True Crime Medieval

100. Retrospective: Our Favorites of the Past 100 Episodes

June 08, 2024 21:00 - 52 minutes - 36 MB

It's Episode 100! So we both went through the episodes we've published so far, to pick our favorites. Out of them, we picked three apiece, and then, as a grand winner, the one that turned up on both of our lists -- not the highest favorite of either of us, but pretty damn beloved. We explain why they all made the cut. And had a lot of fun, remembering them. Here's to the next 100! We do have a pretty long list to see us through. it's a 1000 years and an entire continent, and people behave ...

99. Juliane de Fontevrault Tries to Kill Her Father (Henry I) With a Crossbow, Normandy 1110

May 19, 2024 20:00 - 42 minutes - 29.1 MB

It was unusual for medieval women to kill their fathers, and especially unusual for them to use crossbows to do it. Juliane de Fontrevault tried both, but she missed King Henry I, who was at the time besieging her castle in Normandy. There had been an altercation, you see, which led to a major hostage failure, wherein Juliane's husband Eustace blinded the young hostage sent to Henry, and Henry blinded and cut the noses off the two girls sent to him as hostages. Who were his grandchildren, by...

98. April Fool's Episode: Debunking the Chastity Belt

April 04, 2024 17:00 - 1 hour - 48.2 MB

There were not, in the Middle Ages, any chastity belts. They did not exist. Really, they didn't. They show up later, when enlighted ages say that they were used in the Middle Ages. Then, enlightened ages invented them, and now you can buy them on Amazon. Michelle explains how we know they didn't exist, and how they got invented, and why the later ages that invented them said the Middle Ages did it. Anne, on the other hand, had a lot of fun researching the state of chastity belts now. Oh, and...

97. Galeazzo Maria Sforza, the Duke of Milan, is Assassinated, Milan, Duchy of Milan 1476

March 31, 2024 19:00 - 33 minutes - 22.8 MB

Sometimes when our medieval rulers get assassinated we can see why, and that's the case for Galeazzo Maria Sforza, who was a very bad sort of person. So, not surprisingly, he got stabbed to death by conspirators. Two of them were out for personal gain, but one was a poet who was, he believed, serving the greater communal good, which charms Anne. We tell you all about Sforza and the assassination, which is, really, the point of this episode, but the gem of information for Michelle was that o...

96. Leszek the White, High Duke of Poland, is Assassinated, Morcinkowo, Poland 1227

March 29, 2024 19:00 - 59 minutes - 40.9 MB

During the Fragmentation of Poland, which lasted from 1138 to 1320, Leszek Bialy -- Leszek the White -- managed to reign as the High Duke of Poland four times, the last reign going on for 16 years before it ended, on account of his having been assassinated. That's a long reign, during the age of fragmentation, when the realm was, well, fragmented, and the position of High Duke got passed around pretty often. Leszek was attending a conference of several dukes when he was attacked in his bath...

95. Henry d'Almain is Murdered, Viterbo, Italy 1271

March 23, 2024 17:00 - 40 minutes - 28.1 MB

Henry d'Almain didn't really want to fight in the Second Barons' War, because the leaders of the two sides were both his uncles, and when his uncle Simon de Montfort was killed and mutilated in the last battle, he wasn't part of that, so it was really unseemly for his cousins, the sons of Simon de Montfort, to find him in a church in Italy and slaughter him while he was clinging to the altar. As vengeance goes, it was a really stupid vengeance that didn't settle anything, and only got the d...

94. Maddelena, a Circassian, is Bought in Crimea and Sold in Italy, Venice, Italy c. 1428

March 13, 2024 16:00 - 41 minutes - 28.7 MB

We thought it would be interesting to talk about the Crimean Slave Trade, but we had not known that would, essentially, cover all of written history and all of the Old World. But it was on the schedule, and we found it interesting. So! We'll start with the mother of Carlo de Medici, Maddelena, who was captured in or sold from Circassia (it's over on the northeast shore of the Black Sea), and then sold in Crimea to a Venetian who took her to Venice and sold her to Cosimo de Medici, who took h...

