'tis but a scratch: fact and fiction about the Middle Ages: Recent Episodes
Richard Abels
Talking about popular conceptions of the Middle Ages and their historical realities. Join Richard Abels to learn about Vikings, knights and chivalry, movies set in the Middle Ages, and much more about the medieval world.
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This is the first of a two part series on the evolution of castle-building and siege warfare in Britain from the Norman Conquest through the middle of the fifteenth century. My very special guest is Paul Remfry, one of the world’s leading experts on castles.
Although this series focuses on castles in England and Wales, the idea for it came from a tour of the castles of Occitanie that Ellen and I took last June. Listeners of this podcast may remember an earlier episode in which Ellen and I talked about the Cathar heresy and the Albigensian Crusade and explained how early in our marriage we co-authored an article on “The Participation of Women in Languedocian Catharism.” Ellen thought that a historical themed tour of Languedoc would be the perfect way to celebrate our fiftieth anniversary. She found the ideal tour, Scholarly Sojourns’ “Castles in the Clouds,” a week-long exploration of the castles and churches of southwestern France associated with the Cathars.
What made the tour really special for me was the opportunity to meet and chat with our historical guide, Paul Remfry. Ellen and I, of course, were not casual travelers. We have both researched and read extensively on the Cathars and medieval Languedoc. I am also a medieval military historian. But I was surprised and pleased to discover how much I didn’t know and understand about castle building. By the end of the tour, I knew that I had to have Paul on the show to share with our listeners his knowledge of castles and siege warfare.
The subject is enormous, so we agreed to limit our talk to a few key castles and sieges in England and Wales that illustrate key developments in castle-building and siege warfare in the High and Late Middle Ages. Please join us!
(If you love history, Scholarly Sojourns is for you. You can check it out at http://www.scholarlysojourns.com/ or on Facebook!)
There is a downside in doing a purely audio podcast, especially on a subject like castles and siege warfare. The best I can do is recommend some websites with images of castles that Paul Remfry and I spoke about.
A good starting point is English Heritage's "Norman Castles," which is organized geographically: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/inspire-me/norman-castles/
For Norman stone keeps, see "Castellogy, Castles and Town Walls in England and Wales: Norman keeps": https://castellogy.com/architecture/design-and-styles/norman-keeps
For William the Conqueror's White Tower (Tower of London), see the images in its Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Tower_(Tower_of_London)
For Norman motte-and-bailey castles, see "Castellogy, Castles and Town Walls in England and Wales: motte-and-bailey castles" https://castellogy.com/architecture/architectural-terms/motte-and-bailey-introduction
The vast majority of castles erected during the Norman settlement were of the motte-and-bailey variety, with wooden towers (keeps). This is a modern term describing a castle consisting of the following elements:
1) The motte: a raised earthwork (the motte), fattened on top and surmounted by a tower (keep). In the eleventh century, the tower would have been made of wood. None of these survive. In the twelfth century, some of the wooden towers were replaced with stone keeps. The ruins of a number of these survive. The tower would have been protected by a palisade made of timber.
2) The bailey: a courtyard enclosed by a wooden palisade adjacent to the mound. The bailey would have stables and houses for troops.
- The entire complex would often be surrounded by a ditch.
For a good general discussion of the construction of motte-and-bailey castles, see "Castellogy, Castles and Town Walls in England and Wales: motte-and-bailey castles" https://castellogy.com/architecture/architectural-terms/motte-and-bailey-introduction
This episode includes:
A musical snippet from "Reis glorios," a 12th-century alba (dawn song) written by the Occitan troubadour Giraut de Bornelh , performed by Ensemble Unicorn ("Music of the Troubadours," uploaded by SableAradia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gXfH5RL0TQ)
Thehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQeXYqp66GY trailer for the 2011 movie Ironclad (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQeXYqp66GY)
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
If you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com
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Each year about three million Americans visit Medieval and Renaissance Faires and Festivals. Among the largest is the annual Maryland Renaissance Festival, about a half hour drive from my home. In this episode I talk with a veteran of this podcast, Dr. Larissa "Kat" Tracy, about the appeal of the Renaissance Faire and Festivals. It turns out that Kat is not only a renowned scholar of medieval literature but is also a devotee of Renaissance Faires, which she has been attending in full costume since 1990.. (She reminded me to add the silent "e.")
The episode begins with historical medieval fairs, focusing on the Fairs of Champagne, an essential element in the commercial revolution of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Each year six fairs were held, each one lasting six weeks. They rotated through four towns. The Fairs of Champagne had a critical economic purpose, connecting the two powerhouses of the Western European economy, the textile industry of Flanders and the merchants of Italy.
We turn from that to consider England's oldest fair, London's St. Bartholomew Fair, founded in the twelfth century. By the sixteenth century, this fair's original economic purpose as a cloth market was eclipsed by the entertainment it offered--music, acrobats, puppet shows, plays, wild animals, freak shows. That leads us into a discussion of modern Renaissance Faires and Festivals. Kat discusses the appeal of and different varieties of cosplaying; describes what a typical day at a Faire is like for her; explains why American Renaissance Faires are so often set in the reign of King Henry VIII; and offers recognition and appreciation for the actors, musicians, and vendors who transform a fairground into a day's visit to an imagined past.
Dr. Larissa "Kat" Tracy's video podcast Medieval Mischief and Mayhem is available on YouTube, SubStack, and with premium material on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/cw/MedievalMischiefandMayhem)
This episode includes a snippet from The Gathering's performance of the "Rocky Road to Dublin" at the Maryland Renaissance Festival on Oct. 8, 2022 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnoVpPs81yY)
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
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In this episode Dr. Nicholas Morton returns to discuss his newest book, The Crusader Storm: A Global History of the Wars of the Middle East (Basic Books, 2026). With some rare exceptions, histories of the Crusades and the Crusader States have been viewed from a Western perspective. What is missing is the Middle Eastern context of the Crusades to the East, how the crusades and the establishment of these Latin states in the Levant interacted with and impacted the multiple rival power centers of the region. For many, the story of the Crusades is that of a clash of cultures, a binary tale which pitted Western Christendom against Islam, with Jerusalem as the prize. But, as Nick Morton, shows, the reality was far more complicated and nuanced than that. The twelfth-century Middle East was multi-cultural and politically fragmented. Civil war was endemic within the Seljuk Empire. It was not unusual for Seljuk governors to seek allies among their Frankish neighbors in their wars against rival Seljuk leaders. And friendships could arise between Frankish knights and elite Turkish and Arab horsemen based on shared values. The Crusades and the history of the Crusader States can only truly be understood within this context.
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
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Back in September Ellen and I did an episode on Popes Leo IX and Gregory VII and their promotion of the Gregorian Reform of the Church. Because my hosting platform informed me that I have 21 minutes left to post a new episode this month, I decided to use that time to do a short episode on the "Church" before it was reformed. Rather than focus on a "bad" bishop like Gaudry of Laon, I chose to examine the career of a saintly bishop, Ulrich of Augsburg (890 – 4 July 973), sometimes called Udalrich. Ulrich was Prince-Bishop of Augsburg. In many ways Ulrich's activities were typical of a tenth-century Prince-Bishop, including his military service to the German king. He was the first saint to be canonized not by a local authority but by a pope, Pope John XV. Ulrich demonstrates that not all pre-Reform bishops were worldly, even if they spent most of their time on secular administration.
This episode has a short snippet of the monophonic chant Kyrie Eleison (The Best of Gregorian Chant Version, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6CRsw2gdcc)
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
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Offa, king of Mercia from 757 to 796, was the most powerful and successful Anglo-Saxon ruler of pre-Viking England. Today Offa is probably best remembered for Offa's Dyke, a massive 150 mile long earthwork that runs along the border of England and Wales. But Offa's contribution to the creation of the kingdom of England goes far beyond that. Offa was the heir to more than a century of Mercian military success that established a Mercian hegemony over England between the Humber River to the north and the river Thames to the south. In this episode, Professor Rory Naismith, author of Offa, King of the Mercians, explains how Offa extended Mercian domination over southern England and transformed the Mercian hegemony into a "greater Mercia" ruled directly by the king. In so doing, Offa provided a model of governance for the tenth-century kings of Wessex, Athelstan and his successors, in their creation of a unified kingdom of "England."
Rory Naismaith, Offa, King of the Mercians(Yale University Press, 2026)
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
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As I did with the episode I scripted for the podcast BEEF about the conflict between King Philip the Fair of France and Pope Boniface VIII, today I am posting an episode from another podcast, "Medieval Mayhem and Mischief with Dr. Larissa Tracy". You probably remember Dr. Tracy (Kat to her friends) from this podcast's episodes on Chretien de Troyes' "Yvain, the Knight with the Lion," and the four part series we did about medieval adultery in history, literature, and modern popular culture. I was really excited when she told me that she was starting her own podcast and asked me if I would be on it. We decided that a discussion of the influence of culture on warfare, specifically on medieval warfare, would be timely, so that is what we did.
"Medieval Mischief and Mayhem with Dr. Larissa Tracy" is the perfect title for Kat's podcast, given that among the subjects she has explored in her ten (!) books are medieval sex, sexuality, obscenity, torture and brutality, and comedy.
Unlike 'Tis But A Scratch, "Medieval Mischief and Mayhem" is a video podcast. If you want to see Kat and me rather than just hear us, you can do so at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0C-U4mTsKU, or by subscribing to her Patreon. I recommend the latter, not only in appreciation for Kat's hard work in preparing and editing a video podcast, but also for the nice extras you get as a subscriber. And, yes, I know, I need to look up more at the camera 😊
"Medieval Mayhem and Mischief with Dr. Larissa Tracy" can be streamed on YouTube or her Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/cw/MedievalMischiefandMayhem).
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
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This is our third and final episode on the crusading order of the Knights Templar. In today's episode, my cohost Dr. Steve Tibble and I talk about the "afterlife" of the Templars, and how and why a military order suppressed in the early fourteenth century has become the go-to for so many conspiracy theorists. Among the topics discussed in this episode are: Templars and Freemasonry; Sir Walter Scott's shaping of their image in his novels, Ivanhoe and The Talisman; the (mis)use of the Templar legend by late nineteenth century French Occultists, racist Neo-Templarists and today's White Supremacists, in the videogame, "Assassin's Creed," and in the "non-fiction" best-seller Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, and the even better selling novel that drew upon it, The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. The last seems to have opened the floodgates for conspiracy theories featuring the Templars, including their role in 9/11!
I highly recommend Steve Tibble's newest book, Assassins and Templars: A Battle in Myth and Blood (Yale University Press, 2025).
This episode includes a snippet from the trailer of the 1972 movie "Tombs of the Blind Dead" (which is NOT highly recommended)
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
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Today’s episode is the second in a three part series on the Crusading military order of the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, more commonly known as the Templars. My cohost for this series is Dr. Steve Tibble, one of the foremost military historians of the crusades, whose most recent book is Assassins and Templars: A Battle in Myth and Blood (Yale University Press, 2025).
In our previous episode Steve and I talked about the origin, mission, and activities of the Templars. Today we discuss the most notorious event in the history of the Templars: the arrest and trial of the Templars of France by order of King Philip IV 'the Fair' in 1307 on charges of heresy, idolatry, blasphemy, and sodomy, and the subsequent suppression of the Order by Pope Clement V. Among the topics we cover are: the Templars' role in the futile defense of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the thirteenth century; the mission challenge raised by the final conquest of Outremer by the Mamlukes; why King Philip IV targeted the Templars, why so many French Templars, including the Grand Master, confessed to the lurid charges; and why Pope Clement V, despite doubting the accusations, dissolved the Order.
