It's like we're having the standard like on all Londoners are freaking out because it's like sixty eight degrees. Yeah, and so it's just like the number of shirtless men I've seen today you would not believe, like like Londoners are losing their minds.
There's just own own your pastiness kings, you know what, like they are.
It's just like we get above a certain temperature and Londoners immediately have to go stand outside a pub, like they have to fan out over the sidewalk and they have to be like you know, holding their holding their face to the to the sun. Well, this is like what they they've got to do, and they're all going to stand outside's by the fact that like they're directly next to a road or some shit, They're going to stand out there like.
A little like little gin soaked sunflowers just turning to the sun.
So true, It's like it's been hilarious all week because like even.
Days when it's been like you know, sixty two ors like not not even really warm. It's like people are at the pub at like questionable times. I'm like, bro, it's like three o'clock on a Tuesday, are you supposed to be in the office, like I mean nope, yeah, I mean it's go off king right, and like banking is fake, so like real talk on that one. But I'm just saying like, like I know your job is fake. I thought you believed in it, right, I don't know.
You know that that only holds so much that you can't you cannot repress the the male English need to go stand outside the local watering hole, uh while you stand like ten feet from your buddy and like every once in a while, be like, son's nice today for sure?
For sure, like you know, just like okay, oh mate, that's what I saying.
Ah yeah, yeah, coke dealer is going to be doing such a trade today.
Don't coke dealers out there? Like he's just like he's like slinging dime bags like he's just throwing him.
He's like go along, bro, just.
Like the cop season and they're like, oh, you don't do it tomorrow, you know.
Robes.
Yeah, like that's what's up, you know. So yeah, it's a it's all on.
It's a it's a bit of a feeding frenzy out here, so you know, it'll be I'm kind of like trying to wait till seven, because hopefully then, like the office people will be like drunk enough that they've gone home.
So I'm just gonna, like, you know, like you gotta give it a buffer, right.
Just mosey on down, Yeah, to the.
The local the local pub.
Yeah, my local constabularies.
My well, I guess they're not constabularies, are the I have no idea till there, I don't know whatever public houses, right, that's where you're gonna you're gonna find your girl.
I love.
I simply love to talk trash about these people. But the difference between them and me is that I sit inside.
The pub.
And with my shirt off, You're welcome, but also like fundamentally, you know, I'm like, the pub is for life, not just for day above sixty five degrees. And you know, people are like, oh wow, you know I'm coming out of winter hibernation. I'm like, well, you're fucking coward, okay, right, Like some of us have been in the pub the whole time. Some of us have been keeping the pub open in January, some of us have been holding and supporting the pub in February.
And where were you? You were nowhere nowhere? So there you go there you go.
Yeah. Yeah.
As for me, I've been enjoying just just basking in the glow of the pit new HBO series medical drama. They they rest you'd Noah while from the Hells of of Straight to TV movies on TNT and they brought them back into a medical drama.
And it is fantastic. Yeah, it's really good. Yeah, if you like that, you should check it out.
I thought you were just referring to America as the Pit.
Oh, that's that's just Pittsburgh. That's uh, the pitt The pitt is Pittsburgh. We we we can't take that from them, all right, Okay, Pittsburgh has so many beautiful and honestly it really does. Like you think I'm joking, But I found out last year that there is a thing like an actual architectural phenomenon that existed in the seventies and eighties where in Pittsburgh, and it was mostly in Pittsburgh, a little bit in the surrounding area, but mostly centered
in Pittsburgh. Houses built at that time would have a basement, and in the basement, you know, they'd have like a root, like a part where like you know, you could put up like a TV and.
A or something.
But then on the other side of the basement there would just be a toilet sitting out what in the It's a fully connected toilet, like it's fully connected to the pipes and everything, the wiring and things like that. But it's just sitting there. There's not a curt like it just it's not it's not enclosed it by walls. And I was like, there's no way.
This is real. This has to be a joke.
Like a bunch of people from Pittsburgh got together and like came up with this urban legend. I looked it up. Absolutely not there are like it is. It has its own It literally has its own Wikipedia page.
I'm googling this. What is this like the rare Cuck toilet, the Pittsburgh toilet.
It is a it is a standalone toilet. Why no around it. The best picture of one that I have seen is it's just sitting out in the middle next to a column.
What is happening?
Oh no, I.
Have no idea anyway, Yeah, the wonders.
You know, I'll be honest, if you're from Pittsburgh right in, if you had one of these toilets.
Yes, please, Do I know someone who had who uh lived his parents When he was younger, his parents they moved into a house that had one, but they all called it a fake one because the person had put like a privacy screen around it. And I was like, well, did you want it to be out in the open. He's like no, but it was still a fake one. I was like, well, there you go. You know, okay, And I'll be honest, this is insane, but uh, it
is one of the things I love about America. Like it's just like fine, the fuck why like why but also like, okay.
Okay, we have.
The house I grew up in South Dakomba. We have like we have in the yard like this. We call it the little house because it's like a tiny house that like they were like rented out to railroad workers like when the rails are being built or whatever. And it had a toilet like that in there. But it kind of like makes sense because it was like, yeah, it's a one person dwelling.
You know, you have it.
You have a sink and a toilet kind of like a thing where like there's no privacy standard because you're gonna be the only person in this room. But I don't know like a shout out to the good people of Pittsburgh.
Yeah, I don't know anyway, Yeah, you should check out the pit h if you haven't, if you have access, it is really fucking good. It is, I will say, insanely gory like they were. Like the producer was like, get me your most grizzly and visceral medical injuries. I want to see exposed bones. I want I want a guy's face that collapsed from running face first into a door. Uh, to be like reinflated, like with a ballue.
Okay, all right, okay, look, all right, I'm out. I'm out immediately.
I'm gonna be I'll spend the whole time hiding behind a pillow. So I'm such a wors I'm such a whiss.
I'm the worst.
Yeah, I don't. I don't know why.
I just like I love DR. When I was a kid, fucking loved Dr.
Okay word word and uh.
Yeah, I just so.
I guess Noah while is back. He's hotter than ever.
I love this, love this for all of us.
Yeah, it's it's good. Good for him.
Welcome back, Noah, And by back, I mean into.
More popularity.
I don't know, like I mean presumably back into the like the big checks.
