The History Lessons E-Book

Shalina Patel

• Herausgeber: Icon Books
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 459

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Taking a tour through history, from the Romans to the Second World War via Tudor courts, medieval castles and more, this hugely entertaining debut from an award-winning history teacher explores a variety of historical topics in a thoughtful and engaging way. It will appeal to anybody seeking to expand their historical knowledge, with an approachable and accessible style that will take you on an eye-opening and jaw-dropping journey. The History Lessons invites readers to reclaim our history education. It is for curious minds keen to look beyond the usual narratives and celebrate the stories and people that may be less familiar - but no less remarkable or fascinating.

Leseprobe

 

 

Published in the UK and USA in 2024 by

Icon Books Ltd, Omnibus Business Centre,

39–41 North Road, London N7 9DP

email: [email protected]

www.iconbooks.com

ISBN: 978-183773-161-9

ebook: 978-183773-163-3

Text copyright © 2024 Shalina Patel

The author has asserted her moral rights.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Typesetting by SJmagic DESIGN SERVICES, India

Printed and bound in the UK

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The History Lessons was conceived after a LinkedIn message from Emma. I am so grateful for all your wise words and for so firmly believing in the importance of not only sharing these stories but also the importance of my voice within them. Everyone I’ve worked with at Icon has been so brilliant, from Keira, to Clare, Sophie and my final editor Connor, whose insightful guidance shaped this book into its finished product.

People often ask, ‘how do you have time to do all of this and also teach?’ – and the truth is it wouldn’t be possible without Nicki and Alice. Thank you for always allowing me to say yes and for encouraging me from day one. My number one cheerleader at school was always Sula – I miss you every single day and I know you’d have been the most excited about all of this.

Most of all, thank you to my family; Mum, Keyur, Shaneil and Kavi. You have done nothing but support my dreams and none of this would be possible without you – special shout out to Izzie for supporting all my research! And to all my brilliant friends who have been so excited about this book even when I’ve doubted myself. I am so lucky to have you all in my life.

My interest in marginalised histories was sparked at LSE by the incredible Dr Joanna Lewis and I’ve never forgotten this. Thank you to my brilliant students whose questions in the classroom continue to inspire me.

To George, Matt, Laura, Zara and Georgia, the History department of my dreams! We have shaped this meaningful, rich and evolving curriculum together and I could not have written this book without you all. You introduced me to so many stories, including Tomoe, Rosa, Abe, Licoricia and of course, Ernst. I thank you with every fibre of my being.

Finally, thank you to Sam. You’ve supported and encouraged me every single day since we met and there’s no one else I’d rather have by my side.

CONTENTS

Introduction

1Early History

2The Tudors

3Abolition and the Age of Revolution

4Victorians (at Home and Abroad)

5The Suffragettes

6The Great War and Beyond

7The Second World War

8‘Modern’ Britain

Conclusion: Every Day Is a School Day

Bibliography

INTRODUCTION

Hands up – who were the historical figures you most enjoyed learning about at school? Or perhaps you didn’t enjoy learning history at school, but have (hopefully) developed an interest in it later in life? Regardless of how you got here, there’s a space for you in this classroom.

Think back to your school history lessons. In terms of events, people and places, it’s likely that you barely even scratched the surface. Even if your entire timetable had been back-to-back history, it would have been impossible to learn everything.

It’s a challenge faced by anyone teaching history. The Holocaust is the only compulsory historic event to be included in the Key Stage 3 curriculum (the first three years of secondary school). The rest is up to individual history departments. In the department I have the pleasure of working in, we often agonise over what we have time to include and, most tragically, what – or indeed who – we have to cut. We do not see the curriculum as a static entity, but rather as ever evolving and something we need to consistently reflect on.

Similarly, history itself operates within this state of flux, with so many aspects of the subject being uncovered that then reframe how we look at familiar contexts. One such example is Miranda Kaufmann’s 2017 book Black Tudors, which fundamentally changed how so many of us teach that period of time.

When I started @thehistorycorridor on Instagram it soon became abundantly clear to me that there was a real appetite for adults to return to their school history classroom, and to learn the sort of lessons students like mine are having now. The idea for this book was born out of the sentiment I continue to receive from followers and people I meet at events: ‘I wish you’d been my history teacher.’

Through this book, which is limited by the same challenge facing anyone teaching history – you can’t even begin to hope to cover everything – I will take you on a chronological journey through some of the key elements of British history from the medieval period to the 1980s. You’ll encounter many of the people my students meet in their history lessons from Year 7 to Year 9 along the way. And it’s worth bearing in mind that this book would not be possible without the countless historians whose work uncovering hidden histories in particular has been so helpful to us on the front lines of school history education.

Give yourself 30 seconds to think about what you consider to be the key dates from your school history lessons – many of those will feature here. But what I hope to do with this book is use these familiar dates and stories as a foundation for exploring the lesser-known aspects – to use what was happening in Britain as a window of opportunity to visit another part of the world, allowing us to appreciate the bigger picture.

Have a look at the chapter titles – what do you already know about these historical periods? From the medieval to the world of the Tudors, the Suffragette movement and the World Wars, you’ll meet recognisable figures here as well as some that might surprise you. Some chapters will hone in on aspects of history that are perhaps not as familiar to you from school, such as Abolition and the Age of Revolution, or the Victorians at Home and Abroad, both of which have the British Empire as their main backdrop, an area of history so many people tell me is something they know frustratingly little about. The final chapter will focus on the experience of migrant communities who moved to Britain after the Second World War, who in many ways fought their own civil rights movement, and to which many of us owe so much.