In a forthcoming third episode, Steve and I will talk about the Templar afterlife: how after its suppression it lived on in popular imagination as a staple of conspiracy theories.
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
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Today’s episode is the first of a two-part series on the notorious Christian military order, The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, more commonly known as the Knights Templar. This first episode deals with the historical Templars; the second, with the Templar legend My cohost for both is a veteran of this podcast, Dr. Steve Tibble whose newest book is Assassins and Templars, A Battle in Myth and Blood (Yale University Press, 2025).
In this episode, Steve and I talk about the evolution of Christian ideas about warfare that allowed for crusading and for military orders such as the Templars; the Templar origin story; the growth, organization, and development of the order; and the Templars' core mission and activities, in war and peace.
The second episode begins with the trial of the Templars in 1307 by King Philip IV 'the Fair' of France, and the subsequent suppression of the order by the papacy. We then discuss the Templars' "afterlife," their transformation into a mythic secret society beloved by paranoid conspiracy theorists. And, as is the wont of this podcast, we look at how the historical and mythic Templars are represented in novels, movies, and even video games.
I hope you will join us!
This episode includes quoted passages from St. Bernard of Clairvaux's recruitment letter for the Second Crusade and his treatise on the Templars, The New Knighthood. Both are included in The Crusades: A Reader, ed. S,J. Allen and Emilie Amt, second edition (University of Toronto Press, 2014)
It also has a short snippet from the thirteenth-century chant "Dies Irae," performed by Schola Gregoriana Mediolanensis (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MU9qrdrswO8)
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
If you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com
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Until now, "'Tis But A Scratch: Fact & Fiction About the Middle Ages" has dealt with medieval Europe and the Middle East. In this episode, we branch out to a more global perspective by comparing medieval European knights with the samurai of "feudal Japan." And, yes, we will once again be talking about the medievalist's F-word.
I am fortunate to have as my cohost my good friend Stephen Morillo. Stephen is professor emeritus of History at Wabash College, where he taught medieval, world, and military history. His first book, Warfare Under the Anglo-Norman Kings, 1066-1135, was published in 1994. His most recent book is War and Conflict in the Middle Ages: A Global Perspective. This pretty much sums up Stephen’s scholarly odyssey from Anglo-Norman military historian to pre-modern world historian. His focus on comparative global military history makes him the ideal person to discuss knights and samurai. I hope you will join us.
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
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It has been several months since I posted the first half of a two part series on the significance and consequences of the Norman Conquest with my good friend and colleague Dr. Jennifer Paxton of the Catholic University of America. Despite a number of challenges--not the least being a snow storm--we finally got together to record the second episode. In that first episode, Jenny and I reviewed how historians have interpreted the Norman Conquest through the ages, and broadly outlined some of the changes wrought by the Conquest. In this one we explain how the Norman Conquest changed England politically, legally, socially, ecclesiastically, and economically--including the impact it had on diet and food custom (the newest area of research on the Conquest).
In this episode I quote from:
Craig-Atkins E, Jervis B, Cramp L, Hammann S, Nederbragt AJ, Nicholson E, et al. (2020) Correction: The dietary impact of the Norman Conquest: A multiproxy archaeological investigation of Oxford, UK. PLoS ONE 15(9): e0239640. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0239640
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
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And now for something completely different! In this episode, we are not going to be talking about kings or popes, crusades, wars, or political events. Instead, we will be examining the life experiences of ordinary medieval people uncovered through analysis of their skeletal remains.
This field of historical research is known as osteobiography. Osteobiography is the reconstruction of an individual's life story from his or her skeletal remains. It treats bones and teeth as a text that sheds light on an individual's health, diet, disease, trauma, occupation, migrations, and social status. This might sound familiar to some of you who remember the television show Bones. But the purpose here is not to solve crimes but to understand lives.
I am very fortunate to have as my very special guest to explain what we can learn about medieval people from their skeletal remains, Dr. Alison Beach, Professor of Medieval History at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. Alison is the Principal Investigator and Historical Researcher for “Word of Mouth: Embodied Stories of Premodern Women at Work”—I love the puns—or, as it is more popularly known, TeamNun. She heads a team of historians, archaeologists, and scientists dedicated to reconstructing the lives of medieval religious woman through analysis of their skeletal remains. In this episode, Alison will tell us about two osteobiographies her team is working on. What makes these individuals especially interesting is that they both suffered from disabilities that did not preclude long lives. Apparently, medieval empathy is not an oxymoron!
(You can learn more about TeamNun at https://www.teamnun.org/about-1)
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
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Ironically, the most famous date in Anglo-Saxon history is that of its demise, 1066, which is why when in 1930 W. C. Sellar, a former schoolmaster, and his classmate at Oxford, the humorist R. J. Yeatman, decided to send up English history as taught in schools with a parody survey, they called it 1066 and All That. In a previous episode Dr. Jenny Paxton and I discussed why 1066 is such a significant date in English history. My very special guest, David Woodman, Professor of History at Robinson College, Cambridge, contends that the year 927 should be as memorable as 1066. And he will explain why in this episode on the first king of England.
And who was the first king of England? I would love to say that it was King Alfred the Great, but, as I concluded in my biography of Alfred, his legacy was to create the foundations for the kingdom of England. But if not Alfred, then who? David Woodman has a clear answer, encapsulated in the title of his recent book from Princeton University Press, The First King of England: Æthelstan and the Birth of a Kingdom.
In this episode David and I discuss the reign of King Æthelstan, and why David believes that 927 should be celebrated as the birthdate of the kingdom of England. Along the way, we discuss sources--or the lack thereof--and commiserate over the challenges faced by biographers of early medieval people. I hope you will join us.
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
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This is an addendum to my previous episode with Peter Konieczny. One of my listeners sent me an email asking why we never covered Frescobaldi's, Gucci's, and Sigoli's accounts of their experiences in Jerusalem. As she pointed out, when asked by the Sultan's representative in Alexandria the purpose of their trip, they said that it was to visit the Holy Sepulcher. And she is absolutely right. We ought to have talked about the culmination of the pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Given that we are three days into the twelve days of Christmas, I decided that I should also talk about their visit to Bethlehem. I wanted to get this out quickly, so it is a solo effort. It is also one of my shorter episodes. I would suggest that you listen first to Peter and my more general discussion of the three pilgrimage accounts and consider this to be a continuation.
May you have joy and peace for the remaining nine days of the Christmas season!
Quotations are from
Frescobaldi, Gucci, and Sigoli, Visit to the Holy Places of Egypt, Sinai, Palestine and Syria in 1384, trans Theophilus Bellorini and Eugene Hoade (Jerusalem: Franciscan Press, 1948), posted online at https://fada.birzeit.edu/handle/20.500.11889/9200
This episodes includes musical snippets from
Stella splendens (anonymous late 14th century pilgrim’s song), Free Choral Music, edited by Monique Rio https://test.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Stella_splendens_in_monte_(Anonymous)
De Profundis. Ofertorio (Modo II) Coro De Monjes Del Monasterio De SilosCantos Gregorianos (Vol. 2), posted by De Profundis-Gregorian Chant, Catholic Songs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwTO6oYDdZs
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
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In the year 1384 a company of six wealthy merchants from Florence, each accompanied by a servant, went on a ten-month long pilgrimage to Mameluke Egypt, Palestine, and Syria. Upon returning to Florence, three of them--Leonardo Frescobaldi, Giorgio Gucci, and Simone Sigoli--wrote narratives of the journey. Although there are hundreds of accounts of pilgrimages to the East during the Middle Ages, this is the only pilgrimage that produced three independent narratives. What makes these narratives fascinating is that they are as much travelogues as itineraries of visits to churches and holy places. They are a treasure trove of information about the material culture and customs of the Mameluke east as viewed and interpreted by travelers from Italy. They also present the historian with a Rashomon-like puzzle: how do we reconcile three eye-witness accounts when they differ? Peter Koniezcny, the owner of the website "medievalists.net" and a veteran of this podcast, returns to talk about this unique source. I hope that you will join us.
The passages quoted are from:
Frescobaldi, Gucci, and Sigoli, Visit to the Holy Places of Egypt, Sinai, Palestine and Syria in 1384, trans Theophilus Bellorini and Eugene Hoade (Jerusalem: Franciscan Press, 1948), posted online at https://fada.birzeit.edu/handle/20.500.11889/9200
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
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To celebrate my birthday—yes I was a Halloween baby—I decided to do a short episode recounting my one up-close and personal experience with a ghost. No, it was not a ghost of some one who died in the Middle Ages. In fact, I don’t know who it was. But since ‘Tis But A Scratch” is a medieval podcast, I start with three ghost stories from the Middle Ages.
It probably comes as no surprise that medieval people believed in ghosts, and ghost stories are scattered through medieval monastic chronicles, hagiographies, preaching manuals, and medieval literature. Ghost stories in medieval England, France, and Germany are mostly about apparitions of the sinful dead to living relatives. These began proliferating in the eleventh century, at the same time that the Catholic Church was developing its theology of Purgatory. Monks and preachers used these stories to emphasize the need to purge one’s sins, even after death. When the Church introduced the idea that the living could lessen the suffering of the dead in Purgatory by doing good deeds or contributing lands and money to monasteries and churches in return for prayers, these stories were used by preachers as fund raisers. The tradition in medieval Scandinavia was different. There the ghosts are not spirits but revenants, reanimated corpses.
I’ve chosen examples illustrating each genre. Two of them were written down around the year 1400. The first is from an Icelandic Saga, Grettir’s Saga. The second is from a collection of twelve ghost stories written by a monk of Byland Abbey, in Yorkshire. Both are about revenants, reanimated corpses, but of very different sorts. Rounding things out is a ghost story from an earlier source, the autobiography of an early twelfth-century French Benedictine abbot, Guibert of Nogent.
I’m afraid that you might find my personal ghost story a bit dull in comparison, but I can assure you that it was anything but dull when I lived it. And just in case you are wondering: NO! I DO NOT BELIEVE IN GHOSTS!.
Happy Halloween!
I used the following English translations in this podcast (each of which I emended slightly):
Grettir’s Saga, trans. G. H. Hight (1914): https://www.sagadb.org/grettis_saga.en2
“Twelve Medieval Ghost Stories,” trans. A.J. Grant, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 27 (1924): 362-379, posted on the “Medieval Histories” website: https://www.medieval.eu/medieval-histories-time-travelling-to-the-middle-ages/
C.C. Swinton Bland of , The Autobiography of Guibert, Abbot of Nogent-sous-Coucy, trans. C.C. Swinton Bland (London: George Routledge: New York: E.P. Dutton, 1925), which I revised somewhat following Paul J. Archambault, trans., A Monk’s Confession: The Memoirs of Guibert of Nogent (Penn State U. Press, 2004). Bland’s translation is in the public domain and posted in its entirety at https://sourcebooks.web.fordham.edu/basis/guibert-vita.asp
This episode includes a short snippet from "The Unknown," a track from KeMi's album "Shadowscapes." https://artlist.io/royalty-free-music/album/shadowscapes/13040
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
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Yes, we have finally come to the end of our series "From Bishop of Rome to the Papal Monarchy." In this episode, Ellen and I talk about the pontificate of Innocent III, which historians see as the apex of the papal monarchy. Among the topics we cover are Innocent III's ideology of Caesaropapism, his contribution to the crusading movement, his combat against heresy, his defense of the papal states, and his dedication to Church Reform. Innocent III was the most powerful and effective pope of the Middle Ages. His control over the Roman Catholic episcopate was uncontested, as evidenced by the Fourth Lateran Council. But his Caesaropapism, his assertion of papal supremacy over both the clergy and the laity, including Christian rulers, was more theoretical than real. He claimed to be the supreme judge over the rulers of Christendom, and was successful in doing so in a number of high profile cases, but his successes were contingent upon the need of those kings either to have papal support or, at the very least, not to be opposed by the papacy. Similarly, he could launch crusades against the Church’s domestic and foreign enemies, but once a crusade was ongoing, he had little power to direct it—even when the crusaders were disobeying his direct orders, as happened twice during the Fourth Crusade. When examined closely, papal supremacy over Christendom was always contingent, even during the apex of the papal monarchy.