93. Michael Servetus is Murdered, Geneva, Republic of Geneva 1553

February 28, 2024 17:00 - 51 minutes - 35.5 MB

Michael Servetus was one of those brilliant people who can be a bit annoying. He read and/or spoke Spanish and French and Hebrew and Latin and Arabic and Greek and who knows what all. He studied and/or wrote books on theology, medicine, mathematics, law, and some other stuff. He wrote poetry. He had a bunch of degrees. But he had to leave the Studium of Zaragoza because of a fight with the High Master; he nearly got the death penalty in Paris for translating Cicero's De Divinatione (but they...

92. Special Episode: The New Guys Celebrate Christmas, Plymouth (Massachusetts), December 25, 1621

December 25, 2023 18:00 - 48 minutes - 33.2 MB

On the second Christmas that the Pilgrims spent in Plymouth (the first had been spent cutting down trees and building houses), the governor of the colony, William Bradford, gathered the men together so that they could all go do the Lord's work (which was probably cutting down trees and building houses). Some of the colonists were newly arrived, and hadn't come for religious reasons, but more for finding wealth and opportunity in the New World. This portion of the men did not think that Chris...

91. Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck Pretend to be Kings, England 1487 and 1491

December 22, 2023 20:00 - 1 hour - 41.9 MB

So, there were those two boys in the Tower of London, Edward V, King of England, who was 12, and Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, who was 9, and they disappeared one summer after their uncle Richard declared them illegitimate and became King Richard III. And it was a total mystery as to what happened to them, and still is, and Richard III was not king for very long before Henry Tudor, who was on one side descended from Tudur ap Gronwy Fychan, which made the English no never mind, but o...

91. Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck Pretend to be Kings, England 1487 and 1481

December 22, 2023 20:00 - 1 hour - 41.9 MB

So, there were those two boys in the Tower of London, Edward V, King of England, who was 12, and Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, who was 9, and they disappeared one summer after their uncle Richard declared them illegitimate and became King Richard III. And it was a total mystery as to what happened to them, and still is, and Richard III was not king for very long before Henry Tudor, who was on one side descended from Tudur ap Gronwy Fychan, which made the English no never mind, but o...

90. The Jacquerie Smashes Property, France 1358

December 13, 2023 22:00 - 48 minutes - 33.7 MB

In the summer of 1358, French peasants took up arms -- this means mostly sticks -- and attacked the nobility. They did indeed murder some of them, but mostly, almost entirely, the burnt down property. They didn't even loot. They just destroyed stuff. The nobility had gotten problematic, certainly, what with running away from important battles and then trying to squeeze more out of the peasantry so they could pay for further military adventures, though apparently not any training. So the pea...

89. Vasvilkas, Grand Duke of Lithuania, is Assassinated, Volodymyr, Ukraine 1267

December 02, 2023 22:00 - 35 minutes - 24.8 MB

Vasvilkas, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, got assassinated for a reason that Michelle considers the stupidest assassination reason the podcast has seen so far, that being that when Vasvilkas, the Monk Prince, decided to give up the throne so he could go back to being a monk, he gave it to a brother in law, and another brother in law thought that Vasvilkas should have made him a co-ruler, so he murdered Vasvilkas. As MIchelle points out, he still didn't get to be co-ruler. So she went off to re...

88. St. Scholastica Riot, Oxford England, February 10, 1355

November 23, 2023 20:00 - 42 minutes - 29.4 MB

Sometimes students riot, maybe because of tuition hikes, or because a coach got fired for a sex abuse scandal, or because their team won a game, or because their team lost a game, or because the university became integrated, or because the government is moving into authoritarianism, or because the government already was authoritarian but is getting worse, and sometimes because the pub gave them bad wine. In the last case, around 100 people might just end up dead. Welcome to Oxford, 14th Cent...

87. King Philip Augustus Fakes a Genealogy, Paris, France 1194

October 12, 2023 21:00 - 43 minutes - 30.1 MB

Philip, the King of France, married Ingeborg of Denmark, and it would have been a really great political alliance, except that after the wedding night Philip wanted out. So he asked the pope to annul the marriage, saying that it hadn't been consummated, on account of witchcraft, and he sent Ingeborg to a convent. But Ingeborg said the marriage HAD been consummated, and the pope wouldn't annul the marriage, so Philip had a genealogy made up showing that his marriage to Ingeborg violated cano...

86. Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor, Does Various Bad Things, Germany, Italy, and Sicily, 1169-1197

October 05, 2023 21:00 - 55 minutes - 38.2 MB

Sandwiched between two legendary Holy Roman Emperors -- his father, Frederick Barbarossa, and his son, Frederick II -- Henry VI, who was not legendary, and who died at the age of 31 (his dad died at 67 and his son at 55; lots more time to rack up legendary activities), nevertheless managed to acquire a nickname -- "The Cruel" -- in large part because of his belief in the efficacy of torturing political opponents in public. Besides discussing Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor, Anne explains how m...

85. Eorpwald of East Anglia is Murdered, East Anglia c. 627

September 08, 2023 21:00 - 1 hour - 49.7 MB

Eorpwald, the ruler of East Anglia c 624, after his father died, converted to Christianity because Edwin, the Deorian king, converted to Christianity, and managed to connect pretty much the entire eastern coastal kingdoms of England. So that lasted a few years, but then he got assassinated, on account of having converted to Christianity, and East Anglia became pagan again for a while. Eorpwald, the first ruler in England to be killed for being Christian, was therefore a martyr, and a sain...

84. Melisende, Frankish Queen of Jerusalem, is Falsely Accused of Adultery, Jerusalem 1134

September 02, 2023 21:00 - 48 minutes - 33.4 MB

In 1134, Melisende, the Queen of Jerusalem, who had, as a child, been raised to be the Queen of Jerusalem all by herself, was sharing the throne with Fulk, her husband, who did not like sharing. So he tried to get rid of her, by accusing her of adultery with her cousin Hugh of Jaffa, which was not a thing that was actually happening. And when Hugh fled (on account of not wanting to be in a duel with a guy bigger than The Mountain in Game of Thrones), Fulk sent somebody to assassinate him, ...

83. Hugh de Lacy is Assassinated, Durrow, Ireland 1186

August 21, 2023 21:00 - 44 minutes - 30.5 MB

Hugh de Lacy, one of the Anglo-Normans who was sent to bring order to Ireland (where the Anglo-Normans were having a lot of trouble), was inspecting the military installation he was having built at Durrow (where St. Columba had previously built a monastery), when he was murdered by one of the Irish who wanted him dead, by being hit on the head with an ax. So there you are. There is your crime. We discuss this, yes we do, but really we are discussing Hugh de Lacy because he built Trim Castle...

82. Arthur of Brittany Disappears, Rouen, France c. 1203

August 01, 2023 21:00 - 43 minutes - 29.8 MB

In 1199, when Richard the Lionheart died, there were two possible claimants to the throne of England -- his younger brother John, and his nephew Arthur. John was a bit over 30 years old; Arthur was about 12. John, the youngest surviving son of Henry II, was by Norman law the rightful heir. Arthur, the eldest son of Geoffrey, John's older brother, was by the laws of Brittany, the rightful heir. Also, John was in England and Arthur was in Brittany. Also, John was the person who was, well, John...

81. Johannes Ryneken is Executed for Adulterating Saffron, Nuremberg Germany, 1444

July 18, 2023 15:00 - 42 minutes - 29 MB

By the 15th century, Nuremberg was making a reputation and a lot of money out of being the main saffron import location in Europe. So the town burgesses took it very seriously when spice merchants sold saffron that wasn't fully saffron, but had various other things added to it. Very seriously indeed. So seriously that it was possible to be, as Johnanes Ryneken was, in 1444, executed for being a very bad spice merchant indeed. Anne especially enjoyed this episode, because she got to talk ALL ...

