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Speaker 1: Lessons from the world's top professors.

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Speaker 2: Anytime, any place, world history examined and science explained.

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Speaker 1: This is one day university. Welcome. We're back with.

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Speaker 2: Another episode of half hour history Secrets of the Medieval World.

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Speaker 2: I'm your host, Mike Coscarelli. Last episode, we've talked about

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Speaker 2: the intellectual Renaissance and a challenge to the Church. Now

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Speaker 2: it's time for knights, armor, rules of engagement and chivalry.

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Speaker 1: It's all here. Here's Chris.

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Speaker 3: So we've just spent a little time talking about the

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Speaker 3: twelfth century Renaissance and this upsurge of spirituality, which had

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Speaker 3: some negative connotations when the Church began to be repressive

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Speaker 3: toward heresy. And even though we said that that kind

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Speaker 3: of repression feeds into the caricature of a dark ages,

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Speaker 3: wiping all that aside, you can't deny that at about

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Speaker 3: ten fifty eleven hundred, there's this flowering this high medieval period,

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Speaker 3: as if, as if medieval Europe began to wake up

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Speaker 3: from a long nap since the Carolingian Renaissance had collapsed

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Speaker 3: at about eight fifty, and an important part of that.

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Speaker 3: In fact, one of the first things people think about

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Speaker 3: when they study medieval history or where they think about

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Speaker 3: the Middle Ages are knights, knights in shining armor. Little

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Speaker 3: boys and little girls like to play those stories, like

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Speaker 3: to hear the stories of the Arthurian romances, like to

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Speaker 3: go to museums and see the suits of armor. Maybe

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Speaker 3: they've been to a Renaissance fair, which usually looks more

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Speaker 3: like a medieval fair, but somehow the Renaissance fair makes

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Speaker 3: it sound brighter and better, and so people enjoy these

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Speaker 3: stories of jousting and tournaments and things like that. So

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Speaker 3: let's focus for a few minutes on knighthood. Let's see

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Speaker 3: where they lived in castles, and then let's take a

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Speaker 3: step back and look at this code called chivalry and

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Speaker 3: try to look at it in theory and then in

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Speaker 3: practice as well.

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Speaker 1: So let's begin with knighthood.

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Speaker 3: The very beginning of knighthood reaches back to the Middle Ages.

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Speaker 3: And there's a particular word very early in the Middle

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Speaker 3: Ages called melez, and that actually goes back even further

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Speaker 3: to the Roman word for soldier, a melez.

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Speaker 1: It would be.

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Speaker 3: Milites in another form of Latin, from which we get

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Speaker 3: the word military. Now, the Roman soldier was by and

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Speaker 3: large an infantryman, a foot soldier. We do have examples

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Speaker 3: of mounted soldiers, say with Alexander the Great around three

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Speaker 3: point thirty BC or BCE. That was one of Alexander

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Speaker 3: the Great's great innovations. We didn't have a mounted force

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Speaker 3: of what we call cavalry in large numbers until the

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Speaker 3: medieval period. The Romans had some people on horseback, but

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Speaker 3: not as many as occurred when let's say eight hundred

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Speaker 3: or nine hundred.

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Speaker 1: Through an innovation by the way, called the stirrup.

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Speaker 3: Stirrups were not around before that early medieval period. And

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Speaker 3: when you have a syrup, think about it. If you

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Speaker 3: have a soldier on top of a horse, he really

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Speaker 3: can't do all that much if he's not planting his feet.

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Speaker 3: But if he can plant his feet in a stirrup

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Speaker 3: and raise himself up, he can strike down. He becomes

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Speaker 3: a more potent, a more dangerous, violent force. He could

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Speaker 3: also put more weight on his own body and therefore

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Speaker 3: more weight on the horse as well. So there's another

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Speaker 3: technological innovation, like the agricultural revolution, changing nailed horseshoes and

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Speaker 3: things like that that make these developments possible. So now

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Speaker 3: we have a mounted, armed, armored soldier in stirrups, and

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Speaker 3: these people start moving around the countryside. Oh, we're talking

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Speaker 3: now about eight hundred or nine hundred, and more than

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Speaker 3: one medieval historian has referred to the origins of knighthood

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Speaker 3: as thugs. A lot of these guys were gangs. They

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Speaker 3: were marauding the countryside, terrorizing the peasants, kind of playing

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Speaker 3: with these new toys, this heavy armor that they were wearing,

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Speaker 3: and they were raiding rich places. Well, one of the

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Speaker 3: rich places are monasteries and convents and churches. Now, obviously

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Speaker 3: the church can't countenance this, and also the church has

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Speaker 3: a responsibility to protect the poor. So an effort is

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Speaker 3: made through this kind of interesting title.

