Ask a Medievalist

Synopsis What exactly is authority? Where does it come from? How do you get it? Can you move authority from St. Paul, MN to the south side of Chicago? Join Em and Jesse for a wide-ranging chat on the subject. Notes 1/ Of course, many people in addition to women have a hard time getting others (i.e. non-group members) to pay attention to their authority. For example, trans and nonbinary people have a hard time getting anyone to listen to them speaking about their own lived experiences. 2/ I’ve published four novels and a novella since this was recorded, and people actually do think I’m an authority on some topics for some reason. 3/ The story about Aristotle’s phony translators comes from here, I think: https://historyofphilosophy.net/translation-movement Pseudopigrapha: from pseudo, false, and epigraphe, name or inscription. A falsely attributed text. U of Michigan’s Galileo text: “After an internal investigation of the findings of Nick Wilding, professor of history at Georgia State University, the library has concluded that its “Galileo manuscript” is in fact a 20th-century forgery. We’re grateful to Professor Wilding for sharing his findings, and are now working to reconsider the manuscript’s role in our collection.” Also, “Wilding concluded that our Galileo manuscript is a 20th-century fake executed by the well-known forger Tobia Nicotra.” (The quotes are from the linked website.) 4/ According to the Virginia Woolf society, the actual quote is: “I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.” (From ch 3 of A Room of One’s Own.) Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (5th/6th century CE)) Pseudo-Pseduo-Dionysius is anyone once thought to be Pseudo-Dionysius but now recognized (by modern scholars) to be someone other than Pseudo-Dionysius. Confused? 5/ Pseudo-Bonaventure (14th century CE) wrote Meditations on the Life of Christ. 6/ I’ve become a bit more familiar with copyright law in the three years(!) since we recorded this, since I’ve published three going on four books of my own since then. A really good example of a point I think past Em is trying to make is Sherlock Holmes, who has recently passed into public domain. He’s a neat character and everyone wanted to play with him (look at the adaptations of recent memory: the Robert Downey Jr. films, the BBC’s Sherlock, the American Elementary). But because of copyright law, this was fairly difficult and confusing until very recently, despite the character’s creator having been dead since 1930. These cases raise many questions of authorship vs ownership and how long someone should really be able to make money on an idea. (Patent Law is, if anything, worse, from what I understand.) 7/ It was a photograph of Prince! Since we recorded this, the Supreme Court sided against Andy Warhol’s estate: https://www.npr.org/2023/05/18/1176881182/supreme-court-sides-against-andy-warhol-foundation-in-copyright-infringement-cas Girl Talk is awesome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSoTN8suQ1o I mention him because there was a really good documentary about copyright called RiP! A Remix Manifesto that discussed his work (including a discussion of it with the head of the copyright office of the Library of Congress). 8/ Just to clarify, “fair use” is kind of a complicated issue. When you are a non-commercial educational podcast (ahem), you can use things (like samples of YouTube performances) without having to pay licensing fees. You can also fairly quote sections of things for criticism, news reporting, and research. You can therefore quote lines from songs or poems in textbooks, but not in novels because they aren’t considered teaching. Parody (hello, Weird Al!) can be a weird gray area, because a parody obviously has to be somewhat transformative but still retain enough of a likeness that people will know what you’re parodying, and on this question hangs a lot of lawsuits. (Not toward Weird Al though, as far as I know. But Margaret Mitchell’s estate did try to sue to block the publication of The Wind Done Gone.) See also: Why does Ulysses (in Em’s novels) wear so many band T-shirts and occasionally mention songs and artists, but there are zero song lyrics in the books? Because you can’t copyright band names or album/song titles. Steamboat Willie has actually entered public domain since we recorded this! [So amazing!–Jesse] Peter Pan actually first appeared in 1902! Also, sorry, “Peter Pan is a psychopomp” is somehow not a sentence I had on my bingo card. I guess it has lost a bit in its translation to the screen… On the plus side, SIDS rates have dropped dramatically since 1902? “I can rewrite Macbeth if I want to.” Or a really complex riff on The Bacchae? Em of 2022 did not know what was coming, lol. 9/ Notably, Spivak also quotes

Summary It’s January, the first month of the year, ruled by the god Janus, who looks both ways. But a week ago it was December, the…tenth month of the year? What the heck was up with Roman calendars? Join Em and Dr. Jesse to explore why this otherwise competent civilization just fell apart when it came to tracking what day it was. Notes Jörg Rüpke, The Roman Calendar from Numa to Constantine: Time, History, and the Fasti, Wiley-Blackwell, 2011. 1/ Rome’s famous AVC (or AUC today), the abbreviation for Ab urbe condita (from the founding of the city), i.e. 753 BCE. 2/ For example, archeology uses “BP” or “Before Present.” Geology and astronomy and similar tend to use variations on “millions of years ago“. 3/ Calends! Nones! Ides! 4/ December is such a mess! For more on December not being the 10th month of the year (maybe ever!)–and/or the possibility of competing new years (one beginning in January and one in March), see Rüpke (p. 6). 5/ Fasti Antiates Maiores, created 60s or 50s BCE (Rüpke, p. 6), from before the Julian reforms in 46 BCE. January is the first month. Here is the original and here is the reconstruction. 6/ Annus confusionis ultimus! (46 BCE) See Rüpke, p. 112. 7/ Gregorian calendar! 8/ England finally officially adopts the Gregorian calendar in 1750. (This was adopted for the whole British Empire, including the colonies in America.)

Synopsis When is Hanukkah this year? When is Lupercalia, or Easter, or Midsummer’s Eve? When is your birthday? Figuring out when big events happen is incredibly important, and humans have been doing it for a long time. But while we can see some similarities in the process of calendar evolution, many civilizations had very different ways of conceptualizing and measuring time. Join Em and Dr. Jesse for a discussion of non-Roman calendars! Notes 0/ Check out the Nerd and Tie podcast network! Official announcement here. 1/ A lot of Mayans live in Yucatán in Mexico. Between 1847–1933, the Mayan fought a long and bloody war against the government of Mexico, and for a while controlled an independent state. Eventually they won the right to break up some of the haciendas, making it a fairly successful indigenous land movement. Now in Yucatán, a lot of the land is collectively owned/managed by the Maya. 2/ St Patrick will be coming up in the future! His episode has been recorded. 3/ Sir Capricorn’s name turns out to be Sesame. He is amazing! 4/ Gobekli Tepe (settled roughly 9500 BCE) 5/ Wurdi Youang (Australia) 6/ Warren Field (Scotland) 7/ Hawaii 8/ Yoruba calendar 9/ Babylonian calendar (from the 2nd millennium BCE). See Lis Brack-Bernsen’s “The 360-Day Year in Mesopotamia” The early astronomical text known as MUL.APIN (from 1000 BCE). 10/ Ancient Egyptian calendar! And some fun artifacts from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 11/ Mayan calendar! Very intriguing. Here is the film 2012 which posits many incorrect things, not just about the Mayan calendar.

Summary Starting in the middle ages, a rumor spread of a female pope, elected because of her incredible learning, who went undiscovered until she gave birth to a child. At which point, everyone lost their minds. Join Em and Dr. Jesse to learn about the veracity of this tale and the wacky test it (allegedly) engendered. (Ha.) Notes Our sources: Thomas F.X. Noble, “Why Pope Joan?” Catholic Historical Review 99.2 (April 2013) 219–238. Eamon Duffy, Saints and Sinners: A History of Popes. Yale University Press, 2002. 1/ Jean de Mailly, 13th century Dominican chronicler in Metz, makes the first extant mention of Pope Joan in his Chronicle “Diocese of Metz” (Chronica universalis Mettensis) in 1255. Etienne de Bourbon (also Dominican) adds to Mailly’s account a few years later in On the Seven Gifts of the Spirit. Dominican Martinus Polonus (Martin Strebsky) writes down the version we all know between 1265–1277 in Chronicle of the Roman Popes and Emperors 2/ “A means of adding verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.” From The Mikado by Gilbert and Sullivan. 3/ The description of this (definitely fake) ritual is in Duffy, Saints and Sinners, 156–7. 4/ Ember Days 5/ The Straight Dope was an alternative weekly column (in Madison it ran in the Isthmus, I think; also in the Chicago Reader) where readers could ask questions of a guy (gender nondenominational) who was essentially a reference librarian. The nom de plume was Cecil Adams. The column ran 1973–2018. The Pope Joan column is archived here: https://www.straightdope.com/21341608/was-there-once-a-female-pope 6/ Since we recorded this, The Onion has had a renaissance. If you subscribe, you can even get a print version! https://theonion.com/

Summary Avignon! A city where there is a bridge, and a song about the bridge. And, once, the pope lived there. Why? Let’s talk about this weird century. Notes 1/ Avignon: it has a bridge! And a song about the bridge: “Sur le pont d’Avignon.” The bridge is medieval; the song dates from the fifteenth century: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sur_le_Pont_d%27Avignon 2/ Boniface VIII (Pope 24 December 1294–11 October 1303). He was…something. Definitely check out Dante’s thoughts! 3/ Dr. Jesse: we can all recognize that in the past there have been different times when a third party has interfered in an election… Em: … Em: oh my god, we recorded this in April 2024. She was talking about the 2000 election. [A lot has happened in a year. Now it could also be the NYC mayoral race!–Jesse] 4/ The episode on Catherine of Siena is number 6. Jesse and I went to Siena at one point! I don’t remember if we saw her head. I’m guessing we did? We also saw a horse race, which means we were there on August 16, 2003? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palio_di_Siena [That was a great Palio! There were many, many false starts, and then someone fell (or was pushed/tripped) off their horse during the race, and the neighborhood whose rider fell (or was sabotaged) definitely thought he was sabotaged, and they all stormed the track toward the neighborhood they thought pushed him, and we were standing in between the two groups. –Jesse] 5/ Episode Summary! Avignon Papacy: Seven popes resided at Avignon instead of Rome Pope Clement V: 1305–1314 (curia moved to Avignon, 9 March 1309) Pope John XXII: 1316–1334 Pope Benedict XII: 1334–1342 Pope Clement VI: 1342–1352 Pope Innocent VI: 1352–1362 Pope Urban V: 1362–1370 (in Rome 1367–1370; returned to Avignon 1370) Pope Gregory XI: 1370–1378 (left Avignon to return to Rome on 13 September 1376, returned in January 1377) WESTERN SCHISM: ROME AVIGNON PISA Urban VI (1378–1389) Antipope Clement VII (1378–1394) Boniface IX (1389–1404) Antipope Benedict XIII (1394–1423) Pope Innocent VII (1404–1406) Pope Gregory XII* (1406–1415) *Voluntarily resigns to end schism Antipope Alexander V (1409–1410) Antipope John XXIII* (1410–1415) *Submitted to Martin V in Florence in 1418 and died shortly thereafter. The Medici built him a huge tomb. Pope Martin V (1417–1431)

Synopsis Let’s talk about a few good antipopes. What’s that about, anyway? If they meet, do they both annihilate? How do they sometimes switch places? Join Em and Dr. Jesse as they go over some of the more interesting antipopes of the 11th and 12th centuries. Notes 1/ The board game is Kremlin. 2/ Gregory VII (born c1015, namesake of the reform movement, pope 1073–1085). Gregorian reform! 3/ Investiture Controversy. The big one is roughly 1076–1122, but there are a bunch of investiture struggles. 4/ Henry IV (1050–1106; king of Germany from 1054, of Italy and Burgundy from 1056, and Holy Roman Emperor from 1084) 5/ Antipope Clement III (born c1029, Antipope 1080–1100) 6/ Antipope Theodoric (or Sylvester III, but there was an earlier Sylvester III, who was considered an antipope by Theodoric but is not currently listed as one by the Vatican). 7/ Concordat of London 1107 between Henry I of England and Pope Paschal II 8/ Holy Emperor Henry V (born early 1080s-1125; Holy Roman Emperor 1111–1125) 9/ Henry V appoints Antipope Gregory VIII (Antipope 1118–1121, dies 1137) 10/ Concordat of Worms 1122 11/ Pope Innocent II (Pope 1130–1143) is elected by a minority Antipope Alacletus II (1130–1138) is elected by a majority 12/ Lateran II convened in 1139 by Innocent II Antipope Victor IV (not to be confused with a later Antipope Victor IV) submits to Innocent II 13/ St Bernard dogs get their name from their original breeding place in Switzerland, which is named for St Bernard of Menthon, not Bernard of Clairvaux! 14/ Lateran III 1179 15/ Ubi Periculum 1274, issued by Pope Gregory X during the Second Council of Lyon, establishes the papal conclave 16/ Actually, Francis was chosen pretty quickly! It just seemed long in our crazy media climate. 17/ Pope Clement V (born c. 1264; Pope 1305–1314) and the Avignon Papacy (1309–1376/7) 18/ Pope Celestine V: the previous pope who resigned! He was pope for a few months in 1294. 19/ Pope Boniface VIII (born c.1230; Pope 1294–1303), famously hated by Dante.

Synopsis When did the conclave system get started and why? Following on the heels (uh, vaguely) of our emergency popecast, Em and Dr. Jesse discuss history of papal elections and how the Church got to where it is. Notes Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes, by Eamon Duffy. 4th ed. Yale University Press, 2015. 1/ We recorded this in February 2024; Benedict died on the 31st of December, 2022. He was 95. JPII lived to 84 (d. 2005) and Francis was 88. [Benedict XVI was the former head of the Dicastery or Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the formerly known as the Congregation of the Inquisition. –Jesse] Celestine V (c.1210/15–1296; pope July 5–December 13 1294) Gregory XII (c1327–1417; pope 1406–1415, resigns to end schism) Pope John XXIII (1881–1963, pope 1958–1963) called the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). Pisan Antipope John XXIII (d.1419; pope 1410–1415) 2/ I’m sure some of this background on the various popes and especially Francis is a repeat from last episode. If you took good notes and don’t need a reminder, I’m sorry. 3/ “Eventually they get found liable for their sayings.” I have no idea what politician that was a dig at. I’m pretty sure that the “mayors of major cities who get more say than the governor” is probably a reference to the mayor of NYC vs the NY governor? 4/ For more on the Ottonian Dynasty! 5/ You can actually still become a married male priest in the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church by: first becoming a pastor in another denomination, getting married there (and a certain amount of time elapsing), and then converting to Catholicism and applying to become a priest. (This requires your wife’s consent, apparently. In case you were wondering if women ever got asked to consent to anything in Christianity. There is one thing.) You can also become a priest if you’re a widower. 6/ Gregory VII (c1015–1085; pope 1073–1085) Peter Damian (c1007–1072) Lateran Council of 769 7/ Pope Paul I (pope 757–767) Antipope Constantine II (pope 767–769) Antipope Philip (pope only one day, July 31, 768) Pope Stephen III (c720–772; pope 768–772) Pope Adrian I (pope 772–795) 8/ Stephen IX (c1020–1058; pope 1057–1058) Antipope Benedict X (pope 1058–1059) Pope Nicholas II (c. 990/95–1061; pope 1058/9–1061)

Synopsis Pope Francis, beloved of medievalists, died on April 21, 2025, so we’re here with all you might care to know about the forthcoming conclave (now a film starring Ralph Finnes), the history of conclaves, and why medievalists loved Francis so much, anyway. Notes 1/ Benedict went to Mater Ecclesiae Monastery, I think. It’s in the neighborhood. 2/ Jesse and I decided to try and do any extra notes attached to NEXT episode, so y’all are stuck with only my ramblings down here this time. 3/ Sorry about the sound quality. I messed something up during the recording process. Also I’ve never sat still in my life, apparently. What a way to find out. 4/ Books and films in this episode: Conclave (2024) The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco (1980) The Key to the Name of the Rose: including translations of all non-English passages, by Adele J. Haft, Jane G. White, and Robert H. White (1987) The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968) 5/ I asked Jesse for clarification about what is meant by someone getting to be pope with a minority of votes. Basically the minority vote-getter (Innocent II) went off and set up as pope anyway, and eventually everyone came around to his way of thinking and made the majority vote-getter (Anacletus II) an antipope. We’ll have a whole episode on antipopes in a couple of weeks when we discuss this in more detail, so keep an eye out. 6/ Hey, Chuck! Sorry. Be less of a fuddy-duddy. 7/ The official job description as posted to LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/vaticano_after-receiving-several-messages-of-interest-activity-7322589152439418880-dmNA

