1
00:00:11,680 --> 00:00:18,040
Welcome to Big Tent. Live events. The Lockdown Live Online event series brought to you by Torch,

2
00:00:18,040 --> 00:00:25,540
the Oxford Research Centre with Humanities as part of the humanities cultural programme itself, one of the founding stones for the future.

3
00:00:25,540 --> 00:00:29,170
Stephen A. Schwartzmann Centre for the Humanities.

4
00:00:29,170 --> 00:00:35,290
My name is Wes Williams and I'm a professor of French literature at the University of Oxford, a fellow and Edmund Hall.

5
00:00:35,290 --> 00:00:39,130
And I'm also the knowledge exchange champion at Torch.

6
00:00:39,130 --> 00:00:44,770
The Big Tent Live Event series is our way of bringing together once a week researchers and students,

7
00:00:44,770 --> 00:00:49,990
performers and practitioners from across the different humanities disciplines.

8
00:00:49,990 --> 00:00:54,130
We're bringing you this event programme online while we're all keeping our distance,

9
00:00:54,130 --> 00:00:58,190
and we hope that you're all safe and well during this difficult time.

10
00:00:58,190 --> 00:01:06,110
Our aim here is to explore together important subjects and ask challenging questions about areas such as the environment,

11
00:01:06,110 --> 00:01:11,600
medical, humanities, ethics and A.I. The public, the private and the common good.

12
00:01:11,600 --> 00:01:15,770
And we will celebrate storytelling and music. Performance and poetry.

13
00:01:15,770 --> 00:01:23,390
Identity, history and community. If you'd like to put any questions forward to US speakers tonight.

14
00:01:23,390 --> 00:01:27,260
During the event, please put them in the comments box on YouTube.

15
00:01:27,260 --> 00:01:34,130
We encourage you to submit these as early as possible, and I can then ensure that they inform and enrich the Q&A part of our discussion.

16
00:01:34,130 --> 00:01:39,440
In about half an hour or so. Now onto our excellent speakers.

17
00:01:39,440 --> 00:01:44,270
I'm delighted to welcome into the big tent today, Marion Turner,

18
00:01:44,270 --> 00:01:49,970
tutorial fellow of Jesus College, an associate professor of English at the University of Oxford,

19
00:01:49,970 --> 00:01:58,800
and celebrated author Matthew Neil and embarrass them a little by saying a little bit more about them before we start the conversation.

20
00:01:58,800 --> 00:02:06,570
Professor Marion Turner works on late mediaeval literature and culture, focussing especially on Geoffrey Chaucer.

21
00:02:06,570 --> 00:02:15,270
Her most recent book, Chaucer A European Life, argues for the importance of placing Chaucer in multilingual and international contexts.

22
00:02:15,270 --> 00:02:21,560
She traces his journeys across Europe and his immersion in global trade routes and exchanges.

23
00:02:21,560 --> 00:02:33,990
It was named as Book of the Year 2019 by the Times, The Sunday Times and The Tearless, and it was shortlisted for the Woolston History Prise in 2020.

24
00:02:33,990 --> 00:02:41,580
Matthew Neil was born in London. The son of two writers and the grandson of two others from his earliest years.

25
00:02:41,580 --> 00:02:48,230
Matthew was fascinated by different cultural worlds, both contemporary and from the past.

26
00:02:48,230 --> 00:02:55,730
After studying at Latimer Upper School in London, he read Modern History at Modelling College Oxford and after his university years,

27
00:02:55,730 --> 00:03:03,010
he began travelling, seeing diverse cultures at first hand in Asia, Europe and Latin America.

28
00:03:03,010 --> 00:03:07,840
Matthew's books include Inside Rose's Kingdom. English Passengers.

29
00:03:07,840 --> 00:03:12,450
When We Were Romans an Atheist. History of Belief and Rome.

30
00:03:12,450 --> 00:03:21,670
A history in seven seconds. His latest novel, Pilgrims', explores mediæval life shaped by religious laws as well as personal battles.

31
00:03:21,670 --> 00:03:28,540
It follows a fascinating show, Syrian cast of Characters on a journey from England to Rome.

32
00:03:28,540 --> 00:03:37,270
Tonight, Marion and Matthew discuss their recent books. Matthew's novel, Pilgrim, Marion's biography, Jozo A European Life.

33
00:03:37,270 --> 00:03:42,100
They explore the questions raised by each of them differently accented discussions of

34
00:03:42,100 --> 00:03:48,250
mediaeval travel ranging from colonialism in Wales to the expulsion of the Jews from England,

35
00:03:48,250 --> 00:03:54,580
from diplomacy and cultural exchange to holy pilgrimage, both real and imagined.

36
00:03:54,580 --> 00:04:02,160
What are the questions underpinning their work and indeed this conversation today is that of similarity and difference between times,

37
00:04:02,160 --> 00:04:09,910
languages, genres, national, confessional and political identities between then and now.

38
00:04:09,910 --> 00:04:14,340
Having read most of these two books, I'm sure we're in for a real treat.

39
00:04:14,340 --> 00:04:19,300
And so without further ado, I hand over to you, Marian, to get the conversation started.

40
00:04:19,300 --> 00:04:24,690
Thank you. Thank you. It's such a pleasure to be here and to be talking to Matthew.

41
00:04:24,690 --> 00:04:32,010
And I really look forward to the whole discussion and the questions later. But I thought I'd start by asking you, Matthew,

42
00:04:32,010 --> 00:04:38,040
why the mediæval I know you've written such a variety of different books, but I think this is your first foray.

43
00:04:38,040 --> 00:04:40,560
You're really deeply into the mediaeval period.

44
00:04:40,560 --> 00:04:48,540
And I wondered what it was that first drew you into the 13th century and made you want to tell a mediaeval story.

45
00:04:48,540 --> 00:05:01,260
It was really. I'd been researching the history of Rome for my last book, the non-fiction book, Roman History and Sudden Sackings.

46
00:05:01,260 --> 00:05:11,790
And one of the many books that I looked at was about mediaeval pilgrims, mediaeval pilgrimage to Rome.

47
00:05:11,790 --> 00:05:16,470
And I think it was looking at the 13th century in particular.

48
00:05:16,470 --> 00:05:29,730
And I'm always interested in journeys, but also in a journey that's made not just for an ordinary reason, but really for in pursuit of an idea.

49
00:05:29,730 --> 00:05:35,910
And it occurred to me that pilgrimage was a very interesting subject.

50
00:05:35,910 --> 00:05:44,640
And I was rather horrified by the thought of having to write something about the mediaeval period by which I knew very little.

51
00:05:44,640 --> 00:05:53,250
Aside from what I'd just been reading to do with Rome. But I decided that it would be I'd give it a go.

52
00:05:53,250 --> 00:05:57,100
And I went to I had to spend months.

53
00:05:57,100 --> 00:06:05,610
So I went to the British Library in London and read everything I possibly could about mediaeval England.

54
00:06:05,610 --> 00:06:10,290
And in the 13th century, I actually began, of course, with Chaucer.

55
00:06:10,290 --> 00:06:12,210
First I read Chaucer.

56
00:06:12,210 --> 00:06:23,550
And when I read the Prioress tale that that gave me my date because I knew that I wanted to write it just before the expulsion of the Jews.

57
00:06:23,550 --> 00:06:32,640
And I must say, the whole process of learning about the mediaeval period was fantastically rich for me.

58
00:06:32,640 --> 00:06:39,900
I can see why it's such a popular era, because it's there's something extraordinary about it.

59
00:06:39,900 --> 00:06:47,430
Does it sort of earthiness at the same time this? I began to realise that actually it's a very modern era.

60
00:06:47,430 --> 00:06:52,990
It's people. And the evidence that they had seems very different.

61
00:06:52,990 --> 00:06:57,900
But the they were they were trying to understand the world on less information.

62
00:06:57,900 --> 00:07:04,290
But actually, the deductions they make are as intelligence anybody's. It's just they have less basis.

63
00:07:04,290 --> 00:07:11,070
Yes. And I think that often people find that the mediaeval era is not what they thought it was.

64
00:07:11,070 --> 00:07:18,480
So once you find out more, you realise that I mean, anything in particular that people, rich people,

65
00:07:18,480 --> 00:07:23,040
more educated people lived in a much more international way than people tend to imagine.

66
00:07:23,040 --> 00:07:32,070
So I found that people were very surprised to have, for example, that Chaucer travelled very widely, but he went twice to Italy.

67
00:07:32,070 --> 00:07:38,280
He went to Spain, went very often to France, but also that within England itself,

68
00:07:38,280 --> 00:07:42,630
you could, for instance, buy spices that had come all the way from Indonesia,

69
00:07:42,630 --> 00:07:49,950
that England was on this global trade route at this time on the peripheries of these routes that were going right across the known world.

70
00:07:49,950 --> 00:07:59,910
And I think that that sense of that actually people could live very cosmopolitan lives is is often very surprising for people.

71
00:07:59,910 --> 00:08:04,830
Yes. And in some ways, the island of Britain was more international,

72
00:08:04,830 --> 00:08:13,080
more more cosmopolitan than it became later because it was for many, many were bilingual.

73
00:08:13,080 --> 00:08:17,580
Many were trilingual with Latin, French, English.

74
00:08:17,580 --> 00:08:26,360
You had a whole other diverse languages being spoken by large numbers of people, Celtic languages.

75
00:08:26,360 --> 00:08:31,170
It's it's a complicated, fascinating time. Yeah, indeed.

76
00:08:31,170 --> 00:08:38,580
And Chaucer, like all other educated man at the time, spoke English, French and Latin, but also, crucially, Italian.

77
00:08:38,580 --> 00:08:42,180
So it is, of course. It's so important to your book.

78
00:08:42,180 --> 00:08:49,650
But the fact that he spoke Italian really enabled him to make enormous changes in English poetry.

79
00:08:49,650 --> 00:08:58,770
And because he spoke Italian, he was chosen to go on these diplomatic missions to Italy and was able then to read Dante Petrarch,

80
00:08:58,770 --> 00:09:06,870
the cacio and reading those poets really changed what he could do in poetry and allowed him to develop new poetic forms.

