Hi everyone, and welcome to episode three hundred and twenty one of the Medieval Podcast.

I'm your host Danielle Sebowski.

If there's one thing we can say about twenty twenty five, it's that it was certainly full of surprises.

From political bridge burning to bridge building, to the destruction and the restoration of priceless artifacts, there was never a dull moment this year.

In keeping with tradition, I invited Peter Konechni to speak with me about the top medieval news stories of twenty twenty five.

As the editor of Medievalist dot net and a lifelong news junkie, Peter's got its finger on the pulse of the medieval headlines around the world every week on his website.

Our conversation on the good, the bad, and the ugly of twenty twenty five is coming up right after this.

Well, welcome back, Peter.

It is time for the year in review twenty twenty five, which is really difficult for me to wrap my head around because twenty twenty five still feels like the future to me.

But here we are at the end of twenty twenty five.

Welcome back for the year in review.

Thank you, thank you, Yeah.

It's been an eventful year for both of us and for all things medieval.

So yeah, I'm ready to get into it.

Awesome, all right, So getting into the top medieval stories of the year.

The first one is the one that you least want to say, which.

Which is the tray recheh the Duke de Berry manuscript.

For what Peter's trying to say is the tree Rechio.

So the very rich hours, that beautiful blue manuscript of the Duke of Berry.

What about the manuscript, Peter, Yeah.

So it just finished a two year restoration and it was covered in a big exhibition at the Chateau de Chantali in France.

If you were a medievalist and you wanted to hit a museum, that was the one to do it this year, because this manuscript is like the Mona Lisa of manuscripts.

It is so gorgeous.

It's the one for people who are trying to picture it.

It is the one that you always see that as like super blue, and it has people doing stuff at the bottom and a beautiful zodiac in the sky at the top, and it was made by the Limberg brothers.

You can't say enough good things about this manuscript.

It's an incredible piece of art.

Indeed, indeed it takes from the early fifteenth century kind of improved on over the decades of the fifteenth century.

And yeah, this is like the first time it did like a scientific study of it.

Take a look at how those blues came about Lapis Lazuli if you want to know, that's the blue for everybody.

Right, So, but yeah, you know what the painting techniques, what was on the underdrawings, all that kind of stuff.

So they actually put out a book along with the exhibition, one of my favorite books of the year too.

It's just under their testament how important medieval manuscripts are and how important now that they becomes for reaching out to the wider public.

Yes, especially one like this that is still so beautiful and vibrant even all these years later.

It really catches people's imaginations, I think, and for people who listen to The Glass King in the Summer, the miniseries that I did for Sony for This is History Dan Jones's podcast, John Duke of Berry is the uncle of the Glass King.

He was the brother of Charles the Wise, and he was also the guy who decided he didn't really want to be regent when he was given the opportunity.

He's also the guy who told John the Fearless to get out of town after he murdered the Duke of Orleals.

So for people who follow that story, John Duke of Berry is in the background of that story.

And what he's doing at this moment in the French Civil War is just like indulging himself in art rather than getting involved in the conflicts.

So it's coming out of that moment, which I think is an important thing to point out, like this beautiful art coming out of a really tumultuous moment in front.

But he's also somebody who would have known Christine Debisan for example, so he's a very important cultural figure.

I think he also was a patron for Gillum de Masho at some point as well, earlier in his life.

So John Duke of Berry, he's actually in the manuscript.

You can see him richly dressed in this rich manuscript as well.

Super important figure.

And thanks to his richness, his vast wealth and his great eye for art, we have this amazing artifact.

Yeah, if you hadn't had a chance to see it, it is online now, a beautiful digital aversion so yeah, check out the research on it.

It was kind of like an underreported story for twenty twenty five, even by us in medievalis dot net.

But man, that is a wonderful manuscript and I'm glad it's getting its dues.

Yes, well, for medievalist, this is your opportunity, your excuse to go back and look through that manuscript again, because it's just.

I mean, you see something new every time you look at it.

So that is one of our news stories for the year.

Yeah.

Our happiest one too.

Our happiest one.

The second news story is not a happy story.

It is something that you talked about a little bit before when you stopped buy on the podcast a couple of months ago, I think.

But things are heating up again, unfortunately between Cambodia and Thailand.

So what's going on there, Peter.