Summary Em and Jesse are back with more medieval meme review. Join us as we discuss martyrdom, marginalia, The Seventh Seal, and the Bayeux Tapestry. Notes 1/ martyrdom of Isaiah: Martyrdom sword through throat: 2/ St. Sebastian. Artists love him! Just to be clear, “It’s difficult to assert that there were any gay men before Walt Whitman” is a joke about how historians tend to act. Generally, if you look at the comments on Wikipedia, it can be difficult to assert that people are gay after Whitman too—there was one actor who lived with his partner very openly for thirty years, and on the talk page people were still debating if he should be categorized as gay. This about someone who died in 1993. The Last Judgement: https://www.museivaticani.va/content/museivaticani/en/collezioni/musei/cappella-sistina/giudizio-universale.html Rubens’s St. Sebastian: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Sebastian_(Rubens) 3/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seventh_Seal Death was played by a guy named Bengt Ekerot. No one seems to know how tall he was, but Max Von Sydow was apparently about 6’4″. 4/ “Give a shoutout to Sandman…” We recorded this in 2022, long before the allegations against Neil Gaiman became public. We condemn his behavior in the strongest possible terms. [Terrible people can make amazing art that contradicts their own actions in their personal lives. It’s really unsatisfying, but an important (and unfortunate) fact about human nature.–Jesse] 5/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albertus_Pictor 6/ David Jenkins was the creator of Our Flag Means Death. Meredith Brooks, “Bitch.” https://genius.com/Meredith-brooks-bitch-lyrics 7/ The Rothschild Canticles: https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/2002755 [scroll down to page 148r]. The book takes its name from Edmond de Rothschild, rather than whoever commissioned it. E. de R. (aka Baron Abraham Edmond Benjamin James de Rothschild, 1845–1935) was indeed a member of the powerful banking family and subject of many anti-Semitic conspiracy theories you are thinking of. Where it came from before that is unclear, at least according to the provenance information provided by Yale. Citation: MS 404, folio 148 recto. John Boswell was a Yale scholar who wrote a book called Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe where he argued that the early Church had a ritual called “adelphopoiesis” (brother-making) that was essentially a marriage ceremony for same-sex couples. (This being the thing back before the Church felt like it cared much about who married whom, which is a rather newer thing than they would like to admit.) The rite still happens today—here (https://www.npr.org/2024/04/09/1243606135/a-look-at-the-ancient-practice-that-turned-friends-into-family) is an NPR article about two women who underwent the ritual in 1985. (And history will say they were roommates.) (Except in this case it seems as though they were. Sorry.) (The point being that the rite is perceived somewhat differently today. Or at least by NPR.) Boswell died in 1994, about a decade after Foucault. 8/

Synopsis Memes. Love or hate them, they’re hard to escape. Let’s do a medieval meme review. Notes 1/ Sorry for the weird sound at the beginning. File errors. 2/ There are whole Bsky accounts like “weird medieval guys“. 3/ Cave Canum Know thyself 4/ The Book of Dog Names: Superdog’s name is Krypto Livre du Chasse (see Episode 29 note 5 for more!) Here is the Christie’s description for this specific manuscript. Edward, Duke of York (1373-1415–he died at Agincourt!!!) “Gentlemen of England now abed”: An (incredibly famous) line from Henry V “Gallant, springing, brave Plantagenet”: From the scene in Richard III where the two murderers go to kill Clarence, Duke of Gloucester (on RIII’s orders, of course). Interpolated: to insert between two parts. RIP Wrigley, bestest girl (2009-2024). Now we have Addison, the best boy. 5/ Here’s a name–age calculator: https://randalolson.com/name-age-calculator/ Interestingly, Jessica has almost the same arc as Tiffany, but Tiffany is definitely a very 1980s neon name and Jessica is not. Is it because of the prominence of a Jessica in Shakespeare’s A Merchant of Venice that makes it clear to us that the name is not a modern invention? The Tiffany video 6/ If you’re wondering why we mention Carl Gustav and not Charles III, it’s because we recorded this in 2022 when Elizabeth II was still alive. Also, if you’re wondering why Em says “Carl VI Gustav” rather than “Carl XVI Gustav,” the answer is…I have no idea. Sorry. 7/ I don’t know, Jesse. NYT has gone downhill lo these last two years. [ARGH, yes. –Jesse] 8/ Melvil Dui. For some reason we (the world) kept the spelling of his first name but not his last. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melvil_Dewey I’m not a Dewey Decimal superfan, but I’ll admit it’s very useful. 9/ I have heard the “don’t use first person pronouns in your essay” rule explained as: it’s your essay, we know it’s your opinion. So just say what it is. [Yes, but you might be quoting other people’s opinions, some of which you like and some of which you don’t! And you have to be able to say “THAT person says X, but I think Y.”–Jesse] 10/ The Oxford Dictionary of African American English: https://www.oed.com/discover/odaae The Dictionary of American Regional English: https://www.daredictionary.com/ Passing Slang of the Victorian Era: https://archive.org/details/passingenglishof00wareuoft/page/n5/mode/2up 11/ “I will never be detail-oriented enough” J/K guys, in the last two three years since we did this, I’ve become EVEN MORE detail-oriented. I will NEVER STOP.

Synopsis Trade goods weren’t the only things that moved along the Silk Road. Join Em and Jesse as they trace the history of an interesting artistic motif that made it from China all the way to England! Notes 0/ Credit to Hither, Page, by Cat Sebastian, for bringing this topic to my attention. 1/ Previous episodes on trade routes were ep 83 (Old Silk Road, Take Me Home) and 84 (Trans-Saharan Trade). 2/ The Three Hares: this blog (http://www.vikkiyeatesillustration.co.uk/blog/a-brief-explanation-of-the-three-hares-symbol) has many example illustrations! 3/ “Wheel of Dharma, turn turn turn! Tell me the lesson that I must learn!” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharmachakra 4/ According to Wikipedia, among vertebrates, natural parthenogenesis is only reported in lizards, snakes, birds, and sharks. (And maybe amphibians and snakes? Whoever wrote this didn’t do a great job.) It has been artificially induced in pigs and mice. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis) I can’t believe I’m writing a note about this. 5/ Taylor Mac’s piece is A 24-Decade History of Popular Music. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_24-Decade_History_of_Popular_Music Trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwnddB4dFYk I wish I lived in New York and could just be weird for a living. 6/ Jesse explains why rabbits are not kosher a little oddly—in order to be kosher, a land animal must have cloven hooves and it must chew its cud. Even if rabbits chewed their cud (they don’t), they don’t have hooves. (The weird part of all this is “ergo, they’re rodents and not suitable for consumption.” That part I can’t explain.) 7/ Rabbit starvation? It looks like the general idea is that because rabbit meat is very low fat and high protein, if you eat only that without other fats in your diet, you can intake so much protein you overwhelm your kidneys and they dump bad stuff into your bloodstream. Also called mal de caribou. Charles Darwin mentions this in The Voyage of the Beagle: We were here able to buy some biscuit. I had now been several days without tasting anything besides meat: I did not at all dislike this new regimen; but I felt as if it would only have agreed with me with hard exercise. I have heard that patients in England, when desired to confine themselves exclusively to an animal diet, even with the hope of life before their eyes, have hardly been able to endure it. Yet the Gaucho in the Pampas, for months together, touches nothing but beef. But they eat, I observe, a very large proportion of fat, which is of a less animalized nature; and they particularly dislike dry meat, such as that of the Agouti. Dr. Richardson also, has remarked, “that when people have fed for a long time solely upon lean animal food, the desire for fat becomes so insatiable, that they can consume a large quantity of unmixed and even oily fat without nausea:” this appears to me a curious physiological fact. It is, perhaps, from their meat regimen that the Gauchos, like other carnivorous animals, can abstain long from food. I was told that at Tandeel, some troops voluntarily pursued a party of Indians for three days, without eating or drinking. (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/944/pg944-images.html) 8/ The hoopoe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoopoe 9/ Oberammergau was Episode 52. 10/ Swastika from 10,000 BCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mezine and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika 11/ Triskelion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triskelion Triquitera/trefoil knot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trefoil_knot#In_religion_and_culture 12/ Sicily flag: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trefoil_knot#In_religion_and_culture Isle of Man flag: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_Isle_of_Man 13/ Image of the three hares on a late-12th-century or early-13th-century Iranian brass tray: https://www.chrischapmanphotography.co.uk/hares/page5.htm (no images are available of the 1281/2 copper coin minted in Iran, possibly for the Mongolian empire) 14/ “The Mongols were basically fine…” as long as you weren’t in China. (Wince) 15/ The three hares motif was popular in synagogues in Germany and Eastern Europe: Khaimovich, Boris. 2011. “On the Semantics of the Motif ‘Three Hares Chasing Each Other in a Circle’ on Jewish Monuments in Eastern Europe.” East European Jewish Affairs 41 (3): 157–80. 16/ English bosses: a “boss” (an architectural feature that protrudes from a ceiling) is in fact etymologically related to “emboss” (“to ornament with raised work”). They both descend from the old French (i.e. 12th century) boce, “hump, swelling, or tumor.” https://www.etymonline.com/word/emboss This makes sense because the one Em is thinking of (where you press a design into something) is actually “deboss,” which comes from “de”+”emboss” and so is related to both via the tran

Synopsis In a first for Ask a Medievalist, Em sits down with Sebastian Nothwell to discuss his approach to writing historical/historical fantasy novels. In the process, they get into everything from Victorian steam power to the effects of the peasants revolt of 1381 on the chartists in the 1830s–50s. You can find Sebastian’s website at https://sebastiannothwell.com/. Notes 1/ British Newspaper Archive: https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/ The Dictionary of Victorian London is also a great place for info. It’s composed largely of clippings from newspapers and books of the time, arranged by topic: https://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm 2/ Victorian Steam Power: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_power_during_the_Industrial_Revolution 3/ The UK shut down the coal plants in September 2024: https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/coal-phaseout-UK/index.html 4/ Buggery Act of 1533 was repealed by the Offenses Against the Person Act of 1837, which nevertheless maintained legal penalties against gay relationships; the last execution for the same was in 1835. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buggery_Act_1533 5/ “Blorbo” means favorite character. 6/ We’ve previously talked about the effects of the plague in episode 2. And we talked a little about the peasant’s revolt in episode 87. 7/ The Chartists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartism 8/ A few relevant novels: A Dream of John Ball: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/357 Wat Tyler, or the Rebellion of 1381: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=umn.31951p007357378&seq=9 Ivanhoe: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/82 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14568 (but there are many, many translations if you look around; we also discussed this in episode 60.) 9/ The Eglinton Tournament: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eglinton_Tournament

Synopsis “Times are tough, but they could be worse” is the eternal message of our show. This time, we’re talking about persecution and rebellion–how certain groups were oppressed for political purposes in medieval (and early modern, and modern) Europe, and some people and groups who rebelled, in both a personal and more broadly political way. From Boudica to Hrotsvit to Jack Cade, join us to talk about how people in the middle ages took power back from the elites. Notes 1/ Link to Plague episode! 2/ You can tell I’m not a real historian because they would not be allowed to describe the French Revolution as “a messy breakup.” 3/ R. I. Moore, The Formation of a Persecuting Society: Authority and Deviance in Western Europe 950–1250, Wiley-Blackwell, 2007. 4/ Jean-Paul Sartre, Anti-Semite and Jew, originally published in 1946, translated by George J. Becker and published in English in 1948. The most famous quote from this essay is “If the Jew did not exist, the anti-Semite would invent him.” It’s a little eerie to go to the Goodreads page in search of quotes and see how many people’s reviews (from the 2017–2020 period) say something like “Wow, this feels eerily relevant for what’s going on right now.” [Unfortunately, I think it’s always relevant!–JN] 5/ Bhabha, Homi K., “Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse.” In The Location of Culture. (London: Routledge, 1994), 85–92. 6/ Geraldine Heng, The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages (Cambridge University Press, 2018). 7/ Boudica! (dies 60 CE) See Episode 58, note 11. 8/ Hrotsvit of Gandersheim (973–no later than 1002). Episode 22 is about her! 9/ Margery Kempe (1373–after 1438) was awesome. See Episode 36 note 17 and Episode 70. 10/ St Francis of Assisi (c.1181–1226). We’ve talked about him a lot! There’s more on his stigmata way back in Episode 4! Also, check him out in Episode 23 (on his Christmas pageant). 11/ Peasants’ Revolt (so called) in 1381. Justice, Steven. Writing and Rebellion: England in 1381. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. Shakespeare’s version of the Adam/gentleman joke comes from the famous Gravedigger scene in Hamlet V.i: GRAVEDIGGER: There is no ancient gentlemen but gard’ners, ditchers, and grave-makers. They hold up Adam’s profession. [Second Gravedigger]: Was he a gentleman? GRAVEDIGGER: He was the first that ever bore arms. [Second Gravedigger]: Why, he had none. GRAVEDIGGER: What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the scripture? The scripture says Adam digged. Could he dig without arms? 12/ Jack Cade’s Rebellion (1450). Shakespeare again! 2 Henry VI IV.ii: Dick: The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers. 13/ Florence’s Ciompi Revolt (1378–1382). 14/ Defenestrations of Prague. Episode coming soon! 15/ Victor Hugo (1802–1885) wrote Les Misérables (1862) about the 1832 June Rebellion. 16/ We’re about to post this just after the suspect in the murder of a health insurance CEO has been caught, despite extensive sympathy for him from a large portion of the public. The public reaction demonstrates the anger people currently have toward wealthy institutions that cannot be held accountable, an anger that is similar to the anger of some of the people and revolts that we discussed. One of the things we didn’t discuss during this episode is that once anger and vitriol have been stirred up, they become very difficult to control (and there’s a lot of anger going around right now). Postscript: We got through all that without a the people are revolting joke. Wow.

Summary The Ramayana is not the oldest story in the world, but it’s definitely in the running. Composed starting in the 700s BCE, it has been carried to all corners of the earth and translated into many languages and cultures, traveling along several distinct lines of migration, yet it remains largely unknown in the west. In honor of Em’s new novel Troth, join Em and Jesse as they discuss the story and its translations. Notes 0/ You can get Em’s new novel here (https://books2read.com/u/mg68Xz)! Or scoop up a signed copy here (https://xanthippe42.itch.io/troth). 1/ Arsene Lupin was created by Maurice Leblanc in 1905, and The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar came out in 1910. According to my notes from the time, the actual thing I was confused by was the combination of the French “la tenure de veleurs” (a velvet wall hanging) that was adjacent to “le manteau de la cheminee” (a mantlepiece) becoming in English, “a velvet chimney-mantel,” which I don’t think is a thing. The book also contained the observation, “La justice obéit souvent à ces entraînements de conviction qui font qu’on oblige les événements à se plier à l’explication première qu’on en a donnée.” meaning “Justice [also law officers, I guess] often obeys the training of its beliefs that one obliges the events to bend to the first explanation that one gave.” Which seems to be still true. 2/ Being so long, the text is thought to have been composed over a long period. It is thought that the earliest parts were composed no earlier than about 750 BCE, and the later parts could have been written as recently as the 3rd century CE. 3/ Some non-academic sources of info about partition: Ms. Marvel (Disney+ show, episode 5), Dr. Who (Series 11, episode 6), Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie. 4/ For more on the “300 Ramayanas” controversy, see “Censoring the Ramayana,” Vinay Dharwadker, PMLA 127.3 (May 2012), pp. 433–450. https://doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2012.127.3.433 5/ Earliest manuscript: 6th century BCE (See this article.) Prior to its discovery in 2015, the earliest manuscript was assumed to be from the 4th century BCE, attributed to Valmiki (the putative author of the Ramayana). 6/ Valmiki: the traditional author of the Ramayana. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valmiki 7/ A summary of the story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramayana#Synopsis 8/ Shakuntala: episode 15 9/ The quote Dr. Jesse reads is from “Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation” in The Collected Essays of A.K. Ramanujan (131–160). (Jesse is paraphrasing p. 134.) 10/ Silk Road, if you missed it, was episode 83 “Old Silk Road, Take Me Home.” 11/ Kannada is a Dravidian language spoken in southwestern India. 12/ The Chakri dynasty: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chakri_dynasty 13/ The Ramakien: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramakien 14/ The Ramayana of Valmiki: The Complete English Translation, edited and translated by Robert P. Goldman and Sally J. Sutherland Goldman. Princeton Library of Asian Translations. Princeton University Press, 2021. 15/ The proto-Indo European root for “cat” is maybe *kat-, but the reason all the European words look similar is because they come from the Latin “cattus.” In fact, one etymology blog (https://www.etymologynerd.com/blog/cats-and-kittens) suggests that because the animal was traded a lot, it’s hard to get back beyond a certain point because everyone’s word was the same. Interestingly, the word “textile” (from the Latin “texere”) and the word “technology” (from Greek “tekhne”) both share the same PIE root: *teks-. 16/ Brief Gilgamesh digression: Utnapishtim is in the section of Gilgamesh where the big G is searching for the key to immortality after Enkidu dies, but the reasons why the flood (which he tells G about) actually happened are kind of opaque. Utnapishtim survived because one of the gods (Ea) leaked the plan to U and told him what to do.

In memory of Wrigley Njus-Kirk, The Best Puppy (May 28, 2009–November 18, 2024), we’re reposting our episode on dogs this week! You can check out the original notes here: http://askamedievalist.com/2021/03/26/episode-29-dyou-like-dags/ We’ll be back with regular episodes next week! Until then, give your puppy a pat and keep it medieval!

