927\. Walk & Talk: Medieval Museum ⛫🦄 (with Amber, Paul & Kyle)
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Hello audio listeners and welcome to this new episode of Luke's English Podcast. So this is the audio version of this episode, which is actually different to the video version. Usually on the podcast, as you probably know, I record my episodes and I have a camera running while I'm doing it. And then I publish the audio episode in the normal way and then also publish the video version on YouTube. And if

The video version and audio version are usually more or less the same thing. But in this case, they are not the same thing. They're slightly different. And so, yeah, you're listening to the audio version of this episode. And this is the Medieval Museum episode. Finally, here it is. The Medieval Museum Walk and Talk episode with Amber and Paul and Paul's brother Kyle as well.

So this is it, the medieval museum episode. Finally, after a very long wait, I've managed to finish it. Now you've probably heard me mention this episode a few times over the past year or so, if you've been listening for the last year, you've probably heard me mention this episode, especially when talking to Amber and Paul in Amber and Paul episodes. So I recorded this

episode originally, or I recorded the raw material for this episode quite a few months ago in summer last year, and I've been working on it very slowly, bit by bit, ever since. It's been a really difficult episode to produce, to edit, for various reasons. Basically, four different microphones, so that's four audio tracks and a video track,

And at some point in our trip to the museum, some of the microphones stopped working. I'm not sure why, but it's been really tricky to edit the whole thing together. But I've finally done it and you're going to be listening to it in this episode. So yeah, I recorded this last year. I've been working on it for quite a long time.

In fact, I recorded this episode on the same day that I recorded the last Walk & Talk episode, which was the one about health and phrasal verbs. And on that day...

If you remember, I walked along the river and over a bridge, and then I met up with Amber and Paul on the left bank of the River Seine in Paris at the Clooney Museum. That's the name of the museum that we visited this time, the Clooney Museum, not the George Clooney Museum, nothing to do with him as far as I know. This is a different Clooney. So Amber and Paul are my friends who are often on this podcast, and

One thing you should know about Amber is that she is a registered tour guide in Paris. So she accompanies tourists around the city, guiding them and giving them historical information as she goes. She knows a lot about history, a lot about the history of Paris. The Cluny Museum is one of her favourite museums and she often gives people guided tours there. And so she thought that it could be interesting to

to give Paul and me a guided tour on the podcast and record a podcast while doing it. So you're going to benefit from Amber's historical knowledge in this episode. Last time we did this, we went to the Louvre Museum and we saw the Mona Lisa and various other things and that was a really popular episode.

This time, as I said, it's the Cluny Museum. This place is dedicated to the history of the medieval period or the Middle Ages. So this is an episode about history, specifically European history, medieval history. So what do you know about European history? What is the medieval period or the Middle Ages? What are the Middle Ages? What was society like during this period? And what can art,

and artefacts tell us about this society and the people who lived in it at this time. So yes, a history episode, but it's a bit special because you can actually join us as we walk around describing the things that we can see, discussing them, making a few funny comments as we go and

There are various little history lessons in this episode as we go through this trip, mainly from Amber as she explains things, but also from me as I occasionally interrupt the episode to explain certain details and give a bit more historical context and give you a few little extra history lessons. The

The audio version of this episode, as I said, is a bit different to the video version on my YouTube channel. This is mainly because without the visual elements, I had to stop the episode occasionally to add more descriptions and explanations. And also, I had to remove some parts which were mainly visual. So there are some bits that are in the video version that you won't find in the audio version. But I think overall, the audio...

episode that you're listening to is just as good as the video one. And in fact, you actually get more content here. There are bits in this audio episode that you won't find in the video version. So the audio version that you're listening to is just as good as the video version, if not better. I think it's in fact, in a way more immersive and cool because you can just listen and just focus on the sounds, focus on the voices, and

focus on the atmosphere and it makes you concentrate on the spoken word more and everything happens in your imagination. So without further ado, let me transport you now to Paris.

On a sunny day in July of last year, you can just imagine that you are standing in a little garden outside one of the oldest buildings in the city, a place which has parts that date back to Roman times, parts which are medieval, and parts which are modern as well.

Standing with you are Amber and Paul. Paul's brother Kyle, his younger brother Kyle, who's never been on the podcast before. Kyle is a professional footballer and we do talk a little bit about his career as a professional footballer while we walk through some of the corridors. And that leads us into even some stuff about the history of football, the medieval roots of football. So Amber, Paul, Paul's brother Kyle and me,

Enjoy the sounds and voices as we begin our trip to the medieval museum. And here we go. Paul, hello. What's the situation? Situation is we're stood outside a museum.

in Paris in a lovely park over here so the view if you're watching this is of the museum itself which I don't know what that is I don't know I mean it wasn't a museum to start with I imagine we're going to find out from Amber in a minute and we are joined it's not just Amber and Paul on the podcast Amber, Paul but also Kyle Kyle thank you for having me you're welcome who's my little brother so you will have two clueless tailors yeah

on the podcast today. Two uncultured, clueless tailors. Because, so, Amber, what is this museum? This is the museum of the Moyen Age, the medieval museum. So we're going back in time. To the medieval period. To the medieval period. What's the difference between medieval and Middle Ages?

Because Moyenage translates to Middle Ages, but you said medieval, so I'm confused now. Already, I'm already confused. One minute into this and I'm already, I've got no idea. Just the title of the museum. Let me tell you, I love this museum, but there are plenty of holes in my knowledge about it and the Moyenage. I think it's, the problem

problem is when you say middle age it sounds like we're talking about someone in their 40s and not like the 1200s do you see what I mean like if you say the medieval museum we know what we're talking about if I said the middle age the middle age museum well there are three middle age people going to the museum it's called the Clooney museum I was thinking maybe it's like a middle aged American

and drinks lots of coffee. The George Clooney Museum is about middle-aged people. No, it's not that, though, is it? No. So, well, the Middle Ages. What are the Middle Ages, guys? Do you know? It's the time when everyone died in their middle age. That was the life expectancy. That's why it's called the Middle Age. Because everyone got to 45 years old and hit their middle age and then that's it. I don't know.

Why, it's good because I don't know what was before the Middle Ages and what's after the Middle Ages. Where are we now? We're underneath a very noisy parakeet. And he's green. Look at him. He looks amazing. That's a ring-necked parakeet. All right. All right, Attenborough. They're quite a new species in this part of the world. You have them in London as well.

Yeah. Anyway, so when is the Middle Ages or when was the Middle Ages? Kyle, do you know? No. No idea at all? Sort of like sort of recent past, like a long time ago? A long time ago, I'd say. Paul? That's a great question. I didn't realise there was a specific... Generally. But they're going to have to change it as well.

Because the Middle Ages... It's not going to be the middle. It's going to be the middle, and then how long is the end going to be? They're expecting us to not last that much longer. You mean as time progresses, the middle is going to move forwards as well? Eventually, this will be the Middle Ages. Yeah. Well, I mean, this is why I was asking why it's called the Middle Age, because, I mean, if you take the length of humanity, it's nowhere near the middle.

It's we're at the end, like in terms of how long humans have been around. Anyway, I don't know what the dates are. I've got no idea. We've got two questions here. The dates for the Middle Ages and secondly, why it's called the Middle Ages, because it's not in the middle of when humans arrived. But so, Amber, you're the designated... I'm the designated teacher. Oh, the pressure is intense. When we talk about the Middle Ages or any of these sort of most areas

areas in history people don't think about themselves living like I'm living in the Middle Ages or I'm living in the Dark Ages. It's something we give to people afterwards. So when we're going into the museum today everything's modern. Like these people were making things which were like the most modern possible and they were like this is amazing. We're at the cutting edge of art and craft.

But we've come to think about the Middle Ages as a period from around the 10, 100, 11, 12, 13, 14. It's kind of quite nebulous. And it was kind of considered in a very negative way by historians because there was this loss of the greatness of antiquity and then before the Renaissance where everything kind of comes back and everyone's like, oh, wow, we're brilliant again. And so there was this sort of very negative attitude towards the Middle Ages where they were like, it's a dark period where knowledge and ideas were lost. But

I would disagree with that. So of the Middle Ages, we're not thinking we're medieval people. They were like, we're modern cutting edge people. I mean, there is the word, it does sound like evil, like medieval, we're half evil, like medi, you know, the Latin root of the word medi, like midday. Medi is in the middle. So medieval sounds like you're half evil and half. Or they're right in the middle of evil. So like the purest centre of evil. Exactly.

I don't know how much evil there was in the medieval period. There was probably a lot of cruelty. I mean, you go back in time, the further you go back, the crueler it becomes, right? So probably in the medieval period, people were probably doing horrible things to each other, terrible forms of punishment, you know... Torture. No human rights at all. But anyway, we're getting distracted. So, Kyle, how much did you understand what Amber said just now? Um...

