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About
The Show
Fortunes Wheel is a narrative history podcast focusing on the Late Middle Ages, approximately the mid-900s to 1492. This largely overlooked time period would see the formation of modern national borders as well as the intricate of a land opening its eyes from the intellectual Dark Ages into the most pivotal events that will thread together our modern world.
About
Bends in the Story
NOTE: "Bends" is a term used to describe the seasons of the podcasts. These are less "seasons" and more changes in the direction of the overall narrative, diversions setting the context for the inevitable connection between two seemingly separate events, thus, "bends" in the narrative.
Bend One: Danish Conquest of England
In our first bend, we see England under a massive pressure from Danish Vikings, and, unfortunately, they were led by a largely incompetent king. We also take a look around the area and learn about the changes in the power structure occurring in Ireland, as well as Norse Vikings making their way across the frigid North Atlantic only to discover an entirely new land.
Bend Two: Here Come the Normans!
In our second bend, we see the Duchy of Normandy undergo its own change, thus pushing its own sons outward. Families such as the Drengots and de Hautevilles would find a home far to the south in Italy. We learn of a boy being hunted merely because he was not born of a "proper Christian" union, a sad "origin story" of a man who would grow to change the world in ways that would seem unfathomable at the time. We also take a look at another young man who was forced out of his homeland of Norway only to escape to the Kievan Rus and then become one of the larger-than-life figures at the court of Constantinople, serving as another "origin story" of sorts for a man who rivaled all in the 11th century.
Bend Three: North Sea Collapse
In our third bend, we follow two major players in the North Sea region, a region struggling to find an equilibrium as the predominantly Viking power structure is slowly collapsing after its greatest ruler, Cnut the Great. King Edward and Earl Godwine take center stage, but this is the point where a whole cast of characters begins plotting their own unique claims to Cnut's fractured North Sea Empire. Also, we break from the narrative to check in on that embattled duke of Normandy as he continues to struggle against potential usurpers, the battle between Norway and Denmark, and, finally, the split that still reverberates to our own world today: the Great Schism of 1054.
Upcoming Topics:
El Cid
Battle of Manzikert
Robert Guiscard
1066
Investiture Controversy
The First Crusade
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