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Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio

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Speaker 1: and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. Hi,

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Speaker 1: this is Danis Schwartz and this is the seventy five

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Speaker 1: episode of Noble Blood to celebrate this monumental anniversary. I

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Speaker 1: am so excited to be joined by the incredible historian

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Speaker 1: Dan Jones, the author of I think a dozen books.

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Speaker 1: His latest Power and Thrones, A New History of the

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Speaker 1: Middle Ages, is basically just the most readable, interesting book

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Speaker 1: about the entire thousand year period of the Middle Ages,

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Speaker 1: Like if you have ever had any like questions or

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Speaker 1: misunderstandings about what actually constitutes the Middle Ages and what's

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Speaker 1: important about it and what isn't dance book is just phenomenal.

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Speaker 1: And his first novel, Essex Dogs, which is about a

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Speaker 1: platoon of soldiers during the Hundred Years War, comes out

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Speaker 1: later this year. You should absolutely look it up. I've

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Speaker 1: read a chapter. It's just phenomenal. I'm basically star struck

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Speaker 1: that he's here. Dan, Welcome, Thank you so much for

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Speaker 1: being here. Oh I'm star struck as well. So conversation

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Speaker 1: is going to be stilted for listeners who maybe recognize

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Speaker 1: your voice. You are also on the number of Netflix programs.

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Speaker 1: Do you want to numerate which ones to those are? Well,

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Speaker 1: there's a series called Secrets of Great British Castles. We

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Speaker 1: made two series of it, seasons of it, I guess

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Speaker 1: you'd call it back in sixteen, and they were great.

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Speaker 1: Each episode I'd go to a castle and tell some

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Speaker 1: stories and wander around and like look like quite sort

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Speaker 1: of earnest at times and other times jocular and like

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Speaker 1: wave my hands in the TV presented style, and do

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Speaker 1: you know what. It was like super fun to make,

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Speaker 1: and they've lived on Netflix for some years now and

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Speaker 1: I believe like forty territories so in really improbable places,

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Speaker 1: I'm like the castle guy. We're going to be going

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Speaker 1: into depth talking about the Middle Ages and Nate of

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Speaker 1: the Crusade. But tell us a bit about your background.

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Speaker 1: How did you become a historian? Well, I had a

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Speaker 1: really good history teacher in school. And that sounds kind

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Speaker 1: of banal, I guess, but it tends to be make

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Speaker 1: or break. I think history is a subject where charismatic

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Speaker 1: teachers can get someone interested in history for life, and

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Speaker 1: the opposite is also true. For no reason other than

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Speaker 1: I liked my history teacher and did okay in history

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Speaker 1: at school. I went to study history at Cambridge and

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Speaker 1: then specialized in the Middle Ages there. And I would

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Speaker 1: love to say that I had had this like burning

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Speaker 1: desire to be a medievalist, but really the day I

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Speaker 1: had to fill in my form detailing this isn't June.

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Speaker 1: That's how old I am. I bet you weren't born then,

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Speaker 1: just barely, just barely, okay, so well you were saying

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Speaker 1: sort of goo goo gaga. I was filling in a

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Speaker 1: form that said what I wanted to study when I

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Speaker 1: went to Cambridge was Cambridge give you enormous freedom to

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Speaker 1: study what you want within the history history tribos, which

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Speaker 1: is great. And I didn't take it very seriously, which

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Speaker 1: is sort of the story of my life. On the

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Speaker 1: way and I asked my teacher, Hey, what should I study?

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Speaker 1: And you want to add medieval and yeah, that will do.

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Speaker 1: So I take the box. And then some months later

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Speaker 1: October I went to university and I was presented with

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Speaker 1: like a bunch of medieval history to study. But I

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Speaker 1: studied under Helen Caster, who is one of the greatest

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Speaker 1: She's the o g really, and so she taught me

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Speaker 1: pretty much everything I know about the Middle Ages, and

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Speaker 1: she was such as again, you know, the story is

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Speaker 1: of phenomenal teachers. I was taught by her. I was

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Speaker 1: talked to right by David Starkey, Juday historian, and those

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Speaker 1: two people were highly influential. Helen on getting me hooked

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Speaker 1: on the Middle Ages and David on just teaching me

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Speaker 1: how to write the joy of narrative writing and of

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Speaker 1: argumentative essay writing and a public performance. So that that

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Speaker 1: was kind of my background. And then I did a

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Speaker 1: lot of journalism, and I read a newspaper column after

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Speaker 1: university for ten years, and I suppose that journalistic style

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Speaker 1: fed somewhat into the narrative history writing style I've developed.

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Speaker 1: And once I started writing books, I started getting TV

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Speaker 1: work as well. And here I am, you're looking at it,

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Speaker 1: listening to it. There is when you're starting a new book,

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Speaker 1: now that you're eleven or twelve in, as you said,

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Speaker 1: what's your process like when you have an idea and

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Speaker 1: then what's your research process? Like? How long does it

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Speaker 1: take you? I guess I've got like a pool of

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Speaker 1: ideas at any one time that I know one of

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Speaker 1: them is going to develop, And I'm usually relatively certain

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Speaker 1: about what I'm gonna be doing for the next two

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Speaker 1: or three books. Well that's the way it is now anyway.

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Speaker 1: The very first the sort of primordial pool of idea

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Speaker 1: forming is just like thoughts kind of ambiently buzzing around

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Speaker 1: my head as I go about my day to day business,

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Speaker 1: usually while I'm working on something else, and then the

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Speaker 1: time will come when I've actually got to start writing

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Speaker 1: a book. I tend to write a book a year,

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Speaker 1: not a big book every year, but I tend to

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Speaker 1: have a big book one year and then a different

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Speaker 1: project the next year, and I alternate like that. So

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Speaker 1: I'm extremely architectural as a writer. So the first phase

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Speaker 1: of any book work that I do involves no sitting

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Speaker 1: at my laptop typing at all, not really very much reading,

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Speaker 1: just a lot of thinking around the subject and trying

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Speaker 1: to build a framework of how I would envisage your book.

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Speaker 1: So Powers and Thrones, which is my most recent nonfiction book,

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Speaker 1: while the subject matter was a history of the Middle

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Speaker 1: Ages and so in all I really had by way

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Speaker 1: of a brief from my publisher was we start with

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Speaker 1: a sack of rown four ten and go to the

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Speaker 1: sack of room seven, and then it's like fill your boots. So, okay,

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Speaker 1: I've got two bookends for that's I think it, Well,

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Speaker 1: how do we create this thematically? Then I approached that idea.

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Speaker 1: I thought, what's what's important in the history of the

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Speaker 1: Middle Ages that will talk to a twenty one century audience,

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Speaker 1: because of course these history is the business of communicating

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Speaker 1: across the years. So I came up with some a

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Speaker 1: list of five themes I thought were Germaine, both to

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Speaker 1: the subject matter around to the audience, And then I

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Speaker 1: started like breaking it down. I have weird and it's

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Speaker 1: fairly arbitrary numerical obsessions. So with Powers and Thrones, I

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Speaker 1: was absolutely certain it had to be sixteen chapters, four

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Speaker 1: parts of four. I mean, there's a real reason why.

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Speaker 1: I just decided. At some point when I was doing Creasing, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean it probably makes you could okay, you could

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Speaker 1: rationalize it, you could post rationalize it, but I can't

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Speaker 1: tell you that that's how it feels. At the time

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Speaker 1: when I was doing Crusaders, I was like, this book

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Speaker 1: is twenty seven chapters, three lots of nine. I don't

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Speaker 1: know why. I just felt the story felt like you

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Speaker 1: get a feel for it after a while. You just

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Speaker 1: feel you know what the shape of the story is.

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Speaker 1: You can chuck all of that out the window. When

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Speaker 1: it comes to fiction, I've just written, as you kindly

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Speaker 1: pointed out, a novel, and that that was a completely

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Speaker 1: different matter. You're much more adapted that, so I should

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Speaker 1: ask you the questions. Really, No, absolutely not. I feel

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Speaker 1: like I'm already learning. I have no idea how many

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Speaker 1: chapters my nextbook is going to be. I'm so behind.

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Speaker 1: Are you gonna be writing fictional nonfiction both? I have

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Speaker 1: both in the can right now. I have no idea

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Speaker 1: how many chapters either, as this is maybe why I'm struggling. Well,

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Speaker 1: do you know what? A few years ago I had

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Speaker 1: dinner with George R. R. Martin right, who created a

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Speaker 1: Game of Thrones, and George and I while I interviewed

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Speaker 1: him in front of a big audience, and then we

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Speaker 1: had dinner afterwards, and George said something that really stuck

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Speaker 1: in my mind. He said, there's two types of writer.

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Speaker 1: He said, You've got architects and gardeners. And you said,

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Speaker 1: the architect plans that everything very meticulously and then starts

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Speaker 1: to build. And I thought, that's the type of writer, right,

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Speaker 1: And it's true nonfiction. That is the type of writer

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Speaker 1: I am. And he said, the gardener just plants seed

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Speaker 1: and lets it grow. Now he spoke much more favorably

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Speaker 1: about the gardener. So that's the type of writer he is.

