Dr. Eleanor Janega

And am I next?

The Black Death, and that will eventually kill 25% of the world's population.

That's an almost unthinkable number.

It's riches beyond our wildest imagination.

What is it that people get wrong about medieval times?

Because I feel like it gets a bad rap.

It gets a really bad rap.

It's one of the things that is most frustrating.

People have this tendency to look at the medieval period as though it is intensely and uniquely stupid.

As though it's just a group of people who are rolling around in mud being idiots.

The Middle Ages does what it says on the tin, right?

You've got the ancient world, you've got the modern world, and they're the bridge in between.

So they kind of act like ancient people.

They kind of act like modern people.

And I like how they are like us in a lot of respects, but also just wilding out.

I think people forget, like, that's a millennia of history.

Yeah, exactly.

And it also means a lot of different things.

I think one of the reasons why people don't have the opportunity to learn about it so these myths prevail is because it's intensely complicated.

Like, what is happening in 6th century Iberian Peninsula is very, very different to what is happening in 14th century, you know, what are the German lands, right?