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

Send us Fan Mail This is the first of a two part series with Dr. Christopher Berard dealing with medieval stories about King Arthur. It's also my second Halloween special. In this episode Chris talks about medieval ghost stories that feature King Arthur and his knights. We begin with something that I had never thought of as a ghost story--King Arthur as the once and future king.  I push Chris a bit on this, and we discuss whether Arthur will return as a ghost or a revenant. Among the other stories is one in which Guinevere and Gawain encounter the ghastly ghost of Guinevere's mother in what is a medieval version of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol."  I hope you will join us. Christopher Berard is a literary scholar who specializes in Arthurian literature, medieval political culture, and Latin, Old French, and Middle English historiography (c. 1100–1400). He is the author of two monographs: Arthurianism in Early Plantagenet England: from Henry II to Edward I (Boydell, 2019) and The Alliterative Morte Arthure as Christian Epic Poetry (Boydell, forthcoming 2026). He teaches at his alma mater, Providence College, where he offers courses on Arthurian legend, Jewish and Christian romance, kingship and knighthood, and the subject of today's episode: medieval ghost stories. Listen on Podurama   https://podurama.com                                                                     Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada If you have questions, feel free to contact me at [email protected]

Send us Fan Mail In the previous episode, Michael Livingston and I talked about the historical context of Henry V's Agincourt campaign, Henry's costly siege of Harfleur, and his desperate, and ultimately unsuccessful, attempt to elude the French army as he marched to Calais. Along the way, we talked about how Shakespeare shaped how Agincourt and Henry V are remembered in the popular mind. But we never actually got to the battle. This episode does. In it, we also talk about depictions of the Battle of Agincourt in three movies, Laurence Olivier's 1944 and Kenneth Branagh's filmed versions of Shakespeare's play "Henry V," and David Michôd'a 2019 The King,  Recommended books *Michael Livingston, Agincourt: Battle of the Scarred King (Osprey, 2023) Anne Curry, Agincourt: A New History (Tempus, 2005) Anne Curry, ed., The Battle of Agincourt: Sources and Interpretations (Boydell and Brewer, 2009) Dan Jones' Henry V: The Astonishing Triumph of England's Greatest War  King is a highly readable biography and a good corrective to Shakespeare (Apollo, 2025) For those interested in individuals who fought in the Battle of Agincourt, you can click on the remarkable website The Soldier in Later Medieval England, a database compiled from administrative records by a team led by Adrian Bell and Anne Curry  https://www.medievalsoldier.org/about/the-project The episode includes snippets from  Sir William Walton's Overture to the movie Henry V (1944), Sir William Walton conducting The Philharmonia Orchestra (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CYS5Fz5veQ) Kenneth Branagh's movie version of "Henry V" (1989) Listen on Podurama   https://podurama.com                                                                     Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada If you have questions, feel free to contact me at [email protected]

Send us Fan Mail In the previous episode, I chatted with Kelly DeVries about Joan of Arc as a military leader. One of her greatest contributions to the ultimate victory of France in the Hundred Years War was to restore French morale, which, after fourteen years, had still not recovered from the crushing defeat the French had suffered at Agincourt in 1415. In the next two episodes, I will be discussing Henry V's Agincourt campaign and battle with Professor Michael Livingston, Kelly's cohost on Medievalists.net's excellent podcast about medieval military history, "Bow and Blade." Mike is Citadel Distinguished Professor at The Citadel. He is the author of eight books analyzing medieval battles. Today he will be telling us what he learned while researching his prize winning book, Agincourt: Battle of the Scarred King (Osprey Publishing, 2023). Today's episode looks at Henry V's experiences in war as prince, including being struck in the face with an arrow as a 16-year old in the Battle of Shrewsbury, the rationale behind his decision to undertake the Agincourt Campaign, and the unexpectedly long and costly siege of Harfleur. (We get to the Battle in the next episode.)  And, of course, one cannot talk about Henry V and Agincourt without also talking about Shakespeare, and we do. This episode includes  A musical snippet from the early fifteenth-century Agincourt Carol, played by organist Geoff Olson (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLi-zfZKwic) The St. Crispin's Day speech from Kenneth Branagh's "Henry V" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyvUemTqJRk) Henry V's ultimatum to the defenders of Harfleur from Branagh's "Henry V" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGf_h8VD1Ow) Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth's announcement of "Project Agincourt" in his "State of the Force" address to junior officers and NCOs on Sept. 30, 2026 (https://www.gettyimages.de/detail/video/secretary-of-war-pete-hegseth-says-today-the-nachrichtenfilmmaterial/2297989181) "History Hit" has a nice short video showing how doctor John Bradmore removed the arrowhead buried six inches into Prince Hal's face (https://www.youtube.com/shorts/aob59Qu0OEI) Listen on Podurama   https://podurama.com                                                                     Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada If you have questions, feel free to contact me at [email protected]

