I'm just trying to get through today so I can go to a commie talk, my.
Man comedy talk. Yeah, I was, I was a talking comedy talks.
Sorry, that's right, that's right. I was talking to my homeboy Almar the other day and I was like, I think, fundamentally, at my core what makes me a communist and not an anarchist is that I like trains. I know, like, I think you kind of like, I kind of think that you need like a state apparatus for really good trains. And so I think that maybe I like arrived at the train part first and then the communism second. But
I think that's okay. I think that's okay. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, you know.
So, No, I yeah, I don't know. I like trains. I think they're fine. I don't have a special interest in them.
Better.
I think they're a lot fucking better than cars, you know, like my.
T shirt saying I don't have a special interest in trains.
Getting a lot of questions, Getting a lot of questions. Now, I don't know a single train type.
I don't know anything like that.
No, I think the one looks like a toblarone is funny. I think they're neat. I wish we had them more of them here.
Train, you know, like I like when you see like a sixties train, I think that those are cool. I couldn't yeah, I couldn't name you. I can't name ship. I want to be so clear, like, uh but I just think it's good when there is a train. I guess I think that's That's what I'm like, coming down on the side of convenient transport. Yeah.
These uh yeah, these these uh uh yeah, Like I I don't know, like people always talk about trains, and I'm like, I think they're cool. I like, I despise, like I hate driving, like it is a to me. I despise it. But uh like with trains, I'm just like they're cool. I mean, I'm glad you think they're neat. I just don't like that's just not my uh especially you know, everybody gets like one and I don't know, like I don't know what my super one is.
Uh Like you don't, I don't.
It's not it's not that it's got to be something else.
I think I used mine on on medieval history. I think I think that's what I used to.
Like. Yeah, I don't. I don't know what it is. Oh no, uh no, folks, I know what I am. I know, I know what I am.
I know who I am.
Yeah, I don't. Oh man, it's uh yeah, it's.
I just feel like it's too choo, too choo. That's kind of it. That's the that's the level of a train interest I have.
Is too too Yeah, exactly, that's it. Oh man? Are you is the is the talk on trains?
Is that?
What's okay?
This is it's put on by our good friends over at Acid Communism.
Uh.
I think that there's gonna be like possibly some dancing, possibly some political talk. So you know, I like to go see the other comedy podcasts in action, So I'm gonna go do that should be fun, you know, i'd I'd like to do something nice. Everything is so dire over here that I mean, well yes post America where things are going fucking great that you know, I just want to go do something fun. So yeah, I like. I like a CFM a lot, so I think that
like they put out good stuff. So I'll not go, you know, I will be taking a train to get there, but nice.
You know. That's London, baby, baby, London that's the big Wait if they're the big app what are you guys, the big tea cup, that's the big tea cup, the big biscuit.
Greatest city in the world.
Baby, Then to go get a London classic London meat pie slice.
There we go, yeah, yeah, weirdly, like we don't have We're one of the only kind of like places in England where we don't have like a specific I guess it's like yeah, I don't know, like jelly Deal's is kind of thing, but like you don't get him anymore.
Oh god, well it's like.
To that.
Oh there you go. Man. Uh, not all English, not all English food is bad.
That my dad fucking loves it. Like my dad comes over here and he's down fishmonger like by being like hook it up, and he's just like snarflin' like he's just going he goes to fucking town on the jelly gils. It's not even easy to find them anymore, but like Dad boots them out and just like goes in on it.
So that's a classic gross Dad food. Like my dad those sardines and hot sauce you can get out of like a can. Oh all right, And they were oh god, they smelled terrible. My dad loved him.
Yeah, awesome.
I don't know what my gross dead food is gonna be?
Got it? You gotta get one?
Yeah, something, yeah, just something that, like everybody else is like disgusting. I'm like, oh, I love it, but like everything like that, I get, like, uh, licorice.
I love licorice.
So good. Fucking candle wax.
Delicious, delicious candle wax. It solves your leaky guy for your.
Lungs, It'll fix your right up. All right? Uh, you ready to you're ready to talk about to do some questions?
Yeah, I love a question.
Ah yo. Hello, and welcome back to We're Not So Different podcast about how we've always been idiots. My name is Luke, and I go to figure out a weird dad food to hate, and that's doctor Eleanor. And she already likes licorice, so she's already got she's already got that going for today, folks. So we got questions you might wonder be wondering while we're doing another Q and A so soon after the last one. The answer is simple.
I had to travel over the weekend. It didn't have time to write and research for a normal episode and we're still catching up. So here we go, folks. If you want to ask us questions like these, please do subscribe to the Patreon Patreon dot com slash w NSD pod. You get two bonus episodes a month. You get the ability to ask us questions like these, afree listening, access to the discord, all that sort of stuff. Check it out, sign up. It's really cool. We really appreciate it. And
uh yeah, anyway, onto the questions from our patrons. First from dog Spotter, did medieval people have a joke food that everyone hated? Like how comedies from the eighties and nineties have cut fruitcake being used as a doorstopper instead of anyone in the house actually eating it.
Yea, the closest I could like come up to with this when I was thinking about it was like all of the varying foods that you do for the purposes of display but that you don't actually eat. So like a thing for example, that like, uh, people like to point out here when they're like you weird British food.
There's like this thing called stargazy pie, and it's like you have like lots of little fish heads poking out and that's like one of those right where it's like you kind of don't you don't, you kind of don't
really eat it. It's like a centerpiece, right. Or you know like the old nursery rhyme where it's like four and twenty blackbirds are baked in a pie and it's like but they're alive, and then like the and then the blackbirds sing when you It's like things like that where there's a lot of stuff that you do very specifically for display, like roasting a peacock and then putting
all its feather backs on, right, yeah. Or I've talked eight million times about the weird thing where you torture chicken, so like we don't have to go into it again. But like, uh wait I've.
Talked is this different than for graw? Oh no, okay, you must not have a right because I would have remembered chicken fowk graw. Okay.
So like you get a chicken drunk step one, right, and then the chicken you get, you get you got a drink. You get a chicken drunk enough to pass out, and then and then you like pluck it and uh then you paint it so that it looks like it's been roasted, and then you put it out on the table and then it will like wake up in the middle of the banquet and everyone will go, oh, ship, that chicken is alive. Then you catch the chicken and cut its head off, take it back to the kitchen.
