Ask a Medievalist

Synopsis If you’re one of those people who thinks about the Roman Empire a lot because aqueducts are really cool, you’re going to love this. Join Em and Jesse as they discuss the irrigation of the Chengdu Plain, the plumbing of Tenochtitlan, and water management at Machu Picchu. Then we round out our “the middle ages didn’t constantly smell awful” series with a discus...

Summary After a brief discussion of how people brushed their teeth, we move on to the question of where the water they used came from. And yeah, Rome had aqueducts–but so did a lot of places! And the Romans didn’t even build the aqueducts they did have–they took them from the Etruscans! Who may have gotten the idea from the Minoans! Also we talk about China, Harappa, and the Inca...

Summary When Em was a kid, she was told that knights in shining armor didn’t bathe, that Elizabeth I had bathed only three times in her life, and various other assertions. But we know that soap is not a modern invention–the word itself comes from the Latin, and no less than Pliny the Elder discusses how to make it from tallow and ashes. So what constitutes bathing? Were people before t...

Synopsis Are you travelling for Thanksgiving? Believe it or not, “travel” as a thing is not a modern creation. In the middle ages, people visited many remote and far-flung places and brought back notes (and delicious noodles). Join Em and Jesse for travel talk, including Lord Elgin, Ibn Battuta, Marco Polo, Zheng He, Margery Kemp, and more. Notes 0/ The actual postcard: I found it in a...

Synopsis We’ve all seen that scene in Indiana Jones where he’s clutching an artifact and shouting, “It belongs in a museum!” But nowadays in 2023, we tend to temper that idea–museums are fun, but who gets to hold a particular object, why, and for how long is a point of contention. Join Em and Jesse as they discuss one of the world’s oldest and largest museums, t...

Synopsis Em and Jesse talk about Italian sumptuary laws, which unlike the British ones, were more aimed at women. Then they talk about fashion “dos” of the middle ages. Notes 1/ So, the difference between having a title and being part of the peerage is this. In America, when you earn a lot of money, you get to be part of a special club where you are allowed to accumulate “social...

Synopsis Just in time for Paris Fashion Week, join Em and Jesse for an exciting discussion of sumptuary laws and the medieval origins of prohibitions against wearing white, as well as a few digressions about John Waters films and Blackadder. Notes 0/ Rainbow Space Magic Con: https://www.rainbowspacemagic.org/ 1/ Serial Mom: (warning for violence) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnGHB-kI2ZM 2/ If y...

Synopsis What got written illicitly on the walls back before 79 CE? It turns out a lot of stuff! Join Em and Jesse as they discuss the graffiti of Pompeii and also stuff Vikings wrote their names on. Em’s book: Amazon , all other sites . Notes Books! Ancient Graffiti in Context ed. Baird and Taylor: https://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Graffiti-Context-Routledge-Studies-ebook/dp/B004OBZWDG Medieva...

Summary Let’s talk about psychedelics in ritual practice. From Hunter S. Thompson’s pilgrimage across the desert to the human sacrifices of the Incan empire in the sixteenth century to the use of opium during the late bronze age, people have been altering their mental states in religious contexts almost since the dawn of civilization. Join Em and Jesse in their second episode about dru...

Synopsis In honor of the publication of Em’s debut novel, Dionysus in Wisconsin , Em and Jesse talk about Dionysus (the god), and then about drug use in ancient religious rituals. Notes 1/ Order book here (or from non-Amazon sites here ). (Incredibly well reviewed! Buy one now!!) 2/ Sparagmos: your vocabulary term for the day, kids. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparagmos 3/ Dionysus’s...

Synopsis Are butts the most medieval of body parts? From the Wild Man to Chaucer to good old Michelangelo, let’s pontificate about the posterior. Do you need more of a pitch than that? Notes 0/ Preorder Em’s book : a little obscene, only a few butts. 1/ Warning for…talking about butts, I guess. 2/ The Wild Man: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_man 3/ York Minster Cathedral: htt...

Summary A long time ago, people were pure at heart. Of course, sex happened occasionally, but no one took off their clothes for it–that would be gauche. Then James Joyce wrote a book called Ulysses and things started to go downhill. In 1933, a judge named John M. Woolsey ruled in a case called United States v. One Book Called Ulysses that Ulysses was not obscene, and since then we have lost...

1/ EB White was a rather nice, shy guy who wrote for the New Yorker and hid from his admirers. TH White was a weirdo who lived on the edge of the woods in the UK. EB White is the White of Strunk & White. https://xkcd.com/923/ 2/ it would be more accurate to say Em “hangs around” the book space. There’s no working going on. But this is true: 50% of all books sold are romance n...