Synopsis One time, Em got drunk and started texting Jesse about the bronze age collapse. This is the result. Notes 1/ Em studied abroad in Tianjin, China. It was very educational. I learned that black vinegar is good for your health, that there are mushrooms called ear mushrooms (wood ear, but I only recognized one character), and that I can explain that my stretched earlobes didn’t hurt in several languages. Also, some beer has a relatively low amount of alcohol in it, and if you put it in the freezer, it will freeze and the bottles will shatter. (Perhaps I should say I learned that my classmates didn’t know this.) 2/ Books about how the Church was awesome and saved civilization: How the Irish Saved Civilization, by Thomas Cahil. 3/ Spoiler: They finished the restoration of Notre Dame in time for the Olympics. (Unusually for us, we recorded this in July 2024—before Biden dropped out of the race, as you can maybe tell from the tenor of some of the commentary.) 4/ To be honest, if the fall of Rome was a simple story, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire wouldn’t be six volumes long, right? 5/ Ramses II: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramesses_II 6/ The Battle of the Delta article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Delta 7/ The Sea Peoples are a famous…myth? Explanation by modern historians of something they didn’t understand? Both of these things? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Peoples 8/ Mycenaean Greece: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycenaean_Greece. We talked about the Mycenaeans in episode 68 note 9 Minoans: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoan_civilization We talked about the Minoans in Episode 2 note 9, episode 68 note 9, and episode 75 notes 12–14. Cyclades: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycladic_culture We only talked about Cycladic Culture briefly in episode 2 note 9, but we have an upcoming episode on Cycladic art! 9/ We just talked about the Ever Given and the rights of truckers in episode 84 notes 1 and 3! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ever_Given (What a weird coincidence!) Also, see John Oliver talk about trucks and waiting! (Start at the 5 minute mark.) 10/ Actually, to the point about “a hundred years ago, if it rained too much, maybe they just didn’t have corn”–a hundred years ago, corn was actually such a major part of the American diet that pellagra was considered an epidemic! This is because corn does not contain vitamin B3 (niacin), and people in poor, rural areas and institutions ate a largely corn-based diet, since it was cheap compared to other things. It was in about 1926 that Dr. Joseph Goldberger established that adding brewer’s yeast to these diets would prevent pellagra. (Interestingly, the nixtamalization of maize, a traditional process that involves soaking the grain in limewater, introduces niacin!) 10/ Linear A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_A Cypro-Minoan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cypro-Minoan_syllabary

Synopsis We talked about trade moving across Asia and into Europe, but what about trade going North–South? Like the Silk Road, there was a lot of Trans-Saharan trade going back a long time. Goods like salt, ivory, gold, beads, and metal goods–as well as enslaved people–crossed hostile conditions to travel from as far south as Ghana and Mali to northern Africa and the Middle East, and from there into Europe. Join Em and Jesse as they discuss these lesser-known but incredibly interesting routes. Notes 1/ The Ever Given: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ever_Given (yeah, we recorded this a while ago). 2/ Ducks: The Friendly Floatees Spill! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendly_Floatees_spill 3/ John Oliver talks about trucks and waiting! (Start at the 5 minute mark.) 4/ Sacha Baron Cohen turned out to be a terrible person. Surprising? Not really. 5/ Nintendo was originally founded in 1889. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo 6/ Cannabis discovered in Chinese tombs 7/ Chinese coins in England! 8/ Shoshonean Prayerstone Hypothesis 9/ History of the De Beers Corp: https://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~lcabral/teaching/debeers3.pdf 10/ History of diamond advertising: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-you-ever-tried-to-sell-a-diamond/304575/ 11/ Somehow over the past two years since we recorded this, the salt/salary thing turned into a throwaway line in Em’s new novel Troth. Never say I don’t learn nothin’ from this.

Synopsis The Silk Road spanned four thousand years and lasted for centuries–it’s hard to think of anything comparable in scale. From the second century BCE until the mid-15th century, jade, silk, tea, horses, the plague, and more flowed across the Eurasian continent. Join Em and Jesse as they talk about it–and also about Route 66, the origin of the word “tea,” Mongolian horses, and other questionably relevant things. Notes 1/ Route 66 celebrates its centennial in 2026! https://www.route66-centennial.com/ The google doodle was April 30, 2022: https://doodles.google/doodle/celebrating-route-66/ It recognized the day in 1926 that the designation “U.S. 66” was proposed for the route. 2/ Tom Robbins did write a book called Another Roadside Attraction, but the family of clowns was in Villa Incognito. I refuse to link to those books on Wikipedia. You cannot read a summary of a Tom Robbins novel; they must be experienced. 3/ The Green Book: https://www.loc.gov/item/2016298176/ It was inspired by The Jewish Vacation Guide, a book published in 1917 that did a similar thing—list places where road-tripping Jews would be welcome. The LOC site suggests that after the Civil Rights act of 1964 passed, the kinds of discrimination the book helped people avoid stopped happening and so the guide stopped being published. But I’ve talked to Jews who went on motorcycle road trips across the country and stopped at various establishments in the south in the late 70s and felt they were, in modern parlance, extremely sus, vibes are off, etc. So, like, sundown towns maybe went away but the people’s attitudes did not change as quickly. 4/ It was Turkmenistan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9QYu8LtH2E The mention of Azerbaijan on Last Week Tonight. 5/ Bongbong Marcos was elected in 2022. We taped this one a while ago. 6/ Podcast episode on textiles: Episode 33 (on women artisans and textiles), Episode 54 note 15 (on the Bayeux Tapestry), and Episode 62 on tapestries. 7/ Mongolian horses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolian_horse They live outdoors in temps that get down to -40 degrees. There are more horses than people in Mongolia right now. In trying to source the cheese-making story, I have learned that horse’s milk cannot be made into cheese, because the lactose level is too high! So it’s probably not cheese that was made that way, but fermented mare’s milk—airag—which needs to be churned while it’s fermenting. 8/ Famously, people call it “chai” if it arrived in their country by land (for example, India, most of peninsular SE Asia, Russia, Japan) and “tea” if it arrived by boat (e.g., England and all of their colonies). Both of these words come ultimately from the Chinese “tu”, which became “cha” in Mandarin but “ta” and “te” in Min, a group of Chinese languages spoken in Fujian province and Taiwan (among other areas—there are over 70 million speakers! And you’ve never heard of it!) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology_of_tea has a nice table with different words in different languages if you’re interested in the linguistics here. 9/ The thing Em says about a Mayan god of zero appears to be incorrect. However, linguistically, in at least one Mayan dialect, yesterday and tomorrow are always expressed as “day minus one” and “day plus one” respectively—today is always zero. (https://baas.aas.org/pub/2021n1i336p03/release/2) The Mayans were a long-lived and pluralistic society and in retrospect it’s not right to say, “The Mayans thought,” because when did they think this? Which group? Today they are still over six million people speaking twenty-eight languages! Their earliest villages were established before 2000 BCE and their last city fell in 1697 CE. 9/ Rabban Bar Sauma (c1220–1294) was a Nestorian (named for Nestorius). We discussed miaphysitism and dyophysitism in Episode 48 (see note 14).

Synopsis Join Em and Dr. Jesse as they talk about the last two branches of the Mabinogi. Em’s books can all be found here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0C5XX9BH3 (or at many other fine internet sites.) Notes 1/ The previous episodes were: Episode 78 (introduction), and episode 79 (branches 1 and 2). Also, we’re still using The Mabinogion translated by Sioned Davies (2008, Oxford University press) Link. 2/ People still alive: Pryderi, Cigfa, Manawyden, Rhiannon, Arawn 3/ Bank of England inflation calculator: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator 4/ Branch four: Trigger warnings for sexual assault. 5/ The film in which Bernie walks around by himself (in the US Virgin Islands) is Weekend at Bernie’s II. In the first film, his body is just repeatedly stolen. For some reason it was on TV constantly in 1994 or so. I don’t remember it well but I don’t think I have to in order to assert it has loads of super sketchy voodoo representation. Among other things, I’m sure. 6/ Guards, Guards! is by Terry Pratchett. Did we say that?

Synopsis Did you see a headless (possibly satanic) angel rising from the stage during the closing ceremony of the Paris Olympics, or Winged Victory? Or did you wonder, as we did, how the two happen to be so similar, when angels in the bible are often described as having six wings, or wheels, or four faces and many eyes, or voices that sound like many people speaking at once? And actually, now that we mention it, why are apples so common in Mediterranean myths? Join Em and Dr. Jesse as we talk through the Olympics closing ceremony, its symbolism, and how the modern Christian imagination is inextricably tied to Greek myth. Notes 1/ Bobby Gibb was technically the first woman to run Boston in 1966. Katherine Switzer ran it in 1967 and the officials’ attempts to eject her produced the photos described. 2/ The apple/evil pun only works in Latin (not Greek). Also, although both the Septuagint and the Vulgate use a generic word for fruit in Genesis, the word for apple (which Latin got from Greek) not only served the Latin pun but brought an accrual of meanings from the Greek world (which, as we discussed in this episode, is presumably why the apple became the de facto fruit in the garden). 3/ Dan Smith’s blog: https://danaturg.blogspot.com/2024/07/dramaturgy-of-paris-olympics-opening.html 4/ The Hymn to Apollo was in episode 46.

Synopsis Last week, the 2024 Summer Olympics started in Paris with an opening ceremony that featured nods to several musicals, a heavy metal band named after Godzilla, a bit of an aria from Carmen, and of course, a tableau of drag queens and gender bent fashionistas referencing Leonardo da Vinci’s 1498 painting The Last Supper. Or perhaps they were referencing Jan van Bijlert’s 1640 work Le Festin des Dieux (The Feast of the Gods). Join Em and Dr. Jesse for a wide-ranging conversation about the history of the games, the video game Assassin’s Creed, camp, kitsch, and Susan Sontag. Oh, no, sorry. That tableau. Spoiler: Jesse had thoughts. No notes today. Also, Em’s mic sounds bad because like a noob she didn’t check what Audacity was recording with. Sorry for the slightly less than pristine sound quality.

Synopsis The Mabinogi: what’s it actually about, when you get down to it? Join Em and Jesse as they discuss the first two branches, in which Pwyll meets Arawn, lord of the underworld, and has adventures; in which Pwyll meets Rhiannon and has a lot more adventures than maybe he bargained for; and in which Bendigeidran, Branwen, and Manawyden fight Ireland. Notes 0/ Find links to Old Time Religion here, or buy it directly from Ingram Spark here. If you are seeing this during the month of July 2024, it (and Dionysus in Wisconsin) are currently 75% off at Smashwords. 1/ The Mabinogion translated by Sioned Davies (2008, Oxford University press) The Horse in Celtic Culture: Medieval Welsh Perspectives ed. Sioned Davies and Nerys Jones (University of Wales Press, 1997) 2/ Randomly, there’s a fairly well-known professor of graphic design who shares my original surname. I don’t think we’re related. 3/ Branch one major characters: Arawn: Lord of Annwn, the underworld Pwyll: A guy (okay, he’s the Prince of Dyfed) Hafgan: Pwyll fights and defeats him (on behalf of Arawn) Rhiannon: the wife of Pwyll (but also very smart and a hero in her own right) Pryderi: the son of Pwyll and Rhiannon 4/ For our thoughts on The Green Knight (both story and film), hunt down Episode 60. 5/ Geoffrey of Monmouth (c1095–c1155). Extremely responsible for King Arthur mythos. See episode 60 on The Green Knight! 6/ The early modern Irish “Children of Lir“: Different from “The Children of LLYR” (from the Mabinogion) and not related to Shakespeare’s King Lear 7/ The actual children of Llyr (from the Mabinogion): Brân the Blessed / Bendigeidfran Branwen Manawyden 8/ The Gundestrup caldron: this cauldron is clearly ceremonial (not for everyday use), but cauldrons generally are very communal and demonstrate the importance of being a good host 9/ A torc is a stiff metal neck ring (aka really iconic jewelry from the Bronze age through the Middle Ages, found throughout Europe from the Balkans through Celtic regions)

Synopsis Paul: Look, it’s a school of whales. Ringo: They look a little bit old for school. Paul: University then. Ringo: University of Wales. (From Yellow Submarine, 1968) Ever wonder what Wales is, on a mythological level? That strange country of Michael Sheen with a dragon on the flag! And jokes about leeks in Henry V. The most well-known Welsh myths are collected in a book called The Mabinogi, which has solidly medieval origins. Join Em and Jesse as they discuss where the book came from and what we know about it. Notes 0/ You can get Old Time Religion here. 1/ Spoiler: It was not January when the episode went out. 2/ Edition we recommend: Sioned Davies, tr. The Mabinogion. Oxford: OUP, 2008. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-mabinogion-9780199218783 3/ If you speak Welsh, I’m just really sorry. 4/ Lady Charlotte Guest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Charlotte_Guest 5/ House of Legends: See episodes 59, 61, and 63. 6/ Geoffrey of Monmouth: see episode 60 on The Green Knight. We’ve recorded some other episodes on King Arthur, but apparently they’re not out yet. 7/ Possible authors: Unknown! No names are attached to these stories. However, Andrew Breeze has argued (controversially!) that Gwenllian ferch Gruffydd (c.1100-1136) may be the author of the four stories that compose the Four Branches. She is a famous noblewoman who led a revolt and was executed after being captured in battle. She’s often compared to Boudica (dies 60/61 CE). See Andrew Breeze, Medieval Welsh Literature (Four Courts Press, 1997). 8/ Mari Lwyd–essentially a hobby horse but using a (horse’s) skull. Really interesting, look it up for pictures! 9/ The prototypical Welsh word with a “w” as a vowel is “cwm,” which is a hollow at the head of a valley. Go forth and win at Scrabble. 10/ Brave weatherperson saying “Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch”

Summary Here comes the parade, want some beads? Okay, so carnival is a prelude to Lent, which is an extremely solemn time in Catholic tradition. So why is it the way that it is in so many places? Let’s talk about it. Notes 1/ It’s late, but it’s up before the end of Lent. lol sob 2/ carnem levare: Latin for putting away (not eating) meat. 3/ The dialog is: Aziraphale: Did you ever meet him? Crowley: Yes…seemed a very bright young man. I showed him all the kingdoms of the world. Aziraphale: Why? Crowley: He’s a carpenter from Galilee. His travel opportunities are limited. (From s1e03) 4/ https://www.comicmix.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/pancakes4.jpg pancakes 5/ John Bossy, Christianity in the West: 1400–1700. 6/ Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World. 7/ By “the countries [UK and the Netherlands] have some connections,” Em means that during the Glorious Revolution, William III (of Orange) and Mary II were invited to rule England, because they’d run out of endogenous rulers owing to having kicked James II/VI out. (They were invited because Mary was James’s eldest surviving child, and they reigned as co-monarchs, which honestly seems like a very rational move to me.) 8/ Peter Bruegel the Elder: The Fight between Carnival and Lent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fight_Between_Carnival_and_Lent Jan Miense Molenaer (1610–1668): The Battle between Carnival and Lent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Miense_Molenaer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Between_Carnival_and_Lent Molenaer shared his studio with his wife, Judith Leyster, who was also an awesome painter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Leyster Hieronymus Bosch: Ship of Fools https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Fools_(painting) The poem mentioned was written is by Jacop (Jacob) van Oestvoren who wrote “De Blauwe Schuit” (“The Blue Boat”) in 1413 9/ Joseph Roach, Cities of the Dead: Circum-Atlantic Performance

Synopsis If you’re one of those people who thinks about the Roman Empire a lot because aqueducts are really cool, you’re going to love this. Join Em and Jesse as they discuss the irrigation of the Chengdu Plain, the plumbing of Tenochtitlan, and water management at Machu Picchu. Then we round out our “the middle ages didn’t constantly smell awful” series with a discussion of the history of perfume. Notes 1/ Various news articles about water pollution: Cuyahoga River fires (yes, plural): https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/cuyahoga-river-caught-fire-least-dozen-times-no-one-cared-until-1969-180972444/ Chicago River story: https://chicago.suntimes.com/politics/2023/9/28/23895006/trump-tower-chicago-river-pollution-attorney-general-kwame-raoul 2/ John Snow proved that the Broad Street Pump was carrying disease in 1854: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7150208/ Germ theory of disease was actually first proposed in 1546 but not widely accepted in Europe until the end of the 1880s. THE 1880s! For more on Girolamo Fracastoro see: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-physician-who-presaged-the-germ-theory-of-disease-nearly-500-years-ago/ 3/ The Irrigation of the Chengdu Plain: the Dujiangyan irrigation system is a UNESCO heritage site! https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1001/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dujiangyan 4/ Tenochtitlan plumbing: the Chapultepec aqueduct! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapultepec_aqueduct 5/ The Incan plumbing: An article from UW-Madison (Go Badgers!!): https://ancientengrtech.wisc.edu/machu-picchu/machu-picchu-water-management/ 6/ For the record, although there were people in the area of Venice from around the 10th century BCE on, the dedication of the first church, symbolically recognized as the founding of the city, was 421 CE. (There was a Roman city there before, of course.) Tenochtitlan, on the other hand, was founded around 1325 CE (with, again, some wiggle room). 7/ The tallest building in Des Moines, IA, is 801 Grand, which is 45 storeys high. [Sorry Des Moines!!! You are awesome.] 8/ Maledicta: The International Journal of Verbal Aggression, was published from 1977–2005. In vol. 12 (1996), they did publish an article entitled “Linguistic and Blasphemous Aspects of Bavarian Micturition and American Toilet Names” by the editor, Reinhold Aman. However, the journal is now offline. He, uh. Really hated the Clintons. 9/ QI bits: I can’t find them. [I think you might need BBC iPlayer or a VPN or similar.–Jesse] 10/ The Ted Chiang short story is “Tower of Babylon,” which is collected in Stories of Your Life and Others. It’s really good! 11/ UW–Madison and building better potatoes: https://pasdept.wisc.edu/2019/10/07/new-potato-helps-farmers-weather-the-frost/ UW Machu Picchu project is part of UW-Madison’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering’s Ancient Engineering Technologies project: https://ancientengrtech.wisc.edu/machu-picchu/ 12/ Pomander: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomander 13/ Wow, coming on hard with the perfume facts there, Em. Recreating perfumes! https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/may-be-what-cleopatra-smelled-180972854/ An example of a glass perfume bottle (1st century CE): https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/239779 14/ National Theatre’s Antony and Cleopatra with Ralph Fiennes and Sophie Okonedo is the best. https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/productions/antony-and-cleopatra/ Some photos Jesse took of old pipes on Knossos:

