Tower of London: Medieval Palace

In the first of two special episodes from the iconic Tower of London, Dr. Eleanor Janega charts the transformation of the William the Conqueror's Norman fortress by Henry II and Edward I into an opulent royal palace. Now imaginatively recreated, the palace is brought to life with furniture, tapestries, original artefacts, and vivid illustrations. Eleanor is guided by curator Dr. Charles Farris who tells the stories of ambition, intrigue and the royal court within the Tower’s grand medieval rooms. MORE Castles, Kings and Courtly Life Listen on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/castles-kings-and-courtly-life/id1564113746?i=1000673165637 Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/6v2Irz1l8O4S5aJ3L86oPk Norwich Castle Listen on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/norwich-castle/id1564113746?i=1000740718029 Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/0ycWp8r9t5TpMrBJO7wkEJ Recorded at the Tower of London with thanks to Historic Royal Palaces. Gone Medieval is presented by Dr. Eleanor Janega. Audio editor is Amy Haddow, the producer is 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. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• 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 Yanega, 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.

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• 1:53Eleanor Janega?

  Hello, I'm Dr. Eleanor Yanega, 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 gobsmacking 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.

• 2:30Eleanor Janega?

  Today, we've come to the Tower of London. Eight hundred years ago, this was the beating heart of a restless, magnificent city, the largest in medieval England. By 1300, around 80,000 people lived just beyond these walls: merchants and craftsmen, nobles and servants, and a thriving Jewish community, until their expulsion by King Edward I in 1290. We're standing at the crossroads of a thousand stories. It's part fortress, part palace, part prison. In every direction that you look, the Tower of London seems to whisper, "Remember what

• 3:14Eleanor Janega?

  happened here." And the strange thing is, somehow, the air seems to change from the busy, modern world outside. It's a bit cooler, it's quieter, it's charged with the weight of the past. To my left rises the outer defensive wall, punctured by arrow slits that tell of archers and sieges long ago. Ahead of me is the heart of the fortress, the White Tower. It's a massive, square keep. It's made of pale limestone that gleams faintly, even under cloudy skies.

• 3:55Eleanor Janega?

  This is the oldest part of the tower complex, built by William the Conqueror nearly a thousand years ago. And it's a castle within a castle. To my right is the inner curtain wall, which is lined with smaller towers, each with its own grim story. There's the Bloody Tower, infamous for the mystery of the princes of the Tower. It stands broodingly nearby. Beyond that, the Wakefield Tower guards the river-facing side. This was once home to medieval kings and their court. These days, the Tower is one of London's most-visited landmarks. Almost 3 million visitors came through these gates in 2024.

• 4:39Eleanor Janega?

  But historically, the Tower and the city have had a complicated dance. They're allies at times and enemies at others.

• 4:51Eleanor Janega?

  Londoners were known for rebellion, and more than once, these stone walls became a royal fortress under siege. And despite the tower's formidable reputation as a prison and as the site of some of England's most notorious executions, inside, a different world unfolded. In the 1200s, Henry III and his son Edward I built a splendid palace, a place of culture, where kings and queens feasted beneath painted ceilings, clerks spent over parchment by candlelight, the scent of wax and incense wafted through the chapel, and the servants shuffled or rushed about, attending to royal whims.

• 5:36Eleanor Janega?

  Now, as we walk through these chambers, we step into that world once more. Because the new medieval palace experience at the Tower of London invites us to see and hear the tower as it was, rich with color, sound, and story. Original objects, vivid illustrations, and immersive soundscapes bring to life the people who lived and worked here. Not just kings and queens, but women, servants, and courtiers, each shaping the rhythm of royal life. So today, we're going to experience the Tower of London as a medieval palace. Diverse, beautiful, and alive with ambition, devotion, and intrigue.

• 6:21Eleanor Janega?

  Let's just step inside to meet our guide, the curator, Charles Ferris.

• 6:30Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, Charles, thank you so much for having me.

• 6:33Speaker 04

  Well, thank you very much, and welcome to the Tower of London.

• 6:35Eleanor Janega?

  I'm so excited to check out everything that you've done here. Because I think that when people think of the Tower of London off the top of their heads, they're often thinking about, you know, it as, you know, a place of... Execution, or you know, all the grisly stories, but really in the medieval period, this, this is a palace. Can you tell us a little bit about its medieval roots as a place of luxury?

• 6:58Speaker 04

  Absolutely. I mean, it's got, it's a place of lots and lots of different functions. As you said, it is a palace, it's a fortress, it's a prison, it's the home to the royal menagerie with the, all the royal beasts. And it's got loads of different functions. And what we really wanted to do with our new medieval palace displays is tell the story of a really crucial period in its history. And that's the 1200s during the reigns of Henry III and Edward I.

• 7:23Eleanor Janega?

  I think that this is really exciting because I think one of the things that you often get when you go to medieval buildings is you see them as they are, sort of 700 years later, with nobody looking after them. You know, all the plaster's off the walls, you don't have all the rich decorations, but come in here and we've immediately got beautiful, rich tapestries. And that's what I kind of expect to see. So where, where are we today? Which, which tower is this?

• 7:51Speaker 04

  So we're in the first part of the exhibition, which is in St. Thomas's Tower. And that was built by Edward I as a, one of the later parts of the expansion of what we call the medieval palace. And during the reigns of Henry III and Edward I, the tower massively expands roughly to the sort of footprint that we know today. And you can hear some bells in the distance.

• 8:13Eleanor Janega?

  I love it.

• 8:14Speaker 04

  That's just part of being at the tower. But as you said, it would have been extremely opulent and rich within the medieval palace. And we've tried to give visitors a sort of feel of what that might have been like. Because, as you say, people sometimes think of the medieval period as being quite grey and quite cold. And while it is a little bit cold this evening, looking around, hopefully you can just see a little touch of the real luxury and magnificence of a medieval royal palace.

• 8:39Eleanor Janega?

  What I really like is that you do get to have an opportunity to think about the fact that you are kind of walking in the footsteps of Henry III and Edward I. I mean, these are places they would have absolutely spent time, no?

• 8:52Speaker 04

  Absolutely. And they spent an absolute fortune developing these, you know, really lavish new apartments to stay in while they were here. You probably know that these kings travelled around a lot, particularly Edward I, and they were on the road almost constantly. But wherever they went, whenever possible, they wanted to stay in luxury and they developed these. Really important apartments here at the Tower. And yet, this is exactly where they would have stayed, where they would have worked, received ambassadors, slept, worshipped, all the things that kings and queens do. And it's good to mention queens, of course, because our exhibition is as much about Queens Eleanor Provence and Eleanor Castile as it is about Henry III and Ed of the First. And, and I'm sure we're going to get to this in a bit, perhaps, some of the people that worked in their palaces as well.

• 9:35Eleanor Janega?

  Absolutely, which I really like because obviously it's great talking about kings and queens, but I'm kind of team normal people.

• 9:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, that's absolutely one of our ambitions going through. And in this room, the first room, what we call the hall, and we think this is a hall, really hard to really get to grips with exactly which parts of the palace we use for what, because it's changed throughout its history. But we think this is a hall, you can see the remnants on the south wall of a huge fireplace that would have been here once upon a time. We think this is where Ed of the First may have received guests. But one of the normal people that we're telling the story of is in the corner, you can see a sort of stonemason's table. And we've obviously recreated that. It's a bit of a work of fancy, but it's telling the story of Robert of Beverley, who was one of the great master masons of his age, responsible for the great expansion of the Tower,

• 10:26Speaker 04

  also worked on Henry III's works at Westminster Abbey as well. So really, a really important master mason, an architect in modern palaces, really. And so we wanted to tell his story too, because as far as the building of the Tower is concerned, he's just as important as the kings and queens.

