What are the High Middle Ages?

Dr. Eleanor Janega and Matt Lewis embark on a rollicking journey through the High Middle Ages, unearthing the epic power struggles between popes and kings, and getting to know standout figures like the audacious Frederick II. They discuss how game-changing innovations like the heavy plough and crop rotation systems transformed medieval farming and sparked a social revolution, exploring the intellectual boom of the 12th-century Renaissance, the relentless Norman conquests, and the majestic Mongol Empire. It's a period packed with fascinating advancements and larger-than-life characters. MORE Emperor Frederick II: Scourge of the Papacy https://open.spotify.com/episode/0f2RDfAxdDuaQFCvrDJ1HB Gengis Khan's Pax Mongolica https://open.spotify.com/episode/6KtWTM2HM99H29Aotldkc9 Gone Medieval is presented by Matt Lewis and Dr. Eleanor Janega. Audio editor is Joseph Knight, the senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff. All music used is courtesy of Epidemic Sounds. Gone Medieval is a History Hit podcast. Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on 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 Jarniger, 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

  This is Nick and Jack from the best one yet, and we are excited to tell you about Walmart Business.

• 0:47Speaker 02

  Staying ahead of business trends means moving fast and adapting quickly. Walmart Business helps you simplify operations so you can focus on building the next big thing.

• 0:55Speaker 01

  Find exactly what your organization needs with their ever-expanding business assortment and everyday low prices. Keep your momentum going fast with reliable shipping and fulfillment.

• 1:03Speaker 02

  Eligible organizations can take advantage of tax-free shopping, both in-store and online, saving you more while getting you everything you need.

• 1:10Speaker 01

  It's Walmart, built for your business.

• 1:12Speaker 02

  Sign up for a free Walmart Business account today at business.walmart.com.

• 1:21Matt 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.

• 1:58Eleanor Janega?

  Here at Gone Medieval, we are always on a mission to bring you all of the juiciest bits from the best thousand years of history. And yes, the fact that it is the best millennium is settled science. Please feel free to look it up. Thank you very much. But as we've mentioned before, just the fact that we have taken a specific range of a thousand or so years and called it medieval is a product of periodization, where historians attempt to put a name to a timeframe in order to have a working vocabulary to describe it. I think that we can all agree that a thousand years is a really, really long time, which is why, within the medieval period, we have even more periods. Hooray!

• 2:41Eleanor Janega?

  A few months ago, Matt and I took the time to talk us through the much-maligned and sadly overlooked early medieval period. Do go back and have a listen to that episode if you haven't already. It is a banger. But today, we are moving on in our mission to highlight the various periods of the medieval period. And that means that we have reached the year 1,000 and the high medieval period. As the name indicates, these 300 years are absolutely chock-full of the most medieval of medieval happenings. And so, to help us get stuck into the most quintessential period of the Middle Ages, I have negotiated Matt's release

• 3:22Eleanor Janega?

  from the Gone Medieval dungeon once again. Matt, it is wonderful to see you in broad daylight on a Tuesday.

• 3:29Matt Lewis?

  I know, we've been unleashed again. Who keeps putting us together, man?

• 3:33Eleanor Janega?

  Well, you know, it's the dream team or the nightmare team, depending on who you ask. But, you know, it's very important, I think, to get the brains trust together here collectively, whenever we get back to talk about the sexiest possible medieval thing: periodization.

• 3:53Eleanor Janega?

  Gamer horns, pew pew pew.

• 3:57Matt Lewis?

  What better way to spend our day than talking about why we cut the medieval period into three different periods and why we define them those ways?

• 4:05Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, exactly. And I think that, you know, last time we did the early medieval period, which is connoisseur's delight, I think. But for most people, the high medieval period that we're going to talk about today, I think this is what is sort of like the creme de la creme. When people imagine what the medieval period is, I think that they're actually thinking about the high medieval period.

• 4:29Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, I think this is the knights in increasingly plate armor, riding around the castles. This is the damsels in distress. I mean, there's a reason like most Arthurian stuff is written in this period, is nominally set in the late Roman, early medieval period, but always looks a lot like the high medieval period. So we have this almost distorted view that the whole of the medieval period looked like this. But this is the medievalists medieval period, isn't it?

• 4:56Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, absolutely. And so for the purposes of actual dates, what we should set out is, you know, roughly, and again, as we said last time, all of these are rough, you know, medieval itself as a term, it's 475 to question mark. We'll get to that when we get to the late medieval period. But the high medieval period, roughly, we're saying about 1,000 to 1,300. So this is encompassing, I think, when most people start sort of paying attention, because you've got the heavy hitters of the medieval period in here. And now we're going to talk about some of them. But I want to start talking about what I think is actually

• 5:37Eleanor Janega?

  probably the most important thing in the high medieval period. And, you know, real heads will know that one of the big things that happens in the high medieval period, which allows for everything else, like it allows for the knights in shining armor, it allows for the castles, it allows for the resurgence of cities, is Advances in farming tech. Let's go.

• 5:59Matt Lewis?

  Woo, woo, woo. Get the sires going again.

• 6:01Eleanor Janega?

  That's right, baby. This is, this is-

• 6:03Matt Lewis?

  This is what, this is what the people came for.

• 6:05Eleanor Janega?

  Absolutely.

• 6:05Matt Lewis?

  Let's talk farming.

• 6:06Eleanor Janega?

  Well, okay, so the thing is, farming, right? You have to talk about it because everybody's a farmer. Eighty percent of everybody is a farmer at this point in time. And I think there is this tendency to think about the medieval period as a time when there aren't advances in tech, when there aren't advances in science. And that's wild because actually medieval people are great at farming and getting really good at farming is what allows you to kind of do everything else. And one of the very big ones that I like to shout out is the heavy plow. Baby, look at this. Ooh, my plow's so heavy. You don't know what swill I might till, right?

• 6:42Matt Lewis?

  Don't let them tell you size isn't everything.

• 6:44Eleanor Janega?

  Mm-mm. And this is a really interesting piece of tech, right? Because it sort of does what it says on the tin. It's just a real big, heavy plow. But what that allows you to do is cut through the heavier soils in places like Northern Europe. So in the German lands, in the Low Countries, even here in England, you suddenly have more available land to cultivate. And I love this one because you know who couldn't figure this out? The Romans in your face. Oh, was that, oh, was that your light little plow, Romans? What's going on? Oh, oh, can your, can your plow, does the, does the heavy soil make your plow sad, Romans? We got that medieval tech, baby. We're, we're plowing more hectares than you could ever imagine.

• 7:29Matt Lewis?

  And just to reinforce the nerdiness of all of this, one of the big advances that that allows is a move from the two crop rotation system to the three crop rotation system.

