HUMPH!

Well, it seems at this point in time, it is not possible to make an enhanced podcast for iTunes on a PC.  As I am not interested in any way shape of form of going out and purchasing a Mac, I am currently unable to make an enhanced podcast.  This rather stinks, as I've always been a hands-on person and would love to add some visuals for our listeners.  So, as I am currently unable to add them to the podcast, I will just have to add them to the transcripts.

I am looking at a few series that are more hands-on for the listener.  One will be a recipe series.  Every now and again, I'd like to talk about food from a certain period and include a recipe or two.  Many of the recipes in earlier history are actually quite tasty.  I just made candied orange rind with honey and they were good.  Time consuming, but very delicious.  I'm also looking at a series on Fashion.  Maybe one of these series episodes will occur once a month.  I'll have to see what everyone thinks.

Episode 3 - Hammurabi and His Code

This week, episode three will focus on Hammurabi.  You may have heard of the code of Hammurabi, whether in school or reading.  Even if you never heard the name Hammurabi, you may still have a vague idea of his code.  Yet not too much is known about the man.  I’ll tell you what little we do know of this ancient ruler and then move on to his code of laws.

 

“Mesopotamia, meaning “the land between the rivers,” owed its name to the Greeks.  The rivers in question here were the Euphrates and the Tigris, the two great inland waterways between the Nile and the Indus. […] The cultural area associated with Mesopotamia in fact extended well beyond the rivers themselves, forming a broad triangle with its base along the foothills of the northern mountains and its apex at the head of the Gulf.  To the east it was bounded by the Zagros mountain chain, while on the west the fertile land quickly gave way to the desert that separated the Crescent’s two arms.” (Woolf 60)

 

This is the long way of saying Mesopotamia covered what is now Modern Iraq, eastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and Southwest Iran.  Mesopotamia was not so much a country, but a region and was comprised of a number of people, including the Assyrians, Babylonians and Sumerians.

 

“Hammurabi was descended from an ancient line of nomadic desert sheiks and claimed that he could trace his ancestry back over 24 generation.” (Hunt 68)  Unlike the Greeks and the Romans, Hammurabi was lost to the world until the 1860s when information was first published about him.  At first it was thought that he came to power in 2342 BC, gradually moving up in date, until the year of accession finally settled at 1795 BC.

 

While originally only the king of Babylon, Hammurabi was an excellent military strategist and eventually conquered most of Mesopotamia.  At the start of his reign, Babylonia only covered about 55 miles of terrain, but at the end of his reign in 1750 BC, the Babylonians ruled over all of Sumer and most of Assyria.  While his conquest would only last for about another 200 years, at the time of his death, his nation was the most powerful of the area.

 

Hammurabi didn’t leave archaeological evidence of grand palaces and lavish artifacts, at least not that has been discovered up until now, but there is evidence of public works, such as the building of canals. (Hunt 68)  What Hammurabi is best known for, was his code of laws.

 

Discovered in 1901, “the stele containing the Code is an obelisk-like block of black diorite measuring […]” (Catholic Encyclopedia) just over seven feet tall and a little over six feet in circumference at the base.  “With the exception of a large carving in relief on the upper end, it was once entirely covered with forty-four columns (over 3800 lines) of text in old Babylonian wedge-writing.” (Catholic Encyclopedia)

 

The stele starts out with the following as message from Hammurabi to his people in way of explanation of his laws.  I apologize in advance for any mispronunciation.  My language skills are focused more on Western Europe, such as French, German and Latin, with a dabbling in Korean.  While I’d love to eventually study the truly ancient languages, I have yet to and thus have had no lessons in pronunciation.

