Fin vs History - History’s Biggest Blabbermouths (with Bebe Cave) | Medieval Women

Episode Date: July 31, 2025

Being a woman in medieval times wasn’t the picnic it is nowadays - Bebe Cave joins us to unpack some of the Middle Ages biggest time wasters. See Bebe live at the Edinburgh Fringe! Links below. Tickets: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/bebe-cave-christbride Instagram: @bebecave The show for people who like history but don't care what actually happened.  For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening and early access to series, become a Truther and sign up to the Patreon https://www.patreon.com/fintaylor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hey guys, very exciting episode of Finn versus History. We have our first ever female guest. Which must be very scary for a lot of our listeners at home. A lot of our viewers, listeners, this will be very intimidating. They won't know how to talk to women, but we've obviously been around women a lot. Very much. Very experienced. We know how to do it.

And so we hope that before we start the episode, we just wanted to say we hope you can get something more from this. Learn how to have a conversation with a woman. How to talk to women. So we are joined by the fabulous, brilliant, BBK. Bibi, what are we here to talk to us today about? Hi, guys. Thank you so much for having me on Historic Day for you and for me.

And I'm going to be talking to you today about medieval women. Oh, wow. The lives of some really visionary women who rebelled. These women really decided. take a non-traditional part. Sorry. It's really hot in history. It would have been about, you know, married. It's so interesting to have a patriarchal society

really enforcers on them. These women only had, you know, very few watchers. I think that they probably would have smelled on some kind of a spiced ale. This feels wrong. I'm married. I'm married. Religious leaders. I've always said that. I've always said that. I think you should be the Pope.

Yeah. I vote for you. I vote for you. I vote for you. So, are you guys okay? Yeah, fine. It's quite hot in him. It's hot. Are you guys okay?

Is it a fucking hot. This is fucking hot. This is fucking hot. Anyway, she's got a book. She's got a book out of it. She's got a book up with Fanny. Welcome back to Finn versus History. I'm joined by Horatio Gould.

And for the first time, the Sittledale has fallen. Road. They've got inside. They've got it. Inside. They're breathing. Retreat to the treat. Run, run, run away. I hope you're sitting down. We have a, we have a woman guest, a live one. The brilliant Beebe Cave. Thank you so much for coming. My pleasure. What a treat. What a treat. Beebe, I saw your, I saw your last show. I guess you're like, you're doing one woman historical sort of stand-up comedy almost. But good. But I mean it sounds It sounds bad But I have to say I admit every word in that Doesn't sound good No

Together it sounds like One super poo Woman Historical I mean I was going to say I'm my polymath Like a polymath Like a Hildegar abingan or something

I put what A polymath Hildegar of Bingan was a medieval You're just throwing that out Like I give a fucking Hildegard of Bingham That's what you asked me to come on to talk about We'll be talking about

More medieval women but I wanted to say for start, I saw your last show, so you're doing a medieval woman. I'm doing a medieval woman show this year. But I saw your last show, which is golden age of Hollywood stuff. And I have to say, and this is the biggest compliment I can ever pay, your accent work really, really puts me to show. Because you're an amateur linguist.

I'm an amateur linguist. I'm a cultural analyst, ethnographer, phrenologist, etc. But your racist accents are top, top notch. And he's giving that compliment to a woman. He hates to do that. No, listen, it's very off-brand for me to say this. I was blown up.

My wife and my wife said racist actions are even worse than mine. We were blown away by your racist accents. Yeah, women could do it too. It's the Jamaican box. Women can do it better, it turns out.

You can get away with it more. I think that my, I think the reason why I set it during the 1930s was because any kind of, you know, morally it's my favourite decade, I must say. I know that. I know that for sure.

But I feel like you can get away with a lot of stuff if you put it in a very jaunty sort of a time frame and context. They got a lot of stuff in the 30s. And yeah, I think I played with a lot of sort of ideas about sort of, you know, sexist and, you know,

I don't know, strange, bigoted views. But, you know, in the context of the time, you're making a sort of a cultural statement about, you know, what that era would have been like. Maybe you don't have to justify it to this extent. The accents, no, not on this one. This is a hoof pod. The accents on their own, we weren't enjoying it on that level.

We were just going, that's a very funny idea. Yeah, yeah, okay, fine. He's very simple theatre-go of Finn. I really appreciate it. Did you actually like the show? I loved it. I absolutely loved it. And I'm excited for this one. Fishing for compliments.

Because you're now, you're now doing a medieval woman show. And this is medieval ladies' night on the pod. Yeah, this is ladies' night, isn't it? It's bottler's brunch. Get that woman who fell down the back of the sun for this is. Do you think that your listeners all enjoy this topic? I think some will be very angry that you're on the show. Some will be, there will be, canceling their patrons.

There will be a lot of sexist comments. Yes. Get the bird off. What's that? Harry and Paul sketch? When's the bird? Where's the bloke? There'll be a lot of this.

People are... Sorry, look, this is us three. This is us three. Hold up. This is us three. It's 70s man city hero. Rodney Bowles. Hello, guys.

Where's the bloke? Where's the bloke, darling? It's only me. No, don't be silly, darling. Where's the bloat, darling? Where's the bloat, darling? Yeah. So that's what...

This is the energy of this episode. That's the bloat, love. Where's the bloat, darling? I mean, I think that that's actually very timely, you know, for what we're going to. going to talk about even probably if you think about it. Where's the bloke? Yeah, where's the bloke? That's what they'll be saying. Yeah, because we're talking

about history and it's not about bloke. And everyone's be like, where's the bloke? What it is, which is a, yes, it is. And we did history in the last episode. We did it do. We've done that now. It was very quick. It was five minutes. We did a line. Who's your favourite female historical figure then? Oh, fucking out tallest dwarf.

Um, Ava Brown. Probably. Probably. Probably have to say Ava Brown. Who's your favorite female historical figure? It's funny actually, somebody was telling me about Ivan yesterday. I thought there's something about Hitler was really romantically, sexually

attracted to women who wanted to kill themselves. Like apparently all of his like lovers He was drawn to women that would threaten to kill themselves. Every time everyone would threaten to kill herself because he wasn't paying her enough attention that's when he would be most interested in.

We had a lot of things going on. I mean, he did have a lot of things going on. Has anyone ever had more going on? No, no, no. No, no. Yeah. Right. Anyway, we're on to talk about medieval women.

Medieval women. And firstly... In the way of your new show, called Christbred... Which is called Christbred. Which is about an uppity woman who makes up, she can see visions. Well, no, she's doing a show at the end of the festival. It's an uppity woman who's doing a show at my festival.

So after I worked on my last show, the screen test, which is sort of about golden age of Hollywood. And it was basically just about actresses. I'm an actress, you know, at some point, failed actress, at some point's working actress, but always mental actress. And then after I worked on that show, and I loved it so much.

