Speaker 1: It's like we're having the standard like on all Londoners
Speaker 1: are freaking out because it's like sixty eight degrees. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so it's just like the number of shirtless men
Speaker 1: I've seen today you would not believe, like like Londoners
Speaker 1: are losing their minds.
Speaker 2: There's just own own your pastiness kings, you know what,
Speaker 2: like they are.
Speaker 1: It's just like we get above a certain temperature and
Speaker 1: Londoners immediately have to go stand outside a pub, like
Speaker 1: they have to fan out over the sidewalk and they
Speaker 1: have to be like you know, holding their holding their
Speaker 1: face to the to the sun. Well, this is like
Speaker 1: what they they've got to do, and they're all going
Speaker 1: to stand outside's by the fact that like they're directly
Speaker 1: next to a road or some shit, They're going to
Speaker 1: stand out there like.
Speaker 2: A little like little gin soaked sunflowers just turning to
Speaker 2: the sun.
Speaker 3: So true, It's like it's been hilarious all week because
Speaker 3: like even.
Speaker 1: Days when it's been like you know, sixty two ors
Speaker 1: like not not even really warm. It's like people are
Speaker 1: at the pub at like questionable times. I'm like, bro,
Speaker 1: it's like three o'clock on a Tuesday, are you supposed
Speaker 1: to be in the office, like I mean nope, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's go off king right, and like banking
Speaker 1: is fake, so like real talk on that one. But
Speaker 1: I'm just saying like, like I know your job is fake.
Speaker 1: I thought you believed in it, right, I don't know.
Speaker 2: You know that that only holds so much that you
Speaker 2: can't you cannot repress the the male English need to
Speaker 2: go stand outside the local watering hole, uh while you
Speaker 2: stand like ten feet from your buddy and like every
Speaker 2: once in a while, be like, son's nice today for sure?
Speaker 4: For sure, like you know, just like okay, oh mate,
Speaker 4: that's what I saying.
Speaker 1: Ah yeah, yeah, coke dealer is going to be doing
Speaker 1: such a trade today.
Speaker 2: Don't coke dealers out there? Like he's just like he's
Speaker 2: like slinging dime bags like he's just throwing him.
Speaker 5: He's like go along, bro, just.
Speaker 2: Like the cop season and they're like, oh, you don't
Speaker 2: do it tomorrow, you know.
Speaker 5: Robes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like that's what's up, you know. So yeah, it's
Speaker 3: a it's all on.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a bit of a feeding frenzy out here,
Speaker 1: so you know, it'll be I'm kind of like trying
Speaker 1: to wait till seven, because hopefully then, like the office
Speaker 1: people will be like drunk enough that they've gone home.
Speaker 3: So I'm just gonna, like, you know, like you gotta
Speaker 3: give it a buffer, right.
Speaker 2: Just mosey on down, Yeah, to the.
Speaker 5: The local the local pub.
Speaker 3: Yeah, my local constabularies.
Speaker 1: My well, I guess they're not constabularies, are the I
Speaker 1: have no idea till there, I don't know whatever public houses, right,
Speaker 1: that's where you're gonna you're gonna find your girl.
Speaker 5: I love.
Speaker 1: I simply love to talk trash about these people. But
Speaker 1: the difference between them and me is that I sit inside.
Speaker 3: The pub.
Speaker 1: And with my shirt off, You're welcome, but also like fundamentally,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm like, the pub is for life, not
Speaker 1: just for day above sixty five degrees. And you know,
Speaker 1: people are like, oh wow, you know I'm coming out
Speaker 1: of winter hibernation. I'm like, well, you're fucking coward, okay, right,
Speaker 1: Like some of us have been in the pub the
Speaker 1: whole time. Some of us have been keeping the pub
Speaker 1: open in January, some of us have been holding and
Speaker 1: supporting the pub in February.
Speaker 3: And where were you? You were nowhere nowhere? So there
Speaker 3: you go there you go.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: As for me, I've been enjoying just just basking in
Speaker 2: the glow of the pit new HBO series medical drama.
Speaker 2: They they rest you'd Noah while from the Hells of
Speaker 2: of Straight to TV movies on TNT and they brought
Speaker 2: them back into a medical drama.
Speaker 5: And it is fantastic. Yeah, it's really good. Yeah, if
Speaker 5: you like that, you should check it out.
Speaker 3: I thought you were just referring to America as the Pit.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's that's just Pittsburgh. That's uh, the pitt The
Speaker 2: pitt is Pittsburgh. We we we can't take that from them,
Speaker 2: all right, Okay, Pittsburgh has so many beautiful and honestly
Speaker 2: it really does. Like you think I'm joking, But I
Speaker 2: found out last year that there is a thing like
Speaker 2: an actual architectural phenomenon that existed in the seventies and
Speaker 2: eighties where in Pittsburgh, and it was mostly in Pittsburgh,
Speaker 2: a little bit in the surrounding area, but mostly centered
Speaker 2: in Pittsburgh. Houses built at that time would have a basement,
Speaker 2: and in the basement, you know, they'd have like a root,
Speaker 2: like a part where like you know, you could put
Speaker 2: up like a TV and.
Speaker 5: A or something.
Speaker 2: But then on the other side of the basement there
Speaker 2: would just be a toilet sitting out what in the
Speaker 2: It's a fully connected toilet, like it's fully connected to
Speaker 2: the pipes and everything, the wiring and things like that.
Speaker 2: But it's just sitting there. There's not a curt like
Speaker 2: it just it's not it's not enclosed it by walls.
Speaker 2: And I was like, there's no way.
Speaker 5: This is real. This has to be a joke.
Speaker 2: Like a bunch of people from Pittsburgh got together and
Speaker 2: like came up with this urban legend. I looked it up.
Speaker 2: Absolutely not there are like it is. It has its
Speaker 2: own It literally has its own Wikipedia page.
Speaker 3: I'm googling this. What is this like the rare Cuck toilet,
Speaker 3: the Pittsburgh toilet.
Speaker 2: It is a it is a standalone toilet. Why no
Speaker 2: around it. The best picture of one that I have
Speaker 2: seen is it's just sitting out in the middle next
Speaker 2: to a column.
Speaker 3: What is happening?
Speaker 5: Oh no, I.
Speaker 2: Have no idea anyway, Yeah, the wonders.
Speaker 1: You know, I'll be honest, if you're from Pittsburgh right in,
Speaker 1: if you had one of these toilets.
Speaker 2: Yes, please, Do I know someone who had who uh
Speaker 2: lived his parents When he was younger, his parents they
Speaker 2: moved into a house that had one, but they all
Speaker 2: called it a fake one because the person had put
Speaker 2: like a privacy screen around it. And I was like, well,
Speaker 2: did you want it to be out in the open.
Speaker 2: He's like no, but it was still a fake one.
Speaker 2: I was like, well, there you go. You know, okay,
Speaker 2: And I'll be honest, this is insane, but uh, it
Speaker 2: is one of the things I love about America. Like
Speaker 2: it's just like fine, the fuck why like why but
Speaker 2: also like, okay.
Speaker 3: Okay, we have.
Speaker 1: The house I grew up in South Dakomba. We have
Speaker 1: like we have in the yard like this. We call
Speaker 1: it the little house because it's like a tiny house
Speaker 1: that like they were like rented out to railroad workers
Speaker 1: like when the rails are being built or whatever. And
Speaker 1: it had a toilet like that in there. But it
Speaker 1: kind of like makes sense because it was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a one person dwelling.
Speaker 5: You know, you have it.
Speaker 1: You have a sink and a toilet kind of like
Speaker 1: a thing where like there's no privacy standard because you're
Speaker 1: gonna be the only person in this room. But I
Speaker 1: don't know like a shout out to the good people
Speaker 1: of Pittsburgh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know anyway, Yeah, you should check out
Speaker 2: the pit h if you haven't, if you have access,
Speaker 2: it is really fucking good. It is, I will say,
Speaker 2: insanely gory like they were. Like the producer was like,
Speaker 2: get me your most grizzly and visceral medical injuries. I
Speaker 2: want to see exposed bones. I want I want a
Speaker 2: guy's face that collapsed from running face first into a door. Uh,
Speaker 2: to be like reinflated, like with a ballue.
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, okay, look, all right, I'm out. I'm
Speaker 3: out immediately.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be I'll spend the whole time hiding behind
Speaker 1: a pillow. So I'm such a wors I'm such a whiss.
Speaker 3: I'm the worst.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't. I don't know why.
Speaker 2: I just like I love DR. When I was a kid,
Speaker 2: fucking loved Dr.
Speaker 3: Okay word word and uh.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I just so.
Speaker 2: I guess Noah while is back. He's hotter than ever.
Speaker 3: I love this, love this for all of us.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's it's good. Good for him.
Speaker 2: Welcome back, Noah, And by back, I mean into.
Speaker 5: More popularity.
Speaker 1: I don't know, like I mean presumably back into the
Speaker 1: like the big checks.
