Speaker 1: How's uh oh, have you been noticing how like our
Speaker 1: government would fall apart if anybody wanted the role of
Speaker 1: prime minister but nobody does.
Speaker 2: Have you?
Speaker 1: Are you aware of what's going on over here? I
Speaker 1: guess that's a question.
Speaker 2: I mean I saw like Keith getting he was like
Speaker 2: trying to call I guess it was called a session
Speaker 2: of Parliament together or something like that, and like like
Speaker 2: he got booed and like people yet like, yeah, it
Speaker 2: seems like he's the most cucked man in the world.
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 2: No one else wants the chair right now.
Speaker 1: That's basically it. Yeah, so like what happened because we
Speaker 1: talked about it before, you know, there was the guy
Speaker 1: Peter Mandelsson, who was one of Jeffrey Eveseen's close personal
Speaker 1: friends that kir Starmer appointed to the ambassadorship of America anyway,
Speaker 1: so you know, and then that was a bad idea
Speaker 1: in and of itself. We can all agree on that.
Speaker 1: We can all agree on that. But then also like
Speaker 1: then everyone suddenly noticed that he was like good friends
Speaker 1: with Jeffrey Epstein, Like when the Trump administration did that,
Speaker 1: like latest Epstein league, everybody knew already every leftist in
Speaker 1: the UK had this picture of Peter Mendelssohn belt shopping
Speaker 1: with Jeffrey Epstein like saved on their phone. Okay, so
Speaker 1: we all knew anyway, but then suddenly everybody noticed. And
Speaker 1: then anyway, it's like come out more recently that when
Speaker 1: he was put into the position, he failed his like
Speaker 1: security clearance check. But they were like, but you know
Speaker 1: he was put forward anyway, Cures Starmer's line about this,
Speaker 1: and he said this in Parliament, which is the big deal,
Speaker 1: is that he hadn't known that Peter Mendelssohn had failed
Speaker 1: his security clearance and his line last week was that
Speaker 1: he learned about it on Tuesday. But the thing about it, it
Speaker 1: was that story had actually broken already in September, and
Speaker 1: it's just kind of like no one had like pointed out.
Speaker 1: And also it doesn't make any fucking sense, right, So anyway,
Speaker 1: he fires the head of like a long standing civil
Speaker 1: servant who was like the head of the Office of
Speaker 1: Florid Affairs because he's like, you should have told me.
Speaker 1: I didn't know this. And the guy then got called
Speaker 1: before like to testify about this and was like, well,
Speaker 1: here's the thing. They announced that he was the new
Speaker 1: US ambassador and then had him start working immediately before
Speaker 1: any of the checks got done anyway, so he was
Speaker 1: already working. He was already like had all the documents
Speaker 1: in front of him. And then basically they were like told, Okay,
Speaker 1: well that's the guy, and they were like, uh, seems
Speaker 1: like he failing the things. And they were like, well,
Speaker 1: there's nothing we can do about it because they already
Speaker 1: announced it, and like by behind the scenes, like Starmar's
Speaker 1: right hand man Morgan McSweeney, who was already forced to
Speaker 1: resign over this, had apparently told him to just get
Speaker 1: it fucking done unquote. And it's like the whole thing,
Speaker 1: it's like super super obvious because it's just like a
Speaker 1: quid pro quote because basically Mendelssohn and Morgan McSweeney had
Speaker 1: run this whole like really in depth operation called Labor
Speaker 1: together while Jeremy Corbyn was the leader of the Labor Party,
Speaker 1: where they were like essentially sabotaging the Labor Party from within,
Speaker 1: and that was the whole where the whole anti Semitism
Speaker 1: thing came from. So because Mandelssohn ran all of that
Speaker 1: and it worked, basically, his payoff was you get to
Speaker 1: be the US ambassador, right, And anyway, it's very very
Speaker 1: funny because now Kerre Starmer's like, like, what's an appointment?
Speaker 1: I've never met that, but I don't know anything that
Speaker 1: ever happened, And it's like everyone is like a dog,
Speaker 1: like this is literally unbelievable, and like apparently he was
Speaker 1: in a parliament yesterday and he was like, I know
Speaker 1: it beggars belief, but I simply didn't know, and everyone
Speaker 1: started like laughing at him because it's like, bro, it's
Speaker 1: literally unbelievable, like you're just lying. But the thing is,
Speaker 1: nobody else wants the job, like especially because we're about
Speaker 1: to have like an election on the ninth where we're
Speaker 1: gonna we elect our counselors, so like our our local people,
Speaker 1: and like Labor is gonna get absolutely fucking destroyed in
Speaker 1: the pulse. They're gonna get like decimated, they're gonna be gone,
Speaker 1: and so basically nobody else wants to take the fall
Speaker 1: before that happens. So he's just like hanging around like
Speaker 1: a ghost. But also like the Labor Party is just
Speaker 1: like completely toast because like they've just destroyed it. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's interesting over here, but I'm not getting a
Speaker 1: lot of work done. Like I basically got nothing done
Speaker 1: yesterday because I was just like enjoying schadenfreude.
Speaker 2: Who you know, so who, like, who else in the
Speaker 2: labor party is there to take this? Are they are?
Speaker 3: They?
Speaker 2: Are they finally gonna They're just gonna put David Lammy
Speaker 2: in there or something?
Speaker 1: Well, okay, so no, because like David Lammy is totally
Speaker 1: tainted by this as well, I thought. And so interestingly,
Speaker 1: like before all of this, they had been sort of
Speaker 1: setting up this one like odious little Mark west streeting
Speaker 1: for the job, and he is like a genuine piece
Speaker 1: of shit like transfo but he was super good friends
Speaker 1: with Peter Mandelsson too, so like he can't come in
Speaker 1: because he's like Mandelsson's guy. Could be at Billiband, could
Speaker 1: be like on the news yesterday, like there's a there
Speaker 1: was a good kind of clip circulating where he was
Speaker 1: like on the news and someone was like yeah, dude,
Speaker 1: But like the trouble is everybody knew Peter Mandelson was
Speaker 1: a piece of shit, and like you watch him being
Speaker 1: like yeah, yeah, like and then he was sort of
Speaker 1: like it was just like no, it's a fair point,
Speaker 1: Like at a point tell you just like let him be,
Speaker 1: like watch him be, like I'm not gonna do this anymore,
Speaker 1: Like I'm just not going to toe the line.
Speaker 3: So could be him would have been the Mayor of Manchester,
Speaker 3: Andy Burnham, but Cure Starber blocked him from running for.
Speaker 1: MP so that he wouldn't be able to challenge because
Speaker 1: like that's how much everybody hates Cure Starber. So like, yeah,
Speaker 1: like the whole thing, it's it's just like an incredible
Speaker 1: it's just very funny because like all of the Centrists
Speaker 1: when these guys got in, were like finally the grown
Speaker 1: ups are back in charge, and it's like yeah, by
Speaker 1: that you mean it's just like the same like odious
Speaker 1: group of pricks that you know, Like it's it's just
Speaker 1: really incredible stuff. What can I say, the worst to
Speaker 1: ever do it. He's genuinely the most disliked prime minister
Speaker 1: since anybody started like counting records. I'm talking less popular
Speaker 1: than Margaret Thatcher m because at least, like Margaret Thatcher
Speaker 1: did stuff for rich people.
Speaker 2: Like did I read correctly that they're banning the sale
Speaker 2: of cigarettes to anyone born after like a week ago?
Speaker 1: Yeah, like two thousand and eight, yeah, which is like,
Speaker 1: how is that's not lee, Like you can't just you
Speaker 1: can't just do that. Like so if you're like born
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight, you can have cigarettes, but
Speaker 1: if you're born in two thousand and nine you can't.
Speaker 2: Boo, Yeah, what what is that suppose?
Speaker 1: I don't And also it's like bra vapes are available,
Speaker 1: like it's just like it's just nanny state stuff. That's
Speaker 1: the only thing they're interested in doing, right, Like it's.
Speaker 2: But I just don't, like, cannot comprehend that just seems
Speaker 2: like something engineered to piss people off and not like
Speaker 2: I don't know what possible upside, Like I can't imagine
Speaker 2: there were people who were like I wasn't going to vote,
Speaker 2: but now that they've put those young whippers staff, like
Speaker 2: all those old people are going to vote. Any I
Speaker 2: just don't understand what the like hmmm hmm man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's uh, I don't really understand who it's for.
Speaker 1: Like literally nobody was asking for this, right, so it's
Speaker 1: just like the entire thing is just like the like
Speaker 1: I mean, and and that's what we're offered, right like
Speaker 1: in lieu of any form of like governing, you know,
Speaker 1: like no good things can happen, right, it's just like
Speaker 1: only stasis, and so it's pretty funny. It's a pretty good,
Speaker 1: pretty good time to be alive over here. What can
Speaker 1: I say? We're doing great.
Speaker 2: You know, I uh, I'm having fun at least, that's.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I think that's important.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't.
Speaker 1: Man, it's difficult to say, my friend, it's difficult to say. Like,
Speaker 1: I mean, the one thing that I am really enjoying
Speaker 1: is like the tears of my enemies, you know, like
Speaker 1: I want revenge.
Speaker 2: So yeah, well good.
Speaker 1: For me, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, revenge is is what you need to get by.
