family does Michaelmas. It's kind of like yeah,
so it's like it's like the Saint Michael Lear Gangel Day.

Speaker 2 (23:49):
And uh we usually have goose for that.

Speaker 1 (23:53):
No, thank you, Goose is great.

Speaker 2 (23:55):
So in the first place, wow, goose is great.

Speaker 3 (23:57):
Uh, and then also you got all your goose fat
ready for you others. See there you go, how are
you gonna make roast potatoes without the goose, right, you're not,
and so you may as well roast the goose.

Speaker 2 (24:09):
It's good.

Speaker 1 (24:11):
I roast the goose and then give it like and
then I take it to someone. I'm like, please take
this disgusting thing. I just needed the delicious, delicious drippings.

Speaker 2 (24:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (24:21):
Actually that doesn't sound like a bad idea.

Speaker 3 (24:24):
We sing like Little Saint Michael's songs. You know, Behold
the Year, Roll, Love the Sky.

Speaker 2 (24:30):
Saint My you know, like all that stuff. So that's good.

Speaker 1 (24:34):
It's fun. No, that's cool. Uh me, uh fuck it.
I love long American Christmas. Uh do not do not
talk to me about putting up a Christmas tree on
Christmas Eve, especially, don't talk to my daughter about that
if you want to. Okay, all right, no chance in hell,

(24:54):
or my wife for that matter, or me, honestly. But
but it is. I love Christmas. It's fun. I like.
I like the movies. I like a lot of the songs.
I like giving people stuff I like I mean, I

(25:19):
like getting presidents. I guess everybody does. Uh, it's just fun.
Halloween with a kid, how I mean, Halloween's great anyway,
Halloween with the kid is awesome. So much fun to
do every year, trying to think other holidays that I

(25:39):
that I actually celebrate. I don't know. Oh yeah, I oh,
I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I
hate it, balancing my my my love for blowing things
up with my hatred for America.

Speaker 2 (25:56):
That's all right, that's all right. You know it's it's
a tough one. It's a tough one.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
Yeah. Uh yeah, that's that's us. Unfortunately, we do not
celebrate Michaelmas in my household. But that sounds fun. Like
the song, Yeah, yeah, when is that what date?

Speaker 2 (26:13):
September? September.

Speaker 3 (26:14):
It's like late September, so, uh, you know, like it's
a harvest festival, so you know, like you always need
a harvest festival. Yeah, that's that's what I think. So
it's nice to do the medieval one.

Speaker 2 (26:26):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (26:27):
My parents are just doing it for hippie reasons presumably, uh,
you know, like it's part of our beautiful culture.

Speaker 1 (26:33):
They're just going through like the big book of holidays, like, whoa,
this one sounds good.

Speaker 3 (26:38):
Yeah, I mean I gotta say also, like I've talked
about it before, but you know, for chech reasons, I
really like, uh, Mikelaush like Saint Nicholas.

Speaker 2 (26:48):
Day, Bonus Christmas. That's good.

Speaker 1 (26:51):
That's good Christmas.

Speaker 2 (26:53):
Yeah, and it's especially good to celebrate.

Speaker 3 (26:55):
Uh in check, So you like guys, Yeah, costumes, all
that shit, you know.

Speaker 1 (27:03):
Yep, dog God, thank you very much for the question. Next,
we got one from Ali Kant. I love the Assassins
episode recently was surprised to find and no mention of Ninja's.
Are Ninja's not technically assassins or are they more fictional
than historical, thus disqualified from the topic. Some clarity would
be great. Thanks.

Speaker 3 (27:22):
And uh, it's well, they're dishonorable, so we're not they sou're.

Speaker 2 (27:29):
Early modern, they're early modern.

Speaker 1 (27:30):
Well there are, there are some medieval ones. But the
thing about ninjas is that they weren't assassins. They were spies.
They did espionage, they did scouting occasionally, they were just
regular soldiers, agent sabatur things like that.

Speaker 2 (27:47):
They do guerrilla shit.

Speaker 1 (27:48):
Yeah, I mean I hesitate to say they were never assassins,
because I mean, I killed espionage and agent saboteur work
involves that always. But you know, they just weren't. They
just they were historical, but they didn't do what we

(28:09):
think they do, like the idea of the like they
are closer to the idea of what a shinobi is,
which is just like a warrior who you know, uses
whatever means they have and who doesn't follow the samurai
bushido code and so yeah. But like Ninja's historically, they
start out in the mid to late fifteenth century during

(28:32):
the Singoku period, which was a civil war that lasted
until basically the year sixteen hundred. As shown in the
TV show Shogun, Ninja's became it was a specialized profession.
It had its own guilds, they had territory, They had
their own territories and everything. But the thing is, in

(28:54):
sixteen hundred, when the Singoku period ended and the Edo
period it began, Ninjas had to take up more obscure
and different work because they were not constantly there was
not constant fighting across the island, so it wasn't like
what they were doing. So instead they became like direct

