Medieval Death Trip Medieval Death Trip

In this slightly belated Father's Day episode, we return to the snarky wit of Walter Map as he explains why it's so hard to be the man of the house.

Today's Text
Map, Walter. De Nugis Curialium. Translated by Montague R. James, historical notes by John Edward Lloyd, edited by E. Sidney Hartland, Cymmrodorion Record Series, no. 9, Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 1923.

References
Jones, Kathleen W. "Mother's Day: The Creation, Promotion and Meaning of a New Holiday in the Progressive Era." Texas Studies in Literature and Language, vol. 22, no. 2, Summer 1980, pp. 175-196. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40754605.

Audio Credit: Young Frankenstein. Directed by Mel Brooks. 20th Century Fox, 1974.

We return from an unplanned semester hiatus with the third installment of our Medieval True Crime miniseries, continuing to explore the 13th-century coroner's rolls of rural Bedfordshire (plus one item from 14th-century Essex), as well as muse on why murder narratives so monopolize our mysteries and how murder was defined in medieval England.


Today's Text:
Gross, Charles, editor. Select Cases from the Coroners' Rolls, A.D. 1265-1413, with a Brief Account of the History of the Office of Coroner. Bernard Quarithc, 1896. Google Books.


References:

Green, Thomas A. "Societal Concepts of Criminal Liability for Homicide in Mediaeval England." Speculum, vol. 47, no. 4, Oct. 1972, pp. 669-694. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2856634.

Hanawalt, Barbara A. "Violent Death in Fourteenth- and Early Fifteenth-Century England." Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 18, no. 3, July 1976, pp. 297-320. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/178340.

Kaste, Martin. "Open Cases: Why One-Third Of Murders In America Go Unresolved." Morning Edition, National Public Radio, 30 Mar. 2015, www.npr.org/2015/03/30/395069137/open-cases-why-one-third-of-murders-in-america-go-unresolved.

United States. Department of Justice. Bureau of Justice Statistics. "FAQ Detail: What is the probability of conviction for felony defendants?" www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?iid=403&ty=qa.

As we kick off the New Year, we take a brief diversion from our Medieval True Crime miniseries to explore the world of precious stones and the extraordinary properties attributed to them through a look at the Lapidary of Marbodus and a couple of other short texts.

Today's Texts

Shackford, Martha Hale, editor. Legends and Satires from Mediæval Literature. Ginn and Company, 1913. Google Books.

Marbodus. The Lapidarium of Marbodus. Translated by C.W. King. In C.W. King, Antique Gems, Their Origin, Uses, and Value as Interpreters of Ancient History; and as Illustrative of Ancient Art, John Murray, 1860, pp. 389-417. Google Books.


References

Doyle, Arthur Conan. "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle." The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Project Gutenberg.

Duffin, Christopher John. "Chelidonius: The Swallow Stone." Speculum, vol. 124, no. 1, Apr. 2013, pp. 81-103. JSTOR.

Holmes, Urban T. "Mediaeval Gem Stones." Speculum, vol. 9, no. 2, Apr. 1934, pp. 195-204. JSTOR.

This episode, we continue our Medieval True Crime series with a trip to late 13th-century Bedfordshire as represented in its Coroner's Rolls, as well as hear some inadvertently lyrical legalese from early 14th-century Northampton.

Today's Text:

Gross, Charles, editor. Select Cases from the Coroners' Rolls, A.D. 1265-1413, with a Brief Account of the History of the Office of Coroner. Bernard Quarithc, 1896. Google Books.

References:

Hanawalt, Barbara A. "Violent Death in Fourteenth- and Early Fifteenth-Century England." Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 18, no. 3, July 1976, pp. 297-320. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/178340.

Warrin, Frank L. “Hue and Cry.” The Virginia Quarterly Review, vol. 9, no. 1, 1933, pp. 26–37. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26433779.

For our sixth anniversary episode, we kick off a miniseries on medieval true crime, with the account of a particularly brutal assault on a parish priest, with an additional look at medieval treatments for eye wounds, and also learn how a dead man managed to kill the warrior who slayed him.

Today's Text:

Knox, Ronald, and Shane Leslie, editors and translators. The Miracles of King Henry VI. Cambridge UP, 1923.

Guy de Chauliac, Grand Chirurgie. "Description of the Plague." Tr. by William A. Guy. Public Health: A Popular Introduction to Sanitary Science, Henry Renshaw, 1870, pp. 48-50. Google Books.

Dasent, G.W., translator. The Orkneyingers Saga. Icelandic Sagas, vol. 3, Eyre and Spottiswood, 1894. Sacred Texts, www.sacred-texts.com/neu/ice/is3/is300.htm.


References:

Houlbrook, Ceri. "Coining the Coin-Tree: Contextualizing a Contemporary British Custom." Doctoral thesis, University of Manchester, 2014. Manchester University, www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/files/54558281/FULL_TEXT.PDF.

Kelleher, Richard Mark. "Coins, monetisation and re-use in medieval England and Wales: new interpretations made possible by the Portable Antiquities Scheme." Doctoral thesis, vol. 1, Durham University, 2012. Durham e-Theses, etheses.dur.ac.uk/7314/.

Millmore, Bridget. "Love Tokens: Engraved Coins, Emotions and the Poor 1700-1856." Doctoral thesis, University of Brighton, 2015. Brighton University, research.brighton.ac.uk/files/4757430/Bridget%20Millmore%20PhD%20Final.pdf.

Audio Credits
Recording by Freesound.ord user YleArkisto used under Creative Commons Attribution license.
"Sudet ulvovat / Wolves howling, small pack, frost snapping" (https://freesound.org/s/243495/)

This episode, we check in once again with 14th-century traveler Odoric of Pordenone as he takes in the many lands between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea, including Sri Lanka, Java, Borneo, Vietnam, and some that remain rather mysterious.

Today's Texts:
Odoric of Pordenone. "The Eastern Parts of the World, Described." Cathay and the Way Thither, translated by Henry Yule, vol. 1, Hakluyt Society, 1866, pp. 43-162. Google Books.

Odoricus. "The Voyage of Frier Beatus Ordoricus to Asia Minor, Armenia, Chaldea, Persia, India, China, and Other Remote Parts, &c." The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation, edited and translated by Richard Hakluyt, vol. 4, Macmillan 1904, pp. 371-444. Google Books.

Audio credits:
Recordings by Freesound.org user RTB45 used under Creative Commons Attribution license.
--"Borneo Jungle - Day" (https://freesound.org/s/253291/)
--"Javanese Angklung Music – Indonesia" (https://freesound.org/s/253962/)
--"Javanese Court Gamelan 3 - Indonesia" (https://freesound.org/s/255542/)
--"Bali Cremation Ceremony - Prelude" (https://freesound.org/s/149186/)

Recording by Kevin Luce used under Creative Commons Attribution license.
--"Cham Music and Dances" (https://freesound.org/s/440669/)