Along the way I hope you are able to make connections between the past and your own life. I hope to offer you a richer and broader version of what you previously knew. My aim with this book has always been to write an accessible history that blends the familiar and the hidden, which will inspire you to perhaps take your first steps towards embracing history in ways you may not have done so before. I hope that reading this book will act as a springboard of sorts, encouraging you to delve further into some of the people and places you meet throughout these chapters.

Let’s go. You don’t want to be late for your first lesson.

EARLY HISTORY

1

Roman Britain was more diverse than you might think

August 1901 was a typical British summer, a classic mix of sun, wind and rain. The country was between monarchs, with the formidable Victoria dying in January, and her son Bertie formally crowned the following year. This Edwardian era was just as noisy as its predecessors thanks to all the heavy machinery of the time.

At the turn of the century York was a bustling city full of tourists because of its rail connections. The Scarborough Rail Bridge was built in 1845, and it was just a short walk away from here, on Sycamore Terrace, that a team of builders was working on expanding the street when they hit something rather unexpected. Just a foot below ground level they had discovered a large stone sarcophagus. No doubt the team were stunned into silence when they saw what was inside it: the skeleton of a woman, which was later dated to the 4th century. The contents of the woman’s grave, goods for the afterlife, included a selection of jewellery (bangles, a bracelet, silver and bronze pendants and a pair of earrings), a glass mirror and a blue glass jar. A rectangular bone mount was also found. The inscription upon it translates as, ‘Hail sister, may you live in God.’

Later analysis of her teeth suggested she consumed above average amounts of fish, a reflection of her high status. She most likely enjoyed other symbols of wealth of the time, such as underfloor heating and expensive imports like wine and olive oil. Based on these items alone it’s easy to imagine what kind of life this Roman woman must have led. No doubt you’re picturing her now, reclining on a couch. Perhaps she’s deciding what new food item to try. She may even be enjoying produce now seen as quintessentially British, such as cucumber, apples and plums.

What did she do in her spare time? While we can draw likely conclusions about her lifestyle, there’s so much we’ll never know. Did she enjoy a classic Roman day out at her local amphitheatre, where a thumbs up or down dramatically signalled the fate of a gladiator? Did she enjoy wearing make-up, which during this period involved grinding your own eyeliner using soot or wearing brightly coloured eyeshadow ground from saffron and precious stones like lapis lazuli? Despite her careful burial, did she have enemies?

Cursing those who had wronged you was relatively straightforward in Roman Britain. All you needed to do was address your lead tablet to Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom, justice and victory, and make your vengeful wish as clear as possible. Writing it backwards was thought to make the curse even stronger. Curse tablets found in Bath reveal a variety of wrongdoings, including a request for a stolen bronze vessel to be ‘filled with the blood of the thief’, while others simply request that ‘those who are badly disposed towards me’ should no longer be allowed ‘to stand or sit, to drink or eat’. It was the Romans who first brought domestic kittens to our shores, which begs the question – was she an early cat lady?

The bone mount tells us her religious beliefs, while the burial tells us that she was well-respected. After all, the dead are buried by those still living.

We know for certain that she lived after the time of Boudicca, who raised her infamous army in AD 60, and after Emperor Hadrian’s decision in AD 122 to build a 73-mile-long, 10-foot-high wall to keep the ‘barbarians’ at bay. Although we can’t be certain of the timing, she may have lived during Constantine the Great’s rule as Roman Emperor. There are even a few connections between them: he was the first emperor to convert to Christianity and was even proclaimed emperor in York. Constantine was, however, the only one of the two to name a new capital city (Constantinople – now Istanbul) after himself.

One of her bangles was made of ivory. The existence of ivory in Roman York reflects the migration of both objects and people from across the Roman Empire, which at its peak required 300,000 soldiers to guard its borders. It was this migration, combined with economic prosperity, that kept the empire relatively stable for over two centuries, with trade flourishing in goods from grain to the enslaved. The ivory bangle originates from North Africa and, irrespective of whether it is an heirloom, it reflects the diversity of goods this 1.7 million-squaremile empire encompassed. If it was purchased in York then it’s likely to have been made into a bracelet in northern Italy before being imported to Britain, to be sold perhaps at a local market.

When the Ivory Bangle Lady was unearthed in 1901, archaeologists of the time marvelled that this was absolute proof of local acceptance of Christianity during the early Roman occupation of York. Over a hundred years later, when she was analysed by archaeologists in 2010, a far more startling discovery was made. The woman was of North African ancestry. This was surely something those in 1901 could scarcely have imagined. She was around five feet tall and twenty years old when she died, with no clear indicators of the cause of death. In the short span of her life what we do know is that she migrated to York and prospered.

In the wake of this discovery, Hella Eckardt from the Department of Archaeology at Reading University declared, ‘We’re looking at a population mix which is much closer to contemporary Britain than previous historians had suspected.’ This is a real eye-opener – a reflection of how dynamic and evolving our history can be.

Science has played a huge role here, shown by the details we are able to glean from the Ivory Bangle Lady compared with those in the centuries before us. She was a woman of colour in 4th-century Britain, not in a position of enslavement but one of privilege, something the science critically confirms. Her buried bones showed no significant muscle markings, indicating that she did not live a particularly strenuous life. It begs the question, what other histories are yet to be known?