81
00:09:06,870 --> 00:09:10,920
And that really changed what English poetry as a whole could do.

82
00:09:10,920 --> 00:09:16,020
So I think that multilingual, that multilingual environment is absolutely so important.

83
00:09:16,020 --> 00:09:20,030
And as you say, I mean, that's something that actually we've we've lost so much and that.

84
00:09:20,030 --> 00:09:28,050
Now, a lot of English people are renowned for that monolingual educations at Los Vesser.

85
00:09:28,050 --> 00:09:35,760
We end up being very complacent about being able to speak English. But in the 14th century, in my era, people didn't think like that at all.

86
00:09:35,760 --> 00:09:40,860
They knew they had to speak other languages if anyone else is going to understand them.

87
00:09:40,860 --> 00:09:45,330
But I wanted to go back to your your mentioning very early on in your research,

88
00:09:45,330 --> 00:09:50,640
you were rereading Chaucer and reading the piracies tale because, of course,

89
00:09:50,640 --> 00:09:54,120
one of the things that separates the era of pilgrims,

90
00:09:54,120 --> 00:10:04,730
your book from Chaucer's era is the expulsion of the Jews in 12 90 as a really seismic and appalling event.

91
00:10:04,730 --> 00:10:10,380
That that was a marker in in English history.

92
00:10:10,380 --> 00:10:14,190
So when I was when I was writing the biography of Chaucer.

93
00:10:14,190 --> 00:10:23,190
One thing that I was very interested in was his trip to Novar in northern Spain now, but then an independent country, because in Navarre,

94
00:10:23,190 --> 00:10:31,020
he went somewhere where he experienced a kind of multicultural society where there were significant Jewish and Muslim populations,

95
00:10:31,020 --> 00:10:39,240
as well as a Christian population. And they were all, you know, rubbing along together reasonably successfully at that point.

96
00:10:39,240 --> 00:10:46,470
But in England itself, the traces of the Jewish population were still there, of course, in all Jewry and so on.

97
00:10:46,470 --> 00:10:52,410
But the Jews denounced any kind of anti-Semitic story that such as the IRS tale.

98
00:10:52,410 --> 00:11:02,820
But the Jews had had gone. And reading your book, the which is that just pre expulsion, that is really in many ways the heart of of your book?

99
00:11:02,820 --> 00:11:07,140
I think in some ways, yes. Absolutely. Yes. Yes.

100
00:11:07,140 --> 00:11:19,980
But I wonder if you if you thought very consciously about the fact that you are juxtaposing voluntary travel with forced migrations in your book.

101
00:11:19,980 --> 00:11:21,420
I suppose. Yes.

102
00:11:21,420 --> 00:11:34,440
I mean, I think that one of the things that fascinated me about the 13th century is that it it it does seem to be I read Kath the same joke,

103
00:11:34,440 --> 00:11:44,390
Mansfield's. Well, I'm going to fail to remember a book tighten up at the public penance.

104
00:11:44,390 --> 00:11:50,820
If you come across that extraordinary book on on extreme religion, mostly in France,

105
00:11:50,820 --> 00:12:06,390
but she looks at how really people were really controlled by the church in some ways by public shaming in terms of confession.

106
00:12:06,390 --> 00:12:14,350
And also in terms of pilgrimage. So people actually were often forced to to to go on pilgrimage.

107
00:12:14,350 --> 00:12:21,750
It might be only a pilgrimage to the next door next or village, or it might be as far as Rome.

108
00:12:21,750 --> 00:12:36,480
But I was fascinated by this time of hyper intense Christianity when people's beliefs were so strong that a married couple would

109
00:12:36,480 --> 00:12:48,840
would fear that they'd go to hell because they'd had sex on the wrong day of the week where the beliefs were so powerful.

110
00:12:48,840 --> 00:12:54,360
And I wanted to reflect that. And that was one of the things I was interested in,

111
00:12:54,360 --> 00:13:01,170
was also that one of the characters is actually is going to Rome because he's punched and Abbott's

112
00:13:01,170 --> 00:13:08,640
on the nose and he's obliged to go because otherwise he he'll be in probably lose his property.

113
00:13:08,640 --> 00:13:17,400
He'll be tried to heal. It was a at a time when pilgrimage was both voluntary.

114
00:13:17,400 --> 00:13:24,330
For some, it was a kind of holiday. Really, it was an opportunity to to enjoy a break and see the world.

115
00:13:24,330 --> 00:13:28,920
For others, it was really done out of fear of hell.

116
00:13:28,920 --> 00:13:33,330
And for others, it was forced upon them. Yeah,

117
00:13:33,330 --> 00:13:39,180
I think I think that's really interesting as well to that that sense that there's a spectrum where the

118
00:13:39,180 --> 00:13:46,500
we might be easy to see that the forced migration of of the Jews as completely different from up.

119
00:13:46,500 --> 00:13:53,430
Of course, a voluntary trip, but that there are lots of people who were feeling who were forced to go on these trips,

120
00:13:53,430 --> 00:13:57,900
not as brutally as as the Jews on their expulsion,

121
00:13:57,900 --> 00:14:07,020
but that the sense of that people weren't going out of that, out of a completely free choice, that people felt impelled to go to expiate their sins.

122
00:14:07,020 --> 00:14:14,730
Of course, you've got characters who are doing it because they they feel that their sins have caused terrible illnesses and people they love.

123
00:14:14,730 --> 00:14:20,280
And if they go on pilgrimage, they might get forgiven. And I think that the way that you get across that,

124
00:14:20,280 --> 00:14:25,290
that people have very different motivations for their journeys is really striking

125
00:14:25,290 --> 00:14:29,010
through your your really interesting range of characters in that sense,

126
00:14:29,010 --> 00:14:36,990
that people they're all going for very different reasons, some of them very funny, like the cat.

127
00:14:36,990 --> 00:14:47,970
One of the very serious. Yes. Yes. And I suppose I was also interested in how people negotiate the release of their time.

128
00:14:47,970 --> 00:14:54,960
So for some, the beliefs of their time are absolutely hard and fast.

129
00:14:54,960 --> 00:14:59,250
And they they accept them 100 percent. And others, you can.

130
00:14:59,250 --> 00:15:09,930
I'm having my readings suggested that there were some people who, even though they were thorough believers in in the Christianity of the time,

131
00:15:09,930 --> 00:15:15,150
nevertheless had a slight distance between themselves and the beliefs.

132
00:15:15,150 --> 00:15:19,230
They felt they had a confidence. These were usually the the richer, more educated.

133
00:15:19,230 --> 00:15:29,220
They had just a sense of being able to distance themselves a little bit and pursue their own motives or whatever at the same time.

134
00:15:29,220 --> 00:15:35,490
Yes. And I think that across the mediaeval period, there's always lots of reform movements,

135
00:15:35,490 --> 00:15:45,480
some of which turn turn into so-called heresies and breakaway groups that some of which are trying to reform the church from from within.

136
00:15:45,480 --> 00:15:53,220
And, of course, it crosses time. You have Wickliffe and Longy and a lot of questioning of of different elements of church teaching,

137
00:15:53,220 --> 00:16:01,260
but also very much of the corruption of church practise, which everyone is criticising church practise at the time.

138
00:16:01,260 --> 00:16:06,230
And that can be a very different thing from actually challenging the sacraments.

139
00:16:06,230 --> 00:16:12,750
The, you know, the corruption that that took place, particularly around things like indulgences and pilgrimage,

140
00:16:12,750 --> 00:16:16,770
is is something that many people were very upset about.

141
00:16:16,770 --> 00:16:24,330
And would you see a lot of people criticising pilgrimage and the idea that it's often taking advantage of of the vulnerable in various ways?

142
00:16:24,330 --> 00:16:30,660
I think we also see is being done to some of the characters in your in your book.

143
00:16:30,660 --> 00:16:37,000
Yes. No, I can see that. I think there was a there was always a kind of.

144
00:16:37,000 --> 00:16:44,150
An idealisation of the church and the disappointment that it rarely quite met up with the ideals expected.

145
00:16:44,150 --> 00:16:56,880
And one can see the Reformation appearing in ghostly form with heresies many times over the preceding centuries.

146
00:16:56,880 --> 00:17:09,730
So. But I also felt that actually my impression was that Catholicism was much broader, much more open, much more flexible.

147
00:17:09,730 --> 00:17:13,130
Its changes with the Reformation in these early times,

148
00:17:13,130 --> 00:17:21,150
it seems to include all sorts of ideas that were excluded later on, which I also find very interesting.

149
00:17:21,150 --> 00:17:26,280
Yeah, I think that's absolutely true, that it kind of goes in waves, doesn't it, were various points.

150
00:17:26,280 --> 00:17:32,910
This there's crackdown's and then other points. There's a much more kind of liberal and broad sense of what it's okay to believe.

151
00:17:32,910 --> 00:17:35,100
And even in the 14th century,

152
00:17:35,100 --> 00:17:43,770
you have this huge upsurge in vernacular mysticism where lots of people are trying different ways to have this more personal relationship with God.

153
00:17:43,770 --> 00:17:53,670
And then after Longy gets going and becomes associated with with rebellion, then there's a there's a crack down in that in the 15th century.

154
00:17:53,670 --> 00:17:59,520
But there is, I think, a lot of variety of belief still in interest this time.

155
00:17:59,520 --> 00:18:07,290
I mean, of course, that sense of of tolerance within Christianity is then set very sharply in opposition

156
00:18:07,290 --> 00:18:11,550
to the brutality that we often see being enacted against other religions as as again,

157
00:18:11,550 --> 00:18:16,620
I think you you showed very, very powerfully in pilgrims.

158
00:18:16,620 --> 00:18:25,470
But I think also I mean, one of the other things that I thought was really powerfully in pilgrims was that as well as writing a really

159
00:18:25,470 --> 00:18:33,060
interesting me about the relationship between Jewish people and Christians within England and Europe,

160
00:18:33,060 --> 00:18:41,610
you also looked at aspects of English colonialism in Wales and wrote about that kind of journeying.

161
00:18:41,610 --> 00:18:45,420
So as well as the pilgrimage, which stretches your book as a whole.

162
00:18:45,420 --> 00:18:56,280
There's also a kind of segment where you're looking at the kinds of the kinds of journeys that are going on across the English and Welsh border.