(29:15):
guards for the Daimyo fire patrol, and they would be
like spies, but they did it. They they didn't seem
to be carrying out the like more dangerous and deadly
espionage type stuff. It you know, it just assassination has
probably happened, but it wasn't their primary purpose. And fun fact,

(29:37):
the black clad deep cover assassin idea, uh does not
come from history. It does come from pop culture, but
not from America. It actually comes from or anywhere else
in the West for that matter. It actually comes from
Edo period Japanese kabuki theater, where the ninja needed to
be shown as deceitful and sneaky as opposed to the

(29:58):
noble samurai on stage, so that they were all black
like the stage hands at the time that they were
meant not to be seen, and they threw shurrukin the
quote unquote ninja stars to set them off from the
noble samurai with their katana. And uh so that's where

(30:19):
you get the ninja's assassin trope because they that just
worked its way into pop culture all the way from
over there. Because these guys just wore the same stuff
as stage hands. There you go, historical curiosity. Ninja's not real,
but still fun, you know. Yeah, but uh yeah, Ollie,

(30:40):
can't thank you very much for the question. Next, we
got one from may Day. Thoughts on trotsky eleanor your
thoughts on Leon trotsky I kind of.

Speaker 3 (30:54):
Like the idea of permanent revolution, and I think that
it's interesting, like to kind of specifically attempt to always
be doing more and better. I think that that is
good and also it probably would to an extent be

(31:18):
necessary in order not to fall into the pitfalls that
we've seen happen with communism, right.

Speaker 2 (31:24):
I do kind of think.

Speaker 3 (31:25):
That that is one of the things, you know, when
everyone is always like, oh, true, communism has never been tried,
I'm like, well, no way, it has. But it's like,
you know, the problem is you're gonna have to keep
doing something in order to not Yeah, you know, like
because I don't know, I'm pretty pro Lenin personally, I'm like,
you know, it's fine stalinless.

Speaker 2 (31:45):
So, so yeah, I think that that.

Speaker 3 (31:50):
I for me, I do think that like a permanent revolution,
it's it is like a good thing and thing that
we can kind of learn from now. So yeah, So
for me, I'm like, as a general rule of thumb,
I'm kind of like pro Trotsky. I guess I wouldn't
call me myself necessarily a trots gist, but I really

(32:12):
think that he's got a lot to say and it's important,
you know.

Speaker 1 (32:16):
Yeah, I mean I Uh, his thoughts on internationalism are
clearly correct. I don't think that can be debated in
any way. And I think, UH, the continual revolution is
UH is I mean, is a necessary idea for uh,

(32:37):
for what we have to do. I mean, one of
the things that we understand from now is that I
mean from history and from from the American Empire and
everything like that, is that you have to have constant
vigilance for backsliding into fascism. That doesn't mean you have
to be at a constant like revolutionary fever pitch at
all times, but like you do have to watch for it.

(32:58):
And it's it's something that that can have I mean,
it can happen, you know, even with the best intentioned people.
And and I mean, so you know, I think that
is something we have to watch out for. That being said,
I mean, I kind of think it's incontrovertible that, like
between him and Stalin as the leader of the Soviet Union,

(33:21):
that Stalin was the one that they he was the
one that understood the realities of the world at the
time better, and he's the one that they needed to
to win. I don't that doesn't mean that I endorse

(33:42):
everything Stallin did or anything like that or that like
I think or that like I hate Trotskyists or anything
like that. I just think that for that time and place,
Stalin understood that they had to entrench, they had to
like do that, and they had to try and fix
like things in turn as much as possible. And you know,

(34:04):
they were all broken by the failure of the of
the Spartacist rebellion in Germany in different ways. Lenin Trotsky
stolid like all of not just them, the whole what
would become the pull Up Bureau, like all of the
leadership was was just like that. And you understand because
I mean they were like we we underestimated, but like

(34:24):
they were close to like having like a real multi
national revolutionary front in with from Eastern Europe all the
way across to like the edges of Western Europe. And
that is not something to sneeze like that, that is,
if you have that, you can you can take France.

(34:45):
You can like I'm sorry, like frances France. I love
you know, it's a lovely place, but you know, by
this time it was going to suffer the same fate
as it had in early World War One, and you know,
everything like that and it's like it's you know, and
when you were that close, you were that tantalizing close.
Linen has been writing a stride history, like for months,

(35:11):
he has been steering, consciously steering history and understanding his
place in historical materialism within these systems, and no person
since then has ever done that. Ever, He's probably the
only person in history has done that. I understand Napoleon
was aware of his historical significance, but I but I

(35:33):
still think there's a difference between like what what, It
doesn't matter, but like I it's either him in Napoleon
or just him. But like when you're that close, and
you are that fleetingly close to like the thing that
Marx has described this like not communism as in maybe,
but communism as an eventuality of life, and then it's

(36:01):
taken from you because the fucking the fucking Kowski and
Bernstein Heights and goddamn Germany, and like it's taken from
you by the same people who call themselves democratic socialists,
who have democratic socialists in their names. I'm not calling
out all democratic socialists today that is what they were,

(36:22):
or socialists whatever, Like I think that broke all of
them in way in different ways, and it broke Stalin
in the way that eventually helped the Soviet Union climb
out of that, and I mean helped save the world