• 7:39Eleanor Janega?

  Let's go. The beans are taking turns.

• 7:44Matt Lewis?

  Which sounds like nothing, but makes a massive difference.

• 7:48Eleanor Janega?

  It's huge. It's huge. Yeah. The three field system, baby, of, of crop rotation, where you have crops that really leach the soil, followed by fallow period, followed by crops that reintroduce nitrogen in particular to the soil is what's going. Like, baby, what you know about vichysse? But it makes a huge difference. And, and it is kind of one of these things where- It's a really interesting observation because it sort of goes against everything that you would think logically, like, how could you possibly get more food by giving the crops a break, by giving the land a break, right? It doesn't necessarily follow.

• 8:30Eleanor Janega?

  But medieval people find this out, and it makes a huge difference in terms of food production. It's just much, much more abundant. And so food just happens to be around more, which has all kinds of knock-on effects.

• 8:43Matt Lewis?

  So if you've got more land, because you can plough more land, you've got more scope to rotate crops in this way and produce the same amounts of food. But what we're talking about with that is, that's a serious scientific advancement. That's a mechanical advancement that leads to a scientific one of understanding that you can take better care of the soil and it will take better care of you.

• 9:04Eleanor Janega?

  Exactly. And this is a really big deal in terms of just feeding mouths. The days of being a lot more worried about cycles are kind of behind us. And now there are going to be exceptions to that when we get into the late medieval period, of course. But it just means that things take over a little bit better. Things are a little bit more reliable. And this also means, you know, hey, we've got great crops going. We have really great ways of tilling it. There's this interesting knock-on effect where people say, well, is there any more land available? And the answer is we've kind of like come

• 9:43Eleanor Janega?

  up against some pretty hard nose on that in areas of especially northern Europe. And that means that suddenly we get really good at land reclamation, which is a very big deal indeed. So in England, if you go out into East Anglia, in particular, a lot of the time, you're standing on land that was created. Literally, people in the high medieval period learn how to drain these huge swamps, these morasses, you know, places that were incredibly tidal are now suddenly open particularly for farming and for people to move into. So this is essentially what creates the lowlands, which become kind of the economic

• 10:27Eleanor Janega?

  engines of the high medieval period.

• 10:29Matt Lewis?

  And then that's happening inland as well. You think of places like Elie Cathedral, you know, Elie Cathedral for a long time is on an island in the middle of a huge fenland that is virtually impenetrable. Well, it's not now. And that is

• 10:42Matt Lewis?

  A high medieval thing. And you think about around Glastonbury, you know, all of that was swampland and it was unusable. And suddenly they developed the the technology and the ability and the understanding to drain all of that, make it accessible for farming, accessible for living on. And you just get an explosion in the amounts of food and the amounts of livestock that you can sustain with more land being available.

• 11:05Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, yeah. And livestock is really the big one, because a lot of the time when you do land reclamation, it's not the greatest for doing crops on immediately. So you say, okay, well, we can run some sheep through here. And that's great news, because sheep, that's the economic equivalent of planting oil. This is where the moneymakers really come from. And it's no surprise that we see England begin to really emerge as a wool powerhouse at this point in time. They have great advances in sheep breeding, in particular. They have all these new places that you can run sheep. And it's similar, again, in the Lowlands. So, you know, in what is now the Netherlands, in what is now Belgium. Okay,

• 11:47Eleanor Janega?

  yeah, maybe you can't quite get your rye crop in yet, but you absolutely can get sheep in there. And funnily enough, wool, that's the cash crop. So you're laughing.

• 11:58Matt Lewis?

  And also, a bit of salt marsh lamb, anyone?

• 12:00Eleanor Janega?

  And, you know, these are things which seem a bit dull, I suppose, now, because what we want are like, big sexy, kind of scientific advancements, right? You know, when we think about advancements now, we're like, well, it's not exactly the moon landing, is it? And well, I'm like, well, hey, you can't get to the moon unless there is enough guaranteed food. And medieval people are the ones who really figured out how to do that in an incredibly, uh, yeah, scientific manner. You know, this is hard-won stuff. And I just think it's cool that regular people figured this out, too. I think that, you know, we spent a lot of time in the medieval period, talking about kings and popes, and quite right, too. I'm not saying that they aren't interesting. But what are the regular

• 12:41Eleanor Janega?

  folks doing? And I'll tell you what they're doing. Really incredible engineering feats is the answer.

• 12:48Matt Lewis?

  And I guess we also have to allow that Playing into this is the emergence of the medieval warm period. So you've got a little bit of of climate change. You've got the climate being warmer. That is always a bit of a crucible for advancement. You think, you know, the Roman Empire had this kind of warm period at the beginning that allows it to produce more crops, to sustain more people. And that kind of drives those kinds of things on. So we're into the medieval warm period here too, where the climate is conducive to these kinds of advancements as well.

• 13:20Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, absolutely. And so this really allows ordinary people to be thriving, which has real knock on effects, right? Because what happens when you have a bunch of happy, well fed peasants who can keep their families alive because everyone is eating well, is that it creates non peasants also. Because if you don't need every single one of your peasants tied to the land because things are ticking over really well, people can leave. And they leave and they go to cities. And I'll tell you what else happens in the high medieval period. Cities are back, baby. It's not just Roman Constantinople anymore. All right. We got city

• 14:04Eleanor Janega?

  o'clock. And that is because there's enough food out in the countryside that people can move into the city. And also, crucially, there's enough food in the countryside that lords are like, hmm, I don't really need you to bring me all of my tithes in wheat and sheep anymore. Have got got any cash? Is cash around the joint? And the answer is we have like a big resurgence in coinage circulation at this point in time, which is very conducive to cities as well. So suddenly you have people who are like, you know what, I think mom and dad have got the farm ticking over just fine with my three brothers. I am going to move down the road to Bruges and see if I can make it as a weaver, because there's a lot of people weaving wool there and we'll see what

• 14:49Eleanor Janega?

  happens. And that is possible because your landlord isn't going to run you down in the same way where they're not like, I need every single hand on deck actually. And also, there's a city to go to, right? That's a really big deal.

• 15:01Matt Lewis?

  You get this increase in urbanisation because you've got this almost a surplus of population who aren't needed on the farm in the way that they might have been in the past. And that means they get into the these newly emerging bigger towns and cities. And they kind of need something to do. They're almost like spare people. So you get more people getting involved in trades. Where there's trades and where there's a surplus of food, there's commerce. So these cities become much more interconnected than they ever have been. And all of these networks are building up and people are able to just be artisans and tradesmen. They don't have to be subsistence farmers anymore. So you get this move to people living in towns and cities, doing what we would probably recognise as a profession today.

