Gone Medieval - Africans in Medieval Europe

Episode Date: October 15, 2022

Were sub-Saharan Africans present in Medieval Europe? Despite their absence from many histories, they were. Arriving as traders, as explorers, as warriors, or - for those only known from archaeological discoveries - for many reasons that we may never find out. In this episode of Gone Medieval, Matt Lewis marks Black History Month with a look at the challenges of researching this largely ignored or unknown history with Dr Adam Simmons. The Senior Producer on this episode was Elena Guthrie. It was edited and produced by Rob Weinberg. For more Gone Medieval content, subscribe to our Medieval Monday newsletter here.If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download, go to Android or Apple store. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From long-loss Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on history hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries

with a brand-new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world, to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Welcome to this episode of Gone Medieval. I'm Matt Lewis. I'm pleased to be joined today by Adam Simmons, a research fellow at the School of Arts and Humanities at Nottingham Trent University. Adam's work covers aspects of Africa's history during the medieval period, including East Africa's contacts with the crusading world and interactions between Nubia and the Mediterranean. Adam's joining us today to discuss the study of African history during this period.

Thank you very much for joining us, Adam. Thanks very much, Matt. Pleasure to be here. It's great to be able to talk to you about these things. So I guess to start off with, what problems do you face when studying this period of black history during the medieval era? Is there a lack of records? Is there a lack of focus? Or are there different techniques that we need to use to deal with black history compared to white European history?

It very much depends what bit of history you want to. to focus on. So some areas have much more evidence than others, both currently, but also has got more potential in the future. So for example, if you want to look at sort of internal, economic and social history of somewhere like Nubia, we do have quite a lot of records. But if you want to look at the foreign affairs of Nubia, if you like, it's much more difficult because they don't write histories in the traditional sense that we would understand it. So it almost depends on your focus. When it comes to looking at diaspras, again, there's not a single corpus that really illuminates this, which makes it particularly tricky trying to figure out how can you trace

not only which diaspora exist, but how large they are and what they're actually doing in any certain places. In Europe, archives in many places are very slim until, say, the 14th and 15th century onwards. So it means that beforehand, from a European point of view, we're relying on either personal letters or chronicles to reference either an individual black figure or a group in any area, but in Europe they don't tend to overly care too much about writing these things not to say that they don't exist but the authors of the European Chronicles particularly just have different focuses so then you have to compare with other records either in Arabic or with archaeology to get a picture which is much more rounded of not only that there

are generic black figures in any one location but where do these people come from can tell anything about their lives beforehand have they always lived there are they first generation second generation, third generation, whatever it may be. So to really get a picture, you have to look at not just one archive, essentially 10, if not more, from a whole range of different perspectives. So potentially the problem is no one person can be the master of all of those different things. So you're having to pull on a lot of different specialisms that probably don't exist in one person or in one place necessarily. Yeah, exactly.

The key to it really is, although the fields of study exist, art history, archaeology, you have to have a basic grasp of different languages. but also acknowledge that you can't be an expert in all of these. So you acknowledge that there may be a reference in a language you don't know, but you've been able to pinpoint that this one word, say, appears. Then you won't find someone who is an expert in that language, and you collaborate. So the key thing to working on these histories particularly is that key word of collaboration. Once you start working in teams, you know, the possibilities are endless. But if you try and do it yourself, you are always going to come up short,

just because of the very nature of the difficulties of the archive being so spread out and so different. think we tend to concentrate on searching quite often for black individuals in European records. Is that a useful way to approach the question of medieval black history? I mean, are they good examples of individuals? But also, does that stop us looking at a bigger picture? Yes and no. So it's always fascinating to know the personal lives of individuals. But then this also comes down to the problem of the sources. So in European sources, for example, we know individuals through archaeology, but we don't necessarily know anything else about them, unless we make narratives from, say, grave goods, for example, to think of who they may have been.

But in terms of textual records, they're either described very vaguely as being black, but not from a particular kingdom, so we don't know anything about them. Their lives are not often illuminated, so we're not quite sure who they were, apart from they existed. But then you have other examples, like in the Arabic sources, where they are much more specific. So there's the example of Abu Ishak Ibrahim al-Khanemi, who is a poet in Iberia when he dies in 1212. Only the last 10 years of his life or so are spent in Seville. But before that, he's from the King of Carnem, which is modern Chad, where on Lake Chad and the South.

