Modern Wisdom - #380 - Dan Jones - Is Genghis Khan Harder Than Jocko Willink?

Episode Date: October 4, 2021

Dan Jones is a historian, TV presenter and an author. Dan took a break from walking about great British castles to write a book about the 1000 years of the Middle Ages. Knights and Templars and Monks and Mongols and Barbarians. Expect to learn why Genghis Khan was harder than Jocko Willink, Dan's best ever finish in Peloton, why I won't be allowed to go as a wizard to his imaginary medieval fancy dress party, just how bad a pandemic in the Middle Ages was, why Rome got rekt by climate change and much more... Sponsors: Get over 37% discount on all products site-wide from MyProtein at http://bit.ly/modernwisdom (use code: MODERNWISDOM) Get 20% discount & free shipping on your Lawnmower 4.0 at https://www.manscaped.com/ (use code MODERNWISDOM) Extra Stuff: Buy Powers & Thrones - https://amzn.to/3m6kXtc Follow Dan on Twitter - https://twitter.com/dgjones  Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Join the discussion with me and other like minded listeners in the episode comments on the MW YouTube Channel or message me... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ModernWisdomPodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello everyone, welcome back to the show. My guest today is Dan Jones, historian, TV presenter and an author. Dan took a break from walking around Great British Castles to write a book about the thousand years of the Middle Ages, knights and Templars and monks and Mongols and barbarians and stuff. And I thought this was going to be an in-depth historical treatise thing about the middle ages and medieval times and peasants and that. Turns out that Dan is actually really funny and we got distracted talking almost exclusively not about history. So today expect to learn why Genghis Khan was harder

than Jocka Willink. Dan's best ever finishing peloton, why I won't be allowed to go as a wizard to his imaginary fancy dress party, just how bad the pandemic in the Middle Ages was, why Rome got wrecked by climate change and much more. There isn't really any higher praise that I could give Dan than allowing him to take up one of the coveted less than a hundred following spots on my Twitter. So that's the highest accolade I can bestow on him. So you get to hear today our burgeoning bromance develop and we're now going to be on each other's whoop teams and maybe cook each other dinner at some point. I don't know. His wife might not agree with that. Whatever, anyway.

But now it's time for my new best friend Dan Jones Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. Do you ever think about how much time people that are really, really stone to have spent watching you walk around Great British Castles? I haven't like broken it down into, I like segmented it according to intoxicants. I mean, I'm aware dimly that there's like a weird number of people, not just in the UK where I live, but worldwide who've watched secrets of great British castles. I hadn't given much thought to, like, to do it as a stoner thing.

Are you going to tell me otherwise? I think you'd be surprised. I have a burgeoning group of students that work for me, many of whom I know they go to program if they're blazed out of their mind is to get secrets of great British castles on. Wow. That's pretty weird. That does weird me outside. I mean,

it doesn't, I've not not in a bad way, but that would, that would definitely ruin my buzz. I think it's been a long time. It's been a long time. So I don't, I'm just out of touch with my, with my blaze mind, but I, well, of course, it naturally freaked me out. Yeah. Well, I think it's a kind of, I can't give you a, um, like an objective view on this soft, sultry tones, no fast movements. No, there's a lot of, there was good camera work. Yeah, good colour palating, nice, nice presets, nice luts on it. I reckon, yeah, I reckon lean into it for the next one. Find the most psychedelic castle that you can. I love your optimism. We'll ever get another series of that show.

It's been a long time now. You know, I made that show back in 20, when we did the first series I think I was like 2013, 2014, 2015 that kind of time we did that and and that's now getting to be a while ago like I think I might have been in my now I can't have been in my 20s when I started it but I was only just out of them yeah and out 40 yeah yeah I and I sort of do, I think, if my, if, if and when, because let's be honest, it's always a when in TV. My career just like hits the wall of the tunnel and crumbles. And all that's left is my back catalogue. It'll be, there'll be a point to which people stop recognizing me in the street going oh my god I'm a god you're a castle guy and

Stopping like That old dude there looks like long prey here at the side, but none at the top shambling around smelling of his own urine That looks like an old version of the He really looked after himself. He was so youthful and sprightly and look at him now. Clean, shaven, serious at the right moment. Are you, is he fighting a pigeon over there? Is that his pigeon? Is that somebody else's? Yeah. We should help that guy. No, no, he probably smells like that's my future.

If I can see that as your, your trajectory, man, I think. And then the stone is, we'll still love you, because for them, no time is elapsed at all. Well, but then the hope in this narrative is then it's like the redemption is the very, very late phase kind of hips to revival. Yeah. And I clean up a bit and get a hair dryer. Got to find that same leather jacket again. The normal show. Yeah. Screedy, it's like squeezing into that. Actually, not squeezing leather jacket again. I'm not a show. Yeah, squeezing into that. Actually not squeezing into it,

because I'm so thin and scrawny from Mounty Trish and it's just hanging loose over me. Like a guy forks, dummy or a scarecrow. New book is about the middle ages. Hey guys, I'm sure it's good at the moment. Check it out. Well you haven't lost it yet. Yet new book, Middle Ages.

What's so good about the Middle Ages? Why is it so special? Well, it's special to me. I spent my whole career to date, more or less in the Middle Ages. I mean, when I was a student, I was studying medieval legal history. And then I've written ten books and eight of them have been about the Middle Ages including this one, Parson's Row. So,

you know, so there's a personal reason I've just spent a lot of time. I like, I think, I think it's a nice, like if you're sort of choosing to the menu of historical periods to delve into it's got a nice sort of combination of the vaguely familiar and totally weird, if that makes any sense. So there's, I think there's times in history where you can, or periods in history where it just feels a little like journalism. If we talk about the wars of the 20th century, you know some of us and my grandparents were all to some degree or other involved in The Second World War So like that doesn't feel that feels normal that feels like oh, yeah, that's just us with

Flatcaps on or whatever Tin helmets sort of you go, but. You go back way back to, I'd say the bronze age, feel red though, that Mary Renault book. The King is dead. You read that? No. It's a great, Mary Renault is a great historical fiction author, a fantastic novelist and she read a book called The King Is Dead, which is about Feasties in the Minotaur, and it's for me the most sort of, not authentic, we don't know, but most believable rendition of what Bronze Age Athens and Crete were like and what the Minotaur could or could not have been.

