Hello and welcome to the history of an episode 53 torn apart and lost of an empire.

This week my favourite book recommendation is The Popes by John Julius Norwich.

Norwich is one of my favourite historians, an absolutely beautiful writer and engaging historian.

The Popes is of course not restricted to medieval history, but then nor are we.

It's a fascinating viewpoint and of course the influence of the papacy was never higher

than in medieval times when you could still talk about United Christendom with one spiritual

leader or in some concept at least.

Now our sad task today is to show how John managed to lose his father's empire, but I thought

I wouldn't start off there actually, somewhere completely different.

So last week I mentioned that our Hugh Lebra of Lucignot was surprised at Mirabot still

eating his pigeon pie at breakfast time and that reminded me that we've never done

the food and drink thing that I had on my list of social history.

So let's do that first and then we'll crack on with the sad story of John after that.

One of the features of the Middle Ages is a sense that change happens slowly.

Of course in a relatively violent society it doesn't take long to have a knife stuck

into you or to suffer from some hideous and possibly terminal illness and it has to

be said that this would qualifies a reasonably dramatic change on a personal level, but

as far as ways of life and attitude are concerned, the Middle Ages are marked by stability.

This same thing applies to what people ate.

And just as medieval society was highly structured and hierarchical, this was also reflected

in the differences between the diets of the common people and of the aristocracy.

Serials were of course the mainstay of the medieval diet, rye, barley, oat and wheat in

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