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

Richard Abels
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Talking about popular conceptions of the Middle Ages and their historical realities. Join Richard Abels to learn about Vikings, knights and chivalry, movies set in the Middle Ages, and much more about the medieval world.

  1. 2D AGO

    Three Accounts of A Pilgrimage To Egypt and the Holy Land in 1384-5

    Send us a text In the year 1384 a company of six wealthy merchants from Florence, each accompanied by a servant, went on a ten-month long pilgrimage to Mameluke Egypt, Palestine, and Syria. Upon returning to Florence, three of them--Leonardo Frescobaldi, Giorgio Gucci, and Simone Sigoli--wrote narratives of the journey. Although there are hundreds of accounts of pilgrimages to the East during the Middle Ages, this is the only pilgrimage that produced three independent narratives. What makes these narratives fascinating is that they are as much travelogues as itineraries of visits to churches and holy places.  They are a treasure trove of information about the material culture and customs of the Mameluke east as viewed and interpreted by travelers from Italy. They also present the historian with a Rashomon-like puzzle: how do we reconcile three eye-witness accounts when they differ? Peter Koniezcny, the owner of the website "medievalists.net" and a veteran of this podcast, returns to join me to talk about this unique source. I hope that you will join us. The passages quoted are from: Frescobaldi, Gucci, and Sigoli, Visit to the Holy Places of Egypt, Sinai, Palestine and Syria in 1384, trans Theophilus Bellorini and Eugene Hoade (Jerusalem: Franciscan Press, 1948), posted online at  Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada If you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com

    1h 6m

  2. OCT 31

    Halloween special: Three Medieval Ghost Stories and My One Encounter with a Ghost

    Send us a text To celebrate my birthday—yes I was a Halloween baby—I decided to do a short episode recounting my one up-close and personal experience with a ghost. No, it was not a ghost of some one who died in the Middle Ages. In fact, I don’t know who it was.  But since ‘Tis But A Scratch” is a medieval podcast, I  start with three ghost stories from the Middle Ages.  It probably comes as no surprise that medieval people believed in ghosts, and ghost stories are scattered through medieval monastic chronicles, hagiographies, preaching manuals, and medieval literature. Ghost stories in medieval England, France, and Germany are mostly about apparitions of the sinful dead to living relatives. These began proliferating in the eleventh century, at the same time that the Catholic Church was developing its theology of Purgatory. Monks and preachers used these stories to emphasize the need to purge one’s sins, even after death. When the Church introduced the idea that the living could lessen the suffering of the dead in Purgatory by doing good deeds or contributing lands and money to monasteries and churches in return for prayers, these stories were used by preachers as fund raisers. The tradition in medieval Scandinavia was different. There the ghosts are not spirits but revenants, reanimated corpses.  I’ve chosen examples illustrating each genre. Two of them were written down around the year 1400. The first is from an Icelandic Saga, Grettir’s Saga. The second is from a collection of twelve ghost stories written by a monk of Byland Abbey, in Yorkshire. Both are about revenants, reanimated corpses, but of very different sorts.  Rounding things out is a ghost story from an earlier source, the autobiography of an early twelfth-century French Benedictine abbot, Guibert of Nogent.  I’m afraid that you might find my personal ghost story a bit dull in comparison, but I can assure you that it was anything but dull when I lived it. And just in case you are wondering: NO! I DO NOT BELIEVE IN GHOSTS!. Happy Halloween! I used the following English translations in this podcast (each of which I emended slightly): Grettir’s Saga, trans. G. H. Hight (1914): https://www.sagadb.org/grettis_saga.en2 “Twelve Medieval Ghost Stories,” trans. A.J. Grant, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 27 (1924): 362-379, posted on the “Medieval Histories” website: https://www.medieval.eu/medieval-histories-time-travelling-to-the-middle-ages/ C.C. Swinton Bland of , The Autobiography of Guibert, Abbot of Nogent-sous-Coucy, trans. C.C. Swinton Bland (London: George Routledge: New York: E.P. Dutton, 1925), which I revised somewhat following Paul J. Archambault, trans., A Monk’s Confession: The Memoirs of Guibert of Nogent (Penn State U. Press, 2004). Bland’s translation is in the public domain and posted in its entirety at  https://sourcebooks.web.fordham.edu/basis/guibert-vita.asp This episode includes a short snippet from "The Unknown," a track from KeMi's album "Shadowscapes." https://artlist.io/royalty-free-music/album/shadowscapes/13040 Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada If you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com

    43 min

  3. OCT 27

    From Bishop of Rome to the Papal Monarchy: Pope Innocent III, Crusade, Church Reform, and the Apex of the Medieval Papacy