Speaker 2: You gotta you gotta you gotta see you gotta see
Speaker 2: them suffer to some degree. Uh.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, absolutely, So yeah, yeah that's great.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean we're just uh whatever, We're just heading
Speaker 2: towards the abyss.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: Trump will either go too far and do something that
Speaker 2: gets around round to like really retaliate and and destroy
Speaker 2: uh you know, the uh the Pedro dollar, or he'll
Speaker 2: back down and try to like make him ends of
Speaker 2: the run, and Israel will just release like some of
Speaker 2: whatever they have on him, just like they have on
Speaker 2: so many people. And yeah, and then you know, then
Speaker 2: we'll get to do that. So like I mean, I
Speaker 2: don't know, We're all just like we're all just continually
Speaker 2: waiting on the edge, just like the precipice of the
Speaker 2: end of the world and the end of everything we
Speaker 2: got going on, and mm hmm, I mean and it like,
Speaker 2: I mean, it just depends like what happens first is like,
Speaker 2: you know, does does the Iran situation like really like
Speaker 2: just flare up to such a degree that that the
Speaker 2: economy gets destroyed? Does the AI bubble crash does like
Speaker 2: some video of Trump doing something horrifying beyond measure like
Speaker 2: come out, like what what is the what? What is
Speaker 2: the thing that pushes us over the edge, Because I
Speaker 2: mean like there's like a million of them and they
Speaker 2: could do it, and like you know, right now the
Speaker 2: US is you know, you got spinning plates and we're
Speaker 2: like stepping over banana peels and everything, and we got
Speaker 2: forty spinning plates, you know, like and they're all going
Speaker 2: and the thing is like when one of them falls,
Speaker 2: the rest will fall because the state isn't it's it's
Speaker 2: not uh, it's been hollowed out and out of the
Speaker 2: point where like you can't do that. We can't. We
Speaker 2: we don't have global soft power anymore. We're basically the
Speaker 2: global hedgemon now because of the entropy of empire, like
Speaker 2: and China doesn't feel that they're ready to push us
Speaker 2: over yet. Yeah, so, uh, I don't know. It's it's
Speaker 2: all incompetence. All the way down over here, Democrats aren't
Speaker 2: doing anything. It's almost like we need a third party
Speaker 2: of some kind here.
Speaker 1: Uh well, listen, look it happened here like unfortunately for us,
Speaker 1: like our white our right wing got even crazier.
Speaker 2: I don't think that's a I don't think I think
Speaker 2: that's an inevitability.
Speaker 1: Like I just think it's uh, but yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that kind of comes with the territory. But you know,
Speaker 1: like green parties are doing good over here, we're doing
Speaker 1: really well.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry to see what we do in the midterms.
Speaker 1: But yeah, like at this point in time, we're we're
Speaker 1: basically just taking over all that. But and it's a
Speaker 1: genuine leftist alternative and it's it's really exciting, you know.
Speaker 1: So that's cool. Yeah, like it can happen, it's but
Speaker 1: there has to be like I mean, I guess also
Speaker 1: it's true that it's like, of course we have the
Speaker 1: parliamentary system, so it's, uh, it's a little bit different,
Speaker 1: but you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I mean we got you know, we get
Speaker 2: the majority two party system here. And that doesn't mean
Speaker 2: that third parties never happen. It just means that it
Speaker 2: takes a little bit longer and things have to progress
Speaker 2: to a point to to to to to create the
Speaker 2: conditions for those things to happen. And I mean that
Speaker 2: is I think, I think that's what you get with
Speaker 2: like with with this if you who are fed up
Speaker 2: and they don't have anywhere else to go right now,
Speaker 2: and I mean I would guess it probably happens in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty eight or early twenty twenty nine after like
Speaker 2: a dim whoever it is, wins the election and they
Speaker 2: come in and nothing changes at all. I mean even
Speaker 2: if they even the most good hearted them, they're not
Speaker 2: going to have the votes to change things the way
Speaker 2: that they needed to that they need to be and
Speaker 2: they'd have to fight their own party and everything, and
Speaker 2: I mean it's just going to tear them apart, just
Speaker 2: like Dems are going to fall apart or Republicans are
Speaker 2: going to fall apart. Whenever Trump dies, you know or
Speaker 2: what I don't know, whatever happens first anyway, Yeah, let's
Speaker 2: let's talk abou.
Speaker 1: Just some questions. Yeah, let's do it. It'd be good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do that. All right. Hello, and welcome back
Speaker 2: to We're Not So Different podcast about how we're all
Speaker 2: staring into the abyss. This is staring back and we're
Speaker 2: laughing and the abyss is laughing and we're all having
Speaker 2: a good time. Hello. Today, folks, we are going to
Speaker 2: do some more mail more, more, more, more.
Speaker 1: Et cetera.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we all remember that one gift. Y'all remember that movie, folks.
Speaker 2: As promised, we're back with another mailbag episode for April.
Speaker 2: As we said last time, we will be starting a
Speaker 2: short series on pre modern Iran next episode. But for now,
Speaker 2: it's a male time. We Today, we're gonna answer questions
Speaker 2: about Boulogne's medieval tower blocks, cuckoldry, medieval sex said, state
Speaker 2: monopolies of for So, Gregorian chance, and more. Enjoy first,
Speaker 2: we got one from oh and if you want to
Speaker 2: ask us questions like these, please subscribe to Patreon Patreon
Speaker 2: dot com, slash wnst pod. It is five dollars a
Speaker 2: month you get access to this bonus episodes, access to
Speaker 2: the Discord, et cetera, et cetera. So check that out.
Speaker 2: And while you're there, you can also check out Eleanor
Speaker 2: and Phoebe Roy's limited series on wolf Hall, the TV show.
Speaker 2: Check that out. You can get access to all seven
Speaker 2: episodes for just fifteen dollars. So yeah, that is cool. Yeah, anyway,
Speaker 2: here we go. So first one we got is from
Speaker 2: dog God who says, regarding rushes as a floor covering,
Speaker 2: are they always woven into mats or is it something
Speaker 2: more of a hamster cage style situation.
Speaker 1: Okay, so this is a great question and the answer
Speaker 1: is sometimes it is like like a fancy people. Okay,
Speaker 1: like fancy people are doing the woven thing, but if
Speaker 1: you're a peasant, do do you like have time for
Speaker 1: weaving rushes less? So right, so they might like hamster
Speaker 1: cage it and basically after like a day or two
Speaker 1: of trotting it down, it's fine, and they change them
Speaker 1: super regularly. So it's like, really, if you were gonna
Speaker 1: sit there and like redo the rushes like completely woven
Speaker 1: every time, it's too much. So you're fancy people, they've
Speaker 1: got woven once your regular ass peasants a little more,
Speaker 1: little more, hamster cage a little more.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and uh, rushes are what are Russias exactly? Like
Speaker 2: it's like a It's like they're.
Speaker 1: Like like I kind of oftentimes a plant that lives
Speaker 1: in quite boggy conditions. So they have these like big
Speaker 1: long spear shaped leaves. That's right, And that's and that's
Speaker 1: essentially what you're doing. They smell nice, you know. It
Speaker 1: means that you're not like damaging the floor under it.
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of people have a compacted earth floors,
Speaker 1: so you just you don't necessarily want to be like
Speaker 1: on the dirt all the time. Yeah, so it just
Speaker 1: gives you a little bit.
Speaker 2: It gives you. It gives you something like yeah, you
Speaker 2: know and uh you know when you've got to pee
Speaker 2: in the corner like a dog. No, I'm just kidding, Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's right. Yeah, right, yeah, there you go. Uh And
Speaker 2: now I'm just thinking about like keeping a house clean
Speaker 2: when you live on dirt floors, and well that's I mean,
Speaker 2: that's what the Russians are for, right, No, I know,
Speaker 2: I know, but like I'm just like like the whole
Speaker 2: I'm just like compounding it, like oh it feels so
Speaker 2: gritty under my feet. Oh god, I hate that all
Speaker 2: your feet would.
Speaker 1: Like ah anyway.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I wasn't built for those times. Uh, I
Speaker 2: did not. I do not have the medieval dog in me.
Speaker 2: Dog God. Yeah, thank you for the question. Next we
Speaker 2: got one from A J. A me and oh so
Speaker 2: many players of Crusader think kings have an unhealthy question
Speaker 2: mark exclamation point interest in incestuous relationships, at least within
Speaker 2: the confines of the game. Well, that's a very good
Speaker 2: qualifier there at the.
Speaker 1: End, you know. Yeah, well done you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so my question, uh so, my question is how
Speaker 2: common was this in the Middle Ages with the nobility
Speaker 2: and normal folks. Was there different views within different strata
Speaker 2: of society. Have people learned from royals of classical age
Speaker 2: that this was not a good thing for your kids
Speaker 2: given a generation to if nothing else? How bad of
Speaker 2: a sin did the Church find incest to be?
Speaker 1: Well, you know, it's enough of a sin that like
Speaker 1: you can annul marriages for consequinity, right, so that that's
Speaker 1: something to keep in mind. But also, like I mean it,
Speaker 1: certainly they don't think that you should like marry your
Speaker 1: brothers and sisters and things like that. And indeed, actually
Speaker 1: one of the things when the church starts getting more
Speaker 1: involved in marriage, there's a real pushback to it on
Speaker 1: the behalf of the nobility, because the nobility don't want
Speaker 1: their children to make their own decisions about who can
Speaker 1: get married. Yeah, and the church is really big on no, No,
Speaker 1: you need to be able to marry who you want to.
Speaker 2: Is very clear about the like, yeah, say what you
Speaker 2: will about the Bible, but it's very clear having sex
Speaker 2: with your immediate relatives bad. Forcing people into marriage also bad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, So, like they very much don't want families
Speaker 1: making these ideas. And also they're a big part of
Speaker 1: who is like pushing to say no consanguinity like no,
Speaker 1: like to stop marrying your cousin's dude, Like it's it's
Speaker 1: not a good idea. Now, people do know that you
Speaker 1: are essentially you are tempting fate if you, if you like,
Speaker 1: get too married in inter family, right, Like they are
Speaker 1: aware of that they do attempt to marry someone outside
Speaker 1: of the family, and indeed, like they are usually using
Speaker 1: marriages to try to make more alliances. So like they
Speaker 1: are probably going to try to, for example, get married
Speaker 1: to like someone from a kingdom a little bit farther away,
Speaker 1: like you know, people that they know they can make
Speaker 1: strategic alliances with. So you know, yeah, like you probably
Speaker 1: already have the stuff covered from families, so that that
Speaker 1: does kind of go away. Now this isn't to say
Speaker 1: that incests doesn't happen, but like, so for example, you know,
Speaker 1: obviously every single thing I do is about ghosts at
Speaker 1: the moment, but like we have particular ghost stories that
Speaker 1: crop up where specifically they're like, oh, yeah, this guy
Speaker 1: who was like shagging his daughter came back. So I
Speaker 1: got this one out from the Dialogue of Miracles of
Speaker 1: these areas of Hesterbach. So he's working kind of in
Speaker 1: the twelfth century outside of Cologne. And let me just
Speaker 1: read this to you. In the diocese of trevs that
Speaker 1: where the former vision occurred as a former gross story.