 

“When Anu the Sublime, King of the Anunaki, and Bel, the lord of Heaven and earth, who decreed the fate of the land, assigned to Marduk, the over-ruling son of Ea, God of righteousness, dominion over earthly man, and made him great among the Igigi, they called Babylon by his illustrious name, made it great on earth, and founded an everlasting kingdom in it, whose foundations are laid so solidly as those of heaven and earth; then Anu and Bel called by name me, Hammurabi, the exalted prince, who feared God, to bring about the rule of righteousness in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil-doers; so that the strong should not harm the weak; so that I should rule over the black-headed people like Shamash, and enlighten the land, to further the well-being of mankind.

When Marduk sent me to rule over men, to give the protection of right to the land, I did right and righteousness in . . . , and brought about the well-being of the oppressed.” (King)

These laws were very strict and most crimes were punishable by death, with few exceptions.  Hammurabi’s Code also set the precedent for the Hebrew’s “eye for an eye” laws.  Rule 196 states that “If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out.”  Rule 197 states that “If a man break another man’s bone, his bone shall be broken.”  Rule 229 states that “If a builder build a house for some one, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built fall in and kill its owner, then the builder shall be put to death.”  Rule 230 states that “If it kill the son of the owner, the son of that builder shall be put to death.”  This is a common theme throughout the code and very much promotes that what is lost to one by another’s hand, shall be also lost to the perpetrator.  While today’s human rights groups would never allow such laws in America, it is a very basic and fair set of rules.  There are a number of rather harsh rules though.  While crimes often have to be proven, there are a few exceptions.  Rule 127 states that “If the “finger is pointed” at a man’s wife about another man, but she is not caught sleeping with the other man, she shall jump into the river for her husband.”  This is very harsh, as it says the woman is guilty no matter what.  In this case, she wasn’t proven guilty, so she won’t be killed, instead it is her duty to kill herself.  In rules where the man and woman are found together, they are both killed in a variety of ways, depending on how they are found.

 

There are also rules that take in extenuating circumstances and are in the favor of the woman.  Rule 136 states that “If any one leave his house, run away, and then his wife go to another house, if then he return, and wishes to take his wife back: because he fled from his home and ran away, the wife of this runaway shall not return to her husband.”  Rule 144 states that “If a man take a wife and this woman giver her husband a maid-servant, and she bear him children, but this man wishes to take another wife, this shall not be permitted to him; he shall not take a second wife.”  Rule 148 states that “If a man take a wife, and she be seized by disease, if he then desire to take a second wife he shall not put his wife away, who has been attacked by disease, but he shall keep her in the house which he had built and support her so long as she lives.”

 

Now on to this week’s traveler’s note.  You can see the Code of Hammurabi in the Louvre in Paris.  While it is obviously worn with age, the inscriptions are in excellent condition and the carving of Hammurabi receiving the laws from Shamash is very clear.  Even though cannot read Old Babylonian, looking closely at the writing we merely appreciated it for its even hand and historical value.  The Code is very accessible, merely roped off in a small square area in a relatively large room.  Also, this area in usually lower in traffic, as everyone crowds and pushes to see the Mona Lisa, Nike and Venus de Milo.  It seems not too many people are interested in the truly ancient cultures like Mesopotamia.  When we visited the Louvre, I didn’t know the Code of Hammurabi was there, but when I looked over the floor plans, my heart skipped a beat and we made a beeline for the stele.

 

One nice book we have, that I used for this podcast, is the Historical Atlas of Ancient Mesopotamia by Norman Bancroft Hunt.  It’s not a very hefty tome, weighing in only around 190 pages.  Yet it has some nice maps and gives a good overview of Mesopotamian for those who just want to peruse the history.  It also has quite a number of photos of artifacts that are fascinating in their own right.

  

Hunt, Norman Bancroft. Historical Atlas of Ancient Mesopotamia. New York: Thalamus Publishing, 2004.

Tr. King, L.W. Code of Hammurabi. <http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/hamcode.html>

Ed. Woolf, Greg. Ancient Civilizations: The Illustrated Guide to Belief, Mythology, and Art. San Diego: Thunder Bay Press, 2005

Catholic Encyclopedia Hammurabi <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07125a.htm>

 

Sorry, but WOW!