And it sets up that world as almost completely alien and it's like you've just gone to a different planet there's almost nothing that connects us with those primates that were also homo-servants. Now the middle age just sits between those two things, the totally alien and the totally familiar and at one turn you can be touched deeply and immediately by what seems to be a sort of human constant between us and them and and then you turn a corner and it's like wow that's so crazy you guys thought what so that's why I like it that's what and it's also a repository of amazing stories.

I've spent a lot of time writing British history and Phantastic history and of course, from Henry II, the Elven, and Vacquotaine through to the wars, the first wars for Britain, or the Hundred Years War, or the Rose, or whatever, whatever. That's all, those are all great stories as a part of a national story, our national history, the canon of our national history,

quite old-fashioned but still exciting. But you know, you throw the lens open to a book like Powers and Thrones, which, you know, I've tried to go as broad as possible, and you've just got the greatest hits, some of the greatest hits of history reside in this particular period. It's like, if you were going to do a history of popular music, you'd be spending on like a lot, a lot of time between the 50s and the 70s, right? And the Middle Ages a bit like that, like a lot of the good tunes are in the Middle Ages.

And it's... There's a lot of analogies there. It's bookended between two Roman sackings as well. That was quite cool to find out that the Middle Ages is parentheses by Rome getting fucked twice. Well, the commission, but there was a very concise commission for this book. 20, 19, I think.

I think it was 2019. I went to Clivton to a literary festival and my publisher Anthony Cheetham to whom this book is dedicated was there. And Anthony is a great man and a great publisher and a dear friend of mine. And he gets the point. And he said, history of the Middle Ages. I mean, that was how the conversation started. Hi Anthony, how are you? I'm good. History of the Middle Ages. Sack of Rome.

Sack of Rome. On to it. I said, yeah, yeah, for sure. Okay, good. And then they drew up the contract. So that's how our commissioning process has worked in the past. So the only, like information I had to go on

to begin with was, well, here, here are some bookends you used to do the bid in the middle, but that's why he's a great publisher, because he sees things in these enormous broad strokes and the pillars of the story and then you, you know, go and build it. It's his visionary, and I don't use that term lightly. But easy, it's for all that he might be visionary, giving someone a thousand years

of history to try and put into a book when you don't have to go and do the research yourself. That is, it's laying out the battle plans, but not having to, sort of, step foot in the mud quite so much. Yeah, it's a great general. Yeah, anything around. Everything's okay. All right, so I love that. I love that. That's the challenge.

I don't take well to micro management. You give me a task, I will perform it, and I will usually, although not always, but usually give you a good result. But don't come micro managingmanaging me, leave it to me, I know best. So that's my working attitude. And so we gel quite well. Here's a great idea. I do it and he doesn't mess with me. Give him a good book and then he sells it. That's a book of rives. That's a great way to work. That's a boss.

Most people's bosses, they're not like that. That's really a bossy. There's a Bill Hicks sketch about the boss, do you remember, you ever listen to Bill Hicks? Yeah, but not this one. He's just talking why he likes being a standard comedian. And he goes, the only thing really, he likes being a standard comedian because he just winges about the long days

on the road and the broke failed relationships and all that stuff. And he goes, but the thing about being a stand-up comedian is you don't have a boss. And the same is true about being a popular or trade history. Now we're with the good publisher. We're with the publisher. We have a boss. No, the boss. You want a boss? I don't want a boss. No, you don't.

No, you don't. No, you don't. You don't actually worry about it. All right, so the beginning, the beginning. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The beginning. Let's get to the beginning, right? Why is Rome fucked?

Why is that wrecked? Well, Gibbon took six volumes to get to the Bornevist, didn't he? But let's try it quickly. There are lots of reasons why the Roman Empire in the West fell in the 5th century. In Pousin Throne's, I started at the very beginning and start with a cyclical shift in the climate of the Mediterranean world. After the Roman climate optimum period of relatively warm, relatively wet weather, highly conducive to agriculture, highly conducive to an empire feeding itself. After that sort of cyclical downturn of slightly

cool, a slightly drier regional climate. And Rome came under, so that's the sort of , that's the climate framing. And then Rome comes under enormous pressure from waves of migrants. Waves set in chain by a short-sharp mega drought in the far east which moved the tribes called Huns, Huns bumped into the Goths and the Allens. The Goths and the Allens, particularly the Goths, found their way towards the border of the Roman Empire in both East and eventually West, put enormous pressure on a political system that was already faltering because of problems, some of which were related to simple size. The Roman Empire was too massive to be, it was like a very unstable, very large star. You know, they start to become unstable under the pressure of their own mass and gravity.

And so that had been a long-term process within the Roman Empire. So there's this combination of factors which by the beginning of the fifth century lead to a sort of breaking up process of the Western Roman Empire and then in 410 the symbolic sacking of Rome, not just symbolic, I mean damaging and and and shocking, but most of all symbolic sacking of Rome by Alleric and the gods. And that didn't herald the immediate end of the Roman Empire or even the immediate end of the Roman Empire in the West, And that didn't herald the immediate end of the Roman Empire, or even the immediate end of the Roman Empire in the West. But it was a sort of, I mean, the crafts modern analogy is with 9-11. It was a sort of, even at the time, it seemed like a sea-change kind of moment,

which seemed to herald a new phase in history, and in retrospect, has retained that reputation. All right, so Rumsfucked, why was it that for the rest of time, no one appears to have been able to replicate a empire of their sort of size? I guess they've really tried to do it, but we're outside of the middle ages then. Was there something just inherently unstable about our area of the world? then was there something just inherently unstable about our area of the world? Oh, so you mean an empire in Europe or an empire in the world? An empire in Europe? Napoleon would have something to say. Was that equivalent sizing to the Roman Empire?

Napoleon and Shana. Okay, actually, look, the Romans are the only imperial power to have ruled the entire coastal literal of the Mediterranean. So we'll give them that. Which is hard to do. Just hard to do. I mean, that's like Napoleon would probably have liked. Why is it hard to do? Because it's a vast area just in the first instance. Although, yes,, of course the British have commanded the Great Empire, the Mongols commanded an enormous land empire in the Middle Ages.

