The Medieval Podcast

This week, Danièle tells the medieval story of The Three Caskets from the Gesta Romanorum, a tale more familiar to theatre and literature fans all over the world as a central plot device in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. You can also help support the podcast and Medievalists.net through our Patreon – go to  https://www.patreon.com/medievalists to learn more.

The Fourth Crusade is best known for being the campaign that attacked the Byzantine Empire in 1204. In this episode, Danièle is joined by Peter Konieczny to talk about Robert de Clari, who wrote one of the accounts of this unusual crusade. What did this French knight say about how the crusaders went from wanting to attack the Holy Land to conquering Constantinople? You can find Danièle's Medieval Masterclass for Creators at https://medievalmasterclass.thinkific.com/courses/medieval-masterclass-for-creators

Medieval historians can sometimes study quirky things. For John Wyatt Greenlee it is researching eels in the Middle Ages. This week, Danièle speaks with Surprised Eel Historian about the impact of this fish on the medieval world - who was eating them, how they were eating them, and why they were sometimes a great way to pay the rent.

There’s talk in the news from time to time about the surprising efficacy of medieval medicine. Does it actually work? This week, Danièle speaks with emergency physician and wilderness medicine expert Dr. Joe Alcock about which medieval remedies really could work in a pinch, and why.

Marriage was an important part of many medieval women’s lives, but not all marriages followed the neat path that the church had laid out for them. This week, Danièle speaks with Dr. Bridget Wells-Furby about fourteenth-century heiress Lucy de Thweng and what her story can tell us about medieval marriage, adultery, and even annulment.

What happens when someone was murdered in the Middle Ages? This week, Danièle is joined by Peter Konieczny to take a look at the Coroner's Rolls from 14th century London. These records offer many insights into violent deaths, detailing the who, what, where, when and sometimes why of murders that took place within the city.

Did medieval princesses live that typical fairy-tale role? This week, Danièle talks with Kelcey Wilson-Lee, author of Daughters of Chivalry: The Forgotten Children of Edward I, to learn about how these English princesses actually lived during the Middle Ages.

From manuscripts to wash basins, medieval objects can tell us a lot about how people conceived of the world. This week, Danièle speaks with Dr. Jack Hartnell about what objects can tell us about the Middle Ages, medicine, and especially medieval bodies.

There are those who abuse the medieval past in order to promote ideas of racism, white supremacism, and other toxic ideologies. To counter these views, Amy S. Kaufman and Paul B. Sturtevant have written The Devil’s Historians: How Modern Extremists Abuse the Medieval Past. They join Danièle to talk about their work and how the Middle Ages was more diverse, compelling, and complex than is often portrayed in mass media.

What was life really like within a medieval monastery? This week we take a look at the Chronicle of the Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, by Jocelin of Brakelond, which tells the tale of an English abbey at the turn of the thirteenth century. It's a surprising story of money, power and gossip.