HistoryExtrahttps://www.historyextra.comHome of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast2026-07-07T14:02:21.000Zhourly12000-01-01T12:00+00:00After the Romans left, the Angles, Saxons and Jutes arrived. What was the difference?https://www.historyextra.com/period/angles-saxons-and-jutes/2026-07-07T07:15:43.000ZThe answer here is still hotly disputed. It was the Venerable Bede (who died in 735), writing 250 years after the events he describes, who first claimed that Roman Britain fell to invasion by Angles, Saxons and Jutes from the North Sea coastlines of Germany and Denmark.
Victorian writers considered it perfectly acceptable to trace physical or ‘racial’ distinctions between those of ‘Jutish’ descent still living in Kent set against the Saxon or Angle peasantry of the west and north. Even today, some modern authorities claim to confirm Bede’s tripartite scheme using archaeological evidence, in particular the minor variations in the types of brooches and cremation urns found in early Anglo-Saxon burial sites.
Others argue that Bede was imposing fictitious order upon a far more chaotic ethnographic reality. The strange legal customs of medieval Kent, for example, might denote Jutish influence. They might just as easily be Roman survivals or suggest the influence of northern France.
Like the ‘tribes’ of North American ‘Indians’, the Germanic peoples were not ‘racially’ homogenous. Status and success in war were far more significant than race, with the Angles apparently commanding the highest status of all. In the 590s, the supposedly Jutish king Æthelbert of Kent was addressed by the pope as ‘King of the Angles’. But for this ‘keeping up with the Angles’, England today might be known not as England but as Saxland or Jutland.
Answered by: Nick Vincent, professor of history at the University of East Anglia
]]>Agony and ecstasy: the lives of mysticshttps://www.historyextra.com/membership/mystics-podcast-simon-critchley/2025-01-31T07:30:46.000ZFrom medieval mystic Julian of Norwich to countercultural figures of the 1960s, various individuals down the centuries have felt they have access to spiritual forces beyond human understanding. But what drives these transcendent – and often ecstatic – sensations? And how were people with a deep connection to the divine regarded by wider society? In today's episode, philosopher and author Simon Critchley speaks to Charlotte Hodgman about his new book On Mysticism: The Experience of Ecstasy.
Simon Critchley is the author of On Mysticism: The Experience of Ecstasy (Profile Books, 2024)
]]>Victorian family life | HistoryExtra Academy video lecturehttps://www.historyextra.com/membership/victorian-family-life-historyextra-academy-video-lecture/2024-12-11T13:04:30.000ZView Green Video on the source website
Ruth Goodman is a historian of the social and domestic life of Britain. She has advised the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Globe Theatre and presented a number of BBC television series, including Victorian Farm
]]>Victorian working life | HistoryExtra Academy video lecturehttps://www.historyextra.com/membership/victorian-working-life-historyextra-academy-video-lecture/2024-12-05T10:41:44.000ZView Green Video on the source website]]>Victorian healthcare | HistoryExtra Academy video lecturehttps://www.historyextra.com/membership/victorian-healthcare-historyextra-academy-video-lecture/2024-11-26T12:17:23.000ZView Green Video on the source website
How well do you know Victorian healthcare? Test your knowledge with our quiz!
Ruth Goodman is a historian of the social and domestic life of Britain. She has advised the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Globe Theatre and presented a number of BBC television series, including Victorian Farm
]]>Victorian medicine: why the 19th century was a time of seismic medical changehttps://www.historyextra.com/period/victorian/victorian-medicine-medical-innovation-invention/2024-11-25T09:42:10.000ZThe 19th century was a period of rapid technological change, and huge shifts in scientific understanding. As medical knowledge increased, the prospect of surgery was no longer a likely death sentence, and great leaps were made in medical procedures, equipment and knowledge of how the body worked.
By the 1860s what would become known as cell theory was widely accepted: that all living organisms are composed of one or more cells; that the cell is the basic unit of structure and organisation in organisms and that cells are created from pre-existing cells. New methods in cell staining and the development of technology, such as the microscope, also played crucial roles in furthering biological breakthroughs and aiding new research.
One of the most important medical breakthroughs of the 19th century was French chemist Louis Pasteur’s discovery that germs cause disease, following on from Italian bacteriologist Agostino Bassi’s work on silkworm infections. Pasteur’s work with pasteurisation and his subsequent breakthroughs with inoculations against anthrax and rabies in turn inspired men like Robert Koch, who, in the early 1880s, identified the microorganisms that cause tuberculosis and cholera and created standards for researching the links between germs and disease.