Yeah, I mean, it was beautifully articulated, but I think you lost me very, very early on. But I'm very interested to go round, and I do love listening. But, like, it's almost when you read a book, and then someone says, how was the book? And all I can say is, yeah, it was good. I can't give you any more than that. The cover was amazing. I'm going to have a really good time. But if you ask me in a week what I remember...

I might struggle. Amber's a great tour guide, though. I remember almost everything that we did at the Louvre together. Do you? Like, every time people talk to me about the Louvre, like foreign people, I'm like, well, have you done... Did you see the famous painting by Jericho of the... Yeah, the other Mona Lisa, which is better. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, you have to have quite a good memory, really, to remember all the details. It's quite...

I wish I did. Sadly, I don't. I mean, I'm always coming across books that I've read and annotated and thinking, oof, news to me. I've completely forgotten this. So essentially then, the Middle Ages, we're talking about a thousand years ago, right? So from around about a thousand years A.D.,

to about 1400. When did we consider that we left the Middle Ages? What happened? The Renaissance. What was the Renaissance? And what was that? So the Renaissance starts in Italy. Rebirth. It's the rebirth. Oh, so it's not a baguette, because in the...

In the boulangerie near where I live, they call it La Renaissance. And that's the name of the baguette. But, oh, it's not... Not the baguette. It's a movement in culture, in history. Cultural movement, not in food. I mean, food... It's interesting they call the baguette the Renaissance. I mean, it's a bit pretentious, isn't it? This is Paris. Yeah. I mean... Anyway, sorry, I interrupted you. The Renaissance. The Renaissance is a movement that starts in Italy and it's linked with humanism. But it's essentially...

looking back to everything that was put to one side from Greek and Roman culture, so like the history, the art, the ideas, the philosophy, all these ideas were kind of put to one side because of Christianity. So, you know, Greeks and Romans have got lots and lots of gods and then the Christians then come and take over and they kind of put all

of the things that Greeks and Romans thought were important to one side. Antiquity. Antiquity. A thousand years later, Roman Catholics, the Christians, everyone's established. But the Italians, if you go to Italy today, there's loads of Roman stuff, isn't there? So they start looking back at what people were thinking and believing and all that sort of ideas. And it starts becoming more and more popular. And it starts in Italy and spreads all around Europe, mainly through war. And so, yeah, you see this revolution in thinking and art and...

stuff like that when they call it the renaissance okay go on no doesn't matter really what are we now we don't call ourselves now it'll be like in a hundred years postmodern era well I mean we're very postmodern aren't we the post postmodern era I don't know I mean that's the problem that's the problem with all titles there's only a few times in history where people have been like we are

Like the Enlightenment, they were saying, we are the Enlightenment. But most times people are not saying, oh, we're Gothic or we're Moyen Age or we're Renaissance. They were given it afterwards. We kind of think about it afterwards. When I was at school, quite a lot of people were saying, oh, yeah, we're Gothic. Yeah, we like the cure and smoking roll-ups and wearing Doc Martens. Some people have self-awareness. LAUGHTER

Well, now everyone's got self-awareness, isn't it? Everyone's very self-aware. So what we're going to see in there is... Well, what are we going to see? Well, we're going to see some highlights, right? So you're not going to show us the whole thing because it would take ages. So you're going to just show us a few highlights and we're going to see some works of art. So we're going to see the main thing that people go to see in this museum. So it's got one... Oh, can I guess what it is? Yes. Is it a guillotine?

No. Okay, that's interesting. But Amber, we did say before that we would ask these guys what they expect. Your face of disappointment of like, really, Paul? You didn't go... You wanted a guillotine. The guillotine is from the revolution. Yeah, that's true. It's more recent, isn't it? A lot more recent. The guillotine's not that long ago, yeah. Yeah. In fact, they stopped using the guillotine only recently, no? The 70s. In the 1970s? Yeah. I think they banned... I think my wife was born in the same year that they banned capital punishment here. 1981. Yeah. All right, okay.

So, anyway. So what were we going to see? We were going to ask these guys what they expect to see in a museum full of medieval artworks. Well, guillotines was... No guillotines. No guillotines, sorry. Before the guillotines. Oh, yeah, way before, way before the guillotines. I mean...

In terms of art? Yes. Well, anything really. What might you expect? Art or artefacts? I was going to say like spearheads. It's not the Bronze Age. I don't know. All right, give me a bit of a clue. Well, buildings in Paris which are from the Middle Ages are, well, this one. Notre Dame, Saint-Chapelle. Gargoyles.

Oh, are we going to see something of the Notre Dame in there? Is there the statues that are around the outside or something? They've been preserved here when the fire happened? No, not when the fire, but yes, we are going to see Notre Dame stuff. Okay. Yeah, absolutely. What, paintings? No, like stuff that was on it. Oh, right, I think. So you're talking about statues. Are we going to see like burnt stuff of it? No, that's not where they... No. Okay.

- Oh, is it the Jesus Christ? - The crown of thorns. - The crown of thorns. - No, we won't see that. - So we're mostly gonna be seeing works of art, right? But you mentioned other things like, which I described as artifacts, which are just objects. And so these are objects that we use for certain purposes, but decorative things like art, statues and other such things, that's what I classify as works of art.

in terms of artefacts I don't know what is there like the spears on the when people were on horses and spearing each other I don't know what that's called you know when they'd fight each other with a long he was in a film jousting yeah that kind of stuff a knight's tale a knight's tale but well done well remembered as much as I can add to this you're on

the right track you're on the right track all right so we might seem okay cool see are we going to be on horses jousting each other that's how we get around the museum we have to saddle up and get on our chain mail our version of a knight's tale because that's another thing we think of when we talk about the middle ages is castles horses knights armor swords and jousting monty python and the holy grail yeah exactly perfect yeah there

There are three big groups. You've got the knights, so those who fight, the knights and all those kind of people. So you're right. We've talked about another one, she talked about Notre Dame, so those who pray, you know, the monks and the nuns and all of those. And then the third one is one that you're talking about, those who work, the artisans, the peasants, the people working with things. This is medieval society. You pray, you work, or you fight.

Isn't that the same thing nowadays? I think we're pretty much fighting about praying. That's what modern society is. While everyone else drinks. While everyone else just works. It's like some people are fighting about praying. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very profound. Yeah. Haven't even gone inside the building yet.

We don't need to. At this point, I don't think we need to. I think we really need to stop because these batteries are all going to run out before we even get inside there. Okay, so, well, you expect... You don't know what to expect, basically, do you? No, I'm actually... Yeah, I'm quite excited to get in there. The last time I went to a museum...

was with Amber in the episode, the Louvre episode of your podcast, which was what, two years ago? Two or three years ago. Yeah, that's the last time I said it. We need to get this. Right, let's get in there then. Okay. Let's get in there. So I think we're probably going to need to, before we go in, I'll need to switch this camera off and hide it because I don't know how they're going to feel. Yeah, no, just keep it recording because then...

It's just one file that I can just send to him as opposed to having to send him like five files. Might as well keep it recording. It records for like nine hours, so you'll be right. And now we can whisper things into the microphone being like, oh, Luke's an arsehole, isn't he? Luke's a right prick, isn't he? Oi, oi, I heard that. So at this point, we wandered inside the museum. We entered through the front door, which is the usual way of doing it. There was a security check.

But they didn't seem to be bothered by the fact that I had a camera with a light flashing on the front of it. We all had microphones with little flashing lights. No one seemed to mind. I don't know if they even noticed. But anyway, my stealth mission to smuggle the recording equipment into the museum was successful. I mean...

I don't think it's even a problem, to be honest. So it wasn't like I was doing some big ninja mission with my recording gear. I think they were fine with it. Anyway, we went in, went through the gates and stuff like that, had our bags checked. I bought the tickets at the counter at the front desk. And the woman serving us recognized Paul. Whenever you're with Paul Taylor in Paris, it's quite normal.

for him to be recognized by people because he's quite famous actually and so yes the the woman behind the counter who sold us the tickets recognized him and she said oh are you are you and i was like yes he is and um

She said, oh, I saw your show. It was really great. And Paul was like, oh, thank you. And I said, can you just sell us some tickets, please? And you've never listened to my podcast then? No. OK, never mind. Yes. Some tickets, please. Thank you very much. Have a nice day. And then we wandered through and Amber was our tour guide.

And so she basically led us through the museum. And yeah, you're going to hear us talking about various things that obviously you can't see. But hopefully, you can use your mind's eye to imagine some of the stuff. And if necessary, I will interrupt and

and give you little descriptions to help your imagination. So on that point, actually, about interrupting the episode occasionally in order to explain things, clarify things, let me do a bit of that right now and just kind of summarize the main idea here, which is us visiting this medieval museum and...

Looking at medieval culture, a chance to study history, to look back at our relatively recent history, even though this is the last thousand years or so in terms of all of human history, this is fairly recent stuff. Really?

So looking back at our history and having a look at what we can learn about what society was like in those days, particularly in this part of the world, in Europe, Western Europe, in France. And it's connected to the UK because...