Perhaps this young woman was the daughter of a soldier, military-based migration being common across the Roman Empire. Or she may have been the daughter of rich African merchants who settled in Britain. Either way, her very existence and elaborate burial tells us not only that African-origin Romans lived in Britain, but that some of them did so as wealthy, high-status individuals. Her bangles alone tell the story of Roman Britain: the white ivory one made in Africa teamed with black jet bangles produced in Whitby.

By the early 5th century, Rome had withdrawn its troops from Britain in order to fight invaders elsewhere. The Huns, who originated in Central Asia, were one of the key invaders to distract the Roman Empire at this point. Their most famous leader was the formidable Attila, who was so committed to his aims of conquest that he assassinated his own brother. With the Romans gone, Britain was then inevitably invaded and settled by a variety of different groups, most famously the Angles and Saxons.

Even during this period, the movement of relatively normal people across continents was not unusual. There’s another burial that spectacularly shows that the medieval world was far more connected than we may have assumed. An excavation prompted by Edith Pretty in 1939 of the mounds of land surrounding her Suffolk home provided a mirror into life here before the ‘kingdom of England’ was established in 927 under King Athelstan. The site at Sutton Hoo included an Anglo-Saxon ship burial, the richest ever found in northern Europe, shattering prior illusions that after the Romans left we were plunged into the Dark Ages. In fact, this was a time of immense wealth, international connections and a continued desire to show respect to those whose lives had passed. It’s likely to have been the grave of Raedwald, who was king of East Anglia (present-day Norfolk and Suffolk) till his death in 624.

The 27-metre wooden ship in which he was buried understandably did not survive millennia underground, unlike the masses of jewellery and weaponry he was buried with. The objects reveal so much to us about their possessor and the time in which he lived. The wear on the sword tells us he was left-handed, and many of the objects have surprising global origins, including silverware from the Byzantine capital Constantinople and garnets from Sri Lanka. One of the most iconic finds was the Sutton Hoo helmet, decorated with animals, including a dragon. Edith donated all of the finds to the British Museum, where you can find them on display in Room 41. If you ever visit Sutton Hoo itself, be sure to look out for a pair of roller-skates. Edith’s son Robert left them in one of the burial sites back in 1939.

Traditionally, secondary school history starts a few decades after this spectacular burial, with a central story we all know from the year alone: 1066. So why introduce these burials first? Firstly, to show that global connections and, indeed, non-white presence precede the start of the first notions of ‘Englishness’ formed by the Anglo-Saxons. While Roman Britain may not have been ‘multicultural’ in a modern sense, it was certainly a more diverse place than has always been pictured, both in terms of the people and the goods that passed through it. The Ivory Bangle Lady specifically provides a typical example of other stories we’ll come across. Whilst her existence cannot be disputed, the details of her life are gaps we have to fill, just as we’ll do with so many unexpected characters whose personal experiences we have to piece together and infer from the small traces they left behind.

The last person to successfully invade England

If you were to make a 1066-themed bingo card I can only assume that the Battle of Hastings, William the Conqueror and the Bayeux Tapestry would all feature. You may even remember supressing giggles when you saw the word ‘bastard’ in your school textbook, a term used disparagingly for William because his birth was the result of an affair his father Robert, Duke of Normandy had with a local woman called Herleva. In 1047 William cut off the hands and feet of several local residents who mocked his mother’s peasant-class heritage. But the fact that gets the most stunned reception in the classroom is that when William of Normandy invaded these shores in 1066 and beat the English king, Harold Godwinson, he was the last person to successfully do so.

He was not warmly welcomed, however. The northern population of England considered themselves somewhat independent from the rest of the country, and they did not take kindly to a man who had killed their beloved King Harold and who didn’t even speak their language. Rebellions spread across the country, led by people with fantastic names like Edric the Wild. William even faced resistance from his own earls, some of whom he promptly blinded or murdered.

By 1070, the English rebels in some parts of the country had additional support from Danish forces, so William had to take more serious action, which came to be known as the Harrying of the North. York, for instance, faced serious retribution, with essentially a ‘scorched earth’ policy in place, meaning livestock were killed and fields were either burned or ‘salted’ to prevent crops growing.

After 21 years of ruling over England, William was fatally injured at the age of 59 while attempting to seize Mantes in France. And he endured his own grisly postscript when, having had his size grossly underestimated, his corpse burst as his body was crammed into his stone sarcophagus.

It wasn’t just in the north where trouble was brewing. The Normans built castles on all their borders, most notably along the Welsh Marches, in order to prevent the Welsh from attacking England, which at this point was an entirely separate country. By the 1200s much of Wales was in fact under English rule, largely thanks to invasions under the instruction of King Edward I. This was partly thanks to divisions among the Welsh, with different kingdoms within the country vying for control. The might of the sword was used to infiltrate Wales, but the English used a variety of other methods to subjugate them. A ‘ring of fire’ was created – a fortification of castles, with towns filled with English people to show who was now in charge (the official language of Wales was English from 1284). The Welsh leader Llywelyn ap Gruffudd had called himself the prince of Wales, something English monarchs had initially accepted as long as appropriate homage was paid. From 1301, however, Edward I decided this title would no longer belong to a Welshman. Instead, it would be exclusively bequeathed to the oldest son of the English monarch, a tradition which, of course, continues to this day.

Edward I also had his eye on Scotland, imprisoning the rebellious King Balliol and taking the Stone of Destiny, an ancient block of stone that all previous Scottish monarchs had been crowned on, to London. The Scots had the infamous victory at Stirling Bridge in 1297, led by William Wallace, but he was captured in 1305 and promptly executed. In 1314, Robert the Bruce defeated Edward II’s forces in just two days, meaning this king of Scotland secured his borders from English control for three more centuries.