We love that hopefully. Yeah.
Then again, like one of the things about doing a sitcom or like a show back then is like you got those nineties residuals. Is nineties early two thousands of residual checks.
Oh buddy. Yeah.
Anyway, I hope he makes a lot of money. He deserves it because he's really good at it.
Anyway, let's talk enough enough about the fellas. Enough enough about.
The fellas, even if they are very attractive or have standalone toilets in their basement. All right, Uh, you know I shouldn't say that. I'm sure there are plenty of women. Uh to also have non non binary people anyone respect to anyone regardless of gender or anything. Or you know who has a Pittsburgh toilet?
Good?
Yeah, you know right in right in if you have Pittsburgh.
Toilet, we need to know, will talk about it. Yes, we will talk about it.
And uh I just yeah, like great, okay, here we go, hello, and welcome back to We're Not So Different, a podcast that has suddenly turned very Pittsburgh centered for some reason, even though I've never actually been there.
It.
Philly is beautiful.
I'm into Pennsylvania at large, but neither Philly nor Pittsburgh.
So yeah, Philly's cool. I'm sure Pittsburgh is great too. I've just never been myself and uh yeah, but that's not why we're here today.
I'm Luke.
That's doctor eleanor you guys know how it is. We talk about the Middle Ages and sometimes occasionally occasionally toilets occasionally toilet It's a.
Normal podcast for people who are cool.
Okay, yes, exactly.
Ladies' Night is what we're doing night. But we got some questions first. First, we got one from Jia, and this is part of a longer question that the Patreon app won't show me all of.
For some reason.
But the gist is that she is a practicing physician and believes that she could explain germ theory to people in the Middle A just by explaining how the virus
movia things like fleas on rats. The final part of the question, which I can read, says, I think, as you said on the question about whether they knew about yeast and brewing or bread, that medieval people are able to do things empirically, as in by observation rather than by understanding the theory behind it, and that you could get people to wear gloves when handling the dead, open windows, and wear cloth masks when dealing with the pneumonic type.
Humor theory would actually help. Here is a foundation to explaining the plague creatures escape in the coughs, nieces, et cetera. So your thoughts on that, eleanor Yeah.
I mean, I think that we're banging on here because medieval people aren't stupid, you know, and they and they can observe things. So I think, you know, also, like most humans, they don't like fleas, right, and you know they and they don't enjoy being bitten by vermin. So I think that you know, by saying, look, it's it's connected to the fleas and like the fleas are dirty or whatever, they'd be like, oh word, okay, I think
I can understand that. And you know, and you can say, for example, contygen right, and they'll and they'll understand what that is and they'll be like, oh, okay, well that's fine.
They had a word for plague, the word quarantine developed from an Italian word during the Black Death, So yeah, like they are you know, familiar with that idea.
Yeah, And I think that you could probably you know, yeah, like get them to do varying things, like you know, stay away from each other, open with I think that that would that would make sense, you know, provided that you just kind of explain what this is.
You know, you might have to like.
Use humoral theory as she has like suggests here in order to get that across. But I think it would be possible, you know, And I think that they are so desperate to kind of have some information or some explanation for the plague that they would at least hear you out, you know, so I don't especially if you can kind of show that you're getting some kind of benefit out of this, then that that's going to be fine.
Like all it would take for them is just like some evidence that this is a better system, and they'd be good to go.
I think, so, yeah, yeah, I think as long as as long as you stay completely away from having to explain anything about like a top structure or anything infinitestially small they can't be seen like that has to be seen with a microscope. Uh yeah, I mean I'm sure.
I mean you when in our first episode on the Cameraon, we talk about Boccaccio's description of the plague in Florence, and he is dangerous, Like he and other people at the time are dangerously close to figuring this out because they're like it has something like to do with kind of being in proximity to it, but that's not the only thing, Like because some people who aren't in proximity to it, but may live like two doors down from it, it will jump to them somehow, and like they you know,
they're they're kind of there. It's just that they didn't put it together with fleas or they didn't think about the fleas in that way because you know, or whatever. And I mean they didn't, you know, it didn't really seem that they that they.
Had to grasp on that.
So yeah, I mean I think I think if you filled in that block you definitely could.
Yeah.
As far as like explaining the whole like everything to them, I don't know. I think you I think you're really going to have a hard time once you start talking about microscopic level things. But sure, keep it in broad strokes. Tell them to wash their hands with clean or cleanish water, and maybe they won't commit you to an insane asylum like they did with the guy who suggested that in the eighteen hundreds.
Yeah, Yeah, it's just about kind of getting around what it is they do understand and just showing that it works and then that and that should be fine.
You know.
Yeah, I mean I don't Yeah, I don't think you. I think you could explain a lot of things now, like some stuff like we went to.
The moon, absolutely not chances understanding.
Humans can't cross that that bound that is a that is the realm of God, you know, of gods of God, you can't, you know, But like, yeah, I think I think you can get this across for sure.
Yeah, thank you very much for the question.
We got one from Alie Can't who says what exactly is a eunuch and what is their role in a ruler's court and society more generally?
Uh do with his balls cut off?
Yeah?
Uh, you know, sometimes dick and balls, but usually just just the balls, you know.
It Like it.
Depends on the court, right because uh, fundamentally, not everyone has eunuchs.
Like it's you know, it's.
A style of the time, and they tend to play a larger role in places where an emperor or a sultan or whoever has a lot of ladies.
Around that he doesn't want men having sex one.
Yeah, so you know, for example, quite famously in China, you have like a whole kind of political class of eunuchs, who are people who are allowed into the forbidden city.
And the city is forbidden because don't touch the emperor's several many wives, right basically, and so what that allows you like in any cases like the unix, you know, like whether they're at like court and Constantinople, which they are at times, or indeed if they end up being at court like for the Ottomans and things like this later.
Essentially, what their role is is they're.
Kind of men, but they are not threatening to the emperor, and so therefore they can go places that other.
Men can't and can advise.
In situations where you know, the said man is like really weird and possessive about women. So essentially they they fill advisory roles. They are pretty high up palace operatives.
And that's why you are down with getting your.
Balls cut off, is because you've got a pretty pretty sweet.
Life out of it.
But yeah, it's about this is a position of access, and it's one where you can you can offer political help and insight in places where otherwise and men are not.