Speaker 5: We love that hopefully. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Then again, like one of the things about doing a
Speaker 2: sitcom or like a show back then is like you
Speaker 2: got those nineties residuals. Is nineties early two thousands of
Speaker 2: residual checks.
Speaker 5: Oh buddy. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Anyway, I hope he makes a lot of money. He
Speaker 2: deserves it because he's really good at it.
Speaker 5: Anyway, let's talk enough enough about the fellas. Enough enough about.
Speaker 2: The fellas, even if they are very attractive or have
Speaker 2: standalone toilets in their basement. All right, Uh, you know
Speaker 2: I shouldn't say that. I'm sure there are plenty of women.
Speaker 2: Uh to also have non non binary people anyone respect
Speaker 2: to anyone regardless of gender or anything. Or you know
Speaker 2: who has a Pittsburgh toilet?
Speaker 5: Good?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know right in right in if you have Pittsburgh.
Speaker 5: Toilet, we need to know, will talk about it. Yes,
Speaker 5: we will talk about it.
Speaker 2: And uh I just yeah, like great, okay, here we go, hello,
Speaker 2: and welcome back to We're Not So Different, a podcast
Speaker 2: that has suddenly turned very Pittsburgh centered for some reason,
Speaker 2: even though I've never actually been there.
Speaker 1: It.
Speaker 5: Philly is beautiful.
Speaker 1: I'm into Pennsylvania at large, but neither Philly nor Pittsburgh.
Speaker 2: So yeah, Philly's cool. I'm sure Pittsburgh is great too.
Speaker 2: I've just never been myself and uh yeah, but that's
Speaker 2: not why we're here today.
Speaker 5: I'm Luke.
Speaker 2: That's doctor eleanor you guys know how it is. We
Speaker 2: talk about the Middle Ages and sometimes occasionally occasionally toilets
Speaker 2: occasionally toilet It's a.
Speaker 3: Normal podcast for people who are cool.
Speaker 5: Okay, yes, exactly.
Speaker 2: Ladies' Night is what we're doing night. But we got
Speaker 2: some questions first. First, we got one from Jia, and
Speaker 2: this is part of a longer question that the Patreon
Speaker 2: app won't show me all of.
Speaker 5: For some reason.
Speaker 2: But the gist is that she is a practicing physician
Speaker 2: and believes that she could explain germ theory to people
Speaker 2: in the Middle A just by explaining how the virus
Speaker 2: movia things like fleas on rats. The final part of
Speaker 2: the question, which I can read, says, I think, as
Speaker 2: you said on the question about whether they knew about
Speaker 2: yeast and brewing or bread, that medieval people are able
Speaker 2: to do things empirically, as in by observation rather than
Speaker 2: by understanding the theory behind it, and that you could
Speaker 2: get people to wear gloves when handling the dead, open windows,
Speaker 2: and wear cloth masks when dealing with the pneumonic type.
Speaker 2: Humor theory would actually help. Here is a foundation to
Speaker 2: explaining the plague creatures escape in the coughs, nieces, et cetera.
Speaker 2: So your thoughts on that, eleanor Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that we're banging on here because
Speaker 1: medieval people aren't stupid, you know, and they and they
Speaker 1: can observe things. So I think, you know, also, like
Speaker 1: most humans, they don't like fleas, right, and you know
Speaker 1: they and they don't enjoy being bitten by vermin. So
Speaker 1: I think that you know, by saying, look, it's it's
Speaker 1: connected to the fleas and like the fleas are dirty
Speaker 1: or whatever, they'd be like, oh word, okay, I think
Speaker 1: I can understand that. And you know, and you can say,
Speaker 1: for example, contygen right, and they'll and they'll understand what
Speaker 1: that is and they'll be like, oh, okay, well that's fine.
Speaker 2: They had a word for plague, the word quarantine developed
Speaker 2: from an Italian word during the Black Death, So yeah,
Speaker 2: like they are you know, familiar with that idea.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think that you could probably you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: like get them to do varying things, like you know,
Speaker 1: stay away from each other, open with I think that
Speaker 1: that would that would make sense, you know, provided that
Speaker 1: you just kind of explain what this is.
Speaker 3: You know, you might have to like.
Speaker 1: Use humoral theory as she has like suggests here in
Speaker 1: order to get that across. But I think it would
Speaker 1: be possible, you know, And I think that they are
Speaker 1: so desperate to kind of have some information or some
Speaker 1: explanation for the plague that they would at least hear
Speaker 1: you out, you know, so I don't especially if you
Speaker 1: can kind of show that you're getting some kind of
Speaker 1: benefit out of this, then that that's going to be fine.
Speaker 1: Like all it would take for them is just like
Speaker 1: some evidence that this is a better system, and they'd
Speaker 1: be good to go.
Speaker 2: I think, so, yeah, yeah, I think as long as
Speaker 2: as long as you stay completely away from having to
Speaker 2: explain anything about like a top structure or anything infinitestially
Speaker 2: small they can't be seen like that has to be
Speaker 2: seen with a microscope. Uh yeah, I mean I'm sure.
Speaker 2: I mean you when in our first episode on the Cameraon,
Speaker 2: we talk about Boccaccio's description of the plague in Florence,
Speaker 2: and he is dangerous, Like he and other people at
Speaker 2: the time are dangerously close to figuring this out because
Speaker 2: they're like it has something like to do with kind
Speaker 2: of being in proximity to it, but that's not the
Speaker 2: only thing, Like because some people who aren't in proximity
Speaker 2: to it, but may live like two doors down from it,
Speaker 2: it will jump to them somehow, and like they you know,
Speaker 2: they're they're kind of there. It's just that they didn't
Speaker 2: put it together with fleas or they didn't think about
Speaker 2: the fleas in that way because you know, or whatever.
Speaker 2: And I mean they didn't, you know, it didn't really
Speaker 2: seem that they that they.
Speaker 5: Had to grasp on that.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean I think I think if you
Speaker 2: filled in that block you definitely could.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: As far as like explaining the whole like everything to them,
Speaker 2: I don't know. I think you I think you're really
Speaker 2: going to have a hard time once you start talking
Speaker 2: about microscopic level things. But sure, keep it in broad strokes.
Speaker 2: Tell them to wash their hands with clean or cleanish water,
Speaker 2: and maybe they won't commit you to an insane asylum
Speaker 2: like they did with the guy who suggested that in
Speaker 2: the eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, it's just about kind of getting around what
Speaker 4: it is they do understand and just showing that it
Speaker 4: works and then that and that should be fine.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I don't Yeah, I don't think you.
Speaker 2: I think you could explain a lot of things now,
Speaker 2: like some stuff like we went to.
Speaker 5: The moon, absolutely not chances understanding.
Speaker 2: Humans can't cross that that bound that is a that
Speaker 2: is the realm of God, you know, of gods of God,
Speaker 2: you can't, you know, But like, yeah, I think I
Speaker 2: think you can get this across for sure.
Speaker 5: Yeah, thank you very much for the question.
Speaker 2: We got one from Alie Can't who says what exactly
Speaker 2: is a eunuch and what is their role in a
Speaker 2: ruler's court and society more generally?
Speaker 3: Uh do with his balls cut off?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Uh, you know, sometimes dick and balls, but usually just
Speaker 1: just the balls, you know.
Speaker 3: It Like it.
Speaker 1: Depends on the court, right because uh, fundamentally, not everyone
Speaker 1: has eunuchs.
Speaker 3: Like it's you know, it's.
Speaker 1: A style of the time, and they tend to play
Speaker 1: a larger role in places where an emperor or a
Speaker 1: sultan or whoever has a lot of ladies.
Speaker 3: Around that he doesn't want men having sex one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you know, for example, quite famously in China,
Speaker 1: you have like a whole kind of political class of eunuchs,
Speaker 1: who are people who are allowed into the forbidden city.
Speaker 1: And the city is forbidden because don't touch the emperor's
Speaker 1: several many wives, right basically, and so what that allows
Speaker 1: you like in any cases like the unix, you know,
Speaker 1: like whether they're at like court and Constantinople, which they
Speaker 1: are at times, or indeed if they end up being
Speaker 1: at court like for the Ottomans and things like this later.
Speaker 3: Essentially, what their role is is they're.
Speaker 1: Kind of men, but they are not threatening to the emperor,
Speaker 1: and so therefore they can go places that other.
Speaker 3: Men can't and can advise.
Speaker 1: In situations where you know, the said man is like
Speaker 1: really weird and possessive about women. So essentially they they
Speaker 1: fill advisory roles. They are pretty high up palace operatives.
Speaker 3: And that's why you are down with getting your.
Speaker 1: Balls cut off, is because you've got a pretty pretty sweet.
Speaker 3: Life out of it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's about this is a position of access,
Speaker 1: and it's one where you can you can offer political
Speaker 1: help and insight in places where otherwise and men are not.
