Hello and welcome back to the Historic Royal Palaces podcast.

I'm Charles Varys and I'm a curator and historian here at the Palaces.

Today marks the third episode in a mini-series to celebrate the reopening of the medieval palace at the Tower of London.

In this episode, we're going to be talking specifically

about two medieval queens consort who are intimately connected to the history of the medieval

palace, Eleanor of Provence and Eleanor of Castile. These Eleanors were individually

formidable and both sharply intelligent. They nurtured strong relationships with their husbands,

the Kings of England, Henry III, and Edward I.

But we want to understand more about how these women

may have challenged the conventions of their roles,

and how, by allowing them space to be part of the narrative,

we might learn more about the 13th century.

So to help me do just that today, I'm joined by Professor Louise Wilkinson.

Louise is a professor of medieval studies at the University of Lincoln, and has published

widely on medieval women, politics and aristocratic life in the 13th century. Thanks for being here today,

Louise. I hope you're looking forward to it as much as I am. I am indeed. Thank you very much for

having me. It's lovely to be here with you today. Now before we dive in, I should say that we've

covered quite a lot of the context of this period in our previous episodes. So listeners, please do pop back and listen if you haven't already.

However, Louise is probably best for us to start at the beginning here and talk a little bit about the idea of the medieval period and what it was.

What century are we specifically talking about today and how can we distinguish it from the rest of the medieval period?

Well, the medieval period covers a phenomenally long time.

It covers the period from the fall of the Western Roman Empire

...