And I thought I wanted to do another sort of historical piece. I tried to think about, taking a step back, I would like to do something that's even more historical. What's an old world version of an actress? And, you know, basically more than 500 years ago, women really didn't have many options when it came to professions.

And if you wanted to have any kind of like independence as a woman, like turning to a religious life, and being really fucking mental and annoying. But having these huge visions... But you're only route into history as being annoying. Yeah, you had to be really annoying, but also very, very performative. Interrupting the grand national...

If you want to make it into the history works, you just got to be fucking... You've got to be fucking annoying, you've got to be fucking mad, but you've also got to say, yeah, I'm literally talking to God. And to me, that's like the most actually thing that you do. So I just thought I would love to write something that's sort of like about a medieval equivalent of an actress. And I realised that was about a woman who's sort of not faking religious visions because they didn't necessarily have that. Sorry. Sorry. I'm so sorry to cut you off. No, do you know what? It's good for me to prove myself for how much I'm going to be interrupted right now.

And I hope this doesn't debt yourself confidence, but Charlie is. That's just Google the fattest woman ever. Charlie. Why are you looking at fash in a man or what I said? Charlie, Charlie, Charlie, Bobby started talking you typed in facts, women ever. Do you know how fucking rude that is? That is, you know.

Yeah, there's a possibility of exacerbating live body issues. Okay, Charlie? Bibi starts talking, Google Factorisholmever. Well, yeah, she, Bibi didn't come up. He's quite out of the tab saying. I didn't come up, which is great. I've seen what my fucking top Google image search is, and it's not that different from that, to be fair.

Charlie's listening to Beebe going most boy women ever, most past women ever. This is actually Bebe's Wikipedia. This is Eamon Ahmed from Egypt. Egypt takes the crown. Good for you guys. The Mohammed Salah of fat women.

I would have thought it'd be Pacific Islander or something. No more salad. Mahamad Salad. Right. It's in there somewhere. I went for a swing. You know, this is a comedy podcast.

You don't know what was it. Before we go into medieval women, I guess what we've, find interesting because we do such male history history, you know, about stuff that happens, you know, things that change the world. Important things. What is, I know a lot of women who are into history,

what are the big, what's like World War II for women? Is it the Tudors? Like, what are the big kind of, which is? What do you think that women are most interested in? Yeah, what is the, what is the, I would say, if dads are in the shed, painting Spitfires, okay.

Women are. Learning about Henry the 8th, six wives. Well, obviously women are sort of doing the housework and picking up the and filling all the holes in their lives that the dad has vacated. Yeah. But as in, if roles were... The Titanic.

Yes. Yeah. That's actually for men and women because you get... Titanic's one of the most gender neutral topics there is. War of the roses. Because engineering and it's romance. Yeah.

Yeah. Courtly love, I suppose. You know, maybe anything that's like... Courtney Love. No, not Courtney Love. Who killed Courtney Love. Oh, for fuck. sake.

I heard Courtney Love. To be fair, I did hear Courtney Love. Courtly Love. Right. Like the concept of, you know, like, you know, romantic affairs happening, you know, amongst around the garden to propose to something. Absolutely.

Maybe, Queen Victoria. That's women's history. Of course, the regency. Jane Austen. Right. I wouldn't say that, at least from my perspective, I don't think that women are that interested in, like, warfare. In like, I never, to be honest, I'm going to be really honest.

Every time that we've, me and a ratio have ever watched a war thing together, and they have that big scene where it's the two sides of the armies. I don't know how you even. And then they start running ways of making you talk. And then they start running towards each other in the middle of the field. And I truly cannot wrap my head around that that's just how like wars happen where you just run against. Well, that is very funny. Because you think wars would be you'd start spreading shit about the other people.

Well, yeah, I guess so. That's what my tactics would be. But the idea I can't even, it makes my brain like short circuit when I think about like just two sides of people running it up against each other in a field. And so whacking each other. stuff I lose all interest because it so doesn't make any sense to me that that's what people had to do that that's what men have to do so I think from my perspective girls like me I just don't think that we're drawn to that element of history we're drawn to I don't know I think like things that are about like power and affairs and you know how secretive and yeah so popular stuff

trashy stuff maybe is how you guys would do it but I just are not interested in the violent parts of it really right I've had a titanic phase and Henry Henry the ape phase maybe Robin Hood I was vaguely interested at one point not like any of the money stuff or like you know taxes and stuff

that I like goes over my head but like you know the idea of bandits in the forest that's quite fun the sexy fox who played Robin Hood yeah it's mostly just about

the sexy fox that plays Robin Hood so maybe women are attracted to more of the medieval period rather than the crushing war machine what's the attraction to the middle age I have a very romanticised view of the medieval period

it's not an accurate one I think it's weird because in school we're very much, it's like this diametrically opposite thing where we know that it would have been the worst time to be alive, but at the same time we also view it as like this very romantic, idealistic, like sort of creatively fertile time. Like, you know, a maiden sort of sitting in a stone-turreted window with like long hair.

Maybe I'm just thinking of Rans off. Maybe I am just thinking of a puns off. No, because the mid-lages has two things. It's either kind of princess in a tower, George of the Dragon, or it's, I'm wearing a potato sat covered in shit. I think it's also... Do you know what I mean? It's like, those are the two things.

I think that it's also very influenced, my perception of the Middle Ages anyway, very influenced by the mid-century medieval revival movement. That was very much popular in the 1960s. So sort of prog rock music and colourful ties. Yeah. There was like a real... Stonehenge.

Yeah, which is actually kind of just like hippie whimsical. I think that that folk... Very folk. Which I love, right? Right, I detest. Paisley, velvet, you know, Embroided clothes, long flowing hair, musical instruments and I'm made out of wood. Bang them up, they're a dangerous society.

Yeah, you're not into that. You're really not into that. Horatio's a bit hippie. I love it. I know. I know. Me too. I know the gayest one in this podcast.

That aspect of it. And Charlie is actually a bit gay. I think that aspect of it. And also the fact is a lot of the childhood illustrations in, like, like fairy tales that we all grow up with are very much influenced by like the sort of 1960s re-interest in like sort of, you know, fairy tales and things like that. I think that my...

They're so sanitised. I mean, like, what does a woman do for her period? She just would just wipe it on a rock? Hell, I know. The medieval period. Let's talk about periods of the medieval. If we're going to talk about it, yeah.

Let's talk about what, you know, what the difference is between how they view men and women in the mid-aged. So this is the old ABC gotcha question. Right. What is a woman? So you're Nick Ferrari. I'm Nick Ferrari. I don't.

I'd love to be Nick Ferrari, but... Do you know what they thought was the difference anatomically between men women? In the medieval period, which, let's just say, what kind of era is this? Is this 14th century, is it? Let's go say from like the 1300s to, I don't know, the big 1600s.

