Speaker 1: Hello, Hi, oh Hello, that's okay.
Speaker 2: I'm back in London and you know, we love London folks.
Speaker 2: But it's like the vibes, the vibes do go downhill
Speaker 2: once you leave the continent. It has to be said,
Speaker 2: like even like attempting to leave. It's quite funny because
Speaker 2: you know, since I'm Irish maxing and uh, passport logging
Speaker 2: at all times, it's like I just kind of breeze
Speaker 2: about do whatever I want.
Speaker 1: But Justin is cursed with a UK passport, so he
Speaker 1: has to line up with all the non EU people and.
Speaker 2: Like you have to now be fingerprinted whenever you're like
Speaker 2: going in and out of the or something like that.
Speaker 2: So like I'm not joking, like I'm just okay, Well
Speaker 2: I'm in the U line like Cinara Sucker, I'll see
Speaker 2: in there and I go get us seats and I
Speaker 2: guess it must have been like eleven sixteen when I
Speaker 2: sat down. I know this because there were time stamps
Speaker 2: on it, and I'm just like, dude, dude, just like vibing,
Speaker 2: I'm posting, you know obviously, and.
Speaker 1: Then like I look up and I'm like, where the
Speaker 1: fuck is Justin.
Speaker 2: It's like he eventually gets into the lobby at like
Speaker 2: eleven fifty or something, and I was like, yikes, and uh,
Speaker 2: you know, it's just one of the many indignities and
Speaker 2: Brexit fundamentally so.
Speaker 3: The indignities of Bricksit my favorite Pogues album.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a difficult second album, if ever I've heard one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yep, yep, yep. M How are your friend?
Speaker 3: Oh I'm good, you know, here doing doing whatever I
Speaker 3: can to stay out of the the sun. It is
Speaker 3: unbearably hot here. August worst month of the year, always
Speaker 3: the worst month of the true I don't want to
Speaker 3: hear anything else. I don't to hear things about February
Speaker 3: or January or whatever. The fuck. No, it's August. Nothing good.
Speaker 3: The weather is always dog ship and uh yeah it's
Speaker 3: uh it sucks. Yeah, this is uh anti August podcast.
Speaker 1: Anti August action.
Speaker 2: Yeah you heard, no no August.
Speaker 3: No, there's no we have no holidays. We have no no,
Speaker 3: no no holidays that people really go out of their way.
Speaker 3: I think our day is possibly in August or something
Speaker 3: like that. But yeah, it's like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's too Yeah, it's like nothing but joyless
Speaker 1: and oppressive heat. I don't know.
Speaker 2: Here in England, everything is on fire quite literally, but
Speaker 2: I wouldn't worry about it. I think it's probably like,
Speaker 2: it's probably fine that the other day in Greenwich Park
Speaker 2: there was.
Speaker 1: A dust devil.
Speaker 2: I probably wouldn't worry about it. I don't think we
Speaker 2: need to worry about climate breakdown at all. I think
Speaker 2: it's probably good. It's probably fine that it hasn't rained
Speaker 2: here for over a month and everything is brown and dying,
Speaker 2: and I don't think that there's anything to worry about anyway.
Speaker 2: Our glorious new Prime Minister is gonna do some more
Speaker 2: north sea drilling about it, so I think that that'll
Speaker 2: probably start itself out.
Speaker 1: Probably if we just say, do.
Speaker 2: A bit more drilling in the north Sea, I think
Speaker 2: it'll it'll just sort itself out, won't.
Speaker 3: It all all done? Nothing to see here, folks dusting dramatically,
Speaker 3: dusting off my palms, turning on a diamond, leaving my
Speaker 3: work here is done. But you didn't do anything, didn't I.
Speaker 2: I gonna I mean, we'll probably have to save it
Speaker 2: for eleanor rants about UK politics, Patriot or something soon.
Speaker 1: But bro like the vibes subterranean. Yeah, so what are
Speaker 1: we gonna do?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, well we should probably get yeah, a
Speaker 3: quick quick thing. Yesterday I was I texted you about it.
Speaker 3: I was going through I was going through the Internet
Speaker 3: archive looking for something, and I found our our good,
Speaker 3: our good friend Nicitis Conneats the thirteenth century Byzantine chronicler,
Speaker 3: historian whatever. And yeah, he was writing between the the
Speaker 3: the late eleven hundreds and the early twelve hundreds, and
Speaker 3: he was there at the the the original fall of Constantinople,
Speaker 3: not the revision, the fourteen fifty three revisionist one, the
Speaker 3: original the o G fallow up of Constantinople, which he
Speaker 3: does capitalize as fall of Constantinople, so you know, yeah,
Speaker 3: periodization is not is not new by any stretch. And
Speaker 3: he uh, but but I was looking for something else
Speaker 3: and I was struck by he writes about it, and
Speaker 3: he when he he gets to the end of it,
Speaker 3: he's he's clearly heartbroke, and he's gone on like this
Speaker 3: three or four page like diatribe, you know, because like
Speaker 3: oh City of Brilliant, Oh Queen of City, oh, you know,
Speaker 3: like and they all they all do it, and and
Speaker 3: you know it's it's it's legitimate. He is uh, he
Speaker 3: is very distraught, but he uh, but he he gets
Speaker 3: to the point, he gets to the to the end
Speaker 3: of this, and he starts to turn it into this
Speaker 3: metaphor about the fall of Troy and Helen of Troy,
Speaker 3: and he also capitalized fall of Troy like that, and
Speaker 3: uh he he's trying, I think the best I can tell,
Speaker 3: because this is a scan of like an old copy
Speaker 3: of a like a twenty early twentieth century English translation
Speaker 3: of this. But the best thing I can tell, he's
Speaker 3: trying to say, like Constantinople is like the Queen of
Speaker 3: City is like Helen of Troy, and and and he's
Speaker 3: and he's comparing it to the beauty of Helen of
Speaker 3: Troy and the ruin of Helen of Troy and all
Speaker 3: of this sort of stuff. And then like he as
Speaker 3: he's doing it, he kind of gets his metaphors mixed,
Speaker 3: and he starts talking about like how it's like they
Speaker 3: are the Trojans and the Latins are are the Greeks,
Speaker 3: and and they've reenacted it, and and he just he's,
Speaker 3: he's he's heartbroken. He's mixing his metaphors. And I realized
Speaker 3: that like people ham fistedly comparing their current circumstances to
Speaker 3: a big event fictional or otherwise. He's I mean, he
Speaker 3: talks about it like like these are real people and
Speaker 3: this really happened, so I'm not going to doubt that.
Speaker 3: But and uh, and then just like ending up mixing
Speaker 3: the metaphors and being so on the nose you can't
Speaker 3: even stand it, like, uh, god, damn it always been
Speaker 3: like this. You know, I was struck by it. It
Speaker 3: was profoundly sad, but also like wow that.
Speaker 2: The like the the white boy longs in his heart
Speaker 2: to lament the social.
Speaker 1: Realities, you know, man, So it's it's so good.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Also, just shout out to the Internet archive. Use it
Speaker 1: so much. I give them, I give them, I tithe.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. They have a lot of old books on there,
Speaker 3: a lot of old like manuscript style books and goals
Speaker 3: and things like that that you would normally not even
Speaker 3: have to go to like a library, where you'd have
Speaker 3: to go to like a specialty like you have to
Speaker 3: go to like a specialty place to to even look
Speaker 3: at it. And but but yeah, it's our age of
Speaker 3: bronze is collapsing. Uh, we're going into it.
Speaker 2: Then linear B.
Speaker 3: You know what off linear B? What if my and
Speaker 3: he's but he's doing it. He's periodizing the whole thing
Speaker 3: and he's just calling back to to to Troy, to
Speaker 3: the fall of Troy.
Speaker 2: Well, you know what, I think that if you ask
Speaker 2: someone who considers themselves a Roman, right, they're going to
Speaker 2: be the ones who are doing it the hardest. Right.
Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, that's good. Yeah, good stuff. Yeah, there
Speaker 3: we go. Oh he does say us Romans like he calls,
Speaker 3: and he's right to do it. I love it. I
Speaker 3: think it's so cute. I do. I think it's you know,
Speaker 3: I think it's uh, you know that was the fall
Speaker 3: of Rome down. That's so so so adorable.
Speaker 1: I agree with him.
Speaker 3: I'm like, yeah, I know he's right. It's just uh yeah,
Speaker 3: that's so that's so sweet.
Speaker 1: Anyway, the Troy sounds funny though. Oh good, good times.
Speaker 3: Hello, welcome back to We're Not So Different podcast about
Speaker 3: how it's it's sad. It's sad when when bad thing
Speaker 3: happens and you have to call back to, uh, to
Speaker 3: the one story everyone knows. Yep, all right, folks today,
Speaker 3: Uh fuck it, it's uh it's Peter. I have a
Speaker 3: hard time for better and for worse. Uh. But before
Speaker 3: we get there. We get a couple questions from our patrons,
Speaker 3: first from Ali Kant, who says, what was dental care
Speaker 3: like in the Middle Ages and what were the different practices.
Speaker 3: I bet I got ideas, and I bet they aren't good.
Speaker 2: Listen, You've got ideas, and the ideas are probably correct,
Speaker 2: is what I would point out. But I hasten to
Speaker 2: add that one of the things that is going on
Speaker 2: in the medieval period is their teeth are kind of
Speaker 2: a little bit better than ours just because they don't
Speaker 2: have access to sugar.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, yeah, yes.
Speaker 2: So they don't have a lot of the same problems
Speaker 2: that we do with tooth to kay and things like that,
Speaker 2: because it's like, yeah, they wish they could access sugar
Speaker 2: like this is. I mean, you can very occasionally get
Speaker 2: sugar that'll come up from Africa, but I'm sure you
Speaker 2: can understand how expensive that is. So it's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: there's honey, Yeah, sure, sure there is. But you know,
Speaker 2: it is just one of these things where you're just
Speaker 2: not getting enough in your diet to really fuck your
Speaker 2: teeth up as much as we are now we can.
Speaker 2: We can fuck our teeth up all goddamn day long,
Speaker 2: right like you know, every cavity I ever had in
Speaker 2: my life is down to mountain dew consumption at the
Speaker 2: age of seventeen, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm just just just slamming fruit by the foot
Speaker 3: and gushers, oh yeah, just annihilating my teeth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, completely, And there's just like not a whole lot
Speaker 2: that actually can be done about it when you're eating
Speaker 2: sugar at that level and they just aren't.
Speaker 1: They just aren't because they can't.
Speaker 2: You know, they wish, they wish they were doing it
Speaker 2: like us, but no can do so like that is
Speaker 2: it is one thing to consider.
Speaker 1: But yeah, they're mostly just like hoofing your tooth out.
Speaker 2: They're mostly like gonna get you kind of like numbed
Speaker 2: up as best they can, and they're just gonna like
Speaker 2: go to town.
