One thousand years of people behaving badly

True Crime Medieval is a podcast hosted by Anne Brannen and Michelle Butler. It appears biweekly, each episode focusing on a crime committed in Medieval Europe. Find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever else podcasts hang out. Show notes and transcriptions of episodes are available at https://www.truecrimemedieval.com/ -- and you can find direct links to the podcasts there, too.

106. Special Episode: Axlar-Björn Pétursson is Executed for Serial Murder, Snæfellsnes Peninsula, Iceland 1596

There’s not a lot of murder in Iceland — there was a disconcerting spike in the number of homicides last year, 8 altogether — so, obviously, there aren’t a lot of murderers. And none of the murderers of Iceland are serial killers. With one exception. In the last part of the 16th century, not long after Iceland had been forced to institute the death penalty for capital crimes (this was Denmark’s idea), Axlar-Björn Pétursson, who lived out on the west coast, on the Snæfellsnes Peninsula, murdered lots of people who came by his farm looking for work, and became Iceland’s one and only serial killer. And then, on account of the death penalty part, didn’t get to just go be an exiled outlaw. Besides the details, such as they are, of Axlar-Björn’s crimes, Anne is quite taken by Snæfellsnes and its eco-tourism, and Michelle, though she appreciates the folk-tale quality of the whole story, really wants to let us all know about Jón Árnason, the eminent Icelandic folk tale collector, because he was a self-taught scholar who is deserving of high honor, and Michelle does admire scholars who get lots done on a budget. (Aired March 17, 2025)

105. St. Adalbert of Prague is Martyred, Truso, Poland 997

Adalbert of Prague wanted very much to go Christianize the Prussians, but they were just not having it, so they hacked him up and cut his head off, and that is why he is a Saint, with an enormous number of churches around the globe dedicated to him. Anne spends time thinking about what was the snack that we are told Adalbert and his companions were eating before the murder, and Michelle considers the recently discovered account of Adalbert that is older than the one we had, although really what she’s interested in is St. Bruno of Querfurt, the Second Apostle to the Prussians, who admired Adalbert so much that he went off to the Balkans just like his hero, and got slaughtered in Lithuania. Michelle’s quite taken by the fact that nobody really outside of Poland pays any attention to Bruno. Alas. (Aired March 11, 2025)

104. Special Episode: Abd Allah ibn Ali invites the Umayyades to a Banquet and Slaughters Them, Palestine 750

Usually our special episodes move out of our 1000 year time zone, but for this one we stay in the middle ages and move off of the European continent, to one of the incidents in the fall of the Umayyad caliphate and the rise of the Abbasid caliphate, a blood feast! We haven’t had one of those for a while, and we were very excited, but then we did our due diligence and discovered that it probably didn’t happen. That is, the Umayyades were slaughtered, alright, but probably not at a banquet where they got clubbed to near death after hearing insulting poetry, and then served as banquet tables when rugs got thrown over them while they finished dying and the Abbasides kept eating. No. Probably not. Sorry. (Aired December 30, 2024)

103. Pino III Ordelaffi Poisons a Whole Lot of People, Forli, Northern Italy, 1463-1480

From the 12th century to Renaissance, the Ordelaffi family ruled the commune of Forli, in Northern Italy. On and off. Also, on and off again. When they weren’t fighting others for the commune — Florence, the Emperor, the Pope — they were fighting each other, and in 1376, poison became a favorite weapon, when Sinibaldi I Ordelaffi poisoned first his uncle and then his cousin, so that he could have Forli. He’s not even our protagonist, though, because we lit, for this episode, on Pino III Ordelaffi, who started poisoning wives, a sibling, and his mom, and is therefore sort of iconic in the history of Ordelaffi badnesses. Michelle loved this episode, cause she got to learn all about poison in medieval and Renaissance Italy. She will tell you all about it. (Aired November 9, 2024)

• Pino 111 Ordelaffi
• Barbara Manfredi
• Zaffira Manfredi
• Lucrezia Rangoni

102. William de Burgh Starves his Cousin Walter to Death, Greencastle, Ulster 1332

William Donn de Burgh, the 3rd Earl of Ulster, was, alas, not so great at being the Earl of Ulster. Starving his cousin Walter Liath de Burgh to death led to Walter’s sister Gylle (also of course a cousin of William’s) getting her husband to have him murdered. And then, the whole succession problem — there were several cousins wandering around, and William’s heir was a girl, and that was right out — led to the Burke Civil War. What with one thing and another, though the de Burghs married into the Plantagenets and so became ancestors of the English royal family, they were also instrumental in causing Lots of Problems for England, in their attempt to keep Ireland under control, so their contribution to history is sorta vexed. Michelle is somewhat distressed by the lack of historical fiction about these people, but greatly mollified by the idea of touring Carrickfergus. (Airec October 1, 2024)

• William de Burgh
• Walter de Burgh
• Gylle de Burgh

101. Defenestrations of Prague, Prague, Bohemia 1419, 1483, 1618

Humans have been throwing each other out of windows pretty much as long as humans have had windows more than one story or so off the ground, but only Prague is famous for them. Two of them actually led to wars, even. We are very happy to tell you about the famous defenestrations, wherin all sorts of officials got thrown out of windows, and Michelle is happy to tell you about the tourist trade. Oh, and also Susan Howe’s poem “Defenestration of Prague,” which is, of course, about Ireland. Because metaphors. (Aired August 6, 2024)

100. Retrospective: Our Favorites of the Past 100 Episodes

It’s Episode 100! So we both went through the episodes we’ve published so far, to pick our favorites. Out of them, we picked three apiece, and then, as a grand winner, the one that turned up on both of our lists — not the highest favorite of either of us, but pretty damn beloved. We explain why they all made the cut. And had a lot of fun, remembering them. Here’s to the next 100! We do have a pretty long list to see us through. it’s a 1000 years and an entire continent, and people behave badly lots of the time. Works for us.(Aired June 8, 2024)

99. Juliane de Fontevrault Tries to Kill Her Father (Henry I) With a Crossbow, Normandy 1110

It was unusual for medieval women to kill their fathers, and especially unusual for them to use crossbows to do it. Juliane de Fontrevault tried both, but she missed King Henry I, who was at the time besieging her castle in Normandy. There had been an altercation, you see, which led to a major hostage failure, wherein Juliane’s husband Eustace blinded the young hostage sent to Henry, and Henry blinded and cut the noses off the two girls sent to him as hostages. Who were his grandchildren, by the way. Eventually Henry forgave both Juliane and Eustace; Eustace got to keep a castle and Juliane got to go to Fontevrault Abbey, which was at that time all shiny and new, and her daughters got to go with her. So! It all turned out really well! A happy family story. You’re welcome. (Aired May 19, 2024)

• Henry I of England
• Juliane de Fontevrault
• Eustace de Pacy

98. April Fool’s Episode: Debunking the Chastity Belt

There were not, in the Middle Ages, any chastity belts. They did not exist. Really, they didn’t. They show up later, when enlighted ages say that they were used in the Middle Ages. Then, enlightened ages invented them, and now you can buy them on Amazon. Michelle explains how we know they didn’t exist, and how they got invented, and why the later ages that invented them said the Middle Ages did it. Anne, on the other hand, had a lot of fun researching the state of chastity belts now. Oh, and that hacking episode. Pro tip: don’t attach your private parts to the internet. (Aired April 4, 2024)

97. Galeazzo Maria Sforza, the Duke of Milan, is Assassinated, Milan, Duchy of Milan 1476

Sometimes when our medieval rulers get assassinated we can see why, and that’s the case for Galeazzo Maria Sforza, who was a very bad sort of person. So, not surprisingly, he got stabbed to death by conspirators. Two of them were out for personal gain, but one was a poet who was, he believed, serving the greater communal good, which charms Anne. We tell you all about Sforza and the assassination, which is, really, the point of this episode, but the gem of information for Michelle was that one of the churches of Florence got burnt down on account of spectacular stage effects that were really too spectacular. (Aired March 31, 2024)

• Galeazzo Maria Sforza
• Bonne de Savoy
• Lorenzo de' Medici

96. Leszek the White, High Duke of Poland, is Assassinated, Morcinkowo, Poland 1227

During the Fragmentation of Poland, which lasted from 1138 to 1320, Leszek Bialy — Leszek the White — managed to reign as the High Duke of Poland four times, the last reign going on for 16 years before it ended, on account of his having been assassinated. That’s a long reign, during the age of fragmentation, when the realm was, well, fragmented, and the position of High Duke got passed around pretty often. Leszek was attending a conference of several dukes when he was attacked in his bath, escaping naked on his horse for a short distance before the attackers caught up with him. So, he’s well known for that, because it’s dramatic, and a great subject for painting, but he’s also famous for refusing to go on crusade because there was no beer in the Holy Land. Which is a really true thing; there’s documentation. (Aired March 29, 2024)

• Leszek the White
• Władysław III Spindleshanks

95. Henry d’Almain is Murdered, Viterbo, Italy 1271

Henry d'Almain didn't really want to fight in the Second Barons' War,  because the leaders of the two sides were both his uncles, and when his uncle Simon de Montfort was killed and mutilated in the last battle, he wasn't part of that, so it was really unseemly for his cousins, the sons of Simon de Montfort, to find him in a church in Italy and slaughter him while he was clinging to the altar. As vengeance goes, it was a really stupid vengeance that didn't settle anything, and only got the de Montfort boys into more trouble. (Their father wouldn't have done such a thing; the de Montforts were going downhill, that generation.)  Anne wrassles with her grudging respect for Simon de Montfort, and Michelle finds a really badly behaved Victorian scholar. Because bad behavior transcends the Middle Ages.  (Aired March 23, 2024)

• Henry d'Almain
• Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester
• Henry de Montfort
• Simon de Montfort the Younger