The Stone of Destiny was returned to Scotland in 1996, under the promise that it will be returned to England temporarily every time a new monarch is crowned. Medieval kings like Henry II, Richard II and John similarly failed to conquer Ireland thanks to strong military opposition, with the only area they controlled referred to as the Pale, hence why being ‘beyond the pale’ became a phrase used for those perceived to be behaving unacceptably.

While William the Conquerer’s wife Matilda stood at just four feet and two inches, her small stature did not stop her from making quite a name for herself. Her family ties were impressive, with links to many royal European bloodlines, including the King of France, Charlemagne, and King Alfred the Great. At a time when the wives of kings were very much on the sidelines, Matilda wished to be recognised as a queen in her own right. Unsurprisingly, women in medieval England endured many inequalities, some of which will feel familiar to the modern woman. Take the gender wage gap, for example – a female sheep clipper earned two pence less per day than their male counterparts. Most girls were married by the age of sixteen and would have several children by their mid-twenties, although not all children would be expected to survive to adulthood. Women in towns had far more opportunities than those who lived in the countryside, thanks to the possibility of learning a trade. For example, women were known to brew ale, be shopkeepers and even blacksmiths.

Although the wage gap may not have been an issue for a queen, Matilda still faced problems of her own, chiefly that she was acutely aware of how disparagingly many across her English realm viewed her husband. Unlike William, Matilda learned the language, possibly in an attempt to enamour herself to her sceptical subjects. She was so determined for the English to see her children as rightful heirs to the throne that she insisted on giving birth in York, where rebels operated at their fiercest, although the sudden onset of labour meant she gave birth to her ninth child in Selby, fourteen miles away. Her coronation was also the first to be organised just for a queen, complete with its own soundtrack (special chants were written for the occasion). Sadly, the crown that was probably made for the occasion was lost, most likely in 1216 when King John’s baggage train was swept away in the boggy marshes of Lincolnshire, never to be found again.

Nicola de la Haye, the unlikely Sheriff of Lincolnshire

Lincoln Castle was built by the Normans in 1068 for the same reason they built castles across the country – as physical symbols of their power. Nicola de la Haye inherited her father’s land in Lincolnshire and his position as castellan of Lincoln Castle, a medieval term to describe a governor of sorts. Typically, Nicola’s right to this land and role was expected to be fulfilled on her behalf by her husband, Gerard. However, Nicola was left in command during her husband’s absences, despite the usual custom of a male deputy taking on such a role. Clearly, many people didn’t know what to make of her, shown by chronicles of the time stating that she defended the castle ‘manfully’ in 1191. After the death of her husband, she was appointed Sheriff of Lincolnshire by King John in 1216, a reflection of her loyalty to him, something he desperately craved since he had been forced to sign the Magna Carta by his barons. In 1204 they had stood firm against John for a variety of reasons, including the scutage tax that they were being charged to fund his wars in France, which, coincidentally, he always seemed to be losing.

Later that year King John was determined to take Rochester Castle back from rebel barons. John asked for the castle to be mined so that the wooden props holding up the foundations could be exposed. Forty large pigs were slaughtered and set on fire, the walls collapsing as the wooden props burned away. The castle was stormed and the siege was over. The barons had another card up their sleeve, though; they’d promised Prince Louis of France the throne in exchange for his help in dealing with John. And it’s here that we meet Nicola again. Louis’ forces lay siege to Lincoln Castle for almost three months, while Nicola refused to give in. Despite the constant bombardment Nicola kept guard, commanded a garrison and oversaw the safe transfer of hostages. No wonder John had refused to accept her resignation and the return of the castle keys a few months earlier. The rebels and their French allies eventually surrendered, Magna Carta was reissued in 1216 to get consent from a new generation of barons, and John’s young son Henry III was crowned.

Nicola’s commitment to the crown, however, was ignored; Henry’s regents seized her position as sheriff, perhaps demonstrating their unwillingness to praise a woman who many had already struggled to describe without referencing men. Nicola did not accept such treatment, and she immediately travelled to London to appeal directly to the King. This worked temporarily, but everything was eventually seized from her again only two months later. Nicola lived into her seventies, a formidable woman who continued to contribute to local life by issuing charters and providing financial support to the community. We can remember her as a woman who defiantly played an unexpected role in the defence of Magna Carta, a document whose significance – the right to trial by jury, the monarch is not above the law – continues to live on despite the centuries that have passed since its signing.

Yes, there were female versions of samurai

From the early 900s, nobles in Japan began hiring warriors to safeguard their interests, creating a class known as the samurai. They supported a military style of dictatorship called the shogunate. Different classes had distinct roles within Japanese society: the daimyo were the mirrors of European nobles or barons, controlling large pieces of land on behalf of the shogun; peasants made up the majority of the population and their main job was to grow rice, Japan’s main crop. Upward movement between the different classes was very unlikely, just as in Europe. But being downgraded was, of course, possible, particularly if you had wronged those more powerful than you.

The position of knights within European feudal systems was very similar to the samurai class in Japan. Samurai devoted their lives to Bushido, the way of the warrior. The consequence of failing to uphold Bushido was seppuku, or rather, ritual suicide. However, the military role of the samurai was carefully balanced by the cultural expectations placed upon them. Most samurai committed time to cultivating a range of other skills, including flower arranging, which was regarded as a martial art of sorts, allowing one to achieve a sense of focus before going into battle. Poetry was something else samurai were encouraged to get involved in. The samurai poet Minamoto no Yorimasa wrote a heartbreaking death poem about his regrets at not having any children, before he was forced to commit seppuku. The samurai label was specific to men, but this isn’t to say that female warriors did not exist. Onna-bugeisha was the name given to women who were trained in martial arts.