Send us Fan Mail Today’s episode concerns one of the most celebrated medieval people, Joan of Arc. She is among the best-known saints of the Middle Ages, especially among non-Catholics, and one of the most unusual. She is the only saint to my knowledge to have been condemned by the Church as a heretic and turned over to secular authorities to be burnt at the stake. That took place in 1431. It wasn’t until 1920 for the Catholic Church to formally recognize her sanctity. She is also an atypical female medieval saint in terms of her actions. Her fame owes less to her personal sanctity, theological insights, or defense of the faith than to her military and political accomplishments that led to France’s ultimate victory in the Hundred Years War.   In this episodes we will examines Joan's military exploits. Was this illiterate seventeen year old peasant girl an actual military commander, or was she more of a holy cheerleader or even sacred mascot.  I am fortunate to have as my cohost the historian best suited to answer this question, Dr. Kelly DeVries, author of Joan of Arc: A Military Leader (Sutton Publishing: 1999).  DeVries, professor emeritus of History at Loyola University Maryland,  is one of the most prominent historians of medieval warfare of my generation. The author of 35 books and more than 80 articles on medieval military history and the history of military technology, DeVries has appeared on more than 40 shows for PBS, History, History International, Military History, National Geographic, HBO, and Vanity Fair Channels. He and Mike Livingston host the popular medievalist.net podcast, Bow and Blade.. Today, Kelly returns to the question of Joan of Arc as military commander. Together he and I will be exploring the nature of warfare in the latter decades of the Hundred Years War and Joan’s contribution to France’s ultimate victory. Listen on Podurama   https://podurama.com                                                                     Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada If you have questions, feel free to contact me at [email protected]

Send us Fan Mail Caveat auditor!. Listener beware! This episode is NOT about the Middle Ages, although it does touch upon medieval massacres toward the end. Rather, it focuses on a text I taught for years at the U.S. Naval Academy, the “Melian dialogue” in Thucydides’ "History of the Peloponnesian War".  If you are not interested in Classical Greek warfare, Thucydides, or political theory, you may want to give this a pass.  Otherwise, please join Ellen and me as we explore one of the most traumatic events in the history of Classical Greece, the Athenian destruction of the island city-state of Melos in the year 416 BCE, and how Thucydides’ treatment of that event has resonated down to our day. The "Melian Dialogue," translated by Richard Crawley, read by Peter Dann for LibriVox (https://dn710207.ca.archive.org/0/items/historyofthepeloponnesianwar2_2603_librivox/historyofthepeloponnesianwar_17_thucydides_128kb.mp3) This episode also includes audio snippets from Euripides, "The Trojan Women," trans. Gilbert Murray: Poseidon's speech, recited by Martin Geeson, posted by Audiobook Heaven (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW0AnHCvDGM) Kenneth Branagh's 1989 film version of William Shakespeare's "Henry V" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyEnDwmtrZc) Listen on Podurama   https://podurama.com                                                                     Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada If you have questions, feel free to contact me at [email protected]