Summary After a brief discussion of how people brushed their teeth, we move on to the question of where the water they used came from. And yeah, Rome had aqueducts–but so did a lot of places! And the Romans didn’t even build the aqueducts they did have–they took them from the Etruscans! Who may have gotten the idea from the Minoans! Also we talk about China, Harappa, and the Inca. You don’t want to miss this amazing smorgasbord of plumbing knowledge. Notes 1/ This discussion of dentistry is very weird to listen to; as I [Em] am editing this episode, I’m also preparing to get some dental work and…let’s just say we all appreciate being born after Novocain became a thing. [Ooooo, yes. I agree.–Jesse] 2/ St. Apollonia–see episode 10 (Icons and Iconography) note 37 and episode 28 (Food) note 29. 3/ A broken jaw wired together with gold thread: the jaw of a Byzantine warrior (14th century) was broken and healed after being wired together (probably with gold thread). Hippocrates had suggested this method in the 5th century BCE, but there’s not a lot of archeological evidence of this type of surgery. https://www.livescience.com/byzantine-warrior-fractured-jaw 4/ Our Flag Means Death is set around 1717–1720. The “acts of grace” Blackbeard takes advantage of were a 1717–1719 thing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1717%E2%80%931718_Acts_of_Grace), and IRL Blackbeard died in 1718. Also, Stede dresses like a gentleman of that era (banyans! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banyan_(clothing)) 5/ First toothbrush: China, 600s CE. Here’s a history of toothbrush evolution in China! https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22883376/ 6/ Various tooth abrasives: Pumice Ash charcoal Eggshells Walnut shells Crushed bones Oyster shells 7/ The compound in coffee and tea that sticks to your teeth is tannin. When you brush your teeth with baking soda, I believe it forms a new compound—sodium tannate, and then it will leave your teeth alone! That’s why baking soda is a whitener. But it tastes NASTY. 8/ Trotula (12th century): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trota_of_Salerno 9/ Lead: plumbum in Latin. Pretty clear line from there to plumber. 10/ Indus Valley / Harappa: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanitation_of_the_Indus_Valley_Civilisation https://www.harappa.com/blog/mohenjo-daro-street-drains Jansen, “Water Supply and Sewage Disposal at Mohenjo-Daro” in <i>World Archaeology</i> 21.2 (Oct 1989), 177-192. 11/ Shelves in the closet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKE2S-lHhRY 12/ The Minoans: Jesse has seen the plumbing at the palace at Knossos and spent a lot of time taking pictures of it. It’s still there and truly incredible! A.N. Angelakis “Hydro-technologies in the Minoan Era” https://www.thearchaeologist.org/blog/water-harvesting-and-distribution-systems-of-the-minoan-civilization 13/ Linear A: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_A (The other one is Linear B, aka Mycinean Greek. We didn’t name things too creatively I guess.) 14/ For more on Crete and the Minoans, see episodes: 2 note 9 and 68 note 9. 15/ The Etruscans: https://novoscriptorium.com/2020/01/09/etruscan-hydro-technologies/ 16/ The Cloaca Maxima in Roma: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanitation_in_ancient_Rome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloaca_Maxima

Summary When Em was a kid, she was told that knights in shining armor didn’t bathe, that Elizabeth I had bathed only three times in her life, and various other assertions. But we know that soap is not a modern invention–the word itself comes from the Latin, and no less than Pliny the Elder discusses how to make it from tallow and ashes. So what constitutes bathing? Were people before the year 1900 CE just terribly smelly all the time? And what were bathrooms–and plumbing–like around the world? Join Em and Jesse for a far-ranging discussion of cleanliness, won’t you? Notes 0/ Em’s new novel, Old Time Religion, can be ordered here. Dionysus in Wisconsin is here. 1/ This episode was apparently recorded in April of 2022. Amusingly, the novel I was working on is NOT either of the novels that have been published! It was TWO AND A HALF novels BEFORE Dionysus. 2022 was wild. 2/ William Alcott’s tract Thoughts on Bathing: Catalog entry: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/011604824 Full text!: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044014202691&seq=5 I think Em says 1939, she meant 1839. 3/ The most famous portrait of someone in a bath is, in my mind, The Death of Marat, by Jacques-Louis David, which is SOLIDLY 18th century. But there are others, from earlier. (Also, who doesn’t love JLD? He’s amazing.) 4/ York Medieval interactive Viking attraction: https://www.jorvikvikingcentre.co.uk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorvik_Viking_Centre 5/ Nope, this is from a letter that Queen Elizabeth I wrote to George Carey, 2nd Baron Hunsdon, who is better known for being Lord Chamberlain and the patron of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men (Shakespeare’s Company) after his father Henry, also Lord Chamberlain and patron of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, died. He was apparently having a great time at Bath, and the Queen wrote him: “[I] can not but wonder, considering the great number of pails of water that I hear have been poured upon you, that you are not rather drowned than otherwise. But I trust all shall be for your better means to health.” Here is a link to the letter. (Berkeley Castle Muniments Select Letter 8). The letter is also available in Katherine Duncan-Jones, ‘Elizabeth I and her “Good George” unpublished letters’, in P. Beal and G. Ioppolo (eds.), Elizabeth I and the Culture of Writing (British Library, 2007), 29–41. 6/ Monty Python scenes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi8vXOUi-eI Dennis the peasant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2c-X8HiBng 7/ The process of making soap is called SAPONIFICATION. Sometimes this happens to bodies that get buried in certain environments. The word soap came to Latin (saponem) from a proto-Fresian dialect (I don’t think we have that word, just a reconstruction of it) and thence to many other languages, including savon (French), xa bong (Vietnamese), sebon (Welsh), soap (English), sabuu (Thai–I don’t know for sure it’s related but I’d be willing to place a bet)… 8/ Natron is hydrated sodium carbonate (https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/history-technology/mummies-pigments-and-pretzels) 9/ Books for travelers Em alludes to: H. M. L. S., A Few Words of Advice on Travelling and Its Requirements Addressed to Ladies with short vocabulary in French and German, London: Thomas Cook and Son, 1876 (2nd ed.) https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/CHgBAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1 Anglo-Indian, Indian Outfits & Establishments: Practical Guide for Persons about to Reside in India: detailing the articles which should be taken out, and the requirements of home life and management there. London: L. Upcott Gill, 1882. https://archive.org/details/indianoutfitsest00angliala/page/n3/mode/2up F. A. Steel and G. Gardiner, The Complete Indian Housekeeper & Cook: Giving the duties of mistress and servants, the general management of the house, and practical recipes for cooking in all its branches. London: William Heinemann, 1909. https://archive.org/details/b21528640/page/n7/mode/2up 10/ Polar plunge: Wim Hof: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wim_Hof It’s madness if you ask me. [-Em] 11/ I Henry IV scene: I think this is II.i.15, which is actually about fleas not lice! Same idea though. –Jesse 12/ A truly disturbing fact: most lice now have become impervious to the anti-lice shampoos we used to use when we were kids. [Oh god!! –Jesse] 13/ For example, Bolton Strid (or “the Strid”) is a small, fairly calm-appearing waterway that has claimed a lot of lives. https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/bolton-strid 14/ There’s a long section on bathing in Matrix, by Lauren Groff. 15/ Mr Darcy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBaspD6Aq9E 16/ Inca baths: https://www.archaeology.wiki/blog/2019/02/27/researchers-reveal-inca-bath-complex-structure/ https://www.livescience.com/64845-inca-ceremonial-baths-archaeology.html 17/ Em was being a bit flippant about how l

Synopsis Are you travelling for Thanksgiving? Believe it or not, “travel” as a thing is not a modern creation. In the middle ages, people visited many remote and far-flung places and brought back notes (and delicious noodles). Join Em and Jesse for travel talk, including Lord Elgin, Ibn Battuta, Marco Polo, Zheng He, Margery Kemp, and more. Notes 0/ The actual postcard: I found it in a copy of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, by Oliver Sacks. I was definitely not reading that when the postcard arrived, so…I don’t know how it was saved. 1/ Anyway, in the UK a “subway” means a pedestrian tunnel under a street. (cough) 2/ Lord Elgin: Boo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Bruce,_7th_Earl_of_Elgin It’s actually weird that this one, with more complaining about the British Museum, is coming directly after our episode about the British Museum. We didn’t plan that. We just slag off the British Museum from time to time. [We do!–Jesse] There is apparently some debate about the legality of Lord Elgin’s firman (a royal mandate allowing him to do the things he did). He did all this in the early 1800s, and he had considerable trouble getting his booty back to the UK. Some pieces took upward of ten years to arrive. Also, Byron was horrified and wrote the following lines: Dull is the eye that will not weep to see Thy walls defaced, thy mouldering shrines removed By British hands, which it had best behoved To guard those relics ne’er to be restored. Curst be the hour when from their isle they roved, And once again thy hapless bosom gored, And snatch’d thy shrinking gods to northern climes abhorred! No one better than Byron for a slam poem. [Much, much applause!–Jesse] The marbles were purchased by the British gov’t in 1816 for 35,000 GBP. (Elgin had estimated their value at 75k, which is actually what he spent to bring them back to the UK, so he took a bath on the whole deal.) This would be approximately £2,795,511.37 (about 3.5 million USD) in today’s money, which is a lot but not an astronomical sum. [Welp, I’m glad he roasted!–Jesse] 4/ What the heck, let’s link to James Acaster again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x73PkUvArJY 5/ Also, quick shout out to the QI bit about the Parthenon, why not: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdvD4Fhc_K8 6/ Netscape guy James Clark repatriates stuff: https://news.artnet.com/news/netscape-founder-returns-looted-cambodian-antiquities-2059851 For more on museums, see episode 72. 7/ Famous travelers include: Ibn Battuta: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Battuta Marco Polo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Polo Zheng He https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zheng_He Margery Kemp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margery_Kempe 8/ Travel in the Roman empire: https://orbis.stanford.edu/ 9/ The episode on graffiti was episode 69 (the part about the Vikings was right at the end—see note 20). 10/ The Rus’ come up a bit in Michael Chabon’s Gentlemen of the Road. I think there was a substantial Jewish population there at one point. But maybe I made that up. 11/ Venice lion 12/ Vikings in Vineland Not to be confused with the Thomas Pynchon book of the same name. 13/ The Azores and mitochondrial mouse DNA! 14/ The Azores on medieval maps: Medici or or Laurentian Atlas (Genoese cartographer) Catalan Atlas (Majorcan Jewish Cartographer, Abraham Cresques) Guillem Soler (Majorcan Cartographer) 15/ The Derbyshire man illumination in the Domesday book 16/ The Ipswich man 17/ Henry VIII’s warship’s crew 18/ Tang Dynasty murals 19/ John Hawkwood (1323–1394) was in episode 63 note 7 and episode 64 note 10. 20/ Xi Jing (1091–1153), a Chinese traveler who visited Korea in 1123. Here’s a translated edition of his account of his travels from University of Hawaii Press. 21/ Adam de la Halle The May Day episode was episode 31. Here is a whole site from Berkeley devoted to Ibn Battuta’s travels. 22/ Em ranted about Barthes’s essay (from Mythologies) in episode 3 note 3. 23/ The Anne Boleyn series with Jodie Turner-Smith as Anne Boleyn Bridgerton (series)

Synopsis We’ve all seen that scene in Indiana Jones where he’s clutching an artifact and shouting, “It belongs in a museum!” But nowadays in 2023, we tend to temper that idea–museums are fun, but who gets to hold a particular object, why, and for how long is a point of contention. Join Em and Jesse as they discuss one of the world’s oldest and largest museums, the British Museum. With a collection of over eight million objects, you know there’s some controversial stuff in there. We’ll also discuss other recent British Museum-related controversies, the illegal antiquities market, the differences between Lord Elgin and the city of Elgin, IL, and more. Notes 1/ “Wake Up Thai People” Cold War map: https://transnationalhistory.net/doing/2020/04/12/a-tale-of-two-nations-the-creations-of-iran-and-thailand/ https://yalebooks.yale.edu/2017/12/22/cold-war-maps-to-wake-up-southeast-asian-buddhists/ 2/ Article about the Met’s “aggressive” collection policy. https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/mar/20/new-york-metropolitan-museum-collection-artifacts-theft https://www.icij.org/investigations/hidden-treasures/more-than-1000-artifacts-in-metropolitan-museum-of-art-catalog-linked-to-alleged-looting-and-trafficking-figures/ 3/ I think “all art is counterfit” is a minor plot point of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier? 4/ Article about Met sending back Nepali statue: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/mar/20/new-york-metropolitan-museum-collection-artifacts-theft 5/ Article about illegal Cambodian statues at the Met: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/24/arts/cambodia-met-museum-looted-antiquities.html (not the one I remember seeing, but a much newer one) 6/ Article about illegal Gilgamesh tablets: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/hobby-lobby-forfeits-rare-gilgamesh-tablet-smuggled-iraq-180978314/ 7/ Article about guy sending back Cambodian statues: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/12/arts/design/james-clark-cambodian-antiquities.html Also this: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/12/arts/design/lindemann-cambodia-khmer-statues-looting.html#:~:text=A%20family%20of%20billionaire%20art,American%20officials%20said%20on%20Tuesday. 8/ Elgin marbles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elgin_Marbles https://www.britishmuseum.org/about-us/british-museum-story/contested-objects-collection/parthenon-sculptures Versus Elgin, IL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elgin,_Illinois There is an adorable Doctor Who-themed cafe there. [Yes! Blue Box Cafe is so good!–JN] 9/ Memes: The British Museum after it’s been decolonized The guy putting the leaning tower of Pisa in his backpack 10/ The acts: British Museum Act 1963: Also https://observer.com/2023/02/the-uk-has-a-60-year-old-law-prohibiting-repatriation-of-art-is-that-about-to-change/ National Heritage Act of 1983 11/ Sarah / Saartje Baartman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Baartman The Suzan-Lori Parks play Venus: https://www.amazon.com/Venus-Suzan-Lori-Parks/dp/1559361352 The Kim Kardashian photos were recreated in Paste magazine, by the photographer who originally took them (Jean-Paul Goude). The original model was Carolina Beaumont. 12/ Kara Walker’s Sugar Baby. We also discussed it in episode 10 (note 16 and 24), episode 17 (note 1), and episode 42 (note 7). https://creativetime.org/projects/karawalker/ 13/ Venus de Milo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_de_Milo See Lorenza Böttner’s Venus de Milo: http://lebastart.com/en/2018/11/lorenza-bottner-fall-flight/ 14/ Favorite translation of the Odyssey: Fitzgerald, but I hear the new one by Emily Wilson is good. Favorite Gilgamesh is Stephen Mitchell, but Maria Headley is working on one and I am all a-twitter about it. 15/ Yilin Wang’s website: https://yilinwang.com/qiu-jin-british-museum/ Qiu Jin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qiu_Jin https://www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/chinas-hidden-century/qiu-jin 16/ James Acaster’s Finders Keepers, Shut Up: https://youtu.be/x73PkUvArJY?si=5VrEBLpnKY0CqG1g 17/ Prince photo court case: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/the-supreme-court-ruling-lynn-goldsmith-andy-warhol-foundation-2304684 18/ Lichtenstein documentary: WHAAM! BLAM! Roy Lichtenstein and the Art of Appropriation: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/whaam-blam-roy-lichtenstein-documentary-2268088 19/ Copyright case about AI: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/21/arts/design/copyright-ai-artwork.html

