Battle of the Eras: Medieval vs Early Modern
Gone Medieval
History Hit
4.5 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 8 May 2026
⏱️ 56 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What if the medieval world did not end with a bang, but with a messy argument over who gets to define history itself? Matt Lewis spars with Not Just The Tudors' host Professor Suzannah Lipscomb to spar over Gutenberg, the Reformation, witchcraft, plague, the Renaissance, and the Wars of the Roses to ask where medieval ends and early modern begins. The result is a lively, surprising fight over power, change, and the making of the modern world.
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Gone Medieval is presented by Matt Lewis. Audio editor is Amy Haddow, the producer is Rob Weinberg. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.
All music used is courtesy of Epidemic Sounds.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From long-lost Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, |
| 0:07.7 | power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. |
| 0:13.2 | Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger and some of the world's leading historians, |
| 0:18.0 | as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on history hit. With your subscription,!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! intriguing mysteries, the gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research from the Vikings to the printing press, |
| 0:57.5 | from kings to popes to the crusades. We cross centuries and continents to delve into rebellions, |
| 1:04.0 | plots and murders, to find the stories big and small that tell us how we got here. Find out who we really were with Gone Medieval. |
| 1:16.9 | Welcome to Gone Medieval. Today I'm joined by the brilliant Professor Susanna Lipscomb, |
| 1:21.8 | historian and host of Not Just the Tudors. Last year I clashed with Tristan Hughes over where the ancient world ended and the medieval |
| 1:30.0 | world began and it got pretty heated. |
| 1:33.0 | Now, we're tackling the big question. |
| 1:35.5 | When did the medieval world give way to the early modern one? |
| 1:39.1 | Was it a gradual evolution or a dramatic revolution? |
| 1:43.7 | Every region tells a different story, but our producers want a fight. |
| 1:48.2 | So Susie and I are going to battle it out one person and one event at a time. So gloves on and let's |
| 1:54.0 | dive in. Right, Susie, so you and I are going to try and work out maybe where the medieval period ends, |
| 2:05.6 | if the glories of the medieval world ever actually ended. |
| 2:08.9 | Where the early modern period begins, what belongs to you, what belongs to gone medieval, |
| 2:14.0 | and we're going to fight it out over a few specific things. |
| 2:17.7 | And so I guess what we need to clear up before we even start is that we are mainly going |
| 2:20.7 | to be talking about European, Western European history in the main here. |
| 2:25.3 | So we can acknowledge that things are happening all over the world at various points |
| 2:28.8 | that may or may not fit into this kind of idea of periodising history as medieval and |
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