From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys - Why Young Men Are Obsessing Over The Leper King

Episode Date: May 2, 2024

Unless you learned about him in history class, many people aren't familiar with King Baldwin IV -- the teenage king of Jerusalem known for his courage, bravery, and determination despite battling leprosy. Though his story was told in the 2005 movie, 'Kingdom of Heaven,' his legacy was largely left in the past...until now.   University of Chicago Medieval History Professor Dr. Rachel Fulton Brown discusses why 'The Leper King' is now trending among Gen Z-ers -- with content about King Baldwin amassing over 29 million views on TikTok, and how this reflects many young people's craving for strong, masculine role models.   Follow Sean & Rachel on Twitter: @SeanDuffyWI & @RCamposDuffy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hey everyone, welcome to From the Kitchen Table. I'm Sean Duffy, along with my co-host of the podcast, my partner in life, and my wife, Rachel Campos Duffy. Sean, it's great to be back at the kitchen table. Guess what's trending on social media? What? A medieval teenage king named King Baldwin IV. Let me tell you this, this is fascinating. named King Baldwin IV.

Let me tell you this. This is fascinating. You know, our daughter, Evita, she's like texting me. She's like, King Baldwin's trending. Over 3 million likes, over 29 million views. Over 12,000 videos have been made on King Baldwin IV. There's a trend where you put your hand up and you bow your head down. He's known as the leper king. He was a teenager.

He ended up dying in his 20s. But, Sean, this is, to me, these things don't happen in a vacuum. This is because I think there has to be a hunger, a desire among young men for a hero. No doubt. And I think it's interesting how a king from the 1100s is taking TikTok and Instagram by a storm for young men. Again, something remarkable has to be happening to get that many views on videos of this Jerusalem king from so many years ago, which is why I think it's so important to go, why? Well, who was he? Who is this guy? What did he do that was so wonderful and so great? And why would he inspire kids today? Right? That's the question of this podcast,

which is why we thought it'd be great to bring in a professor of medieval studies. That's right. From the University of Chicago, no less. We have with us, she's been a guest on our show before, by the way. She did a podcast for us on sugar, which was amazing. The history of sugar, it's fascinating. And her name is Dr. Rachel Fulton Brown. Dr. Brown is an associate professor of medieval history and the fundamentals of medieval history at the University of Chicago. Her research and her teaching focus, as you said, Sean, is on the intellectual and cultural history of Europe in the Middle Ages,

with an emphasis on the history of Christianity in the Latin West, which is why, as you said, she's the perfect person to help us break this down. Dr. Fulton-Brown, welcome. Well, so thank you very much for having me back. And I'm always happy to talk about the Middle Ages. If I'm Evita's favorite professor, I hope the Middle Ages are now her favorite period. It is. So Evita had shown me some of these TikTok videos, and my first response was, well, this is from the movie. They are clips from Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven, and it's Baldwin IV portrayed by Edward Norton.

And frankly, I think a lot of it in the TikTok moment is that. But that movie was a while ago. That's fair. that's fair that's fair and and i have showed it before um as part of my war in the middle ages course and we've talked about it so i have i have thoughts on the video i do want to get your thoughts on the movie and and what you think about when was the movie put out again it was maybe it was like 2005 yeah 2005 was a while ago it was a while ago it makes sense i while ago. That doesn't make sense. I mean, there's something happening, Dr. Brown.

If a movie from 2005 is suddenly trending with young men, something's going on. So tell us more about him. Well, again, I do think it's the visuals from the movie. And I think that's fairly important. I think it's the visuals from the movie. And I think that's fairly important. We are in a moment, you know, culturally in which young men, young women are just starving for heroic imagery. I've been, you know, thinking a lot about the Dune movie recently, and it has some of the same qualities. It's the music is rousing the feeling of, you know, rousing an army to fight. Well, in Dune, it's not so clear. In Kingdom of Heaven, it's to fight for the holy city. And all of that, to me, makes sense, right? I'm not entirely sure from the TikTok videos that the people care that much who Baldwin was.

One of the features about him is, of course, that he wears a mask in the movie, which apparently is not historically accurate. He didn't wear a mask. But the reason that he has a mask in the movie is that he was a leper, like actually a leper. And so the reason he's a young king and he doesn't reign very long as he dies in his mid-20s. And one of the very powerful elements in the movie is showing him willing to go into battle despite the fact that he's not actually physically very strong. And that was a, you know, that was a true truth of Baldwin's own character that even though he was, he probably contracted leprosy fairly young. His tutor, William of Tyre, is important as a historian of the period. And William said he noticed that Baldwin sort of hung back

from certain activities, even when he was when he was a child. And yet, despite the fact that he's suffering from leprosy, he learned to ride, ride, and he learned to, you know, fight in battle. So it is an appropriate response to the character from the movie to say this man was definitely willing to stand up for his people. Right. Before, Sean, I just want to, so people understand, over 3 million, I mean, over 29 million views, over 12,000 videos right now on King Baldwin IV, this teen king with leprosy. And apparently there's a trend now where you put your hand up. Head down, hand up. Head down, hand up.

But I find this fascinating. Again, you must love this. It's like you have 29 million kids watching videos from the courses in which, or the topics of the courses in which you teach at the university. But there's a lot of superhero movies. There's a lot of hero movies that I don't think are well done. A lot of them come from Disney. movies that I don't think are well done. A lot of them come from Disney. But it's unique that this one, and again, it's nine years old, but that has some roots in actual history with a young king who does wear a mask, who does have leprosy, who is brave. And all of a sudden, the movie is able

to bring to life this king of Jerusalem from so long ago. And I think that is unique in that, not that we don't have, I mean, we have heroes and movies all the time, but it's this hero of this movie who does have, you know, basis in truth and reality and history has come to life and caught the hearts of so many young men across the country. Well, I dare say that current political events are piquing their interest. I mean, he was king of Jerusalem and he was a Christian king. The TikTok phenomenon was going before the campus encampments were springing up, which is interesting. But I say what's interesting about the Ridley Scott movie, which is, you know, I have multiple quarrels with it. It's visually astonishing, but it makes out that, you know, Saladin was more of a bargainer than he actually was.

