Gone Medieval - Cult of St. Swithun

Episode Date: December 6, 2022

According to tradition, if it rains on Saint Swithun's bridge in Winchester on St. Swithun’s day — 15 July — it will continue for 40 days.  But who was the real Swithun?  And why has his historical importance as an Anglo-Saxon bishop of Winchester been overshadowed by his reputation as a miracle worker? In this episode of Gone Medieval, Dr. Cat Jarman finds out more about Swithun from Associate Professor Karl Christian Alvestad from the University of South-Eastern Norway. This episode was edited by Matthew Peaty and produced by Rob Weinberg. If you’re enjoying this podcast and are looking for more fascinating Medieval content then 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. Hello and welcome to Gone Medieval. I'm Dr. Kat Jarman. If you cast your mind back to summer, you may remember that the 15th of July is St. Swithen's Day. And according to folklore, if it rains on that day, it will rain for the next 40 days and if it is dry, it will remain so. But who actually was St. Swithin and why did that legend come about? Now, as it happens, St. Swithon actually became a hugely significant saint in Winchester and Wessex,

just as England was beginning to form as a country. And not long after, his fame and his cult spread out from Wessex across Europe, and especially to Scandinavia, where he and similar saints played a crucial role in the conversion to Christianity. To find out more about St. Swithen today, I'm really delighted to have with me Dr. Carl Christian Alvester, historian and associate professor at the University of South Eastern Norwood. way. Welcome to Gone Medieval today, Carl. Thank you for having me. It's pleasure to be able to contribute there. So I'm quite excited. We've got lots of things I really want to talk to you about, and not least, you know, some of the later impacts that Swithens had in how his name, you know,

his story has gone on for quite some time. But can we just talk about this legend of what happens on St. Swithon's Day, first of all. What is that story? And how did that come about? So you are here referring to the story that if it rains on St. Sweden's Day, which is in July, it will then rain for 40 days and 40 nights, which is one of these folk weather forecast events that is used in traditional agricultural calendars throughout Europe. We also see it in Norway, we see it in England, we see it on the continent. And the story itself seems to be emerging sometime in the Middle Ages. But it's in stark contrast in many ways to the miracles recorded and the events recorded around the translation of since Sweden himself. As a person, he lives in the 9th century. But in the 10th century, there seems to be a wave of translations of saints on the continent that inspires the Anglo-Saxon church, and particularly the church in Winchester, which seems to be somewhat clued into the continental. trends. So by translation, you mean moving the remains, moving the body of the saint. Is that right?

Yes. Yes. So it's a translation means moving the body or the remains of a saint from the original tomb or where the body is discovered. In some cases, you discover a saint and then move it into a shrine. And in that process, you verify that these are the original remains or the remains that are the authentic ones. So in one of the cases in Norway where we have St. Olaf, which is an earlier example, the translation is moving the body from a sandpit outside a town into a shrine and having a verification process with that. And in the case of St. Sweden, there is then this contrast between St. Switham himself performing allegedly miracles telling townspeople in Winchester that he wants to be translated and the story that the 40 days and 40 nights of rain is a punishment

for doing the translation. So this is a saint who can't make his mind up, is what I would conclude. in these stories in the 1960s and 970s, there are local smiths, there are town people, there are people who are suffering from different illnesses who are accidentally or consciously engaging with the burial site of the then-dead bishop Swithun and who are healed or through visiting the tomb are meeting the saint in a dream. and the saint is telling them, please make sure that the bishop and his cannons are translating me from this tomb to sainthood. But if you hold that narrative up against the then-foloric myth of the saint is punishing us with reign for doing the translation, yeah, I'm not quite convinced that this saint has fully engaged with his audience or that they translated the wrong person.

