Episodes 8 and 9 are now up, wrapping up the series on the Anarchy. And, as you will here at the end of episode 9, this *probably* wraps up the Great Podcast Experiment as well. It took me 1.25 years to get it all out there and it was fun, but podcasting is probably not my medium.
The next content-creation whirlwind is already defined and being prepared for launch. I’ll be announcing it soon. Thanks for your attention!
This episode I provide some other resources for those that want to dive deeper or they want to look at the fictional side of The Anarchy. And then, The Battle of the Standard.
Episode 5 is now available. Check it out.
Episode 4 of the podcast is up here. Check it out.
Get over to the pod site and check out Episode 3: When Christ and His Saints Slept.
Go immediately to my podcast listen in on the high drama when, in 1120, the White Ship sinks killing the heir to the English throne and threatening the Norman Conquest itself. Go now!
Go there now and give it a listen. Only 5 minutes this first go around. Go on …
Here it is: the first official announcement on my upcoming history podcast.
It will look into the background, causes, character and aftermath of the Anarchy in 1100s England.
This is an exciting but rarely discussed (among non-professional historians) period that connects the Norman Conquest with the Plantangenet/Avengin Empire of Henry II and his heirs.
It features a dynasty destroying shipwreck, several powerful female characters which pre-date the over-examined Eleanor of Acquitaine, and a decades-long war that left England largely rulerless.
Bottom line: Empress Maud should have a popular history book and ultimately movie or TV series. This is my effort to jump start that.
I envision this as my first series of podcasts focusing on medieval history. Right now, I feel like it will last about 10 1-hour episodes. Maybe more, maybe a little less. No promises there. And once those are wrapped up, I don’t have a second series topic picked yet. We’ll see what kind of traction I get and I’ll see if the audience has particular interests. More links coming as I get things set up. First episode in June.
As a final request: I need a title for the podcast as a whole. I’m leaning toward Illuminated Medieval right now, but I’ll take suggestions.
I’m collecting resources for the upcoming podcast. As I find things that are fun or interesting that don’t steal from my eventual launch, I’ll pass them along.
So I must recommend the podcast Medieval History for Fun and Profit. Informative and entertaining from the beginning if you’re into history done with some humor.
It is Christmas Day 1130 in Palermo, Sicily. On this day, Roger de Hauteville, a descendant of Norman Vikings who had conquered England only 64 years previous, will be crowned the King of Sicily, encompassing all of southern Italy. His creation would exist in one form or another until 1816. He was not your everyday medieval monarch, nor was his royal investiture normal.
He was crowned in the presence of an Orthodox archbishop and by a relatively successful Antipope, Anacletus II. The great-great grandson of Jews who converted to Christianity, this was before institutions like the Inquisition when young men with the wrong ancestors could still be Pope.
Roger had been Count of Sicily since he was 9 years old, under the regency of his mother, Adelaide, a northern Italian whom Roger I had married merely because she was rumored to be fertile and Roger I was getting old with no sons. That paid off.
During the regency of Roger II, Adelaide had remarried in an effort to increase her own and her child son’s potential power. Her new husband was Baldwin I of Jerusalem, King of the Crusader Kingdom. Roger II was named successor to the Kingdom of Jerusalem if Baldwin and Adelaide had no natural children. Unfortunately for Roger, this marriage was declared bigamous (Baldwin had an Armenian wife in Edessa) so he never ascended that holy but cursed throne.
Sicily at the time of Roger’s coronation was a cosmopolitan and multi-cultural place compared to the rest of Europe. Before falling to the Normans, it had been ruled and populated by Arabs and Byzantines in the chaotic wake of the Roman collapse. One of Roger’s advisors and military captains was a man named Christodulus (“Slave of Christ”). He was likely either Greek Orthodox or Western Christian converted from Islam. His title was Emir of Palermo, and was later made Emir of the Sea (Amir Al-Bahr) by Roger. This is where we get the word “Admiral.”
But as usual with history, the real interesting bits in history appear when you look at actual objects. The picture above is of Roger’s coronation mantel (a very large cape). It is now housed in the Hapsburg treasury in Vienna where it ended up after centuries of theft and royal intermarriage. You can see it there on display today.
This is a fascinating piece. First, the gold and silk work is stunning by itself. We have no idea who made this, but they were quite skilled for the time and the technology. Second, it features on both sides a lion attacking and getting the better of a camel. No need to explain that imagery. But the tree down the middle and the edge along the top are filled with Arabic and Islamic shapes and design, many common in mosques at the time.
Most interesting is the writing along the bottom. It is written in Kufic Arabic script and says:
Here is what was created in the princely treasury, filled with luck, illustration, majesty, perfection, longanimity, superiority, welcome, prosperity, liberality, shine, pride, beauty, the achievement of desires and hopes, the pleasure of days and nights, without cease or change, with glory, devotion, preservation, protection, chance, salvation, victory and capability, in the capital of Sicily, in the year 528.
528? Yes, that would be 528 Anno Hegirae, in the year of the Hegira.
This mantel was part of the Hapsburg coronation vestments through the last Austrian Emperor’s crowning in 1916.
Another still-standing example of Roger’s polyglot kingdom is the Capella Palatina in Palermo. It was built by Roger as the royal family’s chapel and features Norman decor, Byzantine architecture, as well as Islamic arches and script throughout. Interestingly, Roger placed no human figures in the church. Those now there were placed by later rulers.
After 1130, Roger consolidated his kingdom, fighting off rebellions as well as the German Emperor and the Byzantine Emperor. He also made a significant effort at grabbing large parts of the North African coast from various Muslim kingdoms. He captured Tripoli in 1146 but this was not lasting. No one in the greater European power structure liked or respected Roger, but he always beat them.
Roger died in 1154 and was succeeded as king by his son William. This monarch is known to history as William the Bad, although it appears that’s just because his barons didn’t like the fact that they couldn’t rebel against him effectively.
Want more on Roger and his Norman predecessors as well as the fate of the Norman Kingdom of Sicily? Lars Brownworth’s Norman Centuries podcast is where you want to go. At the very least, listen to one on Frederick II.
Carl Oberg 