Well, it seems I cannot yet do "Tripping in the Middle Ages".  My library doesn't have enough information to make a full show, so it will have to wait.  I do have a friend checking her medical books for info though.  So hopefully soon I'll have something.  In the meantime, I'll do a few ancient history topics.  After all, this is the ANCIENT & Medieval History podcast.  Right now I'm compiling and recording Hammurabi and his code, for Monday's podcast.  Hope everyone enjoys.

Also, I just received my first response.  It contained very nice words and I was very encouraged.  I hope everyone else enjoys the show as well.

Also, I didn't think it possible for a while, but after a little more than a week, our show has passed the 200 mark for subscribers.  I am VERY surprised.  Especially since I looked yesterday and Feed Burner said 151 and today said 247.  That means in one day it jumped almost 100.  WOW!  Okay, so I need to lay off playing Neverwinter Nights 2 and make sure I keep a good quality show. :-)

Episode 2 - Charlemagne: The First Holy Roman Emperor

Today’s program is an introduction to the First Holy Roman Emperor, Charlemagne.  Whether you know him by his French name, Charlemagne, his English name, Charles the Great, or his German name, Karl der Grosse, he was an influential figure in Medieval history.  So what do we know about this great king?  Well, there are very few primary source texts on Charles.  Our main source is from his biographer, Einhard.  While Einhard knew Charles personally and worked for him, his writing wasn’t necessarily the most accurate.  According to author Alessandro Barbero, “he plundered Suetonius’ Lives of the Caesars” (Barbero 116).    So while we now have an idea of the personal man Charles was, we do have to take everything with a grain of salt, as Einhard was inclined to embellish to show how great his ruler was.  But that doesn’t tell you much about Charles.  So let me quote Einhard’s writing instead…

“He was heavily built, sturdy, and of considerable stature, although not exceptionally so, given that he stood seven feet tall.  He had a round head, large and lively eyes, a slightly larger nose than usual, white but still attractive hair, a bright and cheerful expression, a short and fat neck, and a slightly protruding stomach.  His voice was clear, but a little higher than one would have expected for a man of his build.  He enjoyed good health, except for the fevers that affected him in the last few years of his life.  Toward the end he dragged one leg.  Even then, he stubbornly did what he wanted and refused to listen to doctors, indeed he detested them, because they wanted to persuade him to stop eating roast meat, as was his wont, and to be content with boiled meat.” (Einhard)

This is an interesting description of the man and rather impressive.  Although many of the Germanic tribes produced larger people, seven feet tall is still quite large.  As out of shape and look as Charles does sound in Einhard’s description, one must keep in mind, that Einhard knew the king and Holy Roman Emperor.  He never knew the youth and prince.  So these are the best descriptions we have.  There are coins that have survived, which have a similar image as Einhard described.  All other physical images or portraits of the Emperor are from a later time period and are often idealized depictions of the man.

We do not know exactly when Charles was born.  We know he died in 814 and Einhard wrote that was “in the seventy-second year of his life and the forty-seventh of his reign.”  So his estimated year of birth was 742.  Other sources say he was in about his seventy-first year or he was simply a septuagenarius, which means he could have been anywhere from seventy to seventy-nine years old.  He was born the first son and child of Pepin the Short and his wife Bertrada.  His grandfather, Charles “the Hammer” Martel had just died and thus he was named in honor of his grandfather.

When Pepin died, he divided his lands between Charles and his other son, Carloman.  Relations between the brothers were strained and when Carloman died after an illness in 771, Charles made certain he was immediately crowned the sole king, even though Carloman had two sons that could have succeeded him.  Once he took the throne, Charles dealt with insubordinate kingdoms that were beholden to him or fought with other nations right up to his death.  Yet even with the constant fighting and conquering, Charles helped bring education and enlightenment to his people.

