Unruly History

Exactly how revolting were medieval peasants? This week, Gillian tells Emma all about the origins of the mass 1381 uprising against the poll tax that culminated in an army of ordinary people marching on London. They discuss the impact of the Black Death on the supply of labour and elite attempts to crush demands for higher wages, the Hundred Years' War against France that drained England's coffers, and the activism of serfs bound to the land, and try to pinpoint the spark that lit the fuse of rebellion. What role did the king's uncle John of Gaunt play in the creation of anti-government sentiment? Who were Wat Tyler and John Ball – and does Andrew Garfield play either of them in The Uprising?! And why should we stop calling it a peasants' revolt?

Unruly History is the podcast that blows apart the historical canon. This episode was hosted by Dr Gillian Kenny and Dr Emma Nagouse, and produced by Dr Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow. We are a completely independent production, so please consider subscribing at patreon.com/unrulyhistory for all kinds of exciting bonus content.

Our cover art is by the supremely talented Aaron Kite, https://itsakite.com/

Sources:
Bailey, Mark. After the Black Death: Economy, Society, and the Law in Fourteenth-Century England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021.
Bailey, Mark. The Decline of Serfdom in Late Medieval England: From Bondage to Freedom. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2014.
Barker, Juliet. England, Arise: The People, the King and the Great Revolt of 1381. London: Little, Brown, 2014.
Bell, Adrian R., Andrew Prescott, Helen Killick and Jason Sadler. “Who Were the ‘Peasants’ of the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt? New Database Has Answers.” The Conversation, March 2026.
Dobson, R. B. The Peasants’ Revolt of 1381. 2nd ed. London: Macmillan, 1983.
Eiden, Herbert. “Norfolk, 1382: A Sequel to the Peasants’ Revolt.” English Historical Review 114, no. 456 (1999): 370–77.
Federico, Sylvia. “The Imaginary Society: Women in 1381.” Journal of British Studies 40, no. 2 (2001): 159–83.
Hatcher, John. “England in the Aftermath of the Black Death.” Past & Present 144 (1994): 3–35.
Justice, Steven. Writing and Rebellion: England in 1381. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.
Lacey, Helen. “‘Grace for the Rebels’: The Role of the Royal Pardon in the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381.” Journal of Medieval History 34 (2008): 36–63.
Ormrod, W. M. Political Life in Medieval England, 1300–1450. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1995.
Prescott, Andrew. “The Anonimalle Chronicle Narrative of the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381.” In Fourteenth Century England XIII, edited by Gwilym Dodd and Helen Lacey, 131–60. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2025.
Schoon, Paul. “The Role of News and Rumour during the Peasants’ Revolt, 1381.” Historical Research 97, no. 278 (2024): 458–75.
Xu, Mingjie. “Analysing the Actions of the Rebels in the English Revolt of 1381: The Case of Cambridgeshire.” Economic History Review 75, no. 3 (2022): 881–902.
The People of 1381. https://www.1381.online/.

What should we remember about the 5th of November? This Bonfire Night, Emma tells Gillian all about the religious revolutions that gripped England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the failed Catholic plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament. They talk about the decades of anti-Catholic repression that forced many into radicalism and treason, the lengths some Catholics went to in the name of their faith, and which English monarch was really the bloodiest. They also explore how social class played into the Gunpowder Plot, the exact role of Guy Fawkes, and why the plan unravelled so spectacularly. So what exactly were the plotters trying to achieve with this act of terrorism? Why was the English state so afraid of Catholics? And who exactly mandated that we remember the 5th of November – and why?

Unruly History is the podcast that blows apart the historical canon. This episode was hosted by Dr Gillian Kenny and Dr Emma Nagouse, and produced by Dr Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow. We are a completely independent production, so please consider subscribing at patreon.com/unrulyhistory for all kinds of exciting bonus content.