In the kitchen, you then put like mercury and like some other things inside it, and you and then you roast it and then you bring it back out and like the air escaping with the mercury and other stuff makes it sound like it's going like.
Like a live chicken. It becomes the sweetish shift is.
So it's like basically having a chicken that you thought was dead be living twice. But all of these things I guess are kind of more like is it cake than they are? Is this like a joke food? You know?
Do they eat the mercury chicken?
No?
Okay, thank god, it's.
Just it's just for the purposes of like delighting rich people.
I gotta tell you that man pranks in the old days, they took a whole lot more. That's that's so much buy in for something, so.
Uh medium like yeah, yeah, I mean, like it's it is probable that there might have been some kind of like a joke food. I like, occasionally you see them joking about the foods of other cultures. Like you know, you'll you'll see Gentiles being weird about Jewish food. You'll see like, you know, Italians making fun of French people. I mean, I say Italians, but it's like probably like the Genoese making fun of like you know, the Piedmontese or some shit. You know, you think things of this nature.
But yeah, like I couldn't really come up with the joke food, so I just, you know, came up with lots of other weird examples. So I hope that that's good enough for Dog's potter, know that I.
Think those are good examples. Man. The drunken chicken thing.
That's good, right, My god. When I say good, I mean horrifying. But you know, yeah, yeah, man, just get a chicken drunk.
What a time? What a time to be alive? That can picuous consumption. Back in the day, like now you could just like ride around in a fancy car. Back then you had to be like, all right, here we go. Yeah, I want my servant to make a star gazy pie. And people are like, oh, that smells repulsive. But these people must be so rich, like man, what a yeah? Anyway, uh,
dog Spotter, thank you very much for the question. It would be really funny if there was like some medieval texts that they were just talking about how much they hated fruit cake O this yeah, even we hate it? Uh yeah, eleanor do you want to read the next question?
Yeah? Hold on, I fucking got my thing up. Sorry, I was just my bench ass was coasted. Like Luke, you read everything. This is great stuff. Okay. Next question is from Horatio Hacks. Which Catholic clar order is the most like the Jedi order. This is such a good question. Woo. Yeah, So I guess I kind of went back and forth about this because I was sort of like, at first, I was gonna go the Jesuits because I feel like
they're the most like mission based. But then again, but we have to reserve them to be the Stormtroopers, so it can't be it can't be that. So I am gonna go with the Franciscans because I think they're the best, right.
Yeah, I would so, like, I don't I think like it. Uh, it doesn't really fit in that well to any of the specific orders, like the contours with the Jedi do, but like it's basically like on the one hand, I do think it is kind of the Jesuits because they are the ones who go out and do this and for a time are like the they are they're not police, but they're they're kind of like, you know, they are like old West Sheriffs or whatever for like sectors of
space and everything like that, and that is kind of like the Jesuits in like the New World and stuff like that. But but you know, there's also the thing with the Templars when they were removed from France by Philip King Philip the Fourth, and their removal is a lot like the actual contours of Order sixty six in the Star Wars because they were basically all attacked in one night and they tried to get them out and
very few of them survived. One of their they're like grand Master or leader or whatever, ended up hiding somewhere for like seven or eight years. So it's like that. But you know, it's they don't really fit into any of the Catholic orders specifically, except for stuff like vague stuff like that, because there aren't a ton of Catholic orders that do like like Kung fu for like meditation purposes, like which is a big like thing for their mystique.
Like it's clearly taken from you know, like the those sects of Buddhists and monks who you know, they they practice it for meditation, you know, and they would never use it except in defense of a child, you know, or something like that. It's uh, you know, so it's
it's stuff like that. The Jesuits like hmmm, I'm trying to think like the friends the franch Ciscans, like because of the specific like they're not supposed to have money, they're not supposed to have belongings like for that aspect, it's like a it's like a hodge Like it's a hodgepodge of a lot. Like the selection criteria is almost kind of like how they do for like uh like janissaries something like that. Uh if you know, janissaries were chosen because they have you know, some connection to the
forest instead of you know, being enslaved. But yeah, it's like, uh, it's just a lot of them, and I can't like I can't come down on one of them specifically because they are the Jesuits. But the Jesuits become like something like so so so much different later on, and like especially during the counter Reformation and stuff like they do
become kind of the stormtroopers, as Illinois said. So I don't know, like if the Franciscans, uh uh, if they did martial arts as meditation and also like went out and did missions to protect people, then sure.
Yeah. It's like because at first I was kind of like, well, maybe you could say somebody like you know, the Knights hospital Are or the Knights Templar, but I think they're bad. So it's like, yeah, because I don't I don't like the Crusades stuff, so it's like, yeah, I mean the trouble is all the bad stuff. Yeah right, so yeah, like I feel like the Franciscans are the most gentle of the orders, which is why I can come up
with it. But you know, it's like if we're talking about the martial orders, you're you're kind of like looking at hospitalers and Templars and or you know, like even worse, like uh, you know, the Teutonic Knights or some ship which are like but they're they're all pure evil, so you can't really say them, I guess. Yeah, it's a tricky one. It's a really tricky one.
I mean it's tricky and like it's also tricky because they don't like when you when you create these when you create these stories, you get like these like you just keep expanding it out and expanding it out in their aspects, like where the Jedi are like bad and they do bad things and they reinforce bad policies, but like it's not ever or it's almost never portrayed on the same level as like, you know, not the hospital Ers we're doing, or you know, the Templars or the
Teutonic Knights where they just went and like took their own big splot of land out there and were like, you know, this is ours and what the fuck man, you jerks? Yeah, Horatio, I think they are if you if you follow my idea of Order sixty six being like removal of the Templars, I think they are like that from a historical standpoint. But then they're like the better aspects of all the other Catholic orders like kind of rolled into one and then with like some uh
some Eastern meditative monk type stuff. So yeah, they're the friend Ciszowitz burn uh Templar whatever. They're a lot you know what they're a lot. They're they're the best Catholic order because they're the one that we can look at and go, yeah, but they're the Jedi. We like the Jedi, like like you, oh oh oh, the Jedi suck. Yeah, real big news, like I didn't live through the prequels, buddy,
thanks a lot. Yeah anyway, Yeah, Horatio, thank you very much for the question, and a question that pertains to my specific uh special interest, uh Ville. The next one we out is from vill Vicious, who says I was looking up late medieval armies yesterday, the French CAMPAIGNI de ornand in specific a basic administrative unit the land had Asian said that Asian Darme was paid one hundred and twenty livre probably probably livre tournois, which is about one
sixth of the period English silver pound. His squire was paid sixty it'll be levoi leva, two archers forty eight livres each and two servants thirty six livres each. So my questions are, A, we're those salaries on top of room and board, and B what sort of lifestyle could one keep up with this income?
