The days have been getting shorter, the nights longer and the wind bitter-er. Even as the winter solstice draws near, the coming months of cold and darkness make spring seem still an eternity away. Making it through winter is never easy, so how did people in the Middle Ages get by? Join Olivia and Aran as they look into how people not only survived but thrived the whole medieval winter through.

For more on some of what we discuss, check out:

• A digitised version of the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry:
  • https://arca.irht.cnrs.fr/iiif/4856/canvas/canvas-2045964/view
• The History of the Snowman by Bob Eckstein:
  • https://archive.org/details/historyofsnowman00ecks/
• Anglo-Saxon poem The Menologium:
  • https://oldenglishpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/the-menologium/
• Recipes for pottage:
  • https://historydollop.com/2017/01/27/two-peasanty-pottages/
• Nutrition and the Early Medieval Diet by Kathy L Pearson
  • https://www.jstor.org/stable/2865862

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Music used in this episode is a public domain recording of the medieval French Christmas carol "Nowell, nowell Dieu vous garde," available here: https://archive.org/details/lp_nowel-nowel-english-medieval-carols-and_richard-hickox-member-of-the-richard-hicko/disc1/02.07.+Nowell%2C+nowell+Dieu+vous+garde+(Carol).mp3