It's just been a lot, you know. They they they elected the dang new pope after we recorded last week. They couldn't have done it beforehand.
No, no, you know, and it's like, so now we've lost all this possibility of making all the excellent Chicago style jokes I would have. It's like a temporary Chicago and you know, a Chicago style pope running through the garden, et cetera. Something about Malort. I could definitely do a good line.
In an American pope.
I don't like.
I really never thought, oh, this is fucking amazing that like I am, I implore everyone to to look at the Pope the way I am looking at the Pope right now, which is as an atheist who is never Catholic in the first place, but who nevertheless finds Catholicism in the Catholic Church incredible interesting, which is to say that this is so fucking funny.
I don't like.
To me, this is to me, this is the funniest outcome bye, by far, the funniest outcome, Because Okay, you get a guy who, uh like, the conservative Catholics are gonna call woke, They're gonna say he's all bad, and I mean like he you know, he he he. He's progressive on certain things, which is cool, but you know, he still doesn't want to get rid of paper, celibacy, let let women be priests, et cetera.
Et cetera.
And uh so you get that, and you get that he's an American, but he's not like, oh, American Catholics. He's like, he's an American who is Catholic. And like, so now you have this thing where like you can't just you can like you can no longer be like, oh, this.
Is just American Catholics. Like, no, it's not.
The woke Pope is an American Catholic. How dare you say that about about our beloved woke Pope. He's, uh, you can't, you can't say that, you know. It's it's like, this is honestly the funniest thing. It's also like America's falling apart. Uh, the empire is crumbling in on itself.
And even so we still get total cultural victory. We get total cultural victory because I think the last things that we could that Americans could have achieved were being a regnal monarch and uh, being the leader of an old world religion.
And we did it. That's it.
Yeah.
But so my argument is though, that we're having an American pope now because America's done oh yeah. It's like where they're like, Okay, yeah, you can have an American pope because America is no longer like the the global Hedgemen essentially, and it's like, well, you can do this. It's not going to be too much of an issue that they're you know, the American president exists and also an American pope exists, and so I think it's actually quite damning in terms of what it says about America.
But I mean, we knew that we've done, but.
Knowing that that's not like yeah, to me, that doesn't even occur in the calculus because like, yeah, I mean we've been doing the show for over four years and have been saying it the whole time like that, Like we've been saying it the whole time. America is donezo. It is h the empire is falling apart. We don't know how long it'll be, it'll how long this goes. Could be a week, could be five years, could be eighty you know, I definitely don't think it's going to be eighty now.
But that's neither here nor there.
But yeah, like to me, it's just like, I don't know,
he's the I think he's the best one. If you're someone who wants to see the Catholic Church like legitimately be better and you care about like it as an institution to some degree, I think this is probably the best you could possibly hope for because they're not going to they're not going to a point like a like a openly gay pope who uh wants to have women become priests tomorrow and is pro abortion, Like that's not that's not a thing that's going to get elected there.
Well, like you know, fundamentally, I'm glad he's not one of those those opus day perverts.
Yeah.
And also I'm hugely here for Beef Pope, the pope who was elected because nobody likes JD. Vans Like right, like it's very's like to be it is.
Yeah, they don't even Yeah, they don't even seem to like him over Like even the conservative guys over in Europe are like, god.
You suck because he's fake with it, like it just it's just sweaty, like I mean, and granted, this is kind of like a you know, someone who is like culturally Catholic or whatever, right, Like it's It's like one of my like knee jerk reactions to this is that, like, you know, all of my intensely Catholic family all live in Chicago, and I'm like, don't love it. I'm like, shit, they were vindicated, Like fuck, but I mean, shout out
to my family. I do love you, But like, I think it is just true that he's so fucking weird with it, Like regular ass when you're born Catholic Catholics, we are just not like weird perves about it. You know, We're not We're not like, you know, trying to fucking We're not trying to beef with the extant Pope being like no, I think he'll find that according to the Council of Trent and just shut the fuck up, you loser. And also I know your Latin's not good, so like, don't don't come out.
I would say, maybe you're not beefing with the Pope about the same things, but I think there's a pretty rich history of well if Catholics beefing with the Pope about everything under the sun.
Like I'm not I'm not even a Catholic, but you know, I got pope beef. I've got really intense pope beef, obviously. I mean mostly it's the it's the kiddy feeling.
I don't like, Oh, what do you know?
This guy's this guy's implicated in it too, because in order to be in order to be a cardinal, to get into the College of Cardinals, you either have to have known about it or been personally involved in it. There is no way right now, maybe in thirty years, maybe probably going to take longer than that, but whatever, it's still like it's the same.
You were covering it up. You were covering it up. That's just that's just what it is. And so I don't like that. You know, two things can be true. I could like going into a cathedral, which I very much do, and all so I can dislike the governing structure that makes those cathedrals possible because I'm a multitude and you know, I'm capable of holding more than one opinion at once, you know.
Yeah, I mean yeah, like the Pope, like, you know, at one point the Pope is uh, you know, like all of this is funny. I mean it is like I don't I don't know another way to describe it other than it's just really fucking funny that like that that you know that that they elected like an American as America is falling, but an American who is actively at odds with the current American administration, and like it,
that's just really funny. Now, at the same time, these people contain multitudes of horror, and they do some good things and they oversee a lot of awful but like, it's fucking funny. Like I don't know, I don't know what to tell.
You, I don't know what else to say.
Yeah, I mean, like they came that this guy was like they they had lunch. I thought this was gonna be a long drawn out thing. And then they did the classic like American jury thing where they were like, all right, it is eleven o'clock. If we deliberate quote unquote for thirty minutes, we can get the free lunch before we get out of here. And so they were like, cool, let's get the catered lunch. Okay, let's hear a homily
and a song. Okay, that's great, Okay, Oh no, the first four candidates didn't work out, and then bam, this guy comes in on the fifth and they were like, yep, totally, like.
Very funny, very funny to make it seems.
Like they had this one in the bag, especially since he was the guy who appointed all the cardinals, which I guess kind of makes him the dict.
Yeah.
Yeah, not in not in the not in the genocide way that we know of, but uh but but you know in the uh well, of course I'm going to be vice president. I got you your job, didn't I. I all right, yeah, yeah, I don't know.
It's fun, but I mean I know you have.
A lot more complicated feelings about it.
Uh well, you know, primarily my my thoughts about it currently at the moment. Are you know, did you see the sweet You know, Laura Lumer did the woke Marxist Pope tweet and this is always liked to the tune of Pink Pony clubs. So anytime anyone talks about it, I'm just going woke Marxist Pope. I'm gonna keep bond dancing like repeatedly, like over and over again. And that's good enough for me. That's good enough for me, man.