Speaker 1: On that puppy.
Speaker 2: And so you know, like there isn't kind of they
Speaker 2: do have, you know, they brush their teeth and things
Speaker 2: like that. But I also hasten to add that another
Speaker 2: thing to keep in mind is that until after World
Speaker 2: War Two, toothpaste didn't really do anything except like yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: so it's like good luck, God bless have fun out there, kid.
Speaker 2: But you know that is something that we've got to now,
Speaker 2: so I mean like Victorians, they're in a much worse
Speaker 2: situation tooth wise, yes, right than and indeed dental surgery
Speaker 2: hadn't really progressed whole fucking lot at that point in time.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, So I mean listen, it's pretty much as
Speaker 2: grizzly as you would think.
Speaker 1: It's just also more rare, which is good question. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm just thinking about like the actual like because
Speaker 3: if you're doing this, like it's got to get to
Speaker 3: a state to where it's real bad. Oh yeah, and
Speaker 3: like but the thing about it is like when a
Speaker 3: tooth gets to that state, like it's gonna have to
Speaker 3: come out cleaning it. It has to come out, and
Speaker 3: cleaning that out is like like, oh, I think I've talked.
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna talk about it more because it squigs
Speaker 3: me out. But I hate going to do this. I
Speaker 3: do it because I know I have to, and like
Speaker 3: it's a it's an affront to like everybody who didn't
Speaker 3: have it to like not do it, but like I
Speaker 3: hate it. I hate it so much. And so the
Speaker 3: idea of any of this like somebody rooting around in
Speaker 3: my mouth at all, Like yeah, fingers or eat like.
Speaker 1: Ah, yeah, yeah, no gloves, yeah, absolutely, no glass, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 3: Like there's something about the dental process and like, uh
Speaker 3: huh the thing I feel, I don't Yeah, I feel
Speaker 3: not not a fan. It squeaked me out a lot. However,
Speaker 3: you should go to the dentist. Do not let my
Speaker 3: weirdness uh dissuade you from that if you can. Hopefully
Speaker 3: you can, because I know it's not included in a
Speaker 3: lot of places, and uh, in dental care because these
Speaker 3: are the these are the luxury bones. They don't you know, they're.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean one of my most crank opinions about this, like,
Speaker 2: for example, a lot of dental care is not included
Speaker 2: in the NHS. Is my one of my most crank
Speaker 2: opinions about it is that because it doesn't necessarily kill
Speaker 2: you and it's a reliable class indicator.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they we keep it. That's that's what I believe
Speaker 1: to be true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I get really been out of shape when people
Speaker 2: make jokes about British dentistry as a result of this
Speaker 2: as well, even though like British industry is like pretty.
Speaker 1: Fine anymore, Like that's a fashion thing to say.
Speaker 3: But you know, I've stopped except the Big Book of
Speaker 3: British Smiles. That's important.
Speaker 2: It's important as a reaction image if like, if a
Speaker 2: British person does get too out of pocket online, I
Speaker 2: will say that.
Speaker 3: And especially the portrait of Charles, and they're it's just.
Speaker 2: So important, it's so important. It's fine to do it
Speaker 2: to Prince Charles. Okay, it's always fine to bully the monarchy.
Speaker 2: It's just everyone else that I don't like it happening to.
Speaker 3: It's it's not their fault, it's you know. The thing
Speaker 3: about it is is like before fluoride was invented, like
Speaker 3: not before it was invented, but before like we discovered
Speaker 3: it and were able to like I guess synthesize it
Speaker 3: in some way and stuff like that, Like, uh, that
Speaker 3: much you could do for teeth, like there just wasn't
Speaker 3: like because they're because there's you can't you can't. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you can't inject anything into them. You can't, like you know,
Speaker 3: and brushing your teeth was not like a super duper
Speaker 3: common practice outside of like cities and stuff until maybe
Speaker 3: World War One. Is maybe it's it was, it's very
Speaker 3: far more recent than we might think. Anyway. Yeah, this
Speaker 3: is one of those things that unites people across all
Speaker 3: of time and space until the invention of fluoride. Is
Speaker 3: that fucking sucks for everyone rich, poor. It does not matter.
Speaker 3: It fucking sucked, just they gotta rip that ship out
Speaker 3: it anyway, Olly, thank you very much for the question.
Speaker 3: Uh next, got one from energy in your face, who says,
Speaker 3: let's talk gout right, gout.
Speaker 1: Chat shout out gout, shout out gout.
Speaker 3: So you know a lot of people. Sorry, I'm going
Speaker 3: on with the question that. Yeah, like no, I was
Speaker 3: just like talk about the brother the medical problem known
Speaker 3: as gout. Anyway, So, like ninety people had struggles to
Speaker 3: get their caloric intake met while nobles ate so much
Speaker 3: meat they got gout. How much meat is to meat?
Speaker 3: Too much meat like fog to chao or Korean barbecue
Speaker 3: twice daily without any salad or pickle, veggies or anything,
Speaker 3: the modern equivalent of fibervies a day. I can't conceive
Speaker 3: of the amount of meat you need to get gout.
Speaker 3: And I am a modern American.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, so here's the thing I'm about to bring
Speaker 2: some like bad. It's more complex than that news to
Speaker 2: the chat, as is my want, which is that gout
Speaker 2: is actually largely not due to dietary practice per se.
Speaker 1: It's genetic.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 1: I know this because my husband has scout, which.
Speaker 3: Oh your husband who consumes who consumes ten racks of
Speaker 3: lamb a day, Well.
Speaker 1: That's like hundred percent.
Speaker 2: And I got to say that, like his Kiwi family
Speaker 2: did be going to town on lamb constantly.
Speaker 3: So who's lamb is delicious?
Speaker 2: Listen, it's it's just like they come by it honestly, right,
Speaker 2: If they're not going to eat a sheep, they're gonna
Speaker 2: shag it.
Speaker 1: So you know, wait Kiwi jokes am I right am?
Speaker 1: I right?
Speaker 2: Take that, you nation of wonderful scally waggs who I
Speaker 2: love anyway. So yeah, one of the big reasons we
Speaker 2: tend to see it a lot in uh Royalty, for example,
Speaker 2: it is not because they're eating so much meat because
Speaker 2: they're it's because they're so fucking inbread, right, they're passing
Speaker 2: around the same five goddamn jeans and one of them
Speaker 2: is gout right, That's that's what they got going on there,
Speaker 2: And so as a result, it comes up more often.
Speaker 1: Now the thing.
Speaker 2: That makes your gout hurt because what happens it's a
Speaker 2: build up of crystallized uric acid in the blood that
Speaker 2: usually goes around your big toe.
Speaker 1: For whatever reason, it just gets congested down there.
Speaker 2: I don't fuck know, you know, have I looked this
Speaker 2: much into my loving husband's medical condition? No?
Speaker 1: Dog, No, I haven't.
Speaker 2: Okay, but what does it is actually purines, And so
Speaker 2: you have to be careful about what you eat so
Speaker 2: that it doesn't contain purines. And so, for example, I
Speaker 2: accidentally like poisoned poor Blair last year because you know,
Speaker 2: I was like vibing out down Chinese grocery, as is
Speaker 2: my wont and I was like, yeah, I'm gonna make
Speaker 2: some noodles.
Speaker 1: That'll be great.
Speaker 2: And I picked up a green vegetable that I hadn't
Speaker 2: worked with before that I later learned was water spinach.
Speaker 2: I was like, I don't even know who she is,
Speaker 2: but she's looking at the green and leafy, and due
Speaker 2: to like my vegmaxing policy, I was like, gotta throw
Speaker 2: this in the noodles, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So Blair had a full like Homer Simpson in the
Speaker 2: Sandwich moment, where like he did it, he didn't kind
Speaker 2: of realize at first that it was like the noodles
Speaker 2: because he was like, well, well, maybe I don't know,
Speaker 2: maybe we've been drinking or something like that, and drinking
Speaker 2: can set it off, right, particularly drinking beer. So like
Speaker 2: beer is worse than wine because it's got more purines
Speaker 2: in and so he was like, oh, I don't know,
Speaker 2: like a gout kind of hurts today. I was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's crazy. Anyway, like i'd made I always make leftovers.
Speaker 2: He takes me to work or whatever, and he's like
Speaker 2: oh ow ow.
Speaker 1: And he was like why, what's what? Like what did
Speaker 1: you put in this?
Speaker 2: And I was like, I don't know, you know this
Speaker 2: and that like mysterious vegetable and water spinach is apparently
Speaker 2: fucking full of purines. And he was just like in
Speaker 2: massive pain for a couple of days, which was cool,
Speaker 2: and like the poor thing was like, you know, really
Speaker 2: had to struggle through it. And it's like, so, for example,
Speaker 2: the thing that hurts him the most is asparagus, you know, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: and he loves asparagus, so it's really.
Speaker 3: It's really sad.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, and so like he basically can't eat asparagus,
Speaker 2: which is so fucking rough, and so yeah.
Speaker 1: It's it's actually it's not.
Speaker 2: The point is, yeah, meat's probably not great for it,
Speaker 2: but that's not the thing doing the thing, right, It's
Speaker 2: not really meat, it's just like whatever and interesting, so
Speaker 2: like gout, you know, and like there's it must be
Speaker 2: pronounced like goo goo.
Speaker 1: Gil or something like that.
Speaker 2: Alf say, like that is the word for like a
Speaker 2: good taste or something like that. And so I think
Speaker 2: that basically they're like, oh, rich people get this all
Speaker 2: the time. Rich people also be eating meat, therefore this
Speaker 2: has to do with that. And yeah, but it's like
Speaker 2: if you were also consuming your body weight in ale,
Speaker 2: which ordinary people are doing in order to stay like
Speaker 2: get their calories, you would be in so much like
Speaker 2: all consuming pain.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, yeah, I mean it appears that like sixty
Speaker 3: percent of the uric acid variability comes from genetics and
Speaker 3: only about twelve percent comes from dietary ingestionous you know,
Speaker 3: stuff you're eating. I think, like it's also not any meat,
Speaker 3: it's organ meat that does it. That is a big thing.
Speaker 3: So like the organ the internal organs being used and
Speaker 3: chopped up because they retain uric acid and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: So I mean, I think and a big part of
Speaker 3: that is like pataise and stuff, which is I do
Speaker 3: be rich people, which is like and back in the
Speaker 3: day would have been like rich like only rich people
Speaker 3: type food. So like you can see how how those
Speaker 3: two things got connected. But yeah, it sounds awful. Makes
Speaker 3: your feet hurt?
Speaker 1: Uh, careful with that water spinach guys.
Speaker 3: All right, yeah, yep, junior face, Thank you very much
Speaker 3: for the question. If you want to ask us questions
Speaker 3: like these, then please do subscribe to our patroon patreon
Speaker 3: dot com slash w NSD pod five bucks a month.
