{"version":"1.0.0","segments":[{"startTime":5.065,"endTime":10.29,"body":"It is absolutely fantastic to actually be inside Gresham College because about two and a"},{"startTime":10.29,"endTime":10.638,"body":"half years ago, I came here, um, pressed my nose against the gates only to"},{"startTime":10.638,"endTime":20.045,"body":"find that they were locked and dreamed of being inside this gust place."},{"startTime":20.105,"endTime":25.796,"body":"So it, it, it's an absolute thrill, but I, I, I want to begin by"},{"startTime":25.796,"endTime":26.176,"body":"talking about, um, a another trip, another kind of walking tour that was, um, it"},{"startTime":26.176,"endTime":33.765,"body":"was less, um, abortive than aborted."},{"startTime":34.145,"endTime":40.205,"body":"Uh, and it was, um, a pilgrimage that my brother and I wanted to undertake."},{"startTime":40.465,"endTime":45.925,"body":"Um, early in 2020, this was our plan, um, to go to Stonehenge."},{"startTime":46.905,"endTime":50.485,"body":"Um, and our aim was, um, very overtly political."},{"startTime":50.485,"endTime":57.551,"body":"We wanted to draw attention to what we regarded as a shameful government policy, the"},{"startTime":57.551,"endTime":58.022,"body":"construction of a road tunnel, a highly destructive road tunnel through the sacred landscape that"},{"startTime":58.022,"endTime":67.445,"body":"surrounds Britain's most celebrated pre-historic monument."},{"startTime":68.185,"endTime":69.565,"body":"So we knew where we wanted to go."},{"startTime":69.565,"endTime":71.445,"body":"We wanted to go to Stonehenge, but of course, there was a problem."},{"startTime":71.825,"endTime":74.925,"body":"Um, where were we going to start our pilgrimage?"},{"startTime":74.945,"endTime":75.925,"body":"Now, there's no question."},{"startTime":76.045,"endTime":81.571,"body":"I think that Stonehenge was indeed a place of pilgrimage for people across Britain, and"},{"startTime":81.571,"endTime":83.045,"body":"perhaps, uh, even further."},{"startTime":83.665,"endTime":88.747,"body":"Um, and the evidence for this is, uh, provided by Dorrington Walls, which is, um,"},{"startTime":88.747,"endTime":89.086,"body":"a settlement about a mile or so from the Stones, um, was inhabited for maybe"},{"startTime":89.086,"endTime":95.525,"body":"50 to a hundred years."},{"startTime":95.745,"endTime":100.332,"body":"And it's been posited that this was a place for the living as opposed to"},{"startTime":100.332,"endTime":103.085,"body":"Stonehenge, which served as a place for the dead."},{"startTime":103.385,"endTime":108.601,"body":"And we know that people from across Britain had settled there because, um, the skeletons"},{"startTime":108.601,"endTime":108.948,"body":"of animals, particularly pigs, have been found that came from as far afield as Northern"},{"startTime":108.948,"endTime":114.165,"body":"Scotland."},{"startTime":114.825,"endTime":117.765,"body":"Now, my brother and I did not want to start in Northern Scotland."},{"startTime":117.915,"endTime":120.605,"body":"That was way too far a, a, a journey."},{"startTime":121.065,"endTime":126.061,"body":"Um, and obviously there was a problem because we had no way of knowing if"},{"startTime":126.061,"endTime":126.395,"body":"there were particular locations, say, in Britain, um, from which pilgrims were inspired to travel"},{"startTime":126.395,"endTime":131.725,"body":"to Stonehenge."},{"startTime":132.985,"endTime":139.675,"body":"So what we did as, uh, boys who had grown up in Salisbury is that"},{"startTime":139.675,"endTime":146.365,"body":"we took inspiration from, um, a prize exhibit in the, the excellent museum in Salisbury."},{"startTime":147.625,"endTime":151.205,"body":"Um, and this is the, so-called Amesbury Archer."},{"startTime":151.825,"endTime":157.833,"body":"Um, so-called from the many arrowhead that were found surrounding, uh, the skeleton when it"},{"startTime":157.833,"endTime":158.233,"body":"was discovered on what was then, um, a building site and is now, uh, a,"},{"startTime":158.233,"endTime":166.645,"body":"um, cul-de-sac in out of town Amesbury."},{"startTime":167.865,"endTime":172.765,"body":"Uh, now the Amesbury Archer, intriguingly was not from Britain."},{"startTime":173.385,"endTime":175.885,"body":"Um, tests on the teeth."},{"startTime":175.935,"endTime":181.252,"body":"Don't ask me to go into the scientific details, um, reveal that this man, this"},{"startTime":181.252,"endTime":181.607,"body":"Amesbury Archer had actually seemed to have come from, um, the Austrian region of the"},{"startTime":181.607,"endTime":186.925,"body":"Alps."},{"startTime":187.545,"endTime":193.427,"body":"And so on the assumption that he probably, uh, took ship from the nearest point"},{"startTime":193.427,"endTime":198.525,"body":"to the continent, we decided that we would start our pilgrimage from Dover."},{"startTime":198.745,"endTime":199.725,"body":"So this was the plan."},{"startTime":200.025,"endTime":202.925,"body":"We were, we were gonna do it in April, 2020."},{"startTime":203.345,"endTime":207.605,"body":"We were gonna start from Dover, and we were gonna go head to Stonehenge."},{"startTime":208.025,"endTime":215.098,"body":"But then, of course, on the 23rd of March, a certain virus and a certain"},{"startTime":215.098,"endTime":220.285,"body":"Prime Minister intervened, and we were unable to do our pilgrimage."},{"startTime":220.745,"endTime":227.541,"body":"And I found myself, I immuned in London with no prospect whatsoever of escaping the"},{"startTime":227.541,"endTime":227.995,"body":"Capitol or of tramping the Kent Downs, or of, you know, breathing in the fresh"},{"startTime":227.995,"endTime":235.245,"body":"April Air."},{"startTime":236.465,"endTime":245.496,"body":"Um, the weather, as I'm sure all of you will remember, that April, 2020 was"},{"startTime":245.496,"endTime":253.925,"body":"kind of tantalizingly beautiful, um, and the more that beautiful day succeeded, beautiful day."},{"startTime":254.385,"endTime":259.8,"body":"So my sense of regret for what might have been for the pilgrimage that I"},{"startTime":259.8,"endTime":261.245,"body":"might have undertaken, deepened."},{"startTime":262.065,"endTime":268.453,"body":"And so with my wife, who is in the back, bless her, um, we began"},{"startTime":268.453,"endTime":273.565,"body":"to tramp across London, um, going on kind of increasingly extensive walks."},{"startTime":273.905,"endTime":278.423,"body":"And it was as part of a walk that I devised looking at, um, 16th"},{"startTime":278.423,"endTime":278.724,"body":"century London, for instance, that we found ourselves pressing our noses to the Bard Gates"},{"startTime":278.724,"endTime":283.845,"body":"of Gresham College."},{"startTime":284.545,"endTime":290.975,"body":"Um, but the thi the, the, the, the journeys that I most enjoyed were those"},{"startTime":290.975,"endTime":294.405,"body":"that, um, kind of evoked stories, evoked narratives."},{"startTime":294.585,"endTime":300.078,"body":"So, for instance, uh, this one, anyone who has seen 28 days later, where Britain"},{"startTime":300.078,"endTime":305.205,"body":"gets overtaken by zombies, and it begins with Killian Murphy waking up in St."},{"startTime":305.205,"endTime":307.085,"body":"Thomas's hospital, finding there's no one there."},{"startTime":307.185,"endTime":312.911,"body":"And walking across a deserted Westminster Bridge will realize how eerie it was to go"},{"startTime":312.911,"endTime":315.965,"body":"to Westminster Bridge and see it that empty."},{"startTime":316.545,"endTime":320.968,"body":"Um, we also, uh, followed in the footsteps of the narrator of the War of"},{"startTime":320.968,"endTime":321.263,"body":"the Worlds, as he walks from his meeting with David Essex in Putney, uh, all"},{"startTime":321.263,"endTime":321.558,"body":"the way to Primrose Hill, where he discovers that the Martians have died, ironically, of"},{"startTime":321.558,"endTime":330.405,"body":"a virus."},{"startTime":331.025,"endTime":335.907,"body":"Um, so this, and, and it's full, you know, you, the, the, the description of"},{"startTime":335.907,"endTime":336.233,"body":"his journey is so detailed that you can follow it pretty much street by street,"},{"startTime":336.233,"endTime":336.559,"body":"uh, and it's full of descriptions such as South Kensington's Tube Station was deserted, very,"},{"startTime":336.559,"endTime":346.325,"body":"very eerie."},{"startTime":348.145,"endTime":354.509,"body":"But perhaps the one that moved and unsettled and inspired me most was one that,"},{"startTime":354.509,"endTime":354.934,"body":"um, took me to Tall Bit Yard in Suffolk, um, and then down the old"},{"startTime":354.934,"endTime":363.845,"body":"Kent Road, uh, and up to Blackheath."},{"startTime":364.465,"endTime":368.45,"body":"And there I had to stop, um, because I had to get all the way"},{"startTime":368.45,"endTime":370.045,"body":"back to our house in Brixton."},{"startTime":371.465,"endTime":377.638,"body":"And I yearned to carry on with that walk I yearned to follow the road"},{"startTime":377.638,"endTime":378.05,"body":"as it led onwards to Canterbury, a pilgrimage that would've taken me out of London,"},{"startTime":378.05,"endTime":378.461,"body":"away from the pandemic hit city, and out into that clear air of Kent that"},{"startTime":378.461,"endTime":394.925,"body":"I had hoped to be breathing, um, before the lockdown was imposed."},{"startTime":395.345,"endTime":401.157,"body":"And of course, by following that road to Canterbury, I would've been following in the"},{"startTime":401.157,"endTime":404.645,"body":"footsteps of the most celebrated pilgrims in English literature."},{"startTime":405.745,"endTime":413.529,"body":"And that ap with his Sure Suta, that April, which for everyone suffering lockdown, was"},{"startTime":413.529,"endTime":415.605,"body":"indeed the cruelest month."},{"startTime":416.385,"endTime":422.261,"body":"Uh, I've returned to reading the Canterbury Tales, which I hadn't read since I was"},{"startTime":422.261,"endTime":423.045,"body":"a teenager."