How to be a Medieval Teenager

Matt Lewis is joined by Alice Loxton to explore the lives of 18-Year-Olds through history From Bede surviving a devastating plague to Empress Matilda's unexpected rise to power after the White Ship disaster, and Geoffrey Chaucer's adventurous youth in royal courts and French campaigns, discover how turning 18 has dramatically evolved over the centuries. Learn about the key moments and experiences that shaped these young lives and how they relate to the challenges faced by today's youth. Music from Epidemic Sounds. Gone Medieval is presented by Matt Lewis and edited by Amy Haddow. The producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff. 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.

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 Yarnagger, 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.

• 0:42Speaker 01

  The holidays bring brand-new gadgets, bigger spending, and even more on your to-do list. Good thing Verizon gives you more than just a great network. We give you a whole lineup of products and services, like a protection plan for your family's home tech that covers everyday mishaps, a credit card that rewards holiday shopping with real savings, and a smartwatch built specifically for keeping up with your kids. Take the stress out of the season. Pick what works for you at Verizon.com/extras.

• 1:12Speaker 02

  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 camtasiapro.com and start building a smarter way to educate customers, onboard employees, and ensure valuable expertise is shared across teams.

• 1:46Speaker 03

  This is Colin Cowherd from the Colin Cowherd Podcast. Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability. All starts with a great deal on an off-road Ready Tacoma or a half-ton Tundra to a Toyota's most capable and longest-lasting trucks. Built on a reputation for quality and reliability, Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. For a great deal today to a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com. Toyota, let's go places.

• 2:23Matt Lewis?

  Hello, I'm Matt Lewis. Welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We've got the most intriguing mysteries, the gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research, from the Vikings to the printing press, from kings to popes to the crusades. We cross centuries and continents to delve into rebellions, plots and murders, to find the stories, big and small, that tell us how we got here. Find out who we really were with Gone Medieval.

• 3:01Matt Lewis?

  Eighteen, such a long time ago now. I'm reminded of Baz Luhrmann's Everybody's Free when he says, "You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded." Okay, I'm showing my age, I know, in sentiment and in cultural reference points. It might be closer for you than it is for me, or maybe a little further away. Perhaps it's looming on your horizon. Wherever it is, Alice Lockston's new book, Eighteen: A History of Britain in Eighteen Young Lives, is a fascinating new look at what it's been like to be eighteen over the past millennium or so. Alice is a former history hitter, now

• 3:44Matt Lewis?

  carving a path across social media, print media and television screens. So it's a pleasure to welcome her to Gone Medieval.

• 3:53Matt Lewis?

  Welcome to Gone Medieval, Alice. I can't believe it's taken this long to find an excuse to get you on here.

• 3:58Speaker 04

  Thank you so much for having me. It's a very exciting day.

• 4:01Matt Lewis?

  And how's life outside of History Hit?

• 4:03Speaker 04

  Yes, well, obviously, History Hit was wonderful when I was there, but you know, it's lots of exciting things happening and lots of making TikToks about churches and cathedrals and castles and that sort of thing. So yeah, very busy.

• 4:16Matt Lewis?

  And your new book, Eighteen, so this is a look at the lives of various people across time and what they were up to when they were eighteen years old. Why, why did you feel like that was a good way to look at people and why is eighteen a good age to pick out to?

• 4:33Speaker 04

  Well, I suppose basically what I did was pick this totally modern concept. So turning eighteen is not something that historically is an important age. And, you know, in in general, say, in the medieval period, people might have had all the markings of adulthood much earlier on. So they might have got married, you know, in their early teens, say, or had a huge amount of responsibility or taken people to battle when they're fifteen. So I think eighteen is a modern concept, actually, this kind of marking of adulthood. And what I wanted to do to kind of make sense of what that means for us today is look at a thousand years of eighteen year olds in history and see what they're up to. And the big takeaway really is that in the past, because eighteen year olds have had this enormous amount of responsibility.

• 5:18Speaker 04

  You know, say Nelson has gone to sea for six years already. It interesting that actually young people are capable of so much. And it's this kind of demonstration of the extraordinary things that if put in the situation, eighteen year olds would step up the mark and achieve quite remarkable things.

• 5:33Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, I guess in the medieval world, as you said, lots of people have loads of responsibility way before the age of eighteen. They could be married, they could be fighting and all that kind of thing. But they also had this weird notion that you don't come of age to your twenty one. You don't inherit your lands and all of that sort of stuff until you're twenty one, which I think is why we still have a hangover interest in the age of twenty one, which is much less important today than eighteen probably is. But they did it for this weird kind of sense that you could do lots and lots of adult stuff, but actually wait till you're twenty one for some of it.

• 6:03Speaker 04

  Well, one of the questions that I asked in the book then is about, I suppose there's adolescence with this kind of biological thing about puberty. But then there's also kind of maturity. Some kind of scientists today don't think that our brains are fully developed until our thirties. So obviously I'm waiting for that moment still, but they, but you know, it's all actually all these different kind of quite complex markings of when we've fully become adults. So it's quite a tricky question to answer, you know, when does adulthood, when does maturity start? And especially over a thousand years, but you know, just using this this kind of marker of eighteen of one age group. And I think it would be an interesting book to do it with any age.