Synopsis Em and Jesse talk about Italian sumptuary laws, which unlike the British ones, were more aimed at women. Then they talk about fashion “dos” of the middle ages. Notes 1/ So, the difference between having a title and being part of the peerage is this. In America, when you earn a lot of money, you get to be part of a special club where you are allowed to accumulate “social dollars” (rizz, street cred, social capital, whatever) and then spend it to get stuff you want (meet Taylor Swift, drive an F1 car, sit at the 50 yard line at the Superb Owl, shoot yourself into outer space). We don’t have a real “nobility” here, we have the rich and famous and everyone else. In the UK, you can be rich but you can’t buy your way into the peerage. And this is why the British class system is the way it is (rigid). Peers make the laws (remember that the House of Lords still exists). When I say baronets and knights aren’t noble, I mean they’re not peers. (This gets very complex, because some titles are hereditary and some are not, the king can write special things into your letters patent, etc. But the bottom line is James I started using the title baronet as a way of getting rich merchants to give the crown money in exchange for being able to be called Sir and pull rank on a limited number of knights.) Or at least I think this is how things are. 2/ It’s like the set up to an Onion article, Sir Paul McCartney and Sir Patrick Stewart called upon to raise troops for British invasion of France… 3/ Fourth Lateran Council in 1215: this council did a lot of famous stuff. Very important! 4/ Married saints: St Therese of the Little Flower (Lisieux) was not married. But her parents are the only (to date) married couple to be canonized: Sts Louis and Zelie Martin. St Catherine of Sweden is the daughter of St Bridget of Sweden (c1303–1373). 5/ Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood. 6/ Medieval slashed sleeves–see some awesome medieval and early modern slashing here! Diane Owen Hughes “Sumptuary Law and Social Relations in Renaissance Italy” in Disputes and Settlements: Law and Human Relations in the West ed. John Bossy; 69–99. 7/ There’s a Frog and Toad story where Toad winds up finding a bunch of buttons and sewing them onto his coat. The story about the illegal buttons reminded me of it. Our Flag Means Death, s1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prQDst-tAJ8 8/ Allison Fizzard, “Shoes, Boots, Leggings, and Cloaks: The Augustinian Canons and Dress in Later Medieval England” from the Journal of British Studies 46(2), 245–262. Jesse and I went to Rome once and played “identify the order” based on the vestments of various monks and nuns in the Vatican. [Still 100% possible!–Jesse] 9/ No shade to community theater; I know ya’ll work hard. [The real backbone of the theatrical community!–Jesse] 10/ Buttons for ornamentation: you can actually get suit coats with ornamental buttons on the cuffs. It makes me feel happier to know this has a medieval origin, because it does feel like a cheaper choice by the manufacturer. [It was the cheaper choice in the Middle Ages too, but it was meant to look fancy!–Jesse] 11/ As mentioned in the last episode, Em did a reading and a panel about historical accuracy in fantasy writing about the middle ages; they’re on youtube: Reading: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDSlNulRx6s Panel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcjyH749eH8

Synopsis Just in time for Paris Fashion Week, join Em and Jesse for an exciting discussion of sumptuary laws and the medieval origins of prohibitions against wearing white, as well as a few digressions about John Waters films and Blackadder. Notes 0/ Rainbow Space Magic Con: https://www.rainbowspacemagic.org/ 1/ Serial Mom: (warning for violence) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnGHB-kI2ZM 2/ If you’re interested in the history of weddings, I suggest Carol Wallace’s All Dressed in White: The Irresistible Rise of the American Wedding, Penguin Books, 2004. 3/ Margery Kemp: see episodes 6, 7, 8, 9, 36, and 49. Jeez, it’s like we never STOP talking about her. We should call this the Margery Kemp Power Hour. 4/ Mary C. Erler, “Margery Kempe’s White Clothes.” Medium Aevum 62 (March 1993): 78-83. Jesse Njus, “Margery Kemp and the Spectatorship of Medieval Drama,” Fifteenth Century Studies 38 (2013): 123–51. 5/ “Tide Pods: the universal currency” is a random thing my husband said in his sleep one time that will now forever live in my head. And, hopefully, yours. 6/ We talked about the plague in EPISODE TWO. Go check it out. 7/ To clarify, England was England in 1363—but it wasn’t the UK. Scotland didn’t join until later (after 1603 when James I took the throne, and then formally with the Act of Union in 1707). 8/ The rolls of Parliament: https://www.british-history.ac.uk (Unfortunately, I think library access is needed to log on–check your local library’s access!) Edward III: October 1363: https://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/parliament-rolls-medieval/october-1363 Edward IV: April 1463: https://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/parliament-rolls-medieval/april-1463 Side note, remember that at this point, the king had some soldiers, but if he was fighting a war he’d call upon his lords (the dukes and earls and such) to bring men to fight. Armies were kind of a distributed thing. So he needed the country to have money so the wealthy could bring soldiers to come fight. 9/ Henry IV took the throne in 1399 and his son became Henry V in 1413. I am suddenly understanding the jokes about Henry V not speaking French very well in the play of that title in a different, more political light. 10/ Blackadder: Here is the clip where they talk about the robe: https://twitter.com/pitchblacksteed/status/1294974184183996416?lang=en Here is another clip where the robe (and collars) are clearly visible: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD2iYSKHHzo 11/ In 1363, 100 GBP would be about 76,777.23 GBP in 2023 dollars. Five hundred GBP is 383,886.16 GBP today. Straight inflation isn’t always a good way to track buying power, because the price of goods and services vary significantly over time (think about the price of college in the year 2000 vs the price of a pizza compared to the price of both now). But this calculation does give some sense of how much money 500 GBP a year was. In Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Darcy has 10,000 pounds a year—about 800,000 pounds today, give or take. No wonder Mrs. Bennett loses her mind when he proposes. Anyway, you can check out the calculator here: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator 12/ Marginalia of shoes: https://www.tumblr.com/cuties-in-codices/727178156069552128/shoes-in-ehrenspiegel-des-hauses-%C3%B6sterreich?source=share (this is actually from 1555, but you see what I mean) 13/ The plays are (surprisingly, maybe), Henry VI, parts 1 (http://shakespeare.mit.edu/1henryvi/index.html), 2 (http://shakespeare.mit.edu/2henryvi/index.html), and 3 (http://shakespeare.mit.edu/3henryvi/index.html). There’s also an Edward IV in two parts by a chap named Thomas Heywood (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_IV_(play)). [Edward IV also famously appears in Richard III.–JN] 14/ Ermine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoat Sable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sable 15/ Wives and children of nobility are generally addressed as “lady” and “lord,” depending on rank and whether or not the father has any subsidiary titles. So in a household of the Duke of Buckingham, who has a family surname of Castleman and no subsidiary titles, the duke himself will be formally addressed as “Your Grace” when he goes somewhere for tea, or announced at the ball as “His Grace the Duke of Buckingham.” His wife will be “Her Grace the Duchess of Buckingham” on invitations and “Your Grace” when she goes to tea. The son will be “The Lord Charlie Castleman” on invitations and “Lord Charlie” at tea parties, and the duke’s daughter will be “The Lady Ariella Castleman” when announced at the ball and “Lady Ariella” at tea. If she marries a commoner or someone beneath her in rank (the son of a baronet, earl, viscount, or baron), she may choose to retain the title Lady Ariella. Intere

Synopsis What got written illicitly on the walls back before 79 CE? It turns out a lot of stuff! Join Em and Jesse as they discuss the graffiti of Pompeii and also stuff Vikings wrote their names on. Em’s book: Amazon, all other sites. Notes Books! Ancient Graffiti in Context ed. Baird and Taylor: https://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Graffiti-Context-Routledge-Studies-ebook/dp/B004OBZWDG Medieval Graffiti: The Lost Voices of England’s Churches by Matthew Champion https://www.amazon.com/Medieval-Graffiti-Voices-Englands-Churches/dp/009196041X Graffiti in Antiquity by Peter Keegan https://www.amazon.com/Graffiti-Antiquity-Peter-Keegan-ebook/dp/B09M62F91Y SPQR by Mary Beard https://www.amazon.com/SPQR-History-Ancient-Mary-Beard/dp/1631492225 Pompeii by Mary Beard https://www.amazon.com/Pompeii-Life-Roman-Mary-Beard/dp/1846684714 NOTES 1/ Shout out to the Straat Museum in Amsterdam, which is an amazing Street Art Museum. https://straatmuseum.com/en Museum of the City of New York’s “City as Canvas” exhibit: https://www.mcny.org/cityascanvas 2/ The Outlaws: it’s super funny and on prime. Check it out. Some articles on Banksy’s getting painted over: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/nov/12/banksy-artwork-deliberately-destroyed-by-christopher-walken-in-bbc-comedy-show-finale Stephen Merchant explains the Banksy scene: https://www.tvinsider.com/1036548/the-outlaws-season-1-stephen-merchant-prime-video-banksy/ 3/ Artists’ warehouse story: The 21 graffiti artists from the 5Pointz building in Queens will receive $6.75 million in damages from developer G&M Realty for the 45 murals G&M destroyed in 2013. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/06/nyregion/graffiti-artists-5pointz.html 4/ French petroglyphs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascaux https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/france-chauvet-cave-makes-grand-debut-180954582/ 5/ Wall art/street art in Richmond, VA (known as RVA): Ghost signs: https://rvaghostsigns-blog.tumblr.com RVA Street Art Festival: https://www.rvastreetart.com/2022-festival RVA Mural Walks: https://wouldilietoyoumuralwalks.com Google “RVA Street art” for some more great examples! 6/ Beatles’ song: “If I Needed Someone” (lyric: “Carve your number on my wall/and maybe you will get a call from me…” 7/ Life of Brian: Romani ite domum. (Although the movie says the locative is correct, they actually use the accusative, which is, in fact, correct.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIAdHEwiAy8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_ite_domum 8/ My children also draw on walls. 9/ See above for Beard’s books. Pompeii graffiti: https://web.archive.org/web/20131001070703/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/10336768/What-can-we-learn-from-Roman-graffiti.html https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/reading-the-writing-on-pompeiis-walls-1969367/ Bawdy graffiti: https://kashgar.com.au/blogs/history/the-bawdy-graffiti-of-pompeii-and-herculaneu 10/ Fullers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulling 11/ Ostraca: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostracon (ostracon is singular; ostraca is plural) 12/ See above for Keegan’s book. 13/ Mills, Mary Beth. “Attack of the Widow Ghosts: Gender, Death, and Modernity in Northeast Thailand.” Bewitching Women, Pious Men: Gender and Body Politics in Southeast Asia. Aihwa Ong and Michael G. Peletz, eds. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995: 244-273. 14/ Episodes on obscenity: 65 and 66 15/ We talked about the innkeeper adulterating their beer in episode 8 (note 26) and episode 27. 16/ The Alexamenos Worships His God graffito: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexamenos_graffito 17/ If you are interested in medieval church graffiti, check out the Norfolk Medieval Graffiti Survey: http://www.medieval-graffiti.co.uk/ 18/ Hexafoil: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexafoil 19/ Orkney Islands article: http://www.orkneyjar.com/history/maeshowe/maeshrunes.htm 20/ Viking graffiti at the Hagia Sophia: https://en.natmus.dk/historical-knowledge/denmark/prehistoric-period-until-1050-ad/the-viking-age/expeditions-and-raids/viking-graffiti/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varangian_Guard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runic_inscriptions_in_Hagia_Sophia 21/ “Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.” It’s from Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.

Summary Let’s talk about psychedelics in ritual practice. From Hunter S. Thompson’s pilgrimage across the desert to the human sacrifices of the Incan empire in the sixteenth century to the use of opium during the late bronze age, people have been altering their mental states in religious contexts almost since the dawn of civilization. Join Em and Jesse in their second episode about drugs in honor of Em’s killer new novel, Dionysus in Wisconsin. Notes Get the novel! Dionysus in Wisconsin on Amazon, on Bookshop.org, and other sites. Or drop me an email at ehlupton(at)gmail(dot)com to get a signed copy ($15, including shipping, although that may be different if you are international, drop me a line and we’ll chat). 1/ From Chapter 1 of Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (originally published by Rolling Stone in 1971 and then as a book by Random House in 1972). Here’s the clip from the amazing 1998 film, directed by Terry Gilliam and starring Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro. https://youtu.be/c2dwG3Lr49M 2/ See these articles about 1600–800 BCE Menorca! National Geographic article “European ‘shamans’ took psychedelic drugs 3,000 years ago.” The study published in Scientific Reports “Direct evidence of the use of multiple drugs in Bronze Age Menorca (Western Mediterranean) from human hair analysis,” authored by E. Guerra-Doce, C. Rihuete-Herrada, R. Micó, R. Risch, V. Lull, H. M. Niemeyer 3/ O. Hai & I. B. Hakkenshit, “A Simple and Convenient Synthesis of Pseudoephedrine From N-Methylamphetamine.” Journal of Apocryphal Chemistry, Feb. 2012. DOI: 1F.1BC9/b00000F00A https://maggiemcneill.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/synthesizing-pseudoephedrine-from-meth.pdf 4/ National Geographic “Ancient hallucinogens found in 1,000-year-old shamanic pouch.” Melanie J. Miller, Juan Albarracin-Jordan, Christine Moore, and José M. Capriles “Chemical evidence for the use of multiple psychotropic plants in a 1,000-year-old ritual bundle from South America,” in PNAS 5/ Ayahuasca and coca evidence from two Inca children who were sacrificed. (Note that this isn’t the first time Em has seen this practice referenced, e.g., this Wikipedia article [tw child sacrifice].) Science News, “A special brew may have calmed Inca children headed for sacrifice.” 6/ “Antiquity of Coca-Leaf Chewing in the South Central Andes: A 3,000 Year Archaeological Record of Coca-Leaf Chewing from Northern Chile” in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, authored by Mario A. Rivera , Arthur C. Aufderheide , Larry W. Cartmell , Constantino M. Torres, Odin Langsjoen 7/ Paolo Nencini “Facts and Factoids in the Early History of the Opium Poppy,” in The Social History of Alcohol and Drugs 36.1 (Spring 2022) 8/ Poppies! Pretty flowers with poison! See Smithsonian Magazine “Archaeologists Discover Evidence of Earliest Known Opium Use.” See the actual study in Archaeometry “Opium trade and use during the Late Bronze Age: Organic residue analysis of ceramic vessels from the burials of Tel Yehud, Israel,” authored by Vanessa Linares, Eriola Jakoel, Ron Be’eri, Oded Lipschits, Ronny Neumann, Yuval Gadot. 9/ The Minoan goddess: pretty sure we’ve mentioned her before. Wikipedia page with pictures of the statue from Crete (in the Heraklion Archaeological Museum) and a drawing of the Mycenaean signet ring. Pictures below of the actual Mycenaean signet ring in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. (Pictures taken by Jesse.) 10/ Good pictures of poppy pods and the base ring juglet in this article “Traces of opiates found in ancient Cypriot vessel” (more in the study below). Picture of poppy pods from Wikipedia. “Detection of opium alkaloids in a Cypriot base-ring juglet” in Analyst (Issue 21, 2018) authored by Rachel K. Smith, Rebecca J. Stacey, Ed Bergström, and Jane Thomas-Oates. 11/ “I blame Nixon.” For the kids out there, Nixon started the war on drugs. 12/ Cannabis at Tel Arad: Smithsonian Magazine “Archaeologists Identify Traces of Burnt Cannabis in Ancient Jewish Shrine.” Science Advances “The origins of cannabis smoking: Chemical residue evidence from the first millennium BCE in the Pamirs.” Journal of Ethnopharmacology “Archaeobotanical evidence of the use of medicinal cannabis in a secular context unearthed from south China.” “Did ancient Mesopotamians get high? Near Eastern rituals may have included opium, cannabis” in Science. 13/ There are loads of books on the modern drug trade and porous borders, e.g. The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia by Al McCoy. 14/ “A rock with a tongue in it” = an oyster. 15/ See also the last scene of the film Saving Grace, which is tremendously funny but not on YouTube.

Synopsis In honor of the publication of Em’s debut novel, Dionysus in Wisconsin, Em and Jesse talk about Dionysus (the god), and then about drug use in ancient religious rituals. Notes 1/ Order book here (or from non-Amazon sites here). (Incredibly well reviewed! Buy one now!!) 2/ Sparagmos: your vocabulary term for the day, kids. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparagmos 3/ Dionysus’s origin story: in some versions, Hera goads Semele into asking to see Zeus au natural. [Hera is usually at fault, absolutely! But the extreme lack of support/belief from Semele’s family plays a part as well.–Jesse] 4/ The film is Inception. I watched the entire thing. Could not tell you what it was about. 5/ Eleusinian Mysteries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleusinian_Mysteries There’s a nice picture of the Ninnion Tablet on the Wikipedia page (the tablet is one of the few depictions we have of the Elusinian mysteries). 6/ Carl Ruck, “Entheogens in Ancient Times: Wine and the Rituals of Dionysus,” in Toxicology in Antiquity, 2nd edition, ed. Philip Wexler, (2019), 343–352. 7/ Michael Pollan, How to Change Your Mind 8/ Entheogens 9/ F. J. Carod-Artal, “Hallucinogenic Drugs in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican Cultures,” in Neurologia 30.1 (2015), 42–49. 10/ Balche: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balch%C3%A9 11/ “Many mushrooms cause hallucinations. Some only cause hallucinations once.” 12/ For the record, erowid.org (https://erowid.org/plants/mushrooms/mushrooms_basics.shtml) notes that there are numerous species of psilocybin mushrooms in three different genuses (psilocybe, panaeolus, and copelandia) that are psychoactive. Dose varies by whether the mushroom is dried or fresh and also based on species. Onset is generally 30–60 min after being taken but up to 2 hrs, and effects last 4–6 hrs with an additional period of 2–6 hrs during which “it is difficult to go to sleep and there is definitely a noticeable difference from everyday reality, but which is not strong enough to be considered tripping.” Jesse just returned from Amsterdam where there are Mushroom (psilocybin) stores. The staff are very careful to make sure that customers understand the process of taking psilocybin, and staff refuse to sell to any customers who won’t listen to the brief lecture (eat before partaking, don’t mix with anything else, be in a safe space, vitamin C will help slow/nullify effects). 13/ Fatur, Karsten. “‘Hexing herbs’ in ethnobotanical perspective: a historical review of the uses of anticholinergic solanaceae plants in Europe.” Economic Botany 74, 140–158 (2020). (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12231-020-09498-w) 14/ Franciscan Friar Bernardino de Sahagún (c.1499–1590) left us a number of descriptions of drug use and is quoted by Carod-Artal (see note 9 above). 15/ For the descriptions of Mayan drug enemas and statues, see Carod-Artal (note 9 above).