},{"startTime":424.225,"endTime":431.559,"body":"And the Canterbury Tales are the work of a man who lived in the shadow"},{"startTime":431.559,"endTime":438.405,"body":"of an infinitely more terrible pandemic than we were in that spring of 2020."},{"startTime":440.065,"endTime":446.491,"body":"Ch was a, a very young boy when the Black Death arrived in England in"},{"startTime":446.491,"endTime":448.205,"body":"the summer of 1348."},{"startTime":448.705,"endTime":455.036,"body":"Um, his family, he'd been born in London, his family were very wealthy, very well"},{"startTime":455.036,"endTime":456.725,"body":"regarded figures in London."},{"startTime":457.745,"endTime":461.778,"body":"But, um, his father, who was in the wine business, had been sent to Southampton,"},{"startTime":461.778,"endTime":465.005,"body":"basically to serve as a kind of royal, uh, wine importing agent."},{"startTime":465.425,"endTime":471.598,"body":"And so he wasn't, the choices weren't actually far, um, from Weymouth, which is supposedly"},{"startTime":471.598,"endTime":476.125,"body":"where the first, um, case of plague was reported in England."},{"startTime":476.705,"endTime":482.715,"body":"And actually being in Southampton probably saved them because, um, in April, 1349, it seems"},{"startTime":482.715,"endTime":488.725,"body":"that the, the, the Black Death wipes out pretty much all of Cha's other relatives."},{"startTime":489.185,"endTime":490.365,"body":"Um, they're all killed."},{"startTime":491.145,"endTime":496.948,"body":"Um, and in some ways it's the making of of Chaa because, um, his mother"},{"startTime":496.948,"endTime":502.365,"body":"and his father both inherit substantial properties as the result of this horrific sizing."},{"startTime":503.745,"endTime":510.214,"body":"Um, and although there's nothing to compare with the horror of the first visitation of"},{"startTime":510.214,"endTime":516.683,"body":"the Black Death, it returns again and again over the course of Cha's, uh, lifetime."},{"startTime":517.465,"endTime":525.021,"body":"And although as Chaa reaches, um, maturity, uh, as he kind of enters, uh, he,"},{"startTime":525.021,"endTime":525.525,"body":"he, he becomes, um, a civil servant very intimately involved in the, the, the business"},{"startTime":525.525,"endTime":533.585,"body":"of London."},{"startTime":534.165,"endTime":539.494,"body":"Uh, and he lives in a city that is palpably recovering from the impact of"},{"startTime":539.494,"endTime":540.205,"body":"the pandemic."},{"startTime":540.345,"endTime":547.261,"body":"So the docks are teeming, the cranes are going up everywhere, houses, they're expanding upwards,"},{"startTime":547.261,"endTime":548.645,"body":"loft conversions everywhere."},{"startTime":549.485,"endTime":554.685,"body":"Nevertheless, despite this, the, the plague remains a constant."},{"startTime":555.145,"endTime":560.488,"body":"And by the time that choice comes to write, um, the Canterbury Tales, it is"},{"startTime":560.488,"endTime":560.845,"body":"endemic."},{"startTime":561.185,"endTime":563.405,"body":"Um, it is, you know, it's not going to go away."},{"startTime":563.465,"endTime":566.725,"body":"It is, it is a feature of living in the capital."},{"startTime":567.865,"endTime":574.583,"body":"Um, now, although the Black death, therefore is a constant background presence in Cha's life,"},{"startTime":574.583,"endTime":575.031,"body":"it has often been pointed out that the plague does not seem to play this"},{"startTime":575.031,"endTime":587.125,"body":"role in the Canterbury tales, or at least Chauser very rarely mentions it."},{"startTime":587.425,"endTime":592.46,"body":"So there are a few references, um, in the, the tale told by the night,"},{"startTime":592.46,"endTime":592.795,"body":"the first of the, the, the tales in the Canterbury Tales, the terrifying figure of,"},{"startTime":592.795,"endTime":599.845,"body":"of Saturn boasts to his daughter Venus."},{"startTime":600.425,"endTime":603.565,"body":"My looking is the father of Pestilence."},{"startTime":604.465,"endTime":609.767,"body":"And in one of the very greatest of the Canterbury Tales, kind of terrifying and,"},{"startTime":609.767,"endTime":610.12,"body":"and unbelievably moral com morally complex tale told by the, the, the, the sinister figure"},{"startTime":610.12,"endTime":610.474,"body":"of the pardon there is an even more explicit re reference to, to the Black"},{"startTime":610.474,"endTime":620.725,"body":"Death."},{"startTime":621.665,"endTime":628.13,"body":"So, um, the pardon describes how three friends who he describes as rioters kind of"},{"startTime":628.13,"endTime":630.285,"body":"lads out on the lash."},{"startTime":631.025,"endTime":636.88,"body":"Um, a told news of a friend, um, and this is the report, there came"},{"startTime":636.88,"endTime":637.27,"body":"a privy thief men clip of death that in this country, all the people sl"},{"startTime":637.27,"endTime":637.661,"body":"and with his spear, his smote, his head to, to, and went his way without"},{"startTime":637.661,"endTime":652.885,"body":"a word as more he half a thousand slain this pestilence."},{"startTime":653.665,"endTime":658.125,"body":"So that is presumably it's another recurrence of the plague of visitation."},{"startTime":658.785,"endTime":660.605,"body":"And the rioters are pulled to be told this."},{"startTime":660.705,"endTime":665.596,"body":"And so they decide that they will go in search of this sinister figure death,"},{"startTime":665.596,"endTime":668.205,"body":"and they boast that death shall be dead."},{"startTime":669.625,"endTime":674.295,"body":"And they're told by an enigmatic figure, um, who, who, who many critics have thought"},{"startTime":674.295,"endTime":678.965,"body":"might perhaps be, uh, a kind of riff on the figure of the wandering Jew."},{"startTime":679.595,"endTime":682.485,"body":"That death is to be found under a tree."},{"startTime":683.545,"endTime":688.606,"body":"And so the, uh, rioters go to where the tree is, and there they find"},{"startTime":688.606,"endTime":688.943,"body":"a great hoard of golden Florence, and they decide how are they gonna divvy this"},{"startTime":688.943,"endTime":694.005,"body":"up?"},{"startTime":694.465,"endTime":697.99,"body":"So one of them goes off into town, um, to, uh, get a cart to"},{"startTime":697.99,"endTime":698.225,"body":"bring the, the Florence away, where he buys a load of poison, puts it in"},{"startTime":698.225,"endTime":702.925,"body":"the wine to take it back."},{"startTime":703.085,"endTime":703.925,"body":"'cause he wants the whole lot."},{"startTime":703.925,"endTime":707.791,"body":"Meanwhile, his two friends, I use the friend, the word friends, lightly, uh, decide that"},{"startTime":707.791,"endTime":710.885,"body":"they're gonna kill him and share it between the two of them."},{"startTime":711.185,"endTime":714.681,"body":"So they kill the guy who's come back with the poisoned wine, and then they"},{"startTime":714.681,"endTime":717.245,"body":"celebrate killing him by drinking the wine, and they're all dead."},{"startTime":717.305,"endTime":721.245,"body":"And sure enough, death has been found under the tree."},{"startTime":722.305,"endTime":729.447,"body":"And it is a, a haunting and fabulous tale with deep roots in folklore, but"},{"startTime":729.447,"endTime":734.685,"body":"it is also clearly rooted in the experience of the pandemic."},{"startTime":735.345,"endTime":742.574,"body":"So Choa has often traveled to Italy, speaks fluent Italian, deeply influenced by Italian art"},{"startTime":742.574,"endTime":743.055,"body":"and literature, and the great exemplar of a man writing short stories is of course,"},{"startTime":743.055,"endTime":750.285,"body":"achio."},{"startTime":750.945,"endTime":756.466,"body":"And, um, in the, in the, in the Decameron, his achio iss great collection of"},{"startTime":756.466,"endTime":756.834,"body":"short stories, wild Living is shown as a response to the pandemic, the sense of,"},{"startTime":756.834,"endTime":766.405,"body":"you know, drink now enjoy life, because tomorrow you may be dead."},{"startTime":767.105,"endTime":772.523,"body":"And this is a theme, not just in Italian writing, but in English writing as"},{"startTime":772.523,"endTime":772.885,"body":"well."},{"startTime":772.985,"endTime":781.748,"body":"So Moralists are forever complaining in England, that immorality, um, has become a symptom of"},{"startTime":781.748,"endTime":784.085,"body":"the age of pestilence."},{"startTime":784.705,"endTime":792.028,"body":"So Thomas Walsingham, um, sensationally, censorious, uh, chronicler, um, in that the, uh, the Abbey"},{"startTime":792.028,"endTime":793.005,"body":"of St."},{"startTime":793.205,"endTime":797.925,"body":"Albans, who's very, very rude about the, uh, peasants in the peasants revolt as well."},{"startTime":798.865,"endTime":803.422,"body":"Um, he says, of the, the people in London after the plague, that of all"},{"startTime":803.422,"endTime":806.765,"body":"people, they were the proudest, the most arrogant, the most greedy."},{"startTime":807.025,"endTime":811.165,"body":"And these, of course, are the people that chaa himself is living among."},{"startTime":812.705,"endTime":820.205,"body":"But, um, if riot, you know, drinking, being a ladd is, is one, uh, response"},{"startTime":820.205,"endTime":821.205,"body":"to plague."},{"startTime":821.205,"endTime":827.13,"body":"Then there were there, there were others, of course, and one of them was undoubtedly"},{"startTime":827.13,"endTime":827.525,"body":"pilgrimage."},{"startTime":828.425,"endTime":838.377,"body":"And that April in lockdown reading the Canterbury Tales, I found myself alert to the"},{"startTime":838.377,"endTime":843.685,"body":"goal of cha pilgrims, that shrine of St."},{"startTime":843.705,"endTime":847.485,"body":"Thomas, as I had never been before to Canterbury."