(36:42):
like in World War two, along with along with them
and China are probably the two most important nations to
saving the fucking world during World War two. Like realistically,
like we should all say a debt of gratitude to
fucking Stalin and Mao every day because this not really
I don't think you should do that to anyone, but
like like these like they they did that, and you know,

(37:06):
there's a lot of evil in that. There's a lot
of bad things that come along with that, because you know,
history makes monsters out of people, Yeah, a lot of times.
And I mean, like again not endorsing Stalin or anything
like that, like everything he did, but like they fucking

(37:27):
want like I don't know, they beat the Germans, Like
the Battle of Stalingrad itself is like maybe the most
important battle in the history of the world. And that's
that's what like Stalin's liberal commentators call it. Not that's
not me, that's like what historians call it. Like I

(37:49):
it's hard, it's hard to take away from that, regardless
of everything else in my opinion because stopping the Nazis
was that important and they did and knowing else had
to that point, and I think that's a big deal.
But regardless, I don't think Trotsky should have been killed
or assassinated. I don't think and I think his his

(38:10):
positions on internationalism are correct, and it's the only way
we're going to have international communism today in the world,
and we certainly don't need a chauvinist institution claiming to
be the center of all revolution and everything has to
go through them. But you know, he was, I mean,
he was a man before his time. I think Trotsky was,

(38:31):
I really do. I think I think he was. He
was built for a more internationalist era. And when when
the Spartisist rebellion failed, it broke him and in a way,
and I think it broke all of them, as it
probably broke all communists at the time, and it would
break all of us if we were that close. You know,
I really think that. But anyway, yeah, maybe, thank you

(38:52):
for the question. Oh and the other thing I was
going to say, unless someone is just being like a
total and complete ass if you are a communist or
a socialist, there is no need to continue fighting battles
that people fought one hundred years ago. I'm very sorry
that that Stalin killed people, encouraged people. I'm very sorry

(39:14):
that Trotsky was associated with his own set of problems,
very sorry about what the Soviet Union became and all
of that. But that is But like, unless someone is
saying I want to one hundred percent bring back every
policy Stalin ever did and recreate all the massacres and
everything like that, there's really no reason to be like,

(39:36):
here's my die tribe about why people who like, you know,
have an affinity for Stalin in spite of all those things,
Like why, what's the fucking point? It's not serving anyone now,
it really isn't like anyway, Yeah, that's my thing. So, like,
if you are a Trotskyist, hello, thank you. I'm glad
we kill up. Let's all be on the same side. Now.

(39:58):
If you are a thankye, I get called a tank
you all the time. It's fine, what's up, Let's win.
I don't really care, Like.

Speaker 2 (40:06):
We're listen, We've got a world to win.

Speaker 1 (40:08):
Yeah, I don't care about cults of personalities from one
hundred years ago. Like I don't like, you know, I
don't know what about anyway, Yeah, that's my thing on that.
Thank you for the question today, it's a good one.
Next we got one from Barbara who says, weird Catholic
stuff is my special interest. Hey, hey, you're in the

(40:30):
right place. And I wonder if you guys could talk
about the cult of saint will go Fort this or
will Jiffort this, uh painted as a bearded crucified lady,
and other saints who got thrown out once the church
became more disciplined about canonization and establishing the historicity of saints.

Speaker 2 (40:48):
Yeah, and so.

Speaker 3 (40:50):
We'll go forward us just so everybody knows, is one
of those ones where you know, she she was kind
of mythical and you know she's got she had holds
and varying names different places. So wiliglefortis so we think
kind of comes from Virgo fortis so like strong virgin
or courageous virgin. Like the check name for her is

(41:11):
the star Rosta, which it means more like concern.

Speaker 2 (41:17):
Is a.

Speaker 3 (41:22):
Sorry, So you know, she's like one of those things
like that, she's got like a really strong mythos, but
she never gets.

Speaker 2 (41:33):
Like an official canonization.

Speaker 3 (41:35):
But the thing is, you know, as I say that
wouldn't necessarily have been a barrier to canonization if she'd
come along earlier. But the trouble that Vilgefortis has is
that she comes around in the fourteenth century, and by
the time that you've got to the fourteenth century, we
have in a trench church bureaucracy and a very specific

(41:57):
canonization process. And the anonization process exists in order to
keep people from doing things like inventing bilicalfortas or indeed,
you know, canonizing local greyhounds, you know, things of this nature,
basically to.

Speaker 2 (42:13):
Crack down on fun yep.

Speaker 3 (42:16):
And so a Villefortis like is one of these people
who people pray to, you know, like this in idea
that people pray to.

Speaker 2 (42:24):
And she's certainly kind of.

Speaker 3 (42:28):
Popular as in art trope, so she comes up a lot.

Speaker 2 (42:31):
But like the church is kind of like.

Speaker 3 (42:33):
Yeah, I don't know, like probably we're not going to
do anything about this. But they didn't have necessarily a
problem with her at first. They're like, yeah, fine, whatever,
like you're having a good time. We got like it's
the fourteenth century, we got bigger fish.

