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118. Henry V Orders the French Prisoners Killed, Agincourt, France October 25 1415

There are no, I tell you no illustrations of the Battle of Agincourt — at least available to me at the moment — that illustrate what was going on at the Battle of Agincourt. There are beautiful and stirring illustrations of armored knights whacking each other with swords; there are illustrations of archers on both sides, facing each other and shooting arrows from bows which are clearly not longbows; there is a decided lack of mud — I finally decided to give you a medieval rendition of the battle, from the 15th century. Close to the battle in time, least like the battle in composition. The ground was not dry; the French did have archers, but they were in the back and they didn’t have longbows; the forces were not the same size; really those Frenchmen on horseback need to be in the front; apparently nobody has dysentery. (minature from l’*Abrégé de la Chronique d’Enguerrand de Monstrelet*, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, Français 2680, Folio 208)

The battle of Agincourt was almost over when Henry V ordered the prisoners killed. Nowadays, this would clearly be a war crime, but in 1415, it wasn’t, though nobody liked it. Henry did not expect to win the battle, which involved a fairly small bunch of muddy unarmored Englishmen with dysentery up against a formidable line of armored Frenchmen on horses. So he didn’t know, when a group of Frenchmen at the rear of their forces attempted to regroup, that they were going nowhere and were not an issue. He thought they were, and that then the Frenchmen at the rear of the English, the war prisoners, would be able to break through, pick up arms from the battlefield, and slaughter the English. The English were all assuming that none of them were going home, but they were fighting as best they could. But as it happens the battle was almost over anyway, and the English won — they had lost a few hundred men; the French had lost several thousands. Anne is extremely happy, because she gets to talk about the Welsh longbowmen, and Michelle is extremely happy because she gets to tell you where the people of Normandy were hiding whilst Henry and his army roamed around, and believe me, you will not be able to guess where they were. Unless you already have inside knowledge.

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117. Columbus Captures Arawaks and Demands They Tell Him Where the Gold Is, Guanahani (in the Bahamas) October 12, 1492

The Battle of Vega Real, 1495, marks the end of indigenous resistance on the island of Hispaniola. In this engraving from Francisco Serrata’s Cristopher Columbus: History of the Discovery of America (El Progreso Editorial, Madrid 1893), the indigenous alliance is on the right, and the Spanish forces, led by Columbus, who is on his second voyage, are on the left. The Spanish, greatly outnumbered, but much better armed, win.

Columbus’s first trip to what would be called the Americas, in 1492, was a difficult one. Nobody thought he would actually get anywhere, since he had grossly underestimated the size of the globe, but the Spanish monarchs had some extra cash, since the war with the Moors was over, and thought they might as well fund the enterprise, because otherwise one of the other European countries was going to get across the Atlantic first, so they let him have some unneeded ships that were not in good shape (besides being much too small to carry the necessary supplies). He was supposed to find a route across the Atlantic to the Indies; he was supposed to claim any lands he found for Spain; he was supposed to establish colonies and manage them well; he was supposed to bring back lots of nifty stuff. Like gold. When he did arrive on land, there were humans there already, as we know, and they were wearing gold ornaments. So he captured some and demanded that they tell him where they had gotten the gold, but they didn’t actually have much, so he enslaved them instead. After that, things got worse. So much worse that even the monarchs of Spain noticed how bad it was, and he was arrested for mismanagement and brutality, found guilty, and stripped of his offices. Michelle found an awesome biography and got immersed in Columbus’s religious fanaticism, and Anne got immersed in the Europeans’ obsession with water alternatives to the lost Silk Road. It’s not a special episode, since we think of Columbus as essentially medieval, but it is a commemorative episode, for Indigenous People’s Day.

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116. The Great German Peasants’ War, Central Europe 1524-1525

The Great German Peasants War included not only battles and snails, but a list of demands, called The Twelve Articles. Here, a collection of German peasants, armed well but alas not with cannons, appear on the cover of a leaflet containing the demands. (From Otto Henne am Rhyn: Cultural History of the German People, 2nd Volume, Berlin 1897, page. XXI.)

In the early 16th century, the peasants of Central Europe were being overtaxed, overworked, and underfed, and the lords of the lands kept making things worse. Things worsened, after which they worsened some more, snails got involved, and then there was the biggest peasant revolt in Europe before the French Revolution. If you’re a native English speaker, and you haven’t heard of it, great though it be, don’t feel bad; there is only one book in English on the Great German Peasants’ War, and it was published this year. Michelle has a new hero, a badass knight beloved by Goethe, Sir Walter Scott, and the Internet, and Anne is quite perturbed about the snails. By the way. As far as we’re concerned, the revolt wasn’t the crime; killing 100,000 peasants was.