},{"startTime":847.485,"endTime":853.45,"body":"They went to Chaa writes in the, the, the opening lines of the poem, the"},{"startTime":853.45,"endTime":853.848,"body":"holy blissful martyr thought to seek that him hath hoppen when that they were sick,"},{"startTime":853.848,"endTime":861.405,"body":"when that they were sick."},{"startTime":863.315,"endTime":870.233,"body":"The desire to be redeemed from the threat of illness is what motivates the entire"},{"startTime":870.233,"endTime":870.695,"body":"pilgrimage."},{"startTime":872.395,"endTime":878.151,"body":"And we know that Choa had very, very personal reasons to hold the figure of"},{"startTime":878.151,"endTime":878.535,"body":"St."},{"startTime":878.535,"endTime":885.235,"body":"Thomas Beckett martyred by knights acting supposedly as they thought on the orders of the"},{"startTime":885.235,"endTime":886.575,"body":"king Henry ii."},{"startTime":886.675,"endTime":892.842,"body":"We know that Chaa had particular reason to hold the, uh, the holy blissful martyr"},{"startTime":892.842,"endTime":897.365,"body":"in particular reverence because, um, the, uh, the parish church, St."},{"startTime":897.365,"endTime":901.085,"body":"Martin Ventry, where he grew up as a boy, um, had an altar for St."},{"startTime":901.085,"endTime":901.285,"body":"Thomas."},{"startTime":901.505,"endTime":904.525,"body":"And so he would've seen that every week when he went to church."},{"startTime":904.985,"endTime":908.285,"body":"Um, and as an adult, he was an experienced diplomat."},{"startTime":908.285,"endTime":912.768,"body":"He was endlessly being sent by Edward iii and then by Richard II on missions"},{"startTime":912.768,"endTime":913.067,"body":"that required him to cross from Dover to Cali, and then onwards, perhaps to Navar"},{"startTime":913.067,"endTime":919.045,"body":"or to France or to Italy."},{"startTime":919.545,"endTime":924.725,"body":"Um, and so he would've made that journey from London to Canterbury."},{"startTime":924.755,"endTime":928.445,"body":"Many times he would have passed, he would've crossed London Bridge."},{"startTime":928.465,"endTime":931.085,"body":"And on London Bridge, there was a shrine to St."},{"startTime":931.085,"endTime":931.285,"body":"Thomas."},{"startTime":931.665,"endTime":937.085,"body":"And this is where traditionally pilgrim setting out from London to Canterbury would, um, depart."},{"startTime":937.585,"endTime":943.0,"body":"And of course, he would've gone through Canterbury, and he would've seen the sumptuous, the"},{"startTime":943.0,"endTime":944.445,"body":"spectacular shrine to St."},{"startTime":944.445,"endTime":948.485,"body":"Thomas that was built there on the spot where Beckett had been murdered."},{"startTime":949.665,"endTime":957.045,"body":"Now, famously, CHAA pilgrims never actually arrive in Canterbury."},{"startTime":957.665,"endTime":963.506,"body":"Um, CHAA describes them reaching the limits of the city, but then they never go"},{"startTime":963.506,"endTime":964.285,"body":"any further."},{"startTime":964.705,"endTime":968.578,"body":"And it's as though they're kind of airplanes being held in a ho holding pattern"},{"startTime":968.578,"endTime":970.645,"body":"over Heathrow when there is fog or something."},{"startTime":971.945,"endTime":980.31,"body":"But what I hadn't appreciated, um, until I started reading, um, around, uh, the Canterbury"},{"startTime":980.31,"endTime":986.445,"body":"Tales, was that actually they never leave the starting point either."},{"startTime":986.785,"endTime":989.325,"body":"So they never get to Canterbury, the shrine of St."},{"startTime":989.325,"endTime":994.325,"body":"Thomas in Canterbury, and they're never described as leaving the shrine of, of St."},{"startTime":994.325,"endTime":997.165,"body":"Thomas on London Bridge, which was the traditional starting point."},{"startTime":998.145,"endTime":1003.386,"body":"Um, instead they start their pilgrimage in of all places, a tavern, an inn, befall"},{"startTime":1003.386,"endTime":1003.735,"body":"that in that season, on a day in South at the Tabard, as I lay"},{"startTime":1003.735,"endTime":1004.085,"body":"ready to wind and on my pilgrimage, the Canterbury with full devout courage at night"},{"startTime":1004.085,"endTime":1015.965,"body":"were calm into that hostile ray."},{"startTime":1016.195,"endTime":1021.769,"body":"Well, nine and 20 in a company of sundry folk by Aary fall in fellowship"},{"startTime":1021.769,"endTime":1022.141,"body":"and pilgrims, were they all that toward Canterbury wouldn't ride the chambers, and the stables"},{"startTime":1022.141,"endTime":1022.512,"body":"were, and wide, and well, we were in East at best and shortly when the"},{"startTime":1022.512,"endTime":1034.405,"body":"sun was to rest."},{"startTime":1034.464,"endTime":1042.307,"body":"So had I spoken with them every c that I was of their fellowship and"},{"startTime":1042.307,"endTime":1042.83,"body":"on, now when we went to the Tabart, the site of the Tabart, uh, where"},{"startTime":1042.83,"endTime":1056.425,"body":"the inn had stood, um, so Tolbert Yard, that's where it stood."},{"startTime":1058.525,"endTime":1060.655,"body":"Um, it was all shut up."},{"startTime":1060.945,"endTime":1064.335,"body":"Everything was empty and deserted."},{"startTime":1064.335,"endTime":1067.695,"body":"Sorry, I forgot to show you the, uh, the beauties of, uh, St."},{"startTime":1067.695,"endTime":1069.725,"body":"Thomas being attacked."},{"startTime":1069.825,"endTime":1075.467,"body":"But there is, um, there is the road leading from, uh, the Inn down, um,"},{"startTime":1075.467,"endTime":1077.725,"body":"through Suffolk that CHOA would've followed."},{"startTime":1079.225,"endTime":1083.275,"body":"Um, and there were no, you know, there were no crowded bars, there were no"},{"startTime":1083.275,"endTime":1084.085,"body":"strangers meeting up."},{"startTime":1084.585,"endTime":1086.925,"body":"Uh, there was no socializing of any kind."},{"startTime":1087.285,"endTime":1088.765,"body":"Everyone was having to socially distance."},{"startTime":1089.625,"endTime":1095.615,"body":"And it struck me anew in a way that I'd never appreciated before, that the"},{"startTime":1095.615,"endTime":1096.015,"body":"Canby Tales serve as celebration of pretty much everything that comes from not having to"},{"startTime":1096.015,"endTime":1102.405,"body":"socially distance."},{"startTime":1103.305,"endTime":1110.078,"body":"And I wondered anew at that famous first line of the poem, the insistence on"},{"startTime":1110.078,"endTime":1111.885,"body":"the month of April."},{"startTime":1113.665,"endTime":1120.296,"body":"Was there something more, I wondered more than just the lengthening of the days that"},{"startTime":1120.296,"endTime":1126.485,"body":"made people in April in the late 14th century long to go on pilgrimage?"},{"startTime":1127.485,"endTime":1131.62,"body":"I mean, bear in mind that Chaa famously specifies that it's always raining in April,"},{"startTime":1131.62,"endTime":1135.205,"body":"so it seems an odd time to go out, can't be the weather."},{"startTime":1137.185,"endTime":1144.102,"body":"And I think that, and I think this in a way that I would not"},{"startTime":1144.102,"endTime":1144.563,"body":"have done before, um, the spring of 2020 that Cho said, did not need to"},{"startTime":1144.563,"endTime":1145.024,"body":"specify for his readers that April was also the month traditionally, when the plague that"},{"startTime":1145.024,"endTime":1161.165,"body":"was endemic in London began to abate."},{"startTime":1161.875,"endTime":1168.994,"body":"Because we know from the records of deathbed wills in the wake of the initial"},{"startTime":1168.994,"endTime":1175.165,"body":"pandemic, that the peculiarly lethal months in London were January, February, and March."},{"startTime":1176.185,"endTime":1181.035,"body":"And this was true not just of London, but for all the regions, um, uh,"},{"startTime":1181.035,"endTime":1182.005,"body":"across Northern Europe."},{"startTime":1182.405,"endTime":1186.771,"body":"I mean, interestingly, and, and, and kind of intriguingly, uh, in Italy, it seems to"},{"startTime":1186.771,"endTime":1187.645,"body":"have been different."},{"startTime":1187.885,"endTime":1192.751,"body":"I Italy it, the, the, the plague, um, fatalities start to rise precipitously in the"},{"startTime":1192.751,"endTime":1193.725,"body":"month of May."},{"startTime":1194.105,"endTime":1196.525,"body":"And Chaa, who would travel to Italy probably knew that as well."},{"startTime":1196.865,"endTime":1201.638,"body":"So again, there's this strange sense that whether you are in the South or the"},{"startTime":1201.638,"endTime":1201.956,"body":"north of Europe, April is the month when plague is at, seems to have been"},{"startTime":1201.956,"endTime":1207.685,"body":"at its least dangerous."},{"startTime":1208.825,"endTime":1214.165,"body":"Now, of course, the, uh, people in the 14th century had no notion of germ"},{"startTime":1214.165,"endTime":1217.725,"body":"theory, but undoubtedly they understood the concept of social distancing."},{"startTime":1217.725,"endTime":1221.925,"body":"This is what provides the entire motor for, uh, pachios to Cameron."},{"startTime":1222.225,"endTime":1226.811,"body":"The, the, the people who tell the stories have retreated from Florence to, to get"},{"startTime":1226.811,"endTime":1227.117,"body":"away from the, the, the, the, the heaving crowds and the threat of infection and"},{"startTime":1227.117,"endTime":1233.845,"body":"retreat to, uh, to, to a walled villa."},{"startTime":1234.185,"endTime":1239.862,"body":"And so I've, I kind of began to wonder, well, is this why Chaa chooses"},{"startTime":1239.862,"endTime":1240.241,"body":"to specify the time of year when his pilgrims meet at the Tabard and embark"},{"startTime":1240.241,"endTime":1249.325,"body":"on their journey in Canterbury in the very first line?"},{"startTime":1250.385,"endTime":1257.551,"body":"In which case, perhaps is the whole great cycle of the Canterbury tales a eulogy"},{"startTime":1257.551,"endTime":1263.285,"body":"to the joys in a time of endemic plague of social mixing?"