Send us a Text Message.In this episode I talk with the distinguished historian of the crusades Dr. Steven Tibble about the motivations of crusaders and of those Europeans who settled in the Crusader states of Outremer. Steve is the author of five books dealing with the crusades, the most recent of which is Crusader Criminals: The Knights Who Went Rogue in the Holy Land  (Yale University Press, 2024).  We examine the roles played by religious zeal, the promise of remission of sin, feudal obligation, the hope of material gain, and the benefit of temporal privileges in motivating those who took the cross. In considering the relationship between crusaders and settlers, Steve explains why the rulers and European residents of Outremer developed a culture of religious and ethnic toleration that surprised and appalled Crusaders just off the boat. And because I couldn't resist, I have Steve explain why the Crusader States became hotbeds of crime and violence. I hope you will join us.Audio clips in this episode:The movie trailer for the 1948 re-release of Cecil B. DeMille's 1935 epic, The Crusades.A snippet from "The Crusades" episode of the 1989 PBS series "Timeline."Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com Intro and exit music are by Alexander NakaradaIf you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com

Send us a Text Message.On 3-4 July 1187 the Sultan of Egypt and Syria Saladin enjoyed the greatest military victory of his career. The Battle of Hattin, a two-day battle fought along the road leading to the town of Tiberias and, on the following day, on the Horns of Hattin, an iron-age hillfort above that road, is one of the few decisive battles of the Middle Ages. (In this episode, Richard explains why there were so few battles.) The battle pitted a Muslim force of about 30,000, comprised largely of Turkish cavalry, against the largest military force ever raised by the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, an army of about 1,200 cavalry and 18,000 foot soldiers.  The outcome of the battle was the capture of King Guy and the virtual annihilation of the field army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.  In the months following the battle, Saladin systematically took all the major coastal cities of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, except for Tyre, and then turned inland to take Jerusalem. King Guy of Lusignan's ultimately disastrous decision to leave the safety of its camp at the springs of Sepphoris (Saffurya) and march 30 kilometers across waterless farmland in the July heat to relieve Saladin's siege of Tiberias remains controversial.  In this episode, Professor Nicholas Morton, author of Crusader States and Their Neighbours: A Military History, 1099-1187 and veteran of this podcast, explains Guy's military thinking by placing the Battle of Hattin in the larger context of warfare as practiced by the rulers of the Crusader States of the Middle East.  In doing so, Nick persuasively argues against a reigning academic and popular consensus that regards Guy's decision as defying military logic. (Sorry, no movie reviews in this episode--though the prelude to and aftermath of the Battle of Hattin is depicted in Ridley Scott's The Kingdom of Heaven, and the full battle is shown in Egyptian director Youssef Chahine's 1963 movie Saladin the Victorious.)Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com Intro and exit music are by Alexander NakaradaIf you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com

Send us a Text Message.Yes, Kristin Lavransdatter is the highest-grossing Norwegian film of all time. That isn't as impressive as it might sound, as the movie only brought in $3.7 million in box office receipts, but virtually all of that came from domestic sales. Pretty much unknown outside Scandinavia, the movie was a sensation when released in Norway in 1995.   An estimated two-thirds of the country's population have viewed it.   The movie is based on the first volume of Sigrid Undset's trilogy about the life of an ordinary woman in fourteenth century Norway, which won her the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1928.  Directed and written by the celebrated Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann, the film is a very faithful adaptation. The production strove for historical accuracy in costume and settings, and most of the dialogue is taken directly from the novel. (Sigrid Undset is credited as co-screenplay writer.)  The reason I decided to devote a short episode to this movie and to its source novel is they both are worthy attempts to examine an aspect of the Middle Ages virtually ignored in popular culture, the life of ordinary people.   Kristin Lavransdatter is the coming of age story of young woman from a prosperous family in rural fourteenth-century Norway who is seduced by and falls in love with a knight with a (justifiably) scandalous reputation. Whether Kristin's mentalité in the novel and film is really "medieval" is a matter of academic debate. But the care with which Undset in her novel and Ullmann in the film recreate the religious rituals, customs, and everyday life in early fourteenth-century Norway is impressive and worth a reading and a viewing.Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com Intro and exit music are by Alexander NakaradaIf you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com

Send us a Text Message.This is the final episode--sort of*--of a multi-part series about medieval adultery in literature, history, and popular culture. My co-host Professor Larissa 'Kat' Tracey and I review how adultery has been dealt with in movies about the Middle Ages. We begin with three Hollywood medieval epics, "The Kingdom of Heaven," "Braveheart," and "The Last Duel," and then turn to the focus of our previous episodes, movies about Lancelot and Guinevere and Tristan and Iseult.*I will be posting a short episode on the film adaptation of Sigrid Undset's Nobel Prize winning novel Kristin Lavransdatter. That really will be our last word on medieval adultery.This episode includes sound clips  from the following movies:"Kingdom of Heaven" (2006), dir. Ridley Scott: Baldwin IV offers Balian command of the armies of Jerusalem and marriage to his sister (unfortunately the recording is not the best quality)"The Last Duel" (2021), dir. Ridley Scott: musical score (comp: Harry Gregson Williams)"Knights of the Round Table" (1953), dir. Richard Thorpe: musical score (comp: Miklós Rózsa)"Excalibur" (1982), dir. John Boorman: musical score (Predlude to the Liebestod, from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde)"Lovespell (1981), dir. Tom Donovon: musical score (comp. Paddy Moloney)Works consulted:Susan Aronstein, Hollywood Knights: Arthurian Cinema and the Politics of Nostalgia . Palgrave, 2005.Virginia Blanton, Martha M. Johnson-Olin, and Charlene Miller Avrich, eds., Medieval Women in Film: An Annotated Handlist and Reference Guide. Medieval Feminist ForumSubsidia Series, 2014. Kevin J. Harty, ed., Cinema Arthuriana.  McFarland, 2002.Kevin J. Harty, ed., Medieval Women on Film. McFarland, 2020.Bert Olton, Arthurian Legends on Film and Television. McFarland, 2000.Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com Intro and exit music are by Alexander NakaradaIf you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com

Send us a Text Message.This is the third of a multi-episode series in which I chat with Dr. Larissa ‘Kat’ Tracey about literary representations of medieval adultery and its reality. In this episode Kat and I survey and discuss the major nineteenth- and twentieth-century literary treatments of medieval adultery, focusing on the stories of La(u)ncelot and Guinevere and of Tristan/Tristram and Isolde/Isolt/Iseult  The episode begins with an opera, Richard Wagner’s extremely influential retelling of the tale, Tristan und Isolde. Although composed between 1857 and 1859, the opera did not premiere until 1865, because it was deemed too expensive to stage and its complex, innovative music was thought to be unperformable. We consider how Wagner reconceived his medieval source, Gottfried of Strassburg's thirteenth-century romance, through the lens of Schopenhauer's life-denying philosophy, and how in its composition art imitated life, as Wagner engaged in what was the very least an emotional affair with his wealthy Swiss patron's wife.  Kat and I then discuss the very different treatments of these Arthurian stories about adultery by three leading Victorian poets and one early twentieth-century American: the poet Laureate Alfred Lord Tennyson, the decadent aesthete Algernon Swinburne, the Pre-Raphaelite artist and author William Morris, and the popular American poet Edwin Arlington Robinson, whose now all-but-forgotten best-selling poem Tristram won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928. We then turn to how twentieth-century novelists have handled the moral issues arising from medieval adultery in their renditions of the Arthurian legend. The episode concludes with an analysis of adultery in a non-Arthurian medieval novel, Sigrid Undset’s historical trilogy about fourteenth-century Norway, Kristin Lavransdatter (1920-1923), which earned the author the Noble Prize for Literature in 1928, the same year that Robinson’s very different Tristram won the Pulitzer. Kat and I began this episode with the intention of covering both modern literature and movies dealing with medieval adultery. But it became clear as we were recording that a single episode would be very long. So we decided to talk about medieval adultery on film in a final, fourth episode, which I will be releasing in about a week’s time. And that will be it for medieval adultery, although I plan to have Kat return in future to talk about a subject on which she has written extensively, torture and cruelty in medieval literature. As I have jokingly told her, she is my go to person for medieval perversities.  This episode contains two musical snippets:Wagner’s “Prelude to the Liebestod [Love Death]” from his opera Tristan und Isolde, conducted by Arturo Toscanini (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBFcDGTzgAI) “If Ever I Would Leave You” from the musical Camelot, lyrics and music by Lerner and Loewe and sung by Robert Goulet as Lancelot (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xL52hEArSfM) In my discussion of the literary texts, I drew upon the researches of several scholars, among them:John Deathridge, Wagner Beyond Good and Evil, University of California Press,  2008R.J.A. Kilbourn, “Redemption Revalued in Tristan und Isolde: Schopenhauer, Wagner, Nietzsche,” in University of Toronto Quarterly, Volume 67, Number 4, Fall 1998, pp. 781-788“Tristan und Isolde,” Wikipedia (yes, I do consult Wikipedia)“Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com Intro and exit music are by Alexander NakaradaIf you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com

Send us a Text Message.This is the second of a three part series with my very special co-host, Dr. Larissa 'Kat' Tracy, about adultery in the Middle Ages. In the previous episode, Kat and I talked about the Lancelot and Guinevere story. In this episode, we tackle the other great medieval tale of adulterous love, Tristan and Iseult. We begin, however, with a possible contemporary historical analogue, a scandal involving Countess Elizabeth of Vermandois, wife of Count Philip of Flanders, and a very unfortunate household knight.  If true, the adultery of the countess and the vengeance taken by her husband emphasizes the difference between literature and reality--but, the "if" is very much in question.  In the third and concluding episode, we will look at how the stories of Lancelot and Guinevere and Tristan and Iseult have been used in modern literature and movies.If you are enjoying this podcast, please share it with friends and family who might be interested in things medieval. And if you are listening on a platform that allows ratings and reviews, such as Apple podcasts, please take the time to rate and review it. I am told that is the best way of spreading the good news.This episode includes an orchestral snippet of Arturo Toscanini conducting the Liebestod  from Richard Wagner's opera "Tristan und Isolde" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBFcDGTzgAI)Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com Intro and exit music are by Alexander NakaradaIf you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com

Send us a Text Message.In this episode, my very special guest Dr. John Hosler draws upon the research he undertook for his book Jerusalem Falls: Seven Centuries of War and Peace (Yale University Press, 2022) to discuss what Jerusalem meant in the thought and imagination of Christians and Muslims in the twelfth century, and the role the city played in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. As John is a professor at the Army's Command and General Staff College, we also chat a bit about teaching military history to military officers. This episode contains a short sound bite from the movie "Kingdom of Heaven"Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com Intro and exit music are by Alexander NakaradaIf you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com

Send us a Text Message.In this episode my co-host Dr. Jennifer Paxton and I explain the principles and personal grievances that led to the martyrdom of St. Thomas Becket and the significance of that event for Church-State relations in medieval England. We also talk about T.S. Eliot’s and Jean Anouilh’s plays about Thomas’ martyrdom, and the movies based on those plays. This is the second of a two part series. If you haven’t already done so, you might want to listen to the first episode in which Jenny and I talk about Becket’s background, his career leading up to his election as archbishop of Canterbury, and his contribution to Henry II’s efforts to restore royal authority in England after a generation of civil war.This episodes contains audio clips from: "Becket" (released by Paramount, directed by Peter Glenville, starring Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole, and adapted by Edward Anhalt from a play by Jean Anouilh)The 12th century song lamenting the exile of Thomas Becket,  "In Rama sonat gemitus," performed by Lumina Vocal Ensemble  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c30K1rQsaiI)The Trim Jeans Theater's adaptation of T.S. Eliot's "Murder in the Cathedral" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYvz1-ThCHY)Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com Intro and exit music are by Alexander NakaradaIf you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com

Send us a Text Message.This is the first of a three part series about adultery in the Middle Ages.  My co-host for both is Dr. Larissa 'Kat' Tracy. Last month Kat and I talked about my favorite medieval romance, Chretien de Troyes' late twelfth-century French poem "Yvain: The Knight with the Lion."  Unlike the more famous medieval romances of Lancelot and Guinevere and Tristan and Isolde,  "Yvain" celebrated marital love. That led me to ask Kat about attitudes toward adultery in medieval literature. In this episode we focus on the evolution of the Lancelot and Guinevere story, and how it relates to societal and clerical attitudes toward adultery. The second part will be about Tristan and Isolde, and how medieval adultery has been dealt with in movies.Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com Intro and exit music are by Alexander NakaradaIf you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com

Send us a Text Message.This is the first of two episodes on the career, historical context, and "afterlife" of England's most famous--and controversial--saint and martyr, St. Thomas Becket. My co-host for both is a veteran of this podcast, Dr. Jennifer Paxton of the Catholic University of America. In this episode we set the historical scene for Becket's martyrdom. Among the topics that Jenny and I discuss are Becket's childhood and family, his service as a cleric in the household of Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury, and the legal and administrative reforms undertaken by Henry II to restore--and enhance--royal authority and social order after fifteen years of civil war in England. The last leads to a discussion of English "Common Law" and the rise of administrative kingship in England.  The episode also  deals with the rival claims of sovereignty over the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church by a rising papal monarchy that conceived of the Church as a supranational state and by kings, who, citing custom and tradition, viewed the bishops and clergy within their kingdoms as their 'men,' subject to their will. We touch on the central issue of the Becket Controversy: Becket's claim that clergy are subject only to canon law and exempt from punishment by the state, a topic will be explored in greater detail in the next episode. That episode will deal with Thomas Becket's martyrdom; his emergence as England's most famous martyr and his tomb as the destination for numerous pilgrimages, most famously that of Chaucer's pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales; and the continued fascination that his story holds for writers and movie makers. I hope that you will join us for both.This episode includes:Neville Coghill reading from the Prologue to Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales (which can be found online at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WN3JA1IfbVMShort audio clips from the 1964 movie "Becket," starring Richard Burton as Thomas Becket and Peter O'Toole as King Henry II(If you are enjoying this podcast, please let your friends know about it, and, if you have the time and inclination, rate it and review it wherever you get your podcasts. I'm told that is the best way to spread the good word.)Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com Intro and exit music are by Alexander NakaradaIf you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com

Send us a Text Message.In this episode Ellen and Richard talk about what a "crusade" was in the Middle Ages. Richard explains what modern historians mean by the term "crusade"--and why there is so little agreement. He also offers a response to a question posed by Nicholas Morton in the previous episode: How did the medieval Church reconcile its doctrine of love of enemy and its pacifistic underpinnings with papal sponsorship of crusades?Recommended reading:Western Historiography of the Crusades Riley-Smith, Jonathan. What Were the Crusades? 4th edition, Ignatius Press, 2009. When this was first published in 1977, it represented the first serious effort to explain what historians mean when they refer to crusades, and remains a key work. It is also short, 177 pages, and clearly written. As I took the title for this episode from this book, it is only fair that it is listed first. Riley-Smith's The Crusades: A History and the volume of essays he edited, The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades are good introductions to the subject.Constable, Giles. Crusaders and Crusading in the Twelfth Century. Routledge, 2020. Constable is responsible for the categorization of modern crusading historiography into four schools, Traditionalists, Pluralists, Generalists, and Popularists. He is also the scholar most responsible for recognizing the importance of charters as source material for crusading history. Giles, who passed away in 2021, was a welcoming and generous scholar who helped me appreciate the importance of culture in medieval warfare.Housley, Norman. Contesting the Crusades. Blackwell Publishing, 2006. A survey of the key historiographical debates over key crusading issues (defining the crusade, origins of the First Crusade, Intentions and Motivations, etc.).  Tyerman, Christopher. The Debate on the Crusades. Manchester University Press, 2011. From the blurb on the back cover: “This is the first book-length study of how succeeding generations from the First Crusade in 1099 to the present day have understood, refashioned, moulded and manipulated accounts of these medieval wars of religion to suit changing contemporary circumstances and interests.” It is a bit idiosyncratic—Tyerman has strong opinions about the work of fellow scholars--but the author clearly knows his stuff. Tyerman also has the distinction of being the author of one of the longest single volume histories of the Crusade (God’s War, Harvard U. Press, 2009) and one of the shortest (The Crusades: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford U. Press, 2006). Muslim views of the CrusadesHillenbrand, Carole, The Crusades: The Islamic Perspectives. Edinburgh University Press, 1999. This is a monumental (704 pages), groundbreaking study of how Muslims viewed the crusaders and the West in the era of the crusades, and later. Niall Christie, Muslims and Crusaders: Christianity’s Wars in the Middle East, 1095-1382, from the Islamic Sources. Routledge, 2014. This is a concise and well thought out survey of the crusades from the contemporary Muslim perspective, with a well-chosen selection of excerpts from medieval Arabic sources.Sivan , Emmanuel.  "The Crusaders described by modern Arab historiography". Asian and African Studies , 8 ( 1972 ): 104-49. One of the few studies of modern Arab historiography of the Crusades (written, interestingly, by an Israeli scholar).Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com Intro and exit music are by Alexander NakaradaIf you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com

Send us a Text Message.My guest for this episode is Dr. Nicholas Morton, whom you may remember from our first episode about the Mongols. Today Nick and I will be talking about crusading warfare, in particular, about the military activities and challenges faced by the Crusader States established in the Levant by the First Crusade.  Among the topics we will discussing are the different approaches to warfare practiced by the European Crusaders and their Turkish and Fatimid adversaries; how the crusaders and the leaders of the Latin Crusader states adjusted--or failed to adjust--to the novel challenges presented by warfare in the Middle East; why the First Crusade succeeded while the others failed; and whether, militarily, the Crusader states were doomed from the start.Recommended reading:Nicholas Morton. The Crusader States & Their Neighbours: A Military History, 1099-1187. Oxford University Press, 2020.R.C. Smail. Crusading Warfare, 1097-1193. 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press, 1995 (originally published 1956)Christopher Marshall. Warfare in the Latin East, 1192-1291. Cambridge University Press, 1992.John France. Victory in the East: A Military History of the First Crusade. Cambridge University Press, 1994.John France. Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades: 1000-1300. Cornell University Press, 1999. David Nicolle.  Crusader Warfare Volume I: Byzantium, Western Europe and the Battle for the Holy Land. Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2007.David Nicolle.  Crusader Warfare Volume II: Muslims, Mongols and the Struggle Against the Crusades. Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2007.John Gillingham, “Richard I and the Science of Warfare” - from War and Government: Essays in Honour of J.O. Prestwich (1984); "William the Bastard at War," in Studies in Medieval History Presented to R. Allen Brown, ed. c. Harper-Bill, C. Holdsworth, and J. Nelson (1989); "War and Chivalry in the History of William the Marshal." Thirteenth Century England v.2 (1991); "'Up with Orthodoxy': In Defense of Vegetian Strategy." Journal of Medieval Military History, vol. 2 (2004): 21-41." Clifford Rogers. "The Vegetian 'Science of Warfare' in the Middle Ages." Journal of Medieval Military History, vol. 1 (2002): 1-19.Stephen Morillo. "Battle-Seeking: The Contexts and Limits of Vegetian Strategy." Journal of Medieval Military History, vol. 1 (2002): 149-58.Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com Intro and exit music are by Alexander NakaradaIf you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com

Send us a Text Message.In this episode my guest host Professor Larissa 'Kat" Tracy and I discuss my favorite medieval romance, Chrétien de Troyes' late twelfth century poem, "Yvain, the Knight with the Lion."   We place the poem within its historical context--the first European industrial and commercial revolution, and the emergence of a courtly society and culture--and analyze what it reveals about aristocratic values and conceptions of love, gender relations, and chivalry in the late twelfth century.The translation I used for the quotations is by Carleton W. Carroll (Chrétien de Troyes, Arthurian Romances. Penguin Classics. Penguin Books, 1991).This episode includes a musical snippet from Andrei Krylov's "Noble medieval knight song" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imdIX--ZYJoListen on Podurama https://podurama.com Intro and exit music are by Alexander NakaradaIf you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com

Send us a Text Message.Last May, I spoke with Professor Nicholas Morton about the Mongols and their impact upon the medieval Near East.  This episode digs deeper into that subject, focusing on the Mongol conquest and destruction of Baghdad in February of 1258.  The Mongol sack of Baghdad is notorious for its brutality. Estimates of the number killed range from 90,000 to the 200,000 claimed by the leader of the Mongol army, Hulegu Khan.  Much like Alaric's sack of Rome in 410, the Mongol conquest of Baghdad, the seat of the Abbasid caliphate, had a symbolic significance beyond its political and military importance. It signaled both the end of an independent Abbasid caliphate and announced the Mongol intent to dominate the entire Islamic Near East, a goal that was to be thwarted by the Mamluks of Egypt. In this episode, I interview Peter Konieczny, the co-founder and editor of Medievalists.net, about his research into the Mongol conquest of Baghdad. Peter explains the role played by non-Mongols in instigating the invasion of Iran and Iraq for their own profit, why the Mongols targeted Baghdad, what that city was on the eve of the Mongol assault, and the real historical significance of the event.  I hope you will join us.I've turned a number of the podcast episodes into YouTube videos using PowerPoint to add relevant images.  These can be found at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsLl5BdGBDlAlYULY1zeckOOdVPrSIN2XIf you have questions about this or any episode, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.comIf you are enjoying "'Tis But A Scratch" on a site that has reviews and ratings, please consider giving it a good review and high rating so that others interested in the Middle Ages might give it a try. Thanks!Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com Intro and exit music are by Alexander NakaradaIf you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com

Send us a Text Message.In this episode, the second of a two part series, Dr. Chrissy Senecal and I continue our discussion of the Old English epic poem Beowulf.  In it we talk about the challenges of translation and look at literary and cinematic adaptations of the poem.Sound clips in this episode:“The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” soundtrack (composer: Ennio Morricone) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOl73VQOS9MTrailer for “Beowulf” (1999) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOrfinPSqyQBeowulf seduced by Grendel’s mother: “Beowulf” (2007) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyltO_ump0s Recommended:“The Saga Thing” podcast’s “Hwæt a Movie” episodes on “Beowulf” (1999) and “The Thirteenth Warrior”https://sagathingpodcast.wordpress.com/2023/09/20/hwaet-a-movie-episode-1-beowulf-1999/https://sagathingpodcast.wordpress.com/2023/12/20/hwaet-a-movie-episode-2-the-13th-warrior/(For those who love Norse sagas, this is the perfect podcast. Each episode the co-hosts John and Andy [Dr. John Sexton and Dr. Andrew Pfrenger] describe, discuss, and rate sagas. They have recently branched out to “Beowulf” movies.)Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com Intro and exit music are by Alexander NakaradaIf you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com

Send us a Text Message.This is the first of a two-part series on the most famous monster story in pre-modern literature, the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf. My co-host for both is Dr. Christine Senecal of Shippensburg University. In this episode Chrissy and I talk about the poem itself. We begin with the story of the hero Beowulf and how as a youth he kills two monsters ravaging the mead-hall of King Hrothgar, the fearsome Grendel and his even more fierce mother, and how as an aged king he fights and kills a fire-breathing dragon, saving his kingdom and winning the dragon's treasure, but at the cost of his life.  We then discuss when the poem was written and what we can learn from it about the warrior aristocratic culture of early Anglo-Saxon England.  In the follow-on episode, Chrissy and I talk about modern literary and cinematic adaptations of the Beowulf  story. I hope you can join us. Passages are quoted fromBeowulf, A Dual-Language Edition, trans. Howell D. Chickering, Jr. (New York: Anchor Books, 1977).Beowulf: The Donaldson Translation Backgrounds and Sources Criticism, ed. Joseph Tuso (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1975).Beowulf, A New Translation, trans. Maria Dahvana Headley (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020).The Heliand: The Saxon Gospel, trans. G. Ronald Murphy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992).The Dating of Beowulf, A Reassessment, ed. Leonard Neidorf (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2014).Music:"Wælheall," composed by Hrōðmund Wōdening (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQfdqIyqJ4g)"Caedmon's Hymn" on a lyre, sung and played by Peter Pringle (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8WaPIu1tAc)If you are interested in the Middle Ages--and I assume you are if you listening to 'Tis But A Scratch--you might want to check out Dr. Christine Senecal's Instagram page (https://www.instagram.com/chrissysenecal/) and her webpage, "Weird History Stories" (https://chrissysenecal.com/). Both are well worth a visit.I would same about Medievalists.net,  a website dedicated to offering readers news, articles, videos and more about the medieval world and how that history is presented today (https://www.medievalists.net/)Finally, if you are enjoying 'Tis But A Scratch, please tell friends and family about it. Good ratings and good reviews help spread the word! Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com Intro and exit music are by Alexander NakaradaIf you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com

Send us a Text Message.This is a revised--and a lot longer--version of our twenty-first episode ("Some thoughts about Hanukkah by a (secular) Jewish medieval historian").  That episode was  just what the title said, some thoughts about the role of Hanukkah in contemporary America and the Middle Ages. In it Ellen had a throwaway line about the Puritan war on Christmas. I thought that our listeners might be interested in why the Puritans objected to and tried to suppress Christmas, and, related to that, how Christmas, as well as Hanukkah was celebrated in the Middle Ages. I know that the result is a mishmash, but I hope it's an enjoyable and informative mishmash.Happy Holidays!This episode includes snippets from"Here we come a-wassailing" The St. Michael's Singers conducted by Paul Leddington Wright https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m29jEvTfVFUMa'oz Tsur sung by cantors from across Canada, Temple Sinai Toronto, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFY--az4z3wAdam Sandler's "The Hanukkah Song" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KX5Z-HpHH9gReading:Hanukkah:Cait Stevenson, “Celebrating Hannukah in the Middle Ages” by Cait Stevenson, posted on Medievalists.net https://www.medievalists.net/2018/12/celebrating-hanukkah-middle-ages/Susan Weingarten, “Medieval Hanukkah Traditions: Jewish Festive Foods in their European Contexts, Food and History 8 (2010)::41-62Dianne Ashton,  (2013). Hanukkah in America: A History. New York: New York University Press, 2013. Tsi Freeman, “Why Couldn’t Jews and Greeks Just Get Along?” https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/64639/jewish/Couldnt-the-Jews-and-Greeks-Get-Along.htm[The Wikipedia entry on Hanukkah is quite good] Medieval Christmas:Katie Ihnat, “The Middle Ages,” in The Oxford Handbook of Christmas, ed. T. Larson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020).Sophie Jackson, The Medieval Christmas. The History Press: Stroud, 2013.Peter Konieczny, “Seven Medieval Christmas Traditions.” Medievalists.net. https://www.medievalists.net/2012/12/seven-medieval-christmas-traditions/Compton Reeves, Pleasures and Pastimes in Medieval England. New York: Oxford, 1998. Puritan war on Christmas:Stephen Nissenbaum, “Christmas in Early New England, 1620-1820: Puritanism, Popular Culture, and the Printed Word.” American Antiquary Society (1996): pp. 79-164 (https://www.americanantiquarian.org/proceedings/44539478.pdf)J.A.R. Pimlott, | “Christmas under the Puritans,” in  History Today Volume 10 Issue 12 December 1960“Why did Cromwell abolish Christmas?” The Cromwell Association https://www.olivercromwell.org/faqs4.htmThe Puritan Cultural RevolutionDavid Underdown, Revel, Riot, and Rebellion: Popular Politics and Culture in England 1603-1660.  Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987Christopher Durston. "Puritan Rule and the Failure of Cultural Revolution, 1645–1660." In: Durston, C., Eales, J. (eds) The Culture of English Puritanism, 1560–1700. Themes in Focus. Palgrave, London. 1996.Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com Intro and exit music are by Alexander NakaradaIf you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com

Send us a Text Message.“Feudalism” was once accepted by academic and popular historians alike as a defining, if not the defining, feature of medieval society. For military historians, the High Middle Ages, the period from around 1050 to 1300, was once the Age of the Feudal Knight. This is no longer the case. If academic historians use it at all in their writings or classrooms, it is usually to dismiss it. For most medieval historians, feudalism has joined Viking horned helmets and “the right of the first night” in the ranks of myths about the Middle Ages. Richard, however, isn't most historians. In this episode, Richard and Ellen talk about the meanings of "feudalism" and why Richard is reluctant to throw it upon the cart of dead historical constructs.Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com Intro and exit music are by Alexander NakaradaIf you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com

Send us a Text Message.In our third and final episode of the series, Richard talks with Professor Ryan Lavelle of the University of Winchester in the U.K. about Alfred the Great. Dr. Lavelle is a leading expert on Anglo-Saxon and Viking warfare. He is also the historical consultant for the BBC/Netflix television series "The Last Kingdom," based on the Saxon Chronicle novels of Bernard Cornwell. In this episode, Richard again poses the question whether Alfred deserves to be called "the Great." He and Dr. Lavelle then discuss the portrayal of King Alfred in "The Last Kingdom," and why he is portrayed that way.This episode includes short snippets from Season 1 of "The Last Kingdom."The intro and exit music is by the talented and generous Alexander Nakarada. Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com Intro and exit music are by Alexander NakaradaIf you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com

Send us a Text Message.This is the second of a three part series about King Alfred of Wessex (reigned 871-899), the only English king to be called "the Great." In this episode Ellen and I chat with Dr. Barbara Yorke, Professor Emeritus at the University of Winchester in the U.K.. Professor Yorke is arguably the world's leading expert on Anglo-Saxon Wessex. She and I share the distinction of being among the host of biographers of King Alfred.  The basic question I pose to her is whether Alfred deserves to be called "the Great." Her answer is a bit more nuanced and less adulatory than mine was in episode one, which is one of the reasons I thought it important that you hear her assessment of Alfred.Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com Intro and exit music are by Alexander NakaradaIf you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com