But he's known he goes to Ghana, Egypt, to Morocco, and then eventually dies in Seville. We know because of his name that he's from Carnham, so he's not just from North Africa or from Egypt, so he's from quite far south. And we know a bit more about him because there are short biographies of him and some of his works have survived. But someone like that in Europe wouldn't necessarily be known about whatsoever

just because of the nature of the sources, not because they don't exist. So in some ways, why I tend to focus on it is not necessarily the individuals, but also what does it mean for greater society? For example, when we have individuals in any one location,

what does that mean for their integration into society that we can infer from their very existence? So, for example, if you have Nubian pilgrims going to central, Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain, how can they get there? They have to have accommodation. They have to have either currency, but bear in mind, Nubia doesn't have currency that we're aware of. So they either have to use European currency on their travels or they use Barta and things like that. But then they have to carry a lot with them to barter all that way. Do they interact just with

other Nubians, which is the general sense that people get when Africa and the Asperas exist in Europe, that they are very isolated and they must be with their own communities? But then posing that question leads to either the diasporas are much larger than we ever think about because for an isolated community to facilitate such travels across Europe, it has to be quite big. Or actually, these diaspros are much more integrated in society and can use things like banking systems, accommodation that everyone else uses much more readily. And that's obviously just focusing on travellers and people who are passing through. When we start talking about people who are permanently present, either as first generation, second generation, third generation, whatever it may be,

we have to start then thinking about if we have a skeleton that's buried in a church graveyard, for example, that suggests that they are Christian. And if they are Christian, have they converted to Latin Christianity, for example, if they've been found in a grave in England? Have they either converted from, say, Islam or Judaism, whatever it may be? Or did they originally come as, say, Nubian Christian, Ethiopian Christian, another form of Christian, and then converted to Latin Christianity and then become part of the Latin Christian English society? We can't say too much because we don't have the evidence, but certainly if you find an individual buried in the graveyard, you can certainly suggest a lot of these narratives that then have a much broader impact on how we consider

and think about diaspora more generally, as opposed to just looking for a single individual in a painting, in a text, whatever it may be, which often can be quite limited by just focusing just on that. Yeah, but I guess it's interesting how finding an individual or spotting an individual can lead to those questions about the wider community that must have existed around them to facilitate their travels or whatever it is that they might have been doing. They're unlikely to have probably been on

their own, I guess. Was religion a more prevalent marker of friends and foes rather than ethnicity? You talked a bit there about Nubian and Ethiopian Christians being in Europe. Were they more interested in these people's religion than they were necessarily in their ethnicity or where they'd come from? It certainly seems that way, particularly for Nubians and Ethiopians. So while in society, they will always find some form of prejudice of some sort. It always seems to find its way into society. But as far as the Christians of Nubia and Ethiopia go, the Latin Christians see them essentially, especially about the 14th century, almost as saviors to the crusading enterprise that is currently failing in Eastern Mediterranean.

Because they are Christians, they do comment on them being black, but it's not a negative attribute at all. To them, because they are Christians, they are seen as potential allies. potential friends for diplomacy, all these sort of things. And it's something that I think does get missed quite a lot. We think about the history of blackness as a sort of a theoretical, demonic colour in Christianity in Europe, and how that that then gets portrayed against West Africans particularly. But we never really talk about if you have black Christians, are they still considered the same way?

And particularly as far as Nubians and Ethiopians go, it doesn't seem like that way at all. They do seem to be viewed very positively, in contrast to the moral, either non-Christian, or more theoretical conceptual African of West Africa, which either isn't necessarily as known in Western Europe, or at least isn't Christian, so it's seen as a potential enemy as either the land of Islam or something else as well. And do we know how aware of Africa and African kingdoms and nations

Europeans were in the medieval period? Do they talk about place names in kingdoms? So they do to an extent, the issue we have again comes back to authorial intention. Basically from the 7th century to the First Crusade, so in 1095, for them five centuries or so, very little get said about contemporary affairs of Africa anywhere, whether it's North Africa, Saharian Africa, Nihotic Africa, East Africa, wherever it may be. No one really talks about it.

