Medieval

Medieval

The Middle Ages was a defining period of history in Europe and across the globe. This was a time of castles and peasants, guilds and monasteries, cathedrals and crusades. From the Viking and Norman invasions of Britain to the devastating plagues of the 14th century or the rise of Mansa Musa and the Kingdom of Mali, enjoy our impressive and growing library of documentaries, interviews and podcasts on key events and locations of the Medieval Period. Featuring leading historians such as Dan Jones, Eleanor Janega and Cat Jarman.

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Medieval
  • 🎧 From Aethelred to Blitz: The History of London with Antony Robbins

    Antony Robbins, Communications director Museum of London.

  • 🎧 Globalisation in 1000 AD

    Globalisation. It's a word we often associate with the politics, society and economics of our own lifetimes. But Valerie Hansen, an esteemed professor of History at Yale, has argued that globalisation is embedded deep in the past. Whilst traditionally, historians have cited Columbus' 1492 voyage ...

  • 🎧 Have Archaeologists Found Britain's Most Elusive Battlefield? with Fiona Edmonds, Peter Jenkins, Clare Downham and Paul Sherman

    The Battle of Brunanburh is one of the most important battles in British history. It was fought in 937 between Γ†thelstan, King of England, and an alliance of Olaf Guthfrithson, King of Dublin;Constantine II, King of Scotland and Owain, King of Strathclyde. English victory at the battle defined th...

  • 🎧 Henry III: The Pacific King

    David Carpenter joined me on the podcast to examine one of England's most remarkable monarchs. Just nine years old when he came to the throne in 1216, David explains how Henry was pacific, conciliatory, and deeply religious. His rule was constrained by limits set by the Magna Carta and the emerge...

  • 🎧 Magna Carta

    The Magna Carta is a charter agreed to by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, on 15 June 1215. First drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury to make peace between the unpopular King and a group of rebel barons, it promised the protection of church rights, protection for the barons fr...

  • 🎧 Mediaeval Bodies with Jack Hartnell

    Dan talks to Jack Hartnell about how people in the Middle Ages saw their own (and other people's) bodies.

  • 🎧 Melvyn Bragg on Heloise and Abelard

    Melvyn Bragg talks to Dan about a philosopher and a scholar in the 12th century. Abelard was one of the best known theologians of the medieval era, and his love affair with HΓ©loΓ―se, characterised famously by the letters that they sent to each other are legendary. Producer: Natt Tapley Audio: Pete...

  • 🎧 Migration in Medieval Europe

    I was delighted to be joined by Miri Rubin of Queen Mary University, London. In a terrific new book, Miri has scooped up a seemingly modern topic - migration - and settled it into the bustling town centres of medieval Europe. We discussed how these cities accommodated a plethora of languages, rel...

  • 🎧 On the Battlefield of Hastings with Marc Morris

    Marc Morris shows me around the Battlefield of Hastings.

  • I Object: Ian Hislop's Search for Dissent

    We live in a golden age of objection. Not since the 1960s has the Western world been so embroiled in street protests – women’s marches, anti-Trump demonstrations and alt-right parades in America, anti-Brexit marches in Britain, and strikes across continental Europe – as in recent years. It is saf...

  • 🎧 One Family, 600 Years of Farming in England's Lake District

    James Rebanks joined me on the podcast to tell the history of his family farm in the Lake District hills. This was part of an ancient agricultural landscape: a patchwork of crops and meadows, of pastures grazed with livestock, and hedgerows teeming with wildlife. We talk about how it has transfor...

  • 🎧 Saladin and the Crusades with Professor Jonathan Phillips

    Saladin was one of the greatest Sultans of the middle ages, and the first sultan of Egypt and Syria. He famously defeated the Crusader army at the Battle of Hattin, and recaptured Jerusalem. The Christian armies of the west never recaptured the Holy City. Saladin's legacy still holds resonance ac...

  • 🎧 Simon de Montfort, England's First Parliamentarian

    Simon de Montfort was a member of the English peerage, who led opposition to King Henry III. He played a major role in the constitutional development of the country and remains an important figure in British history. Producer: Peter Curry

  • 🎧 The Battle of Agincourt with Mike Loades

    Legend of popular history Mike Loades provides Dan a detailed run down of Henry V's famous victory at Agincourt on 25 October 1415 and how Henry V's 'band of brothers' were really no more than a band of brigands.

  • 🎧 The Battle of Agincourt with Tobias Capwell

    Dan discusses the Battle of Agincourt, a major English victory in the Hundred Years’ War, with Tobias Capwell, Curator of Arms and Armour at The Wallace Collection.

  • 🎧 The Black Death

    In this podcast, Dan Snow is joined by Professor Mark Bailey, High Master of St Paul's School, London and Professor of Later Medieval History at the University of East Anglia to delve into the topic of The Black Death. They discuss how it emerged and spread throughout the world, what impact it ha...

  • 🎧 The Crusaders' Last Battle for the Holy Land

    Roger Crowley is the author of the new book, Accursed Tower: The Crusaders' Last Battle for the Holy Land. The city of Acre, powerfully fortified and richly provisioned, was the last crusader stronghold. When it fell in 1291, two hundred years of Christian crusading in the Holy Land came to a blo...

  • 🎧 The Darkening Age by Catherine Nixey

    Catherine Nixey @catherinenixey is a classicist, radio critic of The Times and author of The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World.

  • 🎧 The Discovery of a Viking Ship with Erich Nau

    Archaeologists in Norway have discovered an intact Viking ship. Dan chatted to Erich Nau about this momentous discovery and what it could mean for our understanding of the Norsemen.

  • 🎧 The Field of the Cloth of Gold

    500 years ago this week marked the start of one of the most extraordinary diplomatic gatherings in history: The Field of the Cloth of Gold. In 1520, England and France - traditionally bitter rivals - sought to bring conflict to an end in a magnificent show of opulence and pageantry. Henry VIII of...

  • 🎧 The Great Viking Army at Repton with Cat Jarman

    Dan talks to Cat Jarman, a scientist who has worked to establish whether the bones in the charnel house at Repton are those of Ivar the Boneless' Great Heathen Army.

  • 🎧 The History of Iran: Part 2 with Ali Ansari

    Dan talks to Ali Ansari about the history of Iran, and discovers just how much of it there is. In this episode he focuses on Iran in the eighteenth century and its interaction with European powers.

  • 🎧 The Hundred Years' War

    Lord Jonathan Sumption is coming to the end of his magisterial multi-volume history of the Hundred Year's War. He believes it was essentially a French civil war into which the English and other external powers jumped into. In this podcast Jonathan talks Dan through the entire conflict, its causes...

  • 🎧 The Kingdom of Lotharingia with Simon Winder

    Simon Winder's eclectic histories have ranged all over the Germanic countries, and he has concluded his Germania trilogy with Lotharingia, a book about the kingdom of Lothair, which was located mainly in the modern low countries, and stretched all the way to the Roman borderlands. Lothair I, a gr...