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115. The Janissaries Briefly Break the Truce, December 24, 1522, Rhodes

This famous miniature depicting a Janissary troop attacking at the Siege of Rhodes is from *Süleymannâme* (The Book of Suleiman), which gives the history of the first 35 years of Suleiman’s reign. Suleiman is going to win this seige, and the Hospitalers will end up on Malta. (The artist is one of five unnamed artists; the original manuscript is in Istanbul, at the Topkapi Palace Museum.)

The Knights Hospitaler and the Ottoman Troops of Suleiman the Magnificent were well matched, with state-of-the-art cannonry and defenses, but it was Suleiman who commanded the Janissaries, the formidable household infantry troops loyal to the Sultan. Occasionally, though, they got out of hand; briefly, during the second truce after the second Siege of Rhodes, they entered the city and did things that Suleiman had promised wouldn’t happen, such as plundering, smashing things in churches, and assaulting women. It was just for a little bit of a day, though, and then they were sorry. Which they showed by saying other troops did it. Anne is fascinated by the Janissaries, and Michelle is very gratified to explain to us all the standardization of gunpowder and cannon material, which is actually much more exciting than this sentence made it sound. Also she found the first opera ever written in English. Of course she did.

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114. Beehive Stolen, Portugal 1435

By the 15th century, medieval beekeepers could own protective wear that looks much like the gear we have today. (Before that, mostly people just put veils over their heads.) In this illustration from Milan, we can see a well appointed apiary with both woven skeps and box hives, a drummer to entice the bees to go where the humans want them to go (we don’t do this any more; whether or not it worked in the 15th century I do not know), and a worker extracting honey from the combs, for which he needs no special suit. (Bodleian Library MS. Rawl. G. 98, folio 049v)

If you wanted to steal beehives in the Middle Ages, you would need to be very good at the theft, because the laws about bees and beehives were many and varied, all over the European continent. And you should be really careful about stealing beehives in Portugal (or France, or Spain), because those were the places where the high-end honey got made, and the people there were very serious about their hives. Anne talks about the history of beekeeping, and the medieval laws thereof, and Michelle, though very proud of having found a couple of novels about beekeeping, really focuses on The Medieval Economy of Beekeeping, which turned out to be extraordinarily fascinating. Who knew. Also, we share lots of information on useful subjects, such as why it’s a good thing to be able to distinguish bees from wasps, what to do if you discover a swarm in your attic, and why it was that Winchester Abbey had to import wax. Ok, that last thing not as useful as the two before it. But very interesting, nevertheless.

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113. Rogallach mac Uatach Is Assasinated By Máel Brigte mac Mothlachán , Connacht, Ireland 649

Rogallach, King of Connacht, would most likely have been quartered here, Rathcrogan Mound, when he was alive. It’s part of a complex of over 240 archaeological sites, at what was Cruachan, the seat of the **Connachta**, who ruled Connacht, not surprisingly. You can go there! It’s in County Roscommon and has lots of help for visitors, and isn’t as well-known as Tara, and if you stop by Oweynagat, or the Cave of the Cats, you can apparently go to Hell. This may or may not be an attraction.

If you read the Annals of Tigernach, you will find that Máel Brigte mac Mothlachán killed Rogallach mac Uatach, King of Connacht, in battle, because the Uí Briúin tribe had been encroaching on the territory of the Corco Cullu, and so it was one of those normal murders. However, if you read the renowned and beloved Geoffrey Keating, you will discover that no, Rogallach, riding his white horse, was killed by servants, after a dispute about who had actually killed a deer, but before that Rogallach had been living a version of Oedipus, sleeping with his daughter, who had been, as an infant sent out to die, but a huntsman saved her, and then later her dad met her and incestuous relations followed. We do talk about Connacht, and Rogallach, and Máel Brigte mac Mothlachán, but really what Anne is concerned about is the inability of some historians to tell the difference between history and storytelling, and Michelle, bless her heart, is driven to sputtering outrage by the inability of some scholars to tell you where they found the stuff, history or story, either one.

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112. Sverker the Elder is Murdered, Alebäck Bridge, Sweden, December 25, 1156

The Sverkerstenen, the marker that stands at the place there Sverker the Elder was murdered by a trusted servant (as we are told), is disconcertingly tasteful. Perhaps it was more gaudy originally — it’s been there for about 1000 years.