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Speaker 1: And I thought I could never be that writer. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So when I sat down to at Essex Dogs, which

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Speaker 1: is the novel later this year, I was like, well,

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Speaker 1: here comes an architect writing and writing a novel. I

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Speaker 1: found a plan the hell out of this. And I

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Speaker 1: sat and I planned, and I tried to like have

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Speaker 1: it all in its shapes and forms for us started

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Speaker 1: and I sat there and for the first time in

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Speaker 1: my life, I looked at a blank page and I thought,

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Speaker 1: I don't know what to do with this. And I

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Speaker 1: realized that the thing to do, and this is everyone's

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Speaker 1: process is completely different. So just may resonate with you.

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Speaker 1: We may resonate with your listeners. It may not. You

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Speaker 1: may think what a load of nonsense. But my process

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Speaker 1: now is to do some yoga and then to just

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Speaker 1: sort of lie about with my feet on that sofa

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Speaker 1: that like in the back of my office, to just

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Speaker 1: sort of lie there. I want. Sorry. There was like

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Speaker 1: this jay Z trailer for one of his albums once

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Speaker 1: it was from Mgmacarter, Holy Grail. There's a bit of

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Speaker 1: jay Z in the studio. Okay, yeah, there's There's always

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Speaker 1: gonna be medieval and he's he talks a little bit

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Speaker 1: in that video to Rick Rubin, the legendary rock and

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Speaker 1: sometime hip hop producer, and Rick Rubin in that video

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Speaker 1: is the comfious looking man I've ever seen. He's just

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Speaker 1: lying stroking his big long beard on a sofa while

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Speaker 1: all the other producers were kind of uptightens in there.

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Speaker 1: Rick Rubens just like back like this, and so I

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Speaker 1: gotta I call it the Rick Rubin pose. I've got

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Speaker 1: to get into before him in any position to write fiction,

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Speaker 1: and wants them in the Rubin pose, and you're like

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Speaker 1: almost half asleep, like in communion with your dream state.

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Speaker 1: Then and only then am I ready to write It

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Speaker 1: looks it's completely different. I like to do a lot

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Speaker 1: of brainstorming in bed horizontal before I go to sleep,

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Speaker 1: where I'll like turn off the light and it'll be

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Speaker 1: like ten o'clock and my fiancee will think I'm like

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Speaker 1: going to bed. He'll be like, okay, well you're asleep,

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Speaker 1: and I'm like, I'm not asleep, I'm working. It's all

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Speaker 1: part of the process. Sometimes you just need to let

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Speaker 1: the ideas come. You've got to be in that state

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Speaker 1: and it's about you know, sound this is gonna sound

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Speaker 1: super woo. But I really think there's a different mental frequency,

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Speaker 1: maybe even a different party of brain at play writing

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Speaker 1: fiction and nonfiction, which is weird because the trick I've

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Speaker 1: always tried to pull in nonfiction is to make it

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Speaker 1: feel like fiction. But that said, a lot of what

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Speaker 1: I've drawn on in writing nonfiction does not come from novels.

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Speaker 1: That comes from screenwriting. Its school screenwriting technique that sits

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Speaker 1: under my history books, so that that's very structural. I'm

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Speaker 1: interested in George R. Martin, particularly because he seems very

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Speaker 1: inspired by history. Do you know for a fact if

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Speaker 1: he's read Or of the Roses. I don't think he had.

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Speaker 1: So I did a thing for the season five DVD

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Speaker 1: of Thrones which was like the real history. It's like,

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Speaker 1: it's a pretty good documentary. Actually, there's me and Kelly

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Speaker 1: to Resent, a couple other historians and George and the

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Speaker 1: HBO people. When I went to New York to shoot

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Speaker 1: that were like, George is just your greatest fan. Dan

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Speaker 1: in Santa Fe He's got your books on his desk,

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Speaker 1: and I really believe that at the time, and then

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Speaker 1: in retrospect I think they were just flattering me. Well, look,

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Speaker 1: he was writing about Game of Thrones when I wasn't

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Speaker 1: far off Google Baby, so I was a long way

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Speaker 1: from having written Wards of the Roses at that point.

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Speaker 1: Well back to the Middle Ages, I admit it's a period.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's such an intimidating period, one that I

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Speaker 1: never really felt like I've gotten a handle on. To

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Speaker 1: listeners who maybe don't know what actually constitutes the Middle Ages,

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Speaker 1: and why is it called the Dark Ages, I would argue,

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Speaker 1: and I think you would argue incorrectly. Maybe the best

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Speaker 1: place to go to answer that is sixteenth century, which

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Speaker 1: is the end of Middle Ages, and that's sort of

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Speaker 1: where we first start hearing the term the Middle Age,

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Speaker 1: if not the Middle Ages. So in fifteen sixty three,

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Speaker 1: I think maybe four, John Fox, the great Protestants writer,

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Speaker 1: write his Book of Martyrs, Acts and Monuments. It's it's

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Speaker 1: most problem more propertyle It's called Fox's Book of Martists,

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Speaker 1: and it's a it's a it's an ecclesiastical history, basically

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Speaker 1: leaning into the subject of martyrdom, and particularly of the

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Speaker 1: Protestant Martyrst. Fox, in the course of vacts of Monuments,

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Speaker 1: tries to like salami slice up history, and he says,

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Speaker 1: it's not salami sce beIN. It's really big chunks. He says,

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Speaker 1: there's three ages in history. He says, there's the primitive age,

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Speaker 1: by which he means if really pagan Rome and everything

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Speaker 1: proceeding and in Christian Nicolesia scal terms, that's sort of

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Speaker 1: poor old persecuted Christians be hiding from Romans and catacombs.

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Speaker 1: And Fox says, and there's our present age, you know,

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Speaker 1: just as we think of our sols now as being

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Speaker 1: differentiated by being alive or you know, we are quite

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Speaker 1: quite modern. So Fox thought about his own time in

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Speaker 1: the fifteen sixties and he said that, well, between these

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Speaker 1: two bits, that's the terribly enlightened post Reformation sixteenth century

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Speaker 1: and the pagan classical world. There's like the Middle Age,

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Speaker 1: he says, the Middle Age, and it's like it's just

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Speaker 1: this sort of lump in the middle. Now. Of course,

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Speaker 1: if we define that as I have slightly more tightly

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Speaker 1: as being saccarone four ten Sacar seven, we're still talking

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Speaker 1: about eleven hundred some years. That's a big chunk of

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Speaker 1: recorded human history. And why is it then to the

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Speaker 1: Dark Ages? Usually it's the early Middle Ages that defines

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Speaker 1: the Dark Ages, so everything up to about from the

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Speaker 1: five hundred through nine hundred, with some very very slight

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Speaker 1: justification in that the written record tends to be much much,

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Speaker 1: much much patchier in Western Europe, certainly at that time.

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Speaker 1: There is a sense, if you read the history again

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Speaker 1: of Western Europe, that there's a retreat in the Christian

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Speaker 1: world from the scientific and learning of the ancient world,

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Speaker 1: and that seems, you know, anti progressive to many people.

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Speaker 1: And there's just a sort of sense that it's already

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Speaker 1: difficult and far away, and no one wants to have

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Speaker 1: very much to do it. It's gross, I mean, why

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Speaker 1: would you how would you like get dirty in the

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Speaker 1: Middle Ages, which can be pretty intimidating and weird when

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Speaker 1: far pretty of bits of history to look at, you know,

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Speaker 1: the sort of glories of Republican Rome or the great

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Speaker 1: scientific advances brackets minus dreadful imperialism of the nineteenth century.

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Speaker 1: You know, these things are probably more attractive to most

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Speaker 1: sane people. They were terribly unattractive to me as subjects

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Speaker 1: to study when I was growing up. I don't really

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Speaker 1: know why that's mad. That's mad. Well, let's flip it around.

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Speaker 1: Say what's attractive about the Middle Ages? The Middle Ages

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Speaker 1: is inherently and although this is I'm just saying this

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Speaker 1: to be look at it through the prism of the

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Speaker 1: Victorian Age, which created this reputation. It is sort of

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Speaker 1: inherently romantic. I mean, I realized all the problems with

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Speaker 1: statements are not stupid. But be that as it may.

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Speaker 1: We do happen to live after the nineteenth century, and

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Speaker 1: we are still stuck with many of the preconceptions of

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Speaker 1: the nineteenth century. In our general worldview, the Middle Ages

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Speaker 1: does seem romantic, or it seems ramantic to a child

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Speaker 1: who wants to study things. It's got nights, and it's

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Speaker 1: got princesses, and he's sort castles, and it's got daring

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Speaker 1: do and everyone goes about a horse. Tell me that's

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Speaker 1: not a world that it seems like on the surface

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Speaker 1: of things attractive to you. Perfect segue, because I would

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Speaker 1: love to talk to you about the historical basis of

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Speaker 1: our Thurian legend. I feel like I was one of

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Speaker 1: those children who grew up in you know, Chicago, reading

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Speaker 1: our Thurian legend and thinking like, oh, this is this

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Speaker 1: is magical, this is purely fictitious. These are fairy tales.

