Podcasts about Middle Ages

Although it tends to be thought of as a time when people rejected technology, there were many new inventions met with enthusiasm in the Middle Ages, including one we might not be able to imagine living without: paper. This week, Danièle speaks with Dr. Orietta Da Rold about the many uses of medieval paper. You can support The Medieval Podcast on Patreon - go to https://www.patreon.com/medievalists

"Doctors of the church" provided wisdom in the Middle Ages 

If Wells seems a bit off this week, it's because he's sedated himself on account of some terrible old man pain. Brandi has also done nothing but "horse showed" this week, so bear with us fam. Wells has some bracelet shopping drama, which, on top of some other things has got him thinking that Mercury in retrograde is actually really f**king with him. Your hosts then talk Bachelor, 1883, and some more fave things, and Wells concludes that it would be hella not fun to live in the Middle Ages. He is also very excited for his big golf thing. Plus, the moment you've all been waiting for: Brandi tells her Men Are Trash story. Lastly, don't watch Netflix and drive, K?!  Don't forget to rate, review, and follow Your Favorite Podcast! Plus, keep up with us between episodes on our Instagram page, @yftpodcast.   Thanks to our awesome sponsors for making this episode possible! Check out these deals just for you, YFTers:  Article — Go to article.com/yft to get $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more  Canva — Go to canva.me/yftpodcast to get your free 45-day extended trial  Nutrafol — Go to Nutrafol.com and enter promo code YFT to save $15 off your first month's subscription plus free shipping on every order. Only available to US customers for a limited time  SKYN — Shop SKYN.com now and get free shipping on orders over $30 in the contiguous US or explore SKYN on Amazon now 