Speaker 2 (42:48):
To fry, you know what I mean. It's like, but
she the cult.

Speaker 3 (42:54):
Really gets cracked down on in the early modern period,
where it's like she's still really quite pular in the
fifteenth and sixteenth century, and so like it's unsurprising that
like we see as kind of basically slightly part and
parcel with the.

Speaker 2 (43:11):
Counter Reformation.

Speaker 3 (43:13):
M hm. So because you know, this is the sort
of shit that like Martin Luther makes fun of, right, yeah,
so yeah, like I said, then they're like, oh yeah,
everybody stop like worshiping the saint who grows a beard,
you know, in order to prevent molestation.

Speaker 1 (43:29):
Yeah. I will only add to this that the Hieronymous
Bosh painted the christriction of Saint Wilgefortis, and his picture
of her is amazing. It is a woman, but the
face it almost looked like looks like he took like
a face from like another man that he had drawn

(43:50):
somewhere else and just moved it over like he was
just like boop. And like her beard is like a
is basically just like a like right here on the chin.
That's it is. So she's doing like the white guy,
like the flat affectation with the goatee, like like while
she's being crucified, like she's like she's less in pain.

(44:12):
Or in horror and more just like yes, I got it. Yeah,
oh yeah, sat wigga Fortis is great eleanor minchell in
passing local greyhound saint Gueen Fork. We love a beautiful,
beautiful boy or girl sometimes depending on the story, it

(44:32):
doesn't really matter. Uh beautiful dog in France that was
a local folks saint for a log fucking time beginning.
Uh in the story has roots even earlier and like
probably before the Middle Ages, but like, uh, definitely in

(44:54):
the early Middle Ages in France.

Speaker 3 (44:56):
And uh, there's a Welsh one as well, which is
a the same thing.

Speaker 1 (45:01):
Yeah, that's a good point. I think the Welsh one
is a little bit earlier, so that's a good point.
But regardless it the church cracked down on it. They said,
you know, it's not a saint. That's insane, this is
just a folk tale and everything, and you know, they
they did that. But the thing about green Ford, and
think about those people is they did believe it. The
last uh, the last record we have of somebody visiting

(45:26):
the green Fort memorial that still exists to pray to
it was a peasant woman in like nineteen forty during
World War two, like that, like right, like that that
is a hard like that is a hard dying folk saint, right,
that is that is some enduring like love enduring, you know,

(45:50):
just enduring through the worst hardships in the world to like,
you know, go see this fucking dog saint and like
pray to it, even though the Church said eight hundred
years ago it was wrong. Like amazing fortitude of human
the fortitude of human beings is incredible to me sometimes. Anyway, Barbara,
thank you very much for the question. We got one

(46:12):
from west Bank Robbery, who says, I would like to
know why medieval peoples in the Middle East, Africa, Europe
stopped making torsion artillery after the Western Roman Empire fell
if they did stop using the tech, I've read conflicting
things about torsion coming in the thirteenth century for defensive purposes. Okay,
so cool. Let's talk about siege engines and something known

(46:34):
as the torsion manganel myth. Briefly, torsion artillery refers to
siege engines that use cranks or other devices to twist
a heavy rope, and when released, the energy stored from
twisting the rope is released empowers a projectile through the air.
Torsion was the dominant form of siege engine in Europe,

(46:55):
North Africa, and West Asia from the time of Philip
the Second, Alexander the Great's father until the early Middle
Ages and the fall of the Western Roman and part
The most famous of these was the onager, which is
was used to great effect by the Greeks and Romans
and looks to how we imagine what we call a catapult.
That's kind of what the onager is. But other forms

(47:18):
of ballista type weapons were employed as well. However, the
thing about torsion is that it doesn't generate that much power,
it has bad range, and was outclassed by solid stone walls,
and so began to be abandoned in the fifth century
CE in the West in favor of the traction tributecha
aka the manganel, which had made its way over from China,

(47:41):
where it was of course invented in four hundred BC
years ago. Like as every time and so, the traction
tribuchet relied on pulling down ropes attached to one end
of a lever on the front, while the back end
had a sling on it to throw projectiles, and this

(48:02):
preceded the much more famous counterweight tribute of the High
Middle Ages that was introduced beginning in the thirteenth century.
So the traction tribute shav is faster to relow, more powerful,
and had greater range than torsion. So by the sixth century,
torsion seas weapons were basically phased out in Europe according
to all the evidence. We have no archaeological evidence that

(48:24):
they were used after that, and nothing in the historical
record describes or purports to show torsion sea's weapons deep
into the Middle Ages. But unfortunately, they kept using the
term that is now translated as manganel to describe those
seed engines, which was another name for the onager. However,

(48:45):
the medieval manganels we have descriptions for are all attraction trebuchetes,
not onagers. So this led early modern historians to state
that torsion manganel engines were used throughout the Middle Ages,
and they are often depicted in really modern and modern
art and diagrams on the subject of medieval welfare. That
is no longer the case, however, as historians in the

(49:07):
mid nineteenth century began pushing back against the misconception, and
it doesn't seem to have much sway anymore other than
the occasional onager showing up in a drawing or something.
And now you know way more than you wanted to
about the torsion manganel myth and why torsion siege weaponry
fell out of favor in Europe by the sixth century
except for the balistas that were occasionally used. And there

(49:29):
was something else that is that involved like a brick
building in the byzantines Us. But you know, no onagers,
there were no catapults con dentned.

