Foolish Medieval Fatalities

Who survives when medieval deaths are turned into Top Trumps? In this riotous made up game of Foolish Fatalities, Dr. Eleanor Janega and Matt Lewis rank the most ridiculous ends of the Middle Ages, from a latrine disaster and Henry I’s fatal fish, to a king laughing himself to death and a ghoulish deadly bite delivered by a severed head. Expect gore, gossip, and (at least) one unforgettable toilet death. MORE The White Ship Disaster Listen on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/gone-medieval/id1564113746?i=1000526917525 Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/5i63IuoBUsTlQ4CvW0vXe6?si=qiv-aB8hQeqsVpB1m8uMWA James II and the Deadly Black Dinner Listen on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/james-ii-and-the-deadly-black-dinner/id1564113746?i=1000748383593] Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/7F2YKrm8Ln4JMnx6VEszT5 Gone Medieval is presented by Dr. Eleanor Janega and Matt Lewis. Audio editor is Amy Haddow, produced by Amy Haddow and Rob Weinberg. 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 plus ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Matt Lewis?

  From long-lost Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places, to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr Eleanor Janiger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on History Hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe.

• 0:43Speaker 01

  I'm Connor Tomlinson from Love on the Spectrum. History is my thing, and I've been waiting my whole life for a show like this one. And I'm Carter Roy, and this is What the Fact? Three facts a week, each with a whole story behind it. The history class you actually wished you had in school. New episodes every Wednesday. Follow What the Fact wherever you listen or subscribe on YouTube at What the Fact Pod.

• 1:09Speaker 02

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

• 1:25Speaker 03

  It's one of the first times, really, that you consistently see someone painting teeth. I know that sounds bonkers.

• 1:29Speaker 04

  If I was going to define mathematics, I would say it's the study of structure.

• 1:33Speaker 02

  In Our Time. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Tea or coffee? Love a cup of tea.

• 1:45Eleanor Janega?

  Hello, I'm Dr Eleanor Janiger, 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.

• 2:22Eleanor Janega?

  Erfurt, Germany, 1184.

• 2:27Eleanor Janega?

  In the Holy Roman Empire, a group of nobles gathers in the city on a hot summer's day for what should be a routine assembly. It's an opportunity to settle disputes, reaffirm alliances, and conduct the usual business of power. Gathered in the upper room of an ancient church, the hall fills with men of rank and influence: lords and landholders, a cacophony of voices, rising and falling and grating, and argument. The heat is thick and heavy within the old stone walls. But beneath the press of bodies— Unseen, but ever-present—

• 3:10Eleanor Janega?

  is a cesspit, overflowing from neglect.

• 3:16Eleanor Janega?

  The floorboards creak as more men arrive, and something about the structure begins to feel less certain.

• 3:25Eleanor Janega?

  Quietly at first, imperceptible to those in the heat of politics and power-making. Then, without warning, the story takes a turn no one could have anticipated.

• 3:39Eleanor Janega?

  Between sixty and one hundred of those gathered are about to meet their maker, submerged and swallowed up in, well, the most unappealing possible way.

• 4:07Eleanor Janega?

  And like, listen, everybody makes mistakes. We've all done something daft, something ill-judged, something that didn't quite go to plan. And medieval people were no different. But what if your actions, or lack of them, are so terribly misguided? Or the situation you find yourself in is so negligent that it doesn't just finish badly, with people basically dying, but it ends up in the historical record, remembered for centuries for just how gruesomely bizarre it is. Today, I've bribed the guards to release Matt Lewis from his duties, cleaning out the cesspit beneath History Hit Towers

• 4:52Eleanor Janega?

  and slilling out the pigs for a special game of Top Trumps, in which we try to outdo each other with the most absurd deaths and foolish fatalities of the medieval period. These are the deaths that make you pause, wince, and maybe just feel a little bit better about your own worst decisions.

• 5:15Eleanor Janega?

  Okay, Matt, here we go. Listen, we are letting you up from the dungeon so we can gamble, right?

• 5:25Matt Lewis?

  Absolutely. I'm gonna start us off. Okay, I've been allowed up from the dungeon, but I'm gonna take us down even further than that. I'm gonna start us off with the Air for Latrine disaster.

• 5:35Eleanor Janega?

  Oh.

• 5:35Matt Lewis?

  Which I mean, there is not a word of that that doesn't sound like an amazing story, is there?

• 5:40Eleanor Janega?

  I mean, this has got to be one of the most classic tales of how not to die from the medieval period, right? Like, this has got to be up there in terms of ways that you don't want to go. It's got household recognition for medievalists. I think we could say that. Why don't you talk the lovely listeners through the specifics?

• 6:04Matt Lewis?

  How to die in a toilet. I mean, not for the last time today. How to die in a toilet. So we are here in the summer of 1184. So right in July, it's lovely and warm. Imagine everything is steaming and smelling lovely.

• 6:20Matt Lewis?

  Henry VI in the Holy Roman Empire is trying to arbitrate a land dispute. Couple of his nobles are arguing, nothing too new there. He decides to get them all together in a big room, bang their heads together and sort it all out. And they all get together in this room on a kind of second floor of a building. There seems to be some dispute about which building precisely it was, so not 100% sure. But they're, they're apparently on a second floor of a building. Everybody crams in there and you can only imagine, I think that there's this kind of creaky, breaky noise. Cause it turns out there's some rotten joists in the floor that they're standing on. So as these kind of 60 or more people pile into this room, creak, creak, crash, bang.

• 7:03Matt Lewis?

  The floor falls through, a whole load of people fall through the floor with it. And we're told they also, the weight of them crashes through the, the first floor as well. And underneath the first floor is a great big, stinking underground cesspit. All of the toilets for this place are directed in here. So the, the accounts tell us that it may be 60 people die during this from a variety of, of crush injuries. Drowning in a pile of poo, I mean, that's a pretty bad way to go. Broken bones, all kinds of, of injuries. Interestingly though, Henry VI and one of his, his, I think his archbishops who were there are kind of safe because they're sitting in a, a stone alcove in a window.

• 7:48Matt Lewis?

  So, you know, they're chilling out by the window and the floor falls out and they're sort of left there sitting thinking, whoops, it's a daisy. What do we do now? And they have to sit there till people turn up with ladders up to the windows to try and rescue them. And yeah, you know, the, it's, it's a pretty horrible way to go. So the way we're going to try and work some of these, we're going to give them all kind of scores on our little top trumps game. So the first category that we've got is kind of a level of absurdity out of five. And I've gone for five here because it's impossible not to laugh at 60 noblemen falling into a pile of poo.

• 8:21Eleanor Janega?

  You know, it couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of people.

• 8:25Matt Lewis?

  Absolutely.

• 8:25Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 8:27Matt Lewis?

  The second category that we've got is the political impact of the absurd death that we're talking about. And I've kind of gone for two here in that it has fairly local significance. The Holy Roman Empire Emperor doesn't die. So there isn't that kind of huge crisis that that would cause. There's some local, you know, several counts are killed in this disaster. So there is some local kind of fallout from it, but it doesn't seem to cause a big political disaster. So I've gone pretty low on the political impact for it. And then the third category that we've got for each of these is kind of believability. How sure are we that this actually happened? And I've gone for a four

• 9:07Matt Lewis?

  out of five on this because we do have several accounts that give us the details of it. Again, they're not sure where it happens precisely, but they seem pretty clear, both about the details and the fact that this this did really happen. So we've got a kind of total score of 11 out of 15 for the air for latrine disaster, which seems pretty low for for essentially posh people dying in a toilet.

• 9:31Eleanor Janega?

