Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 221 - The Dark Ages

Episode Date: December 7, 2020

The Dark Ages. We attempt to suck a MASSIVE topic today. A thousand year's worth of European history. And actually, since we compare life in the Dark Ages to life in the Roman Empire, we end up covering two thousand years. The period between the fall of Rome in the fifth century and the beginning of the Modern Age that began sometime in the 14th century was an especially terrible time to be a European peasant. During the Dark Ages, you were bound to spend almost your entire life toiling over a small plot of land before you died around the age of thirty - if you were really lucky. If you tried to upend the social order at all - if you tried not to pay the insane taxes that your church or lord levied upon you - you would very quickly find yourself at the business end of a breast ripper or some other horrific, medieval torture contraption. It was a crazy time to be alive, and we look into how crazy it was, and how much better we have it today, on this medieval edition, of Timesuck. For our donation this month, we raised/donated over $41,000 for the Bad Magic Productions Giving Tree, and have bought eighty Cult of the Curious families presents for Christmas. Hail Nimrod and thank you! Watch the Suck on YouTube: https://youtu.be/upE_rSQhR2Q Merch - https://badmagicmerch.com/ Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89v Want to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever current page hasn't been put in FB Jail :) For all merch related questions: https://badmagicmerch.com/pages/contact Please rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcast Wanna become a Space Lizard? We're over 10,000 strong! Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast Sign up through Patreon and for $5 a month you get to listen to the Secret Suck, which will drop Thursdays at Noon, PST. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. You get to vote on two Monday topics each month via the app. And you get the download link for my new comedy album, Feel the Heat. Check the Patreon posts to find out how to download the new album and take advantage of other benefits.

Grab your pitchforks and torches. We are headed to the dark ages the period between the fall of Rome and the fifth century and the beginning of the modern age that began sometime in the 14th century is also often called the Middle Ages and the Medieval period and if you were the average European peasant things were in fact pretty dark Some history sticklers consider just the first half of the Middle Ages to be the dark ages But we're gonna march through an entire millennium. Better to cover a bit too much than not enough. I hope also the true Dark Ages only concerns Europe. But while we'll be mainly primarily focused on Europe during this period, and actually mostly Western Europe, the true home of the Dark Ages, also take a few peaks at the rest

of the world. What the hell was going on outside of Europe? While European peasants were living mostly absolutely terrible lives, at least terrible compared to today. During the dark ages, you were bound to spend almost your entire life toiling over some small plot of land before you died around the age of 30 if you were really lucky. If you tried to upend the social order at all, if you tried to not pay the insane taxes that your church or Lord levy to ponder upon you, you would very quickly find yourself at the business end of a breastripper or some other horrific medieval torture contraption. Life for many for sure took a step back during

the dark ages. In the Roman Empire, various common folk were inventing and improving and using aqueducts and indoor plumbing. Few centuries later, their descendants were farming their own shit and accusing each other of witchcraft. But is that all there is to this story? It was ancient Rome consistently great in a vault for everyone, where the dark ages defined by nothing but backwards and brutal lives? Of course not. As is so often the case with historical topics and with most things in life, it was all a bit more complicated than that. European life, thousand years ago, was more complicated than a simple moniker like the Dark Ages can capture.

While Islamic and Christian armies warred with each other over the Holy Land and popes and kings seemed to compete to see who could exploit the common man the most, the Dark Ages were also a time where serious progress was made and by some, in astronomy, medicine, politics, literature, and more. In the Arab world, scholars wrote texts about medicine and science and translated the Greek and Latin classics. And even in Europe, people were still inventing things and pushing the ball of human achievement up the hill of progress. So just how dark were the dark ages really. How terrible was life for the average European peasant? What was the rest of the world up to while much of Europe toiled away in superstitious feudalism? Well, look into all this and more today on a feudalist fuck.

Grab your turkey leg and let's get weird addition of TimeSuck. This is Michael McDonald and you're listening to TimeSuck. You're listening to TimeSuck. Happy Monday, meat sacks, hail Nimrod, hail Lucifer, praise both jangles and glory be to triple M. I keep forgetting to sneak him into another suck. Dan Cummins, a master's sucker and you are listening to Time Suck. I'll remind you that the charity this month is going back into the cult of the curious via a combination of Patreon money, additional donations from the cold to the curious via a combination of

patreon money, additional donations from the cold to the curious and matching funds given by the queen of bad magic and myself will be donating are donating over $41,000 to bring holiday gifts to 80 culture the curious different families. So many presents, so many happy kids smiling, queen of bad magic Lindsey shopping for it all right now. And hopefully next year we can help more families. Look it into form of 501c3 nonprofit in 2021 for just that reason. So thanks to everyone who's been a part of this.

Last new merch the year, hitting the store this week at BadMagicMurts.com. A Krolls Cafe 50s diner style coffee mug. And the most fucked up Krolls Cafe Butcher's apron. Holy shit. Uh, so messed up, uh, when you know, Carl's story, also it looks so awesome. Uh, and some new time suck black and white vinyl decals in the store. Uh, and that's it for announcements. We're burning through them today. We got a lot of show to get to, like I got a lot of sweet time sucker

updates at the end. And so much information coming your way. Uh, so let's get into the show. Our Patreon topic voting spaces are picked to do as you have a subject to deep dive on this week, the dark ages, many, many subjects rolled into one. Today's episode full of events and figures that we could mine countless other sucks for. Some of these topics are ones

will certainly be returning to at some point. In fact, we've covered a number of topics already from this period, from the night's Templars to the black plague, Genghis Khan, lots of cover today. And I don't know. I'm trying to be excited, but almost all of it is going to be born as fuck. It's going to be really stupid and it's not going to be memorable at all. Honestly, if I didn't feel obligated to record this because we have a schedule and I was stuck

with this topic, it was voted, you know, I wouldn't even fucking listen. I would have taken my show notes and episode of not only time suck but of of any podcast ever made by anyone. JK, guass dang. No, what kind of silly assholes sets up a show that way? What kind of goofy guuss is sitting here today. Super interesting information lies ahead. Plenty of examples of why we're very lucky to be living in the present. And a lot of comedy awaits the curious.

At least a lot of my attempts at comedy lie ahead. I hope a decent amount of them land let's jump into some suckage and let me get medieval on your asses. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ The Dark Ages have a reputation, of course, for being an intellectual sinkhole of an era. A really terrible time to be alive, at least for the people of Western Europe. Several hundred years was Europe really sliding backwards from the clasculate of Rome and the fragmented kingdoms of dumb superstitious people.

Depends on who you ask. Some scholars think the Dark ages were not so dark, that they were just different. Something that sure, life sucked for most during the dark ages compared to today, but the same could be true, or same could be said to be true, for many people living before and after the dark ages. The answer is somewhat subjective.

It's not like we can travel back in time and conduct quality of life surveys with various European peasants living in various areas. After sitting in this topic for a week, I personally think that life in Europe definitely got shittier overall after the fall of Rome. There was plenty of darkness in the dark ages. The crusade sucked for most involved, the black plague sucked for almost everyone involved. No one really enjoyed the great famine.

The Hundred Years War probably went on bit too long, being some type of surf or servants. Most common lives led by dark ages peasants really fucking sucked. And the heavily focused, a authoritarian Catholic church really made life hell for many and took a lot of the joy out of life for most. I find that more church often doesn't lead to more festive, carefree revelry. A lot of people want a party like it's 1999. No one ever wants a party like it's 1999. But the dark ages weren't all bad.

It also saw the development of the Magna Carta, a new document that established the principle that everyone is subject to the law, even the king, a document that guaranteed the rights of individuals, the right to justice and the right to a fair trial, at least this document established all that on paper. The Dark Ages also saw the arrival of the court of Charlemagne, an evolution in medieval governance, great leaps forward in architecture, art, technology and philosophy.

While medieval Europe did have less trade, fewer cities and less cultural output than the original Roman Empire, it was also at least a bit more than a giant continent-wide backward shithole, where hunchbacked henchmen spoke in cockney mumbles. It ants me, my boy, a wench, and he's a goof to make me a some group of soup from a goblin children. It was a bit better than that. With fewer powerful governments in the dark ages, wars were at least generally smaller, which is one reason why Europeans living in medieval times did live slightly longer than the average

Roman citizen. With the average life expectancy being 30 years, to Rome's 28, so woohoo! Two more years of filthy peasant life! Yay, Dark Ages! What shall I do with all my life? Join an angry mob and chase people who seem different than me with pitchforks, perhaps. Catch me some plague. Be tortured by my local heartless lord.

Have another cannon fodder, baby, with my sister, wife, cousin. So many fun choices for the extra two years. But seriously, at least there was a wee bit less warfare in many parts of Europe. And that in some places, you know, at least made the dark ages a little less bloody. So what kicked off the dark ages? What turned off the intellectual lights for many? The fall of Rome. Let's look a bit at the rise in fall of the Roman Empire. The fall of Rome could easily fill a suck of its own or several an entire podcast series. We don't obviously, you know, have time to dig that deep today. But to understand why the Dark Ages were considered so dark, we do need to understand what it was that

humanity lost when Rome fell. We do need to take a look at Rome. Let's take the first peak we've taken in Rome in a long, long time here on TimeStuck and get a feel for the life of a Roman and a feel for the overall arc of the Roman Empire. After the 8th century, BCE reign of Romulus, Rome's purported founder, Alina Kings emerged from three earlier Italian civilizations, the Sabine, Latin, and Etruscans. Romeans era as a monarchy ended in 509 BCE with the overthrow of its seventh king, Lucius Tarquinius, Superbus. One stuff that was pronounced Superbus. And Superbus was a real tyrant. He waged

too many wars, trick and kill too many people. No one wanted any more kings after they got rid of that asshole. Rome became a republic, which meant property of the people. Civil authority passed to a pair of annually elected magistrates called consoles. These consoles also served as commanders in chief in the army. Although they were elected by the people, the consoles were drawn largely from the Senate, which was dominated by the petitions or the descendants of the original senators from the time of Romulus, aka the ruling class, the high society, royal bloodline folk, people born lucky with a silver spoon lineage. Politics in the early republic was marked by the long struggle between petitions and plebians,

aka common folk who did eventually attain some political power. They got to have their own political bodies called tribunes, which could initiate or veto legislation. This would be a lot more power than most medieval peasants would ever have during the dark ages. On 450 BCE, the first Roman law code was inscribed on 12 bronze tablets and publicly displayed in the Roman forum. These laws included issues of legal procedure, civil rights, and property rights provided the Roman forum. These laws included issues of legal procedure, civil rights and property rights provided the basis for all future Roman civil law. And again, these laws would be more legal protection than most medieval peasants would have during

the dark ages over a thousand years before the dawn of the dark ages, the ancient world's greatest civilization growing more and more sophisticated. In 3 390 BCE Rome is sacked and burned by the Gauls a group of Celtic peoples of continental Europe that thrive in the iron age and the Roman period and the Romans they didn't like that. They were like, fuck, I hate being sacked and burned. I hate being burned more than I'd be in sacked. For a number of years the Romans regroup took over the whole of the Italian peninsula by 264 BCE kicked those fucking Gauls, and they further expanded their empire.

Roman victories in the Punic Wars against Carthage, a large and powerful city-state in northern Africa expanded their Republic further. Rome's culture grew from its military might, benefiting greatly from contact with other advanced cultures it fought and generally conquered, like the Greeks. As Rome expanded, more and more people fell within the boundaries of its vast empire and the Romans didn't just conquer and obliterate these peoples. They traded with them, studied with them, governed with them, intermarried with them. And with all this mingling their minds expanded and their cultures grew or their culture. They built theaters and schools. The poor didn't always

attend these schools but at least some kids went to school where they studied philosophy, literature, mathematics, and more. The first Roman literature appeared around 240 BCE. Scholars translated Greek classics into Latin, starting the process by which Romans would eventually adopt a lot of Greek art, philosophy, and religion. The Romans likely opened Western Europe's first public library in Rome and 37 BCE. It'll be a long time into the dark ages before any libraries got going.

I had Greek and Latin wings, Gaia, Sassinius, Polio, Blyo, Polio maybe. There was no pronunciation guide for this dude's name. A general lawyer, order or orator, poet and friend, divergell and Horus, according to Roman historian Pliny, was the first to make men's talents public property. The first century BC also bore witness to one of history's greatest orators, Marcus Toli Assissaro, and the rise in fall of Julius Caesar and the rise of Augustus, which took Rome out of its Republic period and into its imperial period, where Rome would be led by an emperor

or co-emperors. Leadership of this dynasty allowed for two full centuries of relative peace and prosperity. Augustus's dynasty would end with Nero who ruled from 54 CE to 68 CE. 50 years after Nero's death, Rome would reach its peak size, covering roughly five million square kilometers of continuous empire. Over 3.1 million miles, equivalent to the total size of the entire lower 48 states of the continental US. 13 times bigger than modern France, over 16 times the size of modern Spain. The last of Rome's final Pax Romana emperors, an age of relative peace and

stability for the Roman Empire that began with Augustus, was Marcus Aurelius, who ruled in the second century CE. When Marcus fell ill and died near the battlefield at present day Vienna, he broke with tradition of non-hereditary succession and named his 19-year-old son, a Commodus, as his successor. Commodus is incompetence, and his lavish lifestyle would bring the golden age of the Roman emperors to a disappointing end. All empires rise and fall in the fall of Rome will usher in Europe's dark ages. During the third century CE Rome suffers from a cycle of near constant conflict. A total of 22 emperors took the throne. Many

of them meeting violent ends at the hands of the same soldiers who would just recently propelled them to power. And that took place in just under 49 years. These emperors reigns lasted on average less than two years. If you thought politics in the US has been turbulent, recently we didn't we don't have shit on third century Rome. Check this out in 238 CE, Gordian I and his son Gordian II take the throne after the previous dude, Maximineus Thrax is killed by his own troops. Three weeks later, just three weeks later, Co-Emperor Gordian I killed himself after hearing that his son, Co-Emperor Gordian II, has been killed in battle. Enter Pupeanus, that's his name, close to who rules for three months

alongside Emperor Balbenus before being tortured and killed by Roman soldiers, the Praetorian Guard. Five rulers dead in just over six months. All either committed suicide, were murdered of all, Venus before being tortured and killed by Roman soldiers, the Praetorian guard, five rulers dead in just over six months. All either committed suicide, were murdered or were killed in battle, two of them tortured and then murdered. And yes, one of their names was basically Pupianas. Imagine if they had TV back then. That's what I was thinking about when I first was reading all these historical atrocities.

I said they had TV back then in just a constant 24 hour news coverage. Think about how crazy breaking stories would have been back in the age of all this horrific shit happening. Hello and welcome to Roman Nightly News. I'm sensationalist Maximus and all my Jupiter do I have a breaking story for you. This just in, Rome lost two more emperors minutes ago

after Emperor Balbenus and Emperor Opupianus were publicly assassinated by the Preitorian Guard. Both men were literally dragged naked into the street from the Royal Palace and tortured and brutally hacked to death. Checking in now with our correspondent on the street, time traveling Karen for more updates. Are these people serious Maximus? Two emper were just tortured and murdered in the fucking street. What? Oh my god. When in Rome you apparently lose all sense of decency. Where are these Praetorian guards? You don't just do that. Not on my watch.

I wanna speak to their Praetorian manager. Excuse me! Guy with a funny hat! Excuse me! Hey! Hey, get your hands off of me! Ow, that's sort of hurt, dick! Oh my god! Oh my, Karen has been dragged into the street and it appears she may soon be executed. And that's all for this Roman Nightly News update. We'll continue to cover this developing story.

More news every hour on the hour. So yeah, that just happened. During this crisis and leadership, external threats began to take a heavy toll on Rome, including continuing aggression from Germans and Parthians and raids by the Goths. The reign of Diocletian from 284 CE to 305 CE temporarily restored peace and prosperity in Rome, but at a high cost to the unity of the Empire. Diocletian decided to share his title of Emperor.

With Maximean, he felt that the Roman Empire was too big to be ruled by one emperor from one place and divided it into the east and the west. A pair of generals, Galerius and Constantin, my god, these names. I had it before the show. I swear, Constantius. There we go. Constantius were appointed as the assistants and the successors of Diocletian and Maximean. Diocletian and Galerius ruled the Eastern Roman Empire while Maximian and Constantius took power in the West.