94. Maddelena, a Circassian, is Bought in Crimea and Sold in Italy, Venice, Italy c. 1428

We thought it would be interesting to talk about the Crimean Slave Trade, but we had not known that would, essentially, cover all of written history and all of the Old World. But it was on the schedule, and we found it interesting. So! We’ll start with the mother of Carlo de Medici, Maddelena, who was captured in or sold from Circassia (it’s over on the northeast shore of the Black Sea), and then sold in Crimea to a Venetian who took her to Venice and sold her to Cosimo de Medici, who took her to Florence. The Crimean slave trade was the major location of international slave trading from the 15th century until the 18th century, though it had existed much earlier. Maddelena was one of millions of people who were forcibly passed through the ports of Crimea. We distill a giant topic! But we mention Cervantes. He was one of the millions. Oh, and Captain John Smith. Pocahontas gets a mention. She wasn’t one of the slaves. She just got stuck with one of the stories. (Aired March 13, 2024)

• Maddalena
• Carlo de Medici
• Cosimo de Medici

93. Michael Servetus is Murdered, Geneva, Republic of Geneva 1553

Michael Servetus was one of those brilliant people who can be a bit annoying. He read and/or spoke Spanish and French and Hebrew and Latin and Arabic and Greek and who knows what all. He studied and/or wrote books on theology, medicine, mathematics, law, and some other stuff. He wrote poetry. He had a bunch of degrees. But he had to leave the Studium of Zaragoza because of a fight with the High Master; he nearly got the death penalty in Paris for translating Cicero’s De Divinatione (but they decided to just make him withdraw the book instead); he was in prison for a few days for injuring a physician who attacked him out of jealousy; he was arrested in France for heresy, and the Catholics were going to burn him at the stake; but he escaped — and then, instead of going to Italy, he went to Geneva, where John Calvin, who disagreed with Servetus in lots of ways, was instrumental in getting him burned at the stake there. So it was the Protestants who finally killed him, rather than the Catholics. It wasn’t John Calvin’s finest moment. But on the other hand, Calvin had argued for cutting Servetus’s head off rather than burning him with his books. Well, almost all of his theology. Three copies of the theology text survived, and Michelle will tell you all about them. (Aired February 28, 2024)

• Michael Servetus
• John Calvin

92. Special Episode: The New Guys Celebrate Christmas, Plymouth (Massachusetts), December 25, 1621

On the second Christmas that the Pilgrims spent in Plymouth (the first had been spent cutting down trees and building houses), the governor of the colony, William Bradford, gathered the men together so that they could all go do the Lord’s work (which was probably cutting down trees and building houses). Some of the colonists were newly arrived, and hadn’t come for religious reasons, but more for finding wealth and opportunity in the New World. This portion of the men did not think that Christmas didn’t exist and should not be recognized. They thought it did exist and they should get to have celebratory fun. So they talked Bradford into letting them go, and they went back and played games in the street. Bradford was surprised when he found them, since he thought they were praying and meditating in their homes about whether or not Christmas actually existed, and when they had prayed and meditated enough, they would figure out that it didn’t, and then they would come help out with the Lord’s work. Which was not, at all, in any way, playing games in the street. Anne gets to talk about Christmas and Colonial America, and Michelle found a rabbit hole that was so seductive she didn’t read anything about William Bradford and the Naughty Boys, because she had to learn all about John Taylor, Water Poet, who had a lot to say about the dreadfulness of banning Christmas and, we’ve decided, is the protagonist of Michelle’s next historical novel. Happy Holidays! (Aired December 25, 2023)

• William Bradford, Governor of Plymouth Colony

91. Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck Pretend to be Kings, England 1487 and 1491

So, there were those two boys in the Tower of London, Edward V, King of England, who was 12, and Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, who was 9, and they disappeared one summer after their uncle Richard declared them illegitimate and became King Richard III. And it was a total mystery as to what happened to them, and still is, and Richard III was not king for very long before Henry Tudor, who was on one side descended from Tudur ap Gronwy Fychan, which made the English no never mind, but on the other side descended from King Edward III, and so was a claimant to the throne of England by blood if you squinted your eyes and looked sideways, was a very good claimant to the throne on account of winning the Battle of Bosworth, after which King Richard was buried under a future car park. Henry was king, then, and there weren’t any more men left from the family of Richard III and Edward IV, because the princes in the tower had disappeared and everybody, including us, thought they were dead. But maybe they weren’t ! Maybe they got away! They maybe escaped the Tower and went to Flanders! And that kind of imagining allowed for Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck, both of whom, four years apart, claimed to be either Edward V, or Richard Duke of York, or even their cousin George. Both of them became the center of rebellions. Both of them lost the fight for the crown. One was allowed to be a castle worker and the other was kept at court until he misbehaved once too often and got executed. So we explain all that. And Anne explains all of the pretenders to the English throne. And what is Michelle’s rabbit hole, this episode? The ACTUAL BED that was made for the wedding of Henry and Elizabeth. No, really. She got a book about it and it’s her favorite part of this whole hoopla. (Aired December 23, 2023)

• Perkin Warbeck
• Margaret, Dowager Duchess of Burgundy
• Edward V, King of England Edward V, King of England]
• Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York
• Edward, 17th Earl of Warwick
• Henry VII, King of England

90. The Jacquerie Smashes Property, France 1358

In the summer of 1358, French peasants took up arms — this means mostly sticks — and attacked the nobility. They did indeed murder some of them, but mostly, almost entirely, they burnt down property. They didn’t even loot. They just destroyed stuff. The nobility had gotten problematic, certainly, what with running away from important battles and then trying to squeeze more out of the peasantry so they could pay for further military adventures, though apparently not any training. So the peasants were fed up, and they put great fear into the nobility, who then imagined that the peasants were committing lots and lots of atrocities, so the nobility had to go commit atrocities on the peasants, so as to make them harmless. It was a really really really bad summer. (Aired December 13, 2023)

• Charles V, King of France
• King Charles of Navarre
• Etienne Marcel
• Gaston Phebus

89. Vaišvilkas ,Grand Duke of Lithuania, is Assassinated, Volodymyr, Ukraine 1267

Vaišvilkas, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, got assassinated for a reason that Michelle considers the stupidest assassination reason the podcast has seen so far, that being that when Vaišvilkas, the Monk Prince, decided to give up the throne so he could go back to being a monk, he gave it to a brother in law, and another brother in law thought that Vaišvilkas should have made him a co-ruler, so he murdered Vasvilkas. As MIchelle points out, he still didn’t get to be co-ruler. So she went off to read about the changing legend of Vaišvilkas, and Anne got to find out about the sacred grass snakes of Lithuania, and they were worth it, let me tell you. (Aired December 2, 2023)

• Vaisvilkas, Grand Duke of Lithuania
• Mindaugas, Grand Duke of Lithuania
• Leo, King of Galicia and Rus

88. St. Scholastica Riot, Oxford England, February 10, 1355

Sometimes students riot, maybe because of tuition hikes, or because a coach got fired for a sex abuse scandal, or because their team won a game, or because their team lost a game, or because the university became integrated, or because the government is moving into authoritarianism, or because the government already was authoritarian but is getting worse, and sometimes because the pub gave them bad wine. In the last case, around 100 people might just end up dead. Welcome to Oxford, 14th Century! The St. Scholastica Day Riot lasted for days, some of the students were scalped, university buildings were looted, there was a whole bunch of bell ringing, and the king got involved. Worst student riot ever. Hands down. (Aired November 23, 2023)

87. King Philip Augustus Fakes a Genealogy, Paris, France 1194

Philip, the King of France, married Ingeborg of Denmark, and it would have been a really great political alliance, except that after the wedding night Philip wanted out. So he asked the pope to annul the marriage, saying that it hadn’t been consummated, on account of witchcraft, and he sent Ingeborg to a convent. But Ingeborg said the marriage HAD been consummated, and the pope wouldn’t annul the marriage, so Philip had a genealogy made up showing that his marriage to Ingeborg violated canon law because they were too closely related, since Philip’s first wife had been Ingeborg’s first cousin once removed, but it was a fake genealogy, Philip’s first wife being Ingeborg’s fourth cousin once removed, and nobody believed it. They eventually got reconciled, after the wife that Philip had married bigamously in the interim died. So there’s that. Michelle got so interested in the idea of using witchcraft to make husbands impotent (in the middle ages of course, not now) that she ordered a book on it, so we can look forward to that. (Aired October 12, 2021)

• Philip Augustus, King of France
• Ingeborg of Denmark
• Isabelle of Hainault
• Agnes of Merania

86. Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor, Does Various Bad Things, Germany, Italy, and Sicily, 1169-1197

Sandwiched between two legendary Holy Roman Emperors — his father, Frederick Barbarossa, and his son, Frederick II — Henry VI, who was not legendary, and who died at the age of 31 (his dad died at 67 and his son at 55; lots more time to rack up legendary activities), nevertheless managed to acquire a nickname — “The Cruel” — in large part because of his belief in the efficacy of torturing political opponents in public. Besides discussing Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor, Anne explains how many Crusades there were and why Henry was all set to go off on Crusade #3 1/2 when he died, and Michelle is delighted to tell you ALL about that time when Henry didn’t die, with the rest of the nobles at a meeting, when the floor broke and they all fell into the cesspit. Well, Henry didn’t. He was either hanging onto a window or having a side meeting in another room. She’s got a poem, too, written in Latin. But she reads it to you in English. (Aired October 5, 2023)

• Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor

85. Eorpwald of East Anglia is Murdered, East Anglia c. 627

Eorpwald, the ruler of East Anglia c 624, after his father died, converted to Christianity because Edwin, the Deorian king, converted to Christianity, and managed to connect pretty much the entire eastern coastal kingdoms of England. So that lasted a few years, but then he got assassinated, on account of having converted to Christianity, and East Anglia became pagan again for a while. Eorpwald, the first ruler in England to be killed for being Christian, was therefore a martyr, and a saint. His murder is our crime, so we talk about that, but really, Anne gets to talk about Old English runes and the Norfolk Lavender Farm, and Michelle, to her great delight, gets to discuss Sutton Hoo, and really, that’s why she put Eorpwald on our list. (Aired September 28, 2023)