  Well, listen, we simply love to see it to a certain extent. You just know the peasants were laughing for months. But I do think fundamentally, it is just kind of like a fun factoid, right? And it is a pretty fun factoid. Like, I mean, no shade, I don't want to die in a pile of poo either. That would be awful. But I think that you are bang on here. It doesn't have any wide reaching ramifications. It mostly just is something that gets brought up as a bit of a laugh, which also kind of goes to show you how people really feel about nobility generally. I mean, even now, they're like, you know, no one was really saying, oh, we should all feel awful for all these nobles even at the time.

• 10:15Eleanor Janega?

  So I think I think you're pretty bang on there. Yeah, yeah.

• 10:18Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, I mean, I think toilet humour, you know, is timeless.

• 10:21Eleanor Janega?

  So true.

• 10:22Matt Lewis?

  Posh people dying in a toilet feels like a strong start for us, I think. So you now need to come up with something. You need to come up with an absurd medieval death that beats one of my categories there.

• 10:36Eleanor Janega?

  Okay, well, get ready with me because I am bringing to the table.

• 10:44Eleanor Janega?

  Godfrey the Hunchback. Does this ring a bell?

• 10:49Matt Lewis?

  What a name, what a name to begin with.

• 10:51Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, all right. Cast your mind back, we're going, we're going back in time from the air for latrine disaster. We are going to 1076, okay? And we have got Godfrey the fourth, and he is the Duke of Lower Lorraine, right? And he is attacked while on a latrine, okay? So then, listen, we got a latrine, the, the bridge to the latrine, right? And this happens in Antwerp. So, you know, we're talking about like a really incredibly fancy place. You know, being the Duke of Lower Lorraine is rather a big deal. These are towns that are incredibly important in terms of the cloth trade.

• 11:35Eleanor Janega?

  So it is kind of odd to have like a fancy lad of this caliber struck in such a way. So, okay, listen. More particularly, the way that he is attacked is, ahem, from below.

• 11:53Matt Lewis?

  Ew.

• 11:54Eleanor Janega?

  So.

• 11:55Matt Lewis?

  So it's not, this isn't him falling into the toilet, this is the toilet coming to get him.

• 11:59Eleanor Janega?

  That is right. So, you know, he's, he is using the toilet as one does in perfect oblivion. And an assassin hits him with a spear from underneath, which, yikes. You know, listen, we don't love it. It, it's not exactly the way that anybody wants to be attacked at all. You don't want to feel vulnerable even anyway, you know, like as a general rule of thumb, but certainly not when you got your literal pants down. I mean, come on, right? And also what kind of sucks for him is this is sort of a slow death, right? You know, getting poked with a spear, it's not very nice.

• 12:41Eleanor Janega?

  It's not very nice, but it's also not very fast, right? You know, there are internal injuries, there's bleeding out. Also, probably, I would imagine if you're poked with a spear from within a latrine, we are probably going to be looking at some infection issues. So it's not a very fast thing, which isn't particularly great for poor, poor old Godfrey here, right?

• 13:05Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, I mean, I kind of, I kind of feel, I feel two things with this. I mean, can a man not even go to the toilet in Pique's anymore? I mean, of all the places. In the world where you might have expected to enjoy a little bit of me time and not have to worry about anything else. But I feel that we need to shout out to the assassin as well. I mean, this is clearly a guy who's sitting under the toilet, waiting for the right bottom to appear above him to stick a spear into.

• 13:32Eleanor Janega?

  Right? Like, this is, this is one of the things I'm like, I'd like, was he given a lineup? Do you think that someone like, you know, drew the bum in question and was like, take a look out for that one? Or, you know, did he just get lucky?

• 13:42Matt Lewis?

  Artist impression of Godfrey's backside.

• 13:44Eleanor Janega?

  You know, who's doing the research on this? How many people did they have working on the case, right?

• 13:50Matt Lewis?

  It seems like a bit of a mission. I mean, is this a private Godfrey toilet? Or are you passing over several people who are above you, relieving themselves and thinking, this isn't my time?

• 14:00Eleanor Janega?

  I mean, this is the thing, right? I don't think that we have that many examples of absolutely perfectly private toilets at the time. You know, this is the Middle Ages. Like, that's not, that's not usually how things go. You've just sort of got a latrine that is handy. Now, maybe if it's the middle of the night, you know, this is the latrine that is closest to Godfrey's bedroom. But even then, people don't sleep alone, right? So they, yeah, like, how do we, how do we know that's the bum? Did he just get lucky? There are so many questions surrounding this particular, this story. But I mean, also, I think it's important to point out that this is kind of happening as a result of a lot of the power struggles that are happening in the Holy Roman Empire at the time, right?

• 14:45Eleanor Janega?

  Like, you will know, for example, that my good friend and yours, Matilda of Tuscany, is very particularly embroiled in some issues with Godfrey at the time, because, bra, that's her husband, right? So there, there were some people who were saying that Matilda might have been involved, for example.

• 15:11Matt Lewis?

  Ah, we know who's done the research. We know who's drawn the bum to aim for.

• 15:14Eleanor Janega?

  Exactly right. They're like, listen. And you know what? To an extent, I'm like, yeah, I guess that that does make sense. But I don't know. I think that, I think Matilda's a little too religious for all of that. Maybe I'm being naive, but I do think that she's kind of too afraid of the literal fear of God to get involved in that. I don't know. I don't know.

• 15:33Matt Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 15:34Eleanor Janega?

  It's a lot.

• 15:34Matt Lewis?

  So given that we're still in the toilet, where are you? Where are you beating down my air for latrine disaster?

• 15:39Eleanor Janega?

  Okay.

• 15:40Matt Lewis?

  Where are you trumping?

• 15:41Eleanor Janega?

  Okay, listen, is it as absurd? No. Right? It's still pretty absurd. I'm saying that we're at a four here, you know, we are murdered in a toilet by a spear. Come on, it's funny, right? And if we hadn't just had the air for latrine disaster, it would probably seem higher. But like, let's just be honest. Now, where we're definitely getting higher, though, is political impact. Right? Because one of the things that happens as a result of this is Godfrey is on the side of the imperial faction of the investiture contest. Right? So he is kind of like pro Henry.

• 16:23Eleanor Janega?

  And now we are one more guy down and suddenly the Pope stock is rising, right? So I'm putting political impact here at a four. Which definitely.

• 16:34Matt Lewis?

  So there is an international dimension to this, which there wasn't before.

• 16:37Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, absolutely. Like this has wide reaching implications, whereas the air for situation is just kind of funny. Right? So.

• 16:49Eleanor Janega?

  But where it does fall down in comparison to the latrine disaster is in the believability stake. So we're at about a three here, right? And this is because there are those who say that this is kind of like a dramatic story that is surrounding an attack on Godfrey. Now, one way or another, we do believe that Godfrey was attacked and he died, right? So he absolutely was assassinated. Whether or not that happened in this way is up for debate because, you know, to a certain extent, again, this is embarrassing, right? You know, the idea of being caught with your pants down, that is something that these guys could be poking fun at. This might be satirical.

• 17:35Eleanor Janega?

  So believability here is a three.

• 17:38Matt Lewis?

  And I guess he's a duke who's not dying a noble death, is he? You know, he's not dying a warrior's death. He's not dying a peaceful death in his bed. So are we thinking that it could have been embellished? It could be a little bit apocryphal to embarrass him and all of those kinds of things. And again, it's not the first or last time we're going to hear about a medieval death that involves something entering the fundament. It seems to be a fairly favorite thing of medieval people who don't know how people died to imagine it was something like this.

• 18:07Eleanor Janega?

  Listen, medieval people and bums are a match made in heaven. They have never met a joke about a bum they didn't like. They have never seen an opportunity to make that joke that they didn't like. So what I absolutely do believe about this is medieval people were giggling, right? So shout out to them. Like, they're allowed to have a fun time, too.

• 18:29Matt Lewis?

