1492: A Guided Tour of Europe on the Brink
1492 was a big year, and not just because a certain Genoese navigator set sail into the unknown. Europe was on the cusp of enormous changes. Follow along as we travel all across the continent and get ...
21 Mar 201952min
Who Was Christopher Columbus? With Professor Felipe Fernandez-Armesto
1492 was a truly wild year, and there is no one better to talk about it with than one of Patrick's favorite historians, Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, author of many excellent books on Columbus and explora...
14 Mar 201940min
Civil Servants, State Finance, and the Rising State
States didn't pull themselves up by their bootstraps, driven solely by the will of indomitable rulers; instead, they benefited from the services of a class of highly educated and dedicated civil serva...
7 Mar 201951min
The Troubled Inheritance of Mary of Burgundy and Dynastic Consolidation
When Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy, met the business end of a Swiss halberd in 1477, his 19-year-old daughter Mary was set to inherit all of his vast possessions. But her position was precarious,...
21 Feb 201948min
The Rise and Fall of Burgundy
The Valois dukes of Burgundy were kings in all but name. Originally a branch of the French royal family, they fought for control of the French crown, accumulated vast lands, and nearly carved out a ki...
14 Feb 20191h
Game of Thrones and Late Medieval Politics
Surprise: Patrick loves Game of Thrones. Bigger surprise: GoT is actually a pretty accurate portrayal of late medieval politics - except for the dragons. Patrick's friend Albro Lundy, a very funny and...
7 Feb 201946min
Civil Wars and Political Breakdowns in Late Medieval Europe
The Wars of the Roses are infamous, but practically every European kingdom, not just England, was wracked by serious bouts of infighting in the second half of the 15th century. In a time period known ...
24 Jan 201955min
The Wars of the Roses, II
By 1461, the Wars of the Roses had already claimed thousands of lives and shaken England's political system to its foundations. The bloodiest battle ever fought in England would soon follow, along wit...
17 Jan 20191h 3min
