Medieval Death Trip

Medieval Death Trip

Author: Medieval Death Trip Language: English Episodes: 100
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. 75: Concerning More Challenges to the Throne of Man [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 40:20
This episode we encounter another saintly curse, this time at the hands of St. Maughold, the patron saint of the Isle of Man, and on our way to that miracle story, we catch up on the trials and tribulations of the Manx d…
MDT Ep. 73: Concerning a Mouse and a Frog [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:02:48
This episode, we turn to another genre of wisdom literature: the fable. We look at four versions of the fable of the Mouse and the Frog from across one-and-a-half millennia, with quasi-classical versions from the Vita Ae…
MDT Ep. 72: An Icelandic Vision of the Afterlife [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 53:04
This episode we take a look at Sólarljóð, an Old Norse poem that mixes a Christian tour of heaven and hell with the stylings of eddic poetry. We also consider what it might have in common with one of the fugues of the Gr…
MDT Ep. 71: Concerning Stained Glass and Notre Dame [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:19
As the recovery process begins after the April 15th fire the consumed the roof of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, we reflect on the event, we learn how to make stained glass from a 12th-century artisan, and we hear about…
MDT Ep. 69: The Confession of St. Patrick (Part 2) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:42
We conclude St. Patrick's Confessio this episode, taking a look at Patrick's education and literary style, as well as the cultural context of missionary activity in the 5th century. We also are left wondering if that mon…
MDT Ep. 68: The Confession of St. Patrick (Part 1) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 45:08
This March, we're going back to one of the earliest surviving St. Patrick texts, his own autobiographical Confessio. This episode we'll hear the first half, which covers Patrick's abduction from the coast of 5th-century…
MDT Ep. 66: Concerning a Man Consumed by Mice and Other Plagues [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 40:07
We kick our 2019 with a return to narrative history, hearing about a terrible way to die and how not to profit off the deaths of others during a plague from William of Malmesbury's Gesta Regum Anglorum, and we also look…