One famous warrior was Tomoe Gozen. Much of her life is shrouded in mystery and legend, her story told within an epic called The Tale of the Heike, compiled not by a singular person but based on ballads. She is described as a skilled archer who fought with a katana, a weapon usually only used by male samurai, rather than a ningata – a pole with a curved blade at the tip – the weapon usually reserved for female warriors. Tomoe is described as being worth a thousand warriors, ‘ready to confront a demon or god, mounted or on foot’. She single-handedly fended off attackers during the Gempei War, and she decapitated the enemy leader while he attempted to drag her from her horse. At the Battle of Awazu in 1184 she was one of the last warriors standing and was ordered to leave, as her commander stated that he would be ashamed if he died fighting with a woman.

Tomoe’s life after this is a mystery, but some believe that she may have committed seppuku. Either way, her story is understandably hugely popular in Japan, where she has been immortalised in films, comics and even video games. The story, along with that of Nicola de la Haye, shows that some medieval women were able to fulfil roles in society traditionally occupied by men and did so unapologetically and with absolute gusto. If the two women ever crossed paths they’d have had plenty to talk about, both having wielded weapons among medieval men at a time when attitudes and even language weren’t quite ready for them. While Nicola’s history is closely tied to the Magna Carta of 1215, around the same time a similar set of principles was being drawn up in a completely different continent.

Meanwhile, in Timbuktu

Timbuktu – the name conjures images of a faraway place. The idea permeates our consciousness, yet our factual understanding of the city often leaves a lot to be desired. Timbuktu was, in fact, a key hub in the 13th century and a centre for trade and cultural exchange within the Mali Empire. It was also a centre for education, with the University of Sankore housing the largest collection of written text since the Great Library of Alexandria. Many intellectual pursuits flourished within the city, including the study of astronomy, poetry and law.

The commitment to enshrining human rights formally during this period often centres around Magna Carta in England, but there was also the Manden Charter, its contemporary, likely adopted in the 1230s in medieval Mali. Articles within the charter are both familiar (Article 5 – Everyone has the right to life) and perhaps unusual for the time (Article 14 – Never offend women, our mothers). Some of the articles give a fascinating insight into the way Malian society operated, such as Article 7, which essentially gives permission to ‘jokingly’ mock the king, officially enshrining banter into the law. Clearly this was a society with core values, one which wished to protect its citizens but also valued community spirit and didn’t take itself too seriously.

Here it must be noted that one of the difficulties historians face when studying a context like precolonial Africa is the nature of the source material. While much of Western history is written based on extensive archives, the history of West Africa was largely passed down via oral tradition. Some written archives do exist from those who visited at the time, however, such as those from Ibn Battuta, a Moroccan explorer whose original plan to visit Mecca (assumed to take just over a year) became a 29-year journey spanning parts of Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. He travelled further than anyone else before him, four times further than Marco Polo, a Venetian merchant famous for his extensive writing about Asia. Exploration is often framed as a Western pursuit, but for every Columbus and Drake there was a Battuta and Zheng He (a Chinese mariner). Despite what we may have been led to believe when we were at school, the desire to explore beyond one’s borders was not limited to Europeans.

When Battuta returned home he dictated an account of his travels, although many believe his recollections of visiting China might have been plagiarised. Even so, he provides us with a valuable insight into the wider world of the 14th century.

One stopover on his accidentally epic tour landed him in medieval Mali, in the presence of Mansa Musa, the tenth Mansa of Mali – the richest man who ever lived. It’s estimated that he would have been worth approximately $400 billion today. He became ruler in 1312 when Abu Bakr II embarked on a voyage of discovery of his own to the New World and never returned.

The Mali Empire was founded a century before Mansa Musa came to power, and by the time of his rule it was the most powerful empire in West Africa, largely due to its trade in two incredibly precious commodities, salt and gold, which had allowed Mali to grow both geographically and financially.

Ibn Battuta wished to see both the city of Timbuktu and the ruler behind it. But his assessment of meeting Mansa Musa seems to be one of slight disappointment. Despite being wowed by the ceremony and entourage that surrounded Musa, Battuta appears to have had certain expectations that were not met. He was personally offended at not being bestowed with any gifts, stating, ‘He is a miserly king, not a man from whom one might hope for a rich present.’

However, Musa’s generosity was demonstrated in 1324, when his dedication to his religious beliefs meant an inevitable and infamous decision was made to travel on a pilgrimage to Mecca. The details of this Hajj were well-documented due to the sheer size of the operation. Musa spared no expense and left with his entire royal court, resulting in a caravan of over 60,000 people dressed in finery. Dozens of camels formed part of the procession, all carrying gold dust, while 500 enslaved people marched ahead of him, each carrying a staff made of pure gold. Musa spent so much gold in Cairo that it caused its value to depreciate. It’s no wonder that Musa is depicted in the 1375 Catalan Atlas holding a gold sceptre in one hand and a gold nugget in the other, which shows us that his European peers were very aware of his achievements at the time. The gold that originated from the Mali Empire found its way to Europe, to be immortalised in crowns that adorned the heads of royalty or gilded on paintings that hung in palaces, courts and churches.

