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The King is dead. Long live the King.
Eadwig, the 18 year old King known for his beauty, had died. Somehow.
307 – Cleaning House
Category: Featured
306 – King Eadwig
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The King is dead, long live the King.
So … last episode was a bit of a shocker wasn’t it?
After it launched, I got an email from a listener (who hilariously, is the daughter of a Judge that once scared the hell out of me in Court)… small world. Understandably, she was confused that while we are lacking key details on major political events, battles, and just about everything going on in Scotland and Wales….we still manage to have this crazy story of a new King’s precocious sex life.
I think her exact phrase was “how did THAT story get recorded?”
305 – A Very Special BHP Valentine’s Day Episode
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History is known as a field for being a bit of a slog. Tracing events, and people, and social movements through decades and centuries is a huge task and the results are usually dense at the best of times.
But once in a while, in between all the battles and the politics and the dynasties, the record cradles a story so short, and sweet, and perfect that it deserves to stand alone.
And this very special BHP Valentine’s Day episode is just this sort of story.
304 – A Kingdom Divided
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Northumbria was always the hot mess of the heptarchy. There are a few exceptions where they manage to pull it together long enough to produce something important, like Bede, or when Leeds United won the premiership in 1991.
303 – Eric Bloodaxe
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We can probably assume that Harald Fairhair, the King of Norway, had fantastic hair. It was either big, or really long, or super glossy, and it was almost definitely blonde. But it wasn’t the only trait he was known for. Harald Fairhair was also known for getting around… and around… and around. According to records, he had as many as 20 sons. Twenty!
302 – King Eadred
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Ok, where were we?
With all this focus on culture, it’s been a little bit since we last talked about the political situation in Britain. So lets remind ourselves of where things were politically.
Chapter Eight – Twilight of the Anglo Saxons
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This isn’t going to end well.
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301 – Common Folk
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Today, we’re going to wrap up this cultural series with a focus on my favorite group of people. The people who rarely, if ever, get talked about.
The commoners.
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Members Only 97 – Slavery Part 3
300 – Noble Lives
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When we left off, we were talking about Thegns. Specifically, we were talking about King’s Thegns and how they could wield degrees of power that could rival even the formidable Ealdormen.
At this point in this short series, the hope is that you have a sense of what incentives the economic structure created, the way that power flowed in this era, and what these titles meant in action.
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