The Power of Medieval Gossip
Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society
History Hit
4.8 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 8 July 2025
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
People have always gossiped, but what did they gossip about in medieval times? How were women punished for gossiping? And where does the term 'gossip' come from?
Joining Kate today to gossip about all things medieval gossip is the wonderful Eleanor Janega, co-host of our sister podcast Gone Medieval.
This episode was edited by Tom Delargy and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long.
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All music from Epidemic Sounds.
Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex, Scandal & Society is a History Hit podcast.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello everyone, it's me your host, Kate Lister. I'm just jumping in before the episode to ask you for a little favour. |
| 0:07.6 | If you are enjoying betwixt, and I hope that you are, we'd love it if you could vote for us for the |
| 0:12.5 | Listeners Choice Awards at the British Podcast Awards. If you follow the link in the show notes, |
| 0:17.9 | it should take you to the place you need to go and it would mean the world to us. We were shortlisted last year and the one before that, and the one before that. |
| 0:27.8 | We were so close. And it just made us want it even more. I think we can do it this year. Right, |
| 0:34.5 | on with the show. Hello, my lovely butt twiixters. It's me, Kate Lister. Thank you |
| 0:39.1 | for dropping by once again. In fact, I'm so glad that you did because if you weren't dropping by, |
| 0:43.5 | what is this? It's just a mad northern woman talking to herself in a cubicle. But you are here. |
| 0:48.7 | And thank God that you are. But before we can go any further, I do have to tell you, this is an adult podcast, book, and by adults, to other adults about adulty things, and an adult who wake over a range, |
| 0:56.0 | adults of fixing you being adult too. We call that the fair do's warning, because if you keep |
| 1:00.5 | listening and something upset you, fair do's, we did tell you. Right, on with the show. |
| 1:15.8 | Hello, but twixters, you have joined me at a very tricky moment. |
| 1:20.7 | I am trying to thread this bloody needle and it's proving now on impossible. |
| 1:22.3 | Why am I here? |
| 1:24.8 | Why am I in a medieval sewing circle? |
| 1:28.2 | Because this is the lengths that I will go to to get some grade a juicy gossip, and I'm not the only one. In the medieval period, spinning circles and |
| 1:34.6 | sewing circles were known to be places that women could go to get some gossip. And I know we all |
| 1:41.8 | look down on gossip. We scorn gossip. Oh, gossip is terrible. I'll tell you what, for Twixters, gossip. And I know we all look down on gossip. We scorn gossip. Oh, gossip is terrible. I'll tell you |
| 1:47.1 | what for Twixters. Gossip is powerful. And it has been all throughout history. And all of these women |
| 1:52.9 | in this circle know that. And in this episode, we are going to have a good old gossip about women |
| 1:59.6 | gossiping about gossip in the past. |
| 2:02.1 | Right, try saying that five times fast. |
... |
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