West Africa during this period is clearly a context rich in fascinating individuals, art, traditions and advancements of all kinds – in clear contrast to Victorian notions of Africa being a ‘dark continent’ with little history, something which later underpinned their desire to embark on ‘civilising’ missions there. By studying it again now, we can begin to piece together connections between those individuals and England, and widen our understanding of the medieval world, to see a less-familiar place within this well-trodden period. It’s also imperative that we remember the thriving civilisations that existed in West Africa prior to the inception of the transatlantic slave trade. Too often this part of the world is first encountered in the classroom through the prism of slavery.

Medieval Baghdad was a perfect circle

If you could build a city from scratch, what shape would you build it in and why? What would your shape of choice say about you as a leader, as well as the hopes and dreams you have for your city? In July 762, the Abbasid caliph Al-Mansur laid the first brick of the Realm of Peace, having had royal astrologers confirm that this was the most auspicious time for the work to start. He had carefully planned the city, supervising workers as they laid out his design in lines of ash. Here was Baghdad, and it was going to be a perfect circle.

Built in the fertile land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, it took 100,000 workers to turn his vision into a reality and was the most ambitious of all construction projects in the Islamic world. At the centre of the Round City lay a magnificent mosque and the Golden Gate Palace, whose roof had domes that were over a hundred feet high. Four straight roads ran towards the centre, with squares and bazaars selling goods that reflected the international links the city enjoyed, including glass from Lebanon, dyes from India and enslaved people from African and Central Asia. If you travelled across the Silk Roads it was likely you would have passed through Baghdad. At this point the Muslim empire stretched from Spain to India, hence Baghdad was a centre of trade but also a centre of learning, where goods and ideas were exchanged within and beyond its borders.

Being a librarian in medieval Baghdad was a position of great honour. And there was no greater honour than working in the House of Wisdom. This was both a library and astronomical observatory, which catered to the interest in a variety of scholarly work, including maths, philosophy and science. It was an important place in the medieval world, not least because without these Muslim scholars meticulously translating the great works of the Greeks and Romans into Arabic, it’s likely this knowledge would have been lost for ever. Familiar names to us such as Galen and Hippocrates, Plato and Aristotle were translated here first before being filtered to the West.

The dedication to translating such work had unexpected consequences, with the Abbasids specifically capturing Chinese paper makers as prisoners of war after the Battle of Talas in 781 so they could share their secrets. By 796 a paper-making factory was established in Baghdad. History has always been written by the victors, but knowledge relating to that history has been translated by those who value learning. This was a clear priority for this city where free paper, pens and lamps were provided for those wishing to write notes in their libraries. By casting our eyes beyond the cities of Europe, our understanding of life in this ‘medieval’ period starts to include grand libraries and mosques in addition to church towers and castles.

Despite building the city gates precisely high enough to let a lancer pass through without lowering his lance and having gates of iron so secure that a company of doormen were required to open and close them, Baghdad fell to the Mongols and their impressive siege weapons in 1258. Some 700,000 people were killed and all the notable buildings, including the libraries, were set on fire. Any books that did not burn were thrown in the Tigris River.

The destruction of medieval Baghdad by the Mongols is exactly why it is such a crucial stopover on our tour. While little physical evidence of the city remains, the learning they nurtured lives on. There’s also another important lesson to be learned from this city – that of mutual understanding and respect. Despite the divisive Crusading rhetoric of the time, scholars of all faiths were invited to the city’s libraries and universities to share their knowledge.

The Black Death was the most devastating pandemic in human history

The most sinister thing to travel across the medieval world was the plague of the 1340s, resulting in the death of millions. Where exactly it originated from is unclear, but the fleas who carried the deadly disease had no boundaries, killing a third of the European population in five years. Three quarters of the population of Venice perished, while in Egypt the number of taxpayers fell by 98 per cent – from 6,000 to 116.

Our understanding of what it’s like to live within the context of a deadly pandemic changed dramatically from 2019, with many of us never expecting words like ‘bubble’ to take on such new meaning. Just as we have witnessed in the 21st century, this deadly disease and its variants that swept across the world in the 14th century did so with total disregard for religion, class or nationality. Its impact on the population alone highlights why this plague is a classic feature of school history.

The Black Death was in fact a combination of two types of plague – bubonic and pneumonic. The first had symptoms such as fever and the development of ‘buboes’, large boils filled with pus and blood, usually in your armpit. You’d also get a rash in the form of black and red spots. Pneumonic plague, however, was the deadlier of the two. This was caught through breathing in infected air, leading to symptoms like coughing up blood. Theories behind the cause of this widespread plague varied. Some were closer to the truth, with the air or ‘miasma’ being blamed. Other ideas reflected the beliefs in society at the time, such as the misalignment of the planets.

European understanding of medical science left a lot to be desired, so visiting a medical professional wouldn’t have helped much. After all, this was the era when even hobbies could be hazardous. Take the medieval pastime of mob football, for example. It had no limit on player numbers, a football made of a pig’s bladder stuffed with peas, and absolutely no rules. It’s therefore hardly surprising that one in twenty people at the time had a broken or fractured limb. It was also the time when barber-surgeon was a genuine option as a portfolio career. And how would you know your barber of choice offers surgery too? Just look out for the fresh bowl of blood in the window. Disclosing even the simplest of ailments in medieval England could have dire consequences, a ‘cure’ for headaches including trepanning, which involved a hole being drilled into your skull to release the evil spirits who were causing your pain.

