Heaven and Earth: Part 1, The Medieval Shape of the Cosmos

Werewolves in the Middle Ages

We've covered the walking dead, and now, we'll look at another horror that stalked the medieval night: the man-wolf, the werewolf. Many medieval people believed in werewolves, although learned churchmen doubted their existence. And in the panic of the early modern witch hunts, people often came to suspect their neighbors of being this horrible creature that preyed on human flesh. FURTHER READING PRIMARY SOURCES Marie de France. The Lais of Marie de France: Text and Translation, edited and translated by Claire Waters. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview, 2018. These lais include the werewolf of Bisclavret, but they're all worth reading. They have a somewhat otherworldly quality to them, something almost, well, elvish. They also include Lanval, which I mentioned last season. SECONDARY SOURCES de Blécourt, Willem, ed. Werewolf Histories. New York and Longon: Palgrave McMillan, 2015. A collection of scholarly essays on the history of the werewolf in European thought, from ancient times to the present. Bynum, Caroline Walker. Metamorphosis and Identity. New York: Zone Books, 2001. A scholarly examination of how Europeans of the period around the twelfth and thirteenth centuries dealt with the issue of transformation and whether it was possible. I used her translation of Gerald of Wales's account of the werewolf. Ginzberg, Carlo, and Bruce Lincoln. Old Thiess, a Livonian Werewolf: A Classic Case in Comparative Perspective. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020. A deep dive into the trial of Thiess of Kaltenbrun, the Livonian werewolf. Includes a translation of the transcript of his trial, as well as a look at how Thiess's story might connect to deeper shamanistic roots in the Baltic. Want to talk about this episode? Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/ujcEcCtxE9 Subscribe to my Patreon [https://open.acast.com/public/patreon/fanSubscribe/9515773] ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Ghosts and Revenants in the Middle Ages: An Interview with Alex Zawacki

As we approach Halloween, it's only appropriate that in this episode we discuss ghosts and revenants in the Middle Ages. Today's episode will be an interview with Alexander Zawacki. Dr. Zawacki is a lecturer in Digital Humanities at the University of Göttingen. He also publishes a Substack called It's Only Dark, a discussion of all things spooky. Link: It's Only Dark [https://itsonlydark.substack.com/] FURTHER READING PRIMARY SOURCES Joynes, Andrew, ed. Medieval Ghost Stories: An Anthology of Miracles, Marvels and Prodigies. Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2001. This is your one-stop shop for medieval ghost stories. Joynes has gathered together a collection of ghost stories from a wide variety of medieval sources and translated them into modern English for the reader. Awntyrs off Arthure at the Terne Wathelyne. Edited by Robert J. Gates. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1968. This Middle English text is an Arthurian romance that also opens with a rather horrific ghost story. Requires reading in Middle English, but well worth it. SECONDARY SOURCES Caciola, Nancy Mandeville. Afterlives: The Return of the Dead in the Middle Ages. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2016. This book has everything that you would want to know about the walking dead in the Middle Ages. Who reported on them, what medievals believed about them, and how belief in the undead varied across Europe. Schmitt, Jean-Claude. Ghosts in the Middle Ages: The Living and the Dead in Medieval Society. Translated by Teresa Lavender Fagan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. This book is a history of ghosts in the Middle Ages by Jean-Claude Schmitt, a scholar of religious history and the overlap and conflict of folk beliefs with the teachings of the Church as an institution. Many of Schmitt's sources are religious texts, wherein we encounter ghosts who usually have some unfinished business. Want to talk about this episode? Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/ujcEcCtxE9 Subscribe to my Patreon [https://open.acast.com/public/patreon/fanSubscribe/9515773] ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Heaven and Earth: Part 2, Astrology and Natural Magic

Medieval people had a working, observation-based theory of the structure and working of the cosmos. As a result, they also had a science of magic. You may be asking: A science of magic? Isn't that a contradiction? I hope that by the end of the episode, you'll see that it isn't. We'll briefly cover astrology, magic, and alchemy, and along the way, we may find an answer to that age-old question: magnets, how do they work? FURTHER READING Kieckhefer, Richard. Magic in the Middle Ages. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. This little book of about 200 pages has just about everything you need to know about the history, theory, and practice of magic in the Middle Ages. It's very accessibly written for both the student and general-interest reader alike. I borrowed liberally from his chapter on astrology and natural magic. Collins, David J., ed. The Cambridge History of Magic and Witchcraft in the West. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. This is an in-depth history of magic in the Western Tradition. It's written by some of the leading experts in the history of medieval magic, and is an excellent combination of accessibility and "crunch." Want to talk about this episode? Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/ujcEcCtxE9 Subscribe to my Patreon [https://open.acast.com/public/patreon/fanSubscribe/9515773] ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Heaven and Earth: Part 1, The Medieval Shape of the Cosmos

How did medieval people understand their relation to the objects seen in the sky, from the sun and moon, to the planets and stars? In this episode, we'll talk about how medieval people understood the shape and structure of the known universe from God setting things into motion to our own world. FURTHER READING Lewis, C.S. The Discarded Image. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964. Here it is again! This time I'll ask you to read it for Lewis's explanation of the shape of the world and where everything fit into their cosmology. Maurer, Armand. Medieval Philosophy. 2nd ed. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Meidaeval Studies, 1982. This excellent little introduction to medieval philosophy will help you get a background as to how the people of medieval world made sense of their world through reason, and how medieval schoolmen sought to integrate the tools of human reason with the teachings of the Christian religion. Want to talk about this episode? Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/ujcEcCtxE9 Subscribe to my Patreon [https://open.acast.com/public/patreon/fanSubscribe/9515773] ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

The Elves in Medieval Belief

In addition to God, the devil, and the angels and demons, medieval people believed in a class of beings living just outside of sight, of creatures that you'd see only from the corner of your eye. These creatures associated with glens and groves were often known as the fairies, or the elves, and they're going to be the topic of this episode. FURTHER READING Lewis, C.S. The Discarded Image. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964. This book covers the way that medieval people understood the structure of the universe, from the earth at the center all the way to the heavens that surround what we moderns call the solar system. And in his chapter The Longaevi, he discusses medieval belief in elves, those creatures that didn't really fit into that cosmology. Green, Richard Firth. Elf Queens and Holy Friars: Fairy Beliefs and the Medieval Church. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. This is an excellent book that has more recent scholarship than Lewis on medieval belief in elves, and also has an excellent discussion of how medieval churchmen dealt with belief in elves. Want to talk about this episode? Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/ujcEcCtxE9 Subscribe to my Patreon [https://open.acast.com/public/patreon/fanSubscribe/9515773] ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.