Allowed to go, so all you gotta do is give up your balls, gents.
You know.
Yeah, I mean I think it stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of politics, for in a lot of cases, because it was thought that if they couldn't reproduce then and they couldn't have children, then it couldn't become like a hereditary thing and all that. And it's like and therefore they wouldn't be scheming and doing all that stuff. And I'm like, man, money is still money.
I don't yeah, like, I'll still scheme.
Yeah, you take the scheme in a way, Well, what's getting involved in politics?
You're not gonna scheme?
Yeah. But they yeah, they would.
They would fill like all kinds of palace rolls, scribes, janitors, you know, everything from from the top to the bottom in some cases. Yeah, so, uh sounds not cool to me, uh personally, but you.
Know, probably I wouldn't.
But on the other hand, you know, I'm not brought up in circumstances where.
I'm personally attached to my balls. It's okay if you are not, that is perfectly fine. But I like mine, uh so you know, uh, and I intend to hopefully keep them, so uh yeah, I'm good. I am I am uh, I'm good.
Just uh, just you know.
Being being being the second wheel on the podcast. Baby, don't have to lose the balls for that that like that.
Yeah, there's completely fine for men to have test goals around you. It's yeah, it's not it's not that kind of party.
So it's okay.
Like somebody barges in, like you got testicles, you can't talk to her, like.
We're not even in the same room, separate cont like no, no.
Look at and also you know, shout outs also are non binary friends and uh and girlfriends with balls.
That's all fine, that's all fine.
If you.
Okay, if you like your balls, you can keep them. Yeah, keep them, don't keep them, get some new get get get truck notes at it if you want, if you.
Prefer those, whatever you like.
Personally personally not not not not not getting rid of them for a position being the palace.
Mop bucket guy.
But uh, you know, I guess I can see why people did it to get out of backgrou back breaking farming or whatever.
Yeah, for sure, for sure.
Yeah, yeah, oh olie, And thank you very much for the questions. If you have questions, like these that you want to st answer on the show, then please do subscribe at patreon dot com slash w nsd pod.
You can ask us questions. You get access to the.
Discord avery listening, and two bonus episodes a month, like we'll have coming. We have two more coming later this month, and yeah, just sign up because it's fun.
And we're nice and you like us.
All right, yep, that's nice. Help folks, It's time for another installment in our occasional series I'm Famous and Influential Medieval Women. Ladies is historical movers too, after all, if you recall from previous entries, we do these episodes from time to time and focus on the lives and times of two medieval women. We've talked about HILDEGARDA Bingen, the
Virgin Mary eleanor of Aacutaan and Moore. This time, our probing gaze falls on two women who were each important and influential in fields typically reserved for men, and seeming we have nothing in common outside of being confined.
To churches for a time.
The Byzantine princess and first female historian in Medieval Europe An Ikomnina and the English anchorus mystic and visionary Julian of Norwich. Their lives and even what we know of them, stand in start contrast to one another. Anna's personal life, for example, as well attested in various sources, including her own historical work of the Alexiad, which tells of the life of her father, the renowned Byzantine Emperor Alexius the
fir Comninos. Julian's life, meanwhile, is a mystery before her visions, to the point that we don't even know if she was a nun before them or not. Their stations in life were about as desparate as they can get. Anna was a literal princess raised in the cutthroat political environs
of the Imperial Palace in Constantinople. Though she likely received some form of education, Julian doesn't seem to have been a member of the nobility, and she certainly didn't have any personal riches after taking the anchor at vow of poverty and living solely off of alms.
The way they ended up confined to churches was even different.
Anna was exiled by her brother John after an ill fated attempt to remove him from the throne in favor of her husband but Julian willingly forfeited any earthly comforts and was sealed into a church Niche their historical legacies and influences as well, you guessed it. Quite contrasting Anna's work, The Alexiad was taken as the gospel truth on the history of the Byzantine Empire before and during Alexios's reign, including the First Crusade, almost since the date of its
publication in eleven forty eight. Julian and her work, on the other hand, were largely unknown outside of Norwich and parts of England until sixteen seventy when they were discovered and republished. And yet they became focal points in male dominated fields and in the realm of politics and history, and Julian in the realm of spiritual and religious affairs, contributing profound historical and spiritual insights that have shaped history
since their times. And we're going to celebrate them today. First up, we got Anna Conina, who was born in ten eighty three died in eleven fifty three. And yeah, we also had a question about this from one of our patrons, Beth, who said, I heard of Anna Komnina for the first time today. She seems to be pretty interesting. Wikipedia claims that supposedly she was in charge of a hospital in Constantinople with ten thousand beds, where she taught medicine. I'd love to hear your take on.
Her, her story and what the hospital job might have looked like. So, Beth, yeah, here you go.
Here is Anna komnen eleanor what do we know about Anna? You know from her from her early life? What is what's the background here?
So she's the first daughter of the Emperor Alexios, who you may know from such hits as calling the first Crusade you know, means like hey, who wants to come out over here? And you know, so she's the firstborn and she.
Is in a unique position as a girl because the thing about her dad is he's.
A usurper, right like he he basically thwarts the Ducas dynasty in order to come to the throne. So basically, the second she's born and they're like, oh, it's not a boy, she gets betrothed over to the Ducas dynasty, of which, like her mother is one. So it's pretty
this kind of standard stuff. You know, there's only so many noble families to go around, right, So off, they send her to go like live with her mother in law or whatever, and she gets a very fine education indeed, in that way that you know little imperial empresses do, right, you know, it's a pretty it's fairly standard stuff to educate women of this rank very highly because they are going to be expected to do any number of things, and especially within in Eastern Roman context, you never know
when your husband's going to end up dead and like you were going to end up controlling the throne in the place of you know, your kid. And you know, I think also her marriage, well proposed marriage off to one of the ducas, it's like, ah, well, you know, if things end up badly for Alexios and they retake the throne, this is going to be the obvious guy
who's going to do it. And then we've still got some kind of like blood lineage through here, and then it's kind of like please don't kill my dad, yeah, et cetera, et cetera. So she's getting this like very very good education, which is excellent for her.
However, eventually said do caause dies.
