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Ep 152 - Christian Nationalism Then and Now feat Dr Bradley Onishi

Dearest patrons, this is your ad-free regular episode. No question this time since we had a guest.

This week, we welcome Dr. Bradley Onishi, co-host of the Straight White American Jesus podcast, onto the show as part of our series on proto-nationalism in the Middle Ages. As we promised earlier this month, we had some guests lined up to discuss other aspects of proto-nationalism and nationalism with us and this is the first of those interviews. Brad joins us to discuss the pro...

Bonus Ep 55 - Andor 1.3: The Eye

patrons, here is your second bonus episode of January and the third in our TV club series on Andor, enjoy! in this episode of Andor, we cover the second three episode arc of season one, in which our protagonist Cassian Andor takes on the roll of Young Stalin, leading a group of rebels on a romanticized version of the real life 1907 Tiflis bank robbery. Cassian is still very doubtful of the rebellion but is out of options and in serious trouble, so he joins the heist as a mercenary, seeking a ...

Ep 151 - Medieval Women: Theodora & Theodelinda

patrons, here's your ad-free version of this week's regular episode. we answer questions from Mathew64 and Gaffsey in this one. enjoy!

this time, we return to our occasional series on Medieval women, where we look at the lives and times of ladies who were able to rise to positions of power and esteem despite the extremely patriarchal nature of the Middle Ages. we have previously done these for the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene and for Hildegard of Bingen and Eleanor of Aquitaine.  ...

Bonus Ep 54 - Current Events 8: A Tunnel, the Post Office, and a God

hello patrons, here is your first bonus episode for the month of January 2024! as we do fairy regularly, we're talk some current events or at least things we're currently thinking about. first, there's a cold open about a tunnel under New York City, then Eleanor discusses the ongoing British Post Office scandal that has ruined the lives of thousands of innocent people, and finally Luke, as is his wont, does some stargazing and regales us with talk of the planet Jupiter. it's fun, check it out...

Ep 150 - Proto-nationalism: Borders and Rulers

patrons, this is your ad-free version of this week's regular episode. we answer questions from Hipster Wizard and Gaffsey in this one.

150th regular episode woooo! this time, we continue our miniseries on what we're calling Proto-nationalism in the Middle Ages by talking about two very big materialist reasons why they couldn't really have nationalism back then: malleable borders and dynastic rulership. Medieval borders were porous, light-enforced at best, and changed overnight based on ...

Ep 149 - Nationalism in the Middle Ages: Proto-nationalism

hello, patrons, this is your weekly ad-free version of the regular episode. we answered questions from dogspotter and Paul in this one.

nationalism is, unfortunately, once again on the rise in the modern day and while you might think that it has very little to do with the Middle Ages, you'd be wrong. because while the nationalism we see today didn't exist in the same form back then, the roots of it began to take hold even back then in the form of religious discrimination and of othering...

Ep 148 - 2023 Year in Review

hello patrons, here's your first ad-free regular episode of 2024. we answer 2 questions: one from I Would Whack 500 Moles and the other from A Bag of Lobsters. it's our first episode of the new year but we're just not ready to move on quite yet, so we're taking a look back at 2023 and then taking a little peak ahead into 2024. we talk about Medieval news and studies from last year, review a little of what happened on the podcast, and talk about some of our favorite movies, TV shows, books, et...

Ep 147 - Dante's Inferno 1: Abandon All Hope (Patreon Episode Unlocked)

hey patrons, you've already heard this episode on the bonus feed but I wanted to make sure we include all regular episodes in here for the sake of completeness. so yeah, this is just the unlocked version of our first episode on Dante's Inferno from March 2023. we will be back next year with more great bonus content for you!

thanks so much for subscribing and making the show possible!

Bonus Ep 53 - Andor 1.2: Material Circumstances

hello lovely patrons, we hope you're having a happy holiday season. this is your second bonus episode for December 2023 and it's the second episode in our TV club series on Star Wars: Andor. in this one, we focus on the first three-episode arc of the show, in which we meet some of our main characters and we begin to follow the journey of Cassian Andor from lovable, couchsurfing screw-up to full-fledged revolutionary and leader of the rebellion. but we also get to meet Syril Karn, a r...

Ep 146 - Open Mailbag Fun

hello patrons, here's your ad-free version of this week's regular episode. as a reminder, the bonus episode, the second in our series on Andor, will be out this Friday for your holiday listening enjoyment.

folks, it's the holidays and so we decided to post some prompts on twitter and bluesky and answer some questions about history, life, and culture from the general audience. we cover everything from Chinese feudalism to the Panera lemonade that kills you to counterfactuals on how imper...