    Send us a text Yes, we have finally come to the end of our series "From Bishop of Rome to the Papal Monarchy." In this episode, Ellen and I talk about the pontificate of Innocent III, which historians see as the apex of the papal monarchy. Among the topics we cover are Innocent III's ideology of Caesaropapism, his contribution to the crusading movement, his combat against heresy, his defense of the papal states, and his dedication to Church Reform. Innocent III was the most powerful and effective pope of the Middle Ages.  His control over the Roman Catholic episcopate was uncontested, as evidenced by the Fourth Lateran Council. But his Caesaropapism, his assertion of papal supremacy over both the clergy and the laity, including Christian rulers, was more theoretical than real. He claimed to be the supreme judge over the rulers of Christendom, and was successful in doing so in a number of high profile cases, but his successes were contingent upon the need of those kings either to have papal support or, at the very least, not to be opposed by the papacy. Similarly, he could launch crusades against the Church’s domestic and foreign enemies, but once a crusade was ongoing, he had little power to direct it—even when the crusaders were disobeying his direct orders, as happened twice during the Fourth Crusade. When examined closely, papal supremacy over Christendom was always contingent, even during the apex of the papal monarchy.  This episode includes musical snippets from  Nunc Scio Vere (Introitus) Catholic Missa https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSpBhfE7ljA Dies Irae, Tu es Petrus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OBB5-bP6qs Medieval music: Cantiga de santa maria n. 383 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZEzmTQlmBU) [Steve Tyler: Hurdy Gurdy, Cittern Marco Cannavo: Hurdy Gurdy Ricardo De Noronha: Percussion] Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada If you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com

    1h 37m

  4. OCT 20

    From Bishop of Rome to the Papal Monarchy: the Rise of the Papal Monarchy

    Send us a text In this, the fourth--and penultimate--episode of our continuing series on the medieval papacy, my wife Ellen and I examine the establishment of the papal monarchy in the twelfth century. We discuss how the Investiture Controversy transformed the papacy and the Church; how the growth of papal governance and business along with its need for increased revenues made it a target for the same Church reformers who had formerly been its most fervent supporters; and how those developments brought the papacy into conflict with the Holy Roman Emperors Frederick I Barbarossa and his son Henry VI. I hope you will join us for this and the final episode of the series, on the pontificate of Innocent III, the apex of the papal monarchy. This episode includes musical snippets from Musician Ernst Stolz playing the pilgrims' song,  "O Roma nobilis" on tenor vielle, recorder and gemshorn. From his YouTube channel "My Years with Early Music: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wf3_3065gmU) Nunc Scio Vere (Introitus) Catholic Missa https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSpBhfE7ljA Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada If you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com

    1h 12m

  5. OCT 7

    "1066 and All That": The Significance of the Norman Conquest, Part 1 (with Dr. Jennifer Paxton)

    Send us a text About eight months ago, Jenny and I released a couple of episodes dealing with the historical context of the Norman Conquest. I am delighted to have Jenny back to talk with me about the significance of the Norman Conquest and the Norman Settlement in English history. In this, the first of two episodes, Jenny and I look at the events following the Battle of Hastings and examine how the Norman Conquest has been interpreted over the centuries.  I hope you will join us.  Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada If you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com

    1h 1m

  6. SEP 28

    From Bishop of Rome to the Papal Monarchy: Pope Gregory VII and the Investiture Controversy

    Send us a text The subject of today’s episode, the pontificate of Pope Gregory VII and the Investiture Controversy, is a staple of undergraduate medieval surveys. The first episode I posted after our summer hiatus was actually one that I wrote for a different podcast, “BEEF With Bridget Todd.” It told of the feud between Pope Boniface VIII and King Philip the Fair of France that culminated in that pope’s humiliation at the hands of agents of the king. The so-called Outrage of Anagni in 1302 marked the effective end to the medieval papacy’s claims to supremacy over Christendom’s secular rulers. And if you haven’t already done so, you might want to give it a listen.  In this episode, we will see the first time that a pope, Gregory VII, advanced such a claim, and, although it resulted in his personal humiliation, how it laid the foundation for the Papal Monarchy.          My cohost once again is my partner for life and inspiration for all things medieval, my wife Ellen. I hope you will join us in this fourth and penultimate episode of our series “From Bishop of Rome to the Papal Monarchy.”   Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada If you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com

    1h 5m

  7. SEP 23

    From Bishop of Rome to the Papal Monarchy: Pope Leo IX and the Gregorian Reform

    Send us a text After a summer hiatus, we are finally back with a new episode, the third in our series on the medieval papacy, “From Bishop of Rome to the Papal Monarchy.” The previous covered the tenth-century nadir of the papacy, when it was dominated by powerful Roman families and used to enhance their power and control over the city and the papal states. In this episode, my favorite co-host Ellen Harrison Abels and I explain how the foundations of the papal monarchy were laid in the mid eleventh century by a super pious German king, Henry III, in his capacity as Holy Roman Emperor working hand in glove with his hand-picked German pope (and cousin) Pope Leo IX. The engine of change was the so-called Gregorian Reform (after Pope Gregory VII, whom we will discuss in the next episode). This was the eleventh- and twelfth-century papacy's attack on the clerical abuses of simony, the practice of purchasing spiritual offices/church positions and clerical unchastity. By 1050 both were regarded by monastic reformers as serious abuses among the secular clergy (i.e. the priesthood). Reformers, influenced by the rise of a commercial economy, interpreted as simony the traditional practice of bishops thanking with gifts the kings and princes who had appointed them to their sees. The older view was that it was simply good manners (the reciprocity of gift-giving).   With the backing of Emperor Henry III, Pope Leo IX not only claimed but exerted papal authority over the other bishops of western Christendom in his zeal to cleanse the Church of simony and clerical unchastity. But the death of Henry III and the succession of a child to the throne of Germany, threatened to return the papacy into the hands of the Roman nobility. This led to Pope Nicholas II issuing a papal election decree in 1059, the papacy's declaration of independence, not only from the Roman nobility but (in less certain terms) from the Holy Roman Emperor himself. In this episode Ellen and I also discuss the origins of the Great Schism between the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox Church, and how that explains why Roman Catholic priests are required to be celibate but Greek Orthodox priests can marry. This episode includes snippets from Gregorian chants sung by  the Institute of Christ The King Sovereign Priest (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvT2siwqZCI);  the Schola du Séminaire Saint-Curé-d'Ars (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7I7vXcZR0A); and the Schola of the Vienna Hofburgkapelle (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjrsqJaLDOg).  Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada If you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com

    1h 14m

  8. SEP 13

    Pope Boniface VIII vs King Philip the Fair: Catholicism's Medieval Meltdown (an episode from the podcast "BEEF with Bridget Todd")

    Send us a text After a summer hiatus “’Tis But A Scratch: Fact & Fiction About the Middle Ages” is back—well, not actually quite yet. I am busily working on the final two episodes of our series on the medieval papacy, “From Bishop of Rome to the Papal Monarchy.” I should have episode three on the Gregorian Reform and the Investiture Controversy out in a week or so.  But to tide you over, here is an episode on a related subject from a different podcast, “BEEF with Bridget Todd.” In it, Bridget Todd tells the story of the feud between Christendom’s two most powerful rulers at the turn of the fourteenth century, Pope Boniface VIII and King Philip the Fair of France, a conflict that would determine the fate of the late medieval papacy. Making it even more relevant to this podcast, the script is by yours truly, Prof. Richard Abels.  On September 7, 1303, William of Nogaret, chief legal advisor and fixer for King Philip IV of France, and Sciarra Colonna, a member of a powerful Italian family, led an armed band into the town of Anagni in the hills east of Rome. They had been told that Pope Boniface VIII had gone to the papal palace in Anagni, the town in which the pope had been born, to prepare a bull of excommunication against the French King.  Nogaret’s mission was to seize the pope and compel him either to renounce the papacy on the spot or be brought back to France to stand trial before a general council.  Colonna, whose grievances were personal and familial, had his own agenda. He was prepared to kill the man who claimed to be God’s vicar on earth if he proved stubborn.  What later was to known as the Outrage of Anagni pitted the most powerful secular ruler in Christendom against the head of the Church to which he belonged.  Pope Boniface VIII was the spiritual leader of Christendom and claimed supreme God-given authority over the princes of the earth. As pope, he was also ruler of the papal states in Italy and the CEO of the largest and wealthiest, if most diffuse, corporation in Western Europe, a corporation that had extensive offices in France. It may not surprise you that the root of the conflict was a dispute over money. But it’s best to begin with who these two men were and what the relationship between Church and State was in Western Europe in the late thirteenth century.  BEEF with Bridget Todd. BEEF is an original scripted non-fiction storytelling podcast that focuses on famous historical rivalries, mostly between innovators in pop culture and business.  Award-winning host Bridget Todd tells the stories of legends in their fields and how they tried to stomp out their competition only to find that their enemies become the driving force behind their success, ultimately changing the world as we know it. Past episodes have covered feuds such as the rivalry between basketball players Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain, 19th-century British explorers of the Nile Sir Richard Burton and Capt. John Hanning Speke, and Marc Antony and Octavian Caesar. They even have an episode on Beer vs Gin: England’s Favorite Beverages. This episode also includes some truly insightful observations by Dr. Cecilia Gaposchkin of Dartmouth College. And the podcast’s acclaimed host, Bridget Todd, is excellent as usual. I hope you enjoy it. And if you do, you might want to check out other episodes of “BEEF with Bridget Todd.” It isn’t a medieval podcast, but if you enjoy history and story-telling, I think you will like it.  You can listen to it wherever you get your podcasts.  Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada If you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com

    58 min
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Talking about popular conceptions of the Middle Ages and their historical realities. Join Richard Abels to learn about Vikings, knights and chivalry, movies set in the Middle Ages, and much more about the medieval world.

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