Knowledge at this point in England was largely based on fundamental misconceptions about how the body worked. The belief in the body being made up of four humours shows this perfectly, the idea that the body was a careful balance of blood, yellow bile, black bile and phlegm. It was therefore the job of a doctor to figure out how to restore this balance. An unlucky patient thought to have an excessive amount of blood might be advised to follow a course of bloodletting, possibly involving leeches. If they were lucky they might simply be advised to drink more red wine. A person’s internal humoral balance explained their temperament. For instance, melancholic people were said to have an excess of black bile, while too much yellow bile could make a person prone to anger.

Another form of medical diagnosis was through inspecting a patient’s blood, urine or faeces. It was entirely possible that you could present the exact same symptoms as another patient but leave with an entirely different course of action because your urine or even blood tasted different. Much like the medical posters adorning the walls of hospital rooms today, medieval physicians had urine charts to analyse your sample.

Faced with medical options like this, many inevitably turned to a variety of preventative measures to avoid catching the plague. One such measure was from flagellants who felt that publicly punishing themselves was the only way to avoid the plague. They would beat themselves with leather straps studded with metal shards in the hope that God would appreciate their commitment and spare them, showing just how much religion lay at the centre of medieval belief systems. Some measures were even more dangerous, like drinking a combination of mercury and vinegar. Those who developed buboes were understandably willing to try anything at that point; many tried strapping chickens and even dried out frogs to themselves in the hope that would help them survive.

The language we associate with contagious diseases like the plague originates from this period, with the word ‘quarantine’ coming from the 40-day isolation imposed on sailors arriving in the ports of Venice. Words like ‘social distancing’ and ‘furlough’ are surely the 21st-century versions of this, with ‘lockdown’ at the top of that list. While Covid-19 travelled across borders, international efforts to combat its impact are a testament to the importance of understanding and exchanging ideas in the context of global health.

There’s no doubt that the Black Death, which wiped out 40 per cent of England’s population, was insurmountably devastating for those who survived it, having witnessed their loved ones and other members of the community hastily buried in shallow pits, which only exacerbated the spread of the disease. Plague pits were dug due to the sheer number of bodies. A stark reminder of this came in 2013 when forensic testing confirmed that 25 skeletons unearthed during the building of the London Crossrail network were interred in one of the two emergency burial grounds dug outside the city walls for victims of the plague.

Jewish people were expelled from England in 1290

As a result of the Black Death, anti-Semitism grew in prominence in medieval Europe, but not in England, due to the expulsion of Jewish people in 1290. To try to understand this decision we must retrace our steps back to William the Conqueror, who invited Jewish people to England in 1070 to help fund various projects like castle-building, as Jewish people, unlike Christians at the time, were allowed to lend money with interest.

One such moneylender was a woman known as Licoricia of Winchester, and we can learn a lot about the experiences of Anglo-Jewish people through her story. This is not to say all Jews in England were moneylenders, of course; while there were restrictions on the type of work they could pursue, they did a huge variety of jobs, from doctors and teachers to fishmongers.

The religious zeal of the Crusades legitimised religious violence, erupting in places like York, where Jewish people were massacred in 1190. Daffodils have since been planted at the base of Clifford’s Tower in York to commemorate the estimated 150 Jews who were killed, the yellow flower chosen for its six-pointed shape which echoes the Star of David. ‘Blood libels’ – false claims that Jews were abducting and murdering Christian children – fuelled anti-Semitism across Europe from the 12th century, with some even believing they were using the children’s blood to make matzos with. This started in Norwich in 1144, when Jewish people were falsely accused of killing a young boy, something Licoricia’s first husband (Abraham of Kent) was also accused of in 1225. There are many other examples of anti-Jewish violence during this period, such as in 1255, when eighteen Jewish people were executed at the Tower of London for killing an eight-year-old boy whose body was found in a cesspool attached to the house of a member of the Jewish community.

Licoricia herself was imprisoned in the Tower of London a decade before this, but for a different reason. Her second husband, David of Oxford, was a well-connected moneylender who went to great lengths to marry her. Licoricia was clearly quite the catch: she travelled with armed guards, wore fur-lined silk gowns and was highly educated, shown by her grasp of both numbers and languages. David had to divorce his first wife, Muriel, in order to marry Licoricia, which proved tricky when Muriel refused to give her consent. The marriage was eventually nullified, although only after the intervention of the King.

Licoricia and David soon had a son, and after David’s death, Licoricia intended to continue leading his business. She was imprisoned while the debts owed to him were assessed, the authorities fearing she would somehow interfere with the process. It’s likely she was fairly comfortable, though, and given allowances such as kosher meals. Eventually she was released and was informed that she could purchase the rights to the debts owed for a fee, much of which was then used to fund renovations at Westminster Abbey.

Her relationship with the royal family did little to protect her from prejudice, however. She was sent to the Tower again in 1258, falsely accused of stealing a gold ring meant for King Henry III. Her neighbour Ivetta, who led the accusations, was subsequently charged. Similarly, Abraham of Berkhamsted, also known as ‘the king’s Jew’ due to his financial connections to the monarch, was falsely imprisoned in the Tower, accused of doing the most ‘filthy and unmentionable’ things to a statue of the Virgin Mary, which he allegedly kept in his bathroom.

Despite this clearly being a dangerous time for Jewish people, Licoricia’s tenacity meant she was able to simultaneously raise her family and run a successful business as a single mother of five, although after 1279 she was a mother of four. Her son Benedict was found guilty of ‘coin clipping’, which involved illegally cutting the edges of coins and melting them down to make new ones. Stories of coin clipping exacerbated existing prejudices, and Christian–Jewish relations in England soon reached boiling point. Hundreds of Jewish people were imprisoned in the Tower, with approximately 300 executed, including Benedict.

