Wars of the Roses and Warfare

Want to walk the halls of Anne Bleyn's childhood home? or explore the castles that made up Henry VI's English stronghold With a subscription to History Hit, you can dive into our Tutor past alongside the world's leading historians and archeologists You'll also unlock hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a brand new release every single week coovering everything from the ancient world World War II Just visit history hit. com For slash, suubbscribe Hello, I'm Professor Suusanna Lipbskom and welcome to Not Just the Tudors from History Hit podcast in which we explore everything from Anne Boleyin to the Aztecs, from Holbein to the Huguenots from Shakespeare to summarize relelieved by regular doses of murdder, espionage and witchcraard. In other words, just the tutors. But most definitely also the tudors. Ever since Not Just the Tutors began five years ago, the question has popped up from time to time about the range of years we cover on the podcast In my head, originally, we were starting in fourteen ninety two and ending in sixteen ninety two But as we've just recorded an episode on the French Revolution, I don't think that holds at that end. Anywayways, more of that to come in future months O what about the beginning? claim that the Tudor age began with the reign of Henry VII in fourteen eighty five, following his victory at the Battle of Bosworth Field which more or less ended the Wars of the Roses and established the Tudor dynasty Henry Tudor and the circumstances that got him to the throne could be argued to be part of the medieval period. And of course, our History hit sister podcast Gone Medieval would like to claim everything up to about fifteen hundred, at least maybe up to fifteen twenty, as their own On notock just the Tudors, we have occasionally gone back several decades before fourteen eighty five to set the scene And as I've said, at the other end of the scale, we've dipped our toe rightight up to the end of the eighteenth century, well more of a leg really, isn't it? But the fact is it's not easy to divide up history into neat time frames because everything that happens has its roots at some point earlier, and echoes of previous times can continue to resonate for centuries afterwards questestion of periodization is a tricky one. But my colleague, Matt Lewis, who co presents Gone Medieval, likes a bit of a scrap when it comes to time periods, and he invited me to his well appointed dungeon to argue whether some major events and personalities can be claimed as medieval or early modern. So today, for something a little bit different, here's a chance to hear that episode of Gone Medieval in which, for a change, I am the guest Fighting my corner Lest Matt begins to encroach into not just the Tudor's territory 's all good fun. Do enjoy Right, Susie, so you and I are going to try and work out mayaybe where the medieval period ends, if the glories of the medieval world ever actually ended. Where the early modern period begins, what belongs to You what belongs to God medieval I'm got to fight it out over a few specific things And so I guess what we need to clear up before we even start is that we are mainly going to be talking about in Western European history in the main here. So We can acknowledge that things are happening all over the world at various points that may or may not fit into this kind of idea of periodizing history as medieval and early modern because it's kind of an artificial construct, isn't it It really is. I mean, even the idea that we divide it up And actually to be honest, the name early modern It's such a weird name. It only really was coined in the nineteen forties when they needed something else to sort of distinguish the medieval and the modern, but it clearly is kind of teleological. It's leading us towards the modern. It's saying that everything in the early modern is kind of like be green shoots of modernity. And so it sort of has a kind of propaganda purpose, as it were. But I think this question about when periods end and finish, I mean the same problems happen at the end of the early Morn, does it finish I don't know, sixteen ninety two or seventeen fifty or seventeen eighty nine where does it finish I think It's really interesting. The whole idea of puridization is medieval. It's petrog, you know this idea of, as you will know, dividing it history into time periods clelearly what isn't the case is that sort of On the thirty first of december fourteen ninety nine, everyone went to sleep and woke up in the early modern period on the first of january fifteen hundred. I mean it's more complex than that. so let's try and think about that. Yeah. tried we did this similar episode with Tristan on the Ancients and you know I was trying to say that it's not like everyone goes to bed one day in a toga. and wakes up the next morning and thinks, you know, whereere's my hose and doublet?'s It's gradual It's a long process of change. It's evolution rather than revolution in most cases whichich makes it quite interesting for us, I think, to look at some of these topics and think, you know Which side of the divide would we actually put that person or that event or that scientific development on Absolutely. And I think we'll find that there'll be some sort of roots of some things in the medieval period, but they come to their fruition, their true fullness, they're flourishing in the early modern period. No, we're not here to be nice, Ey. One of us is going to win and one of us is going to lose Right to the first person that we're going to look at is this person Medieval or early modern, where should they fall It's Hanns Gutenberg who lives fourteen hundred to fourteen sixty eight invents the Mvable type press in Germany which I mean Prob not overstating it to describe that as an absolutely revolutionary moment. Having just said that things are evolution, not revolution, this is a genuine reolution, isn't it? It is. I mean, in fact, actually, of course, we know that print had been around in China much earlier, but this is the beginning of The printing press in Europe Gutenberg himself, you can have him. He's definitely medieval. Poor you hannest.ass him. so dismiss him so condem him to the medieval world, actually, I'm upset you coem him. I' condemn him. Yes, I've condemned him. But what I would say is The transformation that he wrought only comes to fruition later Really fascinating after print develops as a technology first fifty years or so They're basically making imitations of manuscripts So they're making books that look like manuscripts, they're in