Yeah, yeah, So literally, as we're speaking now, the war has broken out again, at least fighting has broken out again.

There was a ceasefire in July that's lasted about five months.

So there's has been this kind of ongoing conflict between Cambodia and Thailand over their border, and it's really centered around these temples at date back to the eleventh and twelfth century at a time when like the Khmer Empire was like dominating the region.

These are like wonderful landmarks, partly in ruins, but they're very big tourist sites.

ENESCO has them on their list, but the border really straddles them.

And ever since the early twentieth century there's been claims by both countries to this, and it's not just hey, we wanted for tourists reasons, like they both see it as part of their national identity and historic legacy.

Cambodia is kevin heir to Khmer Empire in one way.

In Thailand, it also sees itself as are this place that kind of struggled against the Khmer Empire.

So when the fighting broke out again earlier this year, they left forty dead, hundreds of thousands of people had to flee.

It was been in news for a couple of days.

There was a truce at least, and that now looks like it's falling apart, and unfortunately I don't see any way out of it for the immediate future.

Here.

Yes, well, it's almost as if they drew the border sort of like through the temple grounds, and that my understanding of it is the most important one, which I don't know how to pronounce properly, but it's the prey of a hair I think, an old Hindu temple where my understanding is you can enter it from Thailand, but it belongs to Cambodia, and it was given to Cambodia in nineteen sixty two by the International.

Court of Justice.

And again I understanding of this not being too close to the situation is that it sort of heated up again when Cambodia started making a case for it to be a UNESCO site, and then people were like, well, to be our site or your site, and so as you were saying the last time you brought this up on the podcast, it shows how medieval history continues to be a contemporary point sometimes of conflict, definitely of interest, where people really feel connected to these sites that are so so old.

Yeah, we don't talk about it too much, but like, there's a lot of conflicts that are going on in the world that have parts of it dating back to the medieval era, or like I think more of this claiming historical sovereignty.

Ukraine and Russia be one a good example Ethiopia, you know, there's conflicts there, and yeah, and there's aspects of that.

Hey, this belongs to us culturally.

This is part of our history and they don't want it to be a part of another country.

Right.

These things tend to fester over quite a long time because there's no easy answers.

Yes, Unfortunately, for the people who are listening to this podcast in the future.

Here at this moment, the moment of recording, we don't have any good news about Ukraine.

You don't have any good news about Gaza.

Unfortunately, these conflicts just continue to burn.

My best wishes, of course, always go out to the people in the heart of these conflicts, and hopefully people can see sense soon and find their compassion, because we really as human beings, need to stop finding out for everything, honestly, like enough of.

This here, ye hear ye?

Right?

What else is there to say except for enough?

Already?

I think we need to find some peace in this world, and unfortunately for people listening in the future, we have not to this point.

But but there are other things going on in the world that are important for us to recognize as medievalists.

So maybe we we need to leave this there and say we have best hopes for the future, because so far we're not doing great.

We're not doing great at the whole piece thing as humanity, all right.

One of the things that gripped the headlines in twenty twenty five, not too long ago from the time of recording, was a tower collapse in Rome.

Thirteenth century tower called the Torre des Conte collapsed.

I'll give you a chance, Peter, to tell me what you know about this, But it seems to have been just an accident, but they're still investigating.

Indeed.

Indeed, so on November third, this medieval tower collapsed, killed one worker, seriously injured another.

As it stands right now, they're getting ready to begin restoration efforts stabilize the building.

But in terms of the causes, there's potentially two.

One was this was human error in the assembling of the scaffolding, or the other is that there were vibrations from drilling.

There's a new subway line nearby.

The worry is that that might affect the stability of the towers.

So both those aren't very good expiations in the sense that these can happen again.

There's a lot of worry on what might happen to places like this.

Yeah, well, the thing is about Rome is that it's a living city, right, and it has all of these old constructions.

And they are built very well.

But when you have things like a subway being built under the city, sometimes you can have things like vibrations and they can have unexpected consequences.

Again, we don't know what the actual cause of it was.

But a little bit about the tower.

The tower is ninety feet tall.

It was built in the thirteenth century by Pope Innocent the Third for his brother apparently Innocent the Third, just to place this in context, is the guy who held the fourth ladder in Council in twelve fifteen, so hugely important Pope over the course of.

