Medieval Beauty Standards with Kate Lister

How did the 14th-century Black Death influenced fashion trends? And were medieval bald men considered 'hot' because their hair burned off due to their masculinity? From clear skin and youthful appearance to the controversial make-up practices of the period Dr. Eleanor Janega and Dr. Kate Lister explore this fascinating, ever-changing concept. MORE Real Medieval Women with Philippa Gregory https://open.spotify.com/episode/2bGP4HAgsUgVkazs2Dkdyw Gone Medieval is presented by Dr. Eleanor Janega. It was edited by Tom Delargy and Amy Haddow, the producer is Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff. All music used is courtesy of Epidemic Sounds. Gone Medieval is a History Hit podcast. Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/6FFT7MK: https://uk.surveymonkey.com/r/6FFT7MK Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• 0:01Matt Lewis?

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• 1:46Speaker 04

  In Our Time is a world-class seminar every week. Why was Jeremy a lonely snail? What were lines doing in York in the 3rd century? I'm Misha Glennie, and every week I'm joined by expert guests to explore the ideas that shape our world.

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• 2:21Eleanor Janega?

  Hello, I'm Dr. Eleanor Yanaga and welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We uncover the greatest mysteries, the gob-smacking details, and the latest groundbreaking research, from the Vikings to the Normans, from kings to popes, to the Crusades. We delve into the rebellions, plots, and murders that tell us who we really were and how we got here.

• 2:59Eleanor Janega?

  It's easy to think that there's some kind of natural standard of beauty that humans all hold and have always held. This is understandable because when we are thinking about the past and what people must have looked like, a lot of times what we are thinking about are movies that take place in the past. So when we imagine, say, Eleanor of Aquitaine in the past, we get images of noted babe Catherine Hepburn, or ex-model Mila Jovovich as Joan of Arc, or maybe even the divine Cate Blanchett as the legendary maid Marian. Our historical fiction is full of the most beautiful women it is possible to cast, which makes perfect sense.

• 3:43Eleanor Janega?

  But the thing is, medieval Europeans had vastly different ideas of what exactly was hot, to the point that when I share images of beautiful women from actual medieval manuscripts online, I almost always immediately get asked, "Why is she pregnant and balding?" I was allowed, out of the Gone Medieval dungeon, to stop by our sister podcast, Betwixt the Sheets, to chat with my wonderful friend and inimitable colleague, Dr. Kate Lister, all about medieval beauty standards. As per usual, because it's me and Kate, the language can get a little saucy, so you might want to have a listen before deciding whether younger listeners are ready to learn all about the wonderful world of medieval beauty.

• 4:29Speaker 07

  We are here to talk about medieval beauty standards.

• 4:33Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, there's a one.

• 4:37Eleanor Janega?

  I think it's kind of annoying though, when you talk about medieval beauty standards is it's kind of like, yes, alright, I'm gonna talk about medieval things because you can't stop me.

• 4:45Speaker 07

  Yep.

• 4:45Eleanor Janega?

  No, can't stop, won't stop.

• 4:46Speaker 07

  Nope.

• 4:47Eleanor Janega?

  But fundamentally, these standards within Europe, and you know, more particularly, kind of in the Mediterranean, literal, are pretty much ossified for a really long time. So, you know, yeah, I could be talking about, I don't know, France in the 1300s, but it's also kind of true of like Morocco in like the 10th century, you know?

• 5:08Speaker 07

  There are some consistent things. What I'm learning, I've, I've been done this little mini series and doing little time traveling trips to different places, is there are some constants that like wherever you go, that was an attractive thing. Clear skin, I have yet to find anybody going, actually, we kind of want you to fuck it up a bit.

• 5:27Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah.

• 5:28Speaker 07

  That doesn't happen.

• 5:29Eleanor Janega?

  No.

• 5:30Speaker 07

  Healthy, that's like a really big one with maybe a few detours. Remember heroin chic in the 90s?

• 5:36Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, yeah.

• 5:37Speaker 07

  Remember that one?

• 5:38Eleanor Janega?

  Well, it's back, baby, because the 90s are back, so.

• 5:41Speaker 07

  No, keep it away. No, I want my high-waisted jeans.

• 5:47Speaker 07

  But I was also thinking, like, not only there are some constants of like, healthy, young, that's another one. Again, I have yet to find anyone that thinks as you get older and older, you get more attractive. That doesn't happen. But even if we just think about our lifetimes, how much beauty trends come and go? Like in the 90s, right? And I was thinking, because I know it's gonna come and torch it, and I was making a mental list of beauty fads that have come and gone in our lifetime. Number one, concealer lips. Do you remember them?

• 6:17Eleanor Janega?

  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, and then with like the dark liner around.

• 6:21Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 6:22Eleanor Janega?

  That showgirls liner, girl, that showgirls liner.

• 6:24Speaker 07

  Um, super low-rise jeans.

• 6:27Eleanor Janega?

  Girl, what a horrible time to live through my twenties.

• 6:30Speaker 07

  You had to shave to put those on.

• 6:32Eleanor Janega?

  It was just, you know, I've emerged into the world, this is what, and they were like, put these on. Oh, by the way, your fly is like two inches long. I mean, just like, it was kind of like a notion at that point.

• 6:43Speaker 07

  And the thong hanging out the back. So we don't do any, and like, the height of sophistication on the red carpet was jeans and a nice top.

• 6:50Eleanor Janega?

  Okay. Do you remember though, at the same time, uh, the jeans under the dress thing?

• 6:53Speaker 07

  Oh, my God. Yeah. Hideous. Oh, no. Yeah.

• 6:57Eleanor Janega?

  But like, we could do this for a while.

• 6:59Speaker 07

  But my point is, is that look how much these things come and go in, within a few years. So even though things are constant when it comes to beauty standards, there must have been things coming in and things going out. Cause the medieval period, as I've learned from you, is a thousand years of history.

• 7:15Eleanor Janega?