• 6:46Speaker 04

  You know, you could write this book about people who are sixty and see what they've achieved or haven't achieved. But yeah, it kind of brings up all sorts of quite surprising stories of what people are up to.

• 6:54Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, you could do an Adele, so your next one could be twenty one. And then, yeah, and for what it's worth, I'm forty eight and my wife is still waiting for me to grow up, so.

• 7:03Matt Lewis?

  For some of us, it takes a little bit longer. I guess it's also an interesting way to try to connect younger people with with history, to give them a window into what is happening. You know, your book came out on A Level Results Day. People are going through a lot at the age of 18 at the moment, and it's perhaps an interesting way for them to view history. What are people doing at my stage of life throughout the last thousand years?

• 7:25Speaker 04

  Yes, I mean, in some ways, it demonstrates that young people are capable of huge things. So they are capable of Empress Matilda, who we'll get on to, you know, wielding a huge amount of responsibility, basically being a kind of queen figure already, this amazing diplomat. But on the other side of the coin, I also wanted to show that lots of young people, or lots of people in history who go on to become incredibly famous or successful or hacky, as say Vivienne Westwood, had no idea that they were going to do that at the age of 18. So I didn't want it to be one of those books that you read it and think, oh, no, I messed up because all these people have achieved so much. But actually, there are-

• 8:06Matt Lewis?

  I'm not, I'm 19, it's over, I'm past it.

• 8:08Speaker 04

  So I hope it will offer people this kind of perspective that actually, you know, things in life happen in all sorts of unexpected ways. Say like Flora McDonald is one of the people I write about, and she at the age of 18 had absolutely no idea that this random weird event of Bonnie Prince Charlie arriving where she was would happen several years later, and that would transform her life. And so there's a mixture of some things where like Vivienne Westwood, she kind of create a career. There's other things where these weird events are kind of thrust upon people like Flora McDonald. And and also, it's not just kind of a career thing. It's also personal and and and family relationships. So the example of Elizabeth I, that lots of people might think she had a wonderful life because she was born into royalty.

• 8:53Speaker 04

  But actually, I think she had a pretty awful upbringing because, you know, all of these pretty traumatic events that happened. For example, her father dying, her mother being executed, four stepmothers being caught up in the Thomas Seymour scandal, all before the age of 18. And so, yeah, I think it hopefully offers them new and interesting perspectives for young people today.

• 9:13Matt Lewis?

  Yeah. And the first kind of medieval person that appears, well, the first person that appears in the book. Is Bede, and I was really interested in that because we, we have this image of the venerable Bede, this ancient elderly Father Christmas looking figure, sitting in a room squinting at a book by candlelight. And quite interesting to think about Bede at the age of 18, because I think, you know, we don't do that. We have this image of people in history. Bede is an old man, almost as if he was born 60 years old. Why was he a good candidate to start with?

• 9:48Speaker 04

  Well, literally for the reasons that you've just set out in that we always perceive people in history. I think it's a general thing. We always perceive people in history, or we often do, in the kind of moment of their, their success. So that might be Bede being this old guy in the scriptorium. It might be the moment that people's portraits are painted. And so you always visualize them in that way. And I basically wanted to emphasize that these actually, these were real people, you know. I, I think so often in history, at least I find this problem that you think about people like Henry VIII and they sometimes think like, you, you sometimes think about them like characters in a story, but actually they were real people, just as real as you and I. And so I guess what I wanted to do is match, is make it

• 10:31Speaker 04

  really believable for people that someone like Bede was a real person who actually did live near Newcastle. I mean, what's interesting is that actually lots of historians are quite surprised that I wrote a whole chapter on Bede's young life, because there's pretty much no evidence about what he was up to. But it's amazing how much you can piece together. Like, we know that he would have gone to this monastery around the age of seven, which is a pretty crazy thing for our modern standards, that, you know, you'd be taken away from your family to be sent to this monastery. And, and I'm kind of just explaining what the monastery was, this arrival of Christianity. Like, that had been a pretty exciting and cool place to go at that point in history, even though we think about a monastery as being like a very old, you know, old world, angry type of thing.

