103. Pino III Ordelaffi Poisons a Whole Lot of People, Forli, Northern Italy, 1463-1480

This bust of Pino III Ordelaffi, created during Ordelaffi’s lifetime by  Francesco di Simone Ferrucci, is held at Musei di San Domenico, and you can go see it. If it offers you lunch, politely refuse.

From the 12th century to Renaissance, the Ordelaffi family ruled the commune of Forli, in Northern Italy. On and off. Also, on and off again. When they weren’t fighting others for the commune — Florence, the Emperor, the Pope — they were fighting each other, and in 1376, poison became a favorite weapon, when Sinibaldi I Ordelaffi poisoned first his uncle and then his cousin, so that he could have Forli. He’s not even our protagonist, though, because we lit, for this episode, on Pino III Orderlaffi, who started poisoning wives, a sibling, and his mom, and is therefore sort of iconic in the history of Ordelaffi badnesses. Michelle loved this episode, cause she got to learn all about poison in medieval and Renaissance Italy. She will tell you all about it.

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102. William de Burgh Starves his Cousin Walter to Death, Greencastle, Ulster 1332

Here we may see the lovely Northburgh Castle, in Greencastle, where William de Burgh starved his cousin Walter to death on account of Walter was opposing him in some plan he had concerning Ulster. Northburgh would have looked much better in 1332, as, obviously, it would be very easy to escape from, in its current condition. (Photo by Von Radosław Botev – Eigenes Werk, Attribution, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3934661)

William Donn de Burgh, the 3rd Earl of Ulster, was, alas, not so great at being the Earl of Ulster. Starving his cousin Walter Liath de Burgh to death led to Walter’s sister Gylle (also of course a cousin of William’s) getting her husband to have him murdered. And then, the whole succession problem — there were several cousins wandering around, and William’s heir was a girl, and that was right out — led to the Burke Civil War. What with one thing and another, though the de Burghs married into the Plantagenets and so became ancestors of the English royal family, they were also instrumental in causing Lots of Problems for England, in their attempt to keep Ireland under control, so their contribution to history is sorta vexed. Michelle is somewhat distressed by the lack of historical fiction about these people, but greatly mollified by the idea of touring Carrickfergus.

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101. Defenestrations of Prague, Prague, Bohemia 1419, 1483, 1618

In this lovely illustration of the first defenestration of Prague (c.1900, Adolf Liebscher) we think you can figure out why the defenestrated persons of this episode did not survive.

Humans have been throwing each other out of windows pretty much as long as humans have had windows more than one story or so off the ground, but only Prague is famous for them. Two of them actually led to wars, even. We are very happy to tell you about the famous defenestrations, wherin all sorts of officials got thrown out of windows, and Michelle is happy to tell you about the tourist trade. Oh, and also Susan Howe’s poem “Defenestration of Prague,” which is, of course, about Ireland. Because metaphors. 

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100. Retrospective: Our Favorites of the Past 100 Episodes

Here’s your hint as to the winner of the Best Episodes According To Us contest. In this early 20th century painting by Newell Convers Wyeth, King Edward I is getting ready to invade Scotland. Because he says it’s his.

It’s Episode 100! So we both went through the episodes we’ve published so far, to pick our favorites.  Out of them, we picked three apiece, and then, as a grand winner, the one that turned up on both of our lists — not the highest favorite of either of us, but pretty damn beloved.  We explain why they all made the cut. And had a lot of fun, remembering them. Here’s to the next 100! We do have a pretty long list to see us through. it’s a 1000 years and an entire continent, and people behave badly lots of the time. Works for us.

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99. Juliane de Fontevrault Tries to Kill Her Father (Henry I) With a Crossbow, Normandy 1110

This is just what Juilane looked like when she was trying to kill her father! Except that the clothes here are about 200 years later than she lived. And she would have been aiming down, since she was trying to shoot him over the castle wall. (Smithfield Decretals 1300, 1340 f.43, British Library)

It was unusual for medieval women to kill their fathers, and especially unusual for them to use crossbows to do it. Juliane de Fontrevault tried both, but she missed King Henry I, who was at the time besieging her castle in Normandy. There had been an altercation, you see, which led to a major hostage failure, wherein Juliane’s husband Eustace blinded the young hostage sent to Henry, and Henry blinded and cut the noses off the two girls sent to him as hostages. Who were his grandchildren, by the way. Eventually Henry forgave both Juliane and Eustace; Eustace got to keep a castle and Juliane got to go to Fontevrault Abbey, which was at that time all shiny and new, and her daughters got to go with her. So! It all turned out really well! A happy family story. You’re welcome.

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98. April Fool’s Episode: Debunking the Chastity Belt

The early 15th century manual of military technology, Bellifortis, contains a passage on the chastity belt, and this illuminating sketch of what one would look like. So! Obviously the chastity belt existed then, and probably centuries earlier, since the crusader knights had to lock their women up ! Except, no. The chastity belt here is an hilarious joke. Really hilarious. No, really.