One thing we must remember is there was a massive societal gap between the nobles and the peasants.  So when we say the advantages Charles brought to his people, it refers primarily to the nobles.  While not a highly educated man himself, Charles did understand the value of a good education.  He could neither read nor write, though he did work hard at it, like Einhard tells us.  Yet Charles surrounded himself with a circle of learned men and set up education opportunities for his people.  The language of the day was Latin, in terms of reading and writing.  The Germanic vernacular was not recorded.  While Latin was the language of the educated, Charles was worried about the disappearance of his native tongue and had a grammar written to record the language and keep it alive.

As far as the family man is concerned, Charles did his part and had quite a family.  He wed five times, had about six concubines and fathered about twenty children; ten boys and ten girls.  The first wife, Himiltrude, Einhard did not name in his biography.  Doing like those before him, Charles wed her outside of the Church and without a formal agreement.  However, the church became stronger while Charles ruled and a secular marriage was deemed unacceptable.  It was also bad politics.  When Charles made an alliance with the Lombards, he discarded his first wife and married the daughter of the Lombard king in a public and Church sanctioned ceremony.  Due to either death or politics, Charles later went on to marry Hildegard, Fastrada and Liudgard.  These four later wives, Einhard did acknowledge and name.  In fact, Himiltrude was written off as merely a concubine, although their son, Pepin, later called Pepin the Hunchback by historians, remained number one in line for the throne.

Einhard also wrote of Charles’ paternal feelings, in that the Emperor refused to let his daughters leave his palace.  Although they never married, they did have lovers and eventually children.  This showed that Charles was more than willing to turn a blind eye in order to keep those he was most attached to, close by.

Until the year 800, Charles was merely the king of the Franks.  When Empress Irene took sole control of Byzantium.  According to Barbero, Pope Leo III was disturbed by a woman in control of the Empire and decided it was time to move the position from an Eastern ruler to a Western one.

Einhard wrote about Charles’ coronation and placed Charles in a modest light.  According to Einhard, Charles did not want to become Holy Roman Emperor and had to be tricked into the position.  After refusing a few times, Charles was in Rome, on his knees praying, when Pope Leo III came up and crowned him Holy Roman Emperor.  However, Barbero points out that it was probably not the position that irritated Charles, but the power it would give to the Church.  When Pope Leo III crowned Charles, he in action, “claimed the supremacy of papal authority over imperial authority.” (Barbero 93)

            Charles died on January 28^th, 814 in Aachen, from what scholars deemed pneumonia.  Aachen is the city which Charles chose as his seat of power.  In French, the city is named Aix-la-Chappelle.  Today, Aachen is near the border of the Netherlands and France, in the north-west corner of Germany.

            I have not gone into Charles’ military conquests, but will save that for another time, as that could easily take a whole show in itself to touch upon.  I would like to add a traveler’s note at this point.  Since we do currently live in Germany, we’ve had the opportunity to visit a few places in Europe.  Not as many as we’d like, but we’ll take some lovely memories with us when we eventually move back to the States.

We had the opportunity to visit Charles’ cathedral in Aachen and were pleased to tour the building and treasury.  The cathedral was immense and the architecture was magnificent.  We also saw where Charles’ remains are supposedly held, in a sarcophagus over the alter area.  One thing we found disturbing was the reliquary in the treasury.  A popular image of Charlemagne in books and on the Internet is a gold bust.  This is actually a reliquary.  For those who don’t know, a reliquary is a container, which usually holds a piece of a saint of Jesus.  It can be a scrap of cloth the person wore, or usually, is a bone from the person.  In this case, the bust of Charlemagne holds a piece of the Emperor’s cranium.  While we find any pieces of people on display, somewhat disturbing, in this case it was more.

