Here it is at last: The new hottness all the kids crave, the phenomenon that is taking the mass media by storm, your peers will respect you, your parents will be confused and slightly afraid, W2W's treatment of the medieval economy. Well the first part anyway. 

This episode flows nicely from the last one, despite the seemingly different topics, because advances in methodology have had a huge impact on economic history. One might think that this was particularly true of the middle ages, but really economics were not a preoccupation until fairly recently. This means that historians of the ancient world are as in the dark as medieval historians in this area. Given the vital place the economy has in understanding how a society works, i wouldn't be surprised if all of the things you all think you know about the Greeks and Romans was flipped on its head in the next few decades. 

In any case, as I say in the episode intro, I am going to be adding a way to help me buy sources soon, so check back for that. I should also say something about the outro music. Future Kings of Nowhere were on the cusp of a huge breakthrough with this song in 2009, but then the lead singer and songwriter got cancer and by the time it went into remission it had been a number of years and priorities had changed. They still get together down in Durham every year or so to play some shows, but they seem like they will always be in the might have been camp. Which is a huge shame because their songs are totally my kind of thing. Energetic, melodic, and whitty as heck. Anyway, check them out, maybe buy an album. I didn't bother asking permission under the circumstances, so make up for my laziness with some dollaz. 

In this deeply exciting episode you will be titillated and amazed by a story of high drama. Adventure, drama, good confronting evil, the excitement of a new love. That, or I drone on about how computers have changed historical research for 40 minutes. Other, lesser podcasters might shy away from such work. But not me. I jump into the boring with both feet, and I leave my wellingtons at home. So come, join me, as we plunge headlong into the tidal estuary of dullness. We may lose our shoes, we may get malaria from the biting insects, but at least we will be methodologically sound. 

Hey Guys, just posted a minisode explaining that I will probably not be able to get an episode up this month. But while you wait for January, check out the crossover I did with Steve on the agora feed!

​https://play.acast.com/s/theagorapodcastnetwork/areyougoingmyway-part1?fbclid=IwAR2FyYkQzgq9r0KaQElGAnTOCMJ0U2F94rq2a6VY2jmj8Fi1MByRNuiQ1Fw

Greetings, Everyone!


This is a very special episode, being a recording of a talk I gave at the Sound Education Conference on November 3, 2018. The conference was a blast, and I worked hard on this talk, so I figured I would share it. As I mention in the episode, it was intended as an audiovisual extravaganza, also known as a power-point presentation, and so I encourage you all to enjoy it whilst listening to the above PDF. I took the liberty of adding the times from the audio file pertinent to each slide for the presentation. 

This is going to be the episode for this month, things have been kind of hectic. But there will be at least once more episode of recorded material from the conference, so hopefully that makes up for the extended break from the main narrative. 

Below, I am sharing some of the pictures from the conference. They will be doing it again next year, and I hope even more of you can attend in 2019. The episode itself will be after the pictures. I hope you enjoy!

Check out my fancy Headshot!

The Harvard School of Divinity. Sadly I am informed that Divine never attended. 

Amongst the many absurd things I volunteered to do, I organized the Agora table. It turned out pretty well! Hey look, a number of green trebuchet t-shirts... Want one? Please?

​Also: Travis Dow, with us in spirit.

Friend of the Show Kristaps of the Easter Border Podcast in a semi-consensual selfie with the cardboard icon of Travis Dow. 

Friend of the show and patron, his holiness Steve Guerra, finder of the sacred sour cream and onion potato chip of St Joe, and creator of the history of the papacy podcast, in his natural environment. 

The tiny man on the left is Zachary Davis, who organized the conference. He is wonderful! check out the Ministry of Ideas, his podcast. On the right is some guy named Dan Farlin? He has a show about punk music or something, I wasn't really paying attention. 

Something like a half of the entire Agora Podcast Network. 

​After five years, we have finally done it! we are having a Q&A. In retrospect now I am a little nervous about a few of the topics, but hopefully you will all enjoy this. Please don't light me on fire.

Corporate princesses on the left of us, grimdark slaughter to the right, how will we find out how the commoners really lived in the middle ages? Lots of research! Listening to this episode is a start I guess. 

​In the episode I mention the archaeological remains of dead villages. here's a few pictures. 

​Today we finally look at the peasantry. After more than a year of promising, here we are.

Steve Guerra of the History of the Papacy Podcast have a nice chat about pope Gregory the Great. Topics include: Slavery in the middle ages, The Italian Wars, the relationship of the church with religious minorities and, on occasion, Gregory the Great. 

Monks! They wear uncomfortable clothes, they solve mysteries, they make salads. What more could you want?

​In this episode we begin to discuss the clergy, one of the three great classes of the middle ages, by looking at the basic hierarchy of the church.