},{"startTime":1266.225,"endTime":1268.245,"body":"Now, we don't know."},{"startTime":1268.845,"endTime":1269.325,"body":"I don't know."},{"startTime":1269.325,"endTime":1271.085,"body":"There's no way of knowing ultimately."},{"startTime":1272.505,"endTime":1276.183,"body":"But what I found when I was reading the Canterbury Tales was that I desperately"},{"startTime":1276.183,"endTime":1277.165,"body":"wanted to believe it."},{"startTime":1277.965,"endTime":1282.66,"body":"I wanted to believe that Chauser had in some way been where I had been"},{"startTime":1282.66,"endTime":1285.165,"body":"and where everyone in the country had been."},{"startTime":1285.165,"endTime":1291.031,"body":"And that in a way, the country tales were articulating an experience that we were"},{"startTime":1291.031,"endTime":1292.205,"body":"all going through."},{"startTime":1293.585,"endTime":1300.587,"body":"Um, and I think that that sense that by walking down an empty borough, high"},{"startTime":1300.587,"endTime":1301.054,"body":"Street, and down the old Kent Road, and seeing nobody and up onto a deserted"},{"startTime":1301.054,"endTime":1312.725,"body":"black heath, I was in some sense getting closer to choa."},{"startTime":1312.925,"endTime":1315.845,"body":"I think that is not an inherently reasonable idea."},{"startTime":1316.065,"endTime":1322.62,"body":"And I have sanctioned for thinking that, um, from the author of By Miles, the"},{"startTime":1322.62,"endTime":1323.057,"body":"best, most recent, uh, biography of Chaa, um, Marian Turner, whose chaa a European life"},{"startTime":1323.057,"endTime":1330.925,"body":"is, is absolutely superb."},{"startTime":1331.345,"endTime":1335.719,"body":"Um, and she writes in her introduction that to try to understand the imagination of"},{"startTime":1335.719,"endTime":1336.011,"body":"the poet throughout this book, I explore the things that surrounded him, the streets he"},{"startTime":1336.011,"endTime":1343.885,"body":"walked, the communities in which he participated, and the structures that he inhabited."},{"startTime":1345.225,"endTime":1351.98,"body":"But at the same time, I felt with a kind of renewed ache, a sense"},{"startTime":1351.98,"endTime":1356.935,"body":"of the distance that separated me from the late 14th century,"},{"startTime":1358.285,"endTime":1358.775,"body":"Because"},{"startTime":1358.875,"endTime":1365.553,"body":"If I felt in my, my kind of longing for a vaccine that would enable"},{"startTime":1365.553,"endTime":1365.998,"body":"us all to get our lives back, perhaps an echo of the yearning that the"},{"startTime":1365.998,"endTime":1377.575,"body":"pilgrims might have had the longing to reach the shrine of St."},{"startTime":1377.575,"endTime":1385.096,"body":"Thomas that helps the sick, that, you know, that cures them, then I guess that"},{"startTime":1385.096,"endTime":1385.598,"body":"that only brought home to me how utterly, how utterly dissolved upon the reformation and"},{"startTime":1385.598,"endTime":1398.135,"body":"all that had followed it, that age of pilgrimage had become."},{"startTime":1400.115,"endTime":1406.074,"body":"And I realized that it was essentially my secularism, my materialism that had prevented me"},{"startTime":1406.074,"endTime":1406.471,"body":"from taking Cha's pilgrims and indeed chaa himself, perhaps seriously, in the way that Chaa"},{"startTime":1406.471,"endTime":1414.815,"body":"had wanted them to be taken seriously."},{"startTime":1415.905,"endTime":1423.395,"body":"Maybe I had been too seduced by the aspects of the Canterbury Tales that still,"},{"startTime":1423.395,"endTime":1423.895,"body":"you know, in the 21st century are immediately vivid to us, the comedy, the romance,"},{"startTime":1423.895,"endTime":1424.394,"body":"the sublimely deft and, and subtle characterization to recognize what was also a, a profound"},{"startTime":1424.394,"endTime":1424.893,"body":"theme in the Canterbury Tales, the ache of need, the yearning for consolation, the desire"},{"startTime":1424.893,"endTime":1448.365,"body":"to be healed of sickness."},{"startTime":1449.585,"endTime":1453.639,"body":"Now, in the, the very last, if I've said that, you know, the first line"},{"startTime":1453.639,"endTime":1453.91,"body":"of the Canby tales with its emphasis on the month, does this have a peculiar"},{"startTime":1453.91,"endTime":1457.965,"body":"significance?"},{"startTime":1458.085,"endTime":1459.685,"body":"I think it must have done then?"},{"startTime":1459.685,"endTime":1463.045,"body":"So also, of course, must the conclusion of the Cany Tales."},{"startTime":1463.175,"endTime":1468.354,"body":"Chaon never finishes it in its entirety, but he does write, uh, the conclusion that"},{"startTime":1468.354,"endTime":1469.045,"body":"he wanted."},{"startTime":1469.865,"endTime":1474.126,"body":"Um, and in it, he, he praised to Christ, to the virgin, to all the"},{"startTime":1474.126,"endTime":1474.411,"body":"saints of heaven for salvation, through the benign grace of him that is king of"},{"startTime":1474.411,"endTime":1474.695,"body":"kings and priest over all priests that bought us with the precious blood of his"},{"startTime":1474.695,"endTime":1474.979,"body":"heart, so that I may be one of them at the day of doom that"},{"startTime":1474.979,"endTime":1487.765,"body":"shall be saved."},{"startTime":1488.905,"endTime":1493.863,"body":"Now, I'd read that when I was young and discounted it as the, you know,"},{"startTime":1493.863,"endTime":1494.525,"body":"dreary convention."},{"startTime":1495.905,"endTime":1502.805,"body":"But now when I, in, in, in the spring of, of 2020, in an eng"},{"startTime":1502.805,"endTime":1503.265,"body":"in, in an England that seemed horribly stalked by that thief that men call death,"},{"startTime":1503.265,"endTime":1515.685,"body":"I actually found that conclusion very moving, and I found it very revelatory."},{"startTime":1518.905,"endTime":1523.755,"body":"So here is the question, you know, two and a half years on from that"},{"startTime":1523.755,"endTime":1524.725,"body":"was I right?"},{"startTime":1526.175,"endTime":1531.035,"body":"Um, history of course is absolutely not a science."},{"startTime":1532.365,"endTime":1539.315,"body":"Every historian is shaped by the experiences that we have in the present."},{"startTime":1539.975,"endTime":1546.345,"body":"Um, they inevitably inform the, the perspective that we bring to, uh, what happened in"},{"startTime":1546.345,"endTime":1547.195,"body":"the past."},{"startTime":1547.735,"endTime":1552.946,"body":"So, fa famous and favorite quote illustrating this is from Edward Gibbon, the great historian"},{"startTime":1552.946,"endTime":1553.294,"body":"of the decline of all of the Roman Empire, who in his autobiography wrote that"},{"startTime":1553.294,"endTime":1553.641,"body":"the, and he had served, um, with the Hampshire militia, and he wrote that the"},{"startTime":1553.641,"endTime":1553.989,"body":"captain of the Hampshire Grenadier, the reader, may smile, has not been useless to the"},{"startTime":1553.989,"endTime":1554.336,"body":"historian of the Roman Empire Gibbon's idea that his military service had enabled him better"},{"startTime":1554.336,"endTime":1554.683,"body":"to understand that great military autocracy that was the Roman Empire in its heyday, and"},{"startTime":1554.683,"endTime":1580.395,"body":"then in its decline."},{"startTime":1581.575,"endTime":1587.171,"body":"But equally, of course, it is absolutely incumbent on us to respect the strangeness of"},{"startTime":1587.171,"endTime":1587.545,"body":"the past, um, the way in which actually people who lived long ago were not"},{"startTime":1587.545,"endTime":1593.515,"body":"like us."},{"startTime":1594.495,"endTime":1599.557,"body":"And I think that the, the status the Canterbury Tales enjoys as the, you know,"},{"startTime":1599.557,"endTime":1599.895,"body":"the first great masterpiece of English literature is, is due not to its distance from"},{"startTime":1599.895,"endTime":1606.645,"body":"us, but to its seeming closeness."},{"startTime":1607.305,"endTime":1612.09,"body":"So the pilgrims offer us for the first time in English literature, a cross section,"},{"startTime":1612.09,"endTime":1614.005,"body":"if you like, of Middle England."},{"startTime":1614.345,"endTime":1620.631,"body":"We are not getting, uh, the people who traditionally had featured in medieval literature, the,"},{"startTime":1620.631,"endTime":1623.565,"body":"uh, the, the high born, the noble."},{"startTime":1623.985,"endTime":1630.266,"body":"Uh, we are getting people who have actually prospered from the devastation of the Black"},{"startTime":1630.266,"endTime":1630.685,"body":"Death."},{"startTime":1631.225,"endTime":1637.864,"body":"Um, it's the first time that they are given a voice and the multiplicity of"},{"startTime":1637.864,"endTime":1641.405,"body":"perspectives that is enshrined within the Canterbury Tales."},{"startTime":1641.505,"endTime":1646.635,"body":"The range of voices, I think is appealing to, um, to, to, to, to an"},{"startTime":1646.635,"endTime":1646.977,"body":"audience that has kind of, you know, familiar with novels in a way that say"},{"startTime":1646.977,"endTime":1654.845,"body":"the allegories of, I dunno, piers Plowman simply aren't."},{"startTime":1655.905,"endTime":1661.23,"body":"And this is why, you know, still today in the 21st century, you think of"},{"startTime":1661.23,"endTime":1661.585,"body":"Zadie Smith or whoever, um, the country tales has an immediate, uh, appeal to novelists,"},{"startTime":1661.585,"endTime":1668.685,"body":"to script writers and so on."},{"startTime":1669.545,"endTime":1674.962,"body":"And yet, I do think that at the same time, these seeming similarities can be"},{"startTime":1674.962,"endTime":1675.685,"body":"very deceptive."