Usually our special episodes move out of our 1000 year time zone, but for this one we stay in the middle ages and move off of the European continent, to one of the incidents in the fall of the Umayyad caliphate and the rise of the Abbasid caliphate, a blood feast! We haven’t had one of those for a while, and we were very excited, but then we did our due diligence and discovered that it probably didn’t happen. That is, the Umayyades were slaughtered, alright, but probably not at a banquet where they got clubbed to near death after hearing insulting poetry, and then served as banquet tables when rugs got thrown over them while they finished dying and the Abbasides kept eating. No. Probably not. Sorry.
Great episode as always, my favourite podcast 3 years running. Do you think you could cover the crime of cannibalism in 1098 at the siege of Ma’arra during the crusades? There are a handful of iffy secondary sources, and I understand that the Frankish chronicler Fulcher of Chartres claims to have been there.
Oooooh! Sounds quite lovely, and just up our alley. Thanks! I’ll go put it on the list. Michelle will be totally chuffed. And many thanks, also; we are very glad you enjoy our podcast