And the Arabs, the first as well, have a caliphate, probably came the closest to emulating Rome. But the Roman Imperial system was was was was uniquely effective for its time. And you have a sort of perfect combination of overwhelming by an order of magnitude, military capability. an order of magnitude military capability. Sort of analogous to the modern United States, but sort of much, much greater than the modern United States in comparison to every other power, certainly in their region. You had in the sort of peak of the Imperial age,

a highly effective sort of replicable political system with a, I think was very important about it was a pan-Roman culture, a culture that went beyond sort of regional culture. So that Romans living in villas in Britannia would feel something in common with Romans living in a villa in North Africa, or Sicily, or Rome, you know, so you have a common language, you have, of course, their famous roads. You have the concept of citizenship, although by, of course, not unique to the Roman Empire, but which binds a sort of ruling class together by self-interest as much as anything else. You have a sophisticated body of law. You know, all of these ingredients of the Roman Empire come together over, they're built up over a long time and it's hard to attribute this, it's as to one of those things on its own. But in the time since Rome's fall, it's proven difficult, well, it's proven impossible

for any number of generations for another power to put together that sort of unique combination of building blocks of empire. I mean, people try, in the middle ages, who came close to this? Well, I think the, as I've said already, the um, you know, the Umayyad Caliphate up till the middle of the 8th century. Um, I think, you know, Charlemagne gave it a good go. I think, you know, Charlemagne gave it a good go. And although, you know, that problem with Charlemagne's empire, was that it was like Napoleon's, which I've also mentioned, highly dependent on one charismatic and visionary individual at the head of it.

Should have got your publisher. Yeah, like he'd be a great, he's an empire builder. Should have got him in. Well, he wasn't around. Should have fixed it, should have worked it out somehow. Okay, I'll ask Bill and Ted. Should have got some sort of a solution, got him in, could have published some great books

and held on to an empire for a bit longer. It would have been a tyrannical empire than the most effective. But you said he just lets everyone get on with their own thing. It would have been fine. He lets me get, I didn't say let's everyone get on with their own thing. Ah, he's able to give sovereignty to those who deserve it. Right, okay.

That's a good leadership principle. Yeah, I like it. So, you think Jocco willink? Exactly, yeah. Extreme ownership, but only for the people that deserve it. Only for the people that deserve it. Not for you. Jocco doesn't come with a lot of caveats, does he?

No, fairly simple. Him and Goggins, fairly simple, right down the back of a post it now. Which Goggins? Walton Goggins. David Goggins. I don't know about that, God. I only know about Walton Goggins, fairly simple, right down the back of a post it now. Which Goggins? Walton Goggins. David Goggins. I don't know about that, I only know about Walton Goggins. David Goggins is like a hardcore black thinner jocco out of the Marines. So he's a Marine and then he's done ultra races and he goes on Rogan and he swears a lot and he says stay hard and

That's good advice and that's what he does yesterday But he seems to say to every situation actually it's like it's like a one size Fixes all solution to just stay hard. Which Jocko doesn't talk about actually. So maybe that's, maybe if you were to blend the two together, you'd have someone have a great tan that have good endurance, that'd be a Brazilian jujitsu black belt. Do you do Jitsu? No, I don't.

And I don't think that David Goggins does, but he just ties his hands behind his back and his feet together and get dropped in a water quite a lot because he's got, he's got a fear of water. So he overcomes his fear of water by being hog tied and thrown in. There's a, there's a sort of historical tradition that go on. I know it's like new because the, the broadcasting medium is new, but that kind of goes like that definitely goes back to who Dean, doesn't it? Hmm, like super physically hard, I'm gonna do some ridiculous stunt, which is gonna, you know, scare the shitter if you've empathize for one second. You know, David Blaine had come along, like 15, 20 years later, that dude would have, he'd have been a jock or whatever.

I think. You reckon? Yeah, I think so. I think he's a bit mindful for that. I think he's a bit sort of complex, not that jock and Goggins are simple humans. Oh no, oh no. But yeah, just in case they're listening

because he'll fuck me up. But I do think that there, I, from what I know of David Blaine, he seems like a pretty fairly sort of complex character. I'm not sure that you can come up with stay hard. If you are, if you're as complex as David Blaine, I think you know, you're right. You know what Blaine should have been You if Blaine came along now, I know what he'd be what he'd be a peloton instructor

He would be a peloton instructor like the soulfulness plus the physical you love your peloton, don't you? Do I ever set a personal best this morning came second though was it was it today second? Yeah, but you know like do you write pedalton no okay let me tell you this you're gonna live ride let's say it's a 30 minute hit and hills ride just say doesn't have to be but let's say it is you're gonna know within the first three minutes like if's going to be a couple of bit, you know, if they're there, they're there, you just know you're not going to keep up those people. They're like, they must, I think they're probably professional riders, or they're

certainly like the skinny 50 year old dudes you see out for doing a hundred miles every Sunday, riding for London to brighten and stuff. But I'm not that dude. I'm not. Elite Dabler. Like the King of the Dabblies. So I'm not a pro. I'm not gonna be a pro,

but I'm usually, I'm there, I'm there about. I'm top 10. I'm not a top 10 usually. who do you get picked by today some bastard? I'm not just something I don't even know I can't like his name was I don't know And he spins 36 or something. I don't know He might just dan Jones that's who we need that's who we need to but I was racing There's racing there's a woman I was racing for number three position. That was a good race. And I had a personal first. I'm very, I'm very pro peloton.

And I tell you why, not just for the physical fitness aspect, although that is superb. And they've got great trainers. And like, you're going to do well if you dream peloton. But I like the cod philosophy. I buy into that West Coast kind of selfish hippie thing. I don't believe it per se. Like I am aware that this is like a lot of gobbledygook.

But I also buy into it in the moment. And I think that like, I think that's how cops work. I don't think that all of Manson's family, well, I, well, yeah, I'm very proud of this. Like, I don't think that I'm questioning, like, like, you know, dudes with Kuresh, I don't think they were all like completely brainwashed. I don't think cops are all completely brainwashed. It's full of people who are like, why do I believe this? Yeah, I don't know, but I do. There's nothing to do with the middle ages. But Peloton's a cult. I spoke to Danny Treo, you know, the guy from Koday. Oh, yeah, yeah. Now we're name dropping.

Yeah, if I can. Tell me more. Well, let me tell you about Danny Treo. He was hypnotized by Charles Manson in County Jail. Of course he was. So Charles Manson was in there and he was a little guy, little child. He was a little boy. He was aized by Charles Manson in county jail. Of course he was.

So Charles Manson was in there and he was a little guy, little Charlie, he called him. And Charlie was getting picked on by the bigger guys, but someone had told Danny that Charlie could hypnotize you to get you loaded up on heroin. So he could hypnotize you so that it was like that you were high on heroin again. So they started looking after him because he was able to

Psychologically deploy drugs to them and apparently it was just like being on heroin So he got hypnotized into believing that he was loaded in the in the prison and looked after Charles Manson for a while It's a pretty good story pretty fucking good. Another story about Danny Treo. He once saved Kiefer Sutherland from a stalker. So Kiefer Sutherland, guy from 24, had this bodyguards dude, apparently people in Hollywood like being around tough men, that just part of their posse or whatever.

And this guy had started misbehaving and then it started threatening Kiefer. So Danny told Kiefer that he was gonna sort it. Which in Kiefer's defense, I would have thought meant getting killed as well. Wack him. Didn't mean that just meant like I'll it'll be sort it'll be yeah exactly. Yeah, it'll be sorted but it's Danny Treo like he's a pretty intimidating fellow with a big tattoo. So. It's Danny Treo, like he's a pretty intimidating fellow with a big tattoo. So, but he went away and he sent this dude after Danny and his friend paid him a visit.

He sent Kiefer's wife and Kiefer a bouquet of flowers and a handwritten note apologizing and saying that he hopes they have a good life. So, a useful friend to have if you're ever over in Hollywood. You've got to know Danny Treyer. Yeah, and he'll fuck people up. He's really hard. So I sat up at Mickey Ralk in like in the air New Zealand lounge in LAX years ago. And yeah, you thought Ralk would be intimate. Ralk, I didn't find Mickey Ralk intimidating. I'd be intimidating if I sat up as it Danny Treyer. But he's proper fucked people up. He's hard.

I'm not sure how much Mickey Rock just looks like he's been fucked up. He does now. Yeah. Yeah. Seriously, I think being hard, like, as a, like, just try and make this about history. Yeah. Oh, we have to. I'm enjoying it.

Yeah. I think being hard is definitely, historically, that's a historical moving factor that we don't think about a lot. What do you mean? I mean, you know when you know someone who's hard, they're just like, they're different, like Jocco's hard right? Jocco is a hard man and I don't need to know all the shit he did in like Navy SEAL 3 or Team 3 or whatever he was in to know that I'm just I'm not gonna fuck with him. I don't give out that sort of vibe. No matter how like how many like much I squatted or like pressed or whatever, out big or got all, I'm never going to be hard. No, it's never going to be like,

oh no, that's not right. Okay, some people are just, I think they're just hard. They're just hard, they're just their vibe. It's a thing they give you, they're just hard. And I suspect that if you met a tiller the hum, right? You reckon he's hard. In the mid-fifth century. I reckon the guy's hard.

I think Genghis Khan is like just like a harb. Who do you reckon is the hardest man from the Middle Ages? Or woman? Genghis Khan. I think he's going to be, I think it's going to be, I think it's going to be, I want to get it right if I make it because it's hard. I think, I was thinking, so, you know, I've been talking about this before. Someone said, okay, well, come on, then why did Genghis Khan put together the greatest contiguous land empire seen in the Middle Ages? And the answer isn't just because he was hard.

I went through a whole, well, the structure of Mongol tribal society in the late 12th century was such and such, you know, some climate factors probably at play and, you know, the relative organization of Genghis Khan's meritocratic reorganized Mongol army versus the, you know, the decadent imperial societies of the, I didn't mention the guy must have just been in a double heart. But I think that's got to have been a factor. Don't you? We know how people... One of the things I've tried to get to in...

Okay, this is all silly. But there is a serious point. And when in, like, okay, this is all silly, but there is a serious point. And when I was writing, I've written this big book, a thousand years of medieval history, and I've tried in this more than I've tried in other books. I've tried really hard to have this kind of stuff in mind, really try and think clearly about things and try and bring it into without, I don't, I don't dumb down. I, you know, I sound dumb when I, I'm talking to you obviously,

but in the books, and they're not, they're not dumbed down books. This isn't simple Wikipedia, but it does have a, they do have a sensibility of, well, what's this like in modern terms? I think it was when I was writing about the early rise of the Arabs, the first generation of the Hamids, the first conquest out of Arabia. And the Arabs of Muhammad's time are described as, like the son's Vishnu, the wild ass of a man, his hand against everyone's and everyone's against his. Like that's poetic and that's, you know,

that's biblical, It sounds good. But it also, as I was writing, I remember writing that chapter, I think if that reminds me much more of something, how would I explain that to somebody who didn't really dig on the poetry of biblical illusion, didn't really get down with a wild ass of a man as being a grip. It's like this is like Millwall, F.C. Right? This is like Millwall. No one likes us, we don't care. Now we are talking, because that's the same human instinct, that's the same human kind of, like, grrrr basic, whirmean attitude. And although the fortune to the rise of Millwall F.C.'s terrorist supporters in the late 20th and early 20th century, have nothing whatsoever

to do beyond that with the rise of the Arabs and the early Islamic caliphates, I still think it's like elementally something human that joins those two phenomena that one should actually point out without fear of being a bad historian. So what you're saying is that the echoes of the Millwall Terrace reverberate through time. No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that what you hear echoing on the Millwall Terrace is a human trait as old as time.

Tantankarus aggressive. Me. Yes, there we are. Now we've come back. Now we've not hard enough to pull it off. Right, what about this sort of stereotype poster boy then for the Middle Ages? That's got to be knights. Is it knights that kind of everyone thinks Middle Ages and they think knights?

Well, it's two things, isn't it? I mean, if I said to you, Christian Fancy coming to my Medieval Fancy Dress party, assuming you weren't just totally weirded out. Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. Middle ages, Medieval. What's going on there? It's the same word, but different. And yeah, one sort of Latinate ones. So they're just interchangeable? Yeah. Oh, cool. Except Medieval is an adjective in Middle Ages, isn't it? So they're just interchangeable? Yeah, cool.

Except Eddie evil is an adjective in middle ages isn't? Okay, don't worry. You can use either. There's no judgements. I will. On my history peloton. Um, Knights.

So if I'm inviting you to my medieval fan stress part, the high my hypothetical medieval, don't worry, I'm not having one and then not going to invite you after the show. Okay. Is a hypothetical part of it. I say, you know, you've got to come in the costume. I think you're coming as one of two things. You're in one of three things. Like, you might come as like a saucy wench. You might do that. Yep.

I can see, you can see me doing that. You could be like, I got good legs. You might do that. Yep. Oh, you very well. I can see, now I can see me doing that. You could be like, I got good legs. I got good legs. But put that aside. OK. If the wench option's off the table, I say that no wench is OK. If the wench option is off the table,

I think you're going to come as either a knight or a version of a knight, or you're going to come as a monk. Yeah, I was going to say wizard, but monks like the real version of a wizard. Don't come as a wizard. You won't be allowed in a wizard. Is there no wizards or wenches?

Winches, yes. For the most wizards, fuck's sake. You're going to come as a monk or a knight? Just say yes I am. Yes. Yeah, thank you. I thought you were. Now, you're going to cover a monk or a knight because those are the two great archetypes of the Middle Ages. You know, the churchmen? Of course, lots of different churchmen, doesn't that mean?

But let's say the monk or the churchmen over here and the fighting man over here. And those are fascinating roles because to a large extent they are products of and unique to the product of the Middle Ages. So before the Middle Ages you have aestheticsetics, for sure, Christian ascetics, desert-style ideas, you know, all of that sort of stuff, and they're not monks as we think of them. And you, in a similar way, before the Middle Ages, actually before about the 10th century, you have warriors who fight on horseback, who ride into battle and or fight on horseback. But you don't have knights in the Frankish tradition who fight with a couch lance, the campbell saddle and

saddle and stirrups and who have this sort of code of chivalry, which is like a bonded around everything that they do and infused within their mindset. So I think I give a chapter to each of those in Pous and Throne's because I think that not only are these very very symbolic of and particular to the middle ages, these groups amongst them. I think that they're also, like through examining those archetypes, you can tell some really interesting stories about power. Now, this book is called Powers and Thrones because one of its driving, underpinning concerns is what is power in the Middle Ages?

What does it look like? Is it just political power? Is it just military power? is it just being hard? And what's what thousands of other organisations sort of meditate across the course of the book on the different forms power can take in human society as exemplified in the Middle Ages. Where's the power coming from, fundamentally? Well, power doesn't, power doesn't, power isn't kind of, it's like saying where does energy come from? I mean, power doesn't come from anywhere, but power is manifested in different ways,

and power can take different forms. And so in the middle ages, you know, in my career to date, in the books I'd written, I'd written, what I'd done. I've done some dynastic history, so that's power as family, power as kingship, power as political system, pretty much. I've done Templars and Crusaders, okay,'s that's power through religion and that's power through military force. But I was aware having written those books that there were there were large areas of medieval history that I hadn't really written about directly and that were important if you were trying to think about how what power is and how it's manifest so Besides the the constitutional the political the military the religious there's also the

The operation of the Institutions and monks is a good example of this if you think about cluniac monasticism It's Institutional power. It, it's non-military, it's not overtly political, it's sort of, it is religious, but it's more than that, it's cultural, it's institutional. Though the growth of Cluniac monasticism from out of Burgundy along these pilgrim roads joining much of Western Europe. Enriching a system which self enriches a system which spreads its influence across borders, irrespective of political rulers, a system which grants its institutional leaders,

a system which grants its institutional leaders equivalent power to political leaders without a state of beneath them, equivalent wealth to political leaders without a state to provide it. That's a really interesting story. It has echoes, or superficial as they may be, but echoes of things we're dealing with now in terms of big companies like Facebook, Apple, Google, Amazon, how these stateless institutions are bending a world and their factors that political leaders of states have to consider. So I think that story of monks for England, just as an example, is one that takes you not just into the sort of cloister and every day humdrum reality of medieval monasticism,

but actually to thinking quite deeply about what power is and how it can be deployed. Talking about the modern day in Millwall and stuff that happens now, just coming out the back end of a pandemic, hopefully, a lot of pandemics in the middle ages, a lot of those running rubbish. The big ones are black death in the 14th century. Nearly at the end though, they just pip the post. You know, the only other hundred years before Rome got wrecked again and then they'd have been missed off, they'd have been in whatever comes after. Oh, there's an argument that says no black death.

A much delayed Renaissance and, you know, the counterfactual with no black death is very, very, very hard to play. So it's not as... You can't be... We can't be too certain that had the Black Death not come along, you would still have seen the Sack of Rome in the Fitching toilet set. But in our first question, the big pandemics of the Middle Ages, yeah, you've got a look back the mid-14th century and then the way you saw the way through to the 1390s. And much earlier in that, in fact, 800 years earlier than that, you have the Justinianic play, played Justinian harder, harder really to be certain about. It's spread, it's virulence, much more reliant on impressionistic evidence.

What's that? Justinianic play. Well, the accounts of chroniclers saying, oh my god, it was terrible, although it's like mad lockdowns and thousands of people dying all the time. You know, there is far less, like I'm getting super nerdy. So just in the, just in the annic plague of the sixth century AD, seems to have been similar to the black death in it. It was a form of bubonic plague,

which mutated very, very, very infectious and very, very, very deadly. The trouble is, we know a lot about the black death and very little about the justinianic plague. A lot of what we have to surmise about the Justinianic play is surmised by taking what we know of the Black Death and then transposing its rate of spread and its lethality back onto the fragments of evidence we have from this century. So that the range of estimates of how many people, so with the Black Death of the 14th century, we know with a reasonable degree of certainty that it's 50, 60 percent of the population of Western Europe are killed

by the Black Death. We can be quite certain about that, although it varies from place to place, we'd be quite certain about that. However, because of the fragmentary nature of the evidence about the 6th century just in the aniquely, you're sort of using models from the 14th century and putting them on top of very, very scant evidence. And so the high range of estimates for deaths in the just in that plague, I think, runs to like 100 million, but the low range runs to about 50,000. Good confidence interval. Well, it's a problem, right?