            Charles was a man who kept a separation of Church and State.  While he was a devote Christian and gave much to the Church, he did not want to give the Church power over his domain, or secular rule.  The Church had their areas to govern and he had his.  They were not higher than the king, but in a sense the rulers of the ecclesiastic world.  Yet here is evidence that the Church forced a mixture of Church and State.  They took a piece of Charles and placed it in a religious oriented vessel, thus combining the two.  Just a side thought.

            A very good book I would like to suggest is Charlemagne Father of a Continent by Alessandro Barbero.  While we have most of our information about Charles from Einhard’s writings, we have to understand that Einhard worked for the Emperor and had to keep in his good graces to hold his position.  So much of Einhard’s writing puts Charles in a very good light and avoids any criticism of the man.  Barbero’s book looks beyond paying lip service and actually thinks about the negative side of Charles.  One paragraph questions why he kept all his daughters living at home with him.  We have also wondered about that.  If you look beyond basic paternal affection, it could show Charles was very domineering and did not want any of his daughters beyond his influence, as they would have been if they moved to other kingdoms.

            There were also instances of Charles having a fit of temper and striking out at those who insulted him or his family and those who irked him at the moment.  Hardly the saintly picture Einhard painted.  I won’t go into more detail, but let you read the book and decide for yourself if Charles was a saint, like Einhard portrayed him, or just a regular person with good points and bad points, like you and me.

            Next week, if I can find enough information, I’d like to discuss “tripping in the Middle Ages”.  There were problems with food storage that often led to interesting lives for the citizens at this time and may be interesting to you as well.

 

Barbero, Alessandro. Charlemagne: Father of a Continent. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.

Tr. Turner, Samuel Epes. Einhard: The Life of Charlemagne. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1880.

Episode 1 - Dating Robyn Hode

            The modern reader is familiar with the Robin Hood story’s setting in Sherwood Forest around the year 1190, while King Richard I was king, but away in the Crusades.  Back in England, the villainous Prince John ravages the land and the noble, betrayed nobleman, Robin Hood, fights to protect the poor from injustice and keep England safe for the day King Richard returns home.  Not one of these themes or settings is in the early tales and that brings up the question of what was the setting for the tales and when were they created?  Not only is it difficult to date the earliest written tales; many manuscripts have been destroyed over the centuries.  It is also difficult to date the creation of the tales, as many early ballads were passed along through minstrels and oral tradition, long before they were physically recorded.

The first recorded mention of Robin Hood, of which we currently know, was in William Langland’s Piers Plowman.  Piers Plowman was estimated to been written between 1370 and 1385:

“I kan noght parfitly my Paternoster as the preest it syngeth,

But I ken rymes of Robyn hood and Randolf Erl of Chestre.” (5.395-5.396)

As early as the fourteenth century we have evidence of the knowledge of the Robin Hood poems.  Yet even with this early written acknowledgement of Robin Hood, it is very difficult to figure out just how old the tales are.

            The earliest recorded tale of Robin Hood is Robin Hood and the Monk, which is estimated to been written between 1450 and 1460.  There is no king mentioned in the story, so it is difficult to place based on the politics of the time.  In A Gest of Robyn Hode (Gest) however, a king finally is mentioned.  Originally the tale assumed written around 1400 or even earlier, yet it was eventually decided that it was written some time after 1450.  In line 1412 there is the first instance of a king, named, in a Robin Hood tale, “Of Edwarde, our comly kynge.”  Again, this doesn’t fully date the actual tale; in England between 1272 and 1377 there were three King Edwards.  Stephen Knight explains the difficulty of deciphering which King Edward, “though a king appears several times, he is named only in one early text and only as Edward, without any defining number. […] the best candidate is Edward III, who reigned from 1327 to 1377.” (Knight 2)  Based on the fact that a number was not used to determine which king, it is probably safer to assume that the king was Edward I, as he would not have a number after his name until a successor followed with the same name.  Subsequent Edwards would already have distinguishing numerals in their title.

