'tis but a scratch: fact and fiction about the Middle Ages

Send us Fan Mail “Feudalism” was once accepted by academic and popular historians alike as a defining, if not the defining, feature of medieval society. For military historians, the High Middle Ages, the period from around 1050 to 1300, was once the Age of the Feudal Knight. This is no longer the case. If academic historians use it at all in their writings or classrooms, it is usually to dismiss i...

Send us Fan Mail In our third and final episode of the series, Richard talks with Professor Ryan Lavelle of the University of Winchester in the U.K. about Alfred the Great. Dr. Lavelle is a leading expert on Anglo-Saxon and Viking warfare. He is also the historical consultant for the BBC/Netflix television series "The Last Kingdom," based on the Saxon Chronicle novels of Bernard Cornwell...

Send us Fan Mail This is the second of a three part series about King Alfred of Wessex (reigned 871-899), the only English king to be called "the Great." In this episode Ellen and I chat with Dr. Barbara Yorke, Professor Emeritus at the University of Winchester in the U.K.. Professor Yorke is arguably the world's leading expert on Anglo-Saxon Wessex. She and I share the distinction...

Send us Fan Mail After a hiatus we are back with the long promised episode about King Alfred of Wessex (871-899), the only English king to be called "the great." In this episode, Richard gives an overview of Alfred's reign and accomplishments and explains why the Victorians thought he was great--and why Richard does as well. The musical introduction is  the opening of "Rule Bri...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode I interview my special guest Dr. Nicholas Morton, author of The Mongol Storm (Basic Books, 2022), about the Mongols and their invasion of and impact upon the thirteenth-century Near East. Our discussion covers who and what the Mongols were; why they were so effective militarily; Mongol religion and religious 'toleration'; their reputation for horrific bru...

Send us Fan Mail This is the second half of a two-part series about the legendary medieval outlaw Robin Hood. In the first episode, my co-host Dr. Jennifer Paxton and I discussed the evidence for a historical basis for the legend. In this one, we look at how Robin Hood has been portrayed in film and television from the silent era to the present--and how each generation has gotten (in Jenny's...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode Richard and Dr. Jennifer Paxton of The Catholic University of America   search for a historical Robin Hood and explore the medieval and Tudor stories about the heroic outlaw and his band of merry men. This is the first of a two-part series.  The follow on episode will be on Robin Hood in movies and television. Credits The podcast's intro and exit music is comp...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode Richard and his special guest and co-host Dr. Christine Senecal of Shippensburg University discuss the 2022 Viking movie "The Northman."  Director and co-screenplay writer Robert Eggers' avowed goal in making this movie was to recreate the material and mental world of the Vikings. Please join Richard and Chrissie as they assess how well he succeeded...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Richard and Ellen discuss who and what vikings were historically, and how they were depicted in the Middle Ages and modern times. The episode focuses upon the first century of the Viking Age, roughly from the late eighth to the early tenth century.  (This episode marks the first anniversary of 'Tis But A Scratch: Fact and Fiction About the Middle Ages.  Ellen...

Send us Fan Mail This is a short end of the year episode.  It's exactly what the title says, just some thoughts about the role of Hanukkah in contemporary America and the Middle Ages. Happy Holidays from Ellen and me to you and yours! Listen on Podurama    https://podurama.com                                                                      Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada I...

Send us Fan Mail Few English kings have had a worse popular reputation than Æthelred the Unready (r.978-1016), the king who lost England (at least temporarily) to viking invaders. But does he deserve that reputation?  Was King Æthelred really "unready"?  My co-host for this episode is the person most qualified to answer that question, Dr. Levy Roach of the University of Exeter in the U.K...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode Ellen and I discuss three "wicked" medieval women and the monastic authors who loathed them.  We begin with the Anglo-Saxon Queen Ælfthryth, a champion of the Tenth-Century Benedictine Reform movement in England,  who appears in the twelfth-century Liber Eliensis as a lascivious witch responsible for the murders of her stepson King Edward the Martyr and B...

Send us Fan Mail Today’s episode concludes our three part series about King Arthur in history, legend, and popular culture.   Our jumping off point for this episode is Sir Thomas Malory’s late fifteenth-century Le Morte D’Arthur , the work most responsible for the popular conception of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.  We then trace how the legend has been repeatedly reinterpreted d...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode Ellen and I with the help of my longtime friend and colleague Dr. Jennifer Paxton of the Catholic University of America trace the development of the Arthurian legend during the Middle Ages, as Arthur was transformed from the chieftain of Welsh stories into the exemplar of medieval French and English chivalry. Listen on Podurama    https://podurama.com              ...

Send us Fan Mail This episode features a guest co-host, my old friend and colleague Dr. Jennifer Paxton, director of the Honors Program at The Catholic University of America and one of the best historians of medieval Britain. Jenny, Ellen, and I examine the evidence for a historical Arthur in the aftermath of the Roman withdrawal from Britain in the fifth century. We begin with the historical cont...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode Ellen and I compare medieval Inquisitions with the Spanish Inquisition, and both with the popular conception of the Inquisition.  Among other subjects, we discuss what an inquisition was--and is--, how inquisitions served as a tool in the formation of a persecuting society, and why it is not quite accurate to see either the medieval or the Spanish Inquisition as ta...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode Ellen and I talk about a dualist heresy that was widespread in twelfth- and thirteenth-century southern France and northern Italy.  This heresy is generally known as Catharism.  Its central tenet was that there are two gods, a good god who created the spiritual world and an evil god who created the visible world. The soul of man is good, but the flesh in which it i...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode Ellen and I talk about one of the more puzzling events in the history of England’s Viking Wars, the St. Brice's Davy Massacre. In the year 1002, King Æthelred "the Unready" issued an order that on St. Brice's Day all the Danes dwelling in England were to be killed in a "most just extermination."  Writers from the late eleventh century...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode Ellen and I examine how Saint Francis became a saint and Waldo a heretic while following the same call to apostolic poverty, and why in the mid-thirteenth century it was heretical to deny that a consecrated communion wafer contains the actual body of Christ but not to venerate a dog as a saint with healing powers. Please join us! Listen on Podurama    https://podur...

Send us Fan Mail On April 28, 1192 the newly elected king of Jerusalem Conrad of Montferrat was assassinated in the streets of the city of Tyre by two Assassins, the name by which the Crusaders knew the Nizari Isma'ili Shi'a sect in Syria.  The killers had acted in obedience to the leader of the Assassins, the Old Man of the Mountain Rashid al-Din Sinan.  That much is known.  On whose be...

Send us Fan Mail Saladin's taking of Jerusalem, three months after the fighting forces of the Kingdom of Jerusalem were wiped out in the Battle of Hattin, precipitated the Third Crusade.  Eyewitness accounts are rare for the Early and High Middle Ages.  The siege of Jerusalem in 1187 is exceptional in having three.  Two of these were by men with inside knowledge of the surrender negotiations,...

Send us Fan Mail This episode places Magna Carta in its historical context, explains why it really isn't the foundation of Anglo-American liberty, reaffirms John's status as a really bad king (and person), and discusses how the Magna Carta baronial rebellion led to the only Crusade to be fought on English soil. Listen on Podurama    https://podurama.com                                  ...

Send us Fan Mail In 978 the eighteen-year old English king Edward was murdered while traveling to visit his younger half-brother Æthelred and his stepmother Ælfthryth.  The murder transformed a truculent teenager into a venerated martyr. This episodes explores the "martyrdom" of King Edward and offers explanations for why he was killed, who was responsible for the act, and why the killer...

Send us Fan Mail The late twelfth-century Frence epic poem Raoul of Cambrai is a tale of violence, vengeance, and betrayal in which the basic bonds of society--feudal loyalty, family, and friendship--come into conflict.  The poem poses key questions for feudal society: which is the higher duty, loyalty to a lord or obligation to one's family? may a vassal rightfully renounce his oath of loyal...

Send us Fan Mail In the second half of “The finest knight in all the world: the practical chivalry of Sir William Marshal,” Ellen and I examine the career of William Marshal as baron, earl, and, ultimately, regent of England for a child king.  The challenge William Marshal  faced as a baron was to retain possession of all his lands while still preserving his vaunted reputation for loyalty, a seemi...