You.
What's up Bra?
Not much? What's going on with you?
Well, I have to I have to start off our conversation today with an accountability chat because because Justin listens to what were our podcasts the other day and he was very upset about the things that I said about our team, Darby County, the Mighty Rams. Okay, So first of all, he needed me to point out that we are not ship. We were ship.
But I have a question, can I can I ask number one? I assume he's using the royal we to refer to himself with the team, which I do as well and will not accept any criticism for because if I've put as much of my mental uh wherewithal into these morons going to you know, they're gonna be we and that's all there is to it. And number two, are you included in we?
Okay? So yes, this is something that I've been asked because apparently if I had said we are ship, then it would have been endearing, yes and also correct, and I believe the direct term was lovable, and so that's so I'm just you know, to be clear. You know, I've got sexually transmitted Darby County, and so you know,
I'm I'm taking responsibility for that. As part of this, he did make me listen to the game while we walked to the pub yesterday and I give him updates on what was happening, because since he can only hear out of one ear, if he has the game in one ear, then that's it. So then I had to feel like and we won three one, so in your face west Brom and he's like, what's going on now? And I'm like, oh, there's a lot of singing and he's like west Brom or Derby and I'm like Derby
and it's like Dorby, whoa. He's like nice, Yeah, that's good. That's good. So we have a new manager and since he's taken over, we are six and eight and we are not in the relegation zone anymore. Now are we right above the relegation zone?
Yes?
Yes, and are we not in it because of differential not points? Also yes, yes, that is correct. But you know these are these are.
But you know that episode of The Simpsons where Marge starts selling pretzels and she goes to deliver pretzels to the elementary school and Principal Skinner's got like a broken hand and there's a gun sight on him, like as he says he he had a boking accident. I assume that's what's happening right now and I just can't see all. Yeah, you're right.
Yeah, look, had a wonderful time with my in laws in Darby. Thank you very much. No for the questions, you're honor go the Rams. Yes, I think I think I've made I think I've made my points clear.
Uh you uh you know I can't. No, you can't go go go Rams, Go Rams.
That's right, that's right, an official RAMS podcast. We're not so different.
That's a man. I don't I'm trying to think you.
Looks like I'm not sure if we're going this are.
No, No, no, I don't know that I could. I don't know that I could get my wife to do that if I tried. Yeah, it's uh, you know sports fandom. I love it. People are like, oh, it's stupid. I'm like, yeah, I mean okay, correct and uh yeah, you know it is what it is. You can't you can't do anything about it.
Yeah, I don't know. I find it an amazing way to pass the time.
It is. I think it is. I think you could, you know, you could do worse, but here you are. Well. You know, yesterday I woke up and I was like, huh, well, I'll do what I normally do and look at my phone in the bed, make myself mad before I even stand up. But yes yesterday, yesterday was a little different because as soon as I picked up my phone and opened up social media, I saw a post that said, let's see mm hmm Vatican delt mott des poops Francois ass out rt L Luitzburg, which is a news or
poop in Luxembourg. And that is and this is a black and white picture of Pope Francis. That is how I found out that Francis died Des poops Francois asked out And just to be clear, it is poops p O O P S T Francoise, you know, like the French building of and ass A S S doubt d O U T. So Pope Francis died ass out.
Do you know what? I would also die if someone put my ass in doubt, I'd be like, I just die.
What what purpose does it save?
Tell you Luxembourg? Should we should put a stop to it?
You know?
I say that as one of the world's foremost Luxembourg historians. And by that I mean the dynasty, not the place. Uh, you know, but I'm allowed to say it, right, I.
Yeah, I don't know anything about about Luxembourg. I did not that luxembourg Ish was its own language, although it shouldn't be. I thought it. I honestly thought it was a kind of like a dialect of French. But you know, here we are.
We're gonna hit me with poops asked out. I don't, I can't. I can't tell if I like the language more or less as a result of this, but you know, yeah, oops, that's really good.
Yeah. So yeah, Francis, rip rip to a one of the ones, to one of the ones, one of the guys to do things. He did some stuff which you'd done a lot more stuff. Rip to him. If you're looking for the episode on conclaves plural, come back next week,
come back back. Yeah, you gotta give us a little more time to summarize a thousand years where they were, like, I don't know what if we just they all stood around in a ring and punched each other until one of us, figure uh till the holiest one of us came out and they're like, yeah, that's fine, we'll change it. We'll change it.
It'll be fine.
Thirty years, it's good.
Yeah.
Yeah, So if you're looking for that next time, we'll be back. And that is conclaves plural, not the movie Conclave, which we should probably do something on but later. I don't have time for that right now.
Yeah, look at the Pope has died. I don't have time for all that. Like, it is very funny to work in one of the only careers I got air quotes careers there where this constituted an actual emergency for me yesterday.
Yeah, like we we we really should have done an emergency pod, like get on it. You know, we're all like coughing and ragged like all night. Uh talking to h talking to to my buddy he's a sinishal there.
Uh yeah, yeah, I was busy being in Darbyshire at the pub though, Oh yeah I was.
I was. I was busy. I was busy cleaning the house and then reading, taking an inordinate amount of time to read up on old conclaves and being like wow, yeah that's great, Like you guys are just you were really all over the place, uh with this ship for like a thousand years. No no real uh no real process. And I find that uh endearing to say, yeah, uh okay, we'll talk. We'll talk more about all that next time
we gotta do this. Uh. We'll also we're gonna have a du bonus episode on uh camera on the Cameron uh part three. We will be back with that on Friday. But yeah, all right here we unless you have any more uh uh Derby report statements that you want to make about Darby before before your handler shows up again. I'm just yeah, yeah, just as a good guy. I'm just kidding.
I mean the statement I'd always like to make about Derby as some of the best pubs in the UK crack and crack in town.
We go, yeah, there we go, go go Derby, go rams as always right, my heart is divided between FC Barcelona and Darby. Uh you know, Darby is my flaying, even though I barely know where it is in the UK. That's right. That's really bad with UK geography, which is weird because I can, like in my mind, I can picture like uh like you know, the Levant and all that and and you know, like uh and and South and Central America. But I'm like England, Hm, hmmm, it's London.