But though they were good at sharing power, their successors would not be. Enter Constantine. Constantine emerged from the power struggle between Galerius. Galerius, I can't even name these guys, fucking frank and Ted. And Constantius, a sole emperor of a reun-unified Roman 324. He was actually Constantius's son. He moved the Roman capital to the Greek city of Byzantium, which he renamed Constantinople. Constantin made Christianity legal in Rome with the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE. Previously, Christianity had been just a small Jewish sect. After Constantin

claimed to have had a vision and divine help during a battle, he wanted everyone to be Christian. This was a big reversal from positions of previous emperors, who themselves had been revered as gods in the flesh. So the introduction of a Christian God wasn't really to their liking, previously Christians had been persecuted in Rome. And 380 CE, Emperor Theodosius,

takes Christianity from being legal to becoming the official state religion of Rome. And this change will have huge repercussions for all of Europe going forward. Many historians have speculated that the rise of Christianity helped lead among, along with other factors, to the fall of Rome. How Christianity displaced the previously polytheistic Roman religion, which viewed the emperor as one of the gods with divine status, of view that obviously added to the power of the emperor

wielded, hard to argue with the living god. Now the new bishop of Rome is quickly becoming the most powerful ruler in the city. The bishop and the bishop alone speaks for the new god, the only god, not the emperor. The emperor just to do now. Gigantic power shift that changed the course of human history. After this weakening of the emperor's authority, along with many other factors, excuse me, and this weakening led to Rome's fall.

To be fair, a multiple military losses, numerous invasions, numerous plagues, inept corrupt governance, overspending, were even bigger factors than religion that contributed to Rome's demise, but Christianity more specifically the new authoritarian or near authoritarian power of the Catholic Church was one of the biggest. If not the biggest contributing factor in sending the Middle Ages into a comparative intellectual darkness.

Also leading to its downfall was a was the great split and 395 CE Rome would again split into an Eastern and Western half as it had been under die-election. And this time it would stay that way. Rome was just too large to be governed by one emperor in the days before cell phones, private jets, and zoom conferences. After Rome was split, the Eastern part of the empire would remain for centuries as the Byzantine Empire, but in the West, Rome continued to suffer from political turmoil and threats from Germanic tribes that lived inside the empire already.

The economic cost of the turmoil was too high and quickly drained the state's resources, so the government increased taxes, which had the unintended effect of widening the already large gap between the rich and the poor. A further blow came in the 5th century CE when the Vandals, a Germanic tribe, claimed in North Africa and began disrupting the empire's trade by prowling the Mediterranean as ancient pirates. Roman eventually collapsed into the weight of its bloated empire, losing his provinces one by one. Britain was lost around four 10 Spain and North Africa gone by 430.

Attila and his brutal huns invaded Gaul in Italy around 450, further shaking the foundations of the empire and then in September of 476 Germanic Prince, uh, Prince named Odace here, one control of the Roman army in Italy. After depositing the last emperor, Romulus Augustus, oh, uh, Oddo Acer, these some of these names. Come on. Come on. Oh, D-O-A-C-E-R.

There's a reason a lot of people are not currently naming their kids Odoacer. Fuck, dumb name. Sorry if you named that. You've been mad at your parents. But anyway, this guy's troops for Clayton Tim King of Italy bringing in a, in a abrupt end to the long tumultuous history of ancient Rome. And, and the long fall of the Roman Empire is now complete. Following the fall of Rome, the classical knowledge that serves as the foundation of Roman learning was for the most part lost to Western Europe.

While some treaties were translated into Latin and circulated in Western Europe, the vast majority of classical learning remained in the eastern parts of the former Roman Empire and in the Middle East. The civilization that had built 50,000 miles of road revolutionized running water with their aqueducts and arches, leading to sewers and actual toilets that carried human waste away from one's home or business, the civilization that had made advances in battlefield medicine. So the life expectancy of a Roman was much longer than their neighbors and created some of the most important

political and philosophical thought the world had ever seen was gone. Now, before we move on from Rome, Rome, what was life like for the average Roman? Well, it was obviously very different from one person to the next. And you know, depending on when they lived during Rome's long run, where they lived in the Roman Empire, what their status was, it would be different, but in general, if you lived in Rome and you were a Roman citizen, life was far more advanced for you than it would be in other cities in Europe for centuries

after Rome's fall. At its peak, the ancient city of Rome may have had in the first few centuries CE around a million people. Conservative estimates say at least 450,000. While Asia, particularly China, would continue to see cities of this size exist throughout Europe's dark ages. Europe would not again see a city of this size and over millennia. How crazy is that? The urban living conditions achieved during the heights of ancient Rome would not be seen again in Europe for over a thousand years. London would be Europe's

next comparable mega city, and it would not reach a half million residents until the end of the 17th century. Wouldn't reach a million until the early 19th century, not that long ago. Rome itself wants to fell from its height, it fell fast, it dwindled down to only roughly 50,000 people living there by the seventh century. If you lived in Rome during its height, you would have had running water. You could have had a toilet in your home that carried your waist away into the sea. You could have watched elaborate theatrical performances and massive marble, beautiful buildings and giant amphitheaters. You could have listened to live music, watched incredible spectacles and the giant colosseum, even grabbed ancient fast food, get some food to go from a thermo

thermopoleum shop where you could grab like baked cheese, cured meats, spiced wine, lentils, nuts, other snacks, meals prepared to, you know, be grabbed and eaten on the go, could have went to a bar, had some wine, could have eaten a better and more well-rounded diet than many would do, be able to do during the dark ages, thanks to a wide variety of food flowing in through various trade routes. You could have also been much cleaner

than many later Europeans. Running water and bath houses allowed Romans to wash their arms and legs daily, take several baths a month, and this is for the poorer Roman citizens. Could have also engaged in intellectual, political and philosophical discourse with well-educated, well-traveled,

well-cultureed neighbors. Could have lived in a city with people from all over Europe, Africa, the Middle East, possibly Asia. Could have lived a more cosmopolitan and cultured life than almost anyone else in Europe would do for centuries after Rome's fall. Okay, now that we've set up a little bit of what life looked like before the Dark Ages,

at least in broad strokes, it's almost time to turn off Europe's lights. But first a reminder that history is written by the victors. And a lot of the Dark Ages history most of us are familiar with was written by historians, living soon after it was over, and many of them did have an agenda. The Dark Ages' term was coined by early Italian humanists who wanted to think of themselves

as doing the very important work of reviving Rome's intellectual traditions. These Italians were members of the Renaissance, the European period, centered in Italy, just like Rome would have been that directly followed the Dark Ages. The Renaissance, which means rebirth or revival, was defined as a resurrection of the artistic and cultural ideals of ancient Rome. The Renaissance promoted the rediscovery of ancient Roman and Greek classical philosophy, literature and art. Renaissance writers loved Rome.

They romanticized it. And a notion of a thousand year period of darkness and ignorance preceding these Italian scholars going back to the ancient Greek and Roman world served to contrast and highlight And a notion of a thousand year period of darkness and ignorance preceding these Italian scholars going back to the ancient Greek and Roman world served to contrast and highlight these humanist own work and ideals. So the label, while not necessarily untrue, is also a bit of a propaganda term. Now these humanists invented the dark ages in order to distinguish themselves from it. They exaggerated how terrible it had been before they showed up to make their achievements

seem that much more impressive. That'll be instead make no mistake. Life was pretty dark and shitty from many during the dark ages. Let's get a feel for some dark ages geography now. Obviously, the geographic bounds of nations changed a lot in a thousand year span of time. Let's just look at what the European map started out as in 500 CE. The Franks, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, the Vandals carved up the former Roman Empire with the Franks, primarily in what is now France. Over the next two and a half centuries, the Franks will continue or come to rule most of modern day France and much of Germany. Their kings will be active supporters of the Catholic Church and the Pope. The Visigoths kingdom takes up most

of Spain, part of France, the Burgundy tribe between them and the Franks. The Austro-Goth kingdom spans most of Italy and the vandals take parts of Italy and North Africa. The Eastern Roman Empire, now the Byzantine Empire, or Byzantine Empire, was located in present-day Greece and Turkey. The east, it butts up against the Sasanid Persian Empire under the Sasanid's classical Persian civilization brought to a peak. Tribes of various other people inhabit Europe as well, like Norseman and Scandinavia,

the Angles and the Saxons and what's now Holland. They'll soon conquer the Britons in present-day England and the Lombards right around present-day Poland and Austria. To the northeast and east of Europe beyond the Baltic Sea lay the expanses of Russia and Central Asia from here. Various step people's invaded and settled central Europe, some the Bulgars and the Magyars, their name is a little tricky. Form Christian kingdoms, Bulgaria and Hungary respectively. Others the Pecheniks, conducted destructive raids. The Huns brought a huge swath of territory under their control from the Grasslands north of the Black Sea west into Eastern Europe. Under their King Attila, the Huns struck terror into the Roman Empire, but after

Attila's death in 453, their power swiftly disintegrated. Think about how differently a map of Europe looked 15, 100 years ago, maybe wonder how different will our map look in another 1500 years? Like, will the US even still be around? The odds are against it. Odds are against most of our modern nations still existing 1500 years from now. How strange is that to think about? How strange must it be to live through the fall of one empire and the rise of another? Like in 3,500 CE, will there be just one nation? A true one world government? Will there be many more nations that we have now? Well, current political polarization continue. We'll tribalism, fracture nations into several smaller nations. Will anyone ever rule over an

entire continent? Well, you know, what will future historians be saying about us? Now, let's look at Europe's trend away from urban life. It began at the start of the dark ages. Compared to before and after the dark ages, towns were scarce in medieval Europe and those that did exist were pretty tiny. Medieval towns were usually smaller than those in classical antiquity and 1100 to 1200 to town with 2000 inhabitants would be considered pretty large. Only a few towns in cities in Europe had more than 10,000 people. Which is insane to me.

For centuries, you know, it's super rare to find a town with more than 10,000 people. That's not many people compared to today's towns. And those with more than 50,000 were very, very rare. Even the city of Rome, the most important city in Western Europe eventually dwindled down during the dark ages to around 30,000 people. London, which is, I mentioned, will eventually become the largest in Europe, had only roughly 10,000 people in 1066. And what were medieval peasants doing in rural dark ages, Europe?

Well, most lived in small, thatch-rift, one-roomed houses. And oftentimes many of these houses were grouped about in open space, the green, or on both sides of a single narrow street. The population of these villages didn't often exceed, as we talked about, a hundred people, not enough people to allow for a wide variety of trades and skill sets. Not gonna be many shops selling cool clothes

and handy farm tools, weapons in a village of 80, 90 people. The life of the average medieval peasant was one of a lot of hard work, changed with the seasons. Small animals required slaughtering during the fall, 90 people. The life of the average medieval peasant was one of a lot of hard work, changed with the seasons. Small animals required slaughtering during the fall as it was not economic or practical to feed animals during the winter. Meat was then preserved and salt, so much salt. No one gave two shits about hypertension back then. Bread was the mainstay of the medieval peasant, corn, grain, cabbage, ale, cider, also, you know, commonly digested

goods obtained from the local area. I doubt any of it tasted as good as your local bakeries, you know, blueberry muffin or as good as 99% of the bread you can find at your local grocery store. Your grocery store probably has Kings Hawaiian original Hawaiian sweet rolls, right? Those are fucking delicious. I don't know why I thought of those with this episode. I'm a medieval peasant. If they tasted just one of those would probably kill everyone in their entire shitty village just to have a second rule. Many medieval peasants were serfs slaves for most intense and purposes tied to the land they worked, you know, land that was owned by their local noble. People had very few rights for most of the dark ages. Most serfs could not leave their lands or

stop working on them without the permission of their lord who wasn't going to give them that permission. A winded serfdom began while it didn't become truly widespread until the 10th century, a form of serfdom was initiated by emperor Constantine early in the 4th century. And the daily life of medieval peasant who worked the land, yeah, again, super hard. Their days started in the summers, early as 3 a.m. often lasted until sundown. When evil peasant might start their day with some potage, a thick soup or stew made by boiling vegetables, grains, and if available, meat or fish,

some good old breakfast soup. Nothing gets a meat sack moving in the morning faster than breakfast soup. I was thinking about this one the week of this research and I decided to try some split pea soup for breakfast, not even joking. And it was not a good call. Fuck my stomach up.

My body was like, what are you doing? Big bowl of split pea soup with 630 the morning was wrong with you. It's 2020, not 1020 jackass, back to personal life. There's a lot of work to be done. Depending on the time of year, reaping, harvesting with a scyth, sickle, or reaper, a sowing, the planting of seeds needed to be done. There was plowing, the breaking and turning over earth with a plow to form a furrow, binding and thatching, hay making, threshing, hedging, lots of shitty work.

No shortage of physically demanding tasks to be toiled over. Mended most of this work, women generally raised as many dirty kids as a couple could pop out before they died young. They kept their tiny house clean, helped in the fields when they could. Women churn butter, grew and harvested herbs and vegetables, made clothing for the family. I did all the cooking, ate when their husbands and children were finished, had very little leisure time. Also, they rarely bathed. More on that later, some men and women worked directly for their lords in and around their castles. Servants and medieval peasants had to provide meals and the castles, undertake menial tasks

for their lord and his family. Many of the medieval peasants who worked in the castles were women, women worked in the kitchen, were expected to cook, clean, wait on the Lord. Other medieval peasants worked jobs like stable hands to help with the horses and worked as kitchen staff Horses had to be fed groomed stables had to be kept clean that sort of thing and what did all these peasants wear? I found this very interesting. I don't know what surprised me so much. Mostly they wore tunics really shitty tunics

They're tunics were made either by folding over a long piece of fabric typically wool Cutting a hole in the center of the fold for their neck or by sewing two pieces of fabric together typically wool, cutting a hole in the center of the fold for their neck, or by sewing two pieces of fabric together at the shoulders, leaving a gap for the neck. Sleeves, not always part of this garment, could be cut as part of the same piece of fabric, sewn, closed, or added later. Tunics fell to at least the thighs, though the garment might be called by different names, different times and places, the construction of the tunics essentially the same for centuries in many parts of Europe. So basically poor peasants in Europe living in the dark ages wore the equivalent of fucking garbage bags with holes cut out for arms in their heads.

Like they wore something not really that much better or more comfortable than a burlap potato sack with arm and headholes. A dude would wear thigh length tunics. Dudes would wear thigh length tunics and the women would wear ankle length tunics. And like I mentioned, these tunics were made of wool, cheap, crudely crafted wool. Yeah, you've worn cheap wool, fucking sucks, so bad. It's super itchy, it's always too hot,

it does not breathe. Poor Romans had also worn tunic centuries before, but they wore nicer tunics. By the mid-republic, their tunics were made out of linen instead of wool. Linen way less itchy, far more breathable. So giant step backwards clothing-wise, head into the dark ages. When it came to overall tunic comfort. Now let's talk about church.

How did church change European lives during the dark ages? Changed their life so much. Ancient Romans before Christianity, they really didn't go to church. How did church change European lives during the dark ages? Change their life so much. Ancient Romans before Christianity, they really didn't go to church. They occasionally visited Stryons, shrines dedicated to various gods. They had shrines set up in their homes to offer sacrifices, paid tributes to various gods, but they didn't really go to church and listen to sermons every week. The priests and priestesses of various gods didn't have that much influence over the daily life of the average citizen. Romans didn't worry that much influence over the daily life of the average citizen. Romans didn't worry about their local priest, you know, local priest of Jupiter, shown up at their house, accused them of being a devil witch,

having them burned to the stake. You could be executed for some bullshit in Rome for sure. But generally outside of the early days of Rome when Christians were persecuted for not worshiping the gods in Rome, you weren't going to be killed for religious differences. The Catholic Church changed that a lot during the Dark Ages. The word Catholic derived from the Latin late Latin term, Catholicus, which came from the Greek adjective, Catholicos, translates to universal or general, fitting, considering that the Catholic Church would strive to rule everything, and did rule almost all of Europe

and later much of the new world at the height of its power. After the dissolution of the Roman Empire, an idea arose of Europe as becoming one large church state called Christiandom. Christiandom was consisted, supposed to consist of two distinct groups of functionaries, the ecclesiastical hierarchy and secular Christian leaders. In theory, these two groups would complement one another, attending to people's spiritual and temporal needs and practice these two institutions were constantly sparring, disagreeing, openly warring with each other. Europe's medieval rulers often tried to regulate church activities by claiming the right to appoint church officials, to intervene and

doctrinal matters. It tried to appoint loyalists who would let them rule as they saw fit. The church in turn promoted church leaders loyal to Rome. Bishops and Cardinals would try and keep Europe's rulers under the thumb of the Vatican. The church would end up essentially owning cities and armies and regulating affairs of the state. It would become incredibly powerful. Kings and Queens often forced to do

as the church demanded. Kings and Queens would levy taxes in theory at least to protect their bodies of their peasants, protect them from foreign armies. The church also would levy taxes in theory at least to protect their bodies of their peasants protect them from foreign armies the church also would levy taxes now against you in medial Europe. Tides collected in theory to protect your soul. King could threaten to not protect you in times of war if you didn't pay or torture or execute you.