Summary Early on, a friend of the podcast asked if we were going to cover chivalry. Because really, when you think of the Middle Ages, this is it, right? Knights in very shiny armor on beautiful horses charging into battle, swords drawn! Knights getting scarves from their ladies! Knights holding vigils and praying in front of the holy grail.  Today, three years later, Em and Jesse are finally goin...

Summary The other day, I asked a friend, “Hey, what do normal people put on their walls?” The answer…is tapestries. Cold, stony castle? Tapestries. Small, plain cathedral? Tapestries. A house of some sort? Probably also tapestries. In this episode, Em and Dr. Jesse talk over how tapestries are made, famous tapestries from around the world, and the use of color in Medieval society...

Summary It’s wintertime in the Northern hemisphere! Snow is, of course, eternal, but did you ever wonder how far back the tradition of making snowpeople goes? Jesse did. Join us as we trace the history of snowpeople in Europe/the UK as far back as we can. Notes 1/ Marginal illustration in a Book of Hours from c1380 (Ms KA36, fol. 78 verso, Brussels) now in the Koninklijke Bibliotheek Actual...

Synopsis Once upon a time there was a guy named Gawain, and someone made a movie about him! And he got to be played by Dev Patel, which is pretty great when you get down to it. And then we covered it! In which Em reveals that she watches way too much historical costuming YouTube, Jesse gives a coherent literary critique, and then we talk about cinematography and death. Oh, there’s a bunch ab...

Famous eels: 1/ "Those are the shrieking eels. You don't believe me? Just wait. They always grow louder when they're about to feed on human flesh." (Name that movie.) 2/ Mark Oliver Everett 3/ Medieval eel rents! The medieval church, famously, had a lot of restrictions on what people could eat and when—during Lent, on Fridays, and other fast days as well. Join Em and Jesse as they discuss some of...

Summary A lot of stuff about Richards II and III for a podcast that’s supposed to be about queens. Also Mathildas, Boudica, and why Black Panther is more historically accurate than Wonder Woman . Notes 1/ Richard III’s body was eventually found under a car park. I swear we talked about this at some point. “Was ever woman in this humor woo’d?” Richard III, act I, scene...

Synopsis As a memorial to Elizabeth II, Em and Jesse discuss famous queens throughout history and mostly in the UK, including drag queens, the borough of Queens, Lady Jane Grey, Mary I, Elizabeth I,  Mary II, Anne, Victoria, and Elizabeth II. Also Sophie of Hanover, Wills and Kate, Prince Harry and Meghan, and I think Charlie III a little bit. Annotations 1/ In retrospect, I don’t know why I...

Synopsis Bro! You knew it was coming! Grab your replica Sutton Hoo helmet and get ready, it’s Beowulf o’clock. Annotations 1/ Spoiler alert: it wasn’t published as episode 50. [But that’s ok! –Jesse] 2/ We talked about Cotton in episode 39 note 8 . Here is more info on the Cotton collection: https://www.bl.uk/collection-guides/cotton-manuscripts https://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

Summary Summertime, and the living is Medieval. But really, what was summer like in the Middle Ages? We talk about the Medieval Climate Anomaly, the (not at all Medieval) Little Ice Age, the volcano on Santorini, Medieval vacation tendencies, the Tres Riches Heures of the Duc de Berry, and the Olympics.  Also, Firesign Theatre references! Brief content warning : if you have really bad climate chan...

Synopsis Part two of the run up to the arrival of Queen Matilda and that other guy…what was his name…William the Conqueror. Yeah. Him. Includes Danelaw, Danegeld, surprising connections to Hamlet, an explanation of whether Aethelred the Unready was  really unready, and of course a discussion of Eric the Viking! Annotations 1/ We have obviously linked to this clip before, but whatever....

Synopsis As good students of history, you already know that all-important date in British history: 1066, aka the Norman Invasion. But what happened in England before then? From the Romans through to Alfred the Great, join Em and Jesse as they talk about a whole bunch of kings, kingdoms, Vikings, and Monty Python. Annotations 1/ 1066 and All That: A Memorable History of England, Comprising All the...

Synopsis What do you get when you combine Monty Python, Mel Brooks, and the Passion of Christ? I don’t know, but it’s been going on for 390 years at this point. In this episode, Em and Jesse discuss what Jesse did on her summer vacation (or part of it): a trip to see the passion play in Oberammergau. With digressions on the 1972 Olympics, the film Munich , Nazis, and Bernd das Brot. Th...