12 - Jews, Pestilence and the Apocalyptic 14th Century
At this stage in our journey through the History of the Netherlands we have emerged into the 1300s: a century which for a long time, has been seen as the most awful century to have been alive in weste...
12 Aug 201946min
11 - The Murder of Floris V
Today we are going to break the pattern of the last few episodes and make the outrageous move of not talking about Belgium. I know, crazy right. We’ve gone on a lot about the social changes which were...
15 Juli 201942min
10 - The Battle of the Golden Spurs (A "Good Day" to Die Hard)
In the late 1200s many of the trends and forces that we've been exploring, such as feudalism, urbanisation and industrialisation erupted in a spectacular clash between Flanders and France. Flanders wa...
1 Juli 201958min
09 - Weaving Our Way Through Flanders (A Wooly Good Episode)
Today we are taking you on an epic adventure, being passed from hand to hand and from group to group, throughout medieval Flanders, as wool. You read that correctly. Wool. Yes, it might seem strange a...
17 Juni 201945min
08 - Draining the Swamp (or, The Secret Soggy Story of Sphagnum)
We break away from the main chronology of the series a little bit, to zoom out and re-focus on one particular topic: how exactly, in the space of roughly 500 years, this empty swamp land was transform...
3 Juni 201940min
07 - Getting Down in Town
Freed from the need to be working the land due to the improvements in agriculture discussed in episode 6, people in the low countries began congregating in urban centres. They developed new skills and...
20 Maj 201939min
06 - Ploughin’ Forward
The last few episodes have focused heavily on the “Game of Thrones” layer of history; that’s to say, nobles killing each other. As exciting as it's been, only a tiny minority of people who lived aroun...
22 Apr 201932min
05 - Welcome to Family Feudalism
The disintegration of Charlemagne’s empire at the end of the 9th century left the lowlands part of a larger entity, Lotharingia, wedged between two much more powerful kingdoms, East and West Francia. ...
8 Apr 201953min
