"This is one of the oldest surviving maps of Britain, made over 600 years ago." "No-one knows who made it or quite why." "But it offers us a unique window onto life at the height of the Middle Ages." "And hidden within it are some tantalising clues as to its origins." "In this series it'll help guide me as I travel the length and breadth of Britain." "As a medieval art historian, this is my chance to get out and see medieval Britain for myself." "A place of piety and corruption." "The sacred and the profane." "Fantasists and warlords." "Medieval Britain - a land of unlikely contradictions." "Surviving maps from the Middle Ages are extremely rare." "Most, like the Mappa Mundi, in Hereford, are symbolic rather than accurate representations of the world." "The Gough Map, drawn in England around 1360, is different." "It's the first map we have that depicts Britain with reasonable accuracy." "At first glance, this map looks decidedly strange." "But when you realise that the top edge of the map is actually facing east and then rotate the map, suddenly a more familiar outline begins to emerge." "The Britain we know becomes clearly recognisable." "It's also the first map to show a route network in red linking some of the 600 towns and cities marked on the map." "Effectively it's the first modern map of Britain." "So, forget your new-fangled sat nav." "None of this digital nonsense for me." "I'm going to use the Gough Map to guide me on a series of journeys into medieval Britain." "For my first trip, I'm going to be going north to an area that was then known as the wildest part of England." "At the time the map was made, this whole area was turbulent because of the ongoing wars between Scotland and England." "And I'll be starting my journey at one of the last safe English outposts, here, at York." "In the Middle Ages, comparatively few people had reason to travel." "But among those that did were pilgrims." "Most travelled on foot and didn't use maps at all." "Instead, they used itineraries which broke journeys down into lists of towns through which they needed to pass." "Apart from London," "York is the only other town on the map singled out in gold lettering." "Around the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066, it was second only to London with a population between 8,000 and 9,000 people." "That might not seem very big by today's standards, but when you consider that most medieval English towns had populations of less than 2,000," "York was a positively heaving metropolis." "Despite their small scale, in the early Middle Ages, the towns of England grew fast." "In just over a century, the number of townspeople doubled." "The traders who helped make all this possible have left their mark on this very street." "The name is the giveaway." "Shambles, or Shammels, comes from the Old English "fleshammels", literally "flesh shelves", where butchers displayed their meat." "This was the medieval street of butchers." "Livestock was brought here, slaughtered, then butchered." "And you can still see the hooks and the shelves where the meat would have been displayed." "And in the age before refrigeration, these overhanging jetties helped to keep the meat out of the sun." "The fact that the street was the drain means that it was awash with dung, blood and offal." "Waste was just chucked into the street twice a week, meaning that this can't have been a desperately hygienic place to be." "But among the muck, there was brass." "A new network of traders gravitated to the butchers, all dependent on their by-products." "Hides were used by tanners, parchment-makers and shoemakers." "Candle-makers used the tallow, or fat." "And horners made plates, spoons and drinking horns." "It was a pattern repeated throughout England, with butchers acting as the driving force." "And this bustling commerce took place just a step away from a building devoted to the very opposite - pure spirituality." "Casting its long shadow on the Shambles, one of the largest Gothic cathedrals in Northern Europe, York Minster." "The Gothic style of architecture aimed to evoke God's presence by suffusing churches with radiant light." "York Minster was built during the golden age of stained glass, which is reflected in its magnificent windows." "Work began on the Minster in 1220 and York became the leading centre of stained-glass production in England." "As a medieval art historian, I find these windows inspiring." "There are images here of kings and queens." "There are stories from the Old and New testaments of the Bible." "Images of saints and their miracles." "Their effect must have been especially intense for the illiterate pilgrims who came here in the Middle Ages, who would have been totally unaccustomed to such splendour." "The centrepiece of York's stained glass is the magnificent Great East Window." "So Tim, this window is just vast." "It's the largest window in the Minster." "It was the culmination to the view from the west, looking east." "So, this is a statement of an enormous kind about the importance of York Minster." "Do we know very much about how it was made?" "We do." "Amazingly, we have a record of the contract for this window, which was made in 1405." "The date for the completion of the window appears right at the top, and is 1408." "So, that gives us a span of three years within which this extraordinary tennis court-size window must have been created." "The contract also reveals that the glazier responsible for this window was a man called John Thornton of Coventry." "The contract specifies that