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Speaker 1: And of course you get older and you discovered that

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Speaker 1: there's been, you know, historical figures who have been proposed

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Speaker 1: as the real king Arthur probably didn't look like we

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Speaker 1: imagine in story books. Yeah, I think there are certain

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Speaker 1: figures from the Middle Ages. Arthur is one of them,

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Speaker 1: Robin Hood is another. They're kind of perfect bridges were

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Speaker 1: getting people into the Middle Age because there's there's a

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Speaker 1: huge volume of fiction about them, which has in itself

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Speaker 1: a nearly a thousand year history in the case of

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Speaker 1: Arthur at any rate, and there is the tantalizing prospect

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Speaker 1: that some of this might actually be true. Now I

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Speaker 1: have read so you don't have to the many, many

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Speaker 1: books which go looking for a real historical basis for

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Speaker 1: King Arthur, for Merlin, for at Lancelot, for person, for

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Speaker 1: whatever whatever, the Camelot. And you know, it doesn't take

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Speaker 1: very long immersed in that early medieval literature, earnest as

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Speaker 1: it is to say, well, it's very clear what's going on.

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Speaker 1: There is nobody in history who meaningfully resembles the Arthur

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Speaker 1: we know from a fiction. So really, what are we

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Speaker 1: looking for? Well, are we looking for a person whose

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Speaker 1: example was the original basis for the very first Arthurian stories?

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Speaker 1: And I've concluded I think over the years even that

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Speaker 1: is really a sort of misapprehension of the problem. These

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Speaker 1: stories were not created by and large in the twelfth century,

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Speaker 1: from you know, creating dat onwards it's like saying, well, no, wait,

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Speaker 1: who was the real iron Man? Who was this real

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Speaker 1: spider man you speak of? Like, well, you know, you

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Speaker 1: haven't really understood that what's going on here? The primary

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Speaker 1: purpose of storytelling was not to elaborate on the real

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Speaker 1: deeds of a known historical figure. That was just to

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Speaker 1: kind of tell a story. It gets a kind of

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Speaker 1: asked backwards to go looking for the real Arthur. However,

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Speaker 1: like I said that, the initial prospect that there might

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Speaker 1: be a real, real King Arthur was this a real

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Speaker 1: person is sexy enough to get people into the Middle Ages.

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Speaker 1: The same for Robin. It the same for Robin. I

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Speaker 1: suppose The question is when did the fictional accounts begin.

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Speaker 1: That's that's a much more interesting and better question, because

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Speaker 1: the fiction that the real kind of the cradle of

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Speaker 1: our thuryana if you like twelve early twelfth cent true

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Speaker 1: creating to Perceval of wolf Bach Perceval, is it flourishing

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Speaker 1: Jeffrey Monmouth to an extent in the history of the

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Speaker 1: Kings of Britain. I have to already interrupt and say,

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Speaker 1: I'm already furious and how well you pronounced those French names,

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Speaker 1: because as any listener to this podcast knows, it's absolutely

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Speaker 1: impossible to me, and here you come in just effortlessly

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Speaker 1: dropping all of those French names, teaching listeners that it

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Speaker 1: is possible. Well, I've been I have been in Morocco,

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Speaker 1: in France for the last two weeks. I mean, my friends,

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Speaker 1: is pretty horrible. Like if if you'd see me in

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Speaker 1: France struggling my I to negotiate buying an umbrella in

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Speaker 1: a shop in m Bois the other day, and it

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Speaker 1: was a very torturous conversation. I went through trying to

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Speaker 1: buy this umbrella and a pair of nail clippers, may

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Speaker 1: I add, and there was a problem with the card machine,

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Speaker 1: and I got to like, I got so far with

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Speaker 1: this conversation, like hacking my way in French, and then

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Speaker 1: just like I was just hit my limit, and I

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Speaker 1: was like, excuse me, belivionly, and she went, oh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm American. And I was like dumbfound and I thought,

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Speaker 1: was my friend really so good that I tricked? You know,

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Speaker 1: you were just being weirdly polite for an American. And anyway,

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Speaker 1: put all that aside, Let's go back to the early

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Speaker 1: twelfth century. This is the cradle of Artherian and what's

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Speaker 1: the context for all of these stories Suddenly like flourishing

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Speaker 1: and becoming you know, used the analogy already, but like

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Speaker 1: the Marvel movies of the day, at this end, this

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Speaker 1: this sort of open world where stories can be retold

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Speaker 1: and characters and pitched up in each other stories and

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Speaker 1: all that. It's it's the high point of sort of

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Speaker 1: nightly chivalry in a way, the concept of the night,

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Speaker 1: that is, the heavy cavalry, the warrior on mounted on horseback,

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Speaker 1: armed with sword and lance, that had sort of come

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Speaker 1: into European military and political society from the early tenth century.

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Speaker 1: By the mid eleventh century, if we think, you know,

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Speaker 1: we're talking about ten sixty six Norman invasion of England,

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Speaker 1: the even then, nights are still it's still a work

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Speaker 1: in progress if you can, if you can think of

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Speaker 1: the bear tapestry, the horse mounted warriors, they're still have

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Speaker 1: spears in their hands rather than couch lances, which is

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Speaker 1: the sort of you know, the essence of nightly combat.

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Speaker 1: So it takes a long time for firstly, what is

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Speaker 1: the essence of a night on horseback as as a

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Speaker 1: military entity, that take that takes a while to develop

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Speaker 1: technologically and strategically. What takes even longer to develop is

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Speaker 1: this kind of cast mentality and common social code among

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Speaker 1: those warriors, which we call knighthood, a set of principles

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Speaker 1: and beliefs and code of conduct and worldviews and if

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Speaker 1: even if we want to be pretentious and memes, that

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Speaker 1: takes a little bit longer to develop. But by the

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Speaker 1: early twelfth century, you know, the aftermath of the First

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Speaker 1: Crusade really even this sort of you know, the Second

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Speaker 1: Crusades coming around. The way knights are in business and

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Speaker 1: knighthood has really become bound into noble culture and our

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Speaker 1: aristocratic culture in Western Europe. And part of the consequence

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Speaker 1: of a cast mentality, or part of what reliable historical

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Speaker 1: features of the cast mentality or a group in a

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Speaker 1: group culture of that sort is that you start to

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Speaker 1: have origin stories. You start to have fables of knighthood

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Speaker 1: and these imaginary deeds and nights from a past that's

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Speaker 1: just over the horizon. You know, we can't quite grasp

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Speaker 1: who these people really were, but we know they lived

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Speaker 1: in a great time when the land was populated by

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Speaker 1: giants and scary beasts, and they did heroic deeds, and

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Speaker 1: we the nights and today should tri and emulate them.

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Speaker 1: So that's what's going on in the early twelfth century.

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Speaker 1: Knighthood's on a roll, and along with it come these

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Speaker 1: these wonderful stories. Well, and and once that's established, once

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Speaker 1: nighthood has its own literature, really interesting things start to happen.

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Speaker 1: So people grow up listening to primarily listening to these,

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Speaker 1: you know, these stories of Arthur and the Knights, the

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Speaker 1: round table and chivalry. A good example be William Marshall,

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Speaker 1: who you probably talked about before. We can talk about

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Speaker 1: in some more detail if you want. Men like this

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Speaker 1: grow up hearing these stories, then start to try to

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Speaker 1: absorb these ideas within the ar theory and legends into

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Speaker 1: their own behavior, and almost the tropes of fiction start

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Speaker 1: to inform the realities of warfare and then William Marshall's case,

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Speaker 1: the deeds of these real people are then written up.

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Speaker 1: So you have this sort of popular eat itself thing

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Speaker 1: going on where not to just becomes such a self

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Speaker 1: referential phenomenon. That's that's full of stories being told of

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Speaker 1: generation to generation and people growing up feeling that they

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Speaker 1: are both existing in the real world and existing in

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Speaker 1: this kind of old turnate fantasy reality that goes along

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Speaker 1: with the profession Who is William Marshall? What is the

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Speaker 1: cliff notes version of that story? So William Marshall, by

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Speaker 1: his own estimation or certainly the estimation of his sons

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Speaker 1: and friends who commissioned his biography The History of William

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Speaker 1: Marshall in the early thirteenth century of nineteen as a

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Speaker 1: massively long old French verse account of the Marshal life

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Speaker 1: idealized somewhat. But Marshall was a man of the late

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Speaker 1: twelfth and early thirteenth century who was one of the

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Speaker 1: younger sons of a night called John Marshall, who was

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Speaker 1: fighting in the eleven thirties in the anarchy between Stephen

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Speaker 1: and Matilda, the English Civil war for the throne between

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Speaker 1: rival descendants of King Henry the first both grandchildren. William

427
00:22:21,320 --> 00:22:26,679
Speaker 1: the Conqueror and Marshall was five years old during that war,

428
00:22:26,880 --> 00:22:30,040
Speaker 1: and his first encounter with warfare, according to this story

429
00:22:30,040 --> 00:22:33,479
Speaker 1: of William Marshall, was his father was holding a castle

430
00:22:33,560 --> 00:22:36,960
Speaker 1: against King Stephen, one of the belligerents in the anarchy

431
00:22:37,040 --> 00:22:39,560
Speaker 1: in that civil war. And King Stephen had hold of

432
00:22:39,680 --> 00:22:41,840
Speaker 1: young William because he was being held as a sort

433
00:22:41,840 --> 00:22:45,840
Speaker 1: of hostage for honorable behavior. And Steven's men put young

434
00:22:45,880 --> 00:22:47,960
Speaker 1: William in the bucket of a trebor share, you know,

435
00:22:48,000 --> 00:22:50,600
Speaker 1: one of those giant siege catapults, and said, oh right, John,

436
00:22:50,840 --> 00:22:53,399
Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna hurd your kid at this castle

437
00:22:53,440 --> 00:22:57,240
Speaker 1: wall and his prospects of not being you know, ketch

438
00:22:57,320 --> 00:23:02,200
Speaker 1: up after we finished our slight um paraphrase, and John

439
00:23:02,200 --> 00:23:04,320
Speaker 1: Marshall said, do what you please. I've got loads of kids.