• Eorpwald of East Anglia
• Rædwald of East Anglia
• Edwin of Northumbria

84. Melisende, Frankish Queen of Jerusalem, is Falsely Accused of Adultery, Jerusalem 1134

In 1134, Melisende, the Queen of Jerusalem, who had, as a child, been raised to be the Queen of Jerusalem all by herself, was sharing the throne with Fulk, her husband, who did not like sharing. So he tried to get rid of her, by accusing her of adultery with her cousin Hugh of Jaffa, which was not a thing that was actually happening. And when Hugh fled (on account of not wanting to be in a duel with a guy bigger than The Mountain in Game of Thrones), Fulk sent somebody to assassinate him, The assassination failed, but Hugh was badly hurt, and the Council of Jerusalem, which had been very happy with Melisende as queen, and thought Fulk was some snooty newcomer from France, supported a palace coup, and Fulk really did not have much power after that. We discuss the badnesses of Fulk, and explain why, although Melisende ruled for 30 years, she hasn’t been discussed much until recently. (Spoiler alert: Victorians. As usual.) (Aired September 2, 2023)

• Melisende, Queen of Jerusalem
• Baldwin, King of Jerusalem
• Fulk, King of Jerusalem
• Hugh of Jaffa

83. Hugh de Lacy is Assassinated, Durrow, Ireland 1186

Hugh de Lacy, one of the Anglo-Normans who was sent to bring order to Ireland (where the Anglo-Normans were having a lot of trouble), was inspecting the military installation he was having built at Durrow (where St. Columba had previously built a monastery), when he was murdered by one of the Irish who wanted him dead, by being hit on the head with an ax. So there you are. There is your crime. We discuss this, yes we do, but really we are discussing Hugh de Lacy because he built Trim Castle, and Michelle really really really wanted to talk about Trim Castle. So she does. We learn a lot about Anglo-Norman castles, really. But Anne still wonders about where the best place to hide your murder ax might be, because under your tunic just does not sound right. (Aired August 21, 2023)

• Hugh de Lacy

82. Arthur of Brittany Disappears, Rouen, France c. 1203

In 1199, when Richard the Lionheart died, there were two possible claimants to the throne of England -- his younger brother John, and his nephew Arthur. John was a bit over 30 years old; Arthur was about 12. John, the youngest surviving son of Henry II, was by Norman law the rightful heir. Arthur, the eldest son of Geoffrey, John's older brother, was by the laws of Brittany, the rightful heir. Also, John was in England and Arthur was in Brittany. Also, John was the person who was, well, John. Ruthless, is what he was. You can guess who it is who won, especially since you've already heard of King John and Arthur of Brittany sort of fell through the cracks of history. Except that the French really like him, and wrote a bunch of plays, and the Victorians loved him bunches because he was so pathetic. Michelle explains all that.

• King John of England
• Arthur of Brittany
• Hubert de Burgh
• William de Braose

81. Johannes Ryneken is Executed for Adulterating Saffron, Nuremberg Germany, 1444

By the 15th century, Nuremberg was making a reputation and a lot of money out of being the main saffron import location in Europe. So the town burgesses took it very seriously when spice merchants sold saffron that wasn’t fully saffron, but had various other things added to it. Very seriously indeed. So seriously that it was possible to be, as Johnanes Ryneken was, in 1444, executed for being a very bad spice merchant indeed. Anne especially enjoyed this episode, because she got to talk ALL about saffron, but Michelle was Quite Annoyed at the lack of scholarly citations. Also there was all that German. But there were some historical novels! With saffron! (Aired July 18, 2023)

80. William de Marisco is Executed for Treason, London England 1242

The de Mariscos were a family that continually got into trouble, on account of continually misbehaving. When William de Marisco was executed at the Tower of London in 1242, it was ostensibly for attempting to have the king murdered, but since he’d also been pirating from the Isle of Lundy, and murdering messengers, he was going to end up being executed at some point anyway. Besides explaining the de Mariscos, we have two rabbit holes! Anne is fascinated by the Isle of Lundy, and Michelle is fascinated by Matthew Paris, and really, there’s a lot going on in this episode. (Aired June 14, 2023)

• William de Marisco
• Geoffrey de Marisco
• Richard Marshal

79. Snorri Sturluson Is Assassinated, Reykholt, Iceland 1241

Snorri Sturluson, the great Icelandic poet and historian and lawspeaker of the Althing, got involved in Norwegian/Icelandic politics, and it ended very badly. For him, for one thing, as the king of Norway arranged for 70 men to stab Snorri in his basement, and for Iceland as well, which devolved into chieftain battles and eventually unified with Norway, and the Norwegian king became the boss of everything. The Althing still exists, though, and Iceland is independent now, and Snorri is one of the most influential poets of the early middle ages. We explain all this. Anne still wonders why you need 70 people to stab somebody in his basement, and Michelle is shocked, shocked, I tell you, that there isn’t any historical fiction about all this, though she is slightly mollified by the fact that there is now a Snorri ap, for Android and IOS. Well, then. (Aired May 9, 2023)

• Snorri Sturluson
• Hakon Hakonarson, King of Norway

78. Special Episode: April Fool’s Debunking of the Myth of the Medieval Shame Flute

If you go and peruse the internet, you will discover many discussions of the medieval shame flute, an instrument created specifically to be fastened to a bad musician, in order to shame him. There are pictures. There is a lot of certainty about this. Alas, it wasn’t there. Michelle went to find them, and, though there are a couple of torture museums which have examples, those are not medieval examples. In fact, do we think that there were ever any shame flutes, even after the middle ages? We do not. Because we think, really, when bad musicians come to your town, you can just make them leave. And then not hire them any more. Michelle found some pretty nifty postcards, though, with lots of shaming devices, and you can buy them. And send them to your friends. (Aired April 13, 2023:

77. Diarmait Mac Murchada Invites the Anglo-Normans into Ireland, Leinster, Ireland 1167

At the end of the 12th century, the kings of Ireland had been fighting amongst themselves, and the high king got involved, and what with one thing and another Diarmait Mac Murchada, who had been the king of Leinster, and then had been ousted, and then had gotten in again, got ousted again, and then had the very bad idea of getting help from the Anglo-Normans. And they did help, didn’t they, and then they took Ireland over. This could have been foreseen by anybody who had been paying attention to how the Normans operated. Diarmait, at any rate, got to be king again, though not for long, and then he got to live in infamy as a great traitor. For the Irish. The English liked him better. Michelle gets even more exercised than usual, because 1) colonialism, very bad, and 2) some scholars she found, also very bad. (Aired April 3, 2023)

• Diarmait Mac Murchada
• Richard de Clare, "Strongbow"

76. Special Episode: Richard Walweyn Wears Padded Pants, London, England 1565

One day in London in 1565, Richard Walweyn was arrested for wearing the wrong pants, and put in jail until he could prove he owned some proper ones. And why were these the wrong pants? Cause they were puffed out, and he was a servant. Makes no sense, right? Nah. But in times of unease, people like to try to get everybody to wear the right clothes, eat the right things, buy the right stuff. Whatever those things are that year. We discuss sumptuary laws over time, we discuss the hell which would be More’s Utopia, if you found yourself living in it, and Michelle, bless her heart, found Italian Traveling Earrings. (Aired March 12, 2023)

75. Crime Rise in the Great Famine, Europe 1315-1322

In 1315, the crops throughout Europe failed. And then they failed the year after that. And then the year after that. It was raining. And it rained and rained and rained. After that , it rained some more. One of the greatest natural disasters of the middle ages was the Great Famine, in which so many people of Europe died that the population didn’t reach the level it had been before the rain started until the 19th century. Naturally, the crime rate rose. That’s a fact. However, the cannibalism and infanticide stories, though they were very well known, don’t have any evidence. Despite Hansel and Gretel. So we figured there was a rise in theft, and a rise in piracy, but not widespread cannibalism. Michelle found a very good book. And a very bad one. (Aired February 28, 2023)

74. Dafydd Gam ap Llewelyn ap Hywel kills his kinsman Richard Fawr ap Dafydd, Brecon High Street, Wales late 14th Century

Before Davy Gam got famous amongst the English for helping out at Agincourt and getting knighted, and being in general an acceptable Welshman on account of helping out the English and fighting Welshmen, he had killed a kinsman in Brecon, had fought under John of Gaunt, and had fought against Owain Glyndŵr, the leader of the last great Welsh rebellion and the last Welsh Prince of Wales. As you can imagine, a Welshman famous amongst the English for bravely serving them and fighting at Agincourt is not necessarily a Welsh hero. But! He gives Anne an excuse for talking about Owain Glyndŵr, and Michelle an excuse for explaining why John Powys is not as good an author as Tolkien. Also, we discuss how it is that families in an occupied country might well find themselves on different sides of a conflict. (Aired February 11, 2023]

• Dafydd Gam ap Llewelyn
• Owen Glendower
• Richard Fawr

73. Special Holiday Edition: The Cursed Carolers, Saxony 10th Century

Once upon a time, a group of parishioners in a village in Saxony danced in the churchyard during Christmas Mass, and so the priest cursed them and then they danced without ceasing for a year. This story was told, with variations, throughout Europe, from the 10th century (at least) through the 16th century. And! It really happened! Ok, not the dancing without ceasing for a year part, but the dancing without being able to stop? That really happened. From the 14th through the 17th century, groups of people throughout Europe would start dancing maniacally, and be unable to stop. Sometimes they did this till they died. And we still don’t know why this occurred, though it is recognized as a Thing That Really Happened. We discuss dancing mania, the cursed carolers legends, and try to make sense of it all. Happy Holidays! (Aired December 20, 2022)

72. The Jews of York are Massacred, York, England 1190

A wave of anti-Semitism and atrocities against the Jews swept England starting in 1189, when Richard Lionheart was crowned, and mobs in London attacked the Jews in that city. The worst of the atrocities happened in York, when the local mobs burnt and pillaged Jewish homes; when the Jews retreated to the castle keep (they were, theoretically and legally, under the protection of the king), the York mob besieged the wooden keep with stones, and murdered some of the Jews, having lured them out of the keep with the promise of safety if they converted. The Jews of York committed suicide, and burnt down the keep. Lately, work has been done to create an honorable, respectful, and informative permanent exhibit, making sure that this piece of York history is known and remembered. Michelle, having found no operas and novels featuring this atrocity, explains the history of York castle. And also Henry III’s toilet. (Aired December 13, 2022)

• Richard Malebisse

71.Special Episode: Guy Fawkes Attempts to Blow Up King James and Parliament, London, England November 5, 1605