• 11:12Speaker 04

  But it was very exciting at the time. And just explaining, you know, or imagining what it would be like for that little boy to walk into the monastery for the first time, to see things he'd never seen before, things like stained glass. They had this amazing stained glass there. Had these amazing paintings and decorations on the walls. So Kind of really trying to evoke what that might have been like in a way that a film might today. But the big, big moment in Bee's young life is that there's this terrible plague that comes to the monastery. And everyone in the monastery dies, apart from this guy who's a kind of teacher and then this young lad. And we think that young lad is Bee. And so I think that's a pretty extraordinary thing to happen. If you actually imagine a plague coming, you know, you seeing this entire monastery of people dying, you probably

• 11:56Speaker 04

  having to carry the bodies out, having to, to, to go through this pretty traumatic thing. And most historians will just, and, and loads of biographies will just mention that in the first chapter or so. And then move on to all of Bee's writings and like the rest of his life. But actually, I just wanted to, to really focus in on that because I guess if you think that you've survived this terrible thing and you're a man of faith, you probably come out about being like, wow, I've been chosen. You know, there's a reason that I am here. And then he goes on and he's, he stays in the monastery his whole life and he's really prolific at writing all these books. So I do think there is this link between his later life and his childhood that's quite important. But yeah, I loved, I love writing about Bee and I've always loved, I've always had a soft spot for Bee.

• 12:40Speaker 04

  I think I've always found it funny that he's called the venerable Bee and lots of people do find him quite a funny character. So I don't know, maybe it was just, I was just fond of him and I really wanted to include him.

• 12:49Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, yeah, any excuse. A bit of Anglo-Saxon Geordie shores.

• 12:53Speaker 04

  No, but that's the other thing though, that because he, um, what I wrote about in the book is that because he would just spend loads of time like preparing all these skins as someone, and that's the other thing that I write about in the book, that because he was writing these books, he was probably spending all this time preparing the skins, going down in the river, having to carry these really kind of heavy and wet skins. And, you know, it's quite like a labour intensive work to prepare that. And it drew me to the conclusion that he'd probably be quite muscly and he'd probably be quite ripped. I did actually think of Geordie Shore. I was thinking about those shows. He's basically this Geordie, he's like really hunky. And so that's why I want to like rewrite Bee into the history books.

• 13:32Matt Lewis?

  I'm never going to think of Bee the same again now. I'm never going to look at that image of him as an old bearded man the same. Um, I mean, Bee, you know, he's someone who has this huge reputation. The father of English history, a prolific writer, the, the reason that we have the, the anno domini system of dating. And he's looking at the stars and all of these incredible things. How much of that potential had he realised at 18? I'm guessing I know the answer. But it's interesting, I think, that he will become such a significant figure, yet by the age of 18, how much of that would he realistically have seen in his own future, maybe?

• 14:13Speaker 04

  I think, first of all, I think it's impossible to say and impossible to know because we, we actually just don't know. And this is where I have to be kind of have limitations with the book in that I have to just say, this is what we think of his life and this is the conclusion that I can draw from all these things. But ultimately, we don't know for sure. But I think the plague that he survives has a massive impact. I also think we forget that monasteries were this really exciting new thing and they were really on a mission to build these and to spread the word. In Bede's Young Life, the age of 18, they've built, they've already started building another monastery. So he's on this mission to start another monastery in Newcastle.

• 14:55Speaker 04

  So this is the Jarro and the Wimmer Monasteries, which you can still go to today, go and see the churches today and, um, and see the kind of remains of where Bede was. But I don't think anyone in history could ever have a sense of, of ending up being known as things like the father of English history 1400 years later. But I do think he has a kind of big mission to create these amazing books and do all this amazing writing. And I think he possibly had a sense of, of that legacy.

• 15:22Matt Lewis?

  Interesting how that experience in his childhood with the plague and everything might have shaped his desire to achieve a lot. You know, he, he had an awareness, I guess, of the fragility of life, that the plague could come along and wipe you out at any moment. That sense that you only have a limited amount of time is sometimes the big compulsion to actually get lots of stuff done.

• 15:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, he was wasting no time and he definitely, I think you're right, like he did definitely have a sense of that. And if it was me, I know that that would make me be quite busy.

• 15:51Matt Lewis?

  Empress Matilda also makes an appearance in your book, as she should, quite rightly. She should be in almost every book. What was Matilda up to on her 18th birthday? What is she doing when she's 18?

• 16:02Speaker 04

  Well, I wanted to include Matilda because in her late teens, her whole life is turned upside down. So she already has a remarkable life that, you know, from our modern perceptions is that she grows up in England, but she is taken away to marry the Holy Roman Emperor. And that's quite a remarkable thing. And she's given huge amounts of responsibility, like she's basically in charge of Italy and, you know, she's, she's ruling on behalf of her husband in lots of different ways. And, you know, she probably thought when she was a teenager that that was where her life would be forever. And she would have children there and she would create the great dynasty and be part of that story, being an empress.

• 16:45Speaker 04

  But of course, the white ship disaster happens in 1120 and that changes everything. And suddenly she's brought back, well, it, it, it also happens because her husband Heinrich the Fifth dies. But she is brought back eventually to England and then she's kind of embroiled in the anarchy, that civil war. But that's all because of this random freak accident of the white ship disaster, where all of the cream of aristocratic youth, they all perish in the English Channel. So I, I thought she was quite a good example of someone who's, you know, everything was, everything changed in a way that she could never have predicted or prepared for.