80. William de Marisco is Executed for Treason, London England 1242

June 13, 2023 21:00 - 42 minutes - 29.1 MB

The de Mariscos were a family that continually got into trouble, on account of continually misbehaving. When William de Marisco was executed at the Tower of London in 1242, it was ostensibly for attempting to have the king murdered, but since he'd also been pirating from the Isle of Lundy, and murdering messengers, he was going to end up being executed at some point anyway. Besides explaining the de Mariscos, we have two rabbit holes! Anne is fascinated by the Isle of Lundy, and Michelle is ...

79. Snorri Sturluson Is Assassinated, Reykholt, Iceland 1241

May 09, 2023 22:00 - 1 hour - 42.2 MB

Snorri Sturluson, the great Icelandic poet and historian and lawspeaker of the Althing, got involved in Norwegian/Icelandic politics, and it ended very badly. For him, for one thing, as the king of Norway arranged for 70 men to stab Snorri in his basement, and for Iceland, which devolved into chieftain battles and eventually unified with Norway and the Norwegian king became the boss of everything. The Althing still exists, though, and Iceland is independent now, and Snorri is one of the most...

78. Special Episode: April Fool's Debunking of the Myth of the Medieval Shame Flute

April 13, 2023 22:00 - 41 minutes - 28.6 MB

If you go and peruse the internet, you will discover many discussions of the medieval shame flute, an instrument created specifically to be fastened to a bad musician, in order to shame him. There are pictures. There is a lot of certainty about this. Alas, it wasn't there. Michelle went to find them, and, though there are a couple of torture museums which have examples, those are not medieval examples. In fact, do we think that there were ever any shame flutes, even after the middle ages? We...

77. Diarmait Mac Murchada Invites the Anglo-Normans into Ireland, Leinster, Ireland 1167

April 03, 2023 22:00 - 58 minutes - 40.3 MB

At the end of the 12th century, the kings of Ireland had been fighting amongst themselves, and the high king got involved, and what with one thing and another Diarmait Mac Murchada, who had been the king of Leinster, and then had been ousted, and then had gotten in again, got ousted again, and then had the very bad idea of getting help from the Anglo-Normans. And they did help, didn't they, and then they took Ireland over. This could have been foreseen by anybody who had been paying attenti...

76. Special Episode: Richard Walweyn Wears Padded Pants, London, England 1565

March 12, 2023 17:00 - 45 minutes - 31.2 MB

One day in London in 1565, Richard Walweyn was arrested for wearing the wrong pants, and put in jail until he could prove he owned some proper ones. And why were these the wrong pants? Cause they were puffed out, and he was a servant. Makes no sense, right? Nah. But in times of unease, people like to try to get everybody to wear the right clothes, eat the right things, buy the right stuff. Whatever those things are that year. We discuss sumptuary laws over time, we discuss the hell which wou...

75. Crime Rise in the Great Famine, Europe 1315-1322

February 28, 2023 22:00 - 1 hour - 69.9 MB

In 1315, the crops throughout Europe failed. And then they failed the year after that. And then the year after that. It was raining. And it rained and rained and rained. After that , it rained some more. One of the greatest natural disasters of the middle ages was the Great Famine, in which so many people of Europe died that the population didn't reach the level it had been before the rain started until the 19th century. Naturally, the crime rate rose. That's a fact. However, the cannibalis...

74. Dafydd Gam ap Llewelyn ap Hywel kills his kinsman Richard Fawr ap Dafydd, Brecon High Street, Wales late 14th Century

February 11, 2023 18:00 - 45 minutes - 31.1 MB

Before Davy Gam got famous amongst the English for helping out at Agincourt and getting knighted, and being in general an acceptable Welshman on account of helping out the English and fighting Welshmen, he had killed a kinsman in Brecon, had fought under John of Gaunt, and had fought against Owain Glyndŵr, the leader of the last great Welsh rebellion and the last Welsh Prince of Wales. As you can imagine, a Welshman famous amongst the English for bravely serving them and fighting at Agincour...

73. Special Holiday Edition: The Cursed Carolers, Saxony 10th Century

December 20, 2022 19:00 - 48 minutes - 33.6 MB

Once upon a time, a group of parishioners in a village in Saxony danced in the churchyard during Christmas Mass, and so the priest cursed them and then they danced without ceasing for a year. This story was told, with variations, throughout Europe, from the 10th century (at least) through the 16th century. And! It really happened! Ok, not the dancing without ceasing for a year part, but the dancing without being able to stop? That really happened. From the 14th through the 17th century, grou...