London is in the North, right, like Wayne, No, I'm just kidding, come on, I'm not that Yeah, yeah, London is so mad forbid in the North. I don't know what accent that was, don't ask. All right, there we go, Hello and welcome back to We're Not So Different, a podcast where I can ever sett al on a British accent that I want to do. My name is Luke and I'm an amateur medievalist. As always, I'm joined by doctor Ellen Riannica, who is anything. But today we've got questions.
Questions I used to h I used to have a teacher, she said, questions she she she was just like we already have any questions. It was like, why is there an R in there? You don't like you don't do that? It like it had to like I have no idea what it was, because she didn't really talk like that oddly or anything, because she w wasn't like Hurler or wherever, you know, just like she wouldn't look sweetish cheffing it up or anything. Anyway, I don't know why I did that, Folks.
We promised we would do one of these mailback episodes every month. Until we caught up on patron questions. And wouldn't you know it, we haven't caught up yet. Uh So here is your April Q and A sesh as always, if you want to ask us questions like these that we will get to in the long, eventual span of time. Remember, folks, we work on geologic time and I'm just kidding, all right. If you want to do this, please sign up uhtreon dot COM's Last w NST pod five bucks a month.
You get this, You get the bonus episodes, you don't have to listen to ads. You get access to our discord. Yeah, we like you more. We can uh you can harangue me about whatever you want. Yeah, anyway, you guys know that. Sign up. It's fun. You'll uh feel better about yourself risk question mark.
Yeah, your ass seem thicker.
Yes, you will not be asked out. You will not be asked out. No, you will not be poops to ass out. We know that for a fact. Uh man, unless the next Pope listens to the show. If you are the next Pope or actually even in the running to be the next Pope, and you listen to the show, please email uh us. I want to talk I don't speak Latin or Italian or whatever language you speak unless it's English. But I'll figure out a way to make
it work. God damn it. All right, you probably know English because that's kind.
Of right in Latin. I'll write back.
It'll be like, uh, Dominee and I through Google Translate and he's like, what the fuck is this? These aren't even real? This isn't Latin. Did you take this from like a Castlevania game? What is going on? Right?
Back? In pig Latin?
Yeah, hope, pop a or Pope. God damn it, I can't even do it, idiot. Oh, I can't even do pig Latin right, good God? All right, let's get started. Why trash historian says, can we do a segment on medieval reclamation of Greek and Roman myths? Like how Penthes I don't even know became a romantic chivalric Heroinah.
So, yeah, there's rather a lot of this about unsurprisingly, I mean to be fair, like a lot of the time they just kind of keep going, yeah, with the like varying myths. You know, they're always telling those they've they've always got time for the Indian, They've always got time for the Odyssey, et cetera, et cetera. But you do see these kind of reappropriations of things, especially a lot of the time as art motifs, so in as stories about like the empty tomb or things like that.
Sometimes you'll have like Orpheus and Eurydice as of the picture in Bibles, which is which is you know, you know you see like Hercules wrestling the name in Lion and that's kind of like used as an allegory for strength or fortitude things like that. So yeah, they'll they'll kind of like chop and change things, or they will have people exist as you know, in their own world.
So Pencil, she's she's like an Amazonian queen and let's so it's like this is an opportunity to write stories about women being being Amazon's you know it was which would like so you can do like kind of chival ricktails with them and and that's considered a very cool thing to do. And I mean, like all of it isn't surprising. You know, we still do this ship now, So you get plenty of references to classical literature and art just as they are, but you know, they'll chop it up.
We'll move around with it, you know, like.
That's I mean, if you if you, if you like consider yourselves like the inheritors of Rome or whatever, the Roman and Greek educational legacies, then I mean like yeah, you're gonna you're you're gonna throw uh, you're gonna throw these old characters in there, and you just they just get remade for you know, the present day with you know,
whatever you need. It's like how you know, like when Batman, like Batman is you know not is not based on anything old, but like how bat when Batman came out, Batman was like a scientist, like he did science experiments, he did stuff like that, and he was also kind of a detective and he fought things. And now he's mostly just like a superhero who has much cool stuff, who who does detective work. He's not really like in he's not you know, they don't really focus on that
as much anymore. And it's like how Superman has kind of been like a Jesus archetype for so long, even though he was created by Jewish uh creators who you know, created him with very much like him, you know, not you know, not being a Christian or anything in mind, but the story has just changed and they adapt to two different things into different uh, different aspects of society, you know, and we did the the Inferno. Dante was like all over that ship. He's just slamming things together.
And they have enough cognitive dissonance or it doesn't matter enough to them that they could just be like, yeah, uh, Jesus got killed by the Romans, but then the Romans became Christians, so that's okay, you know, and if you if you can, if you can leap past that, if you can leap past the Roman Empire having regardless of that, they thought that that the Jews did it. He was killed, which isn't correct, but he was killed by the Roman Empire.
The Roman emperor signed off on it. Herod was a Roman uh uh politician, excuse me, and uh, they signed off on it. If you can get past that, you can just get you know, you can say, yeah, you can have h Ermie, you can have Ermis in there, uh, you know, being like a Robin Hood figure. You can have you know, you can have you can have anything you want because once once you can overcome that hurdle in your mind of being like, yes, they did this bad thing, but they atoned for it, and then they
made society better and now we're living in it. And look how you know, we're trying to recreate them and blah blah blah. And if you can get over them killing Christ, I don't really think the rest of it is that big of a hurdle, although it is. It is interesting to see how they got there, and like, you know, they're they're just like they just dropped the pagan aspects along the way, and they're like, yeah, Zeus was actually an angel. He was God's buddy.
They hung out chat for sure, for sure.
Yeah, yeah, White Treasure story. And thank you very much for the question. Next we got one from a dog god who says, was there a big gap in terms of the types of inner I'm sorry, a big class gap in terms of the types of entertainment that people enjoyed. For example, when a musician at court have to specifically trained to learn songs and instruments that were popular with the nobility, or would they be playing basically the same stuff as they would at a market fair or peasant wedding.
