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Welcome to the History Extra podcast, fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History Magazine.

Like me, you might have assumed that people in the Middle Ages didn't exercise for fun.

But according to Professor Carol Rawcliffe of the University of East Anglia,

that isn't actually true. Carol has studied medieval fitness guides and concluded that lots of people,

especially those in religious institutions and the higher echelons of society, were in fact very

interested in exercise. Carol explains why to David Musgrove.

Okay, so let's get straight into it. Did people in the Middle Ages do exercise?

Oh, they certainly did. And they didn't just do exercise because they had to do. They did it because

they felt it would keep them fit. And how do we know that? We know that because we've got an enormous amount of written evidence about this.

These documents focus on regimens of health.

These are guides to keeping fit in the Middle Ages.

And just as we have lots of articles and books about keeping fit today,

so in later Middle Ages, these books began to circulate. Started out for the

rich and famous and, you know, well-to-do people in high status. And then they began to trickle

downwards being written in English or German or French or whatever in the vernacular. So there's

...