I really love that there are a number of YT channels now doing such a good job of countering the ridiculous presentism rooted idiocy around medieval and ancient history.
Good interview team. Their love for the subject jumps from the speakers. No stuffy dusty academics here. Energized experts with personality and a sense of humor. I would love to study under either of them.
I always enjoy Dr. Janega. She's extremely knowledgable and entertaining. She makes the medieval period somehow relatable and that's no easy task. Thanks!
This was the first of a series of great Medieval podcasts on Jason's podcast Future Imperfect. Turns out he is a fantastic interviewer as well as a presenter. Dr. Janega shares tons of information. Glad it is available on MHTV.
This was fascinating. I saw a terrible accident at a joust one time. The lance broke like it should, but it got under the armor somehow pierced deeply into a mans side. We never found out if he lived. It was terrifying to watch. I felt so sorry for the man who stabbed him. He was truly distraught that he hurt his friend.😔🐝❤️
The validation I'm getting from listening to this. Hearing someone correct the misconceptions I hear Every Day about the medieval period. Medieval people lived in houses of manure and everything was dirty and they only lived to 40 and they never had fun or travelled or had nice colorful things or loved their spouses or their kids or their pets. So much information taken out of context and misinterpreted and taken in bad faith, and it Hurts to see because the truth has gotten so mutilated that even when people "research" things, the first responses to searching for an answer in a search engine is often just Furthering that misconception!
Excellent podcast and it's always a pleasure to hear people who are so passionate about the subject. Dr. Janega was a great guest, I hope she'll return for more.
This was enjoyable to listen to. I especially like Dr. Janega's clarification about life expectancy. I have been so frustrated over the years by everyone from teachers to movies getting that so wrong. I am tired of hearing that 45 or 50 years old made you ancient in your community.
High infant mortality is pretty depressing as well though imagine the trauma of going through that as a parent. So it still shows significant improvement in living standards.
I had never heard of Dr. Janega before this. She seems like an endlessly fascinating and knowledgeable person! Thank you, Jason, for giving us this opportunity!
Fun and fascinating. Thanks for sharing, Jason. 14:57 I have been to the ancient Chinese capital of Xi'an where the terra cotta warriors are and the first emperor of China is buried. Each and every statue was very colorfully painted. The most valued statue nicknamed the 'Lucky archer) still has remnants of that paint. The discovery story is that a group of uneducated farmers in 1974 were digging a well (still there with the army) and dug up broken pieces of colorful statues. Being exposed to oxygen for the first time in thousands of years caused the paint to fade rapidly. The farmers freaked believing it to be magic of some sort and the work of demons. They wanted to smash their find to dust. One, however, refused adamantly and insisted on reporting the find to the authorities. Three major pits have been excavated and there are still many statues that are yet to be uncovered. The Chinese archeological body wants to develop technology to allow them to access those statues but not expose them to the air, but slso have them on display for the world to see while preserving the ancient paint job.
Jason, you couldn’t have found a better guest. Dr. Janega is such a captivating speaker. She is so knowledgeable. I like how sometimes she speaks as if she is actually living in that time.
This was VERY enjoyable! And that's saying quite a lot for me, because I have never much cared for podcasts - but listening to you two talking was just so fun! Thank you for sharing this here!
Of course I know this podcast, I listened to it (and read it!) a long time ago. I'm even more pleased that you decided to make it available on this channel. It's good when so much valuable content can be found in the same place.
Wonderful podcast, so insightful and informative! Dr Janega is one of my favourite historians, her vivid and cheerful energy is contagious. As a medieval history enthusiast I throughly enjoyed this, especially about jousting. Love your channel. Thank you so much 🙏🏻🛡
This is a medieval history power podcast! What a great combo. Been a long time fan of you Jason, and Dr. Elanor Janega is my personal favorite historian.
She's fun 🙂 I'm onboard with Jason on this one I could listen to another 4hrs 😄 Educated and passionate people are why I love these sort of things thank you 🙂
This was such an interesting podcast that i just listened to it for the second time. There were so many elements of medieval life discussed that it might take 2 or 3 more listens to really take it all in. So very well presented Jason, and Eleanor is an excellent interviewee with her expertise on the subject. Thank you Jason and Eleanor!