gothic type And the content of them is you know their Bibles, their breveries, their prayer books. And it takes quite a while for them to realize, actually, we can make things much more cheaply and we can disseminate them. and the sort of numbers of books rockets enormously by the thousands the number of different titles available over the sixteenth century. So I'm going to give you Gutenberg if I can have like the The importance of print and how it starts to become a kind of political and a religious weapon. because I don't think that happens in the fifteenth century. Press is something that really lays the groundwork for the emergence of what we would think of as an early modern world. You think of Caxton coming to London and setting up his press in the late fourteen seventies. He's a medval man existing in a medieval world But all of a sudden you've got people thinking What if I wanted to print a different book? What if it's not just a copy of a manuscript? What if it's not even just a religious thing? And you've got Mallory writing his M Darth Eurn and having it printed and people can get copies and copies and copies of this. And it's not this exclusive horrendously expensive thing to own a book anymore And then later on into the sixteenth century, that means you can start printing ph It doesn't to be a massive book. You can start disseminating information much more widely, much more quickly than you ever could before. Absolutely. and you can also not just have You can have pictures. I mean, one of the things that's so crucial for Martin Luther in the Protestant Reformation as we now think of it is that There are images. I mean, most people can't read it this time But maybe by the end of the sixteenth century, the estimates are perhaps ten percent of men can read five percent of women. So I mean that doesn't stop you being able to absorb the information parallel I like to draw is it's a bit like You know being able to drive today. You don't need to be able to drive, you just need to know someone or be able to pay someone who can. And it's the same with reading at this time. You need to know someone who can read it out loud images and often these are kind of hand coloud in, they become so powerful in suggesting that the pope is the Antichrist, the whoreror of Babylon, all these things. and those pictures become powerful. then Therefore, these pamphlets, this sort of ephemeral print, this cheap print can become really good at galvanizing ideas And I think that really does happen in the sixteenth century, so Yeah. I one. So essentially I'm toat and'm going to keep the Hhnness Gutenberg ard is a point for me because you've said Gutenberg is a medieval person. I think you need to tear it in half and I'll have what he did. No have half. I'll give you a corner off it. If we get to a toiebaker, the corner of Joannes Gutenberg's card. Oh my. aie brereaker. This is unfair. This is rigged from the beginning. Absolutely. it is. How else am I going to win The next idea, notion, I guess that we've got here is the breaking of the power of Rome I mean, that's definitely mine So I would suggest that probably the medieval period in Western Europe is kind of the story of the Catholic Church gaining and maintaining control over everything, over religion, thought, desperately trying to take control of of regular states as well and insert itself into all of that is the idea of breaking that power of the Catholic Church in Rome a moment when we can say the medieval world has ended and the early modern has begun I think so, and I think it's because what we see with Martin Luther possibly maybe apocryphal nailing his thesis to the church door in Brittenberg fifteen, seventeen, and what happens after that is essentially like opening Pandora's books or Natalie Haynes tells us is actually a jar. opening Pandora's jar. and all of these ideas come out and they can't be confined. So it means that people start questioning authority and asking, well if know Luther's basic idea is if the Pope is wrong about the sale of indulgences, certificates to buy you off time from purgatoryry he might be wrong about other things. And so to kind of challenge church authority in that way means that people can question authority in all sorts of ways. I mean when people say break with Rome, of course most people are going to be thinking about Henry VII's break with Rome, which happens in the early fifteen thirties, there's not one set date, but it happens because he wants to What Catherine Varaggan, Marianne Bleyn and is a moment where he's breaking from Rome and therefore reducing the power of Rome in England This is happening across Europe in all sorts of ways. Be in England it's a very peculiarly English thing, isn't it? Because Henry would still tell you, I think till the day he died is a Catholic. Absolly It doesn't change that. This is not a Protestant reformation under Henry VI It's a selfish megalomaniac's desire to be separated from his wife Creating an entire new church out of it. but there is this kind of almost parallel movement of Protestantism happening on the continent. So something The wind has changed somewhere because I mean we can definitely stretch all of these ideas of problems with the Roman church back into the medieval period. You've got kind of Wycliffe at the end of the fourteenth century, know leading the Lllard movement, which is essentially an effort to say that the church is corrupt. The church isn't meant to be rich, you know it preaches poverty and yet look at what it has And y he's persecuted for that and his followers are Burned as heretics in England And at the start of the fifteenth century his ideas are influencing Jan Hus in the east of Europe and that you get the Hussite rebellions And everything happening there, which is again, they're declared heretics. It's an effort to oppose the church. I don't you can take it all the way back to the Cathars in the twelfth century they're viewed as a heretical sect because they don't agree one hundred percent with the teachings of the Catholic Church. So there's always been this idea maybe the Catholic Church isn't right. but that's always been an idea that's got you into way more trouble than it seems to in the sixteenth century. It's almost like there's been some kind of shift that makes people more receptive to the idea that the Catholic Church isn't the only way to do things. I mean, There've been a lots of heresies over the years and the Catholics definitely fall into that category. The Llllards, I think you can see actually quite a lot of similarity between Lolard D, the ideas of