},{"startTime":1676.345,"endTime":1682.768,"body":"And there are two very obvious reasons, I think, why in the 21st century, um,"},{"startTime":1682.768,"endTime":1683.196,"body":"many of us, and I absolutely include myself in that may be ill qualified to"},{"startTime":1683.196,"endTime":1683.624,"body":"comprehend the significance, the resonance, the tambour of the pilgrimage that choices companions as they"},{"startTime":1683.624,"endTime":1700.325,"body":"set out on the road to Canterbury may have been feeling."},{"startTime":1702.425,"endTime":1707.575,"body":"One reason is that we live in a culture that for half a millennium has"},{"startTime":1707.575,"endTime":1708.605,"body":"been deeply Protestant."},{"startTime":1709.025,"endTime":1709.765,"body":"The cult of St."},{"startTime":1709.765,"endTime":1716.365,"body":"Thomas is gone from Canterbury Cathedral, the agents of Henry viii, who, you know, Henry"},{"startTime":1716.365,"endTime":1722.525,"body":"VIII was not the kind of man to put up with chancellors called Thomas."},{"startTime":1722.985,"endTime":1725.605,"body":"Uh, you know, he had a track record in getting rid of them."},{"startTime":1726.305,"endTime":1731.23,"body":"Um, and he destroyed what, uh, what Erasmus, you know, Thomas Moore's friend, great friend,"},{"startTime":1731.23,"endTime":1731.558,"body":"had hailed as one of the greatest shrines, not just in in England, but in"},{"startTime":1731.558,"endTime":1738.125,"body":"the whole of Europe, of Christendom."},{"startTime":1739.025,"endTime":1745.525,"body":"And, you know, nothing remains of the holy blissful martyr sought by Joice pilgrims."},{"startTime":1745.525,"endTime":1749.332,"body":"Those of you who may, may have been to the, the show that was laid"},{"startTime":1749.332,"endTime":1749.586,"body":"on in the British Museum, a couple was it year ago, so ago, I think,"},{"startTime":1749.586,"endTime":1749.84,"body":"um, you know, there was this great absence at the heart of that show, the"},{"startTime":1749.84,"endTime":1758.725,"body":"fact that all the relics of St."},{"startTime":1758.725,"endTime":1760.565,"body":"Thomas and all the Shrine had vanished."},{"startTime":1762.465,"endTime":1767.115,"body":"But I think possibly even more saliently than the fact that we live in a,"},{"startTime":1767.115,"endTime":1768.045,"body":"a Protestant culture."},{"startTime":1769.705,"endTime":1779.1,"body":"Um, we also live in a culture and perhaps especially an academic culture that is"},{"startTime":1779.1,"endTime":1783.485,"body":"determinedly and I would say proudly materialist."},{"startTime":1784.265,"endTime":1789.821,"body":"So I've read a, a fair number of books on the Canterbury Tales, and I"},{"startTime":1789.821,"endTime":1790.191,"body":"can't think of one, one of them, uh, in none of these books have I"},{"startTime":1790.191,"endTime":1790.562,"body":"ever come across, um, a suggestion that miracles might actually have been performed at the"},{"startTime":1790.562,"endTime":1802.045,"body":"shrine of St."},{"startTime":1802.045,"endTime":1802.245,"body":"Thomas."},{"startTime":1802.995,"endTime":1807.536,"body":"That the hope the pilgrims had in setting out for his shrine might actually have"},{"startTime":1807.536,"endTime":1808.445,"body":"been been true."},{"startTime":1809.425,"endTime":1813.896,"body":"But I mean, it seems to me no doubt that Chauser did believe that miracles"},{"startTime":1813.896,"endTime":1815.685,"body":"happened at the shrine of St."},{"startTime":1815.685,"endTime":1816.045,"body":"Thomas."},{"startTime":1816.945,"endTime":1821.445,"body":"Um, he was a man who, you know, for all the, the kind of the"},{"startTime":1821.445,"endTime":1825.645,"body":"venom of his portrayal of certain figures from the church in the Canterbury Tales."},{"startTime":1825.725,"endTime":1831.25,"body":"I mean, the, that venom derives from disappointment, I think, not from a, a, a,"},{"startTime":1831.25,"endTime":1834.565,"body":"a kind of 21st century Richard Dawkins esque skepticism."},{"startTime":1835.145,"endTime":1840.73,"body":"Um, CHAA was a man who throughout his life, had enjoyed very intimate ties to"},{"startTime":1840.73,"endTime":1842.965,"body":"a whole range of religious institutions."},{"startTime":1843.465,"endTime":1846.565,"body":"Um, and when in due cause he died and was buried in Westminster Abbey."},{"startTime":1846.565,"endTime":1847.805,"body":"This wasn't because he was a poet."},{"startTime":1848.145,"endTime":1850.205,"body":"The idea of Poets Corner came much later."},{"startTime":1850.265,"endTime":1855.111,"body":"It was because, um, it was counted by the monks of Westminster, as, you know,"},{"startTime":1855.111,"endTime":1855.435,"body":"as a friend, as someone that they, they valued and wanted to have buried in"},{"startTime":1855.435,"endTime":1860.605,"body":"their abbey."},{"startTime":1861.505,"endTime":1867.031,"body":"Uh, and and I think that, you know, if you think of the, the, the"},{"startTime":1867.031,"endTime":1867.399,"body":"portrait of the partner, which is perhaps the most venomous, it, of all the choices"},{"startTime":1867.399,"endTime":1877.715,"body":"portraits in the Canterbury tales, it, it's, it's precisely his disappointment that explains it."},{"startTime":1878.255,"endTime":1883.824,"body":"And of course, it's the fact that the, the, the pardon gives this brilliant moral"},{"startTime":1883.824,"endTime":1886.795,"body":"tale, and yet is himself so morally contemptible."},{"startTime":1887.035,"endTime":1892.435,"body":"I mean, that is, that's expressive, it seems to me of a deep religious sensibility,"},{"startTime":1892.435,"endTime":1894.595,"body":"not a skeptical one at all."},{"startTime":1895.215,"endTime":1901.772,"body":"Um, and I, I think that pilgrimage in the Canterbury Tales is a, a lot"},{"startTime":1901.772,"endTime":1904.395,"body":"more than a mere plot device."},{"startTime":1904.655,"endTime":1910.891,"body":"And that to assume otherwise, I think, is absolutely to be guilty of a, a,"},{"startTime":1910.891,"endTime":1912.555,"body":"a pretty grievous anachronism."},{"startTime":1913.855,"endTime":1918.968,"body":"And if that's the case, then I think the further back in time we go,"},{"startTime":1918.968,"endTime":1919.309,"body":"so the greater the challenge becomes for us in the 21st century of making sense"},{"startTime":1919.309,"endTime":1929.195,"body":"of kind of entering into the, the minds of people who are going on pilgrimage."},{"startTime":1929.775,"endTime":1933.995,"body":"So I, I think of another, a pilgrimage that I've written about."},{"startTime":1934.415,"endTime":1939.355,"body":"Um, and it's, it's one that happened at the beginning of the 11th century."},{"startTime":1939.975,"endTime":1944.195,"body":"Uh, there was a great upsurge in pilgrimages then over the first three decades."},{"startTime":1944.935,"endTime":1950.875,"body":"Um, and this was seen by contemporaries, um, as, as something extraordinary."},{"startTime":1951.335,"endTime":1957.025,"body":"So, um, there was a monk in the great famous Burgundi Abbey of Clooney, and"},{"startTime":1957.025,"endTime":1957.404,"body":"he wrote that these pilgrimages, portended nothing other than the advent of the cursed antichrist,"},{"startTime":1957.404,"endTime":1968.405,"body":"who according to divine testimony, is expected to appear at the end of the world."},{"startTime":1970.505,"endTime":1975.581,"body":"And what that monk recognized in these, this yearning for pilgrimage was a yearning for"},{"startTime":1975.581,"endTime":1978.965,"body":"Christ, a yearning for earth to be joined to heaven."},{"startTime":1980.275,"endTime":1985.853,"body":"That paralleled the yearning felt by the monks of Clooney themselves, because it was the"},{"startTime":1985.853,"endTime":1988.085,"body":"ambition of the monks in Clooney."},{"startTime":1988.305,"endTime":1989.725,"body":"And it was a novel ambition."},{"startTime":1989.725,"endTime":1994.316,"body":"It was one that, that inspired wonder, not just across Burgundy, not just across France,"},{"startTime":1994.316,"endTime":1996.765,"body":"but across the whole of, of Latin Christendom."},{"startTime":1997.105,"endTime":2003.325,"body":"It was their ambition to emulate on earth the angelic choirs of paradise."},{"startTime":2003.425,"endTime":2009.353,"body":"And they did this by singing hymns, Psalms, praises all day, to a degree that"},{"startTime":2009.353,"endTime":2011.725,"body":"was completely, at that point, unprecedented."},{"startTime":2012.625,"endTime":2018.356,"body":"Um, and the truest mark of their angelic status was that they were not beholden"},{"startTime":2018.356,"endTime":2019.885,"body":"to a local Lord."},{"startTime":2020.355,"endTime":2022.445,"body":"They were essentially free."},{"startTime":2022.825,"endTime":2028.637,"body":"And that freedom was interpreted by the monks of Clooney as a kind of moral"},{"startTime":2028.637,"endTime":2032.125,"body":"purity, um, a purity that was appropriate to angels."},{"startTime":2032.825,"endTime":2037.245,"body":"Um, the only Lord they had was St."},{"startTime":2037.245,"endTime":2042.023,"body":"Peter himself, the prince of the apostles and his far off de deputy, the bishop"},{"startTime":2042.023,"endTime":2046.165,"body":"of the Bishop of Rome, which was a long way from, from Burgundy."},{"startTime":2047.025,"endTime":2054.681,"body":"Now, these mass kind of enthusiasm for pilgrimage that swept, uh, Latin Christendom in the"},{"startTime":2054.681,"endTime":2055.192,"body":"first three decades of, um, the 11th century, saw its climax in 10 33 when"},{"startTime":2055.192,"endTime":2069.485,"body":"a huge mass of pilgrims from across Latin Christendom set off for Jerusalem itself."},{"startTime":2070.105,"endTime":2075.018,"body":"And the monk in, in Clooney wrote that an innumerable multitude gathered from across the"},{"startTime":2075.018,"endTime":2079.605,"body":"whole world, greater than any man before could have hoped to see set off."},{"startTime":2080.545,"endTime":2081.685,"body":"And what were they expecting?"},{"startTime":2082.514,"endTime":2086.005,"body":"Well, he, he said they were expecting the advent of antichrist."