The Middle Ages.

He was the guy who was enmeshed with King John when they were having all these discussions about Magna.

Carta, for example.

He also was an instigator behind the Alberghenzi and Crusade.

And Innocent the Third is also the guy who founded the Franciscan Order, or at least and found it allowed for France Is to found the Franciscan Order.

So Innocent the Third is a really consequent chill figure like John Ferry, like I was talking about before, even more consequent chill figure and he built this tower for his brother, so a nice place to hang out in Rome, right on the edge of the forum.

We call it like an a list for the sites in Rome.

When I was in Rome, I never visited it or even heard about it.

But we go to a lot of these medieval sites, churches, castles, and we find it because in scaffolding right, and it's being repaired and restored, and that's a continuous process.

These are not cheap buildings to keep up the look, keep it looking old right.

So as people that love the Middle Ages, this is something that we have to keep in mind that these buildings are somewhat fragile and a knee constant upkeep.

Part of what we should do is make sure that our governments and charities have the funding to keep these in maintenance and avoid things like accidents happening.

I remember there's been a lot of news in Scotland because they've had to close castles and buildings because of worries that the masonry was falling off right, and that was causing some consternation like oh why are this building may close for the next years.

It's because these rocks are like a thousand years old in some cases, and they may fall, you.

Know, so well, I mean it speaks to the fact that these buildings we're talking about, these buildings being contentious sometimes also beautiful things that we want to visit, and it does take a lot to preserve them over time, and the fact that we still have as many as we have is already miraculous.

And something we should be grateful for.

And so hopefully things like the Medieval podcast like Medievalist dot net will get people interested in visiting these medieval sites and get people interested in doing the fundraising to make sure that they continue to stand.

Because I haven't been to Rome.

I really do want to go to Rome, but I think it would be awesome to visit a thirteenth century tower built by this pope, you know, I think it's pretty amazing.

It may sound like he built it with his own two hands, which might be why you know, it collapsed, but that's not Maybe that's not a good joke, but I think that, yeah, we need to keep interest in these historical buildings alive so that people can keep restoring them and we can keep visiting them into the future.

Okay, So the next story that you said you want to talk about for this year in review is kind of because you wanted to.

Talk about the way people talked about it.

So the next story we're going to talk about right now is the story of Magna Karta at Harvard.

So what's going on, Peter.

Indeed, indeed, this was I think the story that got the most coverage around the world.

Some researchers were looking into the Magna Carta copy that was held at Harvard, and they were looking at the digital version good for digitizing, and they came to realize that it's not from the fourteenth century but from the year thirteen hundred.

It was really hyped out.

One of the big facts that people were hyping up was it was only purchased for twenty seven dollars and fifty cents in nineteen forty six.

Yes, I mean in nineteen forty six.

That was a lot of money, but getting the Magna Carta for a song is still pretty amazing.

Well, this was discovered in part by David Carpenter.

I think it was the first person to sort of say, what's going on here looking at the digital copy.

David Carpenter was on the podcast talking about Edward the first Dad Henry the Third, and David Carpenter noticed this because in thirteen hundred it was a reissue of Magna Carta by King Edward the First, and as he says in a video, that you put healthiy a medievalist on it.

David Carpenter says this time thirteen hundred was the last time that a king of England confirmed the twelve to twenty five version, which is, as he says, it, the definitive vers version of Magna Carta.

So this is a significant moment in history thirteen hundred.

It is not the only copy of Magna Carta that was issued that year, but recognizing it as being one of these few copies that were created that year is still super important.

And I should give a shout out to the fact that David Carpenter reached out to Nicholas Vincent, who also worked to make sure that this was validated as being a thirteen hundred copy of Magna Karta.

I think it got really blown up in the media because you know, when people can say the copy, it's like, oh, this is an original copy, right, But if it was from the mid fourteenth century, that's an original copy too, from the mid fourteenth century.

Some people say they've only redated it a couple of decades earlier than what it was previously, So it's not that big news.

But the news came out at a time or Harvard University.

Harvard and the Trump administration we're really at odds.

I think they're still at odds.

Yeah, overfunding and free speech and things like that.

And I think the Harvard administrators were like, hey, you know, this is a symbol of freedom of people and constitutionalism and things like that.