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Speaker 1: The Peace of God or the Truce of God.

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Speaker 3: These were actual documents, actual pieces of paper, but we

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Speaker 3: can refer to it as a movement as well, whereby

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Speaker 3: church leaders, local church leaders, abbots, abbesses, priests, and bishops

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Speaker 3: tried to kind of channel the violence. They were trying

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Speaker 3: to not make the violence, okay, not bless the violence,

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Speaker 3: but to say, listen, you know, I know you guys

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Speaker 3: are going to start fighting, so let's try to limit

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Speaker 3: when you're going to fight. And so the Peace of

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Speaker 3: God and the Truce of God and movements were attempts

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Speaker 3: to tell nights when they could and therefore couldn't fight, raid, attack,

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Speaker 3: And these pieces of paper begin to show up in

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Speaker 3: continental Europe about eight fifty or nine hundred, and then

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Speaker 3: nine to fifty and a thousand, all the more because

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Speaker 3: it was kind of working. Now, how did the peace

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Speaker 3: of God or the Truce of God work? What it

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Speaker 3: said was that there were limits to when nights could fight.

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Speaker 3: They could fight from Monday morning to Wednesday evening.

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Speaker 1: That's only three days.

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Speaker 3: Why not Thursday, Friday, Saturday or a sun Well, originally

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Speaker 3: they could fight on Thursday and Friday, but then it

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Speaker 3: got pushed back because of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Saturday,

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Speaker 3: and then Sunday.

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Speaker 1: Every week. Sunday is like a little Easter.

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Speaker 3: So what the bishops do is they take the concept

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Speaker 3: of Holy Week and they say, listen, you can't fight

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Speaker 3: from You can fight from sun up on Monday until

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Speaker 3: sundown on Wednesday, but you may not fight otherwise.

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Speaker 1: Who are they allowed to attack?

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Speaker 3: This sounds crazy to our eyes, but who are they

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Speaker 3: allowed to attack. They're not allowed to attack clerics, even

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Speaker 3: an armed cleric, because the cleric might be armed to

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Speaker 3: defend himself. You cannot attack a cleric. You can never

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Speaker 3: attack a peasants. You can never attack a woman or

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Speaker 3: a child. You can never attack a monastery or a convent.

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Speaker 1: So basically, if.

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Speaker 3: You boys are going to fight, you can fight three

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Speaker 3: days a week and make sure you only fight each

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Speaker 3: other and that would be okay. Now what if you

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Speaker 3: broke the rules? What if you attacked a nun? What

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Speaker 3: if you fought on Sunday? There were heavy duty problems

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Speaker 3: if you did that, big penalties because the local bishop

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Speaker 3: or abbot would call these knights together and usually bring

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Speaker 3: out like relics of a local saints probably or even

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Speaker 3: bring out a consecrated host to the Eucharist and make

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Speaker 3: the knights swear that you know, put their hands on

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Speaker 3: these relics and say we will not break the truce.

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Speaker 3: So if they did, there could be severe penalties. They

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Speaker 3: could be cut off from the sacraments for a short

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Speaker 3: period of time or all the way up to and

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Speaker 3: including excommunication.

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Speaker 1: And this worked sporadically.

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Speaker 3: It did tend to quell the widespread thuggery and the

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Speaker 3: beating up.

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Speaker 1: Of local peasants.

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Speaker 3: It tended to do that, but the wars when wars

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Speaker 3: would break out between this local duke and that local duke.

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Speaker 3: They really didn't usually have their eyes on the calendar.

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Speaker 3: So if they're going to press an advantage against an

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Speaker 3: enemy and it happens to be Wednesday night, it's likely

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Speaker 3: that on Thursday morning they would be fighting as well.

