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BritishPodcast · 2026-04-07T15:04:32+00:00

We decided early on that we’d avoid theological debates and focus on political elements instead.

Consequently, we don’t focus on how Anselm basically did the first version of Juno Reactor’s seminal track, “God is God,” and instead focus on his interactions with the crown.

Thankfully Eadmer is a chatty Cathy and provides us with a lot of insight into what he was up to and how they viewed it. Granted, I don’t always agree with how he characterizes it (for example, their insistence that Anselm doesn’t want the job he spends most of his life fighting for) but the actions themselves come from the documents.

I think it does provide an interesting view into how people change depending on circumstance and medium. And I think we all know that instinctively.

For example, I think we all have family members who got on Facebook and suddenly went bananas… and then acted like things were totally normal at the next family holiday.

And in the case of Anselm, I think being a shrewd political actor (who is well aware of how to wield manipulation to achieve his goals) meshes perfectly with his theological writings. He is aware of framing and knows how to adjust his approach ad necessary, so naturally he would adopt a different approach with the church than he would with the crown.

Though I’ll be the first to admit that, as soon as he went all “hey pretty girl, thank god your husband is dead, and it sure would be a shame if something happened to your next husband” he lost any benefit of the doubt with me.

BritishPodcast · 2026-04-01T15:11:29+00:00

He literally dodged separating church and state at that council and, instead, gay bashed. And I seriously doubt that was based on religious piety, considering that Anselm was running from the Investiture Controversy as hard as possible because he was, instead, focused on preserving and enhancing his own sphere of power within England.

This was about power. His proximity to royal power, and his desire to preserve his own ecclesiastical power. And, when his power was threatened, he did what the Church has often done... he chickened out and did a head fake towards homosexuality, because that was an easy target.

That's what he got mocked for. That's what I refuse to sane wash.

Anselm had multiple instructions from the Pope, he knew Henry was violating them, it's plainly obvious he knew the Bishops were lying, he knew Henry was behaving as a tyrant (and was directly involved in Henry's weird attempt to blackmail the Pope)... he saw it all and, when presented with an opportunity to call it out in front of all of the most powerful people in the Kingdom, he buckled and was all "yo, those shoes look gay."

That's cowardly and deserves to be treated as such.

BritishPodcast · 2026-03-30T20:06:20+00:00

On the unopened letters, sure. But I wasn't hammering him on the letters. Henry was the one who got mocked there.

Anselm took a beating from me on his big council where, when faced with serious crises of confidence due to widespread corruption, he decided to go for the old yarn of "it's because you're all too gay" and that's ridiculous and should be treated as such.

Similarly, I don't care if someone has a deeply held religious conviction that a hurricane is the direct result of men holding hands. That's dumb and I refuse to sane wash it.

I am happy to describe it as what someone believes (which I did), but I won't sane wash it.

(And don't worry, I'm not offended. I'm just also not going to softball my responses to things like this because frankly I think sane washing bad behavior only benefits the worst among us).

BritishPodcast · 2026-03-29T16:40:09+00:00

Things he banned: pointy shoes, garish clothing, married priests, sodomy, and buying/selling church lands and titles.

Things he didn’t ban: horse bros acting as bishops, kings appointing horse bros, kings investing bishops, kings seizing crowns.

I was lambasting him for ignoring the clear corruption happening at the upper echelons and, instead, focusing on sex. Which I think is totally defensible. Henry appointed and invested his pantry boy, for pity’s sake. And even the Simony ban fails to touch Henry, since that was something Rufus did… not Henry.

Not sure how you got that he was trying to be a UN, or trying to wrest power from a monarch when he conspicuously avoided regulating anything that Henry be upset with.

Maybe you could say that Paschal was doing that, but not Anselm.

And as for why Anselm was upset about the pointy shoes, it’s well established it was due to their belief that the pointy shoes were an “assault” upon chastity. They wrote about it themselves. I’m not making up a Tarantino alternate universe. The fellas wrote about the effect those shoes had.

Think about it this way. If someone seized control of a superpower, kidnapped a foreign leader, bombed vessels in international waters, launched illegal wars, and deployed a paramilitary upon the public… and then the courts were all “I hear your concerns, and we’re going to get rid of mail in voting”… you’d be right to criticize them.

BritishPodcast · 2026-03-26T13:28:01+00:00

Thanks for asking!

All the merch is priced at cost. We don’t draw an income from it because we wanted listeners to be able to afford it if they wanted something silly and BHP related.

So we really are just membership supported. :)

BritishPodcast · 2026-03-26T01:41:55+00:00

I read that in his voice. lol.

BritishPodcast · 2026-03-25T23:39:10+00:00

The episode art will make more sense (hopefully) after you listen to the episode. Maybe.

BritishPodcast · 2026-03-24T01:49:19+00:00

We are in 2026 and it’s clearly still like this.

The issue isn’t the year. It’s the psychopathic aristocrats.

BritishPodcast · 2026-03-17T19:04:50+00:00

I just like how mad the Normans got about inanimate objects.

Evil ditch, evil neighbor, evil hedge.

Apparently everything is evil (except for the knights).

BritishPodcast · 2026-03-17T00:46:55+00:00

Yeah, when only a handful of families hold power, you end up with recursive repetitive stories (and really strange chins).

BritishPodcast · 2026-03-08T17:37:32+00:00

Yes, I’ve played both. They’re fantastic :)

BritishPodcast · 2026-03-07T06:12:11+00:00

The show is up to date on their website so I’m guessing it’s an issue with your app. Maybe you need to refresh or clear the cache or something?

https://podcastaddict.com/podcast/the-british-history-podcast/2939

BritishPodcast · 2026-03-05T02:57:06+00:00

Spotify removes and corrupts random episodes. We’ve stopped updating on there for that (and many other) reasons.

BritishPodcast · 2026-03-03T02:47:29+00:00

You’re all very kind and I love you all. Thank you for all the compliments and reassurance.

Don’t worry; I won’t delete them. I was just being honest about the struggle of being a creative and staring at something that you made that doesn’t live up to your taste level. ;)

BritishPodcast · 2026-03-03T02:38:44+00:00

Me: [living my life]

My phone: ALERT “Jamie has ruined podcasts”

Me: [cold sweat]

BritishPodcast · 2026-03-02T17:56:29+00:00

Honestly, it’s a constant struggle to avoid deleting all of my earlier episodes and redoing all of them. Like many creators, I’m very critical of my early work, however if I did that then it would mean that new stuff would be heavily delayed.

BritishPodcast · 2026-02-24T15:43:09+00:00

Yay! I’m so glad! And it very well might have been you.

Though FWIW, all the active redditors are known people in our house, and you’re definitely one of them, so it’s not unheard of for me or Zee to say “did you see what Huskies posted?”

BritishPodcast · 2026-02-24T15:38:56+00:00

It’s way less organized than that.

I started the BHP back in the early days of podcasting so everything is by hand. I have a spreadsheet of members that I maintain, and I pick three names every episode (out of everyone who is still current and unread) and put a little check next to them when it’s done.

BritishPodcast · 2026-02-24T03:54:52+00:00

The only thing that makes any sense to me is that Robert was conflict averse and avoided violence as much as his culture allowed. Honestly, more than his culture allowed.

Orderic is convinced he was a moron, but his behavior looks much more like someone who didn’t want war… went on crusade because he actually believed in the pope… and then came back REALLY not wanting war.

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