Synopsis Are butts the most medieval of body parts? From the Wild Man to Chaucer to good old Michelangelo, let’s pontificate about the posterior. Do you need more of a pitch than that? Notes 0/ Preorder Em’s book: a little obscene, only a few butts. 1/ Warning for…talking about butts, I guess. 2/ The Wild Man: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_man 3/ York Minster Cathedral: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/York_Minster The monkey burial: Window n25 (bottom of left window–the bier is covered in green cloth and there is a monkey who has grabbed hold and is hanging off of it). Here is a close up of the detail. The legend of the mocker(s) who attempt to stop the Virgin’s funeral procession was well known in medieval Europe, although the name Fergus seems to be specific to York. See the notes at the bottom of the linked page for the lost York Play. Here is a depiction in medieval art with a summary of the legend: https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/103RYV Here is the an article by Stephen J. Shoemaker ” ‘Let Us Go and Burn Her Body’: The Image of the Jews in the Early Dormition Traditions” in Church History 68.4 (Dec. 1999), 775–823. Shoemaker also wrote a book The Ancient Traditions of the Virgin Mary’s Dormition and Assumption 4/ Gargoyles and grotesques: Michael Camille Image on the Edge: The Margins of Medieval Art. 5/ Michael Camille “Dr Witkowski’s Anus: French Doctors, German Homosexuals and the Obscene in Medieval Church Art,” in Medieval Obscenities (ed Nicola F. McDonald), 17–38. (We discuss a number of images from this essay, including 2.2.) 6/ Borges Cathedral: http://en.posztukiwania.pl/2017/09/26/details-from-behind/ 7/ Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Supper_(Leonardo) Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel pettiness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNeHaAmjkIQ 8/ Barbara Newman quote: “[F]or us, the secular is the normative, unmarked default category, while the sacred is the marked, asymmetrical Other. In the Middle Ages it was the reverse” (viii). Barbara Newman, Medieval Crossover: Reading the Secular against the Sacred (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2013). 9/ Marginalia butt faces (just as examples!) 10/ Episode 23, note 9 11/ Henry Medwall, c.1461–1501? A play: Fulgens and Lucrece B: “Nay, we shall nede no horse ne Mule/ but let us just [joust] at fart pryke in cule”(p. 328, lns. 1164–65). (Presumably they are trussed up around poles and brooms that serve as the spear.) I’ve cited page and line from Medieval Drama: An Anthology edited by Greg Walker. Peter Meredith, ” ‘Fart Pryke in Cule’ and Cock-Fighting” Middle English Theater, vol. 6 (1984), 30–39. 12/ Dante, canto 21 (line 139) Butt trumpet illustrations 13/ Roman de la Rose (Wikipedia) See our previous episode, note 11, for more on female illuminator Jeanne de Montbaston who illuminated a manuscript of the Roman de la Rose (and for links to examples of her “obscene” work on this manuscript, BNF25526). Alastair Minnis “From Coilles to Bel Chose: Discourses of Obscenity in Jean de Meun and Chaucer,” Medieval Obscenities (ed. Nicola F. McDonald), 156–178. 14/ The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale 15/ Miller’s Prologue and Tale

Summary A long time ago, people were pure at heart. Of course, sex happened occasionally, but no one took off their clothes for it–that would be gauche. Then James Joyce wrote a book called Ulysses and things started to go downhill. In 1933, a judge named John M. Woolsey ruled in a case called United States v. One Book Called Ulysses that Ulysses was not obscene, and since then we have lost all moral compass. Right? Well, not exactly. Join Em and Jesse as they journey through the mystifying world of book bannings, what constitutes art and obscenity, and finally come to focus on such ridiculous Medieval things as phallus trees and vulva pilgrimage badges. Notes 0/ Dionysus in Wisconsin Amazon link! And Goodreads link! This is the song I’m playing in the background–“St. Peter’s Bones,” by Girlyman. 1/ Yeah, we record in advance. Quite a bit in advance. Also, there were more book bannings (and more public) in 2022. Anyway they have been terrible AND they made John Green sad. So you know it’s bad. 2/ Ted Cruz limericks here (link to HuffPo)–or Google Ted Cruz Nantucket limericks and see what comes up 3/ “It was all very odd.” The motto of 2021. 4/ Kurt Vonnegut letter: (link to an essay about the letter) 5/ PEN America’s site that collects lists of banned books, including ALA’s lists of banned books: link here Ok so. As I recall, the ALA (and other professional bodies) doesn’t really endorse the idea of segregating books by age. But also, if you are saying to yourself, well, bookstores and such are more progressive, let me tell you about the erotica dungeon on Amazon. Basically, people who wrote erotic novels find their books don’t come up in search results, not ranked on Amazon, etc., making it hard to get noticed. They could very easily do that with any genre they want. And authors would have no say in the matter. The books may be available, but if you can’t get a copy… 6/ This Film Is Not Yet Rated (2006). It’s definitely streaming somewhere–check it out! 7/ Jesse is of course referring to Thud!, by Sir Terry Pratchett, in which two characters, who are investigating a theft from an art museum, have the following conversation: “Tawnee says what she does is Art, Sarge. And she wears more clothes than a lot of the women on the walls around here, so why be sniffy about it?” “Yeah, but…” Fred Colon hesitated here. He knew in his heart that spinning upside down around a pole wearing a costume you could floss with definitely was not Art, and being painted lying on a bed wearing nothing but a smile and a small bunch of grapes was good solid Art, but putting your finger on why this was the case was a bit tricky. “No urns,” he said at last. “What urns?” said Nobby. “Nude women are only Art if there’s an urn in it,” said Fred Colon. This sounded a bit weak even to him, so he added: “Or a plinth. Both is best, o’course. It’s a secret sign, see, that they put in to say that it’s Art and okay to look at.” “What about a potted plant?” “That’s okay if it’s in an urn.” 8/ Billy Connolly on Graham Norton: https://youtu.be/iBefd6lT-aA Bonus discussion question: has widespread censorship of nudity and “trigger” words on social media made us a more prudish society? 9/ The one non-NC-17 film I can name with male frontal nudity is Walk Hard. I don’t see a lot of films though. Also it is very incidental. 10/ Mikhail Baktine, Rabelais and his world. See also episode 44 notes 4 and 5 Pro tip: giving birth is absolutely terrifying, it’s true. (Both of my children were from my womb untimely ripped. It was strangely chill for all that.) 11/ Phallus tree: episode 12, note 28. See the image here on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phallus_tree Massa Marittima (Check under “Main Sights”) Marginalia: Bibliotek National, BNF25526, folio 160 recto and folio 106 verso. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b6000369q/f325.item https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b6000369q/f218.item# Jeanne de Montbaston et son mari, Richard. She continued to work after he died. See some of her work here: https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/person/105F5P 12/ The episode on illumination: Episode 32, especially note 10 13/ Badges (just Google “obscene medieval pilgrim badges” and look at the images!): Pilgrims Phalloi Woman riding phallus Phallus caught by lion Phalloi on ship Vulvas on palanquin Vulvas going hunting Vulvas as pilgrim Vulva and phallus are pilgrims Sheila na gig Link to Kiki’s sheila na gigs: https://www.instagram.com/p/ChFph7LKPTq/?hl=en 14/ Medieval Obscenities, ed. by Nicola McDonald Georgia Rhodes, “Decoding the Sheela-Na-Gig,” Feminist Formations, vol. 22, no. 2 (summer 2010), 167–194. 15/ Quick mentions at the end of: Eve Ensler’s Vagin

1/ EB White was a rather nice, shy guy who wrote for the New Yorker and hid from his admirers. TH White was a weirdo who lived on the edge of the woods in the UK. EB White is the White of Strunk & White. https://xkcd.com/923/ 2/ it would be more accurate to say Em “hangs around” the book space. There’s no working going on. But this is true: 50% of all books sold are romance novels (to the tune of $1.44 billion per year). The other 50% are all the other genres. Think about that. 3/ Ramon of Llull (c.1232–c. 1315) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramon_Llull The Book of the Order of Chivalry, a new translation by Noel Fallows https://boydellandbrewer.com/9781843838494/the-book-of-the-order-of-chivalry/ 4/ For the Green Knight, see episode 60. 5/ Tristan und Isolde. We will have an upcoming episode on Wagner (and Tolkien), too! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tristan_and_Iseult 6/ “This is the medieval version of trying to go viral on TikTok.” I think we can stop there. That’s either the best or worst thing I’ll ever say. 7/ For more on the Bayeux Tapestry, see episode 54 note 15, episode 58 note 5, and episode 62 note 15. The Bayeux Tapestry links: https://www.bayeuxmuseum.com/en/the-bayeux-tapestry/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayeux_Tapestry Chivalry by Maurice Keen https://www.amazon.com/Chivalry-Maurice-Keen/dp/B002L4N66S 8/ Council of Clermont, called by Pope Innocent II in 1130 (not to be confused with the more famous Council of Clermont called by Urban II in 1095 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Clermont) Pope John XXII lifted the ban in 1316. 9/ For more on sins and the Inferno, see episode 8. 10/ Sir John Hawkwood (c.1323–1394) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hawkwood To clarify, Florence actually created a fresco of the monument they wanted to build him but…couldn’t afford, I guess? An image of the fresco is on his Wikipedia page. 11/ Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale: https://chaucer.fas.harvard.edu/pages/knights-tale-0 Chaucer’s Miller’s Tale (adult rated!): https://chaucer.fas.harvard.edu/pages/millers-prologue-and-tale 12/ I can’t believe I have to do this, but just in case we have a bunch of Gen Alpha listeners (who permitted this?), here’s the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade clip: https://youtu.be/A0TalLrtZ24 13/ The Lady of Shalott (1832, by Tennyson): the most boring poem for your forensics poetry competition. Suck on it, pre-Raphaelities. Sorry Jesse, I’ll take that out. [Lolz!–JN] Poem link: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45359/the-lady-of-shalott-1832 14/ Elaine (of Astolat, aka the Lady of Shalott): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaine_of_Astolat Not the same Elaine (of Corbenic) who is the mother of Galahad by Lancelot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaine_of_Corbenic I combined them in the episode!! 15/ Once and Future: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_%26_Future 16/ For more on Gawain and the Green Knight and Morgan le Fay, see (recent) episode 60.

Summary Early on, a friend of the podcast asked if we were going to cover chivalry. Because really, when you think of the Middle Ages, this is it, right? Knights in very shiny armor on beautiful horses charging into battle, swords drawn! Knights getting scarves from their ladies! Knights holding vigils and praying in front of the holy grail. Today, three years later, Em and Jesse are finally going to get down to brass tacks on the topic. Who wrote the book on chivalry and what did it say? Did people ever really behave like this, or was it an unreachable ideal? And, of course, Chaucer forever. Join us, won’t you? Notes 1/ Colin Firth rescuing a woman from a nondescript office job…Bridget Jones?? [Lol!] 2/ Snow White and the Huntsman (2012) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_White_and_the_Huntsman 3/ England Before 1066: see episodes 53, 54, and 56. 4/ Maurice Keen Chivalry Richard Kaeuper Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe 5/ Crusades: We haven’t really covered these yet! We should do that. But we discuss the infamous Albigensian Crusade in Episode 48 (see note 27). 6/ Macbeth “unseam’d him from the nave to the chops, / And fix’d his head upon our battlements” (I.ii.22–23) Henry V The opening of IV.vii discusses the slaughter of the boys watching the supplies. 7/ John Hawkwood (1323–1394) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hawkwood Terry Jones, Chaucer’s Knight. 8/ Andrzej Tadeusz Bonaventura Bciuszko. Sorry. https://www.nps.gov/thko/learn/historyculture/kosciuszkobio.htm 9/ Baron von Steuben (1730–1794) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Wilhelm_von_Steuben 10/ Known to every Illinois schoolchild, Kasimir Pulaski (1745–1779). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_Pulaski 11/ Hundred Years War (1337–1453) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Years%27_War Battle of Crecy (1346) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Crécy Battle of Agincourt (1415) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Agincourt 12/ Sir Geoffrey Luttrell being helped by his wife and daughter-in-law (image from the Luttrell Psalter, mid-14th-century British Library MS Additional 42130 folio 202v) 13/ Chrétien de Troyes (flourished 1160–1191) Perceval 14/ Against the King’s Peace: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_(law) 15/ The Three Estates (those who pray [clergy], those who work [peasants], those who fight [knights/nobility]) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estates_of_the_realm 16/ Étienne de Fougères (d. 1178) writes a Livre des Manières about knights and chivalry. French wikipedia site: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Étienne_de_Fougères 17/ Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_of_Clairvaux 18/ Ordene de chevalerie anonymous Old French poem c1220. The poem is about Prince Hugh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_II_of_Saint-Omer 19/ Saladin (1137–1193) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saladin 20/ Quote from the Ordene de chevalerie is from Keen’s Chivalry p. 7 21/ Please instead insert King Charles into this joke. 22/ Carpet considerations.

Summary The other day, I asked a friend, “Hey, what do normal people put on their walls?” The answer…is tapestries. Cold, stony castle? Tapestries. Small, plain cathedral? Tapestries. A house of some sort? Probably also tapestries. In this episode, Em and Dr. Jesse talk over how tapestries are made, famous tapestries from around the world, and the use of color in Medieval society. Join us! Notes 1/ For more on textiles, see episode 33 (on women artisans) and episode 54 note 15 (on the Bayeux Tapestry). 2/ Rather than getting caught up on horizontal vs vertical terminology, just keep in mind that the warp is what goes on the loom and the weft is the part you weave with. 3/ Tang Dynasty (618–907CE) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_dynasty Zhu Kerou (fl.12th century). See her famous “Butterfly and Camellia” silk tapestry here: https://thenewhistoria.org/schema/zhu-kerou/ 4/ Uyghurs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghurs 5/ The medieval Andes! Huari tapestry images from a museum exhibition. Huari / Wari: fl. 500/600–1000 CE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wari_culture 6/ Greek painting of sculptures is called polychromy. https://youtu.be/86PD8o6xe_4 The MET in NYC has recently decided to get on board with this and now has an exhibit about polychromy (which they’re touting like it’s a new discovery ). 7/ Check out the Bayeux Tapestry close up! https://www.bayeuxmuseum.com/en/the-bayeux-tapestry/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayeux_Tapestry 8/ The Barnes Museum in Philadelphia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnes_Foundation (discusses the legal challenges and controversy of the museum’s move) 9/ The Lady and the Unicorn tapestries at the Musée de Cluny (see episode 29, note 24 and episode 30, note 21). 10/ The hunting of the unicorn tapestries at The Cloisters in NYC. 11/ Raphael (1483–1520): not just a ninja turtle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphael 12/ Pieter van Aelst (c.1495–c.1560). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieter_van_Aelst_III 13/ Mathilda episodes: episode 58 (Long Live the Queen) 14/ Episodes on England before 1066: episodes 53 (England Before the Norman Invasion) and 54 (More England, More Normans). 15/ The Bayeux Tapestry links: https://www.bayeuxmuseum.com/en/the-bayeux-tapestry/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayeux_Tapestry 16/ Beowulf episode here: episode 56 17/ Em’s newsletter.