Our cover art is by the supremely talented Aaron Kite, https://itsakite.com/

Sources:

Leticia Alvarez Recio, Fighting the Antichrist: A Cultural History of Anti-Catholicism in Tudor England (Sussez Academic Press, 2011)

Alexandra Walsham, Catholic Reformation in Protestant Britain (Taylor & Francis, 2016)

Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400-1580 (Yale University Press, 1992)

Peter Marshall, Heretics and Believers: A History of the English Reformation (Yale University Press, 2018)

Jessie Childs, God's Traitors: Terror and Faith in Elizabethan England (Vintage Publishing, 2015)

Are you hungry like the wolf? In the last of our Halloween triple bill, Gillian tells Emma all about the centuries long history of the werewolf, tracing the development of this supernatural creature from ancient origins to the silver screen. They discuss the various ways that werewolves have been thought to change their shape (curses, spells, magic belts, the moon), the werewolf trials of the early modern period, whether all werewolves are bad, and where tropes like the silver bullet come from. And they consider whether werewolves reflect our fear of the other – or of ourselves. So what was the twelfth-century werewolf Renaissance? Did Twilight and Buffy get anything right about these creatures? And how do werewolf myths relate to the real-life wolves that used to roam Europe?

Unruly History is the podcast that blows apart the historical canon. This episode was hosted by Dr Gillian Kenny and Dr Emma Nagouse, and produced by Dr Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow. We are a completely independent production, so please consider subscribing at patreon.com/unrulyhistory for all kinds of exciting bonus content.

Our cover art is by the supremely talented Aaron Kite, https://itsakite.com/

Sources:

Daniel Ogden, The Werewolf in the Ancient World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021).

Roger Bartra, The Myth of the Werewolf (Springer Nature Switzerland, 2024).

Renée Ward, The Werewolf in Medieval Romance (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025).

Fergus Kelly, A Guide to Early Irish Law (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1988).

Do you believe in miracles, you sexy thing? In the second of three Halloween specials, Emma tells Gillian all about scandalous seventeenth-century Italian nun Benedetta Carlini, the wild visions she claimed to experience, and the lesbian acts that led to her downfall. They explore Benedetta's religious upbringing against the backdrop of the Catholic Counter-Reformation, her ambitious rise through the ranks of the convent where she lived, and the escalating series of religious experiences she claimed to have had – including an angel bestie and a mystical marriage to Jesus Christ Himself. But how can you tell whether a vision is divine or demonic? Was Benedetta the original bridezilla? And what did she get up to after dark with her 'companion', Bartolemea?

Unruly History is the podcast that blows apart the historical canon. This episode was hosted by Dr Gillian Kenny and Dr Emma Nagouse, and produced by Dr Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow. We are a completely independent production, so please consider subscribing at patreon.com/unrulyhistory for all kinds of exciting bonus content.

Our cover art is by the supremely talented Aaron Kite, https://itsakite.com/

Sources:

Judith C. Brown, Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986).

Have you ever heard the chilling cry of the banshee? In the first of three Halloween specials, Gillian tells Emma all about Ireland's maligned and misunderstood death messenger. They discuss when and where the banshee cries, who gets to hear her, and which deaths she's interested in foretelling, before diving into the deep roots of this supernatural woman, both folkloric and historical. How did tales of a sovereign goddess and a death messenger combine with the real-life practice of keening to create the Irish banshee? Is she a fairy – or something else entirely? And why in a country of short, dark women is she always described as a golden Barbie-like beauty?

Unruly History is the podcast that blows apart the historical canon. This episode was hosted by Dr Gillian Kenny and Dr Emma Nagouse, and produced by Dr Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow. We are a completely independent production, so please consider subscribing at patreon.com/unrulyhistory for all kinds of exciting bonus content.

Our cover art is by the supremely talented Aaron Kite, https://itsakite.com/

Sources:

Patricia Lysaght, The Banshee: The Irish Death-Messenger (Dublin: O'Brien Press, 1986).

A Geordie, an Irishwoman and a lesbian walk into a podcast booth sounds like the start of a joke, but it’s an accurate description of UNRULY HISTORY – a brand-new podcast about the stories, lives and beliefs that refuse tidy narratives.

Award-winning podcaster and historian Dr Emma Nagouse (You’re Dead to Me, Homeschool History and MUSES with grammy-nominated Bastille) and medieval historian Dr Gillian Kenny (University College Dublin and Trinity College Dublin) have teamed up with You’re Dead to Me producer Dr Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow to launch Unruly History.

History is full of people, moments, and ideas that have been quietly filed away: too inconvenient, too strange, or simply too ordinary to make the official version. Unruly History opens those files. This is a brand new weekly podcast in which two historians make the case that what gets left out of the story is as revealing as what gets left in. And have a hell of a laugh along the way.

Subscribe to be the first to listen to our three spooky Halloween specials, dropping 28th October!

Unruly History is a completely independent production. Please support our Patreon at patreon.com/unrulyhistory

Our cover art is by the supremely talented Aaron Kite, https://itsakite.com/