163
00:18:56,280 --> 00:18:59,040
And I think that, again,

164
00:18:59,040 --> 00:19:07,770
we often it's often easy not to think about the colonialism of this era because so much attention is given to the colonialism of later eras.

165
00:19:07,770 --> 00:19:15,450
But it's very important for us to think about the different waves of of Take-Over that have happened in these islands.

166
00:19:15,450 --> 00:19:25,140
And I just wondered if you wanted to talk a bit about why it was important to you to to emphasise that aspect of of Englishness?

167
00:19:25,140 --> 00:19:27,210
Well, I think it was partly the timing,

168
00:19:27,210 --> 00:19:37,440
because this was the year I'm writing about time so soon after the the annexation of North Wales and the kingdom.

169
00:19:37,440 --> 00:19:41,440
So I think the more.

170
00:19:41,440 --> 00:19:47,070
But initially, I think I was just going to refer to it through the English pilgrim characters.

171
00:19:47,070 --> 00:19:58,260
But then it seemed so important that I realised that I felt I had to have a completely different perspective on it all from a Welsh Arabize.

172
00:19:58,260 --> 00:20:05,250
And I think I was also drawn to it because in an earlier novel, English passengers,

173
00:20:05,250 --> 00:20:16,020
I was looking at the British in Australia and I was struck that the process was rather similar in many ways.

174
00:20:16,020 --> 00:20:24,180
A lot of it was less about a grand plan and more about individual careers,

175
00:20:24,180 --> 00:20:33,090
which people would try and gain add to their status by going somewhere else.

176
00:20:33,090 --> 00:20:39,490
And with often vast consequences for the people who happen to be in there somewhere else.

177
00:20:39,490 --> 00:20:52,780
But in the early 19th century, Tasmania and the late 13th century, Wales seemed really more similar than I would ever have expectations.

178
00:20:52,780 --> 00:21:02,080
Yeah, I think I find that very striking that the comparison you're making there, because I really loved your really but English passengers.

179
00:21:02,080 --> 00:21:11,140
I think the way that these two books sat in very different eras do show kind of recurring patterns is extremely interesting.

180
00:21:11,140 --> 00:21:20,950
I think it also reminds us of that the changing nature of borders that people tend to think about

181
00:21:20,950 --> 00:21:28,360
England and Great Britain and the British Isles as much more fixed than than they really are.

182
00:21:28,360 --> 00:21:39,090
So that back in back in interest this day, that was at that point the English king ruled lots of different parts of France as well.

183
00:21:39,090 --> 00:21:47,140
Aquitaine Calais and those borders were changing all the time, as well as the border with Scotland, the border with Wales.

184
00:21:47,140 --> 00:21:51,550
The things that go on in Ireland that these things were were changing all the time.

185
00:21:51,550 --> 00:22:00,010
People didn't have a sense of a nation state that that people tended to get in in later eras.

186
00:22:00,010 --> 00:22:04,690
One thing that I found was, um, when I was getting the maps drawn for my book,

187
00:22:04,690 --> 00:22:10,210
it was so difficult for me to get the Europe map because I was I had to decide at what point am

188
00:22:10,210 --> 00:22:16,570
I going to freeze the map because I can't have a map of this is Europe during Chaucer's life,

189
00:22:16,570 --> 00:22:21,490
because it wasn't the same across his whole life. The borders changed so many times.

190
00:22:21,490 --> 00:22:24,160
So you had to kind of pick a date and say, okay, well,

191
00:22:24,160 --> 00:22:32,500
it's going to be after this treaty and before that treaty so that I'm going to put the borders here because they these they they changed all the time,

192
00:22:32,500 --> 00:22:41,890
you know. And I felt right. That came across very strongly in in your book was the is something very familiar there.

193
00:22:41,890 --> 00:22:52,750
Is there a policy, political figures who basically can whip people up against foreigners and people who

194
00:22:52,750 --> 00:23:00,730
are seen to be unscrupulous foreigners causing trouble and self-serving individuals,

195
00:23:00,730 --> 00:23:05,890
which seems a very modern political approach, sadly.

196
00:23:05,890 --> 00:23:14,890
And at the same time, you have much more openness towards Europe than one finds in later centuries.

197
00:23:14,890 --> 00:23:24,740
I would say maybe in part, I'm sure, because a large part of the ruling elite was so involved with Europe that they were coming and going.

198
00:23:24,740 --> 00:23:31,720
That they, as you said, it's a it's a kingdom stretches across the channel.

199
00:23:31,720 --> 00:23:40,620
And I feel that it was a very different England after the Reformation, the Spanish Armada,

200
00:23:40,620 --> 00:23:50,890
the idea of a new identity becomes fixed in which Europe is purely something other and perilous and.

201
00:23:50,890 --> 00:23:58,420
Threats, really? Yes. I think part of that, as you're perhaps implying with that post reformation marker,

202
00:23:58,420 --> 00:24:03,220
is that Catholic Europe in particular becomes defined as very says southern

203
00:24:03,220 --> 00:24:07,840
Europe broadly becomes defined as very other to become the Protestant north,

204
00:24:07,840 --> 00:24:19,150
confirmed culturally. Whereas in in much the mediaeval era, there is still that that pull to Rome and to that sense of of Christendom,

205
00:24:19,150 --> 00:24:23,380
which for some people are often to get very antagonistic towards Rome.

206
00:24:23,380 --> 00:24:27,610
But there is that general sense of being part of that that bigger picture.

207
00:24:27,610 --> 00:24:33,040
And I think that that's the sense of that being a kind of identity.

208
00:24:33,040 --> 00:24:39,280
Where people did think of themselves as being Europeans is is important.

209
00:24:39,280 --> 00:24:47,780
And I suppose that that in general, I'm not talking about the the peasantry, the the the ordinary people,

210
00:24:47,780 --> 00:24:54,820
but the people with whom Chaucer was mixing that if you were at court throughout choices to just treacherous his lifetime,

211
00:24:54,820 --> 00:24:58,930
there were three different queens in one came from. Hey, no one came from Bohemia.

212
00:24:58,930 --> 00:25:04,210
One came from France. And they brought their retinues with them.

213
00:25:04,210 --> 00:25:08,410
Of people who brought that poetry and their art from different places in Europe.

214
00:25:08,410 --> 00:25:10,420
And when you say you travelled around Europe,

215
00:25:10,420 --> 00:25:17,160
he would he would meet people that he knew from the English court and who had connexions with people that that he knew.

216
00:25:17,160 --> 00:25:21,070
And when he went to Novar in northern Spain, as I was saying before,

217
00:25:21,070 --> 00:25:27,400
that there were some things that must have seemed very alien to him, the fact that there were these Jewish and Muslim communities there.

218
00:25:27,400 --> 00:25:32,650
But, you know, the king was a French speaking king who who had been a patron of my show.

219
00:25:32,650 --> 00:25:35,500
The great French poet who was on Chaucer's great influence,

220
00:25:35,500 --> 00:25:44,860
says that there's a kind of international culture that was when right across lots of different European cities.

221
00:25:44,860 --> 00:25:52,210
And I think when when Chaucer was reading texture it from all over Europe, those textural connected in different ways.

222
00:25:52,210 --> 00:25:57,100
One thing that I find very interesting is that when Chaucer chose to write in English,

223
00:25:57,100 --> 00:26:03,940
he was following a European fashion because he was really felt wouldn't be Italian desire to write in that Tuscan vernacular.

224
00:26:03,940 --> 00:26:11,560
So what seems to be a very nationalistic thing to do was, conversely, quite an international thing to do as well.

225
00:26:11,560 --> 00:26:13,180
I think that's really interesting.

226
00:26:13,180 --> 00:26:20,770
But I think also one of the things that I'm fascinated by is not just thinking about that highest level of culture, but to the core culture.

227
00:26:20,770 --> 00:26:23,230
But that really, for Chaucer, even more importantly,

228
00:26:23,230 --> 00:26:29,060
was the kind of city trading cultures that were stretching across Europe and the rest of the world,

229
00:26:29,060 --> 00:26:34,330
that that's why we see so much exchange happening with the products that we're

230
00:26:34,330 --> 00:26:38,200
travelling from all over the world that I find that very interesting thinking about.

231
00:26:38,200 --> 00:26:42,040
Where did objects come from? Where did the metals come from?

232
00:26:42,040 --> 00:26:45,220
The English money was made of Vladik. The fabrics come from that.

233
00:26:45,220 --> 00:26:50,300
They were making cushions, outtalking the way that things were travelling back and forth.

234
00:26:50,300 --> 00:26:54,310
And I think that's a really, really interesting thing to think about.

235
00:26:54,310 --> 00:27:00,850
Yeah. That that constant exchange with English will going out all over Europe at this time.

236
00:27:00,850 --> 00:27:15,910
Yes. Yes. No, it's it's fascinating. And I suppose really it's it's a time when so I'm losing myself here.

237
00:27:15,910 --> 00:27:19,750
I had a thought and it's gone well, while you're getting that thought.

238
00:27:19,750 --> 00:27:26,260
But one thing that I want to make sure I have time to ask you about is the way in which you researched 13th century Rome,

239
00:27:26,260 --> 00:27:30,400
because I felt like I learnt so much from your Rome chapters.

240
00:27:30,400 --> 00:27:36,640
And it helped me to imagine mediaeval Rome in a way that I've never been able to so vividly before.

241
00:27:36,640 --> 00:27:43,600
The texture of your writing was really brilliant. I thought that I'd really be very interested to hear what you did.

242
00:27:43,600 --> 00:27:50,830
You did you walk around the places. How much of the traces of mediaeval Rome can you still find that you live in Rome yourself?

243
00:27:50,830 --> 00:27:55,450
Yes. Well, I'd written this book which looks at mediaeval Rome.

244
00:27:55,450 --> 00:28:05,090
It's it's based on seven seconds. So I was focussing on Rome before ten eighty four when the Normans attacked Rome a bit.

245
00:28:05,090 --> 00:28:09,010
And I think I just read everything I could.

246
00:28:09,010 --> 00:28:21,800
There's a marvellous book by Krauthammer which on Rome from the age of Constantine, right through to be the age of the 14th century really.