Ah, maybe that was the problem. Maybe that's what happened. So one of these has got quite jumbled up and quite sort of lots of different legends and different stories that's led us to the sort of popular myth that we have now. But let's talk about him. Let's find out a little bit more about the fact of Swithen. Was he actually a real person? Yes, he is a real person. And what we know of him as an early start is that he is a priest and a teacher. at the court of Egbert, who is the grandfather of Alfred the Great. And he seems to have taught Egbert's son at some point before he becomes Bishop of Winchester in the eight 50s. And he works as a bishop for about 10 years until the 860s. So he's at that point where the kingdom of Wessex is starting to come under pressure from the Vikings. And he seems to be holding the fort in

Winchester for a period when you see Winchester being attacked. One of these famous episodes of Winchester being laid in ruin by the Great Heathen army and the earlier attacks is at the end of Sweden's rule as bishop in Winchester. So in many ways, he has the ecclesiastical power in the city is the person who's leading everything happening there in the defense in the absence of the king. So he is a really an important figure in the community, and he is the representative of both the church in some ways, possibly, at that point we can also possibly see the bishops as a power in the community as well because of their presence and because of the land holdings and their engagement with the monastery and the minister at the time. This is before you have the establishment of new minister, which comes later on, that in some way split. or drags the religious power of Winchester in two. So this is the community around the Old Minister,

which is already sight of religious cults, where you already have saints. So he's just one of many saints attached to this religious institution. At that point, it is a important religious institution in the kingdom of Wessex, but it's not the only one. Later on, of course, Winchester grows in prominence and religious importance, partly because of the House of Wessex and their burial site connected to the Newminster, but also partly because of the importance of the sea of Winchester. So he is quite a important bishop in his time, and he helps form in many ways the foundations that outfellations that outfell. later on is building on, in that he's educating Alfred's father, who again facilitates to some

extent Alfred's engagement with learning and his engagement with the church. So this is part of a wider West Saxon cultural landscape in some ways. What we also know is that he's buried after his death outside of the Old Minister church, which isn't abnormal to have someone buried outside the church, as an act of humility, that he is not deserving of being buried close to the altar. That's part of the story that's being told. And by burying him outside, he's then also allegedly saying that if he's moved, he will then cause and contribute to bad weather and punish the people who's moving him, which is where you have this origin story of him saying, no, you can't touch me.

And at the same time, a hundred years later, he goes, oh, by the way, I'm actually a saint, so please move me. And it's about 100 years from his death. So he dies around 8.63. And in 964, Winchester as a religious site and as a political site has grown significantly in power and prestige. And in 864, you have then the first miracle related to the translation or the moving of the body, where one of the smiths of the city has a dream and being told by Swithin, a hundred. hundred of one years after his death that he needs to be moved and translated in. And what is also telling about this story is that the Smith is being instructed to inform one of the canons who's at the time in conflict with a bishop to bridge the conflict with the bishop and to facilitate

the translation of the saint into the cathedral. So there are many elements of conflict and and of relationships we're seeing developing in the city of Winchester through this miracle and through these translation stories. Unfortunately, the smith doesn't follow the saint's order. He forgets. And he then tells one of the canons at the cathedral who is at odds with the bishop, he has a number of tenants in the city. And the smith then tells the tenant, Please tell your landlord, the canon, that he needs to make peace with the bishop so that they can facilitate together the translation of the saint. The canon then doesn't really get this information until two years later. So it takes time from Swithin first start interceding on his own behalf and advocating for his sainthood until the translation process actually starts.

and that triggers according to the hagiography. So the hagiography is the story of the saint's life. And according to the hagiography, there are a number of additional miracles that Swithin has to perform to awaken the religious and the lay community of the city to acknowledge him as a saint. And one of those, which I somewhat touched on earlier, was this healing miracle. And the healing miracle is the person in 969 has quite painful hunchback. And he falls asleep at the tomb of Swithin and then gets healed. However, they are not quite sure if it's Swithin who's healing him or if it's one of the other tombs around there.

So that then doesn't give the religious authorities enough evidence to conclude that Swithin is the healing bishop. So they then have to have a final miracle, which again is a person who's cured through intercession from Swiven. So Sweden as a character in life is quite important for the foundations of the political and cultural establishment and survival of Wessex. And he's also quite important for bringing together in some ways a very tense cultural and religious landscape. in Winchester in the 10th century. And this is also the middle of the Benedictian reforms of the Anglo-Saxon church at the time. So there are a lot of things happening in the religious communities in England at a time when they are taking on the new fashion of translating local saints. So Swithin becomes part of this wider landscape of religious reform, new devotion,

and focus on religiosity, also as part of the defence of the kingdom in some ways against the Vikings. So he's got a really quite complicated sort of backstory to him, doesn't he? Swithin. And then he's being used quite deliberately, quite politically. And the translator, you already mentioned the new minister. So there's new minister that's being established by Alfred's son, Edward the elder. And he's sort of making a break with the previous old minister church, isn't he? And he's sort of using this translation, taking it sort of from one into his new establishment.