Send us Fan Mail As our regular listeners know, I am an Anglo-Saxon historian. Previously, I did several episodes with my good friend Dr. Jennifer Paxton on the Norman Conquest of my beloved Anglo-Saxon England. In them we mentioned one of the most famous sources for that event, the so-called Bayeux Tapestry. Today marks the opening of the British Museum’s exhibition of the Bayeux Tapestry, the culmination of eight and a half years of intense negotiations with the Bayeux Museum.  British newspapers and well as American make it sound almost like a royal visit. There is no doubt that it has sparked the interest of the British public. The British Museum reported that thousands flocked to see it today and that tickets are sold out for the remainder of 2026. In all, it is expected that about a million visitors will see it over the course of its 10 month showing in London.  Although ‘Tis But A Scratch is an audio podcast and the Tapestry is, of course, very much visual, I thought that this would be a good time to provide my listeners with the history of the most famous artworks of the Middle Ages. Fortunately, the Bayeux Museum has placed a panorama of the entire Bayeux Tapestry online, photographed in high resolution. You can scroll through it scene by scene—and I highly recommend that you do that as a prelude to listening to this podcast. Given that Jenny Paxton, my cohost for our episodes on the Norman Conquest, has been promoted to Vice Provost at the Catholic University of America and is now swamped with decanal duties—and, yes, decanal is the adjective for dean—I decided to do this as a solo effort. Bayeux Museum: https://www.bayeuxmuseum.com/en/the-bayeux-tapestry/discover-the-bayeux-tapestry/explore-online/ Jan Messent's suggested reconstruction of the missing last panel(s) of the Bayeux Tapestry: http://anglo-saxon.archeurope.com/bayeux-tapestry-reconstruction-of-the-end/ In the late 19th century, a group of Victorian embroiderers decided to create an exact reproduction of the Bayeux Tapestry in full. Their work is housed at the Reading Museum where it is advertised as "Britain's own Bayeux Tapestry": https://www.readingmuseum.org.uk/bayeux-tapestry Listen on Podurama   https://podurama.com                                                                     Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada If you have questions, feel free to contact me at [email protected]