Yeah, so this is on top of room and board, so you are usually putting these people up in various places, so there'll be a guardhouses things like that that they that they are staying in.
So for ex.
Sample, you know you are going to be housed in somebody's uh house usually, I mean, and I'm not saying it's gonna be like a great fucking accommodation, and you're probably gonna be like sleeping in the Great Hall with everybody else like me day. And then of course when you're like on campaign, then you're going to be put up in tents and things of this nature. So it
is on top of room and board. Uh this is pretty good, uh, is the answer, Like you would be sending a lot of money home or like stacking at the very at the very least, and I mean, it's definitely a lot more than you would expect to make as your average peasant. A really fun tool that they have at the uh National Archives here is like a thing that allows you to look up prices of things in medieval England.
And it.
Obviously like we would be talking about English things here, not not a like a French. But so if you go there, and so I'm just putting in twelve seventy, which is what what the kind of starting year is so let's let's just show. Let's just show, right, And so we're saying, okay, so if leaves are about sixth of a pound, so sixty so that's like a tenth of a pound, so that's like ten shillings. So so that's kind of like around ten shillings. So it's like
you can buy a fucking cow with that. Yeah, you can buy like three stones worth of wool. No bad. Yeah, it's about fifty days of wages for guild tradesman.
Huh, so that's not so bad. Yeah, you know what, you know what I'm saying interesting?
Yeah, yeah, So it's a really fun thing to kind of like.
Play with.
If you go check it out, that's like the uh that is the National Archives Currency Converter, and it will kind of like tell you what what you get, which is fun. Yeah.
Yeah. The messing around with like numbers and stuff from the Middle Ages is fun. It's just like you have to, uh, you have to like take you have you have to It has to be done in like very broad strokes because if you're like, you know, this was exactly this much like currency calculations didn't really work that play.
Yeah, for sure, I realized I was looking up what a uh a squire bikes there, so you yourself would make about uh, it's about twenty six horses. Oh okay, fifty seven cows. Ooh at me, it's about two thousand and days of wages for a skilled tradesman balling, falling.
Yeah.
Yeah, that really that puts it in perspective, I think, which is very helpful.
Yep, yeah, vil Vicious, thank you very much for the question. Next we got one from Devin, who says, is there actually a ship ton of mercury in Kinshi sh wang Di's mausoleum? If so, is there no way to excavate it safely? I understand mercury mercury is highly poisonous, but you think in twenty twenty five someone would thought of a way, would have thought of a way to successfully navigate the mausoleum.
Yeah, I mean it's so possibly, is the answer. So we have like done some, we've done some. We obviously not the Chinese Eleanor and I were over there.
He tested the soil specifically to make sure, you know, we're like yep, smells like mercury, and then I rubbed it across my gums I was Yep, it's pure yep, there you go.
Yeah. So fundamentally, what what this comes from is that there is there the most detailed account from the time that we have says that mercury was used to simulate the hundred rivers in the inside because it's like, you know, they were doing like models of everything, right ah, and there does appear to be a ton of fucking mercury in the ground around there, and you know, basically what is going on in terms of debates about excavating. It's like on the on the plus side, they're like, yeah,
it's like, dude, this is a seismic zee. Yeah, so like we kind of got to get in there and look at it. And also like the tourists will go fucking crazy, right, But then like other people say, okay, yeah, but we don't really know what to do, and it's not necessarily just the mercury. Like the mercury is obviously an issue because, like I said, so kind of people think that if you open it up, then the mercury is going to volatize and then it'll kind of like
leech into everything and it would suck. But fundamentally we that like that is one issue, but we could probably get around it. The thing is, it's just so fucking big and underground that we're not actually sure how to necessarily stabilize it as a structure yet. So the mercury part is an issue within it, but it isn't necessarily the number one thing. It's just the sheer scale of what the fuck we're looking at here, and we don't
want to fuck it up. So we're kind of working on getting better at the stuff and coming up with something. And now, so the mercury is at play, but you know, that's that isn't like the number one thing. I do think that there is a lot of mercury there.
Yeah, yeah, there was a couple of years ago. I read an article. It was in archaeology, and it was about the tomb, and basically it said that there is a ton of mercury there. It is at some point like they did a bunch of soil samples around the area and then everywhere else, and most of the other places registered like a fairly normal mercury amount, which is like two hundred and five parts per billion or something
like that. But the part near the mausoleum of Chin Chiwongdi is fourteen one hundred and forty parts per billion, So there's a lot of mercury there. It is likely that that mercury has leached into the ground into the soil, but it has not leached into the ground water below the mausoleum, because if it had, there would be a lot bigger problems with that. But essentially, through different forms of archaeology, different forms of technology, they've taken scans and everything,
and basically there's a lot of mercury there. It's probably like if you're thinking about like that, it is like a giant replica across the whole thing of like a map of China, the one hundred rivers of China. Think about it more like a much smaller scale version, you know, maybe like that floor that they stand on in Game of Thrones that has like all the parts of Westeros on it, something like that. But like it's definitely there.