Being neighboring countries, the cultural movements were very, very similar and were influenced by many of the same things. The remnants of the Roman Empire, the influence of Christian doctrine, and then the movement into what Amber was describing there, the Renaissance period.

Okay, so we start with the medieval period then, also known as the Middle Ages, which is the period around about 1000 AD. Okay.

around the year 1000 AD. So probably from a few centuries before that, lasting until a few centuries afterwards. But certainly the 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th centuries, beginning with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ending with the start of the Renaissance. This is the medieval period. And the key features of this period reflected in the art and artifacts that

We all could see in this museum art being works of art like paintings or sculptures, artefacts meaning objects that were useful at the time. And we look at artefacts like furniture or maybe weaponry. Key features of this medieval period that you can see in these things are that it was a feudal system. Society was structured...

around a clear hierarchy where kings and nobility had power. They owned the land. They gave land to other members of the sort of nobility, the noble or royal class, including knights, the people who fought, the ones who would be on horseback and had the special training, and peasants who

or serfs worked on the land in exchange for protection. There was also the church, of course, which was so central to the medieval period. The Catholic Church was extremely powerful, influencing all aspects of life, education and politics. This is reflected in so much of the art from the period, which was all about the mythology of the Catholic faith.

story of Jesus, the symbolism in that religion. Castles and knights, as I mentioned before, castles served as fortified homes, protected homes for nobility, meaning members of the royal family and connected families. And knights followed the code of chivalry, which emphasised honour, bravery and service. Also,

In this period, wars and crusades. This period saw frequent conflicts, including the crusades, which were religious wars aimed at reclaiming the Holy Land in Jerusalem. Art and literature. Art was often religious in nature with illuminated manuscripts and Gothic architecture, um,

And just general daily life. Most people were peasants living in small villages, working the land and leading simple, often difficult lives. But the lives of the rich, noble people was a totally different story and was represented also in various works of art. I mentioned paintings and statues.

but also tapestries as well. And in fact, there are a few tapestries in the Clooney Museum, which are really the highlight of the museum. These incredibly intricate tapestries with images of these maidens, these women surrounded by daisies,

different animals, including lions and unicorns, all of which were very symbolic. And that's one of the things that we look at. We look at these tapestries, and Amber describes the symbolism in the tapestries and what we understand them to mean. You'll hear more about the tapestries and specifically what they are in a little bit, because I'm aware that

You might not know what they are, but okay, I'll kind of explain it now. So a tapestry is a sort of a decoration made from textiles, made from wool or made from silk or different threads, all woven and threaded together. A bit like a carpet. Obviously, a carpet is a woven fabric.

piece of fabric which goes on the ground, right, which goes on the floor of your home. But tapestries weren't designed to go on the floor. They were actually designed to go up on the wall and they were decorative mainly. They might have had

purpose. They might have had a function as well, which would be to maybe insulate the home, keep your home a little bit warmer, or to keep rooms a bit warmer by adding fabric on the walls. But they were, I guess, as well as being functional in that way, they were decorative. And yes, the Clooney Museum is famous for its tapestries of the Lady and the Unicorn, six tapestries from the late Middle Ages, which show a lady in

in a garden surrounded by different animals and it's all very symbolic. Just before I finish this bit, this interruption here, I do want to mention also the Renaissance which is something that Amber was talking about as well in this introduction. She was talking about the Renaissance as a significant period and the Renaissance sort of comes after the medieval period. So just to recap that a

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned from kind of like the mid or late Middle Ages, if that's possible. Yeah, the mid Middle Ages or late Middle Ages from about the 14th century through to the 17th century.

So it's sort of from the Middle Ages that turned into the Renaissance, which then became the modern era. So the Renaissance is the period which links the Middle Ages to the modern era cultural movement. It began in Italy and spread across Europe, mainly through war, as Amber said. I don't know exactly the details of that, but it marked the transition from the Middle Ages to the modern era.

with a renewed interest in art, literature, science and humanism, drawing inspiration from classical antiquity, especially ancient Greece and Rome. And the Renaissance was marked by...

Art and architecture with the works of people like Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael. Creating their masterpieces with realistic human figures, perspective, naturalistic details. Literature writers like Shakespeare, for example, exploring human emotions, individuality and complex themes.

Moving away from the primarily religious focused literature and art of the Middle Ages, which was, as I said, all about essentially describing the myths and stories of Christianity.

Into the Renaissance, you end up exploring other ideas, again, influenced by the Romans and the ancient Greeks. And so, yes, exploring other human emotions, not just telling the story of Jesus and sort of spreading the doctrines of Christianity, but...

Looking at human emotions, individuality, complex themes. Also, the Renaissance is marked by science and discovery with thinkers like Galileo, Copernicus, challenging traditional views of the universe.

And humanism, an intellectual movement focusing on human potential, reason and achievements, emphasising education and the study of classical texts. So we move from medieval period through the Renaissance into the modern era and then now...

We are in the postmodern era, which is a whole other story for another time. Okay, so I wanted to give a recap there to cover some of the big ideas and big themes that are the context for our little trip through this museum, where Amber, being the well-read and knowledgeable person that she is...

continues to try to educate Paul, Kyle and me about all of these themes while the three lads, the three of us make various stupid comments and have a good time in the process. So anyway I hope you enjoy joining us on this journey and I might interrupt again here and there just to add a few descriptions to bring a bit of detail to this audio version of this episode.

No.

You mean to perform? No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no. It's just like... I might have been... Well, it's in the... I've heard of it. I've heard of Les Arrhen de Paris. Les Arrhen de Paris. Yes, OK. So it's got the arena, they had a temple and all this sort of stuff. And most of it's, like, gone apart from the arena and part of the baths. So these were, like, the Roman baths. So, like, this was Roman Paris. And then in the

And then in the Middle Ages they built this building, the old part that we saw when we were in the park, which was the Cluny order, built it for the monks who were coming to study because Paris is a place of study for monks. And so it's basically halls of residence for the monks. And then they renovated the space and they built like a more modern part. So it's all sort of… A combination of Roman, medieval and modern all in one building. So the Romans used to have their baths in here. Yeah.

And the frigidarium is the cold bit. OK. Or is it the hot bit? The hot bit. Cold bit. The cold bit, frigidarium. I mean, it's... Frigidaire in French means... is a brand of fridge. That's why French people, old French people say... They'll say, "Can you put the food in the frigidaire, in the fridge?" Because it was a brand of fridge. Oh, I see, I see. It's like, in England we say, "We're going to use the hoover."

Meaning vacuum cleaner. Exactly. So Kyle. Yeah. Hello. Hello. It's the first time you've been on my podcast. Yeah. Thanks for having me. So my listeners don't know you. They know these two quite well. Most of them do. So you're his brother. Yeah. Yeah.

Where do you live? South of England. Okay. And what do you do? I play football. Professionally? On occasion, yeah. Although I'm on holiday, which is why I'm here, so a bit more alcohol.

A bit more food, a bit less exercise. Right, yeah, welcome to Paris. Yeah, I was basically living my life for a month. A bit more alcohol, a bit less exercise. So you're a professional footballer? Yeah. Who do you play for? Exeter. Exeter, okay. All right, how has your season been? Yeah, turbulent. Really? Yeah, we...

Well, we were top of the league after, I think it was seven or eight games. Then we didn't win a single game for about three months. Oh, God. And then we went on a winning run again and we finished about 12th. 12th? Yeah. Which league is that? League One. Okay. So we're about mid-table. All right. Safe. Yeah, considering the season we had was pretty good. Yeah, okay. What position do you play? Um...

anywhere in midfield so centre midfield roaming midfielder yeah roaming but

In League One, you don't really get to roam. You don't have the luxury of that in our league. So, yeah. Goal scorer? Do you score goals? Not really. I'm like the guy before the guy who sets up the goal. Kind of like a Steven Gerrard. Yeah, but probably not as good. Otherwise, I wouldn't be playing for Exeter. Right, OK. We're nearly finished with the football bit. No, I'm fascinated. I know nothing about this. This is much more interesting. We're going to explore this in a minute, but I have to just kind of...

question you about football, playing football and stuff first. So biggest opponent that you've ever faced? As a team or like... As a team first. As a team? Yeah. Probably Man City when I was at Bournemouth. Manchester City, really? Yeah, that was good. But I didn't actually get on the pitch, but I was there, so... Okay, yeah. I see. What about in terms of one-to-one? Biggest opponent as a player that you've had to... As a player? ...play against? Again, it'd probably have to be...

In training. So, yeah, probably Nathan Ake was probably the best. Nathan Ake. Yeah. Good player. He plays for Man City. No, he plays for Man City now. So he was at Bournemouth. So in training. I see. Yeah, I can't give you Steven Gerrard or any of that. No. Unfortunately. You're too young for Steven Gerrard. Well, I'm too young for Steven Gerrard, yeah. Well, who's the modern version? Jude Bellingham. Haven't played Jude Bellingham. Bellingham, yeah. There you go. But, yeah, I mean...