Speaker 3: Allowed to go, so all you gotta do is give
Speaker 3: up your balls, gents.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think it stems from a fundamental
Speaker 2: misunderstanding of politics, for in a lot of cases, because
Speaker 2: it was thought that if they couldn't reproduce then and
Speaker 2: they couldn't have children, then it couldn't become like a
Speaker 2: hereditary thing and all that. And it's like and therefore
Speaker 2: they wouldn't be scheming and doing all that stuff. And
Speaker 2: I'm like, man, money is still money.
Speaker 5: I don't yeah, like, I'll still scheme.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you take the scheme in a way, Well, what's
Speaker 1: getting involved in politics?
Speaker 3: You're not gonna scheme?
Speaker 5: Yeah. But they yeah, they would.
Speaker 2: They would fill like all kinds of palace rolls, scribes, janitors,
Speaker 2: you know, everything from from the top to the bottom
Speaker 2: in some cases. Yeah, so, uh sounds not cool to me,
Speaker 2: uh personally, but you.
Speaker 3: Know, probably I wouldn't.
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, you know, I'm not brought
Speaker 1: up in circumstances where.
Speaker 2: I'm personally attached to my balls. It's okay if you
Speaker 2: are not, that is perfectly fine. But I like mine,
Speaker 2: uh so you know, uh, and I intend to hopefully
Speaker 2: keep them, so uh yeah, I'm good. I am I
Speaker 2: am uh, I'm good.
Speaker 5: Just uh, just you know.
Speaker 2: Being being being the second wheel on the podcast. Baby,
Speaker 2: don't have to lose the balls for that that like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's completely fine for men to have test goals
Speaker 1: around you. It's yeah, it's not it's not that kind
Speaker 1: of party.
Speaker 3: So it's okay.
Speaker 2: Like somebody barges in, like you got testicles, you can't
Speaker 2: talk to her, like.
Speaker 5: We're not even in the same room, separate cont like no, no.
Speaker 1: Look at and also you know, shout outs also are
Speaker 1: non binary friends and uh and girlfriends with balls.
Speaker 3: That's all fine, that's all fine.
Speaker 5: If you.
Speaker 2: Okay, if you like your balls, you can keep them. Yeah,
Speaker 2: keep them, don't keep them, get some new get get
Speaker 2: get truck notes at it if you want, if you.
Speaker 5: Prefer those, whatever you like.
Speaker 2: Personally personally not not not not not getting rid of
Speaker 2: them for a position being the palace.
Speaker 5: Mop bucket guy.
Speaker 2: But uh, you know, I guess I can see why
Speaker 2: people did it to get out of backgrou back breaking
Speaker 2: farming or whatever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, oh olie, And thank you very much for
Speaker 2: the questions. If you have questions, like these that you
Speaker 2: want to st answer on the show, then please do
Speaker 2: subscribe at patreon dot com slash w nsd pod.
Speaker 5: You can ask us questions. You get access to the.
Speaker 2: Discord avery listening, and two bonus episodes a month, like
Speaker 2: we'll have coming. We have two more coming later this month,
Speaker 2: and yeah, just sign up because it's fun.
Speaker 5: And we're nice and you like us.
Speaker 2: All right, yep, that's nice. Help folks, It's time for
Speaker 2: another installment in our occasional series I'm Famous and Influential
Speaker 2: Medieval Women. Ladies is historical movers too, after all, if
Speaker 2: you recall from previous entries, we do these episodes from
Speaker 2: time to time and focus on the lives and times
Speaker 2: of two medieval women. We've talked about HILDEGARDA Bingen, the
Speaker 2: Virgin Mary eleanor of Aacutaan and Moore. This time, our
Speaker 2: probing gaze falls on two women who were each important
Speaker 2: and influential in fields typically reserved for men, and seeming
Speaker 2: we have nothing in common outside of being confined.
Speaker 5: To churches for a time.
Speaker 2: The Byzantine princess and first female historian in Medieval Europe
Speaker 2: An Ikomnina and the English anchorus mystic and visionary Julian
Speaker 2: of Norwich. Their lives and even what we know of them,
Speaker 2: stand in start contrast to one another. Anna's personal life,
Speaker 2: for example, as well attested in various sources, including her
Speaker 2: own historical work of the Alexiad, which tells of the
Speaker 2: life of her father, the renowned Byzantine Emperor Alexius the
Speaker 2: fir Comninos. Julian's life, meanwhile, is a mystery before her visions,
Speaker 2: to the point that we don't even know if she
Speaker 2: was a nun before them or not. Their stations in
Speaker 2: life were about as desparate as they can get. Anna
Speaker 2: was a literal princess raised in the cutthroat political environs
Speaker 2: of the Imperial Palace in Constantinople. Though she likely received
Speaker 2: some form of education, Julian doesn't seem to have been
Speaker 2: a member of the nobility, and she certainly didn't have
Speaker 2: any personal riches after taking the anchor at vow of
Speaker 2: poverty and living solely off of alms.
Speaker 5: The way they ended up confined to churches was even different.
Speaker 2: Anna was exiled by her brother John after an ill
Speaker 2: fated attempt to remove him from the throne in favor
Speaker 2: of her husband but Julian willingly forfeited any earthly comforts
Speaker 2: and was sealed into a church Niche their historical legacies
Speaker 2: and influences as well, you guessed it. Quite contrasting Anna's work,
Speaker 2: The Alexiad was taken as the gospel truth on the
Speaker 2: history of the Byzantine Empire before and during Alexios's reign,
Speaker 2: including the First Crusade, almost since the date of its
Speaker 2: publication in eleven forty eight. Julian and her work, on
Speaker 2: the other hand, were largely unknown outside of Norwich and
Speaker 2: parts of England until sixteen seventy when they were discovered
Speaker 2: and republished. And yet they became focal points in male
Speaker 2: dominated fields and in the realm of politics and history,
Speaker 2: and Julian in the realm of spiritual and religious affairs,
Speaker 2: contributing profound historical and spiritual insights that have shaped history
Speaker 2: since their times. And we're going to celebrate them today.
Speaker 2: First up, we got Anna Conina, who was born in
Speaker 2: ten eighty three died in eleven fifty three. And yeah,
Speaker 2: we also had a question about this from one of
Speaker 2: our patrons, Beth, who said, I heard of Anna Komnina
Speaker 2: for the first time today. She seems to be pretty interesting.
Speaker 2: Wikipedia claims that supposedly she was in charge of a
Speaker 2: hospital in Constantinople with ten thousand beds, where she taught medicine.
Speaker 2: I'd love to hear your take on.
Speaker 5: Her, her story and what the hospital job might have
Speaker 5: looked like. So, Beth, yeah, here you go.
Speaker 2: Here is Anna komnen eleanor what do we know about Anna?
Speaker 2: You know from her from her early life? What is
Speaker 2: what's the background here?
Speaker 1: So she's the first daughter of the Emperor Alexios, who
Speaker 1: you may know from such hits as calling the first
Speaker 1: Crusade you know, means like hey, who wants to come
Speaker 1: out over here? And you know, so she's the firstborn
Speaker 1: and she.
Speaker 3: Is in a unique position as a girl because the
Speaker 3: thing about her dad is he's.
Speaker 1: A usurper, right like he he basically thwarts the Ducas
Speaker 1: dynasty in order to come to the throne. So basically,
Speaker 1: the second she's born and they're like, oh, it's not
Speaker 1: a boy, she gets betrothed over to the Ducas dynasty,
Speaker 1: of which, like her mother is one. So it's pretty
Speaker 1: this kind of standard stuff. You know, there's only so
Speaker 1: many noble families to go around, right, So off, they
Speaker 1: send her to go like live with her mother in
Speaker 1: law or whatever, and she gets a very fine education indeed,
Speaker 1: in that way that you know little imperial empresses do, right,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a pretty it's fairly standard stuff to
Speaker 1: educate women of this rank very highly because they are
Speaker 1: going to be expected to do any number of things,
Speaker 1: and especially within in Eastern Roman context, you never know
Speaker 1: when your husband's going to end up dead and like
Speaker 1: you were going to end up controlling the throne in
Speaker 1: the place of you know, your kid. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think also her marriage, well proposed marriage off to
Speaker 1: one of the ducas, it's like, ah, well, you know,
Speaker 1: if things end up badly for Alexios and they retake
Speaker 1: the throne, this is going to be the obvious guy
Speaker 1: who's going to do it. And then we've still got
Speaker 1: some kind of like blood lineage through here, and then
Speaker 1: it's kind of like please don't kill my dad, yeah,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. So she's getting this like very
Speaker 1: very good education, which is excellent for her.
Speaker 3: However, eventually said do caause dies.
Speaker 1: And so she's kind of like back into the pool
Speaker 1: and it's just like okay, well, I guess not. But
Speaker 1: her education kind of continues from there. Eventually she ends
Speaker 1: up having like a younger brother, John, And this is
Speaker 1: kind of like where, you know, like there's the sort
Speaker 1: of muddy waters of her life. Yes, her dad founds
Speaker 1: a hospital and like puts.