• 10:41Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, God, yeah. I mean, it's one thing to commission the work. It's another thing to be the guy who figures out how you're going to do all of that, right?

• 10:48Speaker 04

  Absolutely. And these were, you know, very demanding masters as well, you know, they really knew what they wanted. They wanted it to be magnificent, a great statement of royal power. And master masons like Robert of Beverley really make that possible for them.

• 11:02Eleanor Janega?

  You make the point that Robert of Everleigh is doing work on Westminster Abbey as well as here. And, you know, it strikes me that these are two real symbols of royal power in London. So when you're rebuilding the apartments in the Tower of London, that isn't just, you know, because you enjoy luxury, is it? It's a statement of intent.

• 11:21Speaker 04

  Absolutely. As I said, the town massively expands during the 1200s. In fact, When you come into the Tower of London, you walk down what's called Water Lane to get to the medieval palace. And the reason it's called Water Lane is because if you came there in 1200, you'd be standing in the River Thames. And Edgar the First actually expands and pushes out into the river to sort of create the modern footprint of the tower. And as you say, that's a real statement of power. They're making the point that this is a regime, a dynasty not to be messed with. And of course, this is also, they're very much living in the shadow of the barons' wars at this point. John, and then Henry the Third later, almost lose the throne completely to rebel barons. And the rebel

• 12:02Speaker 04

  barons, as you know, have the support of Londoners as well. So this is also about controlling the city of London as well. So while we think of it as being a great fortress, all about as a statement of royal power and defending the city of London, it is really, at this period in time, just as much about controlling London as well.

• 12:20Eleanor Janega?

  And I mean, Edward the First, you mentioned St. Thomas Tower, this is his doing. This is a guy who engages in, let's just say, rather a lot of garrulous activity, right? Because we also call him the hammer of the Scots, right? He's this guy who is really pushing out, expanding wars, and all of that means a high taxation rate. And the Londoners, very famously, are often the people who bear the brunt of high taxation, right? They're the ones that have ready cash that you can kind of cream off of. So to me, this kind of looks a little bit like, yeah, I'm the king, don't like it, ha ha.

• 12:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm building a huge castle and you're going to pay for it. And that is certainly true to an extent. And you're absolutely right, Edgar the First is known for being a great warrior. Well, I should say, one of the things that we've done, particularly with our nice little animation that we've had at the start, the little interpretation panels, as you go through the exhibition, you'll learn more about these kings and queens, is realising that they're actually people. They have their good points and their bad points as well. And you can learn about this in the exhibition. But yes, all this activity is incredibly expensive. Edgar the First spends over £20,000 here at the tower. As you know, Henry the Third spends almost double that on Westminster Abbey. So huge sums of money. And they are raising a lot of this money from taxation. One community that's taxed particularly heavily is, of course, the medieval Jewish community, and they have

• 13:39Speaker 04

  a long, complicated relationship with the crown. On the one hand, they're protected by them to an extent, but they also suffer from persecution and are taxed incredibly heavily. And in fact, this room, as part of St. Thomas's Tower, built by Edgar the First, is partly paid for with Jewish taxation.

• 13:55Eleanor Janega?

  And then he's just gonna kick them all out of the country. So that's great. Great job, Edward.

• 14:00Speaker 04

  And yes, of course, in 1290, Edward I expels the Jewish community completely. And that's part of the story that we're telling here in the new palace as well. So not only are we telling the story of queens as well as kings and all the people that worked in the palaces, we're also telling this very important story of the Jewish community as well.

• 14:16Eleanor Janega?

  I absolutely love that. But so we were building these really interesting and luxurious and fun to be in apartments. Is this just for Edward I and his family? Now, I would not be surprised by that because quite famously Eleanor of Castile is a lover of the finer things in life. And you know, Edward really loves her. She goes with him everywhere. But are they hoping to entertain anyone in here? Or is this just a private area?

• 14:41Speaker 04

  It would have been used for entertaining as well. We have very few records of actually what happened in these spaces in many ways. And we only have incidental references occasionally in chronicles or letters or commands for what they wanted to do in these spaces. But they certainly would have been using them for entertaining as well, conducting business, of course, having private dining. They famously ate more frequently in their private chambers rather than in the great halls, which would have been for great feasts and occasions like that. And of course, they're not here most of the time as well. It's worth saying that again. And the fact that they probably would have had other functions when the king and queen weren't here.

• 15:19Speaker 04

  And the people in charge of the tower probably made use of these spaces then, but I'm sure got out of them pretty quickly when they were nearby.

• 15:29Eleanor Janega?

  One thing that I'm noticing here that I really like is that you've got this timeline here that actually shows when the medieval period is. You know, I think that a lot of people don't really understand what we mean when we say that. And I think it's great. You know, we're kind of starting out with the idea of the Sutton Hough being one of the big archaeological finds that you have. And you know, here we are in the tower, smack dab in the middle of it.

• 15:51Speaker 04

  Well, absolutely. We didn't want to expect any prior knowledge of what the medieval period was because it is quite a mysterious period for many people. And of course, it changes depending where you come from the world, depends on when you might think the medieval period was. And so we've given, and as you know, historians can argue about when the medieval period was forever. It is roughly 500 to 1500, but we've got a sort of three-part illustrated timeline here. And you can see what was being built, what was going on, various battles, various famous figures throughout history. And you can see And it's divided into three with England, Europe and the world. And the idea is wherever you come from, and many of our visitors are international, you can hopefully see one of these illustrations of a place you recognise

• 16:35Speaker 04

  or an event you recognise and then be feel slightly centred in what the medieval period was.

• 16:41Eleanor Janega?

  I absolutely love that. The medieval period is for everybody.

• 16:44Speaker 04

  Absolutely. Definitely, definitely something we want to convey. And also, you know, show them how interesting and rich and diverse and beautiful and warm in many ways the medieval period was.

• 16:56Eleanor Janega?

  Absolutely. So we should probably continue on, shouldn't we? So we're, we're kind of moving out of this into the south antechamber, is that?

• 17:06Speaker 04

  Yes. I mean, you know, we don't know the exact layout, as I said earlier. So we, we, we come first into this part, this is the north antechamber. The, the river's that way. And in the north antechamber, you can see, well, one of the first things you see is this beautiful tapestry that we've commissioned. This is actually a local community group called Stitches in Time. It's a, from Tower Hamlets, a charity which specialises in participatory arts and education. And we gave them loads of ideas about the medieval period and the art and tapestries and wall paintings. And then we asked them, we commissioned them effectively to create this tapestry, all about the Tower Hamlets community today, of which we are a part. And as you can see, it's rather fun because you've got sort of medieval marginalia

• 17:48Speaker 04

  and monsters creeping around the place, but then you've also got Pokemon and Game Boys as things as well.

• 17:53Eleanor Janega?

  I'm noticing my favourite little medieval marginal bat is from there, so.