Speaker 1: Before this, there was another knight named Henry Nodys like
Speaker 1: name him, name him and shame him. Now. He was
Speaker 1: deeply mired in wickedness and sin, and regarded rapine, adultery, incest, perjury,
Speaker 1: and other such crimes as deeds of virtue. When he
Speaker 1: died in the province of Menevelt, he appeared to many
Speaker 1: in sheep skin, and kept frequenting the house of his daughter,
Speaker 1: as he had been wont to do when alive. Whether
Speaker 1: admonished by the side of the cross or threatened with
Speaker 1: the drawn sword, he would not be driven away. Indeed,
Speaker 1: his specter was often struck with a sword, but could
Speaker 1: not be wounded, giving out the kind of sound that
Speaker 1: a soft bed makes when it is struck. I really
Speaker 1: like that. That's very evocative. His friends consulted John, the
Speaker 1: Lord Bishop of trevs and he advised them to pour
Speaker 1: water on a nail, which was a relic of the
Speaker 1: crucifixion match, and to use it to sprinkle water around
Speaker 1: the house and on his daughter, and on the man
Speaker 1: himself if he was present. This was done, and he
Speaker 1: never appeared again. Although he was legally married, he had
Speaker 1: fathered the dog on his maid servant, and rich that
Speaker 1: he was, he had to botch the daughter when she
Speaker 1: grew up. It is not long since these things happened.
Speaker 1: So Jesus, what does this tell us? It tells us
Speaker 1: in the first place, that like people may do be
Speaker 1: having incest, but that people take a low view of it. Right,
Speaker 1: the church is like and you will turn into a
Speaker 1: demon after death, and everyone will hate you, right, So
Speaker 1: it shows us that it's possible, but certainly frowned upon,
Speaker 1: if that makes sense. So yeah, like it's out there,
Speaker 1: it's within the things, but I mean, I it's not
Speaker 1: really until the early modern period, and like the Habsburgs
Speaker 1: are kind of the best to ever do it, right,
Speaker 1: like in terms of the inbreeding thing. But yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think I think it was much
Speaker 2: more of an issue within the nobility.
Speaker 1: I yeah, like an ordinary people, that's not a thing.
Speaker 2: They're not gonna unless unless there's something kind of weird
Speaker 2: going on, or you were just like incredibly secluded in
Speaker 2: a in like a very crazy ass way.
Speaker 1: Like look unless you get your head stuck, yes, the
Speaker 1: wash house and your step brother walks by, okay, Like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's just like I mean, people have known.
Speaker 2: We can tell from from genomic evidence that that people
Speaker 2: have known for a long time that you're not. It's
Speaker 2: really bad to like fuck someone who's related, who's closely
Speaker 2: related to you, because it messes up the kids that
Speaker 2: you have. Like this is something that predate like is
Speaker 2: like it predates human civilization. Like you very very rarely
Speaker 2: find something find something where uh, two people who are
Speaker 2: you know, one who are brother and sister or you know,
Speaker 2: parent and child where they're procreating, and then it's all
Speaker 2: it's basically always associated with royalty, which you know in
Speaker 2: the past did happen you know they were.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, yeah, like I mean, and it's it's
Speaker 1: only the sickos of the ruling classes.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, you know, yeah, yeah you're not. Yeah. But
Speaker 2: then as Eleanor said, like the secos of the ruling classes,
Speaker 2: like they're the what you know, you don't ever need
Speaker 2: to feel bad for nobles or royalty, but in the
Speaker 2: case of them like wanting to just marry someone that
Speaker 2: they like or can tolerate or of their choosing, you
Speaker 2: do just kind of have to be like that fucking sucks, man,
Speaker 2: I'm really sorry.
Speaker 1: Yeah yea, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: You know, uh, don't don't feel bad for them all
Speaker 2: the time or anything, but like they didn't get to
Speaker 2: marry for love. If they got if they got to marry,
Speaker 2: if they married someone that they tolerate they enjoyed being around,
Speaker 2: that was.
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, that's good as a guts basically for them.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, but yeah, and you know, you do
Speaker 2: have to go to the church to get exceptions for contanquinity,
Speaker 2: uh for anything. I think it was within like fourth
Speaker 2: or fifth cousins something that Yes, it's Look, they they
Speaker 2: didn't understand the DNA and and and uh and Janes
Speaker 2: and everything like that, but they understood that like you
Speaker 2: don't do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they understood that was a bad idea.
Speaker 2: It was a bad idea. Not only did the Bible
Speaker 2: say it was bad, like you can tell like you
Speaker 2: know when like wow, those those children are really not
Speaker 2: holding Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: A j A.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much for the question. Next, we got
Speaker 2: one uh from Alie can't and actually got two on
Speaker 2: the same thing. One from Ali Can't and then one
Speaker 2: from Mr Face And these are both on the famous
Speaker 2: bolgns medieval tower blocks. He says, what was the deal
Speaker 2: with the famous medieval tower box of Bologna? And m
Speaker 2: Junior Face says, did many other did many or any
Speaker 2: other cities have towers like these or this many towers?
Speaker 2: I have to assume few, because it's something you know,
Speaker 2: you don't here mentioned that often? How common was this?
Speaker 1: Okay? So well, the answer is that Bologna is the
Speaker 1: best to ever do it. Yeah, like this friend of
Speaker 1: the podcast, The Beautiful City of Bologna, l Rosa comrades
Speaker 1: all the way they invented the university, they invented being
Speaker 1: a sick ass communist who kills fascists, and they also
Speaker 1: invented lasagna. So, you know, thank you to my good
Speaker 1: friends there as you know, the people who know you
Speaker 1: girl know, I go there a lot because since there's
Speaker 1: a lot of leftists there, they're always like bringing my
Speaker 1: boyfriend over to teach sex said and things like that,
Speaker 1: and yeah, they've still got a lot of these And
Speaker 1: it's really interesting because so, for example, they will depict
Speaker 1: all of the towers when they're kind of drawing things,
Speaker 1: so for example, statues of like their patron saint whose
Speaker 1: name escapes me off the top of my head. He'll
Speaker 1: be holding a little miniature version of the city. It's
Speaker 1: got all like the little tower sticking up like it's
Speaker 1: a little porcupine. And the answer is that they have
Speaker 1: the most of them. The deal with them is, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a couple things. One of the main things it
Speaker 1: is is basically just a dick wagon contest. No yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, right, Like it's it's mostly just being like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I've got to who you guys are. I got a tower.
Speaker 1: So if you're like one of the big patrician families,
Speaker 1: you sort of have to build a tower to prove
Speaker 1: you're one of the big patrician families. It's just like
Speaker 1: it's just sort of what it's done. In theory. They
Speaker 1: can be used for defensive purposes, but if you I
Speaker 1: first see them, they're like really really thin. You know.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like building an ordinary house up like
Speaker 1: ten stories in the air. Yeah, so like I mean
Speaker 1: you could dump things down on people, but they're also
Speaker 1: kind of easy to catch on fire yea, and things
Speaker 1: like that. So I mean, I think probably when they
Speaker 1: started out, it was considered to be a defensive thing,
Speaker 1: and like certainly you can like look out from them,
Speaker 1: so it sort of tells you what's going on around you.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's by the end of it, it's just
Speaker 1: kind of like the thing that you have to do
Speaker 1: in order to perform patricianness. Right now, they are not
Speaker 1: the only city to do this, they're just the one
Speaker 1: that did it the most. So for example, Florence also
Speaker 1: does this. And I found out about this just the
Speaker 1: other week when I was out at the Bristol Medieval
Speaker 1: Postgraduate Conference. I saw a really cool paper by this
Speaker 1: guy who did an analysis of all the tower blocks
Speaker 1: in Florence and there there are a bunch of them,
Speaker 1: and he was the one who was like, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: like it should Can we talk about how it's probably
Speaker 1: not very defensible and we were like looking at him,
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, I mean there are yeah, like there
Speaker 1: are cases apparently where like they'd be getting attacked and
Speaker 1: that like someone would escape from one to the other
Speaker 1: by like putting like a plank across. But you've got
Speaker 1: to in theory, like be willing to run that gauntlet. Well,
Speaker 1: you've got a lot of angry people below you and stuff,
Speaker 1: but it's this really important thing in order to show
Speaker 1: who you are. So yeah, they're they're incredibly cool, and
Speaker 1: you gotta be very careful if you There are some
Speaker 1: that will be open sometimes in Bologna, but like check ahead.
Speaker 1: I've never managed to make it inside one yet, but
Speaker 1: I'm always there on like a Tuesday as well, so
Speaker 1: it's like weird. But yeah, if you're thinking about going
Speaker 1: to Italy, I just recommend going to Bologna so fucking hard.
Speaker 1: Like I mean, I promise you, I promise you. You don't
Speaker 1: really need to go to like Florence as much as
Speaker 1: you think you do, because you're just mostly going to
Speaker 1: see a bunch of tourists. You want to go to Bologna,
Speaker 1: that's the one, that's the one. Okay. Yeah, if you're
Speaker 1: going to go to Milan, you don't have to go
Speaker 1: to Bolan. But if you're going to go to Milan,
Speaker 1: go to the Communist Club for dinner, okay, because there's
Speaker 1: a really good Communists restaurant. So yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: The the towers themselves, you know, just a little background.
Speaker 2: They were mostly built between the twelfth and the thirteenth century.
Speaker 2: There were in total, the estimation because it's not really
Speaker 2: known because while we do have a lot of people
Speaker 2: being like, wow, they got these really tall towers, none
Speaker 2: of them really say what they were exactly for or
Speaker 2: you know, any like they don't they don't include like
Speaker 2: any info. Like that's why like it's like was it
Speaker 2: a prison, was it a shop? Was it residential? Was
Speaker 2: it for defense? And the defense thing is exactly what
Speaker 2: Eleanor said, because everybody goes like, if you like, if
Speaker 2: something takes out a small chunk of the bottom of that,
Speaker 2: the whole thing could just lean over and fall like
Speaker 2: it's not that, you know, it's not that it's not
Speaker 2: that sturdy. And I mean, like some of they range
Speaker 2: in height from like thirty nine meters to ninety seven
Speaker 2: meters is about one hundred and five feet to three
Speaker 2: hundred and thirteen feet, And I mean, I think the
Speaker 2: way that the reason that this was such a big
Speaker 2: deal is like you don't see many of these things
Speaker 2: at all. The ones in Bologna were apparently quite beautiful.