However, we'll know it's changing the Mediterranean. They are certainly aware of what's going on. They just don't seem to care to write about it. However, from the First Crusade, you start then getting references to Nubia because of its Christianity and because of the potential importance that the Latin Christians think it could potentially have for them. And then from that, by the end of the late 12th century, you get concepts of Abyssinia and Ethiopia being a separate kingdom from Nubia. And then you see a progression that by the time you get to the 13th century, West Africa starts gaining importance in Latin Christian texts because of its wealth. And ultimately there's all these two, the Portuguese and the 15th century and expansion in colonialism.

But we do see other bits in between. So, for example, we have some Latin Christian texts who are copy. Arabic texts. So then they know about kingdoms such as Kahnem, Ghana, Mali. They do know about them, but they don't seem to write about them as much as you think they would, they actually do know. They're very much more elusive. So it's a bit trickier to pinpoint exactly how much they do know. So for example, even someone like Nubia, which, as I've said, is a place that is considered a potential great ally when, at least as far as the Latin Christians perceive them to be. But they never write much about internal either geographies of Nubia. So the reference to their capital, at Dongola, there's only one or two references to that. There's very few references to other

cities, other settlements within it. So it's very much broadly about their kings, again more broadly, and if they do talk about them, it tends to be later, particularly in the 14th century. They start naming kings by name. They certainly do know a lot, but they don't often like to tell us that they know a lot, which is very typical. Frustratingly, they don't write about everything they know about because they're not potentially as interested as we might like them to have been so that we have a record of it. So it sounds like a lot of that emerges in the 11th century and 12th century around crusading, which I guess is driven by religion. And then by the 15th century is moving into a trade concern with the wealth of West Africa. Is that fair that it sort of shifts from this

initial religious interest and contact to becoming about trade and wealth? Yeah, it's not as clear cut as that. So we see in the 15th century that the focus is still very much on religion. The early text for the Portuguese expansion is all about trying to find other Christian rulers and potential allies against Muslim North Africa. There is still a clear concern with both Nubia to an extent, but particularly Ethiopia. The trading aspect comes alongside trying to find other Christians and that side of things. So it's not as clear cut as it goes from religion to trade and then ultimately enslavement. Trade sort of comes in parallel to Christianity and religion and always has that main concern of the idea of you've got to convert a lot of

the non-Christian West Africans, which is one of the mission statements of the Portuguese, if you like, before you then get into the issues of they don't want to then enslave Christians. So the uneasy aspect of Christianity versus enslavement, but it's also the same in Islam as well across the Transaharan trade. You're not supposed to enslave fellow Muslims, so then you don't convert in the same way. Religion and trade go hand in hand. But religion and trade go hand. But it's in certain aspects, one will be more important and more dominant than the other, depending on which area or which individual aspects of it you want to focus on. It sounds like quite a disturbing concern that, you know,

initially the Portuguese are going, looking for more fellow Christians, but also with an idea of converting West Africa to Christianity to gain more allies in that fight against Islam. But then as enslavement begins to arrive, they think, well, actually, we don't want to convert these people because then we can't enslave them. So almost the enslavement becomes more important to them than their Christian religion, which you would have thought would have wrung a alarm bells for some of those people.

Yeah. You certainly see this with, for example, the Kingdom of Congo is one where they make a stand, soldiers to the Kingdom of Benin, particularly make a stand of when they become Christian. They control the slave trade through their kingdoms. They essentially make a stand and say, we are not selling our own people. It's then prisoners of war and areas of expansion for them, where they find these people. But certainly when we see in West Africa, modern Senegal, that sort of area.

Enslavement is something that happens very early on in Portuguese's expansion. But the other thing with that area is to define kingdoms is much more difficult until you get round to the Gulf of Guinea where kingdoms are much more easy to define. It's much more sporadic and like a patchwork pattern in West Africa. So it's easier to pick off individuals for enslavement rather than when you get round to the Gulf of Guinea where there is much more of a centralized power structure that rulers can then start essentially fighting back. and if they are focusing on slavery, they are doing it on their own terms,

as opposed to always being subjugated to a superior European force. That isn't the case. The Portuguese exists in Africa very much, particularly in the first 150 years or so, by having alliances working in tandem with local rulers groups all along the coast. They couldn't have survived by themselves because they don't have the resources or the capabilities to do so. Did you know that some of literature's groups, greatest characters were real people. It's so fascinating, isn't it, that some of the Three Musketeers are also based on real soldiers.