Speaker 3: Her in charge.
Speaker 1: We don't exactly know what this means. The thing about
Speaker 1: a hospital having ten thousand beds is fucking medieval. People
Speaker 1: simply love to say that there's ten thousand of something.
Speaker 1: That's like their hobb is saying, you know, ten thousand
Speaker 1: and like, which just basically means like a badrillion.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a big number that a normal person isn't
Speaker 2: counting to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly, And I mean, fuck, maybe it did, right,
Speaker 1: I can't.
Speaker 3: I can't say that it didn't.
Speaker 1: But what they mean is that it's a big, old
Speaker 1: hospital and it is possible that she probably taught within this.
Speaker 3: But you know, like she's I mean, come on, she's
Speaker 3: a princess. So this is like I'm I'm the ruler
Speaker 3: of the hospital. It's my hospital, right.
Speaker 2: I will say that the largest hospital in the United
Speaker 2: States is in Orlando and it has twenty two hundred beds, So.
Speaker 3: I feel like probably not yeah.
Speaker 2: But I mean, like any any beds, like you know,
Speaker 2: one hundred beds, six hundred beds, a woman doing, you know,
Speaker 2: being in charge of it to whatever degree is uh impressive.
Speaker 2: So it's still impressive nonetheless, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And hospitals are a little bit different at the time.
Speaker 1: They are hospitals in the way that we know them,
Speaker 1: but they also just are kind of like hotels, yeah,
Speaker 1: a little bit. So you know, if people are kind
Speaker 1: of going through from place to place, you can stay
Speaker 1: to hospital and and that is one thing that's happening.
Speaker 1: And it is quite possible that she was teaching medicine
Speaker 1: for all the good it does.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 1: Like one of the things that I always like hasting
Speaker 1: to point out is like she'd be out here being
Speaker 1: like it's humoral theory, you know, and you know and
Speaker 1: that you know, it's it's not real, but you know,
Speaker 1: there there are certain things that are good, like you know,
Speaker 1: watching people, keeping things clean, making sure they get enough water,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. You know, like all good things. Indeed,
Speaker 1: and she probably has some kind of idea of like
Speaker 1: creating medica mints and things like that.
Speaker 3: That's that's all probably.
Speaker 1: Very much real, and I mean we certainly know that
Speaker 1: women show up in the medical profession across the medieval period.
Speaker 1: I mean, like quite famously. You know, it's Trotta Seleerna
Speaker 1: who writes the Trochula. We see women randomly like show
Speaker 1: up teaching at Sealerno, and no one ever comments on it.
Speaker 1: They're just like, oh, yeah, well here's that woman who
Speaker 1: works here, and you're like, what the fuck, bro when
Speaker 1: they're like, I don't know, dude, and they just.
Speaker 5: Like, she knows a lot about stuff I don't know.
Speaker 1: And it's like, well, you're gonna explain how she got
Speaker 1: here now, right. So it's like it's not unheard of
Speaker 1: for women to get in these positions, and it's certainly
Speaker 1: not unheard of for them to get in these positions
Speaker 1: if they are from you know, one of the wealthiest
Speaker 1: families of all time and you know, most powerful families
Speaker 1: of all types.
Speaker 3: So these are things that she's interested in.
Speaker 1: But as a general rule of thumb, she's got like
Speaker 1: your full liberal arts education.
Speaker 3: She's really you.
Speaker 1: Know, she's a she's an Aristotle fangirl.
Speaker 3: She's just a parapatetic thing.
Speaker 2: She's a Greek web, a web the Alexiad is written
Speaker 2: in Attic Greek, which is like, oh my God, which
Speaker 2: is which is like which is like somebody right now
Speaker 2: writing a history of let's say England and then writing
Speaker 2: it in like Old English and then switching to Middle
Speaker 2: English when you get there, and you know, and it's
Speaker 2: just like why why? But I also found yeah, I
Speaker 2: also found this funny anecdote that at her funeral, the eulogy,
Speaker 2: who I don't remember who's giving it, uh, said that
Speaker 2: she used to hide the Odyssey reading the Odyssey from
Speaker 2: her parents because she didn't want to get into because
Speaker 2: they said it would promote bad morals and it got
Speaker 2: her in trouble now, you know. I mean, she had
Speaker 2: a very formal education, was obviously deeply schooled in the
Speaker 2: Greek classics, so who knows how true that is, but
Speaker 2: it apparently was said at her funeral. So that's pretty
Speaker 2: fucking funny that even back then parents were like, don't
Speaker 2: watch the Simpsons.
Speaker 3: Stop it, stop it. You know, yeah, I love it,
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 5: I don't want to hear. I don't want to hear
Speaker 5: about Odysseus.
Speaker 2: I swear to God, if I swear to God, if
Speaker 2: I hear one more thing, but a fucking cyclic or
Speaker 2: Penelope or Telemochus shut up.
Speaker 1: You know. It's like, you know, I love the idea
Speaker 1: of her, just like hiding under the bed covers the Odyssey,
Speaker 1: you know, and whom'st among us does not love the Odyssey? Right,
Speaker 1: So so like great stuff, you know, fantastic.
Speaker 3: And again it's like one of these.
Speaker 1: Things where you know, everyone was like, oh, and she's
Speaker 1: a very good philosopher, blah blah blah. Again, this is
Speaker 1: one of these things where it's probably true, but in
Speaker 1: order to big someone up, you say they're a very
Speaker 1: good philosopher, right, you know, like a philosophy being, you
Speaker 1: know that what is it, the queen of the Liberal
Speaker 1: arts and that sort of thing. So uh, you know,
Speaker 1: like they're they're going to say this if someone is intelligent, right,
Speaker 1: because it's like that's how you know they're intelligence is
Speaker 1: that they do philosophy.
Speaker 3: You know, like fine, fine, Now.
Speaker 1: To be fair, she absolutely is, as we can tell
Speaker 1: from you know, the Alexiad and her silly little uh
Speaker 1: you know, Attic Greek antics as they are, so like
Speaker 1: certainly she's doing that, and you know she's being raised
Speaker 1: in this particular way that makes it look like they're
Speaker 1: preparing her, perhaps for state craft, and so we kind
Speaker 1: of don't really know what happens next. But like other
Speaker 1: than you know, Alexios dies, Okay, it's it's like this
Speaker 1: is the big thing that happens is her father dies
Speaker 1: and her mom makes a play for Anna and her
Speaker 1: then husband to be the ones who take over the throne.
Speaker 1: And this was kind of happening even before her father died.
Speaker 3: But her brother.
Speaker 1: John swoops in and like while Alexios is on his deathbed,
Speaker 1: like apparently like steals his ring off and then his
Speaker 1: like dad.
Speaker 3: Gave me the ring, and so I'm supposed to be
Speaker 3: the emperor. Yeah, now, and like there.
Speaker 2: Was a claimed emperor by like a random cleric, not
Speaker 2: like a high ranking when not an archbishop of whatever
Speaker 2: her Nope, just some random guy he pulled in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And so it kind of looks like they like Anna
Speaker 1: was being groomed to be empress, and this wouldn't be
Speaker 1: completely out of the ordinary. You know, you guys have
Speaker 1: heard us talk about it before. Women do be ruling
Speaker 1: in Constantinople at times, and you know it probably would
Speaker 1: have been you know, fine, it's not like her father
Speaker 1: had usurp the throne. So it's it's not like anyone
Speaker 1: is like, oh, I'm like really counting on the Canaanos
Speaker 1: dynasty to like make it happen, right, Like, no, no one,
Speaker 1: no one particularly cares. No one's very no one is
Speaker 1: very attached to that idea. But then the trouble is,
Speaker 1: in order to take the throne, Anna needs her husband
Speaker 1: to come on side like a Nikophoros, which is.
Speaker 3: A great name, like the shutout. But and he's not
Speaker 3: into it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and like apparently she was apparently of this. She
Speaker 1: then like it makes them like, oh yeah, like you're
Speaker 1: you're the real woman in this situation. I can't believe you,
Speaker 1: Like I'm the one with the balls here kind of
Speaker 1: a comment.
Speaker 2: I cannot imagine, going to the links it takes to
Speaker 2: be a woman in the absolutely suffocating patriarch the Middle
Speaker 2: Ages and to go through all this and you do
Speaker 2: all the right steps. You become a hospital administrator, you
Speaker 2: you act in the political game. You learn everything you're
Speaker 2: supposed to know. It literally accept warfare like you. And
Speaker 2: I mean she learned strategy for that too, but like
Speaker 2: you know, the actual practice of it. She learns all
Speaker 2: that stuff and to get that close and just to
Speaker 2: have like your younger brother steal the ring and then
Speaker 2: your husband be like, I ain't doing this shit. It's
Speaker 2: never du no, Like what the fuck? Man, what the fuck?