The king had serious power to wield over you. You know, they could torture and kill you for some bullshit to no one could do anything to stop them. Uh, and, and as could for the most part, your local dukes and lords, the church, though, had even more power. Uh, they could threaten the damn nation of your eternal soul, so much power in that, the most in Rome during its height. As I mentioned, you know, emperors were gods.

They had the power to overrule any and all priests, but during the dark ages, the pope and through the pope, the Catholic church as a whole now trumped the power of any king or queen. Massive paradigm shift. If you're a peasant, you fear the church more than you fear the ruler. Your king can take away your life, your king can throw your life away, but your priest can throw away your soul. The church collected a 10% tithe from its followers, and almost everyone was a follower. Most had to be in the dark ages at least publicly. Yes, there were some Jewish and pagan and Muslims living in medieval Europe, but not as many as Christians. And these other groups were generally treated as second or third class citizens and protected far less than peasants were. If you weren't Christian in Europe during the dark ages,

your chances being burned to the stake or murdered in some other fashion or run out of town increased greatly. As the dark ages wore on more and more of Europe became Christian and people were raised to fear the Christian God from childbirth and that fear gave the church so much fucking power. I know I keep saying that, but it's so true. And echoes of this early power still reverberating around the world. When I was thinking about this while compiling notes, I imagined a medieval peasant, you know, behind on their tides getting an actual bill like one

We get today from like the cable provider or someone else we owe money to Reminder your spiritual account is 30 days past due if we do not receive your tithe balance in 10 business days We will be forced to terminate your ability to live forever in heaven with your family and our Lord Failure to pay will result in your spiritual account being referred to a collection agency. Once your spiritual account is 90 days past due, it will then be handed directly over to Satan. Bills above in his demon minions will then spend the subsequent eternity chewing on your soul, burning you alive over and over as you wail and anguish forever and ever. Amen. Please see Father Wilson at your earliest convenience within 10 working days to settle your spiritual account, avoid excommunication and once again be welcomed

into God's grace. So, you know, you risked burdened in hell if you didn't pay your ties to the church. And you paid other taxes to medieval monarchs and lords who were supposed to protect you from foreign invaders, but that protection offered in show up when was needed. If the foreign invaders showed up and you didn't make it inside the castle walls fast enough, you were fucking dead or captured forced to work for, be taxed by some other asshole now. And you pay taxes to your king, you pay taxes to the church, you pay taxes to the noblemen in between you and the king. And you really got little to nothing to return. Futalism was terrible for peasants. Landless peasants toyed them away for their entire lives, for their nobleman, you know,

just who the king had given large pieces of land to in exchange for the loyalty of the nobleman's army, an army that would help defend his king, a army often composed of peasants. Nobleman employed these surf sacks to work the land with most of the fruits of their labor going back to the nobleman and some of that money bumped up to the king and the church also got some money from the Novelman as well. Manival surfed almost like a big MLM, a big multi-level marketing scheme. Except as a peasant, you had zero chance of moving up

from the bottom level to the top. It was a pretty dismal life. The lack of personal freedoms would inspire a number of would-be thought criminals to form counter-movements and secret societies, illuminati! And their early visions of rights and liberties would inspire later renaissance and enlightenment thinkers. Since the Catholic Church was the focal point of medieval society, what culture did

exist in the Dark Ages, often revolved around it, mostly almost entirely revolved around it, Gothic architecture, which were designed to inspire and intimidate the viewer into worshiping God, that architecture thrived. The Pope, who could undermine basically all civil authority in Europe, was effectively, you know, the social influencer, the only social influencer that mattered in the dark ages, dictating what kind of art and literature was enjoyed, what was allowed. Another event that defined the dark ages was the rise of Islam in the Middle East. Following the death of Muhammad in 632 CE, Islam quickly, like really quickly, spreads throughout the Middle East with Muslim forces conquering kingdoms and establishing authority

of their new religion. By the late 7th and 8th century, Muslim conquest had expanded into present-day Turkey and Spain. They expanded out of their homeland in Arabia and conquered the rich Egyptian provinces of the Byzantines and the entire, oh man, Sasanian empire, all in the space of about 100 years. All the Catholic Church had a complicated relationship with science and reason. They didn't want anyone coming for their worldview, Muslim scholars translated Greek texts and made important advances in mathematics and science. They even introduced the game of chess to Europe.

Knowledge of science and medicine in the Islamic world was far more sophisticated than in Western Europe during the dark ages. The Muslims boasted the biggest city in Western Europe during the dark ages. In the 10th century, the Muslim city of Cordoba, Spain, the largest, greatest city in Europe, somewhere between 100,000 and 400,000 people. No other city in Europe exceeded 50,000 at that time. Cordoba boasted paved streets, a form of public lighting, luxurious villas with indoor plumbing,

patios, gardens, fountains, were refreshing oasis, against noise and blistering summer heat, public baths, kept bodies clean, the city dazzled with its civilized air and multicultural activity with Muslims, Jews, and Christians all mingling together. Cordoba enjoyed a booming economy thanks to its skilled artisans and agricultural infrastructure, famous for its leather and metalwork, glazed tiles and textiles. The variety of agricultural goods introduced by the Moors was astonishing. Oranges, lemons, limes, watermelons, figs, pomegranates, pomegranates, almonds, bananas, artichokes, eggplants, spinach, sugar cane, and then the Catholics conquered it

in the 13th century, and then it became a shell of its former self. By the 18th century, only around 20,000 would still be living in that sleepy city. And its height, Cordova was the capital of the caliphate of Cordoba, part of the Umayyad dynasty. I just heighten the eight century, this dynasty ruled all of Northern Africa,

the Lied along the Mediterranean, nearly all of the Iberian peninsula of modern Spain and Portugal, the entire Middle East, part of modern day Turkey, modern day Iran, Turkmenistan, part of Afghanistan, and more. And one of several powerful Islamic states. The Abbasid caliphate overthrew most of the Umayyads in 750 CE. The Abbasids like any conquering medieval empire were brutal. Sometime in 750 CE, they had a banquet of blood to complete their overthrow of the Umayyads. Over 80 Umayyad family members invited to a grand feast

on the pretext of reconciliation given their desperate status and hope for fair surrendering terms. Apparently all of the invitees ceremoniously made their way to the Palestinian town of Abu Futras. Once the feasting and festivities were done, almost all of the princes were remorselously clubbed to death by the abassads, eliminating the possibility of Umayyad returned to a caliphate power. So very game of thrones. No one can fully defeat the Abbasids until the Mongols in 1258.

The Abbasids were more open to foreigners and their ideas, the tolerance and curiosity ushered in a golden age of Islamic, learning, centered, and Baghdad. The Abbasids oversaw on efflorescence of culture, unlike anything that had been seen since Hellenistic times. Arabic replaced Greek, not only as the language of commerce and religion, but also of culture, philosophy, medicine, poetry, written in Arabic. Baghdad was the world center of scholarship with its house of wisdom and immense library. Muslim scholars translated the works of the Greek philosophers, including Aristotle and Plato, as well as scientific works by Hippocrates or Hippocrates, God dang it. Archimedes translated and preserved Buddhist and Hindu manuscripts that might have otherwise

been lost. Muslim mathematicians expanded math to such a degree that we now call the base 10 numbers system and the symbols we used to denote it, Arabic numerals. And religion was at least part of what pushed all that learning forward, like the great philosopher, Ibn Rush-Rushed, probably butchering his name, argued that the only path to religious enlightenment was through Aristotelian reasoning. And Muslim mathematicians and astronomers developed algebra partly so they could simplify Islamic inheritance law, plus they made important strides in trigonometry, so that people understand where to turn when trying to turn towards

Mecca and the Islamic world for a period science and religion actually worked very well together. There was a lot of intellectual progress being made in Islamic states. Life was also brutal for many of the people living in that Islamic medieval world. I pointed out how harsh life was for the Christian peasant only fair to point out that it wasn't a walk in the park for the Islamic commoner either. Slaves were commonplace in the caliphates. Non-Muslims had to pay additional taxes to live and work in the caliphates. They often had to wear clothing that would distinguish them from Muslims so everyone

could visually see who the second class citizens were. Women had it especially rough. A herons were common for important men. Those herons comprised of sexual slaves. Criminal punishment very severe. Criminal stone to death in these Muslim theocracies operated on Shariya Law. Thieves for example, would have their hands cut off. Life was great in certain cities like Cordoba for some, brutal for many others.

Now, also the rise of Islam led to a lot of bloodshed in its wars with Christians. Islam's expansion did not sit well with many European Christians in the Dark Ages. On November 27th 1095 Pope Urban II called upon Christians to go to war against Muslims in an event that has become known as their Crusades. We touched on their Crusades and our two parts suck in the Knights Templar a few years back. The Crusades would last from 1095 all the way into the 15th century in some form, occurring in waves, anywhere from two to six million people would die in the Crusades. The goal of the first Crusade was to recover the Holy Land from Islamic occupation, specifically Jerusalem. The first Crusade largely successful, but then

subsequent Crusades saw varying degrees of success and failure. And then eventually they patient, specifically Jerusalem, the first crusade largely successful, but then subsequent crusade saw varying degrees of success and failure. And then eventually they failed altogether and the Muslims reclaimed the Holy Land. Okay, now that we know, you know, about just how dark medieval Europe got, let's get to this week's disease ridden. Be glad you're alive today. Enjoy simple pleasures like being able to take a warm bath and sleep on a lice-free bed. Really, you know, get into the details of the dark ages in this time-suck timeline after a word from our sponsors. Thank you, Meet's X. I hope you just heard some deals that appeal to you.

Now it is time-line time. Shrap on those boots soldier. We're marching down a time, time, time, line. For 76 CE, Rome falls throwing Europe into the Dark Ages. Forty years later, in 516 CE, the Benedict of Norsia writes a text called the rule for monks living communally under the authority of an abbot. The rule comprises 73 short chapters. It's wisdom, but wisdom in quotes is twofold. Spiritual how to live a Christ-centric life on earth and also administrative how to run a monastery efficiently. The rule, a kind of written constitution laying out standards for the monastery and congregation

and limiting the abbot's authority according according to these standards spreads across Europe, eventually becoming the model for most Western monasteries throughout the Dark Ages. Finally, the Benedict's insistence that the idleness is the enemy of the soul and his rule that monks should do manual as well as intellectual and spiritual labor. Labor, excuse me, is the forerunner of the Protestant work ethic. And I look into this book a little bit and it sounds fucking terrible. Here's a summary of one of the chapters.

Chapter seven divides humility into 12 degrees or steps in the ladder that leads to heaven for the monks. Number one, fear God. Love that that is number one. Love God? No. Be comforted. Knowing that God loves you. Ah, no, no, fear God. Love that that is number one. Love God? No. Be comforted. Knowing that God loves you.

Ah, no, no, fear God. Fear the angry God. Number two, subordinate one's will to the will of God that you fear. Three, be obedient to one superior. Four, be patient amid hardships. Okay. Five, confess one since, all right. Six, accept the meanest of tasks and hold oneself

as a worthless workman. Not a big fan of that one. Seven, consider oneself inferior to all. Not like in that one. Number eight, follow examples said by Superior's nine. Do not speak until spoken to. Oh man, this is rough. Ten is even rougher.

Do not readily laugh. Don't laugh. Eleven speaks simply and modestly and 12 express ones inward humility through bodily posture. What the fuck? I know I've referenced the handmaid's tale, a lot of the suck here and there recently, but this really is some handmaid's tale shit.

This is no way to live. is running these monasteries with these kind of rules some fucking 1960s American just you know army drill sergeant be afraid monk got his angry He hates your scrawny worth this ass private monk Don't you fucking look at me private monk you put some humility into that posture of yours and look at the fucking floor I will personally send your ass to hell. You fuck up, private monk. I dare you to fuck up one time. Satan is all around you, waiting to snag your soul for readily laughing.

You fucking monk maggot. Did you just speak when you were not spoken to? You frowned up, motherfucker! Not haircut, private monk. I'm joking. It is shit. You are shit. You worthless workman

That I just smell you taking pride in your life. You fucking worm. You fucking pile of monks shit God, I wish baby Jesus himself was here to karate kick your dead eye monks wine running your tiny lip versus monk dick You piece of shit. That's the vibe I get For those rules. My God, fucked a Benedict of Nersia, 525 CE. That drill sergeant, he's coming back to stock. The term auto-dominant is invented. Anodominant was translated to the year of our Lord in English is

where we get the abbreviation AD to reference the time after Christ's birth. Amongst named Dionysius creates these new calendar areas as part of his efforts to understand which day's Easter will fall on subsequent years. Systems of dating before BC AD, before Christ and Anodomini, fully adopted were often based on significant events and political leaders. The Rome was generally described years

on who was consul or by counting from the founding of the city of Rome. Some might also count based on what year of an emperor's reign it was. Egyptians also used a variation on this system, counting years based on years of a king's rule. So an event might be dated like the fifth year of bloody bloz rule.

And it sounds very confusing. Dinesias wanted the year 1 AD to be the date when Jesus Christ was born, although later calculations show that his birth occurred before this. Gradually, the use of this calendar became more widespread. I choose to use CE and BCE, common era, and before the common era, which denote the same times as AD and BC, because, you know, just because the whole world is not Christian. A major pandemic known as the plague of Justinian strikes the Middle East and Mediterranean regions in 541 and 542 CE causing the deaths of an estimated 25 million people.

The plague is not to be bubonic. 800 years before the black death, the bubonic plague may have already killed millions in Europe. Many, many plagues would fall upon medieval people. It's probably in part because the hygiene standards of the day were absolute dog shit, put it lightly. As running water was very rare and considering it took such a, you know, so much physical effort to get a bucket full from a well or nearby water source, not surprising to take

in a full bath every day was not feasible as an option for most people. Monks, for example, were typically prohibited from taking more than two or three baths in a year in their monasteries. Of course they were. Of course they were denied baths. What's that you munch maggot? Did you say you wanted a bath? Didn't you just take one three months ago? You fucking diva. Well, latte fucking dog. Should I grab some lavender and rose petals, private diva monk? Want me to wash your back and scrub your balls. You up in a monk, maggot, fuck, get out.

Get out of this monastery. Go starving the cold. Go bathe yourself in a frozen pond and go to hell. You private monk, maggot, motherfucker. Jesus hates you and so do I. I don't know why you got Southern towards the end there. A lord might have a padded bath. I'm really, I'm at least cracking myself up,

thinking about, thinking about, thinking about some abbot, just screaming at these monks. A lord might have a padded bath for extra comfort and usually travel with one. Such was the uncertainty of finding the convenience of a bath on one's travels. They were so fucking rare. A lord could take as many baths as they liked,

much better to be a dark age as a lord than a monk. The vast majority of peasants may do with a quick swill of cold water, scooped up from the local creek or spring or well. While a full bath was very rare for peasants, it was common practice for many to wash, at least their face and hands in the morning. That was primarily to get rid of the fleas and lice off of their faces and hands that was left over from the bedding that they'd slept on the night before.

So can't always kill those fleas and lice, but you can drown a few each morning. This is also horribly sad. Rarely changed straw bedding was a particular paradise for vermin like lice and fleas. Even if some preventative measures were taken by peasants, such as mixing herbs and flowers like basil, chamomile, lavender, mint, into the straw. Dittalies have generally clean hands, kind of. As most people ate meals without knives, forks, or spoons, just eating with their hands,

there's also a common convention to wash hands before and after eating. But I should put like wash and italics because cold water, no real soap, just washing some turkey grease off your hands, as best you could, wiping your hands on your shitty wool tonic when you were done and then going down to lay on your bed of mattress, lie straw. In addition to using cold water to wash your hands, peasants also would drink water.

There's a common myth that medieval peasants never drank water. It never made sense to me. How can you survive drinking only beer and wine your whole life? Maybe you can't, at least I don't think you can. I don't think you'd fare too well. Even if you can, they did not.

Peasants didn't avoid drinking water altogether because it was dirty and made them sick. They did try and avoid dirty water and they also did drink from wells and clean streams. What about teeth? How did dark ages sad, sacs clean their teeth? Teeth were clean using twigs. I love that, twigs, especially hazel.