And so she's kind of like back into the pool and it's just like okay, well, I guess not. But her education kind of continues from there. Eventually she ends up having like a younger brother, John, And this is kind of like where, you know, like there's the sort of muddy waters of her life. Yes, her dad founds a hospital and like puts.
Her in charge.
We don't exactly know what this means. The thing about a hospital having ten thousand beds is fucking medieval. People simply love to say that there's ten thousand of something. That's like their hobb is saying, you know, ten thousand and like, which just basically means like a badrillion.
Yeah, it's a big number that a normal person isn't counting to.
Yeah, yeah, exactly, And I mean, fuck, maybe it did, right, I can't.
I can't say that it didn't.
But what they mean is that it's a big, old hospital and it is possible that she probably taught within this.
But you know, like she's I mean, come on, she's a princess. So this is like I'm I'm the ruler of the hospital. It's my hospital, right.
I will say that the largest hospital in the United States is in Orlando and it has twenty two hundred beds, So.
I feel like probably not yeah.
But I mean, like any any beds, like you know, one hundred beds, six hundred beds, a woman doing, you know, being in charge of it to whatever degree is uh impressive. So it's still impressive nonetheless, Yeah.
Yeah, And hospitals are a little bit different at the time. They are hospitals in the way that we know them, but they also just are kind of like hotels, yeah, a little bit. So you know, if people are kind of going through from place to place, you can stay to hospital and and that is one thing that's happening. And it is quite possible that she was teaching medicine for all the good it does.
You know.
Like one of the things that I always like hasting to point out is like she'd be out here being like it's humoral theory, you know, and you know and that you know, it's it's not real, but you know, there there are certain things that are good, like you know, watching people, keeping things clean, making sure they get enough water, et cetera, et cetera. You know, like all good things. Indeed, and she probably has some kind of idea of like creating medica mints and things like that.
That's that's all probably.
Very much real, and I mean we certainly know that women show up in the medical profession across the medieval period. I mean, like quite famously. You know, it's Trotta Seleerna who writes the Trochula. We see women randomly like show up teaching at Sealerno, and no one ever comments on it. They're just like, oh, yeah, well here's that woman who works here, and you're like, what the fuck, bro when they're like, I don't know, dude, and they just.
Like, she knows a lot about stuff I don't know.
And it's like, well, you're gonna explain how she got here now, right. So it's like it's not unheard of for women to get in these positions, and it's certainly not unheard of for them to get in these positions if they are from you know, one of the wealthiest families of all time and you know, most powerful families of all types.
So these are things that she's interested in.
But as a general rule of thumb, she's got like your full liberal arts education.
She's really you.
Know, she's a she's an Aristotle fangirl.
She's just a parapatetic thing.
She's a Greek web, a web the Alexiad is written in Attic Greek, which is like, oh my God, which is which is like which is like somebody right now writing a history of let's say England and then writing it in like Old English and then switching to Middle English when you get there, and you know, and it's
just like why why? But I also found yeah, I also found this funny anecdote that at her funeral, the eulogy, who I don't remember who's giving it, uh, said that she used to hide the Odyssey reading the Odyssey from her parents because she didn't want to get into because they said it would promote bad morals and it got her in trouble now, you know. I mean, she had a very formal education, was obviously deeply schooled in the Greek classics, so who knows how true that is, but
it apparently was said at her funeral. So that's pretty fucking funny that even back then parents were like, don't watch the Simpsons.
Stop it, stop it. You know, yeah, I love it, I don't.
I don't want to hear. I don't want to hear about Odysseus.
I swear to God, if I swear to God, if I hear one more thing, but a fucking cyclic or Penelope or Telemochus shut up.
You know. It's like, you know, I love the idea of her, just like hiding under the bed covers the Odyssey, you know, and whom'st among us does not love the Odyssey? Right, So so like great stuff, you know, fantastic.
And again it's like one of these.
Things where you know, everyone was like, oh, and she's a very good philosopher, blah blah blah. Again, this is one of these things where it's probably true, but in order to big someone up, you say they're a very good philosopher, right, you know, like a philosophy being, you know that what is it, the queen of the Liberal
arts and that sort of thing. So uh, you know, like they're they're going to say this if someone is intelligent, right, because it's like that's how you know they're intelligence is that they do philosophy.
You know, like fine, fine, Now.
To be fair, she absolutely is, as we can tell from you know, the Alexiad and her silly little uh you know, Attic Greek antics as they are, so like certainly she's doing that, and you know she's being raised in this particular way that makes it look like they're preparing her, perhaps for state craft, and so we kind
of don't really know what happens next. But like other than you know, Alexios dies, Okay, it's it's like this is the big thing that happens is her father dies and her mom makes a play for Anna and her then husband to be the ones who take over the throne. And this was kind of happening even before her father died.
But her brother.
John swoops in and like while Alexios is on his deathbed, like apparently like steals his ring off and then his like dad.
Gave me the ring, and so I'm supposed to be the emperor. Yeah, now, and like there.
Was a claimed emperor by like a random cleric, not like a high ranking when not an archbishop of whatever her Nope, just some random guy he pulled in.
Yeah, exactly.
And so it kind of looks like they like Anna was being groomed to be empress, and this wouldn't be completely out of the ordinary. You know, you guys have heard us talk about it before. Women do be ruling in Constantinople at times, and you know it probably would have been you know, fine, it's not like her father had usurp the throne. So it's it's not like anyone is like, oh, I'm like really counting on the Canaanos dynasty to like make it happen, right, Like, no, no one,
no one particularly cares. No one's very no one is very attached to that idea. But then the trouble is, in order to take the throne, Anna needs her husband to come on side like a Nikophoros, which is.
A great name, like the shutout. But and he's not into it.
Yeah, and like apparently she was apparently of this. She then like it makes them like, oh yeah, like you're you're the real woman in this situation. I can't believe you, Like I'm the one with the balls here kind of a comment.
I cannot imagine, going to the links it takes to be a woman in the absolutely suffocating patriarch the Middle Ages and to go through all this and you do all the right steps. You become a hospital administrator, you you act in the political game. You learn everything you're supposed to know. It literally accept warfare like you. And I mean she learned strategy for that too, but like
you know, the actual practice of it. She learns all that stuff and to get that close and just to have like your younger brother steal the ring and then your husband be like, I ain't doing this shit. It's never du no, Like what the fuck? Man, what the fuck? Just take just take the throne with me. We can keep the Komnenos name. It doesn't like who gives it. We'd still call it the co Know's dynasty, because that had that had happened before a few times.
