Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchFrom the Middle Ages to #MeToo: Chaucer’s Wife of Bath
Episode 1584
The Wife of Bath is a stand-out figure in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. The only ordinary woman in the procession of pilgrims heading to Thomas Becket’s shrine, Alison is a sexually active, ou…
Published on 2 years, 10 months ago
Astonishing Æthelstan: Michael Wood on the 10th-century king
Episode 1583
Anglo-Saxon king Æthelstan was the first West Saxon leader to effectively rule over all of England. And with Alfred the Great as a grandfather, he had quite the family legacy to live up to. Speaking …
Published on 2 years, 10 months ago
Cleopatra’s triumphant daughter
Episode 1582
When Cleopatra took her own life in 30 BC it marked the conclusion of Egypt’s ruling dynasty, but not the end of her family line. Classicist Jane Draycott tells the little-known story of Cleopatra Se…
Published on 2 years, 10 months ago
Marie Antoinette in her own words
Episode 1581
Marie Antoinette is a historical figure who has been much mythologised – as callous, superficial, extravagant and out of touch with reality. But if we go back to the original sources and examine her …
Published on 2 years, 10 months ago
The Romantics: everything you wanted to know
Episode 1580
Who were the Romantics? And how did they shake up society and culture at the turn of the 19th century? Speaking to Ellie Cawthorne, Daisy Hay answers your top questions on the rebellious literary mov…
Published on 2 years, 10 months ago
Fearless female voices of the Spanish Civil War
Episode 1579
In the summer of 1936, Spain descended into a brutal civil war between its democratically elected government and a nationalist insurgency led by General Francisco Franco. Sarah Watling tells Jon Bauc…
Published on 2 years, 10 months ago
Why did the Ottoman empire implode?
Episode 1578
Defeat in the First World War dealt the Ottoman empire a terrible blow, but it wasn’t terminal. Ryan Gingeras tells Spencer Mizen that it was what happened next – between 1918 and 1922 – that condemn…
Published on 2 years, 10 months ago
Was Shakespeare a snob?
Episode 1577
Shakespeare’s plays are peppered with characters from across the social spectrum, from kings and nobility down to servants, soldiers and shepherds. Speaking to Rhiannon Davies, theatre director and a…
Published on 2 years, 10 months ago
Tudors in revolt: the Western Rising of 1549
Episode 1576
The Western Rising of 1549 was the most catastrophic event to occur in Devon and Cornwall between the Black Death and the Civil War. What started as an argument between two men and their local vicar …
Published on 2 years, 10 months ago
Female spies who forged the CIA
Episode 1575
Many of the agents who played a crucial role in establishing the organisation now known as the Central Intelligence Agency – or CIA – were women. And yet, in the early days of the agency in post-WW2 …
Published on 2 years, 10 months ago