  Absolutely. And so there are things that we, we don't necessarily know about what's going on at certain periods of time. So like the early Middle Ages, when we have fewer sources for them, because it, fifteen hundred years is a really long time ago, you know, and it's hard, it's hard to get sources for that. And also culturally, they just kind of don't write things down, uh, in terms of what descriptions are. So we don't know that much about what's going on in, say, the year six fifty, because no one was like, hey, she is really hot and she looks like this. The thing that they'll do is they'll write down that someone is really beautiful.

• 7:54Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 7:55Eleanor Janega?

  And, and you're like, helpful. Thanks, you know, and, and, and that, that isn't really expanded upon. And this is super common though, because even if you go back to, for example, the ancient Greeks and they're like, Helen of Troy, you're like, oh yeah, okay. The most beautiful woman on earth. And they're like, she's blonde.

• 8:12Speaker 07

  And that's it.

• 8:13Eleanor Janega?

  And you're like, anything else? They're like, absolutely not. That's just, that's, that's all it takes, baby. And then, you know, even within that, when you're looking at, uh, classical women that are portrayed as beautiful, uh, you know, again, like from, uh, things like the Trojan Wars, you'll have like Polysena and they'll be like, oh yeah, she's. Not, not too tall.

• 8:34Speaker 07

  And that's, yeah.

• 8:35Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, and like.

• 8:35Speaker 07

  It's not giving you much to work with, is it?

• 8:37Eleanor Janega?

  There's absolutely nothing. So, you know, this isn't a particularly medieval thing. And so, you know, even when we are looking at ancient standards of beauty, we gotta go look at like statues. Right? You know, you, well, you need to go find like Aphrodite bathing and things like that. And, you know, these are, these are pretty uniform and, you know, medieval people saw those statues, right? Those are, those are things that they saw with their eyes because it wasn't like they were underground or something. So, you know, that must have persisted in some places, but what we definitely know about early medieval beauty standards is they're like, to be beautiful is kind of like to be righteous.

• 9:14Speaker 07

  I'm sensing that as developing as a theme, you know, this sort of pretty privilege, but on a, on an epic scale of like, if you're beautiful, then you're just a good person.

• 9:25Eleanor Janega?

  Mm hmm, mm hmm. And it's like, you have all this time, like where this is a legitimate calls for philosophical debate. So people are like, why is it that the chick I really wanna bang uh is also so holy and good? And, and they're like, well, it's because, it's because

• 9:45Eleanor Janega?

  God created the world, right? God created nature. And, you know, God created the Garden of Eden. He created everything that exists. And when we were still in the Garden of Eden, you know, we were, we were close by God. We were just like, woo, in his image, right? And, you know, then things went south. Eva ate the pomegranate or the apple or whatever it is you want it to be. We got kicked out, bada bing bada boom. But naturally, things are close to God because God made the physical world. So therefore, things that naturally are beautiful are close to God. And then that's how you kind of get spiritual perfection.

• 10:24Speaker 07

  That is some mental gymnastics, isn't it? That is a hell of a way of saying we always think that the people we wanna shag are amazing.

• 10:32Eleanor Janega?

  And they are.

• 10:33Speaker 07

  For a bit.

• 10:34Eleanor Janega?

  I've never, ever wanted to shag some man who was terrible. No.

• 10:39Speaker 07

  That you learn that later.

• 10:40Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, put that on record. Always right.

• 10:44Speaker 07

  Right? That's what happens later and you realize, damn it, the pretty man did it again.

• 10:50Eleanor Janega?

  Curses.

• 10:51Speaker 07

  The medieval people, now this is, this is thrown a bit of a conundrum my way because what I know from you and your work is that they didn't like pretty women.

• 11:00Eleanor Janega?

  Okay, look, so you can be more than one thing.

• 11:03Speaker 07

  Okay.

• 11:04Eleanor Janega?

  You can be massively horny and also angry about it. Like since time in a memorial, men have been mad that chicks are pretty.

• 11:11Speaker 07

  There we go.

• 11:11Eleanor Janega?

  Right?

• 11:12Speaker 07

  Okay.

• 11:12Eleanor Janega?

  And then it goes back to Eve in like these theological conceptions because like one of the things about Eve and pictures that you see of Eve, absolute stone cold baddie. Right? Like just a dime piece, like always, always upholding the beauty standards of the time because of course she does because she's in the Garden of Eden.

• 11:31Speaker 07

  And they have makeup counters.

• 11:32Eleanor Janega?

  Yes. Just picking the lip gloss off of the trees. So it's, but it is like one of these things where of course she's a spiritual perfection at the time. And then also this is, you know, the opportunity that you have to paint a hot naked chick. So like, let, let us not.

• 11:50Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 11:50Eleanor Janega?

  You know, forget that, that there are, there are ways to just kind of like have some fun with this, right? So she is always going to be portrayed as like really, really beautiful, but she's also the vector for which sin came into the world.

• 12:04Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 12:05Eleanor Janega?

  You know, she's also the reason why we have death. She's, you know, she's the cause of original sins. So very particularly a hot chick did all this.

• 12:15Speaker 07

  Yeah. You wouldn't have had a five doing this, would you?

• 12:19Eleanor Janega?

  No, absolutely no mids. It's just like, this is, this is hot chick behavior.

• 12:23Speaker 07

  This is, this is hot chick.

• 12:24Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, like, you know, the, you know, all her friends are like, honestly, girl, work, you know, like, ooh, she's so dramatic. She is the drama, et cetera. But I mean, fundamentally, this also is linked to the fact that.

• 12:39Eleanor Janega?

  The beauty then becomes sexual.

• 12:41Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 12:42Eleanor Janega?

  Because part of the fall of man isn't just that Adam and Eve realize they're naked, right? It's that they realize they're naked and they're turned on by it.

• 12:50Speaker 07

  Okay.

• 12:51Eleanor Janega?

  So because, you know, like they just didn't know to be turned on before. So like this being attracted, that's kind of like the next step. That's, that's the issue, right?

• 13:02Speaker 07

  And you get this weird cognitive distance that arrives. It's not just in the medieval period that you see this is that they want women to be beautiful, but not aware that they're beautiful because then that's bad. They want them to be sexually attractive, but not too much. And they can't flaunt that at any point. They need to be unbelievably beautiful, but also innocent. What we would now call the no makeup makeup. Look, just completely natural, like long tresses of blonde hair, not made up. I think a really good example of that is in the Canterbury Tales. When you've got, so you've got the Miller's Tale and he describes this eighteen year old girl called Alison.