72. The Jews of York are Massacred, York, England 1190

December 13, 2022 22:00 - 37 minutes - 25.6 MB

A wave of anti-Semitism and atrocities against the Jews swept England starting in 1189, when Richard Lionheart was crowned, and mobs in London attacked the Jews in that city. The worst of the atrocities happened in York, when the local mobs burnt and pillaged Jewish homes; when the Jews retreated to the castle keep (they were, theoretically and legally, under the protection of the king), the York mob besieged the wooden keep with stones, and murdered some of the Jews, having lured them out ...

71.Special Episode: Guy Fawkes Attempts to Blow Up King James and Parliament, London, England November 5, 1605

November 03, 2022 19:00 - 52 minutes - 36.4 MB

Special Episode! It's the third birthday of True Crime Medieval, but, more importantly really, it's the 417th anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot not actually coming off; if it had, not only King James and all of Parliament would have been destroyed, but also several blocks around, including Westminster Abbey. We discuss the Plot, why it didn't work, what's been going on with November 5th celebrations since then, and, because Michelle finds this stuff, Edgar Allan Poe and his hatred for Willi...

70.King Alboin is Murdered, Verona, Italy 572

November 01, 2022 20:00 - 43 minutes - 29.9 MB

King Alboin was a very successful king of the Lombards, and conquered the Gepids, and took Rosamund, the daughter of the king of the Gepids, as his wife, and everything was great, but then Rosamund murdered him, with the help of her lover. She was probably not very happy about the marriage, since she was still mourning the deaths of her father and her grandfather and her brother, so probably being married to the guy that killed them wasn't fun. The story got embellished pretty quickly; Alboi...

69. King Olaf Kills Klerkon in the Market Place, Novgorod, Russia 10th Century.

October 26, 2022 17:00 - 57 minutes - 39.2 MB

Blanca, the rescue Goffin's Cockatoo, is a guest cohost on this episode, about that time that Olaf, before he was king of anything, whacked Klerkon, the viking who had enslaved him when he was a toddler. We discuss the Kyivan Rus, Novgorod, Vikings, blood money, the sagas, and, to Anne's surprise, Longfellow. Blanca the Cockatoo has a lot to say. We don't know why. Also we don't know what she was saying.

69. King Olaf Kills Klerkon in the Market Place, Novgorod, Russia 10th Century.

October 26, 2022 17:00 - 57 minutes - 39.2 MB

Blanca, the rescue Goffin's Cockatoo, is a guest cohost on this episode, about that time that Olaf, before he was king of anything, whacked Klerkon, the viking who had enslaved him when he was a toddler. We discuss the Kyivan Rus, Novgorod, Vikings, blood money, the sagas, and, to Anne's surprise, Longfellow. Blanca the Cockatoo has a lot to say. We don't know why. Also we don't know what she was saying.

Llewelyn the Great Hangs William de Braose, Aber Garth Celyn , Wales May 2, 1230

October 17, 2022 21:00 - 50 minutes - 34.5 MB

So, one day in 1230, William de Braose was over at Llewelyn the Great's castle, and he was found in Llewelyn's private chambers with Joan, who was Llewelyn's wife. As well as the daughter of the King of England. Now, according to Welsh law, Llewelyn would then have been in his rights to beat William up, but instead, there was a trial, and William ended up being hung from some tree or other; two are in the running for being The Tree, but who knows. At any rate, messing around with the Queen d...

67. Peter von Hagenbach is Convicted of War Crimes, Breisach, Germany 1474

September 27, 2022 22:00 - 41 minutes - 28.9 MB

Laws regulating war crimes have existed since ancient times, and trials of people who have committed them have existed as well; the trial of Peter von Hagenbach wasn't unusual for being a trial to judge whether he has violated laws of war when he was holding down Breisach for Charles the Bold; it was unusual because it was an international trial, and because part of the judgement included the decree that if soldiers are given orders they know to be wrong, they are culpable if they follow tho...