Thornton was required to paint a lot of the window himself." "They obviously got John Thornton in because he was a celebrity in his time." "So, bringing him here was something of a coup." "It's amazing to think that he could have painted this vast expanse in just three years." "It is extraordinary." "What does this window show?" "What did Thornton paint?" "Appropriate to the importance of the window, it shows the beginning of time and the end of time." "So, up at the top, top left here, you can see the days of creation." "Top right, you can see Adam and Eve." "The lower part of the window is given over to scenes from the Apocalypse, that is, the end of time." "And in the very middle of the window at the bottom, you can see the man who paid for it." "He's right above the altar." "That's, er..." "Right above the altar." "..quite a bold statement." "It is." "There are some panels that are missing here." "Where have they gone?" "These panels have been taken out for conservation." "And over the next ten years, this window will be conserved." "So, it took Thornton three years to make this entire window and it's going to take ten to conserve - how astonishing." "The technique for making stained-glass windows was first described around 1100." "It involved placing single-coloured glass pieces in to a mosaic held in place by lead." "Then came a revolutionary new development." "Around 1300, they discovered that if you painted silver nitrate on to a piece of glass and fired it, the nitrate solution would turn yellow." "Now this may not sound like very much, but it allowed them to paint two colours instead of one onto a single piece." "And for the next 200 years, they were pushing out the boundaries of the craft in a completely new way as a result." "Larger and larger pieces of white glass letting more and more light into the window." "So, they've combined on to a single piece what here is on two pieces." "With this new technique, York Minster could be truly flooded with light." "Leaving behind the tranquillity of York Minster, I'm heading north towards the Yorkshire Dales." "Travelling in medieval Britain was not easy, particularly in these remote areas." "There'd been no major road building since Roman times and many routes were no more than boggy tracks." "The wildness and remoteness of much of northern England between York and Durham owes much to William the Conqueror." "After the Battle of Hastings, the Normans faced fierce resistance in the north." "William retaliated with extraordinary savagery." "The Doomsday Book records that three-quarters of the population of Yorkshire simply disappeared." "The devastation was so shocking that even a Norman writer called it a barbarous homicide." "The region became a barren wasteland." "And it was precisely this that attracted a group looking for seclusion." "Monasteries appeared throughout the countryside." "And the biggest, best-preserved monastery in Yorkshire is Fountains Abbey." "These incredible ruins are a testimony to just how successful Fountains was." "It dominated the region for over 400 years." "Although its beginnings were distinctly ascetic." "It was founded by a breakaway group of 13 monks who fled from a neighbouring abbey after a dispute and riot there." "They wanted to follow a stricter, simpler rule, returning to their core spiritual values - a kind of back-to-basics of poverty, isolation and, rather oddly, going commando." "Since their founder, St Benedict, didn't mention such garments in his permitted list of monks' clothing, the monks here didn't wear underwear." "This lack of pants is something that distinguishes the Cistercians from other orders, for instance, from the Augustinians, who were given three pairs of pants like these every Easter." "It even provoked contemporary comment." "A 12th-century chronicler, Walter Map, suggested that the Cistercian monks shunned their pants to preserve coolness in that part of the body lest sudden heats provoke unchastity." "Despite its professed austerity, in less than 50 years" "Fountains became one of the richest monasteries in England." "And the source of this new wealth?" "Its flock." "They revolutionised the wool trade, becoming expert in breeding sheep with exceptionally high-quality fleeces." "With merchants from as far afield as Italy beating a path to their door, they were able to secure the best possible prices for their wool." "The self-denying monks were becoming medieval entrepreneurs." "This area here attests not only to the Cistercians' expanding business interests, but also to their knack for adapting their own rules." "Their business created so much work, soon there was a labour shortage." "But Cistercians couldn't have servants." "A problem, you might think." "So, the monks got around this by recruiting a veritable army of a new kind of monk, the lay brother." "And they lived here." "They weren't allowed to eat, pray or mix in any meaningful way with the real monks, the choir monks." "These were second-class citizens doing the menial jobs the choir monks didn't fancy." "The design of Fountains reflects this social apartheid." "Behind me here is the great wall that separated the lay brothers from the choir monks." "There were in effect two distinct communities living here." "In the space of half a century, the abbey had strayed so far from its founding principle of poverty that it was now a huge commercial enterprise." "This was Fountains Inc." "But the monks got over-confident." "At one point, they started speculating on the wool trade, pre-selling their wool before