Yeah, yeah, it's good.
It's very funny. He's a he's a white Sox fan, just an abysmal.
I love I love that. Yeah, anti Cubs action, so I fucking love that ship. I love that SOX.
Like they go in like they're like, we found the pope's brother. He lives in Florida, And you're like, wait, what, like he just like he the Pope's brother is hey, like everybody knows like all these stories about people like knowing the pope's mom, and it's like, you can't know a pope's mom.
Get the fuck out.
He I don't want to, you know. And it's like it's just so funny. And they like went down to his brother and his mother was like he would never be a Cubs fan. Cubs fucking suck ghosts. It's so funny. It's just so fucking funny.
I love that.
Yeah, good for good for them. Um yeah, I don't know. Uh, it's fun. I'm glad we get the Uh. I'm glad we get to have a laugh about it. And I'm glad that we got an America pope who is.
Just at odds with the.
American administration and most of America's politicians because of the Democrats. But you know whatever, that's funny, funny, we got an America pope before an English win.
Get fucked.
Adrian surely.
Elected.
I mean, who's counting?
Oh yeah he did.
I was thinking to the other one who almost got to like to he was the one who didn't take a new name, right, he.
Just yeah, he's the he's the only one he's.
Yeah, but it kind of doesn't count.
So yeah, I was like, uh, that's what I would do.
I would just become the first pope Luke. Like, what do you change your name to?
Luke?
Yeah?
See, I would be. I would be I would go urban because I'm a lot of the urban.
It would either be Luke or Sixtus the sixth. I would that the last one, six is the fifth. And they were like, oh, this is this joke's too good.
We can't let him have it.
Yeah, anyway, I don't know what he needed a six This is did off the top of my head.
So if they were all.
Evil, just Sylvester, what about being a Sylvester.
Oh that's a good pope?
Lando the second uh from you know they had one back in the tenth.
Yeah, that'd because yeah, like I would like that would be good. Get like a throwback name that's only been used once or twice. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Uh oh the other thing uh in medieval news, I guess before before we start, uh you know, total postmodern victory over the Middle Ages, as if we hadn't already done it, folks. Yesterday it was reported by CERN that the Large Hadron Collider had successfully transmuted lead into gold. Now this deserves a big asterisk because you can only do this at the like relativistic physics speeds that happened
in a large Hadron collider. But you know what, they still did it suck at alchemy or if you rather acheydicated, thanks for the help, but you know, Isaac Newton completely vindicated.
Yeah, man, you could do it, dude. It's just you know, you need a collider, that's all.
Yeah.
I mean, but like we like again just going in there and get it.
There is magic.
My science is magic thing. It's fucking magic. It is until like until now that that ship happened in stars. That's how gold got created, was like like uh, supernova explosions and it's like no, here you go. Uh we did it in like a circular tube under Switzerland.
Well, I would say that it's also got kind of like a suitably magical kind of like curse on it too, because you can only do it for a couple of seconds and only in there, so it's sort of like, well, we've done it, go in there and get it. No, you can get it.
Yeah, yeah, go in there and get it. It's like, well, I got to go through six clean rooms and this stuff has to like extaminated, but yeah.
And I'll be torn to bits, and you know, we can only do it for a couple of seconds. So I think it's like it's suitably it's suitably magical, and I like that about it.
You know. It is like, yeah, that's that's just very cursive, very cursive.
Very Uh. I'm glad it was.
I'm glad it was that, you know, because I think we have to stand against the woo woo bullshit nowadays people taking it too far. But since nobody really actually does alchemy anymore.
It doesn't really matter.
Like nobody's like, oh, I'm gonna boil my piss into whatever and find the reboot.
And it's like, I don't know, man, some of some of these hippies I see on Instagram do it anyway. It's a you know, friend of the show, doctor Sara Olberg Stradle she loves to follow like the worst fucking people on Instagram, like her algorithm is truly cursed. And she's constantly sending me videos of like hippies who are like I put a lime under my bed and it cures ghosts and like shit like that, And I'm like, why are you doing this? Don't make me.
I don't want to see this, Like, oh man, it's so great if you go out and sun your gooch for three hours a day and it's like.
It get your goots right out. But no, I'm not even joking about the lime solves ghost thing, like it's it's so real. I that's really real, Like.
Oh my god.
Anyway, Uh, total Isaac Newton victory, his theories on the universal universal gravitation and uh, and his theories on a boiling piss to make Fosterphorus uh fully vindicated uh in due time. Also, we wouldn't have the large Hadron Collider if he hadn't figured out gravity, or we wouldn't you know, shut out anyone he yeah, he and yeah everyone who who helped along with that. But yeah, man, I think that's it. That's a pretty long fucking intro.
Uh.
Yeah, go in, I got I got the Dark Ages, so I'll be sometimes soon I'll be able to give a full report on how historically accurate doom the Dark Ages is, what with its metal, uh magnetic shield that spins around and you know, look, we.
So rarely have actual like medieval news that we take it when we can go, right, we do we do.
Oh okay, here we go, hello and welcome back to We're Not So Different, a podcast about how sometimes we just you know, sometimes just get into a groove. And you got to do a really long intro about how the new pope's kind of funny with it. He looked, he there's that one picture of him that looks exactly like a picture of Emperor Palpatine, Like I know, it's so weird. Like at like, I was like, there's no
way this is real. And then I have reversed image search and I was like, oh my god, that is a real picture of and that's that's awful for him, that's great, yeah.
But great for us And that's what Oh yeah.
That isn't that is important? I mean, what am I going to do?
Like I'm not Catholic, I don't have any steak in it. Might as well laugh anyway, Yeah, folks, we're here today to talk about a little place known as al Andolous. And we would do questions, but you know, frankly, the twenty minute divergence there at the beginning. We'll get the next time, we promise. So yeah, no, you know, once again getting behind on questions. But sometimes I got to talk about the Pope and and alchemy vindicated.
Chicago Hot Dog's best Style, Chicago White Sox, best baseball team in Chicago, in Chicago Pope.
You know, Chicago Deep just pizza good despite what people say, not so good. So especially when it's done right. Oh I gotta I got a frozen when it wasn't great.
Yeah, no, ship it wasn't great. Got to specializes in it. There are places outside of Chicago that do. There's a place in Atlanta. I wonder if it's still open. It was called Nancy's. They had incredible deep dish. Anyway, I've talked about pizza before.
You put cheese.
And sauce and toppings on bread and cook it. It's not it's not gonna be bad, except for the cracker bullshit that they do in Saint Louis.
Fuck that.