• 15:45Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, absolutely. So this is when we get the rise of what will become, especially in the later medieval period, guilds. So, you know, this is when you have leather workers and mercers and, hey, grocers, my favourite guys, who are trading spices from all over the world. And they are hanging out, doing these incredibly skilled crafts that, you know, none of us could ever really think to even do now. Like a glovers, I often think of glovers, you know, just like how everyone's got their little gloves because the world's a bit colder, right? And then so you've got someone making your special gloves for you. And there are all these knock on really interesting trades. And it makes cities these real big cultural melting pots.

• 16:29Eleanor Janega?

  And it also means that there's just a lot of cash splashing around in cities once again, which is cool.

• 16:34Matt Lewis?

  And I guess all of this is just driving the kind of social change that you can't have when everybody has to be thinking, I have got to make sure that there is enough food to go in someone's mouth. And I can't leave and I can't concentrate on anything else. So by the time you add in the heavy plough and better crop rotation and a climate that's conducive to growing more food. People are just a little bit, I hesitate to say freer, but freer to go and do what they want to do.

• 16:58Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, I suppose that there's a freedom of thought here. It means that we have more people who can become philosophers. We have more people who can become artists. We have more people who can become architects. We'll see a sort of knock on effect, especially in the later high medieval period of, you know, the creation of Gothic architecture, which I know you and I love to see, right? You know, we're still, at the beginning, we're still doing the Romanesques thing. No shade. I like a rounded arch as much as the next person, you know? And of course, the Normans are doing their particular thing with little teepees on the arches. And we love to see it, but it also means that people just kind of have the time and the space to go,

• 17:37Eleanor Janega?

  hmm, I'm going to try something new because fundamentally, they aren't worried about getting the sorghum crop in. Right? And that helps, it helps.

• 17:46Matt Lewis?

  And all of that extra cash and all of that extra urbanization means there is more scope to build churches, cathedrals, ways to display your commitment to God in Christian Europe, at least by, you know, I live not too far from Ludlow. People may well have heard me say it's one of my favorite places in the universe. You go to St. Lawrence's Church in Ludlow, it's described as the cathedral of the marches. You know, it's a, for a parish church, it is immense. And it's because it's built by money that comes from the wool trade and from the Palmer's Guild and places like that. You are able to invest in these astonishing buildings that are some of the things that we walk around towns and cities still today

• 18:27Matt Lewis?

  and are in awe of the most. That is the high medieval period, the money that is coming out of the urbanization and the increased emergence of trades and commerce and things like that. That is what's paying for those buildings that we like looking at today.

• 18:41Eleanor Janega?

  And I mean, I think that you've also hit on one of the really important things here too, in terms of the high medieval period, because we are talking about churches and we're talking about cathedrals, because this is also the point in time when the church really gets going. In the earlier medieval period, God bless the popes, you know, they're the bishops of Rome. And they, then they're out here working very hard to convince everyone that they are very important. But fundamentally, the patriarch of Constantinople is like, cute. That you think you're important, right? But by the time we hit around the year 1000, they've done it. They've been telling this story for enough hundreds of years that it has kind of finally kicked in.

• 19:25Eleanor Janega?

  And we now have the church as sort of the overarching legal juggernaut that I think is what people expect the medieval church to be.

• 19:37Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, so you've got your emergence of the medieval Catholic Church as a dominating force across Europe. And I think increasingly in the High Medieval period, an institution that views at least part of its role as uniting Christendom, you see the crusading movement, obviously, will emerge during this period. And I think what we increasingly see is popes either positioning themselves or believing themselves to be the single figure behind which all Christians in Europe should unite. You know, forget your petty squabbles about borders, forget whether the Duke of Brittany owes fealty to the Duke of Normandy, no need to worry about all of that. You should just all get behind the Pope. And you see popes trying to to sort of become the most important figure in Europe, which

• 20:20Matt Lewis?

  in its turn creates its own problems because kings are now thinking, hang on, I'm the most important person. So you get this increasing friction between the church and an emerging state. So we're getting to a point again in the High Medieval period where we've got something that's recognizable as England, something that's recognizable as France, something that's emerging as Germany. The Iberian Peninsula is there in various broken up pieces, but the Pope is trying to say, I can be a leader for all Christians and increasingly getting friction with with rulers who are saying, particularly Holy Roman Emperors, or what will later become known as Holy Roman Emperors, as I'm sure you know.

• 20:57Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, God, yeah. I mean, because that's the thing is that, you know, the Holy Roman Empire is a High Medieval invention. You can trace its roots to our good friend Charlemagne, but that's not the Holy Roman Empire, is that? That's the Carolingian Empire, right? The Holy Roman Empire comes out of this increasing legal and religious peace, essentially. So, you know, By the time you hit around about the year 1000, most Europeans have Christianized. Most of them, you know, there are stragglers, of course, you know, there are good friends in Estonia and places like that. And the Vikings, the Vikings are pretty much gonna do it now. Like, they're a bit done. They're like, yeah, okay, fair enough. I guess I'll

• 21:39Eleanor Janega?

  be Christian because there's some good stuff in it for me. And so this means that you get a conglomeration like the Holy Roman Empire because they can exploit this Christianization. They can also exploit the kind of tensions between varying rival factions in these really big states, you know, like fundamentally Bavaria would be a pretty good kingdom in and of itself, but the German longs in his heart to make an empire. And so you get the Holy Roman Empire, which gives you, of course, the Papal Imperial rivalry, which is particular. The fact that emperors and popes dislike each other is one specific thing because they're

• 22:22Eleanor Janega?

  mad about who's crowning who and who controls the empire. But there's knock on effects for everyone. Fundamentally, the investiture context is something that is as potent here in England as it is anywhere in the German lands, I would say.

• 22:37Matt Lewis?

  Yeah. And I mean, you get a point where Henry II threatens to convert to Islam because he's falling out with the, you know, probably not seriously. But, you know, he's in such a turmoil with the papacy and they're trying to impose themselves. He's trying to regain powers in England that he believes kings of England have always had to appoint bishops and all of that sort of stuff, where the church is trying to insert itself and get involved. But you get this one moment where he's like, that's it, I'm just gonna become an Islamic ruler then. And it's clearly an effort to, you know, it's part frustration, but it's part a jab at the pope that you're not all powerful because actually I could choose to go and do something else if I wanted to. So you do see that kind of rivalry outside

• 23:20Matt Lewis?

  the Holy Roman Empire as well of rulers butting heads with the papacy because they worry about the papacy's secular incursion into their power, where the papacy might claim that it's trying to rule Christians. But kings worry that they actually want an awful lot of secular power. They're getting an awful lot of money out of lots of kingdoms. They want more and more secular power. I mean, you get people like Innocent III, for me, one of the most dynamic popes there has ever been. This is a guy who becomes pope like in his late 30s. You know, you think about that today, a pope in his late 30s. This is a guy with a long-term plan and a long-term mission to make a reality of the authority of the papacy over the whole of Europe.

