Send us a text In this episode I talk with the distinguished historian of the crusades Dr. Steven Tibble about the motivations of crusaders and of those Europeans who settled in the Crusader states of Outremer. Steve is the author of five books dealing with the crusades, the most recent of which is Crusader Criminals: The Knights Who Went Rogue in …

Send us a text On 3-4 July 1187 the Sultan of Egypt and Syria Saladin enjoyed the greatest military victory of his career. The Battle of Hattin, a two-day battle fought along the road leading to the town of Tiberias and, on the following day, on the Horns of Hattin, an iron-age hillfort above that road, is one of the few decisive battles of the Mid…

Send us a text Yes, Kristin Lavransdatter is the highest-grossing Norwegian film of all time. That isn't as impressive as it might sound, as the movie only brought in $3.7 million in box office receipts, but virtually all of that came from domestic sales. Pretty much unknown outside Scandinavia, the movie was a sensation when released in Norway in …

Send us a text This is the final episode--sort of*--of a multi-part series about medieval adultery in literature, history, and popular culture. My co-host Professor Larissa 'Kat' Tracey and I review how adultery has been dealt with in movies about the Middle Ages. We begin with three Hollywood medieval epics, "The Kingdom of Heaven," "Braveheart," …

Send us a text This is the third of a multi-episode series in which I chat with Dr. Larissa ‘Kat’ Tracey about literary representations of medieval adultery and its reality. In this episode Kat and I survey and discuss the major nineteenth- and twentieth-century literary treatments of medieval adultery, focusing on the stories of La(u)ncelot and Gu…

Send us a text This is the second of a three part series with my very special co-host, Dr. Larissa 'Kat' Tracy, about adultery in the Middle Ages. In the previous episode, Kat and I talked about the Lancelot and Guinevere story. In this episode, we tackle the other great medieval tale of adulterous love, Tristan and Iseult. We begin, however, with …

Send us a text In this episode, my very special guest Dr. John Hosler draws upon the research he undertook for his book Jerusalem Falls: Seven Centuries of War and Peace (Yale University Press, 2022) to discuss what Jerusalem meant in the thought and imagination of Christians and Muslims in the twelfth century, and the role the city played in the L…

Send us a text In this episode my co-host Dr. Jennifer Paxton and I explain the principles and personal grievances that led to the martyrdom of St. Thomas Becket and the significance of that event for Church-State relations in medieval England. We also talk about T.S. Eliot’s and Jean Anouilh’s plays about Thomas’ martyrdom, and the movies based on…

Send us a text This is the first of a three part series about adultery in the Middle Ages. My co-host for both is Dr. Larissa 'Kat' Tracy. Last month Kat and I talked about my favorite medieval romance, Chretien de Troyes' late twelfth-century French poem "Yvain: The Knight with the Lion." Unlike the more famous medieval romances of Lancelot and Gu…

Send us a text This is the first of two episodes on the career, historical context, and "afterlife" of England's most famous--and controversial--saint and martyr, St. Thomas Becket. My co-host for both is a veteran of this podcast, Dr. Jennifer Paxton of the Catholic University of America. In this episode we set the historical scene for Becket's ma…

Send us a text In this episode Ellen and Richard talk about what a "crusade" was in the Middle Ages. Richard explains what modern historians mean by the term "crusade"--and why there is so little agreement. He also offers a response to a question posed by Nicholas Morton in the previous episode: How did the medieval Church reconcile its doctrine of…

Send us a text My guest for this episode is Dr. Nicholas Morton, whom you may remember from our first episode about the Mongols. Today Nick and I will be talking about crusading warfare, in particular, about the military activities and challenges faced by the Crusader States established in the Levant by the First Crusade. Among the topics we will d…

Send us a text In this episode my guest host Professor Larissa 'Kat" Tracy and I discuss my favorite medieval romance, Chrétien de Troyes' late twelfth century poem, "Yvain, the Knight with the Lion." We place the poem within its historical context--the first European industrial and commercial revolution, and the emergence of a courtly society and …

Send us a text Last May, I spoke with Professor Nicholas Morton about the Mongols and their impact upon the medieval Near East. This episode digs deeper into that subject, focusing on the Mongol conquest and destruction of Baghdad in February of 1258. The Mongol sack of Baghdad is notorious for its brutality. Estimates of the number killed range fr…

Send us a text In this episode, the second of a two part series, Dr. Chrissy Senecal and I continue our discussion of the Old English epic poem Beowulf. In it we talk about the challenges of translation and look at literary and cinematic adaptations of the poem. Sound clips in this episode: “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” soundtrack (composer: En…

Send us a text This is the first of a two-part series on the most famous monster story in pre-modern literature, the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf. My co-host for both is Dr. Christine Senecal of Shippensburg University. In this episode Chrissy and I talk about the poem itself. We begin with the story of the hero Beowulf and how as a youth he kills…

Send us a text This is a revised--and a lot longer--version of our twenty-first episode ("Some thoughts about Hanukkah by a (secular) Jewish medieval historian"). That episode was just what the title said, some thoughts about the role of Hanukkah in contemporary America and the Middle Ages. In it Ellen had a throwaway line about the Puritan war on …

Send us a text “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 wr…

Send us a text 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 Saxo…

Send us a text 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.…

Send us a text 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 …

Send us a text 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 'tolerati…

Send us a text 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 …

Send us a text 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 Th…

Send us a text 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 th…

Send us a text 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…

Send us a text 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 If you have questions, feel fre…

Send us a text 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…

Send us a text 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 …

Send us a text 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 th…

Send us a text 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 o…

Send us a text 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 …

Send us a text 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 eithe…

Send us a text 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 so…

Send us a text 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 …

Send us a text 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. Ple…

Send us a text 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 Sin…

Send us a text 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 …

Send us a text 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 a text 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 respon…

Send us a text 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 va…

Send us a text 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 preservi…

Send us a text The life of Sir William Marshal reads like a medieval story book. Starting out as a landless squire whose only possession was family connections, Marshal rose from household knight to become one of the wealthiest and most powerful nobles in early thirteenth century England. Ultimately, he was chosen by his peers to be the guardian an…

Send us a text In this episode Richard distinguishes between the popular modern conception of chivalry, which originated in the romantic movement of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and became the code of the gentleman, and medieval chivalry. Richard and his co-host, his wife Ellen, explore what medieval chivalry entailed, the role it p…

Send us a text The quest for the Holy Grail is among the most famous stories about King Arthur and the Round Table. This episode explores the origins and development of the idea of the Holy Grail in medieval romance and examines how the Grail was reconceived in modern times by Nazis, amateur historians, and novelists to support pseudo-historical co…

Send us a text In this episode, Richard explains why there are so few movies set in the Middle Ages that are historically accurate, and gives examples of a good film (Eric Rohmer's "Perceval le Gallois"; a bad film, Ridley Scott's "The Kingdom of Heaven"; and a not so bad medieval film, Ridley Scott's most recent blockbuster, "The Last Duel." Richa…

Send us a text The title of our podcast ‘Tis But a Scratch: Fact and Fiction about the Middle Ages” is a tribute to one of Richard’s favorite “medieval” movies, “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” Richard was incredulous when Carol told him that she had never seen the movie. After she watched it, she was incredulous that he actually used parts of it…