Send us Fan Mail This is the second episode of a two-part series on the evolution of castle-building and siege warfare in Britain from the Norman Conquest through the fifteenth century. My very special guest for both is Paul Remfry, a world renowned expert on castles whom Ellen and I met during a Scholarly Sojourn tour of castles associated with the Albigensian Crusade. Part one concluded with two sieges that marked the reign of King John: his loss of Richard the Lionheart's great Norman castle of Chateau Gaillard, and and his successful siege of Rochester castle in 1215 during the First Barons War. This episode begins with a less well know but equally important siege, the siege of Kenilworth Castle, from June 21 to December 13, 1266, the longest and largest siege in English history. We then turn to King Edward I's great Welsh castles, a subject on which Paul Remfry has published extensively, and to Edward I's siege of Stirling Castle in Scotland, which involved the use of massive trebuchets and even gunpowder. Paul concludes by considering the impact of gunpowder artillery on siege warfare and castle building, focusing on three siege of Harlech castle. I hope that you will join us. (I would also want to let you know that our next episode will be a very special one: an interview with New York Times bestselling author Bernard Cornwell about historical fiction writing. I hope you will join us for that too!) For images and details about the castles mentioned in this episode: Wikipedia entry for "Kennilworth Castle" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenilworth_Castle Criccieth Castle, Wales (check out the picture of the arrow loops): https://www.castlewales.com/criccth.html For Edward I's Welsh castles, see Paul Remfry's wepage on "The Castles of Wales" website: https://www.castlewales.com/remfry.html For Stirling castle, see StoneKeep Atlas webpage: https://stonekeepatlas.com/castles/stirling-castle/ This episode includes a musical snippet from "Ja Nus Hons Pris" by Richard the Lionheart - Renaissance Lute - Edward Foster #medievalmusic #lute (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tURvt-uOnKg) Arrow loop: https://www.castlewales.com/arrow.html GLOSSARY OF TERMS FOR CASTLES AND SIEGE WARFARE Arrow-slit. A vertical slit in the castle wall, used by archers. Also referred to as an arrow-loop.  Barbican. A fortified outward extension of a gateway, used to provide additional defense in depth.  Battlements are the defensive features of the parapet (i.e. the low protective wall along the outer edge of the ramparts of castle walls). The most common form is crenellation, a defensive scheme alternating low stone blocks (merlons) and openings (embrasures or crenelles) extending along and over the parapet, giving the battlement its “saw-tooth” appearance. Archers use the crenelles to shoot and then duck behind the merlons for protection. Concentric castle. An advanced form of castle-building featuring two concentric rings of walls, in which the inner wall is usually higher than the outer. The gates are not aligned.  Attackers who breach the outer wall are caught in the narrow space between the walls, exposed to archers on all sides.  The earliest concentric castles are found in the Latin Crusading states of the Levant. The earliest example of a concentric castle in Britain is Dover, which became a concentric castle when outer curtain walls were added in the late twelfth century by King Henry II and by King John and King Henry III in the thirteenth century.  Curtain wall. The heavy defensive wall encircling and enclosing a courtyard (bailey) and tower (keep). Hoarding. A wooden balcony, often temporary, built over the edge of crenellations and providing a form of machicolations. Also called a bretache. Machicolation. A gap in the base of crenellations along a parapet, used to drop stones or other material on attackers below. Portcullis. A heavy gate within a castle’s gateway that is raised and closed vertically by windlass or a counterweight mechanism. The portcullis typically takes the form a lattice (i.e. an open mesh) grid of wood, iron, or both, that makes it more resistant to battering rams and allows defenders within to fire arrows at the attackers. The bottom of a portcullis would have metal spikes designed to make it more difficult for attackers to lift it off the ground and which would impale a man or a horse caught beneath it. The roof over the space between the outer gate and the portcullis would be equipped with “murder holes,” through which defenders could drop stones or boiling water on attackers. A large castle might have a series of portcullises. Trebuchet. A type of siege engine designed to throw large stone projectiles or incendiaries. A trebuchet was a giant lever, consisting of a heavy, triangular timber frame that anchors the axle and supports the entire weight of the machine under intense operational stress; a pivot beam, that is a long asymmetric wooden lever arm balanced on a central axle. The pivot point is placed close to one end, splitting the arm into a short, heavy section and a long, light section; a sling pouch, that is a rope pouch attached to the tip of the long end of the throwing arm, which acts as a double pendulum, adding velocity on release. Early trebuchets were traction devices, equipped with ropes that men pulled on to draw back the pivot beam, and then release. In the early thirteenth century, traction trebuchets were replaced with the more effective counterweight trebuchet. In a counterweight trebuchet propulsion is provided by a counterweight, a massive basket at the short end of the pivot beam filled with rocks. rubble. and melted lead. For maximum range, the counterweight needed to be one hundred times the weight of the projective. The counterweight of a large trebuchet would be ten to fifteen tons. The largest counterweight trebuchets could throw stone projectiles weighing 100-300 pounds a distance of up to 300-350 yards. The adoption of the counterweight trebuchet was a gamechanger in medieval siege warfare.   DEVELOPMENT IN GUNPOWDER ARTILLERY IN LATE MIDDLE AGES Technical innovations:  POWDER MILL.  Bt 1400 recipes of gunpowder close to ideal proportions of saltpetere (75%), sulphur (12%), and charcoal (13%) came into use, though by 1450 most powder makers preferred less efficient mixtures. The reason why was a new technique of powder making that made powder far more powerful. By 1400/1420 powder was beginning to be ‘engrained’ or ‘corned’: mixed together when wet and alowed to dry into kernels.  New ‘corned powder-grains’ no longer disintegrated into components (sulphur, saltpetre and charcoal), so could be prepared in advance. (Before this powder had to be mixed on the field.) Corned powder was also more efficient, because the burning between powder grains permitted a more rapid transformation of the solid into gas.  Advances in FOUNDING cannon (bronze, brass, sometimes iron). In 14th century cannons were made by beating together strips of forged iron. The result was that such cannons often exploded. By early 15th century cannons were made along the same lines as bells (and by bell-founders), by founding iron, pouring it in molten form into moulds and then boring with a steel tipped drill to insure regularity of the bore     METALLURGICAL INNOVATION: new process of iron smelting made the production of iron less expensive (addition of limestone ‘to the flux during the ore refinement process increased temps necessary so that iron could only be smelted in blast forges, invented c.1340, but changed structure of slag from 2FeO.SiO2 to CaO.SiO2. This meant increased output as less atoms of iron were wasted from each molecule of slag.   LONGER BARRELS. Barrels were lengthened. 1400 ratio of barrel length to diameter of ball was about 1.5:1.   By 1430 it was 3:1. Result was to increase accuracy and velocity of shot because it increased amount of time over which pressure of the exploding gunpowder accelerated shot. Kinetic energy is function of square of velocity, so major increase in effectiveness of guns.    RATE OF FIRE This also permitted more rapid firing. In early 15th cent loading a gun was elaborate process involving three chambers to allow the building up of pressure: needed to fill rear three fifths of chamber with powder. Next fifth left empty, and last fifth filled by wood plug fitted into barrel with soft wood wedges. This was covered with mud and straw and allowed to dry. The powder would then be ignited and pressure would build up until the plug popped out like a champagne cork.  Rogers 268: ‘This elaborate procedure so slowed down the firing process that one master gunner, who achieved the remarkable feat of firing his bombard three times in a single day and hitting different targets each time, was forced to make a pilgrimage from Metz to Rome, because it was thought he ‘could only have been in league with the devil’. Maximum rate of fire: 6-8 shot from short barreled bombards. By late 15th century switch to tight fitting caliber iron shot allowed movement away from separate chambers and plugs.   TRANSPORT: In mid 15th centu Listen on Podurama   https://podurama.com                                                                     Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada If you have questions, feel free to contact me at [email protected]