Okay, so we were talking about 1300s. We weren't placed this for us to start. All right, so this is after Cleopatra. Yeah, big birth. Yeah, after Cleopatra and before the woman threw a cat in the bin. lovely that's exactly what we're talking about Cleopatra's been gone from one woman to another

from one woman to another girl on girl a woman who threw a cat in a bin I'm so sorry can we get women who threw cat in the bin video up again one of the best it is it's an all-timer for me I think it's a hall of fame sorry we were trying to name all the historical women in the last episode was a Joan of Arc Florence Nightingale

Pankhurst Cleopatra Thacher Thatcher Truss Women who put the cat in the bin that's it that's a lot let's have a look at this I mean it really oh no this is not not the trial Charlie

the fucking violence and she only gets to find 250 quid but it's not about the fine it's about it she symbolises something

broken Britain right here we go this is brilliant I love this it's so it's unprovoked it's like the sick

and more gap felling there we go and bang it's in the bent yeah look at that fuck off fuck off

I mean that it's the coldness and the slowness So calculating, cats in the bin. Do you think it's calculating? Very witchy, very witchy behaviour, actually. I mean, is it unwanted thought syndrome? Because we all have thoughts.

Imagine if I just kicked that man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it was that. Yeah, I think it was that. Which is her reclaiming a little bit of power. You never know, maybe she's like a really rough night with her husband. You could have dressed out by that. It's like a powerful.

Slay queen. Right. Well, behaved women don't make history. Put the cat in the bin. Yeah, they fucking don't. She's actually a feminist icon. Yeah. Otherwise, she wouldn't be on the.

fucking news, would she? So if she's like, Frida Carlow. But if women don't make history, that does work here because people will still be talking about the women who threw a cat in the bin in 25 years time. Yeah, you're right. And it's because she was very naughty. So what is the medieval understanding of a woman?

Yeah. Okay, so basically the idea was that ingestation you're trying to create the perfect organism and that men were that sort of perfect creation and women were sort of half-formed. So they're quite ahead of their time, really? Ahead of time, yeah. It's what you think.

Yeah, yeah. in Aristotle's model when babies are born a female it's because they haven't received enough heat during gestation so men were viewed to be hot, dry and strong and women were viewed to be overly wet

soggy and weak yeah genuinely it's a very strange as well this like equation of women being because they were thought to have so much excess fluid they cried too much they men strange it

and that is interesting And that's what made their brains damper and not as able to contain, you know, thoughts. Because they're soggy. Because they're soggy. And men were viewed to be dry. Wow, that's amazing. Men were you to be dry. So men are like crackers and women are like baked beans.

Well, that's just fucking horrible. So no. No. Well, no, because it's all about balance, isn't it? You know, if you're just eating beans, that's a bit much. Yeah. If you're just eating crackers, you can only eat about food. Crackers and beans?

Beans on a cracker. It's lovely. anything better than a beans on the cracker. Name me something that's better than baked beans on a cracker. After a long day. The Jacob's screen cracker and there's a tin of beans on it.

And I think it's... That's women and men. Harmony. When to become one. I mean, obviously like even now, I would say that, you know, like the study of women's bodies and women's medicine is still, you know,

much below us. Sorry. She's, sorry, she's an extreme. But especially back then, there was this amazing medieval women exhibition that was on at the British Library that we went to. Yeah, yeah.

And this, medieval anatomy book had like insane drawings you know the inside of a woman's body and even though like she's just guessing right well they're just kind of guessing but even though she's like fully naked and it's like illustrated with all of the organs on the outside she still has to have a head covering

which I found really funny even in a medical drawing in a medical drawing she's still got up like she just fucking hide her hair please we're trying away kidney intestines cover her hair yeah yeah yeah I'm too horny

come on But they also, they drew the pregnancy. It was like a fully grown man standing inside of a woman's stomach. His head reached like the sort of top of her chin and her feet. And his feet were like, no. They didn't really have a conception of like, you know, the baby in the womb, really. Well, they must have because babies came out as babies. They did come out as babies, but they didn't understand what was going on inside of there.

They were like, oh, which magic, which magic. Right. Right. Yeah. But there's also, if women looked in the mirror too long, vanity, then the devil will appear in shows asshole. I think I talked about this before. Remember this is the exhibition So there's this great like wood carving

Which is from the 40-100s There's a drawing in a book A really quite good little animation Of this woman I think she's doing her hair And then in the mirror The devil with this nasty face Like horns is there

And he's stretching his ass And like he's just revealing his entire hole And it's being reflected in the mirror Yeah But weirdly women were also viewed As the ones that were overly lost for Women had like they had no control over their desires

and it's like actually that women would be the ones that would sort of lure men into having affairs and things like that. Well yeah this is the whole witch burning craze isn't it? We talked about this on our witch episode about the German witch construct what's this? This is like a sort of adjacent toy.

It's not adjacent. It's not a Jason. We're on something interesting for the first time. You've just gone on eBay and you're finding lude trinkets. Anyway. So women were lustful. Women were just viewed as overly lustful but I just find it really yeah I mean obviously it's just like these insane double standards that you can't live up to

leave your radical politics at the door also kind of interesting I didn't really realize like the marriage contract in you know medieval society was a lot more casual it just had to be a verbal contract it could happen anywhere but then you needed some sheep and some hay some goods had to trade exchange hands I mean yeah so um some kind of a dowry to be exchanged but ultimately it was just a verbal contract which made it very confusing sometimes in medieval society say if there has been a verbal contract agreed and therefore you are actually viewed legally as married but then if the man says well no nobody saw us having that conversation that's why I had sex with all of these other women etc but it just had to be a verbal contract and then you know then you would have a big party to celebrate

I think I'm really interesting also to consummate a marriage so okay so it was a verbal contract but you did need to consummate the marriage for it to be viewed as like legally binding and say if the bride you know she's 12 years old or something like that and she doesn't want to be married to this old stinky man or something like that

but the parents really do want her to I was just reading about a story of this girl who wanted to commit herself to a life of religious chastity which we'll get on to and the parents were so upset about this that they kept on trying to sneak men into her bedchambers at night

this man that they really wanted to marry her because if he could sort of successfully rape her then it means that you know her commitment to a life of religious chastity would be none and void different men So there was one man who was a bishop initially that was trying to bed her and the parents were totally fine with that.

He was like, yeah, tend her into my bedroom later and they sort of tried to trick her around that. She luckily escaped. But then a different man, they wanted to bed her and they kept him trying to sneak him into her bedchambers. Imagine your parents trying to sneak a guy into her bedchambers so that he can rape you. Pretty brutal time, I think, to be a woman. I guess so.