Oh wow, I'm not familiar with this one.
It's like it's like a thin cracker thing. It's just it's it's like eating like uh, you know, the Nacho's Flanders style where it's like uh cream cheese and uh and and wheat thins or whatever the it was. Anyway, Oh man, all right, it just can't stop with the digressions. All right, here we go, let's talk about Iberia. Sort of shed go without saying, but around five point three million years ago, the Mediterranean basin was a vastly different
place than it is today. Okay, the entire earth was vastly different at the time, but we're just going to stay focused on the Mediterranean. Back then, the calm, shallow sea we all know and love and want to vacation upon was a hellish wasteland of shallow pools of heavily salinated water and salt flats, and a deep, mostly dry basin.
This was because the Strait of Gibraltar, the narrow only fourteen kilometers or nine mile wide gap between northwestern Africa and southeastern Europe that today allows access to the Mediterranean, had been pushed up higher by the unstable plate technonics of the region, forming a land bridge higher than the water level and severing the connection to the rest of
the Atlantic. Over the next couple of one hundred thousand years, the Mediterranean mostly dried out levy, leading to a salinity crisis as the evaporating seawater left behind massive salt deposits on the former seafloor and eroded the continent walls. At its most arid, the Mediterranean was a massive dry basin with only occasional shallow pools that sat some three to five kilometers or between two to three miles below Atlantic sea level, with only the most hyper saline areas like
the modern day Dead Sea, retaining much standing water. But this status quo was short lived geologically speaking, as the new Gibraltar land Bridge was exceedingly narrow and sea level rise and the steady lap of waves eroded it. So it was about five point three million years ago the Strait of Gibraltar. The Strait of Gibraltar formed and the floodgates opened to one of the greatest spectacles ever to
occur on the planet, the Zanclean Flood. Suddenly, the weight of an ocean's worth of water punched through the sea wall, and torrents of water began flowing into the basin. Now, you might imagine that this came in like a waterfall, but that's incorrect, so that it flowed down gradually declining a gradually declining ramp until it reached the basin floor. This may seem disappointing, it's you know, the waterfall would be much better spectacle until I add one final detail.
Once the straight fully was fully opened by erosion, more than one hundred million cubic meters of water flowed in per second, traveling forty meters per second and displacing two hundred and forty cubic miles of rock as it moves. The most conservative models show that the flood were unleashed roughly ten severe drops of water into the basin per second.
For reference, a sphere drop is equal to one million cubic meters of water per second, and the outflow of all rivers on Earth combined at any given second is one point two severe drops. Thus that its zenith for every second that passed, the Mediterranean Basin is being flooded by at least ten times more water than the combined outflow of every present day river on Earth. And remember that's just a conservative estimate. Other models show it could have been an undated with as much as one hundred
sphere drops of water during the worst of it. Regardless, for a time, the Zenclean Flood created the longest, most catastrophic whitewater rafting channel in history, refilling the entire basin in as little as a single year, though the length.
Of the flood is still hotly debated. Even today, there.
As still remnants of the Zenclean Flood around, as the Mediterranean is much salter saltier than other Atlantic waters, and it permanently cut the islands off from one another and the mainland, leading to the various speciations we see of animals and plants on the islands. What does any of this have to do with the Muslim takeover of the
Iberian Peninsula beginning in a seven to eleven CE. Well, it does explain the opening of the Strate of Gibraltar, which was the initial crossing point for most of the Muslim invasion. But outside of that, nothing, Just.
A really cool story that I like.
Since I write the intros, I get to do this sometimes.
Yep.
Anyway, enough of that nonsense. We're here to continue our ongoing series visiting various parts of the Medieval World with a short bunch of episodes on All Andoluce. You recall that we started the year with the series in the same vein on Constantinople. That mean got distracted because there's a lot going on in the world. Oh god, it's just something we actually have to cover. You know, you
guys know the deal. You've been listening. Why are we doing al Andaluce when we normally focus on Europe and you've talked a lot about Spain over the course of the show. Well, mostly because we've never done anything centering on it. It is incredibly important to the formation of the modern world, and most importantly, Spain and All Andduluce are two very different things.
Oh and even.
More importantly, to spread the message far and wide. This isn't an occupation. Don't call it a fucking occupation. After seven hundred years, it stops being an occupation. It's just Iberia at that point. Today we will talk about the background, who who the Umiads were, why the invasion occurred, and what were the early years of the invasion like and what was life like after it was conquered. And hey, if you're looking for Charles Martel and tours and Charlemagne
and all that shit. Well, listen to this and then come back next time, because that's when we'll get to it.
Eleanor uh.
Spain and the Iberian Peninsula were famously part of the Roman Empire for a while. What was the status of Iberia after the fall of Western Rome in for seventy six? Who ruled it and what kind of peoples were being ruled there?
The Visigoths ruled it. Yay, yays time woo.
I had finally made it all the way from the fucking step to uh.
Yeah, I'd like for them this is kind of like the apogee of what they managed to do and controlling the Iberia Peninsula. But they're also controlling initially all the way up to like tour and things like that in France, so you know they've got they've got like a bunch of to loose as well. And the physical kind of come by this because they were Feo Derati of Rome, so those are kind of like the Romanized barbarians, right. They had been Central Europeans, shout out to my people,
that's what's up, that's what's sucking up now. And basically the Iberian Peninsula had been experiencing a lot of issues even before the quote unquote fall of Western Rome, and it's mainly it was dealing with invasions from your year ordinarily types of the Allens, the Vandals, the Swabi people. I just love to talk about the Allens. It's very funny.
It's like all the Allans got together and so basically they justify taking over the peninsula as what are some essentially kind of client states of Western Rome by saying, well, this is what you have us for. This is like what you invented us for. So of course we're just doing it. And Rome is like, no, not like that. Hey, that's my taxation base. And they're like, yeah, we'll come over here and get it right, and and they're basically like, oh, I don't really have a lot of ability to do that.
