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Meet the reluctant US president who accidentally changed American political norms forever
In an era when candidates were expected to remain silent, detached and above the chase for votes, James Garfield’s improvised presidential campaign in the late 19th century transformed the race for the highest office in the USA
When James A Garfield reluctantly accepted the Republican nomination for president in June 1880, he stepped into a fraught political culture that was governed by strict codes of restraint. Put simply, in the late 19th century, a presidential candidate wasn’t meant to appear eager for the job. Publicly courting votes was distasteful, demeaning, and incompatible with the dignity of the office. As biographer CW Goodyear puts it, speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast, the prevailing view was that “if you are interested in the job, it’s not for you.” The job of actively campaigning was delegated to party operatives, loyal newspapers and travelling surrogates. The candidate was supposed to stay out of public view while conveying lofty neutrality. On one level, that was a culture that suited Garfield. He was a man who, to all appearances, never intended to become the Republican party’s presidential nominee, let alone the actual president. So how did he – who was both dignified and reluctant – end up being the man who dismantled such norms of dignified reluctance? It feels like an irony, and yet, as Goodyear explains, Garfield’s election campaign of 1880 did indeed mark a turning point that upended the long-standing taboo against candidates speaking directly to voters. It changed campaign culture forever. American presidential ideals in the 19th century “It was seen as being desperate and pathetic for a presidential candidate to go rally voters. That was seen as being beneath the office,” explains Goodyear, setting out the attitudes that prevailed as the 1880 presidential election loomed. But where had that notion come from? Read more | The 5 most notorious presidents in US history The expectation that candidates should remain silent was rooted in early republican ideals inherited from the late 18th century, when the American colonies had won their independence from Britain and forged the United States of America. The Founding Fathers had worried that unrestrained electioneering might debase public life and turn politics into petty spectacle. As the USA expanded, the principle endured: it was parties that mobilised voters, while candidates remained above the fray. It was this culture that Garfield – a former Union general, lawyer, minister and congressman – was suddenly forced into. In a divided Republican party, he was a compromise nominee who ostensibly hadn’t sought, or expected, the nomination. Upon being nominated at the 1880 Republican National Convention, he returned immediately to his “bucolic home life at his farm” in Mentor, Ohio, where he lived with his wife Lucretia Garfield and their children, to observe those rules of sober political propriety. How Garfield’s farm became an unexpected political stage Garfield was looking to “flee” from the public eye by returning home, says Goodyear. Instead, his farm became the focus of national attention. Spurred on by new railway expansion and mass political participation, voters saw a rare opportunity to meet a potential president face-to-face. Goodyear describes how it was an opportunity for marginalised groups in particular, with “legions of black voters, wannabe women voters – who didn’t have the right to vote yet – and industrial groups” soon turning up at Garfield’s door, looking to catch a glimpse of this prospective leader. Read more | Abraham Lincoln: the greatest US president? This placed Garfield in an awkward position. Addressing them risked violating the taboo against campaigning directly to voters. But refusing to greet visitors would appear cold and inhospitable. Clearly that wouldn’t do. Backed into a corner, Garfield chose courtesy. He fed his visitors and spoke with them. And, in doing so, inadvertently invented a new kind of political campaign. A revolutionary presidential campaign The “front porch campaign”, as it later became known, evolved almost organically. “Garfield goes out onto his front porch, and he gives all these impromptu speeches to these visitors,” says Goodyear. These were informal and conversational, in sharp contrast to the scripted, lofty communication that previously defined presidential races. For many Americans, this was the first time they had heard a presidential candidate address national issues directly. Newspapers reprinted his remarks, and political operatives recognised that Garfield had found a way to engage voters without appearing to pursue them. “It was seen as being very revolutionary, and it was not uncontroversial,” says Goodyear. Read more | Life after the White House: what the US presidents did next “But Garfield was able to get around this by insisting that, ‘I'm not going out to talk to these people. I'm not asking them to vote for me. They are knocking on my front door. What am I to do? Just shut the door and put guards out and get the people to get away from me?’” The political establishment was divided. Senior Republicans debated how much visibility Garfield could risk without undermining the decorum of the office. Democrat-backing newspapers accused him of encouraging spectacle. Summing up the reaction of Garfield’s own party, Goodyear explains how one senior Republican, Senator James Blaine, who went on to be Garfield's Secretary of State, would later write and say: “Until this point in history, to have a presidential candidate comment on current events and issues, and his own opinions on them, was seen as being demeaning, and beneath the office.” Without intending to, Garfield had just changed that norm. And with that change, the expectations of presidential campaigning had shifted too. Boston Tea Party: Igniting a Revolution Member exclusive | Discover the causes, tensions, and violent origins of the Boston Tea Party. Join leading experts as they explain the key players involved in the plan – and why tea was so important to the story. Listen to all episodes now Why Garfield’s approach succeeded Garfield’s personal qualities made the experiment work. A trained orator and former college professor, he could speak fluently and without notes, adjusting his tone to suit his shifting audience of farmers, industrial workers, veterans and reform groups. And crucially, because he never left Mentor, he could credibly claim he was not campaigning in the traditional sense. In the end, it helped Garfield win the presidency, alongside his nominee for vice-president, Chester Arthur. Garfield’s presidency was brief; he served only a few months before being shot by the deluded assassin Charles Guiteau. The president died from infection in September 1881. Read more | 6 shocking presidential scandals that rocked the White House But his unintentional ‘front porch’ campaign format became an accepted political strategy. In 1896, Republican nominee William McKinley would perfect it, orchestrating a highly choreographed version from his own home in Canton, Ohio. Through the early 20th century, the distance between presidential candidates and voters continued to shrink. Train tours, national speaking circuits, radio broadcasts, and television debates all built on the same principle: that presidential hopefuls should directly persuade and speak to the electorate. In doing so, the presidential role has gradually evolved and has since been expected to be a more partisan figure than the Founding Fathers had envisioned. Ultimately, Garfield’s campaign wasn’t just the “first front porch campaign in American history,” says Goodyear. It was “one of the first active presidential campaigns in US history.” CW Goodyear was speaking to Elinor Evans on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.
Did the ancient Romans wear underwear? The truth is surprisingly complicated
A seemingly simple question opens up difficult debates about ancient Roman beauty ideals and social hierarchy, and reveals how differently the Romans thought about their bodies
At first glance, it seems like a question with an obvious answer. Surely the Romans, famed for the complexity of their social culture, engineering prowess, elaborate fashions and careful etiquette, must have worn underwear? It’s hard to imagine that members of the civilisation that built aqueducts and amphitheatres wandered along their famously straight roads without anything beneath their tunics. Yet as professor Ursula Rothe explains on the HistoryExtra podcast, the reality of Roman underwear is very ambiguous, and exceptionally tricky to pin down. “This is quite a controversial topic,” she says. The debate begins with what the people of the Roman empire wore (or didn’t), but morphs into more complex questions about how they viewed the body, beauty, modesty and status. Roman writers left detailed descriptions of clothing, hairstyles, jewellery and elite fashion, but almost nothing about underwear. “On the whole it’s not really something Romans talk about,” Rothe notes. “It’s not something that is depicted.” Most organic Roman textiles have vanished from the archaeological record, not being something that preserves over two millennia. The few surviving garments and images that have survived are often inconclusive. This scarcity of evidence has led to competing interpretations of Roman underwear. But what’s the answer? As Rothe explains, looking at the clues reveals as much about Roman values, as it does about Roman clothing – or lack thereof. Roman Britain | A short course from HistoryExtra Academy Member exclusive | In this four-week course, discover everything you need to know about Roman Britain, guided by Rob Collins, professor of frontier archaeology at Newcastle University. Explore the course now Roman fashion and the purpose of the strophium There is one thing we can say with relative certainty about underwear: there was something like a bra. “We do know that women wore a band around their bust called a strophium,” Rothe says. This was a simple cloth band that functioned as a form of support, like a modern bra. And it’s a garment that speaks volumes about Roman beauty ideals. “It was considered a beauty ideal to have a very small bust in the Roman world. A big bust was considered a bit coarse and barbaric,” Rothe explains. A fuller chest was associated with lower status, partly because elite women typically didn’t breastfeed their own children; enslaved wet nurses did. Read more | If ancient Romans didn't understand calories, how was their theory of nutrition so accurate? “If you had a big bust, then you looked like you were breastfeeding your own children,” says Rothe, and therefore a tightly wrapped strophium signalled refinement and social rank. Rather than functioning just as underwear, the strophium was part of a broader system of visual cues that signalled a person’s place in the social order. The ‘bikini girls’ of Sicily Images of Roman women wearing what look like two-piece outfits appear to offer clear evidence of underwear. Most famous are perhaps the “bikini girl” mosaics at the Villa Romana del Casale in Sicily, the scenes of which depict young women wearing bandeau tops and brief-like bottoms while playing sports. But Rothe urges caution when drawing conclusions from the mosaics. These are late antique mosaics belonging to a specific decorative tradition, centuries removed from the early imperial period that we most often associate with the Roman empire. Read more | Everything you wanted to know about the Roman emperors “They look like they're wearing briefs and this breast band,” Rothe says, “but we don't know whether they were normal underwear, or whether they were used by women for exercising when they had taken everything else off.” These outfits may have been worn only in contexts where clothing was deliberately reduced for strenuous physical activity. Roman men, loincloths and the problem of interpretation Evidence for male undergarments is harder to find a sign of, but not impossible. “We know that men had loincloths,” Rothe says, based on images of labourers, athletes and enslaved workers. These garments appear in scenes where men have removed outer layers in the heat. But did men routinely wear these beneath their tunics? Or was it just in these instances? Sources are ambiguous. Rothe explains that some Roman literature describes men falling over and accidentally exposing themselves, something that implies the absence of underwear. But it’s not solid evidence, and it’s certainly not conclusive. What is clear is that Roman clothing habits varied widely across regions, centuries and social groups. Soldiers, labourers, enslaved people and elites did not dress in the same ways, and expectations differed between urban and rural environments. Why the Romans barely discussed underwear So why, when we know so much about ancient Roman culture, is this specific topic still so ambiguous? The answer lies in the fundamental differences between Roman and modern ideas of modesty and the body. Read more | You've been getting Roman togas wrong your whole life - here's why Roman society was one of communal bathing, open latrines, shared sleeping arrangements and household hierarchies, in which enslaved people routinely saw their masters undressed. Privacy wasn’t concerned with concealing the body. As such, underwear simply might not have been as important to the Romans as it is to many cultures today. Elite women likely wore the strophium. Men and women working or exercising wore loincloths or brief-like garments. But what about the broader public? Was the average person on an average day wearing underwear? Rothe’s conclusion on the debate is one of caveats: “It's a fraught question,” she says. “It’s not entirely clear. We don't know, and I think that debate will continue to rage.” Some individuals may have worn underlayers beneath tunics; many probably didn’t. The deeper lesson is that the question of underwear exposes a cultural gap. Roman underwear, as a marker of modesty or personal privacy, simply didn’t hold the meaning it does today. Ursula Rothe was speaking to Emily Briffett on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.
Meet the shadowy assassins who were seconds from taking out Saladin – and upending the Crusades
Two near-fatal attacks on Saladin by the Nizari Ismailis reveal a Middle Eastern landscape far more complex than the usual Crusader-versus-Muslim narrative – and show how close the Crusades came to taking a very different path
When Saladin sat down to supper in the spring of 1175, he was already one of the most significant figures in the Islamic world. The former commander of the Fatimid armies in Egypt had, within a decade, dismantled the Shi’a caliphate there, restored Sunni rule, and begun extending his authority across Syria. He was building the first unified Sunni power in the region since the Seljuk empire, and it was set to transform the balance of power in the Crusades. That evening, encamped outside Aleppo in Syria during a campaign against a regional Sunni rival, Saladin’s camp was busy with the hum of military life. It seemed an unlikely moment for immediate peril. But amid all the bustling activity, a small group of strangers, disguised as common merchants, slipped inside Saladin’s tent. Moments later, as medieval historian Dr Steve Tibble recounts on the HistoryExtra podcast, “all hell [broke] loose, and they [went] straight for Saladin.” These were deadly members of the Nizari Ismailis. A group who would later be labelled as ‘the Assassins’ in Western chronicles, the Nizari Ismailis were a small, embattled Shi’a sect who, says Tibble, “took the art of political murder to a new level of sophistication”. But why had Saladin become a target? And what might have happened if they had succeeded? Why the Assassins saw Saladin as an existential threat By the 12th century, the Middle East was a patchwork of competing powers. Two Islamic powers, the Sunni and Shi’a, battled among themselves while Crusader states took and held key territories along the Levantine coast. The Nizari Ismailis were a minority Shi’a community centred in remote mountain fortresses in Persia and Syria. And they had their own desires. Their strategy, Tibble explains, stemmed from necessity. “From their perspective, they were a tiny group fighting for their survival in the only way that they could.” Surrounded by larger Sunni powers and despised by many for their beliefs, they honed assassination as a tool that allowed them to strike out at rulers who threatened them. Without great armies or territory, they used small teams of elite devotees (known as the fida’is) who were willing to die in their missions – it was a canny way to wield power. On the podcast | Jonathan Phillips details the astronomic rise of Saladin Saladin’s meteoric rise posed exactly the kind of danger that they were concerned about. By the early 1170s he controlled Egypt, held Damascus, and sought to bring northern Syria under his authority. More importantly, as Tibble notes, he held opposing religious beliefs. “He’s a Sunni Muslim, standing up for Sunni Islam.” It was his push to unite the region under Sunni leadership (an objective would go on to prove decisive in the story of the Crusades) that directly endangered the Assassins. Their response was to act before they were surrounded. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/12/GettyImages-2226537421-8634304-e1765893956786.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="This 15th-century illustration shows Saladin holding a scimitar, the weapon emblematic of medieval Islamic warfare. Founder of the Ayyubid dynasty and ruler of both Egypt and Syria, Saladin emerged as the leading Muslim figure of the Third Crusade, renowned for his military skill and chivalry in the struggle against the Crusader states." title="Illustration Of Saladin" /> 1175: the first attempt on Saladin’s life The first major attempt on Saladin’s life came during his 1175 campaign near Aleppo. “These 13 fida’is, ostensibly unarmed, just wandered into the camp and made for Saladin’s tent,” Tibble says. At the last moment, one of Saladin’s men recognised them for who they really were. But it wasn’t quick enough to prevent the chaos. The attackers cut down guards and senior emirs [military commanders] before reaching Saladin himself. Crucially, they “drew blood.” Saladin survived only because he was wearing armour beneath his robes: “head to toe, very good quality armour,” Tibble describes. His habit of remaining armoured even while eating showed his awareness of the threat the Assassins posed. Read more | Your ultimate guide to the First Crusade All thirteen fida’is died. Saladin survived. But it proved the Assassins could reach the most powerful man in the Islamic world. 1176: the second attempt A year later, at the siege of Azaz (also in Syria), they tried again. This time, a smaller group of three or four fida’is penetrated the camp and went straight for Saladin. Accounting for his armour, Tibble describes how they adapted their tactics, aiming for the unprotected parts of Saladin’s body. Again, they wounded him. He narrowly survived but, Tibble notes, “It was very close.” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/12/GettyImages-1435557517-e8b4c80-e1765894166908.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="This 14th-century illustration depicts Saladin’s siege of Jerusalem in 1187, a decisive moment of the Crusades. The scene recalls the Muslim recapture of the holy city after nearly a century of Crusader rule." title="The Siege Of Jerusalem By Saladin" /> Saladin’s revenge against the Assassins For Saladin, these back-to-back assaults were a turning point. “Saladin was scared by this. He was worried about his family, and he was worried about himself,” says Tibble. He was shaken. And he resolved to take revenge. Saladin mobilised his full army and marched on the Assassins’ Syrian strongholds. His aim was to crush them before they could strike again. But even with the full weight of his military power, Saladin couldn’t force a decisive victory. The Nizari castles were perched in near-impregnable mountain terrain, but the Assassins, overwhelmed by the scale of the force approaching them, were unable to defend themselves in open battle. The result was a tense stalemate. “Then it got really weird,” says Tibble. “It seems as though they started going into negotiations.” Read more | Why does Saladin have such an enduring reputation? Despite the resentment between the two forces, the negotiations were a pragmatic way forward. They concluded with the withdrawal of Saladin’s forces. While the precise details remain obscure, Tibble speculates that Saladin might have agreed to leave the Assassins in peace, in exchange for a moratorium on attacks on him and his allies. When Saladin later negotiated a truce with the Crusaders, Tibble notes, he even insisted that the Assassins be included in its terms. The First Crusade Member exclusive | Walk in the footsteps of the first crusaders, witnessing the hardships they faced, meeting the people they came across and seeing the landscapes they traversed through their eyes. Listen to all episodes now What was at stake? The Crusades without Saladin Had either of the assassination attempts on Saladin succeeded, the Crusades might have taken a dramatically different course. Saladin’s authority and power as a leader of the Islamic forces against the Crusader states was unique. His victory at Hattin in 1187 and subsequent capture of Jerusalem reshaped the entire crusading movement, prompting the Third Crusade and the campaigns of Richard the Lionheart. Without him, the Sunni world might have remained divided. Rival rulers could have checked each other rather than confronting the Crusader states. The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem may have endured longer. The political map of the Middle East might have fractured, rather than coalesced. Read more | 50 assassinations that changed the world The Assassins understood that removing Saladin could transform the region in complex ways – ones that might be in their favour. But it never happened. After the peace agreement, a tense stalemate settled between Saladin and the Assassins. Neither side trusted the other, but there was nothing to be gained by renewing hostilities: the Assassins would once again be besieged, while Saladin and those around him would again have their lives under threat. It was a peace that lasted until both Saladin and Sinan, the Assassins’ leader, died in the 1190s. With his death, Saladin’s empire fractured, giving the Crusader states a reprieve that set the stage for future waves of assault. And the violence continued. Dr Steve Tibble was speaking to Emily Briffett on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.
The Bayeux Tapestry is beautiful, but what was its purpose? New research might have the answer
A new theory proposes that the Bayeux Tapestry was designed to deliver moral messages to medieval monks over dinner
The Bayeux Tapestry is one of the most astonishing artefacts to survive from medieval Europe. It tells the story of the end of Anglo-Saxon rule at the hands of Duke William of Normandy, whose victory in 1066 ushered in the Norman Conquest – one of the most significant turning points in British history. But beyond recounting the rise of Norman supremacy, what was the Bayeux Tapestry really for? Was it only an extraordinary work of propaganda, designed as a display of righteous power? Or was it intended to have a more specific and purposeful role? The answer to that latter question is: yes, according to historian Professor Benjamin Pohl of the University of Bristol. He argues that the Bayeux Tapestry was created to be a moral aid viewed by medieval monks while they silently ate their meals in a communal refectory. What was the Bayeux Tapestry for? Professor Pohl explains his argument in a new article 'Chewing over the Norman Conquest: the Bayeux Tapestry as monastic mealtime reading', in which he makes the case that the embroidery was designed specifically to be hung in the monastic dining hall of St Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury, where it would have accompanied spoken readings and prompted moral reflection. Following the rule of St Benedict, which governed monastic life across much of medieval Europe, medieval monks were expected to maintain complete silence while eating, aside from the voice of the reader delivering the day’s text. These readings delivered moral instruction to the diners, in a setting where any visual imagery would have reinforced spoken words and offered a focus for contemplation. A tapestry made for monks The Bayeux Tapestry famously depicts the events leading up to the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 through a series of cartoon-style embroidered scenes, accompanied by short Latin captions. Most scholars agree that the embroidery was probably made in, or near, Canterbury in the 11th century. That conclusion rests on similarities in its style and content with illuminated manuscripts that are known to have been held in Canterbury’s monastic libraries at the time. Read more | What one Oxford professor found when he studied the rudest bits of the Bayeux Tapestry But Pohl contends that the Tapestry was not only made in Canterbury, but for Canterbury. He argues that it could have been designed to be hung around the walls of the monastic refectory of St Augustine’s Abbey on particular feast days, where it would have illustrated the moral themes of the day’s reading for the monks. He theorises that the embroidery would have been exhibited at head-height around their dining room, and that therefore it would have been “perfectly discernible from the seated position assumed by the monks and their guests during mealtimes in the refectory”. This followed “the long, pan-European tradition of using illustrated narratives in the form of wall paintings and – of particular interest here – textile hangings in monastic refectories”. Triumph and propaganda, or a moral warning? At first glance, the Bayeux Tapestry does not appear to be an ideal vehicle for moral instruction. On a basic level, it is a historical narrative that shows the events leading up to the Norman Conquest. In that, it appears to follow a broadly pro-Norman view of events, where the English King Harold makes, and then breaks, an oath to support Duke William of Normandy’s claim to the crown of England. This seeming act of perjury provides the context for William to muster his invasion fleet and then defeat Harold on the field of Hastings. Read in this way, the embroidery can appear to be a triumphalist account of conquest, leading some scholars to suggest that it was created for display in the great hall of a Norman castle, where warriors might reflect on their success. 1066: The battle for England Member exclusive | The year 1066 is the most famous in English history, but there's a lot more to the story than one bloody battle at Hastings. In this four-part series, medievalist Marc Morris talks David Musgrove through the full story of the Norman Conquest. Watch all episodes now However, other historians have suggested that the embroidery is more complex than this. Rather than being a celebration of conquest, it might alternatively offer a commentary on the worldly sins – namely the overambition and moral failure – of the people involved in the story. The borders of the embroidery contain scenes that draw on Aesop’s Fables, a body of stories widely used in medieval education to convey ethical lessons. Such imagery lends weight to the idea that the embroidery carried an underlying moralising message, one that would have been particularly suited to a monastic setting, where the rejection of worldly concerns was central to religious life. Professor Pohl contends that the ideal place for such moral messages to be delivered would have been in silent contemplation over dinner. Though the fabric of the refectory of St Augustine’s does not survive, documentary and archaeological evidence suggests that it was a substantial building, large enough to accommodate the full length of the Tapestry around its walls. Read more | How Tostig Godwinson’s brotherly betrayal hastened the fall of the Anglo-Saxons With the tapestry as an illustrative background, the mealtime reader would have talked about a moral theme while the monks ate and looked at the image in question. They would have been aided in this by the very basic Latin captions in the Tapestry, which would have been suitable for an audience of monks who did not all have deep Latin knowledge. Pohl points out that the way that the embroidery is split up into individual narrative scenes would also have allowed for a series of discrete, but interconnected, moral lessons to be taught to the munching monks. “Each episode is a tale of both good and evil, victory and defeat, damnation and redemption”, he says. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/12/GettyImages-51240889-c0967d0-e1765815066405.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="This section of the Bayeux Tapestry shows the Norman army crossing the Channel in 1066, followed by the preparation of food after landing in England. The detail underscores the logistical organisation behind William of Normandy’s invasion." title="Norman Invaders on Tapestry" /> Was the Bayeux Tapestry forgotten? He agrees with the view that Abbot Scolland, who led St Augustine’s Abbey in the years following the Conquest, was a driving force in the creation of the Tapestry (perhaps working with, or for, Bishop Odo of Bayeux, the half-brother of William the Conqueror). He notes that Scolland also instigated the post-conquest building programme that included the construction of a new refectory building for the monks. Read more | Has history’s most famous comet been misnamed for centuries? “The answer is clear,” say historians Pohl suggests that Scolland commissioned the embroidery specifically for display in the new refectory that he designed. However, Scolland died in 1087, long before it was eventually constructed. Pohl further argues that the Tapestry may never have actually been shown as planned because by the time the dining hall was finally built, Scolland had been dead for half a century and the Tapestry may never have been displayed as intended. If the Bayeux Tapestry was made, and then stored and never displayed, this could help to explain its remarkably good state of preservation. It also raises the question of how the Tapestry eventually came to be in Bayeux. By the end of the 15th century, it appears in the inventory of Bayeux Cathedral. Pohl suggests that it may have remained in storage in Canterbury, and stayed broadly forgotten, until the 1420s, when it could have been offered as collateral to settle a monastic debt. From there, it may have passed into the hands of the Duke of Burgundy before ultimately making its way to Bayeux, where it survives today.
Henry VIII wanted a giant Tudor tomb. So why didn’t he get it?
Henry VIII planned a monumental tomb to match his power and legacy. Instead, the king who reshaped England’s relationship with Rome now lies beneath a small, easily missed slab. Here’s how three Tudor monarchs, and a civil war, erased his grand design
It would be entirely possible to visit St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle and glance over the modest stone slab marking the grave of Henry VIII without noticing it. Its setting might be grand, but the marker itself is startlingly small: which is striking, given that it denotes the resting place of a titanic monarch who dominated the first half of the 16th century of English history with his palaces, pageantry and sweeping religious reforms. How exactly did a king famed for grandeur and excess end up with one of the least conspicuous graves of any English ruler? As historian Kate Williams explains, the anonymity was never Henry’s intention. “Henry VIII wanted a giant tomb in St George's Chapel,” she says, on an episode of her HistoryExtra Academy course. “But he made a big mistake.” It was that mistake that would ultimately ruin his ambitious vision and leave him with the humble gravestone. Henry VIII’s vast funerary vision Henry VIII’s planned tomb was intended to be a memorial that also served as a message. Late medieval and early Tudor monarchs used their tombs to assert legitimacy, commemorate dynastic claims and broadcast their religious identity. Henry VII’s chapel at Westminster, completed in gilded splendour, set a new standard. Henry VIII planned to exceed it. “He wanted a huge tribute with a big bronze effigy of him,” says Williams, “surrounded by pillars and models of angels and saints. It was going to be inside a black marble chapel.” The king saw that as befitting the scale of his ambitions and achievements in life. A tomb on this scale would have functioned as his final statement of royal authority, suitable as the resting place of a monarch who made himself head of the English Church. But the mistake Henry made was that he didn’t complete it during his lifetime. Instead, he trusted his successors to see it through. An unfinished project inherited by unwilling heirs When Henry died in 1547, his tomb was incomplete and enormously expensive. It was a problem that his heirs had little appetite to solve. Edward VI, aged nine, ruled through Protestant councillors who were cutting costs and scaling back on religious symbols. The Catholic-inspired elements of Henry’s design were at odds with the new regime. “Edward VI didn’t continue with the plans for the tomb,” Williams says. “[Edward’s successor] Mary I didn't either.” Mary’s decision was down to more personal reasons. Henry had annulled his marriage to her mother, Catherine of Aragon; their estrangement shaped Mary’s childhood. Honouring her father with a lavish monument held little emotional appeal. Read more | Henry VIII’s six wives: your guide to the Tudor king's queen consorts Then there was the final, and longest-serving Tudor monarch, Elizabeth I. She inherited a financially stretched kingdom. “She took a look into the plans for the tomb and decided against it,” says Williams. The cost was enormous. The political value was negligible. Across a generation, the project moved further from relevance. What Henry imagined as a dynastic centrepiece morphed into a burdensome relic of a former monarch whom no successor wished to resurrect. The Civil War destruction of Henry VIII’s incomplete tomb But that still left the unfinished elements. What happened to these partially completed parts of Henry’s tomb? During the Civil War, royal monuments across England were dismantled as symbols of Stuart kingship and Catholic “idolatry”. Henry’s incomplete bronze effigy (which had never been installed) was seized. “Oliver Cromwell's soldiers melted it down,” Williams says. The destruction reflected widespread Parliamentarian iconoclasm targeting royal and religious imagery with equal fervour. Other elements of the tomb took unexpected journeys. The elaborate sarcophagus originally crafted for Cardinal Wolsey, later claimed by Henry for his own tomb, was eventually repurposed. Today, it stands in the central crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral, protecting the remains of Admiral Horatio Nelson, Britain’s most celebrated naval commander. It's questionable whether any royal monuments have had stranger afterlives. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/12/GettyImages-55920299-560015d-e1765544375718.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Admiral Nelson’s tomb in the crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral is seen here after restoration in 2005. The black marble sarcophagus was originally commissioned in the 16th century for Cardinal Wolsey — and later intended by Henry VIII for his own burial — before being repurposed to honour Britain’s naval hero following his death at Trafalgar in 1805." title="Restoration Of Nelsons Tomb At St Pauls Cathedral" /> Windsor Castle’s modest marker For generations after Henry’s death, his burial remained effectively unmarked. Only in the 1830s did William IV introduce the simple ledger stone seen today. “William IV thought: ‘maybe we should commemorate the fact that Henry VIII is lying there,’ and he made that slab,” Williams says. But even in William IV’s age of revived Gothic splendour, there was no desire to recreate Henry’s original design. “There was no way he was putting in the black marble and the angels and all the rest of it.” Henry VIII imagined a monumental afterlife. Instead, the king who reshaped England’s political and cultural milieu lies beneath a marker smaller than those of many of his courtiers. The reasons speak to the politics of the Tudor succession, the emotional rifts within the royal family, shifting religious priorities and the disruptive violence of the Civil War. No heir shared Henry’s appetite (or financial capacity) for self-commemoration. By the time a monarch did finally choose to mark his grave, the opportunity for grandeur had long passed. “Henry VIII thought that everyone loved him,” says Williams. “It wasn't quite the case.” Kate Williams was speaking on her HistoryExtra Academy series, Royal residences: secrets and scandals. All episodes are available now ad-free on the HistoryExtra app. Start watching today.
Did Aztec civilisation really ‘collapse’? The reality isn’t as simple as you might think
The Spanish conquest might have toppled the Aztec imperial state with startling speed, but unpicking precisely what ‘collapse’ really means reveals a far more complicated story
At a glance, the fall of the Aztec empire in the early 16th century seems like one of history’s clearest before-and-after moments: a powerful empire crushed almost instantly by a handful of Spanish conquistadors. But that picture, vivid as it is, has long obscured the more complicated reality of what was destroyed, and what endured. Speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast, historian Caroline Dodds Pennock and scholar of civilisational collapse Luke Kemp examine why the Aztec imperial system fell so quickly, why ‘collapse’ is a loaded term, and what lessons it leaves behind. The destruction of Aztec knowledge One of the biggest obstacles to retrospectively understanding Aztec society is that we lack writing from the period, explains Dodds Pennock. Most Aztec records were deliberately destroyed almost immediately after the conquest that began in 1519. Pennock stresses the scale of that loss. After taking Tenochtitlán, Spanish authorities oversaw the burning of vast quantities of Aztec pictorial texts and administrative documents, instigating “a huge destruction of this vast pictographic culture,” that included the loss of “incredible legal records, religious records, political records.” The devastation, she notes, has been likened to “the conflagration of the Library of Alexandria.” Read more | Cortés and Montezuma: the conquering of Tenochtitlán What survives, both in terms of written sources and archaeological material, reveals a sophisticated society, but one viewed largely through Spanish lenses. Acknowledging that bias, suggests Pennock, and looking beyond it, can reveal the immense sophistication of the Aztec empire before its fall. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/12/GettyImages-51241466-22bf3b1-e1765453906433.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Spanish conquistadors destroying Aztec idols in the aftermath of the conquest. Such acts formed part of a wider campaign to suppress Indigenous religion and assert Christian authority, reshaping the spiritual and cultural landscape of central Mexico in the early colonial period." title="Destroying Idols" /> What the Aztec empire looked like in 1519 Far from a civilisation teetering on the edge of collapse, at the moment of Spanish arrival, the Aztec state was expansive, wealthy and tightly organised. Pennock describes an empire that “stretched across about 80,000 square miles … ruling over 5 to 6 million peoples in over 500 allied and subject cities.” At its heart stood Tenochtitlán (in modern-day Mexico), an island city of perhaps 200,000 inhabitants – larger, in fact, than many contemporary European capitals. Elevated roads and aqueducts linked it to the mainland. Vast markets drew traders from across swathes of Mesoamerica, while ritual and political life revolved around a monumental sacred precinct. Read more | Two worlds collide: Spanish conquistadors and Aztecs The city was a centre of poetry, philosophy and art, and a hub of what Pennock describes as, “relative gender egalitarianism, compared to most societies of that period.” In 1519, the same year that the Spanish arrived, the Aztec empire had its challenges, namely internal tensions and external political rivalries. But it didn’t look like a society on a precipice. It was complex, functioning, expansionist and confident. Why did such a powerful empire fall so quickly? The Spanish conquest, from first contact with the conquistadores in 1519 to the fall of Tenochtitlán in 1521, was extraordinarily rapid. Pennock calls it “one of the fastest collapses of an enormous empire that exists in history.” The speed of the Spanish advance was the result of several converging pressures. The most devastating was disease. Smallpox reached central Mexico early in the conquest, spreading far ahead of Spanish armies. With no previous exposure, communities suffered catastrophic losses. Entire households died within days, leaders were struck down, and the resulting instability weakened political and military resistance at a critical juncture. At the same time, long-standing resentments within the empire proved decisive. Dozens of subject and rival city-states chose to ally with the newcomers, calculating that Spanish support offered a route to independence from Tenochtitlán's tribute demands. These alliances provided the Spanish with tens of thousands of indigenous soldiers, without whom the conquest would have been impossible. Read more | Two worlds collide: Spanish conquistadors and Aztecs The Aztec leadership also misjudged the nature of the threat. Early encounters were shaped by diplomatic norms and forms of warfare that were very different from those practiced by Europeans. Misinterpretations in these crucial first months helped amplify the danger the empire faced, giving the Spanish and their allies further advantages. And, within just two years, the mighty Aztec empire had crumbled. Yet even after accounting for disease, alliances and miscalculations, the story of the Aztec ‘collapse’ isn’t quite complete, says Pennock. What happened after 1521 raises a much more difficult question that Pennock argues is essential to understanding both the Aztecs and the broader study of how societies change. If an imperial system can fall apart so swiftly, what happens to the people it governed? And what does ‘collapse’ actually mean? <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/12/GettyImages-122319907-e3e49d7-e1765454216625.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="This colour illustration reconstructs the ceremonial heart of Tenochtitlan, with the twin pyramids of the Templo Mayor rising above the city. At its 15th-century height, the Aztec capital was a vast island metropolis of temples, marketplaces, and canals." title="Clouds over pyramids, Templo Mayor, Tenochtitlan, Mexico City, Mexico" /> Did the Aztec really collapse? The notion of collapse risks implying that, after 1521, the Aztec culture was made extinct. As Pennock notes, that’s not true. “A million people still speak the Aztec language of Nahuatl in Mexico today,” she says, emphasising that “much of their culture continues”. “Their society remains vibrant, even in the face of devastating disease, warfare, and enslavement.” The Aztec empire as a structure might have come to an end. But the survivors adapted and kept crucial elements of their culture alive. Read more | How many people did the Aztecs sacrifice? This distinction, between political collapse and cultural endurance, is central to how scholars interpret the end of complex societies. Luke Kemp, whose research surveys cases of collapse across world history, argues that failure rarely comes from a single cause. Fortunes, he explains, “can often turn very quickly, and very unforeseeably.” He says that most societies living through a decline “didn't foresee that they were going through a collapse”. “Many of the challenges faced by these past collapsed societies are reflected in our own. Things like competition, warfare, climate change, internal rebellion, inequality, poor leadership. These are all things that have happened throughout history and different societies have had different ways of dealing with these – for better and for worse.” Caroline Dodds Pennock and Luke Kemp were speaking to Matt Elton on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.
Ancient Roman culture would be baffling to modern eyes – and their toilet habits prove it
Ancient Roman ideas of privacy differed radically from our own, and their communal toilets reveal a mindset almost impossible for modern people to imagine
The right to privacy is a pillar of modern human rights. It’s a concept so deeply ingrained in our society that it can feel universal. We assume that certain spaces like our homes – especially their bedrooms and bathrooms – are inherently private while streets, workplaces and public buildings are for communal life. But these distinctions haven’t always existed. And in the culture of the ancient Roman world, the definition of privacy was entirely different. How, then, did the people across the Roman empire conceive of privacy if not through physical seclusion? Why were communal latrines the norm? And what does this reveal about Roman values? Speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast, Dr Hannah Platts explains how understanding those answers requires stepping into a cultural world where the individual was less important than the collective, and where privacy meant something very different from what it does today. What “public” and “private” meant to the Romans “It is really important not to conflate the urban realm of the city and the domestic realm of the house with our modern notions of urban as public and domestic as private,” she says. Today, closing a door marks out a sphere of personal privacy. In Rome, that wasn’t the case. Instead, Romans distinguished between the private and the public based on the activity itself, rather than the place where the activity was happening. Read more | If ancient Romans didn't understand calories, how was their theory of nutrition so accurate? Confused? You’re right to be. It’s a tricky distinction, but Platts thinks a lesson in Latin can help illuminate what’s going on. “The Latin word privatus translates as ‘of or belonging to an individual’, apart from the state or the community.” By contrast, publicus meant “belonging to the people, belonging to the state, belonging to the community.” So whether something was public or private depended on whether it affected the civic body, not where it happened. A legal consultation in someone’s atrium was public; a bodily function performed in a room full of strangers was private. “It’s not about a space being public or private. It’s about the act that goes on within a space.” Roman toilets as a private place Platts chooses a particularly confronting example to help illustrate the point. Excavations at towns such as Ostia and Pompeii reveal latrines made from long marble benches with regularly spaced holes, often set above flowing channels of water. “These multi-seater toilets could house 20 or so people at one time,” Platts notes. Read more | Female gladiators shocked the ancient Roman world — but not for the reason you think To a modern eye, these rooms: open, communal and without partitions, appear unmistakably public. But Roman logic meant the opposite. “Going to the toilet on a multi-seater toilet was totally a private act in Rome,” Platts says. That was because the act itself had no bearing on civic life: it did not affect the state, involve business, or concern other citizens. It was therefore considered private, even if dozens of people were seated shoulder to shoulder. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/12/GettyImages-170976487-a3bf4a4-e1765290185234.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="The remains of this 2nd-century AD latrine show the communal approach to Roman toilets. The site is in the Domus of the Triclinium at Ostia Antica served the guild of builders who worked in the bustling port of Rome." title="Ostia Antica. Latrine." /> The Roman house: a public venue in disguise So, if communal latrines were “private”, what was the home considered as? Platts points out that domestic space was often used for activities we would consider definitively public. “Community or state-related activities could, and very often did, take place in the house,” she says. Elite households, especially those of senators, magistrates and wealthy patrons, functioned as political workplaces. Clients would visit their patron’s home to request favours or offer support. Business deals, legal advice, and local administration took place under the same roof as where people slept and cooked. Read more | How did the Roman Republic function? The important thing was whether “what was being dealt with was of relevance to the state or the community,” Platts explains, which made those acts public regardless of setting. Why Roman privacy feels so alien Roman attitudes can feel alien because they reflect a fundamentally different set of social priorities. Public life – civic duty, political participation, and community belonging – were at the core of Roman identity. The individual was secondary to the collective, and personal space mattered far less than the function of an action. That mindset is reflected in Roman architecture too. Roman cities lacked the kind of specialised, closed-off facilities familiar today. Baths were communal, dining was often semi-public, and sleep could take place in rooms accessible to others. Toilets were another of these shared spaces in a culture where solitude was an infrequent consideration. In this way, the Roman multi-seater latrine is an important window into a cultural world structured by very different assumptions about the body, the state and social interaction. It also highlights just how radically notions of privacy have changed, and how distant the Roman worldview can seem. Hannah Platts was speaking to Emily Briffett on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation. Roman Britain | A short course from HistoryExtra Academy Member exclusive | In this four-week course, discover everything you need to know about Roman Britain, guided by Rob Collins, professor of frontier archaeology at Newcastle University. Explore the course now
Has history’s most famous comet been misnamed for centuries? “The answer is clear,” say historians
David Musgrove reports on new research that casts light on the appearance of the comet in the 11th century, and its depiction in the Bayeux Tapestry
Halley’s Comet was last seen from Earth in 1986 and is expected to return in 2061. It’s widely taken for granted that the Stuart astronomer Edmond Halley was the first to recognise its roughly 76-year cycle, an insight he formalised in 1705 and which ultimately gave the comet his name. However, new research by professors Michael Lewis of the British Museum and Simon Portegies Zwart of Leiden University says that attribution might be wrong. Their work suggests that credit may instead belong to an English medieval monk named Elmer. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/12/GettyImages-514079858-a25607f-e1764931346339.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Halley’s Comet streaks across the sky in this 1986 photograph taken from the Ford Observatory, marking its most recent visit to the inner solar system. Once feared as a portent of upheaval, the comet is now a predictable visitor whose returns chart centuries of astronomical discovery." title="Halley's Comet, 1986" /> Elmer the flying monk Elmer, also known as Aethelmaer, lived in Malmesbury, Wiltshire, and is best remembered for leaping off Malmesbury Abbey attached to some homemade wings, attempting human flight, at some point between 1000-1010. In the words of chronicler William of Malmesbury, Elmer “had by some contrivance fastened to his hands and feet in order that he might fly as Daedalus, and collecting the air, on the summit of a tower, had flown for a distance of a furlong”. As well as recording Elmer’s early exploits in aviation, William also noted that – perhaps unsurprisingly – the flight did not end well. The monk ended up crashing to the ground, breaking his legs and becoming lame as a consequence. Despite this disability, he lived a long life and was still around (albeit elderly) during the Norman Conquest in 1066. Notwithstanding his very rough landing in 1005, Elmer’s legacy as the flying monk was secured, and even now, Malmesbury boasts a Flying Monk Brewery. Arguably, however, Elmer’s achievements in astronomy were more worthy of celebration than his achievements in aviation. Halley’s Comet, or Elmer’s? According to William of Malmesbury, a young Elmer observed Halley’s Comet in the year 989 and considered it a bad omen. Then, 77 years later, Elmer again saw the 1066 comet. William reported that Elmer once more saw it as a portent of doom, crouching “in terror at the sight of the gleaming star”. Given that Elmer seems to have identified the celestial body twice and attributed the same doom-laden values to it, is there an argument to be made that it was the medieval monk, rather than Edmond Halley, who should be celebrated for recognising its cycle? Read more | Isaac Newton: life, discoveries, rivalries and the truth about the apple According to Lewis, an expert on the Bayeux Tapestry, and the astrophysicist Portegies Zwart, “the answer is clear: Elmer beat Halley to identifying Halley’s Comet twice, also recognising (in some way) it had a regular cycle”. In their view, he effectively identified the comet’s recurrence centuries before Halley’s calculation. Elmer, 1066, and the Bayeux Tapestry Indeed, many medieval history enthusiasts will be aware that the comet is famously shown in the Bayeux Tapestry, which documents the course of the Norman Conquest. The article by Lewis and Portegies Zwart (titled The Significance of Halley’s Comet in the Bayeux Tapestry, published in the edited collection Dorestad and Everything After: Ports, Townscapes & Travellers in Europe, 800–1100) argues that Halley’s Comet would not have been visible from England in 1066 before 24 April, and possibly not until 30 April. But in the Bayeux Tapestry, the comet appears above a scene showing crowds reacting to the coronation of King Harold, which occurred in January. The mismatch between astronomical reality and artistic depiction raises questions about why the comet was placed in that scene. So what explains the discrepancy? Comet propaganda? Harold’s rise to the throne followed the death of Edward the Confessor and came at a moment of political uncertainty. In Normandy, Duke William regarded Harold’s accession as a usurpation, as William claimed Harold had sworn to support his own claim to the throne. The Bayeux Tapestry includes a prominent depiction of Harold swearing an oath on holy relics in William’s presence, but it offers no explanation of its purpose, leaving the episode open to interpretation. Lewis and Portegies Zwart suggest that linking the comet with Harold’s coronation was an intentional choice, designed to draw the two events together “for political reasons with the benefit of hindsight”. Their view reflects a broader trend in 11th and 12th-century sources, which retrospectively cast the comet as a portent of disaster for Harold and as a sign woven into the unfolding succession crisis. The most contemporary accounts (the various versions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle) do not link the comet to the succession crisis. Instead, they associate it with the more immediate threat posed by Harold’s disaffected brother Tostig, who arrived shortly after the comet’s appearance with a fleet that raided England’s south coast. This occurred in the spring of 1066, several months before the Norman invasion. But, over time, the Norman interpretation prevailed. The comet became part of a retrospective narrative supporting William’s conquest and portraying Harold’s reign as doomed from the outset. Lewis and Portegies Zwart note that, had the outcome at Hastings been different, the same comet might instead have been remembered as an omen of the failure of William’s ambitions. Alas, for the Anglo-Saxons it was not to be… More from us HistoryExtra members can explore more medieval history with exclusive content from our archives Medieval manners and etiquette: dos and don’ts of the Middle Ages Medieval England's political miracle: how the 13th and 14th centuries laid the foundations for modern Britain How to go on a medieval pilgrimage Why there’s no such thing as a typical medieval peasant Not a HistoryExtra member? Explore our latest membership offers
Want to live like a Tudor? Historian Ruth Goodman did, and here are five crucial lessons she learned
What did everyday life look like for the millions of ordinary people living in Tudor England? Historian Ruth Goodman found out by living the way they did, uncovering a world that was hard, industrious – but also fulfilling
“Fridges are a bit overrated.” That’s one of the conclusions that Ruth Goodman came to after spending six months living the life of an ordinary Tudor. Living and working in a farmstead meticulously constructed to be Tudor-authentic, she immersed herself in the granular details of 16th-century Britain, eating Tudor food, sleeping in a Tudor bed, and doing Tudor work. It’s a stark contrast to the popular focus on the Tudor-era that’s often seen through the prism of palaces and politics. Landmark moments in history such as Henry VIII’s marital troubles, the Reformation, and Elizabeth I presiding over an age of exploration take the limelight. But these headline events have never been the sole focus of Goodman’s interests. Instead, she wanted to know about the ordinary people. “I'm not posh, I'm not rich, I'm not a bloke, and I'm not one of the elite,” she said. “Why would I be interested in them?” “I wanted to know about people like me in the past. I wanted to know about the ordinary details,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to try and get inside the skin of someone: to think those thoughts and to feel those feelings. “It's time travel, but it's also anthropology and self-exploration too.” But other than a disdain for fridges, what did Goodman really learn about ordinary Tudors and the rhythms of their lives? Goodman poured her knowledge and experience into a HistoryExtra Academy series on Tudor Life, and speaking about that series on the HistoryExtra podcast, she reflected on five key lessons learned. Lesson one: Tudor childhood was an apprenticeship for adulthood In 16th-century England, childhood was brief and productive. For most families, survival depended on the contributions of every member, and children entered the world of useful labour much earlier than we might expect. “Tudor children needed to know how to do things such as milk a cow, or grow a crop of beans, or make a piece of clothing,” Goodman explained. Formal schooling existed but was limited; literacy levels were slowly rising, but for most families, practical competence was what mattered most. Read more | The most common accidental way to die in Tudor England reveals surprising truths about daily life Daily life followed the agricultural calendar, and children had to play their part. “Kids generally were hauled in to do the ancillary jobs from quite young ages to learn by doing.” For a Tudor family, this served two functions. Firstly, having an extra pair of hands was a genuine help. But secondly, it meant that children would learn the skills that would make them competent and useful members of their community in adulthood. In small, tightly knit communities, the knowledge shared among households sustained entire villages. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/12/GettyImages-162500876-b757a32-e1764846147617.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="This 1563 illustration shows a Tudor family at prayer, reflecting the central role of religion in daily life during a time of intense religious change. Scenes like this capture the influence of the Reformation on both public worship and private devotion." title="Tudor Family At Prayer" /> Lesson two: Tudor work centred on the land The Tudor economy is sometimes imagined as a one of busy merchants, bustling inns, guild workshops and market towns. But in reality, England remained overwhelmingly rural. “Almost everybody was making a living off the land,” Goodman said. “Even people with job titles like ‘carpenter’ would probably have had a patch of land as well.” Work was physically demanding and shaped by daylight and weather. Agricultural tasks were relentless, and “men spent so many hours ploughing”, says Goodman. Read more | Tudor England had no standing army, but this humble hobby kept its people ready for war As for women, “every stitch of clothing has to be made entirely by hand, and so that involved nearly the entire female population spinning yarn, then making that yarn into cloth, and then turning that into clothing.” This was the essence of Tudor work, Goodman emphasises. Everything that a person needed to be able to sustain themselves had to be made. Today, she says, “our work tends to be very separate from survival, and it tends to be very self-contained. And that's not how Tudor work was. It was very clearly about staying alive, in a visceral way.” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/12/GettyImages-639161340-be26d9e-e1764846258529.jpg" width="1500" height="1002" alt="This modern reconstruction drawing imagines a rural English landscape around 1600, highlighting the rhythms of Tudor farming life. Agriculture dominated the economy, with seasonal labour, smallholdings, and common land shaping the everyday experience of most of the population." title="Rural landscape, c17th century, (c1990-2010)" /> Lesson three: Tudors had fun too Despite such demanding lives, Tudor England was rich in a blossoming culture of entertainment. Feast days, fairs and Sunday games punctuated the year. Inns hosted musicians and travelling performers would ply their trade for entire towns. “They’re going to the playhouse, they’re enjoying the bear baiting, they’re engaged in all sorts of sports, they’re dancing, they’re playing music, they’re writing poetry, they’re getting drunk,” Goodman says. But the pinnacle of leisure and entertainment for an ordinary Tudor was the theatre. Read more | 5 facts about Shakespeare’s Globe theatre “Theatre was a vibrant and lively world. There were lots of street theatres, school kids were being encouraged to do their own plays, and there were town plays going on too.” In addition to the church, Goodman says this was something that could tie a community together and create deep communal bonds. Lesson four: Tudor food was seasonal and varied Tudor diets revolved around bread and grain, supplemented by dairy, vegetables and preserved foods. For most, meat was an occasional addition, while fish, particularly herring, was more common, especially on church fast days. As for how it tasted, Goodman says, “they used a greater variety of herbs than we do nowadays,” which helped to add pops of flavour. “It was a varied diet,” Goodman explains, largely dictated by availability. “It’s a very fresh diet. It’s a very seasonal diet. I like it, I’ll be honest.” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/12/GettyImages-639160814-b5b88a0-e1764846038428.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="This modern reconstruction shows a Tudor kitchen at Kenilworth Castle, prepared for Queen Elizabeth I’s visit in July 1575. The lavish reception, hosted by the Earl of Leicester, was part of his prolonged — and ultimately unsuccessful — courtship of the queen." title="Tudor kitchen, July 1575, (c1990-2010)" /> Read more | Tudor dining: a guide to food and status in the 16th century But what about when fresh food wasn’t as available? Households instead relied on salting, smoking, pickling and cool storage, and most food lasted longer than we might expect – even without a fridge. Instead of using a fridge, which Goodman says were designed for the climates of the southern US rather than the cooler weather in Britain, Tudors used airy pantries and suspended cages to store their food. “Bacteria don’t like the conditions of a traditional pantry with lots of air flowing through. These pantries don't need it to be as cool [as a fridge] to get the same amount of safety.” For anything that needed to be kept away from vermin on the floor, Goodman shares that an “open cage suspended from the ceiling with lots of air flowing through worked really well.” Lesson five: Tudors were no smellier than people today To modern eyes, perhaps the most counterintuitive aspect of Tudor domestic life is cleanliness. While infrequent bathing is today often taken as proof of dirtiness, Goodman argues that the Tudor approach was just as effective, given what they had at their disposal. “Having a bath is not the only way to keep clean,” she says. Read more | This unassuming accessory gave the poor of Tudor England a vital way to survive Instead, Tudors depended on their linen underwear, which covered the whole body, to soak up daily grime. “Linen is exceedingly absorbent,” she notes. “When you take it off, you’re taking all that sweat and any grease and dirt with it.” Regular changes of linen, combined with vigorous household laundering, kept bodies remarkably smell-free. During her six months living as a Tudor, Goodman tested this in practice. “It was perfectly comfortable,” she said. “I remained in very good health.” Could you live the life of an ordinary Tudor? While ordinary Tudors lived close to the land, close to each other, and close to the limits of subsistence, their days were also filled with music, games, storytelling and tactile work. It was a world of hard work and community, and it was, as Goodman told the HistoryExtra podcast, “a very nature-centred world.” It’s an easy lifestyle to romanticise, but there’s no denying the challenges. The crucial difference, Goodman concludes, was the culture. “We’re all human beings. Our bodies are the same. Our brains are the same. But the culture that we live in is utterly different, and that's what makes the Tudor world so fascinating. Tudors were people like us, but living in a different world.” Ruth Goodman was speaking to Rachel Dinning on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.
Female gladiators shocked the ancient Roman world — but not for the reason you think
Though rare, female gladiators did appear in the Roman arena, challenging ancient Rome’s expectations and revealing how spectacle, politics and social boundaries shaped life in the empire
“There were female gladiators and there’s no doubt about that.” That's the assessment of historian Harry Sidebottom, author of Those Who Are About to Die: Gladiators and the Roman Mind, speaking on an episode of the HistoryExtra podcast. A female gladiator is an image that challenges what many think they know about the role of gladiatorial combat in the Roman empire, and the role of women in ancient Rome more broadly. Or does it? In fact, Sidebottom argues, the role of female gladiators wasn’t a subversive example of female empowerment. Instead, it was designed as a spectacle to shock and delight audiences, intentionally playing with preconceptions – and upholding them. Still, it’s a hard image to reconcile with what we know of the gladiatorial games, and women’s lives across the Roman empire. So how should we understand the presence of female gladiators in a society that imposed such strict regulations on women’s behaviour? And how does it fit into the broader story of gladiatorial combat in ancient Rome, and the way in which it evolved through antiquity? Sidebottom has some of the answers. Gladiatorial combat: a Roman spectacle with mysterious beginnings Even the Romans were unsure how their most famous form of entertainment began. “Ancient writers said it was an import from the south, from Campania. [Others] said no, it was an import from the north, from Etruria,” Sidebottom explains. Their disagreement reflects how far back the practice reached, well before gladiators became imperial icons. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/12/GettyImages-152190511-fe3456d-e1764672038606.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="This detail from the 'Ten Girls' mosaic at the Villa del Casale in Piazza Armerina shows young women training with hand weights and a discus. Dating to the early 4th century AD, the scene highlights the place of athletic exercise in elite Roman life." title="Detail of the Ten Girls Mosaic depicting women athletes" /> Despite the uncertainty, Sidebottom notes that “the one thing they all agreed on was that gladiatorial combat was an import to Rome.” That claim wasn’t a denial of ownership so much as an affirmation of Roman cultural pride. Sidebottom explains that the attitude was that: “We Romans take the best from everything else in the world… and we then perfect it, transform it, adopt it, adapt it and make it ours.” Read more | If ancient Romans didn't understand calories, how was their theory of nutrition so accurate? The earliest evidence of gladiatorial games from Rome indicated that this combat, wherever it was imported from, was initially tied to funerary rituals, where fighters battled in honour of the dead. But by the late Republic, the arena had become a distinctly political theatre. Julius Caesar’s lavish games, staged to commemorate relatives who had died decades earlier, show how far the custom drifted from those roots, and its main purpose was now a display of reputation-bolstering public entertainment. How the arena became Roman imperial propaganda By the time Caesar’s successor Augustus established the principate (the first period of the Roman empire, 27 BC–284 AD), gladiatorial games had become integral to public life. Roman emperors were expected to act as patrons, offering grand spectacles of entertainment to secure loyalty among the city’s masses. As Sidebottom puts it, emperors became “the ultimate patron of the plebs” and were hugely popular. With imperial sponsorship came larger crowds, grander staging and an appetite for novelty. Read more | This is what a Roman gladiator really looked like Romans prized variation as well as violence, with hosts of the games keen to find new and surprising ways to entertain. It was within this atmosphere that female gladiators took to the arena. So, what exactly was a ‘gladiatrix’? The term gladiatrix is modern, but the women themselves are historical fact. Evidence includes a carved relief from the ruins of Halicarnassus (near modern-day Bodrum, Turkey), plus a few inscriptions and references by Roman writers. It’s scant evidence, but Sidebottom says it collectively confirms that women did, at times, fight in the arena. The real question is what role they played. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/12/GettyImages-122213857-a9e150f-e1764671324506.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="This marble relief from Halicarnassus, dating to the 1st–2nd centuries AD, commemorates the honourable discharge of two female gladiators known as “Amazon” and “Achillia.” Shown armed like their male counterparts but bareheaded to reveal their hairstyles, the pair exemplifies the rare but striking presence of women in the arena — a reminder of the diversity and spectacle that characterised Roman gladiatorial combat." title="Roman civilization, Relief portraying fight between female gladiators" /> The role of Rome’s female gladiators On that, Sidebottom is cautious. “The debate is: were they serious gladiators, or were they a novelty act?” On balance, he believes their purpose was spectacle rather than elite competition. “It was confounding gender expectations; it was women doing things that men did.” This doesn’t diminish the danger they faced. Even if staged for astonishment, their bouts likely still involved real weapons and real risk. But it did mark them out as different from their male counterparts. Read more | Meet the people the ancient Romans and Greeks desperately tried to hide Many forms of Roman entertainment relied on dramatic inversion, temporarily upending norms to delight or shock spectators. Men acted as animals and some emperors played enslaved people in mock performances in front of delighted crowds. Female gladiators fit that pattern. Roman moralists insisted that respectable women stay out of the public gaze and avoid any association with bloodshed. To see a woman step into the arena – armed and on display – created a deliberate clash between expectation and reality. The appeal highlighted the transgression, thereby enforcing it, rather than contradicting it as some Roman form of female empowerment. Their rarity amplified this effect. A female fighter would have been an event precisely because she was unusual. In that way, the female gladiators illuminate a great deal about Roman society. They demonstrate how the arena functioned not only as a site of violence, but as a stage for political messaging and social commentary. Their fights exploited the thrill of seeing boundaries broken, while upholding and reinforcing the structures that created those boundaries outside the amphitheatre. Read more | 6 women who changed the course of Roman history They also highlight how gladiatorial combat was the product of centuries of Roman adaptation. As Sidebottom notes, Romans of all periods agreed on its broad evolution: from funerary rite to mass entertainment, and eventually to an imperial tool of persuasion. Within that long story, the gladiatrix embodied both the transgression of norms and the sensational drama that kept an empire entertained. Harry Sidebottom was speaking to Rachel Dinning on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.