• 17:57Speaker 04

  We've got a bat, you've, there's lots of rabbits. In fact, could you mention the marginalia actually? Because something I forgot to say is we obviously have a lot of young visitors and family visitors to the tower. And one of the things we've created is what we call our Rufus the Rabbit Trail. And as you know, medieval marginalia, there's a lot of rabbits, as you say. And so we've got a rabbit character throughout the exhibition, which younger visitors and older visitors too can look out for in the illustrations. And he's often asking silly questions and sending people on little quests to do things. But if we go through to the, the south antechamber, this is probably where the mechanism would have once been for the portcullis, in fact, because they would have been portcullis. Through St Thomas's Tower in the Great Watergate. And you can see the river through the window.

• 18:39Speaker 04

  And in this room, what we're really telling the story of is the royal households, the king's household and the queen's household. And throughout the exhibition, you'll see some, I think, really beautiful illustrations that we create to try and tell this medieval household story and all the other stories. And you might see that's sort of inspired by Matthew Paris in a contemporary style. We worked with wonderful illustrator called Mel Northover of North Open Brown, our designers. And we sent them an absolute, they were very patient with me, I sense, an absolute ton of illustrations and examples of wall paintings and manuscripts. And then also tons of evidence from the household accounts that I looked at to try and bring out some of these stories.

• 19:22Speaker 04

  And it's actually really helped me to think about the medieval period and what it might have looked like and all these people. And you can see in these illustrations what medieval royal household might have looked like and how busy it was and how many different types of people were working there.

• 19:34Eleanor Janega?

  I'm very happy to see the, the women kind of doing the washing and things, which is one of those big things. But I guess that brings me to my next question. How many people are we expecting in the royal household here at the Tower of London? Because this wouldn't necessarily be a retinue that goes everywhere, would it?

• 19:53Speaker 04

  Absolutely. I mean, it would have been pretty busy when they were here, especially for, for special occasions. The royal, the king's household had in excess of 500 people in it, but some of those would have been staying at places like the mews to look after falcons and stables and various places for hunting and establishments like that. One of the characters you can see in our illustrations, a chap called John de Navesby, there's a little biography of him there. And he was the keeper of the white bear at the Tower of London.

• 20:21Eleanor Janega?

  Okay, listen, I refuse to go to let you go further than that. Can we talk about the white bear? Because you know, this is one of those stories every medievalist delights in.

• 20:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:29Eleanor Janega?

  Can you tell us a little about why, why is there a white bear here and how are we taking care of it?

• 20:34Speaker 04

  Well, that was John de Navesby's job, certainly during Edward the first reign. And we just find very incidental little references to him in financial accounts of wages and robes and things like that. And in these illustrations, we brought out tiny little sort of micro biographies of. People that not only the public won't have heard of, most medievalists won't have heard of, people like John the Knights, the keeper of the white bear and Matilda de Wouten, the laundress and Philip de Beauvais, the king's surgeon. And we've sort of created these little stories and illustrated them as well. But the reason there's a white bear here is because the Tower of London is home to the Royal Menagerie. From at least 1200, perhaps before, we know that Henry III was gifted a bear and lions.

• 21:19Speaker 04

  And at various other times, there were lots of other animals here as well. And they were, and an elephant, of course, as well. And in fact, if you walk around the grounds of the Tower of London, you'll see beautiful sculptures of the various animals that have been here, particularly in the medieval and early modern period. And in fact, the last animals to be part of what we would think of as the medieval menagerie actually became the first animals in what was later London Zoo. So it's an amazing story that continues into the 90th century. But yes, there was a white bear, we think probably a polar bear, but we can't be sure. But yes, the John the Knights, he was given four pence each day to feed this bear. We don't know what, presumably meat, they tended to feed all of these animals meat.

• 22:03Speaker 04

  And then he received an extra four and a half pence for his wages and that of his servant who helped him look after the bear. But suppose get back to your original question about, you know, are these people all here? Probably not all here all the time, but certainly for special occasions, large parts of the household would be here. And it would have been incredibly cramped and wild. And we're going to go and look at the king's bedchamber in a moment. Some people would have stayed in real luxury. Many people would have been probably hunkering down on the hall of the floor of the Great Hall and sleeping wherever they could like it.

• 22:35Eleanor Janega?

  I mean, I suppose John's not going to get to go very far from the bear, I see.

• 22:39Speaker 04

  But no, I think that was a full-time job looking after the bear. Unsure.

• 22:44Eleanor Janega?

  Matilda de Wouten, on the other hand, though, the laundress, she might come and go, might be one of those things.

• 22:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, such an important role. As you know, clothing was an incredibly important part of status in the medieval period. The king provided all of his household with new robes several times a year and him and members of his family and his queens and children, they would have had robes more often, particularly lavish. And clothing, of course, was a great indicator of status. And you could probably tell roughly how important somebody was by exactly what they were wearing. And that's something we've tried to bring out in the illustrations as well. But yeah, hers was an incredibly important job, making sure the king looked presentable at all times. And it was clearly something she was really valued for. And when she retired, he made sure that she was looked after in her older age. And the churches of Barry St Edmunds were actually ordered to pay a pension for

• 23:34Speaker 04

  her. So she lived near Barry St Edmunds. So and that's not the only example. There's various people who worked for the royal household for a long period of time and were effectively given pensions, which again, most people probably be quite surprised with. You might think that medieval kings, their laundress or their coach driver or whoever gets too old, they just get rid of them. That's not the case. They really did look after them in many cases.

• 23:54Eleanor Janega?

  So we know that there are certain members of the staff who are kind of on the permanent rule and others might come and go. Why is it that Henry III and Edward I are so peripatetic, to use a technical term? Is there a particular reason they're moving around as much as they are?

• 24:10Speaker 04

  Absolutely. In fact, if we just walk here to the North Ante Chamber, that gives you a clear indication of why they're moving all the time. This is a map of the lands that Edward I is looking after, effectively in control of. Looking after is probably a slightly applied up. So as you can see, you know, he's not just looking after England. He's not just ruling England. He's by this point in sort of 1300 conquered large parts of Wales as well. He's Lord of Ireland as well. He's the Duke of Aquitaine in France. And he's also through Eleanor of Castile, looking over a ponte in northern France as well. And successful kings tend to be peripatetic. If you think of kings like Henry II, in order to control these lands, they have to be on the move constantly. And it's not just about

• 24:53Speaker 04

  controlling subjects and controlling lands. It's also about delivering law and justice and settling disputes between neighbours and things like that. So it's really an important part of kingship because communication is obviously difficult. They did employ hundreds of messengers who are moving around and you can see several of them in the illustrations who are travelling around sending messages. But the presence of the king and queen is really important as well.

• 25:19Eleanor Janega?

  Then there's also this big period where quite famously Edward the First and Eleanor Castile go on crusade, which is a big deal.

• 25:27Speaker 04

  Right, absolutely. And it's a really important part of their reputation, really. And so while we couldn't go into the story in huge depth in the exhibition, as I said, we really had to keep it quite top level, really. But this is such an important part of their story. And in fact, some of the things that Henry the Third criticised for, as though he's known for being a very pious king, he's criticised for never making good on his vow to go on crusade. And I think Edward the First recognised this even when, before he becomes king, and so he's very anxious to do so. And so he goes on crusade in 1270, famously with Eleanor Castile. He joins Louis the Ninth Crusade, the King of France's crusade. That crusade ends almost instantly because by the time he gets there,

• 26:07Speaker 04

  Louis the Ninth dies, which is bad, but you know, he does get made a saint, partly because he dies on crusade. And generally, that crusade sort of disbands. But Edward the First actually continues to the Holy Land, the Holy Land, of course, being sort of lands associated with the stories in the Bible. And much of the crusades are about Christian control of the Holy Land. And he continues there. He doesn't achieve that much, really, but it's an important part of his reputation. And of course, you probably know, one of the most famous incidents with this is in his crusade, is when he's, there's

• 26:50Speaker 04

  an attempted assassination on him, and he's supposedly stabbed with a poisoned dagger. Now, according to the romantic version, Eleanor Castile sucks out the poison and saves his life. And that's part of the sort of romantic story around their lives. But contemporary sources actually say it's a doctor that saves him. But it's an incredibly important part of their story. And obviously, the crusades are such an interesting but difficult part of medieval history, and it caused terrible violence against many people, like particularly Muslims and Jews and heretical Christians, although heretical wasn't the right word, but Christians basically who disagreed with the Catholic Church.

