Search Results for: medieval

Transcript for Sh 38b

I think I might start this episode with a thrilling expose of Household structure and stuff like that. Well, drop the expose possibly. Now, microhistories make no pretence that theRead More

349 The Country House

By David Crowther 1 Comments

The Elizabeth and Jacobean age was a time of social mores and the way England was ruled – and the great medieval household withered away. To leave something smaller, more symmetrical – and of extraordinary beauty. And then there’s also Little Moreton Hall, a gentry interpretation of the Great Rebuilding.

Review of Emergence of the English

This review was written by Alex Woolf of St Andrews university, and published in the journal of ‘Early Medieval Europe’, 2020, Vol.28 (1), p.157-160 The Emergence of the English. ByRead More

Transcript for Hawkwood 15

Hawkwood went from Cesena to a small village in Lombardy, in the territory of the town of Cremona as it happens. The village of Gazzuolo lies on the banks ofRead More

348 The Great Rebuilding

By David Crowther 5 Comments

Somewhere in the 16th and 17th centuries, ordinary people started building differently – private buildings, public buildings. They used brick, glass, decoration and portraiture; and it wasn’t just the aristocracy; Yeomen, merchants, towns, husbandmen. The historian W G Hoskins gave it a name – the Great Rebuilding

Transcript for Hawkwood 13

Now then, July 1375, and the war of Eight Saints, the defensive league put together by Florence, including the might of the Visconti, but also Siena, Lucca, Pisa, Arezzo, theRead More

Transcript for Hawkwood 11

Hawkwood made the best use he could of his well-earned patch of local military superiority, rampaging around burning and pillaging as you do, though he was rudely interrupted by theRead More

Transcript for Hawkwood 7

It was the practice in Milan to walk outside the walls of the city after nightfall to socialise with other walkers, or maybe sit down and pay a leisurely gameRead More

Transcript for Hawkwood 4

At the end of the last episode we’d talked about the Great Company – a mass of men accustomed to making a living by fighting, left a bit high andRead More

334 Murder!

By David Crowther 6 Comments

In 1615, Ralph Winwood interviewed Gervase Elwes, Lieutenant of the Tower about the suspicious death of Thomas Overbury. Gervase spilled his guts. The Image on the left is Westminster Hall,Read More

Transcript for Hawkwood 2

Let me take you away, ladies and gentlemen to the powerhouse of trade and commerce in northern Europe – to the Marketplace in Ghent, Flanders. It is winter, the 26thRead More

Transcript for Hawkwood 1

Well, here we are at the start of another of my extended biographies, and since we are going boy girl boy girl, it’s the blokes turn – and I haveRead More

Transcript for 37b

So we ended last time on the verge of another moral panic, one of those great social events of English history – the Gin craze. Because in England the ‘strongRead More

Transcript for 37a

I have been asked, over the years to talk about Beer. I don’t know what your memory is like, but I find that I remember some tiny irrelevant things thatRead More

Transcript for Margaret 19

So, last time we gaily announced to safe arrival in port the Tudor ship of dynasty; I feel it incumbent on me to remind you once more that no oneRead More

Transcript for Margaret 16

Right, so it feels that we have reached a sort of watershed in the life of the our hero here. Just as my life can be divided into two distinctRead More

Transcript for Sh 36b

Okally dokally then everyone. Last time, we reached Berkeley Castle in the depths of the night, echoing with the screams of Edward II. English history is such a catalogue ofRead More

Transcript for Sh 36a

Okally dokally then everyone. This shedcast owes its existence to a listener called Andrew, and appropriately through the operation of direct democracy, not a concept in which I have muchRead More

Transcript for Margaret 15

1483 wasn’t exactly a great year for Henry Tudor, any more than it was for his mother. He traipsed mournfully across Normandy and into Brittany to the fair town ofRead More

Transcript for MB 12

For much of the 1470s therefore, Edward was very keen to get his hands on Henry Tudor, and we might assume that his intentions were not honourable – and hisRead More

Transcript for Margaret 11

We can leave her for a while pondering her future maybe while we catch up with her son; Margaret would obviously feel exposed and under pressure with the death ofRead More

Transcript for Margaret 10

One of the notable things about the Wars of the Roses, as I may have mentioned before, is the central role in the drama played by powerful women. One ofRead More

Transcript for Sh 34

Now, this is something of an experiment and a departure. First of all, shedcast biographies so far have by and large been in the same chronological phase as I wasRead More

Transcript for Margaret 9

Before we can consider the Staffords’ dilemma, though, I think we need to go back a step and understand the political situation. Seriously there can be few periods of greaterRead More

Transcript for MB8

Ok, so sorry about last week, I was distracted by the intricacies of the life and environment of your great late medieval house. Unfortunately it is you, not I, whoRead More

Transcript for MB7

You may remember that Margaret and Henry had been granted the royal manor of Woking; Woking as you may know is known locally as the Eternal City, or Seven GatedRead More