that and what emerges in the Reformation which is questioning this power. maybe it contributes to it that we have the most awful pope in Rodrigo Borgia. you know if you're thinking about pointing out the excesses of the Catholic Church, a man who has got not just a quiet air off to the side somewhere, but you know loads of children that he parades around that he's having the famed dance of the chestnuts with possibly you sex workers picking up chestnuts from the floor whilst wearing no clothes wh surrounded by cardinals in the heart of the Vatican. I mean, you can sort of conclude that things maybe have gone slightly wrong. But what I think is so fascinating about this period is that we know that it becomes the Protestant Reformation and we know that it becomes this great schism in the church, but that nobody knows that it's going to work out like that and that we have people like Thomas Moore and Erasmus, who are great humanist thinkers. They believe in the power of returning to the original text, they believe in searching in the ancient ideas for a way forwards And they believe that there can be reform in the church And yet doesn't come about and it becomes this enormous schism. But the schism happens and it does change everything because it means that over time I mean, I think I guess this is why the period is called Early modern because it allows people to start to think about where the source of authority is. the It seems to me the really crucial thing that happens in terms of reformed or Protestant belief is that you take out that middleman of that the priest And you say, we can talk directly to God and then You don't need that layer of authority when it comes to decision making. And that sets the foundation for The scientific revolution You know disputed term, but the scientific revolution, the Enlightenment later that all begins with not having to go to someone else to get credibility. To interpret stuff for you. So I feel like I'm going to have to give you the sixteenth century, conations breaking the power of Rome, and that it's a medieval ideea. Medieval people have tried it. But it's not until the early modern period that maned to make it well enough. Yes, here we go. Thank you very much Right, so the next Pair that we're going to talk about, Are they medieval or are they early modern Isabella and Ferdinand. H So this is a A royal couple, Isabella of Castilee, Ferdinand of Aragon largely credited with unifying the country that we know of Spain today. largely credited with possibly problematic term of the recon Kista, driving the Muslim presence out of Iberia that had been there for eightight hundred years byy that time but also the people who begin to finance The age of exploration, sending Columbus off West Should we think of them,, arere they doing these things because they're early modern or are they doing these things because they're thoroughly medieval people? And the other two things, I suppose we should say about them are that they Expel the Jews from Spain And then four years later, Portugal expels their Jews. And so that expulsion Which arguably is a medieval idea. I mean I mean the Jews are expelled from England under Edward I and not allowed back until Cromwell. so There's a fairly long history of persecuting and expelling Jews in the medieval world. Certainly. and it becomes it trans mutes in the sixteenth century we get kind of ghetorization That idea feels like that's kind of po medieval roooyu, you can have persecution of the Jews and the founding of the Inquisition which is to target People who are thought to be Jewish, who are pretending they think to be Christian, so converts who they don't think have thoroughly converted. And then the inquisition gets taken up in the sixteenth century in various different ways by the Romaning. Al almost it impossible to make that no one expects the Spanish Inquisition joke though. We're talking seriously about the Spanish Inquisition. Sorry. It's not fun though. The thing is when you read about it, it's so hard, isn't it? That's what's so genius about making a joke of it Actually, it's impossible to read about Auto Dfet with a smile on your face because it's so grim So I think I do it's difficult. I don't really want to give you them. but I feel How about then the age of exploration, sending Columbus to the West That's essentially about opening up trade routes. to where they think the East Indies are One of the things that Columbus does One of the things that he talks about is, you know when he gets all of this golden and fabulous wealth that he's hopefully going to find in the east, He wants it to fund a new crusade to go and take Jerusalem Yes, which is aorough really medieval idea Yes, it's true. I mean, yeah, he goes to the West because he wants to take the East. That's exactly right. And their idea about the new world, so called when he comes back is that they're hoping to convert everybody And also, I suppose if one thinks about what they are doing in terms of the Reconquista, the taking of Grenada and the rest of the south of Spain from the Muslims that's also trying to address this problem that as they see it that the that the Muslims invaded in seven eleven. So that is all medieval One thing I would like to say about Isabell and Fernando is that they are very good at patronising the Renaissance. This might not seem like a major thing, but they are absolutely leading the way when it comes to things like employing court painters Janda Flanders, Antonio Englles well before many of the Northern Europeans are. So they really are driving ahead with art at the same time as we only sh to see that happening in Rome Florence and Rome, perhaps at the same of time And they have a sort of vision for unifying Spain as well, which arguably is something that's becomes kind of focused in the early modern period. I'm slightly struggling here though, because I do genuinely think that a lot of what they're doing is medieval. I think the recon Ending in fourteen ninety two is really the conclusion of a crusade. It's the successful conclusion to them of a crusade. You seem to makeaking a really strong effort here to say that everything bad they did is medieval and everything good they did is early modern and that's notice that. So in other words, what I'd like to do is say that from fourteen ninety two onwards, the territory is mine. How about that I mean, I do think that idea of creating a much more unified, centralized single state is a very early modern trait we go from seeing lots of these fractured kingdoms and and even counties within kingdoms that still see themselves