247
00:28:21,800 --> 00:28:25,990
And that has tremendous detail. But also Rome is spoilt.

248
00:28:25,990 --> 00:28:33,340
So there's a lot of things still here. You can find them still sometimes where you wouldn't expect to find them.

249
00:28:33,340 --> 00:28:40,510
So this era already, Rome was like a kind of vast sum, you mean?

250
00:28:40,510 --> 00:28:48,130
It was filled with fortified towers, partly for defence, but mostly for status.

251
00:28:48,130 --> 00:28:58,170
Everybody wanted one. So. One near Piazza Navona, which is still marked as the Millers Tower because it was always a successful Miller,

252
00:28:58,170 --> 00:29:02,390
and if everyone else was gonna have a tower, he was going to have a tower.

253
00:29:02,390 --> 00:29:10,440
And some of these towers are actually half lost in the in this the structure of major buildings.

254
00:29:10,440 --> 00:29:12,420
So if you look carefully,

255
00:29:12,420 --> 00:29:22,650
you'll see a corner of a 19th century building that doesn't match and you realise it's an old tower that has been surrounded by later accretions.

256
00:29:22,650 --> 00:29:28,380
And so, you know, I, I just I read everything I could.

257
00:29:28,380 --> 00:29:35,820
And I was particularly great on that. And just trying to reimagine what it would have been like.

258
00:29:35,820 --> 00:29:41,250
Well, I love that sense of finding the the tower with the 19th century bits stuck onto it.

259
00:29:41,250 --> 00:29:46,410
I mean that because one thing that I found very important for me when I was researching the biography

260
00:29:46,410 --> 00:29:50,850
was to try to do some of that that kind of footstep and try to follow engrosses footsteps,

261
00:29:50,850 --> 00:29:58,530
trying to to see what what still remained of the things that he had seen, the art that he'd see in the buildings he'd seen.

262
00:29:58,530 --> 00:30:03,930
And I mean, one of the one of the very striking moments for me, similar to what you're describing now,

263
00:30:03,930 --> 00:30:12,750
was when I went to Milan and Bonalbo vis Conti's great palace and church, there's just this little bit.

264
00:30:12,750 --> 00:30:16,350
It's called something like San Giovanni in called cars, something like that.

265
00:30:16,350 --> 00:30:20,330
And it's on a traffic island now. It is.

266
00:30:20,330 --> 00:30:28,580
It's just that you find this kind of little room that you can go down into the crypt, but then you come up and there's just traffic roar.

267
00:30:28,580 --> 00:30:34,890
And it's this kind of strange little trace. But but there is that trace still there.

268
00:30:34,890 --> 00:30:42,710
But it then and you go to other places where everything seems to be so, so perfectly preserved.

269
00:30:42,710 --> 00:30:48,690
You know, you really enter into the young or you feel like you're entering into that the mediaeval past.

270
00:30:48,690 --> 00:30:55,680
But but much more often. I mean, as you see it very much in London, that the traces of the different eras are all piled on top of each other.

271
00:30:55,680 --> 00:31:02,730
And that's very energising as well. Of the ways you can what you can pull out from under those traces.

272
00:31:02,730 --> 00:31:08,520
Yes. Yes. And Rome is spoilt in that respect and that the Romans tend to leave things.

273
00:31:08,520 --> 00:31:14,910
And so even though some things have been destroyed, an awful lot has survived.

274
00:31:14,910 --> 00:31:19,320
Milan, I think, has had a rougher history. So there's much less.

275
00:31:19,320 --> 00:31:24,930
Just just to see what it look like. You did very well in Nevada. You found a lot up.

276
00:31:24,930 --> 00:31:30,000
Yeah. I mean, that was a really interesting journey. I think that that's a journey of choice.

277
00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:35,610
This has been very much neglected and people hadn't thought very much about it.

278
00:31:35,610 --> 00:31:40,740
One of the very striking things for me was going to early today and finding that that street

279
00:31:40,740 --> 00:31:47,340
of the Jews that was leading up to the the palace where is safe conduct was was issued by.

280
00:31:47,340 --> 00:31:50,700
One of the things that I that I did on that trip was I tried to.

281
00:31:50,700 --> 00:31:58,320
I went to the same time of year that Chaucer went. So I went in February and I thought this was a slightly kind of silly thing to do, probably.

282
00:31:58,320 --> 00:32:03,540
But then when I was in Rome, surveyor lays it in the cave, the mountain passes.

283
00:32:03,540 --> 00:32:13,350
And it really helped me come imaginatively to try to enter into his his experience because there was this kind of misty little town in the mountains.

284
00:32:13,350 --> 00:32:15,960
And I thought, gosh, imagine if I'd written here, you know,

285
00:32:15,960 --> 00:32:21,630
over the Pyrenees and there were bears and wolves and really to try to think about what that

286
00:32:21,630 --> 00:32:26,520
must have been like in winter and if the experiences that he had as a traveller that I mean,

287
00:32:26,520 --> 00:32:35,120
that was what I think one extraordinary experience. Another one was that he was he was taken prisoner, one teenager and he was ransomed.

288
00:32:35,120 --> 00:32:39,780
There's so many really interesting, different different kinds of journeys.

289
00:32:39,780 --> 00:32:46,530
But I think that if I just move back to your book and think about the different kinds of journeys that you're talking about,

290
00:32:46,530 --> 00:32:51,250
because also I think the journeys are very different, depending on the person who's going through that.

291
00:32:51,250 --> 00:32:59,610
But I was really pleased to see that you focussed a lot on women, on female characters, as well as male characters in your book.

292
00:32:59,610 --> 00:33:06,630
And I just wondered I wondered if you'd like to to talk a little bit about your Marjorie camp inspiration.

293
00:33:06,630 --> 00:33:07,470
Yes. Well, I mean,

294
00:33:07,470 --> 00:33:17,910
I think the characters were inspired by either people who reasons for going on a pilgrimage or real people who I read about and Marjorie Camp.

295
00:33:17,910 --> 00:33:24,790
Obviously, she's a major figure because she's the first English woman.

296
00:33:24,790 --> 00:33:37,490
First you did about an autobiography. And she's a phenomenal figure, rather irritating in many ways, but phenomenal at the same time.

297
00:33:37,490 --> 00:33:48,520
I'm I'm well, I also came across. Lucy did Twain, who I used as Lucy to born, and she was just such an extraordinary figure.

298
00:33:48,520 --> 00:34:00,120
I think I came across. And in various periodicals initially, and then I read everything I could about her and her life was so extraordinary,

299
00:34:00,120 --> 00:34:12,240
it also said a lot about mediaeval divorce and the whole process of of mediaeval law, which was so, so different and seemed so complicated.

300
00:34:12,240 --> 00:34:16,350
It's and I found that fascinating, too. Yeah.

301
00:34:16,350 --> 00:34:20,730
I think it's fascinating when you do see that some mediaeval women, often the more privileged ones,

302
00:34:20,730 --> 00:34:26,030
but they were able to carve out quite a lot of independence for themselves, that FEMA,

303
00:34:26,030 --> 00:34:30,040
the inheritance laws were often quite good for wealthier women and things like that.

304
00:34:30,040 --> 00:34:33,900
Yes. Well, the wife, I think the people, the wife of Bath.

305
00:34:33,900 --> 00:34:42,780
I mean, I'm sure that she was had an eye on the fact that she could enrich herself and did so.

306
00:34:42,780 --> 00:34:47,730
Yeah, absolutely. That she's able to inherit very well from her first three husbands.

307
00:34:47,730 --> 00:34:50,850
And then she completes herself more with her with her late husband's,

308
00:34:50,850 --> 00:34:58,950
which is it wasn't the case in all European countries over inheritance laws were different for four different women.

309
00:34:58,950 --> 00:35:03,240
But I mean, I think that it'll be it'll be wonderful to go on talking forever.

310
00:35:03,240 --> 00:35:08,250
I think it's time for us to see if there's any questions for us.

311
00:35:08,250 --> 00:35:13,730
So I'm going to hand over to Wes, who hopefully will have some some questions for us.

312
00:35:13,730 --> 00:35:17,770
Now. There are indeed many questions.

313
00:35:17,770 --> 00:35:22,490
Thanks so much for starting this debate going.

314
00:35:22,490 --> 00:35:30,180
And I have a whole bunch of questions. Fed through to me here from from listeners and viewers.

315
00:35:30,180 --> 00:35:35,920
And I might start with where you just ended.

316
00:35:35,920 --> 00:35:41,620
In other words, the question of the women's role in both of your stories, actually.

317
00:35:41,620 --> 00:35:46,750
So if Chaucer is famous for one of the things Chaucer is famous for is precisely the wife of bath tale,

318
00:35:46,750 --> 00:35:56,050
or that the kind of the degree to which he gives voice to women. And of course, as Marianne said, women are central to your story, Matthew.

319
00:35:56,050 --> 00:36:00,160
But there's one question at Charlotte Cooper.

320
00:36:00,160 --> 00:36:08,830
Davis said that she is intrigued by something that Marianne said about Bill Midge being criticised as something that was done to the vulnerable,

321
00:36:08,830 --> 00:36:13,480
which may or may not include women. Can you say something more about that?

322
00:36:13,480 --> 00:36:19,750
Do you remember having said that, Graham is the kind of thing that is imposed on people done to the vulnerable?

323
00:36:19,750 --> 00:36:28,420
It goes to the question early on about voluntary travellers opposed to forced migration, I guess, as well as any thoughts on that.

324
00:36:28,420 --> 00:36:35,560
So I think that pilgrimage was usually criticised, really, because it was it was seen as a holiday for people.

325
00:36:35,560 --> 00:36:39,340
So the main way in which we see pilgrimage being criticised is the sense that

326
00:36:39,340 --> 00:36:44,620
people were just they were going on pilgrimage and not because they were devout,

327
00:36:44,620 --> 00:36:49,450
but because they wanted to get away from their ordinary lives and they wanted to have some fun.

328
00:36:49,450 --> 00:36:54,520
And there certainly were people for whom that was true, said there are various taxers talk about women going on,

329
00:36:54,520 --> 00:36:58,360
Pelc mentioned coming back pregnant and that kind of thing.