That's a great question, and the answer is most people do both, but you probably are going to offer slightly different things. Like it's going to be bodier out in the market that. Now, this isn't to say that they won't also do body for a noble audience. If they're like, yeah, do some pableau, they'll be like okay, yep, you know, and then they're in and they'll absolutely go for it. But as a general rule from the biggest differentiation in terms of entertainment is just going to be how much
you get. So you get way more when you're at court, like you can get things constantly, like you'll just have a musician on hand, like in the same way that we'll put music on you know, they'll have musicians follow them around and play things and that and that sort of deal, which is which is pretty sweet. So yeah,
not not a huge difference. You will probably have to stay on top of new songs and new ballads if things are kind of coming through if you're doing things for a courtly audience, so you're specifically going to have to stay up on whatever new things are coming out, and you're going to need a stable of old classics, whereas you know, you can just be like, uh, there once was a man from Nantucket.
Like to put his dick in a but yeah, yeah, exactly, uh huh uh huh oh. Then well, following up on that, was there I mean, I know this is a modern thing, but like, was there like a difference between like in cities or places where there was more like entertainment that you would go to. Was there a class difference? Like how there used to be like I'm going to the opera because I'm fancy, and the clibs would be like, I'm going down to the move to the one dollar cinema.
Was there like any of that, or was everybody like I'm going to the bear fights? Fuck it?
I mean, so we got the bear Fights? Is a lot more like everybody, interestingly, I mean theater is a little more low class.
Yes, yes, as like as as.
A general rule of thumb, theater is like, well you wouldn't.
Go there, Yeah, I guess if I have to.
Yeah, it's like it's like it's like saying that you're going, You're going like I was at the pornography store, essentially.
I was at the theater.
I was watching the theater exactly, so you know, And don't get me wrong, they will occasionally have plays, and certainly the mystery plays are an exception to this as well, but you you get less theater more particularly this of course changes in the early modern period and you get more and more theater happening at court as a result. But there it'ts a lot more like sing me a song you there, boy, you know kind of a deal court?
Yeah, oh man, Yeah, I definitely don't have anything to add to that because I don't know anything about that, but dog got Thank you very much for the question. Although now I wonder how you know, like in the Old West, you shoot at a guy's feet and like dance, dance like you know, they like aiming the crossbow at the guy's feet like dance and they have to put it in and wind it and cock it and be like okay, now dance again. You know. Anyway, that's a
dumb joke that just ran through my head. All right, uh, I think the only way eleanor you are looking at this list, yeah, do you don't say them? But do you know what most of these are? How they're said? Okay?
But now it's also like in my head and I'm like, oh, like, because so this is the thing that so English people will do this to me. Me They'll just be like say this like I got I got told one.
Uh.
I was visiting my mates in the Midlands this weekend. So I was visiting my friends in Leamington and we were walking down the street that I would say like bo Champs Street and I, you know, I've made some crack about him being one handsome champ or something like that, and he's like, do you want to hear a really annoying thing about how you pronounce that? And I was like, well, I guess I do. These motherfuckers just say beach them beacham beau champ b e a U c h a
m P beacham beacham. I never drives It drives me insane.
Ever ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever want to hear an English person talk about how I pronounce words or anything else. I never want to hear it. You have nothing to stand on. That is fucking insane. And yes, I know where I'm from and I know how people pronounce things insane the year. It's fine, We're all kind of insane. English is a stupid language anyway, half German bullshit anyway. Uh So, I guess the only way to
do this is uh. The questions from Ali Cantry says, can we have a segment where Luke goes through a list of English towns and tries to pronounce them as best he can. Uh, so I have about fourteen towns. There was a much longer list, but I had to pare it down, mostly because God, this can't be that fun for everyone for that long. Yeah, and you know what, if you want to hear me pronounce more, maybe we'll do that at some point. But you know what, Yeah, so.
I guess I think that you're gonna have to spell it and then say it.
Yeah, that's what I think. All right, Okay, w O L F R D I S w O R T H Y and I will list all of these in the show notes. Please do not look at your phone while you're driving, for the love of God. Please, I'm being completely serious. Please do not. It's not worth it. I'm going with Wolfersley.
It's a Woolsury, Woolsary.
My wife is from a town, a small town, and uh they pronounced the town weird. But there's a town near it called It's spelled like Omega, like the Alpha and Omega, but everyone there calls it Omiga. And I've always thought that was hilarious because Omiga like how could you fuck that up? I need you to understand that is miles better than that is miles better. Uh fuck? All right? Next one, g O O n h I L L Y. I'm going with goon Hilly because why not?
It is close, It's goon highly.
Okay, Okay, yeah, okay, I could I can see.
I still think it's wrong. I think it should just be gooon Hilly, but yeah.
Yeah, well I mean I do too. I think I think it should be but uh you know, I I can at least see how you could to get there theoretically, like over the years, and like this, I could see it. The other one Wolford's worthy, which is what I'm calling it. How dare you people?
Yeah? Not right?
Okay. Next one, we got and I love this. We got W E S T W A R D space h O exclamation point. I was told that the word that this town name does have the exclamation point in it, which I do think it does. Yeah. I love that. Uh mhm was word ha.
So this is a really tricky one for me because I don't I don't actually know. Uh, Like I would just say Westward ho and probably I'd be wrong. But like I even tried to look this one up and and it's it is really hard to find.
Uh.
So I'm just saying westward ha ho. I guess somebody somebody write us in until us how to pronounce. Actually, you know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna put my head out the door and ask Justin go for it.
Do I will wait until she gets back. I don't know why I'm singing it.
Like, okay, So Justin says that it is just westward Ho, and he says, at least that is how important. British band Half Man, Half Biscuit pronounce it in their song where they say westward Ho, what.
A let down, let's go. I'll go with that. I assume they're the English version of the Old Steady where I'm just kidding. I love the whole Steady. I've never heard of that band. I'm sure they're great, though, but yeah, Westward Ho cool. In Next one, p O l Z E A T H.