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Speaker 3: So it's kind of an attempt to channel violence, and

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Speaker 3: it works intermittently. But the important thing is that the

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Speaker 3: church's hand was now involved in these activities. Now, these

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Speaker 3: knights are become noble over time, and sometimes that nobility

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Speaker 3: is inherited. But the knight, the sir so and so

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Speaker 3: the knight who earns his spurs, if you will, that

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Speaker 3: becomes something that has to be earned. So a title

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Speaker 3: might come down, a sense of nobility or aristocracy might

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Speaker 3: come down through inheritance, but not necessarily this notion of

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Speaker 3: a knighthood. Now, some knights did get knighted for administrative

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Speaker 3: or diplomatic service.

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Speaker 1: They would be rewarded with land.

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Speaker 3: Again, this was in the countryside and part of feudalism.

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Speaker 3: They became what was called the landed gentry or the

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Speaker 3: knights of the shire, and from that we get sheriffs.

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Speaker 3: But the important point for the church was that knighthood

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Speaker 3: if the church was going to take over knighthood, it

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Speaker 3: needed to imbue it with these religious aspects. And if

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Speaker 3: you've ever seen a representation of a dubbing ceremony whereby

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Speaker 3: a night becomes a night, it's a religious It looks

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Speaker 3: like an ordination, and it has kind of baptism and

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Speaker 3: confirmation in there as well. So the knight would, for instance,

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Speaker 3: be all dressed in white. He might lay down on

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Speaker 3: the ground in front of an altar and ask forgiveness

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Speaker 3: for his sins. He would then be raised up and

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Speaker 3: he might have water poured on his head or oil

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Speaker 3: like baptism or confirmation to be anointed a night.

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Speaker 1: And all of the things that.

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Speaker 3: He wears, the tunic underneath, the armor on top, the

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Speaker 3: gloves in the most elaborate ceremonies, the belt sometimes called

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Speaker 3: the garter makes a giggle, the helmet, and all of

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Speaker 3: these would have a blessing associated with it. And it

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Speaker 3: looks like, gee, the church is condoning violence. Well, what

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Speaker 3: the church is trying to do is say you may

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Speaker 3: wear this to defend the church, to defend the defense

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Speaker 3: less peasants, widow's orphans, and the poor.

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Speaker 1: And so there were all of these little groups of knights,

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Speaker 1: and there.

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Speaker 3: Were two huge, very famous ones called the Knights of

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Speaker 3: the Temple or the Templars, who were established around eleven

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Speaker 3: thirty and their rule was written by none other than

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Speaker 3: Bernard of Clervaux, a famous Cistercian, and he saw these

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Speaker 3: knights who were called Knights of the Temple because they

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Speaker 3: had their headquarters on the Temple Mount, which was captured

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Speaker 3: by the Crusaders. We'll talk about the Crusades in the

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Speaker 3: next topic. Captured by the Crusaders about ten ninety nine,

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Speaker 3: and that's where their headquarters were.

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Speaker 1: And Bernard saw these men as monk knights.

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Speaker 3: In fact, they were tended to be celibate, and they

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Speaker 3: tend to take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and

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Speaker 3: a special vow to defend the church.

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Speaker 1: And then there was another order.

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Speaker 3: Of nights also in Jerusalem called the Knights of the

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Speaker 3: Hospital or the Hospitallers. Now we need to explain that word.

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Speaker 3: When we say hospital, we have a certain modern conception.

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Speaker 3: It comes off of the word hostile hostel, a place

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Speaker 3: where young people backpack through Europe, a place to stay,

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Speaker 3: a place to have a meal in our day, a

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Speaker 3: place to have a shower, in their day, perhaps a

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Speaker 3: place to bathe once a month, once a week, and

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Speaker 3: also to get some rudimentary medical care. So the words

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Speaker 3: hostile and hospital and hospice are all related. And the

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Speaker 3: knights of the hospital actually pre date to ninety nine

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Speaker 3: when the Crusaders take over Jerusalem, because pilgrims had been

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Speaker 3: going to Jerusalem in large numbers, especially after nine hundred,

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Speaker 3: so the hospitallers primarily protected Jerusalem pilgrims.

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Speaker 1: Now where did these knights lived. They lived in castles.

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Speaker 3: And when you go on your tours of Europe, the

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Speaker 3: second most frequent thing you look at our castles after

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Speaker 3: cathedrals and castles were built. Castles date back to the

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Speaker 3: eight or nine hundreds, again in the countryside in a

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Speaker 3: very rudimentary construction that's called a motte and bailey.

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Speaker 1: If you've ever built a sand.