  Absolutely. Another nobleman dead on the toilet. Who's gonna cry over that? I think, having put Godfrey, I was gonna say firmly to bed, but firmly on the toilet, but I don't know.

• 18:39Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, why?

• 18:40Matt Lewis?

  I'm gonna move on, and I'm gonna try and outdo you on believability. And I actually think this is one that I might be able to outdo you on political impact as well, but I'm gonna go for believability. And I'm gonna talk about Henry I of England.

• 18:54Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, this is so good. It should have been mine. Oh, oh, Matt, oh.

• 18:59Matt Lewis?

  Here is a man who has pretty much stolen the throne. You know, he was never meant to be king, youngest son of the conqueror, steals the throne from his older brother, imprisons his older brother for his entire life, has more illegitimate children than any other monarch of England has recorded. It's supposed to be something like 22 for certain, and maybe some more are floating around out there as well. So this guy is well into the 20s of illegitimate children, famously has an issue with less legitimate children. But he, you know, he is desperately trying to hang on to the throne, I think, until his grandson,

• 19:42Matt Lewis?

  his oldest grandson, Henry, who is probably named for him, is old enough to take over from him, because otherwise he's gonna end with a succession crisis, because he only has a legitimate daughter. And I think he envisages that that's gonna cause all kinds of problems. So in 1135, by this point, he's been king for 35 years. He's in his mid 60s. But generally, you know, a fairly robust kind of guy. He's been active all of his life. There's no real sense that he's ill. But in 1135, we get him sitting down to a feast, and he seems to have ordered a bunch of lampreys, you know, one of his favourite foods, these kind of big, I don't know, like shrimpy things. I don't even want to think what a lamprey tastes like. I've never tried one and I don't want to know. Apparently Henry I loves them. And we're

• 20:27Matt Lewis?

  told that his physicians have said, you know what, Henry, you shouldn't, you shouldn't be eating this. It's bad for your cholesterol, bad for your blood pressure. I don't know what it is, but at your age, Henry, you shouldn't eat them. And I like to imagine it being, you know, at your age, you shouldn't eat them. And Henry saying, get stuff, guys. I'm pretty robust for a guy in his mid 60s. I'm gonna have a go at these lampreys and I'm gonna show you. And he eats himself into sickness and dies from what the Chronicles describe as a surfeit of lampreys, eating too many lampreys, which, I mean, you know, I think they told you, Henry, and you bought this kind of on yourself. So in terms of scoring this, I've gone for a three on the absurdity.

• 21:12Matt Lewis?

  So our lowest score on absurdity yet. It's not, it's daft, isn't it? Eating stuff that your doctors have told you not to eat, to the point that you kill yourself. Kind of daft, but not the most absurd thing we've heard, because it doesn't involve a toilet. So we can't give it a really high score.

• 21:29Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, absolutely. I agree with you there. Also, I think one of the things we have to keep in mind is doctors, you know, physicians in the Middle Ages, they're probably like, oh, yes, if you eat too many lampreys, it's going to make you colder and wetter. And as a result, you know, your humors are going to be out of alignment. So really, is that what killed him? Or was it just overeating? So, you know, I do think that, like, it brings the absurdity level down, because it's not like this is a direct medical intervention that may or may not have worked, right? We do need to keep that in mind.

• 22:05Matt Lewis?

  And this one scores really highly as well on political impact. It's got a five for political impact, which is as high as it can get because, as I said, Henry was kind of holding on for his oldest grandson to be old enough to succeed him. And he fails to do that. His oldest grandson is still a baby when he dies. And so his death in this unexpected way before anyone was thinking they were going to have to worry about all of this kind of thing, really sparks one of the most serious succession crises in medieval England.

• 22:38Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is going to have a huge impact on the political life in England for the next, you know, what would have been a reign of someone, right? This is setting us up for the anarchy. This is where all the trouble comes from, right? So this is kind of as bad as it gets in terms of how things can shake out if you are an English person. So yeah, I think we have to, we have to give it to the political impact. It's pretty big. It's pretty big.

• 23:11Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, I think so because, you know, we're talking about 19 years of basically civil war that follows it. The end of the Norman dynasty, the arrival of the Angevin dynasty, at the end of all of that. It's pretty seismic in terms of the impact that it has. But I went for trumping you on believability just because it's got a four on believability. So everyone seems pretty sure that, you know, he ate too many lampreys, got a bit of a tummy ache and died in the night. There doesn't seem to be too much doubt about the fact that it happened. Quite why the lampreys killed him might be up for grabs. Nobody's too sure about that. But it seems pretty certain that he ate all of these lampreys. His physicians had told him not to, and that seems to have been what finished him off.

• 23:51Eleanor Janega?

  Listen, you know, hooves among us has not overindulged and thought they were dying, right? So a relatable king, what can we say?

• 23:59Matt Lewis?

  I mean, I may well be found dead one day from a surfeit of Pringles or something. I don't know, but.

• 24:05Eleanor Janega?

  I have to say also just a shout out on this particular one. A surfeit of lampreys, one of those phrases that lives rent free in my head. And also, you know, if anyone's got an aspiring indie band out there, great name for a band. Great name for a set, like a difficult second album. Surfeit of lampreys, go for it, guys.

• 24:22Matt Lewis?

  I like it. Yeah.

• 24:24Eleanor Janega?

  So what's your overall score here then, Matt?

• 24:27Matt Lewis?

  So we've gone for an overall 12 out of 15 for this, which is a pretty high score. You know, Henry the First death, I think, as we pointed out, is is pretty silly and pretty disastrous for England as well.

• 24:40Eleanor Janega?

  Hmm. Well, Matt, I'm coming at you with a story to warm the hearts of Czech people. Okay. Because today I want to bring you the tale of your friend and my, well, no, he's not our friend. He's not our friend. He's my enemy. This is John of Luxembourg. He's sometimes known as John of Bohemia. I wish you wouldn't. Okay. I wish you wouldn't call him that. But he is the father of my favorite Czech guy, the Emperor Charles the Fourth. And he is also known in the Czech lands as Kralceznice, or the Foreign King, right?

• 25:22Eleanor Janega?

  Okay, so bad guy, in my opinion. Not a great dude. Treats the noble kingdom of Bohemia as though it is a bank account and spends all his time basically chasing ladies and going to tournaments, right? But he is a consummate soldier and he, because he has great ties with the French court, ends up on the 26th of August, 1346, at the Battle of Crissy, as so many noblemen and royal people do. Now, here's where this gets stupid, because being killed at the Battle of Crissy looked many such cases. That's hardly new,

• 26:04Eleanor Janega?

  right? It's not a weird thing to be killed at the Battle of Crissy, but he really seems to have wanted this, right? As the name John the Blind might indicate, uh, my good friend could not see at this point in his life. And the tide has already turned against the French. Things have gone really, really badly. And many people, including his son, who was much smarter than he was, are beginning to retreat. But not John. No, no, because he is a king. And what he decides to do is order his knights to tie their horses together with his.

• 26:49Eleanor Janega?

  And then charge at the English cavalry, which I cannot stress enough are being protected by a great number of Kentish bowmen. And the entire point is it's very difficult to get near them in this particular battle.

• 27:03Matt Lewis?

  But in fairness to John, he can't see that, can he? He doesn't, he doesn't know.

• 27:07Eleanor Janega?

  It's like, I would simply, I would simply charge. Why hasn't anyone done that? Right? And his belief is that he can still strike a blow. His words, not mine, against the English. Spoiler alert, maybe he did strike a blow, but he also died. And he also got his men killed. And, you know, we don't know exactly how he died because, you know, is he just one of the hundreds upon hundreds of people who was killed by the arrows? Quite possibly. If you can't see, it's pretty easy to get your bell rung in the melee as well. Or if you can't see and you get knocked off your horse, very, very easy to get trampled

• 27:53Eleanor Janega?

  in all that mud at Crisie, right?