• 13:43Eleanor Janega?

  They're all Alison.

• 13:44Speaker 07

  They're all so many Alison's in there. It's like, trust them, pick another name. And she is kind of slutty and she's like really heavily made up. And he really goes to town describing her like, like slow eyebrows and like her hair's pulled back. And she's got like loads of pleats on her and stuff. And then, then there's the knight's tale where another girl is described. And she is described as like also very beautiful, but it's a very different type. Of beauty. It's not made up. It's just like not like doves and bluebirds follow her around singing songs. And she's, she literally skips through gardens singing, doesn't she?

• 14:23Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah. And I mean, this is what medieval people would tell you is true beauty. So it is a hundred percent that you're just supposed to be beautiful. Just be beautiful. Just be, there is an ossified beauty archetype. And by the way, if you don't live up to this, we think you're sinful and evil. But I swear to God, girl, if you pluck your eyebrows.

• 14:43Speaker 07

  Trouble. No, then you're a bad woman.

• 14:45Eleanor Janega?

  Which also I think it's really funny because medieval people are constantly talking about like chicks eyebrows and how hot their eyebrows are. And I remember like a few years ago, do you remember when there was like the really like.

• 14:55Speaker 07

  Really heavy brows.

• 14:56Eleanor Janega?

  And there would be videos from men being like, no man has ever been attracted to eyebrows. I'm like, baby, actually we've got a hundred years of history where men are like, ooh. Oh, you see the eyebrows on that one.

• 15:07Speaker 07

  Eyebrow trends do come and go.

• 15:09Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 15:10Speaker 07

  Aren't they? Definitely Alison in The Miller's Tale, she get her eyebrows get a mention.

• 15:14Eleanor Janega?

  Mm hmm, mm hmm. And so eyebrows become this particular sight of worry for men, obviously. Uh, because they're like, I go, I, I hope that her arch, they have to be arched and hopefully black. Right? You're supposed to be blonde with black eyebrows, you know, that thing.

• 15:31Speaker 07

  That, that happens.

• 15:32Eleanor Janega?

  That thing that exists without makeup.

• 15:33Speaker 07

  Right, exactly.

• 15:34Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, absolutely. And, and so this, there's a particular story about this where there's a guy who he's very in love with his wife. Uh, and she was so beautiful and like wonderful, but she dies, you know, in the way that people do. So he pays this monk who can have ecstatic visions to like go check in on his wife in the afterlife and tell him how he's doing. So monk takes the money, has ecstatic vision and comes back. He's like, yeah, your wife is in hell. And your wife is in hell and demons are gnawing at her eyebrows and at her hairline. Because you thought she was beautiful, but actually she plucked her eyebrows and her hairline. And so now the, her ironic punishment in the afterlife is that demons gnaw the places that she used to pluck.

• 16:20Eleanor Janega?

  And it's like, so, but your wife kind of sucked, actually, I think you'll find it. But it's like, not only is there this real pressure to have these specific eyebrows, but if you do anything about it, you're going to hell. And it's because makeup or any kind of intervention is seen as a form of trickery.

• 16:43Speaker 07

  Right.

• 16:44Eleanor Janega?

  Like to the point where there are laws on the books, like here in London, where if you find out that a sex worker that you frequented was using makeup, that's fraud and you can go ask for your money back.

• 16:53Speaker 07

  Wow.

• 16:54Eleanor Janega?

  I mean, granted, you're going to be laughed out of the stews, but.

• 16:57Speaker 07

  Yes, yeah. You, uh, did anyone ever enforce that?

• 17:01Eleanor Janega?

  I mean, good luck, right? You know, but, but it's on the books, right? So like in, in theory, that's in there. And so the idea is like, well, this is false advertising. You're not really beautiful because to.

• 17:11Speaker 07

  So would you want me to come home and meet your mother? Jesus, like, what do you mean? Like it's, you're paying for a quick shag up against a woman.

• 17:17Eleanor Janega?

  And it's just like, oh my God, like, I'm, I'm sorry. Like, were you writing love poetry to this woman? She does not care. Right? Like this is a business woman. Thank you very much. But it's.

• 17:26Speaker 07

  And you're no six foot two either, Paul.

• 17:27Eleanor Janega?

  I know. Mm hmm. I mean, like, to the point where, you know, when you have poor Alison in The Miller's Tale, they're like, and she thinks she's really hot. And I'm like, I mean, you're still kind of like literarily wanking over her.

• 17:37Speaker 07

  Like, really quite intensely as well.

• 17:40Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah. And so it's, it's sort of like you are making her into a figure of fun, but you still think she's hot.

• 17:46Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 17:46Eleanor Janega?

  But she's the wrong kind of hot.

• 17:47Speaker 07

  But we do that today. That's still a bind that, that women are in today. Point in case, Kardashians. I love to return to them again and again.

• 17:56Eleanor Janega?

  Always.

• 17:56Speaker 07

  But they occupy that same space of like, they're judged for how they look, but they also influence how people look. We also hate them for what they do and how they're made up and artificial, but they're also adored for it. And they make them, and it becomes really weird and complex. And it's that same artifice that people in the medieval period got angry about.

• 18:16Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, yeah, absolutely. Where the, the trouble here is that these people are aware.

• 18:22Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 18:22Eleanor Janega?

  And that, and that's a big part of it. As you mentioned, it's like, you're not supposed, you know, to, to quote One Direction, you don't know you're beautiful, right? Like, that's the thing that you're supposed to be doing is that you're just supposed to meet this standard and also be blithely unaware of

• 18:36Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 18:36Eleanor Janega?

  all of society.

• 18:38Speaker 07

  Am I really beautiful?

• 18:40Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, wow. I didn't, I didn't notice that I looked like every single statue in the church.

• 18:44Speaker 07

  Right.

• 18:45Eleanor Janega?

  Like every painting I've ever seen. And also, no one's ever mentioned this to me. Like, in a society completely obsessed with the way that women look.

