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Gone Medieval

Eels in the Middle Ages: Meals & Money

Gone Medieval

History Hit

History

4.62.2K Ratings

🗓️ 26 October 2021

⏱️ 43 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The European eel is now categorised as a critically endangered species, but 1000 years ago they flourished in abundance, and were an important aspect of Medieval life. In this episode, Cat is joined by Medieval historian Dr. John Wyatt Greenlee, also known to many as the ‘Surprise Eel Historian’. We examine the cultural history and significance of Eels in England. From a delicious meal to being used as a form of currency, just how vital was the presence of Eels in the Middle Ages to Britain?

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Transcript

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1:00.0

book. Hello everyone, I'm Dr Cat Jammin and welcome to today's episode of Gone Medieval

1:09.5

by History Hit. Today we're going to talk about something I knew very little about before I

1:15.0

started reading about it. The European eel is now a critically endangered species but back

1:21.1

in the middle ages that was far from the case. And while most of us today probably won't encounter

1:27.6

an eel during a normal week. A thousand or so years ago I'm certainly here in Britain

1:32.8

but eel would actually be really important to you, not just for food but also for things like

1:38.4

paying your rent perhaps. So today I'm really delighted to have the brilliantly named

1:43.9

surprised eel historian with me who normally goes by the name of Dr John White Greenley, a

1:50.0

historian specialising in European and medieval history. So thank you so much for joining me John.

1:55.6

Thank you for having me, it's really nice to be here with you. Now I want to mention here that

2:00.0

John started a Twitter account a little while back to document some of the facts he was learning

2:04.8

about eels, medieval eels especially. And that's account sort of took the world by storm and he ended

2:11.2

up even being interviewed in Time magazine which I suppose you weren't quite expecting when he

2:16.6

started the account. No, no that came as a real surprise to me. I've been researching medieval

...

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