Tonight we are going to tell you a tale. A superb tale. A tale as old as time that takes us from the beginnings of civilization until today. This tale will thrill you and chill you. It may elicit feelings of dread and sadness. It may make you angry.  At times it may make you uneasily laugh like the friend at school that was kicked in the balls but couldn't show his weakness. It's a subject that people continually argue about and debate with savage ferocity. Tonight we are talking about executions! We'll talk about the methods and the reasons behind executions throughout the years. Then we'll talk about some famous executions, as well as some of the more fucked up ones. And by fucked up, we mean botched. Bad stuff. This episode isn't meant to be a debate for or against executions but merely to discuss them and the crazy shit surrounding them. So with all that being said, Let's rock and roll!           Capital punishment has been practiced in the history of virtually all known societies and places. The first established death penalty laws date as far back as the Eighteenth Century B.C. in the Code of King Hammurabi of Babylon, which codified the death penalty for 25 different crimes.  The Code of Hammurabi was one of the earliest and most complete written legal codes and was proclaimed by the Babylonian king Hammurabi, who reigned from 1792 to 1750 B.C. Hammurabi expanded the city-state of Babylon along the Euphrates River to unite all of southern Mesopotamia. The Hammurabi code of laws, a collection of 282 rules, established standards for commercial interactions and set fines and punishments to meet the requirements of justice. Hammurabi's Code was carved onto a massive, finger-shaped black stone stele (pillar) that was looted by invaders and finally rediscovered in 1901. The text, compiled at the end of Hammurabi's reign, is less a proclamation of principles than a collection of legal precedents, set between prose celebrating Hammurabi's just and pious rule. Hammurabi's Code provides some of the earliest examples of the doctrine of “lex talionis,” or the laws of retribution, sometimes better known as “an eye for an eye the greatest soulfly song ever!   The Code of Hammurabi includes many harsh punishments, sometimes demanding the removal of the guilty party's tongue, hands, breasts, eye, or ear. But the code is also one of the earliest examples of an accused person being considered innocent until proven guilty. The 282 laws are all written in an “if-then form.” For example, if a man steals an ox, he must pay back 30 times its value. The laws range from family law to professional contracts and administrative law, often outlining different standards of justice for the three classes of Babylonian society—the propertied class, freedmen, and slaves.   A doctor's fee for curing a severe wound would be ten silver shekels for a gentleman, five shekels for a freedman, and two shekels for a slave. So, it was less expensive when you were a lower-class citizen. Penalties for malpractice followed the same scheme: a doctor who killed a wealthy patient would have his hands cut off, while only financial restitution was required if the victim was a slave. Crazy!   Some examples of the death penalty laws at this time are as follows:         If a man accuses another man and charges him with homicide but cannot bring proof against him, his accuser shall be killed. Holy shit.         If a man breaks into a house, they shall kill him and hang him in front of that same house.          The death penalty was also part of the Hittite Code in the 14th century B.C., but only partially. The most severe offenses typically were punished through enslavement, although crimes of a sexual nature often were punishable by death. The Hittite laws, also known as the Code of the Nesilim, constitute an ancient legal code dating from c. 1650 – 1500 BCE. The Hittite laws were kept in use for roughly 500 years, and many copies show that other than changes in grammar, what might be called the 'original edition' with its apparent disorder, was copied slavishly; no attempt was made to 'tidy up' by placing even apparent afterthoughts in a more appropriate position.    The Draconian constitution, or Draco's code, was a written law code enforced by Draco near the end of the 7th century BC; its composition started around 621BC. It was written in response to the unjust interpretation and modification of oral law by Athenian aristocrats. Aristotle, the chief source for knowledge of Draco, claims that he was the first to write Athenian laws and that Draco established a constitution enfranchising hoplites, the lower class soldiers. The Draconian laws were most noteworthy for their harshness; they were written in blood rather than ink. Death was prescribed for almost all criminal offenses. Solon, who was the magistrate in 594 BCE, later repealed Draco's code and published new laws, retaining only Draco's homicide statutes.   In the 5th century B.C., the Roman Law of the Twelve Tables also contained the death penalty. Death sentences were carried out by such means as beheading, boiling in oil, burying alive, burning, crucifixion, disembowelment, drowning, flaying alive, hanging, impalement, stoning, strangling, being thrown to wild animals, and quartering. We'll talk more about that later. The earliest attempt by the Romans to create a code of law was the Laws of the Twelve Tables. A commission of ten men (Decemviri) was appointed (c. 455 B.C.) to draw up a code of law binding on patrician and plebeian and which consuls would have to enforce. The commission produced enough statutes to fill ten bronze tablets.    Mosaic Law codified many capital crimes. There is evidence that Jews used many different techniques, including stoning, hanging, beheading, crucifixion (copied from the Romans), throwing the criminal from a rock, and sawing asunder. The most infamous execution of history occurred approximately 29 AD with the crucifixion of that one guy, Jesus Christ, outside Jerusalem. About 300 years later, Emperor Constantine, after converting to Christianity, abolished crucifixion and other cruel death penalties in the Roman Empire. In 438, the Code of Theodosius made more than 80 crimes punishable by death.    Britain influenced the colonies more than any other country and has a long history of punishment by death. About 450 BC, the death penalty was often enforced by throwing the condemned into a quagmire, which is not only the character from Family Guy, and another word for dilemma but in this case is a soft boggy area of land. By the 10th Century, hanging from the gallows was the most frequent execution method. William the Conqueror opposed taking life except in war and ordered no person to be hanged or executed for any offense. Nice guy, right? However, he allowed criminals to be mutilated for their crimes.    During the middle ages, capital punishment was accompanied by torture. Most barons had a drowning pit as well as gallows, and they were used for major as well as minor crimes. For example, in 1279, two hundred and eighty-nine Jews were hanged for clipping coins. What the fuck is that you may be wondering. Well, Clipping was taking a small amount of metal off the edge of hand-struck coins. Over time, the precious metal clippings could be saved up and melted into bullion (a lump of precious metal) to be sold or used to make new coins. Under Edward I, two gatekeepers were killed because the city gate had not been closed in time to prevent the escape of an accused murderer. Burning was the punishment for women's high treason, and men were hanged, drawn, and quartered. Beheading was generally accepted for the upper classes. One could be burned to death for marrying a Jew. Pressing became the penalty for those who would not confess to their crimes—the executioner placed heavy weights on the victim's chest until death. On the first day, he gave the victim a small quantity of bread, on the second day a small drink of bad water, and so on until he confessed or died. Under the reign of Henry VIII, the number of those put to death is estimated as high as 72,000. Boiling to death was another penalty approved in 1531, and there are records to show some people cooked for up to two hours before death took them. When a woman was burned, the executioner tied a rope around her neck when she was connected to the stake. When the flames reached her, she could be strangled from outside the ring of fire. However, this often failed, and many were burnt alive.   In Britain, the number of capital offenses continually increased until the 1700's when two hundred and twenty-two crimes were punishable by death. These included stealing from a house for forty shillings, stealing from a shop the value of five shillings, robbing a rabbit warren, cutting down a tree, and counterfeiting tax stamps. However, juries tended not to convict when the penalty was significant, and the crime was not. Reforms began to take place. In 1823, five laws were passed, removing about a hundred crimes from the death penalty. Between 1832 and 1837, many capital offenses were swept away. In 1840, there was a failed attempt to abolish all capital punishment. Through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, more and more capital punishments were abolished, not only in Britain but also all across Europe; until today, only a few European countries retain the death penalty.   The first recorded execution in the English American colonies was in 1608 when officials executed George Kendall of Virginia for supposedly plotting to betray the British to the Spanish. In 1612, Virginia's governor, Sir Thomas Dale, implemented the Divine, Moral, and Martial Laws that made death the penalty for even minor offenses such as stealing grapes, killing chickens, killing dogs or horses without permission, or trading with Indians. Seven years later, these laws were softened because Virginia feared that no one would settle there. Well, no shit.   In 1622, the first legal execution of a criminal, Daniel Frank, occurred in, of course, Virginia for the crime of theft. Some colonies were very strict in using the death penalty, while others were less so. In Massachusetts Bay Colony, the first execution was in 1630, but the earliest capital statutes did not occur until later. Under the Capital Laws of New England that went into effect between 1636-1647, the death penalty was set forth for pre-meditated murder, sodomy, witchcraft, adultery, idolatry, blasphemy, assault in anger, rape, statutory rape, manstealing, perjury in a capital trial, rebellion, manslaughter, poisoning, and bestiality. A scripture from the Old Testament accompanied early laws. By 1780, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts only recognized seven capital crimes: murder, sodomy, burglary, buggery, arson, rape, and treason. And for those wondering, The Buggery Act of 1533, formally An Act for the punishment of the vice of Buggerie, was an Act of the Parliament of England that was passed during the reign of Henry VIII. It was the country's first civil sodomy law.   The Act defined buggery as an unnatural sexual act against the will of God and Man. This term was later determined by the courts to include only anal penetration and bestiality.   The New York colony instituted the so-called Duke's Laws of 1665. This list of laws directed the death penalty for denial of the true God, pre-meditated murder, killing someone who had no weapon of defense, killing by lying in wait or by poisoning, sodomy, buggery, kidnapping, perjury in a capital trial, traitorous denial of the king's rights or raising arms to resist his authority, conspiracy to invade towns or forts in the colony and striking one's mother or father (upon complaint of both). The two colonies that were more lenient concerning capital punishment were South Jersey and Pennsylvania. In South Jersey, there was no death penalty for any crime, and there were only two crimes, murder, and treason, punishable by death. Way to go, Jersey Raccoons!   Some states were more severe. For example, by 1837, North Carolina required death for the crimes of murder, rape, statutory rape, slave-stealing, stealing banknotes, highway robbery, burglary, arson, castration, buggery, sodomy, bestiality, dueling where death occurs, (and this insidious shit), hiding a slave with intent to free him, taking a free Negro out of state to sell him, bigamy, inciting slaves to rebel, circulating seditious literature among slaves, accessory to murder, robbery, burglary, arson, or mayhem and others. However, North Carolina did not have a state prison and, many said, no suitable alternative to capital punishment. So, instead of building a fucking prison to hold criminals, they just made the penalty for less severe crimes punishable by death. What the shit, North Carolina?!?   The first reforms of the death penalty occurred between 1776-1800. Thomas Jefferson and four others, authorized to undertake a complete revision of Virginia's laws, proposed a law that recommended the death penalty for only treason and murder. After a stormy debate, the legislature defeated the bill by one vote. The writing of European theorists such as Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Bentham had a significant effect on American intellectuals, as did English Quaker prison reformers John Bellers and John Howard.   Organizations were formed in different colonies for the abolition of the death penalty and to relieve poor prison conditions. Dr. Benjamin Rush, a renowned Philadelphia citizen, proposed abolishing capital punishment. William Bradford, Attorney General of Pennsylvania, was ordered to investigate capital punishment. In 1793 he published “An Enquiry How Far the Punishment of Death is Necessary” in Pennsylvania. Bradford strongly insisted that the death penalty be retained but admitted it was useless in preventing certain crimes. He said the death penalty made convictions harder to obtain because in Pennsylvania, and indeed in all states, the death penalty was mandatory. Juries would often not return a guilty verdict because of this fact, which makes sense. In response, in 1794, the Pennsylvania legislature abolished capital punishment for all crimes except murder “in the first degree,” the first time murder had been broken down into “degrees.” In New York, in 1796, the legislature authorized construction of the state's first prison, abolished whipping, and reduced the number of capital offenses from thirteen to two. Virginia and Kentucky passed similar reform bills. Four more states reduced their capital crimes: Vermont in 1797 to three; Maryland in 1810, to four; New Hampshire in 1812, to two and Ohio in 1815 to two. Each of these states built state penitentiaries. A few states went in the opposite direction. Rhode Island restored the death penalty for rape and arson; Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Connecticut raised death crimes from six to ten, including sodomy, maiming, robbery, and forgery. Many southern states made more crimes capital, especially for slaves. Assholes.   The first profound reform era occurred between 1833-1853. Public executions were attacked as cruel. Sometimes tens of thousands of eager viewers would show up to view hangings; local merchants would sell souvenirs and alcohol. Which, I'm not sure if I hate or absolutely love. Fighting and pushing would often break out as people jockeyed for the best view of the hanging or the corpse! Onlookers often cursed the widow or the victim and would try to tear down the scaffold or the rope for keepsakes. Violence and drunkenness often ruled towns far into the night after “justice had been served.” People are fucking weird, dude. Many states enacted laws providing private hangings. Rhode Island (1833), Pennsylvania (1834), New York (1835), Massachusetts (1835), and New Jersey (1835) all abolished public hangings. By 1849, fifteen states were holding private hangings. This move was opposed by many death penalty abolitionists who thought public executions would eventually cause people to cry out against execution itself. For example, in 1835, Maine enacted what was in effect a moratorium on capital punishment after over ten thousand people who watched a hanging had to be restrained by police after they became unruly and began fighting. All felons sentenced to death would have to remain in prison at hard labor and could not be executed until one year had elapsed and then only on the governor's order. No governor ordered an execution under the “Maine Law” for twenty-seven years. Though many states argued the merits of the death penalty, no state went as far as Maine. The most influential reformers were the clergy, of course. Ironically, the small but influential group that opposed the abolitionists was the clergy.    Ok, let's talk about electrocution. Want to know how the electric chair came to be? Well, Electrocution as a method of execution came onto the scene in an implausible manner. Edison Company, with its DC (direct current) electrical systems, began attacking Westinghouse Company and its AC (alternating current) electrical systems as they were pressing for nationwide electrification with alternating current. To show how dangerous AC could be, Edison Company began public demonstrations by electrocuting animals. People reasoned that if electricity could kill animals, it could kill people. In 1888, New York approved the dismantling of its gallows and the building of the nation's first electric chair. It held its first victim, William Kemmler, in 1890, and even though the first electrocution was clumsy at best, other states soon followed the lead.   Between 1917 and 1955, the death penalty abolition movement again slowed. Washington, Arizona, and Oregon in 1919-20 reinstated the death penalty. In 1924, the first execution by cyanide gas took place in Nevada, when Tong war gang murderer Gee Jon became its first victim. Get this shit. The frigging state wanted to secretly pump cyanide gas into Jon's cell at night while he was asleep as a more humanitarian way of carrying out the penalty. Still, technical difficulties prohibited this, and a special “gas chamber” was hastily built. Other concerns developed when less “civilized” methods of execution failed. In 1930, Mrs. Eva Dugan became the first female to be executed by Arizona. The execution was botched when the hangman misjudged the drop, and Mrs. Dugan's head was ripped from her body. More states converted to electric chairs and gas chambers. During this time, abolitionist organizations sprang up all across the country, but they had little effect. Several stormy protests were held against the execution of certain convicted felons, like Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were convicted of spying on behalf of the Soviet Union. The couple was convicted of providing top-secret information about radar, sonar, jet propulsion engines, and valuable nuclear weapon designs. At that time, the United States was supposedly the only country with nuclear weapons. Convicted of espionage in 1951, they were executed by the United States federal government in 1953 in the Sing Sing correctional facility in Ossining, New York, becoming the first American civilians to be executed for such charges and the first to receive that penalty during peacetime. However, these protests held little opposition against the death penalty itself. In fact, during the anti-Communist period, with all its fears and hysteria, Texas Governor Allan Shivers seriously suggested that capital punishment be the penalty for membership in the Communist Party.   The movement against capital punishment revived again between 1955 and 1972.   England and Canada completed exhaustive studies which were largely critical of the death penalty, and these were widely circulated in the U.S.  Death row criminals gave their moving accounts of capital punishment in books and films. Convicted robber, kidnapper, and rapist Caryl Chessman, published “Cell 2455 Death Row” and “Trial by Ordeal.” Barbara Graham's story was utilized in the book and movie “I Want to Live!” after her execution. She was executed in the gas chamber at San Quentin Prison on the same day as two convicted accomplices, Jack Santo and Emmett Perkins. All of them were involved in a robbery that led to the murder of an elderly widow.  Television shows were broadcast on the death penalty. Hawaii and Alaska ended capital punishment in 1957, and Delaware did so the following year. Controversy over the death penalty gripped the nation, forcing politicians to take sides. Delaware restored the death penalty in 1961. Michigan abolished capital punishment for treason in 1963. Voters in 1964 abolished the death penalty in Oregon. In 1965 Iowa, New York, West Virginia, and Vermont ended the death penalty. New Mexico abolished the death penalty in 1969.   The controversy over the death penalty continues today. There is a strong movement against lawlessness propelled by citizens' fears of security. Politicians at the national and state levels are taking the floor of legislatures and calling for more frequent death penalties, death penalties for more crimes, and longer prison sentences. Those opposing these moves counter by arguing that harsher sentences do not slow crime and that crime is slightly or the same as in the past. FBI statistics show murders are now up. (For example, 9.3 persons per 100,000 were murdered in 1973, and 9.4 persons per 100,000 were murdered in 1992, and as of today, it's upwards of 14.4 people per 100,000. This upswing might be because of more advanced crime technology, as well as more prominent news and media.   Capital punishment has been completely abolished in all European countries except for Belarus and Russia, which has a moratorium and has not conducted an execution since September 1996. The complete ban on capital punishment is enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (EU). Two widely adopted protocols of the European Convention on Human Rights of the Council of Europe are thus considered a central value. Of all modern European countries, San Marino, Portugal, and the Netherlands were the first to abolish capital punishment, whereas only Belarus still practices capital punishment in some form or another. In 2012, Latvia became the last EU member state to abolish capital punishment in wartime.   Ok, so now let's switch gears from the history of capital punishment and executions in general and get into what we know you beautiful bastards come here for. Let's talk about some methods used throughout the years, and then we'll talk about some famous executions and some fucked and messed up ones.   Methods:   We've discussed a few of these before, but some are so fucked up we're going to discuss them again.   Boiling To Death:   A slow and agonizing punishment, this method traditionally saw the victim gradually lowered — feet-first — into boiling oil, water, or wax (although uses of boiling wine and molten lead have also been recorded).   If the shock of the pain did not render them immediately unconscious, the person would experience the excruciating sensation of their outer layers of skin, utterly destroyed by immersion burns, dissolving right off their body, followed by the complete breakdown of the fatty tissue, boiling away beneath.   Emperor Nero is said to have dispatched thousands of Christians in this manner. At the same time, in the Middle Ages, the primary recipients of the punishment were not killers or rapists but coin forgers, particularly in Germany and the Holy Roman Empire. In Britain, meanwhile, King Henry VIII introduced the practice for executing those who used poison to commit murder.   Shockingly, the practice is believed to have been carried out as recently as 2002, when the government of Uzbekistan, led by Islam Karimov, was alleged to have tortured several suspected terrorists to death by boiling.   The Blood Eagle:   A technique ascribed to ancient Norse warriors, the blood eagle, mixed brutality and poetic imagery that only the Vikings could. First, the victim's back would be hacked open, and the skin ripped apart, exposing the spinal column.   The ribs would then be snapped from the spine and forcibly bent backward until they faced outwards from the body, forming a pair of bloody, shattered eagle's wings. As a horrifying finale, the lungs would then be pulled from the body cavity and coated with stinging salt, causing eventual death by suffocation.   There is some question whether this technique was ever actually used as the only accounts come from Norse literature. Odin did this shit, you know it.   Several scholars claim that the act we know of today is simply a result of poor translating and misunderstands the strong association of the eagle with blood and death in Norse imagery. That said, every account is consistent in that in each case, the victim is a nobleman being punished for murdering his father.   The good news for any poor soul who might have suffered this brutal death? The agony and blood loss from the initial wounds would probably have caused them to pass out long before the lungs were removed from their bodies.    Impalement:   Most famously used by Vlad the Impaler, 15th-century ruler of Wallachia (in present-day Romania) and inspiration for Count Dracula, the act of impalement has a long, grim history. While images tend to depict people skewered through the midsection and then held aloft — in a manner that would almost certainly bring about a rapid death — the actual process was a much longer, horrifically drawn-out ordeal.   Traditionally, the stake would be partially sharpened and planted, point up, in the ground. The victim would then be placed over the spike as it was inserted partway into the rectum or vagina.   As their body weight dragged them further onto the pole, the semi-greased wooden stake would force its way up through their body, piercing organs with agonizing slowness as it eventually penetrated the entire torso, finally tearing an exit wound through the skin of the shoulder, neck or throat. Holy shishkabob. Or bill. Or Karen.   The earliest records of the torture come from 1772 B.C. in Babylon, where the aforementioned King Hammurabi ordered a woman be executed in this way for killing her husband. But its use continued until as recently as the 20th century when the Ottoman government employed the technique during the Armenian genocide of 1915-1923. Which is super fucked up.   According to some accounts, it could take the victim — exposed, bleeding, and writhing in tormented agony — as long as eight whole days to die. Oh my hell!   Keelhauling:   Walking the plank might not be the most pleasant of deaths, but it seems moderately more humane than the other favored maritime punishment of keelhauling.   A punishment that often ended in death due to the severity of the wounds sustained (or was simply carried out until the point of death), it saw the victim, legs weighted and suspended from a rope, dropped from the bow of the ship, and then rapidly pulled underwater along the length of the hull — and over the keel (the beam that runs longitudinally down the center of the underside to the stern.   In the age of old, old wooden sailing ships, the hull of a vessel would generally be coated in a thick layer of barnacles, whose shells could be rock hard and razor-sharp.   As the drowning sailor was yanked relentlessly through the saltwater, these barnacles would strip the skin from his body, gouging out raw chunks of flesh and even, by some accounts, tearing off whole limbs or severing the head.   If the sailor was still alive, they might be hung from the mast for 15 minutes before going in again. In some cases, the victim would have an oil-soaked sponge — containing a breath of air — stuffed into their mouth to prevent a “merciful” drowning.   Employed mainly by the Dutch and the French from the 1500s until it was abolished in 1853, accounts of its use date back to Greece in 800 B.C.   The Roman Candle:   Many of the worst execution methods ever devised involve fire — from burning witches at stake in medieval Britain to roasting criminals alive in the hot metal insides of the brazen bull in Ancient Greece — but few match the sheer lack of humanity as the Roman Candle.   A rumored favorite of the mad Roman Emperor Nero, this method saw the subject tied to a stake and smeared with flammable pitch (tree or plant resin), then set ablaze, slowly burning to death from the feet up.   What sets this above the many other similar methods is that the victims were sometimes lined up outside to provide the lighting for one of Nero's evening parties.   Being Hanged, Drawn, And Quartered:   First recorded in England during the 13th century, this unusually extreme — even for the time — mode of execution was made the statutory punishment for treason in 1351. Though it was intended to be an act of such barbarous severity that no one would ever risk committing a treasonous act, there were nevertheless plenty of recipients over the next 500 years.   The process of being hanged, drawn, and quartered began with the victim being dragged to the site of execution while strapped to a wooden panel, which was in turn tied to a horse.   They would then experience a slow hanging, in which, rather than being dropped to the traditional quick death of a broken neck, they would instead be left to choke horribly as the rope tore up the skin of their throat, their body weight dragging them downwards.   Some had the good fortune to die at this stage, including the infamous Gunpowder Plot conspirator Guy Fawkes, who ensured a faster death by leaping from the gallows.   Once half-strangled, the drawing would begin. The victim would be strapped down and then slowly disemboweled, their stomachs sliced open, and their intestines and other significant organs hacked apart and pulled — “drawn” — from the body.   The genitals would often be mutilated and ripped from between their legs. Those unlucky enough to still be alive at this point might witness their organs burned in front of them before they were finally decapitated.   Once death had finally claimed them, the recipient's body would be carved into four pieces — or “quartered” — and the parts sent to prominent areas of the country as a warning to others.   The head would often be taken to the infamous Tower of London, where it would be impaled on a spike and placed on the walls “for the mockery of London.”   Rat Torture:   As recently depicted in that horrible show, Game Of Thrones, rat torture is ingenious in its disgusting simplicity. In its most basic form, a bucket containing live rats is placed on the exposed torso of the victim, and heat is applied to the base of the bucket.   The rats, crazy with fear from the heat, tear and gnaw their way into the abdomen of the victim, clawing and ripping through skin, flesh, organs, and intestines in their quest to escape.   Possessing the most powerful biting and chewing motion of any rodent, rats can make short work of a human stomach. Along with the unimaginable pain, the victim would also suffer the sick horror of feeling the large, filthy creatures writhing around inside their guts as they died.   While associated with Elizabethan England — where the Tower of London was said to have housed a “Dungeon of Rats,” a pitch-black room below high watermark that would draw in rats from the River Thames to torment the room's inhabitants — the practice has been used far more recently.   General Pinochet is said to have employed the technique during his dictatorship of Chile (1973-1990), while reports from Argentina during the National Reorganization Process in the late 1970s and early '80s claimed victims were subjected to a version in which live rats — or sometimes spiders — were inserted into the subject's body via a tube in the rectum or vagina….yep.   Bamboo Torture   Forcing thin shards of bamboo under the fingernails has long been cited as an interrogation method, but bamboo has been used to creatively — and slowly — execute a person, too. Allegedly used by the Japanese on American prisoners of war, it saw the victim tied down to a frame over a patch of newly sprouting bamboo plants.   One of the fastest-growing plants in the world, capable of up to three feet of growth in 24 hours, the sharp-tipped plants would slowly pierce the victim's skin — and then continue to grow. The result was death by gradual, continuous, multiple impalements, the equivalent of being dropped on a bed of sharpened stakes in terrible slow motion.   Despite the practice having roots in the former areas of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and Siam (now Thailand) in the 19th century, there are no proven instances of it being used during WWII.   It's certainly possible, however, and it has been shown that the technique, among the worst execution methods ever, works: A 2008 episode of MythBusters found that bamboo was capable of penetrating a human-sized lump of ballistic gelatin over three days.   https://m.imdb.com/list/ls059738828/