• 18:53Speaker 07

  And if you can be unsexual as well, that's a help. Just going back against the counter, because Emily, the really beautiful one with the bluebirds tweeted, uh, she wanted to be a virgin all her life. She wanted to be a priestess of someone or other, some virgin goddess. So like the idea as well, that you're, you're not even supposed to be sexual. You're just this

• 19:11Eleanor Janega?

  Hmm.

• 19:11Speaker 07

  beautiful Disney princess wandering around.

• 19:13Eleanor Janega?

  Well, like, we see this, for example, um, in the Pearl poem as well. So, you know, in the Pearl poem, the like little girl dies and she's like two, and then her dad sees her in heaven and she's like a sixteen year old hottie.

• 19:26Speaker 07

  Uncomfortable.

• 19:26Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, and it's and he's like, oh, isn't it great that she's so hot? And it's because, you know, she's kept the spiritual perfection because she was a virgin and she died and da, da, da, and she never did anything wrong. And so there's this idea that our souls, when they go to heaven and indeed, like when we rise from the grave on Judgment Day, our bodies are going to be at the height of their powers. Like, we're going to be, we're going to be as good as we are. And so hilariously, for women, this is like, yeah, sixteen. Like, you know, you're supposed to be a maiden, which means like you've achieved sexual maturity, but you haven't had sex yet.

• 19:57Speaker 07

  Right.

• 19:58Eleanor Janega?

  And for men, it's middle age.

• 20:00Speaker 07

  Oh, for fuck's sake.

• 20:01Eleanor Janega?

  I know, right? So like, go look at, go look at any, you know, picture of the Last Judgment and everyone, all the little naked souls getting up out of their graves. It's a bunch of baddies. And then like, middle-aged dudes.

• 20:12Speaker 07

  Do you want to be sixteen again? What an awful idea that is.

• 20:15Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, my god. It's like, have you ever spoken to a sixteen-year-old girl also?

• 20:18Speaker 07

  Never want to go through that nonsense again.

• 20:21Eleanor Janega?

  Like, it is horrifying times.

• 20:23Speaker 07

  That is not Judgment Day shit. Let me be sixteen in my swamp witch era.

• 20:27Eleanor Janega?

  I mean, look, let me tell you also, like, as, you know, a noted elder millennial, we definitely lived through that with, like, Britney Spears.

• 20:36Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 20:36Eleanor Janega?

  For example, where it was like, look at her, and then they would like parade her around and be like, say you're a virgin, say it, do it. It's like, while they're like, and also take all your clothes off and please gyrate, you know? And, and, and it was like a really weird time to be alive, where you're just like, huh, this thing of kind of simultaneously commodifying women who haven't had sex yet, but sexualizing them. So it's like, they can't be sexual, but you're going to be sexual at them. And so.

• 21:03Speaker 07

  You're gonna creep all over them.

• 21:04Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, exactly. And then like, every woman who like notices that this is happening, it's like your fault for noticing? You're just supposed to be blithely unaware.

• 21:12Speaker 07

  So this is a kind of why they have this link of if you're beautiful, you must be spiritually pure somehow, because the ideal beauty is somehow unaware and innocent. What the fuck happens when you get older? You're only sixteen for one year. That's all you get at being sixteen. You've got a long way to go after that.

• 21:33Eleanor Janega?

  Well, luckily, you'll be a mommy soon. And then all your worries are over.

• 21:37Speaker 07

  And then you don't need to be attracted.

• 21:39Eleanor Janega?

  That you don't need to be attracted because it's not your mommy.

• 21:41Speaker 07

  Oh.

• 21:41Eleanor Janega?

  It's not your mommy. And like, and this is kind, although, you know, obviously, there are cases where this doesn't happen. So, you know, very famously, Eleanor of Aquitaine is incredibly hot. And everyone is like, stupid sexy Eleanor of Aquitaine. Like, and they're so angry about it. Because like, she's like, really, really hot and doesn't behave like they want her to behave. And you know, there's constantly rumors swirling as a result. They're like, oh, she's shagging her uncle. You know, she's dead and 200 years later, they're like, she was shagging Saladin. It's like, homie, how? Literally, how did that happen? You know, and, and like, these are things that even the Victorians are repeating later. So there are women who continue to meet the beauty standard later. And when they enter the record, people are furious.

• 22:26Eleanor Janega?

  They're like, no, you're not supposed to be doing that anymore because you're supposed to kind of like transcend. You're supposed to get into motherhood and then this is going to be like a moot point. And, you know, then people will say, you were an excellent wife, you were an excellent mother. But still, having said that, it's like medieval literary tradition is absolutely full of people's really hot wives who are like cuckolding them or not.

• 22:48Speaker 07

  Wife of Bath?

• 22:48Eleanor Janega?

  Wife of Bath.

• 22:49Speaker 07

  Is she hot? I'm just, she has a very detailed description. She's another Alison.

• 22:54Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah.

• 22:54Speaker 07

  She's 40, all of 40 years old. And, oh my god, oh my god.

• 23:01Eleanor Janega?

  Uh, can you imagine?

• 23:02Speaker 07

  And she, um, she's got a gap between her teeth. I remember that.

• 23:05Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah.

• 23:06Speaker 07

  She is slightly red in the face.

• 23:08Eleanor Janega?

  Mm hmm. Which is good.

• 23:09Speaker 07

  Which, is that, that's good?

• 23:10Eleanor Janega?

  So, so what you want is you want white skin, but rosy cheeks. And oftentimes in literary sources, it's referred to as a complexion of snow and roses.

• 23:21Speaker 07

  Oh, wow.

• 23:21Eleanor Janega?

  Which is very.

• 23:22Speaker 07

  Okay, okay.

• 23:23Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah.

• 23:23Speaker 07

  So she's got that, the gap tooth, I remember that, that she's got a gap between her teeth.

• 23:28Eleanor Janega?

  Mm hmm.

• 23:29Speaker 07

  I can't remember what her eyebrows were like. Is she a sexy figure? She talks about sex all the time.

• 23:34Eleanor Janega?

  It's really difficult to say because she's sexualized.

• 23:37Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 23:38Eleanor Janega?