330
00:36:58,360 --> 00:37:02,680
And so there are critiques of pilgrimage that say, you know, everyone's just enjoying themselves.

331
00:37:02,680 --> 00:37:08,410
And, of course, a really important thing about Chaucer's pilgrimage as opposed to the pilgrimage that Narky depicts,

332
00:37:08,410 --> 00:37:14,590
is that Chaucer's pilgrims don't get there. It's all about the most about the destination.

333
00:37:14,590 --> 00:37:18,970
I think I think the point I was making about vulnerability was was a slightly different one.

334
00:37:18,970 --> 00:37:20,650
And maybe I'd maybe I wasn't quite clear.

335
00:37:20,650 --> 00:37:28,990
But there I was talking about the the idea that some people were not choosing to go on pilgrimage out of their own free will.

336
00:37:28,990 --> 00:37:34,060
But the idea that some people were feeling very much like they like they have to go on pilgrimage,

337
00:37:34,060 --> 00:37:37,480
that they were not going to have their sins forgiven if they didn't go on pilgrimage,

338
00:37:37,480 --> 00:37:45,110
that they had no other choice, even if it was going to cause them all kinds of personal or financial difficulties, they had to go.

339
00:37:45,110 --> 00:37:52,600
And there's lots of evidence of people trying to trying to get out of going and making a vow to go on pilgrimage, for instance,

340
00:37:52,600 --> 00:37:59,050
when they're going through something terrible and then later on and not wanting to do this anymore or having a new husband.

341
00:37:59,050 --> 00:38:05,440
You said you couldn't do that. They couldn't go. But feeling they were still bound by their found trying to work out what they could do better off.

342
00:38:05,440 --> 00:38:09,080
People would sometimes pay someone else to go flat, for instance.

343
00:38:09,080 --> 00:38:13,540
But apparently property pilgrims effectively. Yes. Yes. Yes.

344
00:38:13,540 --> 00:38:17,620
Yes. Yes. Marty, did you want to say anything about this question about.

345
00:38:17,620 --> 00:38:26,890
Yes. Yes. Well, just my impression when I was researching this was that most pilgrims were reasonably well off,

346
00:38:26,890 --> 00:38:34,300
which may be part of the accusation that this was really a form of long distance holiday.

347
00:38:34,300 --> 00:38:41,200
But I also think that the there were some who were much poorer, but it was quite tough.

348
00:38:41,200 --> 00:38:48,530
I mean, you you could beg your way and it was acceptable to do this, but it wasn't it wasn't an easy option.

349
00:38:48,530 --> 00:38:55,420
And most pilgrims who went somewhere like Rome were as as the characters in the Canterbury Tales.

350
00:38:55,420 --> 00:39:00,430
They were you know, they weren't penniless, you know, or they were sponsored or,

351
00:39:00,430 --> 00:39:04,520
you know, there was a kind of degree of people got together again, as usual.

352
00:39:04,520 --> 00:39:09,580
Your novel shows, but also, as your book shows in relation to Chaucer and I declare an interest.

353
00:39:09,580 --> 00:39:12,430
I've written a book about the 16th century doldrums where, again,

354
00:39:12,430 --> 00:39:19,960
proxy pilgrims and people being sponsored by their priory or that particular area to stay with the question of vulnerability.

355
00:39:19,960 --> 00:39:23,680
And then this is is part of your book as well, Matthew.

356
00:39:23,680 --> 00:39:31,200
Somebody asks, how did unwell or disabled pilgrims trouble? And you have a number of unwell pilgrims in your story.

357
00:39:31,200 --> 00:39:35,470
If you want to explain why you focussed, if you like,

358
00:39:35,470 --> 00:39:43,900
on those on this sort of pilgrimage as cure or as in relation to disease and in relation to various kinds of unwellness.

359
00:39:43,900 --> 00:39:49,290
Yes, and it was very common as it is still today. People go to church for that exact reason.

360
00:39:49,290 --> 00:39:56,980
And I think because the assumption was that if you were unwell or one of your family were unwell,

361
00:39:56,980 --> 00:40:04,630
it was it was their own fault, really, because they must have sinned because there could be no other explanation.

362
00:40:04,630 --> 00:40:12,820
So, I mean, I was the only difficulty I had was that they going to Rome and that was the classical destination.

363
00:40:12,820 --> 00:40:21,940
If you were sick, you tended. Two, you went to Rome to get rid of your to get in to reduce your time in purgatory, right?

364
00:40:21,940 --> 00:40:33,000
You went there because of two to ease your sins or to get Saint Peter to charm God into letting off your letting off your time in purgatory.

365
00:40:33,000 --> 00:40:40,030
So. But no, I think people would go to tremendous lengths.

366
00:40:40,030 --> 00:40:48,340
Probably more. I mean, people will go to Saint Friday's. Why did Oxford do to try and find a cure through pilgrimage.

367
00:40:48,340 --> 00:40:53,600
And some of the scenes in these places must have been to our eyes will be very, very distressing.

368
00:40:53,600 --> 00:41:01,670
I suspect very sick people struggling to get to a destination in difficult circumstances.

369
00:41:01,670 --> 00:41:08,290
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I should say that the opening of the Canterbury Tales talks about the fact that people are

370
00:41:08,290 --> 00:41:13,850
going to Hooghly blissful martyr for to see if that had had hope and one that they were seek.

371
00:41:13,850 --> 00:41:19,300
So they're going to seek Thomas a Beckett who's helped them when they were sick, when they were L.

372
00:41:19,300 --> 00:41:23,380
And there's that sense that this is both physical illness, but also spiritual moral illness.

373
00:41:23,380 --> 00:41:27,580
And as Matthew is implying, those two things are often seen as going hand in hand.

374
00:41:27,580 --> 00:41:33,250
So you're seeking a cure for your for your sins or for your physical ailments.

375
00:41:33,250 --> 00:41:37,240
And that that is that that's seen as trying to get a rebirth.

376
00:41:37,240 --> 00:41:43,360
And so that opening of the Canterbury Tales is set in the time of in April, in springtime, Easter,

377
00:41:43,360 --> 00:41:48,400
the time when you can be rejuvenated, rebirth, reborn in imitation of the resurrection of Christ.

378
00:41:48,400 --> 00:41:54,130
And that's that's seen as something which is curing your soul and curing your body.

379
00:41:54,130 --> 00:42:03,060
And of course, there's all kinds of problems that I think we also see in Matthew's book how how awful that is for the same people who are seen as.

380
00:42:03,060 --> 00:42:09,070
Yeah. Yeah. Another question has to do with sort of percentages.

381
00:42:09,070 --> 00:42:17,320
And it's very hard to do this. I know. But you said right at the beginning, Mary, that there's a sort of educated elite, shall we say,

382
00:42:17,320 --> 00:42:22,270
that are moving around much more than we really realised in the mediaeval period.

383
00:42:22,270 --> 00:42:30,340
Do we have any notion of what percentage of people are likely to have been on pilgrimage across this period?

384
00:42:30,340 --> 00:42:32,620
Well, I can't give you a number right now,

385
00:42:32,620 --> 00:42:38,920
but I think that it's really important to emphasise the fact that there were lots and lots of different ways of going on pilgrimage.

386
00:42:38,920 --> 00:42:45,490
So many, many, many people would have gone on a local pilgrimage to local pilgrimages within a day.

387
00:42:45,490 --> 00:42:53,870
For instance, very likely, you know, there are lots. The pilgrimage sites everywhere, all kinds of little local shrines and little figures.

388
00:42:53,870 --> 00:43:00,790
And so there's the very local pilgrimages. Then this pilgrimage, as you know, a little bit further afield, you know, just within England.

389
00:43:00,790 --> 00:43:09,520
There's so many major pilgrimage sites here ranging from Dharam to Walsingham to Canterbury, lots lots of different sites.

390
00:43:09,520 --> 00:43:11,560
And then those things,

391
00:43:11,560 --> 00:43:21,430
even the great country pilgrimage is still much more accessible than the great European pilgrimages and feel to to Santiago de Compostela in Spain,

392
00:43:21,430 --> 00:43:25,900
Rome and then Jerusalem and the Holy Land. There's lots of other, of course, places as well.

393
00:43:25,900 --> 00:43:33,580
But those are the major ones. So, I mean, I can't give you a number, but not not that many people would be going to Jerusalem.

394
00:43:33,580 --> 00:43:39,330
But no, each number of people would be going to local shrines on on local pilgrimages.

395
00:43:39,330 --> 00:43:47,350
OK, so then even if we can think it, we need to rethink our understanding of who could travel in the mediaeval period.

396
00:43:47,350 --> 00:43:49,000
And again, it's the same in the Renaissance.

397
00:43:49,000 --> 00:43:56,520
I was amazed at how many people did travel around both local pilgrimage up and long distance pilgrimages in that period.

398
00:43:56,520 --> 00:44:04,180
Yeah, this is a local shrine, whether it's a shrine for cure or for various other kind of ailments.

399
00:44:04,180 --> 00:44:11,260
People clearly moved around a lot more than we imagined. Now you've got this notion of people stuck in their villages and never really going anywhere.

400
00:44:11,260 --> 00:44:15,550
No. Is that what you discovered as well, Matthew, on your research? Yes.

401
00:44:15,550 --> 00:44:20,440
Yes, definitely. And also, I mean, there was more organised, I would say, come in.

402
00:44:20,440 --> 00:44:27,790
The Venetians had these wonderful package and they had a travel agent who I just paid upfront and everything was included.

403
00:44:27,790 --> 00:44:39,460
All your meals. Now, the tour of Jerusalem on the side trip off to where it was Jericho or that was it was surprisingly modern and very efficient.

404
00:44:39,460 --> 00:44:43,660
Generally, the ships didn't sink. They weren't captured by marauders.

405
00:44:43,660 --> 00:44:51,280
Everything works fine. Occasionally, the genuine use had a reputation for sometimes sending their pilgrims into slavery.

406
00:44:51,280 --> 00:44:57,730
But the Venetians were very reliable. Your research is under review.

407
00:44:57,730 --> 00:45:00,820
Inspired you to go on pilgrimage yourselves.