This episode includes musical snippets from
Nunc Scio Vere (Introitus) Catholic Missa https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSpBhfE7ljA
Dies Irae, Tu es Petrus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OBB5-bP6qs
Medieval music: Cantiga de santa maria n. 383 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZEzmTQlmBU) [Steve Tyler: Hurdy Gurdy, Cittern Marco Cannavo: Hurdy Gurdy Ricardo De Noronha: Percussion]
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
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In this, the fourth--and penultimate--episode of our continuing series on the medieval papacy, my wife Ellen and I examine the establishment of the papal monarchy in the twelfth century. We discuss how the Investiture Controversy transformed the papacy and the Church; how the growth of papal governance and business along with its need for increased revenues made it a target for the same Church reformers who had formerly been its most fervent supporters; and how those developments brought the papacy into conflict with the Holy Roman Emperors Frederick I Barbarossa and his son Henry VI. I hope you will join us for this and the final episode of the series, on the pontificate of Innocent III, the apex of the papal monarchy.
This episode includes musical snippets from
Musician Ernst Stolz playing the pilgrims' song, "O Roma nobilis" on tenor vielle, recorder and gemshorn. From his YouTube channel "My Years with Early Music: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wf3_3065gmU)
Nunc Scio Vere (Introitus) Catholic Missa https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSpBhfE7ljA
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
If you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com
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About eight months ago, Jenny and I released a couple of episodes dealing with the historical context of the Norman Conquest. I am delighted to have Jenny back to talk with me about the significance of the Norman Conquest and the Norman Settlement in English history. In this, the first of two episodes, Jenny and I look at the events following the Battle of Hastings and examine how the Norman Conquest has been interpreted over the centuries. I hope you will join us.
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
If you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com
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The subject of today’s episode, the pontificate of Pope Gregory VII and the Investiture Controversy, is a staple of undergraduate medieval surveys. The first episode I posted after our summer hiatus was actually one that I wrote for a different podcast, “BEEF With Bridget Todd.” It told of the feud between Pope Boniface VIII and King Philip the Fair of France that culminated in that pope’s humiliation at the hands of agents of the king. The so-called Outrage of Anagni in 1302 marked the effective end to the medieval papacy’s claims to supremacy over Christendom’s secular rulers. And if you haven’t already done so, you might want to give it a listen. In this episode, we will see the first time that a pope, Gregory VII, advanced such a claim, and, although it resulted in his personal humiliation, how it laid the foundation for the Papal Monarchy.
My cohost once again is my partner for life and inspiration for all things medieval, my wife Ellen. I hope you will join us in this fourth and penultimate episode of our series “From Bishop of Rome to the Papal Monarchy.”
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
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After a summer hiatus, we are finally back with a new episode, the third in our series on the medieval papacy, “From Bishop of Rome to the Papal Monarchy.” The previous covered the tenth-century nadir of the papacy, when it was dominated by powerful Roman families and used to enhance their power and control over the city and the papal states. In this episode, my favorite co-host Ellen Harrison Abels and I explain how the foundations of the papal monarchy were laid in the mid eleventh century by a super pious German king, Henry III, in his capacity as Holy Roman Emperor working hand in glove with his hand-picked German pope (and cousin) Pope Leo IX. The engine of change was the so-called Gregorian Reform (after Pope Gregory VII, whom we will discuss in the next episode). This was the eleventh- and twelfth-century papacy's attack on the clerical abuses of simony, the practice of purchasing spiritual offices/church positions and clerical unchastity. By 1050 both were regarded by monastic reformers as serious abuses among the secular clergy (i.e. the priesthood). Reformers, influenced by the rise of a commercial economy, interpreted as simony the traditional practice of bishops thanking with gifts the kings and princes who had appointed them to their sees. The older view was that it was simply good manners (the reciprocity of gift-giving).
With the backing of Emperor Henry III, Pope Leo IX not only claimed but exerted papal authority over the other bishops of western Christendom in his zeal to cleanse the Church of simony and clerical unchastity. But the death of Henry III and the succession of a child to the throne of Germany, threatened to return the papacy into the hands of the Roman nobility. This led to Pope Nicholas II issuing a papal election decree in 1059, the papacy's declaration of independence, not only from the Roman nobility but (in less certain terms) from the Holy Roman Emperor himself. In this episode Ellen and I also discuss the origins of the Great Schism between the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox Church, and how that explains why Roman Catholic priests are required to be celibate but Greek Orthodox priests can marry.
This episode includes snippets from Gregorian chants sung by
the Institute of Christ The King Sovereign Priest (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvT2siwqZCI);
the Schola du Séminaire Saint-Curé-d'Ars (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7I7vXcZR0A); and the Schola of the Vienna Hofburgkapelle (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjrsqJaLDOg).
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
If you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com
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After a summer hiatus “’Tis But A Scratch: Fact & Fiction About the Middle Ages” is back—well, not actually quite yet. I am busily working on the final two episodes of our series on the medieval papacy, “From Bishop of Rome to the Papal Monarchy.” I should have episode three on the Gregorian Reform and the Investiture Controversy out in a week or so. But to tide you over, here is an episode on a related subject from a different podcast, “BEEF with Bridget Todd.” In it, Bridget Todd tells the story of the feud between Christendom’s two most powerful rulers at the turn of the fourteenth century, Pope Boniface VIII and King Philip the Fair of France, a conflict that would determine the fate of the late medieval papacy. Making it even more relevant to this podcast, the script is by yours truly, Prof. Richard Abels.
On September 7, 1303, William of Nogaret, chief legal advisor and fixer for King Philip IV of France, and Sciarra Colonna, a member of a powerful Italian family, led an armed band into the town of Anagni in the hills east of Rome. They had been told that Pope Boniface VIII had gone to the papal palace in Anagni, the town in which the pope had been born, to prepare a bull of excommunication against the French King. Nogaret’s mission was to seize the pope and compel him either to renounce the papacy on the spot or be brought back to France to stand trial before a general council. Colonna, whose grievances were personal and familial, had his own agenda. He was prepared to kill the man who claimed to be God’s vicar on earth if he proved stubborn.
What later was to known as the Outrage of Anagni pitted the most powerful secular ruler in Christendom against the head of the Church to which he belonged. Pope Boniface VIII was the spiritual leader of Christendom and claimed supreme God-given authority over the princes of the earth. As pope, he was also ruler of the papal states in Italy and the CEO of the largest and wealthiest, if most diffuse, corporation in Western Europe, a corporation that had extensive offices in France. It may not surprise you that the root of the conflict was a dispute over money. But it’s best to begin with who these two men were and what the relationship between Church and State was in Western Europe in the late thirteenth century.
BEEF with Bridget Todd. BEEF is an original scripted non-fiction storytelling podcast that focuses on famous historical rivalries, mostly between innovators in pop culture and business.
Award-winning host Bridget Todd tells the stories of legends in their fields and how they tried to stomp out their competition only to find that their enemies become the driving force behind their success, ultimately changing the world as we know it. Past episodes have covered feuds such as the rivalry between basketball players Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain, 19th-century British explorers of the Nile Sir Richard Burton and Capt. John Hanning Speke, and Marc Antony and Octavian Caesar. They even have an episode on Beer vs Gin: England’s Favorite Beverages.
This episode also includes some truly insightful observations by Dr. Cecilia Gaposchkin of Dartmouth College. And the podcast’s acclaimed host, Bridget Todd, is excellent as usual. I hope you enjoy it. And if you do, you might want to check out other episodes of “BEEF with Bridget Todd.” It isn’t a medieval podcast, but if you enjoy history and story-telling, I think you will like it. You can listen to it wherever you get your podcasts.
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
If you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com
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Now for something completely different from tracing the development of the papacy from bishop of Rome to the papal monarchy--but, don't worry, I will be completing that series soon. In this episode, I chat with author Garry J. Shaw about his fascinating new book from Yale University Press, Cryptic: From Voynich to the Angel Diaries, the Story of the World's Mysterious Manuscripts. The book tells the stories behind nine puzzling medieval and early Modern European texts.In our interview Garry talks about the three that fall within the chronological confines of the Middle Ages.
We begin with the "unknown language" and "unknown script" concocted by the remarkable twelfth-century German abbess, mystic, polymath, and composer of sacred music, Hildegard of Bingen.
We then turn to another strange early fifteenth-century manuscript, the Bellicorum instrumentorum liber, Book of the Instruments of War, by Giovanni Fontana, whom Garry Shaw characterizes as "a true pre-Renaissance man." Fontana was entranced with the "natural magic of mechanical creations" and the "practical knowledge gained from experiments and observation of nature." But this did nothing to lessen his belief in supernatural forces operating in the world. He was also "a world class prankster" with a fascination for ciphers. All these came together in the Bellicorum instrumentorum liber, an enciphered illustrated catalogue of imagined machines, ranging from rocket-powered chairs and fanciful siege engines to mechanical witches.
We conclude with perhaps the most famous of all mysterious manuscripts, the early fifteenth-century Voynich codex, whose content has resisted decipherment by professional code-breakers and cryptographers. (Spoiler: we won't be able to tell you what the Voynich manuscript actually says, but Dr. Shaw has a good idea what the manuscript is, why it was produced, and why no one has been able to decipher it. If you disagree with him, just go online to Yale University library's posting of Voynich and have your own go at it!)
I hope you will join us.
Cryptic: From Voynich to the Angel Diaries, the Story of the World's Mysterious Manuscripts by Garry J. Shaw. Yale University Press, 2025. (https://www.amazon.com/Cryptic-Voynich-Diaries-Mysterious-Manuscripts/dp/0300266510)
The manuscripts that we discuss in this episode can be viewed online at:
Hildegard of Bingen's Unknown Language: An Edition, Translation and Discussion by Sarah L. Higley (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007): https://epdf.pub/hildegard-of-bingens-unknown-language-an-edition-translation-and-discussion-the-48385c392ef3ce461b6703d8f09d435e57514.html
Voynich Manuscript. Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library: https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/2002046
Giovanni Fontana, Instrumentorum bellicorum liber. The Munich DigitiZation Center (MDZ)https://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/0001/bsb00013084/images/index.html?fip=193.174.98.30&seite=54&pdfseitex=
This episode includes three musical snippets:
Hildegard of Bingen's votive antiphon for the dedication of a Church, "O orzchis Ecclesiam" (Ensemble Sequentia, with Barbara Thornton. Deutsche Harmonium Mundi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?)v=AGCAOf9gjBM&t=7s)
O orzchis Ecclesia,
armis divinis precincta
et iacincto ornata, tu es caldemia
stigmatum loifolum
et urbs scientiarum.
O, o, tu es
etiam crizanta
in alto sono et es
chorzta gemma. (Hildegard's 'lingua ignota' words in italics)
Hildegard of Bingen's "O Euchari in Leta Via," as adapted by Richard Souther for his album "Vision: The Music of Hildegard von Bingen" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OplySCA0jZw)
Salterello 3 - Italian late 14th century instrumental dance music on medieval fiddle
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
If you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com
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I finally saw the movie "Conclave," and really enjoyed it. As you probably know, it is about the contentious election of a pope in a conclave of the college of cardinals. The movie, however, never explains what the word conclave actually means or how and why that papal electoral procedure began. This episode will remedy that omission.
