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

Send us a Text Message.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 Guinevere and of Tristan/Tristram and Isolde/Isolt/Iseult The episode begins with an opera, Richard Wagner’s extremely influential rete...

Send us a Text Message.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 a possible contemporary historical analogue, a scandal involving Countess Elizabeth of Vermandois, wife of Count Philip of Flanders, and a ...

Send us a Text Message.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 Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. As John is a professor at the Army's Command and General Staff College, we also chat a bit about teaching milita...

Send us a Text Message.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 those plays. This is the second of a two part series. If you haven’t already done so, you might want to listen to the first episode in whi...

Send us a Text Message.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 Guinevere and Tristan and Isolde, "Yvain" celebrated marital love. That led me to ask Kat about attitudes toward adultery i...

Send us a Text Message.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 martyrdom. Among the topics that Jenny and I discuss are Becket's childhood and family, his service as a cleric in the household of Archbisho...