• 27:56Eleanor Janega?

  But we do know about this one because like, depending on who you ask, some people are like, oh, isn't it heroic? Right? And some people are like, oh, it's like quite tragic. And I think if you asked English people, they'd be like, well, that seems quite stupid. And I mean, interestingly, if you ask Czech people, they're like, oh, thank God. Finally. This is brilliant. Okay, this guy is out of the way. Can we just kind of like get on with things with his son? Which they do immediately. But I don't know, I suppose if you were John and you were such a terrible king, maybe this is the only way you can get yourself a good reputation.

• 28:39Eleanor Janega?

  So, I mean, to be fair, maybe it's just a form of PR that I don't really understand. Right?

• 28:45Matt Lewis?

  I mean, I think a couple of things on John. I'm very well aware of your hatred of Jon, so I'm not going to get you to try and feel sorry for him or think anything nice about him. I feel like there's two things here. This could have been hugely heroic. You know, the guy who's lost his sight just wants to die as a medieval knight in a battle, desperately trying to fight, trying to craft that legacy for himself. There's something admirable in that. Dragging two men down with you and forcing them to die tied to you in a weird kind of bondage session of melee death makes this not very heroic. It makes this pretty horrible, you know.

• 29:31Matt Lewis?

  Did these two guys volunteer to be strapped to the king and ridden to their death? I don't know. I very seriously doubt it, but it can't have been pleasant for them. So the fact that he wants to do this, fine, I can get down with that. The fact that he feels the need to drag two people along with him is not good.

• 29:49Eleanor Janega?

  This is Jon all over. I'm sorry. This is just, this is just how he is. He's just so selfish. He's always thinking about himself. He's never thinking about the good people of Bohemia or indeed his own knights. Okay. So like, I mean, I do, that is something that I think about often though, is those knights. And to be fair to him, this tends to be the thing, if you don't know Czech history, which most people don't. This is usually the thing that people know about Jon. So to an extent, I mean, he's actually played a blinder. Because, you know, at least people know this story, but I mean, whether or not you go along with his romanticized view is another thing entirely, right?

• 30:32Eleanor Janega?

  And I mean, accordingly, I think I'm giving it a pretty high absurdity level in that. I think it's a four. Now, I'm not awarding it all five points because for all five points, I need you to not drag those other knights down with you. Right? It's like, it's just a little too sad to be fully absurd.

• 30:51Matt Lewis?

  You can't even do absurd properly. For you, can he?

• 30:54Eleanor Janega?

  No, this man, this is all the only thing he ever did for me was die. But, you know, fair enough, fair enough.

• 31:02Eleanor Janega?

  Political impact, I'm going for a three because it does have a political impact in that finally, Charles is able to take the throne in his own right. But the impact that it makes is everyone is pretty happy about it. So this is like, this is generally one where everyone is like, woo, great. You know, and so, you know, I know, I think that when we kind of mean political impact, we mean that it has a destabilizing influence, whereas this particular death has an actual stabilizing influence, which, hmm, hmm, you know. And then, uh, unbelievability, we're giving it a four. Everyone pretty much agrees that this happens. John's detractors say that this happens.

• 31:47Eleanor Janega?

  John's supporters, of whom there's presumably one or two, like basically people that Charles pays off to write about his family are like, yeah, isn't that heroic? Question mark, right? Like, so, yeah.

• 32:03Matt Lewis?

  And we do get the story that, you know, even the Black Prince, Edward the Black Prince is so impressed, he, he, he comes across John's body on the battlefield. And there is this legend that he takes John's ostrich feather badge and his motto of Icdean as the Prince of Wales is badge and motto, as they have been ever since, which I, I, people dispute whether that's true or not. But, you know, even his enemies are, are, you know, having some sense that he's done something fairly striking, maybe not clever, but striking.

• 32:33Eleanor Janega?

  Listen, he would be spending all his money on ostrich feathers, this guy, this guy. Why don't you see to the safety of the roads in Bohemia, John? No, it's just all ostrich feathers and Icdean, this guy.

• 32:47Matt Lewis?

  I feel like I need to drag you down off your soapbox. Otherwise, we're gonna get a really long rant about John.

• 32:53Eleanor Janega?

  Listen, it's an 11, it's an 11 out of 15. That's what, that's what we need to know. We can move on. Like, the, the point is, I'm right and I'm glad John is dead. Thank you.

• 33:19Matt Lewis?

  Are you looking for the perfect podcasts to hunker down with during the longer, colder, darker nights?

• 33:26Speaker 06

  Well, look no further than the award-winning After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds, and the Paranormal with me, Maddie Pelling.

• 33:32Matt Lewis?

  And me, Anthony Delaney. We are historians and love all things gloomy and macabre.

• 33:38Speaker 06

  From Tudor executioners and ancient Egyptian death rituals to witch trials and folklore, feel transported back in time on After Dark. Out every Monday and Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 33:50Matt Lewis?

  And guess what? We're also now on YouTube. After Dark, a podcast from History Hit.

• 33:57Speaker 01

  I'm Connor Tomlinson from Love on the Spectrum. History is my thing, and I've been waiting my whole life for a show like this one. And I'm Carter Roy, and this is What the Fact. Three facts a week, each with the whole story behind it. The history class you actually wished you had in school. New episodes every Wednesday. Follow What the Fact wherever you listen, or subscribe on YouTube at What the Fact Pod.

• 34:39Matt Lewis?

  Right, I am next going to pick out something that I think trumps your political impact with John, maybe has a bit more of an impact than that. And this is the death of James II, the King of Scotland. And people may know roughly what happens to him. It's a fairly well-known story. So James becomes King of Scotland at the age of about six. He inherits from his father, so he has this big, long minority. As always, there are families that try to dominate the government in Scotland, who are trying to keep him forever young. And he ends up, effectively, he ends up using his marriage to marry of Geld as

• 35:24Matt Lewis?

  a way to emancipate himself from his minority, to declare himself of age, and to take control of the government himself. And one of the things that James is really into is guns and stuff that go bang because he's a boy.

• 35:42Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah.

• 35:43Matt Lewis?

  Who isn't? You're in a world where you've suddenly got all of these things that make loud noises and go bang. James loves artillery and he's, he's, you know, obsessed with all of these things. And so kind of by 1460, James is focusing on Roxburgh Castle, which is a place that the English have still held on to after the Scottish Wars of Independence. So the English are still there and this is kind of bugging James and he's thinking he wants to drive the English out of Roxburgh and what better way to do it than all of his new toys? He's got new toys and he's going to bring them out to play. And so he turns up there in the summer of 1460 and wheels out all of his cannon and begins to

• 36:24Matt Lewis?

  bombard Roxburgh Castle. And on the 3rd of August in 1460, we're told that he's standing next or near to one of these cannons and it backfires, it explodes and he is taken out by his own gun, that he had invested all of this money and all of this time in the belief that it would help him get Roxburgh Castle back and, and help him make a name for himself. And I think it makes a different name for himself than he would have wanted it to because he dies at the hands of his, I mean, literally hoist by his own petard, I guess.

• 36:55Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, yes. Oh, yes. I mean, it is one of the, these stories where you're just like, yeah, well, that, that's that, right? And I think it is important to keep in mind that at this point in time in the 15th century, you know, cannon are a relatively new invention and they do blow up, right? It is not that unusual for them to misfire, backfire, blow up and take people along with them. And they have to therefore be approached with a surfeit, not of lampreys, but of caution, right? And James, I think probably just because, you know, he's, he's a lad that just doesn't think about it that way. And so this is one

• 37:38Eleanor Janega?

  of these things that this all could have been avoided just by not. Being this hands on with a gun, but on the other hand, you know, you know how dudes are. They they love a cannon. What can I say? I you know, if you put a cannon out there that people could fire right now, I think that the number of dudes who would perhaps injure themselves is not in the zeros, right? You know, it's a

• 38:03Matt Lewis?