• 27:29Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah.

• 27:30Speaker 04

  But it's also a really important part of reputation for kings and queens at this time. And it's certainly a big part of their reputation.

• 27:38Eleanor Janega?

  Well, you know, this is one of these things that is interesting because you can be these really complex characters, you know, as we've already stated, you know, these are people, right? So on the one hand, you're doing kind of like big holy things like going on crusade. On the other hand, you're doing things that you now we just consider totally immoral, you know, like having every single Jewish person leave your kingdom, for example, you know, perpetrating these huge acts of violence. And there's this real pull in varying directions, I think, when you're a king.

• 28:08Speaker 04

  Absolutely. I mean, it's an incredibly complex job and they're obviously operating by completely different standards. And while I'm sure many people would have been appalled, for example, by the expulsion of the Jews in 1290, a lot of people would have been very happy with that as well.

• 28:23Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, God.

• 28:23Speaker 04

  Um, and, you know, it's such a, an important part of medieval England's history and global history. And so, you know, we really wanted to include that as part of the exhibition.

• 28:33Eleanor Janega?

  Hmm. So if we keep going, we've got some stairs up into kind of the next session. I absolutely love the tapestries on the walls. And also, it's not lost on me that the minute you come around the corner and see those tapestries, you lose the echo.

• 28:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. It's fantastic, isn't it? And I think that's an important part of privacy in these spaces. Hanging tapestries on the walls. And that's really what's been created. And a lot of this work was done by one of my former colleagues, Jane Spooner, who's an art historian. She's at the Court Hall now. And she did loads of amazing research to recreate the wall paintings and this amazing medieval bed. You might hear in the distance, you can hear some crackling fires. We got a laugh. All about creating a really immersive experience. But you will also hear, you know, what a multilingual court this was as well. Because obviously, many of the servants would have been speaking English. But we also have some Anglo Norman, which is normally wafting from behind the bed, which is of course, you know, the predominant language of

• 29:31Eleanor Janega?

  Of course.

• 29:32Speaker 04

  the court. And then we also have Latin prayers, normally wafting from the chapel as well, which of course would have been used in a lot of legal matters, but also in religion as well. So one of the other themes of this exhibition is really telling people about, you know, what a diverse court it was. And that goes all the way to language as well.

• 29:52Eleanor Janega?

  But can we have a look at this chapel? Actually, it's kind of tucked off to the corner.

• 29:56Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 29:57Eleanor Janega?

  Through the king's bedroom, but oh, the tiles in here.

• 30:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:01Eleanor Janega?

  I tell you what.

• 30:02Speaker 04

  They're really beautiful, these beautiful 12th century inspired tiles. I'm afraid they're not original, but in beautiful greens and terracotta and they're inspired by tiles in places like Westminster Abbey, where 13th century tiles do slide in good numbers. But, you know, it's really important that we've got a little chapel here because religion was such an important part of medieval life. And of course, Henry III is very famously pious. He rebuilds Westminster Abbey. He's known for his great acts of charity. But actually, Edward I also maintains an absolutely thorough routine of personal piety as well. He has a team of chaplains. He's going to chapel, hearing masses every single day.

• 30:44Speaker 04

  He's feeding hundreds of poor every week through his almanas, of course, many more on special feast days. And it was just such an important part, and in many ways a public part of royal life as well. And it's important to show that they were good Christian kings, doing good Christian things, and maintaining a thorough routine of devotions.

• 31:04Eleanor Janega?

  Now, I mean, I suppose though, by the time we're having chapels built off of our bedrooms, you know, that that does show that there is a personal aspect to it. You know, that one of the things that I always say I quite like about medieval morality or medieval piety is, yeah, you have these immensely wealthy people who wield rather a lot of violence in a way that I don't care for. But at least they were worried they would go to hell. It does things for the poor occasionally.

• 31:30Speaker 04

  Absolutely. And both Henry III and Edward I order a lot of what they call pro anima almsgiving. Pro anima being for the souls of various people who had died, normally family members, but also other kings and queens and important people like that. And they're effectively organising prayers, preaching, processions, all these things for the souls of people. And, you know, it's clear that they really did believe that this was a danger of. The nightly job description effectively, you're going to sin and that's why you found abbeys and churches and organised prayers and things like that. But it's also interesting that there's a sort of propaganda angle to this as well because Edward the First, for example, organised a lot of prayers and preaching and processions

• 32:15Speaker 04

  also for battle and would order churches to have all these things organised for them around the land. And not only is that procuring sort of divine support for military campaigns, but it's also acting as a form of propaganda as well and letting everybody know what's going on and why they're in the right.

• 32:48Speaker 01

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• 33:21Speaker 02

  Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalised AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at goo.gle/workspacewithGemini. That's goo.gle/workspacewithGemini.

• 33:55Speaker 05

  After civil war, regicide and Cromwell's Republic, the monarchy returned. But Britain would never be the same.

• 34:05Speaker 05

  I'm Professor Suzanne Ellipscombe and this month on Not Just the Tudors, we're transported back to the age of Restoration royalty, from Charles II to Queen Anne and the birth of the Empire. Join me on Not Just the Tudors from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 34:41Eleanor Janega?

  I'll tell you what, he is the king of propaganda, isn't he? Between that and, you know, the Eleanor Crosses later on and doing things like rebuilding these huge apartments, he really understands what it means to portray kingly power, I think.

• 34:55Speaker 04

  Absolutely. And in fact, if we walk over and have a look at the illustration of Eleanor Castile, this is where we start to tell her story a little bit.

• 35:02Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah.

• 35:03Speaker 04

  And, you know, we describe, of course, how he was heartbroken when she died and ordered the monumental crosses in her memory, of which, you know, several survive today. But you can also see here with the text that we've written, but also the illustrations, that Eleanor is an important part of spreading that message of royal power as well. She is very cultured, she's very educated, she's very learned, she has her own library of books, she has her own scriptorium famously, where she employs scribes and a painter to copy and illuminate manuscripts for her, some of which are gifted to the king and others she keeps for herself. She also imports fine foods from all around the world, including pomegranates and oranges

• 35:45Speaker 04

  and lemons and figs and probably all the things she missed from Spain, having moved to this rather cold country, but also beautiful textiles as well were imported in large numbers. And she also has a massive impact on royal gardens as well. We've sort of tried to depict what a medieval royal garden at the palace might have looked like. There's no manuscript illustrations, illuminations of these, which is very sad because there's loads of references in the accounts to buying trees and building fountains, including a little fountain with a falcon that we've depicted here. And she seems to have been very influential in this. So that would have been fairly new at this time as well. And it's probably bringing in Some French culture, some Spanish culture, but also Islamic culture as well from her

• 36:29Speaker 04

  Spanish homeland too. So it's a real sort of like cultural melting pot. But again, really important way of advertising royal power and she's helping with that as well.