Speaker 2 (49:39):
That's right, that's right.

Speaker 1 (49:41):
Fuck here you go, yep, fuck them anyway. Uh yeah,
don't you know, I don't We don't do a lot
of the like whole myth boasting thing as much anymore.
But like you know, it was a specific question, So
there you go. That's uh, you know, that's the manganel
anyway question. Thank you for the question. And this this

(50:02):
display name is great question from vast and trunkless Tozies.
Thank you. That why don't we have dancing plagues anymore?
And I would argue that we do, but eleanor go ahead,
don't need them.

Speaker 3 (50:20):
I mean, like I suppose we kind of do you know,
we have manias, right, Like people like you have people
who just kind of like do things and get excited
about things, don't you. And I mean to a certain extent,
what the dancing plague was was an excuse to kind
of like.

Speaker 2 (50:35):
Act out and wander off. Mm hmm, right, like you want.

Speaker 3 (50:40):
What it kind of allowed you to do is be like, oh,
I can't stop dancing.

Speaker 2 (50:43):
Oh no, rhythm got me anyway.

Speaker 1 (50:46):
Ry got me over here? Not not in the fields today,
bro Oh I'm down the road.

Speaker 2 (50:51):
That's crazy, you know.

Speaker 3 (50:53):
So it's like you can't like you can't get in
trouble for abandoning.

Speaker 2 (50:58):
You're selling on if you have.

Speaker 3 (51:00):
The dancing plague, right, And so I do think that
people who were experiencing it did think of it as
kind of contagious. But you know, it's just one of
those things that sort of happens, right, And the reason
it happens is because people want to get the fuck
out of there. Yep, yep, you know, like ass simple

(51:21):
as that, you know, and you know, we we have
like social contygen kind of things, and we definitely have
like manias and things like that, but it's just that
they express themselves differently because we don't have the same
social pressures as kind of people in the late medieval
period did.

Speaker 1 (51:40):
Essentially, I can't say it any better than that, yep.
I mean, like I'm not trying to be cute about it,
but like dancing, social contagents are what memes are. Now
we process it differently, but like that's it's the same
basic thing. And I mean, like you, I mean, in
one sense, you're not doing it like oh boss, I
can't work today but because I got the plague. But

(52:01):
like I mean, if you're trying to make money off
of social media in any way, shape or form, you know,
even us like using us these things. Yeah, yeah, I
mean that's what the like, that's what this is because
it helps I mean, you know, for some people who
get really lucky, it helps them not have to do
real jobs anymore, and good for them, uh you know.

(52:23):
But yeah, I think so, I think it's it's similar,
but I mean they had different material. It's just it
manifests differently because of different material circumstances and technology like
most things. But yeah, that's why nobody does it anymore.
But I mean, then again, we did have the fucking
uh flash mob. Fuck the terror of the flash mobs.
They were they were liable to break out at any time.

(52:45):
God damn it.

Speaker 3 (52:45):
Uh well, you know, or fucking hell like trying to
walk around the barbicane.

Speaker 2 (52:49):
Now like there's always somebody like making a video.

Speaker 1 (52:52):
You want to know what dancing? Yeah, and I want
to know what the most the most recent dancing plague is.
It's when kids hold both their home. So we go
six seven six, that's that's exactly there you go. Yeah,
my kid is seven. She does it like you like
you see NFL players like doing it in TD celebrations

(53:13):
like you know, like, yeah, it's good for them, enjoy it.
I'm too too old for that ship. But knock yourselves out,
have fun. Not not my not my problem exactly. Yeah,
all right, uhst to thank you for the question.

Speaker 2 (53:29):
I'm sorry. The name is so good it is and
trunk to.

Speaker 1 (53:37):
Hmm, he looks look upon me, piggies, look at him,
look at my look at my toes socks and desper
Oh no, he's wearing those toes shoes.

Speaker 2 (53:51):
Just oh no, he dies immediately.

Speaker 1 (53:54):
Because his feet aren't protected. Like that's what the shoe
part is for.

Speaker 2 (53:58):
That's what it's forded.

Speaker 1 (54:00):
Yep. Anyway, anyway, man mention of toe shoes and flash mobs.
It is fucking two thousand and seven here all over again, baby,
let's go all right. A couple more questions of Joss
the Texican. The pope recently was recently given a purebred
white horse. What's y'all's favorite medieval papal gift and why

(54:23):
is it? The elephant?

Speaker 4 (54:25):
Well, obviously it's the fucking elephant?