Speaker 2: There are there's called some called the two towers, which
Speaker 2: are known as Azanelli and Garrisinda.
Speaker 1: And they are like right next to each other. It's
Speaker 1: really fucking weird.
Speaker 2: So they they are right next to each other, both
Speaker 2: appear to be leaning to some degrees. Yes they do,
Speaker 2: and they lean in different directions. Garrison, the top of
Speaker 2: Garrisenda is missing. But if you remember, uh the inferno,
Speaker 2: and you remember the ring of giants that guarded the
Speaker 2: hole down into it's either the eighth or ninth circle.
Speaker 2: I can't remember now where Antaeus and Nimrod and all
Speaker 2: those are. Dante says uh he. He compares their height
Speaker 2: to the height of Garrisinda before its top got knocked off.
Speaker 2: And so.
Speaker 1: Like you know, you remember these are basically just.
Speaker 2: Like the tallest like you know, these the tallest things
Speaker 2: these people you know, would have probably would have seen,
Speaker 2: like they just like they're just incredibly impressive, and they
Speaker 2: don't they look out of sorts. I'll probably include, Uh,
Speaker 2: there's a pretty good engraving of what it might have
Speaker 2: looked like at the time, and uh, it does kind
Speaker 2: of like it looks so weird because it has castle walls,
Speaker 2: but then you have these things in there that look
Speaker 2: like skyscrapers and you're like, what the fuck? And then
Speaker 2: you think about how many stairs would I have to
Speaker 2: climb to get up here, like oh so many? Oh god,
Speaker 2: this is yeah, I don't want to do this.
Speaker 1: I mean it literally also just might be there living
Speaker 1: in an environment where space is at a premium, and
Speaker 1: like it's just like true density for a household like that.
Speaker 1: Can that's like also in theory on the cards. But
Speaker 1: it's just it's such a it's a really interesting one
Speaker 1: because we just don't fucking know man, like yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Olie and MG, thank you very much for
Speaker 2: the questions about the medieval tower blocks of Bologna.
Speaker 3: Fact.
Speaker 2: I love to talk about so weird. I love I
Speaker 2: love how weird the Middle Ages are because you just
Speaker 2: have these things and they're beautiful and people talk about
Speaker 2: them all the time. But like if you if you
Speaker 2: try to nail down exactly, like what was the purpose
Speaker 2: of this? Literally every person for the past, like I
Speaker 2: don't know, six hundred years been like bah yeah anyway,
Speaker 2: uh yeah. So thank y'all for the questions. Next, we
Speaker 2: got one from Bachanoia Lover sixty nine, who says, hi,
Speaker 2: a huge fan of the show. I have a question
Speaker 2: about the relationship between the literature and reality of extramarital
Speaker 2: affairs in medieval In the medieval world, as has been
Speaker 2: off remarked on the podcast, the medieval world loves to
Speaker 2: get their cuck on. But I'm curious how you actually
Speaker 2: properly cucked your liege lord in a world where your
Speaker 2: every moment as a noble was waited upon by servants
Speaker 2: a part of the fantasy of court. They love literature
Speaker 2: having fifteen minutes of privacy. Are the servants just in
Speaker 2: on it? As an attached question, what does this decision
Speaker 2: making calculus look like for a servant whose lead is
Speaker 2: stepping out in the marriage? What risk do you run
Speaker 2: for keeping your mouth shut versus speaking up. Is there
Speaker 2: an implied obligation to secrecy, et cetera.
Speaker 1: I think, as we demonstrated in our de Cameron reading club,
Speaker 1: for a lot of the thing that you got to
Speaker 1: do is you've got to get the servants on side.
Speaker 1: You have got to get the fucking servants on side,
Speaker 1: because they're going to be the ones who do things
Speaker 1: like pass notes, and they are going to be also
Speaker 1: indispensable in terms of like letting people in and out
Speaker 1: of places. Yeah, so like opening doors, like doing this,
Speaker 1: like covering up for you, sounding the alarm, et cetera.
Speaker 1: And it is possible because people do be going places
Speaker 1: in doing things. The wealthy often have their own bedrooms
Speaker 1: and things like that, and people are moving around a lot,
Speaker 1: so there are a lot of moving parts that it
Speaker 1: is in theory possible. Like are you going to get
Speaker 1: a whole night together? Probably not unless, like your liege
Speaker 1: lord is one hundred percent out of town. But these
Speaker 1: motherfuckers also go on campaign. You know, if you are
Speaker 1: especially high up, the king might send you somewhere and
Speaker 1: then you're just away and then it's like a free
Speaker 1: for all, super easy to cook then, And I mean
Speaker 1: I guess that this is just kind of like one
Speaker 1: of those lessons about like who's being nice to the servants.
Speaker 1: That's a big one. Like so I mean obviously you're
Speaker 1: gonna probably have to pay them off, like money is
Speaker 1: going to have to change hands, but like if you
Speaker 1: beat your servants or you're horrible to them, then they're
Speaker 1: gonna be a lot more likely to like help you
Speaker 1: get cooked. I would just say yeah for example, So yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it is one of these things where like a household
Speaker 1: as much for a broad but also because culturally it's
Speaker 1: just more understood as like on the cards. It's more
Speaker 1: understood as on the cards.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, I also think there could be not could be.
Speaker 2: I would bet a solid amount of money that there
Speaker 2: is like a part of part of the stories that
Speaker 2: we have and part of the obsession with it or
Speaker 2: whatever is that it is titillating and it is wrong,
Speaker 2: and it is something that like most people like you know,
Speaker 2: it would it would be difficult to find yourself in
Speaker 2: that scenario. Like even if you are a very wealthy noble,
Speaker 2: it might it's it still might be extremely difficult if
Speaker 2: you live, depending on where you live and you know,
Speaker 2: any other circumstances of your life. So like you get
Speaker 2: that and it's something and it's like oh okay, like
Speaker 2: this is you know, like this is you. It's like roleplay.
Speaker 2: You know. Yeah, well we called roleplay now like a
Speaker 2: version of that. I'm not saying that that was all
Speaker 2: it was, but you know.
Speaker 1: It's in there. It's in there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think I don't. We know, people have
Speaker 2: liked to dress up for a while. As Eleanor said,
Speaker 2: if you go back to the de Cameron, there were
Speaker 2: a couple of incidents of dress up and so you know,
Speaker 2: why wouldn't this be another version of that?
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, exactly to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you very much for the question. Baccan Oli,
Speaker 2: lover of sixty nine. Next we got one from a
Speaker 2: grinch pinball. Having failed my dry January. Are there any fun, funny, effective,
Speaker 2: or downright dangerous medieval hangover cures without the modern miracle
Speaker 2: of paracetamol. How did they cope? Or did they just
Speaker 2: hair of the dog?
Speaker 3: It?
Speaker 1: Uh? Well, so, in first place, me and all my
Speaker 1: homies we hate dry january, just the anti dry January action.
Speaker 1: Your pub needs you more in January than ever. And
Speaker 1: also it's this is what separates the true professional drinkers
Speaker 1: from the fucking amateurs. You know what, Like the amateurs
Speaker 1: are doing things like they're going too hard in December.
Speaker 1: You need to slow down, babe. You need to go
Speaker 1: for dinner before you go to the pub after work
Speaker 1: in December. You need to just like keep your fucking
Speaker 1: powder dry. Because January is when legends are born. Okay, right,
Speaker 1: Like you know your your January drinking form is really
Speaker 1: you at your best. So I'm glad you failed because it,
Speaker 1: you know, that means that you're doing the right thing.
Speaker 1: Dry January is for perverts and sickos and also amateurs. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I learned a really good hangover here the other day
Speaker 1: from this new book Celtic Magic, where they were like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you take a chicken and you chop its head off
Speaker 1: and then you put its anus on your foe head
Speaker 1: and it'll suck the hangover out. I mean, do I
Speaker 1: think that worked?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: But it was proffered.
Speaker 2: As chicken ain't it's I gotta be honest that that
Speaker 2: makes about as much sense as some of the hangover
Speaker 2: cures that people have now. They're like, oh I do
Speaker 2: this and this and this. It's like just drink a
Speaker 2: bunch of water, get some caffeine in your or gatorade
Speaker 2: or pedia like, get some like get some liquids float
Speaker 2: in your body. Get get some carbs of some kind
Speaker 2: in there to soak up the last stuff and you know,
Speaker 2: nurse the headache and you'll be fine at some point.
Speaker 2: Like it's you know, it's just a it's just it's just.
Speaker 1: A Yeah, Anthony Boardings is like something spicy in a coke,
Speaker 1: which I think is correct. But I mean like they
Speaker 1: also have so they have willow bark, which is basically
Speaker 1: like proto aspirin.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's an.
Speaker 1: So they will do that. But then also like they
Speaker 1: are drinking small beer all the time, so that probably helps,
Speaker 1: yeah as well, So like when you're hungover, you can
Speaker 1: hit the small beer. It's gonna have just teeny bit
Speaker 1: of alcohol on you. And so that like a hair
Speaker 1: of the dog, is it, but in like a pretty
Speaker 1: chilled out way. But I mean they're probably just gonna
Speaker 1: be on the petage uh and and small beer for
Speaker 1: for the most part. But on the other hand, we
Speaker 1: do see a desire. But like some people want answers
Speaker 1: around here, you know, people are demanding hangover heres.
Speaker 2: There's a guy who's like, let me let me at
Speaker 2: that uh chickens, let me hit that chicken an. Let
Speaker 2: me don't worry, I got thist me at the perpetual
Speaker 2: There's one guy who just swears by the perpetual stew.