Speaker 3: You can ask us questions like those. You get access
Speaker 3: to two bonus episodes a month. We've got our fifth episode,
Speaker 3: fifth book Club episode on Between two Fires coming up
Speaker 3: on Friday, so check that out if you're interested. And yeah,
Speaker 3: it helps us out and we really appreciate it. Anyway,
Speaker 3: onto the main show. So occasionally, when you study history,
Speaker 3: you find individuals who seem to be aberrations in the timeline,
Speaker 3: people whose ideas and understandings of their own world seem
Speaker 3: to mirror our own modern postmodern sensibilities to such a
Speaker 3: striking degree that they feel unstuck from time. I think
Speaker 3: Cyrus the Great's dogged commitment to religious pluralism within the
Speaker 3: Acumuenid Empire, which he pursued to such a degree that
Speaker 3: he was venerated as a liberator and protector simultaneously by
Speaker 3: four separate socio religious traditions in five point fifty BCE,
Speaker 3: or Hildegard of being in visionary Acorus, an advocate of
Speaker 3: women whose arguments for better treatment of women seem misplaced
Speaker 3: by several centuries, and whose detailed descriptions of her own
Speaker 3: disability have allowed historians to most likely pinpoint the type
Speaker 3: of ailment she suffered from. It was very likely a
Speaker 3: scintillating scatoma, a visual or associated with retinal migraines that
Speaker 3: caused visual hallucinations and rogue flashes of light to appear
Speaker 3: in the field of vision. If you wanted to know,
Speaker 3: Lord Gerard Winstanley, the English Protestant reformer whose attacks on
Speaker 3: the class system and private property during the English Civil
Speaker 3: War presage marks and ingles by more than two hundred years,
Speaker 3: and earned him a place of honor as one of
Speaker 3: only nineteen European proto socialist forerunners listed on the Soviet
Speaker 3: era Alexander Garden Obelisk. Now, of course, now, there is,
Speaker 3: of course, no higher mystery behind any of these things.
Speaker 3: It's not capital fate, Capital f fate or the Holy
Speaker 3: Spirit came down and Bill endowed these individuals with unique
Speaker 3: prescience or insights on these issues. It's just a quirk
Speaker 3: of human existence and intelligent that people sometimes, I didn't
Speaker 3: think in such a nuance in novel ways for their
Speaker 3: own era, that they seem almost like time travelers or
Speaker 3: wizards lost in time and space. Cyrus the Great's idea
Speaker 3: of ideas of pluralism were situated in existing Persian, very
Speaker 3: early Zoroastrian, and ancient Mesopotamian concepts of religious syncretism and toleration. Hildegarde, meanwhile,
Speaker 3: lived during a fairly narrow, very rare window of time
Speaker 3: Windy Church and Holy Roman Empire were accepting and even
Speaker 3: celebrating outspoken female visionaries. She got to go on preaching
Speaker 3: to hers for fuck state. Do you know how rare
Speaker 3: that is in pre modern Europe. Poor wind Stanley, on
Speaker 3: the on the other hand, was socially ostracized for his
Speaker 3: views on redistribution of land and actions as a true leveler,
Speaker 3: and spent the later years of his life working in
Speaker 3: commerce as a chandler to get by and fighting legal
Speaker 3: battles over money he believed he was owed. Even so,
Speaker 3: they're seemingly out of place writings and ideas never failed
Speaker 3: to inspire and enthrall us because they seem to conflict
Speaker 3: to the course of history and the erow of time
Speaker 3: as we understand it, and we celebrate them accordingly. However,
Speaker 3: you sometimes come across the person who is seemingly unstuck
Speaker 3: from time in monumental ways, but is also just a
Speaker 3: huge fucking piece of shit in such a way that
Speaker 3: it's impossible to overlook. But then you also find out
Speaker 3: that the persons, by being awful, was woefully mistreated by
Speaker 3: contemporaries in life, severely and brutally punished for the wrong reasons,
Speaker 3: and even had some really forward thinking, almost modern seeming
Speaker 3: novel ideas. Thus she left with an extreme man out
Speaker 3: of time scenario where he's problematic and awful, but also
Speaker 3: highly influential and even sympathetic at times. Anyway, folks, all
Speaker 3: of that is to say that it's time to talk
Speaker 3: about the one the only front of me of the podcast,
Speaker 3: Peter Abilard. So yeah, we talk. We referenced him many
Speaker 3: times on the show, but I've never done an We've
Speaker 3: never done an episode on him. So we're gonna have
Speaker 3: a little chat about mister Abilard in his land of
Speaker 3: contrast style life. We'll do some introduction on him and
Speaker 3: then talk about his very problematic relationship with Eloise and
Speaker 3: why we shouldn't lose sight of that when discussing him.
Speaker 3: Then we'll talk even more at the end about it
Speaker 3: to dry the point home, because and this is terribly unfortunate.
Speaker 3: Avalar was right about a lot of things and was
Speaker 3: mistreated very badly by the clergy and papacy, and he
Speaker 3: becomes something of a prescient and sympathetic figure. He's kind
Speaker 3: of a lot like Galileo in some ways, because he's
Speaker 3: also a pioneer, foundational figure and a number of fields
Speaker 3: of study. But be that as it may, he still sucks.
Speaker 3: So here goes Ellen or we In ten seventy nine,
Speaker 3: a young boy named Pierre was born somewhere outside of
Speaker 3: nons in Britain. Any what do we know about about
Speaker 3: about Lil Abalard, l I l apostrophe Little Ablard.
Speaker 2: It's like the watchman Baby's up in this bitch Like. Basically,
Speaker 2: what we know about him is from an early age
Speaker 2: he very much had an aptitude for learning right, and
Speaker 2: he not only that, was just like completely disinterested in
Speaker 2: taking on the ordinary and assumed role that a young
Speaker 2: man of.
Speaker 1: Wealth would do, which is basically to get groomed to
Speaker 1: take over from his father. He wanted that church life.
Speaker 2: He was all about that, and he made that clear
Speaker 2: from the get go. And to be fair to his parents,
Speaker 2: they were like, yeah, okay, sure, which it does take
Speaker 2: some doing.
Speaker 3: And then his dad was also a night like a
Speaker 3: night like a night like he was, but he made
Speaker 3: sure that his son got a liberal arts education. So's
Speaker 3: he's kind of his dad's kind of like, you know,
Speaker 3: he breaks the normal nightly mold and he's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: you're gonna you're gonna get an education and not get
Speaker 3: hit on the fucking head all day like me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like he is his dad. He's got a woke
Speaker 1: night dad. Yes, you know, he's like my kids, my
Speaker 1: kids going.
Speaker 2: To the university. Although actually by that I mean his
Speaker 2: kid's going to instead the Cathedral School because the university
Speaker 2: isn't invented yet. It gets invented and Ablard will teach there,
Speaker 2: but he doesn't go there. He goes to eventually the
Speaker 2: Cathedral School at Loan, which is quite a celebrated one.
Speaker 1: And listen, he's a good student. He's a good student.
Speaker 2: You can say anything you want about Ablard, but you
Speaker 2: can't say he's fucking stupid. And everyone is like, whoa, Yeah,
Speaker 2: this kid has got it right. So he is immediately
Speaker 2: getting kind of passed into higher and higher achaloons as
Speaker 2: a were of church stuff, because that's basically what you do, right,
Speaker 2: you can kind of make your ways up, your way
Speaker 2: up through the ranks of the church. But very particularly,
Speaker 2: he isn't interested in like climbing the ladder and making
Speaker 2: his way up through the church. Like he doesn't want
Speaker 2: to be a cardinal, he doesn't want to be a bishop.
Speaker 2: He very very specifically wants to be a theologian. And
Speaker 2: he's able to do that because it will then get
Speaker 2: into the twelfth century Renaissance, which is so I mean,
Speaker 2: this is very much like he is. He is a
Speaker 2: man of his time right where it's like, okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: what is it.
Speaker 1: That you want to do.
Speaker 2: I want to write theology, write philosophy. That is my
Speaker 2: thing and the only thing that I wish to commit
Speaker 2: my life to. Oh okay, well great, because it turns
Speaker 2: out our society really values that very suddenly, right, like
Speaker 2: incredibly suddenly society is about that life and so he
Speaker 2: is able to do that. So, as I say, he
Speaker 2: starts out at Loan, but then the University of Paris
Speaker 2: starts up. And first we had, of course our good
Speaker 2: friends down at Bologna start up, and Bologna first and
Speaker 2: best because it's a bottom up organization. You know. That
Speaker 2: was students starting a university, which is the best way
Speaker 2: to do it. But Paris is the second one that
Speaker 2: starts off because the church is like, oh, I see
Speaker 2: these kids.
Speaker 1: Are starting their own universities.
Speaker 2: We better get in on this because who knows what
Speaker 2: people are doing when we're not watching, essentially right, So
Speaker 2: they're like, okay, we're going to get in on this business.
Speaker 2: And they started up in Paris. What better place to
Speaker 2: start it because it's the largest city in Europe after
Speaker 2: Contestinople obviously, and they.
Speaker 1: Started in Constantinople. Am I right? All right?
Speaker 2: So yeah, they're off. He goes to Paris. University is
Speaker 2: slightly different. You know, I've told you all before about
Speaker 2: the trivium and the quadrivium, the things that get studied
Speaker 2: in the university, but also just kind of the thing
Speaker 2: to keep in mind is it's like there's no such
Speaker 2: thing as like a campus, right, You're not going to
Speaker 2: the University of Paris and hanging out on campus all
Speaker 2: day and like being like, oh.
Speaker 1: Oh, butter good to class, Like that's that's not what happens.
Speaker 1: Like a university.
Speaker 3: You do.
Speaker 1: You have to.
Speaker 2: Pay to attend it, and those fees go quite literally
Speaker 2: to like the keep for students and keep for the
Speaker 2: people who are teaching.
Speaker 1: But most of the buildings are like.
Speaker 2: Church buildings, so it's just like whatever the church happens
Speaker 2: to own, they'll be like, okay, that's a classroom now,
Speaker 2: and you kind of like go in and out of
Speaker 2: these places and it is much more itinerant in character,
Speaker 2: I think would be the.
Speaker 1: Best way to do it. So you've got to do.
Speaker 2: Grammar, logic and rhetoric, and so there's gonna be someone
Speaker 2: who teaches you Latin. There's going to be somebody who
Speaker 2: teaches you philosophy in particular, kind of like the Aristotelian
Speaker 2: mode of philosophy.
Speaker 1: And there's going to be someone who teaches you debate.
Speaker 2: And then if you get past that then you can
Speaker 2: go do all the math stuff.
Speaker 1: Error Basically what Abalard's.
Speaker 2: Deal is is that he will do you the logic.
Speaker 2: He will absolutely do you like the teaching you how
Speaker 2: to think, but he is in particular going to teach
Speaker 2: you the rhetoric.