Speaker 1 (54:27):
What else? What thet an elephant? You know, like, hey man,
here's an elephant? Oh thanks, just what I wanted a
thing that I have? Do you know do you know
how much fucking food an elephant needs to eat a day? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (54:41):
Well, it's like it's so good because I mean it's like,
you know obviously like, uh, the white elephant thing, and
it's like great, now I have to take care of
this elephant or whatever.

Speaker 2 (54:52):
But uh, like I think that it's cool.

Speaker 3 (54:57):
And I still want one, like and I mean I
guess like a pope's a pair they can afford it, right,
you know.

Speaker 1 (55:04):
Yeah, like oh yeah, it's like yeah, it's not like
the pope has to take care of it. But like,
you want to talk about a gift that just like
is not a gift, but like a prison sentence. Here's
a fucking elephant. Good luck, like good luck with all
those palm fraund like six tons of palm fronds delivered

(55:25):
to your house a day, bro, great job. Yeah, now
it's the elephant. More recently, I really like, uh one
of the pope's old friends who gave who kicked off
the like giving the pope a jersey thing by giving
him a jersey. Uh, you know, the new Chicago Pope
is a fan of the Chicago White Sox to a
baseball team here. He's a huge fan of them. He

(55:46):
went to their last World Series blah blah blah. But
one of one of his buddies gave him a Cubs
jersey in the Chicago Cubs are the crosstown rival of
the White Sox. He's a Sox that, you know, And
I think that's great, Like that's what the papal gift
should be, should be, like, yeah, here you go, here's

(56:06):
a fucking Chicago Cubs Jersey's like I don't like the Cubs, Like, yeah,
I know that's the joke, man.

Speaker 3 (56:13):
That's yeah, Like it is very funny to do it
to people. Yeah, you know, I think that is cool,
you know, like I wouldn't bring the pope anything.

Speaker 2 (56:23):
The Pope doesn't need a gift from you know.

Speaker 1 (56:26):
He doesn't need a gift for me. Uh, somebody's already done.
The Cubs jersey, that's a that's like, that's it. You know,
he got a Cubs jersey. The White Sox of course
gave him a jersey because I mean, you know, of
course they're going to and that's cool. But like, uh,
oh made they should retire his number, like yeah, yeah,
I mean I don't know what his number would be,
but they should like the infinity symbol, let's go.

Speaker 3 (56:50):
Yeah, I suppose you could do a good joke here
about the donation of Constantine.

Speaker 1 (56:56):
Yeah right, but yeah, Constantine on his death big giving
the to fucking everything like okay, man, sure, yeah, but
he also gifted me one hundred one hundred thousand bucks.
Where is it late.

Speaker 2 (57:14):
Here?

Speaker 1 (57:15):
You know how I get a pig every month?

Speaker 2 (57:18):
Yeah, that's correct.

Speaker 1 (57:19):
Two, comely lass is of virtue? True enough about the
pig anyway, Yeah, Jost text can thank you very much
for the question. It's obviously the elephant last one we
got from Horatio Hex. I don't remember if the peace

(57:39):
of God was discussed on the podcast. Uh, if so,
what was the episode? If not, I would like you
to talk about it. I don't know that we've specifically
talked about it, and I reached out to make sure.
But Horatio meant the peace of God being the general
idea that there should be peace and tranquility between the
Christian states and territories across Europe.

Speaker 3 (58:00):
Yeah, yeah, the past, the past Christian norum. I mean,
like the thing about it is it never really happened, right,
Like I mean, in theory, that's what Christendom is for.
In theory, that's like what the papacy ensured. But like
obviously in practice it never works out, right.

Speaker 2 (58:21):
I mean, I think I.

Speaker 3 (58:22):
Suppose probably the closest you get is when the Roman
Empire christianizes. Really that that's the closest thing you get
to having like all of the Christians at peace, really,
because when you are kind of dealing with the Roman
successor states and things like that, that they almost immediately.

Speaker 2 (58:40):
Fall to fighting.

Speaker 3 (58:41):
And I mean sort of the closest thing that you
get to it is Christians eventually agreeing not to enslave
each other.

Speaker 2 (58:49):
Like that's that's the.

Speaker 3 (58:50):
Closest you can get now there is there is some
kind of lip service to it, right, So it's like,
for example, like one of the reasons why excommunication is
a threat is that if you're excommunicated in theory, people
have a cause as bell i, they can just go
for you because you're not a Christian anymore, so.

Speaker 2 (59:09):
They can do it.

Speaker 3 (59:10):
But you know, in practice, looking, you know, France and
England are constantly at each other's throat. Let's be so real,
you know, So it's like it doesn't really really work
out except like within a specific Roman context, and so
you just you kind of need that, you know, centralized
power and that that's really the only time.

Speaker 2 (59:26):
I think that it ever existed.