Yeah. Yeah, I guess just like conservative parents. Yeah. Hello, I'm Elizabeth Day. the creator and host of How to Fail. It's the podcast that celebrates the things in life that haven't gone right. And what, if anything, we've learned from those mistakes to help us succeed better? Each week, my guests share three failures, sparking intimate, thought-provoking and funny conversations. You'll hear from a diverse range of voices sharing what they've learned through

their failures. Join me Wednesdays for a new episode each week. This is an Elizabeth Day in Sony Music Entertainment original podcast. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts. So, Anyway, so one of the women that I wanted to talk to you guys about was a girl called Catherine of Siena. She was living in the 14th century. This is our first broad. And she's a big inspiration for the characters that I've written about in my show

because she, similar to that girl, she didn't want to pursue the normal path that women were not expected to say. Because what are your options? Well, ultimately to be a wife and a mother was essentially the path that you could be. Women weren't given. the access to education

unless you were a noble woman and to be honest the highest. Fucking hell, is that her? That's bloody her, yeah. Bloody hell. So she really took it seriously the whole Jesus thing.

She was one of 25 siblings. How many of them are living beyond the age of life? I would say probably loads of them died like literally loads of them died. Her twin sister also died. Her twin sister, she... Did she eat her in the womb?

No, she didn't eat her in the womb, but Catherine's mother breastfed Catherine, because she was sort of the favourite child, but she didn't breastfeed her sister and then her sister died. Well, yeah, because there's no formula at this point. Yeah, there's no formula.

So that was, she killed her child. Yeah, so she killed and I think Catherine always carried around a lot of guilt about the fact that her sister, she got breastfed and her sister didn't. How would she know? Because you stopped breastfeeding about 18 months. Yeah, it's true, but I think it's maybe the mother then had another baby

after the twin sister died and gave her the same name. But it's a mum like, as the sister. Yeah. So, so, Catherine had a younger sister. What is it, Charlie? What is the max that you can breastfeed? I think it's maybe 10. Yeah.

Charlie. That's so late. Yeah, it is, but I think you can get away with it. But there's also, there's something highly about... Three. You can't. Why do you think you can? Because you can.

You can't. You can't breastfeed up until 10, Charlie. That's insane. You can't. You can't. If I found out my mate, if he was just like opened up and he was like, look, it was weird time. I didn't really decide it. I just kept doing it because it was tasted.

I guess he doesn't have much consent. I'd be like, Charlie, your mates live on barges and bins and chipses. These aren't people who follow society's code. the latest you can get away breastfeeding a child in my opinion is three in terms of as people at least four

yeah but I guess the full grown man suck on the mother's teeth there's a religious imagery that's the Madonna that's the amount of paintings of the young suck on the teeth that's a holy image but this is something I wanted to talk about

really I feel like Jesus Christ himself actually has a very sort of breastfeeding kind of an energy there's a reason why so many of these female mystics sort of gravitate towards the idea of being married to Jesus and sort of sucking on his festering sores, you know, drinking, drinking the blood from his wounds.

It's actually a very maternal image. He's kind of like a mother. And he's also kind of like a bleeding woman in a way. What, Jesus like a mom? Female mystics, you know, they relate to Jesus because of the suffering because of the moisture. We need to wind back a bit.

Yeah, we do. Sorry, I'm getting ahead myself. It's fine. It's fine. It's classic blabber mouth syndrome. We need to, we need to, we must remember, Beebe, that our listeners, our viewers are incredibly thick and fact... We don't...

The actual history they're not that interested in. Bibi, they're thick, they're smelly and they're lonely and they will be... Breastfeeding. They will be breastfeeding

up until the age of maybe 30. So really simple stuff. Really simple stuff. Okay, I'll keep it really, really simple. So Catherine of Sienna... They're allowed rail cards way beyond the normal time. Okay, so Catherine of Siena,

14th century Italy. Yes, right? Okay. Both of the Renaissance, actually. Siena, all the proto-renaceant stuff was all in Sienna at this time. But there's huge famine going on. The black play, the black death.

Death's colour. Yeah, exactly. Thank you very much. D.C. D.C. Essentially, I feel like it was very much a time where people felt like God had gone. Like God was angry.

That's why they were so. That was why a harvest was terrible. Gone and gone out to get cigarettes didn't come back. So in a way, it's like, not only is this girl going to be rebellious in lots of other ways. It's kind of very rebellious, I think, to like lead this life of like,

you know, when other people are sort of trying to repopopopoe the earth and get married and have lots of babies. The idea of you saying... I guess there's a black death, wasn't it? It was a black death? Yes, exactly. So everyone's dying. Everyone's dying.

The idea that you would say, no, I'm not going to fucking do that. I'm not repulsing the idea that she's going to be a mother? She doesn't want to be a mother. Okay, but the reason why I think she doesn't want to be a mother. So not only does her twin sister die, her twin sister, Giovanna. Her mum then has another baby, calls her Giovanna.

Which is kind of weird as well, isn't it, to think that in... She's a different name, I reckon. Yeah, use a different name, but I feel like that's something that's quite a lot of medieval societies when you had so many siblings dying that you would sort of reuse names.

You wouldn't remember who's alive and who's not. I mean, it's like a chicken. You can't remember that many siblings, to be fair. It's like a pig with eight things. If you have eight kids a year, reuse their names. Yeah, well, it's like, I don't fucking know. But it's like when you have loads of kids

in a family, you have lots of hand me down. She's hand the name down. Sorry, Charlie's Googled one of the all-time. How is us talking? Oh, my God, Charlie, how is us talking about medieval Italy? And you've just googled his pineapple up the penis actually is bad at first? Well, that's what I've been told. By who?

By one of your bin friends? I just think I learned it maybe at school. They didn't. Were you home school? It was a, no, I went to a... Montessori. I went to a proper school. That apparently, and it's a way of empathising with women, actually.

Sheving a pineapple like you caught. I feel very empathised with. As in if you, apparently, it's as painful as putting... For giving birth is like putting a pineapple on the penis. one ever put a pineapple up their penis? You couldn't put a pineapple at your penis. But you can give birth and you can't put a pineapple at your penis. I imagine kind of the feminist allies in the women's march.

Some of those blokes would do it. This is what a feminist looks like. Yeah, yeah. This is what a feminist looks like, while your wife's going to be birth, just as the same. Yeah, yeah. And she's like, help. I'm like, no, I'm actually going to go through it with you because we're pregnant. Ah!

What fucking toss pot nonsense. I was having lunch at school and, uh, year above, leant over and said, we were talking about whether pineapple changes the taste of cum. Yeah.

And then, uh, lent over and said, trust me, it doesn't, right? And he's trying to, he thinks it's implying

that, you know, he's getting blowjog, but it seemed like he's just been drinking his own gum. Trust me. It doesn't.

Big spark. And I think he thought would be like, oh, fuck, he's getting stuck to my dog. No, he's gobbling his own cum. Sorry, Catherine of Siena.