So i'dan like there were points in time, right like especially early on in the Formation, when the physicals are fighting Western Rome, like the Emperor Anthemius sends troops over to be like knock it off over there, and they absolutely get stopped the fucking ground at the Battle of Arl, which is very funny. And so like this begins they the deal in Spain. So you have these Physigothic people, but for the most part we're talking about the Hispanic
Romans that are living there, and they are Romans. This is one of like the big taxation centers for Rome. They famously have kind of a funny accent. But you know, we draw from the Spanish Romans all the time. So for example, Hadrian was a Spanish Roman, right, So the population is still largely just like the Hispanic Roman people who are there, but the Visigoths are kind of ruling very particularly over them, and they do it for a long fucking time. That's the thing that they're in there
before the Fall of Rome. Like they're in there, I mean fucking hell, like the you have like the Battle of Arl and everything in four sixty nine. Nice, nice, nice, that's the reason I can remember that date so like, and then basically they are going to stick around for quite some time. This isn't to say that it was all smooth sailings. So for example, like they get into fights with Byzantium or Eastern Rome all the time. Like Constantinople will be like taxes Texas tonight, Queen taxes No,
and they're like no, get out of here. So like, you know, there will be times when the Eastern Roman Empire shows up, but kind of like by the time you are nearing the end of the sixth century, this stuff is a done deal. And this is also kind of the time where a lot of the stuff that we see, especially in the seventh century, we get really good records from our good friend Iziodora Saville, who is like homeboy who likes to do fake etymology for everything.
He's great. We love Iziodora Saville. You know, they have like your standard Barbarian state pro quote unquote, like we're they're initially all Aryan and then they have and they have to like convert well, but they by the time that they do convert, kind of at the end of the sixth century, you get up at this point in time, it's just kind of like this is just yeah, it's a Visicalthic state, but we're doing things in Latin, you know, we we are now you know, Catholic. They don't use
the word Catholic, right, they're not. They're not Arians anymore.
And they have driven out Eastern Rome and and basically take it over, and they kind of celebrate by immediately getting kind of anti Semitic with it, which is, which is cool because they're like, oh, yeah, we're gonna we're gonna like persecute this like a very large Jewish population that lives here, and there is like fighting back and forth in that kind of normal early medieval way, so you know, various nobles will go and at a fight with their cousin that sort of thing, but by and
large they are hanging out here and ruling a really contiguous state at the time.
Yeah yeah, and uh, you know when we say they ruled, they're like the Visigothic elite was like one to two percent of the population.
They like they just didn't you know, they just did.
They like it that way, right, because essentially they're they're they're they're working off of a particular legal code called the Visigothic Code, and it basically cements in to law that they are the boss of you.
Right.
So uh so they like it that way, right, Like they're very interested in promulgating you know, laws and society that mean that there is this tiny group of people who are an elite. But honestly, but may by the time we're in the seventh century, it's like they stop having the silly names and yeah, they stopped speaking Gothic whatever book that was, et cetera, et cetera.
Yeah, you know, so one a famous thing from the end of the Roman Empire where the Roman manners of the wealthy Roman citizens, was that something that had that extended out into Spain where those were those still a big thing out there were we starting to see uh, you know, like proto manorialism, proto feudalism or whatever you want to call it.
At this point, Oh got it.
Like, I mean, the the estates out in Spain are quite extensive, and you know, Spain is kind of where all the olive oil comes from mm in uh for the western Roman empires. So it's very funny. It's like, so the M four a come up from Tunis and they go over to they go over to Spain get filled with olive oil, and then they go to Rome and it's like a not so bad triangle trade anyway.
Like so you do have these huge parcels of land and you still kind of retain the huge parcels of land thing, but the Visigoths are like, I'll have that one, thank you, like about yeah, exactly exactly, so you know, and the part of the reason that they're incredibly successful. Is they're super good at sort of like maintaining a lot of things. I mean, they do consider themselves more or less to be working under the Roman system. And when they come into power, they're like, we don't really
want to topple what's going on. I mean, I will take the nicest manners available, thanks very much, But they don't. You don't want to take over Rome because you want to destroy it. You want to take over Rome because you want the money from it. And so that they they do a good job of kind of instilling some sort of close to Roman life that that sort of keeps ticking over. And yeah, so they're they're quite successful
at having a unified, big fucking kingdom. I mean, like of the Roman successor states, this is the largest, yeah, for sure, for sure.
Yeah yeah, and so yeah, just stick your mind right there. You know, it's about it's about sevent ten. The Visigoths rule over Iberia, and you know, things are going good for them.
They're not you know, they're not worried nothing's coming. But now we got to jump.
We got to jump back in time a little and go all the way across the Mediterranean, and let's briefly, take a look at the Levant in six sixty one.
Uh So, here you go.
This is the quickest summation of the first fifty years of Islam I could possibly do. The prophet Muhammad has formed the religion of Islam, won many victories in its name, and then died in six point thirty two. Islam is still unified religion under Abu Bakir and the Rashidan Caliphate, which formed in the wake of the Prophet's death, though cracks were beginning to form over political and theological disagreements
regarding Mohammad's teachings and successors. In spite of these divisions, the early Muslim conquests were incredibly successful, and by six fifty one they had taken Egypt the entire Levant and literally wiped us and in Persia off the map, just fucking obliterated, get out of here, and Zoroastrian focks just
annihilated them, which is said Astrianism loves. However, Ababakir died that year, and his successor, Uthman and his treatment of his own klan, the Banu Umaya, created even greater divisions, and he was assassinated by internal enemies, leaving Ali Mohammed's nephew as the new caliph, Ali faced a full blown Fitna or Islamic civil war and was himself a they needed by rivals in six sixty one, leaving Muawiya, a member of the Benu Umaya, to form the Umiad Caliphate
upon his accession eleanor how did the Umids take this feuding bunch and within a century form the seventh largest land empire in world history. And to be clear everyone, the Umiads ruled from Iran all the way into the Levant, down all the way across northern Africa and up into the Iberian Peninsula and a small bit of southern France for a little while.
Yeah, well, they do it through rather a lot of pragmatism. Here's the answer to that. They kind of become the successors because they are already well connected. They're super well connected at tradespeople in Mecca when they kind of rise to power. And one of the way that they end up doing this is by really keeping shit in the family. So they're like, okay, look, you know other like previous unto this, other people would be a little bit like, hey, guys,
what are we all doing? Because wo we're doing Islam right, and I'm going to ask for your opinion on this, and the U Moons are like, fuck you, my uncle gets that, you know, kind of which makes it easier to keep people loyal and to an extent, stops a lot of the slap fighting. But I think also they
are incredibly pragmatic and they do really smart things. So they kind of take over and you know, they're in this time of like the burgeoning expansion of Islam, and they take over rather a lot of land from Eastern Rome. But what they do in an incredibly smart way is they're like, we are keeping the legal practices, we are keeping like the administrative practices, and it's just that we're
going to do things most Islamically now. And this creates a great deal of stability, which means that people aren't going to fucking fight back that hard, right like, and and that makes a really really big difference. So it's like, yeah, okay, like there's there's someone new that I'm paying taxes too,
but fundamentally it's still pretty safe. They have a really smart administrative sector, so basically like they keep the Eastern Roman thing, which is like, so you've got like a political branch you've got a religious branch, a tax branch, and a military branch. So they maintain a professional army, which is a really big deal, and so they're they're able to kind of draw from that, which helps expansionist
policy as well. They make local governors essentially of the various provinces that they rain, which are called Dwon's and so they will have the over archie Umid Caliphate, but there's some one locally that you can go speak to if you know, things need seeing to. So there is still kind of like enough localism that people don't necessarily feel unheard, which is a really big deal. You know, you pay your taxes, and they put a lot of money into various things like roads or like they have
actual police forces. They have like a you know, really good policies in terms of keeping things ticking over and running, which you know, the locals love to see because you know, Eastern Rome had been getting a little bit lax with it, so it's kind of nice to see that. There is of course the old magic that uh jizia eggs happen as well, which is that like a you don't have
to convert, so like who really gives a fuck? Who you're paying tax is to like provided all of the services are there, and be well, you might go ahead and convert if it's going to be like that and you don't have to pay taxes. But I mean to be fair with this, there are stratifications in Meian society, right, So it's like you've got Arabs right at the top, and it's like that's that's number one, like knew me.