Special Episode! It's the third birthday of True Crime Medieval, but, more importantly really, it's the 417th anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot not actually coming off; if it had, not only King James and all of Parliament would have been destroyed, but also several blocks around, including Westminster Abbey. We discuss the Plot, why it didn't work, what's been going on with November 5th celebrations since then, and, because Michelle finds this stuff, Edgar Allan Poe and his hatred for William Harrison Ainsworth's historical novel about the whole affair. (Aired November 3, 2022)

• Guy Fawkes
• Robert Catesby
• Thomas Wintour
• Sir Thomas Knyvett
• William Parker, Baron Mounteagle
• King James I of England

70.King Alboin is Murdered, Verona, Italy 572

King Alboin was a very successful king of the Lombards, and conquered the Gepids, and took Rosamund, the daughter of the king of the Gepids, as his wife, and everything was great, but then Rosamund murdered him, with the help of her lover. She was probably not very happy about the marriage, since she was still mourning the deaths of her father and her grandfather and her brother, so probably being married to the guy that killed them wasn't fun. The story got embellished pretty quickly; Alboin made Rosamund drink out of the skull of her father, for instance -- nice detail but your hosts don't believe it happened. As time went on, the story stopped being about Alboin and started being about Rosamund. Michelle watched an entire movie from 1961, and says we should not do that, but she gives us a link anyway. Just in case. (Aired November 1, 2022)

• Alboin, King of the Lombards
• Rosamund of the Gepids

69. King Olaf Kills Klerkon in the Market Place, Novgorod, Russia 10th Century

Blanca, the rescue Goffin’s Cockatoo, is a guest cohost on this episode, about that time that Olaf, before he was king of anything, whacked Klerkon, the viking who had enslaved him when he was a toddler. We discuss the Kyivan Rus, Novgorod, Vikings, blood money, the sagas, and, to Anne’s surprise, Longfellow. Blanca the Cockatoo has a lot to say. We don’t know why. Also we don’t know what she was saying. (Aired October 26, 2022)

• Olaf Tryggvason, King of Norway
• Astrid Eriksdatter
• Sigurd Eriksson
• Vladimir the Great

68.Llewelyn the Great Hangs William de Braose, Aber Garth Celyn , Wales May 2, 1230

So, one day in 1230, William de Braose was over at Llewelyn the Great’s castle, and he was found in Llewelyn’s private chambers with Joan, who was Llewelyn’s wife. As well as the daughter of the King of England. Now, according to Welsh law, Llewelyn would then have been in his rights to beat William up, but instead, there was a trial, and William ended up being hung from some tree or other; two are in the running for being The Tree, but who knows. At any rate, messing around with the Queen did not carry the death penalty in Wales, but Llewelyn hung him anyway, and then wrote to his widow to see if she still wanted their children to get married. And she did, so they were. And what scandalizes Michelle most about all this is that the de Braoses and the relatives of Llewelyn were so intermarried that you don’t know what to call their various relations. Also, that William and Joan and Llewelyn were all middle aged and not teenagers and really there is no excuse for all this. (Aired October 17, 2022)

• Llewelyn the Great
• Joan, Lady of Snowdon
• William de Braose, Baron Abergavenny

67. Peter von Hagenbach is Convicted of War Crimes, Breisach, Germany 1474

Laws regulating war crimes have existed since ancient times, and trials of people who have committed them have existed as well; the trial of Peter von Hagenbach wasn’t unusual for being a trial to judge whether he has violated laws of war when he was holding down Breisach for Charles the Bold; it was unusual because it was an international trial, and because part of the judgement included the decree that if soldiers are given orders they know to be wrong, they are culpable if they follow those orders. The trial would be cited as precedent for the Nuremberg trials after World War II. We discuss the trial, we discuss war crimes, and Michelle presents a children’s book which posits von Hagenbach as a hero to be emulated. We are both scandalized.(Aired September 27, 2022)

• Peter von Hagenbach
• Charles the Bold

66. Henry of Trastámara Massacres the Jews of Toledo, Toledo Spain, 1355

Henry of Trastámara, of Henry of Castile, the Fratricidal, was not as friendly with the Jews of Spain as his half-brother, Pedro the Cruel, or Pedro the Just (depending on your interpretation of him) had been. He’s “The Fratricidal,” by the way, because he murdered his half-brother Pedro the Cruel or Just. Henry wasn’t yet king in 1355 — that is, he hadn’t murdered his half-brother yet — but was at war with him, and wherever Henry took some power, Jews were murdered. The massacre at Toledo was the beginning of his crimes against the Jews; Toledo was important as a center of Jewish intellectual and religious life in Spain. So we explain this, and the background, of course. And Michelle found a recipe for medieval Challah. So there’s that. (Aired September 19, 2022)

• Henry of Trastámara

65. King Lambert is Assassinated (or not), Marengo, Italy 898

After a short (he was 18 when he died) but eventful and busy life, Lambert, King of Italy and Holy Roman Emperor, was assassinated during a boar hunt. That’s one rumor. The other rumor is that he fell off his horse and died. Evidence? Witnesses? Nah, not really. But we both have an opinion on this, which is that a story that has a king sleeping on the ground during a boar hunt is fundamentally flawed, and we don’t buy it. On the other hand, Michelle found two translations of the chronicle which tells us these rumors, so she had a very good time. (Aired August 15, 2022)

• Lambert di Spoleto

64. Jeanne de Clisson takes up piracy, Brittany 1343

In 1343, Olivier de Clisson, who had backed the wrong candidate for the then empty Duke of Brittany position, as far as the king of France was concerned, was invited to a tournament, and then seized and executed for treason without a trial. This greatly angered his wife, Jeanne, so she gathered a troupe of men and harassed the French, becoming quite beloved by the English, who were fighting France, in the beginning of the Hundred Years War. She also became a pirate, more or less. At least, she was attacking French ships and slaughtering Frenchmen. We discuss the question of piracy and what it is, really; and Michelle laments having had only Disney princesses as role models, in her youth, since apparently Jeanne would have been a much better model of womanly behavior. (Aired July 13, 2022)

• Jeanne de Clisson
• Olivier de Clisson

63. The Children of Hamelin Disappear, Hamelin, Lower Saxony, 1284

In 1284, the children of Hamelin disappeared. Unless you translate the Latin differently, and they all died. Over the centuries, the story of what happened to them would get more and more intricate. Was there a Pied Piper involved? Probably not, though there may have been a musician. Were there rats? Nah. They don’t show up in the stories for a few hundred years. But something happened, as the Hamelin chronicles tell us. What the hell it was we don’t know. We explain the possible fates of the children of Hamelin, as invented over the centuries, and Michelle raves about the ways in which the town of Hamelin is currently cashing in on the legend. (Aired July 5, 2022)

62. Leopold of Austria Kidnaps Richard the Lionheart, Near Vienna, Austria 1192

Capturing an enemy and holding them for ransom, in the middle ages, wasn’t necessarily a crime. However, kidnapping a fellow crusader was not ok, since the pope has said that all the crusaders were supposed to treat each other well (by not capturing their lands and goods while they were off fighting, or kidnapping them and holding them for ransom), and also, there’s a difference between holding a fellow noble for ransom and kidnapping the king of England. To be truthful, as far as medieval crimes go, this one isn’t very criminal — just sort of dumb, and tacky, but it gives a chance to discuss the rehabilitation of Richard’s reputation (he wasn’t a horrible king! he was ok!) and the importance of historical fiction. (Aired June 20, 2022)

• Richard the Lionheart
• Leopold of Austria
• Pope Celestine III

61. King John Starves Maud and William de Braose to Death, Corfe Castle, Dorset, England 1210

In 1210, King John of England left Maud de Braose and her son William in Corfe Castle and let them starve to death, either because Maud had been shirty with one of his messengers, or because John owed William money and didn’t want to pay it back, or because, well, who knows. John was like that. Maud, on the other hand, had, before getting thrown into the dungeon at Corfe Castle, had impressed the Welsh by defending a castle against them, and, apparently, or at least the Welsh said so, magically building a castle in one night all by herself. In this episode, we discuss the horrible badness of King John, and why it’s not a good idea to learn history from Disney movies. (Aired May 23, 2022]

• Maud de Braose
• William de Braose IV
• William de Braose III
• King John of England

60. Jacques le Gris Rapes Marguerite de Carrouges, Normandy, January 1386

In 1386, Marguerite de Carrouges accused Jacques le Gris of having raped her, and though the French Parliament could not come to an agreement as to whether or not le Gris was guilty, we know that he was, because Marguerite’s husband Jean killed le Gris in a trial by combat, so that’s settled. Although le Gris’ descendants would keep trying to convince everybody that actually somebody else raped her. The evidence for this was either nonexistent or unconvincing. The case is currently known both because of the 2004 book The Last Duel, by Eric Jager, which was then made into a 2021 film, The Last Duel, directed by Ridley Scott. We discuss the historical record of the crime and the trials, and Michelle discusses the film (Spoiler Alerts!), which, as usual, she has a lot of opinions about. Oh, and by the way, it wasn’t actually the last French judicial duel. Near the end though, and the title is great! (Aired April 15, 2022)

• Jacques le Gris
• Jean de Carrouges
• Marguerite de Carrouges

59. Bran Ardchenn, King of Leinster, and his wife Eithne are Assassinated, Cell Cúile Duma, Ireland May 6, 795

The Irish Annals are full — full, we tell you — of detailed histories of the kings of Ireland. Only mostly the details are their names, how long they ruled, and how they died. Though Bran Ardchenn and Eithne were burned to death in a church, we don’t know more than that. In this episode, we discuss early Irish history, the Book of Leinster, and Anne’s annoyance at not knowing exactly how Bran and Eithne died. Because “burned to death” doesn’t really explain much. (Aired April 8, 2022)

• Bran Ardchenn
• Eithne

58. The Pazzi Conspiracy, Florence Italy, Easter 1478

In 1478, in Florence, the banking family of the Medici was very powerful. Very powerful indeed. But another banking family, the Pazzi, were not happy with this. No, no! They wanted to be more powerful in Florence than the Medici were! So they created A Plan. Well, a few plans, really, but finally one of the plans was carried out, which was to kill two of the Medici at High Mass in the Cathedral, after which the citizens of Florence were going to say, yay! hoorah! Now the Pazzi will be our leaders! Only they didn’t, and all of the members of the Pazzi Conspiracy got hung from the windows of the city hall, and Lorenzo de’ Medici, who (unlike his brother) had survived the Conspiracy, continued to be Lorenzo the Magnificent. Michelle is Highly Scandalized by all this. Highly, I say. (Aired March 8, 2022)

