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In this episode I interview Professor Nora Berend of the University of Cambridge about her new book El Cid; The Life and Afterlife of a Medieval Mercenary (Pegasus Books, 2025). We discuss how the historical Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, a ruthless and ambitious mercenary who served both Christian and Muslim rulers in the violent and chaotic political world of late eleventh-century Iberia was transformed into the national hero of Francoist Spain and the hero of the 1961 movie starring Charlton Heston.
This episode includes the audio track from the theatrical trailer to the 1961 movie "El Cid", starring Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren, and directed by Anthony Mann
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This is the second of our two part series on the Norman Conquest. In it Jenny and I discuss the military challenges faced by King Harold Godwinson and Duke William of Normandy and the battles of Fulford Gate and Stamford Bridge, before turning to look closely at the Battle of Hastings (which did not actually take place at Hastings). I hope you will join us.
There is a host of books on the Battle of Hastings and the Norman Conquest, both academic and popular. I would glad to recommend some. Feel free to email me. Meanwhile, I'd recommend a couple of good collections of primary and secondary sources:
Stephen Morillo, ed., The Battle of Hastings: Sources and Interpretations (The Boydell Press, 1996).
R. Allen Brown, ed., The Norman Conquest. Documents of Medieval History 5 (Edward Arnold, 1984).
The magazine "Medieval Warfare" devoted a special edition in 2017 to "1066: The Battle of Hastings." I highly recommend it for those interested in the military aspects of the battle.
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This is the first half of a two part series on the Norman Conquest of England. My cohost for both parts is a veteran of this podcast, Dr. Jennifer Paxton of the Catholic University of America. Jenny is one of the very best historians of Anglo-Norman England, so this is a subject right up her alley. In this episode we explore the historical background leading up to the Norman Conquest and the claims of the three rivals who fought for the English throne in 1066: Earl Harold Godwinson, King Harald Hardrada of Norway, and Duke William of Normandy.
This is an episode that cries out for genealogical tables connecting the main claimants to the English throne in 1066. Fortunately, there are a number of useful and reliable ones online:For the family relations of the main claimants to the English throne in 1066, see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_the_Conqueror#/media/File:Tree_of_William's_struggle_for_England.svg
There is a nice table of the family of Earl Godwin at:
https://achallengeforthethronebygeorgina.weebly.com/harold-godwinson.html
And for Harald Hardrada, check out:
https://www.medievalists.net/2021/08/harald-hardrada-exemplar-age/
I'm pleased to say that 'Tis But A Scratch recently was recognized by Feedspot as one of the 25 best Viking Age Podcasts and one of the top 100 podcasts on the history of Europe:
https://podcast.feedspot.com/viking_age_podcasts/
https://podcast.feedspot.com/europe_podcasts/
This episode includes an audio clip from Walt Disney's animated "Alice in Wonderland." To understand why, you will just have to listen to the episode.Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com
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Yes, I know that Octavian IS Augustus, but this episode is about how Gaius Octavius became Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus, and in doing so replaced the old Roman Republic with a military autocracy masquerading as a republic. This is the conclusion of our three part series on the fall of the Roman Republic. My cohost for all three episodes has been my good friend Dr. Jennifer Paxton of the Catholic University of America.
This episode includes two audio snippets:
Mark Antony's funeral oration for Caesar, from the 1953 film version of Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" (with Marlon Brando as Brutus)
"What have the Romans done for us?" from "Monty Python's The Life of Brian"
Quotations from:
Appian on Caesar's Funeral, trans. John Carter (https://www.livius.org/sources/content/appian/appian-caesars-funeral/)
Res Gestae Divi Augusti ("the achievements of the deified Augustus"), trans. F.W. Shipley (https://www.livius.org/sources/content/augustus-res-gestae/)
Tacitus Agricola. Translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb (1877)
Tacitus, Annals. Loeb Classical Library edition of Tacitus, 1931
For another take on the story, I recommend listening to "Marc Antony vs. Octavian Caesar: Ancient Rome's Ruthless Rivals," a two part series on the podcast "Beef with Bridget Todd."