You know, I got to get a nice hazel twig for your teeth. And small pieces of wool or linen. I can't remember thinking about how shitty toothbrushes must've been before we had, you know, toothbrushes. Imagine never been able to brush your teeth. Just that alone, how gross that be? I've spent time around someone who legitimately just never brushes their teeth

and they get that real thick layer of plaque. It's a white pasty goop all over their teeth. Their breasts smells like death. That was what, I mean, a lot of people were like back in the dark ages. Like people with excellent oral hygiene habits were scrubbing their teeth with hazel twigs and wool. There's no way that could have worked out very well. Toothpaste were made of stuff like ground sage, mixed with salt crystals, or powdered

charcoal from rosemary stems, or a crushed pepper, mint, rock salt combination. All of this is really ruining the sexy medieval maiden fantasy. I may have run through my head a time or a thousand in my life. Why look to Fina? Were sexy bucks on peasant women? Were they really this dirty and stinky? They might not have been this bad. Archaeological records show less tooth decay in the teeth of medieval peasants than in

today's people, actually, because while they didn't have toothpaste, they also weren't eating tons of processed sugar. They weren't eating any. And medieval peasants, those who could afford it, had mouthwashers made from herbs and spices, steeped wine and vinegar, mint, majoram, cinnamon, also popular. People chewed on fennel seeds, parsley, cloves.

I guess my fantasy can kind of live on. Some peasants were not dirty, filthy monsters, but I bet a lot were. On to more hygiene. What about shaving? Shaving was either not done at all or like once a week, unless one was a monk in which case, in which case one was shaved daily by a fellow brother. Shaving instruments did exist back then, but if you were some poor ass surf peasant, living in a backwood,

that village of 70 dirty farmers, you know, you didn't have a barber, you didn't have a shaving blade, you might have just had to live with some straggly beard full of fleas and licensure. Maybe a couple of birds, you know, have nested in a barber, you didn't have a shaving blade. You might have just had to live with some straggly beard full of fleas and licensure. Maybe a couple of birds, you know, have nested in there. Maybe a family of chipmunks. I'll talk about toilets. And villages are on manor estates.

The peasantry used a cesspit, a big communal outhouse for their own wastes, which might then be taken and spread across their fields as fertilizer. Or sometimes you had a little hole that you dug yourself, like a little mini-cess pit. He sat on a bench or something, just a crude version of an outhouse chamber pots were used at night or when it was cold,

then you emptied the chamber pot into the cesspit or in your little shithole, then maybe you didn't wash your hands, it was awesome. Also, you didn't really wipe your ass without toilet paper or really a paper of any kind, people had to make do with a handful of, hey, grass, straw, or moss. Toilet life or rural, dark of any kind, people had to make do with a handful of, hey, grass, straw, or moths. Toilet life, a rural, dark age of service.

It was like going camping today. If you went to a campground that had no bathroom, then you forgot to bring toilet paper, and you forgot to bring soap, and you didn't have any way to boil water. And instead of just like staying for the night or over the weekend, you just stay for the rest of your fucking life. Toilet life, with a little bit better in castles. Toilet is in a castle, also known as privies or latrines, at least had the waste channel down into a

assess put at the foot of the castle walls or into the moat. Sometimes it would end up being funneled into the moat, which is an added defensive measure, not talked about much in military history or shown in a lot of medieval films. The moats were full of human shit. How much of those moat smell?

Sometimes castle toilets might empty into a channel which would then be regularly flushed with water from like a diverted stream. And that was as good as it got. That was like the best dark ages of life right there. Where you could have your shit funneled into a creek. That's when you knew you were living the dark ages high life. When you had plenty of moss, you had the finest moss

to wipe your ass with. And you didn't have to smell your own shit every day, and you maybe had less lice and fleas, and your hair, than the peasants living on the other side of your shit moat. That's when you were ballin' baby. Now let's talk about how nasty the food was back then. Poor food preparation and storage was a common source of ailments, epidemics of ergotism known in medieval times as St. Anthony's fire, caused by eating rye that had been poisoned by fungi because it was, you know, rotting, expired symptoms included painful seizures

and spasms diarrhea, itching mental effects included mania, mania, excuse me psychosis headaches, nausea, vomiting, sometimes death. We don't know how common food poisoning was back then, but it may have been very common until just a few years ago. It was thought that Salmonella had only been around for about 125 years. Nope, it's been around for at least 800 years in Europe. People died all the time back then. They would just get ill and die and no one would know

if they had been poisoned, if they've got some kind of plague or some other pathogen, or maybe got severe food poisoning. So much disease back then. Skin diseases, particularly prevalent, all manner of skin afflictions were caused by poor diet, terrible hygiene habits, random pathogens and parasites. It really pains quite the picture, doesn't it? That lovely maiden from movies like Braveheart, Robin Hood, Princess Bride, she must have

been so rare. I probably didn't exist at all, like the actresses that play them now. No one back then looked anything like a young Robin right or care nightly. No one had personal trainers, or used expensive medical grade, dermatologist designed skin care regimens. No one was getting many petdies at the spa

or seaweed face wraps or having their teeth straightened or whitened or cleaned it all. No one was putting on sunblocked, to prevent sun damage or head into the salon to get their hair dyed or head into their waxer to get their eyebrows thinned out and defined or have most or all of their pubic hair removed. They weren't taking multivitamins, or going on juice cleanses,

or taking pilates and yoga classes. They weren't putting on deodorant or powdering their balls, maybe rubbing some bay leaves or some other type of herb on their hairy, lice infested sweat pits. I don't know, maybe I'm bay leaves or some other type of herb on their hairy license-fested sweat pits. I don't know, maybe I'm exaggerating how bad it was, but they, comparatively, were definitely filthy or ugly or instinctive. And so are the men, not just the women. Prince Charming didn't look like Brad Pitt or Zac Efron or Edor's Elba or whoever you men

love and suckers are thinking is hot. What should you go back in time somehow and just see what they really look like? I just feel like compared to today. Pretty fucking rough. Okay, hygiene overview, complete. I found that fascinating. Let's head back to the timeline. 570 CE, Muhammad, one of the most influential religious and political leaders in human

history, born in Mecca. When he's 25, he marries and lives for the next 15 years as a merchant. Around 610, he claims to have had a vision in this cave in which he hears the voice of a majestic being later identified as the angel Gabriel. around 610 he claims to have had a vision in this cave in which he hears the voice of a majestic being later identified as the angel Gabriel say to him, you are the messenger of God. This kicks off a lifetime of religious revelations where he and others, you know, collect as the Quran, the foundational text of the Islamic faith, and a new religion is born and it grows so fast. The followers will soon take over much in northern Africa, all of the Middle East, a good chunk of Europe.

Today it's the second largest religion in the world behind Christianity with over 1.8 billion followers. Roughly a quarter of the earth's population, 590 CE. Gregoricus and Anisus. Oh, it's fucking me. It's elected Pope, taking the name Gregory I. And I got that. Gregory, nailing it.

Also known as Gregory the Great. He's credited with being a reformer, excellent administrator, founder of the Medieval papacy, bringing the church even more secular and spiritual power before he died in 604. How does he do this? Well, he's born into troubled times, cities and commerce have declined. Cycles of famine and plague are depopulating the countryside.

It's awesome medieval life. Centralized bureaucratic controls or fragmenting enabling local strongmen, aka warlords to take control of various parts of Christiandom. Pope Gregory has to make a choice. The Church can either act as a check against the new rising military aristocracy and Rome. The Senate is defunct the new papacy assumed civic responsibilities or or he can serve the secular ambitions of the strong man and their patronage networks. It was a petty, it was pretty excuse me, game of thrones, you could either try to be a reformer or you could go with easier and much less deadly option of just pairing out with somebody strong.

Well, Gregory decides to go with the first option. He establishes colleges of referees, defense or he's with staff sent to manage a state's protect peasants from exploitation by the nobles. Gregory's most important reform is making land inheritable. Like his concern for justice, this reform improves a lot of peasants encouraged them to remain in one locale to cultivate the land. Debateable if it really improves it.

Because they couldn't leave the land without their nobles permission, that's what we talked about that. Getting the people's favor meant more clout for the Catholic Church, more power. So it's a win for Gregory. At the same time, he also plays dirty with neighboring states, like the Italian province of Ravenna by claiming that he gets right to appoint bishops in various states and controlling those bishops, effectively bringing the territories under papal control, more power. 622 CE, the prophet Muhammad and his followers leave the city of Mecca after facing persecution and establish themselves in Medina.

At Medina, Muhammad builds a theocratic state, leads raids on trading caravans from Mecca. As God wants, go raid some caravans, attempts by Meccan armies to defeat the Muslims forces fail and several leading Meccans immigrate to Medina to become Muslims. They're going to go with a strong hand. And random thought right here. We've talked about so many co-leaders on time, Suck. Basically, anyone who claims to have direct access to God's word to suddenly hear God talking to them, I've talked over and over about how you're supposed to run away from

that person as fast as you can. See Tony and Susan Alamo, David Kuresh, David Berg, etc. But we give ancient people who did the exact same thing of pass. All right, see Muhammad, Jesus. I wonder if all the world's religions began when someone like a manual David or Yahweh, Ben Yahweh claimed to be speak on behalf of God.

Sometimes I wonder about this. Like what if the main difference between a cult and a religion is just how many people believe and how long it's been around. Also even if either Muhammad or Jesus really did speak to God since they came up with different belief systems, doesn't that mean that only one of them could have been right, which means that at least one of them was a cult leader? And finally if A God is real and B God does speak on her through a prophet, then see what

if none of the ancient prophets were the real profits, what if some modern profit I've already labeled as a cult leader was actually God's true profit? What if Father Yod is the real deal? And we all just fucking miss the boat, right? What if this is what we should have been paying attention to this entire time? Gonna be so much of you, there's gonna be some doubts but ain't nobody gonna shabble for baby, for some. What if that was the true word of God we just heard? Man, I hope not. Now I'm done now.

Just wanted to share the kind of shit I lay in bed and think about with you guys. Back to the Dark Ages, 651 CE, the Islamic conquest of Persia is complete. After about 20 years of warfare, the Sassanian empire collapses, allowing the first Islamic caliphate, the Rashidun, or excuse me, Rashidun, caliphate to take control of most of its territory, expanding Islam's reach. 711. Ha ha. 711 CE, Muslim forces invade and in seven years conquer the Iberian Peninsula

in spade. In Spain, in spade, what am I talking about? After the first victory, the Muslims conquer most of Spain and Portugal with little difficulty. And in fact, with little opposition by 720, Spain is largely under Muslim or Maurish as it was called control. The heartland of Muslim rule in the, was Southern Spain or Andalusia. Islam grew so fast, less than a century earlier. Muhammad was getting essentially kicked out of mecca now they're running shit in the iberian peninsula the southern tip of spain is over six thousand kilometers over thirty seven hundred miles from mecca

holy shit this is comparable to if the uh... mormans after getting basically kicked out of mizuri in eighteen thirty eight uh... then took over the entire western united states inform their own powerful empire during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Like it happened that fast. From 717 to 718, the siege of Constantinople ransacked the capital city of the Byzantine empire, the one year siege by the Umayyad caliphate ends with the Muslim Arab Umayyads withdrawing.

It was the second Arab siege of the city. Wouldn't be the last. The Ottoman Empire would eventually take the city in 1453. A constant noble to actually be besieged 34 times throughout its long, long history. 732 CE, despite not being able to take constant noble, the Islamic caliphate keeps expanding their empire. From Spain, they begin accroaching on territory occupied by the Franks, by the early 8th century.

The Islamic caliphate has no setbacks until they meet with auto of aqua-tain, also called auto the great. You want to victory at the Battle of Toulouse that temporarily halted the Muslims previously unstoppable military machine. Auto had to get help to beat him. He joined forces with Charles Martell, a Frankish leader. They had previously been enemies. Charles agreed to help on the stipulation that Autodo's land become part of the Frankish kingdom

Frank's were steadily growing stronger under Charles the Franks met Islamic forces led by the umayah caliphate in north eastern France in October of 732 Charles Martel and his forces fight general Abdul Rahman al Gaffi Gaffi key Charles forces are well trained fought with the equipment and organization that echoed the hop-light formations of the ancient Greeks. Used a geography to his advantage, putting himself at a higher elevation than the enemy, used trees and rough terrain to protect his infantry

from cavalry charges. The first several days result in several skirmishes with no clear victor, then there's the final major battle. The Muslim army had tried a, had a tried and true method of wearing down the enemy with interchanging light cavalry and heavy cavalry charges. With no real reason to try something different, the cavalry crashes into the Frankish formations who stood firm. Frankish troops withstood the attacks and lashed out hard whenever their experienced and patient troops saw the right

opportunity. Around the second day of fighting, the cavalry broke past a Frankish formation and towards Charles. Charles and Charles's guard entered the fight and sent several Frankish scouts to raid the enemy camp, causing havoc and freeing prisoners. The Muslim army feared for the safety of their treasures, and many rushed back to the camp, leading other Muslim soldiers to believe that their army was retreating, which made an actual full retreat start to happen. The Franks then swarmed in on their retreat and foes. The surviving Muslim soldiers fled in the middle of the night carrying whatever loot they could take on their backs. The story is estimated that the Muslim army lost around 8,000, 10,000 soldiers

compared to a loss of about a thousand soldiers for the Franks. Though not a crushing victory, it nevertheless stopped the expansion of the caliphate further into Europe. Charles was given the nickname of Charles the hammer. Charles in charge for crushing his enemies and both he and Odo would be considered heroes of Christianity. By allying with various tribes and territories and bringing them under his authority, Charles formed the Frankish kingdom. His family line would go on to produce Charlemagne, the first holy Roman emperor. 793 C Viking Raiders from Scandinavia attack a monastery at Lindisfarne, Lindisfarne, one of the places where civilized learning had weathered the darkest years of the Middle Ages.

Thus begins two centuries of terror as more invaders pour out of Scandinavian spread throughout Europe. For more on the Vikings, check out suck 135. Christmas Day 800 CE Charlemagne also known as Charles the Great Crown Emperor. On Christmas day, the Carolingian ruler, that's the family line that Charles the hammer, Charles and Charles established, is crowned Emperor of the Romans by Pope Leo III, the first person in Europe to hold this title. Charlemagne deserves his own suck, so we won't go into a ton of detail I'm here. But one big thing he did was that he helped nurture a few small embers of preserved knowledge

from before the fall of Rome using the power of the church. His period was known as the Carolingian Renaissance. A time when Charles de Great tried to reestablish knowledge as a cornerstone of society. It was a brutal man of war, but it was also a great believer in the power of learning. His Frankish empire covered most of Western Europe, and he instigated a revival of art, culture, and learning using the Catholic Church to transmit knowledge and education. He ordered the translation of many Latin texts and promoted astronomy, astronomy, a field that he loved to study despite his own inability to read.

Sadly, this renaissance did next to nothing to change the daily life of the average medieval peasant. New ideas were basically only studied and shared by the clergy and did not kind of trickle down from the church. A group of Viking settles in northwestern France in 820 CE, they will become known as the Normans, fairly important group of people in Europe. August 843, the Treaty of Verdun ends a war between Charlemagne's grandsons for his empires. Upon the death of Charlemagne, his soul surviving son, Louis the Pious inherited the entire

Carolingian empire. Louis had several sons, and now he wanted the empire to remain a cohesive whole. He divided and redevided the territory so that each could govern his own kingdom. After extensive fighting between Lothair, Louis the German and Charles the Bald, the treaty of Verdun agreed that Lothair was allowed to keep the title of Emperor, but he no longer had any real authority over his brothers. I think we've talked about Charles the bald before. What a terrible nickname. No one knows for sure how he got it.

He actually has thought to have never had a full head of hair. He's actually thought to have had a full head of hair. Something he was actually extremely hairy in the name of his ironic, kind of like a big guy tiny. Bald may have also been a reference to him as a young man not owning any land. However, you got the nickname, my daddy loved it. I wouldn't be pumped to be introduced as Dan the Bald, Dan the Hairless, Dan the High and Thinning Hairline.

No one wants a title like that. Buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, stand and raise your goblets for your new king, Dan the High and Thinning and getting kind of wispy hairline. Why did you have wispy? I already didn't like it. They're tossing wispy.

Charles the ball is brother Lothair received a central portion of the empire, which included parts of present day Belgium, much of the Netherlands, some of eastern France and western Germany, most of Switzerland, a substantial portion of Italy. Charles was given the western parts of the empire, which included most of present day France, and Lewis took the eastern part, which included most of present day Germany. And this agreement basically led to the formation of the modern boundaries of France and Germany that we know today. 862 CE, a Varengian chief to name it, Rurik rises to power in what was called Rousse, and would later be Russia. Rurik establishes his dynasty, the Rurik dynasty to power in what was called Rousse and would later be Russia.