There's definitely a ton of it, and they definitely don't want there are With regard to the mercury, I think there's two reasons why they don't want to do it. First is if there's any kind of subsidence while they're in there, it will go into the groundwater, and that would be that much mercury going into the groundwater would be catastrophic for plants, animals and people in the area. And there are a lot of people in the area. And second they the thing that was written about it
by Simichian. It also mentions there being a lot of booby traps, and there were booby traps in old Imperial tombs, so there's that stuff. But they also don't know like when mercury is exposed to air, to oxygen, it can react, and so it could, like the mercury that's been in there for so long, like if they expose it to oxygen and everything, it could like aerosolize and like turn into a chemical weapon and kill them and a lot of other people and you know, plants and animals. So yeah,
probably not a good idea. Hopefully an earthquake never touches it, it never gets severely flooded or anything. But yeah, it's still there from like the place that it was originally built to where it is now. It's like one of the tallest structures ever built by humans, but now you barely see the top of it above the ground because of all the stuff that's gone up around it, but yeah, it's it's cool. I man, there's so much cool straight in China. We all need new friends because it's insane.
Uh yeah, Devin, thank you very much for the question. Next one, we got this from MG in your Face and this is what I've thought about as well. On a typical day of farming, how many people might a person interact with and how much of their time was spent socializing.
So a good way of thinking about this is that farms at the time are not like farms now. You know, like farms now, you're like, I own all of this land, and like you might not interact with very many people at all, other than you know, people who are in your employee for example, because it's like if you if you own several acres, But that's not what's going on
on medieval farms. What's going on is that you go over to where like the fields are, and everyone's got their own cellyon, you know, and the celians are oftentimes just like strips, so you're like real close to Jeff's strip, you know, like maybe you have like three or four or whatever, but they're they're usually pretty narrow and long because it's just sort of like the way the way that things are done, so like your field is like directly next to somebody else's field, and you might just
be like chat and shit all day long, to be honest, so it's like you're gonna be out there with you know, your family members who are kind of like out there working your land, and then like next door it's gonna be Jeff, and then you know, like there's Jeff and Diane, you know, getting to getting it, and so it just kind of like keeps going in this way. So to be honest, you're living real cheek by gel with other people despite the fact that you are in the countryside.
So if you're in the field, that's who you're going to see. Now if you're kind of like back at home and your living quarters kind of depends on the side of the farm. Because if you're rich, which you know some of these people are, you're going to have people like dairy maids, and you're going to have like helpers within the house. You're going to have like shepherds that you oversee people like that and you'll see them as they come and go. See you could have a
staff of a not insignificant number of people. If you are poor which about half of peasants are less so obviously, but the thing is, you might be working the rich peasants land. So say you're like one of the one of the dairy maids. It's like you help your parents out in the morning and then you go over there and then you come back. So you know, you still see a fair number of people, is the answer. It's
not particularly solitary. There are a lot of people around doing exactly the same thing as you, and you're kind of moving back and forth. So it's just a really different way of looking at farming because now, as a result of enclosure and the way that farms work, it's just totally fucking different, right, But at the time, this is like a really intensely social yeah sort of life.
I guess that's good for them and that that is awesome, because every time I think about it, I just think these people just like completely surrounded by just their family, Like, oh god, that's got to be terrible at all times. But uh, you know, no, you had other people there. You could be like, wow, I wish my family was just here. I imagine like you like you live next to just like the most annoying family.
Oh god, oh God. Yeah, if you've got bad neighbors, it's no good. Like I mean, think about harvest time when everyone is helping everyone. You just feel like Jesus fucking great, it would be the worst.
Oh God, yeap h m in your face. Thank you very much for the question. Next, we got one from Rita Patina, who says, do we know if medieval cities had too many pigeons or is that a modern age thing? I just walked downstairs that are constantly covered in pigeon poop and was wondering about the longevity of the stones.
Well, so the answer is that, yes, medieval cities have hellipigeons, but they are all pets. That's why we have pigeons now awful.
So they are They're awful. What is wrong with you medieval.
I've completely I've completely changed my mind on pigeons recently because of medieval people. And the reason why pigeons are in cities is they were beloved sky puppies, and medieval people were like, hell, yeah, you could really get some pigeons in here, and they would bring them in. So,
you know, you see this all the time. If you see kind of like older architecture, like a medieval architecture or even early modern architecture, and they would kind of like build pigeon houses into the sides of their houses so that you would like have a kind of thing up top with lots of little you know, like you would miss out a couple of bricks so that there's like kind of a little pattern so the pigeons can
go up there and roost. And they just like pigeons man like, they think they're neat, you know, it's like parrots for them. And that is kind of how rock doves came into cities initially. Was it's like intentional. So yeah, you would have a lot of pigeons, but they are less faeral, I mean. And and that's the thing about rock doves in cities is they're all feral technically, like these these are meant to be pets. That's that's what
they're meant to do. And so here in the UK, we you know, we have several kinds of pigeons, so we got rock doves. You know, rock doves are out there doing they thing. We also have wood pigeons for much larger and they're more like you're eating pigeon, so they're they're bigger they got wood pigeons. They got a green head, and they.
Got a little they got a little whoah yeah, ok.
Yeah, white collar around their neck and they're they're like plump little guys and they're super cute. But you know they were forests, right, and so they're not they're not the pet type. They're the type that's kind of like a chilling chillen. Yeah, And I don't know. I met this racing pigeon when I was at Scarborough Castle last Easter and she was so cute and she was like she should have just gone home, but she was like, hey, homie,
what are you doing? And she just kind of kept like following me around the castle and like hopping up the stairs after me and then like landing on my shoulder. And I was like, oh, you need to go home, honey, Like you're racing right now, go like your owner is waiting for you.
And she's like, oh no, I thought we would check out the castle, homie, let's hang out.
But I was like, I'm afraid.
I fuck.
I love pigeons.
Now You're like, you're like, this is great, and then you got all those diseases terrible.
Oh well, they're definitely not Rock does like the racing pigeons. Like when when she took off, I was like, oh my god, she's so fast. I was like, but they are, you know, there's a lot of When I was over in Malaysia New Year's I saw like some wild ass pigeons. I saw like these like a great Victorian crusted pigeons, and they're like the size of a small dog, Like they're huge, dude. Yeah, and that's a that's a great kind of pigeon. Shout out to like that's a great pigeon.
Now that's a pigeon. Yes, I'm like, beautiful pigeon.
Yeah.
It's like it's like this has been pigeon chat with Eleanor. I like those big old pigeons, big old jungle pigeon. Fuck yeah, show me that ship. That's great. But they're actually very intelligent and it's not their fault. It's there all.