In this episode, Scott and Steve explore the world of fitness and idioms with comedian and fitness instructor, Stasia Patwell of SCHOOL OF THOT. The guys discuss the origin and history of "Fit as a Fiddle" and "Lick into Shape" while learning about the joys of marriage from the Middle Ages and another terrifying thing about bears. In addition, they interview Stasia Patwell, comedian and certified fitness instructor at her own virtual workout studio - School of THOT. Their wide-ranging discussion includes Stasia's shout out from Joe Rogan, the culture of victimization, the power of hurt feelings, and the many graphic benefits of water. Also, Stasia takes a quiz to see if she can guess the origin of "Thot," while also pondering the mystery of Lil' Simm. For more with Stasia Patwell, become a Speakcies Supporter at pateon.com/speakcies where you can Stasia answer "3 Silly Questions." Stasia Patwell/SCHOOL OF THOT To learn more about Stasia Patwell and SCHOOL OF THOT, follow her on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/stasiapatwell/. If you want to be trained by Stasia, register for her next THOT CERTIFICATION starting on January 31 by signing up here. Speakcies Merchandise The Origin of Speakcies merch store, powered by TeePublic, is now live! Go to speakcies.com/store for t-shirts, hoodies, stickers, mugs, and more! Become a Speakcies Supporter! As a Speakcies Supporter, you receive great benefits including exclusive podcasts like Speakcies Uncut, True Facts with Robert Banquette, Personal Records, and the new segment Three Silly Questions. Become a Speakcies Supporter today at patreon.com/speakcies. Social Media Twitter - twitter.com/speakcies Instagram - instagram.com/speakcies

No Best in Show? Looking Back with Bo Bengtson Author, historian, editor and Sighthound specialist Bo Bengtson joins host Laura Reeves again for a fascinating look back at dog shows *before* Best in Show. “You gotta go several thousand years back basically,” Bengtson said of people appreciating the beauty of dogs. “Even in the Odyssey, which is Homer 2,000 years ago, there is a reference that cited the people who own dogs because they're handsome, because they look good. “That's kind of really interesting to me that even in those days people cared about what dogs look like. Going through the Middle Ages and forward, you find several references to not just hunting dogs or war dogs or something, but also to luxury dogs or pets. Greyhounds of all types are very, very frequently portrayed. “And then we get up to the 1800s and middle of 1800s and the industrial revolution in England. Suddenly, there was a whole new class created by the industrial revolution. People who had money and had time on their hands and what could they better focus on than dogs. That was very interesting to them and that's where the beginning of the modern dog sport really stands. “The dog shows of the past were not at all like modern dog shows. There was often a best in show award but even defeated dogs could actually compete for it. There were no groups and there were not even necessarily breeds. "In 1924, the American Kennel Club introduced new regulations and since then it's basically been (the same). The number of groups has increased slightly and the number of breeds increased drastically, but their regulations for competing have remained unchanged. “Even in my early days, in the 1980s in this country, there was not even necessarily Best in Show. I remember very, very vividly that I had a group winner who was not allowed to compete for Best in Show because there wasn't a Best in Show at that show. In the beginning, only half the number of shows had the best in show award … eventually that grew up to present day. “There have always been people who are nuts about competing for best in show and campaigning dogs. I mean you don't think of people in the ‘30s or ‘40s or something that is campaigning dogs. But they were. There was that Pointer in 1860 or something from Wales, that was shown at least 60 times. How do they even get to the show? And he was shown overseas too. How do you even know where the shows were? It's amazing. "In the 1950s, there were certainly not flights available as today and there were far fewer shows and dogs still managed to win 20 or 30 best in shows per year. People were competitive even then. “I think it's a pretty rarified sport in many ways. I mean they make it fun sometimes and I think it's fascinating. I think there's nothing like sitting with a catalog and watching a bunch of dogs of the same breed being judged by an expert. That's totally fascinating. But most people don't think so. I think you need a special type of interest or mind or something like that. Maybe you have to just be a little weird.” Be sure to listen in to catch Bo's incredible Best in Show lineup representing dogs of yesteryear through present times. Support this podcast

Confessions is generally considered one of Augustine's most important texts. It is widely seen as the first Western Christian autobiography ever written, and was an influential model for Christian writers throughout the Middle Ages. Professor Henry Chadwick wrote that Confessions will "always rank among the great masterpieces of western literature." The work is not a complete autobiography, as it was written during Saint Augustine's early 40s and he lived long afterwards, producing another important work, The City of God. Nonetheless, it does provide an unbroken record of his development of thought and is the most complete record of any single person from the 4th and 5th centuries. It is a significant theological work, featuring spiritual meditations and insights. In the work, Augustine writes about how he regrets having led a sinful and immoral life. He discusses his regrets for following the Manichaean religion and believing in astrology. He writes about his friend Nebridius's role in helping to persuade him that astrology was not only incorrect but evil, and Saint Ambrose's role in his conversion to Christianity. The first nine books are autobiographical and the last four are commentary and significantly more philosophical. He shows intense sorrow for his sexual sins and writes on the importance of sexual morality. The books were written as prayers to God, thus the title, based on the Psalms of David; and it begins with "For Thou hast made us for Thyself and our hearts are restless till they rest in Thee." The work is thought to be divisible into books which symbolize various aspects of the Trinity and trinitarian belief.

Source: https://www.ccel.org/ Confessions is generally considered one of Augustine's most important texts. It is widely seen as the first Western Christian autobiography ever written, and was an influential model for Christian writers throughout the Middle Ages. Professor Henry Chadwick wrote that Confessions will "always rank among the great masterpieces of western literature." The work is not a complete autobiography, as it was written during Saint Augustine's early 40s and he lived long afterwards, producing another important work, The City of God. Nonetheless, it does provide an unbroken record of his development of thought and is the most complete record of any single person from the 4th and 5th centuries. It is a significant theological work, featuring spiritual meditations and insights. In the work, Augustine writes about how he regrets having led a sinful and immoral life. He discusses his regrets for following the Manichaean religion and believing in astrology. He writes about his friend Nebridius's role in helping to persuade him that astrology was not only incorrect but evil, and Saint Ambrose's role in his conversion to Christianity. The first nine books are autobiographical and the last four are commentary and significantly more philosophical. He shows intense sorrow for his sexual sins and writes on the importance of sexual morality. The books were written as prayers to God, thus the title, based on the Psalms of David; and it begins with "For Thou hast made us for Thyself and our hearts are restless till they rest in Thee." The work is thought to be divisible into books which symbolize various aspects of the Trinity and trinitarian belief.