It's more particularly like the front their family right at the top, and so there's like Arabs right underneath that. You then have converts who are the locals, right, so you can make rather a lot of money off of that. Like you know, you can be a very successful merchant. You can do all kinds of things with the palace, but you're never going to like run the dwont right if you're a convert. But for most people it's like dude,
I wasn't running it anyway, so whatever. And the further and further you get away from their power base, like in kind of around what's I guess it's Damascus at the time, then the more and more they're like, oh shit, we don't actually have enough Arabs over here. So like you can you can get a good government job, even though you're not Arab if you're a convert, right, So, and everybody loves a big government job, you know, like everybody loves to have their salary paid out of taxes.
That's a really good thing. Then below that you have the other people of the book, and and you're like allowed to do what you're gonna do. But like you can't have a big government job, but you can like trade, do whatever the fuck it is you do.
You can be.
You can go ahead and be a peasant things of this nature. And then under that there are enslaved people. And I mean that that's kind of been par for the course, you know, certainly under both various kinds of Rome, and it certainly still is true like in Eastern Rome at the time. So yeah, so that's kind of how how things kind of sliced out. And because they've got this really complex government system, it helps with the military endeavors.
So they've got this paid military and they managed to combine kind of like the best of Arabic tactics, which is like showing up on camels in the middle of the night and being like what you know, and it's me and being like, yeah, you're ready to fight, you know, but they use kind of Roman tactics. So like one of the big things that they're into is kind of
like doing spear walls, yeah, things like that. So you know, they they're doing the big imperial things that are necessary to run a big fucking empire, which they end up doing, right.
Yeah, So like, is there is there theory of empire if we can you know, attribute such a thing. It's if not, they don't. They're not aiming to convert the entire world. It's more just like we think the world would be much better off if it were under Muslim rule than it is now, and then you could pay us to taxes and worship as you wanted and it would be fine.
Yeah.
Basically they're like Marshal law bra, we need you to continue existing. It's like we want your tax money, right because I mean there is zakat that that Muslims pay, but that's that goes more towards charitable things, and it's like that's that's not going to do the roads homeie right, So you know you absolutely need that the non Muslim people around in order to make this work. And you know, so fundamentally, yeah, we call it a caliphate because it's
got these specific Islamic characteristics for sure. But it's an empire, you know, and if you're going to run an empire, you have to have multiple groups of people. That's what makes it a fucking empire, right, and not just a kingdom.
You know.
So in the four flung regions of this empire, let's say, you know, in modern day Morocco, how are they like there can't be much ruling over a place like Morocco or al Andolous from Syria, So like are they is there a very independent They just have to keep up the rules and send their taxes back.
Yeah, And you know what, but the thing is like the governors are probably going to be drawn from like the actual umiads and so so it's like they're going to send over a cousin or whatever to to to run the d won. But you know that is still going to be largely local people underneath them, because the further you get from Syria, the less likely a bunch of people are are to to kind of immigrate with it.
But like you definitely you send over your uncle, You do a little bit of nepotism, like get your nephew out there. You know that that kind of a thing. So it kind of does two things. That maintains a connection to Syria and to the groups that are back out in the Levant and things like that, and it also allows for local people to not be too annoyed that these random foreigners control them. Now.
Yeah, and that that takes us up to six or to seven eleven. That seven eleven, ha, like the gas station.
There's a lot of good dates.
Yeah, that takes us up to seven eleven. And at that point, the Umiids had captured all the way to what we consider now Morocco and to the southern part of the Strait of Gibraltar. And they looked across, you know, the ten mile stretch, and they were like, you know, Africa's cool. You know, Western Asia is cool, but you know it might be cool southern Europe. How about southern Europe.
I hear it's nicest time of year. And so they got everybody on a ship and they went across and they had a little vacation.
No, I'm just kidding. It was an invasion.
It's in July seven to eleven, the Umid forces under Terek even Ziad, when a crushing victory over the Visigoths under their king Roderick at the Battle of Guadaleta, and from there the invasion was pretty much unstopped for at least nine years. Abd al Aziz ibin Musa was named the first governor of al Andalous in seven point fifteen.
He took Savill as his capital.
By seven nineteen, Umid armies had conquered the entire peninsula up to the region of Asturias on the northern Atlantic coast, and extended their holdings along the Mediterranean coast past Barcelona, around the southern Pyrenees to just south of Narbonne in the Ostan region of present day France. The Islamic conquest of Iberia, meaning all the Portugal most of Spain outside of Asturias, was complete within a decade, though they would be permanently pushed south of the Pyrenees within you.
Know, a few a few decades.
The Immedian forces of Iberia then invaded Gaul, meaning France. They did make it all the way to Toulouse before losing a decisive battle to Odo the Great of Aquitaine, after nearly securing the city and a stronghold for Islam. But we'll get more into their adventures with the Franks next time.
So eleanor.
How are the Visigoths so easily taken? I mean, sure, it's been a while since you know, Aleric the day is of Alaric, But like these are like, you know, these are Visigoths, they're barbarians. How did they how are they so easily defeated? And why did they fold like a fucking desk chair.