Speaking of goblin come. Catherine of Siena is a medieval woman who is refusing to gobble cum. She started having intense religious visions of Jesus appearing to her. Which is a common thing throughout medieval women is the vision thing. Well, I think partly because when women

have reading and writing restricted from them, but religion is such a sort of... They can't do it all right. Well, they're not taught to, right? But I mean, they can use their initiative. They can use their initiative. You know, you can pull yourself up on the bootstraps. But religion is such a sort of permeating part of culture, isn't it?

But it's like really inaccessible. If you think about the fact that, you know... You've got to open a book. Got to stop talking for one second. In church would be essentially... You stop telling you about your fucking dream for one second and open a book. You have to go to church. Oh, I can't do it.

Sorry, dude. You have to go to church. You're told that if you stray from religious teachings that you're going to go to hell, but all your access to religion really is like some priest with his back turn to you speaking in Latin you don't have any fucking idea what he's talking about

women that did feel a sense of like religiousness it was very sensual like female mysticism is all about the senses not necessarily always horniness although we will get to that when it comes to like Junio of Norwich

she was terrified very horny for it but I suppose the God is reliant on faith in the same way that the female orgasm is absolutely well Did Mary come? Who knows?

Does God exist? No, but did Mary come? Do women come? We don't know. We can't know. We can't know. One of life's great untoldable mysteries. For a long time,

thought that the way for a woman to get pregnant that she had to orgasm. That's how women got pregnant. They thought that that's how conception happened, which is amazing, because I can't imagine that medieval men were making women come that much. When do you reckon the first female orgasm was?

Probably 1971. Yeah, 19701. Marvin Gay is around. Well, that's to be discovered. It was, you know. But it's an interesting theological discussion. It was by accident. Yeah, it was.

Religious visions and like these static visions that are a very common thread between a lot of these female mystics. What do they look like? Just to visualise it, are they? Well, it was like a lot of public outpourings of heavenly feelings. Mary's described when she conceived.

Sorry, Charlie found the video of... This is a lady who had 180 orgasms in TIA. In two hours. So is this Catherine of Sienna? This is Catherine of Sienna, I think. Right. So because they couldn't read or write... Yeah.

Yeah. They're much more kind of sensual. Her legs buckled and she fell. Experiencing a series of crippling, un-stimulated orgasm. Imagine having orgasms being done of crippling. Cripling orgasm. A persistent genital arousal disorder. Stop it, Charlie.

I mean, I'm just... I mean, it's one of those diseases. A bit like alcoholism where you're like, it looks quite fun. Yeah. It ruins, it's bad for other people around you. No, no, he's shaking his head. No, because there was the case of that man who had this.

I remember, we did it on, he busted his dad's funeral. Yeah, he busted his dad's funeral, yeah. I hate to do that. He's going up to the open casket going, I love you, do ha, ah, ha, I mean, that is bad. That is bad. But then, do you know what? But then, do you just not come for three seconds? Do you know what I mean?

Can you take a day off? Keep it in your pants, Nigel. Take a day off for a minute. Do you say goodbye to your dad? Come on. I think it is an interesting question to raise in a very, like, puritanical society, this idea that the immaculate conception, and Mary was

the woman that, you know, didn't have to suffer from childbirth, because obviously, because of Eve. That's like women's sin is that they have to have this really painful childbirth, but Mary doesn't have to experience that. And this idea that God, like, makes Mary come so hard that she literally conceives Christ himself, I think, I think that is quite funny.

The idea that, like, you weren't allowed to talk about sex, and yet, like, religion was so inherently sexual, I think is so interesting. But also, like, in the way that, like, you had lots of one-direction posters when you're growing up, and like the boy band theory you know when there's five with them all together. Jesus is like you know the ultimate

but they don't have anybody to look up apart from loads of images of Jesus of course and he looks fucking grey Charlie can you get rid of the coming woman from this girl? But it's such a horny relationship between these women and Jesus because they're trying to discover the sexuality

and the only place they can really put it is into faith maybe because it was also a bit of independence you know you didn't have some like you know horrible sweaty man calling all over you at all hours of the night you know whereas at least if you're you're married to God you're married to Jesus

Jesus, you know, that sounds like probably a bit more of a pleasure with me. But also like fantasy erotica, right, that women are really into. It's like, for them, the ultimate sexual fantasy is not a horrible man in reality. It's a wizard lord listening to your feelings. Exactly. You know what I mean? That's like what turns... It's the Elf King.

You know, men sexual fantasies is your step sister gets stuck in a washing machine. And the only way to get her out is by fucking her out of it, right? That's a, you know, and then the female sexual... Engineering family. That's it. And then the female sexual fantasies. is yeah you get captured by an elf lord but he listens to your feelings and he validates

you and he doesn't have like a real body and he just like floats in the air he just listens to you yeah exactly Jesus doesn't exist so he's like but yeah I don't know if I already said this about this idea of the virgin being like a sort of separate gender almost in many ways three genders um again this is most of our audience of versions

so there's that you would have been you would have been highly ranked and ready even with society but it's like yeah it's always like it just is different well I mean we'll get to anchor rights being literal women who were walled up in the cells connected to, well, I don't really have any more to say about it rather than like, you know, women, your role was to become like a mother and a wife and to bear children and a man was to provide, you know, a home and to work and, you know, whatever. And to be a virgin was like this kind of religious consecrated role that

like, you know, wasn't even seen as like a woman anymore, wasn't seen as like a sexual object. They were seen as something godly. It was like a way to elevate yourself above the rank of other women in a way, which is why you think that some of these women probably in a modern society would have been like CEOs or something like that. They had business minds. So a virgins like looking at other women as sluts? Yes. Right. No, I don't think they're looking at other women as sluts. They revered motherhood, but they also were like, yeah, I'm not going to do that, you know? Right. So Catherine of Siena, she doesn't, she don't want no. So she starts having religious visions at six years old. Six years old. Six years old. I didn't realize.

But then Medieval 6 is current day 18. Yeah, it's true. That's fine. And she has, her twin sister's dead. She already feels bad because she got to breastfeed. Twin sister didn't. She has a beloved older sister Bonaventura who's married. And who's really into fashion and stuff and is trying to get Catherine into fashion.

Yeah, so it's like clueless. And it's like clueless, did you say? But Bonaventura has a husband. Great, right back. Sorry. Bonaventura has a husband who's a little bit letcher. and Bonaventura to try and punish him back in line, she decides to go on a hunger strike,

which influences the young Catherine at that age that a way to kind of get your power and to sort of manipulate people is to starve yourself. Fasting is going to become a big theme with all of these women. Fasting. Fasting. So like anorexia, bulimia.

Oh, it's right. It's tight culture. The diet culture starts here. The diet culture starts fucking here. How many days did you fast this week, Catherine? Yeah. well, like, is she fasted vibe? So, not competitive fasting, I imagine.