Right, and Magna Carta has always been viewed that way, right, like this beacon of history more than perhaps it deserves to be.

Yeah, it has become a symbol that is larger than life, and that when you actually read it, it's much more pedestrian in some ways, where it's talking about only the rights of free people in a jury of your peers, being like if you're a baron, you get judged by other barons.

Like it's not.

Exactly what people sort of elevated to be.

That said, it is a very important moment in history when Magna Carta came out, and having it reissued throughout that century in England was really to solidify that relationship between the king and the people.

So every time Magna Carta was dragged out, which it was several times over the course of that century, it was always an important moment.

So I think that one of the things that you sort of breezed by a second ago was that people talk about this being a copy, and it sounds like when they said it was like authentic, it was thirteen hundred gestures towards us being a forgery, and it's like, it's not a forgery, or it's not like somebody that is like writing it out by hand later.

It's not something that was created to sort of like fool people or make people imagine that this was like the sole copy that came out in thirteen hundred.

But it's more like when Edward the first put this out, he had to put out several copies of people like actually writing at the time.

So I think that some of the spin on it in the media was like it's authentic.

It's well, it was already authentic, which is what medievalists all over the place were saying, And I like, I remember Lisa Fagan Davis coming out of the woodwork and saying it was always authentic.

It's just earlier than we thought, and so I think it just sort of speaks to the fact that sometimes these things, especially when they are sort of cultural icons like Magna Carta, they can make the new new, but there's still always a bit of how do we want to read this as it comes out in the news, Like we should read this carefully, what does this actually mean?

And if you have questions about it, of course go to the experts and find out what it actually means, right, instead of just being like, oh, we thought it was a forger.

That's not what Harvard said, by the way, but I feel like that was the spin that was coming out of media at some points when this news came out.

Yeah, yeah, I think there were a lot of spins on it.

I guess people don't realize there's like four copies from the twelve fifteen.

They are actually copies, not the one that John and the others like wrote over as they're doing it at Running Meed Right.

It's kind of fascinating.

I think maybe someone will want to like do a paper on how various media organizations from right to left kind of put the little spins on it.

Everyone noted the price, Yeah.

It's important, that was the fun part.

So yeah, yeah, that's the a political part of it.

Well, I mean, congratulations to Harvard because having it be from thirteen hundred is still a coup, and it's awesome that people are still looking at it, and the fact that it was digitized, as you said, means that people can take a look at it again, which is so important.

Yeah.

Now I guess they put a few more bucks into the insurance for it.

Maybe maybe.

But speaking of insurance, that brings us to the story that you thought should be the top story of this year interview, which is that the Bayo Tapestry, the Bayo embroidery we should be saying, is on the move.

Indeed, indeed, it's more.

I see that this is the top story of twenty twenty six, and right now we're kind of leading up to it because the agreement was finalized this year that the Bio Tapestry its home is in Bayou in a museum there, but that museum is going into your renovation.

So they have a special exhibition that's going to happen in the British Museum from September of twenty twenty six to July of twenty twenty seven.

So the Biotapestry goes there.

In return, some French museums will be getting the Lewis Chessman and pieces from the Sun and Hute Treasure.

But this was something that was supposed to happen actually back in twenty twenty two before the pandemic.

Kind of a kabash on all of this, and it's kind of fascinating the blowback that's been against this idea, primarily coming from people in France saying, hey, we should not move this.

It's too fragile to move.

If you're going to move it, don't move it to London.

You're saying that people are saying this for political reasons, don't move it to London.

Part of it is this is something like announced by Emmanuel Maccrong, President of France, and his political opponents are always going to be looking for ways to besmirch him right and take apart his ideas.

To me, this is just an example of that of French politics and like, hey, the French president wants this, so we don't want it, and they're looking for reasons.

Well.

It's interesting because all of the media releases that are coming out about this are talking about this shape cultural history between England and France, and you really can't deny that because it is a fact that these two countries have a lot of shared history.

And so what I thought was interesting as well is the director of the British Museum, Nicholas Cullinan, said that the treasures that are going across to Friends represent all four.

Nations in the UK.

And as I understand this, this is the Sutton who treasures as you say, and the Lewis Chessman.

So I guess the Lewis chessmen are standing in for Ireland as well as Scotland, Sutton who is standing in for England as well as Wales.