clipping, which was fine until 1274, when they couldn't fulfil their contract and they fell into debt to the tune of 900 pounds," "which is a whopping half a million pounds in today's money." "It's a distinctly medieval paradox." "The very wilderness that had first attracted the monks led them right down the path of temptation." "I'm following a well-known pilgrim route that headed north from York, and the next big destination for a traveller was Durham." "Today, the trip can be made in less than an hour and a half." "At the time of the Gough Map, it was a different matter." "In 1360, there was actually a protracted debate about whether or not it was reasonable to expect the Bishop of Durham to make the journey to York in a single day." "The state of the road, the height of the rivers and the quality of horses all sparked heated arguments." "They concluded that while it was humanly possible, it would be just too much for a bishop." "Curiously, this important route is missing from the Gough Map, along with many other very well-known routes." "Perched high on the inside of a loop on the River Wear, Durham Cathedral." "Most of this cathedral was built in just 40 years, between 1093 and 1133, which is staggering when you think that most medieval cathedrals evolved over hundreds of years." "The fact that it was built so quickly means that everything that we can see - the boldly incised columns, the soaring vaults above our heads and the imposing sense of scale - is the result of a single master mason's vision," "a man we only know by his work, but what a legacy!" "And even more remarkable, this vast edifice was built to house the remains of just one very holy man " "St Cuthbert." "Revered in his own lifetime, he spent many years as a hermit on an island off the Northumberland coast." "After his death, he became even more famous when numerous miracles took place at his tomb, so his remains were carried here to protect them from Viking raiders." "According to Cuthbert's biographers, 11 years after his death, his tomb was opened, and inside, his body was found to be in a perfect state of preservation." "It was this kind of miracle that assured Cuthbert's place among England's premier saints." "For most of the 12th century, this was Britain's top pilgrimage destination." "The faithful thronged here in the hope of saving their souls." "But the experience wasn't always purely spiritual." "As the pilgrims reached their destination, they often got excited, sometimes a little too excited, singing non-religious songs, much to the annoyance of the other, more pious pilgrims." "And so, the cathedral employed lay brothers, to act in effect as bouncers, so that they could eject any pilgrims who got too rowdy." "Next to the cathedral was a Benedictine monastery, the site of a very secular 13th-century stunt." "In 1237, the prior here, Thomas Melsonby, decided that he wanted to cheer up his monks with a little entertainment, so what better than to get in a tightrope walker?" "It's not clear whether it was the tightrope walker's idea or the prior's, but he attempted to walk on a rope that was stretched between the central tower and the western tower, way over there." "Perhaps unsurprisingly, the daredevil entertainer slipped and plummeted over 200 feet to his death." "On hearing the news of the catastrophic stunt, the King of England, Henry III, informed the prior that he'd blown all chance of promotion." "Melsonby would never become Bishop of Durham." "Durham is fascinating, because as you can see from up here, we're on the inside of a loop in the river." "When we look at the Gough Map, Durham is spot on." "There's the loop in the river and there is the cathedral inside it, which is interesting, because of all the rivers on this map, this is the only one drawn with this kind of accuracy, so obviously the map-maker knew that this was an important detail." "Important, because whatever bizarre events took place here," "Durham was the last cathedral of the far north." "Beyond Durham, the medieval traveller entered increasingly unknown terrain." "The 12th-century chronicler William of Malmesbury wrote," ""The very tongue of those that live beyond the Humber was not easily intelligible" ""and when kings visited, they were always accompanied by a large military force."" "So, the north was considered both alien and dangerous." "20 miles north of Durham, we cross Hadrian's Roman wall." "Despite its prominence on the map, this wasn't a frontier in the Middle Ages." "Surprisingly, there's no border marked at all between England and Scotland." "At the time the map was drawn, the English frontier was well to the north of the wall, and it was hotly contested." "In fact, the border between Scotland and England has the dubious distinction of being one of the longest-running border conflicts that the world has ever known." "The fighting started with the Normans and lasted intermittently for the next 400 years." "In the 14th century, Northumberland was the most fortified county in the land." "I'm on my way to the site of the biggest castle in England." "It must also rank as one of the very oddest in the whole of medieval Britain." "It was built around 1313 by a colourful character called Thomas of Lancaster." "In his day, Thomas was talked about even more than his cousin, who happened to be none other than the King of England, Edward II." "Thomas fell out spectacularly with the king when he murdered one of Edward's closest friends." "It was then that Thomas built this" " Dunstanburgh Castle." "Right on the