  Yeah. And I wonder how many people listening, if if you're a man, have you done this? If you're a woman, do you know a man who's done this? Going back to a lit firework, because it doesn't look like it's gone off yet. It's that kind of thing, isn't it? You know, I can imagine the aftermath with with the the inquiry beginning almost immediately into A, who made this cannon that just blew the king up? But also, B, who told James he could stand there? Or who didn't tell him that it was a really bad idea?

• 38:30Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, my God. You know, it's it is. There is a death, a fairly horrible death, so you can't laugh that hard. But listen, I'm giggling. I'm giggling. What can I say?

• 38:40Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, I mean, I so in terms of scoring this, it's got a three for absurdity, because it it falls into the daft category rather than being hilarious, you know, silly. It's something that could have been avoided, as you said, but maybe isn't the most absurd thing that we've heard so far today.

• 38:59Eleanor Janega?

  There's no poo involved in this at all, Matt.

• 39:03Matt Lewis?

  Can anything win without the involvement of poo? That's the question.

• 39:07Eleanor Janega?

  We have to see.

• 39:10Matt Lewis?

  We've got a while to try and find out.

• 39:13Matt Lewis?

  Where I think it does better than John's death is maybe the political impact, because here is the king of Scotland dead, so we've got another king who is dead. To some extent, John had willingly voluntarily gone to his death. This is the king of Scotland dying on a military campaign without actually wanting to. And also because he leaves behind a son in James III, who is only nine years old. So Scotland, having had a long minority with James II, is now thrown back into a long minority with James III, and that's just going to allow all of those factions to emerge again, all of those families to try and assert themselves over the king. And you've again got the issue of a child king, and how does he get out of his minority? And what kind of king is he going to be?

• 39:55Matt Lewis?

  When he gets there, because the traditional view is that child kings are never ever a very good idea. So here we've got a child king who's made its adulthood. He has died, but left behind him another child king. So I think it's got a four for the political impact, because it's it's pretty significant for Scotland. And it's got a five for believability because there doesn't seem to be any doubt about what happened here. James stood too close to a cannon that exploded and he died. There is, there is complete unanimity about this. I've never seen it disputed or doubted. So we've gone hard with a five on believability of this, which gives it a total score of 12 out of 15. So I think it's fairly significant, not the daftest thing we've heard, but pretty significant.

• 40:38Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah. And I think that it's an important one to get in the conversation because it is a bit of an absurd death, you know, maybe not a funny ha ha absurd, but as you say, you know, listen, we gotta, we gotta cover all the parameters here. Right. But look.

• 40:54Matt Lewis?

  There's different ways to be stupid.

• 40:57Eleanor Janega?

  And I'm trying them all, Matt. So, but look, I feel as though this is not sufficiently absurd. So I'm going to come at you with something more silly.

• 41:10Matt Lewis?

  What have you got?

• 41:10Eleanor Janega?

  Let's bring it back. Let's bring it back to the silly one. Now, this is one of my very, very favorite stories from the Middle Ages generally. Baby, we gotta talk about Peter Bartholomew, right?

• 41:21Matt Lewis?

  Coming in hot. You got this one.

• 41:23Eleanor Janega?

  Coming in hot.

• 41:24Matt Lewis?

  I wanted this one.

• 41:26Eleanor Janega?

  So good. Right. Okay. Well, in the first place, shout out to one of our few non royal or noble guys involved. And now Peter Bartholomew, right? He, in the year of our Lord 1099, is involved in the first crusade. And more particularly, he is bogged down in Antioch as so many Europeans are at the time. They are underneath a terrible siege. Everybody's starving. Morale is in the gutter, right? But you know what Peter decides is going to turn this ship around? Is he believes, or at least he states that he has found.

• 42:11Eleanor Janega?

  The Holy Lance. Under the floorboards of church. Right? And which is interesting because there's a, there are already a few Holy Lances floating around Europe at the time. But you know, hey, what's one more? Listen, you know, if you have a curious mind, you can, you can think of lots of varying possibilities. To his credit, we do see from the sources that this has provided a fair morale boost to the troops. Where everyone says, yay, yay, we've got the Holy Lance. Now, whether or not everybody knows the story of like, he just found it just now, that's another question. But they all decide they've got the Holy Lance. Everybody rallies around. They manage to get on out there and break the siege.

• 42:56Matt Lewis?

  As I say, before we go any further, what is the Holy Lance? I mean, it sounds like something from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. We've got a holy hand grenade. What's the Holy Lance?

• 43:04Eleanor Janega?

  Okay, so the Holy Lance is, you know, when Jesus is being crucified and at the end, they start feeling sort of bad for him, what with all of the pain. And one of the soldiers decides to pierce Jesus's side, which ends his suffering. Right? So this becomes a relic. First of all, because they decide that the guy who pierced his side, who they start calling a Saint Longinus, which literally just means Saint Lance, but like, okay, cool, go for it, bro. So, you know, you've got a relic associated with him. And also you've got something to touch Jesus. Right? And because Jesus ascended into heaven, we don't have a whole lot of bodily relics associated with him. I say we don't have a whole lot. We've got like eight of his foreskin and like mouths and mouths and mouths full of

• 43:49Eleanor Janega?

  baby teeth. But listen, we're taking what we can get. Apart from that.

• 43:54Matt Lewis?

  And so interesting that Peter would decide he's found this in particular, while all of the Christians are suffering in the Holy Land and want their suffering to end, he's managed to find the relic that ended Christ's suffering on the cross.

• 44:06Eleanor Janega?

  Exactly. So, you know, it is a very poetic move. And whether or not he is intentionally doing that is up for debate. But listen, it kind of works. It raises everybody's spirits. They charge out of the city. They manage to break the siege. Hooray.

• 44:25Eleanor Janega?

  Couple days later, everyone starts going, buddy, listen, great work, great work cheerleading, but is that really the Holy Lance? And Peter's like, yeah, it is, shut up. That's a direct quote, direct quote, that's what it says in all the sources. And he says, not only is this the Holy Lance, but I am willing to undergo an ordeal by fire in order to prove this. Now, in this case, what we mean by that is essentially they light a huge, huge fire, and he walks through it, carrying the lance and a branch. Guess how this goes, right?

• 45:09Eleanor Janega?

  Like, his idea is that-

• 45:11Matt Lewis?

  For a guy who I was kind of assuming is probably making this up, it's a bit of a, you know, a bit of a PR stunt, good for morale and all that kind of thing. This is really extreme in an effort to prove that it's genuine. This is making me wonder whether he did think that he had found something serious. Because why not, you know, why not go, oh, I've lost it now, it must have disappeared, it arrived where we need it and it's gone now, what can I say? The end. But he's going in hard on this really is the Holy Lance that I found.

• 45:40Eleanor Janega?

  You know, I suppose that there's kind of rather a lot in it for him. I know maybe he genuinely believes this, you know, or maybe he thinks that he can kind of like get through the fire. But the theoretical idea behind this is that if he's telling the truth, since he's got this holy relic, it will protect him. It does not protect him, spoiler alert.

• 46:04Matt Lewis?

  I mean, oh, what, he walked into a fire with two pieces of wood and it didn't go well?

• 46:07Eleanor Janega?

  I know, it was not crazy. And so he suffers some fairly severe burns, and he takes a while to die. All right, it's not a pretty way to go, it is pretty drawn out. My favorite thing about this, though.

• 46:24Matt Lewis?

  Right.

• 46:25Eleanor Janega?