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Speaker 3: Castle with your kids or as a child yourself, you've

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Speaker 3: built a mott and bailey castle. So when we say

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Speaker 3: the word mott, we tend to think of, well, that

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Speaker 3: must be a moat.

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Speaker 1: That's not actually true.

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Speaker 3: So you're on the beach, let's say, and you're digging

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Speaker 3: a circle, and as you dig you're throwing sand in

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Speaker 3: the middle, and you're creating a mound, and that's the mott, right,

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Speaker 3: So it's either a natural mound or a hill, or

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Speaker 3: an artificial one which is landfill from digging this moat around.

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Speaker 3: So normally what you did was you would take a

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Speaker 3: high point and you would build it even higher for

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Speaker 3: defensive purposes, and the bailey was the enclosed area that

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Speaker 3: you would build so you could have a little village

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Speaker 3: within there. So that's the mott and bailey construction. And

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Speaker 3: so in that elevated little village where the other serfs

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Speaker 3: could come and be protected by the vassal if there

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Speaker 3: is an attack within there, you have all the things

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Speaker 3: you need to survive a siege, stables, storehouses, residences, and

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Speaker 3: over time, these rudimentary defensive structures which began with wood

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Speaker 3: end up in stone and they get more and more elaborate,

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Speaker 3: they get higher, they get bigger. Within you've ever been

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Speaker 3: to the Tower of London, for instance, this is an

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Speaker 3: example of that. Where Dover Castle or many other castles

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Speaker 3: in Europe, in fact, Cinderella's Castle in Disney World and

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Speaker 3: in Disneyland are modeled after one of the most famous

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Speaker 3: elaborate Winsome castles in Europe called Nu Schwanstein in southern

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Speaker 3: Germany in Bavaria, the impact of castle building was huge

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Speaker 3: on an economy, and the reason was, like a cathedral,

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Speaker 3: it takes a long time to build, and so it's

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Speaker 3: an employment engine and all of the people who build

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Speaker 3: that need to be housed and fed. So when you're

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Speaker 3: building a castle, it's for security. You need people involved

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Speaker 3: in construction, you need servants.

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Speaker 1: You then have to.

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Speaker 3: Decorate the castle with tapestries and cloths. People need to

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Speaker 3: eat inside, so you need food production. Now, what was

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Speaker 3: the code that surrounded the behavior of these nights? This

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Speaker 3: code called chivalry.

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Speaker 1: The legends of King Arthur, the Holy Grail and Sir Lancelot.

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Speaker 2: Fact, we're fiction, that's after the break.

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Speaker 3: This is a code cut across cultures. So a French

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Speaker 3: knight has much more in common with a German night

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Speaker 3: than he does with the French peasant. And so if

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Speaker 3: a French knight is fighting a German knight, he probably

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Speaker 3: is not going to kill that night. What he's probably

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Speaker 3: going to try to do is take that guy for ransom.

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Speaker 3: And he would have seen that night. French and German knights,

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Speaker 3: they would have seen each other as brothers before the

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Speaker 3: French knight would have seen the French peasants as a brother,

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Speaker 3: or the German knight would have seen a German peasant

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Speaker 3: as a brother. Now, of course, the Arthurian legends the

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Speaker 3: most famous one part of this story, and there are

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Speaker 3: many Arthurian legends. Arthurian legends are kind of like Greco

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Speaker 3: Roman mythology. So when you teach this material, you say

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Speaker 3: you might tell a certain story, and then someone will say, what,

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Speaker 3: I thought Zeus did this, I thought Hercules did that.

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Speaker 3: I heard that Athena was the goddess of this, that

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Speaker 3: or the other. And the answer is yes, yes, and yes.

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Speaker 3: There's no one particular textbook of all the Arthurian legends,

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Speaker 3: but there are some that are more common than others,

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Speaker 3: and we're going to look at those a little bit

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Speaker 3: more closely. So legends are really piecemeal with many variations,

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Speaker 3: and each culture feeds in and elaborates on them. Arthurian

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Speaker 3: legends and similar legends of knights in shining armor and

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Speaker 3: damsels in distress have their origin like Homer's Iliad in

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Speaker 3: the Odyssey, centuries before, in an oral tradition through these

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Speaker 3: people called troubadours who would travel spot to spot and

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Speaker 3: perform traveling acting troops. And by the way, those troubadours

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Speaker 3: were members of a guilt and they had certain rules

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Speaker 3: that they had to follow.