Speaker 1: Like believe he's going to teach you how to argue, and.
Speaker 3: Like he was a really look, I don't think he's
Speaker 3: the first one. He's certainly not the first one because
Speaker 3: of all the Greeks, but like the the like medieval
Speaker 3: hold over until William of Auckham comes there, like he's
Speaker 3: like the guy he's he's the best at arguing. People
Speaker 3: are literally like fuck, I will not argue against this guy.
Speaker 3: He's too like they're calling and scared, like I'm afraid
Speaker 3: that can come in today to talk this shit. And
Speaker 3: later in his life he's gonna get really fucked over
Speaker 3: by Bernard of Clairvaux doing.
Speaker 2: Just that exactly, and and like so and the part
Speaker 2: of what is the part of the issue here?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: You got you got homeboy doing his thing and he's
Speaker 2: really good at debating. But he'll be like, hey, kids,
Speaker 2: you wanna you wanna see some debating and action, and
Speaker 2: the kids are all hooting and hollering like oh oh yeah,
Speaker 2: let's do it, ablord, and then he will be like,
Speaker 2: You'll go up to his colleagues who are in the
Speaker 2: middle of their lecture, and he'll be like, you namby,
Speaker 2: son of a bitch. I bet you you'd say that's true,
Speaker 2: but it's clearly not. And his students are just being
Speaker 2: like oh in the background, and it's just like he's interrupting,
Speaker 2: you know, and he basically he's just kind of like
Speaker 2: trying to prove a point about how good he is
Speaker 2: at debating, and it's like obviously very disruptive, and he
Speaker 2: would fucking hate him. And you don't just hate him
Speaker 2: because he's acting like a prick. He's acting like a
Speaker 2: prick and he's got your ass.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's he's arrogant. He knows it. He knows He
Speaker 3: literally writes it, you know, like he knows it, and
Speaker 3: he's going and he's not the kind of person that
Speaker 3: that knows it, but is like self assured enough to
Speaker 3: like just let it be there. He like knows it,
Speaker 3: and he's going to like take you your face and
Speaker 3: rub your nose in it, like like a like a
Speaker 3: dog who pete or something.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: He's like, you know, just like don't do it, you know?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's it's awful, Like he genuinely, genuinely.
Speaker 1: Is just like.
Speaker 2: Being the worst yeah, at every possible time. It's like
Speaker 2: quite like, come on, man, like do yourself some favors.
Speaker 1: And he's like, absolutely not.
Speaker 2: I will never I will never stop being a prick
Speaker 2: for absolutely no reason. And unfortunately this also kind of
Speaker 2: works for him, like he gets this huge reputation because like,
Speaker 2: of course, you know, if you've got a bunch of
Speaker 2: like college aged boys, they love this shit. They're like, dog,
Speaker 2: I am on the cutting edge. Hell yeah. And I
Speaker 2: think also it's kind of like there is this like
Speaker 2: there's this very specific kind of like macho ness that
Speaker 2: is coming out of it for a bunch of guys
Speaker 2: who don't usually get to be macho.
Speaker 3: If that makes sense, it does. I do have a
Speaker 3: question because there are scattered references to also, and I
Speaker 3: mean I wouldn't see why not, but like young women
Speaker 3: being as we will see young women drawn to this,
Speaker 3: or is there like do we have any understanding of
Speaker 3: like I mean, were they allowed to just like mix
Speaker 3: with like the male students of his who would be
Speaker 3: listening or do we not have any real idea about that.
Speaker 2: Well, so you're technically not really allowed to be a student.
Speaker 2: But then they'll be like these really confusing times when suddenly,
Speaker 2: like a woman will show up and she's suddenly like
Speaker 2: teaching at Salerno and you're like, well, how did she
Speaker 2: get in? And they're like, I refuse to tell you,
Speaker 2: and you're like, cool.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, thanks man, thanks. So she so she made
Speaker 3: it this high and was respected enough to get this
Speaker 3: job and keep it in what's in what's kind of
Speaker 3: like a church institution. It's just like yeah, it's like,
Speaker 3: are you gonna tell us anything about it? No?
Speaker 1: Absolutely not.
Speaker 2: No, no you're not You're not allowed to know anything
Speaker 2: about that.
Speaker 1: So that happens with this.
Speaker 2: We do think that probably women are attending these things
Speaker 2: because it's also like one of these things where it's
Speaker 2: essentially open doors, Like if you can get into the
Speaker 2: church where they're doing all this, you can go ahead
Speaker 2: and like listen, like they're not it's not enough like
Speaker 2: a university now that they're going to stop you. I mean, well, hell,
Speaker 2: universities actually used to let you just go sit in
Speaker 2: lectures too, Like that's it used to be a cool
Speaker 2: thing they would do when they were cool and uh
Speaker 2: so it's just sort of like if you want to
Speaker 2: go hear it, you can go hear it, right, And
Speaker 2: it's like, yeah, like by all accounts, there's kind of
Speaker 2: like philosophy hose, which I love, I mean, and also
Speaker 2: I want to say brackets positive. Obviously this is a
Speaker 2: pro ho podcast, So uh poppyar Pussy's girls, Yep, we'd
Speaker 2: love to see it. Popular Pussy's for that theology guy.
Speaker 3: Like you you I like art type girl. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's just like, oh, explain the Trinity to me, daddy,
Speaker 3: and just like.
Speaker 1: And he's all live. He absolutely would love it.
Speaker 3: And we can absolutely guarantee that happened. Oh I can.
Speaker 1: I can tell you for uh reasons for at least
Speaker 1: one person that is so yeah.
Speaker 3: So Pete. So we'll talk about his contributions to philosophy
Speaker 3: and more of his teaching and then his later life.
Speaker 3: But let's talk about the unpleasantness he while he was
Speaker 3: a teacher at Notre Dame or in Paris. I don't
Speaker 3: know if he was specifically at Notre Dame, but he
Speaker 3: was in Paris in about the year eleven fifteen or
Speaker 3: eleven sixteen. He was thirty six or thirty seven, he
Speaker 3: was preaching and a not woman, a girl named Eloise,
Speaker 3: who was either fourteen or fifteen, depending on what year.
Speaker 1: We'll get back to this, Yeah, putting down a chip, keep.
Speaker 3: On either way, yes, and they began He somehow engendered
Speaker 3: himself with her uncle Fulbert because Eloise was staying in
Speaker 3: Paris at Notre Dame as like I guess a ward
Speaker 3: of her of her uncle Fulbert, who was a canon
Speaker 3: secular canon there and uh Abelard had apparently never shown
Speaker 3: interest in women before this, Like there are several uh
Speaker 3: books about him that say he really hadn't shown any
Speaker 3: interest in women before this, uh, but he was immediately
Speaker 3: interested in her, got into Fulbert's house or good graces somehow,
Speaker 3: and then began an affair with her. Eleanor have I
Speaker 3: missed any key points here?
Speaker 2: So okay, all right, there are some keep because there
Speaker 2: is some debate about how old Eloise is. So I
Speaker 2: want to take I want to take a bo bent
Speaker 2: to shout out Eloise because she's also like one of
Speaker 2: the smartest to ever do it, like genuinely like one
Speaker 2: of these people where you're like, where did you come from?
Speaker 2: Like you know, I'm always like, oh, Yeah, like, you
Speaker 2: can't really call any of these people feminists. She's the
Speaker 2: closest to like a proto feminist her work that you
Speaker 2: really come up to. She's so fucking smart, and so
Speaker 2: we we know about her and she just kind of
Speaker 2: like comes onto the scene. She's from a lower noble family,
Speaker 2: just like him. She's a little bit lower on the
Speaker 2: totem pole than he is, but she again, is very clever.
Speaker 2: And so she's sent off to the nunnery at Argentule,
Speaker 2: and we generally know her as Eloise of argentle and
Speaker 2: she is so smart that she becomes famous.
Speaker 1: Okay, so as a teenager, Yeah, she's famous. And so
Speaker 1: this is one of the So there are schools of
Speaker 1: thought that thinks she might be a bit older. So
Speaker 1: she might be possibly.
Speaker 2: Twenty or so, because it would be very like the
Speaker 2: amount of work she had completed at this point in
Speaker 2: time and her level of fame indicate that she just
Speaker 2: might have been around for a bit longer. Now, when
Speaker 2: I say this, I want to also be abundantly clear.
Speaker 2: One of the things that I will go to my
Speaker 2: grave repeating over and over and over again is we
Speaker 2: don't fuck our students. We don't fuck our students. We
Speaker 2: don't fuck our students. I don't care if it's at university,
Speaker 2: we don't fuck our students. We don't fuck our students.
Speaker 2: Don't fuck your students.
Speaker 1: It's not ethical.
Speaker 2: There isn't a way to do it that I find acceptable.
Speaker 2: It is always an abuse of power.
Speaker 1: Don't fuck your students, right.
Speaker 3: No matter the age range. It is a completely one
Speaker 3: sided power dynamic for either it doesn't matter who the
Speaker 3: old what gen the older person is, or whether it's
Speaker 3: a gay or a straight relationship.
Speaker 1: I don't care.
Speaker 3: It does not work, no way to square it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, I'm not gonna like it. I'm not gonna
Speaker 2: like you don't fuck your students. If it's that important
Speaker 2: that you fuck that student, you can wait till they're
Speaker 2: no longer your student, and by that I mean no
Speaker 2: longer at this institution. Yeah, right, Like fucking sort your
Speaker 2: life out, what the fuck is wrong with you?
Speaker 1: Et cetera, et cetera. Not acceptable. I don't care anyway. So, so,
Speaker 1: like to be clear, I don't like it. I don't
Speaker 1: like it now.
Speaker 2: So basically he it's also really weird the way that
Speaker 2: Ablerd writes about because he's like, yeah, up, to this point,
Speaker 2: I didn't really give a shit about getting laid, but
Speaker 2: then I thought, well, maybe I should give a shit
Speaker 2: about it getting laid. And then I thought, well, if
Speaker 2: I'm gonna get laid, guy like me, way I'm doing
Speaker 2: my thing, you gotta do it with the best, and
Speaker 2: in my opinion, and in my opinion that best was
Speaker 2: is Eloise. Right, And so it's kind of like, all right, well,
Speaker 2: like what like I just have so many follow up questions, right,
Speaker 2: because it's like, so you decided you wanted to become
Speaker 2: a fuck boy. That like that was like step one,
Speaker 2: decided to become fuck boy? Step two like get the
Speaker 2: get into the house, right, or like what like It's
Speaker 2: just it's not I don't think the timeline makes a
Speaker 2: whole ton of sense on this. And it's also like
Speaker 2: we're getting a lot of it from the Historia clamatotom
Speaker 2: which is his.
Speaker 1: His autobiography about what happens to.