Pulls it pulls you got it pulls?
Nice? Yeah? Okay, yeah, I can see how I can see how you get there from that. For there, that's cool all right? Next week, got t R E D I N N I C K H treadnick uh treaded nick.
I have no I mean, yeah, I think I I think that it is like uh treadnick or trunnick or something like that. Uh, but I could be wrong. Corner people are gonna kind of hunt my ass.
Down there if you If you are not in England, this segment's probably weird to you. If you are in England, this is probably one of the funniest things you ever heard. Yeah, next week got a L N W I c K. I'm going with on book.
Uh.
So this is a truly fucked up one and it's a nook or like or like annak I guess annak.
Oh that's amazing an yeah yeah, oh man, that's that's amazing. All right. Now we got one with one of my favorite English traditions. It's the Minster in the name. So we got l e O m I N s t e R. And knowing the English, I know that this is always pronounced real fucked up. Yeah, I'm going with low muster.
It's Lemster.
You know, I honestly should I should have guessed that that's my own fault. I really should, you know.
This is the only reason I know this is because this is one that they use to torture you with. Okay, so it's like one of the it's one of the classic Lemster Yeah, okay, okay, classic one, classic one to torture Americans with. Yeah. Yeah, all right.
We got F R O M E and looks like from I'm going with Frome.
It's froom. Uh yeah, Rome.
It is f in the word room, so I would just call it from like foam, but I don't whatever.
That's how it's sucking spelled for.
Italian from okay or froom I'm sorry, froom like it has a U with an um lot Okay, delightful, all right. Next week got W Y M O N D H A M and I'm going with Windom.
Got it, Yeah it's Windom. It's Windom.
Yeah. Next week got g O D M A N C H E S T E R. So it breeds like god Manchester, but there's no fucking way it's said like that. So I'm going with Gonster.
Well that would be good and actually that makes more sense. But what I mean makes sense like in the British, but it's a godmun Chester like god mund Chester, gobin Chester.
I find it interesting when they drop the e R and when they don't. I really do. Like I felt like when when the e R gets dropped on something and it becomes an A or like a like yeah.
Oh, this is one of my favorite ones coming out.
We got m E O P H A M. I'm going with Mopham.
It's Mephm.
Okay, I can see Okay, I like that. I like that. Yeah, but uh I can see Mepham. That makes sense, uh Mapam Mepham. Yeah, okay, mep them cool. Uh. Next week got w E S t O N space s U p e R dash m A r E. We got another punctuation mark in here. We love to see it, folks. I'm going with Western Superman. I don't know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what's super Yeah, like there's not nice. Yeah, they're just kind of fucking with you on this one.
Nice. There we go, Thanks guys, I appreciate that. Next week got y E O v I L. I'm going with Jovial.
You're correct now. I saw a popular brand of yogurt yo nice.
Yeah. Yeah, you can't fool me. And you know, I know, I know, I know Joval. I have no idea what that is. I hope we have h O N I t o n I'm going with for any town I don't honiton, I don't know. It's yeah, there we go, Hontan. All right, there we go. That one's been sitting there for a while and I decided to finally do it. I will happily read uh town names in whatever place you want me to, provided you uh our patron uh
and you ask. But you know, the long the town names and the further they get from English, the worst the segment is. For everybody else spelling like German town names, It's like thirty letters long, like oh, this is fantastic, Ollie, and the other like ten people I can't remember in the discord who contributed to this, and thank you very much. I'm sorry I can't remember all of you right now.
Next we got one from dog spotter. I've seen people propose that medieval people walked with a different gait, more on their toes and a gate. If you don't know, is just the way of your stride of walking, basically how you walk? Are these people full of boloney? Do you know?
I really like, I was trying to look up where this might come from. It I just genuinely don't know.
I need never heard this, but.
No, I mean I guess I was thinking that kind of like sometimes when you see medieval art, people are a little bit more on their toes, but it's like oftentimes they're a little bit more on their toes because they're trying to show you a full foot or like you know there, or they're dancing, yeah, for example, or like they're kind of they're trying to like emphasize footwear
a little bit. So it would kind of be like pretending that porn was the medieval period and be like, wow, people sure did fuck in ways where you saw their genitals all the time, and it's like, well, it's just art, you know, it's not really it's not really like showing
you what's actually happening in real life. I mean, I guess it could theoretically be pausive, you know, in that footwear is so incredibly different at the time, but I mean, most people are wearing clogs in Northern Europe, so I just don't know why walking on your toes would be helpful in a clog based situation.
So I don't, Yeah, I don't know, Like maybe it's a little different now because we run a lot, like just running as like a practice a lot more than they did. They obviously exercised and ran a certain degree, but like I mean, you know, like little kids in you know, like elementary school like pe, they you know, like, Okay, we're gonna you know, we're gonna run, and I mean they were they literally were not doing that back then. So I mean maybe it's something with that because your
foot falls a little different as you run. But yeah, I don't know, I don't know who you heard that from, dog spotter, Uh, but if you remember and would like to fill us in, uh, I'd love to hear more so we can at least, yeah, we can at least find out, uh you know, maybe they're maybe maybe they do. Maybe we walk slightly different now for some reason, and
that would be cool to find out too. Either way, I seriously doubt they were walking like they were wearing high heels at all times, uh, because, uh, yeah, that would be stupid. We evolve feet like this for a reason, and we push off from our heels. That's literally one of the evolutionary differences we have from apes. Sorry anyway, Uh,
Dogs Potter, thank you for the question. Next, we have Loaf who says here in California, we suffer annual wildfire even in winter, and I'm reminded of these most recent and horrific fires in Los Angeles that before climate change exacerbated the issue, the problems started with the outlawing of native land management practices of setting fire to grasslands in order for fire following calorie dense plants to emerge. This leads me to wonder what pre industrial land management was
like in the medieval period. Was this mostly the purview of landlords or were there practices that people that actually lived on the land were able to maintain. How did enclosure affect this and do we still use any of these land management techniques today? Excuse me?