Speaker 2: He's like, I'll no better if I just get some
Speaker 2: perpetual stew. Look that's all you ever want? Bill fuck?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, willow bark. That's great, man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you got to hit the willow bark.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you gotta hit the.
Speaker 1: You've been there, you.
Speaker 2: Know, the day after a really rowdy festival in the
Speaker 2: town and you just see all these people walking around
Speaker 2: with like bark, like out of their earth.
Speaker 1: Just gnawing on it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, yes sucks. Oh yeah, grinch Pinball. Thank
Speaker 2: you very much for the question. And the podcast does,
Speaker 2: of course support people who are trying to quit drinking
Speaker 2: because they need to.
Speaker 1: I'm we are pro. We are pro are sober homies. Yes,
Speaker 1: I want to make that clear, like a shout out
Speaker 1: to all of the sober homies and those trying to
Speaker 1: get sober. Well, we do not like that efforts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: who plan to keep drinking, like who give up in January?
Speaker 2: Absolutely not. I don't do it. Uh yeah, it's yeah.
Speaker 2: If if that's something you need to do, then uh,
Speaker 2: you know, definitely do that for your health. But if
Speaker 2: it's just something you know, you know, like an Instagram
Speaker 2: thing or people are just uh, you know, they're talking
Speaker 2: about it a lot.
Speaker 1: No, No, listen, there's no there are no actual benefits
Speaker 1: to giving up drinking if you go back to drinking,
Speaker 1: that's that's the point. There are tons of benefits to
Speaker 1: just giving up drinking altogether, but fundamentally, if you ever
Speaker 1: plan going back, there is no benefit. So so and
Speaker 1: you know, and I'll tell everyone that to their face
Speaker 1: every January.
Speaker 2: That's right. So that's right there you go, grunt Pinball,
Speaker 2: Thank you very much for the question. Uh. Next, we
Speaker 2: got one from Benjamin Cisco, who says, how old is
Speaker 2: the Gregorian chant? How far back does it go? Or
Speaker 2: is this particular sum more recent than we were led
Speaker 2: to believe? Now, it's pretty old, man, Yeah.
Speaker 1: It is, like uh like so basically monks chanting. It
Speaker 1: goes back a really long time. But we definitely know
Speaker 1: that it kind of develops from at least like the
Speaker 1: ninth century. And we know that because we have manny
Speaker 1: scripts for it, yep.
Speaker 2: Right, So the earliest, the earliest version with musical notes
Speaker 2: attached to it that survives is from about nine thirty CE,
Speaker 2: So yeah, like it, it had to have happened, you know,
Speaker 2: in the few hundred years before that, at least for
Speaker 2: them to get it to a point where it could
Speaker 2: have musical notation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's right. So we know what's happening before that,
Speaker 1: because you know, it doesn't just kind of spring fully
Speaker 1: formed from the head of Zeus. You know, we know
Speaker 1: that before Gregorian chant, there was Roman chant, which is
Speaker 1: slightly different, but that's kind of like a part of
Speaker 1: like the Latin rite, and so Gregorian's kind of like
Speaker 1: decided they needed their own version, which is cool, and
Speaker 1: it is a little bit more influenced by Gallic chad.
Speaker 1: So yeah, basically we know that it is around at
Speaker 1: least from the ninth century, just based on what Maddy
Speaker 1: scripts we have and how reception of these things work.
Speaker 1: So it had to have been around long enough for
Speaker 1: them to then develop the notation system and that write
Speaker 1: it down.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And it was known as Gregorian back in
Speaker 2: the Middle Ages, and they had their own myth for
Speaker 2: a pop likely myth though, I mean I guess possibly
Speaker 2: possibly true to some degree that either came from Pope
Speaker 2: Gregory the First who died in six oh four, or
Speaker 2: Pope Gregory the Second who died in seven fifty one,
Speaker 2: because they had asked for psalter type books uh to
Speaker 2: be produced to to to kind of do this stuff,
Speaker 2: and so it's it's attributed to them, But you know,
Speaker 2: that could have been a myth or just you know,
Speaker 2: uh an urban I guess, not a a oral legend
Speaker 2: at the time.
Speaker 1: Like greg Gregory the Great, everyone's obsessed with him. So
Speaker 1: like if you just say, oh, yeah, this has to
Speaker 1: do with Gregory the Great, everyone's like, oh, so, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's one of those things.
Speaker 2: Right yeah. And I mean plain chant has been around
Speaker 2: for a very long time. There is the they're they're
Speaker 2: surviving uh manuscripts and instances that talk about the early
Speaker 2: early Jewish groups in the first and second century BCE
Speaker 2: chanting psalm chanting some of the psalms in a version
Speaker 2: of plain chant, and it's believed that this might have
Speaker 2: developed from that, along with the Roman chant and other versions.
Speaker 2: You know, as we've talked about before, there are you know,
Speaker 2: many kinds of monophonic chants across across the ancient and
Speaker 2: medieval worlds. But yeah, it's been around since at least
Speaker 2: the ninth at least the ninth century, probably a little
Speaker 2: earlier than that too, just to get it to musical notation.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's you know, it's a thing they did
Speaker 2: in the Middle Ages, and they did call it their gregory.
Speaker 2: They didn't call it gregory, and I don't know if
Speaker 2: they called it a chant, but they definitely named it
Speaker 2: after after one of the Gregoris. So yeah, Benjamincisco, thank
Speaker 2: you very much for the question. Next we got one
Speaker 2: from the final vow who says, I have a question
Speaker 2: about sex ed, both for peasants and nobility. Besides having
Speaker 2: a vague understanding of what sex is, was anyone teaching
Speaker 2: children adolescents about the birds and the bees, the storks,
Speaker 2: the cabbage, and whatever local euphemisms there are? Occasionally I
Speaker 2: hear about noble and politically important marriages that don't produce
Speaker 2: an air, with the wife being under pressure about it,
Speaker 2: only to later find out that there was no sex
Speaker 2: happening to begin with. That seems ridiculous. Why would someone
Speaker 2: whose sole entire purposes the production of an air not
Speaker 2: be told the basics of how to do that to
Speaker 2: begin with? Or is that just a modern thing being
Speaker 2: projected back?
Speaker 1: Well, okay, so to an extent, this is a modern
Speaker 1: thing being projected back. Like quite famously, this is one
Speaker 1: of the rumors about Marie Antoinette. Yeah, was that she
Speaker 1: didn't know, which is why it took her so long
Speaker 1: to produce airs, you know. And indeed Louis the seventeenth
Speaker 1: I think was her husband. All Louise sounded alike to me. Sixteen, yeah, sixteenth.
Speaker 1: There you go. They they didn't know what the fuck
Speaker 1: they were doing. But that is like quite modern. So
Speaker 1: you know, ideas about sex have really changed by them
Speaker 1: in terms of peasants and things like that. One of
Speaker 1: the big things that is really different is you live
Speaker 1: on a farm, so you see animals fucking constantly. Yeah, like,
Speaker 1: and this is a world where you know, you don't
Speaker 1: for example, even Spain new to your dogs and cats.
Speaker 1: Occasionally you will geld pigs or horses, but you're gelding
Speaker 1: pigs and horses so that you can make them bigger
Speaker 1: and so that they don't fuck. And even then you
Speaker 1: they're they're gonna be like, why is daddy chopping the
Speaker 1: horse's balls off? Yeah, right, so you're seeing a lot
Speaker 1: more animals have sex, So like it's gonna get explained
Speaker 1: to you like that real quick, right, just because of
Speaker 1: how how things work. You're just gonna be like, yep,
Speaker 1: that's how babies are born, and you're gonna see baby
Speaker 1: things being born all the time. There's a fucking lambing season, right.
Speaker 2: Like you're going to help or see probably if there's
Speaker 2: any livestock around you, you are going to bear witness
Speaker 2: to the beauty and horror of nature, like.
Speaker 1: One hundred percent. And it's quite likely as well that
Speaker 1: at some time in your life, if you survive, you're
Speaker 1: going to see your mother get pregnant and like you know,
Speaker 1: she's going to give birth in your house, right, like.
Speaker 2: You might have you might have heard her get pregnant. Yeah,
Speaker 2: trying to be weird.
Speaker 1: But but it's true. And that's and that's the other thing.
Speaker 1: They don't have the same forms of privacy as we do.
Speaker 1: A lot of times people are sleeping in the same room.
Speaker 1: Do they have curtains around their beds? Yeah they do,
Speaker 1: but you know, people.
Speaker 2: Curtains stop everything.
Speaker 1: Not the way I'm doing my thing, not the way.
Speaker 2: Anybody throughout history has been doing their thing. Even if
Speaker 2: you like, even if you're like as quiet as possible,
Speaker 2: you know, you're still gonna hear a little. You're still
Speaker 2: gonna hear the slap a little. I don't know what.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know what to tell you, dog, Like
Speaker 1: that's just how it is. So that is going to
Speaker 1: be a little bit more of a thing, Like, you know,
Speaker 1: peasants are just going to know more. And indeed we
Speaker 1: do see this in terms of like criticisms of the peasantry.
Speaker 1: So for example, in when we you read Deane Moray
Speaker 1: or The Art of Courtly Love, you know, one of
Speaker 1: the things that they say is like, oh, yeah, well
Speaker 1: peasants are incapable of love, and they run like the
Speaker 1: beasts of the field, right they you know, so they're
Speaker 1: they're just like they're they're kind of like a form
Speaker 1: of livestock such cope.
Speaker 2: They're like they'll.
Speaker 1: Never know what it's like to try to cook their
Speaker 1: master or whatever the fuck. So like, yeah, that is
Speaker 1: that is like a big thing that's going on now.
Speaker 1: Four four the average noble person, they are more likely
Speaker 1: to receive an actual education, if we're if we're being honest,
Speaker 1: because it's like, uh, it is like one of these
Speaker 1: things where they are just educated in a lot of things.
Speaker 1: So they're the ones who are going to be like
Speaker 1: reading Aristotle about this, you know, They're gonna be the
Speaker 1: ones that are like getting a kind of a Gaalenic
Speaker 1: education about whatever the fuck this means. And that makes
Speaker 1: a big difference. So yeah, I just don't think I
Speaker 1: don't think that it's really all the cards in terms
Speaker 1: of the medieval world.