• 24:01Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, absolutely. I think that Innocent III is kind of like the Ohr Pope. You know, he's the one who really drags the papacy up to this legal level that we expect from it. And, you know, it's unsurprising because he's kind of, he's trained as a lawyer and he's like, hmm, how do we do that for the church? What are we going to do here? And then he's this great intellectual mind and he has sort of the discipline and fortitude to establish the church as able to prosecute, I suppose, is the way that we should think about it. And what that means is more particularly able to prosecute, you know, kings and emperors.

• 24:44Eleanor Janega?

  Like, let's be so real, they do not care what some peasant in, you know, Aragon is doing right now. That has absolutely no bother to them at all whatsoever. But what Henry II is doing, oh, we're interested in that. You know, like what's going on over there? And that, of course, makes varying monarchs very, very uncomfortable. And, and so we will see this, right? So Innocent III has kind of passed on by the time one of my favorite emperors, Frederick II, gets to the throne. But he gets cajoled all the time by varying popes who are saying, I want you to go on crusade. I want you to do this. And he's like, well, I want to take a bath in my harem. So I don't know that I'm going to do that. So, you know,

• 25:28Eleanor Janega?

  you, you see these kind of real brushes up against what it is that rulers are supposed to do and what the papacy is supposed to do. And that's high medieval, baby. You know, like, no one is having these conversations in the year, you know, 940. That's just not going to happen because the pope fundamentally doesn't have enough power to have those conversations.

• 25:48Matt Lewis?

  One of the things that people often Forget or don't talk about very much is the fact that it's under Innocent III that John hands the Kingdom of England over to the papacy. He makes England a papal fiefdom in his efforts to get out from under the barons and avoid all kinds of trouble with his own barons. He essentially says, okay, the Pope is now the ultimate ruler of England. And that's kind of never legally undone till the Reformation, really, when Henry VIII breaks with Rome. But for Innocent, this is exactly what he believes the papacy should be doing. And by this point, we've got the structures and the foundations in place. Previous popes have kind of created this environment in which Innocent can step up to the stage and say, right, the Pope should be the leader of Europe.

• 26:33Eleanor Janega?

  And I suppose we need to rewind just a little bit to talk about one of those popes in particular, who's Gregory the Great, who's behind the Gregorian reforms.

• 26:42Matt Lewis?

  He's pretty great.

• 26:43Eleanor Janega?

  He is pretty, to be fair, like, there's a reason, that's the reason why we're called all Greg. Old Greg is pretty great, you know? And the Gregorian reforms are incredibly important because the early medieval church and the way that the early medieval clergy behave is usually quite shocking to people now. Because, I mean, one of the most important things that the Gregorian reforms does is like, I'm sorry, guys, you cannot keep getting married. Like, you have got to stop shagging. That's like one of the big ones that old great G wants us to know about.

• 27:20Matt Lewis?

  Yeah. And so, again, I think you're seeing the church becoming more self-confident, defining itself more clearly, trying to become a single entity to take the regionality out of Christianity, that there is this one core doctrine that comes from the Pope in Rome. And Gregory is setting the foundations for that, that people like Innocent will later go on to build further upon, to say that...

• 27:49Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, this is what it is to be Christian and there's no ifs, there's no buts, there's no, this is how we do it in Germany, but this is how we do it in France and this is how we're going to do it in Scotland. No, you do it this way.

• 27:58Eleanor Janega?

  Absolutely. And it doesn't matter if you, as you know, the bishop of Wurzburg, have decided that you are going to hand the bishopric down to your son, because that's not how this works. And yes, we may get in an argument about who gets to appoint the bishop, whether or not it's the king or the pope, but we know who doesn't get to do it. And that's the guy who was just ruling it, who was married and had a son. You know, we're not going to have any more people who are using the church in a sort of hereditary way. We are not having essentially little thieves within the church. You have to join the church, work your way up through it and be appointed. And now there's still going

• 28:43Eleanor Janega?

  to be major families who are sending their sons off to be bishops. Yes, absolutely. But in theory, there's a little bit more of a proving ground before you get to go on to be a bishop or an archbishop or indeed a cardinal later.

• 29:10Matt 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

• 29:52Matt 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. 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.

• 30:36Matt Lewis?

  You deserve mental health care that works with you, not against your budget.

• 30:44Speaker 01

  This is Nick and Jack from the best one yet, and we are excited to tell you about Walmart Business.

• 30:49Speaker 02

  Staying ahead of business trends means moving fast and adapting quickly. Walmart Business helps you simplify operations so you can focus on building the next big thing.

• 30:57Speaker 01

  Find exactly what your organization needs with their ever-expanding business assortment and everyday low prices. Keep your momentum going fast with reliable shipping and fulfillment.

• 31:05Speaker 02

  Eligible organizations can take advantage of tax-free shopping, both in-store and online, saving you more while getting you everything you need.

• 31:12Speaker 01

  It's Walmart built for your business. Sign up for a free Walmart Business account today at business.walmart.com.

• 31:22Matt Lewis?

  Land a Viking longship on island shores, scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt, and avoid the Poisoner's Cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit. There are new episodes every week.

• 32:20Matt Lewis?

  I think one of the interesting things about this that sort of goes a little bit against what we've just been talking about is the emergence of what we would recognise now as universities during this period, because that's sort of a break from the church's teaching. They often come out of church schools and things like that, but they're now teaching people how to be lawyers in a secular world. They're not just preparing people for the church in the way that they were, but with the emergence of cities, we get this kind of creation of a bunch of universities suddenly cropping up across Europe.

• 32:55Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, absolutely. And prior to this, you know, what we had instead was the cathedral school. And the cathedral school, in theory, anyone can send their son to the cathedral school, right? You can say, okay, off you go, Jimmy, and he'll toddle along to St Paul's and there he'll get taught to read and write. But in practice, what happens if you go to a cathedral school is you're being groomed to become a member of the clergy. And also in practice, you know, not everyone can let Jimmy out of the house because Jimmy needs to be helping with the tanning or bringing in the crops or whatever. So it means a very particular group of people go. And the universities come up because that has sort of got to

• 33:38Eleanor Janega?

  the limit it's going to get to. So our very, very first university happens in Bologna. And it's really cute because students there, they demand something better. The students unionise and they say that they want, they want better teaching. And they essentially say, okay, well, here we are, we're the students, who's going to come teach us? And a bunch of philosophers sort of show up to do that.