Speaker 2: Him, right, And we'll we'll talk more about that also
Speaker 2: because there there's a there's lots say, there's a lot
Speaker 2: to say about that, but fundamentally, the fact of the
Speaker 2: matter is he basically at this point in time. The
Speaker 2: reason Eloise is in Paris staying with her uncle is
Speaker 2: she's just so shown so much promise. They want to
Speaker 2: get her to be availing herself of the education that
Speaker 2: is available in Paris as a result of all the
Speaker 2: activity around the university. So Fulbert is out there being like, hey,
Speaker 2: what's up looking for a tutor for my niece. You
Speaker 2: know who's like one of the smartest to ever do it,
Speaker 2: Eddie Takers, Eddie Takers, and a Blart is like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'll do it. And that's which is going to come
Speaker 2: back to haunt Fulbert. So yeah, basically he's like, yeah, cool,
Speaker 2: Like what I'm going to do is I'm just going
Speaker 2: to put in with homie and then we are going
Speaker 2: to see what we're going to see. And we end
Speaker 2: up in this situation where Ablard and Elowiz are able
Speaker 2: to spend a lot of time together behind closed doors
Speaker 2: and they embark on a sexual relationship.
Speaker 1: Now it is very.
Speaker 2: Difficult for us to call that consensual because of just
Speaker 2: like the gravity of the situation as a whole. And
Speaker 2: you know, I don't like to necessarily you know, the
Speaker 2: age gap discourse I don't think is necessarily fruitful.
Speaker 1: About a lot of the time.
Speaker 2: But like listen, it's still like a teacher relationship. And
Speaker 2: also they know they shouldn't be doing it. Able art
Speaker 2: has about celibacy, not that I take that seriously, but
Speaker 2: like come on, dog.
Speaker 3: Or they didn't even take it that seriously at the time.
Speaker 3: This is when they were trying to change that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's like.
Speaker 2: They know they're not supposed to be doing this because
Speaker 2: like so in theory Aloise, you know, either she's going
Speaker 2: to be a nun she keeps it up with this
Speaker 2: whole learning thing, or.
Speaker 1: She is going to be.
Speaker 2: Like a wife, right, And if you are going to
Speaker 2: be somebody's wife, then you need to not have sex
Speaker 2: before marriage because it brings your bride price down.
Speaker 3: Do I like that? No?
Speaker 1: I don't like that. No, I don't fucking like that.
Speaker 2: No, I don't like that way of relating to the world.
Speaker 2: But like that is true, so it's gonna like fuck
Speaker 2: up her marriage prospects in general. But they're fucking all
Speaker 2: kinds of which ways. They write about this in a
Speaker 2: series of letters to each other later on, and they
Speaker 2: like one of the things that Abilard says, like actually
Speaker 2: it might be in the Historia Calemy tottam is he's like, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, our fingers off and strayed more often from
Speaker 2: the parchment but to each other's laps, which is like
Speaker 2: them highlighting the fact that like, oh.
Speaker 1: Not the skin of the parchment, it's skin. No, get
Speaker 1: out of my face with this, So that's itchy.
Speaker 2: So so they're fucking every which way, but they know
Speaker 2: they shouldn't be fucking, so like they'll do stuff like
Speaker 2: Abilard will intentionally hit her in front of other people
Speaker 2: because like that's good pedagogy, yeah, question mark.
Speaker 3: At the time, at the.
Speaker 2: Time, they're like they're like, oh hell yeah, that's oh wow.
Speaker 2: They're really learning in there. He's beating the ship out
Speaker 2: of her, right, But do they also write about it
Speaker 2: like later on after the fact and she's all like, yes, Daddy,
Speaker 2: spank me, you know, like.
Speaker 1: Damn it.
Speaker 3: I do think we I do think we should be
Speaker 3: clear that at no point is Eloise ever like I
Speaker 3: was not.
Speaker 2: Down.
Speaker 3: That does not make any of it, okay, now does not.
Speaker 3: It does not absolve anyone of anything. No, it is
Speaker 3: just an aspect of it that you should know because
Speaker 3: their relationship is easily the most famous thing about either
Speaker 3: of them, and also it is going to kind of
Speaker 3: come back when we talk about his contributions to to
Speaker 3: ethics and the scent.
Speaker 2: Oddly enough, yeah, yeah, and like so this is an
Speaker 2: interesting thing, Like she's kind of into it.
Speaker 1: They're fucking a lot.
Speaker 2: I mean, they do say at like at a point
Speaker 2: in time though there is there is apparently some reference
Speaker 2: and it's like interesting that she wanted this on record.
Speaker 2: The one time things get out of hand and she
Speaker 2: doesn't like it is he wants to fuck her in
Speaker 2: a church and she's like, no, I don't want to
Speaker 2: fuck in the church, and he's like, yeah, too bad
Speaker 2: for you. We're fucking in this church now, which you
Speaker 2: know I would classify as rape.
Speaker 3: I didn't know about that when yeah, sure you didn't. No, no,
Speaker 3: I'm to didn't. I didn't know that.
Speaker 1: It's very Joan in.
Speaker 2: Her fiance in the office in mad Ben. If you're
Speaker 2: a mad Ben such as myself, it's like that.
Speaker 1: It's like that, you know.
Speaker 2: But anyway, they continue on this path and despite being
Speaker 2: two of the smartest people living in Europe at this
Speaker 2: point in time, their affair is discovered because.
Speaker 1: She gets knocked up because because like they couldn't figure
Speaker 1: out any other way to do it.
Speaker 2: I guess and you're just like Jesus Christ, people like
Speaker 2: you justn't just don't. Jis in there and Abelard's like
Speaker 2: absolutely not. I'm just right up in there. It's like, okay, cool, cool,
Speaker 2: great job. But who could have foreseen what happened. So
Speaker 2: you know, basically they're gonna they're gonna have a crossbow
Speaker 2: wedding about it, right, like, like that's just so Fulbert
Speaker 2: is like, you've besmirched my niece's honor. You're gonna make
Speaker 2: an honest woman out of her, and able Art is like, yeah, sure,
Speaker 2: I will go okay.
Speaker 3: And this I now who objects in this in this scenario, Eloise.
Speaker 2: And she's like, I'm not marrying this motherfucker, and which
Speaker 2: is really interesting because she's like, I have no interest
Speaker 2: in that. I have no interesting that at all whatsoever.
Speaker 2: I don't want to be a wife. I want to
Speaker 2: do weird intellectual things. If Abilard and I get married,
Speaker 2: he can't be a teacher anymore, he can't be at
Speaker 2: the university. So I absolutely fucking refuse to marry this guy.
Speaker 2: And so it's like one of these things where this
Speaker 2: goes on and on and.
Speaker 1: On and on, and eventually Abilard.
Speaker 2: Like wears her down and is like, babe, come on,
Speaker 2: like we do sort of need to get married. But
Speaker 2: I also find it really interesting because like very clearly
Speaker 2: for Eloise, who again is like someone who spends all
Speaker 2: of her time thinking about theology. That's her deal, right,
Speaker 2: She's like, I don't think this is a problem, and
Speaker 2: I don't think I will go to Hell for this,
Speaker 2: and I don't think that any of this is going
Speaker 2: to be an issue for me.
Speaker 1: Actually, I think it's cool. I think that we can
Speaker 1: keep doing this and like working in the church question
Speaker 1: mark and it's just.
Speaker 3: Like, which is an insanely modern like that's like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: that's bordering on like actual postmodern thought because you have
Speaker 3: you've abstracted your relationship to the church to the point
Speaker 3: that you can like you can separate these things out,
Speaker 3: and that's something that doesn't happen for most people in
Speaker 3: the world until like after the French Revolution sometimes.
Speaker 1: Right, And she can do it.
Speaker 2: She can do it, and she's like, N'm like and
Speaker 2: she's like, none of this is a problem actually, like
Speaker 2: you guys are the ones being weird.
Speaker 1: But like Abilard does end up marrying her in secret, like.
Speaker 2: She's like, Okay, I'll do it, but I'm only going
Speaker 2: to do it if it's in secret, because I want
Speaker 2: you to be able to like keep working. And he's like, yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: sure a girl whatever, And they get married in secret
Speaker 2: and she goes back to Brittany to.
Speaker 1: Go have Astraley Babillard friend of the show.
Speaker 2: And basically Ablard I was back to Paris like nothing
Speaker 2: to see here. I'm sure this isn't going to be
Speaker 2: a problem. Fulbert is absolutely fucking enraged by all of this,
Speaker 2: and he's like, you motherfucker, like you have completely ruined
Speaker 2: my niece's chances for anything, right, and like I am
Speaker 2: going you shall rue the day.
Speaker 1: You're gonna rue the day.
Speaker 3: And I was like yeah.
Speaker 1: Ablard's like I'd like to see you try.
Speaker 3: And Filbert was like all right, yeah. Yeah. Then in
Speaker 3: sometime around eleven twenty, Fulbert and a group of a
Speaker 3: group of assailants of I actually don't think they were hired.
Speaker 3: I think they were probably just people who hated Aboard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's just like, yeah, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of volunteers.
Speaker 3: Actually, yeah, it was a group. There's a there's a
Speaker 3: famous image of it, like that someone is drawn and
Speaker 3: it's like able are trying to escape out of a
Speaker 3: bed and like six people are holding him. You can't
Speaker 3: see anything, but like it's like six people holding him down.
Speaker 1: Uh, I going for that.
Speaker 3: They castrated him, they that gone, but power, Yeah, I
Speaker 3: I would look, I'm all for uh getting rid of
Speaker 3: people we need to get rid of. Just kill him,
Speaker 3: Like if you like, don't torture a person, just kill him.
Speaker 3: There's torturing a person like this is fucking Like I oh,
Speaker 3: it's like that's the thing. Like if if you want
Speaker 3: to kill him because he fucked that, you're fifteen fourteen,
Speaker 3: fifteen year old niece, Fine, I get it, fine, but
Speaker 3: oh god, any.
Speaker 2: Also, I just also really feel like it's not even
Speaker 2: about Eloise at this point.
Speaker 1: It's about him, right, It's like this entire thing is
Speaker 1: just a dick waggling contest.
Speaker 3: And Fulbert lost his prize pig so to speak, Yeah,
Speaker 3: the one he was going to sell at the county
Speaker 3: fair for yeah, like yeah, and like.
Speaker 2: So eventually Fulbert finds out that they were married, and
Speaker 2: then he's like and also they're married, so he can't
Speaker 2: work at the university anymore, and everyone's like no. Abler
Speaker 2: claims that everyone was so upset about his junk getting
Speaker 2: cut off that there is like wailing and crying and
Speaker 2: gnashing of teeth in the streets of Paris about his junk,
Speaker 2: which I do, which I would say I find him
Speaker 2: to be an unreliable narrator in this aspect. How dare you, like,
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm sure that they were like, oh dog,
Speaker 2: that's rough, Like that's that.
Speaker 1: Is believable to me. But I don't think that like
Speaker 1: anyone is crying over his junk except for Aloise. I
Speaker 1: believe she was crying. Oh yeah, no, she was sure
Speaker 1: she was, she was absolutely rent, she was.
