540 to 541

We return to Italy, where Belisarius had the Ostrogoths on the ropes… until he didn’t. Leadership failures on both sides result in a renewal of conflict and the appearance of a new power among the Ostrogoths.

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Webpage for this Episode: https://darkagespod.com/2026/03/06/66-when-the-generals-away/

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Logo Art by Jonas Lau Markussen @jonaslaumarkussen

Title Music: "The Britons" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

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90% of the population of Europe was made up of rural peasants. By the end of Roman rule in the West, only some of those peasants had been fully Christianized. This episode is about the efforts by the Church to spread its message to the peasantry, and how it changed in the process.

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Webpage for this Episode: https://darkagespod.com/2026/02/18/65-church-and-people/

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Logo Art by Jonas Lau Markussen @jonaslaumarkussen

Title Music: "The Britons" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Additional music by Ensemble Organum

Sound effects from freesound.com

And https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/

The process of fragmentation that followed the fall of the west affected the Church just as much as it did other parts of society, and there was a process of remaking. What emerged was not the behemoth we may imagine when we think of the medieval church, all under the control of the pope. All the bishops and priests recognized that they were brothers in the same family, they would have been horrified at the idea of there being separate churches; but they would have equally been nonplussed at the idea that they were all subject to the central authority of the pope. This episode takes a stab at describing how the popes saw their role, and how very differently the church functioned in actual practice.

Links: www.instagram.com/darkagespod

Webpage for this Episode: https://darkagespod.com/2026/02/11/64a-church-and-state/

Buy me a coffee with ko-fi.com/darkagespod

Logo Art by Jonas Lau Markussen @jonaslaumarkussen

Title Music: "The Britons" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Sound effects from freesound.com

And https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/