66. Henry of Trastámara Massacres the Jews of Toledo, Toledo Spain, 1355

September 19, 2022 21:00 - 42 minutes - 29 MB

Henry of Trastámara, of Henry of Castile, the Fratricidal, was not as friendly with the Jews of Spain as his half-brother, Pedro the Cruel, or Pedro the Just (depending on your interpretation of him) had been. He's "The Fratricidal," by the way, because he murdered his half-brother Pedro the Cruel or Just. Henry wasn't yet king in 1355 -- that is, he hadn't murdered his half-brother yet -- but was at war with him, and wherever Henry took some power, Jews were murdered. The massacre at Tole...

65. King Lambert is Assassinated (or not), Marengo, Italy 898

August 09, 2022 22:00 - 46 minutes - 31.7 MB

After a short (he was 18) but eventful and busy life, Lambert, King of Italy and Holy Roman Emperor, was assassinated during a boar hunt. That's one rumor. The other rumor is that he fell off his horse and died. Evidence? Witnesses? Nah, not really. But we both have an opinion on this, which is that a story that has a king sleeping on the ground during a boar hunt is fundamentally flawed, and we don't buy it. On the other hand, Michelle found two translations of the chronicle which tells us...

64. Jeanne de Clisson takes up piracy, Brittany 1343

July 13, 2022 16:00 - 38 minutes - 26.2 MB

In 1343, Olivier de Clisson, who had backed the wrong candidate for the then empty Duke of Brittany position, as far as the king of France was concerned, was invited to a tournament, and then seized and executed for treason without a trial. This greatly angered his wife, Jeanne, so she gathered a troupe of men and harassed the French, becoming quite beloved by the English, who were fighting France, in the beginning of the Hundred Years War. She also became a pirate, more or less. At least, ...

63. The Children of Hamelin Disappear, Hamelin, Lower Saxony, 1284

July 05, 2022 19:00 - 33 minutes - 23.4 MB

In 1284, the children of Hamelin disappeared. Unless you translate the Latin differently, and they all died. Over the centuries, the story of what happened to them would get more and more intricate. Was there a Pied Piper involved? Probably not, though there may have been a musician. Were there rats? Nah. They don't show up in the stories for a few hundred years. But something happened, as the Hamelin chronicles tell us. What the hell it was we don't know. We explain the possible fates of th...

62. Leopold of Austria Kidnaps Richard the Lionheart, Near Vienna, Austria 1192

June 20, 2022 21:00 - 59 minutes - 40.7 MB

Capturing an enemy and holding them for ransom, in the middle ages, wasn't necessarily a crime. However, kidnapping a fellow crusader was not ok, since the pope has said that all the crusaders were supposed to treat each other well (by not capturing their lands and goods while they were off fighting, or kidnapping them and holding them for ransom), and also, there's a difference between holding a fellow noble for ransom and kidnapping the king of England. To be truthful, as far as medieval c...

61. King John Starves Maud and William de Braose to Death, Corfe Castle, Dorset, England 1210

May 23, 2022 22:00 - 1 hour - 41.3 MB

In 1210, King John of England left Maud de Braose and her son William in Corfe Castle and let them starve to death, either because Maud had been shirty with one of his messengers, or because John owed William money and didn't want to pay it back, or because, well, who knows. John was like that. Maud, on the other hand, had, before getting thrown into the dungeon at Corfe Castle, had impressed the Welsh by defending a castle against them, and, apparently, or at least the Welsh said so, magi...

60. Jacques le Gris Rapes Marguerite de Carrouges, Normandy, January 1386

April 15, 2022 22:00 - 54 minutes - 37.7 MB

In 1386, Marguerite de Carrouges accused Jacques le Gris of having raped her, and though the French Parliament could not come to an agreement as to whether or not le Gris was guilty, we know that he was, because Marguerite's husband Jean killed le Gris in a trial by combat, so that's settled. Although le Gris' descendants would keep trying to convince everybody that actually somebody else raped her. The evidence for this was either nonexistent or unconvincing. The case is currently known bo...