in a quite independent way to seeing these ever bigger blocks of a state and a state that has the machinery of state that we would almost recognize today. someome of those institutions that exist in those places today are beginning to emerge and create those single states. And I think you can see F under hisb it driving that for Spain, but are they doing it because they think we're early modern people and we want a nice unified state or are they doing it because they think in we're conquering all of this land Yes. And of course, none of them would have thought of themselves as early modern, Its like we talk about the Tudors. No one thought of themselves as tudors. But that movement towards centralized power comes to fruition in the seventeenth century with Louis fourteh and the move towards absolutism. So I do think we see the beginnings of something there, whether they intended it or not O obbviously, we've seen states you know, acquire smaller states before. if we look at back to the Cathars, for example, that's the the taking over of Longdock by France. the sort of acquisition has happened before. but this political and sort of foundational for Spain, I think So where are we going then? Are they medieval or are they early modern? Do you hate them so much that you're going to call them medieval? I mean, I find Isabelle completely fascinating One interesting thing that actually I think of as a result of this is thinking about the kind of changing of the Godd. I mean, Fernanda dies in fifteen sixteen. And we have a huge number of people who die at around that point in time. This is a dangerous territory, I'm persuading.' push it further and further. pushhing further further. But there's quite a lot of, know, Henry VII, obviously fifteen oh nine. There's know maximilion would take up to fifteen nineteen. We There's a real changing of the gu that happens at the beginning of the sixteenth century Things really clearly are of a different period. I think it's those thirty years or so that are in dispute, perhaps between us. So they're mostly I think they're most bit in a blurry bit. So I'm going to claim them Thankk you very much. I'm slightly disgusted that you h the medieval world so much, though eas. It's great Right, well hopefully this is one that you'll be interested in we might be able to agree on something here. Witchcraft which particular, I guess. Yes, it's so interesting, isn't it? I remember when I was at university I was set a question about rise in beliefs in witchcraft and why the rise in beliefs in witchcraft happened in the fourteen fifty to seventeen, fifty. Which of course, is not the case. It's a trick question because people have believed in witchcraft for thousands of years But what we absolutely see happen in the early modern period is an increase in persecution, prosecution, execution of people thought to be witches And I think whilst that defefinitely our cases stretching back into actually ancient Rome, ancient Greece. We've got the Alice Kitler case in your period in the sort of thirteen twenties onlyn really after Heinish Kama, that absolutely mad man writes his hammer of the Witches, Mallius Manaforum fourteen eighty six mostly him which is sort of virntly misogynistic and seems to be under the authority of the church On after that and really later in the sixteenth century did we start to see The witchcace, the rise and in the end it's like ninety thousand people we estimate Oh arrested, around half of them executed as witches and it mostly happens if we're drilling in between about fifteen sixty and sixteen fifty. As the saying goes, if these walls could talk. And on the Bwixt the Sheets podcast, we make it our business to discover what happened behind closed doors, and even more importantly, in the bedrooms of people all throughout history Kings, queens, mistresses, servants, and everyone in between We also get up close and personal with medieval aphrodisiacs, lethal Victorian makeup routines, and look at the scandalous lives of beloved children's authors. Nothing is off limits In other words, it's the best bits of history, with me, Dr. Kate Lister. Listen to but twwix the sheets of the history of sex scandal and society twice a week every week, wherever it is that you get your podcasts, brought to you by the award winning network, History Hit And I think the medieval period has a really benign attitude to witchcft. know, yes, they believe it exists, but they generally believe it's a fairly harmless, sometimes a positive thing A the women who are healing people using herbs and things in communities? Is it a form of witchcraft? Maybe, but it's good, so we don't really know. There are definitely women around who are referred to as witches. We get the first kind of which trial in France in the fourteenth century. And then we've got the Marjorie Jordermain, who's known as the Witch of Iy, who is burnt at the stake in the fourteteen forties for supposedly helping Due Cfry of Gloucesters wife, Eleanor Cobbam to to forecast the death of King Henry VI. So there is this idea beginning to emerge by kind of the middle of the fifteenth century that witchcraft a bad thing, but it's so often in the medieval period, particularly in the fifteenth century I think It emerges as a political weapon Witchcraft is something you can use against women Don't necessarily have the judicial tools to deal with them as you might deal with a man Eleanor Cobb's case particularly throws up the idea that there is no legal mechanism to try a noble woman for treason a noble man can be tried by a panel of his peers But there's no mechanis to do to a woman. So they changed the law to invent a way to do it, but it's too late with Eleanor. so they charge her with witchcraft So that's the kind of morphing of this idea, that this benign thing that you might call witchcraft might be something bader. Henry V imprisons his stepmom Donkish is for accusing her of being a witch just because he wants to take all of her lands and money off her because he wants to use it Fund his war in France So it evolves from this kind of benign, friendly, helpful thing into a political weapon. But then at some point the attitude changes to think it's a real that we should be scared of and that we need to chase out of the world. Yes, I mean that's the crucial change is that witchcraft starts to be seen as a diabolical pact and The idea that the people might be making acts with the devil is so threatening in an age which thinks it's living in the end times. It thinks that the apocalypse, the day of Judgment is coming, and so There's a real seated fear