The first ruler of the House of Sverker, Sverker the Elder, had come out as the winner among contenders for the position of Ruler of Sweden, even though he wasn’t from royal roots. He was the ruler of the country, but various pieces of Sweden were considering themselves under or not under his authority, and other countries altogether were also working on taking Sweden or bits of it (that would be Denmark and Russia), and what with one thing and another, life wasn’t very restful. And then one of the Danes got a trusted servant to murder Sverker. It was Christmas, and Sverker was on his way to church. After that, the House of Sverker and the House of Erik handed the country back and forth for a while. Using battles. Both hosts are concerned about how many people were getting murdered on Christmas day, Michelle found the most expensive movie ever made in Sweden, and Anne is confused by the several deaths in the episode brought on by local peasants.

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111. Massacre of the Latins, Constantinople, Byzantine Empire, April 1182

In this useful illustration (1485) we are shown the Golden Horn, which the citizens of Constantinople could cut off, with The Great Chain, to prevent ship passage from the Sea of Marmara to the Bosphorus. The city on the left is Constantinople, with its walled defenses. The Italians were living in the north of the city. They aren’t there any more.

In the beginning, by which I mean before 1054, the Church was united, though the Eastern and Western pieces had lots of theological differences, which they could just not iron out. But then it was 1053, and the Patriarch of Constantinople closed all the Latin churches in the city, and after that, the Pope of Rome tried to get the Patriarch to recognize him (the Pope) as the head of the Church, which he wouldn’t, and then they excommunicated each other, and we had The Great Schism of 1054. But there was still lots and lots of trade between the East and the West, because money, which is why in 1182 there was a large Italian population of traders and their families in Constantinople, especially since they’d been given lots of economic incentives, and so they were making lots of money and shouldering all of the Byzantine traders out, and also, alas, the Italians were VERY arrogant and annoyed everybody, besides which they were very badly behaved, and a mob that had been celebrating the entrance into the city of their new emperor Andronikos pivoted and began massacring all of the Italians they could find in the city. This was very bad. Very bad indeed. And it didn’t help the East-West relations, which would be reaching their nadir with the Sack of Constantinople in 1204, after which the East and the West wouldn’t even speak to each other, for hundreds of years. We explain the massacre and Michelle finds novels, including one by, I kid you not, Louis L’Amour, who apparently had a sort of cowboy take on the whole shebang.

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110. St. Mikhail of Chernihiv is Assassinated by the Golden Horde, Batu Khan’s Camp, Kyivan Rus, 1246

St. Mikhail of Chernihiv and St. Theodore, his boyar, are commonly pictured together, on account of dying together on the same trip to see Batu Khan. Here, they are depicted in their saintly iconography. A bonus picture is below, being a different picture altogether.

Mikhail of Chernihiv, the Grand Prince of Kyiv and Prince of Chernihiv, went to several neighboring states to ask for help fighting the Golden Horde — he had the idea that there would be strength in alliance — but nobody would help, on account of they were too busy fighting each other, and also the Mongols had not actually gotten to their houses yet, so why should they care. Then the Golden Horde destroyed Kyiv, and told Mikhail he had to come give obeisance to Batu Khan, and he did that, but he wouldn’t worship idols, which was part of the deal, so the Golden Horde executed him. And then he pretty quickly became venerated, and then a saint as a martyr, and his relics were taken to Chernihiv but now they are in Moscow. Besides all that, Michelle is totally impressed by the number of his vitae surviving. Also that Batu Khan is connected to Russian Atlantis. Also there is a kangaroo. (Spoiler alert: the Golden Horde did in fact get to those other neighboring states, after they had finished looting Kyivan Rus.)

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Not so much iconography as hagiography, this painting by Vasily Smirnov, “St. Michael of Chernigov” (1883) is very dramatic and your hosts don’t believe a smidgen of it. It is dramatic, though. Please do not confuse Vasily Smirnov the Russian painter from the nobility, who painted, dramatically, historical scenes in Academic style, with Vasily Smirnov the psychopathic serial killer. Or any of the other Vasily Smirnovs. But especially not that one.

109.King Duncan Gets Killed, Pitgaveny, Scotland 14 August 1040

The Battle of Pitgaveny occurred here, and this is where King Duncan I died. He did not die in bed, over at Macbeth’s castle in Moray. Because that got made up later. Macbeth was also here, though, and Duncan died and Macbeth didn’t.

King Duncan did indeed get killed, in 1040, and Macbeth was around, and maybe even was near him at the time, but Duncan wasn’t old, he wasn’t asleep in bed, and there was no crime, because Macbeth’s forces slaughtered Duncan’s forces in battle, and Duncan was one of the slaughtered. In this episode, Anne explains all of the history that can be explained — it’s a slippery bunch of facts, but there was a King Duncan, he did die, and Macbeth was king after him. Michelle explains the historical sources, and mentions the novels, but really what she wanted to know was where the hell that theatre superstition about not ever saying the title of the Scottish Play in the theater, at pain of being made to do whatever silly things are in fashion at the time — well, where the hell that came from. And we want to know, too.

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