Speaker 2: The whole oh we.
Speaker 1: Didn't know what sex was, because it's just like it's
Speaker 1: just a really different world. You've got to invent privacy
Speaker 1: in bedrooms and all these other things hallways, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, in order for for like you'd have absolutely
Speaker 1: no contact with the concept of sex, like unless you're growth,
Speaker 1: you are a novice monk or nune and even then
Speaker 1: you know they're fucking each other.
Speaker 2: So like yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, it's uh And
Speaker 2: I mean, look, you I'm not saying that that the
Speaker 2: parents are gonna like sit down and be like as
Speaker 2: open and forthright and sex positive as as we like
Speaker 2: to to be now or we like to think we
Speaker 2: are or whatever. But like a decent even a decent
Speaker 2: parent is going to be like, look, what you got
Speaker 2: to expect, like and especially like for like a mom,
Speaker 2: like this is what you got to expect, like this,
Speaker 2: like you know, this is childbirth is terrible, is beautiful
Speaker 2: and terrible and and your body's gonna you know, and
Speaker 2: and you you know, And I don't think that people
Speaker 2: didn't have those conversations in the past. That doesn't seem Uh,
Speaker 2: that doesn't seem sane to me, because even even the
Speaker 2: most prudish people like you know, if you if you
Speaker 2: love and and want to look out for your kids,
Speaker 2: having them understand the broad basics of this thing that it,
Speaker 2: you know, that can bring you so much happiness and
Speaker 2: can you know, also be forced upon you, you know, against
Speaker 2: your will. Uh. You know, I think that is is
Speaker 2: just part of good parenting, you know. And I mean
Speaker 2: so maybe they were having the birds and the bees conversation,
Speaker 2: but that just doesn't you know, they it didn't it
Speaker 2: didn't ever become enough of a problem that the church
Speaker 2: was like, stop it, stop telling them how to fuck,
Speaker 2: stop doing the finger, stop doing the finger and the
Speaker 2: circle finger thing. Stop it.
Speaker 1: No Nope, bad dogs dogs Uh yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, final val, Yeah, thank you very much for the question.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: Next, we got one from gafsei. Uh, this is super broad,
Speaker 2: kind of loaded, but I'm curious how Islam was able
Speaker 2: to basically bootstrap an entirely new civilization that scaled from
Speaker 2: city state to world empire in a matter of decades,
Speaker 2: not in terms of conquest of conquest, but in terms
Speaker 2: of creating or adapting law, administration, culture while drawing on
Speaker 2: various sources. How did they do that and turn it
Speaker 2: into its own thing?
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a good question because it's like
Speaker 1: it's difficult to actually say, I guess, is the problem
Speaker 1: that we've got here where like how do cultural things
Speaker 1: trickle down exactly hard because they don't generally say to us, yeah,
Speaker 1: like like this is this is how we're seeing it. Like,
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess that one of the big things
Speaker 1: that they managed to do is at first they're not
Speaker 1: trying to do a new civilization, right. I think that
Speaker 1: that's kind of like the things of like eventually adapting law,
Speaker 1: Like the adaptation of laws, what's the most important thing, right,
Speaker 1: Because they're basically coming out, they're doing some guerrilla warfare,
Speaker 1: they're taking over varying cities and then the city and
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, yeah, we control the city now, and
Speaker 1: then everyone goes, do I need to do anything? And
Speaker 1: they're like no, not really right, And I mean basically,
Speaker 1: you know, my argument is that the the major thing
Speaker 1: that they've done within all of this is just the Jizia. Yep, really,
Speaker 1: because it's like with the jizia, ain't nobody wants to
Speaker 1: fucking like a deal like they are are like, okay, well,
Speaker 1: you know, new people took over my town. Well whatever,
Speaker 1: it didn't change my life that much, and it's like,
Speaker 1: oh what, you know what might change your fucking life
Speaker 1: not having to pay tax anymore because you've accepted the
Speaker 1: light of Islam, right, And so it's more kind of
Speaker 1: like pan Islamic. I mean, like I guess in terms
Speaker 1: of like, yeah, then they don't want to make pictures
Speaker 1: of things anymore. So like horror vacuie as an artistic
Speaker 1: style is invented, right, which is that and that's cool?
Speaker 1: We like that?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So yeah, yeah, I think yeah, I think a
Speaker 2: big thing and I mean we'll talk about it when
Speaker 2: we talk about medieval Iran, but I think a big
Speaker 2: part of this is that especially early on, the Muslims,
Speaker 2: they took whatever administration was there, and even when they
Speaker 2: got even in the six fifties when they got to
Speaker 2: Persia and the Iranian Plateau, they did it like the
Speaker 2: vestiges of I came in in rule and the administration
Speaker 2: that they had set up were still kind of in
Speaker 2: place because they had been held over by the successors
Speaker 2: of Alexander the Gray blah blah blah blah blah. But
Speaker 2: they were able to do They were able to use
Speaker 2: the systems in place to take these people over from
Speaker 2: the top. They had to, of course win military victories first,
Speaker 2: and there were you know, campaigns of pressure to you know,
Speaker 2: like the soft pressure of like the not having to
Speaker 2: pay the jiju to to convert and the soft pressure
Speaker 2: of of you know, wanting to ingratiate yourself more to
Speaker 2: the people in power. Uh. Those are both very big deals.
Speaker 2: So you let that do the work over time. But
Speaker 2: I mean, like, uh, the the one of the first
Speaker 2: commanders of the arrate. Uh, the one of the first
Speaker 2: commanders who was dealing with the uh Islamization of Iran
Speaker 2: was umar Ibin al Katab and he was like his
Speaker 2: whole thing. There are surviving letters that he wrote. He
Speaker 2: was like, look, don't like, don't go so hard on
Speaker 2: basically like you you shear the sheep, you can only
Speaker 2: skin it once. So don't you know, don't skin these people.
Speaker 2: Don't like, uh, help out, help out the week, you know,
Speaker 2: but don't just like retain your title and your command.
Speaker 2: But you know, help these people. And if they want
Speaker 2: to convert, that's great, But at the beginning they didn't do.
Speaker 2: There are very few, if any, legitimate records of forest
Speaker 2: conversion because the jiju ameliorate, and you know, it ameliorates
Speaker 2: that you want a lot of a lot of people,
Speaker 2: you know, who aren't who aren't dimmy, you know, the
Speaker 2: protected you know, Muslim citizens you want like you want that.
Speaker 2: And so they were able to just glom onto that.
Speaker 2: And as they came in and they built mosque and
Speaker 2: their military power was there, they could just take over.
Speaker 2: And some of the places they went to were like
Speaker 2: you know what fine, like you know, it's this place
Speaker 2: is disunited. At this point, the Selki kids, you know,
Speaker 2: falling apart, the Sasanians are falling apart, like it's it's
Speaker 2: just you just go in there and you just and
Speaker 2: you you have a light hand about it now. I
Speaker 2: mean they did force Zoroastrianism out, but are not out.
Speaker 2: But they they forced it to the margins. But like
Speaker 2: they didn't fully eradicate it. They didn't for a long time.
Speaker 2: They they weren't bent on just completely destroying Zoroastrianism as
Speaker 2: more as it was just like it's going to get
Speaker 2: thrown out as like a as a consequence of what
Speaker 2: we do, because you know, they're they're the non believers.
Speaker 2: And I mean at the beginning, they they let they
Speaker 2: let captured Zoroastrianism who were captured as slaves. They they
Speaker 2: freed them if they converted to Islam, Like you know,
Speaker 2: that's not you don't do that if you're if you're
Speaker 2: doing like an actual like genocidal or cultural genocidal thing.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean I think it was they The
Speaker 2: way they bootstrapped it was they pounced on existing government
Speaker 2: state apparatuses that existed and use those to springboard to power.
Speaker 2: And they had the military might. And once they had
Speaker 2: the military might and they set up their rule. As
Speaker 2: they did it, people just started coming to the faith.
Speaker 2: I mean, of course they did some of that by
Speaker 2: the sword. I'm not lessening any of that, but from
Speaker 2: an administrative perspective, I think that's the only way they
Speaker 2: could have done it, because it's not like they were
Speaker 2: calling back on It's not like they could call on
Speaker 2: an administrative framework that had been around for a few centuries.
Speaker 2: You know, Muhammad died in it was six point thirty
Speaker 2: two like something like that, you know, and this is
Speaker 2: six fifty one, nineteen years later, you know, so it's yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Like I mean, I think we have a
Speaker 1: tendency now to look back in time and say, okay,
Speaker 1: well there is like this completed project of Islamic culture,
Speaker 1: like Capital I, Capital C. But that's kind of an
Speaker 1: anacrotism because what we're doing is we're we're looking at
Speaker 1: what that is now and we're saying, oh, and here
Speaker 1: are the hallmarks up it. I think that it's actually
Speaker 1: a project over a series of years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, were they were able to take political
Speaker 2: marshal and legitimate control.
Speaker 1: But certainly, like.
Speaker 2: When we taught we look at the Zoroastrians now and
Speaker 2: there are less than two hundred thousand of them worldwide,
Speaker 2: But like the Zoroastrians in on the Iranian Plateau weren't
Speaker 2: really like annihilated to like the tiny fragment we know
Speaker 2: of now until like the eleventh or twelfth century like,
Speaker 2: so it's not like they didn't just do that, you know,
Speaker 2: just to start out with. It was a long process.
Speaker 2: It took forever. Yeah, Gaffzie, thank you for the question.
Speaker 2: We got a couple more. First is one that I
Speaker 2: just found incredibly Zany from Pearl River, who says I
Speaker 2: was reading cod by Mark Kurlansky, and it opens with
Speaker 2: an idea that the Basque knew that the Americas were
Speaker 2: there before Columbus, given their long journeys into the Atlantic,
Speaker 2: which brought them into contact with North American currents and fisheries,
Speaker 2: if not the continent itself. How likely is this given
Speaker 2: that I've never seen any evidence of it before we
Speaker 2: go on. The Basque are a Spanish people's from the
Speaker 2: from Iberia and parts of southern France, and they are
Speaker 2: in central and northern Spain. Some of them are along
Speaker 2: the coast. But to be clear, if you want to
Speaker 2: go this far, you have to cross the widest part
Speaker 2: of the Atlantic. Uh. Weird. Look with with pre with
Speaker 2: pre caravel boat technology and uh, I'm not saying it
Speaker 2: was totally completely impossible, but I am saying that, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's un based on what based on what we know.