It's clearly a very political tool as well as the saints and use of these remains, wouldn't you say? Both yes and no. So it's part of a very political landscape. Fortunately for the old minister crowd, which is the old cathedral, the translation is focused on the old minister, not the new minister. So the New Minster is the burial ground and shrine in some ways dedicated to Alfred and his son and that dynasty, whereas Swithon becomes the focal point of the preservation and revival of the Old Minster, which according to the stories and the sources, is so close to the New Minster that you can barely get a young child to walk between the two buildings. And if you visit Winchester and see the layout in the ground outside the cathedral, you can see how close the two buildings actually were. And the translation of Swithon spurs on a rebuilding of the old minister to encompass also and to include the original burial site of Swithin. So it kind of feeds into this competition between the two ministers that eventually evolves. into the two key religious communities of Winchester, the cathedral, with its monastery,

and Newminster, which eventually evolves into after the Norman conquest, Hyde Abbey, because after the conquest, they're forced to move out of the city for a various number of reasons. It kind of becomes part of the fuel of the religious and the political fight between the two institutions, where the new minister in many ways can be seen as the church of the dynasty. The Old Minister is what evolves into the cathedral, but it's also the Church of the ecclesiastical orders, of the ones who were there originally, and the bishop. So part of the tension in the kingdom is manifested in the tension between these two buildings and communities in so many ways.

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like a local saint and as you've just pointed out he's hugely significant for Winchester and also Winchester's role in England really when Wessex this is the time period where we go from different kingdoms and Wessex and you go towards an England in actual country but he does start as this very sort of local saint but then he spreads from there so he's cult goes beyond the south-west of England and beyond England altogether and he becomes especially important in Norway can you say something about how this all happens. How does he spread out from England in the first place? The spread out from England seems to be part of the wider ecclesiastical networks and networks of monks who travel in the Middle Ages,

particularly in the 10th and 11th century. So with the wave of after 971, when the translation happened until early 12th century, there's a wave of monks traveling from England and connecting up with other monasteries or the churches elsewhere in Europe. In some ways England is, or what becomes England, exports ecclesiastical and religious skills, particularly to Northern Europe, in the form of monks, to become missionaries, in form of priests, to become bishops, in form of bishops. And these individuals often bring with them their own traditions and religious fashions and preferences. And that seems to be part of how Switzerland, spreads particularly to Scandinavia, although we have two different dates we can deal with here.

There is a reference in some central medieval material that King Knut sent a relic of Sweden to what the source is referring to as Daeshah. And the Daesha they're referring to could be the Danish kingdom, which at a time could include Denmark and Norway and part of Sweden. with that we don't actually have later medieval evidence of a swithuan relic in Denmark. There is evidence of the cultus and sweden as in celebration of mass and prayers dedicated to swithen or invoking swithin in some ways. But there isn't a relic. And the only known relic of swithen in Scandinavia is in Stavanger, which some historians have argued plausibly could be the relic.

that Knut sends to Scandinavia. And that is part of Knut's wider work of integrating the different parts of his kingdom. The early 11th century is a vital period, particularly in the Scandinavian context of cultural and religious change, where you have a transition from a pre-Christian social and cultural landscape to a more Christianized landscape. And the English element, and particularly the West Saxon and Winchester element is quite important there as communities who have, in some ways, it looks like surplus individuals who they can export with competencies to perform the conversions. Winchester is not unique when it comes to sending monks abroad or bishops abroad. There are a number of ecclesiastical and religious sites in England that does this,

the same in Ireland and Hamburg in what is today, Germany. But Winchester seems to have a particular affinity with Scandinavia through the source material we have, partly because of surviving manuscript references we have of individuals named coming from Winchester or from the Winchester Diocese, where the cultus and Sweden is quite strong. And also we have a number of surviving manuscripts fragments from Winchester, surviving insubes, Scandinavia in different versions. The unfortunate reality with looking at the early middle ages in Norway is that we don't have many complete manuscripts. So the source material that we have is quite different than what we have in England or in the British