Absolutely. So she starts to learn these ideas about sort of, you know, hunger and fasting. But also then Bonaventoro then dies in childbirth. And I think your beloved sister dying in childbirth, which was essentially like, you know, a death sentence for so many women, it's such a dangerous time to have to give birth.

I think that that would have pushed Catherine even further into this religious path that she wanted to see. It's pretty much one in one out childbirth, wasn't it, at that time? Yeah, it was like a strict... 50-50. It's like a Berlin nightclub. 50-50. This is a really awful question, but I don't know the answer.

You're not known for them. In terms of how you actually die in childbirth, yes. Do you just get, like, mashed to pieces? Like, what actually happens? Did you just get, like, exploded? It would have been about internal bleeding. It would have been...

Well, my wife nearly died the first time. It's pretty clamps here, where it's the percentage just kind of explodes or something. Yeah. But your blood pressure and you basically have a stroke. It puts your body under extreme stress. There are certain health conditions that women would have, say, a hot condition that wouldn't actually come, you wouldn't have any symptoms of it until you get pregnant

or until childbirth happens. But a lot of the time it's internal bleeding. And anyway, so it pushes caffeine. Sometimes the baby was so big that, yeah, you'd just mash up. Let's get another fat baby up, shall we? Mash the pussy up. Did the pussy turn red. Yeah. Pussy turn red.

Pussy turned dead. Yeah. Because of all this fasting that you love, but you're super into binge, watch people binge eat. I like watching people do the 10,000 calorie challenge. Sorry. This is a fat.

Fattest medieval baby, Charles Brown. That's a very fat baby. Who are your favorite content creators who are? Well, it was when I was younger and I was having a bit of diet culture sort of issues and I, when I was trying to sort of, you know,

stop myself from binging, I would watch these guys who were like muscle bros do the 10,000 calories. challenge and they would reimposed I was just watch it and they would eat five types of ben and juries

and they'd be like and they're not even enjoying it anymore and so then I think it would sort of put me off so in a way I'm kind of like a medieval mystic in that way who's the fat woman

we watched eating and all that stuff and they show it up to the camera what they're about to eat because I always catch you watch it on TikTok yeah on TikTok Becky something

I always catch her just watching it'll just be like a giant woman who's having an episode those are different and she shows it up to the camera what she's those aren't the 10,000 calorie

a day challenges. Those aren't people that are actively binging. Those are people who are saying, hello, I'm fat and I'm not trying to lose weight. Here's what I eat in a day. And it's fucking like. And it's kind of rage bait. Sorry. In the last episode, you literally made me watch a Welsh guy drinking 20, but in the exact same thing with pines. So it's just, women have eating conditions

and men have a drinking problem. They wouldn't have had terms like anorexia, by the way. Holy fuck, Charlie. Sorry. Sorry. I don't even know if there's much to say here. That's the world's smallest mum. Yeah. How's the baby the same size as the mum?

That's crazy. So sorry, Catherine of Sienna. Catherine of Sienna. So what happens to her? She starts to pursue a life that's like much more saintly. She's very inspired by other venerated saints. Another, her namesake.

Catherine, Saint of Alexandria and who inspired the famous fireworks, the Catherine wheel. She was marty by being tied on the massive wheel. She was mad. Really? The Catherine wheel is because they got tied to a fucking firewall.

Yeah, what do you think that the fucking, this one is? Oh, right, so it's just literally just... It's a mad woman, strapped to a wheel. Yeah, it's just a carnival, Joan and Arc, you know? Anyway, so she starts becoming inspired by the other sort of patron saints. She cuts all of her hair off.

She tries kind of trying to defy a lot of norms of femininity. Her parents really want her. She's, you know, she's getting into her sort of mid-teens now, so she's actually kind of old to be a bit of a bride. A bit like Britney Spears, yeah. But she is, like, very much against this, sort of starts starving herself.

And then her parents want her to marry the sister's widow. And this is sort of like the final straw for her. So she starts having these really, really intense visions of Christ. And I think that it's kind of quite easy now to look at her situation and realise like this is just kind of, it's a very troubled teenage girl that doesn't want to be pushed into. Yeah. And visions are sort of migraines.

Visions could be migraines. I get migraines. Not with aura, to be fair. I don't see Jesus when I have a migraine. People are very, very thick. Yeah. And stupid. And so when they have a problem with it,

light, that's probably God because it hurts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because God's coming in me. Ah, that's probably what I don't know. But I just don't really think, I mean, maybe I'm wrong, and I'm definitely not very historically well read up.

I've only been researching this in last year because of my show, and it's already a parody anyway. But did people really have a concept of atheism then? There wasn't really an option to not be religious. So instead it was just about your... If you said that, it'd be like you... You were either religious or you were mentally retarded.

Exactly. And often both. And that's why I think it's interesting then, because it's actually just about what people's interpretation of the divine was. And so if you couldn't read the literal scripture, yeah, maybe God to you was just like a big ray of light or a headache or a fucking good feeling in your

nether regions or a nice scratch in your arm. Big poo. Honestly, honestly, honestly. So, okay, she becomes increasingly aesthetic. Have you listened to this before? I listened to your Jack the Rip episodes. I really like them.

That's another big female history. Fucking love Jack the Redmond. We already got that once. You've already done it once. Charlie, you're actually never done that. You're at your box this episode. You're out your box. You've got a guest on you.

You're absolutely showing us up. Sorry, sorry. She is increasingly becoming even more sort of like self-flagellating with her behavior. Her parents are trying to get her to, you know, sleep. She's refusing to sleep. She's just doing housework all night. Every time that her parents want her to sleep.

Is that what that film Joy is about? Every time that her mom's trying to get, come sleep in the bed with me, she sneaks a wooden plank underneath the bed. bed so that she, you know, has to suffer so that she can't sleep on something soft. Just sleep on the floor. She's not Japanese or something. She wears a heavy metal chain around her waist.

They're essentially trying to kind of equate themselves with the experience of Jesus as well on the cross. Like, because he suffers so much, right? So what, but what happens to her in the end then? So basically, she starts becoming more well known in, like, C&E's culture because of her incredible fasting. Like she's fasting for like weeks and weeks at time. So people become like, look how, look how skinny this is. It's like Kate Moss. It's like literally Kate Moss.

Like nothing tastes as good as skinny feels. Right, right, yeah, yeah, yeah. So people are looking at this incredibly thin woman. She also, she performs a miracle because she was illiterate and through Jesus' love. Because by the way, at this time, she now has a mystical marriage with Jesus in her bedroom. All of the apostles are there.

So she's like those women that marry the Eiffel Tower or whatever. Or like marry a man in prison. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, people just... My husband's a tree and rubbed themselves up against or whatever. Reading, playing, learning. Stellist lenses do more than just correct your child's vision. They slow down the progression of myopia.