408
00:45:00,820 --> 00:45:12,840
And if so, has it changed your perception of the practise or have you kept your distance from the actual journeys as opposed to imagined ones?

409
00:45:12,840 --> 00:45:19,470
So I haven't done a pilgrimage, but I did lots of actual journeys when I was set, when I was researching the book.

410
00:45:19,470 --> 00:45:25,430
So when I was researching Chaucer European life, that was a really important part of my research for me.

411
00:45:25,430 --> 00:45:34,680
And not only because luckily he went to places like Florida who certain it's like, you know, it's a tough job.

412
00:45:34,680 --> 00:45:36,170
Someone's got to do it.

413
00:45:36,170 --> 00:45:44,520
But I seriously, I found it extremely useful to go and try to walk those streets because because I organised the biography through places and spaces,

414
00:45:44,520 --> 00:45:50,130
it was hugely important for me to try to reconstruct those those spaces in my own head and to

415
00:45:50,130 --> 00:45:55,600
try to you to go into London and find the church where his daughter's monastery had been.

416
00:45:55,600 --> 00:45:57,210
And that kind of thing.

417
00:45:57,210 --> 00:46:03,760
And then to sit there and look around and work out what had been there in the 14th century and what what had been there was now gone.

418
00:46:03,760 --> 00:46:09,720
But often those trapped, those even those local trips, as well as the ones further afield in Europe,

419
00:46:09,720 --> 00:46:13,560
I couldn't quite put my finger on why it had been so important.

420
00:46:13,560 --> 00:46:22,620
But something changed for me in my process of understanding Chaucer's life and his imagination when I went on those trips.

421
00:46:22,620 --> 00:46:26,580
I haven't done a pilgrimage, but I must say I've I've thought about it.

422
00:46:26,580 --> 00:46:30,330
I feel that when I have more time, I would I would be very.

423
00:46:30,330 --> 00:46:34,770
And I think particularly doing something like walking that route to Santiago or something.

424
00:46:34,770 --> 00:46:39,510
I mean, I, I can't imagine how that is a very kind of mindful thing to do.

425
00:46:39,510 --> 00:46:43,660
Mm hmm. And that all you need to do is go out of your front door and you're already in Rome.

426
00:46:43,660 --> 00:46:47,640
Yeah. Yes. In what respect? Yes.

427
00:46:47,640 --> 00:46:54,810
No, it's, um. I've never gone on. I'm not a very religious person, so I never thought of going on a pilgrimage.

428
00:46:54,810 --> 00:47:00,120
I used to love walking and I did a lot of some huge walks.

429
00:47:00,120 --> 00:47:12,150
So I'm used to the same rhythm of walking. And I think in this in this case, I just knew I wouldn't have the chance of walking any of this.

430
00:47:12,150 --> 00:47:20,090
So I just researched everything I could. I read accounts by people even quite recently who have done the walk to Rome.

431
00:47:20,090 --> 00:47:24,420
And and I researched, obviously, all the places they're going off to.

432
00:47:24,420 --> 00:47:31,530
And I was quite shocked to discover that the pilgrimage routes across France,

433
00:47:31,530 --> 00:47:36,180
as far as it's known, because it's not known, is exactly as one would think.

434
00:47:36,180 --> 00:47:39,810
Is pretty much the line of the trenches in the First World War.

435
00:47:39,810 --> 00:47:46,680
So again and again, I would find references to splendid mediaeval town that had been blasted to bits.

436
00:47:46,680 --> 00:47:51,570
By artillery. And I was it was just a very strange,

437
00:47:51,570 --> 00:48:00,390
rather eerie coincidence to think that these programmes were effectively walking the trenches that would appear centuries later.

438
00:48:00,390 --> 00:48:03,420
Mm hmm. That's a very nice allegory for me.

439
00:48:03,420 --> 00:48:09,600
To the next question, the part about the title for today's session is Pilgrimage, Diplomacy and Colonialism.

440
00:48:09,600 --> 00:48:16,740
And in a way, each of your books is about layers of place as well as make about how exactly

441
00:48:16,740 --> 00:48:22,320
the same place might have had another moment become a different kind of place.

442
00:48:22,320 --> 00:48:27,060
And that example you've just given, Matthew, is extraordinary. I wondered if so.

443
00:48:27,060 --> 00:48:33,350
Within your novel, the colonial side of the question is principally around England and Wales.

444
00:48:33,350 --> 00:48:40,980
Yes. Patient, as you said, of North Wales or what's now in North Wales, if you like, in particular.

445
00:48:40,980 --> 00:48:41,280
Again,

446
00:48:41,280 --> 00:48:51,690
I just sort of offering the chance to each of you to reflect a little more on colonialism and the degree to which the practise of pilgrimage overlaps,

447
00:48:51,690 --> 00:48:59,760
where there is distinct from the practise of colonialism, either within Europe or more broadly.

448
00:48:59,760 --> 00:49:05,700
I mean, most obviously, when it gets to the Crusades, perhaps, but more more broadly, have you thorns on that?

449
00:49:05,700 --> 00:49:09,720
Let's start with Marrin this time. Yeah, I have lots of thoughts on that.

450
00:49:09,720 --> 00:49:20,640
So I imagine you might. I mean, I think that the Crusaders often called themselves pilgrims and really blurred the boundary between

451
00:49:20,640 --> 00:49:28,220
crusading and pilgrimage in a way that might seem extremely surprising to too many of us that they.

452
00:49:28,220 --> 00:49:33,210
But once you think about, of course, you can see why with that particular motivation, they did think like that.

453
00:49:33,210 --> 00:49:42,060
So I think that particularly the pilgrimage to the Holy Land was very much bound up with offer, with a militaristic mentality.

454
00:49:42,060 --> 00:49:48,990
And with that sense of actually taking over those spaces in a way that, you know, other pilgrimages,

455
00:49:48,990 --> 00:49:57,180
I think were often quite different to that, too, that people would not go on pilgrimage with that sense of taking the lands over.

456
00:49:57,180 --> 00:50:03,420
I think that Holy Land pilgrimage was quite different. But I think that in terms of thinking more broadly about.

457
00:50:03,420 --> 00:50:11,020
About colonialism, that there's there's lots of different ways in which we might think about about colonialism.

458
00:50:11,020 --> 00:50:12,580
Different kinds of migration.

459
00:50:12,580 --> 00:50:19,300
So, I mean, it's quite a small part of my butt, but one of the things that that I that I think is very interesting is that wanted to chose.

460
00:50:19,300 --> 00:50:24,990
His first employer, Elizabeth Dibber, was married to Lionel Clarets, who then also became choice.

461
00:50:24,990 --> 00:50:32,140
His employer and chosen went with him to fight in France, where he was ransomed, as I as I mentioned a few minutes ago.

462
00:50:32,140 --> 00:50:40,750
Now, Lionel went on to come to a governorship in Ireland and implemented the statutes of Kilkenny,

463
00:50:40,750 --> 00:50:50,710
which were notorious and appalling colonial laws in Ireland that prohibited the use of the Irish language by many people,

464
00:50:50,710 --> 00:50:54,860
prohibited intermarriage and native sports and all those kinds of things.

465
00:50:54,860 --> 00:51:02,380
And the one thing that I thought was very interesting when I was thinking about that moment in the 13 60s when he did that

466
00:51:02,380 --> 00:51:11,650
was that English at that moment has become the colonial language that is pressing the native languages in in Ireland.

467
00:51:11,650 --> 00:51:18,450
And we see, you know, Matthew demonstrates the way that was being done in in Wales, Ireland in the 13th century.

468
00:51:18,450 --> 00:51:21,880
But within England, for Chaucer,

469
00:51:21,880 --> 00:51:31,900
English was itself the native language that had been oppressed by the colonial languages of Latin and French in a hundred years earlier.

470
00:51:31,900 --> 00:51:39,580
So I thought the fact that that's the language meant something very different in different places was really important.

471
00:51:39,580 --> 00:51:44,530
The thinking about the fact that England had been a country that was repeatedly taken

472
00:51:44,530 --> 00:51:50,110
over for hundreds of years and then it became the colonial aggressor in its turn.

473
00:51:50,110 --> 00:51:55,790
And what what what the language meant in different places and what it means in different places in Iowa as well.

474
00:51:55,790 --> 00:52:00,910
It is really finely tuned and varied. Thank you.

475
00:52:00,910 --> 00:52:04,630
That's a very rich response. Matthew, do you have.

476
00:52:04,630 --> 00:52:13,360
I mean, as Marianne says, English and Welsh are in a sort of conflict in your in your story and the Welsh character.

477
00:52:13,360 --> 00:52:21,640
Again, I don't want to give too much away about it, but the welfare to find the kind of liberation once he is in a non English speaking world

478
00:52:21,640 --> 00:52:26,680
and adopts all sorts of other identities and discovers that actually pretend to be Dutch,

479
00:52:26,680 --> 00:52:32,820
let's say it is much more useful than saying I'm English. I suppose there is a question.

480
00:52:32,820 --> 00:52:39,910
Is that also part of a sort of colonial understanding of the English as a particularly brutish race?

481
00:52:39,910 --> 00:52:44,410
Or is that just a part of it? I I'm I'm very fond of the English.

482
00:52:44,410 --> 00:52:49,330
I'm English myself. So no, I wasn't trying to have a go at the English.

483
00:52:49,330 --> 00:52:51,820
I was just fascinated by this moment.

484
00:52:51,820 --> 00:53:01,540
And it was that that particular moment, the the annexation of North Wales was was very brutal and it was brutally done.

485
00:53:01,540 --> 00:53:11,440
And I found something that was the kind of curious and rather terrible mixture of of brutality, careers,

486
00:53:11,440 --> 00:53:19,750
search for status, taking over land and romance, because this area was also the land of King Arthur.

487
00:53:19,750 --> 00:53:29,110
So you had Edward the first and his queen wandering round on a tour of the Arthurian sites,

488
00:53:29,110 --> 00:53:33,850
romantically enjoying these and feeling that these were really their property,

489
00:53:33,850 --> 00:53:41,450
now their cultural property, because he was now the prince of Wales or that he was claiming the Welsh throne.

490
00:53:41,450 --> 00:53:48,490
And I found that all rather slightly, slightly distasteful at the same time.