Saladin captured the city three years after Baldwin died. The Muslim Sultan. Right, right. And so in the movie, Saladin and Baldwin have some very interesting exchanges. One, for example, they're in a parlay, as it were, to prevent a battle, and they make some agreement, and so there's no fight. But Saladin says to Baldwin, I'll send you my physician. Now, that is a trope that's very popular in representations of Saladin that comes not from the Middle Ages, but from the 19th century. A good deal of the sort of mystique of the story that is in the movie in Kingdom of Heaven is taken from Walter Scott's early 19th century novel, The Talisman.

early 19th century novel, The Talisman. And in that story, Saladin disguises himself as a physician and helps out Richard I, the Crusader King. So there's a lot of multiple layers of mythologizing going on in the movie. And one of the ones that Ridley Scott was playing off of is he wanted to show the possibility of tolerance and peace in the region. I don't think that's what I'm seeing in the TikToks. I think they're mainly just focusing on Baldwin, that gesture. Again, I say it's Edward Norton. It matters that he portrayed that character because he's behind us, you know, immovable mask and able to portray everything about Baldwin simply with his body and his gestures. Right. His affect.

Edward Norton is, of course, famous from the movie fight club yeah so well that's brown there's there's a lot of layers of potential unpacking that we can go through with this i have some thoughts about like the middle ages and warfare and spiritual power but yeah we can go we can go to fight club if you want but i don't really want to i'm just saying norton is an is an incredible actor and so i think he's given power to that character that the the young men are also responding to i i think that's really fair to say so let's break down who he is so he's he's he's born royalty, and he ends up at a very young age being under a tutor who's a historian, an archbishop, correct? That's right. And the archbishop is working with him, training him.

He says that the account is that young Baldwin's memory is quite remarkable. He's super bright. He has a great personality. Marie is quite remarkable. He's super bright. He has a great personality. But he notices, the Archbishop notices that when he's pinched or touched by other kids in a rough way, he doesn't react. And that lets him know that something's wrong in his arm. He doesn't have feeling in his arm. And he has this suspicion that maybe he might have leprosy. Correct? Am I telling that part right? That's all correct. And that's William of Tyre. That was his tutor. Baldwin was living with him

for some time, and William noticed Baldwin not responding. That's exactly right. And then they figure out that he has leprosy. That's a big problem, correct? I mean, leprosy obviously has a lot of stigma. Right, because bits of your body fall off. Right. Your extremities rot. And that's why he has to wear the mask, because your nose would fall off. Particularly that leprosy means that you can get hurt very

easily because you have no feeling in your extremities? Yeah. And so as we kind of then jump forward, you talked about how smart he was and the memory that he had. And was it accurate that, again, as a young king and being outnumbered he won battles against the sultan were those were those portrayals accurate was he a successful king because he was so bright and even when outnumbered was successful in battle but there's one very famous battle that he wins at Montsigard and that's when he's in his teens correct and. And I mean, the thing is that the Latin kingdoms during his lifetime are simply crumbling away. It's very hard to recruit men to come fight for them. The First Crusade was completely successful, but it was a little bit of an accident because there were so

many factional rivalries among the Muslims. So even though the Christians, you know, are backed up to a certain extent by the Byzantine emperor, they don't have a lot of continuous support, and that Baldwin was able to hold on to the kingdom at all for as long as he was, was a major feat. Okay. And so he's, and by the way, back then, my understanding is that you were, if you were a king, you were expected to fight in the battle. Not all of them did, but they were kind of expected to. And he did. He was always in the front.

He was very brave. Perhaps that's also what people are responding to. And again, there's a battle apparently where he's fighting with one, because his other limbs aren't working. He's fighting with one hand. But he wasn't just brave on the battlefield. He also, apparently, Dr. Brown was very sort of had great social intelligence, was a diplomat of sorts, and had a vision for what he thought Jerusalem should be in terms of how it should accommodate all the fates. Well, that's coming more from Ridley Scott's movie. And this is one of the things about Ridley Scott's movie that I find really irritating.

So he polarizes the situation and makes the Templars a bit bloodthirsty and warmongering. And he makes Baldwin somewhat more willing to negotiate. The Templars are there. And he makes Baldwin somewhat more willing to negotiate. The Templars are there. They're the, I mean, they are actually the real heroes in the entire story because they were. Who are the real heroes? I'm sorry.

The Templars, the actual fighting monks that they are vowed as, I mean, they're celibate. They're meant to be celibate. They're also vowed to poverty. They're on their seal. They're shown riding two to horse because they don't own their own equipment, as it were. And they actually are an order of, you know, fighting men set up in the early 12th century to protect the pilgrims coming to Jerusalem, mainly against lions, which is interesting, right? They're lions that plague the roots from the coast into Jerusalem. that plagued the roots from the coast into Jerusalem. And Saladin knew they were his greatest enemies because when he defeats the Christian army at the Battle of Hattin in 1187,

he has them all executed. So in the movie, Ridley Scott is sort of making the Christian knights out to be a bit more of a problem, when in fact they were the backbone of the defense of the kingdom. Yeah, so that's a little bit of a problem in the movie. But the thing is, the reputation that, I mean, this is what's interesting about making the Templars in the movie the intolerant ones. in the movie, the intolerant ones. We have one very famous story from, he's described as a

Muslim gentleman, and I think one of the translations of his account, this is Usama ibn Munkit, who was, in fact, from Damascus. And there's a famous story from the 1140s when he is visiting Jerusalem, and the Templars actually are allowing him to pray outside the Al-Aqsa Mosque. They're called Templars because they occupy what the Crusaders think is the Temple of Solomon, which is actually the Al-Aqsa Mosque. And so, the one story that we have of actual tolerance and, you know, recognition of each other's spiritual practices is about Templars, and yet Ridley Scott makes the Templars the bad guys in the movie. He makes the Hospitallers, who are another group, more temperate,

but the Templars are the ones that he gives the sort of Deus Vult cheers. They should have hired you as a consultant on this film, Dr. Bronson. They missed out on that, Dr. Bronson. Directors don't care. I think they actually had a fairly good consultant on the movie. He got fired. You would have been fired. Yeah, probably.