},{"startTime":2086.264,"endTime":2092.555,"body":"And if antichrist comes, then Christ cannot be far behind, and they are heading to"},{"startTime":2092.555,"endTime":2092.975,"body":"Jerusalem because according to multiple traditions, it was in Jerusalem that this great drama was"},{"startTime":2092.975,"endTime":2100.525,"body":"destined to play out."},{"startTime":2101.425,"endTime":2105.205,"body":"But of course, they get there and well, they're disappointed."},{"startTime":2105.225,"endTime":2106.885,"body":"Are they disappointed or are they relieved?"},{"startTime":2107.085,"endTime":2111.985,"body":"Certainly there is no appearance of antichrist, but then there is also no joining of"},{"startTime":2111.985,"endTime":2112.965,"body":"heaven to Earth."},{"startTime":2113.745,"endTime":2119.565,"body":"But that impulse, I think, is not, you know, it, it, it is' intended."},{"startTime":2120.265,"endTime":2127.483,"body":"And we can see that from looking at Clooney, this great abbey that yearned to"},{"startTime":2127.483,"endTime":2127.964,"body":"emulate the purity of the angels in heaven because it endures and everything that had"},{"startTime":2127.964,"endTime":2136.145,"body":"made its admirers."},{"startTime":2136.285,"endTime":2141.125,"body":"See, in the monks, a model of angelic behavior is still completely current."},{"startTime":2142.385,"endTime":2147.197,"body":"And there are many across Christendom who look at this purity of the monks and"},{"startTime":2147.197,"endTime":2150.085,"body":"think, well, I'd quite like a bit of that."},{"startTime":2150.865,"endTime":2156.495,"body":"And the key place where there is this desire to emulate the purity of Clooney"},{"startTime":2156.495,"endTime":2156.87,"body":"is actually in Rome, the home of the, the Bishop of Rome, the, the one"},{"startTime":2156.87,"endTime":2167.005,"body":"earthly person who, who who who stands superior to the Abbott of Clooney."},{"startTime":2167.705,"endTime":2174.578,"body":"Um, and there a host of reformers kind of dream of doing as the monks"},{"startTime":2174.578,"endTime":2175.036,"body":"of Clooney have done, of, of cleansing themselves, of the kind of the greasy grubby"},{"startTime":2175.036,"endTime":2188.325,"body":"fingerprints of earthly lords, um, and themselves being pure and independent of all earthly control."},{"startTime":2188.945,"endTime":2192.925,"body":"Now, a project like this, of course, was going to need leadership."},{"startTime":2193.825,"endTime":2199.602,"body":"And the Bishop of Rome, the most senior bishop in the Christian world, is ideally"},{"startTime":2199.602,"endTime":2199.987,"body":"placed it seems to reformers and to a succession of extraordinary popes themselves to take"},{"startTime":2199.987,"endTime":2206.535,"body":"on that role."},{"startTime":2207.755,"endTime":2213.391,"body":"Um, and so, um, a a an office that in the 10th century had been"},{"startTime":2213.391,"endTime":2213.766,"body":"kind of at, its an, a area, it had been either the play thing of,"},{"startTime":2213.766,"endTime":2214.142,"body":"of kind of vicious Roman aristocrats, or moving into the 11th century of domineering and"},{"startTime":2214.142,"endTime":2225.415,"body":"overreaching emperors."},{"startTime":2226.845,"endTime":2233.057,"body":"Over the second half of the 11th century, the papacy emerged to become something very"},{"startTime":2233.057,"endTime":2238.855,"body":"different, the focus for an attempt to redraw the very fabric of the world."},{"startTime":2239.795,"endTime":2244.999,"body":"And the result was what has been described variously as the papal revolution, or perhaps"},{"startTime":2244.999,"endTime":2247.775,"body":"the Gregorian revolution after the, the, the greatest."},{"startTime":2248.315,"endTime":2253.975,"body":"And, and most charismatic of these reforming popes, Gregory vii, the guy who, um, the"},{"startTime":2253.975,"endTime":2254.352,"body":"Pope who famously, uh, brings the emperor Henry ViiV to kneel in the snows before"},{"startTime":2254.352,"endTime":2262.655,"body":"him at the, the Apennine fortress of Kanoah."},{"startTime":2263.475,"endTime":2271.317,"body":"And the popes and their servants embark on a great reform of cleansing the church"},{"startTime":2271.317,"endTime":2274.455,"body":"of any hint of earthly control."},{"startTime":2274.885,"endTime":2278.335,"body":"This is why the emperor has to be made humiliated in the snow."},{"startTime":2278.525,"endTime":2284.802,"body":"This is why kings and lords have to be forced to let go of their"},{"startTime":2284.802,"endTime":2286.895,"body":"traditional hold over the church."},{"startTime":2286.965,"endTime":2290.095,"body":"This is kind of what Henry II and Beckett are fighting about."},{"startTime":2290.155,"endTime":2294.975,"body":"And Beckett as Gregory II had done, emerges triumphant from the Great Clash."},{"startTime":2296.155,"endTime":2303.44,"body":"And the long-term effects of this extraordinary process of reform are seismically enduring and still"},{"startTime":2303.44,"endTime":2303.925,"body":"with us, because what the church is doing, it's casting itself as belonging to the"},{"startTime":2303.925,"endTime":2304.411,"body":"dimension of reig, which in Latin meant the bond that joined the church to the"},{"startTime":2304.411,"endTime":2320.925,"body":"radiant eternity and purity of heaven."},{"startTime":2321.935,"endTime":2326.365,"body":"While earthly rulers are cast as belonging to the dimension of the Siam."},{"startTime":2326.665,"endTime":2331.629,"body":"And the Siam is, um, the dimension of all those who are doomed to be"},{"startTime":2331.629,"endTime":2331.96,"body":"born and then to be swept along on the currents of time and then to"},{"startTime":2331.96,"endTime":2336.925,"body":"die."},{"startTime":2338.265,"endTime":2344.777,"body":"And Gregory and his reformers do not invent the distinction between religio and the cyclo"},{"startTime":2344.777,"endTime":2345.211,"body":"between the sacred and the profane, if you want to put it like that, between"},{"startTime":2345.211,"endTime":2345.645,"body":"religion and the secular as over the course, you know, in due course it will"},{"startTime":2345.645,"endTime":2364.315,"body":"become, but they do render it something, um, fundamental to the future of the West."},{"startTime":2364.455,"endTime":2368.732,"body":"In the words of Ra Moore, the great historian of what he has termed the"},{"startTime":2368.732,"endTime":2372.155,"body":"first European revolution, they do it for the first time and permanently."},{"startTime":2374.055,"endTime":2379.938,"body":"And historians in the 21st century, like everyone else in the West, are the heirs"},{"startTime":2379.938,"endTime":2381.115,"body":"of this revolution."},{"startTime":2382.175,"endTime":2386.115,"body":"The secular character of the discipline of history owes everything to it."},{"startTime":2387.055,"endTime":2392.535,"body":"And this perhaps, ironically enough, may help to explain why there has been, I think,"},{"startTime":2392.535,"endTime":2392.9,"body":"a certain squeamishness among scholars when it comes to acknowledging just what the significance of"},{"startTime":2392.9,"endTime":2393.266,"body":"the pilgrimage is that marked the early years of the 11th century might have been,"},{"startTime":2393.266,"endTime":2407.515,"body":"and especially that one great pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 10 33."},{"startTime":2408.615,"endTime":2415.346,"body":"For 10 33 was of course the millennial anniversary of the death and resurrection of"},{"startTime":2415.346,"endTime":2415.795,"body":"Christ."},{"startTime":2416.735,"endTime":2422.981,"body":"Now, the notion that this date might have had any significance to Christians in the"},{"startTime":2422.981,"endTime":2423.398,"body":"11th century has been widely seen by historians throughout the 20th century and into the"},{"startTime":2423.398,"endTime":2435.475,"body":"21st century as a kind of febrile and flamboyant, uh, concoction of the romantic era."},{"startTime":2436.215,"endTime":2440.398,"body":"Um, so, uh, the fourth terrors of the year 1000 is the title of one"},{"startTime":2440.398,"endTime":2441.235,"body":"book on them."},{"startTime":2441.735,"endTime":2446.622,"body":"Um, the notion that, you know, this is kind of on a par with Atlantis"},{"startTime":2446.622,"endTime":2449.555,"body":"or something like that, still remains quite deeply rooted."},{"startTime":2451.175,"endTime":2456.17,"body":"But I think that over the past few decades, the consensus on that has, has"},{"startTime":2456.17,"endTime":2457.835,"body":"begun to change quite dramatically."},{"startTime":2458.255,"endTime":2463.955,"body":"And I think that just as the experience of, um, C-O-V-I-D has provided historians with"},{"startTime":2463.955,"endTime":2468.515,"body":"a certain corelative for the great catastrophe that was the Black Death."},{"startTime":2469.615,"endTime":2474.803,"body":"So also have two recent developments, helped to, uh, enable historians to wonder whether perhaps"},{"startTime":2474.803,"endTime":2475.149,"body":"there was indeed a millennial aspect to these, you know, the, the, the, the craze"},{"startTime":2475.149,"endTime":2484.835,"body":"for pilgrimage and the yearning for purity on the part of the Roman Church."},{"startTime":2485.455,"endTime":2489.16,"body":"Um, and I think the first of these was of course, the fact that we"},{"startTime":2489.16,"endTime":2490.395,"body":"have lived through a millennium."},{"startTime":2490.735,"endTime":2493.285,"body":"You know, this only turns up once every a thousand years."},{"startTime":2493.425,"endTime":2494.885,"body":"So it's unsurprising."},{"startTime":2494.905,"endTime":2500.101,"body":"And I think, uh, you know, entirely to be expected that, um, that historians would"},{"startTime":2500.101,"endTime":2503.565,"body":"be influenced by the experience of living through a millennium."