491
00:53:48,490 --> 00:53:56,080
I mean, I suppose it's we were talking about a time when people are moving away from Latin.

492
00:53:56,080 --> 00:54:04,630
And in a way, this is there is a new division occurring in Europe because Europe, Western Europe really had had a truly were Franco,

493
00:54:04,630 --> 00:54:12,370
which it's never had since, which is there was no question of whether one should some one language should predominate.

494
00:54:12,370 --> 00:54:17,890
There was always a language which a very large number of certainly the more

495
00:54:17,890 --> 00:54:25,140
educated people could speak anywhere from Poland to France to Italy to Scotland.

496
00:54:25,140 --> 00:54:30,130
And it was I mean, you can see why that was was not going to last forever.

497
00:54:30,130 --> 00:54:36,460
But it must have given a unity to Europe, which has never really existed since.

498
00:54:36,460 --> 00:54:41,480
It's interesting because there are two stories, which, again, one of the questions asks a version of this.

499
00:54:41,480 --> 00:54:49,030
There's two stories there. One is about how there was this lingua franca and therefore a unity to Europe, and then another one is open.

500
00:54:49,030 --> 00:54:53,530
English was so multicultural and multilingual that it was connected to Europe.

501
00:54:53,530 --> 00:54:56,930
I mean, I'm not saying these two things are in conflict with each other,

502
00:54:56,930 --> 00:55:02,170
but both of those stories suggest that somehow the Reformation was a defining moment and therefore

503
00:55:02,170 --> 00:55:10,870
that your books are placed at the moment of English history before various things broke.

504
00:55:10,870 --> 00:55:19,330
Obviously, in your case, the expulsion of the Jews, but also a kind of loss of a multilingual connectedness to Europe.

505
00:55:19,330 --> 00:55:23,320
Is that too much of a grand narrative history for you?

506
00:55:23,320 --> 00:55:27,490
That's that was the impression when I was trying to read about English at that time.

507
00:55:27,490 --> 00:55:36,270
Right. That was the impression I got. I mean, there's always a tension between the local and the the international in any society, in any place.

508
00:55:36,270 --> 00:55:45,130
And certainly there was in England at that time, as Marian so clearly demonstrated with with in her book.

509
00:55:45,130 --> 00:55:55,120
But I think the there was and that tension may have been slightly greater in England just because it was Niland or written because it was an island.

510
00:55:55,120 --> 00:56:07,090
But I do feel it was in some ways a more broader, more international looking place than it became in the next century or two.

511
00:56:07,090 --> 00:56:10,660
Would you want to argue that to in or of the resistance?

512
00:56:10,660 --> 00:56:19,210
I think that I think one important issue is that this works differently, depending on your class and your gender and your and your background.

513
00:56:19,210 --> 00:56:29,260
So that when when people are writing, well, attacks in in Latin, then there is this wonderful way in which you can speak across across borders.

514
00:56:29,260 --> 00:56:33,040
And there's obviously huge benefits to that.

515
00:56:33,040 --> 00:56:40,720
When you start writing you in the vernacular, you lose some of that, but you're able to speak to a broader demographic within your own country.

516
00:56:40,720 --> 00:56:46,860
So a slightly broader range of classes and usually more women as well as men.

517
00:56:46,860 --> 00:56:53,050
And that's what that's what people such as the Catcher in Italy and Chaucer in England are are able to do.

518
00:56:53,050 --> 00:56:58,480
But whatever linguistic choice you make, you know, some something is is lost, isn't it?

519
00:56:58,480 --> 00:57:04,690
Because you're you're choosing which kinds of audiences you're going to to access.

520
00:57:04,690 --> 00:57:05,590
So, you know,

521
00:57:05,590 --> 00:57:15,790
I think that there were there absolutely was a was a moment now when someone such as Chaucer is able to speak and read in so many languages.

522
00:57:15,790 --> 00:57:24,820
So he himself is able to connect with these. All these people within England was still a relatively small group in a manuscript culture.

523
00:57:24,820 --> 00:57:29,840
And he's also able to read text written from all over Europe.

524
00:57:29,840 --> 00:57:33,940
You know, he's not your your typical English person at this time.

525
00:57:33,940 --> 00:57:42,670
But I think it is true that educated people at this time were able to, you know, very much to be reading texts across across borders.

526
00:57:42,670 --> 00:57:49,240
And that's certainly something that that does get lost. But I think Englishness, you know, as he was saying before it,

527
00:57:49,240 --> 00:57:58,840
it does start to mean something very different wants Rome becomes is perceived as as an enemy rather than as the ideal destination as it is.

528
00:57:58,840 --> 00:58:03,890
Yes. Yes. Yes. No, it's different Europe, I think.

529
00:58:03,890 --> 00:58:09,760
Okay. Well, again, thank you, Sarah Baber's for the question that generated a bit of a discussion.

530
00:58:09,760 --> 00:58:13,510
I think we're time for three or four more questions, some of them.

531
00:58:13,510 --> 00:58:16,930
Let's go for some of the more punctual, straightforward questions, if you like,

532
00:58:16,930 --> 00:58:24,910
other any unexpected diaries of 13th century pilgrims that have been discovered recently, or has all this stuff been known for a long time?

533
00:58:24,910 --> 00:58:31,150
Are there still treasures in the archives? I am sure there are still treasures at the archives.

534
00:58:31,150 --> 00:58:35,770
I mean, I can't think off the top of my head of a of a recent discovery of a diary.

535
00:58:35,770 --> 00:58:39,560
Certainly lots of documents. Interesting documents that are still discovered.

536
00:58:39,560 --> 00:58:44,520
So, for instance, just in the last few years, new documents have been discovered about about muchI camp,

537
00:58:44,520 --> 00:58:48,340
that the victims are women who we're talking about before, for instance.

538
00:58:48,340 --> 00:58:55,390
But I'm sure there are still I mean, I'm sure there's still lots of records about Chaucer in archives around Europe that haven't been found.

539
00:58:55,390 --> 00:59:02,680
Yes, I'm on pilgrimage, I think. What's surprising is that there are so few detailed sources with.

540
00:59:02,680 --> 00:59:08,020
We still don't really know exactly where they. The pilgrims sort of walked on their way to Rome.

541
00:59:08,020 --> 00:59:15,860
Marjorie Kamps, very valuable. But she tends to have her own priorities and she doesn't always say where she was exactly.

542
00:59:15,860 --> 00:59:21,170
So, no, I was surprised to find how little information there was.

543
00:59:21,170 --> 00:59:29,300
Thank you. Another sort of archival question, which is the other particular anecdotes from Charles's life, Marion.

544
00:59:29,300 --> 00:59:35,390
That is your sort of favourite story that you didn't know before you started, but that you discovered afterwards?

545
00:59:35,390 --> 00:59:39,320
Well, everyone's favourite story from ever is the story of the Paltalk.

546
00:59:39,320 --> 00:59:42,260
I think so that the, um, the first life.

547
00:59:42,260 --> 00:59:48,110
So we have lots of life records of Chaucer because he was a civil servant and the English have good bureaucracy.

548
00:59:48,110 --> 00:59:54,350
And the first love, the first source that we have tells us not anything that is particularly important,

549
00:59:54,350 --> 00:59:58,460
it seems just tells us that his employer bought him some clothes.

550
00:59:58,460 --> 01:00:03,600
But I started to look into what these clothes were said, the Paltalk, these two coloured hoes,

551
01:00:03,600 --> 01:00:07,970
these shoes that he was bought by Elizabeth Dibber when he was a page boy.

552
01:00:07,970 --> 01:00:15,320
And I found out that these were scandalous items of clothing. So this is a complete surprise to me when I found out that at the time.

553
01:00:15,320 --> 01:00:19,700
Lots and lots of chroniclers were writing about these outrageous items of clothing,

554
01:00:19,700 --> 01:00:27,800
were saying this Gustin young man are wearing these short tunics that are exposing that buttocks and they're wearing these tight hoes along.

555
01:00:27,800 --> 01:00:33,740
Frontrow even said that this was why the play could returns to England thinking these because young

556
01:00:33,740 --> 01:00:39,530
men were dressing in such a disgusting and outrageous way that God was punishing the English.

557
01:00:39,530 --> 01:00:42,380
And so, you know, obviously, this is a funny anecdote,

558
01:00:42,380 --> 01:00:48,560
but I also thought it was really interesting because on the one hand, you have this sense of OPIS that just like us,

559
01:00:48,560 --> 01:00:56,800
you know, teenagers dressing appropriately at older people, you know, tell them off about and say, you know, young people of today.

560
01:00:56,800 --> 01:01:02,420
But on the other hand, this is a very unfamiliar way of living because this young boy is not choosing these clothes.

561
01:01:02,420 --> 01:01:06,860
His employer is dressing him. He is being paid in clothes and food.

562
01:01:06,860 --> 01:01:11,030
He doesn't own room. He doesn't have his own money. He's paid in kind.

563
01:01:11,030 --> 01:01:14,990
He has to live in a public way. He doesn't have a private identity.

564
01:01:14,990 --> 01:01:25,190
So for me, that really sums up what what for me is fascinating about the mediaeval period, which is that tension between familiarity and difference.

565
01:01:25,190 --> 01:01:30,470
Thank you, Matthew. Perhaps a more sort of focussed question for you, which is, again,

566
01:01:30,470 --> 01:01:35,810
I don't want to spoil the book knowledge because as I confessed to you earlier, I haven't quite finished it yet.

567
01:01:35,810 --> 01:01:43,820
So don't tell me the end. But there is this very strong story of of the two Jewish characters in it who

568
01:01:43,820 --> 01:01:48,560
connect us to the larger narrative of the expulsion of the Jews from England.

569
01:01:48,560 --> 01:01:57,710
And again, one of the the question is asked because you said in your book when you were just talking earlier that once you realised,

570
01:01:57,710 --> 01:02:05,740
if you like, that that was the date, then you had your date that you knew when you wanted to tell your story was just at that moment.

571
01:02:05,740 --> 01:02:12,950
Can I just say a little bit more about why? Why is that the moment to focus on you?

572
01:02:12,950 --> 01:02:22,220
I suppose it was. I was interested in this lost part of of the island's history, really.