Rurik establishes his dynasty, the Rurik dynasty, which will, as we learned in the Ivan the Terrible Suck, go on to produce a Zars that will rule over Russia until the beginning of the 17th century, shortly before the Romanovs take over. 886 CE, King Alfred the Great captures London from the Danes. And for the first time in British history, Unites all Anglo-Saxons. 897, Pope Stephen VI holds a super fucking weird trial. This is so good. At the Basilica San Giovanni,

let's San Giovanni la Taranola in Rome, something like that. And it ushered in what even devout Catholics would call the most corrupt era of the papacy. Stephen VI had been Pope for less than a year, and then he orders his predecessor, Pope Formosus, dug up, this guy's dead, and placed on trial for political reasons.

You heard me. You can have a dead guy put on trial. Stephen the Sixth reason for desecrating this corpse could have been to shore up some political alliances with a faction that hated Formosus. More likely it was to cover up for the fact that Stephen was guilty of the same exact things he was accusing Formosus of.

Formosus had made Stephen Bishop, a Bishop of Rome, and Stephen had become Bishop of Rome, a title that comes with the papacy while he still held that post, which I guess was a big no-no, not how it's supposed to be done, didn't follow procedure. And if for Moses could be found guilty of that same crime being a simultaneous bishop of two places, his actions would be null, and then Stephen wouldn't have been a bishop when he was elected pope. And there's more complicated reasons it really don't matter. I just, this is just an interesting moment here

in the history of medieval Europe. He might have just done this because he was fucking completely insane too. How crazy is this trial? Excuse me, dude had been dead for seven months. They dig him up, dress him up in his papal robe, see him in a pope chair, and then new pope Stephen yells

at this corpse, this rotting fucking corpse, and a bunch of other witnesses for hours. They even had a deacon appointed to speak on behalf of the corpse. How awkward for that guy? For most of his rotting corpse is found guilty, he stripped of his papal finery, not done, then in front of everybody, Pope Stephen has his blessing fingers cut off. So he wants a couple of fingers cut off this guy, and then they front of everybody, Pope Stephen has his blessing fingers cut off. So he wants a couple of fingers cut off this guy, and then they rebury him, still not done. Stephen has the body dug up again, yos it a some more, then has the corpse thrown into the type of river.

What the fuck? Again, imagine the news coverage. Something like this would get today. Hello and welcome back to Roman Nightly News. I'm sensationalist Maximus and oh my jubiter, do I have another breaking story for you? Something like this would get today. We just heard from our correspondent on the street time traveling Karen that after screaming at the body for hours, Pope Stephen has apparently started coming cutting some of the foremost his fingers off. Karen, what more can you tell us? Is this guy serious, Maximus? Fucking what?

He's cutting his dead guy's fingers off. He's supposed to be running the church, not on my watch. That is NOT how you do church. I may have missed a few Bible studies, but I know that Jesus didn't say shit about cutting dead people's fingers off. Hey, Pope guy, are you out of your mind? You need to get your head checked. That's outrageous.

Don't you look away from me. I'll have your job. I'll steal your ass off until I'm Pope. I'll own this whole damn town. Hey, get your- Ow! Get your hands off me! Looks like some soldiers are carrying care in a way now. This can't be good.

Be sure to check back in later on the Roman Nightly News Developing Story, more news every hour on the hour. Yeah, so, you know, be with the story. 9-11 CE, and agree to between King Charles III, also called Charles the Simple. I'm not a great nickname again, but maybe better than Charles the Bald.

The Viking leader, Rolo, establishes the Duchy of Normandy as a defense against other Norse raiders. This area had been suffering from Viking raids since 820, so almost a century. As part of the agreement, Rolo converts to Christianity and changes his name to Robert. Robert's story is then embellished upon by later Christian writers who hold him up as a role model of savage Viking chief who became a paragon of Christian virtue and established law on the land. The Normans will emerge as a significant group over the next two centuries. 919, a big year for meat sacks, marked the first time gunpowder was used that we know

of, did not happen in Europe, happened in Asia, it was used in a naval conflict during the five dynasties and ten kingdoms period in China between the states of will you and will you probably not saying that right could not find a pronunciation managed to destroy 400 enemy ships then capture 7,000 prisoners with their gunpowder fueled flame tour man that's poor enemies in that battle seeing that for the first time having no idea existed. They also had the flame throwers decorated with silver. So if the enemy captured them, they would take the silver and leave the petrol and fire starting apparatuses. A gunpowder would not reach Europe until the 13th century, three centuries later. 955 CE, the German king auto the first defeats a tribe of nomadic invaders called the ma-magiars.

The ma-magiars later became Christianized and founded the nation of Hungary. Otto thensforth was known as Otto the Great. A few years later, nine sixty-two, Otto the Great Crown Emperor in Rome, reviving Charlemagne's title. From this point on, most German kings will be crown ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, nine seventy-nine sea, the Song Dynasty,

reunites China. This new dynasty would last for over 300 years until 1279 with a prosperous economy and culture that valued literature, the arts and scholarship. This period was considered another period of golden age after the Tang Dynasty ended in 907 as for the development of science and culture tremendous achievements were made during this period. A lot of cool stuff happened in other parts of the world, even if it's not necessarily happening in Europe. Two of China's four great inventions, topography and the compass, both invented and the development

of gunpowder is accelerated. Things are going great over in China right now. Kind of. For the average person, life is shit in China. Two Chinese farmers had tough and difficult life just like European peasants. Most were surfs who lived in small villages just like their European counterparts. They worked day and night and like the Europeans,

they didn't own the land that they worked on. The property was owned by a noble or king in addition to working on the noble's land. The farmer had to give gifts to the noble, essentially attacks. And farmers had to work for the government for around one month each year. They had to serve in the military or do construction projects like build palaces, canals, city walls. Farmers also required to give a percentage of their crops to the government as tax. So despite some cool tech advancements,

despite more urban living going on in China than in Europe during the dark ages, the life for the average meat sack over in China really not any better than life for the average meat sack in Europe. 987 CE, Russia converts to Greek Orthodox Christianity, gradually begins adopting Byzantine culture after Vladimir the Great Mary's and sister of emperor Basil, excuse me, the second.

That's tough because his name is spelled exactly like the spice, or the herb. Whatever. It's a spicy herb. I don't know what it is. A thousand and one CE, Vikings led by leaf, Eric's and sale westward to North America. And during the next two decades, conducted a number of raids on the coast of what is now Eastern Canada. 10, 14 CE. After years of conflict with the Bulgarians, Byzantine emperor, a basil defeats them. Emperor Basil is furious that the Bulgarians have killed his favorite general. He also doesn't want to fight him again anytime soon, so he does something very, very medieval.

He has 8,000 prisoners and he orders that 99 out of each 100 men be completely blinded as he has their eyes gouged out. And then he allows every 100th man to keep one eye so that that dude can lead 99 other dudes back to Bulgaria. 8,000 dudes, so 7,920 are now completely blind. Both eyes gouged out. 80 of them still have one eye and these fucking, this motley crew of gouged soldiers marched back to Bulgaria and according to legend, their leader, Emperor Samuel dies of a heart attack when he sees them return. Basil earns the nickname the Bulger Slayer.

And what happened to all those blind soldiers? No idea. What happened after they got back home? Nothing good I'm assuming. And just another example of what a terrible time it was to be alive for most. 1025 CE, Avassina, also known as Abu Ali Sina, writes the Canon of Medicine. The Persian scholar completes an encyclopedia of medicine, which will remain the standard work on the topic

until the 18th century. So for many centuries, the canon of medicine organized into five books. Book one covers the basic principles of medicine. Book two lists approximately 800 individual drugs, a vegetable and mineral origin. Book three discusses the diseases of individual organs. Book four discusses medical conditions that affect the entire body, such as fevers, and

poisons, and book five lists of 650 medicinal compounds, as well as their uses and effects. And today, this book is mostly useless. But at the time, it was a little bit better than what other people were doing. So while Persian scholars are inventing modern medicine, what kind of medical care were Europeans looking forward to? This is going to be fun to explore mostly because it's not happening to us right now. In the middle ages, the practice of medicine was fucking barbaric. I was still rooted in the Greek tradition. People thought the body was made up of four humors, yellow bile, flam, black bile, and blood. That's what makes

up a human. You know, you get your yellow bile, you get your black bile, you get some flim and blood. That's pretty much it. These tumors were controlled by four elements of fire, water, earth, and air. When evil doctors believed that the human body and the planets were made up of the same elements, it was believed that the moon had the greatest influence on fluids on earth, and that it was the moon that had the ability to affect positively or negatively the four elements of the body. Where the moon and the planets were, a knowledge of this was considered important when making a diagnosis and deciding on a course of treatment, right? It might be the flu.

Oh, wait a minute. Look at the moon. Nope. Probably plague. We thought it was flu, but if you look at the moon, it's fucking plague time. Physicians needed to know when to treat a patient, when not to, and the position of the planets determined that because they didn't fucking know anything about how science worked. They thought that an imbalance of humor is created, you know, cause disease that the body

could be purged of excess by bleeding, cupping, leaching, that kind of stuff. Urine inspection was the most common method of diagnosis of disease. You gotta look at the piss, figure out how sick somebody is. The urine flask was the symbol of the medieval doctor. And I think we covered all our most of this in the black death episode, but fun to look at it again. The shit is just so crazy. No idea how the body of your disease has worked. But the ninth century medical schools were starting

to spring up, but they didn't learn much of anything that was useful. People studying these places, physicians trained at these universities were also just a luxury, only for the rich. Most peasants that they got sick or hurt ended up being treated by somebody that somebody was usually a monk. One of those life-hating poor bastards we talked about earlier.

And the monks would administer medicine made from herbs, spicins, and resins. Now they'd take a peek at the piss, toss a couple leeches on a patient, that kind of shit. You know, get yelled at by the drill sergeant. Get your piss flask, grab your herbs, and go doctor, you worthless monk maggot motherfucker. Did you just smile at me? You friar tucks sack of monk shit, as I just see joy on your face private monk. I will beat you to death. I will send you to hell myself.

Good Lord I wish baby Jesus was here to uppercut your ass up into your head. So everyone else could see the shit for brains. I have to look at every day. Now, maybe that was going on. The oldest surviving English herbal manuscript is the Balled's Leach book, a lot of bald references, they show. And about 80, 900, excuse me, CE, whatever, 950, vapor and herbass were prescribed for all kinds of ailments. The book shows how common it was to smoke the sick with fragrant woods and plants. This book is useless. The smoke is not a good, you know, treatment, and there was a lot worse treatments. One cure for a headache in this book is to bind a stock of some crosswort to the head

of someone with a red kerchief. Why red? Who knows? This is insane nonsense. This book offered treatment for livestock as well. One cure for a horse and pain was to have the words bless all the works of the Lord of Lords inscribed onto the handle of a dagger. Also the author of this insane book mentions that the pain that

the horse is feeling probably caused by an elf. So you know, maybe you should check for elves around the old horse stall. Holy shit these people are so fucking dumb. And I know they couldn't help it. Not their fault, but still. Just these people back to the doctor, my head still aches, what must I do? Of course your head still aches, you fool. You wrapped your crossword in a pink cachiff.

I said red, I was very clear. You're lucky your legs still work. Wrapping your head in crosswordwort with a pink caciff is known to cause paralysis. And I'm not surprised your horse is sick as well. You misspelled bless. It's two S's you fool. You're lucky the devil doesn't rape your sons.

Everyone with half a brain in their head knows that carving bless into one's dagger is the quickest way to get your son's demon raped if you only spell it with 1S. Medieval doctors also clean wounds with vinegar, thinking that would kill disease. That actually can destroy some bacteria and viruses, such as salmonella, so you know,

all right, little props there. Mint was used and treating venom and wounds. Mint doesn't actually help with venom. It does have anti-inflammatory properties. It can reduce itching, I guess, kind of, but it doesn't stop the venom. Mer was used as an antiseptic on wounds as well. It can also act as an anti-inflammatory.

Back in the dark ages, no real experimentation was done to test the efficacy of particular herb treatments or ailments. If the patient just got better, happening to get better after some random treatment, they're like, well, that worked. Let's just keep doing that. Also, even crazier, many dark ages herbalists believe that herbs that resembled various parts of the body, just visually, could be used to treat ailments for that part of the body.

For example, the spotted leaves of lungwort used to treat tuberculosis was used because it just kind of looks like lungs of someone with tuberculosis. Now, this has no medical validity. Of course, it's just like superstition. There's no scientific evidence whatsoever that plant shapes and colors line up with parts of the body and can be used to cure those parts of the body. I picture old-timey doctors prescribing carrots for a lot of dick ailments. Now, if someone goes wrong with your balls, they just give you an apple to eat. Anything goes wrong with your vagina or your vulva or some other lady parts.

Well, they fucking good luck. Maybe they give you oysters, something to eat. Back to the timeline. 1040 CE, movable type, a way of printing books and other documents. It goes a lot faster than the old way of engraving an entire page is developed. But not in Europe. B. Sheng is credited with pioneering the use of wooden movable type around 1040.

This technology would develop and expand outside of China soon, but movable type would not reach Europe until the 15th century for centuries later. 1054 CE, the great schism begins, splitting the church between the Catholic church and the Eastern Orthodox church, and then churches. The schism was the culmination of theological and political differences that are developed during preceding centuries. Differences that still exist today. Catholics considered the Pope to be Jesus Christ, representative on earth, and the successor of the Apostle Peter, who was appointed by Jesus as the first head of their church, according to them, he's infallible on matters of doctrine. Whatever he says goes. Orthodox believers reject the infallibility of the

Pope and consider their own patriarchs to be human and the subject to error. The Orthodox faith also rejects the Catholic doctrine of the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary, which Jesus' mother was conceived without original sin. They actually don't accept the concept of original sin at all. So there's no need for Christ to not be a human being. Also on a sexier note in the Catholic Church, while celibacy, the vile of abstaining from marriage and sexual relations is obligatory for priests Most orthodox churches have both ordained married priests and celibate

Monastic so celibacy is an option. It was Eastern priests can't and do get their fuck on hallows of fena On October 14th 1066 the Battle of Hastings goes down between the Norman French Army of Duke William of Normandy and the Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godwinson. Big battle for the Dark Ages. This battle lasts from about 9 a.m. to dusk. Early efforts of the invaders to break the English battle lines had little effect. Therefore, the Normans adopted the tactic of pretending to flee in panic and then turning back on their pursuers.

Harold's death in this battle probably near the end of it led to the retreat and defeat of most of his army and further marching in or after further marching in some skirmishes William is crowned King on Christmas day 1066 and this Norman conquest changed the face of England and Western Europe forever. Particularly it created the language spoken on this podcast spoken poorly. But still the combination of Norman French words of Latin origin and Anglo-Saxon words, a Germanic language created the English language that we used today. For example, Royal Law, Pork come from Norman French words, but King, Rules, Pig come from

Saxon ones. So cool little bit of trivia there. Hail Nimrod, 1071 C, the Seljuk Turks defeat Byzantine forces at the Battle of Man's occurred in Armenia. As a result, the Turks gain a foothold in Asia Minor, today is known as Turkey, and the Byzantine Empire begins a long slow decline. January 28th, 1077, one of the most interesting events to come out of the dark ages takes place. The event known as the Walk of Kosa or the Way to Canosa was a breaking point in the struggle for power between the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII.

A year earlier, on February 22nd, 1076, Pope Gregory VII had made the following declaration in Rome. Need some people music here to play behind this. On behalf of God Almighty, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and by your power and authority, I deny to King Henry, Son of the Emperor Henry, who with unheard of pride has risen up against your church, the government of the whole kingdom of the Germans and of Italy. I absolve all Christians from the bond of any oath that they have made or shall make to him and I forbid anyone to serve him as king.

For it is fitting that because he has driven to diminish the honor of your church, he himself self-forfeit the honor that he seems to possess. Finally, because he has disdain to show the obedience of a true Christian and has not returned to the God whom he forsook by communing with excommunicated men. By, as you are my witness, disdain it my advice which I sent him for his salvation, and by attempting to rend your church and separating himself from it, by your authority, I bind him with excommunication.

