You're listening to the History Extra podcast from BBC History Magazine, the UK's best-selling history magazine. I'm David Musgrove.

Welcome to the final episode in our four-part podcast mini-series,

The Medieval Masterclass with the historian Dan Jones.

This was first recorded as a virtual lecture program in the late summer

2021 to coincide with Dan's book, Powers and Thrones, a new history of the Middle Ages. During four

episodes, Dan takes us on a journey through the four ages of medieval history, from the collapse of the

Western Roman Empire, through to the dawning of

Renaissance ideas, and religious revolution. So in the last session, we heard about the

rise of the Mongol Empire and how that impacted on life and politics across Europe. Plus,

we talked about the increasingly important place of trade and merchants and urban life generally.

Now, the development of that urban life was

sorely tested by the big event that kicks off the last period that we are considering,

and that is 1348 to 1527, an age which Dan calls the age of revolution. And of course,

you'll spot the start of that period coincides with the spread of that terrible medieval

pandemic, the Black Death. Dan will introduce us to the Black Death when he gives us the

overview of the period in just a second, and then after that, he and I enjoy a conversation

where we explore some of the themes in a bit more detail. And just to remind you, if you want to watch the video of our conversation

and enjoy the extended audience Q&A that we had in the live masterclass session,

you can do that at our website, history extra.com forward slash video,

though you do need to be a website subscriber to access that content.

Right, over to Dan to introduce us finally to the Age of Revolution,

1348 to 1527. The final session that today's session deals with what in Powers and Thrones

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