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Subscribe now to Not Just the Tudors from History Hit wherever you get your podcasts. Do items tell a story that kind of requires the presence of a black community in history that's missing from the written records? Do you come across items that must have travelled or that imply a kind of story? that isn't written down for us? Certainly, yeah, this is one area where I think there's so much more that we can do in it. So not necessarily so much having an object which kind of described as quintessentially African, which we find, say, in the 15th and 16th centuries where we have things like salt shakers from West Africa,

which are sold to Europeans and clearly have an African design. But what we can say is more about the materials that are used. So things like gold, ivory, rock crystal, all of these things are completely. coming from some places in Africa, but because we don't currently have the amount of research on these objects to know exactly where they've come from, we can only suggest it so far. But certainly for gold, we do know currently that there has been gold that goes from Mali that gets minted into coins in Italy. Rock crystal in churches all over Europe, that one of the main places to get rock crystal

comes from East Africa. We can suggest there's certainly links of some form. If they are direct links or whether they are via places like Egypt, it's a bit more difficult to understand. The same with ivory as well. Until we have more analysis on medieval ivory and whether it's come from East Africa, Central Africa, West Africa. We can only just say that it's got to be an African ivory

as opposed to walrus or something like that. But by doing so, it's not a case of, oh, they've traded from ivory that's essentially on the border of Egypt. We can say, oh, it might be ivory that someone somewhere has got it from very much in the center of Africa, and it's then traded and all these internal trade networks, which we also don't really know about until much later on, because no one at the time writes about these internal trade networks particularly.

So very much the idea of where materials come from. And we do have the resources to do this. Laser ablation is something we can do. It just costs so much. So it's not always the thing that you necessarily jump on to be able to essentially have to get so much money in order to do. But the scope is there. What does laser ablation tell us? What does that do and what information does that give us?

So it tells us sort of the makeup of non-organic materials. So when we have things like Istop and analytics, to know where human bones have likely come from through diet and things like that. Laser operation is essentially the same thing for non-organic material. So for gold, we could tell, does it have the compound of a gold that is basically Marlian? Is it the compound of a gold that might come from, say, Iraq? We can tell a bit more.

Again, it's not necessarily perfect because a lot of these techniques, there's always going to be development in them as years go on. But certainly we can pinpoint where a lot of these metals are likely to have come from, just as we can with skeletons, bones and organic material. I think the rock crystal one jumped out to me as well, just because I'm aware that there's a rock crystal vase at Sandini Cathedral in France, which Eleanor of Aquitaine gave us a wedding present to her first husband, Louis VIII of France. And it was something that her grandfather had received while he'd been on Crusade in Iberia.

And that probably must have come from East Africa, I guess. So we know part of that story, because it's there recorded as a wedding gift from Eleanor of Aquitaine. to Louis and it's got a little plaque on it that says where it came from and how it arrived at Sandinie. But it also misses out the whole rest of the story about how it must have arrived in Iberia. So there must be so much more to that object than we currently know. Oh, absolutely. Whether it goes through the Red Sea to the Crusoeia States and then gets traded or given across the Mediterranean, that has one story because the Presbyter States are never considered really to engage with the Red Sea, even though that isn't true for multiple reasons. They don't often get that

narrative or does it go directly to Iberia through the Saharan trade routes? Either one has a fascinating narrative to it because not only that, the rock crystal can come from mainland East Africa but also from the islands like Comoros for example. So then you start getting into, if rock crystals is coming from places like Comoros, which is islands in the Indian Ocean, how are they then connected to not only East Africa but then also into the Red Sea or across the Transaharan Trade to get to Liberia. We are talking about a much more interconnected world, then again, the texts like to often describe, but through archaeology, certainly these connections do exist. Your imagination goes as much as you want to go then until we have better techniques to really pinpoint a place

where an object may have come from. I dare say something like that, they wouldn't let you necessarily test to find these sort of things, but certainly something like that can give you the narrative that you can be looking for. Yeah, I was struck by, you know, if we went to Sandinie and we looked at that vase now. I think it's got a little plaque on it that says Eleanor of Aquitaine's got it from her grandfather. She gave it to Louis, Louis gave it to Abbott-Sugier, who put it amongst the treasures of that. So it tells us that story and we think, oh, great, you know, a nice medieval story. But actually we're missing out a massive chunk of the history of how that arrived in the hands of someone in Europe at all, which talks about the interconnectivity across the

continents and across the Mediterranean and the ways in which things must have traveled, which means that people were travelling, which means that people were talking and interacting with each other in ways that we just don't see from the picture that we're left. Yeah, and another example, which is unclear exactly how true it may be and whether it is a bit of rhetoric rather than an actual event.

