Podcast Tag: medieval history

The Sword Guy Podcast

Listen in as Guy interviews a wide variety of interesting swordspeople and historians from around the world. Learn more about the practical, the tactical, the theoretical and the just plain awesome from a diverse group of voices.

Back to Full Episode List

Podcast Tag: medieval history

Episode 141

Medieval Shoulders, Trees and Swords, with Jessica Finley (Episode 1 Repeat)

This week’s repeated episode is the very first Sword Guy Podcast episode, with the inestimable Jessica Finley, who may be known to you from her wonderful book about medieval wrestling. Those of you who are enrolled on my Solo Training course may have sweated and grunted through her “solo training for wrestlers” section of the course, and if you know her on her Patreon account, she produces translations, interpretations, previews of books in progress, […]

Episode 135

Medieval Banana Hammocks with Tasha Dandelion Kelly

Today’s episode is with Tasha Dandelion Kelly, an expert in medieval clothing who blogs at La Cotte Simple and in my opinion, knows perhaps more than anyone else on the planet about how a gambeson should be made. We talk about the Charles de Blois pourpoint, which is constructed in such a way that it gives incredible freedom of movement. You can see pictures of different examples on Tasha’s website – check out the […]

Episode 122

Fiore and the Dinosaurs with Erin Fitzgerald

Erin Fitzgerald is a historical martial arts practitioner at the Chicago Swordplay Guild, but her day job takes us much further back in time: to the time of the dinosaurs. Erin is a Fossil Preparator and in our conversation she explains the painstaking process of safely transporting fossils back to the lab and cleaning them up ready for studying. After talking about dinosaurs we skip forward a few tens of millions of years to […]

Episode 121

Fire and Cauldrons with Ruth Goodman (Episode 44 repeat)

Ruth Goodman is a social and domestic historian working with museums, theatre, television and educational establishments. She has presented and consulted on several highly successful television series for the BBC. She has also written several excellent books we’ll be talking about today, including The Domestic Revolution, How to be a Tudor and How to Behave Badly in Elizabethan England. In this episode, Ruth and I talk about some of the lesser known, but nonetheless fascinating aspects of life […]

Episode 111

What is a Round Table? with Elizabeth Champion

Elizabeth Champion is an arms and armour historian specialising in high medieval Round Table tournaments and the Merlin legends. She’s also a historical fencer, co-founder of Stratford Swords and an ex-cage fighter. In our conversation we discuss what was a Round Table Tournament. Is it to do with King Arthur, or the arrangement of the tables, or both? If you have come across anything to do with Round Tables in your reading, if you […]

Episode 110

Synthetic Armour and Smithing in France, with Anthony Rischard

Anthony Rischard is a blacksmith, historical martial arts practitioner and proprietor of Black Armoury, one of the largest suppliers of historical martial arts gear in Europe. In our conversation we talk about how Anthony gave up his office job to become a full time blacksmith in France, and his move into starting Black Armoury. Have a listen to find out why they began producing suits of armour made entirely from synthetic materials and what […]

Episode 108

Is there anything Daniel Jaquet can’t do in armour?

Dr. Daniel Jaquet should need no introduction. He has been extremely active in both the academic and practical aspects of medieval combat research for the last couple of decades or more. He has a Ph.D. from Geneva University in medieval history, on combat in armour at the end of the Middle Ages and at the beginning of the Renaissance, based on studying combat manuals. So, he has a Ph.D. in actual, proper medieval sword […]

Episode 104

Living the Nobler Dream, with Christian Tobler

Christian Tobler is a chivalric combat instructor and author of many books, including Secrets of German Medieval Swordsmanship, which launched the study of Liechtenauer in the Anglosphere. He also wrote Fighting with German Longsword, In St. George’s Name: an Anthology of Medieval German Fighting Arts, In Service of the Duke, and many more. Not to mention his latest, which is Lance, Spear, Sword and Messer, a German Medieval Martial Arts Miscellany. In 1979 Christian […]

Episode 102

A Two-Handed Sword to Fight a Griffin, with Marie Powell

It’s episode 99 of The Sword Guy Podcast! Next week we have a special 100th edition, so look out for that. While you’re waiting, you can enjoy this week’s episode with writer, journalist, editor and author, Marie Powell. Marie lives in Canada, but a search for her Welsh heritage inspired her to write her latest sword and sorcery epic, The Last of the Gifted. It is based on the events of 1282-1283 in Wales, […]

Episode 100

The Last Duel, or was it? With Ariella Elema

Dr Ariella Elema is a finder of the forgotten, the hidden and the obscure. She’s an academic and archivist and an armizare practitioner in Toronto. Her Ph.D. thesis, Trial by Battle in France and England, should give you some clue as to why I invited her on the show. But it also won the Canadian Society of Medievalists’ Leonard Boyle dissertation prize, which is very impressive. In our conversation we talk about trial by […]