Bonus Ep 52 - Current Events 7: England, Godzilla, and You

hello patrons, here is your first bonus episode for December 2023. in this one, Luke and Eleanor do another current events episode talking about recent news or whatever's been on their minds. first, Eleanor talks about the current sorry state of the English government and English politics generally, then Luke discusses Godzilla Minus One, Oppenheimer, and The Fear of the bomb. check it out, you'll enjoy it!

Ep 145 - Medieval Dad-coded feat. Patrick Wyman

patrons, this is your ad-free version of this week's regular episode. since this is an interview, we don't have a question.

folks, we've got podcaster, historian, dad-aficionado, and friend of the show Patrick Wyman back on the show to talk about dad culture, what it means to be a dad as opposed to just a father, Medieval dads, dad-coded behavior, and much more. this is Patrick's 3rd appearance on the show and we love to have him on. you can check out his podcasts, the Fall of Rome, Tid...

Ep 144 - Another Patron Mailbag

patrons, here is your ad-free version of this week's regular episode.

this time, we take a dive into the backlog of questions from our patrons and answer a few of them. we tackle everything from how to explain the Middle Ages to a 5 year old, to how bad was Henry VIII really to Eleanor Rykener and even who was the worst person in the Middle Ages. we cover 11 questions in total and it's a lot of fun, enjoy!

Bonus Ep. 51 - Andor 1.1: The Republic is Dead, Long Live the Republic

hello patrons, we're back with your second bonus episode for the month of November! and this time, we're finally jumping into Star Wars and doing a series on Andor, the Disney+ streaming show, created by Ton Gilroy and starring Diego Luna.  the first season of Andor released in 2022 and it attempts to inject some materialism into Star Wars and show how a rebellion forms, the bumps along the way, and the reaction of the oppressive Empire to stave off revolution. as is our wont for these s...

Ep 143 - Princes in the Tower News!

beloved patrons, this is your ad-free version of this week's regular episode. we answer a question from Steph in this one.

as you may have heard, the Princes in the Tower are in the news again, 540 years after their supposed deaths. recently, Philippa Langley, who famously help find Richard III's body in a parking lot back in 2012, hosted a television special in the UK which alleged a new theory about the Princes in the Tower: they survived and later returned to the island in attempts t...

Ep 142 - The Last Duel Review

hello, patrons, happy thanksgiving! here's your ad-free version of this week's regular episode. we answered a question from Drekisdottir in this one.

folks, we're finally doing a review of Ridley Scott's 2021 Medieval history film, The Last Duel, a film that asks the question: what if Ridley Scott just didn't do all the stuff he's known for and instead made an intimate portrait of a Medieval soap opera in the style of Rashomon that revolves around both an obscure land dispute based on m...

Ep 141 - Tudor Depictions feat. Phoebe Roy

patrons, here's your ad-free version of this week's episode. it's an interview so we didn't answer any questions but we will get back to it next time.

folks, in this episode we brought in a special guest and friend of the show, Phoebe Roy, co-host of the Ten Thousand Posts and Masters of Our Domain podcasts, to talk with us about depictions of Tudor England in books and TV. the Tudors are, of course, a foundational aspect of English history and culture, so it's interesting to see the ma...

Bonus Ep 50 - Castlevania: Nocturne 2

hello patrons, here is your first bonus episode for the month of November and your 50th bonus episode overall! we made it to another milestone all thanks to yall!

in this one, we finish up our review of season 1 of Castlevania: Nocturne by going through the last 4 episodes. this sees us tackle such topics as the historical person of Erzsebet Bathory, Richter's grandad being a real dick, reigniting the magic within, having a fight with your boyfriend, eclipses, 10 foot tall vampire messi...

Ep 140 - Arthuriana 6: The Death of the King

lovely patrons, here's your ad-free version of this week's regular episode. we answered a question from Steph on this one. the second part of our review of Castlevania Nocturne will be out this Friday.

Luke and Eleanor close our their series on the Medieval Arthurian canon in style, covering the rest of the post-Galfridian era to the end of the Middle Ages. finally, at long last, we get the real connective tissue in place to link all these disparate stories and narratives together into ...

Ep 139 - Arthuriana 5: Knights and Round Tables

hello patrons, here's your ad-free version of this week's regular episode. we answered a question from Jae on this one.

this time, the series on Arthuriana continues into the post-Galfridian era. following Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, which created the narrative structure and foundation of the Arthurian canon we know today, a whole bunch of writers got in on the fun and started adding to that template. in this case, we focus on 7 stories that begin to flesh...