And the fear is amongst the elites as much as among ordinary people and that's what really changes in the sixteenth century. And in fact, the diabolical pact becomes put into law in places across Europe So The other thing I would say is The fact it's put into law changes it as well, that we have a wch burnt at the stake Earlier is very different from England, say in the sixteen oh four with James V six and first law that wass passed, because at that point witchcraft is a crime, it's a capital offence and therefore it's treated as a crime and witches are hanged in England because it's not heresy, it is a crime. it's murder, but by witchcraft The other thing I want to say is I think this is part of a general move across the sixteenth century into the seventeenth century in terms of a kind of tightening of patriarchy So actually, we also see an increase in women accused of being scolds So I always think that scolds and witches, the women who are accused of both of those are basically their women without HRT So they are women who are irritable and a bit cantankerous and who are just going through the awfulness of perimenopause and menopause and problematic and people object to women having an opinion, having a voice, being a bit angry about things and there is this kind of clampdown. So women who are scolds punished by being put in a brank. so that you know, they can't speak. It's scolds who are dipped in water, not witches. And then the other thing that happens also in fifteen ninety four, sixteen twenty four in England and France are new laws about infanticide. So women who are thought to have conceived outside of marriage and then their baby dies accused of infanticide and executed for it And And of course, infant death is really common at this time and so is pregnancy outside of marriage. But it's just another way of clamping down on women's power I think that what we see is this kind of extension of patriarchy. I don't think it's necessarily directed at women who are benignly using herbs to heal. I think a lot of these people are completely innocent of any involvement with anything vaguely magical. They're not necessarily the cunning women of the village. They are just often people who have less than those who are accusing them and the sort of the hatred goes downwards. And I think that is an indication that it is a kind of about the dawning of modernity because one of the reasons why these women, it's mostly women, but not all are in such straits that they're coming to beg for stuff from a more wealthy landowner is because the whole system of charity that had been part of the medieval worldview has broken down because population is growing, because the prices are increasing, because there's less around and people are looking after number one and people are hungry and fearful and envious. Women who are asking for things are often those who are bearing the brunt of that I think it's quite striking that we've spoken a little bit about kind of the Reformation and the breaks with Rome and all of that kind of thing. We've talked about how that was a kind of relaxing of attitude, a challenging of the structures that had been there for hundreds of years. Almost as if we think that was a slightly enlightened move. But here we have something that I think we wouldn't consider to be enlightened. It's almost the opposite of that. It's getting back to a way more superstitious time then the medieval world had ever really been and it's kind of Well St not might be perceived to be moving forward, this feels like it's moving backwards. Progress is not linear progress itself was probably a problematic idea But I absolutely think It's fascinating to consider that the witch trials are product of growing capitalism. They're the product of changing forms of land holding, for goodness sake. I mean that people are by this point in time more and more having to move ont to what we consider standard like contractual arrangements for their rent, where the rent can go up year after year, which has just not been the case throughout the sort of fifteenth century. And everybody's feeling the pinch And somebody has to be to blame And then of course, we get sort of apocalyptic weather conditions and terrible bouts of epidemics and war, lots and lots of war. And so the circumstances are such that There's so much need And there's so much sense of desire for things that people don't have so much lack. I think that the witchcraft trials out of so much lack because they're not just about superstition actually also about fear of what you don't and what you want to have and what is being taken from you. And so these become kind of scapegoats for the problems of society. That's so interesting So I guess We're sort of allowing that witchcraft has existed in the medieval world that the fifteenth century sees kind of political weaponization of the idea of witchcraft in elite cases, But are we thin of early modern as the time in which people get genuinely terrif of witchraft and itomes much more of a problem for society mean, Matt, we don't have ninety thousand people being arrested in the medieval period as witches. It clearly is an early modern problem have that stinky hot mess for your match your only modern world Tucking a stinky hot messies Oh whereere are we going now? The next card says the plague Yeah And it also has a note that we might want to think about sweating sickness and it says we might want to think about syphilis. I'm not sure how much we want to thinkking about syphilis, but let's go there. I mean the plague in the middle of the fourteenth century is what we tend to think of as the plague, the black death huge pandemic wipes out deepending on which estimates you look at around half, maybe up to two thirds of the population of Europe is utterly devastating, brings about huge societal changes, changes the way people think about their relationship with their feudal lords, with their landlords, with their masters and people who are still to the bit of land that they live on the surf are starting to think Can you really make this stick a very much longer leads to a whole series of popular revolts, the peeasants revolt in England, but similar things are happening in France and around places as well. is disease and the responses to disease changing the world is is the play I mean, I think we have to say the Black Death is probably a medval thing, but when we think about recurrences of it and the arrival of something like the sweating sickness And then of syphilis and things like that are The impact of those diseases and responses to them, does that mark