Speaker 1: It was like, yeah, look, you know, having just come
Speaker 1: back from an island in the middle of the Atlantic,
Speaker 1: missen homie, I don't really think so. So we have
Speaker 1: some weird evidence that people have got to the Azores
Speaker 1: from kind of early on in that they found like
Speaker 1: mouse skeletons on the island and mice and mice aren't
Speaker 1: native there and the but the my skeletons seem to
Speaker 1: have DNA that is possibly from northern Europe or Scandinavia.
Speaker 1: And then so some people have argued that means that
Speaker 1: the Vikings made it out there, but then other people
Speaker 1: pointed out that like mice just be getting places. So
Speaker 1: it's just like a mouse could have been on a
Speaker 1: Viking ship and then gone off and got on another
Speaker 1: ship and then ended up in the Azores. Right, we
Speaker 1: know that from at least the fourteenth century, the Azores
Speaker 1: are mapped. They show up in the mediit Atalysts and
Speaker 1: then of course the Catalan Atlas. But also, you know,
Speaker 1: like this idea that you know, the enemy of the
Speaker 1: podcast Columbus like discovered the Americas, or that nobody knew
Speaker 1: that they were there, isn't exactly correct either, right, Like
Speaker 1: as is you know, I'm sure all listeners of the
Speaker 1: show know that nobody thought the world was flat, but
Speaker 1: people had a good idea that there was probably something
Speaker 1: else over there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they like they had they had suggested it. Ancient Greeks,
Speaker 2: I can't remember which one off the top of my
Speaker 2: head right now, posited other continents on the other side
Speaker 2: of the Big Ocean from them. Yeah, but I mean,
Speaker 2: like the Azores are, Yeah, they weren't settled until like
Speaker 2: fourteen thirty two. Like, yeah, they take them that long
Speaker 2: to get to the Azores and those are technically off
Speaker 2: the coast of the European peninsula, like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and like I mean, so here, here's the
Speaker 1: thing is, like, you know, we'd travels. Everybody knew that
Speaker 1: the Vikings made it to Labrador, yeah, and shit, like
Speaker 1: and they they knew, they knew there was something over there.
Speaker 1: But also, like, I don't know, the idea that the
Speaker 1: Basque like had had a unique knowledge seems weird to me,
Speaker 1: even though I love our good comrades the Basque, who
Speaker 1: should be free from the oppressive yoke of Spain obviously,
Speaker 1: but like it just doesn't really line up with what
Speaker 1: we know about movement at the time. So yeah, like
Speaker 1: it's people knew that there was likely some land out there,
Speaker 1: they knew the Vikings had got somewhere, and they couldn't
Speaker 1: They just kind of couldn't get there. So all of
Speaker 1: that is true. But like specifically linking this up with
Speaker 1: Basque miss is an odd one to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I don't. I mean, I don't know, I
Speaker 2: just don't. There's nothing that has ever suggested that they
Speaker 2: could that the boating technology as it existed, that the
Speaker 2: boating technology of the time would have allowed someone before
Speaker 2: the like fourteen eighties or so to really make the
Speaker 2: entire trip across the Atlantic, because the Atlantic is not
Speaker 2: terribly calm, especially the North like any any North Atlantic
Speaker 2: stuff is. The weather is not great. It's like the
Speaker 2: current it's just a rough it's just a rough road
Speaker 2: to hoe. And they don't and I mean, if it
Speaker 2: took it till fourteen thirty two to get to the Azores,
Speaker 2: like it's just not like, I don't see how sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, And I mean people we're talking about this
Speaker 2: when the question was asked in the Discord and found
Speaker 2: like an old article from the New York Times in
Speaker 2: nineteen twenty seven that said that they you know, it
Speaker 2: was suggesting that they had the Basque had discovered codfish
Speaker 2: in America long before like Columbus or something like that.
Speaker 2: And I have no fucking idea how you arrive at
Speaker 2: that conclusion.
Speaker 1: But I mean, like, I mean, maybe cod, but I'm
Speaker 1: not quite sure, Like maybe they're just like some wandering
Speaker 1: cod you know, yeah, they do be getting around, right, So.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would I would have to do or research
Speaker 2: on that, but I just can't think of a plausible
Speaker 2: way in which that expanse could be covered given what
Speaker 2: we know. Because again, the you know, we've talked many
Speaker 2: times about the Pacific Islanders and their ships could could
Speaker 2: cover such long distances based on how they built them
Speaker 2: and everything like that, and then comparing that to the Vikings,
Speaker 2: who were very prodigious sailors, and they were of course
Speaker 2: very hardy and were very good at what they did,
Speaker 2: but like they still had to to island, jump from
Speaker 2: you know, from Norway into the British Islands and everything
Speaker 2: around there, and then to Iceland and then to Greenland
Speaker 2: and then they finally humped over jumped over to Newfoundland
Speaker 2: for a little while, and it was you know, they
Speaker 2: had to do that because they didn't have the same
Speaker 2: ship technology at the time, So you know, I just
Speaker 2: don't Yeah, I don't see how you accomplish it without that.
Speaker 1: And like, look, it's it's an interesting theory. I would
Speaker 1: need to see like way more on it, because it's
Speaker 1: just at this point it doesn't it doesn't quite line
Speaker 1: up with the information that we have, is what I
Speaker 1: would say about it. I'm not saying that it is impossible.
Speaker 1: I'm saying it is unlikely, and that given what we
Speaker 1: do know about settlement within the Atlantic and spheres of
Speaker 1: influence and ship technology, I just don't think. But and
Speaker 1: there's a difference between people knowing there's land over there,
Speaker 1: which everybody does, right like, and I think that is
Speaker 1: important to talk about because I think that the way
Speaker 1: that we relate to you know, ideas of conquest and
Speaker 1: you know, colonization and things like that are incredibly problematic.
Speaker 1: Like acting as though fucking christic for Columbus did anything
Speaker 1: good ever in his life is a real issue. But
Speaker 1: having said that, that's that's not quite the same thing.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, columb was a Columbus
Speaker 2: was a fine sailor like that, Like he you don't
Speaker 2: you can't cross the Atlantic like that and not be
Speaker 2: at least pretty good at it. But he was like
Speaker 2: a demonic and awful person. He was like terrible at
Speaker 2: basically everything else he tried. He was a slaver, you know,
Speaker 2: all all the stuff. But you know, like it at
Speaker 2: some point the technology comes into like the hands of
Speaker 2: new people and then they you use it how how
Speaker 2: you know it gets used And that's just that, you know,
Speaker 2: that historical happenstance. So yeah, he's just you know, I
Speaker 2: just don't see how you're doing it without the technology.
Speaker 2: But uh, yeah, I guess it all means on what
Speaker 2: what all of this?
Speaker 1: I guess hinges on what we mean by no. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's you know, something is somewhere, that's all.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I I'll say this, if we did find evidence of it,
Speaker 2: I'd be very happy about it. Anything to like cut
Speaker 2: Columbus down even more is funny and be funny.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think that someone would have written it
Speaker 1: down too. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think someone would have written it down, and I
Speaker 2: think it would be a much more well known thing
Speaker 2: because like even though the Viking settlement isn't quite as
Speaker 2: is definitely not as well known as Columbus, Like it's
Speaker 2: still out there in like the general milieu. It's not
Speaker 2: just tied into like extreme academic circles or anything like that. Anyway. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Pearl River, thank you for the question. Last one for
Speaker 2: today from vast and trunkless Tosies. How were medieval conceptions
Speaker 2: of property different from modern mons and how did they
Speaker 2: change over time? Or put it more crudely, today we
Speaker 2: think of property is a right that the state enforces
Speaker 2: with its monopoly on violence. Who is doing that if
Speaker 2: there's no police?
Speaker 1: Okay, so the courts do it. And so this is
Speaker 1: the vast majority of medieval documents that survived to us
Speaker 1: outside religious ones are motherfucking charters yep, and to me
Speaker 1: is just charter town. There are, like I mean, within
Speaker 1: medieval studies, there are all sorts of people who they
Speaker 1: just do charters, and God bless them for the work
Speaker 1: they're doing. I do not give a shit. I'm glad
Speaker 1: they're having a nice time. I'm not saying that it
Speaker 1: isn't important. I'm just saying I will never do that.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, their studies were incredibly important to us when
Speaker 2: we were doing the land management series. You get a
Speaker 2: lot of that info about like this is where the
Speaker 2: ponds were, and this is you know, this is what
Speaker 2: they were complaining about to each other. But yeah, it's
Speaker 2: a painstaking, meticulous work to say the very least. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And like.
Speaker 1: So really when we talk about court in the medieval period,
Speaker 1: you know, now, when we think about courts of law,
Speaker 1: we tend to think about them as being like specifically
Speaker 1: legal for the enforcement of law in terms of like criminality.
Speaker 1: But in a medieval sense, courts existed to enforce charters,
Speaker 1: like to enforce property law. That's all they are there for. Like,
Speaker 1: the only thing that they are fucking there for really
Speaker 1: is is the legal things. Because you know, if you
Speaker 1: are found guilty of a crime, then usually it just
Speaker 1: like kind of gets taken care of. Like yeah, you
Speaker 1: might get two set before a court, but that's not
Speaker 1: the major thing they're doing. And you have to produce
Speaker 1: your charters. There will be a bunch of arguments about that.
Speaker 1: There are like acute things that people will have in
Speaker 1: order to kind of show that a charter is real.
Speaker 1: Like sometimes they will make a parchment and then cut
Speaker 1: it in a particular style so that the two halves
Speaker 1: of it have to bind together, so that everybody knows
Speaker 1: that they're that they've got the right part of it.
