Recent Posts

Episode 180 – The Private Life of Thomas Cromwell with Caroline Angus

Guest Bio Caroline Angus is a New Zealand-based author raising four sons. Caroline studied history at Universitat de València, Spain, spending ten years dedicated to the Spanish Civil War and the resulting dictatorship. Caroline went on to study with King’s College London, specialising in Shakespeare and British royal history. After a decade of writing fiction, including the Secrets of Spain series, focusing on the lives of Valencian interviewees between 1939 and 1975, and the more recent … [Read More...]

Episode 179 – Elizabeth I and the Art of Queenship with Linda Collins & Siobhan Clarke

Guest Bios Linda Collins BA (hons), MA, Dip Francais, was employed by the Historic Royal Palaces for more than 20 years whilst continuing her work as a freelance lecturer. Linda's lecturing career has taken her on tours throughout UK, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. She is an accredited lecturer for the Arts Society and President of her area Arts Society. A member of the Association of Art Historians, Linda has spoken on various radio programmes, appeared in a PBS TV documentary on Henry … [Read More...]

Episode 178 – Veronica Franco & Courtesans in 16th-Century Venice with Professor Margaret Rosenthal

Professor Margaret Rosenthal

Professor Margaret Rosenthal Guest BioMargaret F. Rosenthal is Professor of Italian at the University of Southern California.A specialist in Italian renaissance literature and women’s social history of the Venetian Republic, she has published numerous articles and books on renaissance women writers. The Venetian courtesan poet, Veronica Franco, has been a particular focus of her work. The Honest Courtesan: Veronica Franco, Citizen and Writer of Sixteenth-Century Venice (University of Chicago … [Read More...]

Episode 176 – From Homespun to Cloth of Gold: Dressing Tudor Women with Dr Owen Emmerson

Dr Owen Emmerson

Guest Bio Dr Owen Emmerson Dr Emmerson is a social and cultural historian currently working as Castle Historian and Assistant Curator at the stunning Hever Castle in Kent – Anne Boleyn’s childhood home. He completed his doctoral research at the University of Sussex. Owen’s first book, co-authored with the historian Claire Ridgway, is entitled ‘The Boleyns of Hever Castle’. His second book, co-authored with the historian Kate McCaffrey, is entitled “Becoming Anne: Connections, Culture, … [Read More...]

Episode 175 – The Lives of Aztec-Mexica Women with Dr Caroline Dodds Pennock

Dr Caroline Dodds Pennock

Guest Bio Dr Caroline Dodds Pennock is Senior Lecturer in International History at the University of Sheffield, specializing in Mesoamerica and the Atlantic world. She is the UK’s only Aztec historian, and her first book, Bonds of Blood: Gender, Lifecycle and Sacrifice in Aztec Culture(2008, PB: 2011) won the Royal Historical Society’s Gladstone Prize for 2008. Caroline’s new book On Savage Shores: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe– a groundbreaking history of how Native peoples from … [Read More...]

Episode 174 – Women’s Voices from the Past with Professor Suzannah Lipscomb (All Things Sixteenth-Century Women)

Guest Bio Suzannah Lipscomb is Emeritus Professor at the University of Roehampton, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and a columnist for History Today. She is also well-known as a broadcast historian, having written and presented numerous documentary series and is the host of the podcast Not Just the Tudors, from History Hit. Suzannah is the author of five books on the sixteenth century. She published her first book 1536: The Year that Changed Henry VIII in 2009 (Lion Hudson), … [Read More...]

Episode 173 – Elizabeth I and the Wider World with Professor Nandini Das

Guest Bio Nandini Das is Professor of Early Modern English Literature and Culture at Oxford University, Fellow of Exeter College, and Honorary Professor of English Literature at the University of Liverpool, UK. Exploring both literature and cultural history, she has published widely on Renaissance literature and cross-cultural encounter. Her next book on the first English embassy to India will be out with Bloomsbury in 2022. A BBC New Generation Thinker, she regularly presents television and … [Read More...]

Episode 172 – The Secret Codes of Sixteenth-Century Women with Vanessa Braganza

"Symbols and ciphers… [have] the power to liberate people’s voices."~ Vanessa Braganza Guest Bio Vanessa (‘V.M.’) Braganza is a public intellectual and book detective, and a PhD candidate in English at Harvard. Her research has been profiled in the New York Times, The Timesof London, and Smithsonian Magazine.Her writing has appeared in Smithsonian Magazine, Mental Floss, and the LA Review of Books. Her academic work has appeared in a variety of scholarly journals and volumes, including … [Read More...]

Episode 171 – Shaping Femininity with Dr Sarah Bendall

Natalie Grueninger speaks with Dr Sarah Bendall about shaping femininity. Visit Dr Bendall's official website. Find out more about your host at Natalie Grueninger's official website. Join 365 Days with Anne Boleyn! https://onthetudortrail.com/Blog/2022/02/13/365-days-with-anne-boleyn-an-intimate-journey-of-discovery Buy Talking Tudors merchandise at https://talkingtudors.threadless.com/ Support Talking Tudors on Patreon! Musical break courtesy of Jon … [Read More...]

Episode 170 – Women of the “Middling Sort” with Professor Catherine Richardson

Natalie Grueninger speaks with Professor Catherine Richardson about women of the "middling sort". Find out more about the Middling Culture project here. Find out more about your host at Natalie Grueninger's official website. Join 365 Days with Anne Boleyn! https://onthetudortrail.com/Blog/2022/02/13/365-days-with-anne-boleyn-an-intimate-journey-of-discovery Buy Talking Tudors merchandise at https://talkingtudors.threadless.com/ Support Talking Tudors on … [Read More...]

Episode 169 – Sixteenth-Century Women Artists with Dr Breeze Barrington

Natalie Grueninger speaks with Dr Breeze Barrington about 16th-century women artists. Visit Dr Barrington's official website. Find out more about your host at Natalie Grueninger's official website. Join 365 Days with Anne Boleyn! https://onthetudortrail.com/Blog/2022/02/13/365-days-with-anne-boleyn-an-intimate-journey-of-discovery Buy Talking Tudors merchandise at https://talkingtudors.threadless.com/ Support Talking Tudors on Patreon! Musical break courtesy … [Read More...]

Sixteenth-Century Hungarian Women

A Guest Post by Orsolya Dunai To an untrained eye; 16th- century Hungary was flourishing under a cultural growth. The Renaissance was at its zenith as artists produced paintings, sculptures, music and literature. The Reformation crawled through the population with its tentacles of theology. While Hungary’s commodity trades market climbed to its peak due to an abundance of gold and silver deposits. Underneath this radiant glow; the reality was gritty darkness.  Hungary was being massacred … [Read More...]