I'm not usually a podcast consumer, but when you put two of my very favourite presenters together, how could I resist? It was very interesting to listen to you two talk about the period, seeing it from such diverse perspectives.
Superb podcast! Thanks so much for the insights on the Medieval world. I was especially interested on how much of the 'bad' old days of the Medieval world was a creation of anti-Catholic thinking from the Enlightenment. The attitudes toward color was another fascinating part of the talk like how churches were painted inside. That section reminded me of another era when Protestantism took hold in Britain and churches once bright artistically over the top experiences inside became the fairly dull white painted affairs inside more thought of today.
I haven't had a chance yet to watch the whole thing, but I had to chime in. I expect most castles' exterior walls would have been plastered to protect the exterior stone work. Particularly in colder climates.
this was honestly such a fun podcast to listen to! Like you said at the very end, there's a lot left to explore and i would absolutely love it if you would do another episode ! I'd also like to say how much i enjoy your channel and how much i've learned from it, herés a big thank you to all the hard work you've put in!!
thank you so much for this channel! I'm an American of English,Scottish, Irish desent. With a bit of Germanic ,French and Viking blood thrown in . The history of your people is my history!
Jan Zizka fought in the Battle of Tannenberg (or as we say in Polish battle of Grunwald) in 1410 Poland vs Teutonic Order and his tactic of the wagon war contributed greatly to the victory of the Polish King. This battle and especially the year of preparations before it would be an interesting topic for the next podcast because it was absolutely amazing with what precision the war was prepared, including for example the floating bridge that was constructed upstream on the Vistula river and floated downstream just in time for the Polish army to cross the river in the place that the Teutons least expected it. And that was before they had cell phones 😂😂😂
I was in Falaise in Normandy which was William the Conqueror’s birthplace and castle. You are given a tablet and when you hold it in front of you in the different rooms you can see a simulation of what it would have looked like with virtual fixtures, fittings and decoration. This was brilliant and I believe other castles in France use the same technology.
Enjoyed this (twice, so far) and have shared it with a friend who will pass it on to friends (plural). The challenge has been finding her blog! Still looking! (a link in the description would be a nice touch)
Something I think you touched on was ancient Greece which is typically depicted as white marble but, in their day, would have been heavily, and likely garishly by modern standards, painted.
A note on careers in the church: Jacques Fournier, aka Pope Benedict XII, was the son of baker or a miller. So not a "poor boy from a farm" but not exactly high nobility either. He was supported by his uncle, who had become a cisterican monk and by renown as a theologian risen through the ranks of his order, eventually becoming professor and cardinal.
Speaking about Hussites, there is a novel "Narrenturm" by Andrzej Sapkowski (the very one who wrote "The Witcher"). It's set in early XV century and Hussite wars are central to the plot there. If this was translated to English (I somehow doubt you can read Polish :-) ) and you're into this kind of historical stories with a bit of witchcraft - I recommend.
Richard Greene's Robin Hood is pretty good too. Plenty of old characters who are actually presented as 'old,' and not popping their socks at 35. Plus, we noticed that, although this is a children's series, the writers obviously researched quite a lot about Mediaeval life, techniques and the Norman impact to make it as authentic as possible. Fashions did feature now and again, and although you have to forgive the odd zip on Maid Marian's dresses, the Sheriff of Nottingham's wardrobe more than makes up for that. They also included a couple of songs from the time, one which I have in an anthology, but another one which the Merry Men sing around a campfire that I have failed to track down so far (the internet isn't perfect).
Heh, as a Czech, through the discussion of the social changes after the Plague, and medieval warfare, I kept low-key thinking "yeah, and then you get the hussites who turn these things on their head a lot." And boom, here they come. 😅 Glad they got brought up, and not just in terms of warfare as they tend to most often be mentioned in non-Czech sources.
Although it's a slight pity that Chelčický only got a passing mention because if you talk about social changes and starting to look at the world differently in the late medieval period... yeah, there's a lot of that going on in his writing. (Also, I would say it's a bit debatable whether he really was a hussite, because while he definitely drew from Hus, he was a pacifist.)