Speaker 3: She seems bereft after this, like after this happens, and
Speaker 3: she and like Abilard I mean spoiler, Albalard tries to
Speaker 3: go into hiding and and hates it because he wants
Speaker 3: to still teach, but like he doesn't. He's he's he's
Speaker 3: too shame like he I mean, and I don't don't,
Speaker 3: don't get me wrong, like I get that, like he's
Speaker 3: just like, I you know, like how can I do this?
Speaker 3: Because as Eleanor said, there is this like big dicking
Speaker 3: thing about this, and I mean, like everybody knows and
Speaker 3: even if they love you and are entirely sympathetic to you.
Speaker 3: There is something to everyone knowing that your genitals have
Speaker 3: been mutial cut off related whatever whatever it is, and
Speaker 3: it and like and it emaciated him. And but he
Speaker 3: passed the time by constantly wheedling and annoying.
Speaker 1: The monks, and he enjoined sam Dene Right, it's so
Speaker 1: this is really funny.
Speaker 2: It's so good because he joined Sandni, like one of
Speaker 2: the richest and most famous monasteries. Because it's like, what's
Speaker 2: he gonna do now, Like, I mean, this man can't
Speaker 2: work for a living or whatever, so he's basically got
Speaker 2: to join the church. So he joined Sandy. And the
Speaker 2: awesome thing that he decides to do at Sandy is
Speaker 2: he spends the whole time going, guys, I don't think
Speaker 2: Sandeny is actually real.
Speaker 3: No, he's not a real person.
Speaker 2: That's not a real person, like I mean historically, like
Speaker 2: check it out. I don't even think this is real.
Speaker 1: And they're all like, what is your fucking problem. It's
Speaker 1: so good, it's so funny.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, it's so fucking funny to join a monastery
Speaker 2: and then be like, nah, absolutely not.
Speaker 1: I don't even believe this guy no way.
Speaker 2: It's like, oh yeah, the guy, the guy who I
Speaker 2: can't stress enough, is like so integral to like the
Speaker 2: French idea of Christianity that it's like the oil that
Speaker 2: is used to consecrate the is like like that is
Speaker 2: absolutely central to their way of thinking about things. And
Speaker 2: he's like, not, no, it's not real, bra, That's that's fake.
Speaker 1: That's fake. And he's like and he's right, but but
Speaker 1: it's like, but he's being a dick.
Speaker 3: He's right, he won't he won't leave them. He just
Speaker 3: he he keeps doing this and he's so like he's
Speaker 3: just so like annoying about it, and he is, he's
Speaker 3: he's petty. And and actually we'll talk about in a second,
Speaker 3: actually his this out this does come up in his
Speaker 3: first charge of heresy. But first, uh we we we
Speaker 3: We've talked a lot about Avalard and his and his
Speaker 3: own ego and and his uh crimes. Uh I. Now
Speaker 3: we get to the thing where we have to talk
Speaker 3: about his contributions to society, which are numerous. Now some
Speaker 3: of these I am qualified to go into. But one
Speaker 3: thing I'm not is philosophy eleanor what is conceptualism and
Speaker 3: what is his contribution.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so he's really one of the big instigators of
Speaker 2: it as a study of philosophy.
Speaker 1: So basically what it is is he's interested in the
Speaker 1: thingness of a thing.
Speaker 2: So like, the question is sort of like it, does
Speaker 2: white exist or is white something that we are perceiving
Speaker 2: and relating to?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: And can white as a concept exist in and of
Speaker 2: itself or does it require the relationship of a viewer?
Speaker 1: And if there is a requirement of the relationship of
Speaker 1: a viewer, does it doesn't count?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Basically that's it in a nutshell. It's obviously more.
Speaker 2: It's more complex than that, as I as I'm so
Speaker 2: fond of saying, But yeah, it's trying to get to
Speaker 2: the bottom of whether whether or not there's a thingness
Speaker 2: to a thing, if things really exist, or if it's.
Speaker 3: Just like us, is is it perception? Like would it
Speaker 3: like without without human beings, without living things, would white exist? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I mean, like I think now I think we now
Speaker 3: pretty clearly understand that it wouldn't be called that, but
Speaker 3: that that that that part of light that you see
Speaker 3: does exist independent of us.
Speaker 1: And it is perhaps true that differing species or things.
Speaker 2: Would perceive it differently, But there would stutly something right,
Speaker 2: and but it's the old kind of like if a
Speaker 2: tree falls in the forest and no one's there, doesn't
Speaker 2: make a sound kind of thing like that. That's basically
Speaker 2: the thing is, like, what is the relationship of humans
Speaker 2: to the world around us?
Speaker 1: Which is interesting? So it is fundamentally.
Speaker 2: Like an interesting kind of thing to do, right, So
Speaker 2: that's his first big contribution. When he gets to San Denis,
Speaker 2: he also makes he puts together a really great piece
Speaker 2: of work which I actually recommend if you are interested
Speaker 2: in kind of like a coming to grips really quickly.
Speaker 1: With medieval philosophy, and of course you are because you're.
Speaker 2: A little hip and cool, but if you want to
Speaker 2: like kind of get your head around very quickly a
Speaker 2: medieval philosophy, or indeed kind of like late antique philosophy,
Speaker 2: he writes this, this compendium essentially called sic at non
Speaker 2: and a sick at non, which also means kind of
Speaker 2: like yes and.
Speaker 1: No, which is in itself a joke about like the project.
Speaker 3: Is.
Speaker 2: It is about like basically saying, here are all the
Speaker 2: kind of like logic, the ways that varying philosophers have
Speaker 2: argued logic and reasoning over the years, like here's how
Speaker 2: Aristota would do it, Here's how Plato would do it,
Speaker 2: Here's how Jerome would do it. Here is how you know,
Speaker 2: basically all of the heavy hitters of philosophy up to
Speaker 2: now have related to logic, and it comes it's got
Speaker 2: like a very great way, very great message at the beginning,
Speaker 2: which is like, yeah, it's all kind of relative. You know,
Speaker 2: lots of people relate to things in lots of different ways.
Speaker 2: We do come to different ideas independently of each other
Speaker 2: or in different ways. So you know, that's why the
Speaker 2: study of philosophy is fruitful essentially, right, It's like, oh yeah,
Speaker 2: good stuff, really good things to consider. And if you
Speaker 2: really want to like get a crash course, sick at
Speaker 2: non will really really do that for you. So I do,
Speaker 2: I do recommend that if that's something that you're kind
Speaker 2: of interested in checking out.
Speaker 1: So that's really good. And then though he gets kicked
Speaker 1: out of Sandy, Yeah.
Speaker 3: He gets he's he's kicked out of of sandany for
Speaker 3: for annoying them too much, sp for for like holding
Speaker 3: his finger like a quarter inch from their their eye
Speaker 3: and being like I'm not testing. Yeah, he got kicked
Speaker 3: out and then like he kind of gets so he
Speaker 3: gets accused. Uh, well, actually, I guess we should talk
Speaker 3: about uh, the other thing, so real quick. A couple
Speaker 3: of other things that he that he was doing within
Speaker 3: the field of ethics. He develops a theory that involuntary
Speaker 3: physical reaction does not equal consent within people. And this
Speaker 3: is of course within with regard to like how you
Speaker 3: view like Christian ethics, like like did you commit a
Speaker 3: sin if you are put into a situation where like
Speaker 3: a woman like shows you her tits and you can't
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: You're you're yeah, you can't look away.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And his example literally is like a man wakes
Speaker 3: up tied to a bed between two naked women, and
Speaker 3: of course he gets an erection from this. But Ablard's
Speaker 3: argument is that the man has not sinned because the
Speaker 3: reaction is subconscious, physical, and involuntary. And so that is
Speaker 3: at this point in time, that is a four five
Speaker 3: centuries away from people at least in at least in
Speaker 3: Western thought, from people picking that up. I can't say everywhere,
Speaker 3: but like that is, yeah.
Speaker 1: We'll see, we'll see some interest in in this, like
Speaker 1: later on.
Speaker 2: This will go on to be influential and you'll see
Speaker 2: kind of stuff like this in a quitas when they're
Speaker 2: talking very particularly about wet dreams. Yes, so it gets
Speaker 2: like picked up by clever people who are like yeah,
Speaker 2: like it's it. And eventually they're like, yeah, it's not
Speaker 2: your fault if you have a wet dream, Like you're
Speaker 2: not a bad monk if you know, because you can't
Speaker 2: control your dreams. So it's like it will become like
Speaker 2: a very influential school, like a kind of.
Speaker 1: School of thought. He then also gets really into Trinitarian theory, and.
Speaker 3: This is going to get him in a lot of trouble.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, The only thing I wanted to say real quick.
Speaker 3: He does this thing called the dialogus. It's like a
Speaker 3: dialogue between Christian, a Christian and a Jew. And I'm
Speaker 3: not I want to see how to say this appropriately.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying that his argument is not still anti
Speaker 3: Semitic in the typical medieval sense. However, he is one
Speaker 3: of the first people, if not the first person, to
Speaker 3: argue that the Jews should not be uniquely blamed for
Speaker 3: the crucifixion of Christ. And he and he does say
Speaker 3: that the Roman state was it, what were the ones
Speaker 3: who did it? And that is that's a really big deal.
Speaker 3: Dante is. Dante is and the Italian Humanists are going
Speaker 3: to be like really having issues with this and like
Speaker 3: two hundred odd years like aw yeah no, no, no way,
Speaker 3: yeah no they they actually it was actually the Jews fault,
Speaker 3: and like Abalard doing this is really really early because
Speaker 3: the Jews being at fault for Christ's death is something
Speaker 3: that is like that was an underpinning of Christianity, of
Speaker 3: all forms of Christianity that I know of until very recently.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well it's like absolutely integral, especially like to kind
Speaker 2: of like the project of the concept of the Holy
Speaker 2: Roman Empire. Like you can't go around talking shit about
Speaker 2: the Roman Empire. So it's gotta be Jewish people's fault,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: Yep, gotta be exactly. Yeah. And before we get to
Speaker 3: his excommunication or not not excommunication yet, but his first
Speaker 3: charge of Pharisee also wanted to say that this guy,
Speaker 3: this fucking asshole, this fucking creep, is the guy who
Speaker 3: is like, hey, wait a minute, why do innocent babies
Speaker 3: who die without being baptized go to Hell? And everyone's like,
Speaker 3: I don't know, they just didn't get baptized and He's like,
Speaker 3: but they didn't do anything wrong. We all admit they
Speaker 3: don't have the capacity for free thought. They're just for
Speaker 3: little reaction machines at that point, which is true, that
Speaker 3: that's what they are are. They're hungry or tired or whatever,
Speaker 3: and they're gonna let you know about it. And he
Speaker 3: is saying, no, it's not. They don't go somewhere and
Speaker 3: get punished like if any if anything, they just go
Speaker 3: to a place where like they just sadly can't They
Speaker 3: can see like the glory of heaven maybe above them,
Speaker 3: but they can't get to it. But that's it. They
Speaker 3: aren't being poked and prodded. And this was like fucking
Speaker 3: revolutionary to like church people because Augustine, Saint Augustine of
Speaker 3: Hippos like, no, they're getting punished.