trials in general or on the continent. We have a situation where less than 1% of the written material is surviving, which means that we can't really say much from the period. We have to infer from other evidence. But what we have surviving, particularly from the 11th century, are fragments of religious texts, either complete leaves or fragments of the leaves that are surviving in other texts or text of being copied directly. That gives us an insight into what might have been brought over of material goods. And much of these material goods come from Winchester and the scriptoria attached to the monasteries in Winchester. So there is likely then we can infer that along with the individuals we find mentioned in both

the saga material and in Anglo-Saxon sources that there have been a significant translation of individuals traveling and bringing with them religious practices from the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms or England at the time to Scandinavia. and then particularly to Norway and Denmark. Denmark, due to its proximity, seems to have a lot of impact also from the German bishoprics and the Frankish kingdom, whereas England and Iceland seem to be particularly favored missionary grounds

for Anglo-Saxon bishops and monks. So that is one of the earlier possible translations of Swithun from England to Norway. And the shrine at Stavanger is quite significant. It's the only known church dedication in Norway to Swithen. We have Sweden showing up in religious calendars and in the traditional agricultural calendar known as a plimstav, which is a yardstick marked with individual dates and saint's dates. And Swithen then shows up in majority of the provinces of the old Norwegian kingdom, which also includes or canes. Shetland, Fair Islands, Iceland, and also Greenland. But from Greenland, we don't have that much material.

In mainland Norway, we find in Sweden's day throughout the kingdom. However, when it comes back to Stavanger, Stavanger is the key element here for how Swithuan is introduced to Norway, at least if we're following the sources. As I mentioned earlier, we have a challenge with a number of surviving sources, But what we do have is a reference in Snorri, so Snorri Sturlason's Hemskringla, which is the saga of Norwegian kings.

In there, we have a reference to a bishop, Reynard. If we cross-reference that with other sources, seems to be Raynard of Winchester, a monk who is traveling, according to the sources, from Newminster or Hyde Abbey, which is not the minister that holds sense within thereof, but who brings with them, as we can infer, elements of a West Saxon cult tradition.

And this is the closest thing we come to a smoking gun for who could have brought Winchester and Stavanger together. And it's in the years after we know of Renaud's life and his death as part of the Norwegian Civil Wars. that we hear the first references to a relic of St. Sweden in Stavanger. And that relic alongside the first bishop of Savangar that we know of, who is from Winchester, suggests that someone has brought with them both a relic

and the liturgical and ecclesiastical competencies from Winchester to build a new religious community in Stavanger. And around the beginning of the 12th century, Stavanger seems to be translating itself as a place from a small village to an ecclesiastical site that is important within the Norwegian kingdom and becomes a bishopric. In that process, it also then acquires a protective saint, which is then Swithen. So the cathedral in Stavanger is dedicated among others to St. Swindsweden. Stavanger then becomes a hub for the Sweden cult in Norway, based on the surviving evidence we have. The bishop of Stavanger, who succeeds Réinard, is later elected to the bishopric of Nidaros, who is the archbishopric of Norway and the Norwegian realm in the Middle Ages.

And it is proposed by, among other, Michael Lapid, that he might have brought with him the familiarity and the knowledge of Switham to Niederos. And from Niederos, it might have spread out to the church province of Norway. Because Niederos is the religious and cultural hub within the Norwegian realm. It kind of becomes a catalyst for what is known there spreads out. And Sweden isn't the only Anglo-Saxon or even West Saxon saint. We see reoccurring or being introduced and surveillance. within the Norwegian material or the Nidaros material up until the 16th century.

And those Anglo-Saxon saints we do have surviving are primarily either royal saints or saintly bishops who take part in religious revivals or reforms. So Swithuan here fits with a larger landscape of the cults that is promoting. and favoured in the archdiocese of Niederos. That's great, and I think it's so fascinating, and I think people don't quite realize the impact that Christianity from England and from places like Winchester actually had on Scandinavia, we tend to not really see it going that way so much.