Yeah, So there's a lot of land management going on, especially when it comes to forestry, because what is genuinely happening, genuinely generally happening all the time is a lot of work in terms of copping, so you know, keeping trees at certain levels so that they can be harvested more readily for firewood, because you need absolutely tons of fire would so you're always compassing things and kind of keeping an eye on the trees, and that usually also involves
the removal of underbrush in order to get to things. And then when we're talking about forestry and things like that, there's a fair amount of land management as well. When it comes to parkland that the nobility used for hunting because they want the underbrush removed so that they can gallop horses around and chase deer and that sort of thing.
So that's usually an achieved through controlled burns, which is super common, but there is also a fair amount of just running pigs through the woods and they will clean that undergrowth ride up for you. You know, you can run, you can run goats through, you can run pigs through, and they'll just be like yeah, hell yeah, Bram, I'm eating all of these things, right. But in particular, you do see woodlands really managed for the purposes of sport,
which have these kind of knock on effects. And so it was interesting and of note when Europeans arrived in the Americas, uh well and in particular in North America, and they were really impressed because they were like, oh wow, because they were like, I just I don't see any Native people, like they're not like people to be. They're like, oh wow, it's like parkland here. Yeah, all this wilderness
is like parkland. It's like yeah, it's because it's being fucking managed to idiots, like you know, it's odd.
As they Yeah, they used yeah fire management to uh, to deal with their to deal with the forests and everything. I have seen it and heard it said that Europeans were very scared of fire and that fire management techniques really freaked them out, which is why they weren't used a lot as much in Western society for a while until later, because they were like, no, that's the native way of doing it. We're going to do this other thing. And it's like, well, yeah, the native people did it
because it worked, and you guys did. But I don't remember exactly where I heard that, so you know that I made.
Well, that is the thing because with enclosure, you see, uh, these processes kind of die out right because it's like you can't you can't like CorV anybody to come manage your your forest for you and do all these things. So these particular practices kind of fade out. And then a couple hundred years later, when you come into contact with other peoples and you want a differentiation point in order to dehumanize them, then you go, oh, we were never doing it.
Let shut the fuck up. Yeah, you know, so, uh you know, yeah, they they definitely practice their own land management there, but uh you know, maybe we're also scared of fire. Who knows. Yeah anyway, uh yeah, love, thank you very much for the question, and uh sorry about those fires. They are terrifying. Yeah, ann annan or a nun asked. I was listening to the One Hundred Years
War series and I got a question about politics. Medieval politics seem to be characterized by a significant amount of fluidity and pragmatism e g. Edward siding with the Montforts, even though their claim came from the male line and Edwards from the female line. Are there any trends or differences in how politics were done which might stand out from different parts of such a long period, or even from different regions.
I mean, the English are basket cases, so like drop that down right, I mean, like, as a general rule of thumb, you're always going to have what you can kind of say across Europe is the nobility and the royalty don't really get along, but they're always kind of getting in and out of each other's beds, and varying alliances are being made, and that, you know, simply is the case. Kind of across Europe, but then you see
different things at different times. So in particular England is a basket case because you have all these weird claims that come up in the kind of like post Norman world,
you know, like when you get to the anarchy. For example, Oh my god, I couldn't believe but that I'm I was with friend of the show on Friday and we went to go visit a castle because we're really cool, and here we are at war Castle and it was the person who had kind of expanded it in the thirteenth century was, in my opinion, sorry, twelfth century, was in my opinion, on the wrong side of the anarchy
and was like team Stephen. And I was like, hm, wrong side though, and my mate Simon was like, I don't know, I think Stephen was right, and I was like, fucking excuse me. And I was like I didn't know we made you anymore. And he's like too slow, too slow, should have got there first, and I was like a good fucking god. And so then we had a slap
fight to buy it and that was fun. But you know, but my point is bringing up the anarchy and the fact that Simon is drained is that like things like this kind of happened all the time in England, and then like by the time you get to like, for example, Edward the second and he's pissed off all the nobles because he's just giving the dispensers as much money as they want, you know, or whatever, and you remove him from the throne. Then everyone goes, oh, it's possible to
remove kings from the throne. It's really easily done, actually, And that's kind of how you end up getting the wars with the Roses and things like that. So England is a little bit more wild in terms of what's going on up here. You certainly see in Spain really loose affiliations that are incredibly pragmatic, just just as you say, where you don't really know who's going to side with who at any given time, and it's just pragmatic. It's
how am I going to get money? There really isn't very much of anything to keep Christians onside with Christians, Muslims on sides with Muslims. It's just basically like how low are my tax is going to be? How much land can I be given? And we certainly see things like this with like El seed for example, Right, we can look sort of to Italy and I mean a similarly basket cases, right, like like what is going on?
Muslim? Is it Greek? Is it Italian? Is it Latin? Is it?
Are you wealth? Are you a ghibbiling? Like what's going on?
What do we go?
They're just fighting with each other constantly, And it's a lot more kind of Romeo and Julietish where there's you know, constant noble factions flat fighting back.
The Vendetta system is real, folks. That was the real thing.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, they kill each.
Other over dumb bullshit that somebody's brother's cousin did.
So I guess they're a little bit less pragmatic, and I guess they are a little bit more they're a little bit more grudge motivated. So shout out to them as a general rule within the Holy Roman Empire Italians aside, it's kind of like which side are you on in terms of papal or and that is always going to just depend on what advantage you see, Well, who's the
pope at the time. Where's the pope at the time, you know, big question, because the pope's being an avenel can really change your opinion on where certain things go. And you know, similarly, this has a lot to do with kind of taxation and then those kind of things. So you know, surprise like Germans and checks being quite pragmatic actually just being like this has got a money gast, you know, right kind of a deal. So yeah, it
all really depends on where you are. But yeah, certainly, you know, ideas of like chivalry or oaths and all this stuff. It's like it's a lot more exists in our heads than actually exists in any in any kind of form in the Middle Ages. The closest you really do see is just like Italians wild'n out and doing a grudge match. But that's not really chivalry, is that.