From 1275, Jewish men and women, and children over the age of seven, were required to wear badges on their chests to differentiate them from the rest of the population. There were also limits placed on where Jews could live, meaning whole communities were forced to move. Just two years later, Licoricia and her maid were found murdered in her home, possibly during a robbery, though it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that she was deliberately murdered by one of the many powerful people still indebted to her. No one was charged and two of her sons tried to get justice, but to no avail.

In 1290, Edward I, under increasing burden of debt, promised parliament that he would expel the Jewish community from England in exchange for £116,000, the largest single tax of the Middle Ages. This marked the first permanent and forcible expulsion of Jewish people in Europe. The Jewish community, numbering around 3,000, were given three months to leave, and not all were able to do so safely, with one group told to disembark onto a sandbank where they were then abandoned and left to drown. Those expelled included all of Licoricia’s remaining children. The Edict of Expulsion meant that Jewish people would not return to England for 365 years, when Oliver Cromwell extended an invitation to them in 1655. When you think of governments forcing Jewish people to identify themselves with a badge or patch, remember that while this was mostly famously adopted in 1930s Germany, it also happened in 13th-century England, in the shape of stone tablets rather than yellow stars.

A statue of Licoricia now stands in Winchester, opposite her home in 13th-century England. She’s mid-stride, clearly a defiant woman on a mission, while also holding the hand of her youngest son, who is playing with a dreidel: a woman from a religious minority who juggled family life and a career before her tragic murder. Her statue grasps a demand for tallage (taxation) in her other hand, a reminder of how the Jewish community were increasingly taxed prior to their expulsion. Had she lived till 1290, despite all her resilience, she too would have found herself being forced from the island she’d called home her entire life.

The peasants found their voice in 1381

A 1348 chronicle of the Black Death describes the inevitable shortage of workers that followed: ‘Alas, the mortality devoured such a multitude of both sexes that no one could be found to carry the bodies of the dead to burial.’ Some English peasants who had miraculously survived felt empowered to demand higher wages, sparked further by food shortages and price increases. Those in power were keen to remind the peasants of their place, and in 1351 the Statute of Labourers was introduced. This law limited the freedom of peasants to travel in pursuit of new employment and it froze their pay at pre-plague levels. By 1380, King Richard II had inherited the crown, who, much like Richard I, was not necessarily expecting to be king so soon. Unusually, Richard II inherited the throne from his grandfather, Edward III, in 1377 (at the age of ten), as Richard’s father had died rather unglamorously of dysentery in 1376. Richard II found himself knee-deep in the Hundred Years’ War against France and had to raise taxes regularly to support the campaign, which would rage on for another 73 years. The latest tax was a blanket poll tax that quadrupled the previous payment and was imposed on everyone over fifteen. In 1381 the Peasants’ Revolt started, targeting those who they saw as responsible for their hardship.

This is widely known as the first example of ordinary people starting a revolt, with previous uprisings commonly led by nobles and barons. As Richard was only fourteen at the time, anger was mostly directed elsewhere. The first target was John Bampton, a tax collector whose clerks were beheaded by peasants angered by his attempts to clamp down on supposed tax evaders. This violence of the peasants lies in stark contrast to scenes in Coventry circa 1050, when Lady Godiva nakedly rode a horse after her husband, Leofric, Earl of Mercia, told her he would only yield to her demands for lower taxes in the city if she did so.

Religious leaders were attacked too, partly due to growing resentment towards the church, with preachers like John Ball encouraging peasants to question social inequalities. The Archbishop of Canterbury was dragged from the Tower of London onto Tower Hill, where he was brutally executed, his head, which had received eight blows from an axe, placed triumphantly on a spike. Buildings representing royal authority and government were also attacked. Savoy Palace, the home of the King’s economic advisor John of Gaunt, was infiltrated by rebels who proceeded to consume all of his wine. Not all the barrels in the house contained wine, though; the entire building was destroyed when two barrels of gunpowder exploded.

The elite and the church were not the only groups the peasants aimed their anger at. Say these three words aloud: ‘Bread and cheese’. In 1381, if you were asked to say this and your reply revealed an accent, you may well have lost your life. Flemings were migrants who primarily arrived from modern-day Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. They migrated here as labourers and did a huge range of jobs, from brewing to brick making. Flemish weavers in particular were a key component of the expanding English cloth trade, who were given permission to set up their own guilds. This was because it became clear that higher profits could be made if wool were weaved into cloth before being sold, and the Flemish were the most skilled weavers in Europe. They had a lasting impact: weavers who moved to Manchester in 1363 laid the foundation for the thriving textile business that industrial Britain would be built on 500 years later.

It should come as no surprise to learn that some peasants in London specifically targeted these early migrants. It’s estimated that 150 migrants were killed, most likely beheaded. Was ‘bread and cheese’ the brutal medieval version of the seemingly innocent question ‘Where are you really from?’ This means of identifying native speakers was not new, of course; in 1302 the phrase ‘shield and friend’ was used to identify French speakers, resulting in the death of approximately 2,000 people.

The Peasants’ Revolt was over by the middle of June. Their main leader, Wat Tyler, was decapitated after their demands were rejected by the King, his head displayed on London Bridge. A further 1,500 rebels were executed as a warning to anyone considering restarting the revolt. The poll tax was never repeated in the medieval period, though it was infamously reprised in 1989. Over the next century peasants would be able to gradually loosen themselves from the land they’d been traditionally tied to, becoming ‘freemen’ at last.