Fuck that motherfucker, Pope out. He said most of that. Everything except maybe those last few words. So I mean, strong words now, this excommunication was the last draw in a vicious smear campaign between these two rulers. This is the pope, you know, letting him know like I run shit. I'm in charge. And if you don't fucking bend your knee to me, I'll fucking toss you out of Europe. We's trying to do emperor Henry had accused Pope Gregory of practicing necromancy, hiring assassins, even destroying the Eucharist. There's been a lot of build-up to this. My favorite accusation there is Necromancy. You don't hear about a lot of world leaders accusing people of being Necromancers these

days. Pope Gregory responds to his Necromancer accusations by excommunicating Henry supporters and threatening to excommunicate him as well. Pope Henry supporters do not like this. Emperor Henry claims that Gregory has never been elected properly. Uh, then Gregory, Gregory replies by then excommunicating Henry in that speech. I just read bold move for a pope say that he could deprive an emperor of his right to rule. Uh, on January 25th, 1077 with the blizzard raging Henry arrives at the gates of the Italian

castle of Kenosa, uh, to beg for forgiveness after this. Here is Gregory's own account written just weeks after of how that went down. Let me get going that church music again for some ambiance. Finally, he came in person to Canosa, where we were staying, bringing with him only a small retinue and manifest he no hostile intentions Once arrived he presented himself with the gate of the castle Barefoot and plaid only in wolen garments The seatyness was tears to grant him absolute Absolution and forgiveness, wait a minute

That's not the same song as before Wait, oh no no no, okay I thought that sounded different That was too like crew That was too like crew we once imposed a knot the sound of Catholic cathedrals That's not the same song as before. Oh, no, no, no, okay. I thought that sounded different. That was too live crew. That was too live crew. We want some pussy, not the sound of Catholic cathedrals, one hour spiritual chance. Sorry about that mistake.

It really could have happened to anybody. Anyway, Gregory went on to say that Henry begged for forgiveness and then he removed his excommunication. Before being absolved, Henry had to promise Gregory that he would behave better. He promised to pay attention to the grievances of religious officials in his domain to not interfere with Gregory's travels to take him prisoner.

He also promised to help him in any conflict with anyone else who might oppose the Pope's authority. Afterwards, you know, excommunicated the emperor according to sources, Henry was so angry that he didn't touch his food. He spent the entire evening digging his fingernails into a wooden table, so he's not happy. I'm having to beg for forgiveness. With a final blessing from Gregory, Henry Depart's canosa heads back to his supporters.

medieval chroniclers have argued that Henry only did this to appease his nobles and keeps stability in his empire. And even though he begged for forgiveness here, three years later, they'd be back at it. Within three years, the Holy Roman Empire and the Pope fighting again, Gregory ex X communicates Henry another time. And now with no need to placate his rebellious nobles, Henry doesn't bother to seek forgiveness.

Instead, both sides fight to depose each other and war would be waged in both Germany and Italy, Q50 years of fighting. This power struggle between the Holy Roman Empire and the papacy would weaken the power of both The first of many crusades is launched in 1095 CE the crusades are complicated That's a vast subject. We explored a bit in the Knights Templar two parts suck a few years back Probably have its own suck someday right now just go over a few interesting points November 27th 1095 Pope urban the second calls upon Christians to go to war against Muslims

In the event of course, it's called the Crusades. He says all who die by the way, whether by land or by sea or in battle again Let me some church me to back on She'll have a media. Oh gosh, that's not okay. This is prey better. Yeah, okay. It's better move Anybody who dies whether by land or in sea or in battle against the pagans Anybody who dies, whether by land or in sea or in battle against the pagans, shall have immediate remission of sins. This I grant them to the power of God of which I am invested. Do just hold warriors of Europe that if you fight on behalf of the Christian Church, when you die,

you're absolved of all your sins and you go straight to heaven. That sounds like a cold leader move. This decree would lead to the conquest of Jerusalem four years later and a concerted effort by Western Europeans to take control of the Near East. And this decree led to a lot of bloodshed, a lot of atrocities. On December 12, 1098, Crusaders massacred Muslim soldiers and civilians alike in the city of Mahara. It came at the end of a long siege, around 20,000 people were killed after being promised mercy. Justice Horrible was the cold winter, dwindling supplies and starvation.

Contemporary chroniclers wrote about some of their crusaders after they had won this battle, boiling and then grilling the bodies of their conquered foes and eating them. Yep, they really did that. It was written about by numerous contemporary chroniclers. The crusaders ate a bunch of their enemies, and that reminds me that we do have one more sponsor to go over today. TimeSuck is brought to you by Krolls Cafe and Malt Shop.

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It's flavoured with mussel, herbs and spices, this is probably cow meat. Always a bit of surprise at crosscafe. Be sure to bring in the kiddies. I would love to cover the happy plates with copious amounts of semen. The cross-semen brand, fry sauce is quite delicious, rich in creamy recipe, house made by myself, each and every morning. So, come on down to crosscafe that's always mostly beef.

I promise. Thanks for putting up with all this meat text. Been a while since we had cross-sponsoring. Sponsoring is a show. It's always mostly beef. I promise. Thanks for putting up with all this meat sex. Been a while since we had Crowle's sponsor in the show. I feel good to have Crowle's cafe back on there. 12th century, the dark ages get a bit brighter. Much of the knowledge of ancient Greece had been unknown to Western Europe for many centuries, but now Latin translations of Greek and Arabic texts begin to be imported into Europe.

Arrhythmic and geometry is taught again, now in monasteries and monastery schools. So, taught to some students and universities beginning in the 12th century's also study astronomy, alongside arithmetic and geometry and slow progress, and all three disciplines begins to be made. Another 12th century innovation is the iconic architectural feature known as a flying buttress.

It first appeared in Gothic churches and allowed for buildings to be built much taller than it was previously thought to be possible. Another major invention from the 1100s that changed the world was the Pinto and Gud, Pinto and Gudgeon, Stern-Mounted Rutters, which was a big upgrade for medieval ships. Prior to the invention of these Rutters, large ships were maneuvered using simple ores, or simple quarter rudders. These new rudders and other innovations and navigation would be necessary precursors for the age of discovery that began in the 1400s and would lead to centuries of European colonialism.

How stoked were the first sailors to get those new rudders? I wonder if it's like now when people get a new iPhone. Sometimes people do that, they feel superior people with older phones Like did sailors back then with new rudders treat other sailors like people still using flip phones today So bra, you see my name bet. Take out that rudder son. Noice You gotta get one of those new rudders bra game changer. I can't even imagine I have it now later bra I'm off for some smooth sailing noise Now, later, brah, I'm off for some smooth sailing noise.

The 13th century, more brightness. Two fathers of the scientific method emerged, Thomas Aquinas and Robert Gross Test. Thomas Aquinas interested in using philosophy to prove the existence of God. His work would influence Roman Catholic doctrine for centuries and was adopted as the official philosophy of the church in 1917. St. Thomas believed that the existence of God could be proven in five ways, mainly by one, observing movement in the world as

proof of God, the immovable mover, two, observing cause and effect, and identifying God as the cause of everything, three, concluding that the impermanent nature of beings proves the existence of a necessary being God who originates only from within himself. For noticing varying levels of human perfection and determining that he's supreme, perfect being must therefore exist. And five, knowing that natural beings could not have intelligence without it being granted to them by God. Subsequent to defending people's ability to naturally perceive proof of God, Thomas also tackled the challenge of protecting God's image as an all-powerful being. Another medieval thinker, Robert Cross-Test, founded the Oxford Franciscan School and began to promote the dualistic scientific method first

proposed by Aristotle. So we're getting some thinkers. As his idea of resolution and composition involved experimentation and prediction, he firmly believed that observations should be used to propose a universal law, and this universal law should be used to predict outcomes. One of Grasthest pupils, a 13th century Franciscan friar named Roger Bacon, would take things even further science wise. He took the work of Grasthest, Aristotle, and Islamic alchemists, and used it to propose the idea of induction, as the cornerstone of it, cornerstone of empiricism. He described the method of observation, prediction, and experimentation also adding that results should be independently verified.

The early scientist should document his results and find a tale so that others might repeat the experiments. All of these things are now known as a scientific method. So a pretty important dark age advancement there. Both Bacon and Gras Test studied optics, also Bacon devised a plan for creating a telescope, although there was no evidence to suggest you actually build one, Gala Leo will be the first to do that. Bacon also the first European to describe the process

for making gunpowder into tail. Sure the Chinese were still way ahead of Europe, but Europe figured it out. Bacon also the first person to reference definitively the technology of eyeglasses during this time. This invention would significantly improve the quality of life for the people who could afford them.

12.06, he Genghis Khan becomes ruler of the Mongols. We did a suck on this giant of history as well, episode 196. Khan's original name was Timujan, and he united the various nomadic tribes in Mongolia and began a series of conquests, big time conquests that would stretch across Asia and into parts of Europe. 12,09 CE, time for some witch hunts.

Pope innocent the third launched another crusade into southern France. He was rooting out a group of heretics, and what's now called the Alba Genzi crusade. Alba Genziin, crusade. Excuse me, and it was a war that lasted 20 years and only ended when an inquisition was established to finish the work they'd started. According to the University of Kansas Medieval, according to, this is this whole suck,

it's like a tongue twister for me. According to University of Kansas Medieval history, professor Lynn Harry Nelson, the catharrie were a particularly heretical group under the more general umbrella of the Alba Gensians and while they all believed in the duality of God a good one versus an evil one the catharie Practice that the catholic church preached that the catholic church itself was pretty fucking shady and to be fair You know to them it was pretty shady in the dark ages They believed the the same people who crucified Christ had established the Catholic Church were now playing the worst kind of cosmic joke on everybody by convincing them to worship the very instrument they'd used to kill Christ, the crucifix. Interesting thought.

This crusade turned into a full-scale military conflict because the Catholic Church was not about to stand for that sort of talk. According to Dr. Stephen Halliser from Northern Illinois University, when the crusaders took to lose, some own demand for it came up with a horrible solution to this horrible problem his officers admitted they didn't know who the hair tics were and who the innocent were his response was kill them all the devil will know his own thousand then died uh... amen i guess uh... terrible also in the thirteenth century the first blast

furnaces appear in europe uh... china probably, the first blast furnaces appear in Europe. China probably been using blast furnaces as early as the first century CE, but more than, and then more than a thousand years later, this is a big deal for Europe. The oldest European examples built in Switzerland, Germany, possibly Sweden, 1215 CE, one of the most important documents to come out of the dark ages is written. The Magna Carta, also known as the Great Charter, was a charter or contract agreed to by King John of England and his rebellious to come out of the dark ages is written. The Magna Carta, also known as the Great Charter,

was a charter or contract agreed to by King John of England and his rebellious parents. It was the first kind of document to put legal limits on the powers of monarchs. And the first time that a king had agreed or had to agree to be subject of the law, like everyone else. Now crazy is that prior to this, the king,

other than being excommunicated by the pope, really couldn't get into any legal trouble. Uh, Duke could eat a baby in front of his nobles, and then he'd be like, fuck you gonna do about it. What was I supposed to do that tasty ass baby? Not eat it! Although nearly a third of the text was deleted or substantially rewritten within 10 years, and although almost all the clauses have been repealed in modern times, the Magna Carta

still remains a cornerstone of the British Constitution. More medieval craziness kicks off in 1232 CE that year. Pope Gregory the ninth kicks off a smear campaign against black cats. You heard me. He wages a war against kitty cats. This is peak dark ages. He writes Vox and Rama, which was supposedly an expose on the secrets, activities and rituals of a cult of witches in northern Germany. In it, he says these witches summon a black cat that appears to be kissed and adored by their worshipers. He says that witches even kiss the cats hind parts. Uh-huh.

The Pope in all seriousness, right? It's a treaty talking about German witch women who summon black cats and then kiss their buttolls. And cat hunters come out and full force. They're like, fuck yeah, get those cats. Get those devil. Get those devil cats. Guys, come on. Hurry. So many people kill cats that cat populations drop to near extinction levels in many places. And then this will backfire tremendously years later because with way less cats, rat and mice populations explode, which then helps the plague spread. Now, Bojangles right now is the happiest I've ever seen him.

He just said that this suck just became his favorite one. February 13th, 1258, one of the bloodiest days in the history of mankind. The blood was not spilled in Europe, but it was spilled near Europe, and many of those who died had fought Europeans for years. On this day, the Hulagu,

Hulagu Khan's Mongol army entered Baghdad after a 12-day siege. The siege of Baghdad would bring Islam's golden age to a swift end. In the 13th century, Baghdad was not just the center of the Islamic world, it was without a doubt one of the greatest cities on earth, perhaps the greatest city at its time. Between 1.2 million people lived there. Since 751 CE, it had been the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate, center of the Islamic Empire. The famous House of Wisdom, we mentioned earlier, was located there, a massive center of learning with a vast array of scholars, both Islamic and non-Islamic, working together to translate

all of the world's wisdom and knowledge. Because of this emphasis on learning and knowledge, scholars of all races, religions, and nationalities were welcome and Baghdad. They were paid handsomely for their contributions to an ever-expanding store of knowledge, in areas as diverse as astronomy, mathematics, science, philosophy, medicine, and chemistry. The Mongol force that would take over Baghdad

was comprised of between 100,000 and 150,000 soldiers. It was the largest Mongol army to have ever existed. It was also supplemented by 20,000 Christian troops from Armenia and Antioch, along with the thousand Chinese artillery engineers and auxiliary contingents of Persian and Turkish soldiers. Mongol troops began their siege of Baghdad on January 29th and by February 5th most of the city's defenses had been destroyed. It was obvious the Mongols would soon take the city.

After the city officially surrendered on February 10th, the Mongol troops entered the city three days later and those they don't then kill are taking his slaves. Palaces, mosques, churches, hospitals, and the city's 36 public libraries are smashed to pieces and burned to the ground. 36 libraries, fucking Mongols. The House of Wisdom, with its centuries of knowledge, from all cultures across the planet, is raised and completely destroyed. The House's collection of books, perhaps the largest collection of the books in the world at that time, maybe the largest collection of books ever in the world up until that time, destroyed. The books are ripped apart, thrown into the Tigris River,

which was said to have run black from the ink. Nice work, you dumb fox! Way to destroy priceless and irreplaceable documents. The Higress River, which was said to have run Black from the ink. Nice work, you dumb fox! Way to destroy priceless and irreplaceable documents. Another story to cover for our fake news team. Hello and welcome back to Roman Nightly News. I'm sensationalist Maximus and oh my jupa. Do I have yet another breaking story for you?

This just in. The Mongols have sacked Baghdad. We're hearing that they have destroyed their books. All of them. More on this developing story from our somehow-so-alive corresponded on the street time travelling Karen. Karen, what can you tell us? Fucking what, Maximus? These assholes are dumping books into the river. I swear to God, like all of them. Not okay.

Hey, you! Guy was blood on him in sack full of ears! What do you think you're doing, Mongol? I wanna wear with your manager! Don't just shes me. I Wanted to read some of those books you asked all did you even speak English? Oh my god. Where's your manager? Hey? What are you doing with that arrow? Hey put that down? Looks like Karen has just been shot with an arrow Be sure to check back and later as we continue to cover this Roman nightly news developing story more news every hour on the hour However, this Roman knightly news developing story. More news every hour on the hour. I told you it can be weird episode.

The Tigris was not only full of destroyed books now, but also with the bodies of the dead. Estimates state that 90,000 to a million people, up to a million people, massacred, when the Mongols entered the city. After this, the Muslim world spiraled into a long period of disunity and decline, ending the Abbasidant dynasty in the bloodiest way possible.

From April 4th to May 18th, 1291, the siege of Acker ends Europe's crusading ambitions. Maybe a little minor crusades after this, but the big ones are over now. Acker had always been the most important Christian-held port in the Middle East, but when it finally fell, the armies of Mom Luke, Sultan Khalil, the Christians are forced to flee for good and seek refuge on Cyprus. The fall of Akkir is the final event in the European, you know, crusade, the major portion of them. 315 CE, things get worse for Europe. From 315 to 317, the Great Famine, depletes food stocks across the continent, plunges Europe into chaos.

It had rained almost constantly throughout the summer and fall of 1314, and then again, through most of 1315 and 1316. Rain so much that crops rotted in the ground, harvests failed, livestock drowned or starved. Food stocks depleted in the price of food soared. The great famine is reported to have claimed over 5% of the British population. It was even worse in mainland Europe. The shortage of crops pushed up prices of everyday necessities like vegetables, wheat, barley, oats, Sega Genesis's, ant farms, lava lamps, salt, that kind of stuff. Salt the only way at that time to

cure and preserve meat was difficult to obtain because it was harder to extract through a evaporation and wet weather. So it got a lot more expensive. Prices on ant farms, lava lamps, and Sega didn't actually rise because that's nonsense. But the situation got worse and worse. As the rain continued to fall. It was reported that there was even no bread and St. Albans for the king in his court when they stopped off there on the 10th of August, 1315. No bread for the king. Actually, no shit's bad.

Things were particularly bad in the north of England and especially in Northumbria where people were already struggling due to looting by Scottish raiders. The people who live there ended up resorting to eating dogs and horses. Bajangles just said this is no longer his favorite episode. Things got so bad in the winter of 1315 to 1316 that the peasants ate the seed grain. They had stored for planting the following spring. You could probably guess that did not help matters.