• 17:23Speaker 04

  And I guess that's like a, a good example for 18 year olds today is that so often in life, you know, it's not actually, if you do really well in your two C's or your A levels, because there's actually all these random events, you know, that you can't control, that even Empress Matilda couldn't control, that will shape the course of your life. And it's actually more about how you can overcome these unpredictable challenges than the things that you can prepare for. But yeah, she's, she's a great character. I mean, she's just so impressive by the age of 18. And I always think about these characters, like, would I have been able to do that at the age of 18? Is it a nature thing? Is it a nurture thing? But from what I read about her, it seemed like she

• 18:00Speaker 04

  She had this amazing training to be a kind of diplomat, to be a politician in that she was growing up, you know, with her parents and meeting such important people at such a young age and being in the court and and and being very familiar with all these kind of diplomatic figures, I suppose. Yeah, I think she's an amazing character and a lot many people seem to know about her. I don't think she made the kind of cut as like the really famous medieval queens or the famous women from history. So hopefully we can we can do something to chase that.

• 18:29Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, set that right. Everyone ought to know about Empress Matilda.

• 18:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:33Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, and and there is a really strong sense that her husband, Heinrich the Fifth, Henry the Fifth, the Holy Roman Emperor, is really crafting her to be a partner in his power. She receives this intense education. She's taught languages, she's taught politics. She's, you know, she's shipped off to Italy in her teens and allowed to to rule part of Henry's empire on his behalf in her kind of mid teens. And you're right, you think, you know, could I have done that? Would I have had enough about me to have done that? Was it the training? And I think, like you said, the the interesting thing and perhaps the the comparison with Bede or the juxtaposition with Bede is that Empress Matilda was

• 19:18Matt Lewis?

  prepared for a really significant, important life in the Holy Roman Empire, as you said, as a wife, a mother, part of a dynasty. But what she turned out, the ways in which she turned out being important, weren't what she was expecting. And there was a a big need to to adapt what she planned. So she thought her life was planned out. Those plans get ripped up.

• 19:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's, I know, it's just, everything's changed completely. And and would she have known that this terrible civil war, this anarchy, would have been playing out? I don't think she would have done. And and I don't think she would have thought that she would be so involved in it as well.

• 19:55Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, and I guess it's an interesting examination of how the experiences that you've had by the age of eighteen can prepare you for the troubles that will come later in life. You know, Matilda does go through the anarchy. She she struggles in parts, but she essentially makes sure that her son becomes King of England. And it's interesting to think how much of that ability and determination and focus.

• 20:19Matt Lewis?

  Was instilled in her by the age of 18 by this incredible education that she had.

• 20:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, definitely. And also, I mean, she, you know, later on in life, I think she's dealing quite a lot with a lot of European parties. And I suppose that that influence of being once the person who was the the wife of the Holy Roman Emperor and having that kind of more international experience must have been pretty useful throughout her life. I mean, I see her as this amazing kind of diplomatic figure. You know, when you look at some of the events later on in life with with Thomas Becket and things like that. Yeah, I mean, I know she had some failings, but I think I think it is quite impressive what she does. Yeah, I think you can talk about her as this kind of political figure. And if you were writing a book, like the greatest politicians or the greatest diplomats in in history, like

• 21:08Speaker 04

  she could be one of those, I think.

• 21:20Matt Lewis?

  This time of year can easily just feel a bit off. The days get shorter, the routines change. And honestly, you might just find yourself feeling irritable, perhaps a little less motivated or a bit more tired. Just getting through things feels like more of a slog than normal. It might feel easier to just push through it, or even try and ignore how you're feeling and just blame the season. But if it's starting to affect your day to day life, talking to a therapist can help you to better understand why you're feeling like this and can genuinely help. That's where Ruler comes in. Ruler makes it easier to find a licensed therapist who meets your needs and importantly, takes

• 22:02Matt Lewis?

  your insurance. You don't have to spend weeks searching or sitting on a waitlist. They partner with over 120 insurance plans and the average copay for Ruler patients is just $15 a session. Ruler helps you pick a therapist based on your goals, preferences and needs, with appointments available as soon as tomorrow. Getting support shouldn't add another layer of stress. So let Ruler lighten the mental load.

• 22:30Matt Lewis?

  If this time of year has you feeling less like yourself, talking to someone can be a good place to start. Visit ruler.com/medieval to get started. That's R U L A dot com forward slash medieval. You deserve mental health care that works with you, not against your budget.

• 22:53Speaker 05

  This is Stugatz from Stugatz and Company Live. Buy smart, drive for less and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability. And it all starts with a great deal on an all-wheel drive Camry, Corolla Cross, or a Corolla sedan with the latest features N-Tech or test drive a spacious Grand Highlander or adventure-ready RAV4. And with so many hybrid models available, you can enjoy longer trips without all the stops. While Toyota's legendary resale value means you can get more at trade-in, get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for deals and details. Toyota, let's go places.