Actual I hope that Wales gets represented.

It should always get represented.

But this is this is part of a whole series of things that are connecting, reconnecting England and Friends right now, including the stuff that's going to be celebrated in twenty twenty seven, one of which is the thousandth anniversary of the birth of William the Conqueror, pretty significant to English and French history together and part as well as the Grande peals of the Tour de France in the UK.

So the Tour de France is starting in the UK in twenty twenty seven as again a gesture of goodwill, of connection, and it's really it's cool and interesting to see these reconnections happening, not just between England and France, but I think in the wake of a lot of the turmoil that's happened this year, there are lots of connections that are being made between countries that maybe have let their relationships drift a little bit.

So it's nice to see these things come together.

Although I do, like many people have concerns about moving this embroidery that is like what seventy meters.

Long across the channel.

Like I'm a little bit nervous, but I'm putting my faith in the conservators that it's going to make it.

It's going to be great both times it has to move.

Yes, well there is a problem.

I'm sure that will make it number one story for twenty twenty six.

There you go, Peter.

Biotepes to be destroyed under English Channel.

This is the difference between Peter and me.

Like Peter is looking for the news story.

This is why he runs Medievalist.

So for people who are planning.

Their trips, the Baye Tapestry will be at the British Museum between September twenty twenty six and July twenty twenty seven.

For the British Museum, this is a huge could be a huge moment, I think for the British public because not everyone can go over to Bayou to look at this, and this is a fundamental part of the English history stories.

I think it will be a big event and I think i'll it'll bring a lot of more people interested in the Middle Ages.

I mean, you make a good point in that you have to intentionally go to visit the Bayou Tapestry because it is in Bayo.

When you have it at the British Museum, you can sort of see it in the context of all the other treasures, although the son who treasure will not be there for that particular month, so you can't compare the helmets.

But you know, it will be great.

I think for people to have a chance to see it.

I'd like to see how they mount it, because it is quite the beast an embroidery.

Okay, so I do beg your indulgence for a second, because one of the things that happened this year is that we lost one of my mentors.

So this might be a little bit long, but I really want to take a moment to memorialize somebody who was really important in my journey to become a medievalist, and that is Sarah lurak Ki.

First, So for Canadians especially, you may have come across Sarah.

She is an Old English scholar.

She really focused on liturgy, so that's really what she made sort of her home in terms of scholarship.

But she was so generous when it came to helping people feel part of the field, inviting people into the field.

I was taught by Sarah at Trent University, and for people who listened to my story that I put out on the podcast last year, I didn't intend to be a medievalist from the time I was a kid.

I sort of fell into it.

So I ended up doing a victory lap in my undergraduate career so that I could prepare myself to be a medievalist.

And so I did two courses with Sarah at Trent.

One was the History of English, so the fact that I know any Old English at all is down to Sarah.

And then the Beowulf Manuscript course and whether she was disappointed that I didn't become an old English scholar or not, it really had no effect on the way that she treated me as somebody who was coming up as a scholar.

Sarah was one of the people that gave me recommendation letters to the University of Toronto, and I had applied to two different schools.

One was the Center for Medieval Studies and one was the English Department.

And I ended up going with the English Department because I thought there would be more jobs.

But I could have gone to the Center for Medieval Studies.

And this is actually really unusual, and I'm pointing this out because my Latin was rudimentary and so the only way, the only reason I got accepted into the Center for Medieval Studies was Sarah wrote me an absolutely glowing letter of recommendation.

So I was welcomed into the Center for Medieval Studies despite the fact that my life and wasn't very good.

And again I took most of my courses sort of with the Center for Medieval Studies and didn't and run around Latin, but you know, got to study Shakespeare as well.

Sarah made that possible.

It made me feel like it was possible.

She also wrote me a recommendation letter so that I could get the Ontario Graduate Scholarship, without which I wouldn't have gone to graduate school.

I mean, Sarah's one of the mentors who wrote me recommendation letters, but I know she did that for me.

She also invited me to be part of the CARA Conference, which was a conference for educators in medieval studies, and I got to know people there and understand and be introduced to people in the field.

Early.

One of the people I clicked with with Eric Wackle, who was one of the first people on this podcast there.

