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We know our medieval forebears from what they left behind.

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The grandeur of their castles.

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The beauty of their cathedrals.

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But medieval ideas are less familiar territory.

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Who were these people who lived 1,000 years ago and built

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these extraordinary buildings and did these extraordinary things?

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How did they understand the world? What did they feel?

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And above all, what did they believe?

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Between the 10th and 15th centuries, the West was dominated by religious

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and supernatural beliefs in a way that is hard for us to imagine.

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People saw the world through the prism of those beliefs.

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It was a world touched by divine significance.

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Enchanted...uncertain...

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unpredictable.

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This was a world in which

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some boundaries were less clear than they are today.

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Boundaries were blurred between the natural and the supernatural,

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between the ordinary and the miraculous,

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between the living and the dead.

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Medieval records evoke a time when the dead were always with us.

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The Abbot of the Monastery of Burton-on-Trent recorded

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an uncanny series of events which occurred around 1090.

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There were two villagers living in Stapenhill

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who ran away to the neighbouring village.

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The very next day at the third hour, they were suddenly struck down dead.

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Soon after their corpses were buried,

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word came oftwo alien beings roaming the woods.

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Now they appeared in the shape of men carrying wooden coffins on their shoulders.

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Now, in the likeness of bears or dogs.

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ANIMALS RUNNING AND PANTING

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The villagers were in mortal terror of the two phantom dead men who roamed the countryside at night.

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The Bishop authorised the villagers to dig up the bodies.

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The linen cloths over their faces were stained with blood.

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They cut off the men's heads and put them in the graves between their legs,

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tore out their hearts from their corpses and burned them.

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When the hearts had at last been burned up, they cracked with a great sound.

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Everyone there saw an evil spirit in the form of a crow fly from the flames.

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Soon after this was done, both the disease and the phantom ceased.

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These records show this remarkable story,

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with its walking dead and blood-stained shrouds was taken very seriously.

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This was no idle ghost story dreamed up to pass away an evening

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by the fire, but a reminder of a pressing reality.

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That the dead did not disappear into dust, but could occupy the same world as the living.

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Countless similar reports suggest the dead were an insistent presence.

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Herefordshire in the 1150s.

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The corpse of a wicked man wanders the roads at night,

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calling out the names of villagers, who sickenand die.

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In Annandale, Scotland, a corpse roams the villages spreading the plague with his foul breath.

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In the 1190s in Buckinghamshire, a dead man returns to his widow's bed almost crushing her with his weight.

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Such horror stories were taken as fact by chroniclers such as William of Newburgh.

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One would not easily believe that corpses come out of their graves

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and wander around to terrorise the living,

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were there not so many cases supported by ample testimony.

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At the time of these uncanny happenings,

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reburying the bodies of these restlesssouls was not uncommon.

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Excavations of medieval cemeteries throughout the country have revealed corpses buried in an unusual way.

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With the head removed and placed between the legs,

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just like in the story,

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to prevent the dead from ever walking again.

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The medieval dead shared the world with the living.

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And they could be encountered at any time.

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One of the most common medieval folk tales is the story of the Three Living And The Three Dead.

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Three rich young men are out walking when they meet three dead men.

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The dead men, each in varying stages of decomposition,

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have something to tell the rich young men.

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"Beware", they say.

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Such as you are, so were we.

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Such as I am, so will you be.

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They chide them for their love of worldly things.

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"Wealth, honour and power", they say,

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"are of no value at the hour of your death."

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Your time among the living was often described as "briefer than the blink of an eye."

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What mattered was the hour of your death,

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the crossing into the next world,

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when you too might become like one of the three dead,

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wandering the earth,

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warning the living to prepare for what lay in store.

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And this traffic between the living and the dead was two-way.

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Just as people believed that the dead might visit the living,

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so they believed that the living might visit the dead.

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In 1206, in the quiet countryside of Essex,

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a peasant called Thurkill, from the village of Stisted, was working in the fields.

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An accident left him in a deep coma.

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For two days he lay as if dead.

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When he revived, he had an extraordinary story to tell.

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To what one can only imagine was an astonished audience,

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he recounted everything that had happened while his body had been out cold.

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What he described was nothing less than a journey to the next world and back.

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He gave his listeners a detailed account of the geography of the afterlife.

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Thurkill describes how he first comes to a mysterious church, unlike any on Earth.

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To the north there is a wall about six feet high.

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In the middle of the church is a font, from which a bright flame emerges.

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Thurkill tells how all around him evil spirits come leaping to meet him,

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cackling to one another.

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This is where the souls of the dead went to be weighed, some to be damned and sucked into hell.

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They screamed, and cursed their mother and father who bore them for eternal torment.

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The saved are led straight through the jewelled gates to the church of gold.

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As for the rest of us, our fate was to serve out our time in what was called purgatory,

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the agonising waiting room for heaven.

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A place where your sins were purged, hence its name.

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And the greater your sins, the longer your wait.

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Then Thurkill passes through fire, and across a bridge of nails and spikes.

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It's here, among the huddled sinners,

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that he catches a glimpse of a shadowy figure.

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It's his father, hideously emaciated and monstrouslydeformed in pain.

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His father struggles to tell him how he's languishing here because of his shady business deals.

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Thurkill hears the voice of Saint Michael.