As I am posting this a couple of days before Christmas and Hanukkah, I would like to wish you all Happy Holidays. And if you haven't yet listened to it, you might want to try our episode on how Hanukkah and Christmas were celebrated in the Middle Ages (with detours into how Hanukkah became the Jewish Christmas in the United States and why the Puritans tried to suppress Christmas).Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com
Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
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This is the second of a three part series about the fall of the Roman Republic. My cohost for all three episodes is Dr. Jennifer Paxton of the Catholic University of America. We actually had been planning only two episodes, but the story is long and detailed, so we thought that three would be best. In episode one, Jenny and I explained the workings of the Roman Republic and the military, economic, and cultural factors that undermined its stability in the late second and first century B.C.. In it we examined how and why Rome's acquisition of a Mediterranean based empire undermined the foundations of its republican constitution. Among the topics covered in that episode are: the Roman class system and how it shaped Roman political institutions; the patron-client relationship; Roman just war theory; the land reform program of the Gracchi brothers; Marius' unprecedented six consulships; and the fracturing of the ruling elite in the Optimates, supporters of senatorial privilege, and the Populares, who sought to check the senate by appealing to the popular assemblies; This episode picks up where the last one left off, beginning with Sulla's march on Rome in 99 B.C. and ending with the assassination of Julius Caesar on the idea of March, 44 B.C.. The third and final episode completes the story, culminating in the establishment of the "Principate" by Octavian Augustus, an autocracy masquerading as a republic.
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For the fiftieth (!) episode of this podcast, I'm taking a few centuries detour from the Middle Ages to talk about the fall of the Roman Republic. In this episode, the first of a two part series, my cohost Dr. Jenny Paxton and I talk about the political and cultural institutions of the Roman Republic in the late second and first centuries B.C.E.*. We explain how and why a republic designed to govern an Italian city-state fell victim to its own success as Rome rose to empire, despite all of its built in checks and balances. In the second episode, Jenny and I relate how a series of ambitious political generals--Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Caesar, Mark Antony, and Octavian Augustus--plunged the Republic into two generations of civil war that culminated in the establishment of a military autocracy disguised as a republic.
(Note: B.C.E. stands for "Before the Common Era"; C.E. for "The Common Era." They are the secular equivalents of B.C. and A.D.. Be warned, we weren't consistent in our use of these dating conventions. I also noticed that sometimes we called the Roman legislative and judicial body known as the consilium plebis the plebeian assembly and sometimes the council of plebeians. Sorry for any confusion this might cause.)
This episode includes an audio clip from Universal Picture's 1993 film "Jurassic Park"Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com
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I know. Just what everyone needed, an episode about an election. To take a break from reading and watching election postmortems, I decided to return to one of my favorite teaching texts, the monk Jocelin of Brakelond’s Chronicle of the Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds. This is more of a personal memoir of what Jocelin saw and experienced as a monk than it is the standard monastic chronicle. It contains the fullest account of the process by which English monasteries in the High Middle Ages elected an abbot, and I thought that would be a fun and a far less stressful subject than our recent election—at least for our listeners if not for the monks of Bury St. Edmunds in 1182. My co-host for this episode is my partner for life and inspiration for all things medieval, my wife Ellen. This episode is especially for those of our listening audience who regard the U.S. election results with fear and trembling and a sickness unto death.
[This is a corrected version of the episode. The first posting had some glitches which I corrected. Sorry about that.]