Speaker 2: Just take just take the throne with me. We can
Speaker 2: keep the Komnenos name. It doesn't like who gives it.
Speaker 2: We'd still call it the co Know's dynasty, because that
Speaker 2: had that had happened before a few times.
Speaker 5: Ye you know, it's like yeah, and she just.
Speaker 2: It's just like snuffed out because her husband's like, no,
Speaker 2: I'm good. It's like, man, what happened to the wife
Speaker 2: guyed the grand Byzantine tradition of a wife guy Justinian
Speaker 2: would be pissed. He's rolling over in his mausoleum or whatever.
Speaker 1: It was like, and it's so annoying right where you're like, oh, man,
Speaker 1: like you know what we were, what we have lost,
Speaker 1: you know through this, And you know she's doing everything right.
Speaker 1: She's like, you know, popping out babies like a clown car.
Speaker 1: She's like, you know, prepared in all the ways that
Speaker 1: she's supposed to. And then I have your husband roll
Speaker 1: over on you like this like this sucks a lot,
Speaker 1: and like look basically what happens next is that there
Speaker 1: is an attempt on her brother John's life at their
Speaker 1: dad's funeral.
Speaker 3: All right, yeah, Like so.
Speaker 1: Now we do not necessarily know if Anna was attached
Speaker 1: to this and there, and there is kind of like
Speaker 1: a lot of back and forth about this because.
Speaker 3: Like, of the of the.
Speaker 1: Sources that we have at the time, the only one
Speaker 1: that positively links.
Speaker 3: Her to it is.
Speaker 1: Kind of written in the thirteenth century, so way after
Speaker 1: the fact, and like everything else that is like more
Speaker 1: around the actual time is like I don't know. I mean, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: Anna was there, but like it was her dad's funeral.
Speaker 3: So one would why would she.
Speaker 1: Right of course, like she's supposed to be there. It's
Speaker 1: like it's your kitchen, you know.
Speaker 2: Of course I'm here, it's my house.
Speaker 3: What do you what do you mean exactly?
Speaker 1: So and we don't really know exactly kind of like
Speaker 1: what goes on there?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like man, I mean probably she would have liked
Speaker 3: to see rather dead. But whether or not she's the
Speaker 3: one who actually this, we do not know.
Speaker 5: We do not know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, I mean, I think from what I've read,
Speaker 2: there is a historical consensus that she felt slighted.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, oh god, yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: Well I just I just kind of want to set
Speaker 2: it out because they're like there's this whole like juicy
Speaker 2: tale and then there's like the stuff that we, like
Speaker 2: the historians think we know, which is that she did
Speaker 2: feel slighted, there was some kind of coup attempt. Her husband,
Speaker 2: to whatever extent he was involved or whether she was
Speaker 2: the ringleader or whatever, said no, and then John, her brother, John,
Speaker 2: took the throne and was possibly, uh the victim of
Speaker 2: an attempted assassination.
Speaker 5: Yeah, loul uh.
Speaker 2: Again, the other story is juicier and therefore cooler. It
Speaker 2: comes from Conneattes, who is writing just after the Fourth Crusade,
Speaker 2: just after Constantinople had been toppled by the Latins in
Speaker 2: twelve oh four, so you know, he might have been
Speaker 2: writing with some other ideas in mind. But regardless, she
Speaker 2: didn't get.
Speaker 5: It, and.
Speaker 2: John, he did his credit, didn't kill her, which.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which she could have.
Speaker 1: And to be fair, she ends up kind of hanging
Speaker 1: around until her husband dies.
Speaker 3: So it's just like, you.
Speaker 1: Know, she isn't like, yeah, go ahead, nothing terrible happens
Speaker 1: to her for quite some time, but then eventually in
Speaker 1: like eleven I think it's eleven fifty four, she then,
Speaker 1: after her husband dies, gets sent off to a nunnery
Speaker 1: because it's like, well, who knows, like what without the
Speaker 1: restraining force of her husband, who doesn't want to be up,
Speaker 1: or what this bitch is capable of. And this is
Speaker 1: kind of how we know about her, because she gets
Speaker 1: sent off to the nunnery, which is also like a
Speaker 1: fairly standard thing. Like again, this is also kind of
Speaker 1: a fairly standard thing that happens with like high up
Speaker 1: royal women when their husband dies, as they often do,
Speaker 1: get sent off to a nunnery to kind of like
Speaker 1: go pray for their souls or whatever. And this is
Speaker 1: where she writes the Alexiad. Yeah, and the Alexiad whips right,
Speaker 1: you know, like despite the attic greekness of it all,
Speaker 1: you know, I've only ever read it in English obviously,
Speaker 1: And basically what it is is a bit a way
Speaker 1: of bigging up her dad, being like, yeah, I'm dad
Speaker 1: was right, you know, to usurp the throne, and actually
Speaker 1: he was correct. But it's also basically like an apology
Speaker 1: of for her, where she's like and also it should
Speaker 1: have been me, you know which you know, and it's
Speaker 1: like like basically reinforcing her claims to the throne, reinforcing
Speaker 1: her education, her links with her father and mother, her
Speaker 1: links with everybody at court, and so that's like how
Speaker 1: that is one of the reasons why we think that
Speaker 1: she may have been involved in like the attempts on
Speaker 1: her because she's like this fucking guy the whole time,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, she she wrote the If I did It of her.
Speaker 3: Time completely completely yeah.
Speaker 5: Uh. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The Alexiad is fun because, uh, it is very well written.
Speaker 2: She was very good. She she has a very earnest
Speaker 2: type of prose and the way of looking at it,
Speaker 2: which is interesting and uh, but it's also like just
Speaker 2: a complete agiography of her dad, Like in her telling
Speaker 2: of the Alexiad, which was like the historical consensus for
Speaker 2: like seven hundred ish years, uh or yeah, about seven
Speaker 2: hunred years. She her dad was like he he he
Speaker 2: didn't make any appeal to the West for troops. They
Speaker 2: just showed up and he was like whoa, I had
Speaker 2: no like like I mean to the point where he
Speaker 2: was like surprised when they showed up, as if he
Speaker 2: wouldn't have been alerted at some point by someone along
Speaker 2: the way that an army of one hundred thousand or
Speaker 2: more people was moving towards him, like you know, decimating
Speaker 2: the land behind them like locusts or whatever. It's like,
Speaker 2: you know, yeah, it's very funny, but at the same time,
Speaker 2: historians also agree that there's a lot of truth in it.
Speaker 2: She is a first hand account of the First Crusade,
Speaker 2: which I've recently taken a non problematic interest in.
Speaker 3: I want to I want tonic. When we do it,
Speaker 3: it's cute.
Speaker 2: Okay, when other people do it and they start dressing
Speaker 2: up in stupid night costumes, not cute unless they're at
Speaker 2: medieval times, which is cool.
Speaker 5: They don't do like a crusade thing.
Speaker 3: I don't think I don't think.
Speaker 2: Yeah anyway, Yeah, it's it's really interesting because you like
Speaker 2: it's just you kind of have to parse all of
Speaker 2: this just stuff. And like she one at one point
Speaker 2: gives this like dough eyed like almost like literally like
Speaker 2: she's having like a like a like a Christian reverie
Speaker 2: of the first time she hot She saw Bohamond of
Speaker 2: Taranto and like apparently thought he was the hottest guy
Speaker 2: she'd ever seen. When she was like sixteen, or something,
Speaker 2: which is like that's adorable.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know what, like you are not immune to vikings.
Speaker 3: I guess like that.
Speaker 2: Like you you are, you are not immune to uh
Speaker 2: to vikings who somehow ended up conquering Italy.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's uh yeah, it's.
Speaker 2: It's really interesting and but but it's also funny because
Speaker 2: like people did not like her account was believed oh
Speaker 2: other Western accounts for years because they were like, oh,
Speaker 2: these western uh sources are trying to make it seem
Speaker 2: like Alexios was to blame for actually bringing this down
Speaker 2: on himself, whereas poor sweet Anna here is telling the truth.
Speaker 2: And it's like I was just telling the truth about
Speaker 2: a lot of this stuff. But her dad was Her
Speaker 2: dad was a shrewd political operator. Oh yeah, yeah, he
Speaker 2: was like trying to get the Fatom and Caliphate involved
Speaker 2: with the First Crusade to attack the Seljecs from behind
Speaker 2: via diplomatic entreaties.
Speaker 5: Like it's not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean like like fundamentally, what it is a
Speaker 1: symptom of is how badly they like the bag got
Speaker 1: fumbled from the Byzantine perspective of the First Crusade, and
Speaker 1: so Ada.
Speaker 3: Is like, no, dad didn't know you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like Dad would never do something that stupid, and
Speaker 1: it's like, well, yeah, but it's.
Speaker 3: A kind of hindsight thing.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know. One of the things that I really like
Speaker 1: about it though, that I think is very funny is
Speaker 1: she's always referring to all the Western European as Celts.