Summary It’s wintertime in the Northern hemisphere! Snow is, of course, eternal, but did you ever wonder how far back the tradition of making snowpeople goes? Jesse did. Join us as we trace the history of snowpeople in Europe/the UK as far back as we can. Notes 1/ Marginal illustration in a Book of Hours from c1380 (Ms KA36, fol. 78 verso, Brussels) now in the Koninklijke Bibliotheek Actual picture: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Koninklijke_Bibliotheek_Book_of_Hours_snowman_illustration.jpg 2/ For more on the Judenhut or Judenhutte see episode 45, note 10, episode 10, notes 31 and 39; episode 25, note 14; and episode 41, note 7. Also see Sara Lipton, Dark Mirror: The Medieval Origins of Anti-Jewish Iconography, Metropolitan, 2014. Link. 3/ Mary Dillwyn is incredibly important to early photography. Here is her awesome c1853 snowman photo. Also here (museum collection). 4/ Tournai 1422–23 snow figures! See the articles in note 5 for more. 5/ Arras 1434–35: the Danse Macabre Snowmen See Sophie Oosterwijk‘s ‘The snows of yesteryear’: the medieval Danse Macabre snowmen of Arras (Atrecht) (First published in French as ‘Les bonhommes de neige d’Arras (Atrecht)’, Bulletin de liaison de l’association Danses macabres d’Europe, 46 (2013), 4–6, 2013.) 6/ The Miracle of 1511! Wikipedia article here. Atlas Obscura article here. See Herman Pleij, “Urban Elites in Search of a Culture: The Brussels Snow Festival of 1511” in Vol. 21, No. 3, New Historicisms, New Histories, and Others (Spring, 1990), pp. 629–647. 7/ Brussels poet Jan Smeken wrote a ballad about the snowmen. See the articles in note 6 for more! 8/ Fun fact: one time I (Em) walked through the red light district in Brussels with my mother. 9/ Manneken Pis. A very famous statue! Jeanneke Pis. A less famous statue. 10/ “Mais où sont les neiges d’antan?” is from “Ballade des dames du temps jadis” by François Villon (c.1431–after 1463) “Ou sont les Neigedens d’antan?” is also a joke from <i>Catch-22</i>, which has a character named “Snowden.” 11/ Switzerland’s exploding snowman

Synopsis Once upon a time there was a guy named Gawain, and someone made a movie about him! And he got to be played by Dev Patel, which is pretty great when you get down to it. And then we covered it! In which Em reveals that she watches way too much historical costuming YouTube, Jesse gives a coherent literary critique, and then we talk about cinematography and death. Oh, there’s a bunch about the actual Arthurian legends, too. And if you listen to the end, you can hear a short clip of Em singing. (Is that an inducement? Hmm.) Notes 1/ To be fair, a lot of the podcasts I’ve listened to are about horror movies, so I’m never going to actually watch them. Shout out to Random Number Generator Horror Podcast Number 9. 2/ The Green Knight a 2021 film written (adapted?) and directed by David Lowery based on the late-14th-century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight The film stars Dev Patel, Alicia Vikander, Joel Edgerton, Sean Harris, and more. It was released theatrically by A24. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Green_Knight_(film) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9243804/ 3/ Geoffrey of Monmouth (flourishes in the first half of the 12th century) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_of_Monmouth A Companion to Geoffrey of Monmouth edited by Joshua Byron Smith and Georgia Henley https://brill.com/display/title/39588 (Published by Brill, so get it via ILL from your local library.) 4/ Prophecies of Merlin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prophetiae_Merlini 5/ The “later work” Em mentions is the Prose Merlin. The Middle English Prose Merlin was written in the mid-15th-century, just before Malory wrote his super famous version, making the Prose Merlin the earliest (extant) prose Arthur story. It’s largely based on French sources, including the Old French Vulgate Cycle (which is written in prose) and Robert de Boron’s Old French poem Merlin (of which only fragments remain). https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/conlee-prose-merlin-introduction Robert de Boron flourished in the large-12th century and early 13th century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_de_Boron https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlin_(Robert_de_Boron_poem) The Old French prose source is from the early 13th century and is known as the Vulgate Cycle (or the “The Pseudo-Map Cycle” and the “Lancelot-Grail Cycle”). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancelot-Grail 6/ The Lady of the Lake is a fascinating character. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_of_the_Lake 7/ Marie de France (flourished 1160 to 1215). See episode 19 note 13 and episode 29 note 26. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_de_France 8/ Chrétien de Troyes (flourished second half of 12th century) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrétien_de_Troyes 9/ Thomas Malory (c1400–c1470) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Malory Le Morte d’Arthur https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Morte_d%27Arthur was completed c1470 and **published** by William Caxton in 1485! Caxton’s published version was the earliest extant version of Malory’s work until 1934, when a manuscript was discovered at Winchester College. That manuscript is now in the British Library and is the earliest (and only) manuscript of Malory’s work. It’s known as BL Add MS 59678 or the WInchester Manuscript. https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/thomas-malorys-le-morte-darthur 10/ It sounds like we’re making this stuff about Cotton up, but it is true. We also talked about Cotton in episode 39 note 8 and episode 56 note 2. Here is more info on the Cotton collection: https://www.bl.uk/collection-guides/cotton-manuscripts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_library 11/ Gawain characters: This got confusing! Jesse talks about Morgause (Queen of Orkney), and then switches to Morgan (and then back to Morgause). Basically, both women have always been ambiguous, but Morgause is maybe seen worse in the modern era than she was in the Middle Ages! * Morgan le Fay: sister of Morgause and others https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgan_le_Fay * Gawain: our hero(?) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gawain * Mordred: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordred * Morgause: Queen of Orkney (wife of King Lot), mother of Gawain and Mordred https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgause Here’s the poem in translation! https://d.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/text/weston-sir-gawain-and-the-green-knight Here’s the original: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Gawain?rgn=main;view=fulltext (divided into Passus I, II, III, IV) 12/ Christian virtues: prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance (the cardinal virtues), and faith, hope, and charity (theological virtues). 13/ In retrospect, I think some of these characters have names in the credits, although not mostly mentioned in the movie. 14/ St. Winifred 7th century Welsh martyr. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Winifred 15/ Em’s newsletter can be found by clicking here. The song in the background is George Harrison’s “The Devil and

Synopsis Famous eels: 1/ “Those are the shrieking eels. You don’t believe me? Just wait. They always grow louder when they’re about to feed on human flesh.” (Name that movie.) 2/ Mark Oliver Everett 3/ Medieval eel rents! The medieval church, famously, had a lot of restrictions on what people could eat and when—during Lent, on Fridays, and other fast days as well. Join Em and Jesse as they discuss some of the ways people got around these laws, including…eels! Medieval people LOVED eels. You could pay your rent in them. You could eat them. You could…well, that might be a list of all the things you could do with eels, but they were certainly beloved. So let’s talk about this little-known but apparently delicious delicacy. Notes 1/ For reference, the referenced 3-year-old is now 5. We are a little behind. 2/ https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/science/moray-eels-eat-land.html Side note: I don’t think anyone knows how eels have sex. 3/ https://www.facebook.com/sheddaquarium 4/ Moray eels: actually 200 species in 15 genera. The one I describe is the green eel, which grows up to 8.2 feet in length. 5/ Episodes that involve heretics: 8 (hell and damnation), 9 (heretics and saints), 48 (Meet the Cathars), 49 (Where’s Waldensians?). Arguably also 47 (Gnosticism). 6/ https://twitter.com/greenleejw He got written up in Time, too: https://time.com/5886487/eels-history-conservation/ Link to Eel Rent Website (with map): https://historiacartarum.org/eel-rents-project/english-eel-rents-10th-17th-centuries/ Map alone: https://cornell.carto.com/u/jwgreenlee/builder/31e4bb99-f02b-431a-a4e2-aa83a043e53a/embed 7/ The smell of dried squid, and—especially—the smell of nuoc mam being made are things I will never forget. To be fair, they weren’t selling squid by the stick—they just had them attached to sticks to bike them around. 8/ Henry I died of a surfeit of lampreys. I heard this on QI and therefore it is true, forever and ever amen. 9/ Surprise! Our episode on Mathildas came out two weeks ago—episode 58! And yet we apparently taped this two years ago. What planning! 10/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnacle_goose I guess it’s a thing. 11/ Eel ships 2019: https://www.hermitagemoorings.com/2020/02/20/eel-barge-korneliske-ykes-ii-visit-2019/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UV-_rLOvLI8 The only good reason to have water inside your ship: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvwTv1t_Mss 12/ “They are Brexiting right now.” Jesse, how many PMs have they been through since we recorded this? At least three, not including May. [And a head of lettuce! I think I said this when Boris Johnson was having so much trouble “finishing” Brexit.–JN] 13/ Here is the Surprised Eel Historian’s Twitter thread on the maps: https://twitter.com/greenleejw/status/1421144699897790471 The mapmakers: Pieter van den Keere (1571–c. 1646) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieter_van_den_Keere John Norden (c.1547–1625) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Norden Norden’s map of London (1593): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Norden#/media/File:London_-_John_Norden’s_map_of_1593.jpg The Visscher Panorama: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visscher_panorama created by Claes Visscher (1586–1652) c1600 and first published in 1618 in Amsterdam. Pieter van den Keere engraved John Norden’s map of London (1593). Visscher was Dutch, and it’s possible he never visited London. His map might be based on others, including Norden’s, since Norden’s engraver (van den Keere) was Visscher’s publisher’s brother-in-law. Repeat: Pieter van den Keere was Visscher’s publisher’s brother-in-law. Interestingly the publisher had been to London (it could potentially be his work?). The publisher is Jodocus Hondius (1563–1612). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jodocus_Hondius 14/ Turnips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=la-L4hFWVxU And yet more turnips (poor video quality, sorry): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD2iYSKHHzo

Summary A lot of stuff about Richards II and III for a podcast that’s supposed to be about queens. Also Mathildas, Boudica, and why Black Panther is more historically accurate than Wonder Woman. Notes 1/ Richard III’s body was eventually found under a car park. I swear we talked about this at some point. “Was ever woman in this humor woo’d?” Richard III, act I, scene 2 Okay, in reality my husband usually plays one of the murderers, but explaining the other characters is a lot of work so I changed the story. Don’t tell him, he doesn’t listen to the podcast so he’ll never know. 2/ Stichomythia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stichomythia 3/ Richard II has the speech that goes, No matter where; of comfort no man speak: Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs; Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth, Let’s choose executors and talk of wills: And yet not so, for what can we bequeath Save our deposed bodies to the ground? Our lands, our lives and all are Bolingbroke’s, And nothing can we call our own but death And that small model of the barren earth Which serves as paste and cover to our bones. For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground And tell sad stories of the death of kings… If you love language, go read it. [Love, love, love.–JN] 4/ We’ve talked about The King’s Horseman before… (See episode 20, note 9.) The Invention of Love by Tom Stoppard is about poet/classicist AE Housman and Latin translations. Super funny and brilliant, as one would expect from Stoppard. 5/ I think we quoted the Tony Kushner speech when we last discussed the Bayeux Tapestry. However I don’t know if that episode is live yet? These ones jumped the queue. (For more on the Bayeux Tapestry, see episode 54 note 15.) He says there’s a Prior Walter stitched into the Bayeux tapestry. ……………………………… The Bayeux tapestry. Embroidered by La Reine Mathilde. ……………………………… Mathilde stitched while William the Conqueror was off to war. She was capable of . . . more than loyalty. Devotion. She waited for him, she stitched for years. And if he had come back broken and defeated from war, she would have loved him even more. And if he had returned mutilated, ugly, full of infection and horror, she would still have loved him; fed by pity, by a sharing of pain, she would love him even more, and even more, and she would never, never have prayed to God, please let him die if he can’t return to me whole and healthy and able to live a normal life . . . If he had died, she would have buried her heart with him. –Louis in Angels in America Pt 1: Millennium Approaches Act 2, scene 3 6/ English rulers before William I: See episodes 53 (England Before the Norman Invasion) and 54 (More England, More Normans). 7/ Henry V has a lot of speeches about France. Example: Now are we well resolved; and, by God’s help, And yours, the noble sinews of our power, France being ours, we’ll bend it to our awe, Or break it all to pieces: or there we’ll sit, Ruling in large and ample empery O’er France and all her almost kingly dukedoms, Or lay these bones in an unworthy urn, Tombless, with no remembrance over them: Either our history shall with full mouth Speak freely of our acts, or else our grave, Like Turkish mute, shall have a tongueless mouth, Not worshipp’d with a waxen epitaph. 8/ Henry/Heinrich V, Holy Roman Emperor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_V,_Holy_Roman_Emperor Henry/Heinrich literally means “ruler of the house,” so there are a lot of kings with that name. There was also a Henry/Henri V of France, but he only ruled for about five days when he was ten, and then spent the rest of his life trying to get back on the throne. This was during that awkward period in France that lasted from about 1815 to 1870ish when there were a couple of revolutions, different constitutions, Napoleons on and off the throne, kings coming and going… 9/ All of this is very confusing, but Stephen’s wife Matilda was also a descendent of the house of Wessex, so even if his line had remained on the throne the English monarchy would still have been descendents of the house of Wessex. 10/ St Pancras Old Church https://stpancrasoldchurch.posp.co.uk/ Nowadays they call themselves Anglo–Catholic. The church building is one of the oldest in London (maybe in England?), and there are not entirely implausible claims that there was worship on the site going back to the 300s. The churchyard is also mentioned in Dickens (in The Tale of Two Cities) as a place to go body snatching (or “fishing”). More recently, in 1968, the Beatles were photographed there. The Hardy Tree: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hardy#/media/File:2780theHardyTreeOldStPancrasChurchyard.jpg 11/ Boudica / Boadicea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boudica 12/ Tacitus (c. 56–120CE) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus On Bou

Synopsis As a memorial to Elizabeth II, Em and Jesse discuss famous queens throughout history and mostly in the UK, including drag queens, the borough of Queens, Lady Jane Grey, Mary I, Elizabeth I, Mary II, Anne, Victoria, and Elizabeth II. Also Sophie of Hanover, Wills and Kate, Prince Harry and Meghan, and I think Charlie III a little bit. Annotations 1/ In retrospect, I don’t know why I referred to royal family-type queens as “regular queens.” There’s way more drag queens in the world. They’re the norm, royal family-type queens are the exception. Also just to be clear, I love drag but I hate false eyelashes. They look like you are wearing spiders on your face. I still cannot believe they are popular. Famous residents of Queens: Peter Parker. 2/ Safe to say that Jesse is bearish on the whole commonwealth thing. [Lol! But yes.–Jesse] 3/ Since you might have gathered we were a little baffled by the different types of Crown properties, here is an excellent video explaining the different categories. 4/ Barbados transitioned to a republic in November of 2021. [Yay!–Jesse] 5/ Elizabeth II with James Bond: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AS-dCdYZbo And a fairly adorable interview with Daniel Craig where he talks about meeting her and the corgis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGs9GlVZ-s4 [Jesse is definitely very bullish on Daniel Craig.] 6/ Actual speech of Elizabeth I: We have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety, to take heed how we commit our selves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; but I assure you I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear. I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good-will of my subjects; and therefore I am come amongst you, as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live and die amongst you all; to lay down for my God, and for my kingdom, and my people, my honour and my blood, even in the dust. I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm: to which rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field. I know already, for your forwardness you have deserved rewards and crowns; and We do assure you in the word of a prince, they shall be duly paid you. In the mean time, my lieutenant general shall be in my stead, than whom never prince commanded a more noble or worthy subject; not doubting but by your obedience to my general, by your concord in the camp, and your valour in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over those enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and of my people. See the original document here. [STANDING APPLAUSE FOR QE1!!!!] 7/ Boudicca (Boadicea) and Margaret will be in the next episode. 8/ If you’re curious about the entire post-1066 royal family, check out this video. (Although CGP Grey makes some assertions that Jesse refutes in this episode and the next.) 9/ About carrots. 10/ co-captains gif here. 11/ Anne had seventeen pregnancies and five live births; none of her children lived to adulthood. 12/ Sophie of Hanover was super cool. George II’s wife, Caroline of Ansbach, was also pretty neat. Also, if you want to break your brain a little, Queen Anne, Sophie of Hanover, and Louis XIV (the sun king) all died in 1714/1715. Holy cow, what regime change. 13/ I have mentioned the Baroque Cycle before. It’s worth reading if you have a spare year. Delightful epic. 14/ “Even the royal house of Hanover had the wheel, sir.” [Help! The movie, that is. Incredibly colonialist, but in other moments also weird and fun. –Jesse] [As a former Asian scholar I feel weirdly ashamed of this, but I have probably the entirety of it memorized. I definitely have Yellow Submarine memorized.] 15/ It was 1837. George III had nine sons and six daughters, of whom thirteen lived to adulthood. 16/ Movies about Queen Victoria’s beaux: Mrs. Brown, Victoria and Abdul (probably not a romantic relationship but eh, Dame Judy’s still got it). 17/ Will and Kate and the Bad Photo Op. Prince Harry as a Nazi. I’m not sure what is more offensive—the uniform, or the fact that someone decided to hold a colonials and natives party? Protests in Jamacia. 18/ The guy who fought at Waterloo was the Duke of Wellington. Also, I was wrong—it wasn’t the Duke of Wellington. It was John Churchill, first duke of Marlborough. The second duke of Marlborough was his daughter, Henrietta. This is interesting because it happened a FULL FREAKING CENTURY earlier than Wellington’s victory at Waterl

Synopsis Bro! You knew it was coming! Grab your replica Sutton Hoo helmet and get ready, it’s Beowulf o’clock. Annotations 1/ Spoiler alert: it wasn’t published as episode 50. [But that’s ok! –Jesse] 2/ We talked about Cotton in episode 39 note 8. Here is more info on the Cotton collection: https://www.bl.uk/collection-guides/cotton-manuscripts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_library 3/ Dream of the Rood: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_of_the_Rood https://oldenglishpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/dream-of-the-rood/ 4/ A fun comic about the Beowulf scribes! https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/scribe-a 5/ Blessed are the cheesemakers. 6/ Valhalla—a big shout out here to Thor Love and Thunder! 7/ The Wanderer: https://oldenglishpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/the-wanderer/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wanderer_(Old_English_poem) 8/ A bee-wolf is a bear! Here is some more info on Beowulf and the manuscript: https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/beowulf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowulf 9/ The Wife’s Lament: https://oldenglishpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/the-wifes-lament/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wife%27s_Lament 10/ The Seafarer: https://oldenglishpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/the-seafarer/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seafarer_(poem) 11/ Exeter Book: https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/exeter-book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exeter_Book 12/ Our preferred translation of Beowulf is by Maria Dahvana Headley https://www.amazon.com/Beowulf-Translation-Maria-Dahvana-Headley/dp/0374110034 13/ “Whale-road.” Okay, so in Old English they do these things called kennings, which I guess we would call metaphors? E.g. calling the ocean a “whale road.” I love them. Another good German compound is backpfeifengesicht (a face in need of punching). Jesse: If I may give another shout out to Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, they have some great dialogue that uses kennings and other fun Old Norse/Old Germanic linguistic ornaments. 14/ The impenetrable skin of Grendel’s mom is similar to the modern superhero She Hulk—shout out to Jennifer Walters (who is also an awesome lawyer–court is theoretically better than a blood feud)! 15: Exeter Riddles! https://oldenglishpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/exeter-book-riddles/ Solutions: https://oldenglishpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/exeter-book-riddles-solutions/ (Most of these are provisional solutions—the book doesn’t give solutions) About the riddles: https://www.bl.uk/medieval-literature/articles/the-exeter-book-riddles-in-context https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exeter_Book_Riddles 16/ I don’t remember where the assertion that there are over 600 translations of Beowulf came from. It seems true, though.–Em