a changing point? I mean, clearly, the Black Death, the thirteen forties is a moment and it produces vast change. but what I think is so fascinating is that the plague just doesn't go away I mean, by the time we get to the sixteenth century, it's recurring roughly every nine years across Europe as a whole, every sixteen years in England, we think. These There's still massive outbreaks where huge proportions of the population are dying all a kind of every decade. It' still around, you know, Great F of London sixteen sixty six. alsoso there's a plague that year. Yes, yes, exactly. the year before you've had very huge numbers of people dying from the plague. So I think that Just think of it as medieval is wrong And certainly I can claim delightfully the pox, syphilis and sweating sickness as early modordern, I think, because swweating sickness is seen for the first time amongst Henry Tudor's armies on the way to Bosworth So in the fourteen eighties and thereafter It's around toill about fifteen fifty one. We don't know exactly what it was. it looks like a sort of really virulent form of influenza and it recurs often. And people die within twenty four hours quite often if they're going to die of it. So it's a horrible, horrible disease. And then the newcomer on the block is what later gets called by the sort of latinate name of syyphilis, the great pox which occurs amongst the French armies in Italy in the campaigns of the fourteen nineties. and everyone refers to it as someone else's problems. So you know the sweating sexist gets called the English sweat. pocks get called the French pocks or the Italian pocks or whoever you're blaming. It's sexually transmitted and it's really horribly virulent at first and it starts on men on the genitals and it produces all these pustules and boils and it horribly painful. and then of course it develops over time and becomes something you can live with. But still as you know, you've got these cases of people who have know this is drirooling through the skull of their head. You know, they're living with these open wounds. It's just horrific And I guess the question is if you know, if the plague is a thoroughly medieval thing, And it's still around in sixteen sixty six. sixixteen sixty six is clear medval then. Can we say that there's a point? we've just said the sweating sickness and syphilis and things like that arrive and are virulent. And there isn't yet the medical technology to effectively tackle all of those things. So is this a point at which we need to think There are still very medieval attitudes and responses to these things rather than anything early modern, that maybe medicine is lacking behind some other aspects of the changing world Yes, I mean, really interesting. I wouldn't say that even medieval actually, I think the attitudes towards medicine are essentially ancient. I mean, they're still thinking about Galen. know ideas about the body take a long time to change. They do start to change in the sixteenth century, do start to get more dissections and more kind of thinking about what be going on by the early seventeenth century, William Hary discovered the circulation of the blood, though he still thinks that hysteria in women is caused by the womb wandering around the body. So you know, he's not it's not So if He And you know what he thinks that the only way to stop it is if a woman is regularly having sexual intercourse, Owise she might go mad. But is that man told his wife do you think That's his excuse The attitudes take so long to change. I mean, still in sixteen sixty five people are thinking that you can deal with a plague or you can tell that it's coming because you know there's going to be an influx of wood lice or spiders. You know, there's a boy at Eton who's thrashed for not smoking his pipe because they think that smoking keeps the plague at bay. I mean so ideas take a really long time to change And so I think we're both actually caught up Ancient world views there So I get to keep the plague then do we? I mean, I feel like you can keep the plague if you can give me careuch a weird negotiation. Can I have sweating sickness in the pockx please? You can have sweating sickness and you can have syifffuliness But I think it's just interesting that the ways of tackling and approaching those things are so slow to change that they're still facing the same problems, still trying to use the same explanations for everything been around for thousands of years by that point That's kind of lacking lagging behind everything else really Wite the next person that we have. is someone who we have actually mentioned before, his name has cropped up already Is this person medieval or is he early modern? Thomas Mall. Sir Saint Thomas M. goodness me, this is a tricky one So I mean, his Outlook is very much one of somebody embracing the ideas of the Renaissance, which we haven't really talked about yet, but He is a humanist in that his He looks to Ancient ideas Sipping over the medieval period, if I can put it like that, looks back to the ancient Greeks and the ancient Roman inspiration. This is where they start calling it kind of medieval middle bit, don't they? becausecause they want to talk about how wonderful ancient Greek and ancient Roman wisdom is, how great the modern world in which they're living is, and just leave that bit in the middle. Absolutely. just ignore what's happened in between And so he's a humanist not because he's an atheist. That's not what it means at the time, but he's a believer but who believes that things can be reformed. And that to me seems fundamentally Early modern At the same time, I will give you the fact that he's much more like someone like Thomas Beckett in terms of his outleook when it comes to the church, he doesn't in the end become all Protestant. He dies probably arguably a Catholic martyr or possibly a martyr for conscience or possibly he just won't put you know, tie his cols to the mas either way, but he says nothing but he defends Pope's position as suupreme head by not which is a very medieval thing, isn't it? In a world that is beginning to allow for the acceptance of alternatives. He has a very medieval attitude Catholic church As the saying goes, if these walls could talk. 