Speaker 3: Which is like, it just it cracks me up. It's
Speaker 3: just like so.
Speaker 1: Roman, you know, and I'm like that, yeah, yeah, they're
Speaker 1: still at it, right. I just I just love how
Speaker 1: Eastern Rome is Eastern Rome. I love how Roman they are.
Speaker 2: They were called the they were called Franks by like
Speaker 2: most people at the time in the areas.
Speaker 5: So it is funny that she's like, no, no.
Speaker 1: Celts is like Celts, Like all right, girl, absolutely get it.
Speaker 2: Okay, I think they were closer with Franks. But you
Speaker 2: know what, I haven't written a historical treatise that survived
Speaker 2: with the reputation intact for.
Speaker 5: Almost nine hundred years. Uh so yeah, when I.
Speaker 1: Do, maybe there's just like no attic Greek for the
Speaker 1: comment Frank.
Speaker 3: So she's got like she asked.
Speaker 2: To say, ye chose the nick closest one.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Anna is fascinating. She is very interesting character. If you
Speaker 2: ever get a chance. You should take a look at
Speaker 2: the alexiad an English copy of it. It is interesting,
Speaker 2: if for nothing else than her perspective on things.
Speaker 5: But just remember when she's talking about her dad, like
Speaker 5: you gotta take it with big grains. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Also, as far as I know, one of the few
Speaker 2: medieval women who has an entire manga written about them.
Speaker 5: Oh wow, yeah, so love that.
Speaker 2: I found that out while looking it up. That's on Wikipedia.
Speaker 2: So I don't know if you guys have checked that
Speaker 2: out and it's dog shit or whatever.
Speaker 5: I didn't recommend it.
Speaker 3: I just I just saw that it existed.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's all right, Yeah, yeah, that's in.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: Now we're going to move forward a little bit in
Speaker 2: history and talk about Julian of Norwich born Yeah, maybe
Speaker 2: in thirteen forty three, died definitely in fourteen sixteen. And yeah.
Speaker 2: As opposed to Anna, whose life is very historically documented
Speaker 2: both by herself and others, Juliene's life before her visions was.
Speaker 3: Question of mark.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she lives somewhere. Things happened time past, yep, maybe no.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then and then death scared basically and look,
Speaker 1: you know, I am very much like of the view
Speaker 1: that I take my historical betters seriously in terms of
Speaker 1: what they tend to write about her, and like their
Speaker 1: theories and and Julian is one of these people who
Speaker 1: is very much the focus of our imaginations now. So
Speaker 1: she she really kind of takes off in the twentieth century.
Speaker 1: People get really quite interested in her, and she has
Speaker 1: remained quite popular now in the twenty first century as well,
Speaker 1: because we're quite interested in ideas of kind of like
Speaker 1: a contemplative Christianity, and you know, and we.
Speaker 3: Like seeing women, don't we you know, this kind of thing.
Speaker 1: But we so we don't really exactly know what was
Speaker 1: going on for her before she ends up becoming in anchors,
Speaker 1: which is the thing.
Speaker 3: We just know that when around about thirty she has
Speaker 3: a death scare. She's very very.
Speaker 1: Ill, and everyone is like this pitch is dying, and
Speaker 1: she has a crucifix that she can look at that
Speaker 1: she is looking at, and she then has a series
Speaker 1: of visions there end up being about sixteen in total,
Speaker 1: and those kind of make her say, all right, well
Speaker 1: that's it, I'm gonna like change my life. She lives
Speaker 1: miraculously and she decides that she's going to be an ankress.
Speaker 1: And in particular she is then put in a cell
Speaker 1: at Saint Julian's Church in Norwich.
Speaker 3: And so forth.
Speaker 1: Reason we don't actually even know what her name is.
Speaker 1: Her name might have been Julian, but they might be
Speaker 1: calling her Julian because she's interred at Saint Julian's Church.
Speaker 1: We're not sure because it's like, you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: rather the done thing, like because the idea is like
Speaker 1: when you become an anchress, right, you get put in
Speaker 1: a room off a church, and the idea is that
Speaker 1: you're treated like you've died, so like they say funerary
Speaker 1: masses for you and stuff, because the idea is it's like,
Speaker 1: well that's that's it for you and the outside world.
Speaker 1: And there's varying ways of being an anchoress, Like you
Speaker 1: can be an anchress and it's like you're in a
Speaker 1: little room and then there's like a door in and
Speaker 1: out of said little room, and like you know, people
Speaker 1: like you know, Hildegard gets educated by an ankress and
Speaker 1: it's like she's going in and out. But it seems
Speaker 1: to us that Julian is not that kind of girl.
Speaker 1: She seems to be in in actual sell like she's
Speaker 1: got maids, which is super common because it's like someone's
Speaker 1: got to like come take your chamber pot through a
Speaker 1: hole in the wall. Someone has to kind of like
Speaker 1: bring you food and water, right, So you usually have
Speaker 1: maids as well. And we know about her maids a
Speaker 1: little bit because we know from records that people leave
Speaker 1: money in their wills for Julian and her maids, like
Speaker 1: in order to kind of keep this ticking over.
Speaker 3: And what she does in said cell is like think.
Speaker 1: About her varying sixteen visions, and then she writes about
Speaker 1: them over and over and over again over time and
Speaker 1: kind of refines them. So we bought basically like two
Speaker 1: texts of this now, which we call the short text
Speaker 1: in the long text, and as a general rule of thumb,
Speaker 1: we refer to her writings the Revelations of Divine Love,
Speaker 1: and like the thing is, they're viby as hell, Like
Speaker 1: I mean, like that, the vibes are off the charts,
Speaker 1: like they're really nice, you know, like her her famous
Speaker 1: there's you know, all shall be well, and all shall
Speaker 1: be well in all matter, if things shall be well.
Speaker 5: Yeah, God's in his heaven. All's right with the world.
Speaker 2: She couldn't she didn't say that that was milk. That's
Speaker 2: the that's the gist here for a lot of it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: like a few of the different revelations.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 2: Julian Uh sees the Crucifixion, he sees the Trinity.
Speaker 5: Uh. She sees Jesus and understands who he is.
Speaker 2: And then Julie and Jesus holds his hand out to
Speaker 2: her and there's a hazel nut in it, and uh,
Speaker 2: as it's a sign of love. Like this whole thing
Speaker 2: is about love. She travels with Jesus down to the
Speaker 2: bottom of the sea, which is like cool as.
Speaker 5: Hell, you know, just the whole thing. Uh.
Speaker 2: The Devil, she sees the Devil's defeat all this stuff,
Speaker 2: like just Jesus is love. Love, you know, like the
Speaker 2: like the very like quintessential like kind of like hippie
Speaker 2: you know, like kind of like, uh, let's all get
Speaker 2: along kind of religion that you kind of that you
Speaker 2: know isn't as prevalent as much anymore as it was,
Speaker 2: but you know, kind of stuff like that.
Speaker 5: It's it's you know, it's a good vibes.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: God it's not God is not waiting to damn you
Speaker 2: every second of every day.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 5: He loves you. He Jesus loves you. You've got good.
Speaker 5: It's good, you're basking in the light of Christ.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and and and this is this is the thing
Speaker 1: is like she kind of relates to the Trinity and
Speaker 1: in particular to Jesus's love for us all as like
Speaker 1: maternal There is some back and forth on this in
Speaker 1: historical circles where some people are like, she's kind of
Speaker 1: like positive that Jesus.
Speaker 3: Is your mom.
Speaker 1: But then like Caroline Walker Bynum, who I've never disagreed with, like,
Speaker 1: like on the record, I will never disagree with Caroline
Speaker 1: Walker Binham because she's much cleverer than I am. She's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is just kind of like a thing that rather
Speaker 1: happens like a you know, enemy of the podcast Bernard
Speaker 1: of Claire Vaux used to write about that shit too, Like, uh.
Speaker 3: So, you know, not necessarily. There's like some speculation people are.
Speaker 1: Like, well, maybe she was like a wife and mom before,
Speaker 1: which is why she's always like writing about maternal love.
Speaker 3: But but I don't know.
Speaker 1: That I necessarily buy that. I mean, like it's possible, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, in that like most women are wives and mothers.
Speaker 3: But I'm like I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think that we all pretty much understand the concept
Speaker 1: of maternal love. I don't know that you need to
Speaker 1: want to understand it.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's you know, like when you know, what are
Speaker 2: you gonna do after that you just won the championship,
Speaker 2: What are you gonna do?
Speaker 5: I'm gonna call my mama, you know.
Speaker 2: You know, like it's that that is like the purest
Speaker 2: form of love that humans can often im at, you know,
Speaker 2: the love of a child for a mother, mother for
Speaker 2: a child.