Speaker 1: But it's interesting because it's just like exactly the opposite
Speaker 1: to now where it's like now we're like, oh, you
Speaker 1: go to a court because you know, you stole something,
Speaker 1: and also they enforce law. Medival people are like, you
Speaker 1: go to the court to enforce your property lines. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that and that that's what it is, that's what
Speaker 1: it's there for. So yeah, and you just do it
Speaker 1: because obviously this is the sort of things like this
Speaker 1: is the people who have the monopoly on violence are
Speaker 1: the ones with the property mm hmm. So like you
Speaker 1: don't need cops because this is all a bunch of
Speaker 1: nobles that they are. They are all the cops.
Speaker 2: Yep, yeah, yeah, it's the state. So it's been said that,
Speaker 2: you know, there's no history of the state that is
Speaker 2: not also a history of violence or something like that.
Speaker 2: And you know, that's not to say that that states
Speaker 2: inevitably create violence every at all times, regardless, but it
Speaker 2: is to say that wherever there's a state, somebody has
Speaker 2: had a monopoly of violence over someone else, and that
Speaker 2: takes on different forms, whether that's the tribal leader with
Speaker 2: his thugs, whether that's a king with his arm me,
Speaker 2: whether that is you know, an emperor with a with
Speaker 2: a coterie of of officials who were you know, just
Speaker 2: putting out decrees for their satraps to do or whatever. Like,
Speaker 2: the state has always had a monopoly of violence and
Speaker 2: has always enforced uh itself in that way. And I mean,
Speaker 2: you know they that that's been happening for thousands on
Speaker 2: thousands and thousands of years, probably before we technically got
Speaker 2: civilization together. As we understand it, there was probably some
Speaker 2: monopoly of violence for like tribal leaders of some kind,
Speaker 2: but like, you know, none of if the king didn't
Speaker 2: have some kind of power to enforce these edicts that
Speaker 2: these people have agreed to or whatever mechanisms they've been agreed,
Speaker 2: then they wouldn't be the king. Someone else would step
Speaker 2: in and do it, or if the name didn't hold
Speaker 2: enough power or something like that, because I mean they're
Speaker 2: like there's always a scheming vizier, there's always a grasping noble,
Speaker 2: there's always a you know whatever who can probably pay
Speaker 2: enough people or mercenaries to you know, do whatever they want.
Speaker 2: But can they pay enough mercenaries that they'll have more
Speaker 2: than the king's personal cavalry guard and archers and the
Speaker 2: armies or you know, the retainers that are loyal to him.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, probably for most people, probably not,
Speaker 2: because in order to do that for a state of
Speaker 2: any size, you need to be able to play thousands
Speaker 2: upon thousands upon thousands of people you know of mercenaries
Speaker 2: or you know, whoever, and you just don't have even
Speaker 2: even if like for for William the Conqueror to do it,
Speaker 2: like he was only able to do this because he
Speaker 2: was from a unique warrior culture and they were looking
Speaker 2: to expand. He came over and he had you know,
Speaker 2: six to eight thousand like hardy like soldiers around him
Speaker 2: that were gathered to him through different you know, bonds
Speaker 2: and their relationships have been cultivated, and I mean he
Speaker 2: did pull some more people when he came over here
Speaker 2: to his side, but like that's what you have to
Speaker 2: have if you're going to do that, and and the
Speaker 2: number that you need only continues to grow the more,
Speaker 2: like the longer you go on. That's why like revolutions,
Speaker 2: when you study them, they never happen overnight because like
Speaker 2: even if everybody in the country is really frustrated with
Speaker 2: something there has to be stuff that like that melds
Speaker 2: the people together and they come together to understand, like
Speaker 2: we have to fight this for like X, Y and
Speaker 2: Z reasons instead of like, well, we're just a bunch
Speaker 2: of separate people. Like it takes a lot of effort
Speaker 2: to be able to take down an entrenched state. That's why,
Speaker 2: you know, that's what the entropy of empire is, interpute monarchy,
Speaker 2: the entropy of capitalism. And yeah, but I mean they
Speaker 2: they did. They did have different ideas of property to
Speaker 2: certain extents, but like the enclosure process and the primitive
Speaker 2: accumulation of capital, those things have been happening for eons,
Speaker 2: Like even though it took until the High Middle Ages
Speaker 2: for it to really start to get going in places
Speaker 2: like England and stuff. I mean, China privatized a lot
Speaker 2: of their land two hundred years before Jesus was born,
Speaker 2: Like you know, it's just like it's it was a
Speaker 2: different it was, it was it wasn't a full privatization,
Speaker 2: but they still did it. Like it's the problem. The
Speaker 2: thing about Marx, and the thing that Marx was right
Speaker 2: about is that the problem is the way that we
Speaker 2: treat property as this inalienable thing that has this like right,
Speaker 2: and the person who happens to own it at this
Speaker 2: time as long as they have a long as they
Speaker 2: have enough of a connection to the monopoly of violence
Speaker 2: to defend that right, that's the fucking problem because like
Speaker 2: you know, even when two people are fighting over a
Speaker 2: boundary line and it's going to move like a foot
Speaker 2: in one direction or the other, like, that's still using
Speaker 2: this system to decide what property is what. And and
Speaker 2: you know why why you can like court an off
Speaker 2: property and tell people that they cannot come on it
Speaker 2: for any reason, even if they need it to you know, survive.
Speaker 2: Like we talked about when the forestry episode, like if
Speaker 2: you're going to go into the forest, like you know,
Speaker 2: and they cut the peasants off from that. So, I
Speaker 2: mean that's you know, we've never fully undone the primitive
Speaker 2: accumulation of power. We've never fully undone, uh, the systems
Speaker 2: that have been piling on top of each other from
Speaker 2: you know, uh since since civilization began and since we uh,
Speaker 2: since class was delineated between people. Whenever you want to
Speaker 2: say that that actually happened, Yeah, we've never done that.
Speaker 2: And that's the thing about communism and socialism. That's why
Speaker 2: it's hard, That's why it's it's an insane thing.
Speaker 1: We're fighting against a lot of very entrenched ideas from
Speaker 1: the rule in class.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and and not to like excuse people, but like
Speaker 2: to be completely honest, that's like why it's so difficult
Speaker 2: for a lot of people to accept commune, like to
Speaker 2: accept these things, even if they see everything is wrong
Speaker 2: and they completely agree with you. And that capitalism is
Speaker 2: just a fucking like endless hell disaster, a horror show
Speaker 2: like that that only grinds people to dust. That's all
Speaker 2: we've ever known. That's all we've ever known. And when
Speaker 2: you're talking about this stuff you're talking about like the
Speaker 2: elimination of borders and like the destruction of these things
Speaker 2: that have been around since summer, like you know, and yeah,
Speaker 2: that fucking terrifies people. And yeah, I mean I wish
Speaker 2: it didn't, but like you get why it does. Like
Speaker 2: it's like, yeah, well.
Speaker 1: It's like a better the double you know situation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean so that's basically it. Like,
Speaker 2: you know, if there's a state, somebody has a monopoly
Speaker 2: of force of some kind, and if there is private property,
Speaker 2: meaning you know, uh, you know private land private Uh
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: We differentiat here between private property and personal property.
Speaker 2: Obviously personal properties, yeah, the stuff like it's basically the
Speaker 2: movable stuff that you own that like you can like
Speaker 2: you know, like your uh you know, your book, so
Speaker 2: you're you know, your phone and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2: And and that's different from from private property, which is
Speaker 2: like where we have privatized like the actual ownership of
Speaker 2: parcels of land and you know, trespassing blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: Yeah anyway, yeah, uh, Aston Trunkle was Tozy's thank you
Speaker 2: for the question. I do wish that we had a better,
Speaker 2: more cheery answer for you, but unfortunately, uh yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: Not yet, comrade, not yet.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well we'll get there, though, we will. We will get there. Inchila,
Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Uh, that's going to
Speaker 2: do it for us today, folks, Thank you very much
Speaker 2: for listening. As I said, next time we will be back.
Speaker 2: We're going to talk a little bit about uh pre
Speaker 2: modern Iran. We're going to uh probably kind of start
Speaker 2: with the Achaemenids because it's very interesting and uh yeah,
Speaker 2: why the hell not, and then we'll talk a little
Speaker 2: bit about the rest of it. It'll probably be a
Speaker 2: couple episodes. Uh, but yeah, we'll we'll see. Iran is
Speaker 2: very interesting and uh, as we're going to see has
Speaker 2: actually had a line of kings that stretch for longer
Speaker 2: than the line of emperors that had so that is
Speaker 2: pretty fucking crazy, but we will Even even though Arama
Speaker 2: was of course ruled by various other states during that time,
Speaker 2: they still had their own kings. Anyway, Yeah, check that out.
Speaker 2: That'll be coming next week, eleanor what what you got
Speaker 2: going on?
Speaker 1: Well, I don't even fucking know anymore. Dog, Mostly I've
Speaker 1: just been writing at the middle, which is at the
Speaker 1: middle at the moment, which is probably a good thing.
Speaker 1: Uh So yeah, like that's what's up. Oh, if you want,
Speaker 1: I forced them at work to let me do an
Speaker 1: entire episode about the avenue on papacy over at Golm Medieval.
Speaker 2: So nice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because like that's what happens when Trump mentions it.
Speaker 1: I was like, ho, so, yeah, you're gonna go check
Speaker 1: that out if you want to hear more of my bullshit.
Speaker 2: Otherwise.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like I've got a bunch of things that
Speaker 1: in the work that haven't quite come up. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: I'll let you know when it's out, but otherwise, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm on the socials at Going Medieval, in particular on
Speaker 1: bluesky Dot app. I'm over there yelling about British politics
Speaker 1: at the moment. That's mostly what's up.
Speaker 3: Nice.
Speaker 2: You can find me a people's history of the Old Republic.
Speaker 2: If you want to hear my old show where I
Speaker 2: yap about Star Wars. You can find me on the socials.
Speaker 2: Luke is amazing. I try to hit both of them,
Speaker 2: but I don't always do. It depends on the day
Speaker 2: and how annoyed I am at various things. But anyway, yeah,
Speaker 2: thank you all very much for listening, and we'll see
Speaker 2: you next time.
Speaker 1: Bye. Keep a sloppy I don't keep doing it.