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It's what Luther has done and more does it point is different The sort of bending with the wind and not allowing these religious matters to define you too much perhaps could be regarded as a more medieval practice. Well And I think I'm going to score an own goal here much as I h allow you to win this one. I think one of the most interesting things about Thomas Moore is if you look at the things that he's writing And there are two main things that he's particularly famous for writing, Obviously I'm going to bring it Richard III, but you know he gives us this kind of first real narrative history of Richard IId and his other book, Utopia ' almost like a historical fiction novel. You know, he's writing about this ideal world, this island that exists somewhere which is It's packed with ideas, although he positions it as ideal, it's packed with no private property and married priests. All the things that we know Thomas Mord disagrees with And I think in those two pieces of work, we've got someone who For me and is Richard III is writing old fashioned medieval style allegory about history. This is history as lesson, this is moral warnings from history And the interesting thing about that is that he stops writing it and gives it up and puts it on a shelf book that he continues to write is topia, which is a much more new idea kind of fictional narrated approach to examining things that don't doesn't really have a moral message behind her or at least not one that Thomas Moore would agree with. It's positioning perfection as all of the things that we know he disagrees with it. So it's kind of using literature as a way to explore different thoughts and different ideas, not just to present it as a moral lesson from history. So I think his Richard III is a very medieval piece of work. I think topia is a thoroughly early modern piece of work. And I think it's striking that he puts the medieval down. And the one that he publishes is the early modern piece of work Absolutely. and that The book Uutopia is still so foundational in terms of thinking about satire and about You we literally use the word utopian to talk about visions of an ideal world, which in this case, as you say, wasn't his ideal world at all. One of the most shocking ideas he has in it is that people should see each other naked before they get married, whichich he thinks is comple I mean, one assumes he thinks is completely outrageous. Turns out, that's what people mostly do these days Uh, you know, this This sense that he is creating a sort of vision for how a world could be and playing with ideas is very much of the Renaissance age. Yeah. I feel like he's a man who More than anybody else that I can think of is aware that he is standing with one foot in two different worlds and it's really struggling to step one way or the other both feet his literature, I think points to him being very early modern, his religious views point in being quite medieval but his humanist approach is also the really early modern So I think you on the swing omometer I mean give murder. sort of reluctantly Okay I mean I guess this is a big one now. We've got the Renaissance The Renaissance. Well, let's do this in five minutes. and beed through the Rennaissance Okay So the foundations of the Renaissance are fourteenth century In terms of its flourishing, I think we can argue that that comes with the high Rnaaissance comes with the patronage of Medici like Laorerendo Medici. and then with the move to Rome, it's people like Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael who are producing the most extraordinary work, which of course is happening. You know, the statue of David, Michelangelo' Statue of David is fifteen oh four, this sort of the things that we are most familiar with the Mona Lisa, all of these things are early sixteenth century actually. and we then see that spreading across Northern Europe. we get people like Albert Dure, we get Hence Holbein. And if we think beyond visual art, if we think about literature, I mean, English literature scholars, when they say the Renissance, they mean the sixteenth century because people like ir Thomas Wyatt, one of my great favorites He is introducing The Petrarch and sonnet. medieval into English and people like Henry Howard ear of Sorry is using blank verse, unrymed verse in translating Virgil's in it and he's doing that for the first time and then Shakespeare picks that up. So And we've got Sydney and then we've, you know, Spencer and then eventually We've got Shakespeare, of course and Milton much later. And that is all a Early Mordn flourishing looking back to the glory days of Greek and R. But the idea of a Rnaaissance isn't necessarily an early modern thing. I mean we get the twelfth century Renaissance in Western Europe, particularly when there is following the first Crusade, increased contact with the Muslim scholars in the Nar East and you all of this knowledge that that Western Europeans will try and tell you was lost. It was never lost. It was just being cared for by by Muslims and suddenly they have access to all of that again. And we get this kind of flourishing of art and learning and translation and understanding and a harkening back to the ancient world of the Greeks and the Romans in the twelfth century But we definitely wouldn't think of that as an early modern thing. So what do you think's changed in the sixteenth century? Is it 'cause it'sriking that in the sixteent century you've got the reformation going on at a similar sort of time to the Renaissance flourishing There seems to be a real Mind shift. I mean, can we pick a point in the sixteenth century where we say the Renaissance has become an early modern thing So well let's first of all say that there are multiple renaissances then, because the twelfth century one is clearly distinct from what's happening by the end of theteenth, beginning of the sixteenth century I mean What would we say I mean, topia itself, fifteen sixteen could be the watershed at moment, perhaps. It's after that that we C But that's in England. I mean it's very easy to be quite specific to a particular place. Where would we say for elsewhere? We'd say Rabile, you know, I guess, Pantau Gargantua we would say for France, for Spain, we might have to look ahead to Don Quixote in that we're not you know, that's not till the seventeenth century, so we're In terms of where we position our The beginning of our reennaissance in different countries it's going to vary. and of course it starts in Italy, so it's the earliest in Italy So I mean, I think I'm not sure I can give you a point because I think it's really from the beginning of the sixteenth century, very beginning of the sixteenth century, and it gathers pace over time. And affects every modernist thing to say. It's all ours. I mean I kind of think if we're talking about The Renaissance I think we have to say that's an early modern thing t re I mean, I'm