So how is that? Again, this is in the 1100s. How is our history? How well are these stories documented? How much do we know? How much our history? How well are these stories documented? How much do we know? How much is myth? How much is actual information, true knowledge we have of the history of this time frame? The Crusades are one of those historical events that produce a lot of writing. So we actually, for the 11th, the 12th century, the crusades are one of the things that we had

the most like different versions of so we can compare them and and and um consider them william of tyre's history however is one of the most important accounts of what actually happens in the kingdom in in the 12th century but he was getting um depressed at the end and he doesn't describe the capture of Jerusalem. It stops right about the time Baldwin dies. So explain to me how, you know, one, how consequential. I mean, it's a remarkable story. I mean, you know, I'm even trying to gather what you say is actually true and eliminate the Hollywood stuff out of it.

It's still a remarkable story. He becomes a king at 13 years old. From all accounts that I've seen, I've not even seen the movie, Dr. Brown. So I'm basing this on, you know, what I've been reading and studying in preparation for this. He seems like a remarkable kid who, you know, is very wise and grounded for his age, very brave on the battlefield, is thinking about, you know, his successors. You know, he's not going to have an heir. So he's thinking about what is, you know, marrying off his sister to someone else. He's thinking about the future of the kingdom. Sounds like a remarkable figure. But how consequential is he actually in sort of 12th century and and there, you know, the rest of Western civilization?

How consequential is even this time period of the Crusades in the 12th century to, you know, Western civilization moving forward? Well, that's a lot of layers of consequence. um well that's a lot of layers of of consequence um bald as i said baldwin dies and saladin captures the city two years two three years later so he fails um yeah and and in in that sense it he's more the tragic hero because despite his abilities that you're describing, when he dies, the kingdom is lost. But it's his infirmities. I mean, if he had not had leprosy, he could have been, you know, quite remarkable. Possibly. I mean, this is, so after Saladin captures Jerusalem in 1187, the great kings of Europe, including Richard of England and Philip Augustus of France and Frederick Barbarossa of

the Holy Roman Empire, managed to mount the Third Crusade, right, to go and try to take back Jerusalem. This is where Walter Scott, not Ridley Scott, Walter Scott, the novelist, sets his story about the talisman with Saladin and Richard. In the talisman, Richard is ill and he can't make it to Jerusalem and Saladin cures him. And at that point, he sort of looks out over Jerusalem and doesn't even try to take it back. That is what actually happened with the Third Crusade that Richard and, well, Frederick Barbarossa drowned on the way to the campaign. Richard and Philip Augustus were quarreling with each other. Philip Augustus goes home, recaptures, you know, take care of France.

And Richard, traveling home from the Third Crusade, is captured by Leopold of Austria and held for ransom. And if you have the stories like you talk about Disney, right, in the Disney disney robin hood with the fox and the lion and the it's like richard is in prison um his his brother john is having to raise ransom for his raise money for his ransom and in the disney version you have robin hood going up against it's most of these things turn into legends and the problem is for the on the christian side after 1187 it's one failure after another yes it's an interesting thought to speculate whether if baldwin had lived whether things would have changed if he would have actually been able to hold back saladine's conquest but because he died we don't know and it it's after 1187, the Christians never regained control of the city. Wait right there. We're going to have more of that conversation next.

From the Fox News Podcast Network, subscribe and listen to the Trey Gowdy podcast. Former federal prosecutor and four term U.S. congressman from South Carolina brings you a one of a kind podcast. Subscribe and listen now by going to foxnewspodcast.com we we started off by talking about this tick-tock trend that we're we're seeing and a lot of these young boys and they're you know bowing their head and put their hand up uh but you have the unique perspective of being a professor at a university do you see more kids um coming into your class having an interest in wanting to know more about King Baldwin? Or have you not actually seen the TikTok trend translate into kids coming into your class

and wanting more of this history? Well, right now I'm teaching a course on Christian mythology. As I say, we're doing The Passion tomorrow. I have students in that one. So I'm not actually teaching my course on war or on the Crusades right now. The interest in the history of the Crusades is always simmering out there. It's certainly something I've offered courses on regularly. So I'm not seeing a direct response from the TikTok phenomenon. But I have been for a long time thinking about you know sort of what images of chivalry actually do for young men and so when i saw the tiktok video cycle okay that makes sense we have in in the west this this long well since in the since the 20th century there's a lot of

like warrior imagery you mentioned the superheroes we also have like samurai and, you know, the sort of all the sword play movies. And particularly in the samurai movies, you know, there's this idea that the samurai have this code of conduct. And a lot of young men, you know, often they go and they train in Eastern martial arts and stuff like that. Because they want to feel like there's some kind of dignity in their martial practice. And I say, that's all well and good, but we have that in the West. One, I mean, just in sport terms, I'm a fencer, right? And so I've been thinking about the swordplay practice and what it means to have, you know, sort of a code of honor in your martial engagement.

sort of a code of honor in your martial engagement. But what's curious about it is that what we think of as the samurai code of conduct was actually, it's always back to the 19th century, and there's new layers of mythology on this, that we have this idea that the samurai are chivalrous is because they're 19th century Japanese studying in England to go back to Japan and say, we have chivalry too. It's in the 19th century that the West really develops its sort of mythology of its own martial code. And all of these things have blended together. That's why Walter Scott's

novels are so important. We're looking back on Western history and thinking, what does it mean? looking back on western history and thinking what does it mean what how is it meaningful for us as men and in the mid-19th century this is where it all comes together you have things like um the rugby school um in in england where they work a lot on team sports so you know like the bat you know the playing fields of eton and things like that and you know i think i think the the the positive thing that the men are responding to is wanting to have like honorable engagement, wanting to train in, in physical disciplines, wanting to have, you know, some sort of spiritual training as a part of their schooling. And that that's all of that is, is is is weirdly and oddly embedded in the way Ridley Scott portrayed Baldwin.