And then one of the most important things that she did for me was she was traveling from Peterborough to Kalamazoo for the usual conference in two thousand and six and she let me hitch a ride with her.

So I went with Sarah to Kalamazoo, my first Kalamazoo in two thousand and six, and it was there that I recognized that I could have a place in the field.

When you're going into graduate school, you're like, am I going to be able to make it right?

And going to Kalamazoo just getting a ride in her car allow me to go and see and she was just so welcoming and generous in all of those ways, and so I'm taking a moment because I'm really super grateful to Sarah.

I'm going to try not to cry here because without her, I don't know that I would be as far as I am, even though you know I followed, I followed the direction of my other mentor join find in into Romance more than Old English.

But I'm also saying this because those small things that you do for other people can have a huge impact later, and she really lived that way and made, like I said, made medieval studies a welcoming place for students.

So I wanted to really just bring forward all of the things that Sarah did for me for those reasons, and then also for people who knew Sarah or don't know Sarah but find this sort of thing valuable.

They are collecting donations at the Dictionary of Old English in Sarah's name, the Sarah kee From Memorial Fund, so that students can get a student ship paid for to go and work on the Dictionary of Old English.

Because this was a passion project for her.

So if you're interested in donating to that, make sure that you're saying that you're doing it in Sarah's name.

But the Sarah Kee from Memorial Fund is going to continue her work.

She died way too young and she will very much be missed.

So I wanted to take a second to pay tribute to Sarah.

So thank you for indulging me here.

She was a very important person on my journey.

That was wonderful.

Daniel car drives to Kalamazoo.

That's where the bonding always happens.

Right, It's a long trip.

It was like eight hours from near Toronto.

It is even further from Peterborough.

And I think she literally picked me up along the way, like stopped by where I was staying so that we could go together.

Yeah, I mean you do get to know people that way.

But I remember on the car, right on the way back, she was like what books did you get at the book sale?

Oh, these are great choices, or like this person's a great scholar.

But again, those introductions, those small things that build your confidence are so important.

That is the thing I remember best about her, even more than the class work.

I think the mentors we had when we were like learning the craft, they have a special place in our hearts.

So thank you for saying that.

Well, one more thing that you might find interesting.

Peter is that for her BeO Wolf Manuscript class, I wrote about were wolves and Saint Christopher, And that was the first article that you published that I wrote on medievalist dot Net.

They indeed indeed got you off on this career on the online medieval world.

Well, I think I built that myself with my five minute Medievalist Blood.

True.

True, But you know, I.

Did give that article to Medievalistnet and that sort of set me off on that trajectory in our partnership in terms of my writing for your reside.

Yeah, all right, Peter, what's happened for you in twenty twenty five.

It's been a really really good year for Medievalist Net overall.

I kind of looked at the numbers.

We're going to hit about six million page views for this year, so which is you know, kind of on bar.

The revenues have really gone up, and I want to think Raptive is the company that holds the advertising for us, and thank you so much.

You know, financially we were like the most financially stable we've ever been.

Congratulations.

That's awesome.

Yeah, yeah, so I'm really excited about that.

It was a couple of tougher years before that, and like I feel a lot more confident going into twenty twenty six.

It seems like I have a ton of writers now and we've got like content, more content that can handle as I'm learning, probably get a little more help in the new year, and I've got some more trips planned.

I was in Greece about the month ago.

They're doing my annual pokerimage out of leads for the IMC.

I've been really really happy with that, and plus the medieval courses that we've been doing, that just seems to be growing like crazy.

So thanks to all the instructors that want to spend a few hours each week talking to students about things they love.

Yes, Well, just as a reminder to people, Peter is one man show.

I'm medievalist done.

Ever, I'm always telling him he needs to get help because there is a lot that's going on there.

So Peter is the guy that puts out those articles that you love to read, wors is that you love to take, and you also distribute many podcasts and so Peter, you are the one man show.

I'm more like a spider in the center of the web.

Yeah, and I have many flies that kem You know.

People may not know this, but Peter's always trying to spend himself as a villain, which is a hard sell.

But you know you do you.

I'm a super villain.

Uh huh.

Moving on how I was twenty twenty five for you, twenty twenty five is pretty quiet at the beginning of the year, in part because I was trying to take my own advice, which was to just slow down and really reconnect with myself.

