The Medieval Podcast

Just in time for his feast day on May 16, we’re looking at St. Brendan, an Irish saint whose holy encounters included island-sized whales, lava-slinging smiths, and rodents of unusual size. This week, Danièle speaks with Gordon Barthos about St. Brendan’s epic odyssey, his long-standing popularity, and just some of his incredible adventures.

This podcast is made possible by the generous support of listeners like you! To find out how to help spread the joy of medieval history, please visit patreon.com/themedievalpodcast

In the medieval world, people interacted with Biblical history and the adventures of their favourite saints in all sorts of ways – including through plays. One of the most beloved saints – Mary Magdalene – is the main character in an English play that has it all: raging tyrants, perilous sea voyages, angelic interventions, at least three resurrections, and perhaps most thrilling of all, a woman preaching. This week, Danièle speaks with Joanne Findon about the incredible medieval story of what happened to Mary Magdalene after the resurrection, how even the most holy figures were brought to the stage, and why thi play may have been rescued from destruction.

This podcast is made possible by the generous support of listeners like you! To find out how to help spread the joy of medieval history, please visit patreon.com/themedievalpodcast

The English queens of the fifteenth century have had a serious popularity boost in the last twenty years, thanks to novels and TV series showing the glamour and drama of their lives. Queenship could have serious advantages – fame and fortune included. But eventually, you do have to pay the piper. This week, Danièle speaks with Michele Seah about where these powerful ladies got their cash, what they spent it on, and why it’s not that easy being queen.

This podcast is made possible by the generous support of listeners like you! To find out how to help spread the joy of medieval history, please visit patreon.com/themedievalpodcast

This week, Danièle celebrates ten years of The Five-Minute Medievalist by sharing some of the life lessons she's learned since the book came out - and some of the lessons that she just keeps on having to learn.

This podcast is made possible by the generous support of listeners like you! To find out how to help spread the joy of medieval history, please visit patreon.com/themedievalpodcast

It’s always a great moment when you’re watching a play or a movie, and suddenly one of your favourite songs appears to heighten the mood. All of a sudden, you’re even more deeply emotionally invested in the lives of the characters, and what’s going to happen next. Believe or not, the hit music of the Middle Ages also appeared for some of the very same reasons in medieval romance. This week, Danièle speaks with Nigel Bryant and Matthew P. Thomson about how these romances integrate music, why villains don’t always get a song, and the incredible culture of medieval top hits.

This podcast is made possible by the generous support of listeners like you! To find out how to help spread the joy of medieval history, please visit patreon.com/themedievalpodcast

We’ve all been there: suddenly face-to-face with our ugliest selves, wrestling with pride, envy, anger, sloth, avarice, gluttony, or lust. AKA the Seven Deadly Sins. In the Middle Ages, Christian thinkers divided moral missteps into these seven familiar categories, allowing them to ponder the many ways humanity can fall into sin – as well as how to get out of it. This week, Danièle speaks with Peter Jones about how people grappled with the Seven Deadly Sins in the Middle Ages, some pretty fun confessions, and how the medieval perspective might just help us better navigate the modern world.

This podcast is made possible by the generous support of listeners like you! To find out how to help spread the joy of medieval history, please visit patreon.com/themedievalpodcast

There are some very entrenched cultural ideas about the plague these days, involving big, beaky masks, and agonized people flagellating themselves in the street. But the way people thought about and treated plague changed over time, as the disease revisited populations regularly over the course of centuries. And just like our imaginings of plague today can tell us a lot about how we see the medieval world, so the changing way people wrote about plague can tell us a whole lot of interesting stuff about medieval and early modern culture. This week, Danièle speaks with Lori Jones about the evolution of the plague tract, who was considered qualified to write about plague, and some surprising ways religion fits – or doesn’t fit – into the picture.

This podcast is made possible by the generous support of listeners like you! To find out how to help spread the joy of medieval history, please visit patreon.com/themedievalpodcast

Last week, we talked about a woman whose work was to support her husband’s dreams of conquest – and her son’s dreams of rebellion. But what about the medieval women whose work was a little more ordinary? What was the 9-5 like for the women who kept households, shops, and towns running? And how did that work differ from place to place? This week, Danièle speaks with Nena Vandeweerdt about women's work inside and outside of guild structures, how it was regulated, and how opportunities changed for women across time and space.

This podcast is made possible by the generous support of listeners like you! To find out how to help spread the joy of medieval history, please visit patreon.com/themedievalpodcast

They say that behind every successful man is a woman, and when it comes to one of the biggest medieval stories of personal success, that seems to have been true. Everyone’s heard of William the Conqueror, the illegitimate duke of Normandy who became king of England in 1066, but fewer people have heard the story of his powerful, indomitable queen: Mathilda of Flanders. This week, Danièle speaks with Laura L. Gathagan about Mathilda's unshakeable reign as duchess and queen, the way she embodied her power, and her role in the conquest of England.

This podcast is made possible by the generous support of listeners like you! To find out how to help spread the joy of medieval history, please visit patreon.com/themedievalpodcast

When the king is semi-divine and the pope speaks for God, himself, who is the boss of whom? It’s a question most of us don’t spend our days contemplating, but in the Middle Ages, this philosophical debate loomed large. Just who had the final say on planet Earth? And how did you prove it? This week, Danièle speaks with Patrick Nold about the case for the pope’s ultimate power, why it was so urgent in the early fourteenth century, and why an obscure Dominican friar came to the pope’s defense.

This podcast is made possible by the generous support of listeners like you! To find out how to help spread the joy of medieval history, please visit patreon.com/themedievalpodcast