And maybe that makes sense. No, it does. And maybe that desire that men have to be part of a group to aspire to something noble and bigger than themselves is embedded in men. And and maybe what we're seeing is that we're not answering that culturally for men right now. In fact, we're telling them that their masculinity is toxic. We're feeding them, you know, video games where they go into their mommy's basements and, you know, they sort of emasculate themselves in so many ways by, you know, living in this fantasy world as opposed to working towards something. Even the military right now in the United States, we're seeing a lot of men who might traditionally join the military,

either because they have that desire or they have that family heritage, aren't joining because they feel like the military isn't providing. family heritage aren't joining because they feel like the military isn't providing, the American military is not providing that kind of camaraderie and vision and mission that men seek out. And so maybe this is where some of this is coming from, where they're feeling like they need to reach back. And because, you know, King Baldwin is so young, he's accessible in some ways. And he had this, you know, he had so much going against him. I mean, he was, yeah, he was royalty, but he had leprosy, something that, you know, should have been very stigmatizing and limiting, and yet he overcame it. And I think all of those things together, Dr. Brown, I don't think these trends just happen out of nowhere.

I think there's some need that men have that is not being met culturally, and maybe that's good for a medieval professor to have that kind of information and knowledge to explain it. And I have more. Okay. So we put all these things together now. It's like where Ridley Scott's getting his imaginary vision of the crusades, how it's, it's affected by the 19th century visions and such. But one of, one of the great lies, and you know, I fought against this, is this, you know, oh, chivalry was all made up and nobody ever behaved like that. I mentioned the Templars.

There were fighting monks throughout the Middle Ages, and they fought demons. And the Templars themselves, they have, you know, human opponents because they're defending the pilgrims against the lions. But they're modeled on the actual monks, right? They're modeled on the actual monks right they're modeled on the benedictine monks and in the rule of saint benedict which is the rule from late antiquity it's you know sixth century up there in the hills of italy and the monks are withdrawing from society and wanting to you know do battle but what's interesting about it's like in the rule of saint benedict they're specifically described as um donning the strong bright weapons of obedience to do battle for christ the king i know that's what

the young men want right now because they're all saying christ is king talk about christ the king yeah well if christ is your king then you're doing battle against the demons right and yes and specifically in the monastic rule the rule of saint benedict what they mainly spend their time doing is singing psalms which you crack open your bible they're all in there most people think when they think the psalms they think oh the lord is my shepherd i shall not want right no the psalms are battle songs because god in this in the psalms he's he's christ and he's you know the one who suffers and we have like psalm 21 where he's you know why have you forsaken me and i'm surrounded by my enemies but they're also

psalms in which he's the lord of hosts right and he's he's leading the armies out this is obviously what ridley scott uses in the movie when for example baldwin is he's he's marching and they're carrying the the relic of the cross and it's all gold and it's shimmering in the sunlight and such like that. These are the armies of the Lord. In antiquity, they'd be carrying the Ark, right? The Ark of the Covenant. In Christianity, we understand Our Lady is the Ark that carries the Lord. She often strides into battle, too.

That's another story. But this feeling of being spiritually powerful and having Christ as King, it means you are surrendering in obedience to Christ. You are training yourself in virtues to be able to deal with all of the demons that are coming at you and your own sins. And you willing to you know stand up courageously against lies it's a great image and so that you see why i'm upset with ridley scott because he makes christianity seem simply bloodthirsty and it's like no we are actually standing against the horror and the lies of satan satan how does one become a templar you become a Templar? You become a Benedictine monk? They volunteered.

Okay. And, you know, they had to, they turned, they end up with their own problems a few hundred years later because one of the bad, the sort of odd side effects of being spiritually, seen as spiritually effective as people give you money. The Templars became the bankers for a lot of Europe, and then the French king steals all their money in the 14th century. So they were dissolved at that point, and there are no more Templars anymore. But it's more, I think it's the desire to serve Christ. They certainly serve under extremely difficult circumstances for the sake of defending

the Holy Land. You know, again, it would be great if we saw more of that today on Christ, the king side of culture, which, again, that's under attack. And we don't see that permeating young men as much as we do see this idea of honor. And you mentioned a code of conduct, which I find fascinating because, and you mentioned, I think, rugby also. Right. I look back at just the sports that I played and the coaches that have inspired a code of conduct, that inspired rules by which we play, that we all live by. And I've had some great coaches compared to others.

And those who have instilled in young men these ideas of honor and this is how we do it, these are the rules by which we play. Again, not just on the ice, but off the ice. on the ice but off the ice and how young men gravitate towards that honor and towards those rules and um you know and again it's it's battle you know in the sports arena but uh and maybe this is a a bygone era maybe this doesn't happen any longer maybe this is you know we're all just out to win and by by whatever cost necessary but back in the day, at least, these coaches were great. And young men were driven to them. And the things that happened to them in the sports arena also inspire them in their lives as well. And because they take the lessons that are learned

and try to apply them to different points of their life, which is why I think sports can be so wonderful, especially for young men. And especially the way we did it maybe in the 80s or the 90s. I think we maybe lost some of that today. But it does come back to King Baldwin. Again, you know, there's an inspiration in codes of conduct. And again, it's interesting that men are so drawn to it. And at a time when the culture is saying, no, you're toxic if you want to live by this code of conduct if you want to actually be a man if you want to actually um be uh you know you want

to respect women you want to you know live by us again live by a certain code i just said this the i find it all fascinating yeah chivalry is actually dangerous for men these days be careful be careful if you hold the door for a woman nowadays. Seriously, don't let a woman walk in first, Dr. Brown. It's like, I don't know if I'm going to be like, that was nice. Or if you're going to get swatted like you're a, you know, a masculine pig. I, I, you know, I, I love having men hold doors open for me. I love having men hold doors open for me. Yeah. And that, I think, no, the thing is, I think you're right.