},{"startTime":2503.905,"endTime":2509.428,"body":"And I think the other factor that has influenced how people, how historians, um, are,"},{"startTime":2509.428,"endTime":2509.796,"body":"are now increasingly willing to see something kind of radically different in the expectations of"},{"startTime":2509.796,"endTime":2510.164,"body":"the end of the world that I, that I think did haunt, um, Christians in"},{"startTime":2510.164,"endTime":2524.525,"body":"the early 11th century, is our own experience of climate change."},{"startTime":2524.825,"endTime":2529.557,"body":"So when I wrote about this, uh, back in, in 2006, James Lovelock had just"},{"startTime":2529.557,"endTime":2529.872,"body":"written a book, uh, in which he predicted basically that the world would've ended by"},{"startTime":2529.872,"endTime":2534.605,"body":"2020."},{"startTime":2534.665,"endTime":2538.448,"body":"So I'm quite relieved that hasn't, but he, he, he writes about the process of,"},{"startTime":2538.448,"endTime":2539.205,"body":"of climate change."},{"startTime":2539.305,"endTime":2543.237,"body":"Our future is like that, of the passengers on a small pleasure boat sailing quietly"},{"startTime":2543.237,"endTime":2546.645,"body":"above the Niagara Falls, not knowing that the engines are about to fail."},{"startTime":2547.825,"endTime":2553.169,"body":"And shortly before the millennium, one of the, the Great Abbotts of Clooney Odo wrote"},{"startTime":2553.169,"endTime":2553.526,"body":"in almost identical terms, he, he, he said that the vessel that bore sinful humanity"},{"startTime":2553.526,"endTime":2561.365,"body":"was beset all around by gathering storm surge."},{"startTime":2561.545,"endTime":2563.485,"body":"And he wrote perilous times a menacing us."},{"startTime":2563.705,"endTime":2566.445,"body":"And the world is threatened with its end."},{"startTime":2567.585,"endTime":2570.565,"body":"So the, the parallels of course are, are, are not exact."},{"startTime":2570.685,"endTime":2578.693,"body":"I mean, no, no, no one would say that they were, but I think they"},{"startTime":2578.693,"endTime":2579.227,"body":"are sufficiently suggestive that historians have kind of been able, perhaps to overcome a kind"},{"startTime":2579.227,"endTime":2579.761,"body":"of instinctive materialism and to recognize that the, the spiritual anxieties and yearnings that people,"},{"startTime":2579.761,"endTime":2580.295,"body":"it seems to me indisputably experience that these might have been vivid enough that they"},{"startTime":2580.295,"endTime":2609.125,"body":"could indeed have powered what Arimar called, uh, the first European revolution."},{"startTime":2609.555,"endTime":2617.53,"body":"That they do indeed offer reflections perhaps that do kind of flicker and twist in"},{"startTime":2617.53,"endTime":2619.125,"body":"a distant mirror."},{"startTime":2622.105,"endTime":2630.257,"body":"But what if we go back even further in time, back to a time before"},{"startTime":2630.257,"endTime":2634.605,"body":"materialism, before secularism, before Protestantism, before Christianity itself."},{"startTime":2634.985,"endTime":2641.06,"body":"So I want to end by, um, going back two and a half thousand years,"},{"startTime":2641.06,"endTime":2641.465,"body":"um, and to undertake, if not a pilgrimage, then, um, certainly a journey to a"},{"startTime":2641.465,"endTime":2649.565,"body":"a, a fearsome and potent shrine."},{"startTime":2650.225,"endTime":2656.837,"body":"Um, and this was a journey that was, uh, undertaken in, um, classical Attica, uh,"},{"startTime":2656.837,"endTime":2660.805,"body":"by young girls born in the city of Athens."},{"startTime":2661.345,"endTime":2667.022,"body":"And every four years, all the girls, um, girls under the age of 10, um,"},{"startTime":2667.022,"endTime":2671.565,"body":"probably between the ages of seven and 10 would process from Athens."},{"startTime":2671.625,"endTime":2676.65,"body":"And they would head out across the olive graves and fields of Attica to a"},{"startTime":2676.65,"endTime":2681.005,"body":"shrine called brow on, on the, um, on the eastern coast of Attica."},{"startTime":2681.905,"endTime":2689.49,"body":"And here we see some of them, the shrine of brow on was sacred to"},{"startTime":2689.49,"endTime":2689.996,"body":"Artemis, the Virgin Huntress, the mistress of beasts, the, the, the sister of Apollo, um,"},{"startTime":2689.996,"endTime":2690.502,"body":"who was a, a a a, a very menacing and intimidating goddess capable of inflicting"},{"startTime":2690.502,"endTime":2691.007,"body":"absolute, uh, horror on a city if she was, um, in any way insulted and,"},{"startTime":2691.007,"endTime":2713.765,"body":"um, particularly plague."},{"startTime":2714.585,"endTime":2719.565,"body":"So when plague came, often it was feared that Artemis had been offended."},{"startTime":2720.385,"endTime":2726.355,"body":"And in fact, according to some of the, well, the, the, the, the traditions that"},{"startTime":2726.355,"endTime":2726.753,"body":"were preserved by, uh, by historians and, and kept over many, many centuries, it does"},{"startTime":2726.753,"endTime":2727.151,"body":"seem that the origins of this procession of girls from Athens to Broon did originate"},{"startTime":2727.151,"endTime":2740.285,"body":"in a time of plague."},{"startTime":2740.785,"endTime":2746.198,"body":"Um, 'cause it was said that, um, a a a group of Athenian men had"},{"startTime":2746.198,"endTime":2749.085,"body":"killed a bear that was sacred to Artemis."},{"startTime":2749.665,"endTime":2754.285,"body":"And so this was why the goddess had sent a plague to devastate, um, Attica."},{"startTime":2755.225,"endTime":2760.58,"body":"And the Athenians had sent emissaries to Delphi to, um, to consult with Artemis brother"},{"startTime":2760.58,"endTime":2762.365,"body":"Apollo, the God of prophecy."},{"startTime":2762.945,"endTime":2769.349,"body":"And, um, they, these emissaries were informed, and I I quote from, um, a Byzantine"},{"startTime":2769.349,"endTime":2772.765,"body":"history, but which clearly preserves authentic, um, traditions."},{"startTime":2773.275,"endTime":2777.648,"body":"They were informed that the plague would only be brought to an end if their"},{"startTime":2777.648,"endTime":2777.94,"body":"young daughters as blood price for the death of the bear were themselves obliged to"},{"startTime":2777.94,"endTime":2782.605,"body":"become bears."},{"startTime":2783.265,"endTime":2787.69,"body":"So it was that the law of the Athenians for bad any girl being given"},{"startTime":2787.69,"endTime":2791.525,"body":"in marriage unless she had first turned into a bear and served Artemis."},{"startTime":2792.385,"endTime":2793.725,"body":"So what is going on here?"},{"startTime":2793.825,"endTime":2796.565,"body":"You may be wondering, well, there've been lots of, of, of explanations."},{"startTime":2796.745,"endTime":2798.165,"body":"Uh, maybe it was a puberty, right?"},{"startTime":2798.165,"endTime":2799.805,"body":"Maybe it was an initiation, right?"},{"startTime":2800.035,"endTime":2802.245,"body":"Clearly an expiration writer in some way."},{"startTime":2802.705,"endTime":2806.681,"body":"But obviously what no scholar, I think would, and if there has been one I"},{"startTime":2806.681,"endTime":2806.946,"body":"haven't read him or her, uh, what no scholar today would dream of suggesting is"},{"startTime":2806.946,"endTime":2807.211,"body":"that actually the girls might actually have turned into bears that this is what was"},{"startTime":2807.211,"endTime":2815.165,"body":"going on."},{"startTime":2816.265,"endTime":2821.528,"body":"And that's, you know, again, hardly to be surprising because if, if scholars today, uh,"},{"startTime":2821.528,"endTime":2821.879,"body":"tend not to, uh, foreground the possibility that miracles might have happened at the shrine"},{"startTime":2821.879,"endTime":2827.845,"body":"of, of St."},{"startTime":2827.845,"endTime":2834.318,"body":"Thomas of Canterbury, then it's infinitely more unlikely that they are going to accept the"},{"startTime":2834.318,"endTime":2834.75,"body":"reality of the goddess who is worshiped at brow run and of the possibility that"},{"startTime":2834.75,"endTime":2844.245,"body":"young girls might literally have turned into bears."},{"startTime":2845.065,"endTime":2851.477,"body":"But I think the problem is that by refusing to countenance that possibility, we immediately"},{"startTime":2851.477,"endTime":2851.905,"body":"place ourselves outside the lived experience of the ancient Athenians, the lived experience, that it"},{"startTime":2851.905,"endTime":2862.165,"body":"is the ambition of scholars to, to try and understand."},{"startTime":2865.645,"endTime":2872.32,"body":"Scholars are basically laying claim to an understanding and a knowledge of the classical past"},{"startTime":2872.32,"endTime":2876.325,"body":"that is superior to those who actually experienced it."},{"startTime":2878.525,"endTime":2881.305,"body":"But the problem is that how, how can we be sure of this?"},{"startTime":2881.305,"endTime":2888.725,"body":"How can, how accurately can we possibly hope to understand the Athenians if, if we"},{"startTime":2888.725,"endTime":2896.145,"body":"kind of assume that beliefs that were so important to them have no foundation whatsoever?"},{"startTime":2896.925,"endTime":2901.437,"body":"We are like, you know, a leopard doist who has stuck a pin through a"},{"startTime":2901.437,"endTime":2904.145,"body":"butterfly, but never gets to see the butterfly fly."},{"startTime":2905.005,"endTime":2910.083,"body":"Um, and I just wanna end by quoting, um, a a a brilliant historian of"},{"startTime":2910.083,"endTime":2910.421,"body":"ancient Athens, um, Greg Anderson, who wrote a wonderful account of the, the formation of"},{"startTime":2910.421,"endTime":2910.76,"body":"democracy, but then went on to write, um, a very, a most unexpected book called"},{"startTime":2910.76,"endTime":2911.098,"body":"The Realness of Things Past, in which he essentially advances precisely this argument, the fact"},{"startTime":2911.098,"endTime":2911.437,"body":"that by not acknowledging the possibility that the gods might have existed and extraordinary things"},{"startTime":2911.437,"endTime":2911.775,"body":"might have happened, we are inevitably shutting ourselves off from potential avenues to understanding the,"},{"startTime":2911.775,"endTime":2937.505,"body":"uh, the, the, the ancient Athenians."},{"startTime":2937.765,"endTime":2941.705,"body":"And so he's talking about the, um, the Athenians and their democracy."},{"startTime":2943.015,"endTime":2945.185,"body":"What would their celebrated aire look like?"},{"startTime":2945.605,"endTime":2951.189,"body":"He Anderson asks if we no longer viewed it through the lens of conventional historicism"},{"startTime":2951.189,"endTime":2951.561,"body":"using our standard modern analytical template, how different does the Athenians Deia appear when we"},{"startTime":2951.561,"endTime":2961.985,"body":"try to see it more on their terms in the world of their experience?"},{"startTime":2962.645,"endTime":2967.395,"body":"And in his attempt to answer this question, Anderson touches on the, the Bra of"},{"startTime":2967.395,"endTime":2968.345,"body":"the Great Festival."},{"startTime":2968.845,"endTime":2974.12,"body":"Um, and he, he points out, uh, and again, I quote, a general perception that"},{"startTime":2974.12,"endTime":2974.471,"body":"God's felt a special affinity with human females, that women and girls are closer to"},{"startTime":2974.471,"endTime":2981.505,"body":"the divine than men and boys."},{"startTime":2983.285,"endTime":2987.691,"body":"And the two salient features of the Boronia are firstly that the, the girls become"},{"startTime":2987.691,"endTime":2987.985,"body":"bears."},{"startTime":2988.525,"endTime":2992.893,"body":"And secondly, that they spend time with Artemis in a way that no boy ever"},{"startTime":2992.893,"endTime":2993.185,"body":"does."},{"startTime":2993.445,"endTime":2997.124,"body":"And every, you know, that, that that specification, that that only someone who has spent"},{"startTime":2997.124,"endTime":2997.369,"body":"time as a bear, only a girl who has spent time as a bear can"},{"startTime":2997.369,"endTime":3001.785,"body":"be, can then marry."},{"startTime":3002.445,"endTime":3007.9,"body":"And the consequence of that is that every Athenian man who marries an Athenian woman"},{"startTime":3007.9,"endTime":3012.265,"body":"knows that his wife had spent time as a bear with Artemis."},{"startTime":3012.805,"endTime":3018.585,"body":"And I would suggest that that would've fostered a certain nervous respect \u003claugh\u003e."},{"startTime":3019.485,"endTime":3023.666,"body":"And I think the implications of this for our understanding of Athenian democracy are quite"},{"startTime":3023.666,"endTime":3023.945,"body":"profound."},{"startTime":3024.725,"endTime":3031.468,"body":"Um, men have the vote in the Democrat here for the same reason that they"},{"startTime":3031.468,"endTime":3031.918,"body":"fight, because it is their duty to maintain the viability of their city in the"},{"startTime":3031.918,"endTime":3032.367,"body":"dimension of the earthly women perform rituals that enable them to ensure divine protection for"},{"startTime":3032.367,"endTime":3045.405,"body":"Athens."},{"startTime":3047.515,"endTime":3055.286,"body":"And this, I think when you see the world through Athenian eyes, is actually not"},{"startTime":3055.286,"endTime":3058.395,"body":"less important than voting or fighting."},{"startTime":3058.935,"endTime":3064.129,"body":"And perhaps in many ways it is more important because if you offend Artemis, she"},{"startTime":3064.129,"endTime":3065.515,"body":"will send a plague."},{"startTime":3065.735,"endTime":3072.375,"body":"And if you offend Athena, the goddess after whom Athens, of course takes its name,"},{"startTime":3072.375,"endTime":3075.475,"body":"then who knows what disasters may ensue."},{"startTime":3076.615,"endTime":3083.27,"body":"Um, and that's why I, I have written about the founding of the democracy, um,"},{"startTime":3083.27,"endTime":3088.595,"body":"the culture of Athens in the, the early decades of the democracy."},{"startTime":3089.575,"endTime":3096.675,"body":"But actually the book, I think, in which I came closest to a arriving at"},{"startTime":3096.675,"endTime":3097.148,"body":"a sense of the truth of what that democracy may have been, was when I"},{"startTime":3097.148,"endTime":3110.875,"body":"wrote a book for children in which I could absolutely portray Athenian girls becoming bears."},{"startTime":3111.005,"endTime":3111.795,"body":"Thank you very much,"},{"startTime":3125.375,"endTime":3125.595,"body":"Tom."},{"startTime":3125.595,"endTime":3127.715,"body":"Thank you for an absolutely fascinating lecture."},{"startTime":3127.855,"endTime":3132.126,"body":"I'm sure we can all agree that was really intriguing stuff and amazing how you"},{"startTime":3132.126,"endTime":3133.835,"body":"wove in so many different elements."},{"startTime":3133.875,"endTime":3135.755,"body":"I think we're gonna have time for our couple of questions."},{"startTime":3136.175,"endTime":3137.355,"body":"I'm sorry, I went on far too long."},{"startTime":3137.415,"endTime":3139.195,"body":"No, no, my pilgrimage was too long."},{"startTime":3139.595,"endTime":3144.595,"body":"\u003claugh\u003e."},{"startTime":3140.655,"endTime":3141.955,"body":"Um, but we'll start over here."},{"startTime":3141.975,"endTime":3147.153,"body":"So Tom, you talk about in that in your lecture you talk about what I"},{"startTime":3147.153,"endTime":3149.915,"body":"would call affective history, um, on two levels."},{"startTime":3150.105,"endTime":3155.282,"body":"Firstly, that historians, academic historians might have a lot to learn from taking more seriously,"},{"startTime":3155.282,"endTime":3160.115,"body":"beliefs, emotions, states of mind and, and, and treating them with the due seriousness."},{"startTime":3160.495,"endTime":3164.591,"body":"But then you also talked, I mean, in the beginning bit when you're talking about"},{"startTime":3164.591,"endTime":3164.865,"body":"walking through London and being in the places where choa have been, that's another sort"},{"startTime":3164.865,"endTime":3169.235,"body":"of effectiveness."},{"startTime":3169.235,"endTime":3169.395,"body":"Yeah."},{"startTime":3169.395,"endTime":3174.176,"body":"And actually in some ways, isn't that why so many people who are not necessarily"},{"startTime":3174.176,"endTime":3174.495,"body":"academic historians isn't that sense of the livingness of the past, what attracts so many"},{"startTime":3174.495,"endTime":3179.915,"body":"people to history?"},{"startTime":3180.235,"endTime":3184.735,"body":"I think it is, and I think that, um, there is obviously a danger in"},{"startTime":3184.735,"endTime":3185.035,"body":"that."},{"startTime":3185.235,"endTime":3190.035,"body":"I mean, that's what kind of what I was saying, that I might have been"},{"startTime":3190.035,"endTime":3194.195,"body":"overly seduced by the experience of walking in choices, footsteps, and experiencing pandemic."},{"startTime":3194.695,"endTime":3198.91,"body":"And this is the, this is the, the, the problem and the fascination and the"},{"startTime":3198.91,"endTime":3200.035,"body":"frustration and the temptation."},{"startTime":3201.405,"endTime":3206.525,"body":"There is no way for us, I think, I mean even if you are the"},{"startTime":3206.525,"endTime":3206.867,"body":"devout as Catholic, to get back into the mindset of those pilgrims and to believe"},{"startTime":3206.867,"endTime":3216.085,"body":"that this might be the best chance you have of combating a pandemic."},{"startTime":3216.605,"endTime":3221.549,"body":"I mean, that is not what, how people felt in the pandemic, but I think"},{"startTime":3221.549,"endTime":3221.879,"body":"that perhaps that sense of yearning we had to get our lives back, perhaps that"},{"startTime":3221.879,"endTime":3222.208,"body":"does kind of open, I mean, it certainly, it opened up for me a sense"},{"startTime":3222.208,"endTime":3235.065,"body":"of what CHOA might have been doing with the Canterbury Tales."},{"startTime":3235.205,"endTime":3240.265,"body":"And I think that that is, I think it's probably a valid, valid perspective."},{"startTime":3240.815,"endTime":3244.205,"body":"It's obviously much, much, you know, as I said, it's much more difficult when you"},{"startTime":3244.205,"endTime":3246.465,"body":"come to say the a you know, the ancient Greeks."},{"startTime":3247.165,"endTime":3251.797,"body":"Um, we cannot, I mean, even, even if you are absolutely off your face on"},{"startTime":3251.797,"endTime":3252.106,"body":"drugs, I suggest you, it would be very difficult to get back to a, a"},{"startTime":3252.106,"endTime":3257.665,"body":"literal belief in Artemis."},{"startTime":3257.755,"endTime":3259.305,"body":"Don't try it at home kids."},{"startTime":3259.885,"endTime":3266.407,"body":"Um, but I think that there is a place for that kind of perhaps kind"},{"startTime":3266.407,"endTime":3271.625,"body":"of imaginative venture, which is why I do commend Greg Anderson's book."},{"startTime":3271.925,"endTime":3273.505,"body":"Um, I think it's on the reading list."},{"startTime":3273.845,"endTime":3278.72,"body":"Um, it's, it's a really, really stimulating book by a scholar who is thought very,"},{"startTime":3278.72,"endTime":3280.345,"body":"very profoundly about these issues."},{"startTime":3280.725,"endTime":3286.021,"body":"And I think kind of poses a, a, a challenge to the, the kind of"},{"startTime":3286.021,"endTime":3289.905,"body":"the entire materialist framing of history as it is currently practiced."},{"startTime":3290.835,"endTime":3291.305,"body":"Thank you."},{"startTime":3291.765,"endTime":3294.465,"body":"So we have time for please join me and thanking our speaker, Tom Holland."},{"startTime":3294.525,"endTime":3295.665,"body":"And thank you to yourself."},{"startTime":3296.715,"endTime":3297.305,"body":"Thank you."}]}