• 33:57Matt Lewis?

  Which is very different from the students' union wanting better pub facilities.

• 34:00Eleanor Janega?

  It is. Although I'll tell you what, one fun thing about medieval kids is that they still be drinking in those universities. These kids are rowdy as anything. I love them. I love a medieval student. But in Paris, then, there is the opposite thing where the church is like, oh gosh, I guess universities are a thing. So University of Paris, that's us. We're doing that. And then after that, you kind of get Oxford, which is the king in England, saying, well, no, we have those too, and starting them. But universities, you know, as you say, they are this really interesting thing because anyone can be trained in them. But in theory, you kind of have to become a member of the clergy to do it. Like it is a member of holy orders to be a student, which is an interesting one.

• 34:43Eleanor Janega?

  So you have to wear robes and be, you know, like, like a little monk, which is where we get the term town gown relations for between like how universities get on with the people who live there because the students are wearing gowns because they're members of the clergy. But, you know, here we get to learn the trivium is the, the usual one, which is your grammar, your logic and your rhetoric, which is to say, you learn Latin and you learn how to argue with each other in the Aristotelian mode, which is great. And then once you're done with that, you can go on to do the quadrivium, which is astronomy, mathematics, which is like arithmetic, geometry and music. And then if you do all of those things, then one becomes a doctor.

• 35:26Eleanor Janega?

  But that means that you have two things happen. So one, a lot of these people will end up working for the church later, but you also have a bunch of people who end up working in the courts. And this becomes this new way for people to kind of rise in the world. If you can get into university, then in theory, you can show up at court and say, yeah, hey, check it out, did the trivium, any jobs for someone who can read and write really good Latin? And the courts are like, hell yeah. And, and you have this new, really educated populace as a result of that.

• 35:58Matt Lewis?

  Which is partly where you see people like Thomas Becket rising to the fore. You know, here's a guy who went to Paris to go to university and traveled around and was educated and is then able to turn up at first at the Archbishop of Canterbury's household and be spotted and be recognized. And there's something about him, shove him in front of the king and the king thinks, oh, this guy's all right. So it becomes a new social ladder, a new mechanism to get higher than you ever, ever could have before there was a university.

• 36:27Eleanor Janega?

  And this is still where our real understanding of what universities do and what they are meant to do comes from. You know, anyone now who is meant to have a liberal arts education, this is where it's come from. You know, this idea that, you know, to be a well-rounded individual, you have to know these certain things. And this leads us on to what we historians call the 12th century Renaissance, which was a very good time indeed to be alive. You have all of these guys who are really good at Latin and things like that. And that means that there is a resurgence in the classical ones. I mean, not that medieval people ever stop being interested in the classical, but they're on the lookout for new texts. They are writing rather a lot.

• 37:10Eleanor Janega?

  You know, this is when you get our theory on a, you get ideas like this because people are thinking really deeply about the past again. And so they're like, oh yeah, I want to tell some stories that are about kind of the late Roman period. And I know about them because of X, Y, Z. So you get these great new forms of literature that are flowing out. You've got new architecture in cities because, well, you need buildings to put all of these guys in. So that happens. And there's just sort of enough prosperity in order to be doing it at the time, which is what's really important.

• 37:42Matt Lewis?

  And you get this catalyst of partly the crusading movement, partly all of that increase in trade and those networks that that builds, kind of reconnecting Christian Europe with Roman writing and Greek writing that had been lost to Christian Europe that is maintained by Islamic scholars. You know, they've always known about it. The Christians are all like, we've discovered this incredible new stuff. Where'd you discover it from? From these guys over there, but we're the clever ones, honest. But they're reconnecting with that idea of the past and what the Roman Empire was, what Greek philosophers were thinking about and talking about. And you see this explosion of translation and people writing it down and spreading those ideas.

• 38:23Matt Lewis?

  And the impact that that has on art and architecture and painting and things like that is hard to measure, really, isn't it?

• 38:29Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, absolutely. And these are the things that really will allow for the creation of what we consider to be a medieval culture. And I mean, as part of this too, we're getting, you know, increased movement back and forth to the Holy Land, you know, as part of stuff like Crusades. So you have people who are moving a lot and they're saying, oh yeah, okay, wow, maybe I'll learn Arabic. And oh, hey, you know, Where you can actually do a lot of that is you can go down to the Iberian Peninsula. Incredible things are happening on the Iberian Peninsula in terms of output intellectually at this point in time. So you have a lot of Aristotle gets into Europe because it's coming through Arabic sources, which are then translated into Latin in what is now Spain.

• 39:14Eleanor Janega?

  And then they move up through the universities. So you have this really potent amount of back and forth. You know, especially in things like the medical arts. Like, to be clear, everyone still believes in humoral theory because it isn't the 19th century yet. But we are seeing major advances in stuff like surgery at this time, which is oftentimes coming from the Arabic world and then filtering up through places like Salerno, the great medieval medical university, but also just Spain. That's a good, that's a good place to learn about cataract surgery, which they can do now, right?

• 39:50Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, and I think there's a danger or a temptation to see the relationship between Christians and Muslims during this period solely through the lens of crusading and forget that throughout Iberia, places like Sicily, Cyprus, the Near East, there is not just fighting going on. There is exchange of ideas, there is cultural exchange going on throughout this period too. And mostly, I would say, the Christians are absorbing Islamic knowledge and culture rather than the other way around because the Christians don't have all that much to offer at this point.

• 40:21Eleanor Janega?

  God bless them.

• 40:24Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, it's true. And I think that this is a really important point because I think there's a tendency when we talk about relations between Christians and Muslims at the time to think, well, you know, oh, you mean the Crusades and everybody's fighting each other? And well, you know, that's not really how the Islamic world sees their relationship with the Christian world. And it really depends on who you ask because, you know, hey, look, if you live in Valencia, you probably think one thing and, you know, you can tell yourself any story that you want to if you are up in, in England. But that doesn't mean that you actually know what Muslim people are like or that they're necessarily living cheek by jowl with you. In exactly the same way. And people on the Iberian Peninsula, are they fighting each other?

• 41:08Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, God, yeah. But like, you're just as likely to find like Astorres fighting Barcelona as you are to find them fighting with Granada, right? You know, so they're all fighting each other in the the same and normal ways that all medieval people are doing, you know? We love a battle, don't we, in the medieval period? What could I say?

• 41:27Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, absolutely. And I guess, can we talk about how much of the High Medieval period is a Norman conquest?

• 41:37Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, it's true.

• 41:38Matt Lewis?

  There's a famous Norman conquest.