But actually, that has a huge impact, because we're, as you've been explaining, we're at a time where this is really developing from the sort of pre-Christian landscape and, you know, really developing as nations, you know, Norway and Sweden and them are properly developing as nations, aren't they? So that English influence is actually quite extraordinary, isn't it? It is very extraordinary. And one of the earliest Christian kings in Norway is supposedly,

according to the Thagas, fostered at an English Christian court. He's fostered at the court of Wessex and brings with them personnel, knowledge and cult practices with him back, although later he lapses into a pseudo-paganism thing without practice in Christianity. because the people he is ruling isn't ready for Christianity. Also the later kings, so Olaf the first and all of the second who becomes St. Olaf, also bring with them personnel skills and influence from the West Saxon and from England and general with them back to Norway when they're taking over the kingdom and converting the areas they're ruling. And is this something specific just to Scandinavia or do similar things happen in other parts of Europe as well from Winters?

is that from Wessex? Or is Scandinavia special because of the links that people, you know, you mentioned Knut already, and obviously we have got Scandinavian connections already. Well, Wessex at that time has a particular affinity to Scandinavia. And we see that also in Knut's reign, but we also see it in Alfred's reign, where as part of the translation of Orozhius' history against the pagans, he includes the story of Uthera, where he is inquisitive about the society who produces these hedons who come and destroy his realm or attack his realm. So there's a particular interest at that time in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms about the Norse, or the pre-Christian or the Scandinavian lands.

But the spread of Christianity from Wessex or from Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in general is not unique to Scandinavia. Anglo-Saxon or English bishops and monks and nuns in particular were instrumental in the conversion of the Frisians, of the Saxons, of the territories that become integrated into the Frankish kingdoms in the north and in the west. So the fringes of Shalaman's kingdom become converted through the aid of West Saxon, monks, nuns and bishops, although the West Saxons weren't the only ones. So, there is a wider tradition of missionary work in the Anglo-Saxon old English churches that is in some ways the conversion of Scandinavia is just the last leg of this. It's the last episode in this long novella of people traveling out from the British Charles to convert the pagans. And when you hit the beginning of the 11th century, it seems to kind of slow down a little bit,

partly because the pagans are further away and partly because the interests and the focal point of the English church and the English governing system and the rulers are turned towards Normandy in a different way. The focus of the church after the Norman conquest is much more making sure that the Anglo-Saxon or the English church is having the correct rights, having the correct saints and doing all that reform to make sure they are doing the right stuff.

rather than spreading their own faith outwards. So other religious centers succeed in many ways and continues the tradition. So you have a spread from Hamburg Bremen, which is the North German bishopric that is established in northern Germany. But you also have other German-speaking areas that is facilitating the spread eastward into Poland, into what is today Ukraine, Belarus, etc. although those areas is earlier also converted from the East, so from Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire. So different parts and different churches are converging on the Baltic Sea. With the Crusades in the 13th century against the pagans along the Baltic coast, or the pre-Christian individuals along the Baltic coast, are among the key final stages,

with a conversion of the Lithuanians in the 14th century, which is the final step. But it's just a long tradition of these religious communities as part of their work go out and convert communities out there. And that's just such a brilliant, huge big story, Carl. And I love this. And I love the fact that these saints are such a big part of it. And also the physical remains of the saints, you know, because this all starts really very much with that translation and the physical body that

skeleton being moved and all of that. And as you've already said, this idea that a part of Swithyn was one of the relics was sent to Norway. So I think my final question really is, what we actually know about Swithyn's body and his relics right now. And is there actually a bone that belongs to St. Swithin in Stavanger now today? You're raising a very important and possibly very difficult question here. And I'm saying this because I'm not an archaeologist. I'm a historian. So I only have to rely on what other people are reporting to me. And in the historical sources, it seems to be that there has been a piece of swithin, an arm bone, translated to Stavanger, some point before the year 1,200. Whether or not it's there today, we don't know, partially because during the Reformation,

most, if not all, relicaries in Norway were destroyed. And there are a couple of examples that survive due to different reasons. One of them is the reliquary of St. O'O. which was translated to the royal treasury in Denmark because of its exquisite nature. And then later was given back to the Catholic Church in Norway when it was reintroduced. There might still be a bone in Stavanger because it might have been put into the altar itself. A physically inside it. Yes, because according to the Norwegian law code, so Gurdating law, and the older Gullatin law, which is the law code for pre-13th century Norway that accounts for the area of Western Norway.