Quotations are from
Jocelin of Brakelond, Chronicle of the Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, trans. Diane Greenway and Jane Sayers. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
This episodes includes a musical interlude:
Orbita Solaris (Short Version) Gregorian Chant
Chant group Psallentes, directed by Hendrik Vanden Abeele, singing from a 12th century antiphoner, prepared for the Mariakerk in Utrecht. Semi-live recording by Jo Cops at Heverlee, Belgium, May 2009. Singers are: Conor Biggs, Pieter Coene, Lieven Deroo, Paul Schils, Philippe Souvagie and Hendrik Vanden. Abeele.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lo-yb-UDBHAListen on Podurama https://podurama.com
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This episode is devoted to a truly unique and pretty weird Arabic text, The Book of Charlatans by an obscure early thirteenth-century Arabic scholar, Jamal al-Din 'Abd al-Rahim al-Jawbari, commonly known simply as al-Jawbari. At the behest of a Turkman sultan, al-Jawbari composed an encyclopedic guide to the scams, con games, and trickery practiced in the cities of the medieval Middle East. Al-Jawbari not only catalogues the various scams and trickery but also explains how they were pulled off. The book warns its readers to be vigilant against these scams, but it also reads like a "how to" manual. What makes it such a "good read" are the many anecdotes that al-Jawbari includes based on his own experiences during his travels throughout the Islamic east. My co-host for this episode is Peter Konieczny, the owner of the website medievalists.net, the leading online platform for all things medieval. In an earlier episode, Peter explained to me how and why the Mongols devastated Abbasid Baghdad. Frankly, I had not even heard of The Book of Charlatans until Peter approached me with the idea of doing an episode on it. I am so glad that he did because this really is an interesting work that sheds light on the criminal underbelly of the medieval Islamic world. It is also just fun. Please join us as we talk about the many scams practiced by medieval Muslim--and Christian--con artists in the thirteenth-century Middle East.
The Book of Charlatans, translated by Humphrey Davies and edited by Manuela Dengler. New York Univesity Press, 2020.
(If you have questions about this--or any episode of the podcast--feel free to contact me at [email protected].)Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com
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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 the Holy Land (Yale University Press, 2024). We examine the roles played by religious zeal, the promise of remission of sin, feudal obligation, the hope of material gain, and the benefit of temporal privileges in motivating those who took the cross. In considering the relationship between crusaders and settlers, Steve explains why the rulers and European residents of Outremer developed a culture of religious and ethnic toleration that surprised and appalled Crusaders just off the boat. And because I couldn't resist, I have Steve explain why the Crusader States became hotbeds of crime and violence. I hope you will join us.
Audio clips in this episode:
The movie trailer for the 1948 re-release of Cecil B. DeMille's 1935 epic, The Crusades.
A snippet from "The Crusades" episode of the 1989 PBS series "Timeline."Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com
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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 Middle Ages. (In this episode, Richard explains why there were so few battles.) The battle pitted a Muslim force of about 30,000, comprised largely of Turkish cavalry, against the largest military force ever raised by the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, an army of about 1,200 cavalry and 18,000 foot soldiers. The outcome of the battle was the capture of King Guy and the virtual annihilation of the field army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. In the months following the battle, Saladin systematically took all the major coastal cities of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, except for Tyre, and then turned inland to take Jerusalem. King Guy of Lusignan's ultimately disastrous decision to leave the safety of its camp at the springs of Sepphoris (Saffurya) and march 30 kilometers across waterless farmland in the July heat to relieve Saladin's siege of Tiberias remains controversial. In this episode, Professor Nicholas Morton, author of Crusader States and Their Neighbours: A Military History, 1099-1187 and veteran of this podcast, explains Guy's military thinking by placing the Battle of Hattin in the larger context of warfare as practiced by the rulers of the Crusader States of the Middle East. In doing so, Nick persuasively argues against a reigning academic and popular consensus that regards Guy's decision as defying military logic.
(Sorry, no movie reviews in this episode--though the prelude to and aftermath of the Battle of Hattin is depicted in Ridley Scott's The Kingdom of Heaven, and the full battle is shown in Egyptian director Youssef Chahine's 1963 movie Saladin the Victorious.)Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com
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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 1995. An estimated two-thirds of the country's population have viewed it. The movie is based on the first volume of Sigrid Undset's trilogy about the life of an ordinary woman in fourteenth century Norway, which won her the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1928. Directed and written by the celebrated Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann, the film is a very faithful adaptation. The production strove for historical accuracy in costume and settings, and most of the dialogue is taken directly from the novel. (Sigrid Undset is credited as co-screenplay writer.)