Speaking of this, they'd probably look at us kicking and chasing a ball round a field and think... Meaning the monks? Maybe football was invented during the Middle Ages. The monks would look at us and go, huh? Well, yeah, there was certainly... There were people kicking inflated pig's bladders around fields around this time, I think. I think so. I defer to you. The history of football does go back to...

this time, maybe earlier, but they used to play it in villages and it would basically be someone would basically just walk through the village and they would say, they would knock on houses and they would basically... Football, according to Siri, was invented in 1174, so we're exactly in... Bang in the medieval period. What a transition. This is our Venn diagram. If I can just finish my little bit about medieval football. Sorry.

What they would do is, there'd be a village, right? And at one end of the village, this is a weird tangent, at one end of the village, they would put a goal, which was basically a kind of a hoop that was stuck in the ground. And then at the other side of the village, there'd be another one. And then basically, there would be a line drawn through the middle of the village. All the houses on this side were in that team. All the houses on that side were in the other team. And all the

the men basically would play the game. The entire village would play. It wasn't just 11 aside. The entire village would play. The ball was an inflated pig's bladder. - How did they inflate that? Through their mouth? - Don't ask. - It's probably in the normal way, I suppose so. And then they tie it up, you know, like a balloon. And then it would just be like, "Right, kick off." And it would be a massive fight.

Didn't lots of people die during it as well? People would have got injured and stuff, yeah. There were no rules at all. It was basically just get that ball through that hoop...

through any means necessary and it was just a huge scrap. And what happened at the end when they got it through the hoop? They all probably had a big feast and drank mead and sang jolly songs and babies were conceived and things like that. So there was, going back to Amber, there was fighting, there was praying.

But there was also messing around. A bit of football every now and then. As soon as men get five seconds of free time, we figure out a way to dick around, don't we? Let's kick this about. Yeah. Okay. Right, anyway, Amber, where are we? Okay. So, we're going backwards through the museum and...

I don't know if you're meant to start downstairs, but chronologically it starts downstairs. But we're going straight upstairs because we're going to go to the famous thing, which is here in the museum. And why everyone comes, it is the tapestry of the lady and the unicorn. And this is why all these poor students, these school kids are here, very sad. They're laughing to learn about it. So going backwards, so this is sort of the later end of the Middle Ages. But you can see everything is basically God. There's going to be a lot of church decorations. People didn't really have...

Only wealthy people could afford, like, decorations. So most of the stuff we see is, like, for churches. And they've got really weird things. Like, you think of the Middle Ages as quite this sort of serious time, but there is some weird thing. Like, come with me. I'm just going to show you some weird things. When you say it's towards the end, what years are we talking about? Sort of late 1400s, like 1500s. So, like, these are, like, these little chairs that people can, like, rest on when they're praying. But they've got kind of curious little engravings underneath.

But this is the weirdest one. These are two naked children playing on like those wooden horses that you do sometimes. Don't touch the art. Two naked children playing on sort of wooden hobby horses. Hobby horses. What was the obsession just in general with humans and naked children in the past? This is a good question. In all fountains, there's like naked children peeing. It's a bit disturbing. It is a little bit, isn't it? Yeah. Anyway, I love this room because it's got cool,

mental little sculptures because loads of it's in wood this is from northern Europe and so they've got loads of attention to detail and I'll point out some details that is going to be painful for you boys very painful come with me what kind of painful details are you talking about I do although I do love Jesus on a donkey he looks great just to be clear at this point we walked past a glass cabinet and

with a wooden sculpture of Jesus on a donkey. Yep, Jesus sitting on the back of a donkey, so Jesus on a donkey. And in the same cabinet there were various other wooden carvings of Jesus, but it was Jesus on a donkey which first caught our attention. Yeah, it's always nice to get a bit of Jesus on a donkey, isn't it? I thought he was doing like a peace sign then. I thought the phrase was Christ on a bike.

I didn't know it was Jesus on a donkey. This might seem a little bit blasphemous or something to talk about this in the context that we're in, but when do people say, oh Christ, on a bike? It's an expression of frustration, isn't it? When you go, you know, if you've dropped a, if you've made a nice fresh cup of tea and you've just spilt it everywhere, it would be... Oh Christ, on a bike! People would say, oh shit, oh merde, oh...

Christ on a bike. I've never said that. I've never said that. Well, my mum used to say it quite a lot because she's Irish. She's from Northern Ireland. Christ on a bike. She would say, Jesus, Miriam Joseph. That was her way of...

Yeah, anyway. Okay, so that was Jesus on a donkey. And the expression, Christ on a bike, which is an expression in English. You heard Paul saying there that his mum from Northern Ireland used to say expressions like that. She would say, Jesus, Mary and Joseph...

And she would say, Christ on a bike, which I have heard other people from Northern Ireland saying in the past. It's a sort of expression of surprise or shock or frustration. Oh, Christ on a bike, for example. But anyway, that was Jesus on a donkey. But then I think the thing that Amber was particularly keen to show us was

was a wooden carving of Christ being circumcised the circumcision of Christ and if you're wondering what circumcision is what being circumcised is don't do a google image search of it just keep listening because one of us is going to explain it probably me anyway that was Christ on a donkey just for your pleasure so I love all of these I think they're crazy but this does look like a

particularly brutal circumcision. Oh my gosh. Oh my goodness. Okay, so wait a minute. Audio listeners, what we're looking at is a wooden carving. Several wooden, three wooden carvings which appear to depict the circumcision of little boys. Well, of Jesus. Is it Jesus, is it? It's always Jesus. So they've done it three times. Is Jesus getting circumcised? Thrice. Three times. Three times.

I think they're from different pieces. They've got, yeah, they've got like what look like tweezers that you would pick, you know, that you would pluck out your hairs with, but much bigger. And I mean, that looks horrific. To be fair, no one is happy. No one's enjoying this, especially Jesus. To be circumcised listeners, Kyle, do you want to explain?

You can say no. You can make Luke do it. I mean, I'll probably turn that down, but... You can if you want. Is there any listeners that won't know? Yeah, yeah, I think, well, you know, there's, you know, out of the 99 that know, there's going to be one who doesn't. So we need to explain it just for that one person. I'll do it if you... Yeah, I mean, it's probably better for you to do it, so... I'm a professional. Yeah, you're a professional circumcision describer. Yeah.

You know, whatever it is, I'll explain it, you know. So circumcision is basically the act of removing the foreskin from the penis of a human child. I don't think it's done to animals, is it? I wouldn't know. I wouldn't know either, really. I don't know why I feel it's necessary for me to clarify this, and I'm now questioning...

why I feel I should insist on making this extremely clear, but just in case there's anyone thinking, wait, but I still don't know what circumcision is, Luke. And I think I really need to know. It's one of those difficult ones to explain. I mean, it's a bit awkward. So circumcision, I mean, it's the act of cutting off skin, right?

It can be from a boy or a girl, but certainly for a boy, it's the act of cutting off the loose skin from the end of a boy's penis for medical, traditional, or religious reasons. The foreskin is the skin at the end of a penis, right? The loose skin at the end of a penis. Did you expect to be listening to me talking about this in this episode? No, you didn't, but...

Learning can happen by surprise sometimes. So that's circumcision. But it's also worth noting that it doesn't just happen to boys. There is such a thing as female circumcision, of course, which involves cutting off parts of the private parts of girls, which is...

Not something I like to think about or even talk about, to be honest. But there it is, that circumcision. Normally happens in childhood. I guess it can happen at other times, but it's normally childhood. And yes, for medical reasons, for traditional reasons, or for religious reasons, that is circumcision.

circumcision but I think it's probably time to move on now isn't it yes you I can hear thousands and thousands of people shouting from all around the world please move on okay we will and there will be unicorns soon so that will be nice

Anyway, Jesus on a donkey, Jesus getting circumcised. The things you see in these museums... Weird. This is the weirdest of all the Jesuses. This is surely the weirdest little Jesus here. Okay, so what we're seeing here is a tiny little wooden sort of carving statue, carved statue of naked Jesus with golden flaxen hair.

And he's got like a little sort of pot belly. He appears to be holding, is that an apple in his left hand? He's well fed. Could be an apple, yeah. Yeah, he's certainly been well fed. It looks like he's got an apple and he's holding up his two fingers, not in a victory sign or something, but he's just holding up his two fingers like he's been playing Cowboys and Indians. Blessing. Like pew, pew, pew. Ha ha.

He's very pink and fleshy. That's what's weird about it, his pink fleshiness. Anyway, we're not here for this. No. We're never going to get through this museum at this rate, you lot. Right, come on then. Let's go to the star attraction. So this is the unicorn. Lady and the unicorn. Lady and the unicorn. Ooh, we like unicorns, don't we? Everyone likes a unicorn. Especially my daughter, she's obsessed. Yeah, I was going to say. Is your daughter obsessed with you? Yeah, she's obsessed with unicorns.