Speaker 5: And uh it is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like maybe like I don't I don't want to,
Speaker 2: uh say that nobody ever considered the Christian God as
Speaker 2: a like fem a feminine figure, as a mother figure
Speaker 2: before like you know, uh much more advancements in philosophical
Speaker 2: thought and everything like that. But like that, Julian her
Speaker 2: revelations talk about like a loving God. But there's it's
Speaker 2: she's not like straying outside the bounds of Orthodoxy here,
Speaker 2: and I think that probably would for her to be
Speaker 2: like Jesus or you know, God is is is your.
Speaker 5: Mom, you know, and they're like Jesus said, Father, into
Speaker 5: thy hands.
Speaker 2: I commit you know, like you know, you're not getting
Speaker 2: into we're not going to get into the patriarchy inherent
Speaker 2: to the Bible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like I mean, y'all know how we feet part.
Speaker 1: But yeah, like the thing is, it is just kind
Speaker 1: of like a good vibe central, you know. Like, for example,
Speaker 1: her conceptions is sin are really nice because like the
Speaker 1: way that she kind of writes about it is that
Speaker 1: like sin is kind of a natural state of being
Speaker 1: for humans and God doesn't necessarily mind it. And the
Speaker 1: idea is that God is just kind of like patially
Speaker 1: waiting on humans to get over that and like not
Speaker 1: necessarily mad at you about it.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, I did want to say that it's not
Speaker 2: it's clearly not do not say that I said that
Speaker 2: that I said, But this is very reminiscent of how
Speaker 2: the Book of Mormon speaks of God. Like God knows
Speaker 2: you're going to sin because you are human, Like that
Speaker 2: is that is a perfectly normal thing for a human
Speaker 2: to do. It is definitionally what we do. And it's
Speaker 2: not that he's mad at you if you don't come
Speaker 2: to him and confess. And in the Mormon case, you know,
Speaker 2: get baptized and do all their stuff. But in the
Speaker 2: in Julian's case, you know, confess your sins to priests,
Speaker 2: et cetera.
Speaker 5: Et cetera.
Speaker 2: It's that he's just disappointed, Like come on, dude, like
Speaker 2: I've given you all these signs. I gave you my son.
Speaker 2: Come please, you know, like you're like, you know, talking
Speaker 2: to your kid, like come on, dude, you can't like
Speaker 2: cut school like that. You can't you know, stuff like that.
Speaker 2: You know, I love you, please don't do that. That
Speaker 2: is And I found that kind of interesting because like
Speaker 2: the Book of Morment, it's kind of like God's just like,
Speaker 2: come on, dude, like do batter.
Speaker 5: I mean, I guess, yeah, like come on, man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so like I find it like all quite
Speaker 1: very sweet. You just got like a series of sermons
Speaker 1: that like God's love is like a daffodil that comes
Speaker 1: through the snow, and it's just like, you know, like
Speaker 1: the first kind of signs of spring.
Speaker 3: And there's a very cute.
Speaker 1: Song called the Bells of Norwich that was written in
Speaker 1: the eighties, I think, And since I was raised by hippies,
Speaker 1: I know it and you know these things and it's
Speaker 1: about that, and uh, you know, I like all all
Speaker 1: this stuff is like really good. And we know she's
Speaker 1: like kind of uh locally famous at the time because
Speaker 1: another enemy of the podcast, Marjorie Kemp, goes to I.
Speaker 2: Was hoping to bring up Marjorie Kemp together, yeah and
Speaker 2: get that one in on your Yeah, enemy of the
Speaker 2: podcast margin.
Speaker 1: The podcast, Marjorie Camp goes to see her, and it's
Speaker 1: like all we have, of course, is like Marjorie's report
Speaker 1: of what happens, and she's like.
Speaker 5: She said I was great and was luck.
Speaker 3: You're so cool, Marjorie.
Speaker 5: Oh the God really loves you.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, shut the fuck up, Marjorie Camp.
Speaker 5: What did she actually say? Did you guys talk about
Speaker 5: anything besides you?
Speaker 1: Like I mean, and we don't know because it's just like,
Speaker 1: you know, as far as Marjorie is concerned, everything is
Speaker 1: about her, and like you know and so and like
Speaker 1: and this bitch a liar, so like I don't you know, personally,
Speaker 1: I'm unwilling to take Marjorie fucking Camps, you know, like like, yeah,
Speaker 1: Julian of Norwich gave me an a plus gold star
Speaker 1: and said I was great.
Speaker 3: Like well, it also like it.
Speaker 1: Doesn't it doesn't really make sense when Julian is in angress,
Speaker 1: you know, and she's like her whole thing is like
Speaker 1: I'm in here contemplating Marjorie Mp is like, oh yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I'm annoying the shit out of people by crying. I
Speaker 1: just go around and cry and I annoy people. And
Speaker 1: it's like I can't see her being like, ah yeah great.
Speaker 3: Just anyway, you know, Marjorie Kemp is liar.
Speaker 1: I don't like her, although although I think it is
Speaker 1: interesting right like that it tells us something about certainly
Speaker 1: and the religious experiences of women in Norfolk at the time,
Speaker 1: right because like they're both they're both Norfolk girls, you know,
Speaker 1: Norwich being in Norfolk and kings Lynn or Bishop's Lynn
Speaker 1: as it was at the time where Marjorie's from, also
Speaker 1: also in Norfolk, home to a Weatherspoon's hotel, kings Lynn.
Speaker 1: I do recommend going and getting insanely drunk and then
Speaker 1: having a little muffy have a little Weatherspoons McMuffin for breakfast.
Speaker 3: Do it be like your girl, this is Weatherspoons. Please
Speaker 3: please sponsor the book.
Speaker 2: Yeah, give us some money, tim Uh, yeah I did.
Speaker 2: She does have one of my favorite things with the visions,
Speaker 2: which is the person who has a vision and then
Speaker 2: they have an abrupt second vision where like God is like, no, yeah,
Speaker 2: that was authentic. I told you to Like yeah, totally,
Speaker 2: like which is a a hallmark of like visionaries, like
Speaker 2: whether you whether you think they're they're true or false.
Speaker 2: Jose Smith did it. Peter Bartholomew discovered the Holy Lance
Speaker 2: on the First Crusade.
Speaker 5: Did it? Like it was like you know, they did.
Speaker 5: It's very common. I love it. Yeah, you like God
Speaker 5: came in and like.
Speaker 2: You know, notarized it. He was like, I got the
Speaker 2: I got the stamp. You can't do anything now, bitch.
Speaker 3: It's like citation is there. We're like we're ready to rock.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like you know, and she's but I guess the
Speaker 1: thing that is really important to about hers that she
Speaker 1: writes all this down and uh. And so these works
Speaker 1: survive and it's basically one of the only things.
Speaker 3: That we have from a woman.
Speaker 1: In English, which is odd because like the fourteenth century
Speaker 1: is like this is kind of like the flowering of
Speaker 1: you know, for example, the Begines. We have like tons
Speaker 1: of fucking you know, we've got the Mirror of Simple Souls.
Speaker 1: We've got all sorts of things like that, like out
Speaker 1: of the begins from the time. But like there's very
Speaker 1: little that comes out of England, you know, probably because
Speaker 1: it sucks, but you know, like whatever, what you know,
Speaker 1: like it's it's it's never going to be the continent,
Speaker 1: is it.
Speaker 3: But it's also.
Speaker 1: Interesting because she lives through like all the worst climactic
Speaker 1: events of the fourteenth cent We're like, lives through the
Speaker 1: Black Death, which absolutely fucking devastates Norwich. Like we're talking
Speaker 1: about like probably half the population because you know, it's
Speaker 1: a it's a go ahead, it's a wood trading and
Speaker 1: cloth banking town, so like obviously there's a lot of
Speaker 1: trade and it's just like and she survives the peasants rebellion,
Speaker 1: the rebellion goes off hard yep in in Norwich, so like,
Speaker 1: but she doesn't like write about that stuff because like
Speaker 1: that's not that's not her deal. She's like, what, no,
Speaker 1: what I'm I'm writing about my visions? Like this is
Speaker 1: that she's kind of, in some ways like the opposite
Speaker 1: of Anna Komnena, like who is like, you know, Anna's
Speaker 1: out here being like and here's all the things that happen,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna put my story forward this way, Julian
Speaker 1: does not give a shit about current events because it's
Speaker 1: like they don't matter, because what matters is that God
Speaker 1: loves you. And like I understand that all these things
Speaker 1: are awful, but the important and fundamental thing is God's love.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, and I think, uh for I think for her,
Speaker 2: like she survived the Black Death as a baby, which
Speaker 2: which longer.
Speaker 5: Odds there obviously, you know, not as a big deal.
Speaker 2: Also, the revelations of divine Love was something that uh,
Speaker 2: she refined. She wrote a first version and then after
Speaker 2: her lie, after like living for you know more, you know,
Speaker 2: a bit longer. She she refined it and wrote some
Speaker 2: more and you know, so it's one of those things
Speaker 2: where like it she she she she kind of like
Speaker 2: learned and reflected everything through like you know, the prism
Speaker 2: of of what it is. And you know, she just
Speaker 2: m h, I love that they call it shoeing. She
Speaker 2: had shoeing sh s h E W I n g
Speaker 2: A shoeing and that is what they were called. And
Speaker 2: I just like every time I see it, I'm like
Speaker 2: they just put showing like bothers me.