The intro music is from the Academy Award nominated overture to the movie "Conclave" by the composer Volker Bertelmann
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
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In this second episode of a three part series, my favorite cohost Ellen and I survey the development of the papacy from the eighth through the early eleventh century. Among the topics we discuss are who and what the Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties of Francia were; Pope Zacharias' legitimization of Pepin the Short's deposition of a puppet Merovingian king and his elevation to the throne; the "donation of Pepin" that created the papal states; the "Donation of Constantine," forged in the papal chancery to justify the donation of Pepin; the partnership between Charlemagne and the papacy in reforming the Western Church; Pope Leo III's coronation of Charlemagne as Emperor of the Romans on Christmas Day, 800; and how the papacy was reduced once again to being the local bishops of Rome under the control of the Roman aristocracy in the tenth century after the collapse of the Carolingian empire. This is the period that historians see as the nadir of the institution that featured some memorably bad popes, though we conclude with a few good ones under the Ottonian emperors.
This episode includes audio snippets
Musician Ernst Stolz playing the pilgrims' song, "O Roma nobilis" on tenor vielle, recorder and gemshorn. From his YouTube channel "My Years with Early Music: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wf3_3065gmU)
Gregorian Chant - Agnus Dei, posted by fgl music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YZI4cyBkvI
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
If you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com
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In this first episode of a three part series, my favorite cohost Ellen and I survey the development of the papacy over its first seven centuries. I have to confess that along the way I got somewhat off topic talking about the Roman persecution of the Christians. But it is an interesting subject in itself and worth exploring, and as 31 of the first 32 popes are venerated as martyrs--some with more reason than others--it seems relevant to a discussion of the first centuries of the papacy. In this episode Ellen and I also talk about Christological disputes that divided the early Church, the position of the bishop of Rome vis-à-vis other bishops, and the papacy's relationship with the Emperor Constantine and his successors. That's my way of saying that it turned out longer than I expected. But I hope that you'll listen and enjoy it.
This episode includes musician Ernst Stolz playing the pilgrims' song, "O Roma nobilis" on tenor vielle, recorder and gemshorn. From his YouTube channel "My Years with Early Music: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wf3_3065gmU)
Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com
Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
If you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com
Send us Fan Mail
In this episode I interview Professor Nora Berend of the University of Cambridge about her new book El Cid; The Life and Afterlife of a Medieval Mercenary (Pegasus Books, 2025). We discuss how the historical Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, a ruthless and ambitious mercenary who served both Christian and Muslim rulers in the violent and chaotic political world of late eleventh-century Iberia was transformed into the national hero of Francoist Spain and the hero of the 1961 movie starring Charlton Heston.
This episode includes the audio track from the theatrical trailer to the 1961 movie "El Cid", starring Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren, and directed by Anthony Mann
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
If you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com
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This is the second of our two part series on the Norman Conquest. In it Jenny and I discuss the military challenges faced by King Harold Godwinson and Duke William of Normandy and the battles of Fulford Gate and Stamford Bridge, before turning to look closely at the Battle of Hastings (which did not actually take place at Hastings). I hope you will join us.
There is a host of books on the Battle of Hastings and the Norman Conquest, both academic and popular. I would glad to recommend some. Feel free to email me. Meanwhile, I'd recommend a couple of good collections of primary and secondary sources:
Stephen Morillo, ed., The Battle of Hastings: Sources and Interpretations (The Boydell Press, 1996).
R. Allen Brown, ed., The Norman Conquest. Documents of Medieval History 5 (Edward Arnold, 1984).
The magazine "Medieval Warfare" devoted a special edition in 2017 to "1066: The Battle of Hastings." I highly recommend it for those interested in the military aspects of the battle.
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
If you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com
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This is the first half of a two part series on the Norman Conquest of England. My cohost for both parts is a veteran of this podcast, Dr. Jennifer Paxton of the Catholic University of America. Jenny is one of the very best historians of Anglo-Norman England, so this is a subject right up her alley. In this episode we explore the historical background leading up to the Norman Conquest and the claims of the three rivals who fought for the English throne in 1066: Earl Harold Godwinson, King Harald Hardrada of Norway, and Duke William of Normandy.
This is an episode that cries out for genealogical tables connecting the main claimants to the English throne in 1066. Fortunately, there are a number of useful and reliable ones online:
For the family relations of the main claimants to the English throne in 1066, see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_the_Conqueror#/media/File:Tree_of_William's_struggle_for_England.svg
There is a nice table of the family of Earl Godwin at:
https://achallengeforthethronebygeorgina.weebly.com/harold-godwinson.html
And for Harald Hardrada, check out:
https://www.medievalists.net/2021/08/harald-hardrada-exemplar-age/
I'm pleased to say that 'Tis But A Scratch recently was recognized by Feedspot as one of the 25 best Viking Age Podcasts and one of the top 100 podcasts on the history of Europe:
https://podcast.feedspot.com/viking_age_podcasts/
https://podcast.feedspot.com/europe_podcasts/
This episode includes an audio clip from Walt Disney's animated "Alice in Wonderland." To understand why, you will just have to listen to the episode.
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
If you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com
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Yes, I know that Octavian IS Augustus, but this episode is about how Gaius Octavius became Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus, and in doing so replaced the old Roman Republic with a military autocracy masquerading as a republic. This is the conclusion of our three part series on the fall of the Roman Republic. My cohost for all three episodes has been my good friend Dr. Jennifer Paxton of the Catholic University of America.
This episode includes two audio snippets:
Mark Antony's funeral oration for Caesar, from the 1953 film version of Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" (with Marlon Brando as Brutus)
"What have the Romans done for us?" from "Monty Python's The Life of Brian"
Quotations from:
Appian on Caesar's Funeral, trans. John Carter (https://www.livius.org/sources/content/appian/appian-caesars-funeral/)
Res Gestae Divi Augusti ("the achievements of the deified Augustus"), trans. F.W. Shipley (https://www.livius.org/sources/content/augustus-res-gestae/)
Tacitus Agricola. Translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb (1877)
Tacitus, Annals. Loeb Classical Library edition of Tacitus, 1931
For another take on the story, I recommend listening to "Marc Antony vs. Octavian Caesar: Ancient Rome's Ruthless Rivals," a two part series on the podcast "Beef with Bridget Todd."
As I am posting this a couple of days before Christmas and Hanukkah, I would like to wish you all Happy Holidays. And if you haven't yet listened to it, you might want to try our episode on how Hanukkah and Christmas were celebrated in the Middle Ages (with detours into how Hanukkah became the Jewish Christmas in the United States and why the Puritans tried to suppress Christmas).
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
If you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com
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This is the second of a three part series about the fall of the Roman Republic. My cohost for all three episodes is Dr. Jennifer Paxton of the Catholic University of America. We actually had been planning only two episodes, but the story is long and detailed, so we thought that three would be best. In episode one, Jenny and I explained the workings of the Roman Republic and the military, economic, and cultural factors that undermined its stability in the late second and first century B.C.. In it we examined how and why Rome's acquisition of a Mediterranean based empire undermined the foundations of its republican constitution. Among the topics covered in that episode are: the Roman class system and how it shaped Roman political institutions; the patron-client relationship; Roman just war theory; the land reform program of the Gracchi brothers; Marius' unprecedented six consulships; and the fracturing of the ruling elite in the Optimates, supporters of senatorial privilege, and the Populares, who sought to check the senate by appealing to the popular assemblies; This episode picks up where the last one left off, beginning with Sulla's march on Rome in 99 B.C. and ending with the assassination of Julius Caesar on the idea of March, 44 B.C.. The third and final episode completes the story, culminating in the establishment of the "Principate" by Octavian Augustus, an autocracy masquerading as a republic.
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
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For the fiftieth (!) episode of this podcast, I'm taking a few centuries detour from the Middle Ages to talk about the fall of the Roman Republic. In this episode, the first of a two part series, my cohost Dr. Jenny Paxton and I talk about the political and cultural institutions of the Roman Republic in the late second and first centuries B.C.E.*. We explain how and why a republic designed to govern an Italian city-state fell victim to its own success as Rome rose to empire, despite all of its built in checks and balances. In the second episode, Jenny and I relate how a series of ambitious political generals--Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Caesar, Mark Antony, and Octavian Augustus--plunged the Republic into two generations of civil war that culminated in the establishment of a military autocracy disguised as a republic.
(Note: B.C.E. stands for "Before the Common Era"; C.E. for "The Common Era." They are the secular equivalents of B.C. and A.D.. Be warned, we weren't consistent in our use of these dating conventions. I also noticed that sometimes we called the Roman legislative and judicial body known as the consilium plebis the plebeian assembly and sometimes the council of plebeians. Sorry for any confusion this might cause.)
This episode includes an audio clip from Universal Picture's 1993 film "Jurassic Park"
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
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I know. Just what everyone needed, an episode about an election. To take a break from reading and watching election postmortems, I decided to return to one of my favorite teaching texts, the monk Jocelin of Brakelond’s Chronicle of the Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds. This is more of a personal memoir of what Jocelin saw and experienced as a monk than it is the standard monastic chronicle. It contains the fullest account of the process by which English monasteries in the High Middle Ages elected an abbot, and I thought that would be a fun and a far less stressful subject than our recent election—at least for our listeners if not for the monks of Bury St. Edmunds in 1182. My co-host for this episode is my partner for life and inspiration for all things medieval, my wife Ellen. This episode is especially for those of our listening audience who regard the U.S. election results with fear and trembling and a sickness unto death.
[This is a corrected version of the episode. The first posting had some glitches which I corrected. Sorry about that.]
Quotations are from
Jocelin of Brakelond, Chronicle of the Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, trans. Diane Greenway and Jane Sayers. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
This episodes includes a musical interlude:
Orbita Solaris (Short Version) Gregorian Chant
Chant group Psallentes, directed by Hendrik Vanden Abeele, singing from a 12th century antiphoner, prepared for the Mariakerk in Utrecht. Semi-live recording by Jo Cops at Heverlee, Belgium, May 2009. Singers are: Conor Biggs, Pieter Coene, Lieven Deroo, Paul Schils, Philippe Souvagie and Hendrik Vanden. Abeele.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lo-yb-UDBHA
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
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This episode is devoted to a truly unique and pretty weird Arabic text, The Book of Charlatans by an obscure early thirteenth-century Arabic scholar, Jamal al-Din 'Abd al-Rahim al-Jawbari, commonly known simply as al-Jawbari. At the behest of a Turkman sultan, al-Jawbari composed an encyclopedic guide to the scams, con games, and trickery practiced in the cities of the medieval Middle East. Al-Jawbari not only catalogues the various scams and trickery but also explains how they were pulled off. The book warns its readers to be vigilant against these scams, but it also reads like a "how to" manual. What makes it such a "good read" are the many anecdotes that al-Jawbari includes based on his own experiences during his travels throughout the Islamic east. My co-host for this episode is Peter Konieczny, the owner of the website medievalists.net, the leading online platform for all things medieval. In an earlier episode, Peter explained to me how and why the Mongols devastated Abbasid Baghdad. Frankly, I had not even heard of The Book of Charlatans until Peter approached me with the idea of doing an episode on it. I am so glad that he did because this really is an interesting work that sheds light on the criminal underbelly of the medieval Islamic world. It is also just fun. Please join us as we talk about the many scams practiced by medieval Muslim--and Christian--con artists in the thirteenth-century Middle East.