• 41:40Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, it's true. I mean, if you want to talk about guys who are fighting, dear Lord, right? You know, the Norman conquest is, I think, really one of the big ones, right? And I mean, you're right, you're bang on. There is the Norman conquest of England, which I think is the one that everyone thinks of. But gosh, I think we'd be remiss if we didn't talk about like the formation of Normandy, this kind of Norman conquest, right? It's like these Vikings being like, now we're gonna stay. Yeah, no, we're Norman now. Okay, cool, yeah.

• 42:10Matt Lewis?

  And what do the Normans do with all of those spare sons that everywhere else they're going to to towns and learning to be leather makers? Well, the Norman fourth, fifth, and sixth sons are heading down to Italy and Sicily to carve out new Norman kingdoms down that way.

• 42:23Eleanor Janega?

  And they really do, you know, that's the thing. It's very, very easy to look at England because we are so formed by Normanness. And you know, all of our big stone buildings are a result of the Norman conquest here. But Palermo is pretty bloody Norman, actually, when you go look at it, because of this, you know, that you have sons who set sail and they go lots of places other than just England. But I think, yes, Sicily, that is the big and interesting one, because Sicily is one of these places where it's kind of, it's kind of up for grabs. We do have a sizable Muslim population there, but you know, they had taken it over. So everyone's kind of eyeing it. And the papacy is like, it sure would be cool if someone went and re-Christianized

• 43:07Eleanor Janega?

  it because you know, the papacy wants that sweet, sweet tithe money. Of course, I'm not saying that they also don't want more Christians. Obviously they do. But a great reason to want Christians is because you can tithe them.

• 43:18Matt Lewis?

  Tax them.

• 43:18Eleanor Janega?

  Tax them, tax them.

• 43:20Matt Lewis?

  And this is when, this is when the Kingdom of Sicily as well includes an awful lot of the southern mainland of Italy as well. We're not even just talking about the island of Sicily. The Normans are making their way throughout the heel of the boot of Italy as well. And then, you know, can you frame crusading as a Norman endeavor?

• 43:37Eleanor Janega?

  Yes. Thank you. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk. So I, and I do think in many ways it is because granted, yes, obviously the papacy has a real mission here that is specifically religious in character. But it's also a really great way to get these guys who keep like beating up each other and their fellow Christians sort of out of your hair for a little bit. And if you are one of the Norman sons who hasn't landed with enough land, this in your mind is a great way in to more like, oh, what about the county of Vedessa? Anybody? You know, like, what, oh, triple league. I'm looking at it right now.

• 44:19Eleanor Janega?

  You know, there are all these different ways of doing that. And, you know, obviously, yes, the Crusades comes out of a, a call from Byzantium saying, can anyone help us get our lands back? But then the Normans are like, yeah, buddy, we'll get them back.

• 44:34Matt Lewis?

  And then some.

• 44:35Eleanor Janega?

  For you. Like, just, I would never invite a Norman to help me like, you know, weed my garden because by the time you turn your back, they're good. They're going to take it over. I'm just saying.

• 44:46Matt Lewis?

  Built a shed at the end and created a kingdom out of it. But yeah, I just think it's interesting that we talk so much about the early medieval period being the Viking Age and the Vikings raiding left, right and center. Does that really stop? I guess is my question because what are the Normans but Vikings who have settled and decided to create kingdoms everywhere? And they carry on doing that throughout the high medieval period as well?

• 45:08Eleanor Janega?

  And that is, you know, when, when you're looking. At the names of anyone who's participating in the Crusades, the big ones over and over are Normans. You know, you've got Bohemian, you've got all these people who are really high up the top. And this isn't to say that there aren't Germans around the shop or anything like that. But it does tend to be that it's the later Crusades, which are also, you know, a function of the High Medieval period, where suddenly, you know, English people are like, oh, us too. You know, I could do that, you know? Or just regular old French people get involved a lot more. Whereas the first Crusade, you know, the one that worked, that is a Norman thing. And I mean, I could think that there's even here, you know,

• 45:51Eleanor Janega?

  an argument to be made about like, once Normans lose their potency and this drive to go out and conquer because they just kind of become a little bit more regularized, that's when Crusades stop working.

• 46:05Eleanor Janega?

  Because it's like, oh, yeah. Like, are you going to be able to like, take over this land and hold it in a really hostile position? You need some kind of like, real push to make that happen, I think.

• 46:31Speaker 01

  This is Nick and Jack from the best one yet. And we are excited to tell you about Walmart Business.

• 46:36Speaker 02

  Staying ahead of business trends means moving fast and adapting quickly. Walmart Business helps you simplify operations so you can focus on building the next big thing.

• 46:44Speaker 01

  Find exactly what your organization needs with their ever-expanding business assortment and everyday low prices. Keep your momentum going fast with reliable shipping and fulfillment.

• 46:52Speaker 02

  Eligible organizations can take advantage of tax-free shopping, both in-store and online, saving you more while getting you everything you need.

• 46:59Speaker 01

  It's Walmart, built for your business.

• 47:01Speaker 02

  Sign up for a free Walmart Business account today at business.walmart.com.

• 47:09Matt Lewis?

  Land a Viking longship on island shores, scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt and avoid the Poisoner's Cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed: Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit. There are new episodes every week.

• 48:06Matt Lewis?

  And I guess we can't really talk about the High Medieval period without getting out of Europe a little bit further. And there is one big word that we need to talk about, isn't there?

• 48:16Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, gosh, yes. And you know who it is, guys? It's the Mongols. Again, gamers horns, boo, boo, boo, boo. We love them. I love to see it. The coalescing of very many nomadic tribes under one person, I love to see it. The invention of passports, that's it for me, buddy. I love to see an egalitarian society emerge. Is there killing? Yes. Yes, there is some killing. But I mean, as opposed to where, right? Like, you know, this is one of those things where I don't think that it's helpful to classify the Mongols as like uniquely violent. When I'm like, as opposed to the Crusaders, who are famously a bunch of really chilled dudes.

• 48:58Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, or the Vikings or the Normans that we've just been talking about, who are going out conquering everything.

• 49:02Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, they were mostly arm wrestling. That's how they did it. But yeah, you get our good friend Chinggis Khan, who really manages to amalgamate rather a lot of people and make the largest contiguous

• 49:17Eleanor Janega?

  Land empire the world has ever seen, which ate nothing, baby. A lot of different people under that umbrella.

• 49:22Matt Lewis?

  Bigger than the Roman Empire, bigger than the British Empire in terms of one solid piece that isn't broken up by sea. And again, if only there was a wonderful episode of Gone Medieval from a few weeks ago about the Pax Mongolica, where people could go and find out even more about how, you know, this again is a huge, there is fighting, there is war, there is lots of killing and it's gruesome. But then there is also huge amounts of peace, increase in trade, the flow of food. It's a civilizing moment for a region that had always been so fractured and torn apart.