• 36:38Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, absolutely. You know, by the time you've got a Spanish wife, I mean, come on, that's a, that's real cachet. And I think in particular, I'm always really taken with the fact that she's got scriptorium because that's such a Spanish thing. You know, the Spanish courts spend such a lot of time getting texts translated out of Arabic and into Latin. You know, this is something that she really brings with her. So I'm gushing now. I'm in Eleanor Castile Parzon, so.

• 37:06Speaker 04

  Yeah. And we don't know a lot about her childhood. The sources aren't great for her childhood. But as you say, she grows up in her father's court, Berdun's court. He's a great and important patron of the arts. Also her brother Alfonso the Tenth Castile. What you would have heard if we hadn't turned it off recording the podcast as you come into the exhibition is some really beautiful music. And it's actually one of the Cantica de Santa Maria, which were composed in Alfonso the Tenth's court. And it sounds really contemporary and lively and interesting. But when you listen to it and it's performed by a wonderful Spanish group that use traditional instruments to perform this music, people are really surprised that it sounds really contemporary. But you're like, this is exactly the sort of music that would have been played in the 1200s in a palace like this.

• 37:48Eleanor Janega?

  You know, and that's such an important part of court life. You know, it's not just, you know, all prayers and being worthy. And it's not just paintings and tapestries. You know, music occupies rather a lot of their time. And it's a great way of showing that you've got a luxurious court because, you know, all those musicians need to get paid, you know, and hey.

• 38:06Speaker 04

  One of the really nice things that we managed to add to the illustrations was where you saw the king's surgeon before in the, in the room before for the king's household. You saw he was having his bloodlet. And in the background, you can see a little harp playing. And there's actually a reference in a, in a financial account to Edward the First paying for a harpist, basically to distract him while he was having his bloodlet, which is such a great idea. You've got this great, impressive six foot something warrior king, who's also a little bit squeamish and being disruptive. So that's really fun.

• 38:34Eleanor Janega?

  You know, he's just like me. What can I say? It looks like if we come out of the chamber, there's a nice kind of big stone spiral.

• 38:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, we're actually going to travel back in time now, if you don't mind. We're going to go back to during the Third Medieval Palace in what we call the Wakefield Tower. So be careful on the steps.

• 38:50Eleanor Janega?

  I absolutely will. Now, I'm going to do my very important tall person in the medieval building thing, which is put my hand on all of the arches. So I just bonk my head.

• 39:00Speaker 04

  Be careful.

• 39:01Eleanor Janega?

  It does really feel like we are moving into a very different hall from there because this does kind of feel like a kind of conjoining hallway.

• 39:10Speaker 04

  Well, this was part. This is the Wakefield Tower. It's absolutely beautiful. Where you can see vaulted space. It's lovely rib vault ceiling, reaching up to the heavens above us. And it's quite echoing. And we've turned the sound off. There would normally be some fire cracking. We've been a little bit lighter touch with our with our new redisplay here because we know visitors absolutely love this vista. You've got the fireplace in front of us with the arms with three lions in front of that painted above. And then you've got this amazing recreated throne based very closely on the throne depicted on Henry III's second great seal and also, of course, the coronation chair in Westminster Abbey. But it's a really beautiful space and we wanted to be fairly light touch and

• 39:52Speaker 04

  low impact on this space. But we start to tell the story of Henry III a little bit and how he was a very different king. Lots of nice things about him. He was very warm and approachable in many ways, but sadly, less political, less and less of a warrior king. And when we tell that story, but he's very famous, of course, for being a great builder, most famously Westminster Abbey, but also at the Tower as well. He builds loads of towers here at the Tower, really helps to fortify again in the aftermath of the First Barons War and his father nearly losing the throne completely. And this is just a tiny bit of what would have been a much larger expanse of the Medieval Palace. There was a hall ranging off to the east as well, and there's only little bits that survive of it.

• 40:36Speaker 04

  But yeah, it's a really amazing space. We've got another nice tactile model that people can feel the lines depicted on the arms. And of course, Henry III actually was gifted three lions, which he kept here at the Tower of London as well. And then we've got, if we walk down into the space, you can see this illustration, which I think you're going to like. This is all about. What's made a good medieval king and what made a good medieval queen?

• 41:00Eleanor Janega?

  Ah.

• 41:00Speaker 04

  And as you can see, it's very complex and often a bit of a paradox. You need to be a warrior, but also peaceful. You need to take good counsel, but also be strong willed and independent. You need to be charismatic and generous, but also really ruthless. And so, and the silver queenship as well. And we, with these images of different aspects of kingship and queenship, you've got a king as a warrior, but you've also got one at prayer. And then you can see some nice medieval gift giving there. And you can see cups and brooches and rings, all things that Henry III liked to gift people. And then on the other side, you can see a queen. On the one hand, she's having lots of children. And of course, having lots of children was an important part of kingship and queenship.

• 41:42Speaker 04

  Of course, really defending the dynasty, as it were, and looking to the future. But then you can also see her influencing the king, you know, being a great intercessor and persuading him to take good counsel, but then also helping with royal charity, being a good example and also a sort of cultural icon as well. So all of these things are really important. And at the bottom, you can see the extent to which the kings and queens that we're talking about in this exhibition, the way that they met and sometimes failed to meet these expectations. But really, it's just a really difficult job.

• 42:13Eleanor Janega?

  It's so interesting to me because I'm actually quite fond of Henry III to an extent because he is that builder, you know, and you come into a space like this and you know, just looking at how grand it is, we've got this sort of octagonal arched tower, which you wouldn't see, you know, it doesn't need to be this complex. It doesn't need to be this beautiful and he's done it anyway. You know, you go to Westminster and absolutely the amount of money that is spent on Westminster Abbey, it's the output of most of the kingdom for a while. It's absolutely outrageous amounts of money and I love that. You know, I'm a historian, right? I want to say, what have you built? What is it that I can still interact with that you've done?

• 42:56Eleanor Janega?

  You know, I want you to commission a building. I want you to commission a book. I don't care if you're fighting with Scotland. I want to know what you're doing for posterity.

• 43:06Speaker 04

  And that's such an important part of reputation forming as well. I think a big part of us knowing of Edward the First as a warrior king is because he builds all those castles in Wales.

• 43:15Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah.

• 43:15Speaker 04

  A big part of Henry III's reputation as being an important pious monarch is because he spends all that money on Westminster Abbey. And of course, the queens that we're talking about in this exhibition, they're also great patrons of religion as well, particularly the friars and they support the Dominican friars and the Franciscan friars. But many of those buildings don't survive to this day, and I think that's probably why they're less associated with being great religious patrons, because we don't have these buildings to remind us. You know, you only have to walk around Wales and realise what that represents in terms of Edward's reputation. But so it, architecture is such an important part of kingship and queenship, I think.

• 43:53Eleanor Janega?

  So what is this room used for? It's incredibly grand. Is this a sort of a, you know, room to impress people? Because it's worked, I'm impressed.