The Book of Charlatans, translated by Humphrey Davies and edited by Manuela Dengler. New York Univesity Press, 2020.
(If you have questions about this--or any episode of the podcast--feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com.)
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
If you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com
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In this episode I talk with the distinguished historian of the crusades Dr. Steven Tibble about the motivations of crusaders and of those Europeans who settled in the Crusader states of Outremer. Steve is the author of five books dealing with the crusades, the most recent of which is Crusader Criminals: The Knights Who Went Rogue in the Holy Land (Yale University Press, 2024). We examine the roles played by religious zeal, the promise of remission of sin, feudal obligation, the hope of material gain, and the benefit of temporal privileges in motivating those who took the cross. In considering the relationship between crusaders and settlers, Steve explains why the rulers and European residents of Outremer developed a culture of religious and ethnic toleration that surprised and appalled Crusaders just off the boat. And because I couldn't resist, I have Steve explain why the Crusader States became hotbeds of crime and violence. I hope you will join us.
Audio clips in this episode:
The movie trailer for the 1948 re-release of Cecil B. DeMille's 1935 epic, The Crusades.
A snippet from "The Crusades" episode of the 1989 PBS series "Timeline."
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
If you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com
Send us a Text Message.
On 3-4 July 1187 the Sultan of Egypt and Syria Saladin enjoyed the greatest military victory of his career. The Battle of Hattin, a two-day battle fought along the road leading to the town of Tiberias and, on the following day, on the Horns of Hattin, an iron-age hillfort above that road, is one of the few decisive battles of the Middle Ages. (In this episode, Richard explains why there were so few battles.) The battle pitted a Muslim force of about 30,000, comprised largely of Turkish cavalry, against the largest military force ever raised by the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, an army of about 1,200 cavalry and 18,000 foot soldiers. The outcome of the battle was the capture of King Guy and the virtual annihilation of the field army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. In the months following the battle, Saladin systematically took all the major coastal cities of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, except for Tyre, and then turned inland to take Jerusalem. King Guy of Lusignan's ultimately disastrous decision to leave the safety of its camp at the springs of Sepphoris (Saffurya) and march 30 kilometers across waterless farmland in the July heat to relieve Saladin's siege of Tiberias remains controversial. In this episode, Professor Nicholas Morton, author of Crusader States and Their Neighbours: A Military History, 1099-1187 and veteran of this podcast, explains Guy's military thinking by placing the Battle of Hattin in the larger context of warfare as practiced by the rulers of the Crusader States of the Middle East. In doing so, Nick persuasively argues against a reigning academic and popular consensus that regards Guy's decision as defying military logic.
(Sorry, no movie reviews in this episode--though the prelude to and aftermath of the Battle of Hattin is depicted in Ridley Scott's The Kingdom of Heaven, and the full battle is shown in Egyptian director Youssef Chahine's 1963 movie Saladin the Victorious.)
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
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Yes, Kristin Lavransdatter is the highest-grossing Norwegian film of all time. That isn't as impressive as it might sound, as the movie only brought in $3.7 in box office receipts, but virtually all of that came from domestic sales. Pretty much unknown outside Scandinavia, the movie was a sensation when released in Norway in 1995. An estimated two-thirds of the country's population have viewed it. The movie is based on the first volume of Sigrid Undset's trilogy about the life of an ordinary woman in fourteenth century Norway, which won her the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1928. Directed and written by the celebrated Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann, the film is a very faithful adaptation. The production strove for historical accuracy in costume and settings, and most of the dialogue is taken directly from the novel. (Sigrid Undset is credited as co-screenplay writer.)
The reason I decided to devote a short episode to this movie and to its source novel is they both are worthy attempts to examine an aspect of the Middle Ages virtually ignored in popular culture, the life of ordinary people. Kristin Lavransdatter is the coming of age story of young woman from a prosperous family in rural fourteenth-century Norway who is seduced by and falls in love with a knight with a (justifiably) scandalous reputation. Whether Kristin's mentalité in the novel and film is really "medieval" is a matter of academic debate. But the care with which Undset in her novel and Ullmann in the film recreate the religious rituals, customs, and everyday life in early fourteenth-century Norway is impressive and worth a reading and a viewing.
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This is the final episode of a multi-part series about medieval adultery in literature, history, and popular culture. My co-host Professor Larissa 'Kat' Tracey and I review how adultery has been dealt with in movies about the Middle Ages. We begin with three Hollywood medieval epics, "The Kingdom of Heaven," "Braveheart," and "The Last Duel," and then turn to the focus of our previous episodes, movies about Lancelot and Guinevere and Tristan and Iseult.
This episode includes a sound clip (unfortunately not the clearest recording) from the movie "The Kingdom of Heaven"
Works consulted:
Susan Aronstein, Hollywood Knights: Arthurian Cinema and the Politics of Nostalgia . Palgrave, 2005.
Virginia Blanton, Martha M. Johnson-Olin, and Charlene Miller Avrich, eds., Medieval Women in Film: An Annotated Handlist and Reference Guide. Medieval Feminist Forum
Subsidia Series, 2014.
Kevin J. Harty, ed., Cinema Arthuriana. McFarland, 2002.
Kevin J. Harty, ed., Medieval Women on Film. McFarland, 2020.
Bert Olton, Arthurian Legends on Film and Television. McFarland, 2000.
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This is the third of a multi-episode series in which I chat with Dr. Larissa ‘Kat’ Tracey about literary representations of medieval adultery and its reality. In this episode Kat and I survey and discuss the major nineteenth- and twentieth-century literary treatments of medieval adultery, focusing on the stories of La(u)ncelot and Guinevere and of Tristan/Tristram and Isolde/Isolt/Iseult The episode begins with an opera, Richard Wagner’s extremely influential retelling of the tale, Tristan und Isolde. Although composed between 1857 and 1859, the opera did not premiere until 1865, because it was deemed too expensive to stage and its complex, innovative music was thought to be unperformable. We consider how Wagner reconceived his medieval source, Gottfried of Strassburg's thirteenth-century romance, through the lens of Schopenhauer's life-denying philosophy, and how in its composition art imitated life, as Wagner engaged in what was the very least an emotional affair with his wealthy Swiss patron's wife. Kat and I then discuss the very different treatments of these Arthurian stories about adultery by three leading Victorian poets and one early twentieth-century American: the poet Laureate Alfred Lord Tennyson, the decadent aesthete Algernon Swinburne, the Pre-Raphaelite artist and author William Morris, and the popular American poet Edwin Arlington Robinson, whose now all-but-forgotten best-selling poem Tristram won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928. We then turn to how twentieth-century novelists have handled the moral issues arising from medieval adultery in their renditions of the Arthurian legend. The episode concludes with an analysis of adultery in a non-Arthurian medieval novel, Sigrid Undset’s historical trilogy about fourteenth-century Norway, Kristin Lavransdatter (1920-1923), which earned the author the Noble Prize for Literature in 1928, the same year that Robinson’s very different Tristram won the Pulitzer.
Kat and I began this episode with the intention of covering both modern literature and movies dealing with medieval adultery. But it became clear as we were recording that a single episode would be very long. So we decided to talk about medieval adultery on film in a final, fourth episode, which I will be releasing in about a week’s time. And that will be it for medieval adultery, although I plan to have Kat return in future to talk about a subject on which she has written extensively, torture and cruelty in medieval literature. As I have jokingly told her, she is my go to person for medieval perversities.
This episode contains two musical snippets:
Wagner’s “Prelude to the Liebestod [Love Death]” from his opera Tristan und Isolde, conducted by Arturo Toscanini (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBFcDGTzgAI)
“If Ever I Would Leave You” from the musical Camelot, lyrics and music by Lerner and Loewe and sung by Robert Goulet as Lancelot (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xL52hEArSfM)
In my discussion of the literary texts, I drew upon the researches of several scholars, among them:
John Deathridge, Wagner Beyond Good and Evil, University of California Press, 2008
R.J.A. Kilbourn, “Redemption Revalued in Tristan und Isolde: Schopenhauer, Wagner, Nietzsche,” in University of Toronto Quarterly, Volume 67, Number 4, Fall 1998, pp. 781-788
“Tristan und Isolde,” Wikipedia (yes, I do consult Wikipedia)
“
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This is the second of a three part series with my very special co-host, Dr. Larissa 'Kat' Tracy, about adultery in the Middle Ages. In the previous episode, Kat and I talked about the Lancelot and Guinevere story. In this episode, we tackle the other great medieval tale of adulterous love, Tristan and Iseult. We begin, however, with a possible contemporary historical analogue, a scandal involving Countess Elizabeth of Vermandois, wife of Count Philip of Flanders, and a very unfortunate household knight. If true, the adultery of the countess and the vengeance taken by her husband emphasizes the difference between literature and reality--but, the "if" is very much in question.
In the third and concluding episode, we will look at how the stories of Lancelot and Guinevere and Tristan and Iseult have been used in modern literature and movies.
If you are enjoying this podcast, please share it with friends and family who might be interested in things medieval. And if you are listening on a platform that allows ratings and reviews, such as Apple podcasts, please take the time to rate and review it. I am told that is the best way of spreading the good news.
This episode includes an orchestral snippet of Arturo Toscanini conducting the Liebestod from Richard Wagner's opera "Tristan und Isolde" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBFcDGTzgAI)
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
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In this episode, my very special guest Dr. John Hosler draws upon the research he undertook for his book Jerusalem Falls: Seven Centuries of War and Peace(Yale University Press, 2022)to discuss what Jerusalem meant in the thought and imagination of Christians and Muslims in the twelfth century, and the role the city played in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. As John is a professor at the Army's Command and General Staff College, we also chat a bit about teaching military history to military officers.
This episode contains a short sound bite from the movie "Kingdom of Heaven"
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
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In this episode my co-host Dr. Jennifer Paxton and I explain the principles and personal grievances that led to the martyrdom of St. Thomas Becket and the significance of that event for Church-State relations in medieval England. We also talk about T.S. Eliot’s and Jean Anouilh’s plays about Thomas’ martyrdom, and the movies based on those plays. This is the second of a two part series. If you haven’t already done so, you might want to listen to the first episode in which Jenny and I talk about Becket’s background, his career leading up to his election as archbishop of Canterbury, and his contribution to Henry II’s efforts to restore royal authority in England after a generation of civil war.
This episodes contains audio clips from:
"Becket" (released by Paramount, directed by Peter Glenville, starring Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole, and adapted by Edward Anhalt from a play by Jean Anouilh)
The 12th century song lamenting the exile of Thomas Becket, "In Rama sonat gemitus," performed by Lumina Vocal Ensemble (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c30K1rQsaiI)
The Trim Jeans Theater's adaptation of T.S. Eliot's "Murder in the Cathedral" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYvz1-ThCHY)
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
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This is the first of a two part series about adultery. My co-host for both is Dr. Larissa 'Kat' Tracy. Last month Kat and I talked about my favorite medieval romance, Chretien de Troyes' late twelfth-century French poem "Yvain: The Knight with the Lion." Unlike the more famous medieval romances of Lancelot and Guinevere and Tristan and Isolde, "Yvain" celebrated marital love. That led me to ask Kat about attitudes toward adultery in medieval literature. In this episode we focus on the evolution of the Lancelot and Guinevere story, and how it relates to societal and clerical attitudes toward adultery. The second part will be about Tristan and Isolde, and how medieval adultery has been dealt with in movies.