  Certainly. And I think that it's very difficult to not then kind of like put her in sexy situations as a result. But she's kind of representing people's worry about widows. More particularly, even though, you know, she's a wife at this, this point in her life. But this idea that, you know, older women are sexually aware of what they want, they're experienced, and they have money.

• 23:59Speaker 07

  Right.

• 23:59Eleanor Janega?

  So they can kind of pick and choose what they want to do. They can marry men for whatever reason they wish to. Or not, you know, so they then you get into this kind of like limbo where there's this specific worry about widows where it's like, oh, these widows are out here being hot and you know, like they they are out of control, you know, they don't have fathers to shove them in one way or another, or brothers, you know, like maybe your sons can be like, mom, knock it off. But you know, they're they're just gonna do what they do. So there is also this kind of like moral gray area that they fall into.

• 24:34Speaker 07

  Okay, all right, that's that's interesting, but not they're not regarded as beautiful in the same way as.

• 24:40Eleanor Janega?

  No, I mean, because it like to be young is to be beautiful within a lot of these things. I mean, if you look at the de Cameron, for example, there's just endless stories of cuckolding. It's just like, that's that's all there is. And you know, also stories of like a really beautiful women who are kind of younger. So, you know, for example, you got the story of it's the it's the king of Babylon, which is Egypt to like, do not look, I can't explain it to you. And she's really hot and is supposed to get married off to the king of the Algarve and gets sent on a boat and like the boat shipwrecks. And then there's like a series of stories where every man who comes into contact with her is like, oh, like, you know, they they don't talk on the floor, it it becomes a cartoon wolf.

• 25:24Eleanor Janega?

  And they like are all killing each other and kidnapping her. And then like the minute you show her a dick, she's like, oh, well. Well, I guess this is fine, uh, you know, and it's like, it's absolutely incredible, right? And so she kind of gets past like from hand to hand through like, I think, eight different dudes.

• 25:40Speaker 07

  Wow.

• 25:41Eleanor Janega?

  Um, and then like eventually finds her way home to her father and makes up this great story about how she was, uh, uh, actually, uh, the whole time, like, do not worry, dad, virginity intact, because I was hanging out at the nunnery of Saint Crescent in the Hole.

• 25:57Speaker 07

  Of course you were.

• 25:58Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, uh, great, great little euphemism there. Um, and you know, like, we are Muslim, but you know, these Christians safeguarded me in any way I can marry the prince of the Algarve. He's like, you sure can. And this is a story of a woman who's kind of like in her teens to twenties and they're like, she maintains her beauty and her sexuality. All throughout these subsequent changes of sexual partners and to the point where she's like married off with all honors in the end, and it's kind of like a happily ever after. So what we learn is that there are these sort of conceits where it's like, oh, you're supposed to be holy in order to be beautiful. You've got to be a 16 year old. You need to be a virgin in theory. In practice, if we're seeing what people actually do and what's going on with their lives, there's a lot more room for interpretation

• 26:42Eleanor Janega?

  about where beauty lies and whether or not, you know, sexual women are indeed sexy. Because in this case, yes, absolutely.

• 27:07Speaker 01

  Hey, it's Adam Grant from Ted's Rethinking Podcast. As businesses scale, success depends on how well knowledge is captured, shared, and kept up to date. Camtasia Pro turns teams' expertise into engaging training, onboarding, and documentation. No professional editing experience required. With the industry's best screen recording, video editing, and AI-powered workflows, you can train faster and boost operational efficiency. Get over $100 off your first year at camtasia pro.com and start building a smarter way to educate customers, onboard employees, and ensure valuable expertise is shared across teams.

• 27:41Speaker 02

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• 27:59Speaker 03

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• 28:12Speaker 09

  Ever wondered what it feels like to be a gladiator, facing a roaring crowd and potential death in the Colosseum? Find out on the Ancients podcast from History Hit. Twice a week, join me, Tristan Hughes, as I hear exciting new research about people living thousands of years ago, from the Babylonians to the Celts to the Romans, and visit the ancient sites which reveal who and just how amazing our distant ancestors were. That's the Ancients from History Hit.

• 28:58Speaker 07

  I feel like we should finish up by talking about men being attractive, because this conversation always focuses on women because they're the ones that have had the pressure put on them to look a certain way. But men feel the pressure too. What was a medieval male hottie?

• 29:15Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, well, so the medieval male hottie, as a general rule of thumb, a little bit muscular, but a little bit of meat on the bones. You know, they go for, they go for like, ooh, there's food in the house.

• 29:27Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 29:27Eleanor Janega?

  Right? You know, like that's hot. So if you've got like a little bit of a belly, that like, that's, that's no problem. Do not worry about that. There is like a lot of like men kind of like exercising to exercise and like, you know, to maintain their figure. So it's like quite cute, like there is do you even lift, bro? In the medieval period, but they're just like picking up big rocks. Like, it's a lot more like a strong man competition. It's very amazing. So there'll be like exercise regimens and things like that. And the other big one is like being clean.

• 29:54Speaker 07

  Clean? That's a constant.

• 29:56Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, everybody likes it when you're clean. So there's like rather a lot of that. You got to like comb your hair, brush your teeth.

• 30:01Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 30:01Eleanor Janega?

  All of those things.

• 30:02Speaker 07

  Don't stink.

• 30:03Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, exactly. So that, you know, there's rather a lot of that. And then dress is a big one.

• 30:07Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 30:07Eleanor Janega?

  So one big difference, I think, between now and with medieval men is medieval men be showing it off, right? Like, it becomes a huge issue in the 14th century when the Black Death is going on, because a lot of men are like, look, if I'm going to die tomorrow... I'm wearing hose, right? And they're like, they got it out, like, they're like, wearing super, super pointy shoes. And the bishops in England are furious and they're writing about this. They're like, God, it's punishing us with the Black Death because these men are wearing tights. And, and like, everything that we see has them like, wearing tights. And then, but then there's kind of like this, these equivalent of women shouldn't wear makeup is you shouldn't go too crazy on the clothes.

• 30:49Speaker 07

  Okay.

• 30:49Eleanor Janega?