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Speaker 1: We have those rules.

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Speaker 3: So at some point, like Homer's Iliad and the Odyssey,

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Speaker 3: these things were written down. We think that whoever the

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Speaker 3: man Homer was, did not make up the Iliod in

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Speaker 3: the Odyssey. He was an oral poet, hence the tradition

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Speaker 3: that he is blind, he does not need to see,

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Speaker 3: and he dictates maybe around nine hundred or eight hundred

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Speaker 3: BC or BCE, the Iliod in the Odyssey that had

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Speaker 3: been recited for several hundred years before. Same thing with Arthur.

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Speaker 3: So Arthurian legends, which have been spoken for several centuries.

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Speaker 3: They show up in manuscripts in this big cluster.

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Speaker 1: Most of those.

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Speaker 3: Manuscripts are written between eleven eighty and twelve forty. This

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Speaker 3: explosion of interest, people are all of a sudden interested

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Speaker 3: in it. It's kind of like around the year two thousand, right,

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Speaker 3: so starting in nineteen ninety six, that are all of

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Speaker 3: these end of the world books that start coming out.

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Speaker 3: So it indicates a frenzy and a great interest and

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Speaker 3: they are in every language that you can imagine, English, French, German, Welsh, Portuguese, Italian.

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Speaker 3: We tend not to think of Arthurian legends as Italian,

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Speaker 3: but there they are. Norwegian. There are Norwegian versions of

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Speaker 3: these as well. And these legends are interesting because they

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Speaker 3: weave together all sorts of cultures. For instance, Celtic influences,

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Speaker 3: Hagan Celtic influences find their way into the Arthurian legends.

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Speaker 3: For instance, in pagan pre Christian Celtic stories, there's often

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Speaker 3: a magic lance that is used to heal someone, or

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Speaker 3: you have plates that are empty that magically get filled

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Speaker 3: to feed hungry folks. And you could see the church

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Speaker 3: is going to come in and say the plate the

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Speaker 3: Eucharist that feeds the many, the feeding of.

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Speaker 1: The five thousand, the story from the Gospel.

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Speaker 3: So there you have up in the British Isles the

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Speaker 3: influence of these Celtic stories. But you also have a

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Speaker 3: Muslim influence. Again a reminder that the Middle Ages is

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Speaker 3: a multicultural global if you will, into religious society, very diverse.

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Speaker 3: You have had Christians fighting Muslims since seven point thirty

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Speaker 3: two over in Spain, when the Peace of God movement

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Speaker 3: and the knights come together around eight hundred nine hundred

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Speaker 3: one thousand. Obviously you're going to see this religious elements

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Speaker 3: coming into play.

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Speaker 1: So who is the knight?

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Speaker 3: The knight is a Christian who fights the good fight

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Speaker 3: against the so called infidel or the unfaithful one, or

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Speaker 3: the pagan Muslim.

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Speaker 1: And so you get stories literature.

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Speaker 3: Handed down orally and then written down about great heroes

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Speaker 3: in Spain fighting the Muslims. And two important ones are

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Speaker 3: the legends of El Sid, a famous knight who fights

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Speaker 3: the Muslims, and the song of Roland, which dates back

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Speaker 3: to an incident around seven eighty when Roland is put

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Speaker 3: in charge of a rear guard Charlemagne. This is a

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Speaker 3: true incident. Charlemagne has come down into Spain around the Pyrenees.

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Speaker 3: The Muslims had encroached up over the Pyrenees and kind

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Speaker 3: of a rating party, and Charlemagne comes down, He puts

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Speaker 3: the Muslims down, he leaves, and Roland is in the

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Speaker 3: rear guard to protect the back of the troops. And

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Speaker 3: Roland refuses to leave a friend of his who is killed,

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Speaker 3: and it refuses to blow a horn to get help

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Speaker 3: because he would seem weak. He doesn't want to seem

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Speaker 3: weak in the eyes of his boss Charlemagne, and he

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Speaker 3: is killed by the Muslims. And the language against the

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Speaker 3: Muslims is very violent and very offensive. And Roland's soul

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Speaker 3: is taken up to heaven. So this great warrior. So

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Speaker 3: all of these influences come together. Now, even though I

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Speaker 3: said we have many variations, in many versions there are

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Speaker 3: there's a cycle of Arthurian stories that kind of all

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Speaker 3: the other stories key off of in variations based on

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Speaker 3: whatever your country and your culture is. And it's some

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Speaker 3: version of this standard trilogy, some version of the Lancelot story. Lancelot,

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Speaker 3: Arthur's second in command, his major Domo, falls in love

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Speaker 3: with Gwenevere, Arthur's wife. They have an affair, Arthur has

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Speaker 3: to get rid of both Guenevere and exile Lancelot. The

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Speaker 3: Great Trail story of betrayal captured in in the nineteen

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Speaker 3: sixties in the musical Camelot.