• 23:33Speaker 06

  Bubba Wallace here from 2311 Racing. You know what's slower than a pace car? Waiting at the car wash. That's when I fire up Chumba Casino. It turns those slow minutes into fast fun. With new games every week, you'll never get bored. Next time you're stuck in the slow lane, speed up with Chumba. Play now at chumbocasino.com. Let's Chumba.

• 23:55Matt Lewis?

  Sponsored by Chumba Casino. No purchase necessary. VGW Group void where prohibited by law. 21+. Terms and conditions apply.

• 24:03Matt Lewis?

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

• 24:10Speaker 07

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

• 24:16Matt Lewis?

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

• 24:22Speaker 07

  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.

• 24:34Matt Lewis?

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

• 24:54Matt Lewis?

  On a slightly broader note, while we're still on Empress Matilda, how different did you find the experiences of men and women, maybe during the medieval period, but also throughout the book? How far apart have the experiences of men and women at the age of 18 been throughout history?

• 25:11Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, that's a good question, especially in writing the medieval period, because when I was writing the book, I wanted to have a good range of people, you know, a mixture of men and women, a mixture of people from different periods of history, a mixture of people from different areas of the country, like a real range, some people who were prepared for what they, for what life would throw at them, some people who had no idea what was coming. But in the medieval period, I was struck, even after working in the kind of history world and research and lots of things for a while now, I was struck at how hard it was to find a woman who wasn't a royal, like Empress Matilda, and there were records of her life in her younger years. And so often, there were accounts of people, they would say things like, oh, we don't know anything about them until

• 25:56Speaker 04

  they're 35 or something, when this important thing happened. So I did find it really hard to kind of find, find someone to write about in that period, to represent that period, you know. And the other person I talk about is Geoffrey Chaucer. So there are lots of men who, who we know about their lives, and they're not necessarily royals or anything. So that was quite striking. I think what's the kind of interesting women that I write about, basically, the ones before the Georgian period, say, they are interesting because things have happened to them that, I guess, there's like, not that much agency. So it's people like Empress Matilda, Elizabeth I, who were both born into quite extraordinary things. And then the other ones, Flora Macdonald, who, again, this quite crazy thing happens

• 26:38Speaker 04

  to her, and she's a pretty unusual character. And so actually, for the female figures in the book, the ones that have more agency are much later on, and that's people like Vivian Westwood, or Lisa Saxall West, or Rosalind Franklin, or Mary Anning. And so, and that's because that's a kind of reflection of society, I think. So. Yeah, it was hard to, I mean, I think the medieval, the medieval and Tudor men that I write about have definitely more tendencies and more agency. So that's a kind of interesting pattern of history. That's why there's two queens, Elizabeth and Matilda, and there's no other royals in the book because I just wanted to make sure that it wasn't like another.

• 27:18Speaker 04

  You know, we hear so much about kind of royals and things like that. So I just wanted to expand that story really. But um, yeah, they're definitely, it was quite hard to make it an even reflection of women's experiences. Like, I would love to have included a woman who's just doing something quite normal, in like the fourteen hundreds or something, but it's just really hard to find people like that.

• 27:36Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, yeah. You mentioned Geoffrey Chaucer is another medieval figure who crops up into the book, who, you know, will become a legend. Did it look like he was going to be a legend when he was eighteen?

• 27:48Speaker 04

  I don't think so, but I think all of the markings of his future success were there. So Geoffrey Chaucer was living in London, he was the son of a vintner. He survived the Black Death in his childhood. So again, that's quite an amazing experience. And then he was in a royal household and then he goes to France and he's on this campaign and he's in the siege. Where he does actually get captured by the French and I don't, I don't know how that happened, but I like to imagine him kind of causing trouble and making a nuisance of himself, I think. I sort of imagine it like, um, you know, they're all there in the camp like, oh no, why has Geoffrey Chaucer been captive? Um, it's kind of feels quite unnecessary, but, but he's, he's an interesting character because I think

• 28:31Speaker 04

  obviously a great strength of his writings, which comes much later on, is that he had this amazing understanding of people and different types of people and growing up as a vintner's son in central London, he'd have gone down to the shoreline, to the docks, so that, you know, the port, if you like. And he's seen all of these products coming in from all around the world, heard all of these different voices. Um, you know, he's really in the heart of the hustle and bustle of the city. And then he goes to France. I mean, imagine him walking through France. Probably, you know, he must have talked to all of the different people who'd been on that campaign, all kinds of backgrounds. And then he was. You know, captured by the French, he must have been exposed to, you know, their lives in a way that that many people would never have been.

• 29:16Speaker 04

  And if you think about him as this amazing writer and a kind of someone who was so able to capture the follies and foibles of of all kinds of different people's experiences, then I feel like actually that upbringing was really, really good for for that.

• 29:31Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, yeah, I.

• 29:32Speaker 04

  What do you, what do you think?

• 29:33Matt Lewis?

  I'm gonna say first, I I struggle with Jeff Chaucer in the sense that I love the film A Knight's Tale. So when you say imagine Jeff Chaucer walking through France, I'm seeing Paul Bettany naked and struggling to get that out of my mind now.