• 43:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna have to say, in that sort of way that historians often do, we don't know for sure. So a lot of the early work on the medieval palace was done by a great architectural historian, Simon Fairley. And he thinks this may have been a sort of hall for receiving guests. So that sort of makes sense. It's slightly complicated by the fact that large parts of the ceiling were rebuilt in the 19th century. So a lot of the building work at the Tower of London was sort of respectful of the medieval, what was there before, but a lot of it is slightly not. So it's quite hard for us to interpret as curators and historians. But it sort of feels like it could have been an entertaining space. It's also been suggested this could have actually been a bedchamber. There's a

• 44:40Speaker 04

  description of a, a new screen, which we've actually created there in Henry III's reign, being added between the king's great chamber and his chapel. And there was a chapel on that side.

• 44:52Eleanor Janega?

  I see.

• 44:53Speaker 04

  Um, which you can see here, sort of recreated with an altar in these beautiful stained glass windows. And so this could have been a bedchamber. And some historians have actually suggested that these niches that you see where we put the interpretation, Mike, have actually been for holding a royal bed.

• 45:07Eleanor Janega?

  But we don't know for sure, sadly.

• 45:09Speaker 04

  But I mean, it's clearly, you know, a super impressive space. And we've added the throne to give the idea that the king was receiving guests here.

• 45:15Eleanor Janega?

  Well, I really, really love this screen. I really like the stars and moons that are on it and the colours with the gold and the green and the red. You know, this is what I expect from a royal medieval household, just going all the way. Absolutely swing for the fences, guys. You know, all of the colours that you can absolutely get it.

• 45:34Speaker 04

  Absolutely. And we have not huge detailed accounts for how these spaces were decorated, but we do have some details. And sometimes they'll just say stuff like painted in good colours and we have to guess what those colours were. But we obviously use examples from when we can take paint samples from surviving chapels and things like that. Also manuscript illuminations, wall paintings are incredibly useful too. But also, as I said, occasionally descriptions and accounts. And we know in Henry III's reign, the chapel of St John, which is in the White Tower, was given new images, probably wooden statues of saints, which were almost certainly painted. There's wall paintings going on there. There's new stained glass windows depicting the Trinity. And so, you know, we have an idea of how some of these spaces are being decorated.

• 46:19Speaker 04

  And also, we know that, for example, that there are commissioning shutters painted with royal arms and things like that, which we've also recreated around the palace as well.

• 46:28Eleanor Janega?

  Now, this room, though, this also has this particular historical significance because traditionally, this is where we say that Henry VI died, right?

• 46:38Speaker 04

  Absolutely. And we do tell this story. We've tried where possible because the problem with the Tower of London, which is also the great advantage of the Tower of London, is that we have thousand years of history. And we have to be very selective about how we tell the stories not to confuse our visitors. So we have tried generally throughout this exhibition to stay in the 1200, to really try and immerse our visitors in that period. But we couldn't get away without telling the important story of Henry VI in the Wakefield Tower. And as you say, it's by tradition. Henry VI, of course, dies here in 1471 while imprisoned here at the tower, shortly after his son is killed in battle. The official account, he sort of dies of great sadness and melancholy,

• 47:18Speaker 04

  but it's shortly after Edred returns to London and many people are pretty sure that he's actually murdered. Some say while at prayer, and this may well have been one of the chapels where he could have been. And this is why by tradition, this is a space associated with the death of Henry VI. This is actually still a space where, to this day, on the anniversary of his death, we have the famous ceremony of myleeds and roses, which comes to commemorate his death and to give thanks for his patronage.

• 48:04Speaker 02

  Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of the Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at goo.gle/workspacewithgemini. That's goo.gle/workspacewithgemini.

• 48:38Speaker 05

  After civil war, regicide, and Cromwell's Republic, the monarchy returned. But Britain would never be the same. I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb, and this month on Not Just the Tudors, we're transported back to the age of Restoration royalty, from Charles II to Queen Anne and the birth of the Empire. Join me on Not Just the Tudors from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 49:23Eleanor Janega?

  I love that. That's so fantastic. Okay, so we've got another pretty fancy doorway over here. If we go through there, where are we heading?

• 49:31Speaker 04

  We're going to head outside, so I'm afraid it's going to be a little bit cold, but we're going to be all right. It's not far.

• 49:36Eleanor Janega?

  Fair enough. Oh, pretty staircase. So this is really interesting because it's a spiral staircase that is wooden. I love to see that.

• 49:44Speaker 04

  Yeah. And again, there may have been a stone one here before, but at some point in the last 700 years, it's probably been, it may have been taken out. But we know that there were wooden as well as stones. So yeah, we come to a door. I'm aching.

• 50:00Speaker 04

  And it is, and it's going to be a little bit cold as we go outside. Have some pretty impressive looking gates.

• 50:05Eleanor Janega?

  I'll tell you, the view out here of the Tower Bridge is not bad, though.

• 50:09Speaker 04

  Hmm. There we go. So yeah, you have a fantastic view. You've got Towers Bridge, you've got the Norman White Tower to the north as well. And being here in the evening as well, isn't it? With the sparkly stars on the river, it's all looking.

• 50:22Eleanor Janega?

  It's absolutely stunning. Wow.

• 50:26Speaker 04

  And if we look north towards the White Tower, it's important to remember that what survives today is a tiny fragment of the medieval palace that would have been here. Over there, to the south of the White Tower, there was a huge medieval great hall, which was here, which Henry III rebuilds to an extent as well. There would have been between here, another expanse of the king's royal apartments, stretching out from the Wakefield Tower. There would have also been kitchens and sculleries and pantries and all of the buildings and offices required to operate and support the medieval palace. Roughly, the kitchens would have been where you can see the ravens' cage in today. So this is just part of a much larger complex of buildings. And over towards the Lanthorn Tower, which is where we're going next in the east, which is where the Queen's Apartments are thought to have been, there were also

• 51:11Speaker 04

  gardens and things for her entertainment as well.

• 51:13Eleanor Janega?

  The Lanthorn Towers, this is more associated with Eleanor Provence, right?

• 51:18Speaker 04

  Absolutely, yes.

• 51:19Eleanor Janega?

  So what is her impact on this particular tower story?

• 51:23Speaker 04

  She's obviously a really important queen in many ways, much more politically able and intelligent than her husband, and supports him in many, many ways. And by tradition, this is where we think the Queen's Apartments will have been, based around the Lanthorn Tower. But again, part of a much larger complex of buildings that don't survive to this day. But this is where we're telling Eleanor Provence's story. She's got an interesting connection to the tower. There's lovely descriptions of Henry III decorating the tower and her apartments for her. At one point, they're decorated with false pointing and flowers. And then another point, they're decorated with roses and whitewashed. So, you know, must have been, you know, really beautiful, a bit like the wall paintings that we saw in the bedchamber.

• 52:07Speaker 04

  But there's also a fantastic story about, which I think really shows their two characters, actually. It takes place during the Second Barons' War. And we're just walking into the Lanthorn Tower. I like this. Now, so just be careful as we go down the steps. Absolutely. And again, there would be, if we turned it on, some lovely music to you listen to as well, again, from the Cantide de Santa Maria. And there's a wonderful story associated with Henry and Eleanor at the tower. And it takes place during the Second Barons' War. And basically, the tower is under siege. And Henry III, this is in 1263, I should have said, Henry III decides he's going to negotiate with the barons, like he's not

• 52:50Speaker 04

  going to try and hold out the castle. Despite having built a massive fortress, he decides that he's going to negotiate. Eleanor famously has no interest in this and leaves on her own by boat to try and get to the Lord Edward at Windsor Castle. Famously, she gets as far as London Bridge where the Londoners who don't like her very much throw things at her and sort of force her back. And Henry III is so cross with her at this point, he refuses to let her back inside the fortress. But I think this episode really shows, you know, their two characters. And she was incredibly important as a queen. She was also trusted. They did fall out on occasions, but she was very trusted by him when he goes overseas in 1253. She's left as co-regent, which of course is very common with French queens

• 53:34Speaker 04

  and dowager queens, but not so common in England. And it shows, you know, just how trusted she was. She's the first queen that we know of to summon a parliament in her own name as well during this period. And so in the illustration, we've depicted her sort of showing her demands and royal interest to parliament who are clearly listening to her. And it was quite fun, you know, depicting what a royal parliament might look like. But we also share her as a, you know, a very caring family figure as well. We know famously that her and Eleanor of Castile teamed together to convince Edward I.