Okay, now this is when we moved into the area with the tapestries of the lady and the unicorn, the star attraction, as Amber mentioned. And the only problem here is that in this room, we had to start whispering like this. We had to start whispering because the

the tapestries were so old that speaking at normal volume could cause the tapestries to fall to pieces. That's not the actual reason. But anyway, we had to lower our voices because there were other people in there and the atmosphere suddenly became very serious. And I hope it's possible for you to understand. I have done my best to raise the volume and make

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OK, we need to... We need to whisper. ..be quite discreet in here. Yes. OK, let's get in here. OK, listeners, turn up your volume because we're going to be whispering. OK. I'll try and raise the volume so that everyone can actually hear us. So, OK, who would like to try and explain what we're looking at? Paul Taylor. OK, we are in a room with one, two, three, four, five, six enormous...

Carpets. Carpets? Tapestries. Tapestries. And it looks like a lion. Well... A lion unicorn. Yeah. And what's interesting is that it's giving me British passport vibes. Absolutely. Because...

We, on the British passport, unbeknownst to many people who are not British, unbeknownst, thanks very much, is that we have a lion and a unicorn on our passports and some French writing, which is Dieu est mon droit, which means God and my right. So...

Yeah, that's what we're seeing. God and my right, my right which has been reduced somewhat since 2016. Yeah. God and my right to stand in a big queue.

at the airport. Yeah. But anyway, how do you describe that? Is it like the royal crest? It is, yeah, I think that's what it's called. And you see a lion and a unicorn on the crest, but here we are. It's the lion for England and the unicorn for Scotland, yeah. The unicorn is Scotland's national animal. No dragon to be seen anywhere. No. Well, that's the Welsh dragon, yeah, but there's no dragon there. Should be. Poor Welsh. What's interesting is on each, like on this one over here, there's a monkey. Yeah. Yeah.

on that one there there's a little rabbit and a fox as well there's lots of other animals is that a dog take a step back to see this okay so can you can you give us a little bit of info about these tapestries amber absolutely i can tell you a little bit about these tapestries i'll try to keep it short i expect the video is a bit dark it might be a bit dark but that's all right okay then they

They keep it dark to protect them. So these tapestries, so these are the big attraction. Everyone loves to come and visit these tapestries. So they're sort of from the end of the 1400s.

And they were discovered in this castle. Do you know Georges Sand or Georges Sand? There's a French writer called Georges Sand. So she was staying in this castle and these tapestries were on the wall. And she was like, wow, these are so beautiful. And her boyfriend was this guy who was working in French patrimoine.

And so she told him about it. And long story short, they brought them back to Paris and they put them in here and they restored them. And there's been a lot of ink spilled about what the tapestries mean. But we'll just look at a few of the details to begin with. So when they got them back, you know, they'd been up in this wall in this like dusty old castle for absolute centuries, you know, and it was very damp. And you can see the bottom of the tapestry is a lot lighter than the top of the tapestry.

The bottom is lighter than the top. Oh, I see. There's this... Discoloration. Exactly. So you can see the top looks... Lighter below, darker above. So they got damaged? Well, they were really damaged on the bottom because of damp and being nibbled by rats and what have you. And so when they brought them back to Paris, they repaired them. But even though this was done in the Moyen Age, in the Middle Ages, they used this incredible natural dyes because more colour is more money, really. Everyone...

It costs a lot of money to dye stuff and it's very difficult. It's also very smelly and disgusting. I can get into it if you want to. But when they came, they discovered it in the 1800s, so 19th century. They used more modern techniques to dye it. So now, so this was done in the end of the 19th century,

You can see that this has not lasted anywhere near as long. When it was first done, of course, it would have looked the same. It would have looked as red. But now this is fading away, so it's just testimony to how incredible the work was on this, that it's over 500 years old and it's still looking really, really bright and amazing. So to make something like this, are they weaving the material and it's all...

to start with and then they go and paint it with the dyes? No, that's a good question. So what they would have done, as far as I understand, is they'd have used a loom

And so a loom is like... You basically are threading the thread in and out. And each new colour, you need a new thread. So they're tying. They're not sort of like doing the background and then embroidering over the top. They're weaving on the loom. So you're going red, red, change your thread. Now you need a bit of green, change your thread. Wow, so they're doing it as they're going along. It's not one colour and then they're dyeing it. Absolutely. Wow, that's crazy. And so something like this, one tapestry like this, would have probably taken four people to work on because you work...

And they say that something like one meter squared is one month of work or, you know, and they can only work. Obviously, it's the Middle Ages. They can only work in the daytime by sunlight. You can't use any flames. You can't like work in the evening. So they consider if there was about 18 people working on all of these, it would have taken about two years to make. But, you know, and would have cost an absolute fortune, would have cost loads and loads of money. But, you know, when you want quality, you get quality because look at it.

It's still here. I think that's the quote of this podcast. If you want quality, spelt A-Y at the end. If you want quality. What was the quote again? If you want quality, you get quality. Well, that might as well be the tagline for this whole podcast. If you want quality, you get quality. Especially when the tailors are involved. Oh, that's why he's a comedian. No.

But it does, it looks really, really amazing in that respect, in terms of just how much it's lasted. And when you compare it to more modern methods, how faded that looks compared to it is really amazing. What would you say is the most important thing?

Paul's about to ask a very profound question. What would be the point of this? Why, back in the day, would people create tapestries? What's the purpose? There's a number of purposes. So, we'll get into it now. So, on one hand, it's decorative, so it looks nice. It's practical because it keeps your gigantic house a bit warmer. You know, if you're covering the walls, they don't have lovely central heating, so it's kind of preserving the walls and making it a bit warmer. But...

this tapestry would have cost an absolute fortune. And so when people come into your home and they see this, it's money. It's like saying, I've got loads of money. Exactly. It's bling. It's like saying, look how much money I've got. You know, I can afford...

this level of work, this level of colour, this level of design. Because, you know, something more simple using... And red. I mean, you guys don't dye your hair, but red is a hard colour to keep. You know, it fades. And it's still... I mean, it looks incredible. Obviously, that's why the lights are a bit low. They're protecting the colours. That's why we have to speak quietly as well. If you speak too loudly, it could affect the colours. It fades the colours. This is museum voice, OK? So...

Why... But why did they get it done? It's a question of, like, who got it done. So who might want to, like, show off this much wealth? Kings and queens. Possibly. Or...

Well, monks. Sorry, I said that too loudly. Monks. Monks are not wealthy. Like, if you went into someone's house... Yeah, Mbappe. Footballers. No, flashy people. Footballers. Do you know what I mean? Like, someone who's got money, but maybe that money's new money. Do you see what I'm saying? Like, someone that's, like, come into money and they're trying to... Someone wants to show the world, hey, look at me. I've got loads of money. Exactly. I might not be a king, but, yo, I've got...

A pair of Yeezys. Exactly, exactly. We've got some tapestries. Exactly, exactly. So the family that commissioned this are called Le Viste, Le Viste, the family Le Viste. And they're from Lyon. And as you pointed out, there is a lion and Lyon and lion. That's that link there. And the unicorn has a link as well because Le Viste can mean fast and unicorns are fast. And this is their family crest, the circles, the semi-moons. And some people think that they are...

to do with like sort of Islam but that's actually just the family crest so this is the family crest and they're this Leon's famous for silk and they're silk merchants and they get loads of money they become really really wealthy and they move to Paris and the brothers start working for the king so then they start getting important jobs and in

French history, there's this idea that you're a noblesse de la robe, of the dress, or de l'épée, of the sword. So you're either old money or new money, basically. You've earned your title from your job, like working as a minister or something like this, so from your clothes, or from being a knight, which is considered more old money and noble and important. And so here, they're kind of trying to show that

that their money and their legitimacy, because look at this flagpole here where they've got their crest everywhere. So they're saying, look how important we are, our family's here. But this flagpole is not a flagpole. It's exactly what you were talking about before we came in. It's a jousting pole. Yeah, you can see where you'd hold your hand.

And at the top, you can see the little sort of thing to like, you know, poke your opponent off their horse. And so they're sort of saying, oh, look, we're really legitimate. We've got all this money. Look at our crest. And they're trying to link themselves with knights, with the chevalier, which was a very sort of noble and more elevated order than merchants and like, you know, people that earned their money in that way. So it's more hereditary money. So there's lots of these sort of symbols in there.

Then, as to the tapestries themselves, we won't get into too many of those details. The tapestries are famous because they show the five senses. So you've got the different senses. So each tapestry is meant to show a different sense. I'll see if you can work it out. So I'll start. Have a look around. Let's look at this first one. I was hoping you'd said the one on the right. Which sense do you think this represents?