So your child can continue to discover all the world has to offer through their own eyes. Light the path to a brighter future with stellus lenses for myopia control. Learn more at SLR.com. And ask your family eye care professional for ESLR Stellist lenses at your child's next visit. She gets the attention of the Pope. because the papacy at this time is split between Avignon and Rome and at this current moment in time

it's in Avignon and Catherine of Siena travels to see the Pope and he's just like really fucking impressed with her he's like look at this skinny tea she's so thin she's so thin and it's just like her general

religiousness in a time when the world seems so sort of bereft of religion really impresses him and he ends up coming back to Rome oh what because of the black death and everyone's leaving abandoning everything yeah so she doesn't eat for seven months she doesn't eat for seven months yeah exactly he's like fuck yeah yeah i'll come back to room that's so fucking do it she does some miracles like she restores a bunch of milk to women's dried up breasts which is interesting

given her sort of you know her relationship with breastfeeding sit down charlie um and she drinks from a diseased um lay woman's breast she drinks the pus i wouldn't do that and she says that it's sorry pass out of the breast she drinks the pus out of her diseased breast Why do your breasts make pus? Puss feeding, what's that? Puss feeding, I suppose, yeah. That's, like, quite a common miracle amongst saints and nuns, actually, is drinking pus. It's like a hat.

They would drink, they would drink pus from festering sores. How do you know vegans are in? They'll tell you, one of those ones. It's interesting, isn't it, when you think about the fact that miracles was something that seemingly happened all the time ages ago, like you would levitate or you would have clairvoyance or, you know, you would heal people from the sick. But it's like, ever since cameras were invented, oh, I'm not seeing any miracles. Yeah, it's true.

Yeah. But it's something that nuns. would do a lot mystical nuns is that they would drink puss, and that they would drink the water off of lepers. Could be pus. Drink boos. No, they could be, you could be misreading it. They could all be lesbian nuns and they're drinking pus.

This is you straighting up queer history, actually. Actually, those are all lesbian, non. We need to re-queer the curriculum. Also, a miracle that happened is that she was literate, right? She becomes literate. She's then able to, she's literate and through Christ's love, Christ who she marries in her bedroom. Sorry, when does she learn, she learns to read by drinking,

by drinking stinky titty milk. She has a mystical, I mean, I am getting the time. Is she doing that trick where you're meant to spell the alphabet when you're doing cullingas? And that's how she learns to read. Yeah, A.B. That's how she does her ABCs. Christ visits her in her bedroom in the peak of her religiousness, right? And her parents are really unhappy with her name.

In her head. Well, Catholics believe. Oh, what? Since then, people believe this actually happens. She's like a fucking huge patron saying. Catherine of CNN. She's like a big deal. She's a fucking big deal. I never heard of them. She's one of the most important women in like the Catholic church. I thought she was just random. No, no, she's big deal. She's a big deal. Right. So she marries Christ in her bedroom.

Sorry, this whole episode, I just thought you've just picked a woman from medieval times and we're just chatting about it. But actually she's a big deal. She married Christ in her bedroom. She marries Christ in her bedroom. He gives her his foreskin as a wedding ring and like the miracle is that it's still bleeding. It's just bleeding all the time. Is that a miracle? Yeah. Sounds inconvenient as well. I suppose. If Horatio gave you his foreskin proposed and it was bleeding, would you be like, wow.

It's a miracle. Or would you be like, you know, Hat and Gardens just down there, isn't it? I feel like it's something that there's also a common theme with a lot of these mystics is that they were definitely a little bit pious and attention seeking. In the rest of history episode, in the rest of history episode about Catherine's another, he compares her to Greta Thunberg because she's like very pious at the same time as actually being a bit arrogant. She would like walk through a street

full of rioting people and apparently bring them lots of peace and like draw a lot of attention to us. Well this is Joan of Rumba. Joan of Arc is a smellier, if you can imagine such a thing, a smellier, Gretafimba. You know, she's medieval, she's French.

Honks. But all, I guess, are you saying that essentially women had no place in society that wasn't being a mother and so. Which wasn't being essentially invisible as well. Yeah, exactly. And so in order to gain visibility, agency, you had to be insane.

annoying and basically pretend you were possessed by Christ himself. Who was the one who got caught? Who was the one who got caught? The monster? Yeah. Well, this is just something that I found in like a random academic essay.

There's apparently, because my story also sort of dabbles a little bit with the idea that, given that women are so crafty naturally and imaginative and storytellers. Canning. Cunning. A lot of the theme between these women

that I want to talk about is, you know, this idea that they had this utmost Go on, go on, go on. Ombmost belief in, you know, they're rich in a world, like these voices that they were hearing, right? But women are crafty.

The story, the story. No, I'm getting, I'm fucking getting back. Sorry. Jesus. Come on, come on. Jesus Christ. Women were crafty, and I really believe that, like, I find it difficult to believe

that some of these religious women, you know, that they can't have been like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, no, I saw that. I was talking to God, blah, blah, blah. I know that we're saying that they didn't have a concept of atheism, whatever. But the idea that women, some women back then

wouldn't have been manipulating having these visions to a certain extent. I find crazy. I'm sure, I'm sure they did. And I'm sure there were also women who were very, very thick and had a headache and thought it was God. Big time, absolutely. So I was doing some reason.

A woman came when they didn't think coming was possible and thought, well, that's the God button. 1,000%. Can you imagine exploring down there and thinking, well, maybe I've conceived the second Christ. Yeah, exactly. Maybe I don't need to leave my village off. Charlie, when your hand up, just so you know,

expect because every time this episode you put your hand up, it's been fucking even more retired than usual. Yes, I have a question for BB. Did people back in the day, did they fancy God? Did the women will like love and fancy God and want to be with God as a boy and a girlfriend? It's a really interesting question. I think, Julie of Norwich, who is a famous anchoress

that we'll talk about in a little while, her book, her writings, revelations of divine love. Love, love. It's like a folk singer. I think are the origin of our kind of quite modern perception of like the really horny nun like you know the nun that is in a sort of sexy relationship with God because her her relationship with God was very very sensual

whereas Catherine of Siena I think that she views Jesus more as a mother she sucks on his blood like a breast right anyway so what I was saying so that's a really good question Charlie I think that some nuns view him in a very sexual way yeah I'm semi-erect at the minute Charlie you're wearing my shorts I honestly am. But to answer your question about this fake thing,

I was doing some research into, surely there must have been some religious women that were faking it, right? And even though there's not like necessarily some like real historical accounts of that, I did find this one bizarre academic paper that was a monk telling of a girl that, you know, claimed to be speaking to God

and a visionary sort of a nun like these girls. And everyone in the town believed her and a pope even, or like a fucking massive priest came to verify her or something like that. until they came to visit her. She apparently was having these intense conversations with a devil,

and they weren't allowed to go into her bedroom, but they could hear her as a girl talking in in this devil voice. And there was a monster that she was claiming was coming around town, and that's why the crops were dying, things like that. Sorry, so they could hear a devil voice. Yeah, in her bedroom.