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
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This is the first of two episodes on the career, historical context, and "afterlife" of England's most famous--and controversial--saint and martyr, St. Thomas Becket. My co-host for both is a veteran of this podcast, Dr. Jennifer Paxton of the Catholic University of America. In this episode we set the historical scene for Becket's martyrdom. Among the topics that Jenny and I discuss are Becket's childhood and family, his service as a cleric in the household of Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury, and the legal and administrative reforms undertaken by Henry II to restore--and enhance--royal authority and social order after fifteen years of civil war in England. The last leads to a discussion of English "Common Law" and the rise of administrative kingship in England. The episode also deals with the rival claims of sovereignty over the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church by a rising papal monarchy that conceived of the Church as a supranational state and by kings, who, citing custom and tradition, viewed the bishops and clergy within their kingdoms as their 'men,' subject to their will. We touch on the central issue of the Becket Controversy: Becket's claim that clergy are subject only to canon law and exempt from punishment by the state, a topic will be explored in greater detail in the next episode. That episode will deal with Thomas Becket's martyrdom; his emergence as England's most famous martyr and his tomb as the destination for numerous pilgrimages, most famously that of Chaucer's pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales; and the continued fascination that his story holds for writers and movie makers. I hope that you will join us for both.
This episode includes:
Neville Coghill reading from the Prologue to Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales (which can be found online at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WN3JA1IfbVM
Short audio clips from the 1964 movie "Becket," starring Richard Burton as Thomas Becket and Peter O'Toole as King Henry II
(If you are enjoying this podcast, please let your friends know about it, and, if you have the time and inclination, rate it and review it wherever you get your podcasts. I'm told that is the best way to spread the good word.)
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
If you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com
In this episode Ellen and Richard talk about what a "crusade" was in the Middle Ages. Richard explains what modern historians mean by the term "crusade"--and why there is so little agreement. He also offers a response to a question posed by Nicholas Morton in the previous episode: How did the medieval Church reconcile its doctrine of love of enemy and its pacifistic underpinnings with papal sponsorship of crusades?
Recommended reading:
Western Historiography of the Crusades
Riley-Smith, Jonathan. What Were the Crusades? 4th edition, Ignatius Press, 2009. When this was first published in 1977, it represented the first serious effort to explain what historians mean when they refer to crusades, and remains a key work. It is also short, 177 pages, and clearly written. As I took the title for this episode from this book, it is only fair that it is listed first. Riley-Smith's The Crusades: A History and the volume of essays he edited, The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades are good introductions to the subject.
Constable, Giles. Crusaders and Crusading in the Twelfth Century. Routledge, 2020. Constable is responsible for the categorization of modern crusading historiography into four schools, Traditionalists, Pluralists, Generalists, and Popularists. He is also the scholar most responsible for recognizing the importance of charters as source material for crusading history. Giles, who passed away in 2021, was a welcoming and generous scholar who helped me appreciate the importance of culture in medieval warfare.
Housley, Norman. Contesting the Crusades. Blackwell Publishing, 2006. A survey of the key historiographical debates over key crusading issues (defining the crusade, origins of the First Crusade, Intentions and Motivations, etc.).
Tyerman, Christopher. The Debate on the Crusades. Manchester University Press, 2011. From the blurb on the back cover: “This is the first book-length study of how succeeding generations from the First Crusade in 1099 to the present day have understood, refashioned, moulded and manipulated accounts of these medieval wars of religion to suit changing contemporary circumstances and interests.” It is a bit idiosyncratic—Tyerman has strong opinions about the work of fellow scholars--but the author clearly knows his stuff. Tyerman also has the distinction of being the author of one of the longest single volume histories of the Crusade (God’s War, Harvard U. Press, 2009) and one of the shortest (The Crusades: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford U. Press, 2006).
Muslim views of the Crusades
Hillenbrand, Carole, The Crusades: The Islamic Perspectives. Edinburgh University Press, 1999. This is a monumental (704 pages), groundbreaking study of how Muslims viewed the crusaders and the West in the era of the crusades, and later.
Niall Christie, Muslims and Crusaders: Christianity’s Wars in the Middle East, 1095-1382, from the Islamic Sources. Routledge, 2014. This is a concise and well thought out survey of the crusades from the contemporary Muslim perspective, with a well-chosen selection of excerpts from medieval Arabic sources.
Sivan , Emmanuel. "The Crusaders described by modern Arab historiography". Asian and African Studies , 8 ( 1972 ): 104-49. One of the few studies of modern Arab historiography of the Crusades (written, interestingly, by an Israeli scholar).
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
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My guest for this episode is Dr. Nicholas Morton, whom you may remember from our first episode about the Mongols. Today Nick and I will be talking about crusading warfare, in particular, about the military activities and challenges faced by the Crusader States established in the Levant by the First Crusade. Among the topics we will discussing are the different approaches to warfare practiced by the European Crusaders and their Turkish and Fatimid adversaries; how the crusaders and the leaders of the Latin Crusader states adjusted--or failed to adjust--to the novel challenges presented by warfare in the Middle East; why the First Crusade succeeded while the others failed; and whether, militarily, the Crusader states were doomed from the start.
Recommended reading:
Nicholas Morton. The Crusader States & Their Neighbours: A Military History, 1099-1187. Oxford University Press, 2020.
R.C. Smail. Crusading Warfare, 1097-1193. 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press, 1995 (originally published 1956)
Christopher Marshall. Warfare in the Latin East, 1192-1291. Cambridge University Press, 1992.
John France. Victory in the East: A Military History of the First Crusade. Cambridge University Press, 1994.
John France. Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades: 1000-1300. Cornell University Press, 1999.
David Nicolle. Crusader Warfare Volume I: Byzantium, Western Europe and the Battle for the Holy Land. Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2007.
David Nicolle. Crusader Warfare Volume II: Muslims, Mongols and the Struggle Against the Crusades. Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2007.
John Gillingham, “Richard I and the Science of Warfare” - from War and Government: Essays in Honour of J.O. Prestwich (1984); "William the Bastard at War," in Studies in Medieval History Presented to R. Allen Brown, ed. c. Harper-Bill, C. Holdsworth, and J. Nelson (1989); "War and Chivalry in the History of William the Marshal." Thirteenth Century England v.2 (1991); "'Up with Orthodoxy': In Defense of Vegetian Strategy." Journal of Medieval Military History, vol. 2 (2004): 21-41."
Clifford Rogers. "The Vegetian 'Science of Warfare' in the Middle Ages." Journal of Medieval Military History, vol. 1 (2002): 1-19.
Stephen Morillo. "Battle-Seeking: The Contexts and Limits of Vegetian Strategy." Journal of Medieval Military History, vol. 1 (2002): 149-58.
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
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In this episode my guest host Professor Larissa 'Kat" Tracy and I discuss my favorite medieval romance, Chrétien de Troyes' late twelfth century poem, "Yvain, the Knight with the Lion." We place the poem within its historical context--the first European industrial and commercial revolution, and the emergence of a courtly society and culture--and analyze what it reveals about aristocratic values and conceptions of love, gender relations, and chivalry in the late twelfth century.
The translation I used for the quotations is by Carleton W. Carroll (Chrétien de Troyes, Arthurian Romances. Penguin Classics. Penguin Books, 1991).
This episode includes a musical snippet from Andrei Krylov's "Noble medieval knight song" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imdIX--ZYJo
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
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Last May, I spoke with Professor Nicholas Morton about the Mongols and their impact upon the medieval Near East. This episode digs deeper into that subject, focusing on the Mongol conquest and destruction of Baghdad in February of 1258. The Mongol sack of Baghdad is notorious for its brutality. Estimates of the number killed range from 90,000 to the 200,000 claimed by the leader of the Mongol army, Hulegu Khan. Much like Alaric's sack of Rome in 410, the Mongol conquest of Baghdad, the seat of the Abbasid caliphate, had a symbolic significance beyond its political and military importance. It signaled both the end of an independent Abbasid caliphate and announced the Mongol intent to dominate the entire Islamic Near East, a goal that was to be thwarted by the Mamluks of Egypt.
In this episode, I interview Peter Konieczny, the co-founder and editor of Medievalists.net, about his research into the Mongol conquest of Baghdad. Peter explains the role played by non-Mongols in instigating the invasion of Iran and Iraq for their own profit, why the Mongols targeted Baghdad, what that city was on the eve of the Mongol assault, and the real historical significance of the event. I hope you will join us.
I've turned a number of the podcast episodes into YouTube videos using PowerPoint to add relevant images. These can be found at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsLl5BdGBDlAlYULY1zeckOOdVPrSIN2X
If you have questions about this or any episode, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com
If you are enjoying "'Tis But A Scratch" on a site that has reviews and ratings, please consider giving it a good review and high rating so that others interested in the Middle Ages might give it a try. Thanks!
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
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In this episode, the second of a two part series, Dr. Chrissy Senecal and I continue our discussion of the Old English epic poem Beowulf. In it we talk about the challenges of translation and look at literary and cinematic adaptations of the poem.
Sound clips in this episode:
“The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” soundtrack (composer: Ennio Morricone) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOl73VQOS9M
Trailer for “Beowulf” (1999) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOrfinPSqyQ
Beowulf seduced by Grendel’s mother: “Beowulf” (2007) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyltO_ump0s
Recommended:
“The Saga Thing” podcast’s “Hwæt a Movie” episodes on “Beowulf” (1999) and “The Thirteenth Warrior”
https://sagathingpodcast.wordpress.com/2023/09/20/hwaet-a-movie-episode-1-beowulf-1999/
https://sagathingpodcast.wordpress.com/2023/12/20/hwaet-a-movie-episode-2-the-13th-warrior/
(For those who love Norse sagas, this is the perfect podcast. Each episode the co-hosts John and Andy [Dr. John Sexton and Dr. Andrew Pfrenger] describe, discuss, and rate sagas. They have recently branched out to “Beowulf” movies.)
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
If you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com
This is the first of a two-part series on the most famous monster story in pre-modern literature, the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf. My co-host for both is Dr. Christine Senecal of Shippensburg University. In this episode Chrissy and I talk about the poem itself. We begin with the story of the hero Beowulf and how as a youth he kills two monsters ravaging the mead-hall of King Hrothgar, the fearsome Grendel and his even more fierce mother, and how as an aged king he fights and kills a fire-breathing dragon, saving his kingdom and winning the dragon's treasure, but at the cost of his life. We then discuss when the poem was written and what we can learn from it about the warrior aristocratic culture of early Anglo-Saxon England. In the follow-on episode, Chrissy and I talk about modern literary and cinematic adaptations of the Beowulf story. I hope you can join us.
Passages are quoted from
Beowulf, A Dual-Language Edition, trans. Howell D. Chickering, Jr. (New York: Anchor Books, 1977).
Beowulf: The Donaldson Translation Backgrounds and Sources Criticism, ed. Joseph Tuso (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1975).
Beowulf, A New Translation, trans. Maria Dahvana Headley (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020).
The Heliand: The Saxon Gospel, trans. G. Ronald Murphy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992).
The Dating of Beowulf, A Reassessment, ed. Leonard Neidorf (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2014).
Music:
"Wælheall," composed by Hrōðmund Wōdening (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQfdqIyqJ4g)
"Caedmon's Hymn" on a lyre, sung and played by Peter Pringle (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8WaPIu1tAc)
If you are interested in the Middle Ages--and I assume you are if you listening to 'Tis But A Scratch--you might want to check out Dr. Christine Senecal's Instagram page (https://www.instagram.com/chrissysenecal/) and her webpage, "Weird History Stories" (https://chrissysenecal.com/). Both are well worth a visit.
I would same about Medievalists.net, a website dedicated to offering readers news, articles, videos and more about the medieval world and how that history is presented today (https://www.medievalists.net/)
Finally, if you are enjoying 'Tis But A Scratch, please tell friends and family about it. Good ratings and good reviews help spread the word!
