When Vladimir the Great of Kyivan Rus died in 1015, he left several sons by various mothers, and, as we might expect if we have been listening to this podcast for a while, a few of them wanted to be his successor, so they had battles. This being the usual state of affairs amongst the ruling families of the early middle ages, it would not be a good True Crime Medieval topic, except for the story that Sviatopolk murdered his brothers Boris and Gleb, and that both Boris and Gleb died very saintly deaths, refusing to fight against their brother, and were canonized very quickly, the first saints of the Kyivan Rus to be canonized. Well, there you are. A True Crime. Well, a true crime according to the Primary Russian Chronicles. According to the chronicles written in other countries, Sviatopolk didn't murder his brothers, being in prison at the time. It's the story of Sviatopolk the Accursed and His Saintly Brothers that is still the accepted version in Russian movies, which Michelle explains to us. She actually likes some of them. She's reminded of Robert the Bruce films. So we talk about that, along with noticing that history is really worth studying and being careful about, because otherwise when you go off to slaughter your neighbors you might be doing it for the wrong reasons. The right reasons being the ones that kept you staying home and not being murderous. According to us.

True Crime Medieval once again visits the Early Modern era, because we cannot keep away from the story of Alice Wolfe (born Alice Tankerville), who led a very successful life of thievery and murder with her common-law husband John Wolfe, in the time of Henry VIII, and, too bad for them, Thomas Cromwell. Too bad for them, because Cromwell, who had way too many brains for his own good, was able to think up a way to try and convict the Wolfe couple for some thievery and murder they had been up to, even though they were in sanctuary at Westminster, which was to have Parliament try and convict them! Ta da! Parliament had been outgrowing its britches for some time, so it didn't mind. And, since the thievery and murder (the last bit, that being the bit they got caught for) had occurred on water, they were pirates! Yes! Yes they were, so they got executed as pirates, and really one would do better to just be executed for common thievery and murder. It's a great story! Also! The Donner Party and some James Bond Bunnies! Because Michelle.

Surely all of us can understand how infuriating it can be when a neighbor builds some damn thing or other that blocks our view. And then won't take it down. And maybe even laughs. What to do? Take the case to court, obviously. But what if we lose the case, on account of our view-blocking neighbor is a lawyer? Well. We can resort to harassment. With maybe a machine we build that makes the neighbor and his guests think that a bad earthquake is happening, in a region constantly bothered by bad earthquakes. And, hey, let's add in some storm effects. Our neighbor might be a lawyer, but we are one of the greatest architect/engineers of our day, and probably all of the days to come. Earthquake machine? Not a problem. Anne wants to talk about the history of earthquakes in Byzantium, and found an awesome cat poem written by the historian who gives us this story. Michelle explains to you just why it is that the engineering of Hagia Sophia is so extraordinary that it survives all those earthquakes. And is really big. Anthemius was a hell of an architect/engineer.