Category: Culture

Episodes of The British History Podcast that include cultural history matters. You’ll learn about the diets, economics, and all the other aspects of daily life for the Celts, Romano-British, Britons, Anglo Saxons, and more.

325 – From Bad to Worse

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When we left off, England was reforming its legal structure.

Now, law isn’t known for being a sexy subject…neither are lawyers for that matter. But law shapes our societies in ways that are so fundamental that they are often invisible to us. And these reforms are no exception. These codes go on to transform English life.

323 – Brotherhood of the Wolf

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The Dowager Queen AElfthryth has returned to the King’s inner council following what looks like a political coup against AElfic of Hampshire and his faction.

And just because it was political doesn’t mean it was bloodless. All of AElfric’s allies were dead.  Only AElfric himself, who appears to have been too big to fail, remained as the sole surviving member of the faction.

315 – The Cracks in the Foundation

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“Under AEthelred nothing was done; or, more truly, throughout his whole reign he left undone those things which he ought to have done, and he did those things he ought not to have done.”  

That is the damning conclusion of  Edward Augustus Freeman, a Victorian historian, and epic beard grower.

311 – Team Edward

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King Edgar the Peaceable was buried at Glastonbury in 975.

But weirdly that isn’t the end of his story.

William of Malmesbury tells us that nearly a century later, in 1053, the Abbot Ailward re-opened the King’s tomb. Malmsbury doesn’t tell us WHY the monk opened the grave, so I suppose we can just assume Ailward was going through a goth phase.