  Is that he insists, as he is dying from these terrible burns from walking through this fire, that it's not, it's not the burns that are killing him. He's like, no, I'm just sick. I'm just ill. That's, yeah.

• 46:42Matt Lewis?

  Something else. I've got a bit of a cold.

• 46:44Eleanor Janega?

  I have dysentery. Yeah, everybody does, right? So he does end up dying. I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist that he did indeed die of the burns, which everyone pretty much agrees on in April of 1099. Shout out. One of the best to ever do it. One of the stupidest deaths, completely self inflicted. I'm going all the way. I think the level of absurdity on this is five. Because as you say, Matt, he could have just.

• 47:14Matt Lewis?

  I think he may well be right.

• 47:15Eleanor Janega?

  You didn't have to do it, bro. Like, come on.

• 47:18Matt Lewis?

  He did it to himself. I think one of the favorite bits of the story that I came across was there was a papal legate who was around at the time called Adama of Le Poit. And, and this guy was like, Peter Bartholomew's a charlatan, he's lying. Um, he, he hasn't really found the Holy Lance. And Peter's like, no, I have, I really have. And then Adama dies kind of in 1098, at which point Peter starts saying, do you know what? I've had a vision of Adama. And it turns out that he knows now that I was right. I really did find the Holy Lance. He's visited me in my visions. The guy who called me a charlatan has been proven wrong. I mean, he's really going two feet all in on this, isn't he? And then to walk through fire, to willingly do that seems crazy. I mean, we can talk

• 47:59Matt Lewis?

  about a world where there is much more religious conviction that perhaps you will get protected from these kinds of things. But it still feels like it has to be a five for absurdity, doesn't it? It is just bonkers.

• 48:10Eleanor Janega?

  To be fair to him, you know, much in the way that the story everybody knows about John the Blind is that he dies in this silly way at Chrissie. This is the thing we know about Peter Bartholomew, right? He enters the historical record because he just goes all the way. He's like, I stand 10 toes down on this, right? But look, you know, where it falls down is a political impact because this is just some guy, right? And to his credit, the politically impactful thing that he already does is rallying the troops in terms of kind of helping to break the siege of Antioch. It doesn't do anything after he dies, though, right? And the believability on this is pretty high. It's at a four. Everyone does kind of believe

• 48:53Eleanor Janega?

  that he did this to himself. Yeah. But he disputes why he died, right? Which is why I'm giving it a four, not a five.

• 49:00Matt Lewis?

  Because there's that one holdout person who's utterly convinced it wasn't the fire that killed him after he walked through the fire.

• 49:06Eleanor Janega?

  And it's him. It's the guy, right? So, so fair enough. But that is so important because I think it bumps the absurdity up. You know, it is really the icing on the cake. So, listen, it's another 11 out of 15, but you gotta talk about it. It's too funny not to.

• 49:23Matt Lewis?

  Absolutely. And at least we're not talking about the believability of whether or not he actually found the Holy Lance. Maybe we don't want to get into that. But he definitely walked through fire and died from the fire. Unless you believe Peter.

• 49:53Speaker 07

  Are you looking for the perfect podcast to hunker down with during the longer, colder, darker nights?

• 49:59Speaker 06

  Well, look no further than the award-winning After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds, and the Paranormal with me, Maddie Pelling.

• 50:06Speaker 07

  And me, Anthony Delaney. We are historians and love all things gloomy and macabre.

• 50:11Speaker 06

  From Tudor executioners and ancient Egyptian death rituals to witch trials and folklore, feel transported back in time on After Dark. Out every Monday and Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 50:23Speaker 07

  And guess what? We're also now on YouTube. After Dark, a podcast from History Hit.

• 50:31Speaker 01

  I'm Connor Tomlinson from Love on the Spectrum. History is my thing and I've been waiting my whole life for a show like this one. And I'm Carter Roy and this is What the Fact. Three facts a week, each with a whole story behind it. The history class you actually wished you had in school. New episodes every Wednesday. Follow What the Fact wherever you listen or subscribe on YouTube at What the Fact Pod.

• 51:13Matt Lewis?

  I am going to come back at you then with something that I think has a pretty significant political impact because Peter's death has very little impact. So I'm going to go hard next on some political impact and a person that I didn't know very much about, this is a guy called King Martin of Aragon. And he is around in the kind of the late 14th century into the early 15th. He dies in 1410 and there is lots of dispute about why he actually dies. But he's king of Aragon and he's been on the throne by the time that he dies for for kind of 14 years. And there's lots of dispute about the way that he dies. But the story we're going to go with because it's the funny one, which may or may not be

• 51:58Matt Lewis?

  true, but has been reported and recorded ever since, is that someone who I presume is a jester at his court tells him a joke. Unfortunately, nowhere is it recorded what this joke was. And perhaps, perhaps that's a good thing because this report claims that having been told this joke, King Martin of Aragon laughs himself to death. He gets an absolute fit of uncontrollable laughter.

• 52:27Matt Lewis?

  And dies as a result of it. I mean, what is, what is this killer joke? I mean, there's some sources that say it's something to do with the goose, but I mean, are geese that funny? I don't know.

• 52:38Eleanor Janega?

  Listen, I mean, I, my guess would have been bum. Again, knowing medieval people, but fair enough goose. Sure.

• 52:47Matt Lewis?

  I mean, geese have bums. It could be a goose's bum.

• 52:50Eleanor Janega?

  Goose bum. Ah, see, now we're cooking. All right. Okay.

• 52:54Matt Lewis?

  This, this is historical investigation live, this is.

• 52:58Eleanor Janega?

  We're doing important work here, right? Look, I will say, good for him. What a way to go. You know, like we should all be so lucky as to laugh ourselves to death. That, that's, that's pretty ideal. In terms of, you know, all the horrors that we've seen, you know, dying slowly of burns, drowning in poo, things of this nature. This is, that's a pretty nice one, right? So, you know, good for him. He secures a, a nice way out of this life. And, and we love that for Martin.

• 53:28Matt Lewis?

  Yeah. I mean, yeah, there's, there's other sources that say he could have died of the plague, or it's possible that he's kind of slipped into a coma, or even that he was poisoned. But I'm just going to stick with guy laughed himself to death.

• 53:42Matt Lewis?

  So, so I've gone for, for this one. I've gone for a, a level of absurdity of four. So less than Peter Bartholomew. But it's hard not to laugh at someone who laughs themselves to death. There's, there's clearly a funny joke being told. And I kind of want to know what that joke is.

• 53:57Eleanor Janega?

  I would believe it more if I knew what the joke was. How about that? How about that?

• 54:02Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, yeah. And I'd have gone for a political impact here of a five. I've gone in high at a five because his death causes a huge succession crisis. All of his heirs, his, of his body are, are already dead. They've predeceased him. And there ends up being a huge succession dispute that eventually ends with his nephew taking the throne, but we have to have this huge agreement called the compromise of Casp, which kind of sets out who's going to rule which of the territories and all of this kind of thing. And there was a huge lava that kind of reshapes the politics of the Iberian Peninsula because King Martin has gone and left himself to death.

• 54:42Matt Lewis?

  But where this one really does fall over is the believability. So this it's got pushed to a two and a half on believability. And maybe it doesn't even deserve that because there are so many different accounts of how Martin died. But as I said before, this is recorded and it does persist, this idea that he left himself to death. So he's ended up kind of pretty high with an 11 and a half out of 15, because it's pretty absurd and it's pretty significant politically. But it might well not have happened.

• 55:11Eleanor Janega?

  I would be more likely to believe the story if I knew what the joke was. Tell me the joke. Tell me the joke, guys. Like even out of context, I just want to know. I'm gonna come with you on this if you tell me the goose joke. Because like otherwise I have to be like, yeah, it couldn't have been the plague, right? It's gotta be, it's gotta be the joke.