And this is one of the tragedies, I think, of the way Christianity has been portrayed. One, so what do medieval Christian knights do? Among other things, they protect the Holy Land, but they also serve Our Lady, right? Yes. do among other things they protect the holy land but they also serve our lady right we have you know multiple stories of knights you know being into you know devoted to our lady saying her hour saying the ave maria and um you know she says you know she's their bride right so there is a there's always an elevating element to um their meditation on it's like, woman, right? And the degradation of men follows from the, you know, the insults and the degradation given to women and to Our Lady. It's like, Christianity lifts both up. And so, you know, the odd idea that, you know, to be a Christian

woman is somehow to be downtrodden. No, it lifts us up more than any other. I completely agree with this. I think it's one of the most underappreciated things about Western culture, Christianity in general. And can you kind of break that down a little bit more, like how that devotion to Our Lady, to the Virgin Mary, translated into better conditions for women? Well, I mean, there's one, you know, Jesus's attention to the women in his ministry

throughout, right? And women are the first to witness to his resurrection. So, that's there. are the first to witness to his resurrection so that that's there um but so thinking about thinking about our lady specifically this is this is my home turf um yeah i know she is the mystery is that i said she's the ark right she's the the the place where god shows himself to the world so all of christianity all of the Incarnation is about her carrying the Lord. And in most of the medieval imagery, she's a throne. So he's enthroned on her, particularly as a child when she's holding him. And that sense of reverence, it's reverence for life. It's reverence for God's entry into the world in human flesh, that the word took on flesh, and that he does it through her, that honors her.

So it honors all of humanity. It honors our life. The sense of degrading women or even degrading men is degrading God, in our understanding. But chivalry led to better conditions for women. The whole idea of that, the whole code. Well, so this is the big debate in my field and why I got in trouble when I said three cheers for white men, meaning European men, meaning chivalry. And they said, no, not everybody behaved that well. And I was like, okay, but you use the code of conduct that we established.

Tell our listeners what happened to you and why you got reprimanded there. So I had a blog called Fencing Bear at Prayer, where I was writing about many of these lessons in virtue that I was learning from the actual sport, right? It's like in fencing, you have to develop, you know, your attention, your courage, your swiftness, your stability. Those are the virtues of a fencing master in the 15th century handbooks. And I was very interested in using my sports training as a, you know, a study of what it means to train in virtue in the way the monks describe, right? We're donning weapons of obedience. They use a lot of military metaphors in their meditations. So I said, okay, I'm going to do that. And out of that, I get this understanding that yes, chivalry is real,

it trains you to not react to things emotionally and in temperate ways. And I recognize that in our code of conduct for men for ship, you know, chivalry that men behave well around women, that takes, you know, discipline and attention, and women can be frustrating, and you still hold open the door for her, right? And so I was thinking about that, how well Western society has treated women that we've been taken care of by all of these lovely men who build us things like houses and cities. And I said this in my blog, Three Cheers for White Men,

one chivalry, right? Oh, doctor. Ooh, you are dangerous. That was so dangerous. That was eight years ago, right? And it's still true. And my colleagues got very upset with me. They said, well, not everybody behaved well.

And I said, well, that's not a critique of the ideal. That's a implementation of the standard that you want to hold people to. So, yes, if you think men don't behave chivalrously, you're still saying they ought to. I'm still right. It was Christianity, though, that ushered in chivalry. Right, yes. We had this conversation just a couple days ago in the car,

and when everything's based on power and strength, you know, men win. Right. Men are stronger than women, which is probably why women were subjugated. And this, again, the ark, Mary, all of a sudden comes in the picture and and she's revered by jesus i'm the most perfect human and all of a sudden men are like huh maybe we should revere all women we should respect all women and and this concept's brought into culture and again that that christians are demonized that Actually, Christianity is a religion of oppression right now. You oppress people with your faith, with your dogma, with the ideas of your faith.

You oppress not just men, but women as a whole, which couldn't be further from the truth. The Christians get no credit for this. Modern feminism doesn't recognize all the Christianity. And to your point, a lot of white men actually brought to today's culture and in a world in which no one else was doing it. Well, I mean, so this is there. There are a number of texts that are helpful to understand where the imagery comes from in the Middle Ages. And one of them is a text called The Prose Lancelot. It's an early 13th century text.

And in the story, Lancelot has been raised by the Lady of the Lake, and she's the one who actually gives him his armor. And as she gives it to him, it's interesting, because she's explaining what all of the armor means. Now, this allegory of the armor, it goes back to things like the Letters of St. Paul, where he's talking about the armor of faith and the breastplate and things like the letters of St. Paul, where he's talking about the armor of faith and the breastplate and things like that. But that's layered onto what the knight's own armor ought to be. And these are the ideals, right? She says, the shield means that the knight should stand in

front of the Holy Church against all evildoers. Ms. Haberk, that the Holy Church should be enclosed and surrounded by the knight's defense. The helm helm that the knight should be seen before all others to oppose those who wish to harm or do evil to the holy church the sword so the the two edges signify that the land the knight should be a servant to our lord and to his people and so forth right so christianity as it's taught in certainly in the in the Latin West, is allegorized as the defense of the weak. Where else in the world traditions do we get that claim? Right. And when we're saying Christianity is oppressive, yes. Well, it's because it's saying we want to defend babies, women, you know, the oppressed against other oppressors. If you find that, you know, restricting, well, maybe you need to consider what you're doing.