• Lorenzo de'Medici
• Giuliano de'Medici
• Jacopo de'Pazzi
• Francesco de'Pazzi
• Pope Sixtus IV

57. Stephen of Blois Breaks His Oath, London, England, December 1135

In 1127, Stephen of Blois swore an oath that when Henry I, King of England, died, Stephen would support Henry’s daughter (and Stephen’s cousin), Empress Maud, as queen ruler of England. But in 1135, when Henry died, Stephen hightailed it to London and grabbed the throne. In this episode, we discuss the civil war that followed, and several interesting bits of it — Empress Maud escapes from Oxford by walking over the iced river in a blizzard; Queen Matilda, Stephen’s wife, manages to get the citizens of London to throw Matilda out, by playing the girl card; Stephen pays the wages of the mercenaries that Henry, Maud’s son, hired when he invaded Stephen’s kingdom; William of Blois, Stephen’s son, signs away the throne of England because really he has more sense than most of his family. Also, if that rapey song in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers bothers you — as well it might, even if the brothers do come to understand that just grabbing women is not the way to create marriages with them — Michelle has fixed this for you by writing a verse which is all about the awesomeness of Norman women. Which she sings. Life is good. (Aired January 27, 2022)

• King Stephen of England
• Empress Matilda
• Robert of Gloucester
• Henry FitzEmpress

56. Special Episode: Darnley Murders Rizzio, Edinburgh, Scotland 1566

One evening in March of 1566, Mary, Queen of Scots, was sitting with one of her half-sisters and her secretary David Rizzio, eating supper. Suddenly, the door slammed open; Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, and his cohorts burst in, stabbed Rizzio, and pointed a gun at the Queen. Who was 6 months pregnant at the time, with the future James I/IV. Then the band of conspirators took Rizzio out, stabbed him 56 times, and threw him down the stairs. We’ll give you all the background to this, and also explain what happened to Darnley, but in essence, all the conspirators were in on a Stupid Plot, which was meant to get Darnley, Mary’s husband, declared King of Scotland. (That, by the way, did not happen.) So that was a very bad evening for Mary, Queen of Scots, though probably not the worst, since later on her cousin Elizabeth, Queen of England, was going to keep her in captivity and then cut her head off. Besides Rizzio’s demise, we discuss why the Nazis were all for Mary and not Elizabeth. Fun times! (Aired January 6, 2022)

• Mary, Queen of Scots
• Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley
• David Rizzio

55. Winter Shenanigans (Lords of Misrule), Europe 500-1600

It’s important, in the middle of the winter, to take part in raucous activities, and there were lots in medieval Europe. Boys being bishops, men and women switching clothes, parishioners gambling in the churches, and, unsurprisingly, most everybody drinking. Lots. Besides giving you the history, Anne explains a Christmas Celebration Gone Terribly Wrong, and Michelle tells you about that time that the Tudors used the Christmas celebrations as a prelude to an execution. Tacky. (Aired January 3, 2022)

• William the Conqueror
• Edward VI of England
• Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset

54. Fulbert’s Henchmen Attack Peter Abelard, Paris, France 1117

One night, in Paris, thugs broke into the room of Peter Abelard, renowned theologian and philosopher, and beloved teacher, and castrated him. Because Fulbert, the uncle of Heloise, was REALLY annoyed that Abelard and Heloise were keeping their marriage secret. Which they had entered into so that Fulbert wouldn’t be so upset about the affair that they had been having. Also their son, Astrolabe, or, as Anne likes to think of him, Global Positioning System. Fulbert just had no moderation. Abelard went off to be a monk for while and then wander around, Heloise went off to run a nunnery, they both wrote lots of letters, and Astrolabe (after being raised by Abelard’s sister Denise) grew up to work in at least two churches. And then later Abelard and Heloise became very famous as tragic lovers. And you can go and leave letters on their supposed grave in Paris, asking them for help with your love affairs, though really that doesn’t seem like a great idea, given all that bad luck they had, and also they probably aren’t there. The end. (Aired December 29, 2021)

• Peter Abelard
• Heloise
• Astrolabe
• St. Bernard of Clairvaux

53. St. Brice’s Day Massacre, England November 13, 1002

King Æthelred of England really did not have the wherewithal to successfully deal with the Danish/English tension that he had inherited with the throne, which had been caused by Viking raids for about 100 years, notably established by what the English called The Great Heathen Army, which took over much of England. Oh, too bad. One solution, he thought, was to kill off all the Danes in England. This did not work. For one thing, the Danes did not in fact get killed off, though the English did kill some of them — notably in Oxford, where they burnt the church down with Danish settlers gathered inside. For another thing, the Vikings invaded again, not long after the Massacre. The throne of England went back and forth between the English and Danes, after that, for some decades, until, in 1066, the Normans would invade and take everything over, establishing a NEW Viking dynasty, one which spoke French. And liked to write history. (Aired December 1, 2021)

• Æthelred 'Unræd'
• Sweyn "Forkbeard" Haraldsson

52. Special Episode: Elizabeth Bathory Commits Serial Murder, Castle of Csejte, Hungary 1590-1610

(Special Episode — Post-Medieval!) Between 1590 and 1610 (probably), Elizabeth Bathory tortured and killed girls and women (probably). When all of that got stopped, she was arrested — but never accused — and four of her servants were arrested, tortured, and put on trial. Three of them were executed, and the last imprisoned for life. Elizabeth was put under house arrest. She was never accused, she never went to trial, and she died of natural causes. What. The. Hell. We discuss the scanty evidence, we discuss the mushrooming of the Stories About Her Horrible Badness, and Michelle’s rabbit hole concerns current tourism in Slovakia, which is making a killing (ha ha) from tours of the ruins of her castle, and selling really dark red wine. Since one of the stories is that she bathed in blood to keep her good looks. She didn’t. But she was indeed very badly behaved. (Aired November 20, 2021)

• Elizabeth Bathory

51. Pope Stephen VI is Murdered, Rome, Italy 897

In 897, in Rome, Pope Stephen VI was strangled, in prison. There. That’s the True Crime. We don’t know who did it — a representative of the people of Rome, we suppose. The interesting part of this crime is not that he got murdered, but why he got murdered. Which was that he had dug up the 7 months dead corpse of a predecessor and put it on trial. In fancy papal garb. With a deacon giving answers to questions, since the dead pope on trial couldn’t do it. We bring you The Cadavar Synod! And Michelle finds musicals. (Aired October 28, 2021)

50. Charlemagne Massacres the Saxons, Verden, Lower Saxony 782

One day, after the Saxons won one of the many battles in the Saxon Wars, Charlemagne, who was pretty annoyed, ordered the mass execution of 4,500 warriors. This didn’t really tarnish his golden reputation until the 18th century, when it began to bother people. We discuss the Saxons, Charlemagne’s reputation, the trouble that the Nazis had in figuring out how to talk about him, and, oddly enough, Christopher Lee and his heavy metal Charlemagne albums. (Aired October 14, 2021)

• Charlemagne
• Widukind

49. Edward I Steals the Stone of Scone, Scone, Scotland 1296

Edward I invaded Scotland in 1296, on account of (he said) their broken feudal obligations. Amongst the usual spoils of war — prisoners, horses, weapons, nice gold stuff — he took a rock. Weighing about 335 pounds. We discuss the theft of the Stone of Destiny, and its subsequent history. Including, to our delight, a 20th century liberation of the Stone, wherein four university students break into Westminster Abbey and take the stone back to Scotland. Then it went back to England. Now it’s in Scotland again. It’s a very important rock, really. (Aired September 29, 2021)

• Edward I, King of England
• Kenneth MacAlpin, King of the Picts

48. Viking Child Murdered, Dublin, Ireland 9th-10th C.

As a true crime subject, our Viking child is problematic: who is he? We don’t know. How did he die? We don’t know. Why did he get thrown in the tidal pool that’s now the back gardens of Dublin Castle? We don’t know. When did this happen? We don’t know. But we know something bad happened. And Michelle gets to talk about archeology and awesome civil disobedience in the service of history. (Aired August 27, 2021)

47. St. Olga Massacres the Drevlians, Ukraine, 945

The Primary Russian Chronicle tells us much about the revenge that Olga of of the Kievan Rus took on the Drevlians after they killed her husband. And most of it is surely mythological. Entire boatloads of ambassadors being dropped into a trench, dug overnight in the royal hall? Two groups of ambassadors slaughtered, without the Drevlians getting suspicious? Flocks of bird set on fire, and then burning a town down? No, no, and no. However, Anne stands firm on the blood feast, and Michelle stands firm on the idea that the Primary Russian Chronicle should have been published under its name in direct translation, “Tale of Bygone Years.” It’s true that Olga converted and saved a lot of Christians later, though, so the saintliness part we are just fine with. (Aired August 11, 2021)

• St. Olga of Kiev
• Igor of Kiev
• Prince Sviatoslav

46. Battle Abbey Forges Charters, Sussex, England mid 12th Century

After the Normans conquered England, the pope sanctioned them, on account of how much slaughtering had gone on. So, being sanctioned, they were very sorry. Which is why William the Conqueror founded Battle Abbey, where the Battle of Hastings was. And when he did that, he gave the monks some special rights (mostly having to do with not being required to listen to the bishop), but they didn’t get written down, because nobody needed to; the king, after all, had said so. But time moved on, and written culture became the thing, so the monks needed a charter to prove the things William said. So they made some. About seven of them. They were very nice looking forgeries, but nobody believed them. However! There was a forgery ring running out of Winchester Abbey. Really. You can’t make this stuff up. (Aired July 14, 2021)

• William the Conqueror

45. The Sack of Constantinople, April 8-13, 1204

From the middle of the 5th century until 1204, Constantinople was the largest, the wealthiest, the most sophisticated, the most important city in Europe. Then the 4th Crusade, which had intended to go retake Jerusalem, went to the center of Eastern Christianity and besieged it, sacked it, crippled it, and destroyed — for at least 800 years — the relations between the Roman Christians and the Byzantine Christians. None of this makes any sense, except that money was involved and people behaved badly. Michelle explains how Western scholarship has dealt with this major crime (it wasn’t until the 1950’s that it was described as a crime), and Anne explains the money. Follow the money. (Aired June 30, 2021)