The answer is it's testament to how good their state was and how unified it was. Yeah, you can't. You can't topple like a ragtag bunch of city states very easily because you have to defeat them all one by one. Right with the Visigoths, they have a contiguous kingdom that is running under one rule of law, and all you have to do is kill enough of them and get to the head of government and the whole thing just
falls over. And you know, they've been fighting with each other, you know, they've been fighting kind of varying battles, you know, like on the frontiers and stuff like that, as one
usually does. But there's still such thing at this point as an invading force other than you know, the the Uviiots, because they're the ones that have like a whole empire behind them, right, you know, And it was harder for Eastern Rome to do it because when they want to do it, they have to get on ships from Constantinople, whereas these guys they just got to jump over the strait, right, So it's not like, you know, they don't have the
same issues with like landing and issues there. And they also have naval back up from provinces like you know, in Tunisia, in Sicily, you know, in all these places that are really nearby, so they can always go get more people, Whereas if Constantinople want reinforcements, they got to go all the way back to like an Asia Minor on a boat, right, So it's much more difficult. And so yeah, it's interesting because essentially what happens is they're
victims of their own success. You can topple them because they are well sensualized and because there isn't really anyone who's been able to challenge them in any meaningful way for a couple of hundred years. So as a result, they then just fall over. And I mean the other thing that happens is the same thing that kind of happens everywhere where they go to the nobles and they're like, look, just FYI, you could keep it. Yeah, Like I'm not telling you that you have to stop being a strong
and involved noble family. And so they're like, oh word, okay, well I'm not gonna like send out my sons to die that right, Like I'm not. I'm not gonna make them go like face this kind of like well drilled, actual professional military, which they do not have, you know,
like they're they're doing it the medieval way. They're all like, yeah, like where's your son's Hey, yeah, everyone to queen like give yours to a stick and make a broad over there, and everyone's like, you know, look, they're telling me I don't have to convert. I just have to pay taxes. I'm paying taxes anyway, yeah, because the Visigoths have a
strong state, and you know they're paying taxes. So again it's the same thing where it's like I don't really care who I'm paying taxes to, provided I get to keep my land and my sons are alive and whatever. And you know, the remaining Visigoths they fuck back off to Astorius. And I just want to do a shout out here because uh, we refer to the Kingdom of Ustorius as a rump state. That's right, And I think that's just a fun term. So yeah, and so you
know that they sit up there to be mad. But for the most part, most of the noble families, who'd all been like fighting with each other, fighting with the king anyway, are like, Okay, well that lad'll take the king down to pay Yeah whatever, dude, right, they fight his ass anyway, So like they don't care. They don't care, you know.
Yeah, Yeah, Osterius is like the main holdout and they're able to do that because it's a really difficult it's it's not an easy region to access up there along the northern coast. But yeah, they they hold out. It's you know, it's tenuous. But the thing about it is that, as Eleanor said, most of the Visigothic leaders and the powerful landowners just signed conditional agreements with the with the
Umids uh their land. Their lands were independent, autonomous regions under broader Umian rule, and it was very indirect.
There was a.
Muslim on top, but other than that, the structure basically stayed the same as long as the leader didn't foment rebellion or attack the umids, their lands weren't plundered. Now there are, of course people who didn't do that. Towns and cities that resisted were subject to the same conventions of medieval battles, meaning they were sacked, plundered, sometimes destroyed, uh, and then they were put under direct umid administration.
So it's a very.
Well you can see why people capitulated.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If you're if your options are like fight this army that has basically lost like maybe one battle on since they moved into Europe in like the decade, Like if they roll into Barcelona, I'm sorry Bartelona and you're the guy there, like and you're the governor, They're like, are you gonna roll out and fight these guys or are you gonna be like, well, they said, I could sign a contract and they're not going to kill my family, or they're not going to sack the
town and we just have to pay a tax to stay created. Like that's unless you are like, uh, offended.
On a moral level about this.
It is, and it's a pretty easy choice to make, especially like because they do the because the Visigothsts clearly didn't have a standing army that they could get together that could.
Could defeat the Yeah, yeah, like I mean, because that's the whole thing about like Barbarians is they're just kind of like doing it, you know, and they'll they'll take over the Roman.
Structure, but they can't afford yeah, at army and it's ken So like there you go, like that's that's it, baby, you know, that's dialectics.
Baby.
Yeah, it's not that.
Not dialectics, that's just making the decision.
But yeah, and the thing about it is, you know, like we talk about Christian and Jewish toleration here and people might kind of roll their eyes or something like that, and I kind of get the inclination because I mean, you know, really.
But.
Our only direct source for this time period is something called the Chronicle of seven fifty four and it's written by Christians and it's very pro Christian, but even they are like, yeah, we still got to practice. We had to pay money. Like so the stuff that we're talking about here is written by Christians from a pro Christian perspective, but even they're like, yeah, I mean they still let
us practice. Like even in the even in the towns that they had to sack, they didn't stop those people from being Christian or Jewish, you know.
Oh yeah. Like one of my favorite sources from this period is called the Barterers of Cordoba, and there is this great story in it where Saint Eulogia she's like a Muslim and she wants to convert and her parents are like a fuck, no, no, get out of here, like, get out of here with that. You're not converting to shit, girl, and and like the Martyrs of Cordova is like, oh God, and it wasn't she's so oppressed or whatever, and I
can't believe they would let her convert. And then she's like, well, I'm going to a party, and her parents are like, okay, go have fun, have funny, have fun at your party. And then she like goes to the cathedral and studies with the Christians there and then like converts right and
is lying to her parents about where she gets. So, you know, even in a story which is about like oppressive you know, Muslim parents or whatever, you can still like walk out the door because they're like, yeah, go have fun at your party, babe, and then like walk over to the fucking cathedral, right, Like it's not it's not exactly like a difficult thing. And she's like, and
she's studying under a bunch of duns. And then eventually like she's like, I'm staying with the nuns, and her prayers are like you get back here right now, young lady, and she's like no, I won and then and then like and then like basically she gets threatened with death. And I think that though, what that kind of like comes down to is it's a little bit more of like a disobedient child of nobility, yeah thing, and they're like, girl, could you just fucking knock it off? And she's like no,
and then gets kid. It's like and that's the story, and like from the most hostile possible fucking witness, we get a picture of Gordoba as a pretty integrated place where you can just walk around and talk to nuns all you want, even when you are a daughter of the nobility.
Yeah, yeah, it's you know, there was an inter religious conflict, Uh, definitely, because there always is. It doesn't oh God yet what kind of religion they are, even if they're not really competing, you know, they still technically are. And uh, there was definitely that was definitely, you know, there were definitely issues, but the like the real like this is a civilizational
battle between Christianity and Islam. Idea had not been fostered yet, like at that point to Western European Christians before they invaded it that if they knew about it, that was like they're dealing with Constantinople.
I don't give a shit about that.
Like once I got to do with it, and like what exactly.
Do with me and Achen or whatever?
Yeah, and like when you're in Auchen, you're like hah, like finally someone's taking those visigoths down a bag, you know, like later where you're like, yeah, fuck you. You know, so there's you know, it's not like anyone in Ireland was like oh no, not not you know.