  So like, if your tights are parky colored, so like, they are green and purple or something like that. I mean, well, probably not purple. Only kings can wear purple. But I don't know, green and red, right? Like, that is like, really pushing the button. That's too much. And it's like, everyone agrees it's sexy, but it's like, gauche.

• 31:06Speaker 07

  I've noticed that there's a lot of discussion around men's legs. That's

• 31:10Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, yeah.

• 31:11Speaker 07

  That's one of the things. You don't say that as much. It'd be a bit weird if you did say that. Nice legs on a guy. Like, it wouldn't be like, you know, institutionable behavior. But like, you just don't say that about them today.

• 31:22Eleanor Janega?

  People would go, I mean, I suppose. But like, yeah, like, medieval men do not skip leg day.

• 31:27Speaker 07

  No, they, big thing about legs.

• 31:28Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah. And because they're wearing tights and things, right? And so it's, it's one of these things that's interesting with clothes theory, where it's kind of like, chicken or the egg situation is like, dude, we find legs sexy and so men were wearing tights? Or were men, you know, like, did the finding men's legs sexy come out of the wearing tights thing?

• 31:48Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 31:48Eleanor Janega?

  So, and I mean, then, especially in the later medieval period and into the early modern period, could throw a codpiece on that.

• 31:53Speaker 07

  Yes. Yeah, that was a weird moment in fashion history, that one.

• 31:59Eleanor Janega?

  You know?

• 32:00Speaker 07

  Remember the first time I saw a codpiece? I thought it would just be like, like a cup that you, you know, rugby players wear. It's just full on penis. You can hang things off that.

• 32:08Eleanor Janega?

  Absolutely. And, you know, it goes to show that medieval people and early modern people are a lot less prudish than we are. They're just like, I know you're looking at it, so I'm gonna make it look like that. That's that's what's going on, you know, and so there are a lot, a lot more comfort around the genital area. But then there are kind of, I guess, some surprising things that medieval people do, like bald men are kind of sexy. For example, it's because they're very manly. They're very masculine. The idea is they are so hot and dry, which makes them very masculine that their hair is burnt off. So it's like a humorily, there's kind of like nothing wrong with being bald, like unless you're bald because you're old. Like it's like, it's like a young bald guy thing. It's like, you know, if you've got the

• 32:51Eleanor Janega?

  Jason Statham. Call me.

• 32:53Speaker 07

  If you want to sponsor this.

• 32:54Eleanor Janega?

  It's fine. It'll be fine. Um, so, you know, like this, this is a thing that universally is kind of like agreed is pretty hot, but it's interestingly like scientific. You know, now when like weirdo evoc psychologists will be like, well, we've always found exactly the same thing attractive about women, which is hour glasses. And I'm like, no, dude, like absolutely not. No, it was hair shapes for Europeans. Anyway, like they were like, well, scientifically bald men are hot because the humors. And it means basically exactly the same thing as evoc psychologists going off on one now. So, you know, like you can treat it with as much respect, right?

• 33:31Speaker 07

  So if you're a medieval person and you wanna, you want a decent skincare routine, very important, still important to everybody today, cleanse, tone, moisturize, but you didn't have that so much if you're in a medieval person, what would be your go to routine?

• 33:47Eleanor Janega?

  Well, we actually have recipes and routines that are left to us from a couple of different sources. One of which is our girl Hildegard von Bingen.

• 33:55Speaker 07

  I like her.

• 33:56Eleanor Janega?

  She was a skincare girlie.

• 33:57Speaker 07

  I love that.

• 33:58Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, like she leaves us like toner recipes. She's like, girl, this is how you make barley water, which uh, to me was always kind of just like a Mary Poppins, the musical reference. But it's like a toner thing. So you know, in the way where we'll use kind of like colloidal oatmeal now, like in order to like moisturize. So you can do the same thing with barley. So she would be like, this is what you do, girl. Take the barley, boil it up, put the water on your skin, it'll soften it and it will, you know, and, and this is something that's really available uh, to most women.

• 34:25Speaker 07

  I've seen barley skincare scrubs and things available in shops.

• 34:29Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, exactly. So that a hundred percent existed at the time. We also have like, if you have a little bit more money, a lot more skincare recipes that survived to us in the trotula. And so this is kind of like, you know, it starts out as an OBGYN manual and then people are like, and also. Makeup tips. You know, so this has lots and lots of different recipes for all sorts of things. Um, how to treat sunburn, um, good moisturizers to use after you're out in the sun, um, softer cleansers for your face, because there is kind of some acknowledgement of the fact that your skin might get a little bit rough if you're just using sort of like the soap that you're using on the rest of your body. So they will be like, oh, you know, add rose petals, add honey. There's rather a lot of adding honey to things in

• 35:11Eleanor Janega?

  order to put it on your skin. There's also more extreme things. So for example, there's rather a lot of stuff that is like, wanna bleach your skin? Bleach your skin tonight, queen? Bleaching your skin?

• 35:23Speaker 07

  No.

• 35:23Eleanor Janega?

  And it's like a big concern for medieval women, because especially like within the Mediterranean and European context, eh, pale skin is a really big beauty standard.

• 35:36Speaker 07

  They love pale skin. Everyone seems to have been absolutely nuts for that until like the 1950s.

• 35:41Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, yeah, absolutely. And essentially what it boils down to is that is a preference for rich ladies.

• 35:47Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 35:47Eleanor Janega?

  Right? Because like if you're a peasant and you're out working in the field all the time, your skin's gonna get messed up because they don't have SPF, right? And they know the sun will burn you and they're like, mm, or whatever. So being tan is a sign that you were like some poor peasant.

• 36:00Speaker 07

  Right.

• 36:01Eleanor Janega?

  Who works outside, right? Whereas being very, very pale is a sign that you got the kind of money where you don't have a job outside.

• 36:06Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 36:06Eleanor Janega?

  Right? So that's very attractive. And that's across the board. Like, you know, you see that as much in Arabic poetry about beautiful women as you do French poetry about the same thing. So that as a result creates a demand in skincare routines for skin whitening products, um, some of which look pretty horrible. Like you'll see examples in the trachular where they're like, yeah, put some quick lime in there, girl. And I'm like, do not put quick lime on your face.