440
00:23:04,400 --> 00:23:07,760
Speaker 1: May This is a classic story we see from tale telling.

441
00:23:08,000 --> 00:23:10,879
Speaker 1: But what does young William Marshall do. Well, he's so

442
00:23:11,000 --> 00:23:13,280
Speaker 1: naive and kind of charming. He charms King Stephen and

443
00:23:13,359 --> 00:23:16,720
Speaker 1: makes him laugh, which is dearly a key skill in life,

444
00:23:16,920 --> 00:23:19,720
Speaker 1: which I know you possess. So he charms King Stephen

445
00:23:20,040 --> 00:23:22,639
Speaker 1: to such an extent that Stephen goes Oh no, we can't.

446
00:23:22,640 --> 00:23:25,199
Speaker 1: We can't reduce this poor childhood catch up. Let's let

447
00:23:25,520 --> 00:23:27,240
Speaker 1: him hang around with me for a bit. And that's

448
00:23:27,240 --> 00:23:31,120
Speaker 1: the start of young William Marshall's career in royal service,

449
00:23:31,160 --> 00:23:33,480
Speaker 1: and he goes on to be raised as a knight

450
00:23:33,640 --> 00:23:35,200
Speaker 1: at the family of one of the Marshall of the

451
00:23:35,240 --> 00:23:38,439
Speaker 1: friends of one of the Marshall family in France. He

452
00:23:38,560 --> 00:23:42,760
Speaker 1: then enters the service of the Plantation as the early Plantations,

453
00:23:42,920 --> 00:23:45,920
Speaker 1: so at various times in his career he writes in

454
00:23:46,280 --> 00:23:49,560
Speaker 1: tournaments with Henry the Young King, that's the eldest son

455
00:23:49,680 --> 00:23:52,800
Speaker 1: and peustive successor of Henry the Second, the first Plantation

456
00:23:52,800 --> 00:23:54,919
Speaker 1: the King. He serves Henry the Young King, he serves

457
00:23:54,920 --> 00:23:57,359
Speaker 1: Henry the Second, he serves Eleanor of Aquitaine. He serves

458
00:23:57,440 --> 00:23:59,879
Speaker 1: Richard the Lionheart, he serves King John, and eventually Sir

459
00:24:00,160 --> 00:24:03,160
Speaker 1: John's son, Henry the Third. He is the man who's

460
00:24:03,280 --> 00:24:06,000
Speaker 1: sort of responsible for saving the Plantagenet crown so that

461
00:24:06,080 --> 00:24:08,479
Speaker 1: Henry the Third can wear it when King John's at

462
00:24:08,480 --> 00:24:10,760
Speaker 1: war with both the French and his own parents. So

463
00:24:10,960 --> 00:24:14,040
Speaker 1: Marshall's career is a really really good way to look

464
00:24:14,080 --> 00:24:17,879
Speaker 1: at the first two to three generations of the Plantagenets,

465
00:24:17,920 --> 00:24:19,840
Speaker 1: and the history of William Marshall is one of our

466
00:24:19,880 --> 00:24:23,520
Speaker 1: most entertaining and important sources for that time. You know,

467
00:24:23,560 --> 00:24:27,280
Speaker 1: we're talking here temporarily between the eleven fifties and the

468
00:24:27,359 --> 00:24:33,280
Speaker 1: twelve tens. Marshall's biography is brilliant because he's such a

469
00:24:33,400 --> 00:24:39,399
Speaker 1: charismatic and entertaining character. You know, his central moral precept

470
00:24:39,680 --> 00:24:44,240
Speaker 1: is loyalty, and loyalty is what his entire story over

471
00:24:44,280 --> 00:24:46,840
Speaker 1: these tens of thousands of old French verses supposed to

472
00:24:47,560 --> 00:24:50,320
Speaker 1: supposed to make us meditate upon. He gets in all

473
00:24:50,320 --> 00:24:53,479
Speaker 1: sorts of entertaining scrapes. He's you know, he is a

474
00:24:53,600 --> 00:24:55,919
Speaker 1: very very talented knight, you know, and and typical of

475
00:24:56,080 --> 00:24:58,480
Speaker 1: Nights in many ways. As a young man, as I said,

476
00:24:58,480 --> 00:25:00,760
Speaker 1: he's right on the tournament circuit, and you know, being

477
00:25:00,760 --> 00:25:03,520
Speaker 1: on a tournament team and being a well known tournament

478
00:25:03,920 --> 00:25:06,520
Speaker 1: it was a very good way to make money, connections

479
00:25:06,760 --> 00:25:10,040
Speaker 1: and prestige in the world in which those values were

480
00:25:10,119 --> 00:25:14,120
Speaker 1: highly regarded by polities in general. So Marshall's very tuned

481
00:25:14,119 --> 00:25:17,360
Speaker 1: to tournament. He's just he's got the ability to get

482
00:25:17,400 --> 00:25:20,119
Speaker 1: on with people, and he's he has a great military

483
00:25:20,160 --> 00:25:22,640
Speaker 1: skill set at a time when the business of politics

484
00:25:22,800 --> 00:25:25,600
Speaker 1: is largely goes on crusade, on Third Crusade, or that

485
00:25:25,600 --> 00:25:28,560
Speaker 1: that weirdly is not really mentioned, actually doesn't go in

486
00:25:28,560 --> 00:25:30,440
Speaker 1: the Third Crusade. I'm sorry. He goes to the Holy

487
00:25:30,520 --> 00:25:33,040
Speaker 1: Land around the time of the Third Crusade, probably not

488
00:25:33,080 --> 00:25:35,920
Speaker 1: on the Third Crusade, but that's that's a weird little

489
00:25:35,920 --> 00:25:39,359
Speaker 1: sort of gap in his history. And anyway, you know,

490
00:25:39,400 --> 00:25:41,320
Speaker 1: so look, we get to see all the plantagants through

491
00:25:41,320 --> 00:25:44,520
Speaker 1: Marshall's eyes, and then his biography has already said is

492
00:25:44,560 --> 00:25:47,640
Speaker 1: written up in It's not our theory arena, but it's

493
00:25:47,680 --> 00:25:49,880
Speaker 1: a sort of new version of our theory ana. It's

494
00:25:49,920 --> 00:25:54,159
Speaker 1: like saying, hey, here's another epic, sort of romantic poem

495
00:25:54,200 --> 00:25:56,160
Speaker 1: about the deeds of the night. Only guess what this

496
00:25:56,200 --> 00:25:59,760
Speaker 1: one is absolutely true. I mean, it's fantastic read. You know,

497
00:25:59,800 --> 00:26:03,040
Speaker 1: when you mentioned that the jousting sort of circuit of

498
00:26:03,119 --> 00:26:05,439
Speaker 1: that time in your book, you sort of trace the

499
00:26:05,520 --> 00:26:09,440
Speaker 1: history of jousting up until the festival joustings of like

500
00:26:09,640 --> 00:26:12,400
Speaker 1: you know, King Henry the Eighth, which I think modern

501
00:26:12,640 --> 00:26:16,080
Speaker 1: people most often associated like that's what jousting is. It's

502
00:26:16,119 --> 00:26:19,720
Speaker 1: sort of like just for fun. It's sort of celebratory.

503
00:26:19,760 --> 00:26:24,040
Speaker 1: What were those early jousting circuits, like, you know a

504
00:26:24,040 --> 00:26:27,240
Speaker 1: few hundred years before that. So when we say jousting,

505
00:26:27,320 --> 00:26:30,160
Speaker 1: that's immediately going to bring to mind your listeners. I'm

506
00:26:30,200 --> 00:26:33,560
Speaker 1: sure Heath Ledger in a Night's Tale, right, like you know,

507
00:26:33,640 --> 00:26:35,439
Speaker 1: we will rock you. And they're in the lists and

508
00:26:35,480 --> 00:26:37,720
Speaker 1: they sort of they ride at each other and then

509
00:26:37,840 --> 00:26:43,440
Speaker 1: bash the lances into shields and someone falls off or doesn't. Okay, century,

510
00:26:43,480 --> 00:26:46,879
Speaker 1: absolutely that's tournaments. It's fighting in front of an audience.

511
00:26:46,880 --> 00:26:49,879
Speaker 1: It's a bit like m m A or boxing today.

512
00:26:50,119 --> 00:26:53,640
Speaker 1: It's just organized violence and quite a contained environment with

513
00:26:53,880 --> 00:26:57,560
Speaker 1: some sense of an ethical code and some Unless you're

514
00:26:57,840 --> 00:27:01,200
Speaker 1: Henry the Second of France, right, yes, well all bets

515
00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:03,600
Speaker 1: are off at that point. I mean all bets are

516
00:27:03,600 --> 00:27:07,160
Speaker 1: off in France in general. Go way back to where

517
00:27:07,240 --> 00:27:12,720
Speaker 1: we're talking about William and Marshall in the twelfth century.