I don't think it's their fault, just like I don't think it's the rats fault. It's not the rats fault that they carry disease around with them all the time. But I don't want but I don't want them near me, just like I don't want the pigeons do me. But they're cool. I'm happy, and I don't want them to die. I just don't, you know, like spiders, I want them anywhere. Knew men feel it, look away from me, feel it.
Yeah. So I mean, like shut shut out pigeons. But yeah, you would see a lot of them.
It's not that I see a ton of pigeons down here. Uh No, not a ton. We get. We get a lot of birds in the backyard. Got a woodpecker who likes to peck on our fence, which I think is funny. Shout out because it's like because it's like I found out that the pecking is actually a form of marking territory. And uh, I'm like, who are you marking this from? You're the only woodpecker here, man, That's.
Right, that's right.
He's like, I am to keep it that way, motherfucker. You know. Yeah, get it. They get a lot of fun birds in the backyard, just no pigeons. But yeah, I got nothing against pigeons specifically. I just don't want all that disease. Uh As for stone, uh, it can stand. It can stand up to many, many, many hundreds of years of bird ship thousands of years. Yeah, I don't. They don't. I don't think bird shit really does that
eats a weight stone or anything. I don't. I'm sure there probably is some that if you leave it there for long enough, it's so acidic that it would harm it. But like, again, how long you have to leave Like how long do you have to leave it there? And it's not going to get moved by just it being jostled around or rain or wind or you know what well.
I mean, like if you go to any of the former Venetian colonies here, like the Venetians really liked pigeons and so like you see all these like elaborate pigeon houses they build and they're made out of stone, and they're still there like some hundred years later, and I don't think you're probably not going to come up with a larger collection of pigeon shit anywhere, and like they're still taken over.
So yeah, if I know one thing about Italy, it's that there's a whole fuck load of pigeons there and they like to fly around in huge in huge flocks when people start shooting guns at each other. So yeah, yeah, there you go. That's my contribution. Uh Riita, thank you very much for the question. Next week got one from A. T. Delphos. His question is basically about publication dates for medieval works.
So like you know, Wikipedia says the publication date for the Divine Comedy is thirteen twenty one, but what does that mean? Like you couldn't buy it printed from the printed to the store from a publishing house, Like what could you do? How did it spread? And like basically summing up the question in this period when like long works that are not done by members of the church, non official authors, how do they come into existence before
the movable type area era? How are they copied and turned into new objects that are disseminated.
Basically, yeah, great question and the answer is that you usually kind of pay for it of it. So like a great example of this is a Christina Paisson, and Christina Paisson very specifically for her stuff like the Book of the City of Ladies and things like that, she controlled the manuscript like house, so like she had a scriptoria, right, so you can have you can have scriptoria that are secular. It's just that we see a lot of scriptoria that
are monastic in character. And as the period uh goes on, we see more and more professional scriptoria so increasingly, like when you think of like the really really richly decorated manuscripts, that are the ones that are kind of popping into your head when you think about it's so yeah, like a Christina Paisan text or like the trey Reshiers of the Duke Debouts. Right, these were made by professionals, not monks.
So these are made by people who are ours, who are making a living, right, And now those are like way way luxury things, right, But if your Dante, what you would do is you would basically like go to those people and you could say, yeah, like I am paying X amount to have this many copies made and then those get out, okay.
Yeah.
Now if you then see a copy of it and read it, or like you've heard some of it, and you say, I would like my own copy of Dante's Inferno, you can then either go back to that house or you can copy it out yourself if you are literate.
And that is really fucking common. So a lot of the time people who have less money, if they can write, will just go ahead and write their own copy, Like they'll just sit there and copy it out and like for them, this is also a way of reading it at the same time, and then you have your own copy and like badabing bada boom, you're done for other things.
So I think that I may have mentioned this in passing before, but there's this thing called the Peakia system pay p E C C I A the Pigea system, and the Pigea system is the way that people would get texts and things if they are working in particular crafts that require them. So say you're like a university student and you've got to like have a bunch of
fucking Aristotle. There are shops that you could go to that would like lend you the little bit that you need, and then you would just go home and like copy it out as quickly as you couldn't go you'd go back and return it. So it's kind of like a lending library that you pay for whilst you make your own copy. And this is super common for people like physicians who like, you know, if one of their friends has a particular thing, you might copy it off of
that or you might rent it from different places. So you know, aspiring people who run like a Pigea shop or whatever, then they might have a copy of the Inferno or for Bocaccio. You might be like, yeah, like I've got day one right here, right, and you can rent day one and then copy it yourself. So that's how those things get seminated. So it's usually kind of
a trickle down effect. So there's gonna be people right up the top who are able to control production of many scripts, and then there's gonna be kind of smaller fish down the other end, who you know, maybe they'll hire someone to copy it, or they'll copy it themselves, things like this, So there's all sorts of ways. And indeed, one of the things that bothers medievalists is that actually a little bit too much is made of the printing press sometimes because what the printing the people's kind of
misunderstand like what the printing press does. It's not that the printing press necessarily allows for more things to be disseminated, because shit is disseminating all the time. In the Middle Ages, we get copies of stuff all over the place, like
it's moving around. It allows for singular author control, yeah, more specifically, so it'll allows for more control about like one specific message, which is why it's so specifically good for propaganda, which is why it does so well for Martin Luther because he's like, I've got this vision and I want to say peasants are evil, right, and then
he can and then he can do that. So actually, to a certain extent, you know, one of the ways of looking at the printing press that medievalist like, I'm hardly the first to say that this is just kind
of like a common as dirt conception. The printing press is actually like deeply conservative because what it does is it allows you to just say, no, this is the one way of doing it, whereas the medieval ways of doing things are much more fluid and they allow for individuals to be more involved with the productions of the things that they are reading. So, yeah, publication is like a really weird way of putting it. You're you're absolutely
bang on here, Delphos. It's like basically they're they're like there's no such thing. Like you're not like releasing it to fanfare, Like they're like, no one there are like publishers who are like throwing you a fucking party, right, Like that's that's what's going down.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I uh yeah, it's I'm shocked that a that a revolutionary piece of information technology was at once both conservative and also gave us is one of the only reasons we have access to the many number of ideas and things that we have today, so they could spread like that. So yeah, I wonder if that's ever gonna happen again, like with say the internet or
the telephone. Anyway. Yeah, with like any publication date before the printing press, that publication date is like, eh, it kind of came out around here, maybe the first copy went out. Like a big thing about Baccaccio that he one of the things that he was known for during his life was that he like he resuscitated did like the the Dante copies going around and and like had a bunch of new ones done and published and printed out and everything, and uh, you know kept that from
going away. Not that it would have like gone away forever necessarily, but he was credited with that during his life. So it's one of those things where you know, you send it out and you get that and uh, sometimes, like with Boccaccio, you parts of it would get published long before other parts of it did, So you might have you know, days one and two, but you know, might not get the rest of it for a while. Because either he's taken a long time to finish.
