On this episode, we get cozy for the holidays with a visit to the humble abode of Elgar, Hermit of Bardsey Island. Just don’t mind the visiting spirits or food-delivering eagles.
Today’s Texts
“Account of Elgar, The Hermit.” The Liber Landavensis, Llyfr Teilo, or the Ancient Register of the Cathedral Church of Llandaff. Edited by W.J. Rees, William Rees, 1840, pp. 281-287. Google Books.
Gerald of Wales. The Itinerary and Description of Wales. Translated by Richard Colt Hoare, introduction by W. Llewelyn Williams, Everyman’s Library, J.M. Dent and Co., 1908. Archive.org, archive.org/details/itinerarythroug00girauoft
References
Tatlock, J.S.P. “Caradoc of Llancarfan.” Speculum, vol. 13, no. 2, April 1938, pp. 139-152. JSTOR, jstor.org/stable/2848396
Stokes, [George Thomas]. “The Island Monasteries of Wales and Ireland.” The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 5th series, vol. 1, no. 8, 1891, pp. 658-664. JSTOR, jstor.org/stable/25507837
Additional Audio Credits
Dialogue from Hellraiser, written and directed by Clive Barker, Entertainment Film Distributors, 1987.
Chopin, Frédéric. “Nocturne no. 1 in G minor,” performed by Luis Sarro. Musopen.org (CC-PD).
Image: Photo of the current binding of the Book of Llandaff (Wikimedia Commons).
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 the Life of St. Samson and the famous Witch of Berkeley, as well as a report of a night-hag from the 18th century.
Today’s Texts
William of Malmesbury. Chronicle of the Kings of England. Edited by J.A. Giles, translated by John Sharpe and J.A. Giles, George Bell & Sons, 1895. Google Books.
The Liber Landavensis, Llyfr Teilo, or the Ancient Register of the Cathedral Church of Llandaff. Edited by W.J. Rees, William Rees, 1840. Google Books.
Burnett, George. Specimens of English Prose-Writers from the Earliest Times to the Close of the Seventeenth Century, with Sketches Biographical and Literary, Including an Account of Books as Well as of Their Authors; with Occasional Criticisms, etc. Vol. I, Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1807. Google Books.
Sprenger, James, and Henry Kramer. Malleus Maleficarum. Originally published 1486. Translated by Montague Summers, 1928. Sacred-Texts.com.
References
Bailey, Michael D. “From Sorcery to Witchcraft: Clerical Conceptions of Magic in the Later Middle Ages.” Speculum, vol. 76, no. 4, Oct. 2001, pp. 960-990. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2903617.
Marzella, Francesco. “Hirsuta et cornuta cum lancea trisulcata: Three Stories of Witchcraft and Magic in Twelfth-Century Britain.” Civilizations of the Supernatural: Witchcraft, Ritual, and Religious Experience in Late Antique, Medieval, and Renaissance Traditions, edited by Fabrizio Conti, Trivent Medieval, 2020.
Isidore of Seville. The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville. Translated by Stephen A. Barney, W.J. Lewis, J.A. Beach, and Oliver Berghof with Muriel Hall, Cambridge UP, 2006.
Gordon, Stephen. Supernatural Encounters: Demons and the Restless Dead in Medieval England, c. 1050-1450. Taylor & Francis, 2019. Google Books.
Audio Clips
The Tragedy of Macbeth. Directed by Joel Coen. Apple Studios, 2021.
The Witch. Directed by Robert Eggers. A24, 2015.
The Witches. Directed by Nicholas Roeg. Warner Bros., 1990.
The Blair Witch Project. Directed by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez. Artisan Entertainment, 1993.
Suspiria. Directed by Dario Argento. Produzioni Atlas Consorziate, 1977.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Directed by Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones. EMI Films, 1975.
The Wizard of Oz. Directed by Victor Fleming. MGM, 1939.
Clash of the Titans. Directed by Desmond Davis. United Artists, 1981.
Young Frankenstein. Directed by Mel Brooks. 20th Century Fox, 1974.
Additional Music Credit: Ludwig van Beethoven, Coriolan Overture, composed in 1807 (the same year Burnett published his Specimens of English Prose Writers), and performed by the Musopen Symphony (CC-PD).