The reason I decided to devote a short episode to this movie and to its source novel is they both are worthy attempts to examine an aspect of the Middle Ages virtually ignored in popular culture, the life of ordinary people. Kristin Lavransdatter is the coming of age story of young woman from a prosperous family in rural fourteenth-century Norway who is seduced by and falls in love with a knight with a (justifiably) scandalous reputation. Whether Kristin's mentalité in the novel and film is really "medieval" is a matter of academic debate. But the care with which Undset in her novel and Ullmann in the film recreate the religious rituals, customs, and everyday life in early fourteenth-century Norway is impressive and worth a reading and a viewing.Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com
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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," and "The Last Duel," and then turn to the focus of our previous episodes, movies about Lancelot and Guinevere and Tristan and Iseult.
*I will be posting a short episode on the film adaptation of Sigrid Undset's Nobel Prize winning novel Kristin Lavransdatter. That really will be our last word on medieval adultery.
This episode includes sound clips from the following movies:
"Kingdom of Heaven" (2006), dir. Ridley Scott: Baldwin IV offers Balian command of the armies of Jerusalem and marriage to his sister (unfortunately the recording is not the best quality)
"The Last Duel" (2021), dir. Ridley Scott: musical score (comp: Harry Gregson Williams)
"Knights of the Round Table" (1953), dir. Richard Thorpe: musical score (comp: Miklós Rózsa)
"Excalibur" (1982), dir. John Boorman: musical score (Predlude to the Liebestod, from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde)
"Lovespell (1981), dir. Tom Donovon: musical score (comp. Paddy Moloney)
Works consulted:
Susan Aronstein, Hollywood Knights: Arthurian Cinema and the Politics of Nostalgia . Palgrave, 2005.
Virginia Blanton, Martha M. Johnson-Olin, and Charlene Miller Avrich, eds., Medieval Women in Film: An Annotated Handlist and Reference Guide. Medieval Feminist Forum
Subsidia Series, 2014.
Kevin J. Harty, ed., Cinema Arthuriana. McFarland, 2002.
Kevin J. Harty, ed., Medieval Women on Film. McFarland, 2020.
Bert Olton, Arthurian Legends on Film and Television. McFarland, 2000.Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com
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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 retelling of the tale, Tristan und Isolde. Although composed between 1857 and 1859, the opera did not premiere until 1865, because it was deemed too expensive to stage and its complex, innovative music was thought to be unperformable. We consider how Wagner reconceived his medieval source, Gottfried of Strassburg's thirteenth-century romance, through the lens of Schopenhauer's life-denying philosophy, and how in its composition art imitated life, as Wagner engaged in what was the very least an emotional affair with his wealthy Swiss patron's wife. Kat and I then discuss the very different treatments of these Arthurian stories about adultery by three leading Victorian poets and one early twentieth-century American: the poet Laureate Alfred Lord Tennyson, the decadent aesthete Algernon Swinburne, the Pre-Raphaelite artist and author William Morris, and the popular American poet Edwin Arlington Robinson, whose now all-but-forgotten best-selling poem Tristram won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928. We then turn to how twentieth-century novelists have handled the moral issues arising from medieval adultery in their renditions of the Arthurian legend. The episode concludes with an analysis of adultery in a non-Arthurian medieval novel, Sigrid Undset’s historical trilogy about fourteenth-century Norway, Kristin Lavransdatter (1920-1923), which earned the author the Noble Prize for Literature in 1928, the same year that Robinson’s very different Tristram won the Pulitzer.
Kat and I began this episode with the intention of covering both modern literature and movies dealing with medieval adultery. But it became clear as we were recording that a single episode would be very long. So we decided to talk about medieval adultery on film in a final, fourth episode, which I will be releasing in about a week’s time. And that will be it for medieval adultery, although I plan to have Kat return in future to talk about a subject on which she has written extensively, torture and cruelty in medieval literature. As I have jokingly told her, she is my go to person for medieval perversities.