Yeah. Yeah. No, it's absolutely true. I mean, it was such, it was so, you know, even if you go back to prior to the Middle Ages, you know, in the Roman Empire, I mean, if you were not an aristocrat, your life was miserable in so many ways. And, you know, there was so much barbarity and it was so cruel to live as as as anybody other than than the elites. And Christianity was very attractive to people who were were were the underclass. Right. Were they always were the press? Because it said basically your life is as valuable as the emperor. And of course, that was a threat to the emperor, you know, and to the elites. And eventually, you know, Christianity became the religion of the empire, but it took the death of many Christians before that happened. But it's

an attractive religion because it says that everybody has worth. And, and, and that included women and, and, and Mary was really a vehicle for for that coming to play. What should people, you know, as we think about this trend, as we think about you know, this, this teenage King Baldwin, and as we think about the middle ages and maybe, maybe there's young people who are listening right now who are thinking about classes they want to take when they start school next semester. Why should we study the Middle Ages, Mom? Why should Americans, why should young people study the Middle Ages? Give us your pitch, Dr. Fulton.

Why do we take your class? What do we get from it? Well, it depends on the class. So I'm just thinking back to the effect of Christianity to answer an earlier thought. So the transformation that Christianity affects in the Roman Empire is very important, but one of the things that

the young people now sometimes on the internet are saying, you want a warrior culture. Well, you have a choice, right? There's the warrior cultures that, you know, enslave people, rape women, enslave them, practice human sacrifice. And, well, I'm not sure we went. Those are the Vikings. And those same people became the crusaders who never raped. Right.

One of one of my friends, Andrew Holt, has done. He did a whole study trying to find were there ever accounts in the Chronicles. You're wondering about this from the crusades. Did the crusaders, you know, rape women? Their ancestors. You mean the ones that they conquered, the people that they conquered. Right. And certainly it's in battle.

City seizures are horrible in the period that, you know, the population is massacred if the city doesn't surrender. That's horrible. There are not accounts of crusading knights actually raping the people that they're taking over. And their ancestors certainly did that. So the massive transformation between, you know, if you watch movies about the Vikings now, it's like, oh, they're taking over. And their ancestors certainly did that. So the massive transformation between, you know, if you watch movies about the Vikings now, it's like, oh, they're cool and gruel. And they were slavers. They captured people and sold them to the Muslims.

It's a major, major slave trade throughout the Middle Ages. The Christianized knights are held constantly to behave better. That they fail is, you know, unfortunately a feature of human behavior, but that the standard is given to them by Christianity is, I think, way too easily overlooked. If you are upset with the way people are behaving in battle, thank the 11th century bishops and monks and lords who tried to control it. So compare that to then how the Muslims treated those that they conquered in the Crusades. So one of the features is that the military culture is actually similar, and that's why the Saladin stories get

popular even in the later Middle Ages. They're recognizing each other as equal in military ability. I don't know as much exactly about the way the Muslims behave, but I told you when Saladin conquers the Christian army at Hattim in 1187, he has all of the Templars and Hospitallers executed. So any fantasies about the Muslims being more tolerant need to be revised. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's very true.

The whole topic is fascinating, the cultural revival of King Baldwin. And even if it's, to your point, partially fiction, partial truth, but bringing young men back to honor, maybe even a little excitement about history and who some of these great leaders from our past really are. Courage. leaders from our past really are courage yes uh whether they're former kings or heroes that can inspire young men to be better and do better um in in this age i think is um a really wonderful development i i couldn't agree more i think it speaks to a hunger that young men have i think it speaks to a lot of the attacks that have been launched on men in general, but I think young men in particular. It's very demoralizing to be told by your culture that who you are and how you are biologically made is wrong, is toxic, and is not needed by society

when in fact we know that that's not true. And I think that there's a desire for them to seek something else. I want to thank you, Dr. Brown, also just, I think history is so important. My favorite podcast, my favorite books are history books because I don't feel like I got the greatest education in it. And I'm sort of, you know, in middle age trying to catch up. And I love it. And I just love that there are people like you out there who are doing the deep research needed for us to continue to learn from our past. And I think that there are a lot of forces out there that are twisting history, actually retelling false history in order to, you know, reinforce narratives that they want to us to all believe now. And I think it's people

like you who are keeping it real and keeping the truth alive. See, that's the pitch for my class. And that's, I say, so if, I mean, I, it's so funny me trying to explain, like, why do we have the layers of stories that we do that? The great thing about studying history is when it's if you like conspiracy theories, it's way better. Yeah, because you are you are finding out, you know, how complicated it is to understand why things happen. you know, how complicated it is to understand why things happen. I mean, that there's, there's multiple layers of, of, you know, motivation and circumstance and ideals that are working there. You usually find out that the cartoon versions of stories that we've been told now that get people into war are cartoon versions, right? It's, it's like's like if you want if you want to be fighting on you know nobly on on this on the right side well it's christ i'll tell you that but to be able to

understand exactly why and and specifically for medieval history to understand that the degree to which the middle ages has been used as the demonized version against the present, right? And I was thinking about this with, I mean, specifically with Baldwin. I had a pitch here. I wrote it down. Because one of the things that was suggested is, you know, this problem of saying, you know, Baldwin is great because it's a dog whistle for white supremacism. And I say, oh, now I'm in the right myth-busting place, right?

That is actually a dog whistle for anti-Catholicism. And therefore, all of the demonizing of the Crusades, of chivalry, of the Catholic Church, of our European history, is modernity's effort to wipe out that truth right it's in it's it there are layers and layers and layers it's wrapped up in anti-colonialism that the anti-catholicism of american history is wrapped up in the british contest with spain their multiple rival empires spain's based catholic and um england is protestant uh there you know there's there's layers of anti irish and anti-german prejudice in the united states and then of course you get into the night

into the 20th century it's it's all these sorts of lies that we've been fed about who was actually against the nazis and who the nazis were actually for and by the end of it you're saying oh well i can't stand up for my you know my my my tradition because those were the bad guys. It's like that is the biggest lie. We'll have more of this conversation after this. Yeah, no, I think you're so right. There's a there's a guy I follow on Twitter that I love his name. It's the Twitter handle is or the X handle is culture critic.