By 1316 people had gotten so desperate, they begged, stole, murdered, cannibalism, some parts of his anarchy. Parents who could no longer feed their families abandoned their kids to fend for themselves. It's thought that the fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel may have originated from these atrocities. As the cold wet weather continued, the famine reached its height in the spring of 1317. Finally, weather patterns returned to normal, but it wasn't until 1322 that the food supply recovered completely. No one really knows how many

died. Something you're up lost around 10% of its total population to starvation in just three years. Millions are thought to have died. And the numerous villages, 25% or more of the population starved to death. 1320, the Italian poet Dante, Dante, allegory, Dante, allegory completes the divine comedy.

Why is it help that you throw your hand up, at least for me, if I want to do a Italian with Dante, allegory, you know, but if I try and just say it normally, doesn't come out, I don't know what I'm talking about right now. Anyway, the divine comedy, considered to be one of the greatest works in literary history, arguably the single greatest work, the Dark Ages, it's divided into three major sections,

inferno, purgatorio, and pedidiso, and final product, but I'll stop. The narrative traces the journey of Dante, from darkness and error to the revelation of the divine light culminating in seeing God. And the epic poem Dante is guided by the Roman poet Virgil, who represents the epitome of human knowledge from the dark wood to the descending circles of the pit of hell. Passing Lucifer at the pits bottom, at the dead center of the world, Dante and Virgil emerge on the beach of the island mountain of purgatory. At the summit of purgatory,

where repentant sinners are purged of their sins, Virgil departs, having led Dante as far as human knowledge is able to go to the threshold of paradise. There Dante is met by Beatrice, embodying the knowledge of divine mysteries, bestowed by grace, who leads him through the successive ascending levels of heaven

Into the Imperian the highest level of heaven where he's allowed to glimpse for a moment the glory of God And he hears the music that you can only hear at that highest level, which is let me play that for you really quick No No, uh, can you imagine you make it into some crazy weird place where you actually do get to go up to heaven and you're like, oh man, where's those harps at? He's like, nah, man, fuck that shit. What's this? That's not doing up here. More than the authors of the Bible itself.

Yeah, and the highest, sorry, and the highest level, I got to strike about my own nonsense there. He's allowed to glimpse from moment to glory of of God is what it says in the book. And then more than the authors of the Bible itself, Dante actually provided the world with its vision of hell. This vision later painted by Botticelli, Blake, Delacroix, Dolly, most modern Christian depictions of hell actually come from this book, not from the Bible. I find that interesting.

The Bible, for example, never states that the devil will reign over hell. Dante did. interesting. The Bible, for example, never states that the devil will reign over hell. Dante did. Things that were worse for Europe with the beginning of the Hundred Years War in 1337, it will last until 1339. JK, that would make no sense if it was just two years long. It would actually last for over a hundred years, with intermittent fighting lasting all the way until 1453. Long conflict pitted the kings and kingdoms of France and England against one another. Two factors lay at the origin of this conflict first, the status of the Duchy of Aquitaine. Though belonged to kings of England, it remained a fife of the French crown, and the kings

of England wanted independent possession of their land, across the channel. The second factor involved succession, lineage, for the French crown. As the closest relatives of the last direct Capatien king Charles IV, who had died in 1328, the kings of England actually had the best claim for the crown of France. And that did not sit well with people who were, you know, in France, who thought they had a beat on the throne. While England had just a, you know, a just claim for the crown, France had a military

advantage when it came to not letting them have that. France was the most populous and powerful state in Western Europe with a military to match England's smaller, sparsely populated, comparatively, less troops. But the English army was well disciplined and they successfully used their longbows to stop cavalry charges. They repeatedly won battles against much larger French forces. But then the end of the conflict died out when the English finally recognized that despite winning some battles, the French troops overall were just too strong to be directly confronted and beaten. And France would remain the dominant state of Western Europe.

The year 1347 kicked off one of the deadliest events in Europe, the spread of the Black death or the Black plague. I have a suck on this one, suck 125, so we won't go into depth here. One of the largest pandemics in human history ravaging through Eurasia, killing as many as 200 million people, 200 million. In medieval England alone, the plague killed one men is 200 million people 200 million in medieval England alone the plague killed one and a half million people out of an estimated total of four million people between just 1348 and 1350 that's fucking insane. The black death also killed much of the intellectual progress that have been made during the middle

ages unfortunately. It set science and discovery back and most knowledge gained would not reemerge until after the dark ages and when the Renaissance kicked off. Across the world, the Ming Dynasty overthrows the Mongol Empire's great Wandaan dynasty and deposes Mongol rule in 1368. The new Ming Dynasty will rule until 1644. During the prosperous Ming Dynasty, Chinese population will more than double. They'll expand trade, establish cultural ties with the West, as well as make advances in drama, literature, and world-renowned porcelain. 1439, the printing press is invented. The first European to use movable type, Johann Gutenberg, a German craftsman and inventor will usher in a revolution in the creation of books

and the spread of information, and that spread will help bring the dark ages to a close. Elements of Gutenberg's invention are thought to have included a metal alloy that could melt readily and cool quickly to form durable reusable type, an oil-based ink that could be made sufficiently thick to adhere well to metal type and transfer well to vellum or paper, and a new press likely adapted from those used in producing wine, oil, or paper for applying firm even pressure to printing surfaces. Now, with this new way of printing books can be made quickly and cheaper than they were before, much more quickly and cheaper.

1452 CE, more books, lighting humanity out of the dark ages emerged, the library of Malattesta, novella in Cessna, Italy is opened, or Susena, Italy. Today, it's considered to be one of the first ever public libraries in the world, the first in Europe since the Roman Empire. The building was owned by the city commune and allowed for readers to freely make use of its collection. A team of librarians organized a two-decade long effort to transcribe books they found elsewhere in Europe and returned to Susena with their contents. Six or seven Nordic writers were charged with copying the books into Gothic or semi-Gothic script, others tasked to illustrate and bind them. The library holdings totaling 343 manuscripts include legal, medical, scientific, literary,

theological, and philosophical works as well as 14 Greek codices and seven Hebrew ones. Good step to get out of the dark ages. May 29, 1453, Constantinople falls to the Ottoman Empire. The Dwindling Byzantine Empire comes to an end when the Ottomans breached Constantinobles ancient walls after besieging the city for 55 days. The Ottoman Turks extend their control over virtually all of the Balkans now in most of Anatolia and had already conquered several Byzantine cities west of Constantinobl in the second half of the 1300s. Between 60,000 and 80,000 Ottoman soldiers lay siege to the city, accompanied by 69 cannons. An Ottoman fleet of soldiers lay siege to the city, accompanied by 69 cannons.

And Ottoman fleet of warships also hammer the city's walls with its cannons. With most of Constantinople, secure, or when most of it is secure, Mehmed, the leader of the Ottomans, rides to the streets of the city to the great cathedral of Iosaphia, largest in all of Christian Dome, and converts it into a mosque. He stops to pray, then demands that all further looting cease immediately, the Sultan thus completes his conquest of the Byzantine capital. This establishes the Ottomans as a major international power for the next several centuries, and it also marks the end, according to most historians, for the Middle Ages.

And that will take us out of today's information laden time suck timeline. Good job, soldier. You've made it back barely. Oh, you covered a lot of information. And about two hours there, a hail Nimrod. I know, but might have followed a little bit clunky at times, but I sure you actually, Zach worked more than usual by far on that one, the scriptkeeper, Sophie worked more than

usual, and I also worked more than usual. Try and get, what information should we put in this suck so much you can pick from? Do we miss a lot of big dark ages events for sure? Do we really miss out on a lot of cool stuff that happened around the world during the middle ages? for sure. Did we really miss out on a lot of cool shit that happened around the world during the Middle Ages? Of course. Again, you could dedicate an entire podcast to get run for years on just the dark ages.

The dark ages only really happened in Europe and around Europe and most see, you know, in Western Europe. And Western Europe, the collapse of Rome led to huge socio-economic upheaval, barbarian raids, and the return of a rural culture. Europe became dark due to the loss of Rome's classical knowledge and lack of mobility under medieval feudalism. They meant that life for the average person

was more brutal, taxing, and repressive than it had been before. Also, you know, stinkier, dirtier. However, the entire medieval period was not completely backwards. Medieval society did see some important scientific developments including the very important development of the scientific method itself.

The Middle Ages also saw the growth of Europe's first universities. At the end of the tunnel of the Dark Ages was the light of the Renaissance and the enlightenment. A reborn respect for non-theological learning that would usher us into the modern era. Following the Middle Ages and lasting until the 17th century, the Renaissance promoted a rediscovery of classical philosophy, literature and art. Enlightenment thinkers in Britain, France and elsewhere throughout Europe would soon question traditional authority like most of those living in the dark ages had not, could not without, you know, risking their lives. They embraced the notion that humanity could be improved through rational change.

The Enlightenment produced numerous books, essays, inventions, scientific discoveries, laws, revolutions. Europe became more secular thanks to the Protestant Reformation, the power of the papacy was greatly diminished. More voices could speak out against the church and not lose their heads. Science could be pursued without leading to being burned alive for being a heretic. And now because we've stepped out of the dark and into the light, at least more light, you know, we have the ability to do stuff like make or listen to a highly irreverent podcast like this.

We can wipe our asses with toilet paper or use bidets instead of moss and leaves and just literal shittles. We can wash our hands when we're done. You know, we don't have to worry about elves flucking with our horses anymore. We can take hot showers with soap every day, every day we wear our baths or both. You can take three baths and you can take four hot showers if you want. I like it. I'm in favor of no longer living in the dark ages.

Hail Nimrod and the hail progress. Time now for today's top five takeaways. Number one, the dark ages began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 CE. And it lasted roughly until the rest of Rome fell with the Ottoman takeover of Constantinople in 1453. And in between those years, a lot of surfs led a lot of really shitty lives. Number two, in 897 CE, a pope put the previous pope on trial when the dude had already been dead for seven months.

That actually happened. Number three, the Chinese were way ahead of Europeans during the dark ages and nearly every way. And things like paper currency, gunpowder, the printing press, there were hundreds of years ahead. Got to suck on ancient China on these days. Number four, we can thank the Arabic scholars and philosophers for saving the works of the Greek thinkers like Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, while the Catholic Church initially sought to destroy these important pieces of human thought, the Arabs protected them and once again brought them to Western Europe. And number five, something new. Talk about torture.

Torture was commonplace. It was a form of punishment throughout Europe in the Middle Ages, in the dark ages. It was mostly used to either extract or force victims into confessing to a crime by either church or secular authorities, regardless of whether or not someone was actually guilty or innocent of the crime. And of course, the enemy soldiers got to hold you. They might torture you as well. During our suck on the Spanish Inquisition in April of 2018, we covered some of the more horrific torture techniques used at the end of the Middle Ages.

We discussed starvation, foot roasting, the rack, the knees splitter, Jupiter's twist, the Spanish donkey, Newton's orbs, the Judas Cradle, and more. And some of those things we discussed were actually real things. What else did medieval sadist use to treat peasants, like modern serial killers treat their victims today? Here are three of the worst medieval torture devices we did not previously cover. There was the breast ripper, also known as the iron spider, or just as the Spider Lady Meat Sacks,

might wanna hold your tits for this one. These devices were used on women who were accused of adultery, self abortion, heresy, or heresy, blasphemy, or accused of being witches, also used for interrogations. These devices often heated during torture for extra fun, contained four claws, it's almost like a giant tongue, like four claws, little two claws on each side of the tongue,

and it was used to slowly and painfully, literally rip off someone's breast. Instrument would be latched onto a single breast of the woman being tortured. If she somehow didn't die from having her breast just violently ripped off, she'd be pretty disfigured for the rest of her life. There was a variation of this device known as the iron spider.

It would have been attached to the wall, and the woman's breasts would have been fixed onto the claws of the tool, and the victim then pulled from the wall, so kind of just a reverse, tearing off her breasts that way. Another variant of this included spiked bars to fix slightly away from the wall that grab both breasts. The victim would then be pulled along the bars until both of her breasts were ripped off. So fucking horrific actually happened to people.

Next up the pair of anguish. I want to say this one might be worse. I don't know how you get worse than that last one, but it might be this heinous contraption also called the choke pair. For reasons that we're going to get into in a moment, this painful metal-fruitshape device was a popular way to torture women who were accused of facilitating a miscarriage, also used to punish liars, blasphemers, homosexuals. Really that just kind of opens up so they could just use it to torture whoever they wanted to.

The device was inserted into one of the prisoners or offices. The vagina for women, the anus for homosexuals, the mouth for liars and blasphemers, white's known as the choke pair as well. And this thing featured four metal leaves that would slowly, so it's like shape like a pair, picture a pair, this little smaller one and the other. And on the small end, there was these four metal leaves

that were folded down at first. And then coming out of the back of this object, there was a little device that you could screw. And as it was screwed by the torture, the more this thing would rip your insides apart because the leaves would slowly unfold. So you had these metal leaves that would slowly unfold inside of you and just tear you apart.

It rarely caused death often followed by other torture methods. Last one here. The simplest and I think the most brutal actually, just called the rat torture. No fancy device needed. You just need a large rat and a heavy metal pot to heat. A prisoner would be completely restrained tied to the ground or some other horizontal surface for this to work, maybe on a table, they'd have to lay face up. A rat would then be placed on the victim's stomach covered by a metallic container, you know, some big metal pot that would be gradually heated, hotter and hotter, and the hotter this container got, the more frantically the rat would try to look for a way out,

which inevitably would mean that it would try and just fucking burrow its way through the victim's body. It would dig into the body and it apparently could take hours to die this way. The painful gruesome death is the rat clawed its way into your intestines and other organs. Yee-yay! These are the things people did to literally get medieval on people's asses back then. So you're welcome for those visuals. If you're none of you will have nightmares.

Thank God we have some great time-sucker updates today to do a little palette cleanse and we don't have to end the episode on that terror. Time suck, tough, five takeaways. The Dark Ages has been sucked. Big episode this week. I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you to the Bad Magic Productions team for all the help in making time suck every week. Queen of Bad Magic, Lindsey Cummins, Reverend Dr. Joe Paisley, the script keeper, Zach Flannery, Sophie Faxx source for sevens, Bidelixer, Logan the Art Warlock,

running Bad Magic Merch dot com and the socials. Thanks to all those who've joined the Coltly Curious Private Facebook group, over 23,000 members now who continue to make time suck a community, more than a podcast. Thank you to Liz Hernandez and our all seen eyes running the Coltly Curious Facebook page. Liz also helping with the socials now. We love Liz. Thanks to beef steak and the Mod Squad running our discord channel. I'm not sure who won round five that just ended But when I recorded this episode, Bodie 210 was in the lead with 700 7,700 points Round six starts the day this sucked drops. So, Bodhi might be getting that trophy.

Next week, we head across the Atlantic to Liberia to suck on Joshua, Bly, AKA General Button Acid. I think this is going to be such a fascinating tale. During the first Liberian Civil War, which lasted from 1989 to 1996, rival militias took to the streets, fighting over diamond fields and gold mines. The commanders, the warlords of these militias adopted insane names like Chuck Norris, one foot devil, General Mosquito, his nemesis, General Mosquito spray. None were feared as General Butt naked, leading an army of children who were who were sustained on a diet of cocaine and slasher flicks. This is true.

General but it's not funny. It's just so absurd. General button naked regularly sacrificed human beings, cannibalize them, terrorize people across Liberia. He believed that it would satiate his tribal God and give him success on the battlefield. He would later claim that he'd been a tribal priest since the age of 11 indoctrinated into some kind of cultish

organization that made him grow into a bloodthirsty and power hungry dude. Anthropologists these days doubt that this organization actually exists. I think he probably is lying about it. Like a lot of general butt naked story. It's hard to separate the insanity of what he says about himself with the insanity of what he actually did. Why was he called general butt naked?

You can probably guess. He fought naked. Joshua Blie believed that fighting naked made him, made him immune to bullets. You can Google pictures of him, but you might not want to do it at work or in a public space. Uh, general button naked alive today and the direction his life has recently taken might surprise you. Uh, what's he up to? What's strange and horrifying things did he do during the Liberian Civil War?