Knights in their armour is one of the most enduring images of the Middle Ages, perhaps the first thing that comes to mind and a role that many of us would have played at as children.Yet surprisingly, there are no surviving examples of English armour from this period that we know of in the world. So how do we know what armour English knights donned on the battlefield? In this episode, Matt is joined by Toby Capwell, Curator of Arms and Armour at the Wallace Collection, who has used alternative sources of evidence to help reveal the lost world of Medieval English steel.Don't forget to leave us a rating and review while you're here!For more Gone Medieval content, subscribe to our Medieval Monday newsletter here.If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download, go to the Android or Apple store See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

RMA-Episode 70 Show Notes:   We spend a lot of time here at RMA talking about the mental health aspects of addiction and recovery. This week we are going to shift gears and get physical. What are the roles of diet and exercise in recovery and how do they fit into the maintenance of sobriety over the long term? What are the benefits of starting and maintaining some kind of exercise program? How do years of drinking or drug use impact the body's ability to process nutrition? For the answer to these questions and for advice on how to leverage diet and exercise to bolster your recovery, tune into this week's episode of RMA. Plus, the week in review (it's a doozy), Recovery in the News and the Week in Weird on a pumped up, aerobic, nutritious episode of Recovery in the Middle Ages.   LINKS:   Recovery News:   https://www.soberliningsplaybook.com/   Recovery in the News:   Seeing Obesity as an Addiction Crisis Lawmakers want to strengthen access to non-religious substance abuse treatment services   The Week in Weird:   Creepy Clown Spotted on Google Maps JOIN THE RECOVERY IN THE MIDDLE AGES PATREON AND SUPPORT THE SHOW!! LISTEN TO RMA ON YOUTUBE PLEASE leave us a 5 star review on I-Tunes if you're enjoying the show and SUBSCRIBE to get the latest episodes.    You can reach us by email at: MikeR@middleagesrecovery.com Natx@middleagesrecovery.com   Send comments, complaints, death threats, ideas and requests to be interviewed. We'll talk to anyone! Check out the website: Www.middleagesrecovery.com   While you're there, buy a T-Shirt and support your favorite recovery podcast.   Visit MiddleAgesRecovery.com and tell us your story of your struggles with alcohol and drugs. Fill out the “tell us your story” Form on the website, write your recovery or using story and we will read it on the air! (Anonymity guaranteed).   FOLLOW US ON TWITTER  Join the Facebook Page! Exciting things are happening there!   We also have a Facebook Group! Request to join the group. It's a private space for continuing the discussion of what Nat and Mike talk about on the podcast. Hope to see you there. If you're in trouble with substance abuse and need help, reach out. There are thousands of people who have put problems with addiction in their rear-view mirrors and you can be one of them. While we neither endorse nor condemn any particular program, the sheer number of available AA and NA meetings suggest that reaching out to those organizations would be a good first step on the road to recovery.     https://www.aa.org/ https://www.na.org/meetingsearch/   Marijuana Anonymous (just in case):   This Naked Mind   Addiction Recovery Podcast  

Matthew Gabriele and David M Perry speak to David Musgrove about their book The Bright Ages, which tackles the big themes of the Middle Ages and challenges some widely held views about the history of medieval Europe.(Ad) Matthew Gabriele and David M Perry are the authors of The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe (HarperCollins, 2021). Buy it now from Waterstones:https://go.skimresources.com?id=71026X1535947&xcust=historyextra-social-Histboty&xs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.waterstones.com%2Fbook%2Fthe-bright-ages%2Fmatthew-gabriele%2Fdavid-m-perry%2F9780062980892 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

There are records of snowmen that go all the way back to the Middle Ages, but no one knows for sure how long ago the first one was built. Who knows? Cavemen could have built SnowCaveMen! Tune in to today's episode to find out just how they became such important winter icons!

Did early Christians associate the trumpets of Rosh Hashanah, the New Year festival, with the Last Trumpet of the Rapture? What do you think about that last seventh chapter of the book: "Jesus for Sceptics" where a list of hardcore atheists is given, who under numerous and solid evidence changed their attitude and became hardcore Christians? Do you know of any (good) books about Polycarp? Assassin's Creed Valhalla, a role-playing game, portrays Gnostic doctrine as still current in the Middle Ages. Of course it is fiction, but is it plausible? What do you think of the claim that publishers are cheapening the experience of studying the Good Book by promoting “Bible consumerism?” Does grappling with the inconsistencies, inaccuracies, anachronisms, and atrocities in the Bible wound faith, or is it a good exercise? Some Jews claim that the Septuagint was destroyed in the fire of the Alexandrian library. Do you know why they claim this, despite evidence of other copies existing? Why are the Septuagint and Masoretic texts so different? Am I correct that modern Biblical scholarship hasn't been as interested in the apocryphal portions of the Old Testament? If so, why is this?

Mike Carr speaks to David Musgrove about Muslim-Christian relations in the medieval era, revealing how Papal-sanctioned trade was going on despite the background of the Crusades. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Areas of Scripture such as Jeremiah 32-17 and Psalm 8-3-4 show us that we should be in awe of the heaven and earth made by God's great power, the same God that cares for you. --In order to focus in on the heavens, Crosstalk welcomed Dr. Danny Faulkner. Dr. Faulkner has a Masters of Science in Physics, a Master of Arts and a PhD in Astronomy. He taught at the University of South Carolina, Lancaster, for over 26 years. He serves as editor of the Creation Research Quarterly and has published over 100 papers in various journals. He's a researcher, author and speaker for Answers in Genesis. He is the author of numerous books including the newly released, The Heavens- A Different View.--Dr. Faulkner has always had a fascination with astronomy, but it wasn't until his sophomore year in high school that he realized this was his calling in life.--What fascinates him the most- He noted that sizes and the scale of the universe and that while we have a big, powerful universe, it requires a creator far larger and even more powerful to have created it.--So for Dr. Faulkner, astronomy is a special science. He described it as -artsy- due to the fact that it was classified as one of the 7 liberal arts from classical antiquity through the Middle Ages. It's not an experimental science. It's observational as its beauty and wonder grabs at the hearts and minds of people more than any other branch of science.

In this second guest episode from a new podcast series, Myself With Others, novelist, memoirist and poet James Lasdun talks to Adam Shatz about his taste for the Middle Ages, the power of Patricia Highsmith, and his memoir about being stalked.Subscribe to Myself With Others wherever you're listening to this podcast.Find out more about the series here: https://www.myselfwithothers.com/Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

RMA-Episode 69 Show Notes:   Imagine being a documentary filmmaker and following your subjects around for 36 years. That's what Jon Alpert did when he documented the lives of three petty criminals and drug addicts in Newark NJ, from 1984 to 2021. The resulting movie, Life of Crime,  is an achingly candid and at times brutal documentary for HBO spanning a lifetime of crime, incarceration and the compounding ravages of addiction. Mike and Nat discuss the film and what lessons it teaches about the way society deals with the related issues of poverty, intergenerational crime and drug abuse. Plus, the week in review, Recovery in the News and the Week in Weird on a snowbound, icy cold and delicious episode of Recovery in the Middle Ages.   LINKS:   Life of Crime-Official Trailer   Recovery News:   https://www.soberliningsplaybook.com/   Recovery in the News:   Sobriety is Not a Trend or a Monthly Challenge Lawmakers want to strengthen access to non-religious substance abuse treatment services   The Week in Weird:   Scientists Teach Goldfish to Drive Tiny Cars JOIN THE RECOVERY IN THE MIDDLE AGES PATREON AND SUPPORT THE SHOW!! LISTEN TO RMA ON YOUTUBE PLEASE leave us a 5 star review on I-Tunes if you're enjoying the show and SUBSCRIBE to get the latest episodes.    You can reach us by email at: MikeR@middleagesrecovery.com Natx@middleagesrecovery.com   Send comments, complaints, death threats, ideas and requests to be interviewed. We'll talk to anyone! Check out the website: Www.middleagesrecovery.com   While you're there, buy a T-Shirt and support your favorite recovery podcast.   Visit MiddleAgesRecovery.com and tell us your story of your struggles with alcohol and drugs. Fill out the “tell us your story” Form on the website, write your recovery or using story and we will read it on the air! (Anonymity guaranteed).   FOLLOW US ON TWITTER  Join the Facebook Page! Exciting things are happening there!   We also have a Facebook Group! Request to join the group. It's a private space for continuing the discussion of what Nat and Mike talk about on the podcast. Hope to see you there. If you're in trouble with substance abuse and need help, reach out. There are thousands of people who have put problems with addiction in their rear-view mirrors and you can be one of them. While we neither endorse nor condemn any particular program, the sheer number of available AA and NA meetings suggest that reaching out to those organizations would be a good first step on the road to recovery.     https://www.aa.org/ https://www.na.org/meetingsearch/   Marijuana Anonymous (just in case):   This Naked Mind   Addiction Recovery Podcast  

Emmet and Mike discuss medieval techniques of memory and forgetting. They discuss Cornelius Agrippa's assault on those techniques as an assault on the corrupted scholastic world. In Agrippa's thought we see the germs of modernity. The discuss opens up into a contemplation of ancient science and tech, the propaganda of the Enlightenment, the disciplining of the mind and the gaze, recovering tradition, and more. Feel free to email or DM us for pdfs of the sources we used for this episode. Subscribe to our Patreon to get two exclusive episodes a month. (https://www.patreon.com/posts/60648716) Closing song: Habit Necessity by TAD.

Vital Remnants Producer Connor Tracy is joined by Dr. Justin Stover, Senior Lecturer of Medieval Latin at the University of Edinburgh, to explore what Russell Kirk calls our “neglected inheritance” from the Middle Ages. In addition to the influence of the Medieval world on America, the two discuss the culture of the Middle Ages and address some of the common misconceptions about the period. Corresponding Reading   Chapter 6, pp. 177-219 of Russell Kirk, The Roots of American Order Important Links  Download the corresponding Reading Guide to The Roots of American Order here. Learn more about The Roots of American Order at https://louisville.edu/mcconnellcenter/programs-events/bic Subscribe to our newsletter and receive McConnell Center updates directly in your mailbox. Please share any thoughts, questions, comments, or concerns with us via email at  connor.tracy@louisville.edu Further Reading from the Middle Ages: Dante, The Divine Comedy Bernardus Silvestris, Cosmographia Hugh of Saint Victor, Didascalicon: A Medieval Guide to The Arts Alan of Lille, De Planctu Naturae (Lament of Nature) Alan of Lille, Anticlaudianus Sermons of Bernard of Clairvaux The Song of Roland The Song Of El Cid Beowulf Further Reading about the Middle Ages C.S. Lewis, The Discarded Image Jean Leclercq, The Love of Learning and The Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture  Henri de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis: The Four Senses of Scripture This podcast is a production of the McConnell Center at the University of Louisville. For more information, including upcoming events, please visit us online at mcconnellcenter.org or on social media at:  Facebook: @mcconnellcenter   Instagram: @ulmcenter   Twitter: @ULmCenter  Contributors  Host, Producer, and Editor: Connor Tracy, McConnell Center SBS Coordinator  