In that law, there is a clause that says every altar should have a relic. And an altar is not valid unless it has a relic within it. Therefore, the likely place that you would place a relic of Sinswydon would be inside of the altar. So if there is still a bone surviving there, it would be within the altar itself. And I know there are archaeological excavations going on in Stavanger at the moment, but I don't think they will be excavating the altar itself because it's still in use. But they are excavating underneath to better understand the chronology of events in the city, but also the chronology of the churches.

and they have found bodies and bones and objects from pre-cathedral times in Stavanger. So there is a lot of exciting new data coming out of Stavanger. But in addition, for the community of Stavanger, the presence of the bone isn't really that important. And that seems to be part of a wider cultural revival in the 19th century. When the city becomes very comfortable about who it is, there's a larger national revival. throughout Norway and Europe at this time, where the local community in Stavanger looks around at its past to see what is in our past that can show our relationship to the national history. And how can we signal that both to ourselves and tell our story and to the community around us?

And in some ways, make a distance to Sweden, because at that point, Norway and Sweden is in a union where a lot of the Norwegian political landscape and elite is not very happy with the union, especially from the 1860s onwards. There's a significant cultural division around the element of the union. And a number of Norwegians then turn to the past to find symbols and identifiers of a distinct Norwegian independent history, where the Anglo-Saxon relationship or old English relationship with Norway and its role in facilitating the establishment of the kingdom and the establishment of the Norwegian church becomes very popular because it's tied up to the earlier kings of Norway.

And in that process, Stavanger as a central medieval city whose dating is around 1130-ish, looks at its past and says, okay, what can we use? We can't use Bishop Renaud because he is killed for treason. So the bishop who brings Witham, allegedly the relic of Swithen, is killed for treason, so you can't use him. And we can't use the king who is allegedly the one who establishes the Bishop Recoast of Anger because he establishes the bishop at Reco Stavanger to be able to get a divorce and to get remarried. So what do you do? You then find the local saint. So Swithin becomes a local signifier of identity, both distinct identity from Bergen, which is a city further north, which has the traditional states of being the earlier capital of Norway and has other saints.

And it's also a signifier against Trondheim, which in the middle ages with Nidaros and the site of the shrine of St. Olaf, said both is a religious signifier of saying, we are an old cathedral city. but it also tying itself to the national narrative by saying we are a cathedral city who were established as part of the wider cultural links with England, because England and the United Kingdom at that point is very culturally and politically important, both economically but also politically, in the discussions over the union with Sweden. So this is a very complex narrative, which we probably could do another episode on a different time. Yes. But the manifestation of this enthusiasm that grows out in Stavanger for Swithen as their local medieval persona is that you find boats or ships, you find schools, you find streets, you find buildings, you find religious and civic communities named after Swithun as a local signifier, both signifying their belonging, but, also possibly their religious affinity to the church and the legacy of the early church in Norway.

So Sweden has become very important in Stavanger, is the conclusion here. Yeah, but it was so extraordinary about that, though, isn't it? It's how his story has sort of gone through so many different, not just generations, but actually, you know, we're talking about centuries, millennia here, actually, starting with 9th century when he was actually alive and then going into the, the 10th 11th century, middle ages, and then again in modern period. So it's a sort of resonates at different time periods and that has different significance and different meanings to different people, which I think is quite extraordinary. Yeah. And even today,

the cathedrals of Stavanker and Winchester have a very friendly relationship. Yeah. Where communities from each bishop visit each other every year and have mass together to celebrate and acknowledge the relationship established on the basis of, of the Sweden relic. So it's a continually evolving and growing story. Fantastic. You do have to wonder what Swithon himself, who was, as you say, actively involved in battling the attacking Vikings back in the 9th century,

what he would have thought if he would have liked that or not. You never quite know. True, true. Yes. Carl, that has been absolutely fantastic. And it's taken as far forward in time than I was expecting us to, which is absolutely brilliant. So thank you so much for sharing all of that information with us.

You're welcome. Thank you for having me on the podcast. So thank you all for listening. This brings us right to the end of this episode of Gone Medieval from History Hit. I'm Dr. Kat Jarman. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already. And our Medieval Monday's newsletter, just look in the episode notes for how to do that. Please do join us again. My co-host, Matt Lewis, will be back again on Saturday and I will be back here next Tuesday. Thanks so much for listening.