Ye you know, it's like yeah, and she just.
It's just like snuffed out because her husband's like, no, I'm good. It's like, man, what happened to the wife guyed the grand Byzantine tradition of a wife guy Justinian would be pissed. He's rolling over in his mausoleum or whatever.
It was like, and it's so annoying right where you're like, oh, man, like you know what we were, what we have lost, you know through this, And you know she's doing everything right. She's like, you know, popping out babies like a clown car. She's like, you know, prepared in all the ways that
she's supposed to. And then I have your husband roll over on you like this like this sucks a lot, and like look basically what happens next is that there is an attempt on her brother John's life at their dad's funeral.
All right, yeah, Like so.
Now we do not necessarily know if Anna was attached to this and there, and there is kind of like a lot of back and forth about this because.
Like, of the of the.
Sources that we have at the time, the only one that positively links.
Her to it is.
Kind of written in the thirteenth century, so way after the fact, and like everything else that is like more around the actual time is like I don't know. I mean, well, yeah, Anna was there, but like it was her dad's funeral.
So one would why would she.
Right of course, like she's supposed to be there. It's like it's your kitchen, you know.
Of course I'm here, it's my house.
What do you what do you mean exactly?
So and we don't really know exactly kind of like what goes on there?
Yeah, Like man, I mean probably she would have liked to see rather dead. But whether or not she's the one who actually this, we do not know.
We do not know.
Yeah, I think, I mean, I think from what I've read, there is a historical consensus that she felt slighted.
Oh yeah, oh god, yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.
Well I just I just kind of want to set it out because they're like there's this whole like juicy tale and then there's like the stuff that we, like the historians think we know, which is that she did feel slighted, there was some kind of coup attempt. Her husband, to whatever extent he was involved or whether she was the ringleader or whatever, said no, and then John, her brother, John, took the throne and was possibly, uh the victim of an attempted assassination.
Yeah, loul uh.
Again, the other story is juicier and therefore cooler. It comes from Conneattes, who is writing just after the Fourth Crusade, just after Constantinople had been toppled by the Latins in twelve oh four, so you know, he might have been writing with some other ideas in mind. But regardless, she didn't get.
It, and.
John, he did his credit, didn't kill her, which.
Yeah, which she could have.
And to be fair, she ends up kind of hanging around until her husband dies.
So it's just like, you.
Know, she isn't like, yeah, go ahead, nothing terrible happens to her for quite some time, but then eventually in like eleven I think it's eleven fifty four, she then, after her husband dies, gets sent off to a nunnery because it's like, well, who knows, like what without the restraining force of her husband, who doesn't want to be up, or what this bitch is capable of. And this is kind of how we know about her, because she gets sent off to the nunnery, which is also like a
fairly standard thing. Like again, this is also kind of a fairly standard thing that happens with like high up royal women when their husband dies, as they often do, get sent off to a nunnery to kind of like go pray for their souls or whatever. And this is
where she writes the Alexiad. Yeah, and the Alexiad whips right, you know, like despite the attic greekness of it all, you know, I've only ever read it in English obviously, And basically what it is is a bit a way of bigging up her dad, being like, yeah, I'm dad was right, you know, to usurp the throne, and actually
he was correct. But it's also basically like an apology of for her, where she's like and also it should have been me, you know which you know, and it's like like basically reinforcing her claims to the throne, reinforcing her education, her links with her father and mother, her links with everybody at court, and so that's like how that is one of the reasons why we think that she may have been involved in like the attempts on her because she's like this fucking guy the whole time, you know.
Yeah, she she wrote the If I did It of her.
Time completely completely yeah.
Uh. Yeah.
The Alexiad is fun because, uh, it is very well written. She was very good. She she has a very earnest type of prose and the way of looking at it, which is interesting and uh, but it's also like just a complete agiography of her dad, Like in her telling of the Alexiad, which was like the historical consensus for like seven hundred ish years, uh or yeah, about seven hunred years. She her dad was like he he he
didn't make any appeal to the West for troops. They just showed up and he was like whoa, I had no like like I mean to the point where he was like surprised when they showed up, as if he wouldn't have been alerted at some point by someone along the way that an army of one hundred thousand or more people was moving towards him, like you know, decimating
the land behind them like locusts or whatever. It's like, you know, yeah, it's very funny, but at the same time, historians also agree that there's a lot of truth in it. She is a first hand account of the First Crusade, which I've recently taken a non problematic interest in.
I want to I want tonic. When we do it, it's cute.
Okay, when other people do it and they start dressing up in stupid night costumes, not cute unless they're at medieval times, which is cool.
They don't do like a crusade thing.
I don't think I don't think.
Yeah anyway, Yeah, it's it's really interesting because you like it's just you kind of have to parse all of this just stuff. And like she one at one point gives this like dough eyed like almost like literally like she's having like a like a like a Christian reverie of the first time she hot She saw Bohamond of Taranto and like apparently thought he was the hottest guy she'd ever seen. When she was like sixteen, or something, which is like that's adorable.
Yeah, you know what, like you are not immune to vikings. I guess like that.
Like you you are, you are not immune to uh to vikings who somehow ended up conquering Italy.
Yeah, it's uh yeah, it's.
It's really interesting and but but it's also funny because like people did not like her account was believed oh other Western accounts for years because they were like, oh, these western uh sources are trying to make it seem like Alexios was to blame for actually bringing this down on himself, whereas poor sweet Anna here is telling the truth. And it's like I was just telling the truth about a lot of this stuff. But her dad was Her
dad was a shrewd political operator. Oh yeah, yeah, he was like trying to get the Fatom and Caliphate involved with the First Crusade to attack the Seljecs from behind via diplomatic entreaties.
Like it's not.
Yeah, I mean like like fundamentally, what it is a symptom of is how badly they like the bag got fumbled from the Byzantine perspective of the First Crusade, and so Ada.
Is like, no, dad didn't know you.
Yeah, like Dad would never do something that stupid, and it's like, well, yeah, but it's.
A kind of hindsight thing.
Yeah.
You know. One of the things that I really like about it though, that I think is very funny is she's always referring to all the Western European as Celts.