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Speaker 1: Then there's the Quest of the Holy.

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Speaker 3: Grail again different versions before this betrayal or after this betrayal.

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Speaker 3: Most people of a certain age will remember Monty Python

356
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Speaker 3: and the Holy Grail, which was made into a Broadway

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Speaker 3: musical called Spamlot kind of a silly version of the

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Speaker 3: story that God gives Arthur and his knights a particular quest,

359
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Speaker 3: the quest to find the Holy Grail, a story that

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Speaker 3: ends up in Indiana Jones movies and all sorts of novels.

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Speaker 3: And then some version of the death of King Arthur.

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Speaker 3: And there are many versions of King Arthur, some that

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Speaker 3: he dies, some of that he actually doesn't die. He's

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Speaker 3: taken away to a place called Avalon, and he is

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Speaker 3: known as the once in future King because he doesn't

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Speaker 3: actually die. So there are elements there of kind of

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Speaker 3: an assumption of the blessed Virgin Mary or a resurrection,

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Speaker 3: that kind of theme. Where does this trilogy come from, Well,

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Speaker 3: the Homer of the Arthurian period, as somebody called Jeffrey,

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Speaker 3: Jeffrey of Monmouth, who synthesized these Latin chronicles of British kings.

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Speaker 3: He's writing about the twelfth century, and he synthesizes these

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Speaker 3: chronicles of the British kings, and in that synthesis he

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Speaker 3: makes Arthur sound like an historical person. So people who

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Speaker 3: lived in the thirteen fourteen fifteen hundreds were pretty sure

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Speaker 3: that Arthur really lived. Now, there probably was some prototype

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Speaker 3: character of Arthur dating back to the fifth or the

377
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Speaker 3: sixth century AD or CE, if you remember. The Roman

378
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Speaker 3: Empire had withdrawn its forces as things got a little

379
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Speaker 3: tight toward the end of the Roman Empire in the

380
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Speaker 3: four hundreds, and so as they moved down, Welsh or

381
00:22:54,560 --> 00:22:59,119
Speaker 3: Celtic tribes began to take over or retake the British

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Speaker 3: isles and take control.

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Speaker 1: And there probably was a.

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Speaker 3: Leader in there, a rebel leader, if you will, who

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Speaker 3: rallied the local population against the Romans. And that's probably

386
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Speaker 3: the origin of this character named Arthur. So there's Arthur

387
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Speaker 3: in history as they believed it at that point. And

388
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Speaker 3: that collection by Jeffrey of Monmouth in Latin and then

389
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Speaker 3: in English is translated into French by a fellow named Waste,

390
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Speaker 3: and then this vernacular explosion occurs right after.

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Speaker 1: So that's that eleven eighty to twelve forty window.

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Speaker 3: And so there was this flowering of literature about chivalry,

393
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Speaker 3: what are called songs of war in French, the chansels,

394
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Speaker 3: the gest or courtly romances or stories of this exalted

395
00:23:48,280 --> 00:23:51,399
Speaker 3: chaste love known as fene more in the Roman in

396
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Speaker 3: the French, in the French literature, and an example of

397
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Speaker 3: this might be Sir Thomas Mallory's Death of King Arthur,

398
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Speaker 3: written in the fifteenth century, which is an example of

399
00:24:02,679 --> 00:24:06,560
Speaker 3: a song of war. These are often written in poetic

400
00:24:06,679 --> 00:24:09,799
Speaker 3: verse as epic poems, and it has the story of

401
00:24:09,840 --> 00:24:13,759
Speaker 3: courtly romance and this chaste love. So what is the

402
00:24:13,800 --> 00:24:17,159
Speaker 3: story of the Death of King Arthur influential? Because it

403
00:24:17,439 --> 00:24:20,200
Speaker 3: was then transported into the modern world, Most people who

404
00:24:20,439 --> 00:24:24,359
Speaker 3: know Arthurian legends are keying off of Mallory's version in

405
00:24:24,399 --> 00:24:27,119
Speaker 3: one way or another. It picks up the aftermath of

406
00:24:27,199 --> 00:24:29,560
Speaker 3: the quest, right, so we've had some version of the

407
00:24:29,600 --> 00:24:32,479
Speaker 3: Lancelot story, some version of the Quest of the Holy Grail.