Summary Summertime, and the living is Medieval. But really, what was summer like in the Middle Ages? We talk about the Medieval Climate Anomaly, the (not at all Medieval) Little Ice Age, the volcano on Santorini, Medieval vacation tendencies, the Tres Riches Heures of the Duc de Berry, and the Olympics. Also, Firesign Theatre references! Brief content warning: if you have really bad climate change anxiety, parts of this discussion might bother you. Annotations 1/ Person 1: We’re going to Greece! Person 2: And swim the English Channel? Person 1: No, to Ancient Greece, where burning Sappho loved and sang and stroked the wine-dark sea in the temple by the water wah dee doo dah. It’s from “The Further Adventures of Nick Danger,” which is an old Firesign theatre routine. Please listen to it so I won’t be the only one who has ever heard this. (Also, at least one comment under that video quotes this line, so maybe it’s very memorable?) 2/ The Medieval Climate Anomaly or the Medieval Warm Period. This was followed by the Little Ice Age we discuss: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age The year without a summer (1816): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer Santorini (Thera!): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santorini Jesse learned a lot about volcanoes this summer! The Pixar video is Lava. If you don’t have Disney+, you can still listen to the song (with stills from the video) here: https://youtu.be/uh4dTLJ9q9o 3/ Worst Year Ever: Radiolab nominated 536 CE. 4/ The Whakaari eruption was in 2019. I was close. 5/ I believe “the season” has shifted slightly since the Regency Era. It used to start in November and run approximately until June. Today, it starts in March and runs through to August. (I’m not totally sure on this—attempts to figure it out in order to nitpick a scene in a novel set in the Regency produced many contradictory answers—for example, new debutants were presented at court at a ball commemorating Queen Mary’s birthday, which was held in late April; this would be very late in the year if you were starting your season in November. Jesse: The modern season must be due to air conditioning (and—prior to 2020—the lack of plague)—people don’t have to go off to their country estates in the summer. 6/ This is the bit everyone has to memorize: Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote, The droghte of March hath perced to the roote, And bathed every veyne in swich licóur Of which vertú engendred is the flour; Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth Inspired hath in every holt and heeth The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne, And smale foweles maken melodye, That slepen al the nyght with open ye, So priketh hem Natúre in hir corages, Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages, And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes, To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes; And specially, from every shires ende Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende, The hooly blisful martir for to seke, That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke. If you haven’t already memorized it, get cracking. It’s time. April is the cruelest month. “If you need me, I’ll be at Señor Tadpole’s having a margarita made in my mouth.” Yes kids, it’s from Arrested Development. 7/ Never get involved in a land war in Asia! Said by many people, but most famously by Wallace Shawn in The Princess Bride: https://youtu.be/9mTlnrXFAXE 8/ Some hydrocarbons gel below 40 degrees F. But modern diesel engines have methods for starting in the cold. 9/ The Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry by the Limbourg Brothers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tr%C3%A8s_Riches_Heures_du_Duc_de_Berry (Check out and click on all the images in the gallery in the middle of the page.) A harrow! Check out the October illustration from the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry by the Limbourg Brothers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tr%C3%A8s_Riches_Heures_du_Duc_de_Berry#/media/File:Les_Tr%C3%A8s_Riches_Heures_du_duc_de_Berry_octobre.jpg 10/ Strigil: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strigil 11/ Trotula: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trotula Camphor has a lot of uses, including decongestant and topical analgesic. It’s also mildly toxic. The chemical used in sunscreen is a camphor derivative called enzacamene. It may have some endocrine-disrupting properties. 12/ Twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore. Oh man, Walt. Medieval swimming! August in the Très Riches Heures: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tr%C3%A8s_Riches_Heures_du_Duc_de_Berry#/media/File:Les_Tr%C3%A8s_Riches_Heures_du_duc_de_Berry_aout.jpg 13/ Hawks! On a plane: https://www.businessinsider.com/saudi-prince-80-hawks-on-plane-photo-2017-1?amp If you have HBO, check out Real Sports from April 2022: https://www.hbo.com/real-sports-with-bryant-gumbel/season-28/4-real-sports-with-bryant-gumbel-april-2022 14/ The fire in Wisconsin in 1871 that coincided with the great

Synopsis Part two of the run up to the arrival of Queen Matilda and that other guy…what was his name…William the Conqueror. Yeah. Him. Includes Danelaw, Danegeld, surprising connections to Hamlet, an explanation of whether Aethelred the Unready was really unready, and of course a discussion of Eric the Viking! Annotations 1/ We have obviously linked to this clip before, but whatever. It brings much joy: What have the Romans ever done for us? 2/ Graham Chapman is Arthur, King of the Britons! https://youtu.be/ITJFfUptaGo Also here (with the political discussion!): https://youtu.be/KN9c2TAWMlg 3/ Patrick Stewart as Claudius. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCrq7UhVUK0 (this is not the scene Em describes, but it’s good.) 4/ It was illegal to marry your brother’s widow in England until quite recently. This was ecclesiastical law, then codified in civil law when the British decided they needed a civil marriage system in 1835 (see the Marriage Act of 1835). It became legal in 1907 with the passage of the Marriage to a Deceased Wife’s Sister Bill, and in 1921 the Deceased Brother’s Widow’s Marriage Act. Notwithstanding, it happened. People either got married abroad or no one challenged the marriage (they were considered “voidable” rather than “void”). Among others, Jane Austen’s brother married his dead wife’s sister. THE MORE YOU KNOW. Hamlet: “He that hath killed my king and whored my mother,/Popped in between th’ election and my hopes” (V.ii). Interestingly, in I.ii, Claudius says that the nobles also agreed that he should marry his sister-in-law This is the part I quote: “Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen, Th’ imperial jointress to this warlike state, Have we (as ’twere with a defeated joy, With an auspicious and a dropping eye, With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage, In equal scale weighing delight and dole) Taken to wife. Nor have we herein barred Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone With this affair along. For all, our thanks.” 5/ The pope didn’t want to piss off Aragon: not the guy from Lord of the Rings. There was a country called Aragon. [Now it’s part of Spain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aragon ] 6/ Danelaw! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danelaw 7/ Battle of Edington (878 CE) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Edington Offa (king of Mercia, d.796 CE) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offa_of_Mercia Alfred the Great (starts as king of Wessex; c.848/849–899 CE) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_the_Great Alfred’s main kids are Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians (c. 870–918 CE) and Edward the Elder (c. 874–924 CE) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Æthelflæd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_the_Elder Eric the Viking (actually Eric Bloodaxe, died 954 CE) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Bloodaxe (There’s a line in Angels in America where the Rabbi reads a list of grandchildren of a Jewish woman who died: “…beloved grandmother of Max, Mark, Louis, Lisa, Maria…uh…Leslie, Angela, Doris, Luke and Eric. (Looks more closely at paper) Eric? This is a Jewish name? (Shrugs) Eric.” It’s page 16. Anyway.) Aethelred the Unready (c966–1016 CE) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Æthelred_the_Unready 8/ Battle of Maldon, 991 CE. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Maldon 9/ Danegeld https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danegeld 10/ Sweyn/Sven Forkbeard (963–1014 CE) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweyn_Forkbeard Son of HARALD BLUETOOTH (d. c. 985/86 CE). Who is THAT GUY. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harald_Bluetooth 11/ Cnut the Great!! (d. 1035) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cnut 12/ Edward the Confessor (c.1003–1066) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_the_Confessor Before you @ us about St Edmund being another king of England who was canonized–-St Edmund (d869 CE) was King of East Anglia, not England. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_the_Martyr Edward the Martyr might count (962–978 CE) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_the_Martyr 13/ Harold Godwinson (c.1022–1066 CE) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Godwinson William the Conqueror/Bastard (c.1028–1087 CE) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_the_Conqueror 14/ “Thou never shalt hear herald any more.” It’s from Henry V (IV.iii). 15/ Check out the Bayeux Tapestry close up! https://www.bayeuxmuseum.com/en/the-bayeux-tapestry/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayeux_Tapestry 16/ Beowulf! Trans. Maria Headley https://www.amazon.com/Beowulf-Translation-Maria-Dahvana-Headley/dp/0374110034 For a performance, check out Beowulf: The Epic in Performance–Benjamin Bagby, voice and medieval harp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WcIK_8f7oQ

Synopsis As good students of history, you already know that all-important date in British history: 1066, aka the Norman Invasion. But what happened in England before then? From the Romans through to Alfred the Great, join Em and Jesse as they talk about a whole bunch of kings, kingdoms, Vikings, and Monty Python. Annotations 1/ 1066 and All That: A Memorable History of England, Comprising All the Parts You Can Remember, Including 103 Good Things, 5 Bad Kings, and 2 Genuine Dates is indeed a real book. It was written by WC Sellar and RJ Yeatman, illustrated by John Reynolds, and first appeared in Punch magazine. As someone who has come across a lot of old Punch comics in my time doing research, I will say they’re a bit…conservative (or at least they were from 1841–at least 1900 or so). But the book is funny. 2/ Arthur, King of the Britons from Monty Python scene at 0:48 https://youtu.be/ITJFfUptaGo (also includes the coconuts and swallows!) 3/ Constantine (c272–22 May 337) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_the_Great 4/ Boudicca (Queen of the Iceni, led a revolt against the Romans in 60/61 CE) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boudica 5/ Romans leave early in the 400s CE and the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes arrive. 6/ The episode in which we discussed the Cornish World Play was…episode 1? 7/ The first Archbishop of Canterbury, Augustine, becomes Archbishop in 597 CE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustine_of_Canterbury 8/ The Venerable Bede (c.672/3–735) was mentioned in episode 4, note 20. “Venerable” is like an official title given to him by god, not just a description. Notice they didn’t decide to call him the Veritas Bede. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bede (Sorry, that was uncalled for.) 9/ Cuthbert (c.634–687) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuthbert 10/ The Lindisfarne Gospels! https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/lindisfarne-gospels View the actual scanned manuscript here. [Check it out!! The “carpet” pages are famously gorgeous!! The carpet pages are called carpet pages because of their resemblance to Eastern carpets (from the Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa and possibly textiles from even further east thanks to the Silk Road). –Jesse] 11/ Essex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essex Sussex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sussex Mercia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercia 12/ Offa (king 757–his death in 796CE) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offa_of_Mercia 13/ The Carolingians. Inventors of the script known as Carolingian Miniscule. (This may or may not be true.) [Well, the script was probably invented near Paris and perfected by Alcuin of York and widely used in the so-called Carolingian Renaissance in the 8th–9th centuries CE. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolingian_minuscule –Jesse] For more on the Carolingian Empire see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolingian_Empire 14/ Sutton Hoo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutton_Hoo buried in the 6th/7th centuries, discovered in 1938. 15/ Beowulf! 8th century, maybe later. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowulf This podcast endorses the Maria Headley translation. Go read it. For real. Go now. https://www.amazon.com/Beowulf-Translation-Maria-Dahvana-Headley/dp/0374110034 16/ Raedwald of East Anglia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A6dwald_of_East_Anglia East Anglia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Anglia 17/ The Sutton Hoo helmet is on the Stephen Mitchell translation, e.g. Here is the Sutton Hoo helmet info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutton_Hoo_helmet Original helmet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutton_Hoo_helmet#/media/File:Sutton_Hoo_helmet_2016.png Replica helmet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rædwald_of_East_Anglia#/media/File:Sutton_Hoo_helmet_(replica).jpg 18/ Netflix’s The Dig: https://www.netflix.com/title/81167887 Basil Brown did begin the dig for Edith Pretty, but they didn’t have some kind of romance as implied in the trailer. [Yeah, but Ralph Fiennes plays him in the film, so… –Jesse] 19/ The Danelaw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danelaw 20/ Wessex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wessex 21/ Alfred the Great (848/849–899) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_the_Great Jesse: Quite enjoyably, the video game Assassin’s Creed Valhalla [SPOILER SPOILER] centers on Norse Vikings who conquer portions of England. While the history most commonly taught in England (and the US/Canada/Australia/etc.) views the Vikings as interlopers and Alfred the Great as a hero who united England, in AC Valhalla Alfred is the main villain. Good times. 22/ The Glorious Revolution was when the British got sick of Charles II, chucked him out, and invited William and Mary of Orange to “invade,” whereupon they became William III and Mary II. Also this triggered a lot of political unrest in Scotland (see also Outlander and The Baroque Cycle for different takes on this). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glorious_Revolution 23/ Technically, because the British Empire still contains 14 overseas territo

Synopsis What do you get when you combine Monty Python, Mel Brooks, and the Passion of Christ? I don’t know, but it’s been going on for 390 years at this point. In this episode, Em and Jesse discuss what Jesse did on her summer vacation (or part of it): a trip to see the passion play in Oberammergau. With digressions on the 1972 Olympics, the film Munich, Nazis, and Bernd das Brot. The official website and some fun articles about the play: Oberammergau’s official history with the history of the play: https://www.passionsspiele-oberammergau.de/en/play/history At the bottom of this page, you can click through a lot of the tableaux (hover over the left or right side of the pictures): https://www.passionsspiele-oberammergau.de/en/play/play A good article about the play: https://religionnews.com/2022/05/09/oberammergau-passion-play-enters-a-new-era/ Notes 1/ The 1972 Olympics Munich, directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Tony Kushner. (trailer). You can see some of the stuff Jesse discusses—people watching the stuff on the TV. They also show them discussing the telephone bomb. Tony Kushner is a playwright most famous for Angels in America. 2/ For more on the PLAGUE, see ep. 2. For more on passion plays, see episode 1 (note 23), episode 25 (note 19), episode 17 (note 6). Probably a bunch of other episodes, too. For more on Passover and Easter, see episodes 3 and 4. 3/ Quick, somebody write a gothic novel where no one died at all since they made the vow, and now 400 years later they still have the same cast… 4/ Orlando Theme Park (deceased), the Holy Land Experience: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Land_Experience 5/ In one of the great moments of This American Life, Ira Glass took a U of Chicago Medievalist to Medieval Times (a restaurant—it’s in Schaumburg, not Rosemont, don’t @ me): https://www.thisamericanlife.org/38/simulated-worlds/act-three-7 6/ The story of Papa Hemingway liberating Shakespeare & Co. can be found in the book Shakespeare and Company, by Sylvia Beach. 7/ I can’t find the scene of Aziraphale and Crowley discussing the crucifixion on YouTube, but it’s the opening of episode 3. It’s still on Amazon. Do yourself a favor and check it out if you haven’t seen it. The full Douglas Adams quote, from the very beginning of So Long and Thanks for All the Fish: And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl sitting on her own in a small café in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything. David F*cking Bowie, guys. Did I say before that Barthes would have a lot to say about that haircut they’ve stuck on Mr. Bowie? Oh my god. That haircut. (Okay, we did this rant in episode 3, note 18.) 8/ Who betrayed the Franks? 9/ Menorah is a generic term for a candelabra that holds seven to nine candles. The menorah specifically for Hanukkah is a Hanukkiah. 10/ Okay, so the story of “Al Capone”: in about 2003, Jesse and Em went on a trip to Italy. Jesse speaks Italian, Em speaks…French. So as they took trains around the country, they’d meet people, and Em would listen to Jesse have conversations with them, but they’d try to speak in English once they realized Em couldn’t really participate. Which meant a lot of this: Italian couple: Where are you from? Jesse: Chicago. Italians: Oh.. Al Capone! Or occasionally, when Jesse mentioned she was born in Detroit: Italian couple: Oh! Eminem! I think the fact that they knew about Eminem is why I didn’t connect it to being specifically about Al being Italian-American until just now. 11/ Apologies to all German speakers for my pronunciation of your language. One version of the song. The accent here is very different from some of the other versions, which is interesting. Since the channel is “Naturpark Ammergauer Alpen,” I assume this is the accent of the region. Actual lyrics: Heut’ kommt der Hans zu mir, freut sich die Lies. Ob er aber über Oberammergau, oder aber über Unterammergau, oder aber überhaupt nicht kommt, das is net g’wiss. Here is an introduction to Bernd das Brot. Willkommen auf der KiKa Lounge. [Apparently he’s a loaf of pullman bread. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernd_das_Brot –Jesse]