It or.
Nobody's printed it in your language or anything like that. And like this is something that wasn't uncommon Like at the time scientific papers were passed around like this, and if you, if you wrote a scientific paper, like you wouldn't necessarily like have like a church scribe like rewrite
it for you and like send it to everyone. They might do that, but like you would like send it to a guy at another monastery and he's looking at it comparing it with these things, it's like, Okay, I got to rewrite this in you know, whatever language so people, you know, so it can understand it. And yeah, so it was a collaborative effort that has long since been streamlined, which is bad. But the streamlining also means we get more information, which is good, but the information is bad bad.
Can I go now anyway? Yeah, yeah, thank you very much for the question, and a good point. When we talk about publication dates for these things, they are fuzzy at best, and a lot of times a lot of stuff used to get published posthumously because they were like, well, I found Bocaccio's notes. What if we just through all this stuff out there too, like, yeah, cool.
That's fine, why not sure?
Yeah?
Sure yeah uh.
I nextly got one hipster wizard says I would love to get my super Catholic late grandmother canonized, but her remains have been a bit lax on the whole miracle front. What sort of prime what would be some prime miracles for it would be saint to perform posthumously.
Well, if your grandmother was racist, she could get her ghost to like chase some monks of the of the wrong nationality out. That'd be ye, that's number one.
I wonder if you could still get that. Like imagine going to the pope now, like going to Pope Francis like twenty three and being like, I want to make this woman. I want to make my grandmother saint and they're like why and it's like because she's Serbian and she yelled at you know, the croats or whatever. And he's like, I got serbians and croats doing that over there right now? Why is this news?
Like come on, like, what's going on? What's going on? Oh yeah yeah, and so yeah, obviously, look we can't all be spotty broke up, shout out, but like the basic baseline miracles are healing usually, so big ones that you will see all the time are like a curing blindness, curing any kind of mobility issue. That's a real big one. Sickness of any description, leprosy, Like if you could get some leprosy curing, that would that would be pretty good
for bonus points. It would be helpful if your grandmother would show up in that person's dream, tell them that they should go on pilgrimage to her body, and then cure them when they get there. That's a big one. Another big one is manumission, So finding some enslaved people and freeing them, like letting them out.
I'm buying slaves, but only so I can free them. I just want to be a Catholic saint tapping that into Google how to buy slaves. No, not like that, not like that, not like that.
So I mean, uh, if Granny could show up like over in like the Emirates or something, but I don't know, Like maybe granted Granny can free the very many prisoners in America who are the force to fight wildfires for no remuneration, for example, that would do it. That would do it really really well. Like those are the major posthumous miracles although like you get the occasional wild saints, you know, like like Saper Copious or there's like some
flat and very famously in like the French cannon. Like she just like she'll do all kind of weird shit, like she'll rip your eyeball out if you don't leave her enough candle wax. Like she know, she's like she will, she will threaten you. She's a little bit more of a monster than the saint. But everybody's like, hell, yeah, I love this. This is really really good. So like I mean, who's to say what is good or bad on that particular front.
But yeah, like.
Many people, you know, they'll they'll take a threat looking at things.
I think.
I like, I think Saint Teresa's uh miracles for example, or like formerly Mother teresas they've all been healing, I think, or shit, yeah, well look look like the placebo effect.
Is not not do it not not getting on the Mother Teresa hobby horse here hipster wizard. I think basically what we're arriving at here is you need to like spruce up the burial place a little bit, make it look kind of pilgrimage, and uh you know, get uh really get some people to be like, hey, is my grandmother? Has she shown up in your dreams? Maybe? Uh, fix your broken ankle?
Look, start some stories. I think that that's the best thing that you can do, is start telling stories and then get the pilgrims to come and then it'll just happen. It's like, you know, it takes money to make money. It takes miracles to make miracles. Like I'm just saying, like, what haven't you had a dream with your grandma in and then what happened? Yeah, that's right in right in with any miracles that your grandmother may.
Have had, may have performed. Yeah, it will help you out.
You know.
Maybe uh, maybe she could perform a miracle and appear at the conclave to all of the assembled cardinals and they.
Can pick someone who doesn't suck.
Yeah, pick someone who doesn't suck. Yeah, that Tagle guy apparently, uh Tagle, who's one of the big names to be to be the next pope. Possibly like didn't originally want to be a priest. He wanted to be a doctor, but he ended up becoming a priest because he was essentially kidnapped and forced.
To stay in it for a classics and because like, yeah.
Well, okay, I'm here now I might as well anyway, Hipster Wizard, thank you very much for the question. We got a couple more, one from Gaffzie. How much overlap was there between Jewish, Islamic and Christian mystical traditions in the medieval world. Were overlaps considered particularly suspected one tradition or another? There was a lot of.
Yeah, yeah, and so one of the big things is geometry. Yeah yeah, So, like geometry as a mystical practice and tradition is a huge for all of the people of the book.
At the time.
There is reason why you learn it as part of the quadrivium. It is considered like absolutely necessary for kind of like understanding how the cosmos works. So geometry has like some special way of kind of like unlocking the order of the universe and understanding the way that God works. Is a really really specific thing and very cool. There's a great book about it called Sacred Geometry, which you
could pick up and read, which I like. Similarly, like a mystical are approaches to alchemy, for example, which are shared across all of the people of the book. Everybody loves a bit of alchemy, don't they and you know that's it's essentially mystical chemistry, isn't it. And I say mystical here because you know, they're not really looking to make gold. I mean some people are. What they're what they're looking to do is make like the elixir of life.
