Podcasts about the Anglo-Saxons

Some thoughts for would-be listeners

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Edmund Blair Leighton Lady Godiva (1892)

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Some podcasters touch lightly upon the tales of a particular time and place. Others, however, delve so deeply into the mines of yoria that they awaken a balrog of narrative detail. David Crowther, of the History of England, needs but fifteen hours of your time to describe the six centuries leading up to the arrival of ‘Billy the Conk’. Jamie Jeffers, employs some three hundred and fifty episodes of the British History Podcast, each weighing in at thirty minutes or so, to cover the same period.

Tom Kearns, of Anglo-Saxon England, takes a somewhat different approach. Rather than attempting to create a comprehensive chronology of the land where people said whæt a lot, he deals, seriatim, with its component kingdoms. Thus, rather than retracing the steps of Mr. Crowther, or summarizing the work of Mr. Jeffers, he provides his listeners with histories of places like Northumbria, Wessex, and Mercia.

A listener new to the world of Æthelhere, Æthelwold, and Æthelwulf will want to begin with the History of England. Once, however, he has exhausted that dragon’s hoard of auditory goodness, he will face a dilemma. Should he dive into the deep end of the British History Podcast or explore the archipelago that Dr. Kearns has been building since 2022?

One consideration belongs to the realm of tone. While Kearns says nothing that you could not repeat, verbatim, in front of children, Jeffers will, from time to time, use language of the sort that violates the comments policy of Extra Muros. In much the same way, while the music played at each end of each episode of Anglo-Saxon England pays suitable tribute to the subject of the podcast, the snippets of songs used in the British History Podcast often bring to mind the Times Square of the 1970s.

As is the custom these days, all three of these programs offer bonus content to folks who provide their creators with a bit of dosh. You can support any (or all) of the podcasters mentioned in this post via Patreon. You can also purchase a membership to the History of England directly from its website.

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