Now, if you just read the chronicles of the sixth century, that tallies with this idea that it's closer to 100 million than 50,000 but the trouble is the chronicle is we don't tend to trust chronicles and they tend to get a bit hot under the collar I mean if you only had daily mail and or sun or guardian editorials to go by as your as your historical source you would have somewhat warped idea about the history of the current pandemic, right? You want some stats, you want some data, man?

Give me some data, give me some hard data. Chronic, chronicler, is that not what chronicler's are supposed to do? It's kind of in the name, chronicling things, not pundits, punditurers, that wasn't the name. Yes, but there's take a, we would call say Procopius of Caesaria a chronicler, he'd fallen under that broad term because he writes histories and contemporary histories of what he's living through in the age of Justinian. But the guy is much closer to a paid by the inch, like shock columnist. No, not gossip. I mean, a sort of like a rent and opinion. He's not quite Katie Hopkins, as was before she got,

or he's up here as Morgan, right? Right, yeah. What's the issue of the day? Morgan's got two takes and he just like, okay, that one. And he's absolutely brilliant. I mean, totally a moral as a journalist, I don't know, personally, maybe a nice guy, and may not be, I don't know. But as a journalist, he's brilliant,

because he's either completely enraging or completely sympathetic, depending on just where you stand on this particular issue. And procopious seizure is sort of similar. Very very similar to Pearson Morgan. And so if you take his as a good example of this, procopious seizure is, you know, supposedly a chronicle, oh well, he's just writing what happened. Like Morgan would say, I'm just a journalist, you know.

Spence half his career, toading up unbelievably to Justinian, the Emperor. Unbelievably. There's sort of flatterer, the kind of writing, the histories of the Wars of Justinian and kind of blowing endless smoke up the Empress' House. And then he writes the secret history, which is like the most offensive, damning, tell-all, expose a character assassination, mud-slinging, like horror show of an account of Justinian and Theodore. Which is smear-some, absolutely, it's me, it's so entertaining, it's great, but it's like hell of a flip flop, and people scratch their heads, oh this is, you know, it's going on with Procopius and C's rear man, just look at his Morgan and Megan, okay, if

the dude couldn't get his nose out of her, and then she kind of snubbed him and so he becomes her worst enemy. It's an old story. An old story. But it's... No, so anyway, the point was, Chronicle is not known, they're just Chronicle, of course. They're opinions. Spinners. Yeah, that's the old-fashioned. They're opinions and spinners. Yeah, that's the old fashioned.

You show in your age, the age of spin. You could have the age of spin. Spinning Hendrix, that's because I love the thick of it, that's why. What about technology? There's like the dark ages are completely encompassed by this middle ages period. What about technology?

Because it feels, I don't know, this is me talking as the guy that doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about, most of the time, but specifically when it comes to the history of the planet that I live on. And I don't see, it feels like Rome had a lot sorted. And then you come out the other side at the Renaissance. And we've got, what we got to show for it, like some art, some castles, which you have profited from massively.

And... No, I don't presume. And some death, some plagues, like there's no one adventure in or technology in during this period. What's happening? Well, there's no doubt that the Roman Empire had achieved a sort of technological spike in the graph, if you like Very inventive and ingenious age very inventive and ingenious age. Underpinned, of course, by mass slavery and one of the reasons that certain societies have been able to build fast and high and impressive and large

is because they've enslaved, you know, ancient Egyptian... Aliens, aliens like the Egyptians enslaved, yes. Yes, yes, of course. I've forgotten about that. So, but you're there, there's no... So after the break up of the Roman Empire and the West, there's no doubt that you see all sorts of networks broken over what used to be the Western Roman Empire. Some of those are knowledge networks and some of those are technological exchange networks

and some of those are well-to-networks. So it takes a long time for certainly Western Europe and I'm being quite specific about Western Europe to recover to a point of similar technological sophistication, but it doesn't take as long as you're suggest. When do you think those, when do they get back to? I mean, whether it's about getting back to par, but getting back to a society that is a society that is becoming, that is every generation seems to be becoming wealthier and more creative and more inventive and more thirsty for knowledge and more capable of deploying that knowledge to useful ends, it's around the millennium that you start to see, new technology, starting to transform the way that people live.

Let's take one small example. We talked earlier, we didn't really talk earlier, we mentioned earlier nights. If you take the syrup and the arrival, the importation of syrup technology from east to west, when eight century, maybe nine century, some time like this, it takes a while to arrive and to spread. But certainly by the millennia, in the syrup, people arriving with stirrups. In the 12th century, it's just part of the writing. In fact, you couldn't have nights without stirrups because you couldn't, if you think about couldn't have nights without stirrups because you couldn't, if you think about trying to joust on horseback, it should've given the lungs, you're going to need a couple of things on the horse, you're going to need a saddle, right, and you're going to need stirrups because

otherwise if you ride that horse at something and try and jabber that lungs, what's going to happen is the horse will go that way and you will go that way. And it will be comical to break your pelvis on your foot. There will still be comical, but not the you. So, the invention of the syrup enables a military revolution because it's enabled to develop into Frankish cavalry and and Frankish cavalry, to take one example, are a central part of the success of the first crusade. Now, the first crusade, we could argue, it was a transformative political event

in the history of the whole Middle Ages. But, although this sounds a bit butterfly effect, the first crusade might not have been possible without the invention of the stirrup, which seems to us an impossibly simple piece of technology, but it is very important. And from that point, you know, from around the 10th, 11th century, you start to see in Western Europe inventions, you know, wind mills, wind mills sound kind of boring, but they're incredibly important for the development of agriculture.

ACA rising population, which is able to feed itself better because you have you have improvements in plough technology. These are unglomerious things, but you know agricultural technology improves, military technology improves. And so it's earlier than you think that the difference starts to be made. The astral ape comes back into society, or comes into western society from Greeks and the Arabs. And that makes navigation a lot easier. What about warfare? Any warfare technology developments?

Oh, by the 14th century, you started to see gunpowder. I mean, gunpowder is a sort of end of the middle-late middle ages, end of the middle ages kind of phenomenon. We tend to associate the arrival of gunpowder on the battlefields with the end of the middle ages, but it's quite early on in the West, in the late middle ages. So, and then in armor technology, yeah, let me see armor and arms, I mean, think about, look at these example. Frankish swords, Frank's extremely famous for producing high quality swords. What was the high quality about them? What did they do? They're the stabbing with.