You know, they're they're they're they're singing the Philosopher's Stone, so like that that's that's what they're they're doing over there. The thing people kind of get down on is usually they usually indulge in some light anti Semitism and get like all worked up about like Cabbala and like the name of God, like.
The same fucking numerology you're all doing, you weirdos, you're all doing numerology. Yeah, yeah, differently.
Completely, So you know, like basically, if there's an opportunity for Christians to be anti Semitic, they're gonna, like they're gonna get down on it. Weirdly with this stuff from the Christian perspective, they're like, oh yeah, hell yeah, Like Muslims have this shit on lock, and then they're like, hey,
what's that Jewish person doing? Like it's just like okay, I mean, I don't I don't know, like I think that It just kind of like has to do with the way that knowledge circulates a lot of the time. And I mean it's from this that we get traditions like you know, the legend of the golum and things like that, you know, like all that good stuff. But yeah, you also, as you mentioned numerology, everybody's doing numerology and they're doing it big. They absolutely love to do some numerology.
That's very fun. Yeah like that. So basically a lot of stuff that involves maths is like huge overlap. Like maths and sciences are kind of like considered the sacred, and I think that maybe if we continue to look at them that way, I'd find them more interesting. But you know, yeah, do you like geometry. I like geometry. I could get down on trigonometry. I think that's fun.
Yeah, astrology was big. They were all doing urology. Yeah, yeah, including theological charts like what we would call real astrology, which is astronomy, and also you know astrological charts and signs and things, because those were, uh that was part of science back then. We've talked about it many times. But yeah, oh I guess that like.
Also within this uh we we kind of have to consider things like music is a little bit considered.
As well.
So you know, like when when people came up with polyphony, they were like, holy ship, this is a fucking.
Yeah, like multiple people and instruments going at once in tune and harmony. Amazing, look at what we've done.
Yeah, I mean they all kind of do different things. Like the people I love to have like a little chart where they try to figure out if you're going to live or die if you're sick.
Yeah, you know like that. Oh yeah, the pe charts they love the arts.
Yeah yeah, and like everybody's doing that. Everyone's really into it. And it's kind of like you can get told off for doing that, but everybody's doing it, so you know, what are you gonna do?
Yeah? Yeah, Like if they're you know, looking down on one another for these traditions, like I don't know, man, y'all are just uh, you're just jealous, like you're you're seeing you're seeing things in in the other, in your other like similar religions that like you don't really like in your own thing, and you know, are like, oh they don't they do that. It's like, yeah, of course they do numerology because you do too. It's just they don't they consider three or seven to be the number
instead of eight or nine or whatever. I don't remember the numerology shit, I've for long forgotten that stuff. Whatever, your angel numbers are fine with me, yeah, ga see. Thank you very much for the question. Last one we got is from Finnett, who says, hey, awesome people. Hey, I recently saw the film Warfare in theaters, and I thought the approach to filmmaking was really interesting and got me thinking about historical interpretation in film and other media
in general. They took an almost forensic or anthropological approach to the film, writing, writing the script, and structuring scenes purely off of memories of participants in the real incident. They still had to make creative choices when evidence conflicted or there was a gap in the memory, but overall, they tried to create a work of fiction that was as much like your reality as they could make it.
My question is is there any value in this kind of quote forensic fiction in quote in a historical film or novel. Do you think you could provide inside or understanding or cultivate audience interest in a way that a more traditional film or non fiction history book could not. Generally, when you're engaging in with a history inspired work, how do you assess whether a work is adding value to
cultural understanding versus causing harm or misleading public perception? Yeah, and bonus, just for fun, if you could make a movie about anything in medieval history, what would you choose?
Okay, So this is a very interesting question. And I guess that where the value in this lies is currently at this moment, we are we are very interested in the concept of true whatever, right, So, like, you know, being able to interview people and get their particular take on something that happened to them is valuable because we
like to hear it from the horse's mouth, don't. But you've hit on the issue here, which is that you're eventually going to get into a Roschamon situation, right, which is that like people are going to remember things differently.
And I was thinking about this, like I had to do a thing for work the other day where I was like talking about powder monkeys, you know, and and there's this there's this one favorite famous powder monkey who lived through the Battle of Trafalgar called Robert Sands, and he wrote down his own recollection of what had happened on that particular day, and he survived like in absolutely
batshit conditions, and he like writes this recollection. But the recollection, when you read it, is very obviously also influenced by recorded and reported incidents of the day. So like what other people had said about how the ships were spaced, he's like writing down in this so saying like, oh, yeah, the ships were this, they were spaced in this way, or like he was using phrases that had come from
reports in newspapers about that date. Now that doesn't mean that he wasn't there, and he was able to supply really interesting testimony about what had happened to him, because like the there's this thing in ships, you know, when when the seas were battlefields, et cetera, where like ships would have a thing that was called a fear not, and it's like basically you would keep a screen to the powder room soaking wet all the time so that it wouldn't catch fire in the whole fucking thing would
blow up. Right in this case, the fear knot itself caught fire and like home, I got out of the powder room like just before the whole fucking thing blew and like several people were burnt to death in like the worst possible fucking circumstances. Right, So these are important bits of information that we get out of it, but fundamentally his memory is also tainted because he's he's absorbed
these things. So it's like kind of the best way that you could have like an absolutely forensic report off of someone would be like, right when they're done, be like, hey, what the fuck just happened, and start writing it down. Then anytime you've got a gap, that gap is going to get filled in and things are going to kind of happen out of time. It's not just necessarily that
you're you're going to forget things. That is that is an issue, of course, but it's also that you're going to add things, You're going to embellish, your brain is going to start doing other things. Do I think that there's a value in this, abs fucking lutely because I think that there's always a value in eyewitness testimony and
also getting this information from people. So even though so for example, I'm talking about poor Robert Stands account, but actually I think that that is useful information anyway, because what it ends up telling us is what is media like in that day? What is the consumption of the
average person. Here's a dude who lived through it, and he's still really consuming the media, which kind of shows that this is for him kind of like the story of his life, right, Like, this is that he's been He's been telling this fucking story down the pub for free drinks for the rest of his goddam life, right Like he was like seventeen at the time and he's been dining out on it ever since, right, And so that tells us a lot about culture and how he thinks.