Speaker 5: I know, I know, I know, I know it just bothers,
Speaker 5: it bothers something in my brain. It's fine.
Speaker 1: I know, it's also funny, like the rule at the time,
Speaker 1: it's like the anchor write rule r I W L E.
Speaker 3: I'm like, hell, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Just so you know what, like whatever, dude just sounded out,
Speaker 1: sounded out there.
Speaker 2: Conventional Middle English doesn't have a lot of hard and
Speaker 2: vest rules. Man, you just spell it how you spell it,
Speaker 2: and hopefully someone's like yeah, sure.
Speaker 5: Why not.
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: And I like her though because she's not I think
Speaker 1: that some people have referred to as blessed, but it's
Speaker 1: like she's not even necessarily.
Speaker 3: Like a long like I don't know, she got kicked around.
Speaker 1: I think that like rat Singer was like, well maybe
Speaker 1: she we could consider her as one of the doctors
Speaker 1: of the church and.
Speaker 3: That kind of thing. But like she's not moving down
Speaker 3: the Saint Hoood pipeline. She's just a cool chick. And
Speaker 3: I mean, I guess too. This is the thing is
Speaker 3: it's like, you know, she lives, she.
Speaker 1: Dies, she's popular you know in the area, but like
Speaker 1: she doesn't make a huge dent outside of Nortich's. I mean,
Speaker 1: having said that, like Norwich is a pretty big fucking
Speaker 1: deal at the time being being.
Speaker 5: It was the second city of England. WI.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so it's like that is a big deal.
Speaker 3: But you know, like she's not you know, one.
Speaker 1: Of the reasons why we don't think she was a
Speaker 1: nun or anything like that. It's like she's not buried
Speaker 1: in the nearby nunnery, which ordinarily, like if you were
Speaker 1: this big deal, you would be you know, so like
Speaker 1: we think she was probably a lay woman who just
Speaker 1: did all this and I think it's cool, Like I
Speaker 1: think it's just neat that you know, she was just
Speaker 1: like yeah, no, I'm gonna go think about.
Speaker 3: God and stuff for a while. Well, and it's like cool, girl,
Speaker 3: absolutely get after it.
Speaker 5: You know. Yeah. Yeah. After she passed away.
Speaker 2: Her work was lost for about two hundred issues all
Speaker 2: over two hundred years, found again in sixteen thirty or
Speaker 2: sixteen seventy, republished or published by Benedictine Monk named Serenus
Speaker 2: de Cressy. And yeah, now there's a manuscript of it
Speaker 2: in the British Museum, which, hey, one of the things
Speaker 2: that may.
Speaker 5: Actually belong there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I imagine, yeah, imagine that just just from up
Speaker 2: the way in Norwich. Yeah, she's got a really cool story,
Speaker 2: like you know, she just she took the vow, she
Speaker 2: went in there and like after having this like incredible
Speaker 2: like near death experience, you know, I guess that's what
Speaker 2: we would call it in a technical sense.
Speaker 5: She just.
Speaker 2: You know, she just went in there and and became
Speaker 2: like a like a renowned spiritual a renowned spiritual figure
Speaker 2: as a woman. Uh, just in the second biggest city
Speaker 2: in England. It's you know, good for her.
Speaker 5: It's interesting.
Speaker 2: You know, it's always interesting when when uh they break
Speaker 2: out of the uh the conventional mold there and become
Speaker 2: you know, in this field that is almost one dominated
Speaker 2: by men outside of you know, like outside of your
Speaker 2: occasional begin and you know, people like that. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: the Thomas Aquinas to God Jesus a guy.
Speaker 1: And I think it's cool because it's like she is,
Speaker 1: you know this this genuinely like very very religious person.
Speaker 1: So you know, again like I'm not I was gonna
Speaker 1: say sorry for talking about Marjorie Camp again, but I'm not.
Speaker 1: But it's like, you know, like Marjorie Camp is like
Speaker 1: going around like doing this big you know, sort of
Speaker 1: like propaganda campaign for herself as a saint, and Julia
Speaker 1: Norrich is like, nah, man, like I'm just in here
Speaker 1: doing my thing, and I just think it's cool. I
Speaker 1: think that she's just kind of like head down, like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to figure out what's going on in
Speaker 1: my visions and this is the way that I'm going
Speaker 1: to do it. And it's not it's not about, you know,
Speaker 1: creating a campaign for myself. It's literally about the religious stuff,
Speaker 1: which I find like a very moving.
Speaker 2: Uh So, yeah, yeah, I think I think it takes
Speaker 2: a lot. I think it takes a lot of It
Speaker 2: takes a lot to like a cask of a montiato
Speaker 2: yourself into like a niche and a church and be
Speaker 2: like I'm pissing and shipping here for the rest of
Speaker 2: my life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've been there.
Speaker 5: I went.
Speaker 3: I went and visited her little churchy church like it.
Speaker 2: Uh no, I mean the the like I can't being
Speaker 2: in just a single book.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Anyway, it got knocked down, like because it got hit
Speaker 1: in the Blitz and it's like been rebuilt, but it's
Speaker 1: like now they kind of have a chapel there, and
Speaker 1: I went and sat around at the chapel and that
Speaker 1: was cool. So we're like, but we probably like lost
Speaker 1: the original one because like obviously the Protestants took a
Speaker 1: dim view on all of this, and so like the
Speaker 1: church kind of had fallen into disrepair and then it
Speaker 1: got hit by the Germans and then blah blah blah.
Speaker 3: But you can go there, you can you can go there.
Speaker 2: It's I just can't, like I just can't, like to
Speaker 2: me like it's just like, yeah, that's cool, Like I
Speaker 2: don't give a ship like.
Speaker 3: Well, that's that's not very that's not very Henry the
Speaker 3: eighth of.
Speaker 5: You, Luke, No it is not.
Speaker 2: I'm just like, you know, no, I like, what are
Speaker 2: why why?
Speaker 5: Why are you so weird? He want hang, what are
Speaker 5: you doing?
Speaker 1: Like I can calm down, like let us let us
Speaker 1: have a weird little chick, all right, we want our
Speaker 1: weird little our weird little closet girl.
Speaker 3: Please.
Speaker 2: Yes, no, not that kind of closet girl.
Speaker 5: Different.
Speaker 3: I mean that we're aware of you, know that we're yeah,
Speaker 3: that we're aware of you. I love the city of Norwich.
Speaker 3: I also just want to make that I want to
Speaker 3: make that clear. I think it's I think it's really cool.
Speaker 1: And I think that if you, I think everyone shaz
Speaker 1: if you, if you ever decide that you're going to
Speaker 1: make your way over to England, I think that Norwich
Speaker 1: is really worth your time, That's all I want to say.
Speaker 5: Nice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So that's going to about do it for
Speaker 2: us today. Uh Anna and Julian are really cool, and
Speaker 2: thank you for hanging around and checking us and checking
Speaker 2: out checking them out with us. Good god, I can't
Speaker 2: even talk Friday Baby, Friday late recording Illin, what's going
Speaker 2: on with you?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I did some things.
Speaker 1: So first of all, my new show on History Hit
Speaker 1: is out, The Medieval Apocalypse, So if you would like
Speaker 1: to see me point at things and also like I'm
Speaker 1: just like geeking out the whole time.
Speaker 3: It's just like it's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: I like watch it and I'm like, like the look
Speaker 1: on my stupid face. I'm like a labrador being shown
Speaker 1: like a bone or something. So if you want to
Speaker 1: see me like smile way too much and freak out
Speaker 1: at like some apocalypse things, then then that is available
Speaker 1: to you at history hit.
Speaker 3: Dot com. I think is I think that's where I work.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: And then also I wrote something at the blog the
Speaker 1: other day, so at going hyphen Medieval dot com you
Speaker 1: can check out my thoughts on the Royal Shakespeare Company's
Speaker 1: production of Edward the Second and why. I think that
Speaker 1: it's really good to do productions about like our Gayer
Speaker 1: kings and what it shows us about how actually people
Speaker 1: in the past are a lot more chill about homeo
Speaker 1: stuff than we are. So yeah, you can go and
Speaker 1: check that out. Otherwise, you know where your girl's at.
Speaker 1: I'm on the socials at Going Medieval, that's what's up.
Speaker 5: Yep.
Speaker 2: You can find me at Luke is Amazing, and you
Speaker 2: can find my old show, People's Fisher of the Republic
Speaker 2: wherever you're listening to the show if you want to
Speaker 2: hear me yep about Star Wars. Yeah, so that's going
Speaker 2: to do it for us today. Thank you very much
Speaker 2: and we'll see you next time. Bye.