What did steel? Well, no, it doesn't shatter on it, maybe. A capable of maintaining a sharp, sharp rage. If you think about the development in armour between, I mean, think about the normal, it closer I think about the biotapistry, as I say to all my lovers. And what are they wearing like male link cards?

The political terms, chainmail, that's a topology, that you know, male armor. The development of that, to by the 14th century largely plate armor, enables heavier fighting closer at hand on the foot and bigger armies are required long-boat technology. What's your development? It seems quite primitive to us because we're in a nuclear age and we're post the barbed wire machine guns, the trenches, but technological and then you mentioned navigation. Well, again, by the early 15th century,

you've got boat technology and navigation technology improving to the point that two generations before Columbus sailed for the Indies and bumped into the Americas. Henry the navigator, and Portropese sending ships ever further down the West African coast, and coming back, the problem wasn't going down, the coast was coming back. But longer for that even, if you look around the turn of the millennium to go back to where I started,

you've got Europeans and the Americas, but Vikings over at Lansar Medes around the year 1000. So many technologies is more sophisticated than BAPSWEEK, give a credit. Yeah, it's a weird one because the way that technology works, it enables further developments to be made. So you do have this sort of exponential curve that comes in as something gets enabled, then that enables something else that goes down there. And it kind of feels like where you're leaving the story, whatever, 1,500 and a bit,

that there's a lot of the fundamental pieces in place to allow pirates within 300 years, to allow bigger buildings, to allow faster development, faster travel, so on and so forth, more dangerous weapons. Well, okay, but let's take those in terms, pirates. They've always been pirates. But they've been able to travel as far across the ocean, would they've been able to do...

It's pent up, but you need to travel very far to be a part of it. I mean, if you look at Caribbean, obviously, that's where Jack's car always. Yeah, like you've just watched too many movies, that's a problem. Yeah, because... The Pirates, the Pirates, the Pirates of the Mediterranean. There's a story that you could set in anybody age, you could really... Pirates of the Mediterranean, that's what they do. Yeah, it sounds like you know, they're fighting over pastor. Disney aren't making Pirates of the Mediterranean that's what they did sounds like you know fighting over pasta just not making pirates the Mediterranean fighting over

pasta that's what they could have had keep it up what was the next thing you said I was about to demolish buildings big buildings yeah I mean you big buildings Lincoln Cathedral Lincoln Cathedral. Lincoln Cathedral. Big building. Halfway between you. Biggest building in the world, mate. For a while. It was. Bigger than the Pir- yeah, until the Spy Blue Down. But that was bigger than the Great Pirate Middit.

The Diza. It's on a big hill, isn't it? And it was the- yeah, but we're not counting a hill. It's even better if it's on the top of the hill. But the Is even better because on the top of the hill But the fucking I thought our on top of the hill Count the hill Oh man Don't know the rocks big isn't it what it's on a hill Makes it look bigger Everyone's done that everyone's everyone's pulled something down around something that they're trying to make look bigger

to create the illusion that the thing that they're trying to make look bigger actually is bigger. You're talking about man-scaping. Man-scaping, I wasn't actually aware, was a specific term, although man-scaping. You've got a head of portmantei man-scaping. No. Like shaving your cubes.

Yeah, but I mean, I didn't know that it was like a pursuit that people went into. Is there like a subreddit for it? I don't know, there's like a peloton class. You just click the button and it's next to yoga. Man-scape. Yeah, man-scape. Going back to the peloton thing,

because I heard that we left a little bit of it. No, but you left a bit, there's a... Peloton watching, don't take a while back of it. Unclosed loop about peloton. Because you have a family with what sounds like a small child. Did you specifically not get the treadmill because it's good at propelling infants into? Do you see this? Firstly, the tread plus has only just been released in the UK. I'm aware of the problems with the treadmills of dangerous. I'm not like a peloton either ambassador, I wish it were, or evangelist, that kind of am.

But treadmills of dangerous, treadmills of being dangerous, they've always been dangerous. Poor old Mike Tyson stored and died in treadm treadmill, didn't she? Didn't know that. Very, very, very, very, people with kids don't let your fucking kids near your treadmill. Do not do it. They're really dangerous. No, I don't got the treadmill. Also, I don't know, I'm not really a runner. Yes, I wouldn't have to, and then also I've had it since Yeah, so I wouldn't have it and then also I've had it since I built a gym in lockdown and went in earlier in the year

But now I didn't choose a bike ride in the trade for that reason I chose a bike because at the time it was the only piece of equipment available But it's the piece of equipment I would have chosen anyway. Uh-huh. How fortunate? Well the tread plus if they'd had that in the I'm just not a runner. And small child that can be fired underneath you. You're treadmill. I just think I just think if you've got a kid, if you just just cycle for a bit for the years that your child can't avoid a treadmill, that seems like the right. Run outside. I don't know. Like to each their own, man. It's hard enough to get people to get out their asses. Right. But like, I just think that it's like, if you've got a cooker, well, you're going to get the kid crawling the fucking oven. No, of course you're not.

Because you know that thing is dangerous. That juggle the knives. No, I know they're dangerous. A treadmill is dangerous. It's a dangerous piece of equipment. Yeah. Don't let your kids play on it. And now I guess this is enough, but I think about people who play on the treadmill. Why do you don't know? I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I project. Look, I'll let you, how about something nice? How about something nice? Someone from your research for the book that you think more people should know about. Dick Wittington. Dick Wittington for Star. All I know about Dick Wittington is I've seen many harsh monogram images of him wearing

high boots and a big floppy hat. That is the beginning and the end of my understanding about Dick Wittington. Did he do something with the cat? Did he ever? In real life, no. So the pantomime character dickwitting to the next second was back, the cat is size, ghost London, poor blindy, governor, not doing too well here, I'm off. Start to leave bowbells, come back mate, if the cat's gone on a ship, some some ship happened all as well, like that's the plot of the pantomund. But in reality Dick Woodington was like a super dawn oligarch with a

conscience, I mean the guy's legendary, mayor of London four times, mayor of Calais once, rolled through the range of five plantagena kings, Edward III, Richard II, Henry IV, VVI, survived the revolution of 1399, not only sold high end cloth to the kings but traded in wine, commodity trader, raised finance to keep the government afloat during the Asian core campaign traded, you know, it was effectively a high-end bail bondsman after Asian core trading Prince, prisoners, ransoms, and when he died in 1423, he left so much money to city of London for good works, there's new libraries,

sewers, public toilets, single mothers, refugees, arms houses, social housing, he left so much money, there's still people living in dickwittings and houses today. Importing 23. The guy, it's an extraordinary story. Now, I'm not going to pantomime with my kids and as soon as Wittings walks on stage, go, bollocks!

