Medieval Death Trip

It's a special Saint Patrick's Day episode, in which we hear about the contests between the saint and some Irish magicians, as related in Muirchu's 7th-century Life of St. Patrick.

This episode we continue with Walter Map's De nugis curialium and learn that politics really is hell.

This episode we dive into Walter Map's De nugis curialium for a satirical lesson in administrative chaos, choler, and corruption, and also how generally terrible we are.

This Christmas Eve episode, we take a look a medieval forebear of the Ghost of Jacob Marley, as well as a role-model from ancient Rome.

This episode as school breaks for the holidays, we look at one account of the life of translator, philosopher, and part-time court comedian John Scotus Eriugena, who allegedly met a rather bad end at the hands of disgruntled students.

This episode we tap into the Ragnarok zeitgeist and go back to the medieval Norse sources: Snorri Sturluson's Gylfaginning and the apocalyptic poem Völuspá.

This Halloween marks our third anniversary, and we ring in our fourth year with two versions of King Arthur's famous battle with the man-eating giant of Mont St. Michel.

This episode we (that is, I) wax autobiographical as we look at our first saga text, an account of the death of King Magnus Barefoot during his attempted conquest of Ireland in 1103. Also, there are some thoughts on the idea of the progress of literary technique.

This episode we crack open the Chronicle of Man and the Sudreys to look at the Isle of Man and the rise of the royal house of King Orry, Godred Crovan, and King Magnus Barefoot of Norway is warned in a dream to leave Norway and never return.

Today we plunge into some hard-core scholasticism, as we hear Thomas Aquinas wrestle with the thorny question: "If all dead bodies are resurrected at the Last Judgment, what happens to the bodies of cannibals, whose bodies are made up of the flesh of those they have eaten, who also need to be resurrected?" We also wrap up with a reflection on George Romero and the zombie apocalypse.

We conclude our three-part look at the remains of St. Cuthbert with James Raine's account of his 1827 exhumation of Cuthbert's body and the recovery of some extraordinary early medieval artifacts. Featured Music: Extracts from Franz Schubert, Piano Trio in E flat major, D. 929 and Piano Trio no. 1 in B flat major, D. 898, both composed in 1827. (via MusOpen.)

In Part II of our "Cuthbert's Body" series, we hear Reginald of Durham's description of what was found inside Cuthbert's coffin in the investigation preceding the Cuthbert's translation in 1104, and we consider what incorruptibility meant for a medieval audience.

This episode is the first in our three-part series looking at encounters with the remains of St. Cuthbert, starting in this installment with a quick look at the discovery that his body had not decayed in 698, eleven years after his death, as recounted by the Venerable Bede, and then taking a longer look at the so-called "Anonymous Account" of the inspection of his body during his translation into...

This episode we're looking at lists: a list about list, a text akin to an early modern police blotter, and a catalogue of scholarly sessions from Kalamazoo, where I'll be heading off to this week!

This episode we slither into spring with several tales of serpent shenanigans as well as science (or it's medieval equivalent).

In this episode, we look at some tragedies that afflicted the house of Alexander III, King of Scotland, including the deaths of almost all of his family and himself. Also, someone gets pushed in a river, and someone else gets clubbed in the head.

This episode we look at the less than stellar reputation of King John during the First Barons' War, as recounted in the Melrose Chronicle, and consider the relationship of medieval texts to immediate politics.

This episode we celebrate the winter's solstice with a grab-bag of comets, eclipses, and meteors, as well as earthquakes, tempests, and plagues.

We remain at Battle Abbey for one more episode, this time learning how the people of the abbey offended God and looking at the death scenes of Abbot Walter de Lucy and Abbot Ralph.

This episode, we start shifting into holiday mode with an anecdote about a bishop behaving badly at Battle Abbey.

It's Election Day in the U.S.A., and here's a quick little tale of the election of an 11th-century bishop to take our minds off of the horrible, horrible anxiety of the day!

We celebrate two years of Medieval Death Trip on our Halloween anniversary with an extra spooky episode looking at the walking dead who haunt William of Newburgh's Historia rerum Anglicarum.

We're back from our hiatus to remember the Battle of Hastings on its 950th anniversary by looking at the account of the battle in the Historia Ecclesiastica of Orderic Vitalis.

In this episode, we celebrate the start of a new school year with a return to Eberhard the German's Laborintus and learn more about the trials and tribulations of teaching medieval schoolchildren.

On this episode, we're back with Thomas of Monmouth's The Life and Miracles of St. William of Norwich to hear a tale of fire, fratricide, and fetters.