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
If you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com
This is a revised--and a lot longer--version of our twenty-first episode ("Some thoughts about Hanukkah by a (secular) Jewish medieval historian"). That episode was just what the title said, some thoughts about the role of Hanukkah in contemporary America and the Middle Ages. In it Ellen had a throwaway line about the Puritan war on Christmas. I thought that our listeners might be interested in why the Puritans objected to and tried to suppress Christmas, and, related to that, how Christmas, as well as Hanukkah was celebrated in the Middle Ages. I know that the result is a mishmash, but I hope it's an enjoyable and informative mishmash.
Happy Holidays!
This episode includes snippets from
"Here we come a-wassailing" The St. Michael's Singers conducted by Paul Leddington Wright https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m29jEvTfVFU
Ma'oz Tsur sung by cantors from across Canada, Temple Sinai Toronto, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFY--az4z3w
Adam Sandler's "The Hanukkah Song" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KX5Z-HpHH9g
Reading:
Hanukkah:
Cait Stevenson, “Celebrating Hannukah in the Middle Ages” by Cait Stevenson, posted on Medievalists.net https://www.medievalists.net/2018/12/celebrating-hanukkah-middle-ages/
Susan Weingarten, “Medieval Hanukkah Traditions: Jewish Festive Foods in their European Contexts, Food and History 8 (2010)::41-62
Dianne Ashton, (2013). Hanukkah in America: A History. New York: New York University Press, 2013.
Tsi Freeman, “Why Couldn’t Jews and Greeks Just Get Along?” https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/64639/jewish/Couldnt-the-Jews-and-Greeks-Get-Along.htm
[The Wikipedia entry on Hanukkah is quite good]
Medieval Christmas:
Katie Ihnat, “The Middle Ages,” in The Oxford Handbook of Christmas, ed. T. Larson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020).
Sophie Jackson, The Medieval Christmas. The History Press: Stroud, 2013.
Peter Konieczny, “Seven Medieval Christmas Traditions.” Medievalists.net. https://www.medievalists.net/2012/12/seven-medieval-christmas-traditions/
Compton Reeves, Pleasures and Pastimes in Medieval England. New York: Oxford, 1998.
Puritan war on Christmas:
Stephen Nissenbaum, “Christmas in Early New England, 1620-1820: Puritanism, Popular Culture, and the Printed Word.” American Antiquary Society (1996): pp. 79-164 (https://www.americanantiquarian.org/proceedings/44539478.pdf)
J.A.R. Pimlott, | “Christmas under the Puritans,” in History Today Volume 10 Issue 12 December 1960
“Why did Cromwell abolish Christmas?” The Cromwell Association https://www.olivercromwell.org/faqs4.htm
The Puritan Cultural Revolution
David Underdown, Revel, Riot, and Rebellion: Popular Politics and Culture in England 1603-1660. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987
Christopher Durston. "Puritan Rule and the Failure of Cultural Revolution, 1645–1660." In: Durston, C., Eales, J. (eds) The Culture of English Puritanism, 1560–1700. Themes in Focus. Palgrave, London. 1996.
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
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“Feudalism” was once accepted by academic and popular historians alike as a defining, if not the defining, feature of medieval society. For military historians, the High Middle Ages, the period from around 1050 to 1300, was once the Age of the Feudal Knight. This is no longer the case. If academic historians use it at all in their writings or classrooms, it is usually to dismiss it. For most medieval historians, feudalism has joined Viking horned helmets and “the right of the first night” in the ranks of myths about the Middle Ages.
Richard, however, isn't most historians. In this episode, Richard and Ellen talk about the meanings of "feudalism" and why Richard is reluctant to throw it upon the cart of dead historical constructs.
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
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In our third and final episode of the series, Richard talks with Professor Ryan Lavelle of the University of Winchester in the U.K. about Alfred the Great. Dr. Lavelle is a leading expert on Anglo-Saxon and Viking warfare. He is also the historical consultant for the BBC/Netflix television series "The Last Kingdom," based on the Saxon Chronicle novels of Bernard Cornwell. In this episode, Richard again poses the question whether Alfred deserves to be called "the Great." He and Dr. Lavelle then discuss the portrayal of King Alfred in "The Last Kingdom," and why he is portrayed that way.
This episode includes short snippets from Season 1 of "The Last Kingdom."
The intro and exit music is by the talented and generous Alexander Nakarada.
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
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This is the second of a three part series about King Alfred of Wessex (reigned 871-899), the only English king to be called "the Great." In this episode Ellen and I chat with Dr. Barbara Yorke, Professor Emeritus at the University of Winchester in the U.K.. Professor Yorke is arguably the world's leading expert on Anglo-Saxon Wessex. She and I share the distinction of being among the host of biographers of King Alfred. The basic question I pose to her is whether Alfred deserves to be called "the Great." Her answer is a bit more nuanced and less adulatory than mine was in episode one, which is one of the reasons I thought it important that you hear her assessment of Alfred.
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
If you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com
After a hiatus we are back with the long promised episode about King Alfred of Wessex (871-899), the only English king to be called "the great." In this episode, Richard gives an overview of Alfred's reign and accomplishments and explains why the Victorians thought he was great--and why Richard does as well.
The musical introduction is the opening of "Rule Britannia" from the masque "Alfred," performed by Jamie MacDougall, Jennifer Smith, Philharmonia Chorale, Nicholas McGegan & Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra
From the album "The Last Night of the Proms: The Ultimate Collection"
The exit music (as always) is by Alexander Nakarada
Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com
Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
If you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com
In this episode I interview my special guest Dr. Nicholas Morton, author of The Mongol Storm (Basic Books, 2022), about the Mongols and their invasion of and impact upon the thirteenth-century Near East. Our discussion covers who and what the Mongols were; why they were so effective militarily; Mongol religion and religious 'toleration'; their reputation for horrific brutality; why the Mamluks of Egypt were able to defeat them in battle; and the economic and cultural impact of the so-called Pax Mongolica.
Suggested reading:
Abu-Lughod, Janet L. Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250-
1350 (Oxford University Press, 1989)
Favereau, Marie. The Horde: How the Mongols Changed the World (Belknap Press,
2021)
Jackson, Peter. The Mongols and the Islamic World: From Conquest to Conversion (Yale University Press, 2017)
May, Timothy. The Mongols Empire (Edinburgh University Press, 2018)
Morton, Nicholas. The Mongol Storm: Making and Breaking Empires in the Medieval
Near East (Basic Books, 2022)
Morton, Nicholas. "Life Under the Mongols." BBC History Magazine. Vol. 24 (April
2023)
Rossabi, Morris. The Mongols and Global History (Norton Documents Reader) (W.W.
Norton, 2010)
This episode includes a sound clip from the theatrical trailer for the epically terrible 1956 movie "The Conqueror," starring John Wayne as Genghis Khan--yes the John Wayne as Genghis Khan!!!
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHt0Pb8rkXU)
As always, we are grateful to the talented and generous composer Alexander Nakarada for the podcast's intro and exit music.
This is the second half of a two-part series about the legendary medieval outlaw Robin Hood. In the first episode, my co-host Dr. Jennifer Paxton and I discussed the evidence for a historical basis for the legend. In this one, we look at how Robin Hood has been portrayed in film and television from the silent era to the present--and how each generation has gotten (in Jenny's words) "the Robin Hood that you need in your particular time."
Because there are so many films and television shows featuring Robin Hood, Jenny and I had to be very selective. From the fifty films and eight episodes we chose the best, the most influential--and the worst. We consider them as entertainments, but because we are historians, we also discuss how the film makers and show runners dealt with the Middle Ages. I hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed recording it.
This episode includes sound clips from:
"The Adventures of Robin Hood" (1938), including Erich Korngold's magnificent musical score for that movie
"The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" (1962)
"Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves" (1991)
"Oo-De-Lally," composed and sung by Roger Miller, from Walt Disney's Robin Hood (1973)
The television show "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (1955-9): exit theme by Carl Sigman, sung by Dick James
The podcast's intro music is composed by the talented and generous Alexander Nakarada (https://alexandernakarada.bandcamp.com/album/collection-celtic-medieval).
If you are enjoying "'Tis But A Scratch: Fact & Fiction About the Middle Ages," please let friends, family, and students know about the podcast. Subscribing to the podcast doesn't cost anything and you will get a notification when a new episode is released. If you have the time and inclination, write a review. High ratings and good reviews will help new listeners find us.
In this episode Richard and Dr. Jennifer Paxton of The Catholic University of America search for a historical Robin Hood and explore the medieval and Tudor stories about the heroic outlaw and his band of merry men. This is the first of a two-part series. The follow on episode will be on Robin Hood in movies and television.
Credits
The podcast's introductory and exist music is composed by the talented and generous Alexander Nakarada (https://alexandernakarada.bandcamp.com/album/collection-celtic-medieval).
The opening to the folksong "Lord Randall, My Son" is by Ewan MacColl from his album, "The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (Child Ballads)" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0dRGi4rx0c)
The modern English translation of "A Geste of Robin Hood" is by Robin Landis Frank (https://web.ics.purdue.edu/~ohlgren/gesttrans.html)
In this episode Richard and his special guest and co-host Dr. Christine Senecal of Shippensburg University discuss the 2022 Viking movie "The Northman." Director and co-screenplay writer Robert Eggers' avowed goal in making this movie was to recreate the material and mental world of the Vikings. Please join Richard and Chrissie as they assess how well he succeeded in accomplishing this.
[My apologies to the 110 listeners who have already downloaded this, but I added five more minutes toward the end to cover some historical points that I left out in our discussion of the movie "The Northman." A transcript of the missing material is posted in the transcript section. ]
This episode includes sound clips from the movies "The Vikings" (1958) and "The Northman." The composer of "The Vikings" theme music is Mario Nascimbe. The composers of "The Northman" music are Robin Carolan and Sebastian Gainsborough. Alexander Nakarada composed the podcast's intro and exit music.
In this episode, Richard and Ellen discuss who and what vikings were historically, and how they were depicted in the Middle Ages and modern times. The episode focuses upon the first century of the Viking Age, roughly from the late eighth to the early tenth century.
(This episode marks the first anniversary of 'Tis But A Scratch: Fact and Fiction About the Middle Ages. Ellen and I would like to take this opportunity to thank you, our listeners. If you are enjoying the podcast, please let friends, family, and (if you are a teacher) students know about it. And if you are listening on one of the platforms that rates and reviews podcasts, like Apple, please take the time to rate us. It is a great way of spreading the word. I should also add my sincere apologies to Rodgers and Hammerstein and to all French speakers for butchering the pronunciation of the names of French towns.)
This is a short end of the year episode. It's exactly what the title says, just some thoughts about the role of Hanukkah in contemporary America and the Middle Ages. Happy Holidays from Ellen and me to you and yours!
Few English kings have had a worse popular reputation than Æthelred the Unready (r.978-1016), the king who lost England (at least temporarily) to viking invaders. But does he deserve that reputation? Was King Æthelred really "unready"? My co-host for this episode is the person most qualified to answer that question, Dr. Levy Roach of the University of Exeter in the U.K, author of Æthelred the Unready (Yale University Press, 2016). Please join Levy and me as we explore the troubled reign of a much maligned king.