It's always interesting that the unicorns are there. Like, where are these mythical creatures? Did they even exist anyway? She's not eating anything. She's not eating anything. Well, eating isn't a sense, is it? It is taste. Yeah, taste. So that one would be taste. That's taste. Absolutely, yeah. She's got her hand in a bowl of peanuts or something. LAUGHTER

Sugared almonds. Some snacks over here. Yes. Some porridge. And look, she's feeding that parrot that's escaped. Oh, yeah. We saw outside. That's the parrot from earlier? Yes. The parakeet that we saw earlier? Absolutely, yes. Okay. So this one at the front then...

It's touch, isn't it? Because she's touching the unicorn's horn. Yes, absolutely. Let's have a closer look at that. Get in there. So there she is. So who is she again? So we don't know who she is. We can't say that she's a particular person from the family or whether she's just an allegorical figure. You said something that was interesting about unicorns. So in this period, people thought unicorns existed, which there are weirder creatures out there. What do you mean? They don't exist? No.

I hate to break it to you, Paul. Sorry, Clay. Unicorns? No, they're not real. So why can you buy unicorn everything in shops? Good question. Okay, I'm going to have to tell my daughter that this afternoon then. Don't tell her. Don't tell her. Let her live in the fantasy. So they thought that unicorns existed...

And there was, and why not? You know, the world was very much unexplored and there were lots of weird creatures that they were finding and like a horse with a horn, not that weird. But even then there was this feeling that a unicorn had magical properties. And what

And what they were normally finding was the narwhal tooth, you know, the tooth of the narwhal. Yes, exactly. And people thought they were unicorn horns. And they were very expensive. The weight of the tusk was worth 10 times its weight in gold. And, you know, they thought... Is that one of them there?

Yeah. Oh, wow. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. There it is, a narwhal tusk. Well, I would believe in unicorns if I saw that. Okay, because that's why... And that's why it's so long. I was going to say... So a narwhal is a kind of whale. Yeah. I was going to say, because in each of the things, the unicorn's horns are way bigger than...

Modern day. Modern unicorns. Yeah, modern unicorns. I don't know. Yeah, absolutely. Your modern unicorn has got a much more... They cost ten times their weight in gold. So if you've got a unicorn production factory going on, you want to try and cut costs, don't you? What's the monkey in chains for? Well,

A lot of the animals represent different things. So you've got the rabbit, which is sort of fecundity and bounty, but also perhaps lust. And monkeys are often associated with more base feelings or sort of less sort of noble behavior. And so the monkey's chained up here. There's a monkey in all of them, I think, or at least in most of them. You can see a little monkey. In some of them, he's free. In some of them, he's not.

So going back to the senses, this one represents touch. Touch, yeah. That one's taste. Yes. Right, let's keep going. Yes.

Five senses, but there's more than five. Ah, you're very right. All right, so this one is... Well, this maiden is holding some pretty flowers. Smell? Smell, exactly. Why is it smell? Because flowers smell nice. And we've got the little monkey smelling the flowers, and she's making a sort of little marigold ring, which is very sweet. And if you look carefully... I won't get into all the flowers because I'm not really very botanical. But this type of botanical...

tapestry is called mille fleurs which means a thousand flowers lots and lots of flowers but you can see particularly on this one above her head there's mint and other aromatic plants so it's kind of giving this feeling of you know smelling we can smell that that sense this sense is very easy

Sound? Hearing? Yeah, absolutely. She's playing musical instruments. You can hear, you can see the unicorn and the lion look like they're listening in. You know, they're like leaning in to hear more. Yeah, exactly. What is she playing? Some sort of interesting organ? Yeah, you need two people to play. So she's sort of like blowing in the air behind. There's like bellows and then she plays. It's kind of like a... Pipe organ. Yeah, exactly. It's like a bagpipe. Kind of like bagpipes in the form of an organ.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I see. Yeah, so that's a sort of medieval kind of instrument. And then the last one, also very easy to identify. Sight. In this one, we can see a maiden sitting with the unicorn, and she's holding a mirror, and the unicorn is admiring itself in the mirror. And so this is probably sight. Sight.

Yes, absolutely. Vision. And just before we finish with the unicorns, there was a feeling that unicorns existed, so they thought unicorns were real. And the myth around unicorns was that a unicorn could only be tamed by a virgin. You know, you had to be a virgin. Of course, of course. To capture a unicorn. And the unicorn was sort of violent and aggressive towards men and maybe non-virgins, but was very sort of like...

docile exactly um and also the unicorn horn as well as being useful and it was protect you you if you ate it it would protect you from poisoning so like in harry potter um and um and

And was really sort of strong and protective. This one guy, he made like a sword, like the hilt of his sword out of unicorn horn. And he thought it didn't protect him. But like, you know, that's what he thought. And so linked in with that unicorn. Well, let's look at the last sense and then we can think more about unicorns. So we did the five senses there. We did the five senses, yeah, exactly. So what's left here then is we see a maiden standing in front of a kind of tent. And there's another maiden, a young girl, holding like a box of jewellery.

And this maiden seems to be taking jewellery from the box. And there's an Ewok. There's a little Ewok there. It's a Bichon. It's a what? It's a Bichon. A Bichon, a little lap dog. Yes, it's like a little dog. It's not actually an Ewok because they're not real, Paul, like unicorns. Yeah, also not real.

And so what's going on here then, Amber? So this is the one that kind of... So they're quite pretty, you know. You like them or you don't, the tapestries. But this is the ones that kind of bring together everything. And also people are very... Sorry, carry on. People are very like... You need to be careful of the tapestries. Exactly. Keep your voice down. You're going to ruin the tapestries. Don't blow your nose too loudly either because you never know what could happen. Blow off one of the flowers. Shh, shh.

So this one is the one that people are most confused about. So above it in French is written, mon seul désir, my only desire. And the image is of a woman, not necessarily the same woman, but we could imagine the same woman, in front of this little tent. And this is a sort of little jousting tent. So again, it's reminding people of knights and chivalry and all that kind of things, which the Le Viste family had nothing to do with. They weren't from the knight class at all.

And she's ambiguously either putting the jewellery back or taking the jewellery from it. So we're not sure whether she's putting her jewellery away. And the implication being my sole desire is, I don't know, something maybe more pure. I don't need, you know, all of these sensual pleasures of all of this. You know, I'm taking off my jewellery. It's like maybe something more humble or simple. Or maybe she's taking the jewellery and she just wants to be covered in lots of jewels. You know, so there's an ambiguity to it.

And there's lots and lots of thoughts and ideas and there's other ideas that maybe she's cut her hair and she's put it in the jewellery. You know, you give people jewellery, it's about love. And there's a duality to all the pieces because within the idea of a unicorn is simultaneously purity.

which is to do with they like virgins, but there's also something Christ-like about it. You know, Christ hangs out with a virgin, as we all know. You know, Christ protects you and saves you, you know. So the unicorn is symbolic of purity in this very feminine space, but it also could be seen as a Christian symbol, which, of course, then leads into renouncing jewels and leading a simple life. But it's not very straightforward. You know, there's lots of animals, all of the animals and the flowers, you know,

do have different meanings, whether they're meaning purity or love. And the trees as well also have symbolic meanings, especially for people in the Middle Ages who know a lot about flowers. And, you know, they've got no medicine. Everything comes from flowers, meaning and medicine and food. So it's a really sort of... There's a lot going on here then, basically. Yeah. And just, yeah, as you said earlier, just amazing craftsmanship.

just an incredible level of skill involved in making these absolutely wow really good what do you reckon Kyle yeah brilliant I mean how you've extracted all of that from that is pretty amazing really

How do you know all this stuff, Amber? Read it in a book, Luke. Oh, good work. Just read it on the side of it. Just read it. It's written on the side. All right. Well, that's probably how you extract it. That's how I extracted it. Exactly. Just read it in a book. What always fascinates me about this kind of stuff, this is the uncultured version of me talking again.

Because, you know, when I was at school and we were reading like Shakespeare in English literature class and our English teacher was like, what do you think he meant by this phrase or this turn of phrase? And I always was like, what happens if he just felt like it?

And it doesn't mean anything. And I wonder, at some point, when they're creating this, there's two rabbits there, right? I wonder maybe people are extracting certain information. What happened to people making it, like started making the rabbit? And the other guy was like, no, it was supposed to be a...

It was supposed to be a fox. Why have you made a second rabbit? And it's too late, so they just end up making a second rabbit, and there's no meaning behind it at all. Or it's like, well, look, I need something here. What do you think? Oh, you haven't got any rabbits on this one. All right, let's just put a couple of rabbits down there then. You mean there wasn't maybe that much meaning? Nowadays, we want to extract so much out of everything that's old that sometimes maybe...

there's less meaning behind it than we think but we like making do you know what I mean? Yeah I do, yeah. Absolutely that said though I mean I think it's sort of, it's just a fun way to look at things you know if you're looking for the rabbits or the little lamb or like you can see that hawk up there and you can see that it's a dressy, it's trained you know it's got a little string around it's I thought it was a pigeon. Around it's leg.

It is giving pigeon. It looks like it's attacking this other little bird. Some of it is, I suppose, whatever. And some of it is deliberate. But it's just a...