            In 1852, antiquarian Joseph Hunter surmised that the ruler in Gest was Edward II.  As J.C. Holt reveals:

“Hunter established, first, that the circuit of ‘Edwards our comely king’ through the royal forests of Yorkshire and Lancashire and thence to Nottingham, as described in Gest, fitted only one known royal progress, namely that made by Edward II between April and November 1323; secondly, that subsequently to this journey, between 24 March and 22 November 1324, a Robyn or Robert Hood appeared in royal service as one of the porters of the Chamber; and thirdly, that a Robert Hood with his wife Matilda figured in the court rolls of the manor Wakefield in 1316 and 1317.” (Holt 45-46)

It is interesting to note that Hunter connected the listed name of a “Robyn or Robert Hood,” in service to the crown, to back up his claim that the king in Gest was Edward II.  It is not uncommon for scholars to search for men with the same name as the legendary hero and date the tales in that fashion.  However, Robert is and was a common name and cannot support such claims alone.  The coincidence that the aforementioned Robyn’s surname was also Hood is also not strong enough to support Hunter’s connection.

            If the tales were already in circulation long enough, it is very possible that a person could change their name to associate themselves with the hero.  Such is the case proposed by David Crook in his article.  Crook states other scholars cited historical Robin Hoods in the thirteenth century as possible influences for the tales.  One such man was a Gilbert Robynhod who appeared on the rolls in 1296. (Crook 530)  This shows that long before Hunter’s Robyn Hood, the name was combined as a surname and not so rare as to only belong to one or two possible candidates.

David Crook also points out that Dr. J.R. Maddicott suggested the tales first came about in the 1330s, “a generation or so before the unequivocal reference to ‘rymes of Robin hood’ in the B-text of Piers Plowman in 1377.” (Crook 530)  This assumes that the tales could not have been popular much before their first recorded mention of them.  This also presumes that the earliest mention of the tales still survives.  What Maddicott does not take into consideration is that many of the early ballads and texts of the Middle Ages did not survive time and there could easily have been earlier references.

Maddicott also attempted to associate real authority figures with those mentioned in Gest.  He connected the character of the Abbott of St. Mary’s with Thomas de Multon, who was the abbot of St. Mary’s York from 1332 to 1359.  The chief justice he said was Geoffrey le Scrope, who was chief justice from 1324 to 1338 and John de Oxenford was the sheriff of Nottingham from 1334-1339.  To place all three real men in their respective roles as mentioned in Gest, the tale must have been dated between 1334 and 1339, further confirming his belief that the tales originated in the 1330s. (Holt 59-60)

The idea is too speculative though.  Oxenford was a corrupt sheriff, but the theme of a corrupt sheriff, whether true or not could easily fit into any time period, even if the current sheriff was incredibly honest.  Positions of power are usually scorned, as many people feel those in charge are not doing enough for them or taking advantage of their position.  Even those who do wrong may not see their actions as crimes and will scorn the law for punishing them.  So once again, this connection to actual persons and dates is very difficult to prove, it only works in idealistic theory.

There is also the fact that law books in 1331 showed just how ingrained the Robin Hood myth already was.  According to Holt in his article, The Origins and Audience of the Ballads of Robin Hood, “In the fourteenth century, indeed, rogues and thieves were sometimes colloquially described as “Robert’s men.”  In 1331 the phrase was incorporated in an Act of Parliament […] (Holt 93)  If such a phrase was already in the laws at this point, the myth of Robin Hood had to have already been around for a while, for it to be incorporated in the common vernacular.