This episode contains two musical snippets:
Wagner’s “Prelude to the Liebestod [Love Death]” from his opera Tristan und Isolde, conducted by Arturo Toscanini (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBFcDGTzgAI)
“If Ever I Would Leave You” from the musical Camelot, lyrics and music by Lerner and Loewe and sung by Robert Goulet as Lancelot (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xL52hEArSfM)
In my discussion of the literary texts, I drew upon the researches of several scholars, among them:
John Deathridge, Wagner Beyond Good and Evil, University of California Press, 2008
R.J.A. Kilbourn, “Redemption Revalued in Tristan und Isolde: Schopenhauer, Wagner, Nietzsche,” in University of Toronto Quarterly, Volume 67, Number 4, Fall 1998, pp. 781-788
“Tristan und Isolde,” Wikipedia (yes, I do consult Wikipedia)
“The birth
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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 very unfortunate household knight. If true, the adultery of the countess and the vengeance taken by her husband emphasizes the difference between literature and reality--but, the "if" is very much in question.
In the third and concluding episode, we will look at how the stories of Lancelot and Guinevere and Tristan and Iseult have been used in modern literature and movies.
If you are enjoying this podcast, please share it with friends and family who might be interested in things medieval. And if you are listening on a platform that allows ratings and reviews, such as Apple podcasts, please take the time to rate and review it. I am told that is the best way of spreading the good news.
This episode includes an orchestral snippet of Arturo Toscanini conducting the Liebestod from Richard Wagner's opera "Tristan und Isolde" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBFcDGTzgAI)Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com
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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 military history to military officers.
This episode contains a short sound bite from the movie "Kingdom of Heaven"Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com
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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 which Jenny and I talk about Becket’s background, his career leading up to his election as archbishop of Canterbury, and his contribution to Henry II’s efforts to restore royal authority in England after a generation of civil war.
This episodes contains audio clips from:
"Becket" (released by Paramount, directed by Peter Glenville, starring Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole, and adapted by Edward Anhalt from a play by Jean Anouilh)
The 12th century song lamenting the exile of Thomas Becket, "In Rama sonat gemitus," performed by Lumina Vocal Ensemble (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c30K1rQsaiI)
The Trim Jeans Theater's adaptation of T.S. Eliot's "Murder in the Cathedral" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYvz1-ThCHY)Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com
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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 in medieval literature. In this episode we focus on the evolution of the Lancelot and Guinevere story, and how it relates to societal and clerical attitudes toward adultery. The second part will be about Tristan and Isolde, and how medieval adultery has been dealt with in movies.
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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 Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury, and the legal and administrative reforms undertaken by Henry II to restore--and enhance--royal authority and social order after fifteen years of civil war in England. The last leads to a discussion of English "Common Law" and the rise of administrative kingship in England. The episode also deals with the rival claims of sovereignty over the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church by a rising papal monarchy that conceived of the Church as a supranational state and by kings, who, citing custom and tradition, viewed the bishops and clergy within their kingdoms as their 'men,' subject to their will. We touch on the central issue of the Becket Controversy: Becket's claim that clergy are subject only to canon law and exempt from punishment by the state, a topic will be explored in greater detail in the next episode. That episode will deal with Thomas Becket's martyrdom; his emergence as England's most famous martyr and his tomb as the destination for numerous pilgrimages, most famously that of Chaucer's pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales; and the continued fascination that his story holds for writers and movie makers. I hope that you will join us for both.
This episode includes:
Neville Coghill reading from the Prologue to Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales (which can be found online at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WN3JA1IfbVM
Short audio clips from the 1964 movie "Becket," starring Richard Burton as Thomas Becket and Peter O'Toole as King Henry II
(If you are enjoying this podcast, please let your friends know about it, and, if you have the time and inclination, rate it and review it wherever you get your podcasts. I'm told that is the best way to spread the good word.)Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com
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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 love of enemy and its pacifistic underpinnings with papal sponsorship of crusades?
Recommended reading:
Western Historiography of the CrusadesRiley-Smith, Jonathan. What Were the Crusades? 4th edition, Ignatius Press, 2009. When this was first published in 1977, it represented the first serious effort to explain what historians mean when they refer to crusades, and remains a key work. It is also short, 177 pages, and clearly written. As I took the title for this episode from this book, it is only fair that it is listed first. Riley-Smith's The Crusades: A History and the volume of essays he edited, The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades are good introductions to the subject.