Will he ever face justice for his war crimes? What about the child's soldiers he'd led? What are they up to? Gonna have to tune in next week to find out. And now let's head on over to a big old Time Sucker updates. First update, we're gonna have some laughs. Super mailman, meat sack oh boy Brian loose loose it maybe Brian shares an uncomfortable mum with us. He writes dear Lord suck master mother fucking co-leader of Nimrod mofo Cummins

I'm writing in due to the awkwardness the sex suck cost I'm a mailman with bone conduction headphones that usually sound like mumbled nonsense. They can't be made out to anyone but me But on my Friday coverage, I helped out a blind woman who I bring the mail to directly to her apartment down the hall. She heard the pony play part of the podcast due to her superhuman hearing. And then later asked the regular mailman

if I fuck ponies. Thank you for the workplace shame and keep on sucking. PS, I hope you make a full recovery from COVID. Thank you, Brian. I love that she actually asked the regular mailman later if you're a literal ponyfucker. And if the mailman then talk to you about it. How wonderfully uncomfortable for all of you.

I hope you have to deliver mail again to her soon. I hope it's deliciously awkward. I think if you deliver more mail to her as you leave, you should just let out a little like, meee, as you walk away or something. Thanks for the well wishes. All better on the COVID front, I think if you deliver more mail to her as you leave, you should just let out a little like, you know, as you walk away or something. Thanks for the well wishes, all better on the COVID front, I think my brain may be a little fogger than normal. I don't know, it's hard to say.

It may just normally be foggy. Speaking of COVID, as cases spike around the US, front line sucker Craig Albrecht and his team right in with an important message, you're right, dear Sir Suckmaster Esquire, I want to drop you a note. Me and my team are frontliners on this crazy thing called COVID-19. Our job is to assist cardiologists, cardiothoracic surgeons and ICU nurses, help them implant and monitor the world's smallest heart pumps. Impella is the name of your board. Anywho, we are the people that you and your family meet on the

very worst day of your lives. As nurses and radiology techs, we see the best and worst sides of his terrible virus, let alone all of the other patients with heart problems not compounded by COVID. Some days are fantastic. Others are absolutely horrible. The matriarch or patriarch are both of entire families can find can be fine one minute and be on life support the next. In these cases, chances of walking out of the hospital are slim. As you can imagine, those cases are not the ones that we hate. Me and my team use time suck to relieve the pressures are the ones are the ones that that was weird. That's a terrible phrasing. Those cases are the ones that we hate. Me and my team use time suck to relieve the

pressures that are put on us day in and day out. The best days are when a mother, a father or grandparent, and yes, sometimes young people can recover and go home. The spin you put on everything makes us laugh gives us something to look forward to and laugh about whiskey. Laudanum, shaw, mother. Mother, ufda, ufda. Thank you, thank you, thank you for making us laugh and helping us remove our minds from reality for a few minutes. The reason for my email is this, please, please, please, time suckers.

Don't wait to seek care in the realm of fucked up in this that is COVID. We've had way too many people who have waited too long to seek care in the realm of fucked up in this that is COVID. We've had way too many people who have waited too long to seek medical attention because they're afraid of hospitals and it's too late. By the time that we see them, most of the time, there's nothing else the doctors and nurses can do to save them. Seek help, hospitals are safe, get the damn back, see when it's available. Please socially distance where I'm asked or else you could be seen my face fully PPE'd up, of course, on the worst day of your life. And I will have a bottle of whiskey, a bottle of lardinum, and the rustiest saw I can find.

Hail to Suspena, praise be to triple M. Scratchable jangles behind the ear. Every time you bite the ass of a communist, give the queen or do and magic crystals. Not sorry about the length. Gigdy, your friends on the front. Craig, Albrecht, Brandon Eason, Craig, Plapper and Jamie Herndon. Well, thank you, Craig, Plapper, and Jamie, Herndon. Well, thank you, Craig, and thanks, Brandon, other Craig, and Jamie. Keep fighting the good fights, good advice,

about not waiting too long before you get help. Yeah, at least call a doctor or your clinic and report your symptoms. You know, don't try and tough guy or tough gallot. I never went in, but only because my symptoms were for just not that bad. I never worried about my breathing. I never had my fever spiked. Anything that was alarming.

Never got dehydrated. So glad the suck can provide you with some distraction while you're doing all that very important work. Thank you. Now for some comedy, some more comedy, dark comedy related to last week's truck stop killer coming from hilarious sucker Jessica who writes, King Shame.

One of my buddies in college was real into cock and ball torture. Him and another friend of mine were wrapping up a session. She went to give him one last goodbye kick, right? When he was zipping up his zipper, oh, flash forward to the ER and some bloody swollen balls. Yikes! He spent the next couple of weeks in skirts. Only time I King shamed him was a week later

when he was considering asking her for some quote, healing slaps. I slapped him in the face, told him to stop thinking with his bloody dick and focused on healing himself. Also, that is when I learned he loved getting slapped in the face, Haleus Daphina, question mark. Wow Jessica, I cringed laughed so hard when I first read this. First, I love that you referred to this guy

getting kicked in the balls as a session, like he's meeting with the fucking personal trainer or something. Just going in for a little session, just get my balls worked over. I love the term healing slaps. What the fuck? I hope you're out there having some healthy BDSM sex with some healthy slaps and that no one's taking their bloody swollen balls to the yard anymore. Hail is the Fena. Now for a very intense message with someone with a much darker connection to last week's truck stop killer, a super sucker, Ethan writes, Dan, I was surprised to look up this week's time suck.

I wasn't sure how I would react to hearing about Doug's murder. Your presentation was very respectful of the victims. I learned quite a bit about that sicko. A couple of weeks ago, I was texting a friend from college. She lived in Hawaii in the 80s and I lived in Seattle before joining the army. I was telling her about Tony Hawk's interview on Joe Rogan. I met Hawk's dad at some competitions. Got to hang out with his soy and Steven Stedom one night.

Mentioned Tracy tonight that two guys in our group went pro. I told her how Doug was this really gentle guy who was a freestyle skater and Doug is one of the victims of the truck stop killer. If you curious here, probably should have said that earlier. Doug was this really gentle guy who was a freestyle skater who was just as amazing as any freestyle skater. Being older, he was our driver. We would all hang out around Seattle late into the mornings on Saturdays and Sundays, just skating. No drugs, knock-all, fudger brain, some of the pros didn't care, but we did. He would buy donuts for us, super nice guy, truly a sweet man.

At one point, he quit skating because he told me he heard the voice of God telling him to stop spending so much time skating. The event she went back, but it was a little weird. Anyway, I hadn't looked up Doug for years. I told Tracy that Doug had perfected being a human being. He treated us as well as a group of frowny teens. It was amazing to watch him on his board. I was a freestyle art too,

but he was on a whole different level of incredible. And he never used profanity. We did, but not Doug. Never told us not to. Some of us dialed it back when he was around. So I did what I should not have done for a guy who impacted me so strongly in high school. I searched for him and I found this

and then he found the find a grave from Memorial Link. To Douglass Scott, it's like Zakowski. Ziskowski being killed by the truck stop killer. And he writes, fuck me, I cried tonight. Right now even, he was the perfect human. The truck stop killer murdered one of writes, fuck me, I cried tonight right now even. He was the perfect human. The truck stop killer murdered one of the most amazing people I've ever known. Doug has even mentioned on that asshole's Wikipedia page.

Even crazier, I remember talking to Doug about the green river killer. We all lived in the Des Moines Kent area of Washington at that time. I shit you not, Gary Ridgeway's last known address was across Highway 99 from my house by the theater at 230 second Street in Des Moines. Ridgeway went to Taiyi High School where my girlfriend went. It says nothing to do with this asshole who killed Doug,

but it's weird that this topic came up a lot where we lived since Ridgeway was active when looking back. We were out late in the same areas where Ridgeway trolled. Is it possible that we saw that douchebag at some point that he visited the drive in where I worked? Anyways, I needed to share this with someone.

Doug was killed when I was in the army in Texas. He was hitchhiking not far from me. If I would have known, I would have taken leave or a pass to take him wherever he and his wife had needed to go. I respected him so much, Ethan. Holy shit, Ethan. What a terrible connection to last week's episode. So sorry about your friend. I can only imagine how much you must fucking hate Robert Ben Rhodes and what a strange connection to this green river killer as well. Thank you for sharing Doug's story

reminding us he was you know much more than a faceless victim. You know, I had no idea. He was an accomplished skateboarder. Hope this is the only connection of its kind the The suck has in store for you going forward. Rest in peace, Doug, this is Kowski. You sounded like you were one hell of a meat sack. Now for another crazy connection with the next him cult suck this time before leaving with some humor. Cult of the curious member, Christie writes, I love this message. Hello, Sir Cummins, the benevolent leader of the curious

and bitch boy of Lucifina. Fair. My name is Christie. I'm a long time fan of all that you do. I started with your standup, came quickly addicted and I've dragged my husband 18-year-old daughter and older brother down the deplorable time suck and scared a death road, just a bunch of creepers over here. This email is a month overdue, but I didn't, uh, but I don't tend to listen to the podcast in order.

So I just recently listened to the next hymn suck. It immediately hit home in a way no other suck has before as my mom was 100% brainwashed and deeply submerged in the cult of amway. I grew up in Michigan. So both my parents became eager participants in this absolute garbage back in the 70s before I was born. My dad was out by the early 80s after my parents got divorced, but my mom spent 40 plus years with her tattoo with their talent so deep in her soul that if amway ever decides to take the religious route, my mom will be

Christian to a martyred saint that all peasants must pray to to get to the all knowing God of amway. My three other siblings and I had a very difficult upbringing and much of it was due to the influence of amway and it's poison in our lives. Now to be fair, not a hundred percent of it can be chalked up to the great scheme that is a pyramid. As an adult, I truly believe that while my mom loved us dearly and did the absolute best that she could, she was also very mentally ill in a number of ways that I have experienced first hand, but I'm not qualified to diagnose. That being said, I do believe that such schemes target individuals because within them is the

need to be a perfect unwavering follower, which my mom was until the day she died. Growing up, we lived in poverty because my mom would not get a job that would take anything away from her amway destiny. She often sold our toys, TVs, furniture, food stamps, et cetera, to fund the various retreats that other members would tell her were absolutely vital for her success. I know they told her because I heard them tell her. Looking back, it is

beyond infuriating that another adult would sit next to a struggling woman in her section 8 housing with her four small children running around with nothing and tell her that these weekends at the Grand Plaza Hotel in Lansing were more important than anything else that she could not rise up in the ranks without them and ultimately would fail. My mom was very rarely home while she was out building her business which left us home to our own devices. I will not get into all of that as we are not here to dedicate an entire time suck to my upbringing.

What I'll say is there were some unfortunate events that my siblings and myself have lived with because there was no one around to help guide or protect us from outside elements. I remember at a recruiting event my mom brought us to the speaker, put up a photo of a regular suburban home and basically berated anyone that thought that was good or the idea of happiness. Anyone that considered financial security and owning their own little home that met their family's needs, success was an unmotivated and unimaginative sack of shit. If you were just willing to sacrifice for a little more, for a little while, you could earn mansions, cars, tropical vacations, the list was endless.

And if that wasn't the scope of your dreams, then get the fuck out. Even as a very small child, I remember thinking, can we just have a house? Any house? Why would wanting to not have to move every few months because we kept getting evicted make us absolutely human garbage?

I also remember when my mom would be home and we would cry that we just wanted to be with her. She would make us create dream boards with all the things she was going to buy us when she made diamond or emerald level of amway in her mind that would make up for everything. I just wanted my mom. There are many other stories I have, but those are for me to work through not you. But finally, uh, 16 at 16, I left my mom's, flew to Nebraska, moved in with my older sister, and her family to try and get out of that mess.

Everything was going pretty well until an unfortunate young couple came over to my sister's house to talk to them. I'm about the most amazing products offered by their business and wait. Needless to say, I lost my every 11 shit on those idiots who did not see that coming. At the end of a very uncomfortable evening They left without saying a word and never reached out to my sister and husband again. end of a very uncomfortable evening, they left without saying a word and never reached out to my sister and husband again. After all this, I will say that while this story, unfortunately did not have a happy ending for my mom

who died penniless, I do believe it did for me. Well, I am by no means a well-adjusted person, me either. I had children very young because I think I crave the family I did not have, but I have worked hard to put myself through school, I have a career that I love, that I'm good at, I'm married a truly amazing man, about my own little house.

I'm raising my kids with all the love, supervision, stability, and common sense I did not grow up with. My dreams are small, but they are mine, and I could not be prouder of them or hold them more dearly. Meet Sacks, please don't let anyone ever belittle your dreams or what you want for your life unless it's a weird sex slave recalled than go fuck yourself. You are enough, your dreams are enough,

and happiness is not found in making diamond and mansions and especially not in amway. Then in all the bad magic productions crew, you guys rock, you're shit so hard. Thanks for the countless hours you put into all that you do. I've learned, I've laughed, I've learned some very useful profanity combinations that have come in handy from time to time. Also, if this were to make it on a future suck, I'd love to shout out to my husband Nick and my brother James. I love you and you're both fucking weird as shit

and that's my favorite. Anyway, I appreciate your time. Hope all you in the suck dungeon and out there in the world are staying healthy, happy and safe. I'll continue to spread the word of the curious, you guys keep fucking killing it. Yours always Christy. Well, thank you so much, Christy.

I loved that message and that warning that you just shared. Yeah, your dreams are enough. I love that so much. I relate on some level. The whole time I, you know, done stand up, you know, people have told me, oh man, I hope you get famous. I hope you get a sitcom. I hope you get a movie, something along those lines.

But that's not what I actually really ever set out to do. Not really, you know, I got swept up and thinking I should push for those things because people kept telling me, most of you guys wanted to be good at something I enjoyed and found just creative and fulfilling. That was my dream, just to be good at it. And to make enough money doing it,

not necessarily to be wealthy, I mean, sure if that fucking happens, but that really was never like the primary goal. It was just to make enough money to not have to worry about not being able to do it anymore. And making up so I could retire someday. We don't all have to live in a giant mansion. We don't all have to be fucking superstars. We don't all have to have 10 million Instagram followers. We don't have to be NBA all-star, all-star, yeah, all stars. Fuck me or whatever. Some of us might just want to be a good dad or make a

difference in someone's life or to have enough time to go fishing every weekend. You know, just whatever. So don't let some AMway recruiter or some other MLM type, you know, make you feel like you're a piece of shit for not wanting to be the top seller, the best of the best. Not everyone can fucking get there. So why should everyone have to desire that? I don't know. You sound like you've overcome a lot. To get to a really good place, Christy, you sound fucking awesome, happy.

That's the main goal in life. You know, if you're fucking awesome. Happy. That's the best of mingle in life. You know, if you're happy, you're winning. I bet you're a tremendous mom. Have fun with those swear words. Have fun with Nick and James. Hello, guys. And I have a hundred kids. Hail Nimrod.

You beautiful bastards. Okay, last one. Let's end on some comedy. Cummins Law, Victim, Bryant, Macmillan writes, it finally happened to me. I thought it was immune, but I got Cummins Law big time. I've been listening to TimeSug for almost two years now, never had an incident, even though I've listened to every single episode. The incident occurred last Friday when I was heading out to meet my dad for a quick round of

golf to wrap up the holiday week. It was a beautiful day here in Atlanta. I was driving with my windows and sunroof open while listening to the latest episode of Is We Done. Nice. In hindsight, that wasn't my smartest idea but it happened. I was stopped at a red light when an older gentleman on a Yamaha motorcycle pulled up next to me. Before I had time to react, Dan's voice was emanating from the car loudly, screaming, jerk me off with a fistful of Bill Gates blood money! Blood money! Yeah, that's tough to hear out of context. The old man looked at me, slowly started in his bike forward as if he was desperate to get away from whatever I was listening to and I can't say I blame him.

I also just wanted to add that I love the story of Dan getting Kyler to drive him home. He was drunk. I've had to do that for my father numerous times, so I can totally relate. And boy, do I have some stories. Waffle House at 3am with your drunk father is quite the experience. Not sorry for the long message. Hail Amway and praise Vodjangles. Well, thank you, Brian's, man, the thought of that guy giving you the stink guy kills me. Also glad you liked my bad dad story. That happened after sucks giving. I had, you know, maybe a little too much or maybe just enough basil Hayden. Get a pretty good buzz and Lindsay and Kyra took me to Sherry's diner and then in

a dairy queen run where I may or may not have yelled very inappropriate shit from the backseat in the drive-through. Glad you reminded that that reminded you. Excuse me, it was some good times, Brian. Thanks for the messages, everyone. Thanks, time suckers. I need a net. We all did. I don't know what was going on with my mouse today, you guys.

It's more mushy than ever. Too many countries, try and say their words. More bad magic productions content coming the rest of the week. Spooks was scared to death late Tuesday night, silliness with Is We Dumb Wednesday at noon Pacific time. Please don't destroy any libraries, and then toss the books into a river this week. Please don't do that. You know, the less knowledge we have access to, the harder it is to keep on sucking.

Hey, we want the pool day! Let me say hey, we want the pool day!