The Black Death: the Rise of Women, Witches & the Peasant’s Revolt

Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society

History Hit

Society, Sex, Scandal, Education, History

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 13 October 2023

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

There’s not much good to come out of a plague, especially a bubonic plague in the 14th century. A pandemic which definitely didn't involve zoom quizzes and a video montage of celebrities singing 'Imagine' by John Lennon (actually, maybe they were better off in the 1300s).

But something extraordinary happened after The Black Death, which killed around half of the population in England. Because of a shortage of men, women had more autonomy and opportunities; from work and apprenticeships, to being able to rent land in their own name.

Kate is Betwixt the Sheets with Philippa Gregory to talk about how women's lives were impacted by the plague.

Philippa's new book: Normal Women: 900 Years of Making History, is out on the 26th October.

This podcast was edited by Tomos Delargy and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long.

Discover the past on History Hit with ad-free original podcasts and documentaries released weekly presented by world renowned historians like Kate Lister, Dan Snow, Suzannah Lipscomb, Lucy Worsley, Mary Beard and more.

Get 50% off your first 3 months with code BETWIXT. Download the app on your smart TV or in the app store or sign up at historyhit.com/subscribe.

You can take part in our listener survey here.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello my lovely betrixters it's me Kate Lister I am here once more and you know what's coming
0:07.8	your way that's right it is the fair Dews Warning.
0:12.8	Here we go.
0:13.8	This is an adult podcast spoken by adults to other adults
0:16.2	about adulty things in an adulty way about a range of adult subjects
0:20.0	and you should be an adult too.
0:22.8	Will that do? Have you got it?
0:24.7	Is it fair do's? You have been warned? I think so.
0:27.8	Right, on with the show. The year is 1349 and we are in a small darkened room lit only by a tallow candle and embers of a dying fire.
0:44.6	The room smells dank, musky, with all herbs scattered all over the floor.
0:49.9	On the bed in front of us is a man writhing in pain, with black swellings all over his body.
0:56.5	He is sweating and moaning as he takes his final few breaths, and not in a good way.
1:02.1	No, no, this is the black death and it has well and truly arrived in England.
1:07.6	All around us people are dying horrible, horrible deaths and the plague seems unstoppable, almost impossible to avoid.
1:17.0	In the next few decades the illness will ravage the world in some places it killed up to half the population.
1:25.0	But back to the bedside of the dying man, he is receiving his last rights,
1:30.0	but the person listening to him confess his sins on his deathbed is not an ordained
1:34.8	male priest. Oh no no no no no it's not even a priest it's not even a man.
1:40.4	It's a woman who is delivering the last rights.
1:44.0	Because so many priests died of the plague and the ones that were left were shit scared of it,
1:49.0	the Bishop of Barthin Wells allowed women to serve the church as if they were ordained Barth and
1:55.0	gave them the power to deliver the last rights.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from History Hit, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of History Hit and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.