Constable, Giles. Crusaders and Crusading in the Twelfth Century. Routledge, 2020. Constable is responsible for the categorization of modern crusading historiography into four schools, Traditionalists, Pluralists, Generalists, and Popularists. He is also the scholar most responsible for recognizing the importance of charters as source material for crusading history. Giles, who passed away in 2021, was a welcoming and generous scholar who helped me appreciate the importance of culture in medieval warfare.Housley, Norman. Contesting the Crusades. Blackwell Publishing, 2006. A survey of the key historiographical debates over key crusading issues (defining the crusade, origins of the First Crusade, Intentions and Motivations, etc.).
Tyerman, Christopher. The Debate on the Crusades. Manchester University Press, 2011. From the blurb on the back cover: “This is the first book-length study of how succeeding generations from the First Crusade in 1099 to the present day have understood, refashioned, moulded and manipulated accounts of these medieval wars of religion to suit changing contemporary circumstances and interests.” It is a bit idiosyncratic—Tyerman has strong opinions about the work of fellow scholars--but the author clearly knows his stuff. Tyerman also has the distinction of being the author of one of the longest single volume histories of the Crusade (God’s War, Harvard U. Press, 2009) and one of the shortest (The Crusades: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford U. Press, 2006).
Muslim views of the Crusades
Hillenbrand, Carole, The Crusades: The Islamic Perspectives. Edinburgh University Press, 1999. This is a monumental (704 pages), groundbreaking study of how Muslims viewed the crusaders and the West in the era of the crusades, and later.
Niall Christie, Muslims and Crusaders: Christianity’s Wars in the Middle East, 1095-1382, from the Islamic Sources. Routledge, 2014. This is a concise and well thought out survey of the crusades from the contemporary Muslim perspective, with a well-chosen selection of excerpts from medieval Arabic sources.
Sivan , Emmanuel. "The Crusaders described by modern Arab historiography". Asian and African Studies , 8 ( 1972 ): 104-49. One of the few studies of modern Arab historiography of the Crusades (written, interestingly, by an Israeli scholar).
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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 discussing are the different approaches to warfare practiced by the European Crusaders and their Turkish and Fatimid adversaries; how the crusaders and the leaders of the Latin Crusader states adjusted--or failed to adjust--to the novel challenges presented by warfare in the Middle East; why the First Crusade succeeded while the others failed; and whether, militarily, the Crusader states were doomed from the start.
Recommended reading:
Nicholas Morton. The Crusader States & Their Neighbours: A Military History, 1099-1187. Oxford University Press, 2020.R.C. Smail. Crusading Warfare, 1097-1193. 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press, 1995 (originally published 1956)
Christopher Marshall. Warfare in the Latin East, 1192-1291. Cambridge University Press, 1992.
John France. Victory in the East: A Military History of the First Crusade. Cambridge University Press, 1994.
John France. Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades: 1000-1300. Cornell University Press, 1999.
David Nicolle. Crusader Warfare Volume I: Byzantium, Western Europe and the Battle for the Holy Land. Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2007.
David Nicolle. Crusader Warfare Volume II: Muslims, Mongols and the Struggle Against the Crusades. Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2007.
John Gillingham, “Richard I and the Science of Warfare” - from War and Government: Essays in Honour of J.O. Prestwich (1984); "William the Bastard at War," in Studies in Medieval History Presented to R. Allen Brown, ed. c. Harper-Bill, C. Holdsworth, and J. Nelson (1989); "War and Chivalry in the History of William the Marshal." Thirteenth Century England v.2 (1991); "'Up with Orthodoxy': In Defense of Vegetian Strategy." Journal of Medieval Military History, vol. 2 (2004): 21-41."
Clifford Rogers. "The Vegetian 'Science of Warfare' in the Middle Ages." Journal of Medieval Military History, vol. 1 (2002): 1-19.
Stephen Morillo. "Battle-Seeking: The Contexts and Limits of Vegetian Strategy." Journal of Medieval Military History, vol. 1 (2002): 149-58.Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com
Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
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