• Pope Innocent III
• Alexios IV Angelos
• Boniface of Montferrat

44. King James Murders the Earl of Douglas, Stirling Castle, Scotland 1452

If you are an Earl, and you are sent a safe conduct pass to go talk to the King, you’re safe, right? You can go meet them, and calmly discuss that alliance you made with a couple of other noblemen, one that is not in favor of the king and his kingly position. Calmly, yes, and then you can go home. Unless it’s 1452, and you’re in Scotland, and you’re one of the Douglases, and the king is known for having a very bad temper. In which case you might get stabbed 26 times and thrown out a window. Really, given Scots history before that, one might have been able to predict that; noblemen getting stabbed despite their safe conduct passes is sort of a theme. (Aired June 16, 2021)

• King James II of Scotland
• William, 8th Earl of Douglas

43. St. Columba Violates Nonexistent Copyright Laws and Starts a War, Movilla Abbey, Ireland 560

It's very rude to copy books secretly whilst staying with one of your old teachers, even if you are very careful not to harm the books, and don't use cheese sandwiches as bookmarks. That's what we learn from this episode. Also that the ancient kings of Ireland liked to use cattle as examples of just about everything. And that the O'Neills were willing to go to war with the High King over a book. Michelle and Anne discuss the meaning of copyright law, which really has nothing to do with copying a manuscript in 6th century Ireland. Though to every cow belongs her calf, and to every book its copy. We guess. In good news, there's no torture. Though there are some deaths -- about 3,000, at the Battle of the Book. Darn. (Scheduled to air June 2, 2021)

• Saint Columba
• Diarmait mac Cerbaill

42. Special Episode: Christopher Marlowe is Assassinated, Deptford, England, 1593

At the end of May 1593, the most important and influential playwright in England died at the age of 29. Rumor and gossip and a great many history books and literature collections would say, over the centuries, that he died in a tavern brawl. To be fair, his earlier history with drunken brawl involvement makes this plausible. But the evidence -- or rather, the lack of evidence -- given at the inquest makes it clear that he was being got rid of. Oh, besides being a writer, he was involved in Walsingham's Elizabethan espionage net. There's that. In this special episode, stepping out of the middle ages and into the early modern era, we discuss the evidence. Also Michelle has found some musicals. Yikes. (Aired May 19, 2021)

• Christopher Marlowe
• Francis Walsingham
• Thomas Kyd

41. The Assassination of Queen Joanna of Naples, Muro Lucano, Italy 1382

Joanna of Naples had a hell of a life. There were unhappy marriages, there were murders, there were invasions, there was the Black Death, there was the Papal Schism, and there was a tangled ball of plots and tussles over the inheritance of the Neapolitan throne. At the end of it all, she was murdered and thrown into a well. And then she enjoyed hundreds of years of a Very Bad Reputation. But recently, scholarship has turned the tide! She was an excellent leader, who was beleaguered by a whole lot of men across Europe, though mostly in her bedchamber, who thought that really, women shouldn’t be rulers! Michelle gets quite passionate about this. And manages to convince Anne as well, though for Anne the jury is still out on whether or not she was in on the plot to throw her first husband through a window. (Aired May 5, 2021)

• Joanna of Naples
• Andrew of Hungary
• Louis of Taranto
• James IV, King of Mallorca
• Otto, Duke of Brunswick

40. University of Paris Strike, Paris, France 1229

First some undergraduates got drunk over in a tavern, and then they didn’t pay, and so the townspeople beat them up. That was Shrove Tuesday. Fair enough. On Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, when they were supposed to be repenting and thinking about their sinful lives, the students got some buddies together and went and trashed the pub, beat up the taverner, and looted and trashed the nearby businesses. But the townspeople couldn’t do anything about it, cause the local law couldn’t do anything to the students, and the church wouldn’t. So the townspeople went to the Queen, who said the students should be punished. Which the town guards interpreted as a command to kill whatever random students they came across. Which they then did. And then the whole university got very mad and disbanded and everybody left town, and the townspeople had lots fewer customers than they had earlier. Well! That was Lent, 1229, Paris. A very holy time, as you can see. Oh, and by the way. The strike wasn’t the crime. All that Lenten hoohah was. (Aired April 21, 2021)

• Pope Gregory IX
• Blanche of Castile

39. April Fool’s Episode: Ferdinand II of Aragon Abolishes the Droit de Seigneur, Extremadura, Spain 1486

Everybody knows that the Droit de Seigneur (the right of a feudal lord to sleep with a bride on her wedding night) existed. Except it didn’t. Why, then, did Ferdinand II of Aragon abolish it in 1486? Why indeed. We discuss this. Also we discuss the history of the first night myth. And Michelle explains why you should buy books when you see them, instead of waiting till later. (Aired April 7, 2021)

• Ferdinand II of Aragon

The Death of William Rufus, New Forest, England, August 2, 1100

One day the King of England went out hunting, and did not come back, on account of having been shot by one of his hunting companions. Henry, his younger brother, became King in just a few days, and there was no inquest. Nobody at the time thought anything of this, really, because dying whilst hunting in the New Forest was pretty common, but later, lots of people Got Suspicious. We discuss this. Also the fact that the Face of Lucca doesn't really have anything to do with the Face of Bo. (Aired March 24, 2021)

• William Rufus
• Henry I
• Walter Tyrel

37. St. Patrick Gets Kidnapped, Roman Britain, late 5th C.

In honor of St. Patrick's day, we have no snakes, no druids. We talk about Irish pirates capturing young Patricius, which was a crime, and then St. Patrick being all remorseful about something which was some sort of crime but nobody knows what it was, and then, having done all that, we talk a whole lot about St. Patrick movies, including a silent film from 1920 with which we are totally impressed, and another from 2000, which involves David Tennant and has us bemused. Also there is information about currachs, which have nothing to do with St. Patrick being kidnapped. Happy St. Patrick day! (Aired March 10, 2021)

• St. Patrick

36. The Piratical Victual Brothers, North and Baltic Seas, 1393-1440

After being hired to help run victuals into Stockholm through Queen Margaret of Denmark's blockade, the Victual Brothers turned to piracy, decimating the herring trade and annoying the Hanseatic League. Anne explains all that stuff, and Michelle waxes poetic about the medieval cog, which was apparently an awesome sort of ship. And as a special treat, we append the recording we made wherein we figured out why our sound issues hadn't been solved. (Aired February 24, 2021)

• Klaus Störtebeker, pirate
• Queen Margaret of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden
• Haakon of Norway
• Albrecht of Mecklenburg

35. Mabel de Bellême is Murdered, Bures, Normandy 1079

Mabel de Bellême, wealthy Norman landowner, belonged to the de Bellême family. They were infamous for cruelty and general wickedness. Mabel exercised her share of the wickedness and cruelty; eventually one of the many Normans she impoverished gathered his brothers and murdered her. We discuss the de Bellêmes, when we're not discussing Orderic Vitalis, the monk who chronicled their history. (For those of you who have forgotten, it's Orderic who thought that the White Ship crashed on account of sodomy, rather than the rock in the harbor and everybody being drunk in the middle of the night.) (Aired February 10, 2021)

• Mabel de Bellême
• Roger de Montgomery
• Orderic Vitalis

34. Thomas Malory Goes to Prison for Treason, London 1468

Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel got into lots of legal trouble in 1443, 1451, 1452, and might or might not have done the things he got accused of, but he did indeed enter into a plot, along with Richard Neville, to overthrow King Edward IV, for which he ended up in prison. Too bad for him! But lucky for us, because that's when he wrote The Hoole Book of Kyng Arthur and of His Noble Knyghtes of The Rounde Table, which got published, after his death, by William Caxton, which is why we know it. Caxton, by the way, made a bunch of editing decisions, one of which was to shorten the title to Le Morte d'Arthur . Your hosts explain lots of things -- Malory's legal troubles, where Le Morte d'Arthur fits into Arthurian literature, his feud with the Duke of Buckingham -- and some holy oil given to Becket by the Virgin Mary herself, and Dickens' connection to Marshalsea prison. It's all connected. Really. (Aired January 27, 2021)

• Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel
• Humphrey Stafford, Duke of Buckingham
• William Caxton

33. The Theft of the Book of Kells, Kells 1006

Happy New Year! An episode without any deaths! The "chief treasure of the western world" (as the Annals of Ulster reported) was stolen from the Abbey of Kells in 1006, surprisingly, not by Vikings. The thieves tore off the cover, which was encrusted with gold and jewels, we figure, and threw away the manuscript itself, which was found 2 months and 20 days afterwards, "under a sod." Besides the book itself, and some other book which was like it in being thrown in a bog, and Kells, why we want to go there, Michelle also tells us about finding relatives in Meath, and a high cross in the river at Kells which might be there but if so it's impossible to find. Fun times! And we repeat: Vikings were not at fault! (Aired January 12, 2021)

32. Special Episode! Peter Konieczny from Medievalists.net Explains Con Artists in Medieval London

It’s a Special Episode! Peter Konieczny joins us, to share his knowledge and stories about frauds in medieval London. A fake Earl’s son, who needs you to help a lot, really, no kidding. Fake government inspectors who need you to hand over the ale so they can test it, bye-bye. Bakers who steal bits of your dough so as to make extra loaves and shortchange you. Merchants who put dirt in cinnamon. London’s a scary place. Many thanks to Peter and medievalists.net. (Aired December 30, 2020)

31. Christmas Episode: The Murder of Thomas Becket, Canterbury 1170

After years of annoying each other, and fighting about the boundaries between church power and royal power, Henry II of England lost his temper with Thomas Becket, at Christmas, and said something (we don't actually know what, exactly) which caused four knights who didn't know him very well (and hence didn't realize that he lost his temper all the time and would be getting over it in a while) to go down to Canterbury and murder the Archbishop. Bad career move, really. And Thomas Becket, who was then after all a martyr, started healing people and performing miracles pretty much immediately. Henry was very sorry. Or, at least, he said so. In this episode, we explain it all for you, and Michelle has a lot to say about drama. Not surprisingly.(Aired December 16, 2020)

• Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury
• Henry II, KIng of England
• Reginald FitzUrse
• Hugh de Morville
• William de Tracy
• Richard le Breton

30. Albigensian Crusade, Languedoc 1209-1229

Once the Latin Church figured out how to justify slaughtering people who weren't believing the things they were supposed to believe, according to the Latin Church, it was a short leap from slaughtering them in the Holy Land to slaughtering them in Europe. The Cathars were being very wrong, very wrong indeed, on account of being dualists and not believing in things like baptism and the resurrection. So the Pope called a crusade against them. And the French monarchy was glad to help, since the Languedoc -- where most of the Cathars were hanging out -- was rich and enticing territory to annex. To France. Which is why, in the Languedoc today, they mostly speak French rather than Occitan. Even though "languedoc" is from "langue d'oc"-- "language of òc." That's one way languages get endangered. (Aired December 2, 2020)

• Pope Urban III
• Pierre de Castelnau
• Raymond de Toulouse VI
• Simon de Montfort IV
• Pèire Rogièr de Cabaret
• Peter II of Aragon
• Raymond de Toulouse VII
• Philip II of France
• Amaury de Montfort VI
• Alix de Montmorency
• Louis VIII of France
• Blanche of Castile
• Humbert de Beaujeu

29. People's Crusade, France and Germany, 1096

At the end of 1095, Pope Urban II called for the first of several crusades, wherein the Latin Christian Europeans were supposed to go take the Holy Land away from the Islamic rulers who held it at that time. So the nobility of Europe, mostly from France, started putting together forces and money, so as to travel and fight. That was the Prince's Crusade, the First Crusade, and it would leave Europe in the summer of 1096. It takes a while to gather the wherewithal needed for such a venture. Unless you just plan on being a mob! In that case, you can be the People's Crusade, and leave for the Holy Land in April! It takes no time at all to gather money if you just steal it from other people. The People's Crusade slaughtered the Jewish communities that they came across, creating the first of the giant massacres of the Jews of Europe which would continue on through the Middle Ages. They never got to the Holy Land; those of them that survived the journey (and the Hungarians, who managed to kill a lot of them) managed to get as far as Civetot, where the Seljuk Turks slaughtered them. Your hosts aren't sorry about this. (Aired November 18, 2020)

• Pope Urban II

28.The Sicilian Vespers, Sicily, Easter 1282

On Easter Monday, 1282, the Sicilians revolted against the French government that had been in place since 1266; in the course of a few weeks 4,000 to 8,000 French people were slaughtered, depending on what source you are reading. We explain how things got to such a pass, and Michelle has a lovely trip down a rabbit hole wherein she discovers the awesomeness of Stephen Runciman. George Orwell makes a cameo appearance. (Aired November 4, 2020)

• Charles of Anjou
• Peter of Sicily
• Steven Runciman

27. Halloween Episode: Arche the Miller and his Drunken Buddies Pretend to be Ghosts, Cambridgeshire, England 1592

When Arche the Miller and a bunch of his cohorts got very very drunk and pretended to be ghosts, they were living in Early Modern England, but they were pretending to be Medieval Ghosts, new ghosts having not been invented yet. In this episode, we explain medieval ghosts and how to pretend to be one, tell medieval ghosts stories, and try to wrap our minds around the well-known medieval forensic tool wherein murdered bodies bleed when the murderer comes by. Happy Halloween! (Aired October 21, 2020)

26. Robert the Bruce Kills John Comyn, Dumfries, Scotland 1306

Robert the Bruce was not yet King of the Scots when he stabbed John Comyn in front of the high altar in Greyfriars' Church in Dumfries. But he would be, pretty soon, in spite of being excommunicated for violence in the church. We explain the fight for the crown of Scotland and the interfering bossiness of Edward I of England, but we don't explain whether the Bruce murdered Comyn or it was self-defense, because we don't really know. Because chroniclers. (Aired October 7, 2020)

• Robert the Bruce
• John "the Red" Comyn
• The Great Cause (with links to ALL the contenders)

25. The Vikings Raid Lindisfarne, Northumbria 793

It was quite a shock to the rest of Europe when the Vikings, who had been raiding in Scandinavia and making little raids occasionally in Europe, pillaged The Holy Isle of Lindisfarne. The Vikings were pumped, though; it was a very profitable day. That was the beginning of the Viking Age. We discuss the Viking Age, why it was clear to the Vikings that raiding (as opposed to thievery) was not a crime, and why Hnefatafl, which everybody calls Viking chess, isn't really like chess at all. (Aired September 23, 2020)

• Alcuin

24. Philip IV Slaughters the French Knights Templar, Paris, 1310

After having lost Cyprus, their last holding in the Middle East, the Knights Templar no longer had a bunch of Christian pilgrims to protect, so they tried to figure out what to do next. Find new mandate? Join the Hospitalers? Well, no, neither one, darn it. Philip IV of France, who owed a whole hell of a lot of money to the order, strong armed the Pope, with the result that the order got disbanded and the French Templars got exterminated. We're both annoyed at Philip, Pope Clement V, Sir Walter Scott, and anybody continuing to tell lies about the Templars. It's not that we approve of them, really. We just hate the lies. Oh, and we think King Denis I of Portugal is awesome. (Aired September 9, 2020)

• Philip IV of France
• Pope Clement V
• Jacques de Molay

23. The Sheer Dreadfulness of Hugh Despenser the Younger, Hereford, England, 1326

It’s true that Edward II was a very bad ruler; one of his problems was that he would adhere loyally to his favorites. And though his loyalty to Piers Gaveston gave him difficulties, his loyalty to Hugh Despenser got him dead. Why, oh, why, did Edward think so highly of Hugh Despenser, the greedy dangerous, annoying chancellor who was so very dreadful that the queen invaded the country to get rid of him? And is the only Englishman to have a war named after him? Why? We don’t know that. But we do know that really Hugh should have been sent away long before things fell apart. In this episode, we discuss the dreadfulness of Hugh, and the exciting news that we have perhaps found some of his bones. Oh, and that execution. It was bad. (Aired August 26, 2020)

• Edward II, King of England
• Hugh Despenser the Younger
• Isabella of France
• Roger Mortimer
• Llewelyn Bren
• Hugh Despenser the Elder

22. The Murder of Edward II, Berkeley Castle, England 1327

In September, 1327, Edward II, who was by that time no longer King of England, was murdered, at Berkeley Castle. Probably. We discuss what happened, what could have happened, what didn't happen, and oh of course why the king was a former king, and why the former king had to be gotten rid of. Michelle explodes lots of myths. And we decide that though we would not like for Edward II to be our ruler, he was probably a wonderful dinner companion. (Aired August 12, 2020)

• Edward II, King of England
• Piers Gaveston
• Hugh Despenser the Younger
• Isabella of France
• Roger Mortimer

21. The Murder of Marguerite Porete, Paris 1310

Marguerite Porete wrote a book. One bishop said it was heretical and burnt it. Three theologians said it wasn’t heretical, just really difficult for regular people to work with, on account of in order to follow it, you’d have to be as spiritually ardent as Marguerite Porete, and very few people were. The head Inquisitor of France got a committee together, and they said the book was heretical and she should take it back and say sorry. She didn’t. They burned her and the book both. The crowd wept. The book (since not all the copies had been burnt) became very popular, but nobody knew who had written it. But we know now! It was Marguerite. In this episode, we explain what she wrote. And Michelle discovers that really Philip IV of France was quite dreadful and she’s sorry she had such pity for him when we covered the Tour de Nesle affair, and really he got what was coming to him. (Aired July 29, 2020)

• Philip IV, King of France

20. The Massacre at Abergavenny, Wales, Christmas 1175

William de Braose invited Seisyll ap Dyfnwal and some other local Welsh leaders over for Christmas dinner, at which they were all going to agree to live in peace and whatnot. This made sense to the Welsh, who normally wouldn't have trusted William de Braose any further than they could throw him, because for them, it was the time of reconciliation! Settling debts! Being nice! So you can imagine what a shock it was when William had the doors shut and murdered everybody. Then, because he wasn't done yet, he went on over to Seisyll's castle, captured his wife Gwladys, and slaughtered his 7 year old son Cadwaladr. Merry Christmas! Naturally, the Welsh never forgot this. Anglo-Norman and Welsh relations were set back for decades, and they hadn't been good to begin with. (Bonus! Popper the parrot decides to chime in.) (Aired July 15, 2020)

• William de Braose
• Seisyll ap Dyfnwal
• Gwladys ferch Gruffudd
• Cadwaladr ap Seisyll

19. The Murder of Sigebert, Vitry-en-Artois 575

We go back to the early years of our 1000 year mandate, to discuss some of the Merovingians! Lots of people murdered each other and got murdered; here, we're covering Sigebert, who was assassinated by his sister in law. Also, we include Sigebert's wife Brunhilda, who managed to do lots of damage before her eventual execution. And Michelle gets to explain why the Nibelungenlied really has not got much to do with this couple. She read the whole damn thing, too. Bless her heart. (Also Anne's right-left dyslexia causes her to tell you that east is west; but no; Austrasia is the eastern piece of Merovingia. You should let her drive you around. That's exciting.) (Aired July 1, 2020)

• Sigebert
• Brunhilda -- Sigebert's wife
• Chilperic -- Sigebert's brother
• Goswintha -- Brunhilda's sister and Chilperic's wife
• Fredegonde -- Chilperic's second wife

18. The Peasants' Revolt, England 1381

When English commoners marched on London in 1381, killing court officials, Flemish immigrants, and anybody associated with John of Gaunt, it was after they had been through years of social unrest following the Black Death, and several harsh taxes. The Revolt is well known even now, not because of the peasants' demands (which they didn't get -- abolishment of serfdom? executions of all of the king's councilors? get real), but because John Ball was giving sermons to them (to either rouse their spirits or incite them to riot, depending on how you look at it), and he was preaching the abolishment of class divisions, and the abolishment of private property. That's what we remember. (He didn't get his demands, either.) (Aired June 17, 2020)

• John Ball
• Wat Tyler
• Chaucer's brother-in-law, AKA John of Gaunt
• King Richard II of England