And it's not like and it's not like the Franks or Charles Martel or Charlemagne invaded Iberia to free it from Muslim rules. They just wanted to push them back as the Pyrenees. And they did that for the most party that they occasionally lost in our bone again, but you know, they it wasn't like, you know, we have to run all these Muslim dogs out. It was like get out, just go south of the Pyrenees. I don't care, go go go stop it do not come north of
the Pyrenees. And for a long time, those you know, they were pretty fine with it. And you know, we'll obviously get to where like the reconquista starts. But I mean, like you eleanor you think you can like kind of date the idea of the reconquista to this era in like osterious like as.
A kind of I mean like they're like thing maybe, Yeah, I mean I have a difficulty with the concepts of the reconkista because like, yeah, Franco came up with it, and I don't fucking like him, you know, like it's a but what yeah, Like I mean like the idea like no one, no one in the Middle Ages is like it's a reconquista, Like this isn't this isn't a m.
But didn't didn't the uh Isabella and uh whatever his name is. Didn't they petition the pope to like do a crusade type thing.
Yeah, but yes, but they call it a crusade. They don't call it.
Okay, I see, Okay, I think.
And so that's I think important because a reconquest sets up this thing of like oh yeah, like the ongoing battle of like you know, whatever, and Franco is the one who comes up and is like were quista all the time, whereas the like do they call it? Do they call it a crusade for Nana and Isabella? Yes, they absolutely do. But like like are the Visigoths sitting up in Astorias being like I'm gonna take back over
my land. Absolutely, but they're not like I'm doing it for Christendom, girl, this is about Christen And they're like, I want my leg belogus to me, that ship's mine, you stuff back, yeah, one hundred percent, Like it's not. It has nothing to do with like oh like I oh christ would want this, Like that's not what they're saying. What they're saying is I want I want my shit.
And you know, as we're gonna see going forward, dude, like they like lands are changing hands, kingdoms go back and forth, willy nilly, people are in and out of each other's pockets.
You know.
Elsied is like now I'll work for the Muslims. Now I'm over here, you know, and they're they it's like they you could be a Christian ruler with the you know, Islamic vassals and vice versa. Right, Like it's just a fucking mess down there actually, And so it is true that for non of Isabella are like I want to definitively christianize the Iberian Peninsula. But that's why they're modern.
Right, that's seven over.
Yeah, and like and and that's why, like my argument you know about like where does you know with the constant where does the Middle Ages and the early Modern period begin? My argument on the Iberian Peninsula is always for Isabella, yeah, because like yeah, because it's like medieval people were like, I don't know, man, there's just a lot a bunch of different people here. It's kind of wild, right, for Nana Isabella are like no, right, it's like ethno
stake time. And it's like you can't like it. That's so modern, right, Like that idea that you could that you could have such a thing, Yeah, and that there's a way of there's a way of kind of adjudicating that. So you know, my my argument is always like that's modern.
Yeah, yeah, because even in the Crusades, they well how
am I trying to say this? They did in some cases create f no states over there with the Crusader states, but they were confined to that area and they did you know they they made deals in treaties with Muslim powers in the region and stuff like that, And it wasn't like they weren't trying to like cleanse Muslims out of like Syria so much as they were like the Holy Land is ours because Jerusalem is ours, which is a terrible like that's a terrible idea and like it's
the basis of colonialism and nationalism and so many other problems in the world.
But like it's not setting up an ethno state yet.
And you know, at that point, the thing of like a European like Christendom is like.
A very.
Pretty new idea, Like it wouldn't have come up, oh yeah until well after Charlemagne, probably not until the Altonians and the Holy Roman Empire, and even then it would still be kind of iffy.
Yeah, for sure. I mean, like for the most part, Hispania is like a Christian at this point because like they had done bid because Rome was right, and and they're kind of like, yeah, well, we're one of the Roman successor states doing this because of a concept of romanness, not because of an idea of European ness, and like not necessarily as a part of a concept of Christianity either, they're just kind of like, yeah, well where we're Roman, so like this is this is what Romans do, This
is what makes one Roman. I mean, like my god, it's it's not like Scandinavia is fucking Christianized yet at this point in Jesus, like, I mean the Czechs are about to get Christianized.
Is England even fully Christianized at this point it's still.
Like it's still it's still pretty iffy, like in varying places. So it's like, you know, this.
Is right after Bead wrote and he was still complaining about all the Pagans in Northumbria and everywhere, you know, like.
Like yeah, yeah, I mean like fucking Saint Wencheslaus and his grandma are doing their thing over in the Czech Republic and like the eight hundred. So it's like, you know, the Europe is like, as a Christian place is not a fucking done deal by any starts of the imagination. So it's like, well, I guess what what we're doing is we're kind of like establishing what the frontier of Christendom would be in theory.
Yeah yeah, I mean they didn't.
Yeah, Europe is like a like continental like as like the concept of the entire continent of Europe being united to some degree is like at this point not affable.
Like even when they do the first Crusade, that's still going to be exclusively from Western and a tiny sliver of central Europe with uh, with the German with some of the German lands, like the rest of it, like Eastern Europe is not going to be like involved in that, you know, and a lot of Southern Europe isn't either, And so it's like, you know.
You like go to someone in Denmark and tell them that they're the same as someone in Sevilla, Like do it, I dare.
They?
There's no, there's not that homogeneity there. But this is part of I think what we're trying to make clear is while the homogeneity was not there yet, this is part of the process that begins uh cohesing and forming into that. And you know, that's that's all underlouse, that's
what it's going to be. And and as we go along, you'll see it's so fucking important to the future, like just insanely important to the future of the world that like this thing was here and like the way that this allowed everything to form because the like first inklings of crusades, long before Isabella and Ferdinand were into parts of all andoluce to like hey, you get him out of there, and that's what they base uh you know,
the whole first Crusade on. So yeah, it's uh part, it's uh, it's something.
It's a it's a.
Lot of it's interesting and it definitely flies in the face of what you normally think of as an invasion, because while there were battles and they did fight, there was also a lot of like, all right, you signed the agreement, so you guys get back to pick and olives and you landowner get back to drinking refreshing beverages on your porch while your slaves or serfs.
Or whatever past.
Pick pick the stuff. And like, yeah, that's what they did. And so it's a it's very it's a very interesting thing.
And I'm I always just I love Alanderlous because like it's just so it's this thing that people talk about as like this horror show of like Islamic violence, and then you read about and it's like, hey, we showed up, We took the land because it was there to conquer, just like anyone else in in Europe or the Old World or probably the New World would have at the time, you know, and yeah, and we did it, and we just let everybody continue worshiping as long as they didn't
try to established in the back. When we walk down the road, you know, it's like.