• 36:32Speaker 07

  No.

• 36:32Eleanor Janega?

  Right? So, but it does kind of show us how there are some things that would absolutely work in terms of skincare. And then there are some where it's just like, you are so off piece right now. But it's to try to live up to this really difficult standard where, you know, most people are outside all the time and they wanna be pale.

• 36:50Speaker 07

  I think that this could be one of the periods in history where actually to be skint means that you'd probably have the better. Beauty products because you couldn't afford

• 36:58Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah.

• 36:59Speaker 07

  Lye or whatever the hell it was that you had to put on your face. You'd probably be better off with some barley and something you found in a bush.

• 37:05Eleanor Janega?

  Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you were, you're bang on there where that stuff is kind of universally available. It's going to be more about like whether or not you've got the time to do it because like they're not the ones who are attempting to make blonde hair dye.

• 37:17Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 37:18Eleanor Janega?

  Right? You know, which, you know, exists absolutely. Like they've figured out ways to bleach your hair and that kind of a thing. Uh, but you know, it's rough.

• 37:25Speaker 07

  What about smelling good? Cause one of the persistent myths about folk from the Middle Ages, as, as you are well aware, is that they were all dirty and that they all stunk and no one had any teeth.

• 37:36Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, well, uh, no. So a hundred percent actually. Teeth is one of the big ones where medieval people probably had better teeth than we do now.

• 37:44Speaker 07

  About teeth a lot.

• 37:45Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, they do. And it's like, one of the things we have to keep in mind is that they don't really have access to sugar.

• 37:50Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 37:51Eleanor Janega?

  In the way that we do now. So most of our sugar is now coming from like sugarcane and stuff like that. And it certainly existed in medieval Europe, but it's coming to you in much smaller amounts. And it comes from very far away and it's mad expensive. So you're just not eating sugar in every single thing in the way that we are now, which is the stuff that makes your teeth go wild, right? And they brush their teeth. Uh, so they've got toothbrushes or they'll use kind of like little like licorice roots, things like that in order to like brush the stuff. And to be fair, toothpaste didn't work until the 1950s, until we invented fluoride. Whatever you were brushing your teeth with, it's like, well, I hope you're having fun. Like it makes your breath smell nice, but that's all it does.

• 38:34Eleanor Janega?

  So honestly, if you compared the teeth of a medieval person with a person in the 1930s, probably the person in the medieval period is going to have better teeth because they have fewer things that are going to mess their teeth up.

• 39:04Speaker 01

  Hey, it's Adam Grant from TED's Rethinking Podcast. As businesses scale, success depends on how well knowledge is captured, shared, and kept up to date. Camtasia Pro turns teams' expertise into engaging training, onboarding, and documentation. No professional editing experience required. With the industry's best screen recording, video editing, and AI-powered workflows, you can train faster and boost operational efficiency. Get over $100 off your first year at camtasia pro.com and start building a smarter way to educate customers, onboard employees, and ensure valuable expertise is shared across teams.

• 39:37Speaker 02

  Mr. Monopoly here. Miss me? Monopoly is back at McDonald's with millions of prizes. A 2027 Jeep Cherokee, a Carnival Cruise vacation, gift cards from DoorDash, and Best Buy. Feel then play in the McDonald's app. Get your bag.

• 39:55Speaker 03

  No purchase necessary. 50 U.S. and D.C. age 18 plus. See playatmd.com for rules and playatmd.com/amoe for info and playing without purchase by mail by November 2nd. Chance card game ends November 8th. Game ends November 22nd, 2026. See rules for prize details. Monopoly is a registered trademark of Hasbro.

• 40:24Speaker 07

  What about being ugly then? Like, we've been spoken a lot about being beautiful. Ugly seems to be another one of those consistent things, like disfigurement. They must have had a fair bit of disfigurement wandering around in the Middle Ages.

• 40:39Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, yeah. You know, you have issues, for example, like with leprosy, for example, is fairly endemic and common across Europe at the time, which can be pretty disfiguring. You know, if you come down with any diseases where you might end up with like pox marks. We don't have smallpox or things like that yet. But, you know, if you've got like chickenpox or something like that, that can really mess you up. Or, you know, even if you just end up having acne.

• 41:03Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 41:04Eleanor Janega?

  You know, and your, your skin gets scarred. These are all things that are going to count against you. And certainly.

• 41:12Eleanor Janega?

  It is a specific thing where ugliness will be associated with evil, right? Like where if you're not hot, well, then you must be evil. And then that gives me a reason why I'm allowed to kind of exclude you from society. So we see this in particular with people who have leprosy because they will be like, well, they kind of were asking for it, right? So there is this way of talking about people with leprosy as though they brought it on themselves because they were lustful, they were gluttonous, they are garrulous. They're just like shagging and fighting all the time and that's how you end up with leprosy. So the idea is that they were sinful, which is why they've ended up ugly like this. And then that just-

• 41:50Speaker 07

  That seems mean.

• 41:51Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, it's really mean and it just gives you carte blanche to just kind of be a bit of a dickhead to people who are having a really tough time.

• 41:56Speaker 07

  That's a cheap shot medieval people.

• 41:58Eleanor Janega?

  I know. Look, I like them very much, but I didn't say they were perfect.

• 42:03Speaker 07

  They're not, they're not as bad as the Romans. They're hands down the maddest, most cruel. If something's not being killed, quite frankly, they're not having a good time. What about fat and thin in the medieval periods? Because that's something that fluctuates as well, where like body shape, fat ratio.

• 42:20Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, so we want some fatness, like you know-

• 42:23Speaker 07

  They like a little bit of swish, don't they?

• 42:25Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, so like for the body standard for women remains pretty much ossified. And the thing that they are looking for is they want tiny little tits.

• 42:34Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 42:34Eleanor Janega?

  The smallest boobs available, right? Like as Cameron talks about like hot chicks boobs and they're like, they're small and hard like ivory, yowza, right? That's so that's what they're looking for. But you want what they call a luscious little pot belly.

• 42:48Speaker 07

  I can do that.

• 42:49Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, so that's hot. That's really hot. And then like junk in the trunk. You gotta be packing heat back there, okay? So we're, we're looking for a pear shape.