573
01:02:22,220 --> 01:02:26,900
And also, I suppose I was aware I mean, my mum was Jewish.

574
01:02:26,900 --> 01:02:32,450
I didn't I never really feel very Jewish. But but she was she had her own history.

575
01:02:32,450 --> 01:02:42,350
And I I felt this is sort of rather depressing feeling around in these days, that things that we thought we'd got rid of or resuming and returning.

576
01:02:42,350 --> 01:02:45,190
And I suppose I was very aware of that. And.

577
01:02:45,190 --> 01:02:55,970
And this seemed sometimes I feel it's better to look at things in a slightly roundabout way rather than just sort of wave a flag.

578
01:02:55,970 --> 01:03:03,390
So. Or wave I did it. So I thought that that was that made me more interested in it all.

579
01:03:03,390 --> 01:03:11,870
Mm hmm. Thank you. And again, lost perhaps the last question is around the question of voice.

580
01:03:11,870 --> 01:03:19,400
And clearly, one of the things that that connects some of your different novels,

581
01:03:19,400 --> 01:03:23,780
Matthew, is the question of voice and the degree to which one might adopt a voice.

582
01:03:23,780 --> 01:03:32,090
Now, there aren't 20 of them in this novel, but there are still nonetheless some quite distinctive voices.

583
01:03:32,090 --> 01:03:38,030
And I said right at the beginning that this is something Geoff Chaucerian about that insofar as The Canterbury Tales,

584
01:03:38,030 --> 01:03:47,360
you know, tells stories from particular perspectives. Is that something that you consciously wanted to sort of make a connexion to Chaucer

585
01:03:47,360 --> 01:03:51,290
or is are springing you or as you and Marian decided to talk about these things,

586
01:03:51,290 --> 01:03:58,500
making things clearer to you than they were at the beginning? In other words, are you are you writing a version of The Canterbury Tales in some.

587
01:03:58,500 --> 01:04:04,790
No, no, no. I mean, I think it was because I've used the same approach in this other novel, English passengers.

588
01:04:04,790 --> 01:04:12,920
Yes. But I think I was very interested in what what was said in Marin's book.

589
01:04:12,920 --> 01:04:21,430
What Marianne said was really that the that Charles is interested in people giving giving the reader a choice, really.

590
01:04:21,430 --> 01:04:27,060
And she you contrasted that with with Dante and.

591
01:04:27,060 --> 01:04:35,830
And I felt that that was in English passages, I wanted to slightly offer readers a choice.

592
01:04:35,830 --> 01:04:45,520
I think if you if you let your readers and with a standpoint of viewpoint, then there's a danger that they'll just rebelle and get fed up with you.

593
01:04:45,520 --> 01:04:52,060
If you if you give readers a choice, then obviously you you're going to favour certain aspects of that choice.

594
01:04:52,060 --> 01:05:01,780
But nevertheless, people may feel more open to finding their way in this in what you're saying or what you're thinking about.

595
01:05:01,780 --> 01:05:05,110
And that was very much what I wanted to do with this book as well.

596
01:05:05,110 --> 01:05:10,910
And I was fascinated to feel to see that Marion felt that that was Johnson's approach as well.

597
01:05:10,910 --> 01:05:16,780
But I think it's a valid one because nobody likes being lectured. Yeah.

598
01:05:16,780 --> 01:05:22,120
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that you're one of the cornerstones of of choices approach is to try

599
01:05:22,120 --> 01:05:27,700
to get across the sense that what you see depends on why you are standing there.

600
01:05:27,700 --> 01:05:31,870
That every perspective is partial and relative.

601
01:05:31,870 --> 01:05:38,440
So that it's never enough just to have one perspective. And that's really the essence of the Canterbury Tales,

602
01:05:38,440 --> 01:05:43,480
is the sense that we need to see things from different points of view and then make our

603
01:05:43,480 --> 01:05:50,290
own decisions once we once we thought about it from more than one standing position.

604
01:05:50,290 --> 01:05:53,710
Thank you. That seems like a good question to a number or point to a number.

605
01:05:53,710 --> 01:06:03,790
I got one more for you. And that is that it's the difference, if you like, or the kind of voice or choice involved in writing fiction or non-fiction.

606
01:06:03,790 --> 01:06:10,420
Matthew, you've written both. And I have no idea whether you have a lot of novels in your head that you haven't.

607
01:06:10,420 --> 01:06:14,800
But I do know that you're interested in collaborating, for instance, with the theatre companies and so on.

608
01:06:14,800 --> 01:06:20,650
So, again, just to talk to and really as a way of sort of turning our conversation into into

609
01:06:20,650 --> 01:06:24,910
a broader question about to encourage you to reflect on the difference between

610
01:06:24,910 --> 01:06:29,440
fiction and non-fiction precisely in the way of enabling people to stand in the

611
01:06:29,440 --> 01:06:34,630
place of the other or to try to understand what it's like to be someone else,

612
01:06:34,630 --> 01:06:41,710
which is effectively what both of you were talking about at the end. Matthew, first.

613
01:06:41,710 --> 01:06:48,700
I think my main concern is to find an I an idea or a subject that seems worth writing about.

614
01:06:48,700 --> 01:06:58,110
That's always the major problem. And after that, then sometimes I've found myself wondering whether they should be fictional non-fiction.

615
01:06:58,110 --> 01:07:07,390
And in fact, the History of Rome book actually was initially briefly was tried to write it as a novel disastrously.

616
01:07:07,390 --> 01:07:12,010
So I think I think there is a it's yes.

617
01:07:12,010 --> 01:07:18,520
I think it's always easy to decide how to do these things, as one might think.

618
01:07:18,520 --> 01:07:26,790
Hmm. Yeah. Well, I suppose I mean, I always write non-fiction, but I'm always writing about fiction.

619
01:07:26,790 --> 01:07:31,120
And I don't think that I've been writing biography. So there's the first of my friend biography,

620
01:07:31,120 --> 01:07:38,290
and I found that a really fruitful form for for me because you are able to do lots of different things to

621
01:07:38,290 --> 01:07:46,600
think about your history and literary criticism and art history and lots of different kinds of approaches.

622
01:07:46,600 --> 01:07:50,980
And I think you have to you have to do a certain amount of imaginative work when you're

623
01:07:50,980 --> 01:07:57,940
trying to make those imaginative leaps into the past and into someone else's life.

624
01:07:57,940 --> 01:08:06,130
But for me, there were there were real limits on what I felt was appropriate for me to do as a as a biographer, you know, as a serious biographer.

625
01:08:06,130 --> 01:08:10,510
And so, you know, I was wrestling a lot with the issues of when do you say, well,

626
01:08:10,510 --> 01:08:16,690
well, this must have happened and you when you don't really have have evidence for it.

627
01:08:16,690 --> 01:08:23,500
And I think that you I decided really to think much more about Chaucer's imagination than about his emotional life.

628
01:08:23,500 --> 01:08:28,690
And, you know, there was a moment when I decided to put a footnote in the introduction where I just kind of said,

629
01:08:28,690 --> 01:08:34,810
I'm not going to write about his emotional life. You know, I don't think that when you're writing about a subject for whom you do not have

630
01:08:34,810 --> 01:08:38,490
private letters and private diaries and you can't interview their grandchildren,

631
01:08:38,490 --> 01:08:43,270
you when you're writing about someone from the 14th century, I just don't think I can get to the.

632
01:08:43,270 --> 01:08:47,680
What did he really think about his mother kind of aspect? Also put that footnote in.

633
01:08:47,680 --> 01:08:52,970
It was really liberating. I'm not doing that. And so.

634
01:08:52,970 --> 01:08:57,490
Well, I. And that I was able ready to think much more about his imagination.

635
01:08:57,490 --> 01:09:01,780
And so I suppose that that I think, you know,

636
01:09:01,780 --> 01:09:09,040
it was a there is a real boundary for me between what what's appropriate to do when I'm writing non-fiction.

637
01:09:09,040 --> 01:09:17,740
But, of course, as I say, the essence of my my interest is always in what it means for him to write fiction.

638
01:09:17,740 --> 01:09:23,200
Thank you both so much. I think it's time to. Draw things to a close.

639
01:09:23,200 --> 01:09:30,250
And I wanted, as I say, to to thank our two brilliant speakers, Matthew Neilan, Professor Marion Turner,

640
01:09:30,250 --> 01:09:38,320
for a wonderful and really thought provoking session on a whole range of different questions this evening.

641
01:09:38,320 --> 01:09:43,960
Thank you. Also to our viewers at home and listeners for watching for your comments, your questions.

642
01:09:43,960 --> 01:09:52,420
I'm sorry if I didn't get to them all. But thank you again for joining in this experiment in online community.

643
01:09:52,420 --> 01:10:01,510
I want to also stress that the big tent series would not be possible without the support, as it were, backstage of the amazing torch team.

644
01:10:01,510 --> 01:10:06,340
So thank you all and thank you specifically once again, Marian.

645
01:10:06,340 --> 01:10:10,570
And thank you, Matthew.

646
01:10:10,570 --> 01:10:19,150
Everyone else, although Marion Matthew, clearly also very welcome, please join us next week for Big Tent for next week's Big Tent Live event.

647
01:10:19,150 --> 01:10:24,970
Our theme next week is drama. And so on Thursday, the 30th of July, at the same time of five p.m.,

648
01:10:24,970 --> 01:10:33,490
we're thrilled to be hosting an IM conversation with Professor Oliver Tamplin, emeritus professor of classics at Modelling College in Oxford.

649
01:10:33,490 --> 01:10:39,970
And Oliver will be joined by BAFTA award winning actor and director Fiona Shaw CBE and much

650
01:10:39,970 --> 01:10:46,810
else besides together and in the last of the current series of Big Tent online series before.

651
01:10:46,810 --> 01:10:54,540
In other words, we take a short break for the month of August. Oliver and Fiona, we'll be discussing tragedy and plague.

652
01:10:54,540 --> 01:11:00,820
But once again, thank you again to Matthew and Marion today. We hope you'll be able to all join us next week.

653
01:11:00,820 --> 01:11:40,094
Thank you again for watching everyone. And goodbye for now.