“Having the ability to separate different bacteria and identify them for the first time was a huge medical breakthrough,” says Professor Mary Fissell. “Being able to associate a specific germ with a specific disease and form a clear relationship between the two ushered in a completely new way of thinking about the body and ill health. There wasn’t an immediate therapeutic payoff to the discovery, but it wasn’t long before scientists started to figure out that antitoxins could be created to cure specific diseases.
“The first antitoxin, for diphtheria, was developed in the early 1890s and its impact was incredibly dramatic. I’ve always loved the fact that, in Britain, the diphtheria antitoxin was held in police stations because they could be accessed all night.”
True trailblazers
Florence Nightingale and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson both made marks in a man’s world The foundations of modern nursing and the nursing profession itself were laid in the 19th century, and both owe a great deal to individuals such as Florence Nightingale (above), whose experiences as a nurse during the Crimean War revolutionised nursing practices. Arriving in Scutari, the British base hospital near Constantinople in November 1854, Nightingale and her team of nurses were greeted by horrific conditions: rodents and bugs; patients lying in their own excrement; contaminated water and lack of basic medical supplies.
Prioritising cleanliness and fresh air, Nightingale’s tireless work saw the death rate in Scutari fall from 43 per cent to 2 per cent and the establishment of a Royal Commission for the Health of the Army, in 1857. News of her work spread and by 1900 there were 64,000 trained British nurses, with Nightingale herself founding a Training School for Nurses in 1860. In 1876, women were permitted to enter the medical profession with Elizabeth Garrett Anderson becoming the first Englishwoman to qualify as a doctor.
Surgery in the Victorian period
Prior to the 19th century, surgery had largely been performed outside the body – the only real operative surgery undertaken was the removal of bladder stones, a procedure performed without anaesthetic and usually completed in under two minutes to avoid the patient dying of shock and pain. In 1658, prolific diarist Samuel Pepys had a bladder stone allegedly the size of a tennis ball removed without pain relief – historians have suggested Pepys may have survived the procedure because he had been first on the surgeon’s list that morning and had therefore been operated on with clean tools and hands!
“The advent of anaesthesia and antiseptic surgery was a real game changer, and surgery as we know it today was really invented in the late 19th century”, comments Fissell. “As germ theory developed, people began to conceptualise what that might mean in terms of surgery. Initially, antiseptic surgery saw mists of carbolic acid continually sprayed in operating rooms during medical procedures in order to kill bacteria in the air, and wounds were packed and covered with lint and gauze soaked in carbolic acid. But by the 1880s, aseptic practices were being developed, eventually including steam sterilisation of instruments, rubber gloves, and the wearing of surgical gowns.”
The greatest showman?
Scottish surgeon Robert Liston was always keen to demonstrate his knife skills In the early 19th century, surgeons became minor celebrities as they vied with each other to operate on conscious patients – before anaesthesia – in the quickest time. One of era’s most famous surgeon-showmen was Scotsman Robert Liston whose speed at amputation (just 30 seconds in some cases) was widely celebrated. On one occasion, Liston’s enthusiasm saw him amputate a patient’s testicles as well as their leg, while on another occasion, his knife accidentally amputated his assistant’s fingers in addition to his patient’s limb – both the assistant and the patient later died of infection. Nevertheless, Liston, who, unusually for pre-germ theory times, always removed his frock coat before operating, performed 66 amputations between 1835 and 1840, of which ‘only’ 10 died (1 in 6 patients). Elsewhere, at nearby St Bartholomew’s Hospital, one in four patients ended up in the mortuary.
- Read more about Robert Liston and the horrors of the early Victorian hospital
9 medical breakthroughs in the 19th century
From X-rays to new wonder drugs, the 19th century saw seismic change…
Stethoscope
In 1816, French physician René Laënnec observed two children signalling to each other via a piece of wood and a pin – one child had their ear to the wood and was receiving the amplified sound of a pin being scratched at the opposite end. Laënnec was inspired by this acoustic phenomenon to invent the stethoscope, with which the sounds made by the heart and lungs could be heard more clearly.
Quinine
In 1820, French scientists Pierre Pelletier and Joseph-Bienaimé Caventou discovered the process to extract and isolate quinine from the bark of the Cinchona tree, which had been used in powdered form to treat malaria since the 17th century.
Aspirin
In 1897, German chemist Felix Hoffman successfully combined acetylating salicylic acid with acetic anhydride, creating acetylsalicylic acid, a substance that could relieve fever, pain, and inflammation without upsetting a patient’s stomach.
Chloroform
In 1847, James Young Simpson, professor of midwifery at the University of Edinburgh (below), became the first physician to demonstrate the anaesthetic properties of chloroform on humans. He went on to pioneer its application in surgery and obstetrics.
Antiseptic
Using the work of men like Louis Pasteur and Ignaz Semmelweis (the latter who proved that doctors were responsible for transmitting childbed fevers in hospitals), Joseph Lister developed a carbolic acid spray for use during surgery. The death rate from infection after surgery decreased significantly as a result, although it was later realised that carbolic acid damaged tissues in the body.
X-Rays
In 1895, German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen accidentally discovered X-rays while testing whether cathode rays could pass through glass. Soon, doctors in Europe and the US were using X-rays to locate gun shots, bone fractures, swallowed items and kidney stones.
Electric hearing aid
The first portable electric hearing aid was patented in 1895 by electrical engineer Miller Reese Hutchison (below). Known as the Akouphone, it used a carbon transmitter and electrical current to amplify weak audio signals.
Heart Surgery
In 1893, African-American general surgeon Daniel Hale Williams performed the first successful documented heart surgery on a young black man, James Cornish, who had been stabbed in his chest. Cornish survived and was discharged 51 days later.
Ophthalmoscope
The German physiologist Hermann von Helmholtz is generally considered to have invented the ophthalmoscope, in 1851, although English mathematician and inventor Charles Babbage is also a contender. The device revolutionised ophthalmology, allowing physicians to examine the inside of the human eye.
A poor state of health
Britain’s filthy and overcrowded cities caused cholera chaos… Between 1801 and 1841, Britain witnessed a population explosion: the number of people living in London doubled, and in Leeds, the number nearly tripled. Many cities’ housing and sanitation systems struggled to cope, and people were forced to live in appalling conditions: disease was rife. Cholera – a bacterial infection caused by contaminated food or water – first arrived in Britain in 1831 and thrived in crowded, industrial towns. A cholera epidemic in 1831–32 claimed more than 50,000 lives across Britain, followed by another in 1848-9 – during which a Board of Health was set up, with the power to clean streets and build sewers. But with the prevailing theory in the first half of the 19th century being that disease was spread via bad air, more than 20,000 people died in a cholera outbreak in 1854. It was during this third epidemic that Dr John Snow made the connection between contaminated water and cholera – he plotted cases in the Soho area of London and identified a specific water pump as a source of contagion. After the pump handle was removed, cholera cases dropped dramatically. Mass vaccination programmes also launched in the 19th century – in 1853, smallpox vaccination became mandatory in the first three months of an infant’s life. And in 1875, a Public Health Act placed responsibility for public health on local councils – streets, sewers and water supplies were to be kept clean and inspectors hired to enforce the laws.
This article first appeared in the February 2021 issue of BBC History Revealed
]]>Victorian daily life: what was it like for 'ordinary' Victorians?https://www.historyextra.com/period/victorian/victorian-daily-life-working-class-what-like/2024-11-04T09:00:24.000ZThe Victorian era is widely regarded as a golden age of innovation and industry, when humanity made great leaps in technology and thinking. But what was life like for ‘ordinary’ Victorians whose daily struggle for survival was far away from the sweeping progress and prosperity?
“Pretty grim”, answers Professor Sarah Richardson. “Life expectancy at birth for the average Victorian was about 42, and more than 25 per cent of children died before their fifth birthday. Disease was rife – there were four major outbreaks of cholera alone between 1832 and 1866. And although, in general, standards of living did improve over the period, a third of the population was still living in poverty at the end of the 19th century.
“Of course, there was some light on the horizon – universal education came in during the 1870s, there were improvements in health and sanitation, and also the introduction of leisure pursuits such as football, libraries, music halls and the like. So it wasn’t all doom and gloom, but life wasn't a positive story for most Victorian working-class people.”
Grim city living
Between 1800 and 1850, England’s population doubled, and as factories sprung up across the country, churning out the products of Britain’s imperial expansion, and new technology meant fewer farm workers were needed, thousands flocked from the countryside to the city in search of work. The cost of accommodation rocketed as demand increased, and many families were forced to live side by side in slum housing – hastily built houses, known as tenements, divided into individual rooms in which entire families would live.
Conditions were terrible: many houses flooded or collapsed, and sanitation was non-existent. Lodging, or ‘doss’, houses were common, renting out cheap beds for the night. For the homeless, an alternative to sleeping on the streets or entering the workhouse was a ‘penny sit-up’ where, for the price of a penny, you could sit - but not lie - on a bench for the night. Two pence could see you upgraded to a bench with a rope strung up to lean over, while four pennies would pay for a wooden coffin in which to bed down.
Poor children fared little better. Until 1842, when new laws were introduced which prevented children under 10 working underground, children made up 25 per cent of the workforce in mines, factories, and workshops. Infants as young as four could be found deep underground, holding open ventilator doors for coal wagons to pass through, usually pushed by other children. Britain’s factories, too, employed thousands of child workers – smaller than adults, they could crawl beneath moving machines to clean and tidy. It’s small wonder that accidents and deaths were so common.
If you were lucky enough to have been born into a middle-class family, though, – a social class of merchants, bankers, doctors and the like, which emerged and grew rapidly during this period - life would have been easier. As the British Empire expanded and industry grew, the newly rich enjoyed the sorts of luxuries once afforded only by the super wealthy. Domestic servants could be hired, shopping trips taken and even excursions to the seaside were possible. The Victorian era was a golden age for the middle class.
Life in the workhouse
One of the biggest changes to the lives of the poor took place in 1834, when, faced with the return of unemployed or injured servicemen from the Napoleonic Wars and a national poor relief bill that had quadrupled between 1795 and 1815 – from £2 million to £8 million – the British government passed the Poor Law Amendment Act. The new system of poor relief was now administered by Unions – made up of groups of parishes – which would each operate a workhouse. Outdoor relief (money or assistance issued without requiring an individual to enter an institution) was mostly abolished: for the able-bodied poor, it was now the workhouse or nothing. The workhouse was designed to be a deterrent, and life inside its walls was not supposed to be any easier or more pleasant than life as one of the lowest-paid workers outside in the community – the decision to enter was not one that was taken lightly. After being admitted to the workhouse, personal clothes were placed in storage, and inmates were issued with uniforms, given baths and subjected to medical examinations. Families were separated, as were the able and infirm. Men were put to work, performing physical labour such as bone crushing, stone breaking or oakum picking, while women were expected to take on domestic chores, such as cooking, laundry and sewing. Children, too, lived separately and were only permitted to see their parents for a few hours a week. Food was basic and sparse. Inmates were usually provided with between 137 and 182 ounces of food per week, in addition to soup and gruel. At Andover Union Workhouse in Hampshire, inmates were so hungry that they were found gnawing at the old, mouldy animal bones they were meant to be crushing for fertiliser. But entering the workhouse did not necessarily mean staying there forever. Many inmates who were employed in seasonal work used the workhouse to get through periods of hardship and unemployment. One enduring problem faced by Victorian Poor Law Unions was how to assist the homeless poor, for whom no provision had been made in the 1834 act. What’s more, Unions were only permitted to serve people who resided permanently within the Union boundaries. In 1840, casual blocks were introduced to workhouses, where homeless people could stay for one night per 30-day period. Although it varied from place to place, homeless people were generally subjected to harsher treatment than the so-called ‘deserving poor’ – those unable to work because they were sick, old or disabled. The workhouse era is often seen to have officially ended in 1930, when the 643 Boards of Guardians in England and Wales were abolished. Many former workhouse buildings were destroyed, converted into public hospitals, or turned into museums – in remembrance of those Victorians who had nowhere else to turn.
- Read next | How gruelling was the Victorian workhouse?
This article first appeared in the October 2020 issue of BBC History Revealed
Explore more learning from week one of our course on Victorian Britain
- HistoryExtra Academy video lecture with Ruth Goodman | Victorian life
- 5 things you should know about life in Victorian Britain
- Was Victorian life really so grim?
- What was life like for ordinary Victorians?
- How Victorian women cast of deadly fashion trends
Discover the whole course here
]]>Medieval torture: everything you wanted to knowhttps://www.historyextra.com/membership/medieval-torture-podcast-hannah-skoda/2024-09-08T06:00:38.000ZWhy were people tortured in the Middle Ages? Was it ever legal? Did the infliction of physical pain play as large a role in medieval prosecutions as we might think? And did anyone actually experience the deadly embrace of the Iron Maiden? Speaking to Charlotte Hodgman, historian Professor Hannah Skoda answers a range of listener questions on torture in the medieval era.
Want to learn more? Read our article on medieval torture methods and devices.
]]>HistoryExtra Academy video lecture: crime, violence and the lawhttps://www.historyextra.com/membership/historyextra-academy-video-lecture-crime-violence-and-the-law/2024-08-19T19:09:06.000ZView Green Video on the source website
Discover more learning from week four of our course on life on late-medieval England
Sanctuary in medieval churches: how criminals found protection from capture and punishment – reading time 10 mins Podcast episode: Fatal accidents and violent injuries in the Middle Ages – listening time 34 mins How bloody was medieval life? – reading time 12 mins The many faces of Robin Hood – reading time 14 mins
]]>Late-medieval England course: week three quizhttps://www.historyextra.com/period/late-medieval-england-course-week-three-quiz/2024-08-12T17:31:37.000ZView Riddle on the source website
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Discover more learning from week three of our course on life in late-medieval England
Video lecture: political communities – watching time 18 mins Your guide to the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 – reading time 9 mins King's justice: raising a grievance in medieval England – reading time 7 mins Henry IV: the usurper king – reading time 10 mins Richard II: "I find myself a traitor" – reading time 6 mins
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