• 43:00Speaker 07

  Done.

• 43:01Eleanor Janega?

  And that's what they want. So it's kind of like, it wouldn't necessarily be like obese or anything, but they definitely want you to have- Flesh.

• 43:09Speaker 07

  Cushion for the push.

• 43:10Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, and you know, again, this is one of these things where it's like that means that there's like money.

• 43:14Speaker 07

  Yeah, it's weird how much beauty and still today.

• 43:18Eleanor Janega?

  Mm hmm.

• 43:18Speaker 07

  If you wanna look hot like a Vogue model, you know, like the money.

• 43:23Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, exactly. And we change whatever it is we think is hot to be whatever is the most difficult or expensive thing to acquire. So you know, when everyone couldn't afford a Brazilian butt lift, the Kardashians have big old boots.

• 43:37Speaker 07

  Yep.

• 43:37Eleanor Janega?

  And thank God for that, all right?

• 43:39Speaker 07

  And until quite recently, being overweight went from being something that only rich people could have because they could afford the food to actually now it's a sign of not having enough enough money and not being able to eat right and go to the gym. I wonder what's gonna happen with the dawning of Ozempic? What will happen now?

• 43:58Eleanor Janega?

  Well, yeah, we're already seeing, I think, this backlash where we are getting like thinner and thinner women. Now again, being posited as, you know.

• 44:07Speaker 07

  Don't do it.

• 44:07Eleanor Janega?

  I know.

• 44:08Speaker 07

  Don't go back to.

• 44:08Eleanor Janega?

  I know, girl. I know, but, but, and again, we're doing the same thing now with the way that we talk about diet or the way that we talk about fat as medieval people do with beauty, right? Where we really associate fatness with like some kind of moral inferiority.

• 44:24Speaker 07

  Control.

• 44:24Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, oh, well, you lack self-control and you're unable.

• 44:28Speaker 07

  Just do it less, just go to the gym.

• 44:29Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, yeah, as though that has anything to do with how bodies work and like all of the science tells you that that's absolute junk.

• 44:34Speaker 07

  Well, thank you for fixing that, Steve. Cheers for that.

• 44:37Eleanor Janega?

  And it's just like, but we love to do it, you know, there, there's something that our society just really enjoys to do, which is place a moral weight on what we consider attractive, as though what we consider attractive doesn't change.

• 44:49Speaker 07

  Yeah, that's so true. Fat shape, yeah, when you look at our attitude with fat today, I think you can actually get your head around a lot of historical attitudes with this linking of moral worth with how you look. And what about race? Because one of the the interesting things to come out of historical research in the past thirty years or so is is that historians suddenly went, did anyone check on the black people?

• 45:14Eleanor Janega?

  Mm hmm.

• 45:14Speaker 07

  And then someone went, oh, fuck, no, we didn't. They're all here.

• 45:17Eleanor Janega?

  Damn.

• 45:18Speaker 07

  Shit.

• 45:18Eleanor Janega?

  Well, you know, a really great place to go see hot black people is one of my favorite paintings of all time, which is Hieronymus Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights.

• 45:28Speaker 07

  Well, that is that is a scene that he painted.

• 45:30Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, it is. It really, really is. And you can see very many hot naked people, some of whom are black. And it's hilarious because they're just like, they look exactly the same, but they are black.

• 45:41Speaker 07

  I love that. It's not true. I'm being very flippant, but it's not true that people in the Middle Ages would have only thought that white people existed. They were much more multicultural and diverse than than we give them credit for.

• 45:54Eleanor Janega?

  God, yeah. And I mean, like, especially places here like London, we know that there are lots of Africans around the shop. And honestly, it just makes us look like we suck here in Europe if you think that there aren't black people about. I'm like, dude, people wanted to come here. Like, you know, there's a lot of trade back and forth. People are moving around all the time. And all you have to do is like, sit down and read a medieval book. And they'll be like, oh, and then this person went on a voyage to wherever. And they talk about it all the time in these really matter of fact ways. They talk about what the trade routes are. And people move along those routes just as much as goods do. So we we know that a hundred percent you're coming into contact with other races. You know, probably, they will do some light racism at you, if you are black, especially

• 46:38Eleanor Janega?

  because there is such a premium put on light skin. But we also know that they clearly think that these people are hot, which is why they get included in stuff like The Garden of Earthly Delights, where they're like, I want to make a big hot fruit orgy scene. There's gonna be birds, real birds, and like women, birds, and some of them are black, and they are also hot and sexy. And in my ideal garden orgy with giant berries, there will be black women as well. So there you go.

• 47:08Speaker 07

  So there might have been a sort of, it is still a type of racism, but an eroticizing of people that weren't white.

• 47:15Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, I mean, 100%. Like, I'm not like, please do not say, don't let anyone say that I said Hieronymus Bosch was perfect racial politics. But, you know, certainly, he posits these people as people who can be attractive and certainly like on par. But of course, they're also, you know, the Garden of Earthly Delights exists as, in theory, an admonishment, like, don't you do it.

• 47:34Speaker 07

  He does also paint like frogs eating people's bottoms.

• 47:38Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, exactly. It's like, you know, you paint the big, you paint the big garden orgy to be like, and you shouldn't like this.

• 47:45Speaker 07

  Don't threaten me with a good.

• 47:46Eleanor Janega?

  Which is how you get away with it, right? You gotta, you gotta be like, oh, no, it's very bad.

• 47:52Speaker 07

  Stop looking at it. This is an awful scene.

• 47:54Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, wow. I can't believe, wow, gotcha. I bet you think this is sexy, you pervert.

• 48:03Eleanor Janega?

  Thanks so much to Kate Lister once again for having me. And thank you for listening to Gone Medieval from History Hit. If you are interested in the world of medieval women, why not check out our past episodes on medieval women writers or medieval sex? Remember, you can enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original TV documentaries, including my recent film, The Medieval Apocalypse, released weekly, and ad-free podcasts by signing up at historyhit.com/subscription. You can follow Gone Medieval on Spotify, where you can leave us comments and suggestions, or wherever you get your podcasts. And tell all your friends and family that you've gone medieval. Until next time.

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