Well, they brought you a date palm.
Yeah, they brought you a date palm. You got the camel you see.
Camels, I mean they've probably seen camels.
The introduced pineapples, they introduced dates, like they introduced a yeah, like I think, really, wait, no, it can't be pineapples. I was about to say no, but they definitely introduced date palms. They definitely. They definitely introduced like all of these like cool fruits and things, and everyone is like, hell, yeah, I fucking love.
Dats, I love dates, I love a fig Yeah.
Yeah, I can't be pineapples. Those are New World, aren't they.
Yeah yeah yeah.
And if it wasn't sweet potatoes, there's really nothing else from the New World over and even that that was just Indonesia or Polynesia rather so yeah, I.
Could smash a pineapple now down.
Oh I love pineapples.
Brain yeah, I mean it's just so good, like and you know pineapples, Like a millions of years ago, Pineapple was thinking like, ah, I finally tricked these fuckers. I got all these spines on the outside. We were like, hey, that's cool man. Did you know we can just reach around the tip of it and the pineapples like no, no, no, no, I'm just cool looking thing. And one day Swingers will use me as a symbol of something that I'm still not clear about.
Do you know there were really big pineapples as symbols in kind of like the Georgian period here, So like when Wren was redesigning all the churches that got are down by the Great Fire of London, and he redesigned Saint Paul's, he wanted to put pineapples on top of it Swinger Cathedral. But then they were like, you can't put a pineapple on top of the cathedral. And he's like okay, and so there's like he's.
Fine, I'll make it the I'll make it the glory of God.
And he puts it up there and.
It's like like a it kind of looks like a sun going up, but then the closer you look at it, it's just like shape like a pineapple.
And the Bishop's like, I think that there are still some pineapples on it.
But that's amazing. Yeah, it's you know, it's interesting. And next time when we come back, we'll talk about the Battle of Tours and Charles Martel and you know why it's kind of overblown and what happened after that, because because the story kind of stops right there for a lot a lot of time, and it's like Charles Martel, Charlemagne, skip forward a bunch of years, the end of the recon key or you know, the Spanish retaking the peninsula for Christianity or whatever you want to call it.
Yeah, completely, Yeah, it'll be fun. We'll get into it. Yeah, it's very because the lemon tree was haunted vibes, so you.
Know pretty much.
Yeah, we didn't like it because it was haunted. Now now let's all enjoy a nice glass of turnip juice. Yeah, folks, thank y'all so much for listening.
We hope you enjoyed it. We hope you are as.
Cautiously pleased with the Pope as we are, at least in terms of how funny it's going to be.
But you know, off in the comment, it's about your favorite Chicago regional dish is an Italian beef? It is it deep dish?
Is it?
Should the Pope appear on the next season of The Bear Who's to say, yeah?
I mean it does he get a box at Bulls games?
Now?
Who knows?
Who knows?
God? I would hope he wouldn't want to go watch Bulls games.
They'd be like, like if I was the Pope, they'd be like, Sir, you have all these responsibilities. Shut up, I have to watch the the Atlanta Hawks lose by fifteen Charlotte team, shut up. I'm good stuff, Like why do you torture yourself? Like That's how I tricked them to say I was Catholic because I just torture myself by watching Atlanta sports.
But it's what God wants. It could be worse. It could be from Seattle and just sitting around hoping that like it's coming They Thunder.
Just coming back. I mean, the Thunder are not leaving, but the Sonics will come back.
I curse them. I cursed them from my boy.
I don't want them to win.
I don't want so I'm I am going to cancel my like NBA package if they win the next fucking ri. I hate them so much, like I can't, like I begin shouting blairs like I'm not having fun. I can't look at them, can't I can't be around in the area when they're there.
But anyway, I understand, Uh yeah, our only hope for a good finals at this point is uh Nick's t Wolves. UH Pacers might be fun too, but if they just it's gonna.
Be a four to oh. I just don't think.
They have the you know, do you think they have the juice?
I just don't think they have the depth for it. They're a really good team, and I love.
Jokic, h and everybody love Jokic.
They're they're they're they're really fun to watch, but like they go like six seven deep right now. And I mean one of those is Westbrook and he hustles all the time, but you know, he's not as good as he once was, and you know, so I just don't think they have the depth.
But do you know what, there's a pope that has opinions on this. Now, there's a fucking pope who has opinions on this.
Now, Yeah, there's a pope on this. He has uh, he has opinions on what the Bulls should do and why they should get rid of Josh Giddy and he kicked out of the league for being a fucking freak.
Like a like a not like a.
Did you do? You know what I'm gonna do? Sorry quick NBA chat before we go. I think that next year I'm going to attempt to draft an all Jalen NBA fantasy team.
That's awesome.
Yeah, I'm gonna call him Van Jalen. They're actually pretty good on paper. I've done, I've crunched the numbers.
Luke a Man a Plan a Canal, jaylen Ama. Oh yeah, the NBA is great. NBA playoffs are fantastic. You should check him out if you have it. Uh, also you should check out I didn't even get to talk about it. The series finale of and Or was yesterday fucking phenomenal. We will be covering it on the bonus episodes at
some point. So yeah, that's a good reason to sign up for the Patreon Anyway, if you're still listening to this deep in, uh hope you thanks VA chat and then TV chat eleanor what other chat have you got going on?
It is not this I don't fucking know anymore. Bro, yeah, I don't know, Like I mean, one of those points where I'm doing a bunch of stuff but none of it's out yet, so watch this space otherwise, uh, you know, go back and read things on the blog Going hyphenmdieval dot com. Buy my book launch in future sex h Yeah, I don't know. If you want to hear me be all business, you can check out Gone Medieval. But you know it's fine. I have to be serious over there, so you know.
I have to talk like this at all times. Well, as you know in the Middle Ages, we don't quite yet.
Yeah, it's it's oh, it's much real complicated than that. Yeah, that's that's very interesting that you would say that.
Like, yeah, it's like a it's like a PBS like like you know, history debate thing that.
Oh well, well I understand your position on the matter. I do not.
Yeah, yeah, basically no, I'm just kidding. It's a good show. Go listen to it. If you haven't, don't let eleanor sell herself short. Yeah, and you guys know where you find me. Luke is amazing on the various media's social and you can find me yapping about Star Wars. If you want to hear more about that from years ago. You can find me at People's History of the Republic. You can find that where we're listening to this, So yeah, thank you all very much for listening. Enjoy your new Pope,
and we'll see you next time. Bye.