Send us Fan Mail This is the first of a two part series on the evolution of castle-building and siege warfare in Britain from the Norman Conquest through the middle of the fifteenth century. My very special guest is Paul Remfry, one of the world’s leading experts on castles.   Although this series focuses on castles in England and Wales, the idea for it came from a tour of the castles of Occitanie that Ellen and I took last June. Listeners of this podcast may remember an earlier episode in which Ellen and I talked about the Cathar heresy and the Albigensian Crusade and explained how early in our marriage we co-authored an article on “The Participation of Women in Languedocian Catharism.”  Ellen thought that a historical themed tour of Languedoc would be the perfect way to celebrate our fiftieth anniversary. She found the ideal tour, Scholarly Sojourns’ “Castles in the Clouds,” a week-long exploration of the castles and churches of southwestern France associated with the Cathars.  What made the tour really special for me was the opportunity to meet and chat with our historical guide, Paul Remfry. Ellen and I, of course, were not casual travelers. We have both researched and read extensively on the Cathars and medieval Languedoc. I am also a medieval military historian. But I was surprised and pleased to discover how much I didn’t know and understand about castle building.  By the end of the tour, I knew that I had to have Paul on the show to share with our listeners his knowledge of castles and siege warfare. The subject is enormous, so we agreed to limit our talk to a few key castles and sieges in England and Wales that illustrate key developments in castle-building and siege warfare in the High and Late Middle Ages. Please join us! (If you love history, Scholarly Sojourns is for you. You can check it out at http://www.scholarlysojourns.com/ or on Facebook!) There is a downside in doing a purely audio podcast, especially on a subject like castles and siege warfare. The best I can do is recommend some websites with images of castles that Paul Remfry and I spoke about.  A good starting point is English Heritage's "Norman Castles," which is organized geographically: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/inspire-me/norman-castles/ For Norman stone keeps, see "Castellogy, Castles and Town Walls in England and Wales: Norman keeps": https://castellogy.com/architecture/design-and-styles/norman-keeps For William the Conqueror's White Tower (Tower of London), see the images in its Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Tower_(Tower_of_London) For Norman motte-and-bailey castles, see  "Castellogy, Castles and Town Walls in England and Wales: motte-and-bailey castles" https://castellogy.com/architecture/architectural-terms/motte-and-bailey-introduction The vast majority of castles erected during the Norman settlement were of the motte-and-bailey variety, with wooden towers (keeps). This is a modern term describing a castle consisting of the following elements:  1)  The motte: a raised earthwork (the motte), fattened on top and surmounted by a tower (keep). In the eleventh century, the tower would have been made of wood. None of these survive.  In the twelfth century, some of the wooden towers were replaced with stone keeps. The ruins of a number of these survive.  The tower would have been protected by a palisade made of timber. 2) The bailey: a courtyard enclosed by a wooden palisade adjacent to the mound. The bailey would have stables and houses for troops. 3. The entire complex would often be surrounded by a ditch.  For a good general discussion of the construction of motte-and-bailey castles, see  "Castellogy, Castles and Town Walls in England and Wales: motte-and-bailey castles" https://castellogy.com/architecture/architectural-terms/motte-and-bailey-introduction This episode includes:  A musical snippet from "Reis glorios," a  12th-century alba (dawn song) written by the Occitan troubadour Giraut de Bornelh , performed by Ensemble Unicorn ("Music of the Troubadours," uploaded by SableAradia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gXfH5RL0TQ) Thehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQeXYqp66GY trailer for the 2011 movie Ironclad (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQeXYqp66GY) Listen on Podurama   https://podurama.com                                                                     Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada If you have questions, feel free to contact me at [email protected]

Send us Fan Mail Each year about three million Americans visit Medieval and Renaissance Faires and Festivals. Among the largest is the annual Maryland Renaissance Festival, about a half hour drive from my home. In this episode I talk with a veteran of this podcast, Dr. Larissa "Kat" Tracy, about the appeal of the Renaissance Faire and Festivals. It turns out that Kat is not only a renowned scholar of medieval literature but is also a devotee of Renaissance Faires, which she has been attending in full costume since 1990.. (She reminded me to add the silent "e.")  The episode begins with historical medieval fairs, focusing on the Fairs of Champagne, an essential element in the commercial revolution of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Each year six fairs were held, each one lasting six weeks. They rotated through four towns. The Fairs of Champagne had a critical economic purpose, connecting the two powerhouses of the Western European economy, the textile industry of Flanders and the merchants of Italy.   We turn from that to consider England's oldest fair, London's St. Bartholomew Fair, founded in the twelfth century. By the sixteenth century, this fair's original economic purpose as a cloth market was eclipsed by the entertainment it offered--music, acrobats, puppet shows, plays, wild animals, freak shows. That leads us into a discussion of modern Renaissance Faires and Festivals. Kat discusses the appeal of and different varieties of cosplaying; describes what a typical day at a Faire is like for her; explains why American Renaissance Faires are so often set in the reign of King Henry VIII; and offers recognition and appreciation for the actors, musicians, and vendors who transform a fairground into a day's visit to an imagined past. Dr. Larissa "Kat" Tracy's video podcast Medieval Mischief and Mayhem is available on YouTube, SubStack, and with premium material on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/cw/MedievalMischiefandMayhem) This episode includes a snippet from The Gathering's performance of the "Rocky Road to Dublin" at the Maryland Renaissance Festival on Oct. 8, 2022 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnoVpPs81yY) Listen on Podurama   https://podurama.com                                                                     Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada If you have questions, feel free to contact me at [email protected]

Send us Fan Mail In this episode Dr. Nicholas Morton returns to discuss his newest book, The Crusader Storm: A Global History of the Wars of the Middle East (Basic Books, 2026). With some rare exceptions, histories of the Crusades and the Crusader States have been viewed from a Western perspective. What is missing is the Middle Eastern context of the Crusades to the East, how the crusades and the establishment of these Latin states in the Levant interacted with and impacted the multiple rival power centers of the region. For many, the story of the Crusades is that of a clash of cultures, a binary tale which pitted Western Christendom against Islam, with Jerusalem as the prize. But, as Nick Morton, shows, the reality was far more complicated and nuanced than that. The twelfth-century Middle East was multi-cultural and politically fragmented.  Civil war was endemic within the Seljuk Empire. It was not unusual for Seljuk governors to seek allies among their Frankish neighbors in their wars against rival Seljuk leaders. And friendships could arise between Frankish knights and elite Turkish and Arab horsemen based on shared values.  The Crusades and the history of the Crusader States can only truly be understood within this context. Listen on Podurama   https://podurama.com                                                                     Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada If you have questions, feel free to contact me at [email protected]

Send us Fan Mail Back in September Ellen and I did an episode on Popes Leo IX and Gregory VII and their promotion of the Gregorian Reform of the Church. Because my hosting platform informed me that I have 21 minutes left to post a new episode this month, I decided to use that time to do a short episode on the "Church" before it was reformed. Rather than focus on a "bad" bishop like Gaudry of Laon, I chose to examine the career of a saintly bishop, Ulrich of Augsburg (890 – 4 July 973), sometimes called Udalrich. Ulrich was Prince-Bishop of Augsburg.  In many ways Ulrich's activities were typical of a tenth-century Prince-Bishop, including his military service to the German king.  He was the first saint to be canonized not by a local authority but by a pope, Pope John XV. Ulrich demonstrates that not all pre-Reform bishops were worldly, even if they spent most of their time on secular administration. This episode has a short snippet of the monophonic chant Kyrie Eleison (The Best of Gregorian Chant Version, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6CRsw2gdcc)  Listen on Podurama   https://podurama.com                                                                     Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada If you have questions, feel free to contact me at [email protected]

Send us Fan Mail Offa, king of Mercia from 757 to 796, was the most powerful and successful Anglo-Saxon ruler of pre-Viking England. Today Offa is probably best remembered for Offa's Dyke, a massive 150 mile long earthwork that runs along the border of England and Wales. But Offa's contribution to the creation of the kingdom of England goes far beyond that. Offa was the heir to more than a century of Mercian military success that established a Mercian hegemony over England between the Humber River to the north and the river Thames to the south.  In this episode, Professor Rory Naismith, author of Offa, King of the Mercians, explains how Offa extended Mercian domination over southern England and transformed the Mercian hegemony into a "greater Mercia" ruled directly by the king. In so doing, Offa provided a model of governance for the tenth-century kings of Wessex, Athelstan and his successors, in their creation of a unified kingdom of "England." Rory Naismaith, Offa, King of the Mercians (Yale University Press, 2026) Listen on Podurama   https://podurama.com                                                                     Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada If you have questions, feel free to contact me at [email protected]