very happy to accept that point of view, Matt. Yes I need to stop trying to be fair. Now that I've got this, you could have made a greater case for Petrarch, you know, but I'm just going to leave that there. Anyway I'll have it back later. Our last card is quite an interesting one I think The wars of the Roses So in in England, in particular And we normally date it fourteen fifty five to fourteen eighty five, maybe fourteen eighty seven, if you actually want to take notice of the Battle of Stoke, which nobody ever seems to want to And this is a a moment, so a fight for the Crown of England qu often framed as a civil war. I don't know that we can call it a civil war. It's very much the elite fighting the elite rather than it being any kind of a civil war But even if we frame it as that, I do think this is a moment that shifts something in England in that it breaks or creates the realization that you have to break the power of the old nobility The kings are being overrun, are being swamped by their own nobility and that the system is crumbling and can't carry on as it was. And that causes an outbreak of war. It causes the deposition of kings and you know the throne becomes a bit of a merry go round for a little while And that that has to end, that has to be fixed Breaking the power of the old nobility is kind of the way to do that and for me As much I hate say because this is earlier than I'd like to ever allow you to have anything But it feels like the Wars of the Roses is a moment that is shifting things towards something that we would recognise more as early modern That's so interesting. So yes, I mean, I would say the same in that I think that Henry VII and his new men, you know, the way that he's building people up because of their merit and not because of their noble status is categorically an early modern development Thank you for pushing back the origins of that well into the Wars of the Roses and allowing me to stretch my tent over more and more of the fifteenth century by my own petard. And this is also a period in which we're talking about the increased use of gunpowder, you know Gunpowder is a thing much like the printing press that is going to change the world forever Yes, I mean, Fran Spacon said that the three things that most changed the world were gunpowered the printing press and the compass And we have two of them really coming of age in this period And gunpowder, absolutely. I mean the use of cannon on a large scale is from the fifteenth century onwards, we get those amazing wall breakers that the sort of cannon can really demolish, and then the arquebus and then later the musket. And that is absolutely transforming the nature of warfare in this period Fun fact, first gun crime in London, fifteen thirty six. Rbert Packington, But but then of course, you've got the development of armies over this period of time. like a large army in the late fifteenth century is probably what twenty thousand strong. and by the middle of the seventeenth century is one hundred fifty thousand. I mean and I'm rushing ahead with all sorts of things here. but I do think that Warfare often is a period in which you see great technological developments and perhaps that's also happening in the Wars of the Roses. It kind of forces innovation, doesn't it in a way that might not have happened otherwise. I mean, if I'm going to obviously I've got to make a play for the Wars of the Roses being medieval here because I surpris I'm surprised that you're giving us over quite soily.ry I' trying to be fair I'm not giving over at all But I think it's a very medieval response. to the problem in that, we're seeing mobilization of levies of noblemen's private armies in a way that I think I begin to associate the medieval world much more with the professional mercenary army and much more with the development of state armies state run standing armies And we don't have those in the Wars of the Roses and we don't have those in the medieval world. So this feels like almost a death row of the medieval world that there is a change brewing and this is a response to things that need to change, but it's a very medieval response to that need. Yes. I mean we don't get sanding armies really for quite a long time in the early modern period either. is a bit of a later development We do genuinely think it's probably a death rrow of the medieval world. A death rrow or a birth pang, it's hard to say I'm going to keep it as a death roroker Otherwise I onm the fill to about the Wars the Roses' medieal again. I can't do that. I can't bear that. Okay have me on not just the tudors at leastce a month to come and talk about the Wars of the Roses scene. come for yourself if you do this I am So I mean, the idea of warfare and gunp power and stuff, you talk about the war destroyers there. Part of what happens around that time too is I' going to say the fall of Constantinobople, we shouldn't say theall of Constantinople, but it' taken by the Ottoman forces Be saying it's the fa of Cstantabople puts you very much on one side. Yes of the fact So The Ottomans take Constantinople, which is a place that was understood to be Untakable. It couldn't be breached. The walls had never been breach that had never been taken. And it's tempting Again, as much as I hate to do this, I don't know why I do this myself's just being fair minded, Mat. No I need to stop it, they don't and Constantople was taken in fourteen fifty three by the Ottom Empire. and if we think about the end of the ancient world, if we ever want to put an actual date on it as being the fall of Rome Fourteen fifty three is kind of the fall of the rest of the Roman Empire, the Eastern Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire that has endured ever since that considered itself the successor to the Roman Empire fourteen fifty three, you can make an argument for the fact that warfare has changed, politics is changing, everything is changing. Constantinople switching hands from the Eastern Christian and the Roman Empire to the Muslim Ottoman Empire is an iride deffining moment too Yes, it is interesting and it kind of sparks a lot of the changes that happen thereafter. and we've talked about Isabell and Fernando, like their reaction because of what has happened at Constantinople, that the desire to take back Granada for the Christians is because they see that the The Turk is on you know at their door. and that is what people are reacting to a lot in the sixteenth century. we forget too much, I think, about how r Francces I of France of Francois I or Henry VI are reacting and above all Charles V, reacting to this