Which is like, it just it cracks me up. It's just like so.
Roman, you know, and I'm like that, yeah, yeah, they're still at it, right. I just I just love how Eastern Rome is Eastern Rome. I love how Roman they are.
They were called the they were called Franks by like most people at the time in the areas.
So it is funny that she's like, no, no.
Celts is like Celts, Like all right, girl, absolutely get it.
Okay, I think they were closer with Franks. But you know what, I haven't written a historical treatise that survived with the reputation intact for.
Almost nine hundred years. Uh so yeah, when I.
Do, maybe there's just like no attic Greek for the comment Frank.
So she's got like she asked.
To say, ye chose the nick closest one.
Yeah.
Anna is fascinating. She is very interesting character. If you ever get a chance. You should take a look at the alexiad an English copy of it. It is interesting, if for nothing else than her perspective on things.
But just remember when she's talking about her dad, like you gotta take it with big grains. Yeah. Yeah.
Also, as far as I know, one of the few medieval women who has an entire manga written about them.
Oh wow, yeah, so love that.
I found that out while looking it up. That's on Wikipedia. So I don't know if you guys have checked that out and it's dog shit or whatever.
I didn't recommend it.
I just I just saw that it existed.
Okay, that's all right, Yeah, yeah, that's in.
Uh.
Now we're going to move forward a little bit in history and talk about Julian of Norwich born Yeah, maybe in thirteen forty three, died definitely in fourteen sixteen. And yeah. As opposed to Anna, whose life is very historically documented both by herself and others, Juliene's life before her visions was.
Question of mark.
Yeah, she lives somewhere. Things happened time past, yep, maybe no.
Yeah, and then and then death scared basically and look, you know, I am very much like of the view that I take my historical betters seriously in terms of what they tend to write about her, and like their theories and and Julian is one of these people who is very much the focus of our imaginations now. So she she really kind of takes off in the twentieth century.
People get really quite interested in her, and she has remained quite popular now in the twenty first century as well, because we're quite interested in ideas of kind of like a contemplative Christianity, and you know, and we.
Like seeing women, don't we you know, this kind of thing.
But we so we don't really exactly know what was going on for her before she ends up becoming in anchors, which is the thing.
We just know that when around about thirty she has a death scare. She's very very.
Ill, and everyone is like this pitch is dying, and she has a crucifix that she can look at that she is looking at, and she then has a series of visions there end up being about sixteen in total, and those kind of make her say, all right, well that's it, I'm gonna like change my life. She lives miraculously and she decides that she's going to be an ankress. And in particular she is then put in a cell at Saint Julian's Church in Norwich.
And so forth.
Reason we don't actually even know what her name is. Her name might have been Julian, but they might be calling her Julian because she's interred at Saint Julian's Church.
We're not sure because it's like, you know, it's it's rather the done thing, like because the idea is like when you become an anchress, right, you get put in a room off a church, and the idea is that you're treated like you've died, so like they say funerary masses for you and stuff, because the idea is it's like, well that's that's it for you and the outside world.
And there's varying ways of being an anchoress, Like you can be an anchress and it's like you're in a little room and then there's like a door in and out of said little room, and like you know, people like you know, Hildegard gets educated by an ankress and it's like she's going in and out. But it seems to us that Julian is not that kind of girl.
She seems to be in in actual sell like she's got maids, which is super common because it's like someone's got to like come take your chamber pot through a hole in the wall. Someone has to kind of like bring you food and water, right, So you usually have maids as well. And we know about her maids a little bit because we know from records that people leave money in their wills for Julian and her maids, like in order to kind of keep this ticking over.
And what she does in said cell is like think.
About her varying sixteen visions, and then she writes about them over and over and over again over time and
kind of refines them. So we bought basically like two texts of this now, which we call the short text in the long text, and as a general rule of thumb, we refer to her writings the Revelations of Divine Love, and like the thing is, they're viby as hell, Like I mean, like that, the vibes are off the charts, like they're really nice, you know, like her her famous there's you know, all shall be well, and all shall be well in all matter, if things shall be well.
Yeah, God's in his heaven. All's right with the world.
She couldn't she didn't say that that was milk. That's the that's the gist here for a lot of it. Yeah, like a few of the different revelations.
Uh.
Julian Uh sees the Crucifixion, he sees the Trinity.
Uh. She sees Jesus and understands who he is.
And then Julie and Jesus holds his hand out to her and there's a hazel nut in it, and uh, as it's a sign of love. Like this whole thing is about love. She travels with Jesus down to the bottom of the sea, which is like cool as.
Hell, you know, just the whole thing. Uh.
The Devil, she sees the Devil's defeat all this stuff, like just Jesus is love. Love, you know, like the like the very like quintessential like kind of like hippie you know, like kind of like, uh, let's all get along kind of religion that you kind of that you know isn't as prevalent as much anymore as it was, but you know, kind of stuff like that.
It's it's you know, it's a good vibes.
Uh.
God it's not God is not waiting to damn you every second of every day.
Uh.
He loves you. He Jesus loves you. You've got good. It's good, you're basking in the light of Christ.
Yeah, and and and this is this is the thing is like she kind of relates to the Trinity and in particular to Jesus's love for us all as like maternal There is some back and forth on this in historical circles where some people are like, she's kind of like positive that Jesus.
Is your mom.
But then like Caroline Walker Bynum, who I've never disagreed with, like, like on the record, I will never disagree with Caroline Walker Binham because she's much cleverer than I am. She's like, yeah, this is just kind of like a thing that rather happens like a you know, enemy of the podcast Bernard of Claire Vaux used to write about that shit too, Like, uh.
So, you know, not necessarily. There's like some speculation people are.
Like, well, maybe she was like a wife and mom before, which is why she's always like writing about maternal love.
But but I don't know.
That I necessarily buy that. I mean, like it's possible, uh, you know, in that like most women are wives and mothers.
But I'm like I don't know.
I think that we all pretty much understand the concept of maternal love. I don't know that you need to want to understand it.
You know.
Yeah, it's you know, like when you know, what are you gonna do after that you just won the championship, What are you gonna do?
I'm gonna call my mama, you know.
You know, like it's that that is like the purest form of love that humans can often im at, you know, the love of a child for a mother, mother for a child.