• 49:53Eleanor Janega?

  Having an empire that does say, essentially the thing that we need to do is get everyone to chill out and we need to get everybody into a place where we can trade. I mean, that really, in theory, that's what empires are for. They're for the facilitation of commerce and the Mongols are one of the best to ever do that one. And yeah, will they kill you if you resist? Yes, they're going to do that. But, you know, show me an empire where that isn't true. That's what empires do. And it creates some really amusing moments in the High Medieval period because, you know, the Mongols eventually get to basically the borders of Europe and the popes are saying

• 50:33Eleanor Janega?

  to the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick the Second, Frederick, there's Mongols over there. And Frederick's like, wow, that's crazy, bro.

• 50:41Matt Lewis?

  Just gonna have another bath with Mahareen first.

• 50:43Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah. And then basically the Mongols are writing to him, being like, come out, bro. Like, I'll fight you right here. And Frederick writes back this hilarious letter where he's like, oh, you're gonna take over Europe? Are you looking for a falconer? Because I'm really good with falcons. So like, I'm not even gonna fight you about this. The Pope is so angry, but then the Mongols basically just wander off because somebody dies and they've got to go have an election about it, you know? But it creates these hilarious moments between varying imperial factions that I simply love to see. And it tells you. A lot about people's personalities at the time. And you really begin because we have so many more texts because it's just closer to us in time.

• 51:26Eleanor Janega?

  And because you have this flourishing of texts that is brought out by the university and things like that, that you get to learn more about individuals' characters. And it just cracks me up, what the people get up to. I love a little bit of trash talking via Messenger. That's a great thing.

• 51:44Matt Lewis?

  I always think the Mongols are a really good exemplar of what a good medieval ruler was supposed to be, in that you're hard and you're fairly ruthless with your enemies, but you give people a chance. And what you're really there for, as you said, is the facilitation of trade and peace and calm. And if you behave yourselves, everything will be fine. If you don't, I will come down on you like a ton of bricks. Kind of what most Europeans expected from a king, and the Mongols are just out there doing it on a grand scale.

• 52:08Eleanor Janega?

  And I think it's really important to talk about because there is this tendency to other the Mongols in particular. I'm like, oh, you're just bad because they did it better. It's like, hey, we should have thought of that first, right? Like, I can't believe they're so good on horses. And everyone's so blown away by how excellent they are in terms of horsemanship. I just think it's quite funny. Also, further east, we could talk a little bit about what our friends in Japan are up to at this time, because it's a very romantic period in terms of Japanese history. So, for example, if you are nerds like me and Matt and are really into Japanese history, this is when you get the Genji monogatari, or the Tale of Genji, written. And you get to learn all about imperial court culture, and you have this real flourishing

• 52:52Eleanor Janega?

  of language and art that is happening at the time. But what is a very politically perilous time, I think, would be a safe thing to say about the medieval period in Japan?

• 53:05Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, I mean, it's almost, so during Echoes of History, we did for Assassin's Creed: Shadows, we did a lot of Japanese history, which was a lot of 16th century stuff. And I became so fascinated by Japanese history. It really is the most incredible set of stories and everything. The Tale of Genji is often cited as the first novel ever written in the world, and it's written in Japan during this period. But what you see there is almost the opposite of what you get in Europe, where we're seeing the centralization of power and the creation of these huge blocks of kingdoms, countries that we would still recognize today. Kind of driving cultural change. In Japan, it's almost the opposite. It's the fact that power is moving away from Kyoto, from the imperial court.

• 53:47Matt Lewis?

  Out into the regions, you get the emergence of these local warlords who are going to be samurai. Samurai, a medieval invention.

• 53:53Eleanor Janega?

  Yay.

• 53:54Matt Lewis?

  Everything cool is medieval. It's almost there that it's the opposite. It's the fracturing of central authority that leads to all of these advancements in art and identity across Japan.

• 54:05Eleanor Janega?

  And you know, this is what is cool about the medieval period, right? It is the smaller pockets that allow you to create more highly localized culture. You know, I would argue, and that's why I love medieval people because they're all being weird in their own, their own little way and their own little town. And Japan is absolutely doing that. You're right. You know, the samurai become the samurai because everyone is like, I just feel like the imperial household is fractured a little bit. I need to go home and make sure that someone is looking after my own lands. And so you have a real focus on warrior culture and warlord culture as a result of that. And that gives birth to what we now kind of romantically think of as the medieval Japanese.

• 54:46Eleanor Janega?

  But it didn't really exist until you get to the high medieval period. So great times.

• 54:53Matt Lewis?

  Yeah. And you've got the arrival of kind of Chinese Buddhism having a big influence. And that creates a lot of the structure and the ritual that we probably still associate with Japan today, and particularly later through the medieval period and into the early modern period, that kind of sense of formality and structure in Japan really comes out of this period and the increased emergence of things like Buddhism in Japan, too.

• 55:14Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, you get like the really fun kinds of Japanese Buddhism, like Pure Land Buddhism, which they come up with in this period, where you have new frames of thought being brought out. And I think that that is, it's a really beautiful and interesting time in Japanese culture as well. And, you know, again, yeah, is there violence? Yes. Okay. I'm going to say that there absolutely is, but you know, you get to see really great new art forms and things as a result of it. So from the comfort of 700 years later, I'm like, it's pretty cool.

• 55:47Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, and I guess, you know, there's a lot going on in China that I am very much less familiar with Chinese history. The extent of my Chinese history knowledge really comes from understanding that the Mongols were kind of key in the foundation of what we call China today. So I don't know too much about that. But China is effectively a massive, massive country and a huge power in this period.

• 56:08Eleanor Janega?

  Absolutely. And so in this point in time, in terms of what we're talking about for a Chinese culture, we have what we call the later imperial period, and then we move into then the Song Dynasty. A lot of the time when we are talking about Chinese culture, what we're talking about is just, you know, well, I don't know who's ruling, because we have like a really good imperial system that tends to keep ticking over no matter who is ruling. Are there Mongol encourages? Yes, there absolutely are. And then that can mean that, you know, you, for example, lose the mandate of heaven. This idea that you are meant to be the emperor because you're able to keep China on an even keel, which is how you have the Song Dynasty come along, because things are just getting a

• 56:53Eleanor Janega?

  little too spicy with the Mongols on the northern borders. So suddenly, we have the birth of the Song Dynasty, who are going to be around for quite some time. And again, here we see some real advances in terms of Buddhism. We see Chinese culture become much more expressly Buddhist as opposed to just purely Confucianist. And so we see great schools that are kind of cropping up as a result of that. They are opposed, obviously, to the Mongols, but they're able to very astutely take advantage of the Pax Mongolica. And, you know, the Silk Roads kind of really kick off around this period of time. So you see more things moving back and forth in and out of China as a result at this point

• 57:37Eleanor Janega?

  in time. So it, again, interestingly, is one of those points in times when we do see an imperial breakdown, but it's because we see a new imperial household come along.