518
00:27:12,960 --> 00:27:18,480
Speaker 1: Tournaments look absolutely nothing like that, and quite many times,

519
00:27:18,520 --> 00:27:20,440
Speaker 1: at many times and in many places they're actually a

520
00:27:20,480 --> 00:27:23,480
Speaker 1: legalist that are so dangerous. The tournament at that point

521
00:27:23,720 --> 00:27:28,520
Speaker 1: is conducted over a very large open space which could

522
00:27:28,640 --> 00:27:33,359
Speaker 1: stretch dozens of miles in either direction. Maybe even scores

523
00:27:33,400 --> 00:27:38,520
Speaker 1: of miles in another direction. Teams turn up and the

524
00:27:38,640 --> 00:27:41,359
Speaker 1: name of the game is, over the course of several days,

525
00:27:41,480 --> 00:27:46,359
Speaker 1: to ride one another down, not kill one another, you know,

526
00:27:46,560 --> 00:27:50,439
Speaker 1: that's that was very bad form. But to fight at

527
00:27:50,440 --> 00:27:54,080
Speaker 1: about eight percent capacity and capture one another. And once

528
00:27:54,200 --> 00:27:56,760
Speaker 1: once you've captured somebody, then they would have to buy

529
00:27:56,800 --> 00:28:01,240
Speaker 1: back from you their liberty, their horses, and their armor,

530
00:28:01,600 --> 00:28:04,480
Speaker 1: which were the three things which were the most important

531
00:28:04,600 --> 00:28:07,840
Speaker 1: to a night. And they could be quite violent, quite rough.

532
00:28:07,920 --> 00:28:12,280
Speaker 1: They obviously attracted large crowds of hangers on, ranging from

533
00:28:12,560 --> 00:28:15,960
Speaker 1: well to do support as well wishes and spectators through

534
00:28:16,000 --> 00:28:18,879
Speaker 1: to you know, the hangers on that were always accompanied

535
00:28:18,880 --> 00:28:22,520
Speaker 1: any festivities or festivals sort of dealers and spieves and

536
00:28:22,680 --> 00:28:26,200
Speaker 1: drunkards and thieves and the usual crowd the people you

537
00:28:26,280 --> 00:28:28,760
Speaker 1: find me hanging out with. If I guess, what's the

538
00:28:28,760 --> 00:28:31,480
Speaker 1: sport itself? Like, I guess you've got to be quite

539
00:28:31,560 --> 00:28:33,800
Speaker 1: rich to take part in it. So it's a little

540
00:28:33,800 --> 00:28:37,480
Speaker 1: bit like Formula one motor racing, but with the casual

541
00:28:38,200 --> 00:28:42,800
Speaker 1: violence of mixed martial arts. Yes, of rugby or American football.

542
00:28:43,080 --> 00:28:45,280
Speaker 1: You know you need horsemanships. It's a bit like polo

543
00:28:45,520 --> 00:28:47,880
Speaker 1: I suppose that the horsemanship plus wealth makes a little

544
00:28:47,880 --> 00:28:50,000
Speaker 1: bit like the polo circuit, but with the with the

545
00:28:50,080 --> 00:28:53,280
Speaker 1: violence and danger of Formula one and rugby, it must

546
00:28:53,280 --> 00:28:55,959
Speaker 1: have been great fun. I think, enormous fun. And if

547
00:28:55,960 --> 00:28:57,880
Speaker 1: you've got involved in this, you know, if you can

548
00:28:57,880 --> 00:28:59,320
Speaker 1: get a start, if you get on a team and

549
00:28:59,360 --> 00:29:01,440
Speaker 1: you're any good, you could really make quite a lot

550
00:29:01,440 --> 00:29:03,760
Speaker 1: of money because you could capture people, you own money

551
00:29:03,800 --> 00:29:06,160
Speaker 1: ransoming the gear back, or you could lose your shirt

552
00:29:06,160 --> 00:29:08,200
Speaker 1: as well. This happens to William Marshall. You know, he's

553
00:29:08,280 --> 00:29:10,440
Speaker 1: early on in his tournament career, gets a bit cocky,

554
00:29:10,480 --> 00:29:13,200
Speaker 1: and then he's captured and he loses pretty much everything.

555
00:29:13,280 --> 00:29:16,880
Speaker 1: And at that point you're relying on your team sponsor

556
00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:19,560
Speaker 1: or captain. You know, it's element of Aquitaine or Henry

557
00:29:19,560 --> 00:29:21,800
Speaker 1: the Young King to bail you out or you're in

558
00:29:22,000 --> 00:29:24,960
Speaker 1: bother and Marshall at various times ends up a prisoner

559
00:29:24,960 --> 00:29:26,520
Speaker 1: for quite a while. There's a great story in his

560
00:29:26,560 --> 00:29:29,000
Speaker 1: biography where he's a prisoner and he's been injured in

561
00:29:29,000 --> 00:29:31,480
Speaker 1: one of these tournaments. You think he's had I think

562
00:29:31,480 --> 00:29:33,800
Speaker 1: he's had a lanced through his leg and he's got

563
00:29:33,800 --> 00:29:36,040
Speaker 1: a very painful wound in his leg and it's sort

564
00:29:36,040 --> 00:29:38,880
Speaker 1: of bandages stuffed in it and it's dressed. He's got

565
00:29:38,880 --> 00:29:42,000
Speaker 1: to be really careful because it's a serious round and

566
00:29:42,040 --> 00:29:45,400
Speaker 1: he's being sort of taken around servery borying by whoever's

567
00:29:45,400 --> 00:29:48,600
Speaker 1: captured him. I can't remember it. And one night the

568
00:29:48,600 --> 00:29:53,200
Speaker 1: people have captured him having this competition of who can

569
00:29:53,280 --> 00:29:57,240
Speaker 1: throw this giant stone, the furthest it's very good, it's

570
00:29:57,280 --> 00:30:00,360
Speaker 1: good boys stuff. There was an HBO they had to

571
00:30:00,480 --> 00:30:03,440
Speaker 1: entertain themselves somehow exactly. You know, if we get Netflix

572
00:30:03,480 --> 00:30:06,760
Speaker 1: and Chill has chuck a massive stone and Chill or not,

573
00:30:07,520 --> 00:30:10,120
Speaker 1: and so they're chucking a massive stone about and Marshall

574
00:30:10,240 --> 00:30:13,880
Speaker 1: he can't like he's he just can't sit there and watch.

575
00:30:13,920 --> 00:30:16,040
Speaker 1: It's like, come on, guys, give me a go. But

576
00:30:16,600 --> 00:30:17,880
Speaker 1: I don't think you want to go. I don't think

577
00:30:17,880 --> 00:30:20,160
Speaker 1: you want to play at this. Give me a passed

578
00:30:20,200 --> 00:30:24,200
Speaker 1: me to stone, really passed me to stone. So he

579
00:30:24,240 --> 00:30:26,760
Speaker 1: gets the stone, of course, because he has to win.

580
00:30:27,640 --> 00:30:30,680
Speaker 1: Just laughs. He throws it so hard that all the

581
00:30:30,760 --> 00:30:33,120
Speaker 1: stitches and the badges bast out of his leg and

582
00:30:33,120 --> 00:30:35,479
Speaker 1: he's worse off afterwards. In the other one's before but

583
00:30:35,480 --> 00:30:38,920
Speaker 1: that's that's told us a relatively comical story in the

584
00:30:39,000 --> 00:30:41,960
Speaker 1: history of William Marshall, which is like his desire, his

585
00:30:42,160 --> 00:30:48,200
Speaker 1: nightly prowess occasionally got the better of him. Pride. Pride

586
00:30:48,240 --> 00:30:51,000
Speaker 1: comes before a burst leg as they say, Yeah, that's

587
00:30:51,000 --> 00:30:54,320
Speaker 1: what they say. One other thing I'm interested in speaking

588
00:30:54,320 --> 00:30:57,200
Speaker 1: to you about, obviously because you're the expert on English

589
00:30:57,280 --> 00:31:01,360
Speaker 1: and British castles, the idea of the evil castle, When

590
00:31:01,400 --> 00:31:04,320
Speaker 1: does that really come about? I think we're picturing like,

591
00:31:04,600 --> 00:31:07,760
Speaker 1: you know, cartoon castle of like the stone turrets and

592
00:31:08,640 --> 00:31:11,880
Speaker 1: archers through the slits. I think I know what you're

593
00:31:11,880 --> 00:31:15,160
Speaker 1: talking about, you know, like think about the cartoon castle,

594
00:31:15,240 --> 00:31:17,800
Speaker 1: which surely even if King Arth there was you know,

595
00:31:17,840 --> 00:31:21,840
Speaker 1: quote unquote real that wouldn't have existed in the fifth century.

