Medieval Death Trip

Medieval Death Trip

Author: Medieval Death Trip Language: English Episodes: 50
Step into the strange and vivid world of the Middle Ages with Medieval Death Trip. Each episode is built around a single primary source-a chronicle, a poem, a letter, or a legal record-that reveals something peculiar, grim, or wonderfully unexpected from the period. The chosen texts are the real draw, offering unmediated glimpses into a mindset that can feel both alien and strangely familiar. You’ll hear about bizarre miracles, brutal justice, mystical visions, and the quiet, odd details of daily life that history books often overlook. After presenting the document in full, the host provides context and personal reflections, piecing together what the story might tell us about the people who wrote it and the world they inhabited. This isn’t a dry academic lecture; it’s more like a guided tour through the archives, pointing out the bloodstains and the marginal doodles with equal fascination. The podcast lives in the intersection of several genres, pulling from history, literature, and cultural study to examine how medieval people made sense of their reality. Listening feels like uncovering a series of forgotten artifacts, each one a conversation starter about belief, violence, humor, and humanity. For anyone curious about history’s shadowy corners and the raw, unfiltered voices of the past, this series provides a consistently engaging and thought-provoking journey. The approach is both serious and accessible, treating these centuries-old accounts with respect while never shying away from their inherent strangeness. Tune in for a deep dive into the archives, one unsettling and fascinating story at a time.
Episodes
MDT Ep. 106: Concerning the Hard Work of a Housewife [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 42:49
For Mother's Day, we look at a 15th-century tale of a plowman who thinks that -- in terms of daily labor -- his wife has it too easy, and how he learns otherwise. Today's Text "Ballad of a Tyrannical Husband." Reliquiae…
MDT Ep. 105: Concerning the Voice of the Golem [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:47:59
We kick of 2024 with a look at humanity's attempts to recreate itself, first with a dip into the legends of the Golem of Prague, and then an extended discussion of the role of AI in the future of medieval studies and par…
MDT Ep. 104: Concerning the Abacus and Succubus of Gerbert d'Aurillac [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 58:37
We conclude our miniseries comparing the legends to the real life of Gerbert d'Aurillac: mathematician, pope, and alleged magician. Today's variant of the Dark Legend comes from Walter Map, and we follow that with a look…
MDT Ep. 103: "The Demon Pope" by Richard Garnett [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 34:53
We interrupt our regularly scheduled Gerbert d'Aurillac series with a special Halloween anniversary detour into a Victorian version of his Dark Legend: the 1888 short story, "The Demon Pope," by Richard Garnett. Today's…
MDT Ep. 102: Concerning the Occult Career of Pope Sylvester II [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:01:47
We pick up our unfinished thread from the Melrose Chronicle by exploring the "Dark Legend" of Gerbert d'Aurillac, who became Pope Sylvester II allegedly through the assistance of the devil. We'll hear one version of this…
MDT Ep. 100: Concerning the Litigious Origins of Printing [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:19:33
For our 100th episode, we look at one of the technologies that marks an endpoint for the middle ages, the printing press, and consider how Johann Gutenberg may be a prototype for today's paranoid tech tycoons and the law…
MDT Ep. 99: A Valentine's Battle for the Kingship of Man [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 43:19
On Valentine's Day 796 years ago, brother fought brother for the throne of the Isle of Man, as their fathers and uncles had done before them, another entry in the blood and betrayal-filled saga of the house of Crovan. To…
MDT Ep. 97: Concerning Three Witches [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:20:01
This time on Medieval Death Trip, we celebrate Black Friday weekend with some black magic in our belated Halloween anniversary episode. We look at a couple of quite different medieval witches, a Cornish wildwoman from th…