Onbehaarde Apen is deze week nog met winterslaap. Gemma Venhuizen zocht haar favoriete Onbehaarde Apen aflevering uit.Onbehaarde Apen LIVE. Bier: oerdrank en genetisch experimentVan Mesopotamische bierwetten tot gistcellen die zich als diva gedragen: in deze tweede liveshow van Onbehaarde Apen duiken we in de geschiedenis en de toekomst van bier. Hoe werd het eerste bier gebrouwen? Dronken Middeleeuwers echt alleen maar bier in plaats van water? En zullen we in de toekomst crispr-cas op gistcellen toepassen?Presentatie: Lucas BrouwersGasten: Hendrik Spiering, Gemma Venhuizen, Bastiaan Nagtegaal en Bart FunnekotterProductie: Misha Melita@lucasbrouwers // @hendrikspiering // @GemmaJV // @BartFunnekotter // @JBNagtegaalBenieuwd naar de toekomst van bier? Lees hier het stuk dat Bastiaan Nagtegaal erover schreef:https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2019/10/04/wie-gist-beheerst-beheerst-de-toekomst-van-bier-a3975667Wat was er nou eerder, bier of brood? Lees hier het artikel van Bart Funnekotter over de vondst van het eerste bier:https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2019/10/04/de-wonderbaarlijke-geboorte-van-bier-en-brood-a3975664Meer lezen over de herkomst van bier? Lees: 'Ancient Brews: Rediscovered and Re-created', (2017) van Patrick McGovern.Benieuwd naar bier in de Middeleeuwen en alle mythes eromheen?Lees: 'Beer in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance' (2007) van Richard W. UngerZie het privacybeleid op https://art19.com/privacy en de privacyverklaring van Californië op https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Emperor Thranduil? Thanks to the listener who commissioned this bonus series! Join the conversation on the Atoz forum. Support the network and gain access to over fifty bonus episodes by becoming a patron on Patreon. Want more science fiction in your life? Check out The Gene Wolfe Literary Podcast. Love Neil Gaiman? Join us on Hanging Out With the Dream King: A Neil Gaiman Podcast. Lovecraft? Poe? Check out Elder Sign: A Weird Fiction Podcast. Trekker? Join us on Lower Decks: A Star Trek Podcast. Want to know more about the Middle Ages? Subscribe to Agnus: The Late Antique, Medieval, and Byzantine Podcast. Follow Valerie's Plants in Star Trek page on Instagram. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Happy new year!  Or is it?  It depends on which calendar you're using. Like what you hear?  Become a patron of the arts for as little as $2 a month!   Or buy the book or some merch.  Hang out with your fellow Brainiacs.  Reach out and touch Moxie on Facebook, Twitter,  or Instagram. Music: Kevin MacLeod, David Fesliyan.   Reach out and touch Moxie on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Links to all the research resources are on the website.   On Monday this December 30th past, I clocked in at my retail jobs, put on my headset, and played the morning messages.  There was one from my manager telling us what to expect in terms of sales volume that day and one from corporate welcoming us to the first day of 2020.  The didn't get their dates mixed up.  December 30th 2019 was the first day of 2020 in a way that once crashed Twitter for hours.  My name…   When we think of the calendar, we think of it as singular and exclusive.  “The” calendar.  Sure, there were other calendars, but those were for old-timey people in old-timey times.  If you've ever listened to the show before, you'll know I'm about to disabuse you of that notion; it's kinda my schtick.  The calendar we think of as the end all and be all of organizing time into little squares is the Gregorian calendar, but it's just one of many that have been used and still are used today.   For example, at the time of this recording, it's currently the 27th day of the month of Tevet in the year 5782 for those who follow the Hebrew calendar.  The Hebrew calendar, also known as the Jewish calendar, was originally created before the year 10 CE.  It first used lunar months, which will surprise no one who has had to google when Passover or Easter are each year.  A standard Jewish year has twelve months; six twenty-nine-day months, and six thirty-day months, for a total of 354 days.  This is because the months follow the lunar orbit, which is on average 29.5 days.  Due to variations in the Jewish calendar, the year could also be 353 or 355 days.  It also used standard calendar years, but these two methods don't line up perfectly, and this posed a problem.  As time went on, the shorter lunar calendar would result in holy days shifting forward in time from year to year.  That simply wouldn't do as certain holidays have to be celebrated in a certain season, like Passover in the spring, Tu B'Shevat, the Jewish 'New Year for Trees,' which  needs to fall around the time that trees in the Middle East come out of their winter dormancy, or Sukkot, the festival that calls adherents to build and live in huts in their yard to commemorate Isrealites taking shelter in the wilderness, which is meant to fall in autumn.  So a thirteenth month had to be added every 3 to 4 years in order to make up for the difference.  Such a year is called a shanah meuberet ("pregnant year") in Hebrew; in English we call it a leap year, and it makes up all the lunar calendar's lost days.  The month is added to Adar, the last of the twelve months. On leap years we observe two Adars — Adar I and Adar II.  Today, the Hebrew calendar is used primarily to determine the dates for Jewish religious holidays and to select appropriate religious readings for the day.   Similar in usage is the Hijri calendar, or Islamic calendar.  It's based on lunar phases, using a system of 12 months and either 354 or 355 days every year.  The first Islamic year was 622 CE when the prophet Muhammad emigrated from Mecca to Medina, meaning today is the Jumada I 28, 1443 .  The Hijri calendar is used to identify Islamic holidays and festivals.  The Islamic New Year marks the journey of the prophet Muhammad from Mecca to Medina.  However, the occasion and the sacred month of Muharram are observed differently by the two largest branches of Islam, Shiite and Sunni.  Shiite pilgrims journey to their holiest sites to commemorate a seventh-century battle, while Sunnis fast to celebrate the victory of Moses over an Egyptian pharaoh.  Also known as the Persian calendar, it's the official calendar used in Iran and Afghanistan, and it's the most accurate calendar system going, but more on that later.   Further east you'll encounter the Buddhist calendar, which is used throughout Southeast Asia.  This uses the sidereal year, the time it takes Earth to orbit the sun, as the solar year.  Like other systems, the calendar does not try to stay in sync with this time measurement, but unlike the others, no extra days or months have been added, so the Buddhist calendar is slowly moving out of alignment at a pace of around one day every century.  Today, the traditional Buddhist lunisolar calendar is used mainly for Theravada Buddhist festivals, and no longer has the official calendar status anywhere. The Thai Buddhist Era, a renumbered Gregorian calendar, is the official calendar in Thailand.  The Buddhist calendar is based on an older Hindu calendar, of which there are actually three -- Vikram Samvat, Shaka Samvat, and Kali Yuga.  The Vikram Samvat is used in Nepal and some Indian states, and uses lunar months and the sidereal year to track time.  Sidereal means based on fixed stars and constellations, rather than celestial things on the move, like planets.  The Shaka Samvat, used officially in India and by Hindus in Java and Bali, has months based around the tropical zodiac signs rather than the sidereal year.  The Kali Yuga is a different sort of calendar altogether.  It meters out the last of the four stages (or ages or yugas) the world goes through as part of a 'cycle of yugas' (i.e. mahayuga) described in the Sanskrit scriptures. The Kali Yuga, began at midnight (00:00) on 18 February 3102 BCE,  is the final cycle within the 4-cycle Yuga era. The first cycle is the age of truth and perfection, the second cycle is the age of emperors and war, the third stage is the age of disease and discontent, and the third stage (the Kali Yuga) is the age of ignorance and darkness.  If you're worried because you already missed 5,000 years of the Yuga, don't fret; you have upwards of 467,000 years left.     You've probably heard of Chinese New Year, so you won't be surprised that there is a Chinese calendar.  According to this system, each month begins on the day when the moon is in the "new moon" phase. The beginning of a new year is also marked by the position of the moon and occurs when the moon is midway between the winter solstice and spring equinox.  China uses the Gregorian calendar for official things, but still uses the Chinese calendar is used to celebrate holidays.   You might be surprised to learn about the Ethiopian calendar.  The Ethiopian calendar is quite similar to the Julian calendar, the predecessor to the Gregorian calendar most countries use today.  Like the other calendars we've discussed, it's intertwined with the faith of the people.  The first day of the week for instance, called Ehud, translates as ‘the first day‘ in the ancient Ge'ez language, the liturgical language of the Ethiopian church.  It is meant to show that Ehud is the first day on which God started creating the heavens and the earth.  The calendar system starts with the idea that Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden for seven years before they were banished for 5,500 for their sins.  Both the Gregorian and Ethiopian use the birthdate of Jesus Christ as a starting point, what Eddie Izzard called “the big BC/AD change-over,” though the Ethiopian Orthodox Church believes Jesus was born 7 years earlier than the Gregorian calendar says.  The Ethiopian calendar has 13 months in a year, 12 of which have 30 days. The last month, called Pagume, has five days, and six days in a leap year.   Not only do the months have names, so do the years.  The first year after an Ethiopian leap year is named the John year, and is followed by the Matthew year, then Mark, then Luke.  Sept. 11 marks the day of the new year in Ethiopia.  By this time, the lengthy rainy season has come to a close, leaving behind a countryside flourishing in yellow daisies. That's fitting because Enkutatash in Amharic, the native language of Ethiopia, translates to “gift of jewels.” To celebrate New Year's, Ethiopians sing songs unique to the day and exchange bouquets of flowers. Of course, there is plenty of eating and drinking, too.   So what about this Gregorian calendar I keep mentioning?  The Gregorian calendar was created in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII, who made some changes to the previously used Julian calendar.  Okay, so what was the Julian calendar?  It should shock no one that the Julian calendar was ordered by and named after Julius Caesar.  By the 40s BCE the Roman civic calendar was three months ahead of the solar calendar.  The Alexandrian astronomer Sosigenes, introduced the Egyptian solar calendar, taking the length of the solar year as 365 1/4 days.  The year was divided into 12 months, all of which had either 30 or 31 days except February, which contained 28 days in common (365 day) years and 29 in every fourth year (a leap year, of 366 days).  That 29th day wasn't February 29th, it was February 23rd a second time.  What a mess that would make, though that conflagration of confusion probably paled in comparison to to what Caesar did to align the civic and solar calendars--he added days to the year 46 BCE, so that it contained 445 days.  Unsurprisingly when you try to make such a large change to the daily lives of so many people in the days before electronic communication, it took over fifty years to get everybody on board.   Sosigenes had overestimated the length of the year by 11 minutes 14 seconds.  11 minutes doesn't mean much in a given year, but after, say, 1500 years, the seasons on your calendar no longer line up with the seasons of reality.  That matters when your most important holy day needs to happen at a certain time of year.  Enter Pope Gregory XIII, who wanted to stop Easter, which had been celebrated on March 21, from drifting any farther away from the spring Equinox.  Aloysus Lilius, the Italian scientist who developed the system Pope Gregory would unveil in 1582, realized that the addition of so many February 23rds made the calendar slightly too long. He devised a variation that adds leap days in years divisible by four, unless the year is also divisible by 100. If the year is also divisible by 400, a leap day is added regardless. [OS crash noise] Sorry about that.  While this formula may sound confusing, it did resolve the lag created by Caesar's earlier scheme—almost; Lilius' system was still off by 26 seconds.  As a result, in the years since Gregory introduced his calendar in 1582, a discrepancy of several hours has arisen.  We have some time before that really becomes an issue for the average person.  It will take until the year 4909 before the Gregorian calendar will be a full day ahead of the solar year.   Maths aside, not everyone was keen on Pope Gregory's plan.  His proclamation was what's known as a papal bull, an order that applies to the church by has no authority over non-Catholics.  That being said, the new calendar was quickly adopted by predominantly Catholic countries like Spain, Portugal and Italy, major world players at the time.  European Protestants, however, feared it was an attempt to silence their movement, a conspiracy to keep them down.  Maybe by making it hard to remember when meetings and protests were supposed to be, I'm not sure.  It wasn't until 1700 that Protestant Germany switched over, and England held out until 1752.  Those transitions didn't go smooth.  English citizens didn't take kindly to the act of Parliament that advanced their calendars from September 2 to September 14, overnight.  There are apocryphal tales of rioters in the streets, demanding that the government “give us our 11 days.” However, most historians now believe that these protests never occurred or were greatly exaggerated.  Some countries took even longer than Britain--the USSR didn't convert to the Gregorian calendar until 1918, even later than countries like Egypt and Japan.  On the other side of the Atlantic from the British non-protests, meanwhile, Benjamin Franklin welcomed the change, writing, “It is pleasant for an old man to be able to go to bed on September 2, and not have to get up until September 14.”   When Julius Caesar's reformed the calendar in 46 B.C., he established January 1 as the first of the year.  During the Middle Ages, however, European countries replaced it with days that carried greater religious significance, such as December 25 and March 25 (the Feast of the Annunciation).  I didn't google that one.  After my mom listens to this episode, she'll send me a gloriously incorrect speech-to-text message explaining it.  Different calendars mean different New Years days even now, and the ways in which people celebrate as as splendidly diverse as the people themselves.   The Coptic Egyptian Church celebrates the Coptic New Year (Anno Martyrus), or year of the martyrs on 11th of September. The Coptic calendar is the ancient Egyptian one of twelve 30-day months plus a "small" five-day month—six-day in a leap year.  The months retain their ancient Egyptian names which denote the gods and godesses of the Egyptians, and the year's three seasons, the inundation, cultivation, and harvest, are related to the Nile and the annual agricultural cycle.  But the Copts chose the year 284AD to mark the beginning of the calendar, since this year saw the seating of Diocletian as Rome's emperor and the consequent martyrdom of thousands upon thousands of Egypt's Christians.  Apart from the Church's celebration, Copts celebrate the New Year by eating red dates, which are in season, believing the red symbolises the martyrs' blood and the white date heart the martyrs' pure hearts.  Also, dates are delicious.    Bonus fact: You know that guy, Pope Francis?  He's not actually the pope.  The pope's proper title, according to the Vatican's website, is Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Primate of Italy, Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Roman Province, Sovereign of the State of Vatican City, Servant of the Servants of God.  'Pope' comes from the Italian 'papa.'  Francis is the Sancta Papa, the Holy Father.  The title of pope belongs to the head of the Coptic church.  So if anyone uses the rhetorical question “Is the pope Catholic?” to imply a ‘yes' answer, you have my authorization to bring the conversation to a screeching halt by saying “No.  No, he's not.”  Double points if you simply walk away without explaining yourself.

Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease, is a chronic infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium leprae. It's a condition that can have a devastating effect on those who catch it, affecting the skin, the eyes, the peripheral nerves and the respiratory tract in people of all ages. It's also a disease with a lot of stigma and myths attached to it, many of them dating back to the Middle Ages. The image of the medieval leper as an outcast from society is a familiar one—but is it accurate? To find out more Cat chats with Dr Simon Roffey, a Reader in Medieval Archaeology at the University of Winchester.Don't forget to leave us a rating and review while you're here!For more Gone Medieval content, subscribe to our Medieval Monday newsletter here.If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download, go to the Android or Apple store See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We learn who invented the lawnmower, how lawnmowers evolved, and why we even have lawns in the first place. Hint: it has to do with castles in the Middle Ages. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Use the warmth of your own hands to roll elegant beeswax candles. This cozy craft doesn't involve any melting or hot wax, making it a quick and family-friendly activity. Liz Wagner is the Creative Director of The Crafter's Box, and her love and expertise of the craft shines through as she shares a wide range of candle shapes, sizes, and embellishments to make with our kit.  In this workshop, Liz teaches us how to handle the beeswax sheets, make our cuts, and pick the best wick size for each candle. The possibilities are seemingly endless as we learn to make tapered, fluted, pillar, beehive, and decorative floating candles. By combining different colors and playing with cut shapes, we can further customize our designs. “Beeswax is one of my favorite materials to interact with, on a sensory level and on a creative level,” says Liz. Since the Middle Ages when it was introduced, beeswax has been a preferred choice for candles. This natural byproduct of honey production has a bright and warm burn with a pleasant smell. Liz has selected the ideal wicking to pair with our beeswax, ensuring the flame will burn beautifully. After cutting and rolling our candles, they're ready to be gifted or lit immediately.

RMA-Episode 68 Show Notes:   Happy New Year! It's the RMA New Year's special! This week Mike and Nat are joined by Grant Boyken, editor-at-large of the RMA newsroom, moderator of the RMA Facebook Group and the mastermind behind the preeminent recovery news website SoberliningsPlaybook.com. Grant, Mike and Nat  break down the year in recovery, highlighting the stories that made news in the recovery universe and getting caught up on recent developments. There are book and movie recommendations and lively debate on topical issues. You don't want to miss it! Plus, the Monksters share their New Year's resolutions and Mike and Nat talk about what's ahead for the RMA universe in 2022. All this and more on a committed, goal-oriented, resolute episode of Recovery in the Middle Ages.    LINKS:   Grant's Website:   https://www.soberliningsplaybook.com/   Recovery in the News:   Powerless over….Diet Coke? Lawmakers want to strengthen access to non-religious substance abuse treatment services   The Week in Weird:   Exorcist Boy Identified as Former NASA Engineer JOIN THE RECOVERY IN THE MIDDLE AGES PATREON AND SUPPORT THE SHOW!! LISTEN TO RMA ON YOUTUBE PLEASE leave us a 5 star review on I-Tunes if you're enjoying the show and SUBSCRIBE to get the latest episodes.    You can reach us by email at: MikeR@middleagesrecovery.com Natx@middleagesrecovery.com   Send comments, complaints, death threats, ideas and requests to be interviewed. We'll talk to anyone! Check out the website: Www.middleagesrecovery.com   While you're there, buy a T-Shirt and support your favorite recovery podcast.   Visit MiddleAgesRecovery.com and tell us your story of your struggles with alcohol and drugs. Fill out the “tell us your story” Form on the website, write your recovery or using story and we will read it on the air! (Anonymity guaranteed).   FOLLOW US ON TWITTER  Join the Facebook Page! Exciting things are happening there!   We also have a Facebook Group! Request to join the group. It's a private space for continuing the discussion of what Nat and Mike talk about on the podcast. Hope to see you there. If you're in trouble with substance abuse and need help, reach out. There are thousands of people who have put problems with addiction in their rear-view mirrors and you can be one of them. While we neither endorse nor condemn any particular program, the sheer number of available AA and NA meetings suggest that reaching out to those organizations would be a good first step on the road to recovery.     https://www.aa.org/ https://www.na.org/meetingsearch/   Marijuana Anonymous (just in case):   This Naked Mind   Addiction Recovery Podcast  

Please note that this episode contains conversation about sex that you might not want to listen to in the presence of children.What did medieval people really think about sex, and were those thoughts all that different from ours today? The medieval humoral system of medicine suggested that it was possible to die from having too much-or too little-sex, while the Roman Catholic Church taught that virginity was the ideal state. Holy men and women committed themselves to lifelong abstinence in the name of religion. Everyone was forced to conform to restrictive rules about sex and could be harshly punished for getting it wrong. More familiarly, medieval people faced challenges in finding a suitable partner and also struggled with many of the same social issues that we face today. Dan is joined by Katherine Harvey, Honorary Research Fellow at Birkbeck, University of London and author of ‘The Fires of Lust: Sex in the Middle Ages'. Katherine holds a PhD in Medieval History from King's College London and has published widely on medieval topics, including sexuality, gender, emotions and the body. Join Dan and Katherine as they discuss sex through the ages, as relating to general attitudes, frequency, religion and marriage. Please vote for us! Dan Snow's History Hit has been nominated for a Podbible award in the 'informative' category: https://bit.ly/3pykkdsIf you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Please note that this episode contains conversation about sex that you might not want to listen to in the presence of children.What did medieval people really think about sex, and were those thoughts all that different from ours today? The medieval humoral system of medicine suggested that it was possible to die from having too much-or too little-sex, while the Roman Catholic Church taught that virginity was the ideal state. Holy men and women committed themselves to lifelong abstinence in the name of religion. Everyone was forced to conform to restrictive rules about sex and could be harshly punished for getting it wrong. More familiarly, medieval people faced challenges in finding a suitable partner and also struggled with many of the same social issues that we face today. Dan is joined by Katherine Harvey, Honorary Research Fellow at Birkbeck, University of London and author of ‘The Fires of Lust: Sex in the Middle Ages'. Katherine holds a PhD in Medieval History from King's College London and has published widely on medieval topics, including sexuality, gender, emotions and the body. Join Dan and Katherine as they discuss sex through the ages, as relating to general attitudes, frequency, religion and marriage. Please vote for us! Dan Snow's History Hit has been nominated for a Podbible award in the 'informative' category: https://bit.ly/3pykkdsIf you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Saint Thomas Becket - Martyr of the Middle Ages (1118-1170)Thomas Becket was born on the Feast Day of St. Thomas the Apostle, in 1118.  He lost both his parents when he was twenty one.  He was educated with the Canons regular.  At twenty-four, he obtained a position in the home of the Archbishop of Canterbury.  He received minor orders; the Archbishop was so fond of him, Thomas obtained many favors.  He was ordained deacon, in 1154, and then the Archbishop appointed him Archdeacon of Canterbury.  Now, this was an important position, second only to that of a Bishop or Abbot.  The Archbishop entrusted his most delicate affairs to him to manage, seldom doing anything without asking his advice.  He sent him to Rome on a very important mission.  Thomas Becket never gave the Archbishop cause to regret the confidence he placed in him. English Martyrs Collection Journeys of Faith Bob and Penny Lord's StoreJourneys of Faith Blog Subscribe to our Free Blog Easy PeasyBob and Penny Lord TV Channel Miracles of the Eucharist, Apparitions of Mary, and lives of the Saints videos on demand.Support the show (https://bobandpennylord.store/pages/we-need-your-help)

Because most of us as modern people have lost the intestinal microbe, Lactobacillus reuteri, that is responsible for increasing release of the hormone, oxytocin, from the brain, are the phenomena of love, affection, and concern for other people less intense than they used to be in prior times? Was love and affection stronger, for instance, in the 19th century, the Middle Ages, or the Greek Empire? I share a unique personal experience that indelibly imprinted this question on my brain. In the meantime, you can enjoy the restoration of increased love, empathy, and social connection by restoring this microbe to your intestinal microbiome.Sources of BioGaia L. reuteri tablets:Gastrus tablets: everidis.com/shop-products/How to make  L. reuteri yogurt using extended fermentation:www.wheatbellyblog.com/2019/07/how-to-make-l-reuteri-yogurt-step-by-step/More about my new book, Super Gut: A Four-Week Plan to Reprogram Your Microbiome, Restore Health, and Lose Weight, including extras for anyone pre-ordering before Feb 1, 2022 release:https://www.wheatbellyblog.com/super-gut/For more information on Dr. Davis' programs:Books:Super Gut: The 4-Week Plan to Reprogram Your Microbiome, Restore Health, and Lose WeightWheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight and Find Your Path Back to Health; revised & expanded editionWheat Belly 10-Day Grain DetoxWheat Belly 30-Minute (Or Less!) CookbookUndoctored: Why Health Care Has Failed You and How You Can Become Smarter Than Your DoctorOnline media:Dr. Davis Infinite Health Blog: www.wheatbellyblog.comDr. Davis Infinite Health Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/OfficialWheatBelly/Wheat Belly 10-Day Grain Detox private Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/527516110738721/Dr. Davis Infinite Health Inner Circle (membership website with direct interaction with Dr. Davis):InnerCircle.Undoctored.comYouTube Channel:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZp4ONYOXZkf92UxxNnAiKQAnd, of course, subscribe to the Defiant Health podcast through your favorite podcast directory!