But they weren't allowed in the bedroom. Until, you know, this monk says that a priest came to verify, saw for a crack in the door, this girl folding up some clothes on her bed and having a conversation as herself and then also putting on the monster. Yeah, I don't know why say that.

Yeah, there's so many people. And then they burst into the room. Turns out she wasn't fasting. They found a bunch of like food wrappers under her bed. And they found a monster costume. So she was the monster that she was proclaiming was haunting the village that was making all the crops die. So that was quite exciting to me to find that.

That was the one example I found of a woman willfully making this shit up. And that's what I'm trying to sort of tiptoe the line in my show a little bit. But just to finish off, the Catherine of Siena thing. Let's wrap up Catherine Sienna. She basically gets the attention of the Pope

because she's now super, super skinny. She's bringing peace to rioting people. Snatched as hell. She decides to go visit the Pope who's now in Avignon and basically convinces him to come back to Rome. But sort of similar to Joan of Arc, like they reach this high point, don't they? These female mystics.

But then the second that the Pope comes back to Rome, he fucking dies. And then apparently then that's what like started the Great Schism or something. That's where I get really confused. Because I don't really, I don't really understand what this thing is, yeah. But basically he comes back to Rome.

That's more the speed of the podcast. He comes back to Rome and then it's like, you know, it was kind of a fuck up. But then she goes on an even bigger fast for a month, doesn't drink any water, she dies at 33. She dies from not drinking any water for a month. Yeah. That's absolutely classic woman stuff.

Yeah, yeah. They're never drinking enough water. That's why they have to have those big sippy cups related. Yeah, but they're fucking idiots. But people were very impressed with her because she was like, they won't keep themselves alive if they don't fucking. if you don't point them towards a sink where the water was honestly.

She really embraced the weakness. Medieval society viewed women as weak, right? Inherently weak and wet and stupid. Girl boss was not a term they'd understand. No. But ultimately what these women kind of showed was that in embracing that weakness and making that your defining feature

and the wetness. That's how you could actually become kind of quite strong in a way. It's almost like being a victim. It's like being a victim. You know, victim status. You know, it's actually more. impressive if you can fucking really really claim that um and they equated themselves with jesus who

was a victim too and that's what i find really interesting about these female mystics you know it's just like they really believed in their own inner voices like god i mean or they were or they were control i mean yeah they were just mental yeah when you're hearing a voice back then they didn't realize that that was just your thoughts yeah in the same way that charlie hears us through headphones and thinks he's thinking because he's an absolute talk so charlie's got afraid of medieval brain. He does. He's Marvel in many ways. In many ways it's a medical marvel. Yeah, he's a visionary. He should be

canonized. Yeah, he should be canonized. St. Charlie. I feel like a lot of these women were sort of like the prototypes of writers and philosophers in their own way and it kind of Julian and Orich who was this anchoress kind of when you were an anchorite or an anchores and you got locked into this stone enclosure.

So you would be, it's something, you're so religious. You're so obsessed with God that you actually you get death rights read out to you you're then you basically become dead and they lock you into an enclosure

that's attached to a church You get walled into the church You get walled into the church So that you can just spend Like the math I used to do in Yeah you get literally like That's almost the tank engine episode Where they wall them up

So there's this small little side thing And you have a little thing And you have a little thing called a squint So the only thing you could see Is the church So you have a room Sorry it's like a brick burker Yeah

And you're there for years It's like the highest thing that you could... No. Sorry, it's confusing. They viewed you as dead because, like, essentially, you'd be dead to the world. You're never allowed to come out of the... And you like that. Type in Last Anchorite.

Type in Last Anchorite. So this woman, so this woman, the last anchorite died in 1999, I think. What? Yeah. So it's a recent one. She went in in 1945. Imagine how much of a Bible basher you have to be to do that. In Rome, in 1945.

Weird time to go to Rome as well at the end of the war. she became anchor right she was there for 45 years but you can like you could go visit her she was like well that was it you would have there she is look at that no wonder she's walling herself in no you'd have three windows it was like a woman who threw a cat in the bin you'd have these thin windows so they'd read out the death rights to you you'd have to have enough money that's going to be able to sustain you to pay for your maiden food over the year so it really to be honest only very middle class so are you sitting down at all no you've got a tiny tiny little cell with bed in it forever and it's about is it gives you that time to literally just focus on

contemplating how much you love. Just jacket. Just constantly finger yourself to God. Look at her. She's finger blasted. She's just sort of stop people bothering her. She's found the God button. She's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, yeah. She's spamming the God button. You'd have these three windows. One into the church. She's pretty getting herself in herself. One window into the church. One window that you'd have food passed to. And one window.

one window that people passing by could actually come to you and ask for advice. Because to be honest, actually, if you were an anchorite or an anchoress, that was viewed as one of the highest religious authorities. Do you reckon people would get confused with postboxes? What do you think people would put litter in there or something? No, no. Oh, fuck. I mean, it's so funny you can just ask them for advice.

Yeah. That's good. Or you can shout abuse at them. So I guess it's how it's. Loser. What? I know what you're doing in there. Ho!

Marjorie Kemp was one of the women that I wanted to talk about in the episode. today but maybe we'll talk about it in the end of the patron so we're going to carry on talk about men evil women on the patron yeah yeah so what the conclusion is if you want to um make history as women you've got to be extraordinarily annoying until about 200 years ago the only way that you would be able to do anything aside i'd say i say a couple of months women are still annoying so let's not you know and they have all the rights now they have all the rights now i don't i think it's actually coincidence but yeah I mean women were doing some crazy stuff

to get attention I guess because they were so marginalised non-annoying women don't make history yes that's why you should come and see my Edinburgh show yes tell us please about the Edinburgh show I'm doing one woman's show called Christbride at the Jackdome at 540pm all Edinburgh Fringe I think you should I think it's a comedy show it's a comedy show and I think one woman's show

will put our audience off. I saw your last show which was called a one woman show but it's not, it's stand up and it's got more jokes in it than a lot of stand-up and your accent work is terrific it's a comedy show

it's a comedy show I do way more accents in this one as well it's all jokes and it's listed as comedy it's listed as comedy this year so it was theatre last show and I had only 70 years in the audience it's funnier than a lot of stand-up shows

it's at the jackoff dome don't get ideas yeah the venue is literally that fucking angerite wall where a woman's just in there bashing herself. So please do check out if you're at the fringe. You'll probably go on tour with it afterwards. I've seen all the previews of it.

It's great. It's going to be brilliant. Thanks, baby. If you want to stick around. We're going to talk about more medieval women. Historic woman. First woman on the Finn vass history podcast. Yeah, exactly. The first ever woman.

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