• 57:47Matt Lewis?

  I guess one of the things I wanted to tackle before we finish is why do we call this the High Middle Ages? So we've got early and late. I get Middle Middle Ages would be a rubbish name for the bit in the middle. Middle medieval period also sounds like too much of a tongue twister. I guess what we've been getting at all the way through this is you can call it high because this is 200 years or 300 years or so in which there is so much change and advancement. And like you said at the start, people think the medieval period was a time when nothing changed, nobody discovered anything or invented anything and the world just bumbled along as it was. We're talking about 300 years here, which set the scene for modern life today.

• 58:29Eleanor Janega?

  Absolutely. And I think that we do use high here as a form of praise and that fundamentally is true. We're saying that this is the point in time when things are kind of ticking over best. And I do think that's true. You see a lot of real movement towards things. You and I, you know, we're more 14th century people. I think that that's kind of fair to say. And when I was in my PhD, one of my best friends who's a 12th century specialist, she said to me, what is it with you in the 14th century? You know, like everything is so bad then. And I'm like, well, yeah, that's how you find out what really makes people tick is what they do when they are, when they're panicking. That's how you really know how to get to the heart of a person. And she's like, mm, I just like it when

• 59:12Eleanor Janega?

  everyone's having a nice time. And you know, that's sort of what's happening, you know? If what you want to do, for example, is study intellectual history, which she does, you know, the 12th century is a real time to be having a look at that. You know, a lot of the, the great intellects, like from your Thomas Aquinas to your Peter Abelard are coming out of this time period. And I think that it is fair that we acknowledge that this is a really kind of nice time to be alive in terms of medieval history.

• 59:43Matt Lewis?

  Do you have a favorite high medieval person?

• 59:45Eleanor Janega?

  Well, that's so hard. Um, it's probably going to be Frederick the second. I just love him. I just love that little guy. I just look at him, he's just such a silly, silly little man with his baths and his falcons and his annoying the pope. I mean, he's just like me for real. It's great.

• 1:00:01Matt Lewis?

  I always like to give a shout out to Roger Bacon, who I think is just a dude.

• 1:00:04Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, he's good. Yeah, absolutely brilliant. Oh, but then it's so hard because you've got like Henry and Eleanor. We love Eleanor Vauquertaine, don't we, folks? Don't let my parents hear me say that I didn't say Eleanor Vauquertaine. They'll be mad.

• 1:00:19Matt Lewis?

  Abelard and Eloise and lots of stuff. But Roger Bacon, I find fascinating because this is a guy who, you know, he foresaw ships that were powered by something other than the wind and he foresaw flying in a machine that didn't require any human power to make it go and carriages that would be propelled by a force other than a horse or anything like that. This guy is foreseeing aeroplanes and cars and stuff like that in the kind of the early 13th century. Because I'm always struck when people say, you know, if you plonked a medieval person in the world today, they wouldn't believe what was going on. I was like, but Roger Bacon literally said 700 years ago that all of this stuff would happen. They weren't without imagination of what the future

• 1:01:04Matt Lewis?

  could look like. Again, there's this danger in seeing them as stupid people who, if they arrived in 2025, would be utterly blown away by how clever we all are. They know things that we will never, ever know. And, you know, I think, I always say, I think Roger Bacon would just be bemused that we all have something in our pocket that has the power to change the world in a mobile phone. And what do we do? We play word on it every day and we look at cat memes.

• 1:01:27Eleanor Janega?

  Wow, read me. Okay, man. I guess one more person I would like to shout out here is Murasaki Shikibu, who wrote The Tale of Genji. I just think that she's such an incredibly powerful artistic voice. And I think it's so interesting to see what is possible when we're able to hear more directly from women at this time and what, you know, a really good court culture allows for in terms of artistic merit. And it's just so interesting to see this particular way of thinking about the court, about romance, about the ways that interpersonal relationships work. And I just, I love that stupid book.

• 1:02:11Eleanor Janega?

  I can't help it. I'm a real sucker for it. So, you know, shout out to Murasaki Shikibu. We love her.

• 1:02:15Matt Lewis?

  Have we done the High Medieval Period justice?

• 1:02:18Eleanor Janega?

  Can anyone do the High Medieval Period justice? You know, it's just so great. I mean, I think the most thing that anyone can really do is be effusive about it because it is just so incredibly wonderful. And, you know, fundamentally here on Gone Medieval, we are going to keep making High Medieval shows because there's so much in it that you can spend a lifetime always learning new things.

• 1:02:41Matt Lewis?

  Yeah. If it was a 20th century decade, it'd be something like the eighties or something, wouldn't it? When everybody thought things were good.

• 1:02:46Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You know, like, I guess maybe the 13th century is the 90s, you know, where they're like, it's, oh, it's about to go. But things are, things are really good right now, you know? The long High Middle Ages, you know, why not? Why not?

• 1:03:00Matt Lewis?

  And I guess at some point, we're gonna have to come back and do this for when the wheels come off, the Late Medieval Period.

• 1:03:05Eleanor Janega?

  Unfortunately, you and I are going to just be glowing as everything blows up. This is what happens when you let Late Medievalists hang out. This is why we don't let each other out of the basement very often because we all are just like, hell, yeah, bro. Black Death.

• 1:03:18Matt Lewis?

  The Black Death and the Wars of the Roses are coming.

• 1:03:21Eleanor Janega?

  We love it, baby. We love it. But Nat, thank you so much for coming on to talk about, you know, nice things for a change. We can have fun talking about nice things. It's possible.

• 1:03:29Matt Lewis?

  Definitely. Thank you very much for having me and I will scuttle off back to my dungeon now.

• 1:03:33Eleanor Janega?

  Bye, Matt. Bye.

• 1:03:35Matt Lewis?

  Bye.

• 1:03:37Eleanor Janega?

  Thanks so much to Matt once again for joining me and thank you for listening to Gone Medieval from History Hit. If you want to learn more about periodization, why not go back and check out our episode on the early medieval period? And for more High Medieval hijinks, we have so many options. But why not try our episode on the investiture controversy, the Pax Mongolica? Or our episode on crusade camp followers? Remember, you can enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original TV documentaries, including my recent film, The Medieval Apocalypse, and ad-free podcasts by signing up at historyhit.com/subscription.

• 1:04:21Eleanor Janega?

  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.