Welcome to the History of English Podcast, a podcast about the history of the English language.

This is Episode 92, The Lion Kings.

In this episode, we're going to continue our look at Richard the Lionheart, and we're

going to see where he acquired that nickname, Lionheart.

In fact, lions will be a constant theme in this episode.

During this period, lions became symbols of Western European royalty, even though lions

weren't native to Europe.

Most Europeans had never seen an actual lion in their lifetime, and that was true from

many other exotic animals from Africa and Asia.

The knowledge of those animals in Western Europe was vague and sometimes confused, and

in some cases it wasn't clear if the animals were real or mythological.

But we'll also look at the growing fascination with lions and other exotic animals in the

Middle Ages.

But before we begin, let me remind you that the website for the podcast is HistoryofEnglishPodcast.com.

And you can sign up to support the podcast at patreon.com, just go to historyofenglishpodcast.com

and link from there.

So let's pick up where we left off last time, with the end of the third crusade and the

tenuous reign of Richard I of England.

I say tenuous because Richard was facing several challenges back home when he was away in

the Holy Land.

His brother John had an eye on the English throne, and he was encouraging rebellion among

the English nobles.

...