edge of the Northumberland coast, it was about as far away as Thomas could get from the English crown." "Dramatically perched on a rocky headland, it's a truly majestic location." "At first sight, the castle certainly looks the part, but recent studies raise questions about its effectiveness as a fortress against the Scots." "So, what's the problem with this?" "If I wanted to protect the border with Scotland from Scottish invaders, I don't think I'd build a castle here." "It's stuck right out on a headland, sticking out to sea, and the nearest roads are three or four miles inland that way, and that's the way the Scots would be going." "It's just not standing in their way, so I don't wear that one at all." "What I've got a bit more time for is the idea that it's actually not about the defence of the realm - it's for the defence of the local people." "If there are raids from Scotland, then the people of Embleton can perhaps bring all their livestock and possessions into the castle and be safe." "Only problem with that is that I'd want to build my castle in Embleton." "So, the problem with it is that the military explanations for this castle just really don't add up at all." "Dunstanburgh appears to be protecting very little, and archaeological work hints at the castle's real purpose." "What I want to show you is just over the side here." "You look down there and you can see that there's about 100 feet of water." "What we found, unexpectedly, was that this wasn't the only water on this side of the castle - that if you could come here in Thomas of Lancaster's day, this whole field down here would be a body of water," "but only two or three feet deep." "As a moat around the castle, it's got a lot to be desired." "So, why would he do that?" "Is it just an aesthetic decision?" "Does he want it to look like it's set apart from the mainland for people approaching?" "What we know from documents - only a few hints - is that Earl Thomas himself sometimes calls himself King Arthur in his dealings with the Scots." "Really?" "The whole story of King Arthur finishes on the Isle of Avalon." "It's really nice to speculate, for someone as ambitious and as difficult as Thomas, that he thinks," ""I'll go and live on my island and one day my people will need me and I'll come back and lead them."" "So, this is Thomas's opportunity to say, "I am the once and future king"?" "That's what he's trying to do." "OK." "And it all ends rather tragically for him, because when he finally gets his just desserts, people hold this against him and he gets mocked as "King Arthur, most dreadful", just before he's taken off to be killed." "Is it possible that Thomas saw himself in those kind of lights?" "I think it is." "A fantasist's castle, then, in the middle of a warzone - a monument to Thomas's vanity, as the map seems to confirm." "When you look at the Gough Map, you can see that the Farne Islands, which are right over there, are marked here." "Right next to it is Coquet Island, which is just over there." "So, Dunstanburgh should be on the mainland, right in the middle." "But it's not here, it's not marked." "There are lots of other castles marked on this map all over the place, but the fact that Dunstanburgh isn't here probably just reflects its strategic pointlessness." "Compare that with this." "Located just a few miles north, this was very much a working castle and it reveals just how vicious the border between Scotland and England got." "Norham Castle is strategically sited high above the River Tweed." "Today, it sits right on the border between England and Scotland." "This was the front line." "Norham changed hands between the English and the Scots on eight separate occasions, and it was besieged a total of 13 times." "Some of these sieges lasted weeks, some lasted months and on one occasion, lasted the best part of a year." "The castle was continually strengthened and fortified, its keep eventually rising to five imposing storeys." "Its reputation for impregnability was such that invading Scottish armies often bypassed it altogether rather than risk an assault." "However, in the penultimate Scots' attempt to take Norham in 1497, they attacked this time using artillery - and not just any artillery." "They wheeled out one of the world's first great super-guns, a massive cannon known as Mons Meg, capable of firing cannonballs weighing a whopping 550 pounds over a distance of two miles." "They bombarded Norham with this monster, yet still it didn't fall." "All along the border are towns which bear testament to the brutality of these wars - none more so than Berwick, just seven miles east of Norham." "Today, Berwick sits squarely in England, but in the Middle Ages it was the biggest town in Scotland." "This made it a prime target for the English." "The English were capable of capturing Berwick, but once they'd done so, they found it very hard to hang on to." "Because it's on the northern, Scottish side of the Tweed, the Scots found it all too easy to attack." "In fact, by 1482, when the English had finally and decisively captured Berwick for the last time, it had changed hands an astonishing 13 times." "The fact that this bloody border isn't marked on the Gough Map is likely to be deliberate, because at the time, England had designs on Scotland." "In this light, it's possible to see the map as a form of English propaganda, a statement of an expanding Plantagenet empire." "For the map-maker," "England and Scotland were part of the same united nation." "Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd"