MDT Ep. 32: Election Special 2016!

MDT Ep. 32: Election Special 2016!

Author: Medieval Death Trip November 8, 2016 Duration: 16:50
It's Election Day in the U.S.A., and here's a quick little tale of the election of an 11th-century bishop to take our minds off of the horrible, horrible anxiety of the day!

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.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Medieval Death Trip
Podcast Episodes
Feed Update Announcement [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:11
Listeners! This weekend (Feb. 9-10) I'll be updating many of the descriptions and tags on old episodes in our podcast RSS feed. There is a possibility that some podcast manager apps (especially iTunes) will interpret the…
MDT Ep. 65: Concerning Pawns and Politics [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 34:34
In this final episode in our holiday chess series, we finish off the last pages in William Caxton's The Game and Playe of the Chess, looking at the pawn and the importance of the common people to the realm, and we consid…
MDT Ep. 64: Concerning the Bishop, Knight, and Rook [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 32:06
This fourth installment of our holiday chess series finishes off the back rank of pieces: the bishop (or alphyn), the knight, and the rook. We also explore a long-standing Wikipedia beef over rook terminology, and recomm…
MDT Ep. 63: Concerning the Moves of the Chess King and Queen [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 39:07
In the third episode of our holiday series of excerpts from William Caxton's The Game and Playe of the Chesse, we learn about how the king and queen move, which was a bit different in the 15th century than it is today. W…
MDT Ep. 62: Concerning the Design of the Chessboard [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 39:27
In this second installment of our holiday series of excerpts from William Caxton's The Game and Playe of the Chesse, we hear about the layout of the chessboard and what it represents. We also look at some of the games th…
MDT Ep. 61: Concerning the Invention of Chess [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 43:44
We kick off a holiday miniseries of chess lore from William Caxton's The Game and the Playe of the Chesse with one version of how chess was invented. We then some historical corrections to this account and also hear one…