• 29:44Speaker 04

  I love, yeah, and he's naked in it.

• 29:46Matt Lewis?

  But yeah, I think, so you know, Chaucer is

• 29:51Matt Lewis?

  very similar to Dickens, I guess, in that sense that he captures a spirit of a time and he his experiences mean that he understands what normal people are going through. So however high Chaucer rises, you know, he will get into royal households, he will have some really good jobs, he'll be really close to the Duke of Lancaster and all of those kinds of people. You know, his sister in law marries John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster. So he, he has all of these roots into power, but it's ordinary people that interest him when he comes to sit down and write about people. He doesn't write stories of great dukes and kings and and wars and battles.

• 30:32Matt Lewis?

  He writes about a bunch of random people going on a pilgrimage to Canterbury and things like that, because that's clearly what his interests are. And I think you're right that his upbringing around those busy ports in London and and a mercantile background means that he is exposed to loads of people. Experience in France puts him in camps with soldiers. You know, he's not at this point in his own tent somewhere as as a kind of general figure. He's with the ordinary people. And I think it's striking that that seems to be what sticks with him for the rest of his life, is that ordinary people's stories are actually the interesting ones.

• 31:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, because he could have been writing, you know, he was pretty exposed to the kings and queens of the day. You know, he could have been writing kind of great tales of of the royal courts and things, but he doesn't really tend to be interested in that.

• 31:21Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, he sort of shuns the the chivalric romance to some extent in favour of just writing ordinary stories and he shuns French or Latin to write in vernacular English. And all of those things, you think. May well be a direct result of what young Jeff has seen up until he's 18.

• 31:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think so, but it's all speculation in some ways. The other thing about Geoffrey Chaucer is that though Marian Turner wrote an amazing book about him, The European Life, she's the kind of expert at Oxford about Chaucer. And she she picked up on the fact that the first record we have of Chaucer is when he was given this piece of clothing in the court that he was in that in the household that he was working in. And it's this really risque piece of clothing, the pantoc. And and it was like this tunic and it was basically really exposed below the waist. So it was like really tight and people blamed this kind of clothing on causing the Black

• 32:22Speaker 04

  Death and inciting God's wrath and stuff. So that was one of the the kind of funny things that you can pick up on in the book is that actually in these early years, I mean, you might think about Chaucer as a diplomat, as a figure, as a poet, but actually the first record we have of him that survives is him wearing this outrageous piece of clothing.

• 32:49Speaker 06

  Verizon knows that holiday math can be complicated.

• 32:52Speaker 02

  Okay, let's see, we get the four kids, four gifts each, six teacher gifts. Wait, oh, what did we get in Sandy and the dogs? Oh, can't forget the dogs.

• 33:03Speaker 06

  Noah doesn't need math. Simplicity Plan from Verizon. One plan, one price. Just $30 a line per month for you or the whole family. The holidays are complicated. Shopping our best deals and switching to Verizon is simple. For new customers, $30 per line includes auto pay and switch discount. Additional taxes, fees and terms apply.

• 33:19Speaker 05

  This is Stugatz from Stugatz and Company Live. Buy smart, drive for less and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability. And it all starts with a great deal on an all-wheel drive Camry, Corolla Cross or a Corolla sedan with the latest features, Entec or test drive, a spacious Grand Highlander or adventure-ready RAV4. And with so many hybrid models available, you can enjoy longer trips without all the stops. While Toyota's legendary resale value means you can get more at trade-in. Get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for deals and details. Toyota, let's go places.

• 34:10Matt Lewis?

  I like the idea that so far we've got a ripped bead and we've got Chaucer wearing high fashion, risque fashion. And I guess if I were to allow you to move away from the medieval period, which you shouldn't ever want to do, obviously. Who would you say is your favourite figure in the book at the age of 18?

• 34:29Speaker 04

  I think Mary Annings a really interesting figure because she has actually achieved a huge amount. She is the woman who was born in 1799 and she was living in Lion Regis on the south coast of England. And she was collecting fossils, so she's an amazing paleontologist. And even by the age of 18, she had collected some of the most impressive specimens, which is still on display in the Natural History Museum, still a big part of their collection. So she already made this amazing contribution to our understanding of that and our understanding of fossils. But what was so remarkable about her is that she was basically self-educated in that she hadn't gone to a really smart school.

• 35:12Speaker 04

  She didn't have loads of connections, she didn't have loads of money. And they basically lived in a very humble way on the south coast. You know, they didn't have any money, they were very poor. But she just went out and she stepped out in the house that she was living in and she just looked at the natural world around her. And she just looked carefully and long and hard and came to these amazing conclusions. And she was years before Darwin. And so actually she's kind of thinking, it's not just collecting these old fossils and kind of, you know, wow, isn't that like physically this amazing thing? She is actually opening our eyes or she was actually opening people's eyes to the entire origins of the world. And to have that understanding at the age of 18, there would be men, learned men from London would come and talk to her

• 35:57Speaker 04

  because she was generally considered as an expert on the topic already by the time of 18. So she's pretty impressive, but I think I just like how low key she is in that. It kind of proves that anyone could achieve something like that because, you know, you've just got to. Think really carefully about things and just be determined and focused. But it's funny, you must find this as well when you write about people, Matt, is that you become really fond of people? Or you kind of get feel like you're getting the. So I've been visiting.