17. The Murder of Joan of Arc, Rouen 1431

The Burgundians were fighting a civil war with the rest of France; they allied with the English, who were fighting the French in the last section of the Hundred Years' War; Joan had been causing them both trouble by inspiring the French to fight; the Burgundians captured her and sold her to the English; the English convened an ecclesiastical court and had her condemned for heresy, on a technicality, so they could burn her at the stake. That was how they got rid of a prisoner of war who was being led by saints and angels. We explain the process, and Michelle finds reasons to admire both the snow sculptures of Arras and the poet Southey. (Aired June 3, 2020)

• Jeanne d'Arc
• King Charles VII of France
• Pierre Cauchon, the bishop in charge of the first trial
• John of Bedford
• Pope Callixtus III

16. Vlad Țepeș Slaughters the Transylvanian Saxons, Wallachia, 1460

Vlad Țepeș -- Vlad the Impaler, also called Dracula, since his father was Vlad Dracul-- had a reputation for cruelty even during his lifetime, due to the fact that Germany had the printing press and he had impaled the Transylvanian Saxons after destroying much of southern Transylvania. Nowadays, he's conflated with Dracula the Vampire, but Bram Stoker made that up. But it was a war crime, even by late medieval standards, to impale an entire population on stakes. In this episode, Anne discusses history and medieval war crimes, and Michelle discusses vampires. Because of Bram Stoker. (Aired May 20, 2020)

• Vlad the Impaler
• Radu, Vlad's brother

15. Crimes Against the Jews, Latin Europe 1348-1349

Over the course of the Black Death, Christians across Europe carried out massacres, imposed exiles, and confiscated the goods of their Jewish neighbors, though the Pope tried to stop them. It was the worst wave of massacres of the Jews in Europe before those of WWII. But the context of the massacres is the hundreds of years before and after, of crimes just as horrific though not as concentrated. We discuss that background, and focus on two examples: Erfurt and Strasbourg, both in 1349. (Aired May 6, 2020)

• King Casimir of Poland

14. Accusations of Witchcraft against Alice Kyteler, Kilkenny 1324

In 1324, Alice Kyteler and several other Anglo-Norman citizens of Kilkenny were accused of witchcraft. Kyteler's husband had died under suspicious circumstances, and the new bishop was obsessed with witchcraft: perfect storm. What do your hosts believe? Yes to the poisoned husband. No to the nine red roosters and the four and a half peacocks. And her cohorts, including Petronilla de Meath, who was burned at the stake? Wrong place, wrong time. Oh, and Kyteler got away. (Scheduled to air April 22, 2020)

• Alice Kyteler
• William Outlaw (first husband)
• Adam le Blund (second husband)
• Richard de Valle (third husband)
• Sir John le Poer (fourth husband)

13. The Murder of Peter of Castile, Montiel, Spain 1369

On the 23rd of March, 1369, the noble, worthy Pedro of Castile, the glory of Spain (we're quoting Chaucer here) was treacherously murdered by Henry of Trastámara, his half brother and rival for the throne. And that is what we were planning on talking about. Promise. But we got sidetracked, Anne by the interesting litany of the murders that Pedro himself committed, and Michelle by the interesting rabbit-hole of a play written in 1818 by Ann Doherty. We cover the murder of Pedro, we really do. It's in there someplace. (Aired April 8, 2020)

• Pedro el Cruel
• Enrique, rey de Castilla
• Fadrique de Castilla
• Alfonso de Castilla
• María-de-Portugal
• Leonor-Núñez-de-Guzmán
• Blanche de Bourbon
• María-Díaz-de-Padilla

12. Eustace the Pirate, Battle of Sandwich, England 1217

Eustace the Monk, AKA Eustace the Outlaw, AKA Eustace the Pirate, AKA Eustace the Mercenary, AKA Eustace the Admiral of the French Fleet, led a varied and exciting existence, hired as a pirate mercenary first by the English, then by the French. Everything was great until the Battle of Sandwich, at which he lost his head. (Aired March 25, 2020)

• King John of England
• Renaud de Dammartin
• Louis VIII, King of France
• Philip d'Aubigny
• Robert de Courtenai
• William Marshal

11. The Black Dinner, Edinburgh 1440

In 1440, King James of Scotland was 10 years old, and the power struggles around the throne were deadly. The Douglases weren't, at the moment, as powerful as they had been, but would be stronger any minute, as the 16 year old 6th Earl of Douglas would indeed be getting older. Unless somebody murdered him first! There's an idea! Were the 6th Earl and his little brother invited to Edinburgh, given a mock trial and beheaded? Yes. Yes, they were. Was there a dinner first, at which their upcoming deaths were announced by a black bull's head being slammed on the table? No, and no. Was the child king there, sobbing and begging for their lives? Nope. Did George R.R. Martin know this famous story, and did it influence his Red Wedding? Yes. But that still doesn't make it true. (Aired March 11, 2020)

• King James II of Scotland
• William Douglas, 6th Earl of Douglas
• David Douglas
• William Crichton, 1st Lord Crichton
• Sir Alexander Livingston

10. The Tour de Nesle Scandal, Paris 1314

In 1314, Philip IV of France had three adult sons, all married. There should have been no problem with the royal lineage. Too bad that Philip's three daughters-in-law all got into trouble, because two of them were having affairs with a couple of Norman brothers who were knights of the household. Too bad, indeed. Torture, executions, dungeon incarcerations, and the dying off of the Capetian line would follow. Oh, and Isabella the She Wolf was involved. (Bonus! Michelle explains the Three Rules of Regifting, none of which the princesses paid any attention to. Big mistake.) (Aired February 26, 2020)

• Philippe IV le Bel, roi de France
• Louis X le Hutin, roi de France
• Marguerite de Bourgogne, Reine de France
• Philippe V, roi de France et de Navarre
• Jeanne I, comtesse d'Artois
• Charles "le Bel" Capet, roi de France
• Blanche de Bourgogne
• Isabella of France, Queen consort of England

9. Fra Alberigo, Faenza 1285

As far as we can figure out, the only reason that anybody knows anything about Fra Alberigo, who murdered a couple of kinsmen at a banquet in 1285 in Faenza, is that Dante stuck him in the traitors’ level of hell in the Inferno. Horrible crime! Violation of the ancient laws of hospitality! But he didn’t get arrested, he didn’t go to trial, he just ended up in Hell before he actually died, because Dante tweaked theology, and so now he lives on. Forever. In footnotes to the Inferno. We discuss the Jovial Friars, the 9th circle of hell, and medieval lasagne. Indeed, if you go over to the Show Notes, we’re including a recipe. Oh, and also the Maryland State Flag, but you have to listen to the podcast to find out why. Update: He was fined. And he had to leave town for a while. So there's that. (Aired February 12, 2020)

• Alberigo Manfredi
• Manfredo Manfredi
• Alberghetto Manfredi

8. Els von Eystett, Nördlingen 1471

Living as a prostitute in the municipal brothel in Nördlingen, Els von Eystett, forced to have an abortion (periwinkle, cloves, wild carrot and wine was the recipe), refused to be silent, even after she was beaten by the brothel-keeper. She and the other women working in the brothel testified against the brothel-keeper and the madam, giving details about the horrible conditions they worked in. The city officials believed them, and they won the case. Really. Also, Nördlingen was built inside a meteor crater. Really. (Aired January 29, 2020)

7. Gilles de Rais, Nantes, 1440

Marshall of France and war hero, Gilles de Rais spiraled downward precipitously, ending up being executed for murder, sodomy, torture, and heresy in 1440. Whether or not he actually sold his soul to the devil in the process is debatable. In good news, though, he produced an awesome dramatic extravaganza before he started murdering children. (Aired January 20, 2020)

• Gilles de Montmorency-Laval, baron de Rais

6. The White Ship Disaster, Barfleur, Normandy 1120

The fact that some people think that Stephen of Blois — or maybe Ranulf Meschin — caused the sinking of la Blanche-Nef allows us to consider it a True Crime. It wasn’t. But it was the worst teenage drunken party in history, and that’s good enough for us. (Aired December 18, 2019)

• Wreck of the White Ship (la Blanche-Nef) 1120
• William Atheling, Duke of Normandy
• Richard Fitzroy
• Matilda FitzRoy, Countess of Perche
• Richard d'Avranches, 2nd Earl of Chester
• Otheur d'Avranches
• Geoffrey Ridel, 2d Lord of Witheringe
• William Bigod, Lord of Framlingham, Sheriff of Suffolk
• Yves de Grandmesnil
• William de Grandmesnil
• William of Rhuddlan
• Geoffrey de l'Aigle
• Engenulf de l'Aigle
• Gilbert de L'aigle, Vicomte d'Exmes
• Lord Thomas Fitz Stephen, Cpt.

5. Beatrice Cenci, Rome 1599

Oh, all right. Outside of our 1000 year mandate. Only just, though. And there is torture! A lurid trial! Ghost with severed head! Also a really bad play by Shelley, but that came lots later. (Aired December 4, 2019)

• Beatrice Cenci
• Olimpio Calvetti
• Giacomo Cenci
• Bernardo Cenci
• conte Francesco Cenci

4. The Princes in the Tower, Part 2, London 1483

In this episode, we discuss the various theories of what happened to young Edward V and his little brother Richard, who went into the Tower of London in June of 1483 and never came out alive. As far as anybody really knows. (Aired November 20, 2019)

• Richard Plantagenet, III
• Edward V, King of England
• Richard of Shrewsbury, 1st Duke of York

3. The Princes in the Tower, Part 1, London 1483'

Well, probably 1483. That’s the last time anybody saw them, anyway. In this first part, we discuss the Cousins’ War, and how the boys ended up in the Tower, in June of 1483. (Aired November 6, 2019)

• Edward IV of England
• Elizabeth Woodville, Queen Consort of England

2. The Bloodfeast of Roskilde, Roskilde 1157

One of the three kings of Denmark attempted to get rid of the other two. He was only partially successful. (Aired October 30, 2019)

• Svend III Grathe
• Knud V(III) av Danmark Magnusson, Konge af Danmark
• King Valdemar "The Great" of Denmark

1. Cangrande della Scala, Verona, 1329'

We start off with a poisoning. Because Michelle wanted a poisoning. And it’s Cangrande della Scala. Because Dante. (Aired October 16, 2019)

• Can Francesco della Scala, Cangrande I