408
00:24:32,600 --> 00:24:34,879
Speaker 3: So now we're moving into the Death of King Arthur,

409
00:24:34,959 --> 00:24:37,119
Speaker 3: the third part of the trilogy, and it has very

410
00:24:37,159 --> 00:24:41,280
Speaker 3: strong religious overtones. There's a king who guards the Grail.

411
00:24:41,399 --> 00:24:45,159
Speaker 3: He's called the Fisher King or the Maimed King, and

412
00:24:45,199 --> 00:24:48,560
Speaker 3: he's wounded according to this particular version, by.

413
00:24:48,439 --> 00:24:52,919
Speaker 1: The lance used by a Roman.

414
00:24:52,639 --> 00:24:56,199
Speaker 3: Soldier at the crucifixion. And his name is Longinus in

415
00:24:56,239 --> 00:25:00,879
Speaker 3: this version. So remember Lance's magical lances, healing lances Celtic influence,

416
00:25:01,439 --> 00:25:02,320
Speaker 3: and he was.

417
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Speaker 1: Wounded by this lance.

418
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Speaker 3: In according to one vers version, his groin which may

419
00:25:07,080 --> 00:25:11,399
Speaker 3: be an indication of infertility, or his hips or his legs.

420
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Speaker 3: The point is that he cannot walk, and so that

421
00:25:15,159 --> 00:25:20,320
Speaker 3: fisher King becomes the Grail's keeper, And in one British version,

422
00:25:20,359 --> 00:25:24,639
Speaker 3: the Grail's Keeper is a descendant of Joseph of Aramathea.

423
00:25:24,800 --> 00:25:28,560
Speaker 3: Joseph of Aramathea was the biblical character who asked Punches

424
00:25:28,639 --> 00:25:31,719
Speaker 3: Pilot for the body of Jesus and took him down

425
00:25:31,760 --> 00:25:34,839
Speaker 3: and put him in a tomb that he, Joseph, had

426
00:25:34,879 --> 00:25:38,599
Speaker 3: bought for himself. So Joseph of Aramathea or Joseph of

427
00:25:38,639 --> 00:25:42,639
Speaker 3: Arimathea's sons travel to Britain with the grail and they

428
00:25:42,679 --> 00:25:45,560
Speaker 3: protect it, and all of the knights of King Arthur

429
00:25:45,959 --> 00:25:48,199
Speaker 3: have to quest alone. There are one hundred and fifty

430
00:25:48,239 --> 00:25:50,679
Speaker 3: of them, but they split up. And this is a

431
00:25:50,719 --> 00:25:53,840
Speaker 3: notion of that spiritual awakening right that we're all on

432
00:25:54,000 --> 00:25:57,439
Speaker 3: a journey. It's the classic hero's journey. He has to

433
00:25:57,520 --> 00:26:01,560
Speaker 3: fight forces, he has to unlock riddles. He gets boons

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Speaker 3: and good things along the way. He comes up against

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Speaker 3: all these and forks in the road. He has to

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Speaker 3: make decisions. The end is unclear, everything is shrouded and missed.

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Speaker 3: He can't see castles, and it gives the image of

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Speaker 3: life as a journey and life as an exile. So

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Speaker 3: this is the theory of chivalry.

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Speaker 2: That's a wrap on this episode of Half Hour History

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Speaker 2: Secrets of the Medieval World.

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Speaker 1: Next time the Crusades.

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Speaker 2: Half Hour History Secrets of the Medieval World from One

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Speaker 2: Day University is a production of iHeart Podcasts and School

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Speaker 2: of Humans. If you're enjoying the show, leave a review

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Speaker 2: in your favorite podcast app, and check out the Curiosity

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Speaker 2: Audio Network for podcasts covering history, pop culture, true crime,

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Speaker 2: and more.

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Speaker 1: School of Humans