• 36:26Matt Lewis?

  People will be very well aware that that's a trap I fall into all the time. I write books about people that I actually quite like. One day I ought to write a book about someone I hate and see how it goes.

• 36:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. Well, that's the thing. I mean, when I selected the people that I was writing about, I do like them all. Because I wanted it to be quite an inspiring book. And because of that, there are some people we have to leave out. Like, I thought it'd be really interesting to look at Guy Fawkes. Like, how did this young man who was living in York? How did he become so, you know, end up doing this incredibly extreme thing? But of course, you don't actually want to encourage people to. You want to encourage people to follow in the footsteps of the people they're reading about. And Guy Fawkes is not someone you should hold up on a pedestal. So there are some people you have to leave out because of that. But you do become fond of them and you go and visit their houses and you. I've realised that even more so than before, that visiting the places where these things happen is so important.

• 37:15Speaker 04

  You know, for Mary Anning, just walking along that coast in Lyme Regis is quite an extraordinary place. Or there's this other woman I write about, Sarah Biffin, who is this disabled woman. And she becomes this amazing artist. She learns to paint with a paintbrush in her mouth. And she was born in this village in North Somerset called East Quantoxhead. And when you go there, you're like, this is actually extraordinary that she did become so famous and successful. Because it's like such a sleepy little place, you know, you would have no idea that. I mean, even like the idea that this woman, this little baby girl was born there in 1784. This disabled baby from a very poor background, who is also a woman. But so much was a gate to, and yet she did so well.

• 37:57Speaker 04

  So, yeah, it's been really interesting to write about it and just have like open up these kind of different glimpses into all parts of British history.

• 38:07Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, yeah, it's a really interesting way to look at it all. I wondered as well, writing the book, did you get a sense of how being 18 has changed over all of the centuries that you cover? Is it harder now? Is it easier? Has expectations kind of grown or shrunk? Or have they just changed because you could put, you know, medieval people were on battlefields at the age of 16. But they didn't have to deal with social media and being trolled in their bedroom and all of that kind of stuff. And the pressures of exams that we have today. So is it easier, harder, or just different?

• 38:41Speaker 04

  I think the big thing about the modern age that people don't tend to think about, you know, we always talk about social media and how difficult that is. But actually, the big thing is that we, in the past, when whatever annoying thing that you have to deal with today, people in the past would have been doing that, but they've had like a terrible toothache, or they'd have had gout, or, you know, they would have been in pain a lot of the time, or they wouldn't have been able to see very well, or more likely, they would have been dead. Like, most people today, like in the past, if you made it to the age of eighteen, you're doing pretty well already. So I think we can be grateful at least that our health is, you know, the situation of our health is much more favourable. So I'm grateful for that. But I think it is, obviously, it is, it is different today.

• 39:26Speaker 04

  I think, you know, it is a blessing in today's world that we can go to school and we spend our youth in school and we have the space to be learning about the world and this kind of safe eighteen first years, where in the past, people would have been working or they were forced to basically be an adult at a very young age. You know, maybe in the Victorian period, you might be working as soon as you could work, you know, working under a cotton machine or something like that. But I think what I've sort of written about a lot with this book in terms of articles for the paper, so they, they keep asking me this, you know, like in terms of GCSE and A level results, how should we think about the past? Is that what it, you know, it is, it is much better for eighteen year olds today,

• 40:09Speaker 04

  despite all of the social media and everything. And people have so many opportunities in a way that even in the last a hundred years, people didn't have. So Vivian Westford's the most recent one, I write about in the book. And she doesn't go on, she, she's in art school, she drops out of art school, she becomes a typist, then a teacher, she trains in all these different ways. But she was just, she couldn't even consider that there was a career in art, that wasn't just her being an artist with a paintbrush. And so I think today, we have, people are much more open to these ideas of different careers. And, and that's sort of been an amazing thing. But I would also say that the, the big like takeaway from the book for me for eighteen year olds today is that. Though it's wonderful that you can just kind of focus on school exams and that is a blessing

• 40:52Speaker 04

  of modern society, the past does show us that eighteen year olds have the capability to achieve so much and that you probably are capable of a lot more than you think, which is an exciting thing. And I also think that the school exam system today, although it's very good at measuring academic success, can you write an essay? When you look at the course of history and the eighteen year olds in that, it is not the kind of skills that are tested in school exams which get people ahead in life or which save them in moments of difficulty. It's actually markings of character. So the courage of Elizabeth the first, when she was tested in the Thomas Seymour scandal, that is a better skill to have, or the kind of daring of Nelson, even at the age of eighteen,

• 41:37Speaker 04

  or the kind of, I suppose, entrepreneurial spirit of Sarah Biffin, or the, you know, Mary Ann and just going out and kind of teaching herself this kind of understanding of the world. So I think actually it does show that with A levels, you know, we're very focused on academics today, but I think there's so many wider markings of character that are more important to get right. And, you know, I was saying to lots of people who've, if you fail to do CSE results or A level results, don't worry, the most important thing is that you can overcome a difficulty like that because that's a better achievement, I think, than a maths paper, even though that is important.