Dogs have been painted, sculpted, photographed and made into memes and art depicting our furry best friends are celebrated on screens big and small and given pride of place in galleries, museums and homes. So what is behind this fascination that humans have with immortalizing dogs in art? Why do we immortalize dogs in art? The earliest depictions of dogs are believed to be 9,000 years ago carved into a cliff in what is now Saudi Arabia. Through the Middle Ages, the Renaissance to the modern day, humans across the globe have immortalized dogs in art across changing mediums and media and in all shapes and sizes. The hundreds of thousands of pieces that sit in galleries, museums and homes are a testament to our ongoing love and adoration of dogs, but they also tell a story, the evolution of our relationship with them and how that, and they, have changed over the years. In this episode, we journey through the ages and retrace the paw-steps of dogs of a bygone era. We explore how they have been immortalized, the stories those pieces tell, and their place in art history and in society today as a reminder of the importance humanity places on our best friends. About Alan Fausel, AKC Museum of the Dog Alan Fausel is CEO and Executive Director of the AKC Museum of the Dog. He has more than 30 years of art-world experience as a scholar, curator, and appraiser. His curatorial career began at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco in the department of European Sculpture and Decorative Art. He was then appointed curator of the Frick Art Museum in Pittsburgh. He has been with the auction houses Butterfields in San Francisco and Doyle and Bonhams in New York since 1990. Mr Fausel has been a regular on the paintings table of Antiques Roadshow since the series' first season in 1997. He taught at New York University in the Graduate School of Arts Education from 1999-2017. He is a frequent lecturer to groups including the Appraiser's Association of America. AKC Museum of the Dog https://museumofthedog.org/ Antiques Roadshow https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/appraisers/alan-fausel/ LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-fausel-590b699a/ About Erika Bleiberg, pet artist #journalismmatters Erika Bleiberg is a pet artist who started the #journalismmatters series on Twitter, painting the pets of journalists. She is also a public relations specialist and strategic communications professional with a keen ability to synthesize complex content into a compelling and engaging message. She develops and implements internal and external narrative and branded content with a specialty in social media to effectively deliver messages to target audiences, cultivate engagement and assist organizations in achieving their goals and objectives. Twitter https://twitter.com/erikableiberg?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor Instagram https://www.instagram.com/ebleiberg/?hl=en Facebook https://www.facebook.com/paintingpetsEB LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/erikableiberg/

Holly grew up playing golf at a very early age. Holly's dad was an Optometrist and Holly's mother was a pro golfer. She was tough on Holly, and she feels that she never got to actually enjoy the sports she played. She dedicated herself early on and became an All-State athlete in high school. From there, she competed in NCAA tournaments and graduated from Michigan State. On a whim, she signed up for weekend classes in communications while training for golf. This is where it all turned around for Holly & who she thought she wanted to be in life. At 22 years old, 5 days after competing at the highest level NCAA golf tournament in the country, Holly was scheduled to have breast implants. She feels that because she was a child & teenage athlete, she was robbed of her youth & womanly development. She was always expected to perform on a professional level, with little time for her own personal needs. She was always considered "one of the guys" or a tomboy when playing sports as a college athlete. After she proved to herself that she could do what she set out to do, she wanted to explore herself as a woman, and herself as a model & journalism figure. Her focus turned to television. She had to get a start somewhere, so she started out doing local hard-hitting news in Rhode Island. Eventually, she got a job with the Golf Channel, of course doing commentary on Golf, a sport she loves, grew up with, and has a vast amount of knowledge and experience with. She had to deal with a male-dominated workforce & gender pay gaps, as well as prove herself to the producers to host her own show. It was tough, but she was able to earn the respect of her peers and finally have the creative freedom to do her thing. Now, Holly is focused on her new relationship & life with ex-boxer Oscar De La Hoya. Even though she resents her mother for being so hard on her at a young age, and resents the game of golf as well because of that, she also realizes that same discipline is how she's able to live comfortable & have the things she needs at this stage in her life. She wouldn't have met Oscar or had the relationships & experiences she had if she didn't start out with golf. This is something many child athletes & actors feel when their parents basically force them into a skill or profession. She's learned from it, capitalized on it & let it form her into the strong, independent woman she is today. This is Holly Saunders in her own words, on Knockin' Doorz Down. For more on the Knockin' Doorz Down podcast and to follow us on social media https://linktr.ee/knockindoorzdown For 51FIFTY use the discount code KDD20 for 20% off! https://51fiftyltm.com/ For Carlos Vieira's autobiography Knockin' Doorz Down https://www.kddmediacompany.com/ For more information on the Carlos Vieira Foundation and the Race 2B Drug-Free, Race to End the Stigma and Race for Autism programs visit: https://www.carlosvieirafoundation.org/ For more on the Recovery in the Middle Ages podcast www.MiddleAgesrecovery.com  Listen to and Subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen for more Celebrity, everyday folks, and expert conversations at https://www.KDDPodcast.com  © 2021 by KDD Media Company. All rights reserved. 

Blaise Pascal said, “All men seek happiness.” Thomas Aquinas, the most influential theologian of the Middle Ages, said, “No one can live without delight, and that is why a man deprived of spiritual joy goes over to carnal pleasures.” God created us with a longing to be happy. To satisfy that desire, people stuff almost into their life in search of pleasure. What does the Bible say about our craving for happiness and how can we find lasting happiness that doesn't expire? Join us to learn what the Bible teaches us about happiness and where to find it.

Today's Episode: Today, we are beginning some “prep work”...a little bit of “world-building,” if you will…to prepare the scene for BOTH sides of one of the most enduring (for better or for worse) events in the Middle Ages: The First Crusade. There are intense goings-on during the 11th century out west though - waaaay out west - that will have a direct impact on the thinking that kicked off the First Crusade. In my opinion, leaving out the history of medieval Iberia is a gross miscalculation in the modern understanding of the Middle Ages as a whole, therefore, this season of the podcast will focus quite a bit (but not entirely, of course) on Iberia, Western Africa, the Maghreb, Sicily, and pretty much the Mediterranean region and the major moves happening throughout the 11th century leading up to the aforementioned crusades. Man, am I excited about this season, which I have planned to be quite a big one, so buckle up! Members-Only Series on Patreon: Don't forget to head over to Patreon, as well, to hear an entirely new series on the rise of Poland during the 10th and 11th centuries, as well! For only a few bucks per month, you can hear this fascinating telling of how a small group of Slavs transformed into the formidable Polish people who will one day direct European politics for over a century! Every dime donated will be put directly back into the show, so I hope you consider becoming a Patreon member! Just follow this link to our Patreon page to peruse the right “donation plan” for you: https://www.patreon.com/FortunesWheelPodcast. ***** And a huge shout out to Amanda K for becoming Fortune's Wheel's first Patreon supporting listener! I am humbled and appreciative beyond measure. Thank you. Social Media: Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/fortunes.wheel.3 Twitter Page: https://twitter.com/WheelPodcast Music: Music for this episode is called “Al Andalus” by the incredibly talented (as you'll hear) Shane Ivers. Check him out at https://www.silvermansound.com.

The once and future political center of Russia, the brick-walled Kremlin dates from the Middle Ages, but received its boost when a Byzantine refugee princess married an ambitious Muscovite prince, and together they created a fortress that would one day serve a superpower. Dr Charles Ward, professor emeritus of Foreign Languages and Literatue at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee shares his thoughts of the rise of Moscow under Ivan III and Sofiya Palaeologina and the construction of the Kremlin we see today, while listener Geoff Kozen discusses visiting Moscow, from the Kremlin to the subway stations. Plus borscht! Perfect for a cold winter night when you're craving beets. Sources: Merridale, Catherine. Red Fortress: History and Illusion in the KremlinPlokhy, Serhii . Lost Kingdom: The Quest for Empire and the Making of the Russian Nation, from 1470 to the PresentSixsmith, Martin. Russia: A 1,000-year Chronicle of the Wild EastVoorhees, Mara. Lonely Planet Moscow Photograph cc:4.0 by wikipedia user Ludvig14

Why is the technology industry buzzing about a technical skills-sharpening technique from the Middle Ages? Listen as Amy Kardel, leader of the CompTIA Apprenticeships for Tech program, and Wendy Brors, senior consultant at Maher & Maher, an affiliate of the American Institutes for Research (AIR), answer this question. 

Author Gerry Bowler joins Tim to discuss the story of Santa Claus. Gerry is the author of the book entitled, “Santa Claus: A Biography.” He talks about everything from Santa Claus's birth and evolution over the centuries, to his role in modern day culture. Santa Claus the philanthropist, Santa Claus the gift giver, and Santa Claus the ad man. This episode was originally released on December 17, 2018. https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/shapingopinion/Encore_Santa_Claus.mp3 In his book Gerry details the birth of Santa Claus and his” character development.” Santa is described him as an advocate, an adman, a warrior, and of course his role in entertainment, from movies, television shows and in music, books and literature. St. Nicholas died in December 343 AD. By 1100, he was the most powerful saint on the Catholic Church's calendar. The St. Nicholas legend: One father who was down and out couldn't provide for his three daughters, so he decides to sell them into slavery. So, Nicholas would sneak bags of gold through the father's window, saving the girls from a live of oppression. By the Middle Ages, with gift-giving a part of the Christmas season, different customs emerged. One that grew in popularity was the legend of St. Nicholas coming through a window or down a chimney to leave gifts in stockings and shoes by the fire, by a window or by a bed. By the 16th century, protestant reformers depicted medieval cult of saints. They did not readily embrace St. Nicholas. There was tension between the Protestant and Catholic sects and St. Nicholas was at the center of it. The controversies usually centered over how the communities marked Christmas. St. Nicholas was venerated throughout Europe but debate on whether he ever made it across the Atlantic to North America with gusto. The Feast of St. Nicholas is December 6, most notably marked by the Dutch, which paves the way for the modern celebration of Christmas. The earliest mention of Santa Claus was 1773 in Rivington's Gazetteer, a New York Newspaper. On December 15, 1810, the New York Spectator published a poem about Sancte Claus – a good holy man who brings gifts to good children. The first picture of Santa Claus was published in 1821 when William Gilley of New York published a book of lithographed images with one of Santa Claus. “The Children's Friend: a New Year's Present, to Little Ones from Five to Twelve.” In 1822, Clement Clarke Moore was credited for authoring the classic poem, “The Night Before Christmas.” Other topics we discuss: Santa Claus in Books and Literature Santa Claus in Music Santa Claus in Advertising (We address the Coca-Cola Santa myth) Santa Claus in Motion Pictures and Television Links Santa Claus: A Biography, by Gerry Bowler (Amazon) A Visit from Saint Nicholas (Night Before Christmas), Clement Clarke Moore Saint Nicholas, Biography.com Coca-Cola and Santa Claus, Coca-Cola Company Saturday Evening Post and Santa Claus, Saturday Evening Post Miracle on 34th Street Motion Picture, IMDb St. Nicholas to Santa: The Surprising Origins of Mr. Claus, National Geographic About this Episode's Guest Gerry Bowler Gerry Bowler is a Canadian historian, specializing in the intersection of religion and popular culture. He is the author of The World Encyclopedia of Christmas, Santa Claus: A Biography and Christmas in the Crosshairs: Two Thousand Years of Denouncing and Defending the World's Most Celebrated Holiday.

Ibn Khaldun, the late 14th century statesman and historian, is regarded as one of the earliest social scientists on the strength of his classic, The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History. The book catalogues the political, social, and historical trends in Arab, Berber, Persian, and European civilizations in the Middle Ages and recalls Aristotle's Politics in its encyclopedic treatment of social and political life. Yet regardless of its contributions to the humanities, it has been largely forgotten in modern times. Aziz Al-Azmeh, University Professor Emeritus at the Central European University, talks to RBI Director John Torpey about the life, ideas, and significance of Ibn Khaldun and the Muqaddimah.