59. Bran Ardchenn, King of Leinster, and his wife Eithne are Assassinated, Cell Cúile Duma, Ireland May 6, 795

April 08, 2022 21:00 - 49 minutes - 33.9 MB

The Irish Annals are full -- full, we tell you -- of detailed histories of the kings of Ireland. Only mostly the details are their names, how long they ruled, and how they died. Though Bran Ardchenn and Eithne were burned to death in a church, we don't know more than that. In this episode, we discuss early Irish history, the Book of Leinster, and Anne's annoyance at not knowing exactly how Bran and Eithne died. Because "burned to death" doesn't really explain much.

58. The Pazzi Conspiracy, Florence, Italy, Easter 1478

March 07, 2022 23:00 - 43 minutes - 30.2 MB

In 1478, in Florence, the banking family of the Medici was very powerful. Very powerful indeed. But another banking family, the Pazzi, were not happy with this. No, no! They wanted to be more powerful in Florence than the Medici were! So they created A Plan. Well, a few plans, really, but finally one of the plans was carried out, which was to kill two of the Medici at High Mass in the Cathedral, after which the citizens of Florence were going to say, yay! hoorah! Now the Pazzi will be our ...

57. Stephen of Blois Breaks His Oath, London England, December 1135

January 27, 2022 18:00 - 1 hour - 44.6 MB

In 1127, Stephen of Blois swore an oath that when Henry I, King of England, died, Stephen would support Henry's daughter (and Stephen's cousin), Empress Maud, as queen ruler of England. But in 1135, when Henry died, Stephen hightailed it to London and grabbed the throne. In this episode, we discuss the civil war that followed, and several interesting bits of it -- Empress Maud escapes from Oxford by walking over the iced river in a blizzard; Queen Matilda, Stephen's wife, manages to get the...

56. Special Episode: Darnley Murders Rizzio, Edinburgh, Scotland 1566

January 06, 2022 21:00 - 54 minutes - 37.5 MB

One evening in March of 1566, Mary, Queen of Scots, was sitting with one of her half-sisters and her secretary David Rizzio, eating supper. Suddenly, the door slammed open; Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, and his cohorts burst in, stabbed Rizzio, and pointed a gun at the Queen. Who was 6 months pregnant at the time, with the future James I/IV. Then the band of conspirators took Rizzio out, stabbed him 56 times, and threw him down the stairs. We'll give you all the background to this, and also e...

55. Winter Shenanigans (Lords of Misrule), Europe 500-1600

January 03, 2022 21:00 - 54 minutes - 37.7 MB

It's important, in the middle of the winter, to take part in raucous activities, and there were lots in medieval Europe. Boys being bishops, men and women switching clothes, parishioners gambling in the churches, and, unsurprisingly, most everybody drinking. Lots. Besides giving you the history, Anne explains a Christmas Celebration Gone Terribly Wrong, and Michelle tells you about that time that the Tudors used the Christmas celebrations as a prelude to an execution. Tacky.

54. Fulbert's Henchmen Attack Peter Abelard, Paris, France 1117

December 29, 2021 18:00 - 1 hour - 42.3 MB

One night, in Paris, thugs broke into the room of Peter Abelard, renowned theologian and philosopher, and beloved teacher, and castrated him. Because Fulbert, the uncle of Heloise, was REALLY annoyed that Abelard and Heloise were keeping their marriage secret. Which they had entered into so that Fulbert wouldn't be so upset about the affair that they had been having. Also their son, Astrolabe, or, as Anne likes to think of him, Global Positioning System. Fulbert just had no moderation. Ab...

53. St. Brice's Day Massacre, England November 13, 1002

December 08, 2021 18:00 - 44 minutes - 30.7 MB

King Æthelred of England really did not have the wherewithal to successfully deal with the Danish/English tension that he had inherited with the throne, which had been caused by Viking raids for about 100 years, notably established by what the English called The Great Heathen Army, which took over much of England. Oh, too bad. One solution, he thought, was to kill off all the Danes in England. This did not work. For one thing, the Danes did not in fact get killed off, though the English...