Bonus Ep 49 - Castlevania Nocturne 1

hello patrons, here's your second bonus episode for the month of October 2023 and we decided that it was time to review the newly-released Netflix anime series: Castlevania Nocturne. we're doing the first 4 episodes this time, then we will do the final 4 episodes of the first season next time. Nocturne is the sequel to the original Castlevania anime, which lasted for 4 seasons, set a little over 300 years later. The French Revolution is in full swing, the vampires are scared that their old wo...

Ep 138 - Arthuriana 4: Historia Regum Britanniae

hello patrons, here's your ad-free version of this week's regular episode. we answer a question from Ollie Cant. new bonus coming Friday, it will be the first of our two part review of Castlevania: Nocturne

in our 4th installment in the Arthuriana series, we finally get to the work that truly defines Medieval Arthurian legend: Geoffrey of Monmouth's 1136 magnum opus, Historia Regum Britanniae aka The History of the Kings of Britain aka the Galfridian era of Arthur. we ...

Ep 137 - Arthuriana 3: Pre-Galfridian Stories

patrons, here is your ad-free version of this week's regular episode. we answered a question from Aurora on this one.

our series on Arthuriana continues as we move past introductions and start talking about the stories that make up the early part of the Arthurian canon, known as the pre-Galfridian (aka before Geoffrey of Monmouth). these stories survive to us in Welsh and Latin from roughly 600 to 1135 AD and show how the Arthurian legend was being built using other existing tall tales ...

Bonus Ep 48 - Giants

hello patrons, this is your first bonus episode for October 2023! this time, we decided to talk about giants. you know: really tall, usually humanoid, have the strength of ten men, occasionally helpful but usually mean. we talk about Medieval belief in the existence of giants, would a really tall basketball player count as a giant to them, how they portrayed giants in art and culture, etc. then we move on and talk about the weird modern belief that giants are not only very real but still arou...

Arthuriana 2: The Once and Future King

hello patrons, this is your ad-free version of this week's regular episode. we answer a question from A Guy From PA in this one.

we're back with more talk of Arthurian legend. this time, we continue to trace the canon into the Modern era, from its nadir in the Early Modern period to its resurrection in the 19th century by Lord Alfred Tennyson and finally to taking its place as a foundational myth in the English-speaking world. then, we introduce a host of recurring characters, settings,...

Ep 135 - Arthuriana 1: Building a Medieval Canon

hello, patrons, here's your ad-free regular episode for the week. we answer questions from Aurora, white trash historian, and gaffsey in this one.

folks, we're finally doing that series on King Arthur and the Arthurian Legends you've all been asking for. Luke and Eleanor start the series by talking about Arthur and the legends more broadly before discussing how a bunch of people in the Middle Ages built a cohesive, narrative canon with defined literary cycles out of a bunch of Welsh spo...

Bonus Ep 47 - Current Events 6: Stargazing

beautiful patrons, this is your second bonus episode for the month of September 2023! we decided to do another current events type episode for your enjoyment. first, Eleanor talks about why Russell Brand sucks so much (spoiler: he's the worst) and how the media elides malicious celebrity jerks. then Luke does some of his patented stargazing to talk about the insane circumstances that gave rise to life on Earth, the Great Filter theory, and why aliens are totally real but also we gotta save ou...

Ep 134 - How Often Do You Think About the Roman Empire?

hello, patrons! here's your ad-free regular episode for the week! we answered a question from Mooooooog on this one. new bonus episode coming Friday on current events and such. 

Luke and Eleanor are back to talk about the meme that's been making the rounds for the past few weeks: How often do you think about the Roman Empire? we discuss how often we actually think about Rome and its successor states before moving on to talk about why this meme became so popular, why guys actually t...

Ep 133 - Medieval Fabliau feat Kleio Pethainou

patrons, this is your ad-free regular episode for the week. there's no question this week because we had a guest.

today, we have on Kleio Pethainou, a doctoral candidate at the Univ. of Edinburgh, to talk about Medieval humor and the lesser-known but still awesome tradition of Fabliau. Fabliau are bawdy, humorous stories, often filled with some level of social commentary, that started out in France in the High and Late Middle Ages. we talk with Kleio about what they were, what they mean...

Dante's Inferno 7: The Great Satan

well we've finally made it to the end of another book club series as we finish up Dante's Inferno. along with Dante and Virgil, we've made it all the way through Hell and we're finally going to get to see the Ninth Circle and Satan himself. so strap in for a frozen hellscape, giants, various sorts of traitors, a weepy, depressed devil, and the great escape from Hell itself. then we give our final thoughts on the whole thing and wrap the Inferno up in style. we've had a lot of fun with this an...