Yeah?
Yeah, it's uh yeah, you gotta when you have to like balance, you have to balance all these factors and you have to like, you know, am I going to marry off relative?
I'm not going to marry off you know someone else? How How does my How does my inheritance pass? Because you know, states have different inheritance laws now, but it's pretty much like if you got a will and you know like it's going you know, it's either going intestate to your family, or it's going to the people in the will, or you make it some other revision, but like, uh, you know, Germany didn't for you know a long time.
Germany was like, yeah, we just divided up. However, we kind of want between all of our kids instead of giving it to the oldest, which was really different than basically all of Western Europe. And they were like yeah, cool, So yeah, it's just you know, you get you get different stuff like that. It's it's all it's all a rich, a rich uh a rich tapestry of the Middle Ages where you're just like there's no there's really no homogeneity to this. Everything is just like we got a king,
but he kind of has power. We got a king and he has absolute power. We got a king and he's obedient to the church. We got an emperor and he's you know, emperor over a city. You know, like whatever, Yeah, it's yeah, yeah, the despotite of And then thank you for the question. Next we got one from MG in
your face. What's the medieval equivalent of a stupid business to business tech conference trying to make itself seem more appealing by getting a celebrity in a completely unrelated field such as a major actor to do a keynote.
So I love this one, and it's like this one is kind of like I guess it's it's kind of bringing in outside popular preachers for church stuff. Right, So you go, so, yah, really boring. Something like the archbishop makes you all come uh to, you know, have a talking to about how you're all bad, and you go get a preacher who is like, yeah, like the fuck the hierarchy of the church or whatever, and we're all
reforming and blah blah blah. You know, like so you'll go get in like superstars like that to give like the equivalent of the keynote address, and then the bishop it's like, and I'm really fucking disappointed in you people.
It's like it's like when the teacher comes back and the substitute teacher left a note and they're just looking down, Like in all my years of teaching, I've never had a note like this. He's like, God, damn it, man, you shut up. You say this stitute comes by.
This is going down on your permanent record. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Yeah. Yeah. They had preachers. They love preachers, They fucking loved them. Uh, maybe a bard, I don't know. It would nowadays you'd be like, I just don't want to go to this business to business conference. I'm going to feign being sick. But that had to make a little more effort at it, because the king would be like, no, come here or else, and you're like, oh hmm, okay, cool, Well that's not great. Yeah yeah, So honestly, good for them. They didn't have to put up with that bullshit as
much as we do. Awful, awful, MG in your face. Thank you for the question. Got a couple more first from jos the Texan. I was wondering what funeral traditions were like for ordinary people in the Middle Ages. I know in the US and other Western countries we are very disconnected from death and preparation of our loved ones for burial, and this has and this hasn't been the case for most of human history. What were rituals surrounding
a funeral? Today, most Catholic funerals in the US, at least once if I have experienced, have a rosary in the evening three to five days after death and a funeral mass the next morning.
So one of the big things that changes is that you try to get buried a lot sooner in the Middle Ages, because we're not we're not embalming folks out here. So you're trying, you're kind of like trying to get
this done and dusted. What might happen if you want that body to travel, Like if you are like suspiciently important and you die on a battlefield, or say you're someone like eleanor Castile and they want your body down in London, you'll generally be eviscerated, and then those the viscera can be either buried in varying places like you know, we see this with Richard lionheart right where like his heart's in one place and his bodies in another of that kind of thing, or you know, they might just
bury the viscera where they are in a church and then take the rest of the body. But as a general rule of thumb, when someone dies, you're like trying to get them like, let's go. We don't have a whole lot of time to waste here because they are concerns about contingen and keeping the bodies around, So you are probably going to try to move pretty fast. There may be like some looking at the body as it lies in state, but you are going to be wanting
within the next few days to get this going. You know. Rosary reading certainly does exist, you know, it's it increases in popularity over the medieval period and has kind of like a rise along with Marian cults. So I mean earlier you're not going to see that, not at all.
But they'll just be like offices for the dead usually, and then you'll have a funeral mass, and then if you have enough money, you will then also bequeath a certain amounts to the church to continuously say masses for the soul of the dead, which you may or may not attend, but that's kind of like shoring up to make sure they don't go to Hell. So yeah, yeah, I'll.
Still say masses for the dead. Yeah, I'll say prayers for the dead.
Like that, absolutely, Like it's something that you can request and it's something that they'll do, you know. It's uh yeah yeah, so yeah, especially if you're like kicking some money in.
You know.
That's why all those side altars are in churches. When you go into a church and they are like the other side altars, it's like people have kicked in money to have their little masses and that sort of thing.
So yeah, Yeah, that's cool. Uh, Josh, thank you very much for the question. Last week. Lastly we got one from Gaffzie, who says, in previous episodes, you'll have made the point that the Protestant Reformation wasn't inevitable, that the church had internally reformed multiple times in the past on its own. In an alternate history where the Church did actually step away from the brink and manage to fix some or all of the issues that Protestant that Protestants raised,
what would this reform have looked like. Will we just have the Council of Trent, but done a few decades earlier or without the specific circumstance of the Reformation, Would the necessary medicine have been something entirely different? Would there have been a tempt to deal with the political elements of habsburg domination of the continent that helped spur the princess to suport Luther in the first place.
