The British History Podcast

Clothing... we all wear it. Well, most of us do. And in this episode we're going to learn about what sort of clothing people were wearing in Britain during the Middle ages. Support the Show

This is the pilot of a new pet project of ours that will hopefully take off.   Five History Podcasters have gathered in an intellectual Thunder Dome to discuss historical questions and determine who is the greatest. Today's Topic:  Who was the most influential character in all of history? Roifield Brown - How Jamaica Conquered the World Ray Harris - A History of WWII Jamie Jeffers - The British History Podcast James (aka Jamie) Redfern - A History Of: Alexander Zack Twamley - When Diplomacy Fails FIGHT!

Ok, so we have been talking about some pretty heavy detail about food and feasts. We know what they were eating, what they were drinking, how the parties were thrown, and why. We know how food played a key role in the economy, and thus how these feasts were a huge show of power. We know about the surroundings, and what they looked like. We even know about the table manners of the attendees of the feasts. But we've missed a key detail. Entertainment. I wonder how many of you right now have images of drunken warriors playing William Tell with throwing axes as they roar with laughter. Well, I don’t want to burst your bubble, but that probably wasn’t on the schedule.

Today we’re going to cover some interesting side notes regarding the feasts. Talking about the bigger aspects of history is important, but those little facts that rarely get looked at can also help us to understand these people we’ve been getting to know. So this episode is focused upon those overlooked bits.

So there were at least two different kinds of feasts as far as we can tell from the scattered references available to us. There was the Symbel and the Gebeorscipe. The Symbel was the more formal version of feasts. This was the one that had significant social and religious implications and the one that will get the lion's share of attention in this podcast because it's just so interesting. The Symbel was a structured and ritualized affair, rather than just a big social dinner. Now the ritual portion of the Symbel might have been only a small part of it, once the rites were concluded it could have raged on for hours (maybe even days), but those traditions were really important. ...

Ok, so right now I’m in a situation where I might need to make some hard choices on where my time goes. The thing is that this has been one of the best experiences of my life, but for financial reasons I might need to go back to law full time. The problem there being that law is one of those jobs that doesn’t leave room for much else. Obviously, I would prefer to continue telling you stories. I think I have a knack for it, and I feel like discussing our shared history is important. And there’s a bunch of fun stuff that I have been working on and would love to do. Such as getting more interviews with experts, new side stories (similar to what I’ve been doing with St. Patrick) and I’ve even been looking into putting together tours. But for me to give this project the attention it deserves I need to do it full time, rather than as a hobby I squeeze in between cases. So I thought I’d apply for the job of entertaining you. By my math, I need 150 new members in order to be able to afford to do this full time. After all, I’m not looking to get rich. I just want to be able to dedicate all my time to doing this podcast. So if you like what I’m doing here, and you’d like me to do this full time, please consider becoming a member over at thebritishhistorypodcast.com. For around the price of a latte each month my day job could be telling you stories, hunting down new things to share with you, and bringing you interviews with experts on the material we have all come to know. To pique your interest, I’ve got several incentives that I have listed over on the website which include a future series analyzing the tale of King Arthur, a special on Stonehenge, and even a trip to the UK with get togethers and perhaps even a group outing to the British Museum or something along those lines. The truth of it is that I love this project. And I would really like to work for you full time. So I hope you’ll consider hiring me. Besides, does the world really need another lawyer? Here are the incentives, and I'll be updating you with our progress in future podcasts. 150 new members The BHP is my Full Time job and I spend even more time working on it for you! 250 new members A future series on King Arthur and the theories behind the tales. 500 new members A future Stonehenge Special. 750 new members I’ll arrange a trip to the UK and have a couple meet and greets set up. 1,000 new members I think this is a long shot so I'm going to make an outlandish offer.... Jim Cartwright and I will sing a duet of Total Eclipse of the Heart for you (we may or may not also be drinking Anglo Saxon Ale while this is occurring). There will probably be something else awesome as well. TBD. MONTHLY MEMBERSHIP ($4.99 USD per month)   YEARLY MEMBERSHIP ($59.88 USD per year)

53 – Producing the BHP Full Time, a Proposal

Ok, so right now I’m in a situation where I might need to make some hard choices on where my time goes. The thing is that this has been one of the best experiences of my life, but for financial reasons I might need to go back to law full time. The problem there being that law is one of those jobs that doesn’t leave room for much else. Obviously, I would prefer to continue telling you stories. I think I have a knack for it, and I feel like discussing our shared history is important. And there’s a bunch of fun stuff that I have been working on and would love to do. Such as getting more interviews with experts, new side stories (similar to what I’ve been doing with St. Patrick) and I’ve even been looking into putting together tours. But for me to give this project the attention it deserves I need to do it full time, rather than as a hobby I squeeze in between cases. So I thought I’d apply for the job of entertaining you. By my math, I need 150 new members in order to be able to afford to do this full time. After all, I’m not looking to get rich. I just want to be able to dedicate all my time to doing this podcast. So if you like what I’m doing here, and you’d like me to do this full time, please consider becoming a member over at www.thebritishhistorypodcast.com. For around the price of a latte each month my day job could be telling you stories, hunting down new things to share with you, and bringing you interviews with experts on the material we have all come to know. To pique your interest, I’ve got several incentives that I have listed over on the website which include a future series analyzing the tale of King Arthur, a special on Stonehenge, and even a trip to the UK with get togethers and perhaps even a group outing to the British Museum or something along those lines. The truth of it is that I love this project. And I would really like to work for you full time. So I hope you’ll consider hiring me. Besides, does the world really need another lawyer? Support the Show

Ok, so we've hit 2000 likes on Facebook. So as promised, here's the bonus episode. We voted for it on, of course, the Facebook site and Druids won. But beware... this is an old episode so there is a lot of "whatnot" in there. So if you're playing the Whatnot Drinking Game, you might want to use beer... or even near-beer. :)

52 – DRUIDS! (Bonus Episode)

Today we're going to talk about Druids, who they were, and where our information comes from. Support the Show

And to begin with, lets do a thought experiment. Imagine, if you will, an Anglo Saxon feasting hall. If you have the chance, pause this and write down a quick description of what it looks like, what people were doing, what was going on, whose feast it was, and who was attending. For bonus points, write down why it was being held. We’re going to spend a few episodes chatting about the culture of feasting and at the end, you can look back and see how close you were. It might be fun. And today, lets have a brief overview of feasts and why they might be held. With that in mind, it might be helpful to think about the Feast, and actually Anglo Saxon culture in general, in terms of community. Why do people form communities? It’s a near universal human experience, so why do we do it? Well, we are social creatures (which is probably why we get along with dogs so well, since they are too) and as a result most of us seem to be hard wired to feel loneliness quite keenly. So the need for socialization might be part of why we form communities, since they insulate against that loneliness.

This is a combination episode covering everything to do with feasting in Anglo Saxon Britain!

51 – Dark Ages Feasting

This is a combination episode covering everything to do with feasting in Anglo Saxon Britain! Support the Show