Speaker 1 (59:28):
So yeah, yeah, I think, I mean, I think I
think the other time you could briefly argue that it
was a thing would be like right after the preaching
of the First Crusade, like during that period where everybody's like, okay,
it's forgiven because the Pope sent an envoy up there

(59:48):
to like get a piece and everything like that. So
people would send you know, their second sons over to
Europe or whatever, and I mean or over to the Levante,
and you know that lasted for you know, I don't
know two weeks or whatever, but I think the thing
with the Piece of God. Something interesting that I've found

(01:00:11):
is that the piece of God kind of came back
to bite them in the ass, Like the idea of
the piece of God really really kind of fucked with them.
So when me and Eleanor were getting ready for the
first Crusade series, she sent me a bunch of documents
and one of them was I started looking at him
and I was like, okay, I'll just start with the

(01:00:32):
oldest one first or whatever and go from there. And
it's this thing by this guy named Throup, and it's
it's so it was from nineteen thirty eight. It's so
old that the style at the time was to restart
numbering your footnotes every page. So if you want to cite,
if you want to cite something in this, you have
to cite the page and the footnote and then then

(01:00:56):
you know, I don't know, like thirty five footnote one
because it's like thirty whatever long it is, but like, yeah, anyway,
and it's about medieval criticism of the Crusade in proven
Soul and old French languages, and it is I don't

(01:01:16):
know if you've ever received something that confirms all of
your priors, like, but if you haven't, you really should.
It is fantastic to read something that was written a
long time ago, so like you could be like, aha,
I got a source now, fuckers, it wasn't just something
I cooked up in my head. But yeah, this this

(01:01:38):
confirmed like a long hail theory of mine that the
crusade is the thing that breaks, that starts the break,
for starts the break towards the Reformation to a very
real degree. Because yeah, of course they had talked about

(01:02:00):
like the peace in Europe and that and the whole
thing at Claremont. Like one of the big things was
stop fighting with each other. One of you go over there,
the other of you give them money to go over there.
And that worked for a couple of months, it really did,
you know, Uh, William Rufus and Robert Curtoz stopped literally

(01:02:21):
stopped fighting because of paper leg It went up there
and said stop and they were like, yes, sir, I'm sorry, sir,
here's some money. No one ever invade England again. Okay,
Like yeah, it's like okay, cool, But the problem is
that once you start that, and once you start the
crusade as like a as like a thing, like a

(01:02:41):
an effort you incorporated, it becomes a reality, and not
only that, you have to defend it, so you have
to constantly send people money and resources over there. But
you then start using it in other places. You start
using the specter of the crusade. When when lands are
re christianized in the Iberian Peninsula, you call things a

(01:03:03):
crusade to go into to go kill the Pagans. In
northern Europe, you know, you you start doing these things
and you're saying, okay, like, we're doing this because we
need peace in Europe. We need peace in Europe. We
need peace in Europe. Fine, but when that goes bad,
which it I mean within like fifteen to twenty years,
it's really starting, it's really starting to have issues. And

(01:03:25):
it only got worse after that. Once that happens, people
in Europe started blaming not the Muslims, not their fellow Christians,
but they started blaming the right person. They blame the
fucking pope and the church because what the fuck are
you guys doing, like you like, we're supposed okay like that.

(01:03:47):
They all seem to be on board with the idea
that like we need to go take back Jerusalem in
the Holy Land. Yeah, and we would quibble with that,
but like, okay, fine, they were on board with that.
But once you have that, like everybody should be cool, right,
Why are you all of a sudden using Why are
you all of a sudden declaring h heresy? Why are

(01:04:10):
you declaring crusades against these heretical people? And why do
these crusades against heretical people almost always look like just
land grabs by local wealthy patriot, Like, you know, why
is this like this? And medieval people saw this. It
wasn't just nobles, it wasn't just bards. It was people
all up and down the socioeconomic spectrum who saw this.

(01:04:31):
And they were like, where is the peace of God
you talked about, you dumb funcks? Where is this stuff? Like?
And and there was a saying at the time in
Latin pacatas exig exygentibus, which is basically translates to because
the sins of Christians that's why, that's why they failed,
That's why the Catholic Church failed, That's why they lost Jerusalem.

(01:04:53):
That's what they did. They blamed the church and it
like and they started and these blames started to come. First,
it was like, oh, no, we lost a battle. Oh
we have to go reinforce Jerusalem. Oh we have to
do this, we have to do that. But eventually the
blame starts to be like, you guys are greedy, Like
you're just doing money and land grabs and calling them crusades.

(01:05:17):
You're like massacring your fellow Christians because they want to
live on the edge of the forest and not be
constrained by you know, some societal certain societal rules, and
you're just going to like kill them. And like people
saw that. We're like, what the fuck is wrong with you? Like,
like even the cognitive dissonance of the Middle Ages, with
that enforced social hierarchy of the Church and like generations

(01:05:41):
of that stuff and lacking the like modern class based
understanding of things that we have, these people still saw
through it and they said, fuck you, Pope, fuck you,
because like you're not like this is clearly a fucking mess.
And I mean that's like that you follow that thread

(01:06:02):
from the fall of Jerusalem to them essentially being fully
ejected from it and stopping those crusades, and then they
start looking west, and you know, you get into the
early modern period and they go to the Americas and
do genocide across two continents, and that's you know, that's

(01:06:24):
still the same colonial impulse to try and create peace
in Europe, you know, which good fucking love man not happening.
But like, yeah, I just think it's neat that they
imperial boomerang themselves.