596
00:31:21,960 --> 00:31:25,960
Speaker 1: But when do we get the classic stone castle. Well, yeah,

597
00:31:25,960 --> 00:31:28,920
Speaker 1: the story of the castles, story of of several important

598
00:31:28,920 --> 00:31:34,160
Speaker 1: phases of evolution. So beginning really around the turn of

599
00:31:34,200 --> 00:31:37,640
Speaker 1: the first millennium tenth century, I suppose you start to see,

600
00:31:37,800 --> 00:31:40,440
Speaker 1: particularly with the Normans, a lot of the drivers of

601
00:31:40,480 --> 00:31:43,640
Speaker 1: a lot of medieval history that is still familiar to

602
00:31:43,680 --> 00:31:46,000
Speaker 1: us today often tend to be the Norman's. This group

603
00:31:46,040 --> 00:31:50,520
Speaker 1: of sort of Viking descended Francified roughnecks from Normandy, which

604
00:31:50,560 --> 00:31:53,480
Speaker 1: is a little bit to the west of Paris center

605
00:31:53,560 --> 00:31:57,760
Speaker 1: on Room in modern France. The Normans are great castle builders,

606
00:31:57,960 --> 00:32:02,280
Speaker 1: and during the tenth eleventh century you start to see

607
00:32:02,280 --> 00:32:05,840
Speaker 1: it a typical Norman castle, which would be a well

608
00:32:05,920 --> 00:32:08,520
Speaker 1: called a motte and bailey castle. So you're going to

609
00:32:08,600 --> 00:32:11,360
Speaker 1: have a keep, which is a sort of stronghold, usually

610
00:32:11,360 --> 00:32:14,360
Speaker 1: built on a sort of artificial or natural hill, and

611
00:32:14,360 --> 00:32:17,640
Speaker 1: then round it an enclosure with other wooden palisades or

612
00:32:17,680 --> 00:32:21,240
Speaker 1: you know, even stone walls in some instances, and within

613
00:32:21,320 --> 00:32:23,760
Speaker 1: that's the bailey. So that's that's the sort of basic

614
00:32:23,840 --> 00:32:28,080
Speaker 1: form of a castle, and it serves pretty well. For example,

615
00:32:28,160 --> 00:32:30,480
Speaker 1: during the Norman invasion, after the Norman invasion of England

616
00:32:30,560 --> 00:32:33,120
Speaker 1: ten sixty six, William the conqueror comes over and builds

617
00:32:33,160 --> 00:32:35,600
Speaker 1: castles absolutely everywhere, and of this sort. You know, you

618
00:32:35,720 --> 00:32:38,480
Speaker 1: throw them up pretty quick. What are they fought? Well,

619
00:32:38,560 --> 00:32:43,000
Speaker 1: they're really garrison's. This is where Norman knights are stationed

620
00:32:43,200 --> 00:32:46,040
Speaker 1: and they have a sort of a radial circle of

621
00:32:46,080 --> 00:32:50,760
Speaker 1: a day's ride. That castle can then control the land

622
00:32:50,760 --> 00:32:53,400
Speaker 1: around it because you can send knights out from it

623
00:32:53,400 --> 00:32:56,200
Speaker 1: to wherever you choose. But the heyday of the castle

624
00:32:56,280 --> 00:32:59,400
Speaker 1: of the sort that you're talking about is somewhat later.

625
00:32:59,600 --> 00:33:03,720
Speaker 1: So in British terms, probably the greatest castle builder is

626
00:33:03,840 --> 00:33:07,320
Speaker 1: Edward the first, Edward Longshanks in the Hammer of the Scots.

627
00:33:07,480 --> 00:33:11,560
Speaker 1: So Edwards is king at the turn of the twelve

628
00:33:11,760 --> 00:33:17,400
Speaker 1: into the thirteenth century. He is a crusader, his son

629
00:33:17,560 --> 00:33:20,680
Speaker 1: of the not enormously successful Henry the third and therefore

630
00:33:20,680 --> 00:33:24,960
Speaker 1: a grandson of bad King John, very very talented military

631
00:33:25,160 --> 00:33:29,520
Speaker 1: general commander, and carries out in the British Isles a

632
00:33:29,680 --> 00:33:35,480
Speaker 1: sort of an Arthurian inspired attempt to conquer Wales and

633
00:33:35,560 --> 00:33:39,280
Speaker 1: Scotland and add them formally and permanently to the Kingdom

634
00:33:39,280 --> 00:33:41,800
Speaker 1: of England. Prior to end of the First Reign, the

635
00:33:41,880 --> 00:33:45,160
Speaker 1: main focus of sort of territorial expansion or a trenchment

636
00:33:45,280 --> 00:33:48,440
Speaker 1: or defense from England had been France had been to

637
00:33:48,480 --> 00:33:53,040
Speaker 1: the so holding on to Gascony, but also trying to

638
00:33:53,080 --> 00:33:55,000
Speaker 1: get back the bits that we lost by King John

639
00:33:55,120 --> 00:33:59,000
Speaker 1: Njou main terrain normally whatever whatever, all that's sort of

640
00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:01,720
Speaker 1: finished fired with the Austrain. England still has Gascony, which

641
00:34:01,720 --> 00:34:05,280
Speaker 1: is in southwest around who centered around the city of Bordeaux.

642
00:34:05,920 --> 00:34:09,719
Speaker 1: But really the job of conquering anymore of France by

643
00:34:09,760 --> 00:34:12,719
Speaker 1: that stage is just too expensive and too difficult. So

644
00:34:12,920 --> 00:34:16,320
Speaker 1: Edwards starts to i mean somewhat inspired by the legends

645
00:34:16,320 --> 00:34:18,360
Speaker 1: of Arthur, who'd be the king of the Britons and

646
00:34:18,400 --> 00:34:21,800
Speaker 1: not the English, starts to look to conquer into Wales,

647
00:34:21,840 --> 00:34:26,480
Speaker 1: in Scotland and in Wales, launch this enormous series of campaigns,

648
00:34:26,920 --> 00:34:30,520
Speaker 1: particularly to Northern Wales, Snowdonia, which is the very mountainous

649
00:34:30,560 --> 00:34:34,880
Speaker 1: bit of of North rest world, typically the heartlands of

650
00:34:34,920 --> 00:34:39,280
Speaker 1: the native Welsh kings, extremely inhospitable to reign, very difficult

651
00:34:39,320 --> 00:34:43,680
Speaker 1: to conquer, but Edward decides conquers twelve seventies, twelve eighties,

652
00:34:43,719 --> 00:34:49,080
Speaker 1: twelve nineties. Edwards sends in enormous armies with enormous cause

653
00:34:49,200 --> 00:34:54,360
Speaker 1: of engineers to cut these super highways into northern Wales,

654
00:34:54,600 --> 00:34:58,120
Speaker 1: conquer the land, to get rid of the native princes

655
00:34:58,280 --> 00:35:05,440
Speaker 1: and kings, and builds these vast, vast stone castles at

656
00:35:05,880 --> 00:35:10,399
Speaker 1: unbelievable expense into the mountain sides of North Wales. One

657
00:35:10,400 --> 00:35:12,480
Speaker 1: of the most famous one we featured on Secrets of

658
00:35:12,520 --> 00:35:15,680
Speaker 1: British Castles is Carnavon, which is right up in the

659
00:35:15,719 --> 00:35:19,560
Speaker 1: northwest tip of Wales, just across the Meni straight from

660
00:35:19,600 --> 00:35:22,239
Speaker 1: Anglesea which is the big island of Norlands to the

661
00:35:22,280 --> 00:35:27,400
Speaker 1: Northwest Worlds, and Carnarvon Castle is still an incredible, incredible

662
00:35:27,400 --> 00:35:31,000
Speaker 1: place to visit. Lots of these places were never quite finished,

663
00:35:31,000 --> 00:35:35,200
Speaker 1: but they were all were almost all the architectural brain

664
00:35:35,400 --> 00:35:39,040
Speaker 1: child or an engineering brainchild of a castle builder called

665
00:35:39,440 --> 00:35:43,440
Speaker 1: Master James of St George, who was just, I mean

666
00:35:43,480 --> 00:35:47,160
Speaker 1: the greatest castle builder of his day. And they look

667
00:35:47,280 --> 00:35:50,360
Speaker 1: nothing like a Norman castle. They are these sort of

668
00:35:50,360 --> 00:35:54,840
Speaker 1: often two sets of concentric walls. In the case of Carnarvon,

669
00:35:54,920 --> 00:35:58,400
Speaker 1: these walls are built in alternating horizontal bands of stone,

670
00:35:58,440 --> 00:36:01,960
Speaker 1: which is supposed to resemble the wall Constantinople. You've got

671
00:36:01,960 --> 00:36:06,960
Speaker 1: palatial apartments. You've got these very very large inner whether

672
00:36:06,960 --> 00:36:10,240
Speaker 1: they're not courtyards, I suppose they call them bailey's where

673
00:36:10,880 --> 00:36:15,120
Speaker 1: hundreds of people could congregate. They often have small towns

674
00:36:15,200 --> 00:36:18,280
Speaker 1: erected around them, you know, new towns built to host

675
00:36:18,280 --> 00:36:21,440
Speaker 1: a population to supply the needs of garrison the castle.