Speaker 1: In Augustine of Hippo in particular is like, yeah, God
Speaker 1: hates them.
Speaker 3: What the fuck is wrong with you?
Speaker 1: Like so much wrong?
Speaker 3: Do you know how many babies were unbapped? It doesn't matter,
Speaker 3: like yeah, anyway, Eleanor, as Eleanor was saying, he gets
Speaker 3: into trinitarianism, and he also sees God as a being
Speaker 3: of love and not total fear, which is which is
Speaker 3: a big new thing for him. But anyway, he what's
Speaker 3: his what's his trinitarian and what is being charged with?
Speaker 3: Sabellius Mean, yeah, okay, so this is.
Speaker 2: This is like an annoying thing because it's difficult to
Speaker 2: get it's difficult to get a like a particular beat
Speaker 2: on what is happening because obviously, like he is like,
Speaker 2: I never did or said anything that was heretical, and
Speaker 2: the church is like, yeah, shut up, you fucking did.
Speaker 2: And then also everything got burnt, so it's difficult for
Speaker 2: us to tell. But essentially the accusation is that he's teaching,
Speaker 2: particularly that there is a differentiation between God the Son
Speaker 2: and God the Holy Spirit, particularly like on this one point, right,
Speaker 2: who charges him with this, say Bernard of Clervaux, enemy
Speaker 2: of the podcast.
Speaker 3: No, I thought this one was the pupils of Anselm
Speaker 3: of Leone about Bernard's the second one.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you're right here. It's like, so this is
Speaker 1: kind of where it starts, right.
Speaker 3: This, this this charge of parise gets tossed out, but yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sorry, this is the sabellious one. Sorry, I'm like
Speaker 1: your girl.
Speaker 2: Your girl has been in the Netherlands for a week
Speaker 2: and uh and it shows and so yeah, so and
Speaker 2: this one they're like, yeah, no, like basically he gets
Speaker 2: in there and it's just like, shut.
Speaker 1: The fuck up, the little bitches. That's not what I said.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he gets he gets condemned, he is forced to
Speaker 3: burn the theologia himself. But uh, the whole time, the
Speaker 3: whole time, his sentence of perpetual confinement is either agreed
Speaker 3: in advance that they're not going to do it, or
Speaker 3: he escapes the day it happens and no one cared,
Speaker 3: which seems unlikely given how many people he's pissed off.
Speaker 3: So it seems like it was agreed earlier. You know, hey,
Speaker 3: don't uh, don't do uh, don't do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so like probably I think that, like with
Speaker 2: the whole perpetual conflinement thing, they're like, basically, you've got
Speaker 2: to stop teaching. I think that that's kind of what
Speaker 2: they mean, is like you've got to like stop being
Speaker 2: out in the fucking world doing this because everybody hates
Speaker 2: you and uh, you're causing a lot of goddamn problems
Speaker 2: for us.
Speaker 3: All. Yeah, yeah, so yeah, and uh but does he
Speaker 3: stop teaching? No? No, Oh, this man has this man
Speaker 3: has lecturing and smacking students in his blood. He keeps
Speaker 3: finding new places to uh to teach. Uh. He teaches
Speaker 3: uh John of Salisbury, uh, who is an English author
Speaker 3: and philosopher who's gonna come up and be a big
Speaker 3: supporter of his later on and help clear his name,
Speaker 3: along with Eloise and Peter of Clooney. But yeah, we'll
Speaker 3: get there in a sec. But yeah, he's teaching. And
Speaker 3: I find it very hard to believe that. No, that
Speaker 3: like the higher ups wouldn't have known that he was teaching,
Speaker 3: because he remained insanely popular, like students would flock to
Speaker 3: wherever he was. And he started this thing called the
Speaker 3: Peraclet with Eloise because they still had a relationship after this,
Speaker 3: because they still clearly loved each other to what every degree.
Speaker 2: And there's also this just really weird bit in here.
Speaker 2: So it's like he's out at the Paraclet. It's like,
Speaker 2: you know, he's drawing all his attention. All these students
Speaker 2: are coming in order to work with him, and then
Speaker 2: like weirdly, the church is like, bro, you got to
Speaker 2: come help us out. We've got like this order of
Speaker 2: monks that needs straightening out. Back in Brittany, and they're like, hey,
Speaker 2: come back to Brittany and like, you know, like reform
Speaker 2: this monastery, question Mark, And I don't know, see, I
Speaker 2: have no idea what the fuck was going on here
Speaker 2: because it's.
Speaker 1: Like abilide, you want Abelard to.
Speaker 2: Reform the monastery, Like they're like yeah, like the guy
Speaker 2: you just accused of heresy, Yeah, and you want him
Speaker 2: to go over there and you want him to straighten
Speaker 2: these monks out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's why these things that we're talking about are
Speaker 3: why it makes it like not only is it like
Speaker 3: he is sympathetic, but it's also like it seems like
Speaker 3: it seems very clear that like who somebody was playing
Speaker 3: around with the narrative after the fact, because there's no
Speaker 3: way that from like eleven thirty five or so to
Speaker 3: eleven forty he was teaching, and he was teaching, and
Speaker 3: John of Salisbury was writing about his teaching and talking
Speaker 3: about it across across France and England and Bernard of
Speaker 3: Clairvaux and the Pope didn't hear about it, so like,
Speaker 3: so like, what the fuck is going on in a
Speaker 3: lot somebody, somebody's playing around with the narrative here, and
Speaker 3: it's really hard to tell who it is it's clearly
Speaker 3: not avalard because he's about to get got but.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah and so like so off he pops like
Speaker 1: or whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and like he claims the monks try to kill him,
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, which maybe they fucking did, and like, I mean,
Speaker 2: who could blame them if that that is indeed the case.
Speaker 2: I think he says they try to poison he has
Speaker 2: very get his ass whooped. Yeah, like he no, they
Speaker 2: beat him the fuck down. Yeah, they're like, don't you
Speaker 2: come in here and tell us oar saying isn't real
Speaker 2: or whatever?
Speaker 3: The fuck?
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know what the problem was, but
Speaker 1: the whole thing is just like off. So he goes
Speaker 1: back to the fucking paraclet.
Speaker 3: Hm hmm.
Speaker 2: He's like that, that's what's up, Like we're back and
Speaker 2: that also just FYI for those not in the know,
Speaker 2: Perlet means holy spirit.
Speaker 3: And the peraclet is like a it's at a monastery
Speaker 3: that he's that was abandoned or something, and.
Speaker 1: He's just literally out of the wilderness.
Speaker 3: It's like he becomes a he becomes a hermit, but
Speaker 3: like it doesn't last very long because he really does,
Speaker 3: like have an inclination to teach and to be around people. Now,
Speaker 3: whether that's purely for adulation, I can't say, but you know,
Speaker 3: like yeah, he just this is all it's all very
Speaker 3: weird until eleven forty, from like from the time of
Speaker 3: his first trial uh to uh to eleven forty he
Speaker 3: is bouncing around from places he's of course been uh castrated,
Speaker 3: and he's he's bouncing around to these different things. He
Speaker 3: goes to the paraclet, he starts ats is there and
Speaker 3: for and they formed some kind of uh uh female
Speaker 3: clerical order that he gives the rules for, which is really.
Speaker 2: Weird body like, and this is so this is like
Speaker 2: a weird thing too, because like she'd gone back to Augentlee,
Speaker 2: the monastery that she'd been at and that but like
Speaker 2: it was owned by the abbot of sand Ni and
Speaker 2: he decides to kick all the monks the nuns out
Speaker 2: because he like wants the land or whatever.
Speaker 1: And so Blard's like, well, why don't you come stay
Speaker 1: with me, girl?
Speaker 2: And then she like moves the monks there, and it's
Speaker 2: like what is again, Like what the fuck is happening?
Speaker 2: Right like, because it just seems it seems weird.
Speaker 3: Would somebody have put a stop to that, Like it
Speaker 3: and that's.
Speaker 1: All incredibly strange, right, Like it's just all weird.
Speaker 3: But the part exists for at least five years, if
Speaker 3: not long. So it's like, I, yeah, what.
Speaker 1: What is happening?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: So it's like yeah, and so yeah, she's like yeah,
Speaker 2: but and she like just moves this prestigious order of nuns.
Speaker 3: In with her husband, with her her husband her kind
Speaker 3: of yeah, it's anyway, we get to eleven forty eleven
Speaker 3: forty one, Bernard gets wind that he's still teaching or something.
Speaker 3: I don't the bishop go ahead.
Speaker 1: The theory here is that Bernard is friends with her uncle.
Speaker 2: There's there's a theory that that I kind of buy,
Speaker 2: which is that, like we think that because her uncle's
Speaker 2: high up at Notre Dame, you know, he's one of
Speaker 2: the canons regular that he knows Bernard and he's like,
Speaker 2: come get this man, I hate him.
Speaker 3: Right, Maybe he finally found out where he was, or
Speaker 3: finally found that he and Eloise were still going on.
Speaker 3: And yeah, either way, look like if you want to hear,
Speaker 3: if you want to the perfect story, and this is
Speaker 3: the point where the church are kind are trying to
Speaker 3: become church cops. That's a big innocent. The second thing,
Speaker 3: he's the pope right here. They're trying to become the cops.
Speaker 3: And if you want to see the perfect mistillation of that,
Speaker 3: uh Abalard is he's dragged in front of them. He
Speaker 3: is very sick. He's very ill. He he goes into
Speaker 3: poor health at this point later in life. He wants
Speaker 3: to defend himself. He's he's ready to. He's like, fine, Bernard,
Speaker 3: bring it all out. I'll do, I will I will do.
Speaker 3: Debate me, debate me, debate me, debate me. And there
Speaker 3: there was a church council at sinn uh and Abillard
Speaker 3: showed up the day for the debate, but uh Old
Speaker 3: Bernardo pulled a fast one on him. And the night
Speaker 3: before uh the judge in the town they had bloodstains
Speaker 3: on his hand. I don't know what to tell you, man,
Speaker 3: You Abilard, you've never been a virgin. You were fucked
Speaker 3: from the start, dude, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Like listen, it's like it's this tells you everything you
Speaker 2: need to know about fucking Saint Bernard of Claibau.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: It's like he's such a little bitch, like he doesn't
Speaker 2: even have, you know, the the courage of his convictions.
