Hey there, it's Stephen Dubner.

We heard from a lot of listeners who really liked our most recent episode, which was called

What It's Like to be Middle-aged in the Middle Ages.

So I figured you might want a little bit more medieval programming.

Here is a bonus episode.

It's an updated version of an episode we first published

in 2013. It's called What Do Medieval Nuns and Bo Jackson have in common? The answer is

probably not what you think. As always, thanks for listening.

It probably was pretty darn painful because you're not living in a world with good

razors.

The chances are what they're using is kitchen cutlery, I would imagine.

And that is not necessarily all that sharp. I can't imagine how

painful it was. That's Lisi Oliver. When we spoke with her for this episode, around 12 years ago,

she was studying medieval law at Louisiana State University. And what do you think she's talking about

that was so darn painful? Between the 5th and the 12th century in early modern Europe,

barbarity swept through the continent and also the island of England.

And often the targets of these attacks were monasteries and nunneries.

But nunneries, you had the added incentive of rape to add to sort of pillage

and destruction.

For a nun, rape was especially problematic, aside from the obvious reasons, rape violated a nun's

chastity, which meant that as a bride of Christ, she might be forbidden entry into heaven.

So what do you do if you are a nun,

...