Podcast Episodes

Oscar Wilde on trial

Episode 1593

At a time when male homosexuality was illegal in Britain, celebrated playwright Oscar Wilde became embroiled in a scandal that ultimately saw him put on trial for “gross indecency”. As Professor Jose…

Published on 2 years, 10 months ago

Medieval peasants: everything you wanted to know

Episode 1592

What was it like to be a peasant in the Middle Ages? Did they live well, with access to sufficient food, water and shelter, or were their lives characterised by poverty, pain and hard labour? Did the…

Published on 2 years, 10 months ago

History's greatest cities | Berlin

This week we are featuring episode one from our brand new series, History's greatest cities. If you enjoy this episode and want to listen to the rest of the series make sure you follow the feed where…

Published on 2 years, 10 months ago

The book that transformed medieval England

Episode 1591

It was an enterprise that helped transform a marginalised language into a global powerhouse. Lydia Zeldenrust tells Spencer Mizen how, some 550 years ago, a middle-aged merchant called William Caxton…

Published on 2 years, 10 months ago

Why the Middle Ages matter

Episode 1590

The Middle Ages have often been shrouded in myth and mystery, but was it actually as unchanging, uncivilised and muddy as we might think? Historian and author Ian Mortimer challenges these popular pe…

Published on 2 years, 10 months ago

The cult of Freud: science, sex & psychoanalysis

Episode 1589

From the Oedipus complex to the Freudian slip, the theories of Sigmund Freud are still familiar to us today. But how much do we know about his life? Seamus O’Mahony tells the story of the founder of …

Published on 2 years, 10 months ago

Breastfeeding: a cultural history

Episode 1588

Breastfeeding may seem like an innate human experience that transcends history. But, according to art and cultural historian Joanna Wolfarth, experiences of feeding babies have always been embedded i…

Published on 2 years, 10 months ago

Heliogabalus: Rome’s scandalous emperor

Episode 1587

The story of the Roman emperor Heliogabalus is filled with sex, death, decadence and religious extremism, but it also touches on some key questions about imperial Rome. What were the limits of politi…

Published on 2 years, 10 months ago

Interwar Britain: everything you wanted to know

Episode 1586

How ‘roaring’ were the roaring twenties for ordinary britons? Did views of the British empire change after the first world war?And what caused the economic woes of the 1930s? Speaking to Elinor Evans…

Published on 2 years, 10 months ago

Which LGBTQ+ histories get told – and which get overlooked?

Episode 1585

Uncovering and telling the stories of LGBTQ+ people in history can be rewarding, important work, but it’s also often challenging and complex. How far is it possible to understand the sexualities of p…

Published on 2 years, 10 months ago