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"Ten masses will free your father,

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"and then you can accompany him to the church on the Mount of Glory."

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Thurkill never even glimpses his mother.

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Has she been damned to suffer eternity in hell?

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To the Essex villagers, Thurkill's vision would have sounded chillingly familiar.

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This was a journey which awaited them all.

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And this very exact description of the afterlife was not an isolated record.

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Such visions were frequent in medieval England.

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And many of them followed the pattern of Thurkill's,

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with torments designed for particular sins.

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Like gluttons being forced to starve, or misers having gold poured down their throats.

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The connection between this world and the next was an everyday reality.

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Such stories were widely discussed and repeated from pulpits throughout the land.

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Just such a vision of a journey through the next world

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is the subject of one of the greatest works in the whole of medieval literature -

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Dante's Divine Comedy.

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Hell is a nightmare of endless torment.

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Purgatory is a mountain where the less sinful serve out

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their allotted time before they join God in the spheres of heaven.

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The dead could visit the living, the living could help the dead.

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The boundaries between these worlds were permeable.

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For life on this earth was just a fraction of our eternal existence.

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The real world was not this one, but the next.

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Constantly moving between these two worlds was a race of spirit beings.

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Good and evil.

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Leading the forces of darkness was the devil, Satan.

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A former angel cast out of heaven

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who was implacably opposed to God and his creation.

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The devil and his battalion of demons were everywhere.

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To tempt you, beguile you, destroy you.

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The devil might appear in all sorts of forms.

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Perhaps in the form of a toad...

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or a black dog.

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Or a crow.

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Anything frightening.

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Anything unusual.

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Anything that nevertheless you might encounter every day.

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In the 1230s there was a man called William of Aberdeen, a sailor.

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who was walking on the Scottish moors.

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He noticed that a little dog was following him.

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Suddenly, the dog increased enormously in size,

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andturned into a dragon.

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William became possessed by a demon.

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He tore off all his clothes, apart from his breeches, and went down into the town of Dunfermline.

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At the devil's instigation, he tried to do many wicked things there.

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He forced indoors the little children and maidens, the old and the young,

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and tried to break down their doors around them with a mighty sharp axe.

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Eventually, he was disarmed, tied up,

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taken into the local shrine, the Monastery of Saint Margaret.

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He was there for three days howling and wailing, not eating anything,

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until eventually he returned to his senses.

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The monks gave him some bread and cheese, he confessed his sins and the demon left him.

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But medieval men and women were not alone in their fight against the demon world.

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A heavenly army of angels stood ready to fight on their behalf.

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Nine orders of them.

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From Seraphim and Cherubim, down to Archangels and mere angels, each with his allotted role.

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The priest, Gerald of Wales, described their place in the scheme of things.

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They have a more subtle essence than man, a higher location, and a more intimate familiarity with God.

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Angels and demons battled constantly for possession of our souls.

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The angels display endless care for our well-being.

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The demons make fierce attacks upon us to compel us to surrender.

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Around 1110, William of Corbeil saw this battle

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at first hand in his house in Dover.

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As I lay gravely ill, a crowd of hideous demons rushed in

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and sat around my sickbed, gloating over what they would do with me.

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But then William became aware of a presence at his bedside,

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the Virgin Mary.

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He was still terrified, but the Virgin insisted the demons couldn't take him.

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She told them the angels Michael, Gabriel and Raphael would fight them.

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The demons slunk off, grumbling that they wouldn't take them on.

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William was saved.

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But at any moment anyone's life could be transformed,

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for better or worse, by these spiritual beings.

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Would such ideas have generated anxiety or reassurance?

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Probably both at different times.

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But whatever the answer, there was nothing bizarre about divine intervention.

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It was just part of how things were.

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The most spectacular of all divine interventions would be the Day of Judgment,

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the Apocalypse itself.

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When all this world would be destroyed and the dead would rise again.

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When would this happen, exactly?

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Medieval scholars calculated that man was living in the sixth and final age.

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So, for people at the time, the Middle Ages were not the Middle Ages,

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it was the end of time.

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The end of the world approaching. Visits from the walking dead.

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First-hand accounts of journeys to the afterlife.

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Invisible battles between angels and demons.

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The supernatural had nothing abstract about it.

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It was real and it was all around.

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The only mediator between this world and the next was one of the most powerful forces in history.

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The medieval church.

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The soaring cathedrals of the Middle Ages protected the souls

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of men and women against evil interventions from the world beyond.

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God's power was made manifest in stone.

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The Church owned one fifth of the wealth of the country.

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It took one tenth of the income of all Christians.

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In return, it cast a protective shield around the faithful.

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To say this was a religious age doesn't even get close.

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In modern Western societies, religion is a matter of choice.

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Governments are not supposed to intervene on behalf of one religion against another.

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In the United States, the separation of Church and State is even written into the Constitution.

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Such ideas would have been incomprehensible in the Middle Ages.

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Then, the Church was not an association

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of like-minded individuals getting together by choice.

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It was the very framework of society itself.

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The front line of defence against the forces of evil were the great medieval monasteries.

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By the 13th century, there were at least 1,000 religious houses in England alone.

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Many were built in remote sites, echoing Christ's struggle with Satan in the wilderness.