Speaker 2 (01:06:38):
Before, you know, God bless them. They really do some
shit sometimes, you know, Like.

Speaker 1 (01:06:44):
I mean, it took a long time to come to fruition,
but it's really fucking funny that they were like, yeah, peace,
peace in Europe. Peace, and you're at peace in Europe,
and then one hundred and fifty two hundred years later
you have like hillbilly bards from like bumblefuck Fro. I'm
sorry boomboo fuck Frances, I live in boom anyway. Yeah,

(01:07:07):
I don't know if bumfuck Egypt is a thing all
over the world or whatever, but it was but b
f e but like, and they were like they were
like calling out the church for all of these problems.
And it's like Eleanor knew to send that to me
because I love having my priors confirmed. It's very fun
when I think I'm smart, I'm like, I was right motherfucker.

(01:07:31):
It's the beauty. It's the beauty of humanity. Oh, we're
not so different. It's not just a tagline. It's true.

Speaker 2 (01:07:38):
That's true.

Speaker 1 (01:07:42):
Listen to me. I'm gonna get off my soap box
in a second because I know it's getting right there.
You have to go. But this is the same fucking
thing that people nowadays do. Whenever you have been you
were an American, or you are in the West, you
are the most propaguised, propagandized person ever to live. We
all are, every single one of it's me eleanor all
of us in the West are is It's not possible

(01:08:03):
but to be any more propagandased. But when people see that,
and they see stuff happening, and you're like, wait, why
the fuck is my money going to kill people in
Gaza and the West Bank? Why why is my money
being used to to torment like uh uh uh a
nanny in Chicago and and throw them in fucking concentration

(01:08:24):
camps in prisons? And why are why are religious why
are clergymen and women being shot with uh fucking uh
quote unquote non lethal rounds outside of these detention centers
and and told that prayer is they cannot pray in
front of or inside these things, and they make and
they understand. It's because America is fucking evil and we

(01:08:47):
are and imperialism is fucking bullshit and people are doing
that right now. And I think it's fucking incredible. Whenever
you whenever you get sad about the state of the world,
and that's a lot of times nowadays it's me too.
But think about the fact that medieval people were like
fuck that. Ye Like, medieval people could see that, so
we can too. It's not everyone, it's not everyone on

(01:09:08):
the same side as the bad people. They have a
much smaller side. That's the reason they have to do
this shit, exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:09:14):
Yeah, it's like it is about the you know, the
fact that they feel put upon, you know what I mean, Like,
that's that's exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:09:20):
Yeah, don't yeah, don't. I mean, you know, I can't.
You know, everybody feels despair because the situation is so dire,
and uh, it's gonna take a lot of effort. But
at the same time, I don't know, fuck it, if
those people could do it, like if people who had
never actually read a book could do it, and they
could figure out the real villain. We can too. I

(01:09:42):
mean the the a complete lack of media saturation to
being completely oversaturated with it, and I still think you
can find your way out of it. And we see
examples of that every day. Anyway. Uh yeah, Horatio, thank
you very much for the question, and uh yeah, everybody,
thank you very much for listening. That is going to

(01:10:02):
do it for us. Next week I will be on vacation,
so to night we'll be rolling in the car and
showing a movie. And by that I mean we're recording
a movie review early. It's for twenty eight years later.
I have been told there is a big medieval aspect
thing at the very end. I haven't seen it yet.

(01:10:23):
I'm going to watch it soon, but but I loved
Two eight days later, So yeah, look forward to that
next week.

Speaker 4 (01:10:32):
It's gonna be good.

Speaker 2 (01:10:33):
Looking forward to it.

Speaker 3 (01:10:34):
Yeah, I guess the stuff that's going on for me
this week. If you're a history Hit subscriber, got a
new film out on Thursday on Joan of Arc, so
come check that shut Out. I wandered around France for you,
please respond.

Speaker 1 (01:10:51):
In the heat Boom, I was in Boom fuck.

Speaker 3 (01:10:55):
I was in the boom fuck boom and so yeah,
you were on Trash Future. Yeah, I'll be on Trash Future.

Speaker 2 (01:11:06):
Yeah. I will be on trush Future next week or
was it or did that come out today?

Speaker 1 (01:11:12):
I think it came out today.

Speaker 3 (01:11:13):
All those motherfuckers. That's the hell of a turnaround. I
recorded that show last night.

Speaker 1 (01:11:17):
I know they damn all. They did that to me.

Speaker 3 (01:11:20):
Uh, the double works, fast future works, faster ship, get
it out.

Speaker 1 (01:11:28):
For everything. Still, but I'm on trash Future.

Speaker 2 (01:11:30):
There you go.

Speaker 1 (01:11:32):
Yeah, those are those are the things. That's the things,
all right. Yeah, you guys know where to find me.
Lucas Amazing on the various socials media. You can find
uh and you can find my old show people Saystorial
Republic if you want to check me out talking about
Star Wars. Other than that, thank you all very much
for listening. We'll see you next time. Bye.