676
00:36:21,640 --> 00:36:24,640
Speaker 1: They're the fairy tale castles and they're built all over

677
00:36:25,360 --> 00:36:28,120
Speaker 1: North Wales during the time of Edward the First, and

678
00:36:28,160 --> 00:36:34,200
Speaker 1: the expenses truly, truly, truly phenomenal. They don't actually serve

679
00:36:35,360 --> 00:36:42,160
Speaker 1: for a very long time as effective military outposts because

680
00:36:42,160 --> 00:36:45,440
Speaker 1: the conquest of Wales is sort of but you know,

681
00:36:45,480 --> 00:36:48,359
Speaker 1: it's it's almost completed underhead with the first. I mean,

682
00:36:48,360 --> 00:36:51,839
Speaker 1: there are further conflicts in the fifteenth century Henry fourth

683
00:36:51,880 --> 00:36:55,360
Speaker 1: Fester to find Wales, but but really the job is

684
00:36:55,440 --> 00:36:59,680
Speaker 1: sort of done. And the castles I think quite quickly

685
00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:03,319
Speaker 1: asked from having a primarily a military function to primarily

686
00:37:03,480 --> 00:37:06,799
Speaker 1: an intimidatory function. They're sitting there as a sort of

687
00:37:06,960 --> 00:37:11,600
Speaker 1: a deliberately painful reminder of the might of the English crown,

688
00:37:12,080 --> 00:37:15,080
Speaker 1: and they are symbols of conquest. These days they will

689
00:37:15,160 --> 00:37:16,640
Speaker 1: be torn down and thrown in the sea because they

690
00:37:16,640 --> 00:37:19,239
Speaker 1: will be triggering and they would be very offensive. In fact,

691
00:37:19,239 --> 00:37:22,160
Speaker 1: that that might well happen. So I'm sure somebody will

692
00:37:22,200 --> 00:37:23,840
Speaker 1: come along and well else soon and so these are

693
00:37:23,920 --> 00:37:25,920
Speaker 1: terrible symbols of colonialism, or we need to chuck them

694
00:37:25,920 --> 00:37:29,120
Speaker 1: all in the sea. But in terms of intimidation, the

695
00:37:29,239 --> 00:37:32,200
Speaker 1: Tower of London, I mean, maybe the most famous castle

696
00:37:32,360 --> 00:37:35,480
Speaker 1: in England would have obviously served the same purpose when

697
00:37:35,480 --> 00:37:39,000
Speaker 1: William the Conqueror comes in builds this massive castle in

698
00:37:39,040 --> 00:37:41,480
Speaker 1: the middle of London. Yeah, that's right, I mean the

699
00:37:41,480 --> 00:37:44,040
Speaker 1: White Tower. The original bit of the Tower of London

700
00:37:44,719 --> 00:37:48,600
Speaker 1: very much was designed to overall Londoners. But again, well

701
00:37:48,760 --> 00:37:50,480
Speaker 1: maybe it's a slightly different story with the Tower of

702
00:37:50,520 --> 00:37:54,840
Speaker 1: London because it's soon there's not much need for a

703
00:37:54,960 --> 00:37:57,600
Speaker 1: generation after William the Conquered. There's really not much need

704
00:37:57,760 --> 00:38:01,560
Speaker 1: to have a castle in London to overall the Londoners.

705
00:38:01,560 --> 00:38:04,240
Speaker 1: I mean that the relationship between London and the Crown

706
00:38:04,640 --> 00:38:09,279
Speaker 1: is only occasionally one of a military antagonism in the

707
00:38:09,320 --> 00:38:11,759
Speaker 1: rest of the English Middle Ages. The tar of London

708
00:38:11,880 --> 00:38:14,000
Speaker 1: is a great example of a castle that that quickly

709
00:38:14,239 --> 00:38:17,640
Speaker 1: passes to have a sort of more palatial administrative role.

710
00:38:17,880 --> 00:38:20,040
Speaker 1: With the first of the Royal mint, they're making coins

711
00:38:20,080 --> 00:38:23,120
Speaker 1: in the Tara, London becomes a prison, it becomes a menagerie.

712
00:38:23,120 --> 00:38:26,080
Speaker 1: You know, this is where under Henry the Third, I

713
00:38:26,120 --> 00:38:28,120
Speaker 1: think you have a polar bear that swims in the

714
00:38:28,120 --> 00:38:30,280
Speaker 1: Thames every day that's kept in the Tower of London,

715
00:38:30,360 --> 00:38:32,200
Speaker 1: has a little leash that goes out and catches its

716
00:38:32,200 --> 00:38:34,359
Speaker 1: fish in the Thames, And there are at various times,

717
00:38:34,400 --> 00:38:37,360
Speaker 1: elephants and lions. It's only under the first Duke of

718
00:38:37,440 --> 00:38:41,480
Speaker 1: Wellington nineteenth century that that London zoo moves out of

719
00:38:41,560 --> 00:38:43,359
Speaker 1: the Tower of London, so it forms it's a very

720
00:38:43,360 --> 00:38:45,520
Speaker 1: it's a it's a very odd castle to Tara London.

721
00:38:45,719 --> 00:38:48,440
Speaker 1: It's a wonderful one and rightly the most famous. But

722
00:38:48,920 --> 00:38:52,280
Speaker 1: if you think about it's in its fifteen sixteenth century history,

723
00:38:52,280 --> 00:38:54,239
Speaker 1: what's it most famous as being used for. It's a prison.

724
00:38:54,239 --> 00:38:56,240
Speaker 1: It's where the printers in the tower go. It's where

725
00:38:56,560 --> 00:38:59,120
Speaker 1: you've done an episode, and that it's where Anne Berlin

726
00:38:59,440 --> 00:39:03,319
Speaker 1: is acuted. That becomes it's it's more important function. Yeah,

727
00:39:03,360 --> 00:39:06,640
Speaker 1: I think people probably associated with the Tutors more than

728
00:39:06,680 --> 00:39:10,120
Speaker 1: William the Conqueror. Now, yeah, I think so. I think so.

729
00:39:10,239 --> 00:39:12,440
Speaker 1: I mean, but all of the like all of these

730
00:39:12,480 --> 00:39:15,240
Speaker 1: castles there are there are certain points in history where

731
00:39:15,680 --> 00:39:18,600
Speaker 1: castles are very important for different reasons. If we look

732
00:39:18,600 --> 00:39:22,520
Speaker 1: at the eleventh century, the Normal Conquest, ten sixties, through

733
00:39:23,200 --> 00:39:27,040
Speaker 1: a couple of generations, Yes, castles are there for polonizing

734
00:39:27,040 --> 00:39:31,640
Speaker 1: and subduing the English and their projection of Norman power

735
00:39:31,760 --> 00:39:34,560
Speaker 1: from the other side of the English Channel into England itself.

736
00:39:34,719 --> 00:39:38,200
Speaker 1: And then you have this period in the you're talking

737
00:39:38,200 --> 00:39:40,040
Speaker 1: about in the thirteenth century were underhead with the first

738
00:39:40,040 --> 00:39:43,560
Speaker 1: there's this kind of revival of castle building, mainly on

739
00:39:43,640 --> 00:39:45,960
Speaker 1: the places that the English trying to conquer within Britain.

740
00:39:46,239 --> 00:39:49,040
Speaker 1: And then in the Tudor era we start to see

741
00:39:49,440 --> 00:39:52,920
Speaker 1: castles perform a different function again. You know, they are

742
00:39:52,960 --> 00:39:56,080
Speaker 1: there their palaces, their administrative, their prisons. And then the

743
00:39:56,120 --> 00:40:00,480
Speaker 1: sort of final great throw of castle use in England

744
00:40:00,560 --> 00:40:03,120
Speaker 1: is in the Civil War in the seventeenth century, after

745
00:40:03,160 --> 00:40:05,799
Speaker 1: which that's why many of the castles in England are

746
00:40:06,040 --> 00:40:09,520
Speaker 1: in ruins, because they were slighted by Cromwell's side in

747
00:40:09,560 --> 00:40:11,760
Speaker 1: the Civil War, so they couldn't be used as royal

748
00:40:12,040 --> 00:40:15,280
Speaker 1: fortifications thereafter, and that's why so many castles in englanduties

749
00:40:15,400 --> 00:40:18,280
Speaker 1: rather clamorous ruins in the same way that so many

750
00:40:18,440 --> 00:40:20,120
Speaker 1: or what we can see if so many monasteries in

751
00:40:20,160 --> 00:40:24,239
Speaker 1: England are these haunting Gothic ruins, thank because they were

752
00:40:24,840 --> 00:40:27,880
Speaker 1: left that way deliberately after the Reformation under Henry the

753
00:40:27,920 --> 00:40:31,000
Speaker 1: eight There are very few castles which don't just become

754
00:40:31,040 --> 00:40:35,560
Speaker 1: sort of private, stately homes or just ruins after the

755
00:40:35,640 --> 00:40:39,360
Speaker 1: seventeenth century. But there's one very interesting exception, which is

756
00:40:39,440 --> 00:40:42,920
Speaker 1: Dover Castle on the south coast, and that still had

757
00:40:42,960 --> 00:40:46,600
Speaker 1: a military function in the Second World War. It was

758
00:40:46,600 --> 00:40:48,799
Speaker 1: where if you've seen the film dun Kirk with Mark

759
00:40:48,880 --> 00:40:53,200
Speaker 1: Ryland's very nobly sort of chugging chugging across the channel

760
00:40:53,239 --> 00:40:55,919
Speaker 1: in his little ship, that the command center for dun

761
00:40:56,000 --> 00:40:58,399
Speaker 1: Kirk was Dover Castle. In fact, if you visit over

762
00:40:58,480 --> 00:41:01,000
Speaker 1: Castle when you're in England, you can go down and

763
00:41:01,000 --> 00:41:03,840
Speaker 1: then it has a military or a quasi military function

764
00:41:03,880 --> 00:41:07,440
Speaker 1: after that, because there are nuclear bunkers underneath cliffs underneath

765
00:41:07,520 --> 00:41:11,560
Speaker 1: Dover Castle which were intended and may god still be

766
00:41:11,600 --> 00:41:14,800
Speaker 1: intended for use as regional command center for the southeast

767
00:41:14,800 --> 00:41:16,920
Speaker 1: of England in the event of World War three, fought

768
00:41:16,920 --> 00:41:20,279
Speaker 1: with nuclear weapons. It's pretty weird done that, but that

769
00:41:20,400 --> 00:41:22,440
Speaker 1: that's a very unusual guy. It's kind of one of

770
00:41:22,440 --> 00:41:24,640
Speaker 1: my favorite castles in a way because it's so unusual

771
00:41:24,719 --> 00:41:28,440
Speaker 1: that it retains a serious purpose for a thousand years almost.