• 54:10Speaker 04

  Not to have their daughter married too early. They were both married very early. Eleanor of Provence is just 12 years old when she marries Henry III, who's much older. He's 28. And when her granddaughter Eleanor is being betrothed to, I think it's the King of Aravon, she's only 13 and they convince Edward that she's too young to be said to be married yet. Which, you know, is another example of what a caring mother she was. And there's another lovely incident as well, which really, she really annoys the monks of Beaulieu Abbey because they're staying there. And she's not meant to be staying in the sort of precincts of the abbey, but the young Edward's taken ill. And she stays by his bedside for three weeks until he's better,

• 54:51Speaker 04

  much to the upset of the monks who really don't want a woman staying in the abbey overnight, of course. So yeah, a really, really impressive queen. It's important that we can tell her story as well. But the other thing we're doing in this Lanthorn Tower, as you'll see, is giving an idea of the sort of material culture of the medieval palace. And this is some wonderful loan objects. They're sort of done in little sections. So there's one all about food and feasting and we can see a lovely dish and the jug on display. There's one all about games and entertainment and you can see some dice and games counters and a beautiful crystal chess piece. And we know that Edward the first gifts Eleanor of Castile a chess set made from crystal and jasper.

• 55:32Speaker 04

  And then there's also, another, the next two cases are objects associated with royal childhood and education. And you can see a very popular object, this beautiful little Ned lead knight. That's gorgeous. That Edward and Eleanor's children were given castles and siege engines to play with, probably hoping that they would one day be great warriors, which Edward the second doesn't live up to entirely. But we've got this lovely little 13th century lead knight, which you can imagine our children playing with. Not particularly safe today, of course, but yeah, a really beautiful object. And again, we've got these wonderful illustrations above recreated on all of these scenes.

• 56:12Speaker 04

  So you could see a feast going on. You can see jellies and you can see people playing music and cooking food, but you can Also see hunting and chess playing and all these lovely little details. And as I said, the male, the illustrator was incredibly tolerant of all the that I sent her, but she did her best to sort of include them. And I particularly love the little child falling asleep at the back of the scriptorium. And there's a Dominican fire trying to teach all the royal children, the letters there.

• 56:40Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, I really like the stylus, actually, you know, come on, a little real historian nerd hours out here. I love the stylus that we see. It's made out of bone and it looks like it's in the figure of an actual person. And that's what little kids would use to learn to write. You would take that and you would put it into a wax tablet.

• 56:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, absolutely. You can scratch it on a wax tablet. You could learn your letters and then you could rub it through afterwards, warm up the wax and then you can start again.

• 57:07Eleanor Janega?

  Listen, we could learn a thing or two about sustainability.

• 57:11Speaker 04

  It's a really, really good idea. I suppose that's the sort of extra sketch of their death, isn't it? And you can imagine that children would have loved playing with it. And you know, there's a really lovely little figure of a child holding a bird, perhaps a falcon stylus, which is really lovely.

• 57:25Eleanor Janega?

  It's fantastic. I really like the emphasis on just what life is like in here.

• 57:30Speaker 04

  Absolutely. We really wanted to bring that out with objects. And we've got this continuing in the next room as well. We've got two really beautiful objects talking about royal religion, which we discussed in the chapel a little bit. But here you can see a little ivory altarpiece. And if you look very closely, you can still make out the gold and the green paint that's still present there. Of course, it would have been richly colored beforehand. And it's a little portable altarpiece, which would have been used in private devotions on the road. We've also got this amazing pix, which is a beautiful Limoges enamel box and a sort of conical lid. And yeah, that's another one of these beautiful loan objects that we have. And that would have been used for holding the consecrated host during devotions. And these are exactly the sort of

• 58:15Speaker 04

  objects that would have been in royal chapels. And then we've also got a section here on royal work. And you can see working hard at the top in the illustration and pointing at the very medieval looking map, which you might recognize from Matthew Paris.

• 58:31Speaker 04

  But also, and these are the great unsung heroes of this exhibition, really. You can see the clerks depicted writing everything down because the only reason we have all these details for Life in the Medieval Palace is because of all those clerks that wrote down every penny that they were spending. And these documents that survive in places like the National Archives and the British Library, all these amazing repositories, and we can go to them and we can read these accounts that are 700, 800 years old and learn about life in the medieval palace. And so I've got a great fondness for those clerks.

• 59:02Eleanor Janega?

  So yes.

• 59:03Speaker 04

  And it upset the illustrator a little bit because I suddenly realised, once she asked the question, like, what were their haircuts like? I was like, I had to really think about this. And after consulting a couple of different historians, we agreed that the clerks, all emery disorders would have all been tarsers. She was upset because she, our illustrator now loves drawing hats and there weren't many hats, but there's some crowns, as you can see. So that's a bit of fun. But yeah, obviously royal work is really what the royal family are really all about in many ways. He talks a lot about their lifestyle, but of course, they would have been organising everything from foreign policy to armies, to buildings, to taxes and all these things, all meticulously recorded by these clerks. And the objects we've got on display, we've got some coins from the reign of Edward the

• 59:47Speaker 04

  First that were actually minted here at the Tower of London. And then we've also got this beautiful wax seal. Of course, wax was incredibly, wax seals were incredibly important for sort of authenticating royal messages. And this seal, which is fantastic, you can see a little knight on the back. They've often, knight seals often have, of course, have them on horseback. He's got a little axe and that's actually an Italian noble called the Count of La Mello. And the reason it's lovely to have this on loan here is because it helps to tell the story of what an international court Edward the First had, partly because of him and Eleanor Castile having great international reputations. There were Italian knights, German knights, Spanish knights, French knights, all attracted to their great fame and wanted to be part of their court.

• 1:00:29Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, it's one of these things, I think that we have a tendency to... Believe that the medieval world looks exactly like our own, that we've got these hard borders where everyone is the same, but really, especially at elite levels, you have a huge mixing of people at all times.

• 1:00:45Speaker 04

  Absolutely. And as I said earlier, they're speaking French, they've got relations in all other countries through marriage, and they're also, they're lords of lands in other countries as well. And they're in many ways, and it's an extremely mixed and diverse culture.

• 1:01:02Eleanor Janega?

  So here behind us, we've got all these gorgeous artifacts, and then we've got a big old stone. What's going on here?

