True Crime Medieval

From the 12th century to Renaissance, the Ordelaffi family ruled the commune of Forli, in Northern Italy. On and off. Also, on and off again. When they weren't fighting others for the commune -- Florence, the Emperor, the Pope -- they were fighting each other, and in 1376, poison became a favorite weapon, when Sinibaldi I Ordelaffi poisoned first his uncle and then his cousin, so that he could have Forli. He's not even our protagonist, though, because we lit, for this episode, on Pino III Ord...

William Donn de Burgh, the 3rd Earl of Ulster, was, alas, not so great at being the Earl of Ulster. Starving his cousin Walter Liath de Burgh to death led to Walter's sister Gylle (also of course a cousin of William's) getting her husband to have him murdered. And then, the whole succession problem -- there were several cousins wandering around, and William's heir was a girl, and that was right out -- led to the Burke Civil War. What with one thing and another, though the de Burghs married in...

Humans have been throwing each other out of windows pretty much as long as humans have had windows more than one story or so off the ground, but only Prague is famous for them. Two of them actually led to wars, even. We are very happy to tell you about the famous defenestrations, wherin all sorts of officials got thrown out of windows, and Michelle is happy to tell you about the tourist trade. Oh, and also Susan Howe's poem "Defenestration of Prague," which is, of course, about Ireland. Becau...

It's Episode 100! So we both went through the episodes we've published so far, to pick our favorites. Out of them, we picked three apiece, and then, as a grand winner, the one that turned up on both of our lists -- not the highest favorite of either of us, but pretty damn beloved. We explain why they all made the cut. And had a lot of fun, remembering them. Here's to the next 100! We do have a pretty long list to see us through. it's a 1000 years and an entire continent, and peopl...

It was unusual for medieval women to kill their fathers, and especially unusual for them to use crossbows to do it. Juliane de Fontrevault tried both, but she missed King Henry I, who was at the time besieging her castle in Normandy. There had been an altercation, you see, which led to a major hostage failure, wherein Juliane's husband Eustace blinded the young hostage sent to Henry, and Henry blinded and cut the noses off the two girls sent to him as hostages. Who were his grandchildren, by ...