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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

The Early Music Show

Music: Classical: Early Music

Performance and news from the world of early music.

An exploration of early music, looking at early developments in musical performance and composition in Britain and abroad. UK only: please note that not all episodes are podcast.

The Early Music Show: Edward III

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Factual: History

Edward III

03/07/2010

BBC Radio 3 - The Early Music Show, Edward III

Lucie Skeaping explores the society and musical culture of England under Edward III.

Lucie Skeaping is joined by historian Ian Mortimer to explore the society and musical culture of England under Edward III. It was a time when English became the lingua franca.

Lucie Skeaping looks back on Edward III's 14th Century England with historian Ian Mortimer, focusing on the nation's life and musical culture.

Edward III can be seen as a defining monarch in the history of the nation. After the disastrous reign of his father Edward II, he rebuilt the nation's confidence modelling his monarchy on the chivalric sensibilities of the legendary Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. The Hundred Years War began with Edward; he undertook a huge programme of castle building; and besides many other things, established the Order of the Garter. This was the age when the English language started to become the nation's lingua franca; it is the age of The Green Knight; Piers Plowman; and Geoffrey Chaucer. 

Lucie meets historian Ian Mortimer, an authority of the 14th century and Edward's biographer, to learn more about this period, and she reflects on the Englishness of the music of his age.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

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