Well, like that, mate. No, I'm not going to put four times. Well, are you gonna get to the bit about the public toilets? No, thought not, no, I'm not a four times. What? Are you going to get to the point about the public toilets? No, it's not. No, I'm not. I let it ride, but he's in the book. I'm going to know more about him. You know what to do.

That's it. You got one of those. Oh, yeah. I got a limited edition proof with, and I don't know if the hardback has this. It's got sort of a foil recessed foil. Oh yeah, that's a foil. Oh yeah, that's nice, that is nice. I got a limited edition proof.

200 I think. Oh yeah, I think this is big, this is big dick shit. I'm not dick-wittington. One issue that you get when you get pre-release proofs is Because the page no, I like the mistakes. I think they're very charming Because the pages are likely to change None of the maps that you promised me in terms of the page numbers are easy to find So they've all just got X's where the page marks

are supposed to be. So when I wanted to skip through and just spend 10 minutes looking at some maps, I had to do this. Your concern is noted and will be ignored. Okay, well that's a shame, but. Shhh. Dan Jones. Ladies and gentlemen,

How is the thrones will be linked in the show notes below. You can go and get it from Amazon. What you're doing next. Also, actually, before we go, I got to bring this up, man. How fucking cool is it as a historian and how fortunate we as an audience right now for the kind of environment or ecology

that history's got going on. So like timeline world history documentaries on YouTube, I tweeted this earlier on today, that should be 20 pounds a month. Like that YouTube channel should be 20 pounds a month. History here, all of the stuff that you do, like there's just, it's from your side of the aisle, you know, as a creator and as a historian, is it like, fuck, this is like a big resurgence of history content and interest in. It's cool and accessible and like, not so...

It's not quite sexy. I don't think it's not quite sexy. But... Look, because 20 years ago, when I was studying, I was an undergraduate, 22 years ago, I was taught to write by David Stark and at that point, Stark, he was the absolute pinnacle of his fame and he was doing six million viewers on Channel 4, so he shows about a little bit. Six million. That's a Trumpism, I need to shake. That's incredible.

And Sharmo is on the talent doing history of Britain, like banging out millions of viewers. Like there was mad money going into commissioning from certainly kind of 4 BBC and those people were saying, oh, history is kind of cool again. But it hasn't really tailed off from there. The budget is in broadcasting, like from the networks through the floor now. And even the castle show, the five commissions, well the budget for that was, I would, I would, I'd cut on them, but let's say it was in the ball park, maybe start the under 200 grand an hour, which is decent then, but not exceptional. Well now budgets are like, and last time I checked in about 80 grand an hour, the similar ambition of programming

and your time in both the field and the edit is like, nothing. So there has certainly been a drop-off in the ambition of network TV commissioning. And at the same time, you've seen streamers come in who will commission history, and then Netflix and, most of the networks. But if you got a commission history on history, docs type stuff on Netflix, it's got to have like clue need doing the voiceover or Nick Cage in it or some shit like that. So, there's not the middle of the market on the TV has fallen out, but as you correctly identify, people like the Mandan Snow doing mad stuff with history here. It's fantastic and there are so many broadcasters and outlets and so many people podcasting and BBC History Extra have stepped into with a sort of

nimble approach to commissioning that the BBC institution knows would be lax. So there is loads of channels to market. There's enormous public enthusiasm for history. There are lots of people doing it, most of whom are extremely nice and collegiate and friendly to another, where we don't really have the kind of by hatreds and rivalries of that shaman, Starkey era. So it's like, it's good times, it's really, really good times. And I'm like blessed to be doing it. What you do next, we got your fiction book out,

as well as this. I'm just trying to be a fiction book. Yeah, fuck that. I'm out, I'm getting, couldn't make it up. I don't know. No, I do know. I don't know about it in terms of history anymore. But I do know that I've got, so next week, assuming this, maybe it's this week, maybe in

September, October. Yeah. I've got a little ghost story coming out, which I wrote on Halloween, four Halloween last year. And that's an original medieval ghost story written about the F 1400s called Taylor, well I called it the Taylor of the Taylor, the tale of the Taylor and the three dead kings. It's a little tiny book, a rewritten, retold original medieval ghost story. That's super fun. And then I'm doing a historical fiction trilogy. So next autumn, the first one comes out, it's because Essex

Dogs and it's about, the all three books are set in the Hundred Years' War and Essex Dogs are set in the Thirty-Fifty Six, the Cressy Campaign. The second one is Seton Siege of Calais, the third one is something else. But they take the sensibility of the sort of apocalypse now, platoon, full metal jacket, and band of brothers, saying, pro-Ryan, dystopian, American hard-boiled approach to the war novel and set it in the Middle Ages. So there's no fucking hay nonny no, my Lee-June, undy greenwood tree, and everyone shivble wrestling, thinking only of their fair lady. This is like each chapter starts with a line from like Huasar, one of those sort of high-faluting shivalry is great chronicles. And then each

chapter rips the idea of shivalry to bits on the ground because the reality of war for a platoon moving, you're landing on the Normandy beaches in July 46 and then having to fight their way to the rivers up the rivers and across them and then you know up to seven weeks in the field fight a battle. That's horrible and that's undocumented. Well it's largely undocumented but if you write against the grain of the chronicles it creates, you and you couldn't do it in this. I don't think it would be possible to do industry, but it's super possible to do it in fiction and that's the next project. I have

deal with Sony Pictures to develop the Soreco Drama. I'm doing that in the moment. We had one on earlier this year and there's more coming down the line, I hope. And then a shit ton of pellet on, man. Riding every day. Most important thing. Extreme Dabler. Love it. Dan Jones, ladies and gentlemen, powers and thrones will be linked in the show notes below

you should go and get it and watch out for Dan Jones on your Palatine chasing you down.