In this episode Ellen and I discuss three "wicked" medieval women and the monastic authors who loathed them. We begin with the Anglo-Saxon Queen Ælfthryth, a champion of the Tenth-Century Benedictine Reform movement in England, who appears in the twelfth-century Liber Eliensis as a lascivious witch responsible for the murders of her stepson King Edward the Martyr and Byrhtnoth, the first abbot of Ely. We then turn to an early twelfth-century French countess, Sibyl of Porcien, a lascivious beauty whose adultery, according to Abbot Guibert of Nogent, caused a war between her first and second husbands, and who plotted the ruin and death of her stepson. We conclude with a late eleventh-century Norman female robber baron, Mabel of Belleme as she appears in Orderic Vitalis's Ecclesiastical History. In each case, Ellen and I discuss whether these women deserve their notoriety, and consider why the monks who told their stories portrayed them as wicked. The larger issue in this episode is, of course, medieval misogyny.
Today’s episode concludes our three part series about King Arthur in history, legend, and popular culture. Our jumping off point for this episode is Sir Thomas Malory’s late fifteenth-century Le Morte D’Arthur, the work most responsible for the popular conception of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. We then trace how the legend has been repeatedly reinterpreted down to the present day in literature, films, comics, and even video games.
In this episode Ellen and I with the help of my longtime friend and colleague Dr. Jennifer Paxton of the Catholic University of America trace the development of the Arthurian legend during the Middle Ages, as Arthur was transformed from the chieftain of Welsh stories into the exemplar of medieval French and English chivalry.
This episode features a guest co-host, my old friend and colleague Dr. Jennifer Paxton, director of the Honors Program at The Catholic University of America and one of the best historians of medieval Britain. Jenny, Ellen, and I examine the evidence for a historical Arthur in the aftermath of the Roman withdrawal from Britain in the fifth century. We begin with the historical context, the "Fall of Roman Britain" and the coming of Germanic mercenaries and migrants to the British Isles. If Arthur existed, he would have been a military leader in the Romano-British resistance to the conquest of England by these newcomers from northern Germany and Jutland. The big question here is "if he existed."
In this episode Ellen and I compare medieval Inquisitions with the Spanish Inquisition, and both with the popular conception of the Inquisition. Among other subjects, we discuss what an inquisition was--and is--, how inquisitions served as a tool in the formation of a persecuting society, and why it is not quite accurate to see either the medieval or the Spanish Inquisition as targeting Jews--or, at least, Jews as Jews.
Please join us!
In this episode Ellen and I talk about a dualist heresy that was widespread in twelfth- and thirteenth-century southern France and northern Italy. This heresy is generally known as Catharism. Its central tenet was that there are two gods, a good god who created the spiritual world and an evil god who created the visible world. The soul of man is good, but the flesh in which it is imprisoned is evil. Pope Innocent III regarded the heresy as a sufficient threat to Christendom to warrant a crusade. This was the so-called Albigensian Crusade that began in 1209 and did not end until 1229. A Dominican friar writing around 1250 observed that “if the heresy had not been cut back by the swords of the faithful … it would have corrupted the whole of Christendom.” The Albigensian Crusade was exceptionally brutal even by medieval standards. It began with a massacre that gave birth to the saying, "kill them all. God will know his own." The failure of this crusade to eradicate the heresy was the impetus for the creation of the medieval inquisition.
This subject is also a stroll down memory lane for Ellen and me, as we reflect upon our collaboration many, many years ago on an article about women's participation in Catharism. When we wrote that article no one questioned whether there really was a Cathar heresy. That is no longer the case.
Please join us as we examine the historiography and history of the Cathars.
In this episode Ellen and I talk about one of the more puzzling events in the history of England’s Viking Wars, the St. Brice's Davy Massacre. In the year 1002, King Æthelred "the Unready" issued an order that on St. Brice's Day all the Danes dwelling in England were to be killed in a "most just extermination." Writers from the late eleventh century to the present day--including the script writers for the recent Netflix series, "Vikings: Valhalla"--have depicted what occurred on 13 November 1002 as an indiscriminate slaughter of innocent men, women, and children. In their accounts the St. Brice's Day Massacre was a medieval attempt at ethnic cleansing. But was it? Archaeologists and academic historians have their doubts. Please join Ellen and me in our exploration of the blackest mark on the reputation of one of England’s unluckiest kings.
In this episode Ellen and I examine how Saint Francis became a saint and Waldo a heretic while following the same call to apostolic poverty, and why in the mid-thirteenth century it was heretical to deny that a consecrated communion wafer contains the actual body of Christ but not to worship a dog as a saint with healing powers. Please join us!
On April 28, 1192 the newly elected king of Jerusalem Conrad of Montferrat was assassinated in the streets of the city of Tyre by two Assassins, the name by which the Crusaders knew the Nizari Isma'ili Shi'a sect in Syria. The killers had acted in obedience to the leader of the Assassins, the Old Man of the Mountain Rashid al-Din Sinan. That much is known. On whose behalf the Old Man of the Mountain acted, however, was and remains an open question. In this episode Richard and Ellen discuss the murder of Conrad of Montferrat, the Assassins as revealed in history and videogames, and the turbulent politics that nearly destroyed the Kingdom of Jerusalem and threatened to fragment the Third Crusade. Please join us!
Saladin's taking of Jerusalem, three months after the fighting forces of the Kingdom of Jerusalem were wiped out in the Battle of Hattin, precipitated the Third Crusade. Eyewitness accounts are rare for the Early and High Middle Ages. The siege of Jerusalem in 1187 is exceptional in having three. Two of these were by men with inside knowledge of the surrender negotiations, Saldadin's personal secretary Imad al-Din al-Isfahani, and Ernoul, the squire of Balian of Ibelin, the commander of Jerusalem's defense. The surrender and the events leading up to it are also the subject of a Hollywood movie "The Kingdom of Heaven." In this episode Ellen and I discuss how the two primary sources and the movie present the surrender--and why. Please join us.
This episode places Magna Carta in its historical context, explains why it really isn't the foundation of Anglo-American liberty, reaffirms John's status as a really bad king (and person), and discusses how the Magna Carta baronial rebellion led to the only Crusade to be fought on English soil.
In 978 the eighteen-year old English king Edward was murdered while traveling to visit his younger half-brother Æthelred and his stepmother Ælfthryth. The murder transformed a truculent teenager into a venerated martyr. This episodes explores the "martyrdom" of King Edward and offers explanations for why he was killed, who was responsible for the act, and why the killers were never punished.
The late twelfth-century Frence epic poem Raoul of Cambrai is a tale of violence, vengeance, and betrayal in which the basic bonds of society--feudal loyalty, family, and friendship--come into conflict. The poem poses key questions for feudal society: which is the higher duty, loyalty to a lord or obligation to one's family? may a vassal rightfully renounce his oath of loyalty to a lord who has wronged him? is nobility a matter of birth or of character? are bravery and prowess sufficient to make a knight chivalrous? The result is a moral puzzle which neither the poet nor his heroes/anti-heroes, Raoul, Bernier, Guerri, and Gautier, can fully solve.
In the second half of “The finest knight in all the world: the practical chivalry of Sir William Marshal,” Ellen and I examine the career of William Marshal as baron, earl, and, ultimately, regent of England for a child king. The challenge William Marshal faced as a baron was to retain possession of all his lands while still preserving his vaunted reputation for loyalty, a seemingly impossible challenge under the rule of the mistrustful and vindictive King John.
Episode 6 is on the long side because Marshal's life intersected with many key events in medieval English and Irish history.
The life of Sir William Marshal reads like a medieval story book. Starting out as a landless squire whose only possession was family connections, Marshal rose from household knight to become one of the wealthiest and most powerful nobles in early thirteenth century England. Ultimately, he was chosen by his peers to be the guardian and regent of a boy king, during a French invasion abetted by a baronial revolt. William Marshal's remarkable rise was due to the qualities that made him, in the words of both friends and foes, “the finest knight in all the world,” his prowess, his acumen in both war and court politics, and, above all, his reputation for unshakeable loyalty.
In this episode Richard and Ellen retell stories about William Marshal’s life as a landless household knight. A follow on episode explores his career as a baron and his complicated relationship with King John of Magna Carta and Robin Hood notoriety. The focus of both episodes is on the key to William Marshal’s success, his practical chivalry
In this episode Richard distinguishes between the popular modern conception of chivalry, which originated in the romantic movement of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and became the code of the gentleman, and medieval chivalry. Richard and his co-host, his wife Ellen, explore what medieval chivalry entailed, the role it played in protecting the social status of knights in a time of economic change, and the relationship between courtly love and martial prowess. Richard uses Ulrich von Liechtenstein’s The Service of Ladies as a window on chivalry as conceived by at least one knight in the first half of the thirteenth century. We should warn you in advance that The Service of Ladies is a truly weird book. It takes the form of a memoir in which the German nobleman, knight, and author of love poetry Ulrich von Liechtenstein relates how he dressed in women’s clothing to assume the persona of Lady Venus and traveled with an entourage from Venice to Vienna and beyond challenging all knights to joust with him to demonstrate his love for his lady, an older married noblewoman whom he had served as a page and whom he had only glimpsed from afar since.
Our next episode will explore some less eccentric elements of chivalry through the person of the late twelfth and early thirteenth-century English knight William Marshal, who was praised after his death as the “greatest knight in the world.”
The quest for the Holy Grail is among the most famous stories about King Arthur and the Round Table. This episode explores the origins and development of the idea of the Holy Grail in medieval romance and examines how the Grail was reconceived in modern times by Nazis, amateur historians, and novelists to support pseudo-historical conspiracy theories.
In this episode, Richard explains why there are so few movies set in the Middle Ages that are historically accurate, and gives examples of a good film (Eric Rohmer's "Perceval le Gallois"; a bad film, Ridley Scott's "The Kingdom of Heaven"; and a not so bad medieval film, Ridley Scott's most recent blockbuster, "The Last Duel." Richard and Carol devote most of the podcast to discussing what is historical and what is anachronistic about the last, as it is the most recent medieval blockbuster and is currently streaming on HBO. For those who haven't seen it, "The Last Duel" recounts the true story of a trial by combat that took place in Paris in 1387 to determine guilt or innocence in a case of rape. Jean de Carrouges and Jacques Le Gris were friends but as the latter rose in wealth and status at the expense of the former, friendship turned to animosity. Carrouges' resentment against his more cultured and successful rival turns deadly when Carrouges's wife, Marguerite, accuses Le Gris of raping her. Knowing that Le Gris has the protection of the local count, their mutual lord, Carrouges seeks to vindicate his and his wife's honor through a judicial duel to the death. Like the Japanese film, "Rashomon," also about a rape, the story is told and retold from the viewpoints of each of the three main characters. Richard briefly explains why as a historian he despises the movie "The Kingdom of Heaven." (More on that in a future episode on the Crusades.) Finally, Richard explains why "Perceval le Gallois," a movie that almost derailed the career of the famed French director Eric Rohmer, is the only fully "medieval" movie that Richard has ever seen.....and Carol ponders how a film that she found unwatchable got an 89% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
The title of our podcast ‘Tis But a Scratch: Fact and Fiction about the Middle Ages” is a tribute to one of Richard’s favorite “medieval” movies, “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” Richard was incredulous when Carol told him that she had never seen the movie. After she watched it, she was incredulous that he actually used parts of it in his medieval history classes. In this episode Richard explains how there is more historical truth in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” than anyone would think—probably including the Monty Python troupe—and how he used it in his classes. Among the topics covered are the “chivalry” of the Black Knight; “Bring out you dead” and the Black Death; courtly love and Castle Anthrax’s amorous 150 maidens; and why Richard the historian hates, hates, hates “Braveheart” (although as a moviegoer he kind of likes it).
(This is the first episode of the podcast and was the first podcast I ever did. I knew that there were problems with the sound quality but had no idea how to fix it. This version is clearer and louder.)