Bitching about Medieval Literature

In this episode, we embark upon the second day of the Decameron, which has the theme of 'people who get into trouble, then have an unexpected stroke of good fortune'. Our two stories (2.1, 2.2) describe a guy who pretends to be paralysed, gets the shit beaten of him, and then gets out of trouble because a rich guy thinks he's funny; and a guy who gets robbed and left for dead on a snowy night, before a widow takes mercy on him and gives him a hot bath, a good supper, and a 'satisfying' night. 

CONTENT WARNING: Unjust justice system, ableism, and violence in the first story. After pretending to be paralysed, the protagonist gets discovered, beaten up by a mob, taken in for theft, none-too-gently interrogated, and is likely to be sentenced for crimes he didn't commit due to the bias of the judge, before being rescued by the power of wealth, influence, and whimsy.

In this episode, we bring Day 1 of The Decameron to its conclusion with stories 1.8, 1.9, and 1.10. Hear about a miser shamed into virtuous wall-art, a cowardly king turned vengeful by a noblewoman's bitching, and an old dude who justified his crush with an argument about the best way to eat a leek. You can also hear about fourteenth century gift culture, changing attitudes to tolerant rulers, courtly love, and my impatience with Pampinea as she (once again) is a mouthpiece for Giovanni's bad attitude to women.

This episode features a record-setting FOUR stories (1.4-1.7), with hypocritical abbots, lecherous kings, miserly friars, and uncharacteristically parsimonious princes all being set in their place by appropriately deployed wit. Also misogyny, and a weird bit of dialogue about chickens...

CONTENT WARNING: The first story in this episode (running from 1:30-9:40) has some issues with sexual coercion (not that Giovanni seems to notice). A character who agrees to sex with one guy gets trapped with another guy, there are also power imbalance things going on. According to the narrator she's perfectly willing, but that's because Giovanni's a misogynist who doesn't get these things. Take care, and skip ahead if you need to.

In the second and third stories from Day 1, Boccaccio uses learned and virtuous Jews as mouthpieces for controversial statements about religion: first, that the entire Papal Court is full of shitbags, and second, that Jews, Muslims, and Christians all have equal reason to think they've got the right of it. Meanwhile, I drop in a lot of comments with remembered tidbits from my time studying medieval history at uni, and my cat makes her presence known.

At last, we hear our first story: how an utterly reprehensible person lied so thoroughly in his last confession that an entire town became convinced he was a saint.

In this episode, we meet the protagonists of our frame tale: seven young women and three young men, who decide to hide out from the plague in a palace outside the city. The organisation of this venture, for some reason, requires several lengthy speeches that don't so much 'betray' Giovanni's misogyny as 'parade' it...and after a while, I quite lost patience with him.

In which Giovanni Boccaccio tells us why he is writing this story, that the beginning is going to be miserable but worth it, and regales us with details of the Black Death in Florence that cannot possibly be omitted (in his opinion).

Meanwhile, we complain about his attitudes towards women and his miserable beginning.