Speaker 2: He can't even tell you why it's heretical. He's just
Speaker 2: like just doesn't seem right, just smells off. It's like, well,
Speaker 2: I know when I see it, and you know, I'm
Speaker 2: always going on and saying, you know, like, oh yeah,
Speaker 2: well that that's by definition.
Speaker 1: What heresy is. But fuck you, Like, if you're supposed
Speaker 1: to be this like intellectual new light of the church,
Speaker 1: then show me, right, show me that's I mean.
Speaker 3: Charging. Charging stuff like this with heresy is a good
Speaker 3: way that you completely detegrate what heresy means. And you
Speaker 3: turn and you begin to turn it, not begin, it's
Speaker 3: already it's already happened, already started, but you turn it
Speaker 3: from a holy punishment reserve for only the worst of
Speaker 3: the worst who commit like a unmentionable sense, to just
Speaker 3: like something you use to, oh, I don't know, get
Speaker 3: rid of a political enemy or theological enemy, you don't like,
Speaker 3: steal someone's land that you want, you know, stuff like that.
Speaker 3: And yeah, Eleanor is exactly right. So he again he
Speaker 3: was charged with heresy and told to stop teaching. He
Speaker 3: was not convicted of harresey at the time, and no
Speaker 3: one cared when he immediately left and went somewhere and
Speaker 3: began preaching and did it for a while. But Bernard
Speaker 3: brings him in. He uh stacks the council against Abelard
Speaker 3: the Uh he's convicted on all or condemned on all
Speaker 3: on all charges. H Abalard tries to leave. He wants
Speaker 3: to go to appeal directly to Innocent the Second, going
Speaker 3: towards Rome, but he's in terrible health and he doesn't
Speaker 3: know it yet. But before he's left, Uh, Innocent the
Speaker 3: Second had already issued a bull excommunicating him, giving the
Speaker 3: perpetual remit of silence, and uh not.
Speaker 1: The silence that's the worst, Like that's the worst, the
Speaker 1: death for him, you know.
Speaker 3: A prize yapper like him. Oh, ex community excommunicated all
Speaker 3: of his followers, to which I guess is technically eloise
Speaker 3: and uh yeah, his books were burned. Abelard probably would
Speaker 3: have died in able custody. However, Peter the Venerable, the
Speaker 3: abbot of Clooney, who was Abelard's friend and at least
Speaker 3: not rival, stopped him on the way to Rome and
Speaker 3: was like, hey, man, why don't you hang out here?
Speaker 3: And he did and he died there with it's just
Speaker 3: not good. He was in bad health. He had gross
Speaker 3: skin conditions and but yeah, he died and excommunicate and
Speaker 3: a heretic. It was cool after about twenty years after
Speaker 3: his death that was lifted Eloise and Peter of Clooney
Speaker 3: and uh Salisbury, John of Salisbury. Yeah, getting that overturn.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's really interesting because like Alois just retains
Speaker 2: this incredible level of power in prestigee, Like she's still
Speaker 2: like mixing it up with, you know, the the most
Speaker 2: elite people that there are. So it's really interesting because
Speaker 2: it's sort of like again, it just shows you that
Speaker 2: none of this has anything to fucking do with her, Like,
Speaker 2: none of like the vengeance, none of like any of
Speaker 2: that has anything.
Speaker 1: To do with her.
Speaker 2: And it's like, even though you know, I don't like
Speaker 2: the whole situation about how they got together, I also
Speaker 2: kind of have to take her at her word.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit like YO, believe women. Right.
Speaker 2: If she's like, yeah, no, I love this guy and
Speaker 2: I've devoted my life to him, you're sort of like, oh, okay.
Speaker 3: I mean if you're this devoted, I'm not saying you
Speaker 3: can't like develop like incredibly yeah. Uh, problematic feelings early
Speaker 3: on that you latch onto and stuff like that, but
Speaker 3: like she very clearly deeply loved him and wanted to
Speaker 3: be around.
Speaker 1: Him and associated with him, and and spent the rest.
Speaker 3: Of her life defending like his stuff like she was.
Speaker 3: She was a proponent of his until until she died.
Speaker 3: And I mean like he is one of the people
Speaker 3: who got really fucked over by the church, like at
Speaker 3: the end of his life, like he literally gets uh,
Speaker 3: he gets excommunicated for like crossing Bernard of Clairvaux like
Speaker 3: the like they just he had been he had been
Speaker 3: teaching for fifteen years since since he was first told
Speaker 3: to stop, and they didn't give a fuck.
Speaker 1: And it's like, honest to God, who the fuck is
Speaker 1: Bernard of Clairvaux And why does he have this level
Speaker 1: of power?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: It's yeah, who the fuck is this?
Speaker 3: Right? Like yeah, because Abillard was also friends with the Abbott,
Speaker 3: Sugar of of Uh Clooney as well, and it's like
Speaker 3: it's like like the Sugar, Uh, Peter the Venerable, and
Speaker 3: Bernard of Clava were easily like the three most famous
Speaker 3: churchmen of this time. Babillard is close with two of them.
Speaker 3: But because uh uh because uh, because Bernard is like
Speaker 3: in with the Pope and like as like the Pope
Speaker 3: whisperer and like the king maker there, uh is like no,
Speaker 3: he fuck him, he sucks anyway. Yeah. Abillard died in
Speaker 3: eleven forty two, A real one ripped to a piece
Speaker 3: of ship, ripped to I mean, you know, coflicting. He's
Speaker 3: so he is he's yeah, I think, but also I
Speaker 3: think it's good to look at this. Uh. A couple
Speaker 3: of other things we didn't get to. Uh. He's incredibly
Speaker 3: forward thinking. Uh. In the field of psychology. He invented,
Speaker 3: as far as we know, the concept of talking to
Speaker 3: God in your head, so like if you mentally pray
Speaker 3: by like saying dear God, whatever, that's that. I mean,
Speaker 3: Like Abillard was the one who popped I don't. I mean,
Speaker 3: I'm sure people did it, but like he's the one
Speaker 3: who talks about it. He's Uh. He has like rudimentary
Speaker 3: ideas for the modern theory of cognition and debunked the
Speaker 3: idea that mental illness was caused by the devil and
Speaker 3: argued that the insanity defense should be a legal defense
Speaker 3: to these things. He also talked extensively about the multiple
Speaker 3: I think it was too like nervous breakdowns he suffered,
Speaker 3: which is really weird for this time. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's like really cutting edge stuff.
Speaker 2: That's the thing is, it is fundamentally cutting edge and
Speaker 2: really interesting what he was able to accomplish even with
Speaker 2: this much hatred.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting too because like basically he dies and in.
Speaker 2: Granted it is as a result of Suger and John
Speaker 2: of Salisbury and Eloise is pretty tireless work.
Speaker 1: In this area.
Speaker 2: But everyone is like, oh, yeah, are bad almost immediately.
Speaker 2: I mean probably part of it is because they don't
Speaker 2: have to put up with him anymore.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, true, yeah, you can. You can immediately be like, man,
Speaker 3: he was, he was, he was, he was hard done.
Speaker 3: But but you don't you clearly don't have to like
Speaker 3: hear him like fuck off, Peter, God, God, he's he's not.
Speaker 2: In your lecture yelling anymore. Right, Like that's that's kind
Speaker 2: of the point. So I think, uh, that is that
Speaker 2: is naked.
Speaker 3: Right Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's able art. He's Yeah, he's
Speaker 3: a week he's like you know, most of the people
Speaker 3: that most of the powerful people we talk about on
Speaker 3: this show are bad or evil for one or very
Speaker 3: many reasons. You know, and I mean this is he
Speaker 3: just he's annoying, a weird guy who's annoying and came
Speaker 3: up with all this stuff and has this extremely oddly
Speaker 3: fucking problematic, probably pedophilic relationship with this girl. And I mean,
Speaker 3: by the way, we should point out that this is
Speaker 3: very clearly an instance of the fact that the church
Speaker 3: has had an issue with pedophilia for a long time.
Speaker 3: It's not just you know, against boys and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: And I mean he was he was a churchman, so
Speaker 3: like this is not like, yeah, but.
Speaker 1: There he is, you know, it's a he's a real
Speaker 1: land of contrast, is an he is.
Speaker 3: I find him incredibly interesting. I find the things that
Speaker 3: he went through later in life to be incredibly awful,
Speaker 3: and I find him to be sympathetic and then I
Speaker 3: remember the other stuff and I'm like, well, fuck you.
Speaker 3: But like that's how I do with with all interesting.
Speaker 3: Like it's like it's Timmy Jin like one of the
Speaker 3: most interesting people to ever lived to me, would hate
Speaker 3: my guests, would kill me in half a second, and
Speaker 3: enslave my family and be happy about it. But like
Speaker 3: he's but like he's interesting. Napoleon fucking interesting. He was
Speaker 3: a demon tried to reinstitute slavery. He's also the reason
Speaker 3: that we all in the Western world have schools literally
Speaker 3: destroyed manorialism. He was the one that did that.
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, I don't Yeah, it's any really, it's I
Speaker 2: think important to look at where little guys sometimes it is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, folks, thank you for listening. We will be back
Speaker 3: next time with some more stuff, possibly possibly an interview,
Speaker 3: but yeah, we will. We'll be back and on Friday,
Speaker 3: we've got our fifth and penultimate episode in our book
Speaker 3: club series on Christier Buelman's Between Two Fires coming for patrons.
Speaker 3: Check that out if you want to hear us talk
Speaker 3: about that book or other stuff. Last time he talked
Speaker 3: about the ancient Mesopotamia religion and their utter horrific fear
Speaker 3: of fire, which is I have no idea how often
Speaker 3: every time I see fire Now I'm like, fuck, oh no,
Speaker 3: they're gonna They're gonna get my bones. No, no existed,
Speaker 3: no anyway, folks. Yeah, check that out. Pictureon dot com
Speaker 3: slash w nasty pod eleanor what the fuck is going on.
Speaker 1: With you, bitch? I'm back in London. It has been noted.
Speaker 2: I think there's not that much going on this week,
Speaker 2: I'm once again just doing a bunch of things that
Speaker 2: aren't out yet, so when they are out, I will
Speaker 2: let you know. But yeah, I'm just trying to finish
Speaker 2: a book, so uh, you know, prayers up for your girl, good.
Speaker 3: Luck eleanor finished that book in the chat or whatever.
Speaker 3: I don't know how this works. I'm on a streamer.
Speaker 3: Let's chat or we cooked chat.
Speaker 1: Chat, feel the good, feel it cooked.
Speaker 2: H I'll bet you can find me on the socials,
Speaker 2: maybe at Going Medieval maybe.
Speaker 3: There you go. Yeah, you can find me Lucas Amazing.
Speaker 3: You find my old ship people, Sister of the Old
Speaker 3: Republic if you want to hear me chat about Star Wars.
Speaker 3: Other than that, thank y'all very much for listening, and
Speaker 3: we will see you next time.
Speaker 1: Oh keep it sloppy.