Yeah, I mean that's a great question, because on the one hand, you know, there is the fact that this is kind of like a cultural issue that we consistently see come out in reforming impulses in the church, right, But there are of course also these political issues like the fucking have spurks and their goddamn chins, right, you know, like getting in here all over the place. I think a necessary intervention that would have also had to happen at this particular time in order to spur this would
have been like knocking this Renaissance shit the fuck off. Yeah, that would have had to be and that's cultural, right, So it's an interesting one, Like that's not like because the issue with indulgences, you know, like you never saw indulgences like that before and it was literally just you know, they want a bigger house, right, and so like herbing that particular impulse, well that that also has knock on effects for how the Italian economy is working at the time,
and can you pull back on that. I think there's an argument to be made that if the papacy had stayed in Avignon, you might have actually seen a little bit of better uptake in terms of reform, which is funny because it's usually associated with excess. But you get back to Italy and they're like, no, we need a better palace almost immediately, right, So if they'd stayed in Avenue,
things maybe would have calmed down a little bit. But you would also have to do something about all these fucking Habsburgs, right, And I mean, having said that, if you were, if the various like Frederick their Wise is never presented with this particular opportunity to shed himself from Habsburg submission, is he going to go Protestant or are
they going to find another way of doing it? You know, it's possible to say that Athlics would exist in the Holy Roman Empire, wouldn't you know, because certainly we do see that, you know, we see the the creation of the Austro Hungarian Empire eventually, you know, you see the various German states do different things as a result of this. So yeah, I mean, I think it would be possible.
Although the trouble is that with the Hussites it's already a little bit out of the bag, So you would need to go back to that, I think in order to do that, And I think in order to suppress the Whosites you kind of need to go back further and you need to get more on top of the lawlards. So I mean, and there's also probably something here where like literally if you stop out of Bohemia marrying into the British throne. All of this would be say the
English throne. They're not British at the time, so do not yell at me English people. Yeah, like they I think that stopping the spread of that particular line of reasoning would be important, but I you know, that would just mean kind of like cracking down on Wycliffe a lot earlier, and cracking down on Wycliffe. I mean, I think that's possible, but you know, they they really were just like, could you just fucking knock it off? And he's like, I will never stop. I do not believe
in transubstantiation. And it's like, bro, I mean he's like, I totally agree with him on a lot of things. But you know, it's just kind of like they they handled that really badly, but mostly because he was quite popular in Oxford, and nobody wanted to piss Oxford off, So you know, they wait, they wait till he's dead
and then and now that's now you got lollards. And then by the time they're suppressing them, the checks have decided they fucking love lollergy, you know, and and then you know, by the time you've got Czech Bibles and like a whole kingdom that's gone all that's gonna do is embolden other members of the Holy Roman Empire. And you know, so like they're they're all gonna be looking over at Bohemia and they're like, well, the check's about to do to Hoko Markot do it right. So it's
really difficult to say. I think you need to go back and address why cliffs concerns in order to stop it. I think like that's how far you need to go back. I think we're talking kind of fourteenth century interventions if you really want to do it, and you're going to have to change taste and so it's a pretty big job.
But I mean, it's not inevitable, like and especially it's not inevitable that Protestantism ended up in the way that it did, which is like very yeah, fucking Prussian or whatever the shit, you know, like it didn't have to be like this.
Yeah, I'll be honest, I do not know that there is a circumstance under like the way that we understand history. I do not know that there is a circumstance what that would cause the Catholic Church to do this, because they would have to experience a system shock from outside that is so big and so powerful that it scares the shit out of them and turns it into an existential thing. And I really do not know that you
have that thing until later. If now I say that there was a point where the Mongols were still going and they were moving across they were moving across Asia, and they have made it into Europe, and they were in Hungary, and they were starting to make em roads into Poland. And there is no chance that anyone for the rest of the for the rest of the European continent could stop the Mongols. They had run through everyone else,
They ran through medieval China. They're not None of the thirteenth century European states are stopping them unless they stop themselves, which is what happened because Ogaday died, Oga Day Khan died, who was the successor to Timmychen, and he when he died, they pulled back and then they stopped that. That right there is I think the only thing that could do it, because the Church has too much money. They're too powerful
by this point. Once they undertake something like the First Crusade or they start doing stuff like that, they are too powerful to stop themselves and be like, whoa, we really got to pull back from the brink, like you have to experience the utter terror of standing over the edge and looking into oblivion and being like we're going to die. And I mean maybe if the Mongols do that, like and they make it all the way to like France or something, then like yeah, like you might see
the church like seriously reform and change things. But like other than that, they got hit by the Black Death, and the response to the Black Death was this is your fault, not outwards, like they didn't like and I mean, the Black Death is like the closest that they would be that they would be looking at like their power breaking down, and they saw that and they were like, Okay, not our fucking fault. You did it like you you you peasants and nobles because you were being sinful or what.
And you know, like and that is once you have that response, like, you cannot, like you cannot come back from that response to the Black Death. You cannot if you see seventy percent of your town die and the bishop down the road goes, uh, actually it was because you guys didn't close that brothel or whatever. You're like, at some point someone is gonna be like, hey, fuck you you you you guys, like if if you needed that clothes, then you should, like, you know, like just
fuck you. It's not our fault. You're the ones who intercests with God, not us, And I just don't ever think that they would do it. I the Protestant Reformation as we got it is not inevitable. It could be different. It could come a little sooner depending on things. It could be pushed back a little later, depending like if if Henry the Eighth doesn't h if his brother Arthur doesn't die, and there's no one to do Anglicanism in Europe in England, it's gonna look a whole lot different.
It is going to take a so much longer to get across the Atlantic, and it's it's just going to be like a whole European thing by itself, because England and the Dutch were the ones, who you know, who exported it, and so yeah, but I mean, I just I really don't know. I don't It's not inevitable. But
I do think that a reformation is inevitable. I do not think that there is any way, on any timeline, under any circumstance, where you would get from whatever three three thirteen CE to twenty twenty five CE and only have a monolithic Catholic Church and then the Orthodox off to the side. That that is, in my mind, a historic impossibility. I do not think that is possible under any circumstance.
I've decided that might take. I've decided that if the church had just listened to young Militch of Cromerses fourteenth century, I've decided. I've decided this is my take. If you just do everything that Mileitch says, you'll be fine. Bro. It would have been it would have been fine. It would have been fine. Get Charles the Fourth to help out with the reform. We need a big tour where all bishops have to like, they all have to come
to Rome. We're shutting Avenue and down. You've got to come to Rome right now and get yelled at and take your fucking medicine. There needs to be like way more preachers working with the local communities. And also give Charles the Fourth everything he wants.