And basically he just he posts like the most beautiful pieces of art and architecture and sculpture and Western civilization. And I found out last week that I'm a white supremacist because I follow a culture critic. And I think you're so right. There is there is a dog whistle where if you dare to counter the idea that Western civilization had mostly positive impact on, on, on, on the world. If you admire Western architecture and art and music, that somehow that must mean you're a white supremacist. I'm a Mexican American. I'm also a Catholic. But I just got back from Italy and we were,

but I just got back from Italy and we were just bowled over by the beauty of so many things that we saw there and I thought, this is our inheritance. I'm not going to let anyone make me feel bad for appreciating the beauty of it or even feeling proud of it. But also to make this work, you have to whitewash the history

of everyone you want to elevate in this culture, right? If you want to demonize Western civilization, you have to whitewash what everyone else is doing at the same time, which is what we see these historians actually engaging, which is why it's so wonderful to have people who study history in these timeframes in a way and say, people who study history in these time frames in a way and say, actually, let's look at what truly happened. Let's not use today's cultural pressures to modify or massage what truly took place, you know, whether it was in 11, 12, you know, the 1300s. Let's actually be truthful about what was happening at this time. And I think that's really refreshing. And what I think probably a lot of students don't get in a lot of elite colleges

around and not even not even moderately well-respected colleges around the country. Yeah, you are a definitely a treasure. My daughter, who went to the University of Chicago, will say that, you know, she took your Tolkien classes and she just can't say enough about what a jewel you are in that school and just what an honest academic you are. And we're just really blessed that you came on our show. I think it's this discussion, you're able to take it much deeper than the Duffy's good and we appreciate that. We appreciate you being at the kitchen table, Dr. Fulton Brown. Thank you for being with us. Thank you for having me. Great stuff.

Thanks, Dr. That was fascinating. She goes in all different kinds of directions, which I think are so interesting in what she talks about. But can I just mention something that you said? Can I just mention something that you said? We just got back from Rome, and you mentioned this idea that came with Christianity. Again, first of all, to take a step back, you mentioned that it was the elites that lived well. Everybody else lived in pretty miserable conditions, and women lived in miserable conditions in that time frame. And the idea that came with Christianity was, to your point, that

everyone has value. Yes. The peasant has as much value and claim to the kingdom as the king does. Right. That equality that Christianity offered was a remarkable new way to think about humanity and the value of life. And maybe it comes back to what's happening today. The attack on Christianity is happening, which by the way, socialists, communists, Marxists do this all the time, is you can't have the masses thinking that they have value. They can't think that they have as much value as the elites. And if you can take away Christianity, which is what they're trying to do, and you can take away the thought that people believe that they have value and they've got gifts that God gave them, they have an inheritance in the kingdom. Then you can have this Roman structure again, where you have the elites that live really well.

And Davos, the Davos crowd. The Davos crowd. And the rest of the population lives in misery and squalor. They want to bring us back to what we saw before Christianity. Well, you saw it, Sean, in the Great Reset video that they put out. You know, it said, you will rent and you'll be happy. You won't have a car and you'll be happy. You know, they, they want to decide how we're going to live.

They won't live by those rules. The Davos crowd, the George Soros, the, the, the, the Bill Gates and, and, and, and, and the rest of them, Klaus Schwab and John Kerry. Thank you. John Kerry. I just kept seeing his face as like a skeleton, and I just couldn't come up with John. But it's John Kerry. And all these people, they want to tell us how to live.

And you're right. They're trying to put us back. You know what? And all these people, they want to tell us how to live. And you're right. They're trying to put us back. You know what? It's interesting.

They want to put us back in a sort of futile situation where we're dependent on them for our existence. And we'll be happy with whatever crumbs they toss our way. And what stands in their way is Christianity. That's right. Which is why there's been such an aggressive attack on people of faith, on the church. And on church history and on Western civilization's history, which we should be very proud of. You know, I saw this. Somebody wrote me. I know it was on.

It was they tweeted me something that somebody else had tweeted. And they said, you know, it was a professor who who said we've gone from teaching from back in the day you know a generation ago people were teaching or maybe more than that you know high schoolers greek and and latin and now we're having to teach them remedial english in in their freshman um you know class it's like we've broken down education all because we wanted to get away from, like she said, the white male sort of story or how they interpret Western civilization to be. We can't tell those stories

because they're based in Christianity. They're based in European history. And that's bad. And so what have we replaced it with? A bunch of Marxist googly gook. You know, all these kids who are out there protesting right now, Sean, can't find Gaza on a map. And yet there they are tearing down their universities and and and and really in a very bigoted way, you know, trying to stop everyone else from studying and harassing and intimidating people.

But they're not they don't really have anything. There. Those universities are shells of what they once were. They are, and I look at the idea of saying, okay, if you really were an honest broker and you looked at what's happened, you'd go, listen, Western civilization has brought wonderful things to the way we live today. The wonderful way we govern, the way we think comes from Western civilization. And you might go, well, I think we can improve upon that. So let's look at the history, what went really well, some of the failings that happened during, you know, the course of the last two, four, 800 years, and let's improve upon it. But that's not

what they're doing. and let's also be and let's also be honest about what other cultures were doing at the time as well to your point yeah and and so let's let's build upon it they want to destroy it yeah right that's what they do um which is i find fascinating they don't want to build they want to, which brings me back to the point that they want to bring us back to a bygone era, which none of us want to. Listen, do I want to live under the reign and rule of this little Marxist mob on these college campuses? The one that don't tolerate anyone's speech but their own? Anyone else's ideas but their own? Anyone else's cultures but their own? They don't believe in any of the ideas that

give them the right to go to college campuses, those who are at least peacefully protesting and using their First Amendment appropriately, they would never offer that to you, never offer that to any of us. But they take it and abuse it and say they have a better way to think about how the future should look. And it is frightening if the future is the future that they envision for this country and for humanity. Absolutely. I just want to go, I want to go, I mentioned, we talked about honor, going back to King Baldwin, and what happens with men. And I had a hockey coach.