And uh it is.
Yeah, I like maybe like I don't I don't want to, uh say that nobody ever considered the Christian God as a like fem a feminine figure, as a mother figure before like you know, uh much more advancements in philosophical thought and everything like that. But like that, Julian her revelations talk about like a loving God. But there's it's she's not like straying outside the bounds of Orthodoxy here, and I think that probably would for her to be like Jesus or you know, God is is is your.
Mom, you know, and they're like Jesus said, Father, into thy hands.
I commit you know, like you know, you're not getting into we're not going to get into the patriarchy inherent to the Bible.
Yeah, Like I mean, y'all know how we feet part. But yeah, like the thing is, it is just kind of like a good vibe central, you know. Like, for example, her conceptions is sin are really nice because like the way that she kind of writes about it is that like sin is kind of a natural state of being for humans and God doesn't necessarily mind it. And the idea is that God is just kind of like patially waiting on humans to get over that and like not necessarily mad at you about it.
Right, Yeah, I did want to say that it's not it's clearly not do not say that I said that that I said, But this is very reminiscent of how the Book of Mormon speaks of God. Like God knows you're going to sin because you are human, Like that is that is a perfectly normal thing for a human to do. It is definitionally what we do. And it's not that he's mad at you if you don't come to him and confess. And in the Mormon case, you know,
get baptized and do all their stuff. But in the in Julian's case, you know, confess your sins to priests, et cetera.
Et cetera.
It's that he's just disappointed, Like come on, dude, like I've given you all these signs. I gave you my son. Come please, you know, like you're like, you know, talking to your kid, like come on, dude, you can't like cut school like that. You can't you know, stuff like that. You know, I love you, please don't do that. That is And I found that kind of interesting because like the Book of Morment, it's kind of like God's just like, come on, dude, like do batter.
I mean, I guess, yeah, like come on, man.
Yeah, it's so like I find it like all quite very sweet. You just got like a series of sermons that like God's love is like a daffodil that comes through the snow, and it's just like, you know, like the first kind of signs of spring.
And there's a very cute.
Song called the Bells of Norwich that was written in the eighties, I think, And since I was raised by hippies, I know it and you know these things and it's about that, and uh, you know, I like all all this stuff is like really good. And we know she's like kind of uh locally famous at the time because another enemy of the podcast, Marjorie Kemp, goes to I.
Was hoping to bring up Marjorie Kemp together, yeah and get that one in on your Yeah, enemy of the podcast margin.
The podcast, Marjorie Camp goes to see her, and it's like all we have, of course, is like Marjorie's report of what happens, and she's like.
She said I was great and was luck.
You're so cool, Marjorie.
Oh the God really loves you.
And I'm like, shut the fuck up, Marjorie Camp.
What did she actually say? Did you guys talk about anything besides you?
Like I mean, and we don't know because it's just like, you know, as far as Marjorie is concerned, everything is about her, and like you know and so and like and this bitch a liar, so like I don't you know, personally, I'm unwilling to take Marjorie fucking Camps, you know, like like, yeah, Julian of Norwich gave me an a plus gold star and said I was great.
Like well, it also like it.
Doesn't it doesn't really make sense when Julian is in angress, you know, and she's like her whole thing is like I'm in here contemplating Marjorie Mp is like, oh yeah, well, I'm annoying the shit out of people by crying. I just go around and cry and I annoy people. And it's like I can't see her being like, ah yeah great.
Just anyway, you know, Marjorie Kemp is liar.
I don't like her, although although I think it is interesting right like that it tells us something about certainly and the religious experiences of women in Norfolk at the time, right because like they're both they're both Norfolk girls, you know, Norwich being in Norfolk and kings Lynn or Bishop's Lynn as it was at the time where Marjorie's from, also also in Norfolk, home to a Weatherspoon's hotel, kings Lynn.
I do recommend going and getting insanely drunk and then having a little muffy have a little Weatherspoons McMuffin for breakfast.
Do it be like your girl, this is Weatherspoons. Please please sponsor the book.
Yeah, give us some money, tim Uh, yeah I did. She does have one of my favorite things with the visions, which is the person who has a vision and then they have an abrupt second vision where like God is like, no, yeah, that was authentic. I told you to Like yeah, totally, like which is a a hallmark of like visionaries, like whether you whether you think they're they're true or false. Jose Smith did it. Peter Bartholomew discovered the Holy Lance on the First Crusade.
Did it? Like it was like you know, they did. It's very common. I love it. Yeah, you like God came in and like.
You know, notarized it. He was like, I got the I got the stamp. You can't do anything now, bitch.
It's like citation is there. We're like we're ready to rock.
Yeah, like you know, and she's but I guess the thing that is really important to about hers that she writes all this down and uh. And so these works survive and it's basically one of the only things.
That we have from a woman.
In English, which is odd because like the fourteenth century is like this is kind of like the flowering of you know, for example, the Begines. We have like tons of fucking you know, we've got the Mirror of Simple Souls. We've got all sorts of things like that, like out of the begins from the time. But like there's very little that comes out of England, you know, probably because it sucks, but you know, like whatever, what you know, like it's it's it's never going to be the continent, is it.
But it's also.
Interesting because she lives through like all the worst climactic events of the fourteenth cent We're like, lives through the
Black Death, which absolutely fucking devastates Norwich. Like we're talking about like probably half the population because you know, it's a it's a go ahead, it's a wood trading and cloth banking town, so like obviously there's a lot of trade and it's just like and she survives the peasants rebellion, the rebellion goes off hard yep in in Norwich, so like, but she doesn't like write about that stuff because like that's not that's not her deal. She's like, what, no,
what I'm I'm writing about my visions? Like this is that she's kind of, in some ways like the opposite of Anna Komnena, like who is like, you know, Anna's out here being like and here's all the things that happen, and I'm gonna put my story forward this way, Julian does not give a shit about current events because it's like they don't matter, because what matters is that God loves you. And like I understand that all these things are awful, but the important and fundamental thing is God's love.
Yeah, exactly, and I think, uh for I think for her, like she survived the Black Death as a baby, which which longer.
Odds there obviously, you know, not as a big deal.