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Pluscarden Abbey, near Inverness, is the only medieval monastery

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in Britain still used for its original purpose.

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CHURCH BELLS RING

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CHURCH BELLS RING

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At the beginning of the 12th century, the monk, Orderic Vitalis,

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described the role of the monasteries in the army of God.

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Here Christ's garrisons reject the world and its parasites,

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scorning all its pleasures as filth,

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to struggle manfully against the devil.

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Monks here follow the rule of Saint Benedict, formulated in the sixth century.

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The essence of the Benedictine rule is the search for God,

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in an ordered and community life

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with special emphasis on prayer, reading and work.

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Living by a rule, living under the authority of an Abbot.

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Living a dedicated, celibate, Christian life.

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The monks' day starts at four in the morning

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and follows a pattern scarcely changed since the Middle Ages.

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For their medieval predecessors, such a routine formed part of an unremitting war.

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A monastery is a castle built against Satan,

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where the cowled champions engage in ceaseless combat against the devil.

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The monk is engaged in a struggle withall that is

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self-centred in himself, or with the...

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the forces of evil, if you like, within himself.

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So, in that sense, yes, and that is the idea of a spiritual combat.

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It is a very ancient one, going back to the desert fathers.

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Beyond the walls of these castles built against Satan were the local garrisons, the parish churches.

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The medieval churches stood guard over the soul

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ofevery man, woman and child.

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As God's intermediaries, priests administered the sacraments,

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marking the key stages on the dangerous journey from birth to death.

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First, baptism,

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a form of exorcism, casting out the devil.

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Then, confession.

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Communion.

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Marriage.

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And finally, they presided over burial,

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the most dramatic rite of passage of all.

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The medieval dead remained in our midst.

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They were our link with the next world.

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The mingling of the living and the dead is unusual.

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In ancient Greece and Rome, it was forbidden to bury corpses in the town.

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Medieval Christianity brought them in.

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Every parish church was built with a cemetery.

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Go into a synagogue or a mosque or a Buddhist or Hindu temple,

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you don't see memorials and tombstones.

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Every parish church is full of them.

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We take it for granted. But it's actually part of

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what we might call the cult of the dead.

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The tombs of the dead reminded everyone, rich and poor,

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that this world was not their real home.

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In medieval chantry chapels, the wealthy invested in magnificent tombs

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to help shorten their time in purgatory.

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This is the tomb of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick,

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one of the richest and most powerful men in England.

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When he died in 1439, he left money for 5,000 masses to be said for his soul.

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But his real safety net against the pains of purgatory was this chapel.

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Built in the 20 years after his death, costing thousands of pounds, the equivalent of millions nowadays,

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where he hoped, in his own words, that prayers would be said for him "until the end of time."

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The effigy of Richard Beauchamp is frozen for eternity.

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His hands open in prayer and veneration to the Virgin Mary

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who gazes down on him from the vaulted ceiling above.

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Around the sides of the tomb, statues, known as weepers,

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family members mourning his death and praying for his ascent into the arms of God.

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In this world, monks and priests pray for the dead,

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helping to shorten their time of torment in the labyrinth of purgatory.

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In the same way, the holy dead, the saints in heaven, were busy,

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offering their help to the living.

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People venerated the saints,

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men and women who had lived

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especially holy lives or performed miracles.

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They could directly intervene in the affairs of the living.

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00:27:00,680 --> 00:27:04,880
So, the cult of the saints was at the heart of medieval life.

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Every parishioner could see the saints for themselves on the screen in the local church.

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It's where they came face to face with these heavenly beings.

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Some saints even had a speciality,

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perhaps associated with an incident in their own lives.

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You prayed to Saint Margaret of Antioch during childbirth,

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possibly because she had emerged unharmed from the belly of the dragon that had swallowed her.

294
00:27:54,600 --> 00:27:58,080
St Apollonia was the patron saint of toothache.

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She was a martyr saint who had been tortured

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by having all her teeth pulled out.

297
00:28:03,080 --> 00:28:05,360
And as for St Wilgefortis,

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her speciality was helping wives get rid of unwanted husbands.

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She was also called Saint Uncumber.

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00:28:17,160 --> 00:28:21,880
The intervention of a saint could mean the difference between life and death,

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00:28:21,920 --> 00:28:24,480
even causing God to revise his judgment.

302
00:28:28,920 --> 00:28:30,960
In medieval trial by ordeal,

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God revealed the guilt or innocence of a suspect through their reaction to an excruciating test.

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In the test by water, if the accused floated, they were guilty.

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If they sank, they were innocent and quickly hauled out.

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00:28:52,680 --> 00:28:53,840
In the test by fire,

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they were guilty if their skin swelled up into blisters,

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innocent if it healed.

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00:29:01,640 --> 00:29:07,440
Around the year 1200, a woman in York was accused of murder.

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00:29:10,160 --> 00:29:12,400
After the woman had carried the hot iron,

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00:29:12,440 --> 00:29:16,560
a swelling was discovered on the woman's hand as large as a walnut,

312
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wherefore she was condemned to death.

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God had revealed her guilt.

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00:29:21,840 --> 00:29:26,280
But the accused begged permission to pray at the tomb of Saint William.

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As soon as the woman entered the chapel, the swelling disappeared without trace.

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The justices pronounced her innocent, saying that as God and Saint William

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had absolved her, they did not wish to condemn her.

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Saints were your companions, guiding and protecting you.

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Their awesome power was especially present in their physical remains.

320
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Small portions of their bone or hair or clothing

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00:29:57,560 --> 00:30:02,280
were furiously collected and guarded in the years and the centuries after their deaths

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by people who believed that these tangible objects retained supernatural power.

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These remains were called relics.

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The word means literally what is left behind.

325
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Objects of supernatural power,

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00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:24,720
they were to be approached with awe, even terror.

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00:30:29,120 --> 00:30:31,960
The monk, Jocelin de Brakelond, in 1198,

328
00:30:32,000 --> 00:30:36,600
describes how he helped to move the body of the martyr Saint Edmund

329
00:30:36,640 --> 00:30:39,040
to the high altar of the abbey church.

330
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Approaching reverently, we made haste to open the coffin.

331
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The Abbot said he longed to gaze upon his patron.

332
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But the Abbot approached the 300-year-old bones of the saint with trepidation.

333
00:30:54,880 --> 00:31:00,120
A previous abbot had been left paralysed when he touched the saint's remains.

334
00:31:05,080 --> 00:31:12,520
Whilst the rest of the abbey slept, he carefully peeled away the layers of silk cloth covering the body.

335
00:31:22,200 --> 00:31:26,200
Taking the head in his hands, he uttered a prayer.

336
00:31:26,240 --> 00:31:32,720
"Oh, glorious martyr, do not cast me, a miserable sinner,

337
00:31:32,760 --> 00:31:37,920
"into perdition for daring to touch you.

338
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"You understand my devotion and purpose."

339
00:31:40,320 --> 00:31:44,280
This time the Abbot was spared the anger of the saint.

340
00:31:44,320 --> 00:31:46,640
The corpse remained quite still.

341
00:31:50,280 --> 00:31:54,920
This was the closest you could get to actually touching the holy.

342
00:31:54,960 --> 00:31:57,960
It was not something to be undertaken lightly.

343
00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:11,280
Getting close to dead saints was a medieval passion.

344
00:32:11,320 --> 00:32:14,880
Pilgrims travelled huge distances in the hope of doing so.

345
00:32:14,920 --> 00:32:20,000
To Rome, to Santiago in Spain... and, of course, to Canterbury.

346
00:32:23,880 --> 00:32:30,480
As Chaucer wrote of his pilgrims, "When spring comes, then people long to go on pilgrimage."

347
00:32:30,520 --> 00:32:35,240
They long to go. The roads of medieval Britain were busy with pilgrims.

348
00:32:35,280 --> 00:32:39,400
Men and women prepared to travel hundreds of miles, usually on foot,

349
00:32:39,440 --> 00:32:43,120
to get close to a relic or to pray at a shrine.

350
00:32:50,680 --> 00:32:54,080
Along the Pilgrims' Way to Canterbury was Aylesford Priory,

351
00:32:54,120 --> 00:32:57,680
a favourite resting place for medieval travellers.

352
00:32:59,840 --> 00:33:03,160
The priory dates back to the 13th century as a house

353
00:33:03,200 --> 00:33:06,160
of the Carmelite Order of Friars.

354
00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:15,280
Today, Aylesford houses one of the few surviving medieval relics in Britain...

355
00:33:16,640 --> 00:33:18,680
the skull of Saint Simon Stock.

356
00:33:26,240 --> 00:33:32,040
A venerated Carmelite friar, he had been blessed with a vision of the Virgin Mary.

357
00:33:38,880 --> 00:33:41,720
Medieval Europe was full of them, thousands of relics.

358
00:33:41,760 --> 00:33:45,880
The bones, the physical remains of the saints, the holy dead.

359
00:33:45,920 --> 00:33:51,640
The saints might have been in heaven, but they were also here in their bones, in their relics.

360
00:33:51,680 --> 00:33:56,680
You came to them, you prayed, you tried to get as close to them as you could.

361
00:33:56,720 --> 00:33:59,800
You might even be hoping for a miraculous cure.

362
00:34:08,480 --> 00:34:13,240
The road to Canterbury led thousands to the most venerated pilgrim site in Britain.

363
00:34:27,800 --> 00:34:30,800
It was here in the Cathedral that Saint Thomas Becket

364
00:34:30,840 --> 00:34:33,400
had been murdered by the soldiers of the king.

365
00:34:38,320 --> 00:34:44,400
As they arrived, pilgrims were offered bottles of the martyr's blood as souvenirs.

366
00:34:45,520 --> 00:34:48,120
And there was much more here to impress.

367
00:34:49,920 --> 00:34:54,800
A list of the relics in Canterbury Cathedral in the year 1316

368
00:34:54,840 --> 00:35:00,000
includes 12 whole bodies of saints, three heads, 12 arms,

369
00:35:00,040 --> 00:35:04,640
pieces of Jesus's cross, foreskin, cradle and tomb,

370
00:35:04,680 --> 00:35:09,480
as well as innumerable pieces of bone, hair and blood.

371
00:35:15,080 --> 00:35:18,080
As a pilgrim, you'd make your way around the Cathedral,

372
00:35:18,120 --> 00:35:20,880
up the steps to the most sacred area of the church.

373
00:35:35,760 --> 00:35:38,120
This was your ultimate goal.

374
00:35:38,160 --> 00:35:40,720
The shrine of Saint Thomas of Canterbury.

375
00:35:40,760 --> 00:35:44,760
It would have stood here, encrusted with gold and jewels,

376
00:35:44,800 --> 00:35:48,440
containing the remains of England's most famous saint.

377
00:35:48,480 --> 00:35:51,800
A place of miracle. A centre of supernatural power.

378
00:35:53,400 --> 00:35:59,440
The shrine of Saint Thomas was designed to strike awe into the heart of the medieval pilgrim.

379
00:36:05,400 --> 00:36:09,360
As with many such shrines, it had openings in the side

380
00:36:09,400 --> 00:36:13,960
to allow the faithful to reach in and get even closer to the relic.

381
00:36:21,200 --> 00:36:25,600
Like a giant picture book, the stained glass windows

382
00:36:25,640 --> 00:36:29,960
around the shrine tell the story of the miracles of Saint Thomas.

383
00:36:33,320 --> 00:36:38,560
A terrifying reminder that saints could be vengeful as well as benign

384
00:36:38,600 --> 00:36:43,200
is shown in the story of the knight, Jordan Fitz-Eisulf.

385
00:36:45,640 --> 00:36:49,360
His household was struck by a dreadful disease.

386
00:36:49,400 --> 00:36:51,840
Amongst those who died was his younger son.

387
00:36:54,120 --> 00:36:58,480
Just at this time, he was visited by pilgrims coming from Canterbury,

388
00:36:58,520 --> 00:37:02,320
carrying with them some of the holy water from Saint Thomas's shrine.

389
00:37:04,160 --> 00:37:05,880
He thought he'd give it a try.

390
00:37:05,920 --> 00:37:08,080
He poured some of the holy water

391
00:37:08,120 --> 00:37:11,560
into the boy's mouth, the boy was miraculously revived.

392
00:37:14,000 --> 00:37:20,120
Naturally he made a promise to go on a pilgrimage of thanksgiving to Saint Thomas's shrine at Canterbury.

393
00:37:20,160 --> 00:37:24,400
But with one thing and another, he postponed that pilgrimage,

394
00:37:24,440 --> 00:37:27,800
even though Thomas appeared in a vision reminding him.

395
00:37:27,840 --> 00:37:30,840
Eventually Saint Thomas's patience ran out.

396
00:37:30,880 --> 00:37:35,960
He returned and killed the knight's older son.

397
00:37:38,640 --> 00:37:42,960
This time, of course, Jordan and his family made the pilgrimage.

398
00:37:49,440 --> 00:37:52,840
Thousands came here, hoping for a miracle.

399
00:37:52,880 --> 00:37:56,160
And there was no shortage of supply.

400
00:37:59,560 --> 00:38:05,480
What today we take as coincidence, might in the Middle Ages be seen as something miraculous.

401
00:38:05,520 --> 00:38:11,840
You had a bad leg or a toothache, you went on pilgrimage to pray for a cure, it got better.

402
00:38:11,880 --> 00:38:16,160
And that would be seen as evidence of divine intervention.

403
00:38:18,400 --> 00:38:22,440
Medieval pilgrimage became a huge industry.

404
00:38:22,480 --> 00:38:25,920
Money poured in from the sale of badges and souvenirs

405
00:38:25,960 --> 00:38:29,840
and from offerings left at the site of a shrine.

406
00:38:34,120 --> 00:38:36,520
With money came corruption.

407
00:38:36,560 --> 00:38:38,120
Even forgery.

408
00:38:41,440 --> 00:38:46,960
Around 1270, the much-revered friar, Walter of Saint Edmunds, had recently been buried.

409
00:38:51,240 --> 00:38:55,840
One day, a man came to one of the friars and he said he could make them rich if they wished.

410
00:38:55,880 --> 00:39:00,680
When asked how, the man explained that Friar Walter had a reputation for sanctity

411
00:39:00,720 --> 00:39:05,760
and if a few miracles happened at his tomb, that could bring in a nice income for the friars.

412
00:39:05,800 --> 00:39:09,840
When the friar asked how miracles could take place,

413
00:39:09,880 --> 00:39:13,880
unless at God's command, the man had a ready answer.

414
00:39:15,680 --> 00:39:20,600
He had 24 men at his command who produced miracles whenever he wished.

415
00:39:20,640 --> 00:39:25,680
He had sent them to many places in England to produce miracles for a profit.

416
00:39:39,280 --> 00:39:42,880
Despite such instances of corruption and fraud,

417
00:39:42,920 --> 00:39:47,840
the Church's grip on the medieval mind remained strong.

418
00:39:49,880 --> 00:39:53,440
The word of the Church was the word of God.

419
00:39:58,280 --> 00:40:00,440
It could absolve you of your sins.

420
00:40:00,480 --> 00:40:04,120
It could shield you against Satan. It could even send you to war.

421
00:40:16,600 --> 00:40:20,240
If you didn't accept the beliefs and rituals of the Christian Church

422
00:40:20,280 --> 00:40:23,720
you were simply an outsider, and possibly an enemy.

423
00:40:23,760 --> 00:40:29,000
In the Middle Ages, the Christian Church became increasingly belligerent towards outsiders,

424
00:40:29,040 --> 00:40:32,320
people of different faiths, abroad and at home,

425
00:40:32,360 --> 00:40:35,240
and anyone who disagreed with the Church,

426
00:40:35,280 --> 00:40:37,440
the heretics, the enemy within.

427
00:40:42,120 --> 00:40:46,120
Christianity had not begun as a bellicose religion.

428
00:40:46,160 --> 00:40:48,760
"Turn the other cheek," Christ had said.

429
00:40:48,800 --> 00:40:52,760
11th-century Christians took a different view.

430
00:41:01,120 --> 00:41:04,640
The focus of their wrath was the rise of Islam.

431
00:41:10,840 --> 00:41:12,880
In just a few centuries,

432
00:41:12,920 --> 00:41:17,840
its teachings had spread as far afield as China and Spain.

433
00:41:20,640 --> 00:41:24,360
Its armies had even captured the holy city of Jerusalem.

434
00:41:24,400 --> 00:41:28,240
It was a thorn in the side of medieval Christianity.

435
00:41:31,440 --> 00:41:35,240
On the 27th of November 1095, Pope Urban II preached

436
00:41:35,280 --> 00:41:37,880
a sermon that was to change history.

437
00:41:37,920 --> 00:41:41,520
He urged the knights who were listening to him to march east,

438
00:41:41,560 --> 00:41:44,600
to Jerusalem to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,

439
00:41:44,640 --> 00:41:49,280
supposedly the site of Jesus's resurrection, and free it from Muslim rule.

440
00:41:49,320 --> 00:41:51,760
The response was astonishing.

441
00:41:55,800 --> 00:41:57,960
Thousands answered the call to action.

442
00:41:58,000 --> 00:42:00,320
They marched to the Holy Land.

443
00:42:04,120 --> 00:42:08,320
In less than four years, they recaptured Jerusalem.

444
00:42:11,840 --> 00:42:18,280
This extraordinary campaign is now known as the First Crusade.

445
00:42:18,320 --> 00:42:21,520
It was followed by many others.

446
00:42:22,520 --> 00:42:29,000
Fighting, even dying in the Crusades, was one of the highest ideals of the Middle Ages.

447
00:42:30,560 --> 00:42:35,440
The Temple Church in London symbolises the aspirations of the Crusaders.

448
00:42:35,480 --> 00:42:39,640
It's modelled on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

449
00:42:41,400 --> 00:42:44,120
It was the home of the Knights Templar,

450
00:42:44,160 --> 00:42:51,160
an elite group of warrior monks who formed one of the most feared fighting units of the Crusades.

451
00:42:53,200 --> 00:42:57,720
The Crusades were different from other wars because they were holy wars.

452
00:42:57,760 --> 00:42:59,960
Christian holy wars.

453
00:43:00,000 --> 00:43:05,200
They were authorised by the Pope, and they brought spiritual benefits to those who fought in them.

454
00:43:05,240 --> 00:43:09,960
If you died on crusade, all your sins were washed away.

455
00:43:12,000 --> 00:43:15,240
The battle on earth between good and evil,

456
00:43:15,280 --> 00:43:18,200
had been taken to a new level.

457
00:43:23,920 --> 00:43:27,440
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux urged on his fellow Christians.

458
00:43:31,560 --> 00:43:33,720
A new kind of knighthood has arisen.

459
00:43:33,760 --> 00:43:37,600
The knight of Christ, I say, kills with an untroubled mind.

460
00:43:37,640 --> 00:43:43,280
A Christian may glory in the death of a pagan, since Christ is glorified.

461
00:43:49,480 --> 00:43:52,880
The Crusades undoubtedly deepened hostility

462
00:43:52,920 --> 00:43:54,960
between Christians and Muslims,

463
00:43:55,000 --> 00:43:57,440
bringing the two worlds into collision

464
00:43:57,480 --> 00:44:00,040
in a way that has consequences even today.

465
00:44:00,080 --> 00:44:05,600
The very word "crusade" has opposite meanings in the West and in the Muslim world.

466
00:44:05,640 --> 00:44:09,840
In the West, it means a struggle for some good cause.

467
00:44:09,880 --> 00:44:13,000
in the Muslim world, it summons up pictures

468
00:44:13,040 --> 00:44:15,800
of brutal, aggressive Westerners.

469
00:44:15,840 --> 00:44:20,520
Those Muslims hostile to the American presence in the Middle East

470
00:44:20,560 --> 00:44:24,840
revile American soldiers there as "the Crusaders".

471
00:44:39,080 --> 00:44:41,880
The Christian world was now on the offensive.

472
00:44:43,360 --> 00:44:46,560
If Muslims were seen as the enemy at the gates,

473
00:44:46,600 --> 00:44:50,440
there was another enemy even closer at hand.

474
00:44:50,480 --> 00:44:52,480
The Jews.

475
00:45:00,520 --> 00:45:05,920
In most parts of medieval Europe, Judaism was the only non-Christian religion officially tolerated.

476
00:45:05,960 --> 00:45:09,560
Its position was precarious and sometimes perilous.

477
00:45:09,600 --> 00:45:14,000
Jews were reviled but they were also much relied on as moneylenders.

478
00:45:14,040 --> 00:45:16,480
And they were technically owned by the king,

479
00:45:16,520 --> 00:45:21,120
an uneasy arrangement that allowed for exploitation as much as protection.

480
00:45:24,400 --> 00:45:29,120
In medieval Britain, Jews were treated with growing intolerance.

481
00:45:29,160 --> 00:45:32,920
Rumours spread of strange practices in synagogues.

482
00:45:35,440 --> 00:45:39,800
In 1144, Jews in Norwich were accused of ritual murder,

483
00:45:39,840 --> 00:45:44,160
taking and killing a Christian boy in mockery of the crucifixion.

484
00:45:47,000 --> 00:45:52,480
But it was in York that hostility to Jews spilled into violence.

485
00:45:56,600 --> 00:46:02,200
In March 1190, the people of York turned against their local Jews.

486
00:46:02,240 --> 00:46:04,800
"Neither the law nor reason nor humanity stopped them,"

487
00:46:04,840 --> 00:46:06,840
in the words of a contemporary chronicler.

488
00:46:09,520 --> 00:46:13,400
The attack was led by local nobles who owed money to the Jews,

489
00:46:13,440 --> 00:46:16,400
and one thing they made sure to do during the disturbances

490
00:46:16,440 --> 00:46:19,120
was seize and burn the documents recording their debts.

491
00:46:24,360 --> 00:46:28,280
In desperation, the Jews sought refuge here in the royal castle,

492
00:46:28,320 --> 00:46:31,040
the site now known as Clifford's Tower.

493
00:46:33,360 --> 00:46:36,720
Outside, the Christian mob gathered -

494
00:46:36,760 --> 00:46:40,000
the indebted nobles, the local apprentices,

495
00:46:40,040 --> 00:46:43,320
a hermit who said, "You are doing God's work".

496
00:46:49,760 --> 00:46:51,880
The Jews resisted as best they could,

497
00:46:51,920 --> 00:46:55,880
throwing down rocks on the besiegers, one of which killed the hermit.

498
00:46:55,920 --> 00:46:58,120
But their situation was fairly desperate.

499
00:46:58,160 --> 00:47:01,080
The Christians brought up siege machines, huge engines

500
00:47:01,120 --> 00:47:04,600
that could throw rocks and batter down the walls.

501
00:47:04,640 --> 00:47:07,440
The Jews knew that further resistance was impossible.

502
00:47:07,480 --> 00:47:14,360
They turned to their oldest and wisest member, the Rabbi, who gave them simple but terrifying advice.

503
00:47:14,400 --> 00:47:16,200
Mass suicide.

504
00:47:19,080 --> 00:47:21,440
Each of the Jewish men was to take his knife

505
00:47:21,480 --> 00:47:26,800
to kill his own wife, to kill his own children and to kill himself.

506
00:47:26,840 --> 00:47:30,480
They set fire to the castle, which at that time was made of wood,

507
00:47:30,520 --> 00:47:33,440
and amongst the flames they began this grisly work.

508
00:47:35,640 --> 00:47:38,480
Those of the Jews who didn't take the option of suicide

509
00:47:38,520 --> 00:47:41,680
begged the Christians outside to let them go free.

510
00:47:41,720 --> 00:47:45,520
The Christians agreed and the Jews came out. They were all massacred.

511
00:47:45,560 --> 00:47:49,400
There was not a Jew left alive in York that day.

512
00:47:59,720 --> 00:48:05,920
Hostility towards Jews was fuelled by an increasingly intolerant Church and State.

513
00:48:05,960 --> 00:48:08,720
They were forced to wear distinguishing badges.

514
00:48:08,760 --> 00:48:12,960
And in 1290, Edward I of England announced

515
00:48:13,000 --> 00:48:17,840
that all Jews should either convert or leave the kingdom for good.

516
00:48:17,880 --> 00:48:21,440
They wouldn't return until the time of Oliver Cromwell.

517
00:48:32,680 --> 00:48:34,000
With the Jews banished,

518
00:48:34,040 --> 00:48:36,600
the onslaught against unbelievers continued,

519
00:48:36,640 --> 00:48:39,280
as the Church trained its sights on a new target -

520
00:48:39,320 --> 00:48:43,040
religious reformers in its own ranks.

521
00:48:48,080 --> 00:48:52,400
These reformers were dangerous, "the enemy within", and needed to be dealt with.

522
00:48:52,440 --> 00:48:56,640
Their opponents called them Lollards, which means mumblers.

523
00:48:56,680 --> 00:49:01,080
Much of what they mumbled about attacked the very essence of the medieval Church.

524
00:49:01,120 --> 00:49:04,640
From belief in pilgrimage, to the intervention of the saints.

525
00:49:14,040 --> 00:49:17,760
The Lollards were inspired by the Oxford theologian, John Wycliffe.

526
00:49:17,800 --> 00:49:20,640
He was for ten years rector of this church,

527
00:49:20,680 --> 00:49:23,480
Saint Mary's Lutterworth in Leicestershire.

528
00:49:23,520 --> 00:49:28,480
He attacked the wealth of the Church and its involvement in politics,

529
00:49:28,520 --> 00:49:33,360
and he wanted the Bible translated from Latin into English,

530
00:49:33,400 --> 00:49:39,760
so that ordinary people could hear and understand the words of scripture in their own language.

531
00:49:41,400 --> 00:49:46,120
Such a step threatened God's intermediaries,

532
00:49:46,160 --> 00:49:50,560
the priests who interpreted the Latin bible for the faithful.

533
00:49:53,400 --> 00:49:55,880
Worse, Wycliffe struck at a core belief

534
00:49:55,920 --> 00:49:58,480
that during Holy Communion,

535
00:49:58,520 --> 00:50:04,000
bread and wine were turned into the body and blood of Christ.

536
00:50:07,040 --> 00:50:12,000
His scorn for this doctrine undermined the mystery, the magic, of Christian ritual.

537
00:50:17,240 --> 00:50:20,440
As support for Wycliffe grew, at Lambeth Palace,

538
00:50:20,480 --> 00:50:22,920
seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury,

539
00:50:22,960 --> 00:50:25,240
Church authorities decided to act.

540
00:50:30,200 --> 00:50:36,400
In 1378, Wycliffe was brought to the Chapel of Lambeth Palace to be tried for his beliefs.

541
00:50:36,440 --> 00:50:40,960
It was a raucous occasion. A crowd of Londoners burst in to express their support.

542
00:50:41,000 --> 00:50:45,800
Wycliffe defended his views, coolly and with conviction.

543
00:50:45,840 --> 00:50:49,720
But in the end, the bishops condemned him to perpetual silence.

544
00:50:53,720 --> 00:50:56,280
Wycliffe returned to Lutterworth,

545
00:50:56,320 --> 00:50:59,840
forbidden ever to speak out against the Church.

546
00:51:02,720 --> 00:51:06,480
He died there in 1384.

547
00:51:09,000 --> 00:51:11,400
The Pope did not forget John Wycliffe.

548
00:51:11,440 --> 00:51:17,280
Many years later, he ordered his bones to be burned and the ashes thrown into the local river.

549
00:51:20,960 --> 00:51:24,760
Meanwhile, Wycliffe's followers could not be silenced.

550
00:51:24,800 --> 00:51:30,880
In 1395, they nailed a stinging attack on the Church to the door of Westminster Hall.

551
00:51:35,480 --> 00:51:41,080
We, poor men, demand the reformation of the Holy Church of England,

552
00:51:41,120 --> 00:51:44,960
which has been blind and leprous many years,

553
00:51:45,000 --> 00:51:48,720
and a great burden to people here in England.

554
00:51:51,640 --> 00:51:56,280
Reformation was not a word the medieval Church wanted to hear.

555
00:51:57,800 --> 00:52:01,640
Many of Wycliffe's followers were rounded up and interrogated.

556
00:52:01,680 --> 00:52:05,400
Some, it is said, were locked up in Lambeth Palace itself.

557
00:52:16,000 --> 00:52:21,000
The traditional name of this place is Lollard's Tower.

558
00:52:31,360 --> 00:52:33,920
It's a rather grim and frightening place.

559
00:52:35,680 --> 00:52:39,040
You can still see the rings on the walls

560
00:52:40,000 --> 00:52:42,200
where the prisoners were manacled.

561
00:52:45,920 --> 00:52:47,840
It's a rather frightening reminder

562
00:52:47,880 --> 00:52:51,720
of the dangers of being a heretic in medieval England.

563
00:53:02,280 --> 00:53:05,840
In 1401, a Lollard preacher was burned at the stake.

564
00:53:09,200 --> 00:53:13,880
He was the first of many to be burned for their beliefs in medieval England.

565
00:53:30,760 --> 00:53:35,280
Across Europe, the Church aimed to root out all opposition.

566
00:53:40,400 --> 00:53:43,360
Men and women were dragged before religious courts.

567
00:53:45,760 --> 00:53:48,760
All heresy was to be crushed.

568
00:53:52,320 --> 00:53:55,040
Thousands were killed in the name of God.

569
00:54:01,560 --> 00:54:04,400
For growing numbers of people,

570
00:54:04,440 --> 00:54:08,000
the Church's brutal intransigence became intolerable.

571
00:54:17,200 --> 00:54:20,800
100 years after the Lollards attacked the idea of prayer for the dead,

572
00:54:20,840 --> 00:54:26,600
pilgrimage, the wealth and power of the bishops, and what they called the "feigned miracle of the mass",

573
00:54:26,640 --> 00:54:30,480
another assault was launched aimed at the heart of the medieval Church.

574
00:54:30,520 --> 00:54:34,200
And this time what followed was a full scale war of ideas,

575
00:54:34,240 --> 00:54:37,280
that marked the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.

576
00:54:37,320 --> 00:54:41,560
The medieval Church was about to face its own day of judgment.

577
00:54:49,000 --> 00:54:53,200
The religious landscape of Britain would never be the same again.

578
00:54:56,640 --> 00:54:59,040
The fear of Armageddon.

579
00:55:06,600 --> 00:55:09,120
The fascination with the supernatural.

580
00:55:13,960 --> 00:55:16,400
The cult of the saints.

581
00:55:24,960 --> 00:55:27,160
The great journeys of pilgrimage...

582
00:55:27,200 --> 00:55:31,040
destined to become relics of the medieval age.

583
00:56:26,760 --> 00:56:28,760
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