It's just a way to look at something or engage in something. And I think lots of art is meant to be a little bit meditative, like you go and you just sort of look at it. And sometimes looking can be hard. We don't know... I don't know how to go about looking, even though that sounds weird. So sometimes trying to find meaning can help you look. I think another way to think of it is when...

Some work like this has been done, which has been done, it's obviously very expensive, very time consuming. It's been commissioned in a very serious way. It would have been planned out in advance. The person who did it would have been meticulous and sort of like highly skilled. That probably every decision probably did have significance.

When something is being so carefully thought through, it's like you think about the films of Stanley Kubrick or something, someone who was incredibly meticulous, who planned his films out in advance, where nothing happens by accident.

nothing happens at all by accident, everything is planned, everything is put in for a specific reason, then maybe, yeah, maybe... But sometimes you get a Starbucks coffee cup in the middle of a Game of Thrones episode and everyone's just like, oh shit, we forgot to take the Starbucks coffee cup out. And it's just an... But then, you know, maybe...

a thousand years from now people will watch that episode and try and extract like is it a meaning of like society right now are they trying do you know what I mean like something might extract way now that we've

Got written proof that it was just a mistake that won't be happening, but because we don't know Yeah, not the people that made this are not around to tell us. This is the sort of mystery of history This is the mystery of history and of human civilization. You know, it's a mystery of history and quality To an extent, you know some things we just don't know so we we interpret and you know, we try to work things out and

We do, you know. And then we disagree about the interpretation and then we fight to the death about it. Yeah, exactly, yeah. That's what we do. Yeah, yeah. As humans. Yeah. Shall we see some more bits? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Come on then.

Others will stay here with the lady and the unicorn all day. So that was the section where we visited that quiet, dark room with these six large tapestries up on the walls. Were you able to follow all of that? I hope so. It was probably difficult to hear it all because, as I said, we were whispering. So if you are listening to this when you're out and about, maybe if you're walking down the street or if you're on a noisy train or a bus or something...

That might have been hard to hear. But who knows? Maybe you're listening with noise-cancelling headphones or something and you were able to hear every detail. But let me just recap some of the things. So we were in this room with these six tapestries, the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries. They were created...

At the end of the 1400s, around the year 1500, in the late Middle Ages, the six tapestries are masterpieces. They're considered to be masterpieces of the Gothic art tradition. They were woven in Flanders, which is actually modern-day Belgium, just near France, and they're made from wool and silk. Each tapestry features a noblewoman,

the lady with a unicorn and a lion surrounded by a lush garden of flowers in the background and a few other animals as well. In terms of their symbolism and meaning, five of the tapestries

represent the five human senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. The sight one, there's a mirror and the unicorn is gazing at itself in this mirror. The lady holds the mirror. In the one that represents hearing, she is playing a small organ. In the one that represents touch, she touches the unicorn's horn. In the taste one, she takes a sweet from a dish.

And in the smell one, she's surrounded by aromatic and fragrant flowers. And she weaves a garland of these fragrant flowers. The sixth tapestry...

is inscribed with a phrase in French, amont seul désir, sorry for my pronunciation, French listeners, which means to my only desire, and it's more enigmatic. It's a bit more mysterious. We don't know exactly what it represents. It's often interpreted as representing love, free will, or the renunciation of worldly pleasures, although its exact meaning remains a subject of debate. Paul, you heard there talking about the fact that

He wonders if we perhaps give artists from the past too much credit by assuming that every single detail represents something and we extract meaning from these works of art. He also mentioned Shakespeare, saying that maybe the writer or the artist didn't really mean anything and they just

you know, added maybe like a rabbit in the bottom corner of the picture or they used certain words in a part of a play or something and it doesn't really mean anything. But we don't really know, I suppose. But we kind of assume that people who are such

such excellent artists and who did work that required a lot of time, cost a lot of money, and was very carefully planned in advance. We assume that the details represented something, but who knows? This is the mystery of history. So there you go. But anyway, these tapestries represent the late medieval fascination with courtly love, chivalry, and the natural world. Uh,

They show us the medieval understanding of the human senses and the philosophical ideas of the time. In terms of their artistic achievement, we admire these tapestries for their detailed craftsmanship, the vibrant colours and intricate symbolism showcasing the amazing skill of the medieval weavers. And there's the unicorn, the symbolism of the unicorn. The unicorn, which, as we know, is a mythical creature...

You heard Amber saying that people found the tusk of a narwhal, which is a kind of whale with a long tooth or long tusk.

That tusk is what people found, and they assumed, mistakenly, that it was the horn of a unicorn. I don't know how they reached this conclusion, but as Amber said, when in those days people were discovering all sorts of interesting creatures, you know, imagine an elephant, right? When people were discovering and finding out about these things,

exotic animals, the idea of a unicorn, a horse with a horn on its head, doesn't seem that ridiculous really. So anyway, people assumed that the narwhal tusk actually was from a unicorn. But the unicorn is often seen as a symbol of purity and grace and was believed to be

only tameable by a virgin. So to tame a unicorn, a unicorn would have been a wild animal. A wild animal, right, has to be tamed. If you can tame a wild animal, then the animal becomes less wild and it can become a pet or it can work with you. Same with horses. If you find a wild horse, you would have to tame that horse and break the horse, meaning make it accept to be ridden

Right, so people said that unicorns could only be tamed by virgins, which linked the unicorn both to Christian and secular medieval themes of innocence and unattainable beauty. So anyway, there you go. I hope that you were able to enjoy listening to that audio exploration of this room.

I think it's really great. I've been really enjoying listening back to the audio version. I think that the audio version is just as good as the video version, actually. Anyway, let's carry on. At this point, I have to say that we moved to different parts of the museum, but this is where the technology started to go a bit wrong. And, well, mainly microphones started to die. I don't know what happened. I don't know if... So each one of us is wearing a microphone.

And I don't know if some people accidentally pressed the buttons on their microphones to make them turn off or if the batteries just ran out or what. But Paul's microphone dies. Amber's microphone dies. Eventually, Kyle's microphone dies. And I had to switch to in the editing of this. I had to switch to the microphone from the camera itself. And the quality of that microphone is not so good. And also, unfortunately,

It's quite far away from everyone. It's stuck to my T-shirt. But other people, we might not be able to hear their voices very well. So we hear less of Paul and less of Amber. And you get a lot more of the atmospheric sound effects. And after a while, I had to just stop. I had to just cut a lot of the stuff that I've recorded because it's not really usable. So we're near the end of the trip, though.

And we visit a few other interesting items. Apologies if the sound quality becomes a little less clear, let's say. But let's carry on and continue visiting the museum for a few more minutes. And in fact, what happens next is that we walk through various parts of the museum and see a few of these things. So there's a medieval chess set here.

although we don't talk about it very much, and more tapestries, including one particular tapestry which shows a scene in which wine is being made. So a popular tapestry for the French, of course, a scene of medieval winemaking. Yes, wine, the drink. And on that tapestry, you can see several people carrying large amounts of grapes and

These are the fruits which are used for making wine. So there's people carrying grapes and there's one man in the middle standing in a big barrel full of grapes and crushing them with his feet, which I understand is the traditional way to make wine, crushing the grapes by standing on them in bare feet. So there's a man in the middle of the tapestry crushing grapes with his feet and he doesn't look very happy.

It has to be said. And there's a horse as well and other things. So there's that. There's the winemaking tapestry. And then we continue walking and visit several cabinets full of medieval weaponry, armour, swords, weapons.

weapons used by knights, and yes, metal plate armour, helmets, masks, and other items. And you'll hear us describing them and talk about them. So that's the kind of stuff that you can imagine as you listen to us continuing our trip through the Medieval Museum.

You can't be looking at everything, Luke. We can't stop and look at absolutely everything. We can't stop and look at everything. More tapestries. More tapestries. We're very familiar now with the millefeuille style. Yes, exactly. Nice medieval chess set. Oh, good. French people's favourite. Look, they're making the wine. Tapestry about making wine. Tapestry about making wine. Yeah, and they just, that's the thing, they just stamp on the grapes. Yeah. Yeah, I hope they've made his feet. Filthy.

He doesn't look very clean, does he? I'm not sure. Because that's not a modern day thing anymore, is it? But when they have festivals in the streets, they just stamp on the grapes. It's like a celebration. Is it not still the best way to make wine? I don't know. Look at that horse eating the grapes. I love that. That's my best favourite bit. Yeah, OK. Yeah, he doesn't look very happy. He's like, can someone else...

someone else do this I'm fed up with this my feet are soaking wet yeah it looks like he's making hard it looks like he's actually sat on it yeah almost yeah yeah and he's like look don't sit don't sit on the grapes now you've got to stamp them I don't want to stamp them my feet are all wet can I sit down why can't I sit on them I mean there's got to be an easier way of carrying it

than that as well. You couldn't make that more uncomfortable if you tried. Use your other arm. Imagine how sore your neck would be. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, they didn't know a lot in those days. They knew some things. Anyway, look, Paul and Amber will be talking without us. Okay. I was like, oh, we should have a side conversation and really mess up your audio. Come, I'm going to show you the knights, the shining armour.