• 55:31Matt Lewis?

  History says it's a goose. We're suggesting it was probably a bum as well. And that's as far as we can get.

• 55:36Eleanor Janega?

  The old goose bum.

• 55:42Eleanor Janega?

  All right. Well, listen, I'm bringing it back to the silly stuff. Okay.

• 55:46Matt Lewis?

  So unlike you.

• 55:47Eleanor Janega?

  I know. I'm such a serious person, Matt. But I think we have to shout out really quickly the dick of Clarence. You know, you know where I'm going with it.

• 55:57Matt Lewis?

  Oh, I know where this is going. Good old George, bad old George.

• 56:01Eleanor Janega?

  Ah, so our friend George Plantagenet in 1478 is arrested and he is in the Tower of London, as is the style of the time. Listen, he was just trying to do some light treason against his brother Edward the fourth, and you could blame him. You know, everybody loves it. It is the thing to do. We love a bit of treason. Now, allegedly, allegedly, because he is told that he is going to be killed for said treason, which is, yep, that's the punishment. He is allowed to choose how he is going to die because he is, you know, a royal. So he gets to have these little niceties.

• 56:44Eleanor Janega?

  His brother's gonna kill him, but you know, make your decision up. And also allegedly, he says, because he is a gourmand, he is a bon vivant. He is a man on the town. He says, okay, I want to be drowned in a barrel of sweet momzy wine, baby.

• 57:06Matt Lewis?

  If I'm going out, I'm going out Magaluf style.

• 57:09Eleanor Janega?

  You know, and good for him, good for him. Um, it's a great idea in terms of delicious taste. I still wouldn't want to drown myself. Like, that's, it's not very nice. I think I'm gonna, I'm gonna choose head cut off every time, but I just don't have the style of a duke. Let's be so honest about it. And look, it's a great story. It's one of those ones that gets brought up all the time. If you go to the Tower of London, you are going to hear someone muttering about it. Possibly me if I'm there at the same time. But we have to give it a five on the absurdity scale because it's just such a rich guy thing. Like, it's so silly.

• 57:48Matt Lewis?

  Come on, man. Because if it happened, he chose it for himself as well, which is a weird way to choose to die.

• 57:53Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, he's died like he lived as a fancy little lad. Okay, right?

• 57:59Eleanor Janega?

  Political impact on this, pretty high. It's a four. I mean, one way or another, this is a Plantagenet that we're talking about here. This is a result of a conspiracy and it is going to help to destabilize the Plantagenets at the time, which is going to lead to your favorite thing in the world, Matt. But, yeah.

• 58:23Matt Lewis?

  But it, but it is pointed to as one of those things that drives a wedge between Edward the Fourth and his younger brother, Richard. You know, that they disagree over what should have happened to George. So perhaps the, the significant impact that we see of this is, is its role in what happens in 1483. You know, Edward the Fourth's son is deposed. Is George's fate playing into that at all? Quite possibly.

• 58:45Eleanor Janega?

  And, you know, so we have to, we can't discount that, right? Believability on this, though, I'm gonna be so real with you, it's low. I don't think this actually happened. I think that this is, this is an apocryphal story in my opinion, but it does tell us a little bit about George himself and his proclivities. So there is still a little bit of truth to it in that we know how he might feel about things. So it's 11 out of 15.

• 59:16Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, yeah. And there's an interesting story that his, there's a portrait believed to be of his daughter Margaret, and the portrait has a barrel charm around her wrist. And the suggestion is that that's pointing to the way that her dad died. But yeah, we don't really have any concrete evidence to make us believe that it really happened that way.

• 59:34Eleanor Janega?

  Maybe she's just also a chilled chick who loves to chug wine. You ever think about that? What, girls can't have hobbies?

• 59:42Matt Lewis?

  Maybe she takes after her dad in one way.

• 59:44Eleanor Janega?

  That's all right.

• 59:46Matt Lewis?

  I'm gonna come at you with, with something a bit more believable, but only a little bit more believable. I'm not sure I can beat you on absurdity or political impact with this, but I can, I can maybe shade it on believability. And this is Louis III of France, who was around in the ninth century. He's, crikey, what is he? Like a great, great grandson of Charlemagne? So he's, you know, around when the time of Charlemagne's empire is fracturing, and there's lots of disputes about all these different patchwork of territories that will one day become kind of France and Germany and all of that kind of thing. And he's also dealing with some Vikings, because he's round about the right time for a load of Vikings to be attacking his territories too. And the thing about Louis is, he unusually for the period is doing quite well against the Vikings. He's managing to push them back,

• 1:00:29Matt Lewis?

  he's managing to defeat the Vikings at a time when nobody else is, is able to do that.

• 1:00:35Matt Lewis?

  But in 882, we're told that, you know, he's a, he's a young man, he's having some military success. What he really wants now is a woman.

• 1:00:44Matt Lewis?

  But not a wife. He's obviously just having a moment. He spots a young woman who he quite likes the look of and begins to ride after her on his horse. She runs away for reasons best known to her, but probably completely understandable.

• 1:00:59Eleanor Janega?

  Well, yeah, chicks love it when you are chasing them down on horseback. What could I say?

• 1:01:04Matt Lewis?

  I mean, does it get more romantic than being pursued through the streets by a strange man? She does the the natural thing and she runs home, runs in through the doorway of home. Louis is determined that he is not going to give up on this chase, spurs his horse on and rides through the doorway of her house at full pelt on his horse and cracks his head on the lintel of the door, smashes his skull in, spills his brains and dies from the injuries. He's 18 years old and he's literally just killed himself in an effort to chase a woman.

• 1:01:41Eleanor Janega?

  Dude's rock, Matt.

• 1:01:44Matt Lewis?

  Oh, yeah. I mean, what could possibly go wrong when the world is run by people like this, hey?

• 1:01:51Matt Lewis?

  We've gone, we've gone for this not being too absurd. I mean, it's, it's got a two for absurdity. It's a little bit daft, but it's also, he brought it on himself a little bit. He's behaving in a pretty creepy way. The political impact, we've gone for a three. It doesn't have a huge long-term impact, but you know, he had been having success against the Vikings, which stalls. You know, the Vikings begin to do a little bit better in his area when he's gone and all of his stuff, all of his lands go to his brother, which unites a bunch of territory in West Francia and, and maybe starts the, the movement towards this consolidation of lands that will eventually become something like France. So there's

• 1:02:35Matt Lewis?

  a bit of a political impact there, but not a huge one. And the believability, it's got a three. So it kind of just shades George. George had a two. This gets a three because there seems to be more consensus in the sources that it could be an anecdote, but it's generally broadly accepted that he dies by smashing his head on the lintel of a door, riding his horse.

• 1:02:54Eleanor Janega?

  Like, you know, the wise and wherefore's are another thing entirely, but you know, he did bonk his bonnet. We can all agree on that.

• 1:03:05Eleanor Janega?

  Okay, well, look, I am going to go in with a higher absurdity rating. Okay, listen, um, this is Sigurd the Mighty. Do you know this one? This is, this is quite a fun one, okay? He is the Earl of Orkney, also in the ninth century. And he, as many Earls of Orkney are wont to do, is involved in some hand-to-hand combat with a rival. And he best said rival. To celebrate, as Vikings are wont to do, he cuts the dude's head off.

• 1:03:47Eleanor Janega?

  Now, also, as Vikings are wont to do, he very much decides he's gonna flaunt it, right? Like, this is how we butter our bread, baby. This is how you know not to mess with the Earl of Orkney, right? I'm gonna, I'm gonna ride around with a severed head on my saddle and show you people what's what, right? So, he's got this head, he puts it on his horse, and he's having a little bit of a parade about, going, "You like that severed head? Killed my rival." But here's the thing. It is alleged that as he is riding, the teeth of the head sort of scratch his leg.