So again, for people who have read How to Live Like a Monk or come across my stuff before, that is actually how I live and how I think about things.

So I was just starting to.

Feel sort of overwhelmed and wondering what my next direction was going to be.

So the first half of the year was really sort of just slowing down for me.

That was still like doing all sorts of things, like I was doing a first aid coorus when I was doing a painting chorus and all these things.

Still parenting, still putting out the podcast, still really wrestling with the book proposal, which I hope to finally finish in twenty twenty six.

The first half of the year was really thinking about what I wanted to do, and that really prepared me for the fall, which was about this sort of I don't know how to call it, like this is you and me, sort of making sure that our work has separated, me going independent with this podcast and distributing it myself and taking over the Patreon or all the people were like, should I take a break or slow.

Down a little bit?

Yes, you absolutely, because that's where your good ideas come from.

So the second half of twenty twenty five has been thinking about how to serve this audience better, because I really do want to build community and create things that are going to bring people joy when it comes to medieval studies, and really you've cornered the market on everything else.

So I think I can do this podcast and Patreon.

So there's that, and I shouldn't forget that I was really, really lucky enough to team up with Sony and Dan Jones again this summer, which is just so much fun.

It's just so much fun when you can try something new for me narrative history still pretty new, and do it with somebody who's really fun.

Who's Dan Jones.

Also, the team at Sony just amazing, So shout out to al at Sony for all the people that are on that Patreon Al is an absolutely amazing guy as well, So if people are listening to This is History, you're supporting some pretty cool people over there as well.

So yeah, twenty twenty five started pretty quiet, ended up being pretty busy.

Now I'm looking towards the future in a way that I haven't done before, and so this is a this is an exciting time.

Yeah.

You know, when you do things quietly, you're qushing it.

So I'm looking forward to seeing how the podcast evolves and how you create this Patreon and how you just outgrow where you're at right now and become even a more important medievalist in our little world.

Oh well, we'll see, We'll see again.

Hats off to Sarah, Joann and Fiona Harris Starts at Trent University for setting me on this path.

Hopefully I can create things that are fun as we go into the future.

And I want to say thank you to everyone who has given me their takes on the survey and told me what you think about the podcast and what direction we should take, because it really is all for you listeners.

This is what it's for, and I'm really appreciative of all of the nice things that you've said lately.

And over the course of the year.

Well, thanks again, and all right, I guess our time for twenty twenty five has come into an end, and I'll see you sometime in twenty twenty six.

Yes, well, I'm sure that we will go out for a coffee and talk books and exchange books.

I'm going to steal all the good books that keep coming to you from publishers.

Yeah, and I'll be back for at least the year in review for next year.

Yes, well, thank you Peter for your contribution for being such a big part of launching the Medieval Podcast all those years ago.

And I'm sure listeners will be so interested to find out what's going on with you over at Medievalist dot net.

And I will definitely let people know when you create your own new and improved Patreon for Medievalist dot net proper.

Indeed, indeed, So until next time, with all you people in podcast land, it's hey, hey.

Thanks Peter, thank you, And with that we wrap up the sixth year of the Medieval Podcast.

Looking back on all the amazing scholars featured here this year, I am definitely feeling very lucky.

It's such a privilege to have them share their incredible detailed work so that we can all learn a whole lot more about the Middle Ages together each week.

So thank you scholars for your generosity and your willingness to answer any and all of my questions, no matter how far out of left field.

There's nothing like making new friends and meeting up with old ones to nerd out, and I hope this podcast is a way for all of you at home to do that too.

As we turn the.

Calendar over, it's time to enter a new era of additional content and as ever exciting new scholarship on the Middle Ages.

Like every new adventure, it's very exciting and a little scary.

So I want to express my heartfelt thanks to all of you who've been with me on the journey on Patreon and in your cars, walking your dogs and even scrubbing your bathtubs.

Sharing this time with you every week is an absolute dream come true.

For everything from the latest news two pointy shoes, follow Medievalista and on Instagram, at medievalist net or blue Sky at Medievalists.

You can find me Danielle Zibowski across social media at five and Medievalist or five minute Medievalist, and you can find my books at all your favorite bookstores.

Our music is by Christian Overton.

Thanks for listening, and have yourself a happy New Year.