We've covered the walking dead, and now, we'll look at another horror that stalked the medieval night: the man-wolf, the werewolf. Many medieval people believed in werewolves, although learned churchmen doubted their existence. And in the panic of the early modern witch hunts, people often came to suspect their neighbors of being this horrible creature that preyed on human flesh. Further Reading Primary Sources Marie de France. The Lais of Marie de France: Text and Translation, edited and translated by Claire Waters. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview, 2018. These lais include the werewolf o ..read more

As we approach Halloween, it's only appropriate that in this episode we discuss ghosts and revenants in the Middle Ages. Today's episode will be an interview with Alexander Zawacki. Dr. Zawacki is a lecturer in Digital Humanities at the University of Göttingen. He also publishes a Substack called It's Only Dark, a discussion of all things spooky. Link: It's Only Dark Further Reading Primary Sources Joynes, Andrew, ed. Medieval Ghost Stories: An Anthology of Miracles, Marvels and Prodigies. Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2001. This is your one-stop shop for medieval ghost stories. Joynes h ..read more

Medieval people had a working, observation-based theory of the structure and working of the cosmos. As a result, they also had a science of magic. You may be asking: A science of magic? Isn't that a contradiction? I hope that by the end of the episode, you'll see that it isn't. We'll briefly cover astrology, magic, and alchemy, and along the way, we may find an answer to that age-old question: magnets, how do they work? Further Reading Kieckhefer, Richard. Magic in the Middle Ages. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. This little book of about 200 pages has just about everyt ..read more

How did medieval people understand their relation to the objects seen in the sky, from the sun and moon, to the planets and stars? In this episode, we'll talk about how medieval people understood the shape and structure of the known universe from God setting things into motion to our own world. Further Reading Lewis, C.S. The Discarded Image. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964. Here it is again! This time I'll ask you to read it for Lewis's explanation of the shape of the world and where everything fit into their cosmology. Maurer, Armand. Medieval Philosophy. 2nd ed. Toronto: Pon ..read more

In addition to God, the devil, and the angels and demons, medieval people believed in a class of beings living just outside of sight, of creatures that you'd see only from the corner of your eye. These creatures associated with glens and groves were often known as the fairies, or the elves, and they're going to be the topic of this episode. Further Reading Lewis, C.S. The Discarded Image. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964. This book covers the way that medieval people understood the structure of the universe, from the earth at the center all the way to the heavens that surround wh ..read more

In the 1160s, the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem made a play to conquer Egypt, assisted by the forces of the Eastern Roman Empire. Although these armies came within an ace of victory, in the end, they were outmaneuvered by the forces of Aleppo, and it would be Saladin who conquered the Fatimid Caliphate. In this episode, I'll be discussing this lesser-known story from the history of the Crusades. Special thanks to my friend and colleague Dr. Adam Bishop, a crusade historian who fact-checked the script of this episode for me. Further Reading Secondary Sources Fulton, Michael. Contest for Egy ..read more

Most of what we read by medieval people themselves of course comes down to us in the books that they left us. That much is obvious. But what exactly does it mean for the book to have been a physical object? How was the book made? Who bought books? To answer these and other questions, I'll be discussing the nature of the medieval book as a physical thing. Further Reading Clemens, Raymond, and Graham, Timothy. Introduction to Manuscript Studies. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2007. This book as everything you might want to know about manuscripts. For everyone from the general re ..read more

What, if anything, can dreams tell us? Medieval people had all sorts of beliefs about whether dreams could be predictive or if they should be avoided as deceits. Much of what they believed was the heritage of Greco-Roman and biblical beliefs, to include the Bible, myth, and philosophy of mind. In this episode, we'll do a quick run-through of what medieval people believed about dreams and their predictive power. Further Reading Primary Sources Macrobius. Commentary on the Dream of Scipio. Translated by William Harris Stahl. New York: Columbia University Press, 1952. This is t ..read more

There's a lot of material out there that didn't quite make it into the Bible over the course of the second and third centuries. Some of this material, called apocryphal or pseudepigriphal, is stuff that fits in with the tone of the rest of scripture and is edifying. Other material, though, gives us giants and wizards, dragons and lions, and a boy Jesus who is quite frankly terrifying. That's what we'll be discussing in this episode. Further Reading Elliott, J.K. The Apocryphal Jesus: Legends of the Early Church. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. A brief introduction to the apocryphal l ..read more

A key feature of medieval culture and civilization was the presence of the Catholic Church. You might wonder where precisely the Catholic Church comes from, or indeed, where we get our Bible from in the first place. In this episode, I'll largely be discussing the origins of the Christian religion and how catholic Christianity ties in with that. I'll also discuss the views of modern scholars who don't always agree with the traditional accounts of Christianity's origins. Further Reading Evans, G.R. A Short History of Medieval Christianity. London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2017. The first cha ..read more