Send us Fan Mail As I did with the episode I scripted for the podcast BEEF about the conflict between King Philip the Fair of France and Pope Boniface VIII,  today I am posting an episode from another podcast, "Medieval Mayhem and Mischief with Dr. Larissa Tracy". You probably remember Dr. Tracy (Kat to her friends) from this podcast's episodes on Chretien de Troyes' "Yvain, the Knight with the Lion," and the four part series we did about medieval adultery in history, literature, and modern popular culture. I was really excited when she told me that she was starting her own podcast and asked me if I would be on it. We decided that a discussion of the influence of culture on warfare, specifically on medieval warfare, would be timely, so that is what we did. "Medieval Mischief and Mayhem with Dr. Larissa Tracy"  is the perfect title for Kat's podcast, given that among the subjects she has explored in her ten (!) books are medieval sex, sexuality, obscenity, torture and brutality, and comedy.   Unlike 'Tis But A Scratch, "Medieval Mischief and Mayhem" is a video podcast. If you want to see Kat and me rather than just hear us, you can do so at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0C-U4mTsKU, or by subscribing to her Patreon. I recommend the latter, not only in appreciation for Kat's hard work in preparing and editing a video podcast, but also for the nice extras you get as a subscriber.  And, yes, I know, I need to look up more at the camera  😊 "Medieval Mayhem and Mischief with Dr. Larissa Tracy" can be streamed on YouTube or her Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/cw/MedievalMischiefandMayhem). Listen on Podurama   https://podurama.com                                                                     Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada If you have questions, feel free to contact me at [email protected]

Send us Fan Mail This is our third and final episode on the crusading order of the Knights Templar. In today's episode, my cohost Dr. Steve Tibble and I talk about the "afterlife" of the Templars, and how and why a military order suppressed in the early fourteenth century has become the go-to for so many conspiracy theorists. Among the topics discussed in this episode are: Templars and Freemasonry; Sir Walter Scott's shaping of their image in his novels, Ivanhoe and The Talisman;  the (mis)use of the Templar legend by late nineteenth century French Occultists, racist Neo-Templarists and today's White Supremacists, in the videogame, "Assassin's Creed," and in the "non-fiction" best-seller Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, and the even better selling novel that drew upon it, The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. The last seems to have opened the floodgates for conspiracy theories featuring the Templars, including their role in 9/11!  I highly recommend Steve Tibble's newest book, Assassins and Templars: A Battle in Myth and Blood (Yale University Press, 2025).   This episode includes a snippet from the trailer of the 1972 movie "Tombs of the Blind Dead" (which is NOT highly recommended) Listen on Podurama   https://podurama.com                                                                     Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada If you have questions, feel free to contact me at [email protected]

Send us Fan Mail Today’s episode is the second in a three part series on the Crusading military order of the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, more commonly known as the Templars.  My cohost for this series is Dr. Steve Tibble, one of the foremost military historians of the crusades, whose most recent book is Assassins and Templars: A Battle in Myth and Blood (Yale University Press, 2025).   In our previous episode Steve and I talked about the origin, mission, and activities of the Templars. Today we discuss the most notorious event in the history of the Templars: the arrest and trial of the Templars of France by order of King Philip IV 'the Fair' in 1307 on charges of heresy, idolatry, blasphemy, and sodomy, and the subsequent suppression of the Order by Pope Clement V. Among the topics we cover are: the Templars' role in the futile defense of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the thirteenth century; the mission challenge raised by the final conquest of Outremer by the Mamlukes; why King Philip IV targeted the Templars, why so many French Templars, including the Grand Master, confessed to the lurid charges; and why Pope Clement V, despite doubting the accusations, dissolved the Order.   In a forthcoming third episode, Steve and I will talk about the Templar afterlife: how after its suppression it lived on in popular imagination as a staple of conspiracy theories. Listen on Podurama   https://podurama.com                                                                     Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada If you have questions, feel free to contact me at [email protected]