Image: Images generated by the DALL-E2 AI from the prompts “medieval painting of a hairy witch with a trident scaring a monk in a forest” and “medieval illustration of a witch covered in hair holding a trident and scaring two monks in a gloomy forest.”
This episode we examine the fate of another royal head, that of King Oswald of Northumbria, and the miracles associated with his relics and the dirt from his grave, as reported by the Venerable Bede.
Today’s Text
Bede. Beda’s Ecclesiastical History. The Church Historians of England, translated by Joseph Stevenson, 1853. Google Books.
References
Fowler, J.T. “On an Examination of the Grave of St. Cuthbert in Durham Cathedral Church, in March, 1899.” Archaeologia, vol. 57, no. 1, Jan. 1900, pp. 11-28. Archive.org.
Raine, James. St. Cuthbert, with an Account of the State in Which His Remains Were Found upon the Opening of His Tomb in Durham Cathedral, in the Year MDCCCXXVII. Geo. Andrews, 1828. Google Books.
“The Allegorical Portrait of Elizabeth I” (Unknown painter, ca. 1610) via Wikimedia Commons.
This extra minisode of Medieval Death Trip offers a bit of historical perspective on the recent death of Queen Elizabeth II by looking back at accounts of the death of Queen Elizabeth I in 1603. Also, a surprisingly relevant but brief account of the Calendar (New Style) Act of 1750.
Text:
Birch, Thomas. Memoirs of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, from the year 1581 til her death. In which the secret intrigues of her court, and the conduct of her favourite, Robert earl of Essex, both at home and abroad, are particularly illustrated. From the original papers of … Anthony Bacon, esquire, and other manuscripts never before published. A. Millar, 1754. Google Books.
This episode we return to the Lanercost Chronicle (and a bit of Capgrave’s Chronicle) to get some serious history concerning the fall of the last native prince of Wales, before getting some a less serious dinner party anecdote about a couple of monkeys. Much hand-wringing is also given to the appropriate pronunciation of the name Llewellyn/Llywelyn.
Today’s Text
The Chronicle of Lanercost: 1272–1346. Translated by Herbert Maxwell, James Maclehose and Sons, 1913. (Available at archive.org.)
Capgrave, John. The Chronicle of England. Edited by Francis Charles Hingeston, Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts, 1858. Google Books.
References
“The Death of Llywelyn.” Cilmeri.org. Post archived at Archive.org.
This episode we conclude the story of the peasant lad who spurned a humble farming life to go off live the high life with a robber knight and, as we shall see, did not ultimately get the life he expected. Here is the final part of Meier Helmbrecht.
You can get a sense of the landscape surrounding the location identified (by some scholars) as the site of the Helmbrecht Farm through this Google Street View link: https://goo.gl/maps/XrweFAqfGQEAMxxdA
Today’s Text
Wernher der Gartenaere. Meier Helmbrecht. In Peasant Life in Old German Epics, translated by Clair Hayden Bell, Columbia UP, 1931.
References
Bastow, A. “Peasant Customs and Superstitions in Thirteenth Century Germany.” Folklore, vol. 47, no. 3, Sept. 1936, pp. 313-328. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1256867.
Dobozy, Maria. The Saxon Mirror: A Sachsenspiegel of the Fourteenth Century. U of Pennsylvania P, 1999. Archive.org.
Lewis, Charlton T. A History of Germany from the Earliest Times. Harper & Brothers, 1874. Google Books.
Nordmeyer, George. “The Judge in the Meier Helmbrecht.” Modern Language Notes, vol. 63, no. 2, Feb. 1948, pp. 95-104. JSTOR,www.jstor.org/stable/2909515.
Price, Arnold H. “Early Places Ending in -heim as Warrior Club Settlements and the Role of Soc in the Germanic Administration of Justice.” Central European History, vol. 14, no. 3, Sept. 1981, pp. 187-199. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4545929.
Audio Credit:A Clockwork Orange. Directed by Stanley Kubrick. Warner Bros., 1972.
Image Credit: Manuscript illustration detail of crows eating the eyes of a corpse (Bibliothèque Nationale de France, fr. 1951). From The Medieval Bestiary: https://bestiary.ca/beasts/beastgallery252.htm.
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