If you were living in Western Europe in the late middle ages and early modern age, you might well come across partly eaten humans, whilst walking around in the woods, or even, alas, strolling in Paris. OBVIOUSLY these partly eaten humans had been attacked by werewolves! Duh! There were a lot of real wolves roaming around, attacking humans, if the wolves had rabies, or there was a widespread famine affecting all the living beings, but of course the real wolves hadn't attacked and partly ...

The battle of Agincourt was almost over when Henry V ordered the prisoners killed. Nowadays, this would clearly be a war crime, but in 1415, it wasn't, though nobody liked it. Henry did not expect to win the battle, which involved a fairly small bunch of muddy unarmored Englishmen with dysentery up against a formidable line of armored Frenchmen on horses. So he didn't know, when a group of Frenchmen at the rear of their forces attempted to regroup, that they were going nowhere and were not an...

Columbus's first trip to what would be called the Americas, in 1492, was a difficult one. Nobody thought he would actually get anywhere, since he had grossly underestimated the size of the globe, but the Spanish monarchs had some extra cash, since the war with the Moors was over, and thought they might as well fund the enterprise, because otherwise one of the other European countries was going to get across the Atlantic first, so they let him have some unneeded ships that were not in good sha...

In the early 16th century, the peasants of Central Europe were being overtaxed, overworked, and underfed, and the lords of the lands kept making things worse. Things worsened, after which they worsened some more, snails got involved, and then there was the biggest peasant revolt in Europe before the French Revolution. If you're a native English speaker, and you haven't heard of it, great though it be, don't feel bad; there is only one book in English on the Great German Peasants' War, and it ...

The Knights Hospitaler and the Ottoman Troops of Suleiman the Magnificent were well matched, with state-of-the-art cannonry and defenses, but it was Suleiman who commanded the Janissaries, the formidable household infantry troops loyal to the Sultan. Occasionally, though, they got out of hand; briefly, during the second truce after the second Siege of Rhodes, they entered the city and did things that Suleiman had promised wouldn't happen, such as plundering, smashing things in churches, and a...

If you wanted to steal beehives in the Middle Ages, you would need to be very good at the theft, because the laws about bees and beehives were many and varied, all over the European continent. And you should be really careful about stealing beehives in Portugal (or France, or Spain), because those were the places where the high-end honey got made, and the people there were very serious about their hives. Anne talks about the history of beekeeping, and the medieval laws thereof, and Michelle, ...

If you read the Annals of Tigernach, you will find that Máel Brigte mac Mothlachán killed Rogallach mac Uatach, King of Connacht, in battle, because the Uí Briúin tribe had been encroaching on the territory of the Corco Cullu, and so it was one of those normal murders. However, if you read the renowned and beloved Geoffrey Keating, you will discover that no, Rogallach, riding his white horse, was killed by servants, after a dispute about who had actually killed a deer, but before that Rogalla...

The first ruler of the House of Sverker, Sverker the Elder, had come out as the winner among contenders for the position of Ruler of Sweden, even though he wasn't from royal roots. He was the ruler of the country, but various pieces of Sweden were considering themselves under or not under his authority, and other countries altogether were also working on taking Sweden or bits of it (that would be Denmark and Russia), and what with one thing and another, life wasn't very restful. And the...

In the beginning, by which I mean before 1054, the Church was united, though the Eastern and Western pieces had lots of theological differences, which they could just not iron out. But then it was 1053, and the Patriarch of Constantinople closed all the Latin churches in the city, and after that, the Pope of Rome tried to get the Patriarch to recognize him (the Pope) as the head of the Church, which he wouldn't, and then they excommunicated each other, and we had The Great Schism of 1054. But...

Mikhail of Chernihiv, the Grand Prince of Kyiv and Prince of Chernihiv, went to several neighboring states to ask for help fighting the Golden Horde -- he had the idea that there would be strength in alliance -- but nobody would help, on account of they were too busy fighting each other, and also the Mongols had not actually gotten to their houses yet, so why should they care. Then the Golden Horde destroyed Kyiv, and told Mikhail he had to come give obeisance to Batu Khan, and he did that, b...

King Duncan did indeed get killed, in 1040, and Macbeth was around, and maybe even was near him at the time, but Duncan wasn't old, he wasn't asleep in bed, and there was no crime, because Macbeth's forces slaughtered Duncan's forces in battle, and Duncan was one of the slaughtered. In this episode, Anne explains all of the history that can be explained -- it's a slippery bunch of facts, but there was a King Duncan, he did die, and Macbeth was king after him. Michelle explains the historical ...

For all of the middle ages, almost everybody believed that earlier in church history, there had been a pope who was, instead of being male, a woman, who met, alas, a Bad End. She wasn't there, as some people suspected then, and as we know now, but the story is so damn good it's hard to let go of. Whichever version of the story you're dealing with. Anne explains the different versions of Pope Joan and how we know she wasn't there, and Michelle is delighted by the vast amount of pop...

As we all know, if you were accused of a crime in the middle ages, or if you were in danger, and you ran to a nearby church, you could have sanctuary, and then you were safe. Well, this is true, more or less, but exactly what you needed to do, and how the whole thing worked, changed over time and across the continent. Michelle and Anne wanted to know more about the mechanisms of sanctuary, so they went to find out, and will tell you all about it. Anne can explain to you the ceremony you would...

There's not a lot of murder in Iceland -- there was a disconcerting spike in the number of homicides last year, 8 altogether -- so, obviously, there aren't a lot of murderers. And none of the murderers of Iceland are serial killers. With one exception. In the last part of the 16th century, not long after Iceland had been forced to institute the death penalty for capital crimes (this was Denmark's idea), Axlar-Björn Pétursson, who lived out on the west coast, on the Snæfellsnes Peninsula...

Adalbert of Prague wanted very much to go Christianize the Prussians, but they were just not having it, so they hacked him up and cut his head off, and that is why he is a Saint, with an enormous number of churches around the globe dedicated to him. Anne spends time thinking about what was the snack that we are told Adalbert and his companions were eating before the murder, and Michelle considers the recently discovered account of Adalbert that is older than the one we had, although really wh...

Usually our special episodes move out of our 1000 year time zone, but for this one we stay in the middle ages and move off of the European continent, to one of the incidents in the fall of the Umayyad caliphate and the rise of the Abbasid caliphate, a blood feast! We haven't had one of those for a while, and we were very excited, but then we did our due diligence and discovered that it probably didn't happen. That is, the Umayyades were slaughtered, alright, but probably not at a banquet wher...

From the 12th century to Renaissance, the Ordelaffi family ruled the commune of Forli, in Northern Italy. On and off. Also, on and off again. When they weren't fighting others for the commune -- Florence, the Emperor, the Pope -- they were fighting each other, and in 1376, poison became a favorite weapon, when Sinibaldi I Ordelaffi poisoned first his uncle and then his cousin, so that he could have Forli. He's not even our protagonist, though, because we lit, for this episode, on Pino III Ord...

William Donn de Burgh, the 3rd Earl of Ulster, was, alas, not so great at being the Earl of Ulster. Starving his cousin Walter Liath de Burgh to death led to Walter's sister Gylle (also of course a cousin of William's) getting her husband to have him murdered. And then, the whole succession problem -- there were several cousins wandering around, and William's heir was a girl, and that was right out -- led to the Burke Civil War. What with one thing and another, though the de Burghs married in...

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

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