• 1:04:29Eleanor Janega?

  And there's a resulting wound, which becomes nastily infected. And as a result, Sigurd then dies soon after. And, look, you and I have got to say, now this, now that's absurd, baby. You're like, what, what do you mean?

• 1:04:50Matt Lewis?

  Getting bitten to death by a dead person is pretty absurd.

• 1:04:54Eleanor Janega?

  Like, he's not a snake, bro. Like, come on, it's not, he's hardly just like sitting there and giving it a gnaw afterwards. Now, I, I will say, okay, like, yeah, um, humans' mouths are filthy, and it is pretty easy to get infected if someone does give you a bit of a chop. Now, whether or not that can happen as you are riding around town, uh, trying to show people what a big, bad warrior you are, that's, that's another question. But we gotta say, that's a five out of five. That's just stupid. That is an absurd and very silly way to go, right? Like, hats off to Sigurd, right?

• 1:05:33Eleanor Janega?

  Political impact on this. Medium. It's about a three. Like rightly, he's the Earl of Orkney, so of course this is going to have some impact, but let's also be so for real. These are Vikings we're talking about. They're, they're constantly killing each other, right? Like, there's a new Earl of Orkney.

• 1:05:48Matt Lewis?

  There'll be another one in the next ship.

• 1:05:50Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, exactly. Like, you know, you wait ages for one to come along at once, right? That's how it is.

• 1:05:57Eleanor Janega?

  Unfortunately, the believability on this one is low. This is a saga story. You know, and the sagas will also be like, and then Thor showed up, right? And like, listen, and I love, I simply love to see it. Do I think Thor actually showed up? No. Do I think that a guy got bitten or at least scratched by a severed head? Probably not, but I still like the story. I still like to talk about it. Cause it's funny. So look, it's a 10 out of 15, but let's be so for real. It's, it's a good giggle as well.

• 1:06:28Matt Lewis?

  It is. It's a good story. Um, right. I, I've got kind of a last card to play. And you know how in a deck of Top Trumps, there's always that one that's almost undefeatable? I think you might have arrived at that card. Because this kind of affects someone that we've already spoken about a little bit. But this is 25th of November, 11/20, which may well be a date that rings bells all over the place.

• 1:06:52Eleanor Janega?

  You do not. Aw, come on, man. I can't believe this.

• 1:06:55Matt Lewis?

  We have, we have wheedled in at the end of this, the white ship disaster. I mean, it rightly positioned us as a disaster. So there's a fantastic episode of, of Gone Medieval with Charles Spencer, all about the white ship disaster. If you want to learn loads of detail about all of this, but essentially you've got a bunch of young blokes and we're going to end up in a absurd story. Who'd have thunk? A bunch of young guys gonna race a ship, uh, over the channel. So the King of England is Henry the first, who we've mentioned earlier. He has already set sail for home across the channel from Barfler to England. His only legitimate son and heir, William Adeline, is gonna get on this white ship, which is kind of newly fitted, newly appointed.

• 1:07:38Matt Lewis?

  It's kind of like giving 17 year olds the keys to the Ferrari and telling them to, to go knock themselves out. And as they're preparing to get on the ship, they're bringing on barrels of wine, tons of stuff. They're getting drunk, they're encouraging the crew to get drunk. What could possibly go wrong? So as, as night falls, as it turns dark, all of these drunk people sail out from Barfleur Harbour. They make it, I don't know, like 50 metres before they smash the side of the ship into this rock that everybody knows is there. It's still there today. Everybody knows that this is a hazard. But guess what? They're all drunk and they don't manage to avoid this rock. Um, they are, you know, all pulled down into the sea. Nobody really swims at this point.

• 1:08:20Matt Lewis?

  They're all wearing their lovely fine silk clothes that give them zero protection against the November Channel waters. Um, so they can't swim, they're freezing to death as well. We get odd bits of stories of people bobbing up. At one point, one Chronicle says that the captain of the ship bobs up and says, oh, where's, where's the prince? And somebody else who's bobbing around still says he died, he's gone to the bottom of the sea. And the, the captain is so convinced that he's going to be in trouble for this, that he just allows himself to sink. And he's like, oh yeah, I might as well just go now, because I hate to think what the king is going to do to me for this. Um, there's one survivor, a man named Berro, who's a butcher from Rouen. He was kind of chasing the royal court to get some bills paid. And he's saved by the fact that he's wearing this lovely big feasy woolen coat that protects him

• 1:09:05Matt Lewis?

  from the, the cold and helps him to float a little bit. So all of the rich people sink, one of the very few poor people on board is the only person that survives.

• 1:09:15Matt Lewis?

  So yeah, it's a, a terrible, terrible story.

• 1:09:19Matt Lewis?

  We've gone for a level of absurdity of four, so not undefeatable. But it is a bunch of young blokes getting drunk and getting the crew of their ship drunk too. And then probably in their last moments, wondering why on earth they've crashed a ship. What could they have done to avoid this? Who knows?

• 1:09:37Matt Lewis?

  Political impact, I mean. We've gone hard on a five because this is what drives Henry the First to try and appoint Empress Matilda as his heir. So she is his only surviving legitimate child by that point. He's aware that there's going to be a huge succession problem because he hasn't got a son. And so this is the thing that feeds into the anarchy and everything that comes after that. So we've talked about Henry's death is kind of sparking all of that off. But this is the, this is the fuse being lit on all of those things that are going to come. And we've also gone hard with the believability of five. So top score on that too, because all of the chronicles are pretty adamant about what happened. The ship definitely sank.

• 1:10:21Matt Lewis?

  William Adeline definitely died in there and they were definitely drunk as well. So this gets a 14 out of 15. It's a, it's a hard score. It's probably the, the undefeatable card in the deck. You're gonna have to come up with, with one of your stupid absurdity fives just to beat this card, I think.

• 1:10:37Eleanor Janega?

  Well, Matt, I can't do that. So what's the point? There's no point, Matt. Showing me up. This is why I keep you in the dungeon. Okay, look.

• 1:10:48Matt Lewis?

  No.

• 1:10:48Eleanor Janega?

  What am I meant to do with this? But I mean, honestly, mate, I think that one's so good. There's just nowhere to go. I'm calling it in. You win.

• 1:10:58Eleanor Janega?

  You are in so many ways my superior, but this is just one more example. So what a treat.

• 1:11:06Matt Lewis?

  What do I win? A week in the dungeon?

• 1:11:08Eleanor Janega?

  Uh, yeah. All expenses paid, babe.

• 1:11:15Eleanor Janega?

  Well, listen, you know what? If I gave you any money, you'd just spend it on drink. And as we've all seen, when mixed with boats, that can lead to a disaster. So we're calling it in.

• 1:11:25Matt Lewis?

  Get me a barrel of Malmsy wine and some fireworks that don't go off immediately.

• 1:11:31Eleanor Janega?

  Matt, pleasure as always. You're a scholar and a gentleman, and apparently, a bit of a card shark. Thank you so much for coming to visit.

• 1:11:40Matt Lewis?

  Always an honour, always fun. Thanks for having me.

• 1:11:45Eleanor Janega?

  Well, there you have it. Gone Medieval's official ranking of some of the most foolish unfortunate deaths the Middle Ages has to offer. Let us know in the Spotify comments what you think about the rankings, or if you have any honourable mentions that we've missed. Thanks to Matt for coming to chat, and thank you for listening to Gone Medieval from History Hit. Remember, you can enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original TV documentaries, including my recent film, The Trials of Jar of Arc, by signing up at historyhit.com/dcription. And if you like Matt and I's foolishness, we have got a special something coming up for you in the next few weeks. So watch this space. You can follow Gone Medieval on Spotify,

• 1:12:30Eleanor Janega?

  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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