Make him, make him the universal monarch of and make Hope the universal uh religious head as he basically was. And there you go, Yeah, I do. I think you also have to go back and you have to tell them you have to destroy every printing press you find under no circumstance can you allow the printing press to come out. And that is because people will share ideas. It does not matter. That is always going to happen.
We are seeing it right now with how people react to the Internet and becoming terminally online, and people are like, oh, you know, you see the rise in like flat earthism and stuff like that, and like anti vax stuff, and like, once you get exposed to all this, people are going to just go run with it because we're kind of insane like that, and we're I mean, that's just kind of how we are. And you know, so you have to,
like you have to destroy all the printing presses. You have to you have to like keep the iron fist of hegemony down, and you have to make sure that when you go to the Americas, you have a full like plan to keep it over there so that it doesn't become infused and spark offshoot religions that are mixes of Paganism and Catholicism, which is also an possibility it might be, but anyway, like, yeah, I don't I just don't think there's a way, and I don't I don't.
You know, it doesn't it doesn't have to look like the Protestantism we have now, which is which has been so deliterious in so many ways. But it's like it could have been worse. I mean, there's this is not the worst timeline. We still exist, so it could have been worse, now.
You know.
I mean I people get people will be like yo whatever, like no it no, it could be worse, believe me. There.
I mean if the Puritans had gone a beggar hold, everything would have been.
Worse, you know. Yeah, I mean like there's that there's like yeah, it's like you know, there's the man in the High Castle, you know, alternate universe where we're under the dominion of the Japanese Empire and the Knats, like you know, it's like good God, anyway, It's yeah, Leach was right.
Yeah, this is a Darby County podcast. It's I don't podcast.
I don't think that you can.
Uh.
I don't think that they are going to reform enough because I don't think, as we see with every power structure in history, unless they are scared to literal death that they are dying or are going to die, they will not change, like it just doesn't work. They don't do it. Yeah, so that's my opinion. But uh, you know, you guys make of it what you will. Thank you, Gassie,
and thank you everyone for the questions. We appreciate it. Uh. Next time, as we said, we will be back with an episode about conclaves, and we are going to talk about all about how you should go and stand outside the conclave with a bunch of bird seed on your shoulders so pigeons are a dove's roost on your on your shoulders, and you are elected pope. That's right, because that did work at least one point, according to the sources.
Come back for that. We'll talk about conclaves. We'll talk about out the death of Francis and what what that meat, what the modern conclave kind of looks like, you know. Yeah, and we'll we'll have fun because they are fun. And hopefully they won't pick someone. Hopefully they'll pick someone on the more progressive end of the Catholic insanity spectrum. The other end. I don't know who that is. Hopefully someone someone that makes that makes JD that makes JD Vance mad?
That would I mean, that is what we want, isn't it you know, but other than that, also someone who's going to excommunicate it, maybe that would be cool, just thought, man his last act.
But you know what, Pope France has had the opportunity to do the funniest thing of all time and he like really.
So much.
Anyway, fumbled, you.
Know, annoys me anyway, Uh, Francis, thanks for the memories. Uh, thanks for pissing off jd Vance and other similar arch conservative Catholics. And yeah, other than that, thank you all for the questions. Subscribe to the Patreon eleanor what the hell is going on with you?
Oh May It's gonna be a nightmare week for me because the Pope died and I work in like the one industry where that constitutes an emergency. So yeah, I don't know, doing a lot of that here, there and everywhere this week. So keep an eye on my socials if you want to see where I'm being asked about that a lot at Going Medieval. I'll try to write
something up on the blog eventually as well. Hopefully i'll get that done this month, but otherwise I'm just kind of like trying to not lose my mind and get through it. Babes, we're just oh if you are Another thing I will say is plug for human decency. If you live in the United Kingdom, could you please do me a solid and write to your MP and scream at them about how trans rights are human rights. That would be really cool. It's important for us to not kind of like give up hope right now on all
of this. And at the very least what you can do is like just make your MP miserable, right, Like, make them just feel absolutely awful about their lives and their choices. So I really want you to kind of like consider what you could do in terms of making them miserable. There's a really great resource that I used in order to write to my MP today and scream at them. That is online. Sorry I am just picking it up. Yeah, it is called If you go to
the trans Legalproject dot org. They have guidelines for how you can write to your MP and what you should say to them about how like, actually, I don't think we should have gender cops who decide if a woman is sufficiently feminine looking if she needs to pee in public, So do be a solid do us all favor and check that out.
Yeah, even if you have a good imp like Jeremy Corbyn and he has said good things. You still you know, they still know that people do that because that still affects things over there. I do not know how much it affects things here with that being a much bigger nation, but I'm not like bigger in terms of size.
Not. Oh well, it turns out that even in America, if you write to your senator, if they get yelled at by like ten people, they oh, everyone's bad at.
Yeah, they'll post a video, They'll post a TikTok video. Look at all the threats we get and all the replies are good. You deserve more threats. Oh man, I wish I could get the audio. There's a video like a people and it's just old people. It's not young people. It's old people, a lot of them with Southern accidents, calling uh Tom Tillis, who's a senator from North Carolina, and being like.
You, dumb son of a fucking bitch, How fucking dare you do this? You think you could take our tech? And you're just like okay, man, go and like like I find what and fucked.
Up from nam.
I'd come down there, shove a fucking rifle down your goddamn threat you're.
Like, whoa, whoa, right, buddy, all right, okay, yeah, and I mean that's great. Anyway, I'm not praising death threats. I am praising oh, speaking out and using your voice in the political process.
You were saying those things for the purposes of parody.
Yes, yes, that was That was a video, the TikTok video that can be linked to. I am not endorsing uh saying such things. I am endorsing uh calling them and making them lives miserable until they change their idea and vote uh to say that trans people are people in trans rights or human rights and everything else that's wrong with the world. But uh, yeah, anyway, you guys know where to find me where I'm saying shit like that. You can find me on the socials. Luke is amazing,
and you can find them. I'll show people's for the Old Republic if you want to hear me chat about Star Wars. But anyway, that's going to do it for us today. Thank y'all for listening. We'll see you next time. Bye.