He played Olympic hockey. His son was a friend of mine. After the 1980 Miracle on Ice, the Olympic hockey team victory. How many times have you made me watch that movie? A lot. Because it's like one of my favorite movies. I'm sorry. Kurt Russell is great in the movie.

Great Opportunity is born. Don't start. We'll start quoting the whole movie. But I had a coach who actually knew Herb Brooks. We were peewees. We were 11 years old.

And he brought these ideas to these little 11-year-old boys to go, we... You're 52 and you still remember. We pass the puck, not because we just want to get rid of it. We think that someone else, one of our teammates, can do better with the puck than I can. And I do it out of love. And we have, like, there are rules about where everyone plays their positions.

And you don't violate the rule. And all these ideas and concepts inspire these little boys to play amazing hockey. I don't think we lost a game in the full year we played together. The next year we had a different coach and we were a disaster. We never recreated what we had under that coach, under that man that inspired us with ideas. And a code of conduct. And a code of conduct, rigid rules and philosophy by which we played the game. And you and I will have some issues with the way sports are played

and how it's become so adult-driven. But really wonderful things come from sports and what you learn on a team and the philosophy. And again, especially male sports with a male coach who is strong and ideologically driven can bring kids to do wonderful things

in their life outside of the sport. Most kids aren't going to play pro hockey. They're not going to play college hockey or college sports. But you take those lessons and you apply them to your life. We had a different code of conduct in speed climbing. I can't talk about that on the show. But again, you got to be courageous, right? Those who are courageous racing up and down poles there was a code by which you aspired to with those who you know engaged in this sport and

um yeah i just in in young men are gravitating towards these ideas that we kind of take for granted at least older americans we take for granted because we were raised in a different culture, a different society, a different America. But what these young men are being raised in today is something far different, which is why you see King Baldwin taking the internet by storm. A young king with leprosy.

And she's right, it goes back to the movie, and the movie might not be completely accurate. But the King Baldwin, this young 16-year- old king with leprosy would be the figure that inspires young men as he was a hero by the way he was a hero in his time like people admired him he had leprosy but they understood that he was you know he overcame that and he was you know brave and strong and and and and in many ways like i said you know socially very astute despite this he didn't let it he didn't let it break him and i think that's attractive as well i will go ahead just one other thing on king baldwin yeah again he had great

hardship right he had leprosy yeah he wasn't a victim of a circumstance. And the lesson of, again, we want to push victimhood in culture constantly and who can out victim and out, you know, I'm oppressed. The victim Olympics. Yes. And the oppressed Olympics. And this is like, you know what? God gave you some gifts and gave you some limitations. Take it and run with it. God gave you some gifts and gave you some limitations. Take it and run with it. And the affront to victimhood that King Baldwin offers young men is profound as well. I love that.

And, you know, he must have known that he was going to die young. Most people, you know, who had this affliction would. And he did indeed. And he tried to make the most of the life that he had. And he didn indeed. And he tried to make the most of what the of the life that he had. And he didn't. You know, the other thing that was interesting that she brought up was how women in chivalry in these in this in the Middle Ages, in the whole code of chivalry, inspired men to to discipline the way they act in front of women and the kind of discipline it takes for a man when he's in the presence of a woman to conduct himself differently in honor of that woman. And I just think that those are just, those are, and you see that breaking down. You said, you know, now these women don't want us to open the door for them. But these were, these are things that most women innately want. Only dumb feminist women who've bought into the ridiculousness of postmodern feminism.

I do know that that's true, Rachel. No, totally. Listen, they're totally indoctrinated. Just like you're wired for masculinity, we're wired to be treated well by men. I'm sorry. That's what all women want. But, but many of them who have been through women's studies and, you know, are buying all the, the modern cultural crap, maybe say they don't want it, but I, I meet a lot of women who secretly

want it, who secretly want it, or who are miserable in their forties because they bought into all the feminist stuff. And now they're like, Oh my God, I get my life back on track. So my point is this. I think that we don't give Christianity enough credit for what it has done to improve the conditions of women. the crusades and the knights and that code of conduct that surrounded them. And Christianity, and she brought up the devotion to Our Lady, all of that, so underappreciated by our culture in terms of what it's done for women's rights and the appreciation of women and the conditions of women so i just

think it was all really fascinating i think history is amazing um we should all go back um and if you're like me and you got like you know gypped like me gypped in the 70s when they redid everything um one of the wonderful things is is getting older finding time to read um and and and catch up on the history. Or if you're too busy listening to podcasts from historians, which is such a great development in the world today, you can go through your day and take care of all your chores, and you can listen to a little bit of history because we learn from our past. And so today we learned from our past, and we learned from Dr. Fulton Brown,

and we thank her for that. She is wonderful. A great professor at the University of Chicago. She is, I think, the most important professor probably in the country on Tolkien. And, you know, she's a professor that has been unafraid. She's been fearless. She's been courageous to speak out again about true history, not today's culturally modified history that fits a narrative for the viewpoints of today's culture, right? She's been honest and she's gotten a significant blowback for three cheers for a white man. But she has three cheers for tenureship. She has tenure. They can't fire her. The one time I agree with tenureship is probably with Dr. Rachel Fulton Brown, but the rest of it,

this should all be fired, but her, um, all right with that, listen, thank you all for joining us at the kitchen table. If you like the podcast, I always rate,

review, subscribe, wherever you get your podcasts. You can always find us at Fox news, podcast.com subscribe. You don't notice every time we drop Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Um,

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