But again, this disparity between Christian sources and Muslim sources in the Arabic corpus. So in the 11th century, none of the Christian text mentioned this whatsoever, but Al-Bakri, who's a Muslim writer in the mid-11th century, he tells a tale of merchants from what he calls the Bilad al-Sudan, which is Sahelian Africa,

but it's probably somewhere like Ghana that goes to Christian Liberia to give to Fernand a cloth that doesn't burn, which has come from Sahelian Africa. Ferdinand is so happy with this. He sends it to Constantinople, who then the emperor in Constantinople puts this cloth in the Hagia Sophia, and then sends a crown back to Ferdinand to be invested with. So whether this is true or not,

again, this idea that something in Ghana essentially ultimately ends up. but with a crown being given to Verdinand, it's quite a story. Even if it's not true, the idea that connections can lead to these sort of things are certainly suggested in these sort of stories. Yeah, people were at least willing to talk about that kind of level of interconnectivity, which is in itself interesting, I guess. We talked a little bit about laser ablation,

but do other forms of science offer a way to help bridge our gap in some of this understanding? Can things like DNA research help? Can isotope analysis be useful? They can certainly be useful. The problem we have with them is they can never be used by themselves. You have to be aware of what shortcomings they have. So, for example, something like DNA can tell you quite a fair bit, but can tell you whether someone has got the DNA makeup of someone from a certain place,

although generally speaking, that area can be usually quite big, so it doesn't pinpoint to a particular town, for example. It might give you half a continent. It's not necessarily particularly specific. But it can tell the things like whether someone's got half the genetic makeup of someone from a certain area. So then by that you can then suggest if they've only got one parent from a certain area, they must be clearly second generation.

So then you've got diaspora who have existed in an area for some time. However, what it can't tell you is time period for these things. So it can't tell you when people have moved around or anything like that. So it has to be merged with other things, whether it's things like later operation, whether it's been found with gold, which comes from, say, Garner, and they've showed the genetic makeup of someone from Garner, then you may be able to suggest a few connections. Then you also start looking at things like isotope analysis

where you can see whether their child or diet has the makeup of someone who has lived in a certain area. So if they grew up on the Nile, for example, but then I found in England, the diet can show you that through the isotopes. Again, the net then fails to see the second generation. But if they haven't had a diet from an African landscape, you're not necessarily going to see it in the isotopes later on.

So you have to marry everything up together. You're also restricted to how good is the sample that you're using? Is it damaged in any way? I can certainly tell a lot, but you do have to be careful that you have to compare it and contrast it with other forms. But also, there's so many more that can be done. Although we do have the techniques to do these things, and they're ever improving all the time. Relatively speaking, very few skeletons have been tested for these sort of things.

Only last week there was another published study of more skeletons that have been tested. people might know about the skeleton in Ipswich and got the more famed black individuals who have been buried in 11th 12th century England but there are many more than that it's just so far testing them for these to know these sorts of narratives it's happening but it's not the full corpus if you like there is much more that can be looked into it sounds like it's frustrating that we do get these individuals which hint at larger communities than we're aware of

but can't give you any kind of it could be a single black person in Ipswich however much it might feel like that's unlikely, you wonder whether there's a community existing there that's much larger than we're aware of. It's kind of frustrating that you can't answer that question. Absolutely, because then you do start thinking, even if it was a single individual, presumably they would have married someone,

which then already starts a family unit of some size. So even one individual can still tell a population of maybe a handful, let alone, yet if there is a population of more than that, we don't know. we're presuming that you must have family units all buried together so you don't really think about wider population sizes but certainly it's not like we're talking about somewhere like London which is highly connected as soon as you start thinking about places which are a bit off the beaten track it does then start thinking why would populations be there what is the reason to be there apart for maybe they just live there they don't have to have a reason to be there which is often sometimes what we're thinking though they must be a trader they must be a diplomat they must have some important focus but no i mean at the end of it people are people don't have to be in any one occasion because they have to serve a purpose for any historical

