folks, today we embark on a new series about a place in the Medieval world we haven't covered much yet, Al-Andalus, aka the Muslim rule over the Iberian Peninsula. Al-Andalus is incredibly important to the formation of European states and the growth and power of the Catholic Church as well as a vital center for Islamic martial, political, and cultural influence for more than 700 years. so, we needed to cover it and now we are. we start with the background on the Iberian Peninsula following the fall of Western Rome, then discuss the rise of the Umayyad Caliphate and its massive empire, and the Muslim invasion and conquest of Iberia. enjoy!
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1:13:39
May Questions
folks, we're back with a new mailbag episode as we continue to catch up on the backlog of patron questions. why are we doing it right after the last Q&A? well, frankly, Luke had to travel and didn't have time to write and research a full new episode, so here we are. we answer questions about Medieval joke foods, Qin Shi Huang's mercury-laden tomb, pigeons, Medieval publication timing, the overlapping mystical traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and more!
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1:13:24
Medieval Conclaves
folks, as you might know, there's a papal conclave coming up, what with the passing of Pope Francis and all that, so we decided to talk about the Medieval conclaves. now, technically, conclaves didn't begin until 1059 CE but we're not letting that stop us, we're going all the way back to The Rock himself, Peter, and talking about papal succession through the ages. mostly because, if you only start in 1059, you miss a lot of fun stuff like a barbarian king imposing a law on the Church to tell them to tone down the money spent on papal elections and something called the Pornocracy. then we get to the later Medieval and Early Modern papal conclaves, which are also fun.
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1:09:30
April Questions
folks, we're back with more patron questions to answer. we are still catching up, so we dive in and discuss Medieval reclamation of pagan myths, land management practices, political pragmatism, funerary customs, regional political differences, weird English town names, and whether the Catholic Church could've successfully reformed itself enough to stave off the Reformation. check it out!English town names mentioned:WolfardisworthyGoonhillyWestward Ho!PolzeathTredinnickAlnwickLeominsterFromeWymondhamGodmanchesterMeophamWeston Super-MareYeovilHoniton
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1:10:12
Medieval Beauty Standards
folks, we have once again stumbled upon some hilariously-insane social media posts and have decided to relate them back to the Middle Ages. the main gist is this: a twitter user posted about how the Catholic Virgin Mary was an unaging smokeshow and objectively the most beautiful woman to ever live as compared to that ugly hag Protestant Virgin Mary, who is apparently a totally separate individual. She then decided to do some clarifications and here we are. since this view is quite similar to that of typical European Medieval beauty standards, we decided to make fun of these posts and then talk about why Medieval people were so weird and contradictory like this.https://x.com/BreeSolstad/status/1909651875856875800https://x.com/BreeSolstad/status/1909986247843741924
Colombia