There were not, in the Middle Ages, any chastity belts. They did not exist. Really, they didn’t. They show up later, when enlighted ages say that they were used in the Middle Ages. Then, enlightened ages invented them, and now you can buy them on Amazon. Michelle explains how we know they didn’t exist, and how they got invented, and why the later ages that invented them said the Middle Ages did it. Anne, on the other hand, had a lot of fun researching the state of chastity belts now. Oh, and that hacking episode. Pro tip: don’t attach your private parts to the internet.

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97. Galeazzo Maria Sforza, the Duke of Milan, is Assassinated, Milan, Duchy of Milan 1476

Galeazzo Maria Sforza is 15 in this painting from 1459 — it’s a detail from Benozzo Gozzoli’s “Journey of the Magi.” Later he will be a pretty badly behaved duke, but at the moment he’s been making friends with Lorenzo de’ Medici, who’s only 10. The friendship will serve the Duke well later on, when he becomes badly behaved.

Sometimes when our medieval rulers get assassinated we can see why, and that’s the case for Galeazzo Maria Sforza, who was a very bad sort of person. So, not surprisingly, he got stabbed to death by conspirators. Two of them were out for personal gain, but one was a poet who was, he believed, serving the greater communal good, which charms Anne. We tell you all about Sforza and the assassination, which is, really, the point  of this episode, but the gem of information for Michelle was that one of the churches of Florence got burnt down on account of spectacular stage effects that were really too spectacular.

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96. Leszek the White, High Duke of Poland, is Assassinated, Morcinkowo, Poland 1227

There are many affecting paintings of the death of Leszek Bialy, but this statue, erected in Morcinkowo at the place he was assassinated, is powerfully simple. The original was sculpted by  Jakub Juszczyk in 1927; the Nazis destroyed that version in WWII; it was reconstructed in 1973.

During the Fragmentation of Poland, which lasted from 1138 to 1320, Leszek Bialy — Leszek the White — managed to reign as the High Duke of Poland four times, the last reign going on for 16 years before it ended, on account of his having been assassinated. That’s a long reign, during the age of fragmentation, when the realm was, well, fragmented, and the position of High Duke got passed around pretty often.  Leszek was attending a conference of several dukes when he was attacked in his bath, escaping naked on his horse for a short distance before the attackers caught up with him.  So, he’s well known for that, because it’s dramatic, and a  great subject for painting, but he’s also famous for refusing to go on crusade because there was no beer in the Holy Land.  Which is a really true thing; there’s documentation.

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95. Henry d’Almain is Murdered, Viterbo, Italy 1271

In this helpful illustration of the murder of Henry d’Almain by his de Montfort cousins, you may see an accurate depiction of the crime. Mass is happening; the church has no walls; the Montforts stand outside the church but only one of them can stab his cousin at a time; there are all sorts of soldiers accompanying the de Monforts on their vile mission. Actually, none of the things listed here are true. But there was a murder, and the cousins did it, and a church was involved. (By Giovanni Villani, Nuova Cronica – ms. Chigiano L VIII 296, Vatican Library, 14th century.)

Henry d’Almain didn’t really want to fight in the Second Barons’ War,  because the leaders of the two sides were both his uncles, and when his uncle Simon de Montfort was killed and mutilated in the last battle, he wasn’t part of that, so it was really unseemly for his cousins, the sons of Simon de Montfort, to find him in a church in Italy and slaughter him while he was clinging to the altar. As vengeance goes, it was a really stupid vengeance that didn’t settle anything, and only got the de Montfort boys into more trouble. (Their father wouldn’t have done such a thing; the de Montforts were going downhill, that generation.)  Anne wrassles with her grudging respect for Simon de Montfort, and Michelle finds a really badly behaved Victorian scholar. Because bad behavior transcends the Middle Ages. 

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94. Maddelena, a Circassian, is Bought in Crimea and Sold in Italy, Venice, Italy c. 1428

In 1865, John Usser, a member of the Royal Geographic Society, who had gone traveling about, published his travel journal, which had many lovely illustrations. This is a painting of Circassian dance. What has this got to do with Maddelena? Well, she was Circassian, and there is no Circassia anymore, though there are lots Circassians keeping their culture alive, and Anne did not like the images that came up when she went looking for Crimean slave trade images, so here are Circassians dancing in 1865. In remembrance of Maddelena, who left her homeland and had to go hang out in Florence. With the de Medicis. Sorry.

We thought it would be interesting to talk about the Crimean Slave Trade, but we had not known that would, essentially, cover all of written history and all of the Old World. But it was on the schedule, and we found it interesting. So! We’ll start with the mother of Carlo de Medici, Maddelena, who was captured in or sold from Circassia (it’s over on the northeast shore of the Black Sea), and then sold in Crimea to a Venetian who took her to Venice and sold her to Cosimo de Medici, who took her to Florence. The Crimean slave trade was the major location of international slave trading from the 15th century until the 18th century, though it had existed much earlier. Maddelena was one of millions of people who were forcibly passed through the ports of Crimea. We distill a giant topic! But we mention Cervantes. He was one of the millions. Oh, and Captain John Smith.  Pocahontas gets a mention. She wasn’t one of the slaves. She just got stuck with one of the stories. 

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