• 42:18Matt Lewis?

  Well, I mean, I was, I was gonna end by sort of saying, you've, you've been gathering in the book and across social media and stuff, you've been gathering advice from people that they would give to an eighteen year old in the world today. And I was gonna, I was gonna kind of end by saying what would be your advice to an eighteen year old, and maybe you've covered a bit of it there, but.

• 42:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, so in the book, I asked a few celebs at the back to give their advice. And I also did some interviews with lots of historians at some of the festivals I was at this summer. Um, what advice would you give to eighteen year olds today? And the big takeaway that lots of them said was, don't worry. They just said, don't worry about not knowing what you want to do. Um, they said, follow the thing that you're passionate about. And that will be, you know, that will take you um to whatever the the endpoint is. And I think when I think about my myself and my career, when I was eighteen, the the career that I've had didn't exist in that social media wasn't a thing. Like you, Instagram, TikTok wasn't a thing when I was eighteen. But what I have done is just follow my interest in history and making videos and making content.

• 43:22Speaker 04

  And then I ended up a history hit. And then I ended up doing, you know, lots of similar things and writing books and things. So in hindsight, it all makes sense. And um, but obviously hindsight is a useful thing. Um, but you know, you're you're also, you've followed your interest and now you're working as a presenter and and having a podcast and stuff. So I think in terms of the history world and people who are writing and presenting, that does, that is often the case. They just always follow this kind of passion for history. But yeah, it's it's quite hard to give advice because it's so, I mean, it's also hard to draw confusions from this book of like over a thousand years of eighteen year olds. Um, and like draw a simple conclusion from that.

• 44:01Speaker 04

  But but it is inspiring seeing people in the past, you know, it is inspiring reading about someone like Empress Matilda or Mary Ann and um or Elizabeth the First. I think she's an amazing figure because of what she has gone through in a kind of emotionally traumatic way. And it's all of that trauma and difficulty and learning to kind of hold that and overcome that or at least deal with it that makes her an amazing queen. I mean, she she had that middle way and she was, you know, she never, she never got married and she never kind of committed herself in to anyone. And she was in some ways very cautious, but you could argue that that was the making of her.

• 44:35Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, yeah, wonderful. It's been absolutely fantastic to talk to you, Alice. It's been great to to find an excuse to get you on Gone Medieval. Um, and I hope you have to do some something else medieval so you can come back and talk to us again.

• 44:46Speaker 04

  Okay, okay, that's the deal.

• 44:47Matt Lewis?

  Well, thank you so much for having me. Thanks very much, Alice. Alice's new book, Eighteen: A History of Britain in Eighteen Young Lives, is out now and offers a fresh way to look at history through the eyes, achievements and experiences of eighteen-year-olds. If you've enjoyed this episode, you can find out more about Bede's achievements that earned him the venerable title in an episode we did with Michelle Brown. We've got a great chat with Kath Hanley on Empress Matilda and a bit of chorsa for you too with Marion Turner.

• 45:21Matt Lewis?

  There are new installments of Gone Medieval every Tuesday and Friday, so please come back and join Eleanor and I for more from the greatest millennium in human history. Don't forget to also subscribe or follow us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts from and tell all of your friends and family that you've gone medieval. You can listen to us and all of History Hit's podcasts ad-free and watch hundreds of TV documentaries when you subscribe at historyhit.com/subscribe. As a special gift, you'll get 50% off your first three months if you use the code MEDIEVAL at checkout. Anyway, I'd better let you go. I've been Matt Lewis and we've just gone medieval with History Hit.

• 46:20Speaker 06

  Hey y'all, it's Tiffany Stratton from WWE SmackDown.

• 46:24Speaker 01

  And I'm Drew McIntyre. So Tiff, what's the Tiffany's Epiphany for the day?

• 46:27Speaker 06

  Chumba Casino is the perfect quick break between training, travel and beating you at everything.

• 46:33Speaker 01

  Beating me? I'm here for the new Chumba Casino releases every week.

• 46:36Speaker 06

  Charm me on their social games any day.

• 46:38Speaker 01

  Nah, I keep my Chumba fun, easy and no stress.

• 46:41Speaker 06

  Yeah, when it's not Tiffy time, I'm on Chumba time.

• 46:44Speaker 02

  Let's Chumba! No purchase necessary. VGW Group, void where prohibited by law. C T's and C's. 21+. Sponsored by Chumba Casino. Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change. Your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just $5, only at McDonald's for a limited time. Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing.