Line #11 Podcast/TheBritishHistoryPodcast


1	''The British History Podcast'' is a podcast hosted by Jamie Jeffers, a lawyer turned podcaster, since 2011, focusing on the history of Great Britain. This podcast is known for its extraordinary attention to detail, with full episodes dedicated to events or people who in almost any other historical work would be relegated to the footnotes. Official website [[https://www.thebritishhistorypodcast.com/ here.]]
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5	!!''The British History Podcast'' contains examples of:
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7	* ActionGirl: Quite a few. Jamie's discussion on Boudica's rebellion alone gets two episodes with a combined runtime of over an hour.
8	* AerithAndBob: Happened a lot in the early days of the Anglo-Saxon conquest, with kings with names like Oswald and Edwin reigning contemporarily with others like Penda and Cadwallon.
9	* AndNowForSomeoneCompletelyDifferent: The Scotcast and Welshcast episodes.
10	* ApocalypseAnarchy: Seems to have been the fate of England and Wales for about two hundred years or so following the Roman withdrawal.
11	* AuthorTract: In-universe. Gildas, one of the most important sources for the history of Wales, has an unfortunate tendency to go off on rants about how evil and sinful he thinks everyone is.
12	* AwesomeMcCoolname:
13	** There's the short-lived Roman emperor Magnus Maximus, whose name Jamie gushes over.
14	** Jamie also expresses a similar fondness for the name of early sixth-century Saxon king Stuf.
15	* BaitAndSwitch: Jamie is fond of building expectations by setting up events as if there will be major heroics, then telling you that they did not happen. [[spoiler: Such as at the very end of the Battle of Hastings episode.]]
16	* BodyguardBetrayal: Almost every time the Praetorian Guard is mentioned is in this context.
17	* BastardBastard: William the Conqueror is also known as William the Bastard, as his parents were unmarried. Jamie takes a very critical view of his reign.
18	* TheChessmaster: Jamie voices suspicions that Hugh the Great might have been this, given how many seemingly healthy kings of England died young during his reign.
19	* ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: Eadric Streona joins and betrays practically every side of every conflict, sometimes more than once. [[spoiler:Until Cnut decides he has [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness outlived his usefulness.]]]]
20	* CreatorProvincialism: The Venerable Bede's list of Seven Bretwaldas, or kings over all Britain, includes three kings from Northumbria while ignoring several Mercians who might have fit the bill. Bede himself was from Northumbria.
21	* CurbStompBattle: Happens several times, but most notably to Alfred the Great when Guthrum launches a surprise attack on his quarters at Chippenham.
22	* DeadpanSnarker: Jamie himself.
23	* DiseaseByAnyOtherName: Alfred the Great and a few of his descendants suffer from a debilitating ailment. While nobody in their time would have been able to diagnose it, Jamie remarks that it was almost certainly Crohn's Disease.
24	* TheDreaded: The Jomsvikings. Overlaps with EliteMooks.
25	* EnemyMine: The Christian Welsh kingdom of Gwynedd and the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia under the pagan king Penda teaming up to take on Edwin of Northumbria.
26	* TheEveryman: Jamie is fond of using "Unferth" as a name for generic Brits during the Anglo-Saxon period.
27	* EvilOverlord: If the sources are to be believed (and that's a big if), Aethelfrith of Northumbria was a real-life example of this trope. At one point, a kingdom allegedly ordered two hundred monks to pray that Aethelfrith's rampage would not overrun them. Aethelfrith is said to have massacred the monks.
28	* FemmeFatale: Gunnhild, consort of Eric Bloodaxe, is portrayed this way in some historical texts. Jamie has a great time coming up with increasingly outlandish nicknames for a beautiful, insatiable Danish sorceress.
29	* ForbiddenLove: Judith and Baldwin, who fall for one another while Judith is locked in a convent by her domineering father.
30	* GenreDeconstruction: In a way, the entire podcast is one for historical narratives that treat history as a settled story about the deeds of great kings. Jamie's most recognizable traits as a podcaster are his preference for social rather than "great man" history, and his willingness to say "we just don't know."
31	* HeroOfAnotherStory: During the Romano-British era, Jamie frequently alludes to truly incredible events that occur elsewhere in the Roman Empire, but had little to no impact on Britannia and so have to be glossed over.
32	* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: While Aethelred was definitely a very bad king, Jamie argues that his historical reputation as the embodiment of incompetence is a little exaggerated. He notes that Aethelred takes flak for actions like paying danegelds that "good" kings Alfred and Aethelstan also did.
33	* ImprobableWeaponUser: The citizens of Chester beat back a Viking army by hurling beehives at them.
34	* {{Jerkass}}: Suetonius, part-time mountain-climber and full-time jerk.
35	* LadyOfWar: Aethelflaed, Lady of Mercia.
36	* LongRunner: Has been running since 2011, with nearly 350 episodes as of March 2020.
37	* MacGuffin: The relics of saints were frequently real-life examples of this trope. Cnut and his followers executed an elaborate heist to steal a relic that was bringing money and prestige to London, the main base of opposition to Cnut's rule.
38	* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: Plenty of the Vikings, though Eric Bloodaxe is a particularly good example.
39	* OutsideContextProblem: The Viking armies were this for the Anglo-Saxons. Saxon kings repeatedly expect the Northmen to play by their cultural rules--e.g. assuming they won't attack on Christian holy days--and pay a heavy price for it.
40	* RoadTripPlot: In 208 Septimius Severus took his sons, Caracalla and Geta, who both hated each other and were each accustomed to a life of unbridled debauchery, on a campaign to Caledonia to try and fix their wagons. Unfortunately, it failed.
41	* RunningGag: The Wilhelm Scream any time one of the descendants of Ida dies.
42	** Playing the intro to [[Music/FloRida Flo Rida]]'s "GDFR" whenever one of Aethelred Unraed's eoldermen marshals an army to fight the Vikings, only to cut out abruptly when the cowardly lord loses his nerve and flees.
43	* ShoutOut: Jamie absolutely ''loves'' to throw in pop culture references whenever he can. A prime example is Episode 18 "Abandonment and Reoccupation."
44	-> '''Jamie''' ''[introducing the episode]'' This week we're going to be talking about UsefulNotes/MarcusAurelius. And you know what that means. Yes! Shameless "Gladiator" references.
45	* TangledFamilyTree: A common problem in the Saxon era. Religious authorities had to step in more than once to prevent lords and kings from marrying their own stepmothers
46	* TookALevelInJerkass: Edwin, after being a sympathetic character for much of his arc, began attacking the kingdoms who had supported him before for no reason other than expansionism.
47	* UnreliableNarrator: Jamie dedicates multiple episodes to why the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle should not be taken at face value. Its narration often cuts out completely when events occur that go against its agenda, forcing historians (and the podcast) to reconstruct the timeline from context clues.

Context Podcast / TheBritishHistoryPodcast