record or whatever it may be. So yeah, we often forget and lose track of these narratives sometimes, always trying to find the fantastic story that really pins everything together. We're actually almost the unknown smaller stories. They are just as fascinating and tell us much more. Yeah, we do tend to do that thing of forgetting that medieval people were just people exactly the same as we are really. They don't necessarily need an excuse to be somewhere other than it's nice. I mean, I don't know how nice it's which is, but I don't have to take any one's word for that, but, you know, might have just settled in Ipswich for no obvious apparent reason. And I guess just to end on, what practical things do you think can be done to improve the study

in this area? I mean, I guess you've talked a little bit about that need for working across a lot of specialisms for potentially more money for some of the complex scientific stuff, for a broader research into DNA and human remains than has been done so far. But is it kind of that holistic approach, or are there specific targeted things that could be done to get a better understanding of black communities in medieval Europe? Certainly, a holistic approach is always going to help, but particularly as far as the UK is concerned. More to say that there aren't people around the world working on these histories,

but particularly as far as the UK is concerned, generally speaking, any element to do with African history before the 15th century is found in archaeology departments. There are only a handful of people who work on pre-15th century and post-Roman black history in the UK. So there need to be more people for a start to get these conversations going. But they also have more accessible resources. So not only for people at university level, but also for teachers, whether that's for key stage two, three, four, courage.

Because even though these things are on the curriculum, particularly Benin and then when she gets to A level, Congo is as well, and the homie. But that tends to be much later. The focus on the earlier period isn't discussed. And that's a mixture of a few things. One is that if people aren't taught about this, then it's not going to naturally filter through. it relies on people independently wanting to teach these objects and these peoples and everything about the narratives that go along with them. So having the more accessible histories and resources for all the way through.

So not only for students, for teachers, but then also for universities, who then would be training the next generation of teachers. So even ideally, having it on the curriculum and not just as, again, this, the personal enterprise of individuals, because doing that, of course, people are going to do what they know, it's going to make their life easier to teach. If the resources aren't easily there to get up and show students, it's going to be harder to get these narratives across or certainly get more things that are available there.

But the one thing I'd probably say above everything and to really encourage more work on these areas is hopefully by just some of the things that we've been discussing, there's so much scope for so many areas to work on and so many different fields of research that there's so much scope for interest and for fascinating stories to come out of it. and really the world's your oyster sort of thing if you want to start looking at these things.

As with a lot of history, as a lot of people would know, as soon as you start taking history, particularly at university level, a lot of history that you think you find out is either not quite true or in many cases outright wrong. So, yeah, the scope for more interest and more people, and there are more people who start looking at these histories, the more it will feed down to other parts of interested people, but also more interested people. So it's not just a narrative that it's kept among a select few who look at it, that don't talk to anyone else.

It's about getting the narrative out there because this history is fascinating as soon as you start looking at it. I mean, as someone who's more than moderately obsessed with Richard III, you're very much preaching to the converted there about getting the history out there and everything being wrong, so that's absolutely fine by me. That's been absolutely fascinating.

I hope that maybe that's inspired some people to investigate some of these things further to pick up some of those threads that you've talked about. And I guess, you know, if anyone's got tons and tons of money, loads of specialisms and lots of resources for teachers get in touch with Adam, we'll get this part of history moved further up the curriculum because I think, as Adam said, there's lots of challenges, but there's also lots of opportunities and lots of avenues to investigate

and lots of wonderful stories to be told. Thank you very much for sharing those with us, Adam. Absolutely. Pleasure, Matt. Tears. You can join Dr Kat Jarman on Tuesday for another brand new episode. Don't forget to also subscribe wherever you get your podcasts from and tell your friends and family that you've gone medieval. If you get a moment, please do drop us a review or rate us wherever you listen to your podcasts. It really does help new listeners. to find us. If you're enjoying this and looking for a bit more medieval goodness in your life, please do subscribe to our Medieval Monday's newsletter. Just follow the link in the show notes below.

Anyway, I'd better let you go. I've been Matt Lewis and we've just gone medieval with history hit.