S1 • E5 Apr 10, 2022 45m
8.2
In the final episode of Curse of the Ancients, Professor Alice Roberts looks at one of the most cursed periods in European history - the Middle Ages. Archaeologists reveal how wars, such as the Mongol invasion of Hungary, the Black Death that wiped out up to half of Europe’s population, and climate change causing cataclysmic floods – turned our ancestors’ world upside down. Death was a part of everyday life. With such calamities, Western society was on the verge of collapse. So how did it survive, and how did these catastrophes lay the foundation for the modern world?
