Who were the Africans in Medieval Britain?

Join Matt Lewis and Dr. Eleanor Janega for a rigorous session of medieval myth-busting! Did William Wallace really shoot lightning from his backside? Did Pope Gregory IX cause the Black Death by ordering a cat genocide? And did King Alfred actually burn those cakes? And the bigge ...  Show more

In 1381, a highly organised civilian army marched on London, demanding an end to generations of unfairness. Matt Lewis and author A.K. Blakemore explore the human stories behind the Peasants' Revolt. They discover how Chaucer viewed the uprising from his home within London and un ...  Show more

As the UK marks Black History Month, a panel of expert historians – Hannah Cusworth, Pamela Roberts and Hakim Adi – tackle some of the biggest questions around bringing black histories to light. Speaking to Matt Elton, they explore the value of Black History Month in highlighting ...  Show more

The most famous Black African in Tudor England is John Blanke, a musician in the courts of Henry VII and Henry VIII. The discovery of Blanke, originally by Professor Sydney Anglo, was made famous by Dr. Miranda Kaufmann’s 2017 book Black Tudors, The Untold Story</ ...

In the 1640s, Black communities existed in London and in most of England's port cities, communities from which men would fight and die throughout the English Civil War. There's still little evidence of the lives of these individuals. So what do we know of the Black men who too ...

To mark Black History Month in the UK we look back at some landmark moments in British Black History. We hear how the famous cricketer Learie Constantine broke the colour bar, and about the Notting Hill race riots and the Bristol bus boycott. Plus, we speak to Britain’s first ...