• 1:01:09Speaker 04

  This is such an exciting loan for us here. This is actually a loan from the Jewish Museum, London. And as you said, it looks like just a piece of stone. This is actually from a medieval Jewish mikva, which is a ritual bath that was excavated in Milk Street, not far from the Tower of London. And it was discovered on the site of the home of the Cresspin family. And we think that they would, it would have been used probably for private and public worship. And it's incredibly rare because it's an example of material culture from the medieval Jewish community. And as, as you know, this community was expelled by Edward I in 1290, having been in England for, since shortly after the Norman conquest in large numbers, having this important relationship with the crown,

• 1:01:53Speaker 04

  and particularly, you know, with the Tower of London here as well. The Tower of London would have been a place of refuge on occasion from persecution, but also a place of persecution, a place of execution, imprisonment. Large parts of the tower are actually paid for with Jewish taxation. And then they were expelled in 1290. And this was an important point of expulsion as well. And material culture, because of the expulsion from the medieval English Jewish community is incredibly rare. And so to have this object, part of a ritual bath, on display here for our visitors and helping to tell this important story is just incredibly exciting to me.

• 1:02:29Eleanor Janega?

  I absolutely love it. It's so exciting to see so many aspects of life in medieval London in one place. It's just absolutely. Can't believe it. Wait, okay, so behind me then, again, we've got

• 1:02:41Speaker 04

  Another staircase.

• 1:02:41Eleanor Janega?

  Another staircase. Where will this take us to?

• 1:02:43Speaker 04

  Well, we're gonna go out onto the Wall Walk and there's a little map to help you find your way.

• 1:02:48Eleanor Janega?

  Okay.

• 1:02:49Speaker 04

  Yep, but pass another one of those tactile models of Henry III's Great Seal.

• 1:02:53Eleanor Janega?

  I love it.

• 1:02:53Speaker 04

  And we're really leaving the 1200s. This is, to an extent, the end of the medieval palace. But there is one more stop for visitors, and that's to go down to the Cradle Tower.

• 1:03:06Speaker 04

  So we've now come outside, and the final part of what we call the medieval palace is the Cradle Tower, which we can sort of see below us here. And this was actually built by King Edward III, so Edward I's grandson, and he builds this as a private entrance to, he swaps around the royal apartments, so the king's apartments come onto this side.

• 1:03:26Eleanor Janega?

  Right.

• 1:03:26Speaker 04

  And he builds the Cradle Tower as part of that, as part of that.

• 1:03:30Eleanor Janega?

  Okay, so what is it for? We're calling it the Cradle Tower. Is there some meaning behind it?

• 1:03:35Speaker 04

  Yes, it's got nothing to do with babies, if that's what you would think. It probably had a boat cradle in it at some point. I think that's, that's a lot of the names of the towers around the Tower of London are quite tricky to get to the origins of them, but we think that this was because it had a boat cradle. And visitors can go down there, learn a little bit about Edward III, and also see a beautiful, and the final sort of tactile on our exhibition journey through the medieval palace. And it's a lovely, actually carved stone rabbit, and if you look up at the ceiling in the Cradle Tower, you will see some beautiful stone rabbits. They're kind of rubbed away because they're hundreds of years old, but they're some of the best decorative stonework that we have at the tower. And so we've recreated that, actually working with somebody at a local stonemasons' college in Stratford,

• 1:04:19Speaker 04

  so not far from the tower at all, and recreated that for our visitors to feel and help them engage with the space.

• 1:04:26Eleanor Janega?

  But you say that there would have been boats in the Cradle Tower, that's why it's called the Cradle Tower. And that probably has to do with the fact that this is sort of where the moat and the river had been, right?

• 1:04:36Speaker 04

  Absolutely. So Water Lane, as I said, was the expanse of the tower in Henry III's reign, and Edward I pushes out into the river. He also pushes out into the City of London, which you can imagine they don't like particularly. But it always has this very important connection with the river. Lots of the great London and further afield palaces are connected by the River Thames. And Edward I builds a small part of the wharf, and then the later part is added by Edward III.

• 1:05:06Eleanor Janega?

  Yes, I have some reflective questions.

• 1:05:08Speaker 04

  Really?

• 1:05:09Eleanor Janega?

  You know, we've got this incredible history here. And you've been working at lots of medieval sites. And has this project and, you know, reimagining what the medieval royal apartments looked at, changed your opinion of the palace?

• 1:05:25Speaker 04

  Absolutely. It's been a really exciting process, really. I mean, I've been studying the royal household and head of the first court for, I don't know, nearly 20 years maybe now. And actually, the process of making the illustrations, because the designers, the illustrators were asking questions which I don't normally think about as a historian.

• 1:05:45Eleanor Janega?

  Right.

• 1:05:45Speaker 04

  And like, what were they wearing? What were they doing? What would they be holding? What would this have been looked like? And it really being able to visualize the royal household, the royal court, really made me think about it and the records in new ways. And so actually, you know, as a medieval historian, it's been a really exciting process. And I actually feel closer to the story than I had before, which is, uh, really surprised me, actually.

• 1:06:11Eleanor Janega?

  I really love to hear that. Do you have a favorite?

• 1:06:14Speaker 04

  Favorite space? Yeah. I mean, I love the illustrations and I love watching visitors engaging with the illustrations. And when we see visitors from overseas looking at the timeline and interacting with it and pointing at things they recognize, I love that because we had so many meetings and conversations about trying to get that right. So that's really exciting. I still think that the bedchamber is really magical, just because it gives probably quite a tiny glimpse, really, of the richness of a medieval royal palace. And when you have the fire crackling and the sounds of the Anglo Norman wafting behind the curtains and the Latin coming from the chapel, it does feel quite magical and you can really feel like you've at least got a tiny idea of the richness of the medieval

• 1:06:59Speaker 04

  palace and that world, which of course, I've been, again, reading about for a very long time, thinking about for a very long time. But actually being able to immerse yourself in that world is particularly exciting.

• 1:07:11Eleanor Janega?

  Thank you so much for taking me through this. It's been a real delight to see the way we're actually able to still bring these spaces to life.

• 1:07:20Speaker 04

  Well, thank you very much for coming and I hope more historians like yourself, but also members of the public will come here and learn about the medieval palace and this important chapter in the Tower of London's history.

• 1:07:32Eleanor Janega?

  This has been an absolutely fantastic experience. And honestly, if you come visit London, the Tower has always been, for me, the most important thing for visitors to come see from a medieval standpoint. But now, it's even more incredible. I think my favorite thing is probably the Royal Bedroom, because I do feel like the richness of the tapestries there, the paint on the walls, all of these little things help bring the medieval past to life in a way that we ordinarily don't get to see. You're usually standing in a castle just looking at bare stone walls, which they never would have seen. And you have to do a great deal of work imagining

• 1:08:16Eleanor Janega?

  what life might have been like. And I swear, you have to come hear the music as well, because really, that layer, understanding the luxury and the real beauty that these people were able to experience in a period that people tend to write off as grey, is so important. You know, I'm talking in this really romantic way about how some of the most powerful and wealthy people who ever lived experienced the Tower. But fundamentally, there are a lot of people who come through the Tower of London that don't get to experience that same level of luxury. On Friday, Matt is going to be hosting me as we look at another side of the Tower.

• 1:09:00Eleanor Janega?

  It's not just a medieval palace, it's also a medieval prison. And to be honest, one of the reasons the Tower is still famous is because of its most infamous inhabitants.

• 1:09:22Eleanor Janega?

  Thank you for listening to Gone Medieval. Remember, you can enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original TV documentaries, including my recent film, Joan of Arc, by signing up at historyhit.com/subscription. You can follow Gone Medieval on Spotify, where you can leave us comments and suggestions, or wherever you get your podcasts. And tell all your friends and family that you've gone medieval. Until next time.

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