Susan Hellauer, a founding member of Anonymous 4, talks about "Peperit Virgo," a song from the Middle Ages that the group brought to life on its 1993 album "On Yoolis Night."

We catch up with Skinny Vinny Imperiati and hear about his new relationship & how it is for him now that he's sober. He details how he maintains his mental health, sobriety, and workload in a productive way. He's had some moments where he thought he might relapse but worked through them with a great support system. Now, Vinny is focused on his health & mental well-being. Since we last checked in with Vinny, a lot has changed. When we first talked to him in February of this year, he was living in Connecticut. After staying in a sober-living house for over 3 years, He had a crazy idea to buy a ranch and have his own space. He was able to stay sober, find work & stay in treatment. He did it for a while, but it just didn't work out in the long term. Now he's living in LA and focusing on his podcasting, film & content work. Recently, Vinny started his own podcast production company. He's helping out a lot of his friends in the skating community to start their own podcasts. He also has some filming projects in the works, including the upcoming "Zackass" style, show that he tells some of the first details about. He hopes he can be a beacon for positivity and change with his friends and community and hopes to help anyone he can in the coming new year. This is Skinny Vinny in his own words, on Knockin' Doorz Down. For more on the Knockin' Doorz Down podcast and to follow us on social media https://linktr.ee/knockindoorzdown For 51FIFTY use the discount code KDD20 for 20% off! https://51fiftyltm.com/ For Carlos Vieira's autobiography Knockin' Doorz Down https://www.kddmediacompany.com/ For more information on the Carlos Vieira Foundation and the Race 2B Drug-Free, Race to End the Stigma and Race for Autism programs visit: https://www.carlosvieirafoundation.org/ For more on the Recovery in the Middle Ages podcast www.MiddleAgesrecovery.com  Listen to and Subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen for more Celebrity, everyday folks, and expert conversations at https://www.KDDPodcast.com  © 2021 by KDD Media Company. All rights reserved. 

“I am less interested in showing that the Medieval world was modern, than in showing how Medieval, in many ways, the modern world is.” That's Roland Betancourt, my guest today and a truly fascinating scholar of history, art, theology, sex and gender, liturgy and much more. We discuss his book Byzantine Intersectionality: Sexuality, Gender, and Race in the Middle Ages, including the history of the later Roman Empire, the “slut shaming” of Empress Theodora, the importance, today as much as 1,500 year ago of the Hagia Sophia, the fascinating lives and deaths of trans monks, the significance of Mary's consent to be the Mother of Christ, the messiness and ambiguity of human life, frailty and identity. (Note that there's inevitably some pretty adult content in this episode). Dialogues will be back on Jan 10th, Merry Christmas to those who celebrate, Happy Holidays to all.  Roland Betancourt  Roland Betancourt is Professor of Art History at the University of California, Irvine. In the 2016-2017 academic year, he was the Elizabeth and J. Richardson Dilworth Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. See his faculty page here. We mostly discuss his book Byzantine Intersectionality: Sexuality, Gender, and Race in the Middle Ages) (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2020)  More Betancourt Performing the Gospels in Byzantium: Sight, Sound, and Space in the Divine Liturgy (Cambridge University Press, 2021) See his edited volume Byzantium/Modernism: The Byzantine as Method in Modernity (Leiden: Brill, 2015). Also Sight, Touch, and Imagination in Byzantium (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018) "Why Sight Is Not Touch: Reconsidering the Tactility of Vision in Byzantium," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 70 (December 2016): 1-23. "Faltering Images: Failure and Error in Byzantine Lectionaries," Word & Image 32:1 (2016): 1-20. The Dialogues Team  Creator: Richard Reeves Artwork: George Vaughan Thomas Tech Support: Cameron Hauver-Reeves Music: "Remember" by Bencoolen (thanks for the permission, guys!)

Now mostly overlooked by history, Burgundy was a major political and cultural power in western Europe during the Middle Ages, rivalling France and England. How did the kingdom gain such prominence, and why did it disappear? Bart van Loo, author of "The Burgundians", joins Dominic and Tom to explain.To sign up to the brand new Rest Is History Club, go restishistorypod.com or click here. Benefits for members include an extra episode every week, a live streamed show every month, ad-free listening, and access to a Rest Is History chatroom where we'll be discussing episodes and suggesting subjects for future shows. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Katie picks Danielle's brain on all things Dante, from Florentine politics in the Middle Ages to the poet's eventual exile from Florence to (of course) food and wine in La Divina Comedia. Make sure to stay until the end, or you'll never know just how important eels were to Dante. Don't forget to become a Patron at patreon.com/golapod to have early access to Gola events and collaborations, get Gola news before anyone else, and enjoy even more exciting benefits as you move up the tiers! And follow your two favorite golose @drcallegariscabinet and @katieparla to watch them eating and drinking their way through Italy! --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/gola/support

The medieval world – for all its plagues, papal indulgences, castles, and inquisition trials – has much in common with ours. People living the Middle Ages dealt with deadly pandemics, climate change, mass migration, and controversial technological changes, just as we do now in 2021. Today's guest, Dan Jones, author of POWERS AND THRONES: A New History of the Middle Ages looks at these common features through a cast of characters that includes pious monks and Byzantine emperors, chivalric knights and Renaissance artists. This sweep of the medieval world begins with the fall of the Roman empire and ends with the first contact between the Old World and the New. Along the way, Jones provides a front row seat to the forces that shaped the Western world as we know it. This is the thousand years in which our basic Western systems of law, commerce, and governance were codified; when the Christian Churches matured as both powerful institutions and the regulators of Western public morality; and when art, architecture, philosophical inquiry and scientific invention went through periods of seismic change. We discuss: • The height of the Roman empire and its influential rulers, as well as the various reasons it fell, including climate change pushing the Huns and so-called “barbarian” tribes to the empire's borders. • The development of Christianity and Islam, as well as the power struggles and conflict ignited in the name of religion, chivalric orders such as the Knights Templar, and the rise of monasteries as major political players in the West. • The intimate stories of many influential characters of the Middle Ages, such as Constantine I, Justinian, the Prophet Muhammad, Attila the Hun, Charlemagne, El Cid, Leonardo Da Vinci, Genghis Khan, Marco Polo, Martin Luther, and many more. • The development of global trade routes and commerce across Europe, Asia, and Africa and the expanding map during the Age of Exploration. • The Black Death, which decimated up to sixty percent of the local population in the fourteenth century and led to widespread social unrest and the little Ice Age, the period between 1300-1850 triggered by volcanic activity that created a climate so regularly and bitterly cold that it contributed to the Great Famine of 1315-21.

Listen to and Subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen for more Celebrity, everyday folks, and expert conversations at https://www.KDDPodcast.com © 2021 by KDD Media Company. All rights reserved. At an early age, Cesar got swept up in the gang lifestyle.  In his neighborhood, senior gang members would show him respect and were always a part of his upbringing in East Los Angeles.  He would see prostitution, shootings, and drug activity all the time, so he never saw it as a problem.   He wanted to be a member of his local gang but was too young at this time.  He started hanging out with gang members and ditching school and eventually would ditch high school altogether. As a teenager, Cesar started getting into serious trouble, and by going in & out of jail he quickly learned how gang culture works.  After his first time in jail, he joined his local gang to represent his neighborhood.  This quickly consumed his life and spiraled out of control.  He lost his younger brother Roy at the age of 19 due to a drug overdose, and this was a wake-up call for him.  His friends and family were all dropping around him, and it started to sink in.  He knew he was going down a dark path & needed a change. With acting, Cesar just "fell into it" by accident.  He went to a music video filming for Mary J. Blige, where he would meet his first manager in the business.  He auditioned for a role on a whim and ended up getting the part.  His lifestyle and knowledge from his gang activity helped him portray realistic characters with an authenticity that regular actors can't provide.  His first paying gig was in the background of a Christina Aguilera music video.  His first speaking role was on the TV series The Shield.  After that, his career took off.  He was featured prominently in Fast & The Furious 4, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul & many other TV series and films.   Now Cesar is just grateful for every day.  He doesn't need any substances to feel high these days, he's just grateful for waking up, breathing, and being alive.  He speaks to thousands of kids now trying to share his story in hopes of changing just one kid's life for the better.  Cesar says even if just one kid changes out of the thousands that he talks to, it's worth it to him.  He also shares stories from the set of all his major films, working with Paul Walker, Bryan Cranston & Vince Gilligan, and more. This is Cesar Garcia in his own words, on Knockin' Doorz Down.   For more on the Knockin' Doorz Down podcast and to follow us on social media https://linktr.ee/knockindoorzdown  For Carlos Vieira's autobiography Knockin' Doorz Down https://www.kddmediacompany.com/ For 51FIFTY use the discount code KDD20 for 20% off! https://51fiftyltm.com/ For more information on the Carlos Vieira Foundation and the Race 2B Drug-Free, Race to End the Stigma and Race for Autism programs visit: https://www.carlosvieirafoundation.org/ For more on the Recovery in the Middle Ages podcast www.MiddleAgesrecovery.com     

Artificial nails have come a long way, from the late Middle Ages (their first appearance) to the Lee Press On Nails of the 1980s. We share their history, then celebrate the current revival and tell you about some of the best press-on nails we've tried. Before that, lots of news to discuss, including the Machine Gun Kelly PR blitz for his new nail polish line; big changes at Proactiv; Galderma's purchase of Alastin; a new beauty column from Linda Wells; and details on a fascinating exhibit of Agarwood Oud at Mandy Aftel's Archive of Curious Scents.Links and sponsors: fatmascara.com/blogShop the products mentioned on this episode: shopmyshelf.us/collections/5022Private Facebook Group: Fat Mascara Raising a WandSocial media: @fatmascara, @jessicamatlin, @jenn_editSubmit a "Raise A Wand" product recommendation and be featured on the show: email info@fatmascara.com or leave a voicemail at 646-481-8182 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/fatmascara.

In our tenth season, we're going at art history with a skeptical eye and a myth-busting attitude to uncover the fictions and facts about some of our favorite artists. We're starting our season today with this controversial subject: were the Middle Ages an Artistic Wasteland? Please SUBSCRIBE and REVIEW our show on Apple Podcasts and FOLLOW on Spotify Twitter / Instagram / Facebook Don't forget to show your support for our show by purchasing ArtCurious swag from TeePublic! SPONSORS: Wondrium: Enjoy a free month with unlimited access Indeed: Listeners get a free $75 credit to upgrade your job post BetterHelp: Listeners enjoy 10% off your first month of counseling Givewell: have your donation matched (up to $250) before the end of the year or as long as matching funds last by selecting “PODCAST” and entering “ARTCURIOUS PODCAST” at checkout Want to advertise/sponsor our show? We have partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle our advertising/sponsorship requests. They're great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started. https://www.advertisecast.com/ArtCuriousPodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Were medieval attitudes to sex really that different from our own? Historian Katherine Harvey speaks to Elinor Evans about the sex lives of ordinary people in the Middle Ages – from how sexuality was governed by ideas about sin, to the “love magic” that was thought to trick people into bed.(Ad) Katherine Harvey is the author of The Fires of Lust: Sex in the Middle Ages (Reaktion Books, 2021). Buy it now from Waterstones:https://go.skimresources.com?id=71026X1535947&xcust=historyextra-social-Histboty&xs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.waterstones.com%2Fbook%2Fthe-fires-of-lust%2Fkatherine-harvey%2F9781789144895 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

If you think going to the dentist now is not fun, just wait until you hear about what they did in the Middle Ages.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com