            Andrew McCall suggested a span of years in The Medieval Underworld, “[…] at some point between de Montfort’s rebellion in 1265 and the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381. (McCall 100)  The idea is that between the two rebellions, the poor had a hero that would provide them succor when they most needed it.  According to Norman Cantor, the Peasant’s Revolt came about due to the Plague.  In 1349 the Plague caused a shortage in labor and the peasant’s were in the position to demand the abolition of serfdom and the laws that fixed wages (ed. Cantor 418).  After the Revolt and Plague, the peasants gained a voice and a character like Robin Hood would enable them to form a band to stand up for their assumed rights.            The mention of the Plague brings up another chance to narrow the tales.  In the early stories, not once is the Plague mentioned.  This makes it difficult to believe that the tales came about after the epidemics hit.  The knight in Gest, whom Robin aids talks of the Crusades, yet does not mention thousands of deaths from an unknown black plague.  The eight major Crusades were the most important in history and were dated, between 1095 and 1270.

            The final clue in narrowing down the time period of the early Robin Hood tales is again, the mention of the Crusades.  The last major Crusade was in 1270, led by St. Louis IX of France. (Cantor 140)  Edward I returned from a Crusade when Henry III died and ascended the throne in 1272 (Grant 142)  Therefore, in theory, the stories couldn’t have originated much later than the 1270s, otherwise the memories of the Crusades would not have been as strong to play as big a part in Gest.

            In Gest, line 179 also talks of Robin’s visitor being a knight by force, “I trowe thou warte made a knight of force,” (179 Knight & Ohlgren 95)  This refers to the practice put into effect by Henry III in 1224, “knight of force refers to the practice of “distraint of arms,” that is, “requiring military tenants who held £20 per annum to receive knighthoods or pay a compensation […]”  After Henry III, Edward I continued this practice and ordered that those who either held lands that were worth twenty pounds a year, or held a knight’s fee of twenty pounds a year, were to become knights by Christmas 1278. (Knight and Ohlgren 152)  This again helps narrow down the time period of Gest and the Robin Hood tales.  More than likely, they came about between 1278 and 1370.  While they may have originated earlier, the popularity of an Edward as king would have been odd.

          In a desperate attempt, Holt discusses one scholar who went so far as to invent a complete pedigree for the outlaw.  In 1746, Dr. William Stukeley, a Lincolnshire antiquary took random information out of William Dugdale’s Baronage, compiled in 1675.  With the names Stukeley created false marriages, added false relatives and changed the land holdings of established families.  He even changed the date of Robin Hood’s death to 1274, to suit his timeline. (Holt 42-43)  This was all later proved fanciful, but by that time there was a blind following of Stukeley that had to be convinced.

           All of this shows just how difficult it was to date the Robyn Hode tales, as there were numerous areas they could have originated from.  Between the pastoral poem of Robyn and Marion from France, to the English tales of Gandelyn and Hereward the Wake, there were a variety of inspirations from different times and places.

Ed. Cantor, Norman. The Pimlico Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages. London: Pimlico, 1999.

Crook, David. “Some Further Evidence Concerning the Dating of the Origins of the Robin Hood Legend” English Historical Review. 99 (1984): 530-534Grant,

Neil. Kings & Queens. Glasgow: Harper Collins Publishers, 1999.Holt, J.C. “The Origins and Audience of the Ballads of Robin Hood” Past and Present. 18 (1960): 89-110

Holt, J.C. Robin Hood. London: Thames and Hudson, 1989.

Knight, Stephen. Robin Hood: A Mythic Biography. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003.

Knight, Stephen, ed. Robin Hood: An Anthology of Scholarship and Criticism. Cambridge: Brewer, 1999.

Ed. Knight, Stephen and Ohlgren, Thomas H.. Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2000.

Welcome

Welcome to our Ancient & Medieval History Podcast.  On this page you will find the transcripts of the episodes we have produced.  After each transcript you will find a bibliography of the resources we used.  In addition to teaching others about history, I would like to use this podcast as a means to flex my research muscles.  It will be an opportunity to keep me in active research so I am ready to return to the academic world at any time.

The plan is to produce a new episode every week.  Listeners are encouraged to use this blog to post comments on produced episodes and tell us where we can improve, or if you just liked it in general.