772
00:41:29,080 --> 00:41:32,200
Speaker 1: I remember when I was, you know, much younger, the

773
00:41:32,239 --> 00:41:34,800
Speaker 1: first time I went to Edinburgh, went to Edinburgh Castle.

774
00:41:34,920 --> 00:41:37,960
Speaker 1: I was so astonished because up until that point my

775
00:41:38,080 --> 00:41:42,319
Speaker 1: understanding of castles was like Disney Neu Schwinstein castles, you know,

776
00:41:42,360 --> 00:41:45,920
Speaker 1: the fairy tale castles that are sort of the castle

777
00:41:45,960 --> 00:41:50,560
Speaker 1: equivalent of the Arthurian legends. And the Edinburgh Castle, which

778
00:41:50,640 --> 00:41:53,279
Speaker 1: is very much like a small town and feels like

779
00:41:53,320 --> 00:41:56,759
Speaker 1: a military garrison. Yeah, got it. I mean Edinburgh Castle

780
00:41:56,840 --> 00:41:59,080
Speaker 1: is one of the most wonderful places in the whole

781
00:41:59,080 --> 00:42:01,160
Speaker 1: of the whole the UK. And I don't need to

782
00:42:01,400 --> 00:42:03,479
Speaker 1: man explain in Edinburgh to you. He's written a novel

783
00:42:03,520 --> 00:42:06,239
Speaker 1: set at in a very brilliant one. By the way,

784
00:42:06,840 --> 00:42:10,560
Speaker 1: that that too is quite unusual in that part of

785
00:42:10,600 --> 00:42:13,600
Speaker 1: its function as a royal palace is still to have

786
00:42:14,000 --> 00:42:18,000
Speaker 1: this ceremonial military thing and with the tattoo and with

787
00:42:18,080 --> 00:42:21,040
Speaker 1: the bag of the gun, And that's part of its charm,

788
00:42:21,080 --> 00:42:23,279
Speaker 1: I suppose. But part of its charm is also, like

789
00:42:23,360 --> 00:42:26,239
Speaker 1: so many of the best castles, it's the glamor of

790
00:42:26,280 --> 00:42:30,720
Speaker 1: its location, you know, on that craggy volcanic precipice, I suppose,

791
00:42:30,840 --> 00:42:34,280
Speaker 1: overlooking one of the most beautiful cities in northern Europe.

792
00:42:34,440 --> 00:42:38,480
Speaker 1: It's almost unbelievably charming, isn't it a wonderful place? Well,

793
00:42:38,520 --> 00:42:40,560
Speaker 1: I feel like I've kept here for a long time.

794
00:42:40,600 --> 00:42:43,360
Speaker 1: But before I let you go the Middle Age. The

795
00:42:43,400 --> 00:42:47,400
Speaker 1: Middle Ages, which spans a thousand years, is sort of

796
00:42:47,440 --> 00:42:51,399
Speaker 1: an intimidating chunk I think for amateurs to look at.

797
00:42:51,480 --> 00:42:56,440
Speaker 1: Is there a specific period that you think is your favorite? Well,

798
00:42:56,520 --> 00:42:58,440
Speaker 1: I mean, like with my children, I have a different

799
00:42:58,440 --> 00:43:01,200
Speaker 1: favorite depending on which day you asked me. But I'm

800
00:43:01,280 --> 00:43:03,840
Speaker 1: back into the fourteenth century at the moment, which was

801
00:43:03,880 --> 00:43:06,240
Speaker 1: kind of where I begun. My first book was about

802
00:43:06,239 --> 00:43:08,680
Speaker 1: the Peasants Revolt tht eighty one, and the Peasant Rot

803
00:43:08,840 --> 00:43:11,719
Speaker 1: eighty one is a sort of almost like a culminating

804
00:43:11,760 --> 00:43:15,359
Speaker 1: events was what we now call a populist rebellion or

805
00:43:15,480 --> 00:43:19,040
Speaker 1: rising that comes near the end of a century where

806
00:43:19,040 --> 00:43:22,840
Speaker 1: there's been famine followed by animal moraine, followed by the

807
00:43:22,880 --> 00:43:27,080
Speaker 1: Black Death, pandemic, pestilence, followed by war, the Hundred Years War,

808
00:43:27,360 --> 00:43:29,640
Speaker 1: and then you get to the populist rebellion. And so

809
00:43:29,680 --> 00:43:32,440
Speaker 1: the fourteen centuries where I started, and it's where I've

810
00:43:32,480 --> 00:43:34,480
Speaker 1: gone back to. So that the novel Essex Dogs you

811
00:43:34,560 --> 00:43:38,239
Speaker 1: mentioned is set in thirty six towards the beginning of

812
00:43:38,280 --> 00:43:41,200
Speaker 1: the Hundred Years War. And you know, for one reason

813
00:43:41,239 --> 00:43:44,520
Speaker 1: or another, I've just been I've been on a fourteenth century. Tip.

814
00:43:44,960 --> 00:43:49,759
Speaker 1: You know, it's not that cheerful at time. You know,

815
00:43:49,840 --> 00:43:51,959
Speaker 1: you don't go into the fourteenth centuryship a good time,

816
00:43:53,800 --> 00:43:57,040
Speaker 1: but but it is incredibly dramatic, and you see in

817
00:43:57,080 --> 00:44:02,440
Speaker 1: the fourteenth century really what feels like apocalypse coming. But

818
00:44:02,520 --> 00:44:07,320
Speaker 1: you also see the beginnings of you know, literature in

819
00:44:07,640 --> 00:44:10,600
Speaker 1: the vernacular traditions that we recognize today, you know, Chaucer

820
00:44:10,800 --> 00:44:14,680
Speaker 1: or Pacaccio, these sort of father like figures of the

821
00:44:14,800 --> 00:44:18,799
Speaker 1: vernacular literature that became adopted by nation states. It's all

822
00:44:18,840 --> 00:44:22,120
Speaker 1: there in the fourteenth century and the very very early

823
00:44:22,320 --> 00:44:28,440
Speaker 1: stirrings of the Renaissance, the early stirrings of religious protests

824
00:44:28,440 --> 00:44:31,440
Speaker 1: that will coalesce in the Reformation. It's it's the beginning

825
00:44:31,480 --> 00:44:33,960
Speaker 1: of the end of the Middle Ages, and it's a

826
00:44:34,040 --> 00:44:37,200
Speaker 1: time where for a lot of well a lot of people,

827
00:44:37,200 --> 00:44:40,520
Speaker 1: it was the end of days. But it's the closest century,

828
00:44:40,840 --> 00:44:44,000
Speaker 1: maybe barring the early twentieth century, that you've ever had

829
00:44:44,080 --> 00:44:48,680
Speaker 1: too genuine apocalypse. That's interesting. Well, with that, I think

830
00:44:48,800 --> 00:44:52,000
Speaker 1: that's an optimist take place to leave us. Dan, thank

831
00:44:52,040 --> 00:44:54,279
Speaker 1: you so much for taking the time out. Everyone you

832
00:44:54,280 --> 00:44:59,640
Speaker 1: should absolutely read one, two to three of all of

833
00:44:59,760 --> 00:45:03,000
Speaker 1: Dan eleven or twelve books. Before the interview, I asked

834
00:45:03,080 --> 00:45:05,280
Speaker 1: him how many books he had written and he wasn't

835
00:45:05,320 --> 00:45:09,680
Speaker 1: sure there was another one. Thank you, Dana, it was

836
00:45:09,680 --> 00:45:13,040
Speaker 1: so much fun talking to you and everyone preorder his

837
00:45:13,120 --> 00:45:16,560
Speaker 1: novel Essex Dogs if you're interested in that romantic world

838
00:45:16,680 --> 00:45:20,000
Speaker 1: of the fourteenth century. He's a brilliant writer. And remember

839
00:45:20,120 --> 00:45:24,880
Speaker 1: this is the episode and starting now, Noble Blood is

840
00:45:25,000 --> 00:45:29,040
Speaker 1: going weekly, so look for an episode every single Tuesday

841
00:45:29,200 --> 00:45:32,880
Speaker 1: on your podcast app. Dan. Thank you so much, thanks

842
00:45:33,120 --> 00:45:48,560
Speaker 1: and congratulations. Noble Blood is a production of I Heart

843
00:45:48,680 --> 00:45:52,200
Speaker 1: Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky. Noble Blood

844
00:45:52,280 --> 00:45:56,279
Speaker 1: is hosted by me Danish Sports. Additional writing and researching

845
00:45:56,440 --> 00:46:00,720
Speaker 1: done by Hannah Johnston, hannah's Wick, Mura Hayward, Nie Sender,

846
00:46:00,719 --> 00:46:05,319
Speaker 1: and Laurie Goodman. The show is produced by Rema al Kali,

847
00:46:05,400 --> 00:46:10,360
Speaker 1: with supervising producer Josh Faine and executive producers Aaron Manky,

848
00:46:10,640 --> 00:46:14,360
Speaker 1: Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from I

849
00:46:14,480 --> 00:46:18,239
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.