Okay, look, armour. There's not much night stuff here, but here is some night stuff. Night-themed bits and bobs. So, listeners, we are now in a new room, and in front of us, behind a glass screen...

there are various artefacts that look like weapons, armour, shields, helmets, swords, and things of that nature. Right then, Amber, what's going on here then? Well, I mean, the thing is, I think we're quite familiar with all this stuff, but it is really incredible to look at that and think this is what's protecting you. I mean, you've gone off to war. Knights are chevaliers, so they have to have a horse, as we're

It's more clear in French. Chevalier means horse, horses. A horse, yeah, cheval is horse, and so a chevalier has to have a horse. But they provided their own horse, their own equipment, all their stuff. And so that's why knights were wealthy. They had to be independently wealthy, and so it was quite this sort of important class of people. They weren't the foot soldiers. So here's just like some...

some stuff and you'd imagine you're not surprised like here's obviously St. George defeating the dragon he's like the patron saint of knights we can see this has been sort of painted onto the front of this shield an image of St. George defeating a dragon he's the patron saint of England although he was where was St. George from actually he was like Portuguese or something like that I don't know it's unbelievable they were able to create this style

Yeah, the craftsmanship is impressive. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If someone came at you with one of them, what would you do? Yeah, if you're wearing one of these helmets where all you're looking through is like a little slit. Yeah. I mean, these look in pretty good condition. So would these have not seen any battles or would they have restored them?

I mean, because some of them have marks that look like it would have... I mean, that looks like a sword might have... Either someone's had a go at it with a sword or it's fallen over. That's what I mean. But they look... Yeah. Well, I suppose the ones which are completely destroyed are just lost forever and some of them are here. When you're thinking about knights and conflicts in the Middle Ages, you've got the Crusades. So that's the terrible war. I'm sure you know all about that. So you've got the Crusades. Yes.

I'm sure Paul knows all about the Crusades. Yeah, I just thought we'd stay quiet for that bit. Isn't that a holiday spot somewhere in America? Confusing up with the Palisades. Maybe, yes. Maybe, I don't know. Have you not played the, what's that series of computer games? Assassin's Creed. Assassin's Creed. Do you not play Assassin's Creed? A lot of climbing up tall.

towers and then jumping off into piles of hay medieval jumping and climbing well the crusades was a sort of Christian objective to go and reclaim Jerusalem for Christianity and

And they had nine, ten, eleven, loads of them. They didn't work, basically, and lots of people were killed there and on the way. And so you've got the Crusades, so that's what knights are doing. And, of course, between France and England, you've got the Hundred Years' War. Yeah, exactly. That England won, I'd like to say.

But also lost. But you have the Hundred Years' War. So, you know, this is what people are wearing. And then and we talked about Shakespeare earlier and he talks about, you know, Henry V. That's the Hundred Years' War. That's the Battle of Agincourt, where the British really sort of beat the French in

It's one of the big famous battles. The rest are very boring. But it was a sort of pointless affair, really. Anyway, this is what they'd been wearing, sort of thing. Look at that. Look at that thing. Yeah, it's crazy. I know, ridiculous. It's a helmet with a kind of face covering with a big...

what looks like a big pointy beak full of holes so you can breathe but you can only see through tiny little slits you can barely see anything it's like worse than being a stormtrooper from Star Wars but if you're on a horse have you ridden a horse? I mean you're jiggling around quite a lot but I guess if someone jousts you in the face yeah you've got more chance absolutely the sword or the joust or whatever is going to glance off yeah that's how Henry II died he got a jousting stick in his eye

splintered off into his eye yeah he died yeah i'm not surprised the two tapestries very just quickly uh he's off this is called off to the hunt look they're going off to the hunt they've got their birds and their horses everyone's looking very jolly and their dogs and here they are back from the hunt and he's giving this woman a rabbit a hair she doesn't look very happy about it does she she's like look i've got this hair sorry it's not very it's not a very fat one

Or it's like, I don't like you, but I'm going to give you a hair anyway, because this guy told me to. But, you know, it's decorative, but it's also talking. You know, people loved hunting. So if you've got your hunting lodge and you want to decorate it, you're going to use tapestries like this. Right, come around here. This way.

Completely lost. I feel like that's the way we went. Oh, we came through there, but we didn't come through here. OK, audio listeners, I think that's where we'll have to stop the audio version of this trip to the medieval museum. The reason is because, as I explained earlier, the microphones failed. And to be honest, the audio quality from the camera microphone was...

is just not good enough, really, to be played in the episode. I could play it to you, but you wouldn't be able to hear it. It's just the sounds of creaking floorboards and people walking around and some voices that aren't very clear. It's a pity, really, because there was other stuff. For example, we visited some very interesting little...

ivory carvings which depicted various scenes from the Bible including one scene where Saint Paul is preaching to a group of people and while he's preaching a child appears to be falling out of a window presumably because it's so boring and we made some funny jokes about that let me tell you oh it's a pity you weren't there

We were saying, obviously, this is a bit like when Paul does one of his shows and people fall asleep in the audience, but they don't. Or it's a bit like, you know, when episodes of my podcast go on a bit too long and people presumably fall out of windows while listening because they perhaps fall asleep or something. I don't know. So there was, you know, that moment that's, I'm afraid, been cut from the episode. But that's life, isn't it? You know?

But I think that we probably need to end here. Pity that I couldn't include the final words of our trip. But that was that. We ended up outside, actually, again, outside the museum again. All in all, a nice trip, an interesting trip. And I hope that you learned some things about medieval Europe, about history, and that you were able to more or less follow that.

the trip even though of course you couldn't see things. Now you could always watch the video version it's on YouTube you'll find it on my YouTube channel but hopefully this audio experience has been immersive and stimulating and something that has kind of made your imagination run wild. What happened next is that after we finished our trip we decided we'd go and have some lunch so we walked around the Saint-Michel area of Paris and

just off the Boulevard Saint-Michel, and we found what appeared to be a nice spot sitting in the sunshine on a busy café terrasse.

And we sat down, got our table and stuff. There were plenty of people sitting around. A mix of local Parisians and tourists and waiters trying to find their way between the tables to serve. We finally got the attention of our waiter and we ordered our lunch. We ordered our food. I had the classic, my favourite, pasta.

Parisian cafe lunch which is the croque monsieur as it's called. It's basically a toasted cheese and ham sandwich but oh it's good often served with french fries also known as chips in British English and of course we all ordered beers without actually checking the menu we ordered our beers a pint of Carlsberg and

pints of Carlsberg all round. And then when we went to actually pay for everything, the beer turned out to be phenomenally expensive, much more expensive even than the food that we'd eaten. 14 euros for a pint of Carlsberg. I know that it's advertised as probably the greatest lager in the world, but really 14 euros. So we got kind of, um,

What's the word for it? We got ripped off with tourist prices on the beer, which was around the same price as entry to the museum, I think. But still, it was nice to eat lunch together in the sunshine. And then we even went and had an ice cream and coffee afterwards. Happy days, happy

But that's the end of the episode now. I'd be interested to know what you thought of this audio experience. And you can always leave your comments on the website page for this episode on my website. And I'd be interested to read your thoughts. Well done for getting all the way through to the end of this episode. What could be your code word to show, to prove that you made it this far? I don't know. Unicorns. Yeah, you could mention something about unicorns or...

maidens, ladies. Yes, the lady in the unicorn, the lion, of course. There were lions in those pictures too, but we didn't really get much attention from us, did they? Well, you know, if you're sitting on the grass next to a unicorn, then everyone's just going to ignore you, aren't they, to be honest? But that lady was very confident, wasn't she? Sitting in that garden next to a fully grown lion.

But I suppose that's the way they did it in the medieval period. So anyway, you could perhaps use the word unicorn in your comment to show that you listened all the way up to this point. Actually, what you could write, as well as maybe mentioning a unicorn, you could use the catchphrase for this episode.

which was, if you remember, if you want quality, you get quality. And I hope that you did get quality from this episode. Outstanding work from Amber, I should say, bringing the expertise that she has in this area and actually teaching us all a thing or two while Paul and Kyle and me

made silly comments in the background. So well done to Amber. I think she's the one who actually brought the quality and we did want quality and we got quality. So thanks to Amber. So you could mention that catchphrase if you fancy it. All right. And of course, I feel I have to mention, we normally pronounce it quality, right? So if you want quality, you get quality.

But it's normally pronounced quality, of course. Did I need to mention that? Probably not. There you go. Killing another joke for you. Yes. And so that's it. I'll speak to you next time. But that is the end of this Walk & Talk episode with Amber, Paul and Kyle. Thanks for listening. Speak to you next time. But for now, it's time to say goodbye. Bye. Bye.

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