So there's still a lot of value in that for me about whether or not film is useful and like whether or not I think that a history inspired work is good and adding to cultural understanding is usually like, well, I mean, are you actually trying, right, because you know, there are things that happen all the time in terms of stuff coming out, and it's like every time I see a medieval movie and it's like darken dingy and everyone is filthy, I'm furious immediately, you know, because I'm
just like, what fox it? Could we just like not try a little bit harder? Could you not? Like you sorry you can't find blue clothing? Is it really that fucking hard, Like it's that hard to paint a room red, like you do it all the time for everything else. And I think that that's you know, anytime you make a movie about the medieval period and you like imply people don't bathe, I'm gonna be fucking furious, right, Like,
that's that's bad. But I think that there is real value in having things like this where you're like, no, no, people said this, and so that can kind of help people to understand right here is here are what eyewitness accounts say. I don't need, as I said every time, I don't need every single historical movie to be one hundred percent accurate, but I do need, unfortunately, for people to have a better understanding of how film works.
Right.
Like, part of the issue that we have is because history education is so poor across society that people think when they're watching a movie that they're seeing history.
Right.
So it's like, it's not that I didn't enjoy a glad or two. I did, but like, I fucking worry that people might think that there are newspapers in Rome now and that isn't the fault of the filmmakers. That's actually the fault of our society for doing a poor job of history. And I think that actually it would just be fine if everyone could just be chilling out and enjoying a history movie. But it's just for fun.
If I can make a movie about anything in medieval history, I think it would be fun to do kind of like I want to do kind of like a Cameron type situation that like shows what the what what people are doing while the Black Death is going on. I think it would be kind of be fun to have like a buddy kind of thing and be like, well, how are these guys surviving and the like going in on that. I think, you know, you could do a cub comedy around that, you.
Know, Yeah, I don't like I mean, I think doing things by memory is I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with it, But like, I think that prizing memory over anything else is a logical fallacy that we're walking into if we do this, because memory is not clear, like you know, there are always going to be things that change and color memory and perception and and so I don't think it's I think I think like relying on that is very difficult because like people remember stuff
differently based on what happened and everything like that, and also like for something like warfare specifically where it's like people talking, like where it's like vets like talking about their their struggle or whatever, it's like, okay, fine, like whatever. I've seen plenty of like shooting cry movies before, but
like what is like what is this adding? And if you're putting this in like Okay, you're very sad that you had to kill people and you and you did that, but like why like why are all these people getting shot?
Why is that happening? What is this? And it's like with some I don't think you have to include all of that info on every story, but like if you're doing like a modern like if you're doing a modern story about a modern American war or just a war happening generally right now, like you probably need something like that other than it just being like yeah, look at these troops. They remembered some stuff and like it's like okay, cool.
Like I've seen idiot meatheads like acting movies before. I don't you know, like what is the what is the benefit of this? And so like I think with that kind of stuff, it's like yeah, sure, like it could be good, but like I don't want to see any I don't want to see the stuff when it's just like when it when it's just like Americans being like yeah we did this, Uh we were there? Why were you there? What? Like what why was why were you fighting for democracy there? Uh? Did you find the democracy
in that person's house? Like was it in was it in that family? Hiding in the closet? Like I'm like, it's something like that. And as for like whether like the media like like where you draw the line, the line is personal. It's different for everyone. Eleanor said it earlier, like the thing about everything being drab or whatever really bothers her, And I completely understand that it doesn't bother me specifically, Like I notice it, but like I don't,
like it's not something I get like upset about. But like the the thing about it is that society is supposed to equip us with the the skills to to understand art and put it in its proper context, and we don't do that. We've never done that, like like forget like, oh, we have this problem right now. It's been a problem since mass communication even before that, but especially since then, Like it's a huge problem. We don't teach people how to interpret this stuff, and so true
just causes a lot of fucking problems. And so like when people, you know, and it's like let's watch Robin Hood, the one with Russell crow It's like this movie fucking sucks.
We can laugh at it. There's some goofy stuff in it, but like you know, people who go into that should like should take away from it that like regardless of whether I liked the story or didn't like the story or thought it was fun, or I just like Russell Crowe or whatever, like you can you can look at that and be like, yeah, that shit obviously didn't happen like that like like fairly easily. And so that's something we have to do with society. Uh yeah, I mean
that that's pretty much it. Like it's you know, as for like what historical thing I would do? Fuck, I don't even know, Like.
I just I don't know, Like what about a peasants vote? What about like the Jackara?
Well yeah you could yeah, like you could do that, like you could do you could do a peasants revote, you could do like.
I'd like to do the hoose sites. But when it doesn't suck, like I don't, Yeah, I like not medieval.
I'll tell you that the Hoosites would be The Hosites would be interesting, like like any of these like classless clash of like civilization type things like uh like yingis Khan going down to to China like sacking like Beijing and all that sort of Like yeah, like just like stuff like that. Like it would probably be about the Mongols. I just find them so fascinating. Just set up this like that, like can't like on on any historical timeline has like a shelf life of at most two hundred years.
Like we're getting to the point where like you're gonna have gunpowder and everything and it's going to eliminate the advantage of step horse archers and there you go. Yeah, anyway that that would be for me. Finnett, thank you very much for the question. I think I think that's going to be all the questions we've got for today. Thank you so much, patrons who submitted them. Thank you everyone for listening. If you like them, you know, sign
up on the Patreon and check us out. Eleanor what do you got going on?
I did write a blog post last week, so I ranted some more about that poll about about what my Americans know about medieval history. So you can go check that out if you haven't heard enough from me on the subject. Otherwise, you know your girls on the socials at going medieval. Uh you know, like that's what's up. Uh yeah, I mean, what can I say. It's a it's a rich and very tapestry.
Yeah. Yeah, you can find me. Luca is amazing on the social media's and uh you find I will show people's sistery of the Old Republic if you want to hear me talking about Star Wars. So anyway, yeah, thank you all very much for listening, and we'll see you next time. Bye.