Also, the revelations of divine Love was something that uh, she refined. She wrote a first version and then after her lie, after like living for you know more, you know, a bit longer. She she refined it and wrote some more and you know, so it's one of those things where like it she she she she kind of like learned and reflected everything through like you know, the prism of of what it is. And you know, she just m h, I love that they call it shoeing. She had shoeing sh s h E W I n g
A shoeing and that is what they were called. And I just like every time I see it, I'm like they just put showing like bothers me.
I know, I know, I know, I know it just bothers, it bothers something in my brain. It's fine.
I know, it's also funny, like the rule at the time, it's like the anchor write rule r I W L E.
I'm like, hell, yeah, yeah.
Just so you know what, like whatever, dude just sounded out, sounded out there.
Conventional Middle English doesn't have a lot of hard and vest rules. Man, you just spell it how you spell it, and hopefully someone's like yeah, sure.
Why not.
Yeah?
And I like her though because she's not I think that some people have referred to as blessed, but it's like she's not even necessarily.
Like a long like I don't know, she got kicked around.
I think that like rat Singer was like, well maybe she we could consider her as one of the doctors of the church and.
That kind of thing. But like she's not moving down the Saint Hoood pipeline. She's just a cool chick. And I mean, I guess too. This is the thing is it's like, you know, she lives, she.
Dies, she's popular you know in the area, but like she doesn't make a huge dent outside of Nortich's. I mean, having said that, like Norwich is a pretty big fucking deal at the time being being.
It was the second city of England. WI.
Yeah, and so it's like that is a big deal. But you know, like she's not you know, one.
Of the reasons why we don't think she was a nun or anything like that. It's like she's not buried in the nearby nunnery, which ordinarily, like if you were this big deal, you would be you know, so like we think she was probably a lay woman who just did all this and I think it's cool, Like I think it's just neat that you know, she was just like yeah, no, I'm gonna go think about.
God and stuff for a while. Well, and it's like cool, girl, absolutely get after it.
You know. Yeah. Yeah. After she passed away.
Her work was lost for about two hundred issues all over two hundred years, found again in sixteen thirty or sixteen seventy, republished or published by Benedictine Monk named Serenus de Cressy. And yeah, now there's a manuscript of it in the British Museum, which, hey, one of the things that may.
Actually belong there.
Yeah, I imagine, yeah, imagine that just just from up the way in Norwich. Yeah, she's got a really cool story, like you know, she just she took the vow, she went in there and like after having this like incredible like near death experience, you know, I guess that's what we would call it in a technical sense.
She just.
You know, she just went in there and and became like a like a renowned spiritual a renowned spiritual figure as a woman. Uh, just in the second biggest city in England. It's you know, good for her.
It's interesting.
You know, it's always interesting when when uh they break out of the uh the conventional mold there and become you know, in this field that is almost one dominated by men outside of you know, like outside of your occasional begin and you know, people like that. It's like, yeah, the Thomas Aquinas to God Jesus a guy.
And I think it's cool because it's like she is, you know this this genuinely like very very religious person. So you know, again like I'm not I was gonna say sorry for talking about Marjorie Camp again, but I'm not. But it's like, you know, like Marjorie Camp is like going around like doing this big you know, sort of like propaganda campaign for herself as a saint, and Julia Norrich is like, nah, man, like I'm just in here
doing my thing, and I just think it's cool. I think that she's just kind of like head down, like, no, I'm just trying to figure out what's going on in my visions and this is the way that I'm going to do it. And it's not it's not about, you know, creating a campaign for myself. It's literally about the religious stuff, which I find like a very moving.
Uh So, yeah, yeah, I think I think it takes a lot. I think it takes a lot of It takes a lot to like a cask of a montiato yourself into like a niche and a church and be like I'm pissing and shipping here for the rest of my life.
Yeah, I've been there.
I went.
I went and visited her little churchy church like it.
Uh no, I mean the the like I can't being in just a single book.
Yeah.
Anyway, it got knocked down, like because it got hit in the Blitz and it's like been rebuilt, but it's like now they kind of have a chapel there, and I went and sat around at the chapel and that was cool. So we're like, but we probably like lost the original one because like obviously the Protestants took a dim view on all of this, and so like the church kind of had fallen into disrepair and then it got hit by the Germans and then blah blah blah.
But you can go there, you can you can go there.
It's I just can't, like I just can't, like to me like it's just like, yeah, that's cool, Like I don't give a ship like.
Well, that's that's not very that's not very Henry the eighth of.
You, Luke, No it is not.
I'm just like, you know, no, I like, what are why why?
Why are you so weird? He want hang, what are you doing?
Like I can calm down, like let us let us have a weird little chick, all right, we want our weird little our weird little closet girl.
Please.
Yes, no, not that kind of closet girl.
Different.
I mean that we're aware of you, know that we're yeah, that we're aware of you. I love the city of Norwich. I also just want to make that I want to make that clear. I think it's I think it's really cool.
And I think that if you, I think everyone shaz if you, if you ever decide that you're going to make your way over to England, I think that Norwich is really worth your time, That's all I want to say.
Nice.
Yeah, yeah, So that's going to about do it for us today. Uh Anna and Julian are really cool, and thank you for hanging around and checking us and checking out checking them out with us. Good god, I can't even talk Friday Baby, Friday late recording Illin, what's going on with you?
Yeah?
I did some things.
So first of all, my new show on History Hit is out, The Medieval Apocalypse, So if you would like to see me point at things and also like I'm just like geeking out the whole time.
It's just like it's ridiculous.
I like watch it and I'm like, like the look on my stupid face. I'm like a labrador being shown like a bone or something. So if you want to see me like smile way too much and freak out at like some apocalypse things, then then that is available to you at history hit.
Dot com. I think is I think that's where I work. I don't know.
And then also I wrote something at the blog the other day, so at going hyphen Medieval dot com you can check out my thoughts on the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Edward the Second and why. I think that it's really good to do productions about like our Gayer kings and what it shows us about how actually people in the past are a lot more chill about homeo stuff than we are. So yeah, you can go and check that out. Otherwise, you know where your girl's at.
I'm on the socials at Going Medieval, that's what's up.
Yep.
You can find me at Luke is Amazing, and you can find my old show, People's Fisher of the Republic wherever you're listening to the show if you want to hear me yep about Star Wars. Yeah, so that's going to do it for us today. Thank you very much and we'll see you next time. Bye.