The Anarchy: Disruptive Women

How did harmless medieval healers become hunted as terrifying, devil-worshiping conspirators? Matt Lewis and Professor Marion Gibson explore the chilling origins of the witch trials; how a humiliated inquisitor named Heinrich Kramer, after being publicly defied by a local woman i ...  Show more

Why would the execution of a single Czech priest spark decades of bloody revolution across Europe? In 1414, the outspoken reformer Jan Hus was promised safe conduct to a church council, only to be arrested, tried for heresy, and burned at the stake. Dr. Eleanor Janega and Matt Le ...  Show more

The Anarchy – a 12th-century civil war for the English crown that pitted Empress Matilda against Stephen of Blois – is remembered as one of the most turbulent episodes of the Middle Ages. It was said to be a time when “Christ and his saints slept”. Medieval historian Matt Lewis a ...  Show more

In 17th-century England, women weren’t asked what they believed, they were generally told to obey. But amid civil war, revolution, and religious upheaval, a remarkable group of women risked everything to speak out. They preached, prophesied and published their defiance, surviving ...  Show more

From aristocratic rebels to Civil Rights activists, tens of thousands of people travelled to Spain during the Civil War - and not all of them were men...Whether they were fighting, nursing or reporting, in this episode of Betwixt the Sheets we are going to meet a few of the women ...  Show more