We’re back for some late summer episodes with a look at how medieval authors cozied up to potential patrons, with a specific look at Gerald of Wales. Coincidentally, we also announce our Patreon campaign! You can support us at www.patreon.com/mdtpodcast/ and get an audiobook of Jordanus’s Wonders of the East.
Today’s Texts:
Selected References:
- Gilbert, Creighton E. “What Did the Renaissance Patron Buy?” Renaissance Quarterly, vol. 51, no. 2, Summer 1998, pp. 392-450. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2901572.
- Haskins, Charles H. “Henry II as a Patron of Literature.” Essays in Medieval History Presented to Thomas Frederick Trout, edited by A.G. Little and F.M. Powicke, Books for Libraries Press, 1925.
- Holzknecht, Karl Julius. Literary Patronage in the Middle Ages. Collegiate Press, 1923. Archive.org, https://archive.org/details/literarypatronag00holzuoft.
- Safner, Ryan. “Do Patronize Me: The Comparative Political Economy of Arts Patronage, Copyright, and Crowdfunding.” 10 Nov. 2015.
Image: Detail from British Library Harley MS 4425, f. 47v.
You can now help support Medieval Death Trip through becoming a patron of us on Patreon. For as little as $1 (U.S.) a month, you’ll not only be helping to make the show possible, but you’ll also get an audiobook copy of the Mirabilia Descripta, or Wonders of the East by Jordanus, the 14th-century bishop of Columbum in India (and translated by Col. Henry Yule, whose extensive footnotes provide a whole second historical text providing a 19th-century British perspective on India).
To learn more, visit http://www.patreon.com/mdtpodcast/
It’s a special Saint Patrick’s Day episode, in which we hear about the contests between the saint and some Irish magicians, as related in Muirchu’s 7th-century Life of St. Patrick.
Today’s Texts:
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Muirchu. Life of St. Patrick. St. Patrick: His Writings and Life, edited and translated by Newport J.D. White, Macmillan, 1920.
References:
- Conway, Moneure D. “The Saint Patrick Myth.” The North American Review, vol. 137, no. 323, Oct. 1883, pp. 356-371. JSTOR.
- Hood, A.B.E., editor and translator. St. Patrick: His Writings and Muirchu’s Life. Phillimore, 1978.
Image: Detail from British Library Egerton MS 747, f. 12r.
Fox sound effect from http://www.freesfx.co.uk.
This episode we continue with Walter Map’s De nugis curialium and learn that politics really is hell.
Today’s Texts:
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Map, Walter. De Nugis Curialium. Translated by Montague R. James, historical notes by John Edward Lloyd, edited by E. Sidney Hartland, Cymmrodorion Record Series, no. 9, Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 1923.
- Homer. The Odyssey. Translated by A.T. Murray, Harvard University Press, 1919. [at Perseus]
- Anglo-Saxon Riddles of the Exeter Book, translated by Paull Franklin Baum (1963). Available at: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_Riddles_of_the_Exeter_Book/59
References:
- Bartlett, Robert. England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings: 1075-1225. Clarendon Press, 2000.
- Brooke, C.N.L. Introduction. De Nugis Curialium: Courtier’s Trifles, by Walter Map, edited and translated by M.R. James, revised by C.N.L. Brooke and R.A.B. Mynors, Clarendon Press, 1983.
- Turner, Ralph V. “The Reputation of Royal Judges under the Angevin Kings.” Albion, vol. 11, no. 4, Winter 1979, pp. 301-316. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4048542.
- Echard, Siân. “Map’s Metafiction: Author, Narrator and Reader in De nugis curialium.” Exemplaria, vol. 8, no. 2, 1996, pp. 287-314.
Image: Sarcophagus in Vatican Museums featuring images of Sisyphus, Ixion, and Tantalus. Photo by Dan Diffendale (used under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 2.0)
This episode we dive into Walter Map’s De nugis curialium for a satirical lesson in administrative chaos, choler, and corruption, and also how generally terrible we are.
Today’s Texts:
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Map, Walter. De Nugis Curialium. Translated by Montague R. James, historical notes by John Edward Lloyd, edited by E. Sidney Hartland, Cymmrodorion Record Series, no. 9, Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 1923.
References:
- Brooke, C.N.L. Introduction. De Nugis Curialium: Courtier’s Trifles, by Walter Map, edited and translated by M.R. James, revised by C.N.L. Brooke and R.A.B. Mynors, Clarendon Press, 1983.
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Horace. De Arte Poetica. Horace: Satires, Epistles and Ars Poetica, translated by H. Rushton Fairclough, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard UP, 1929.
Image: Detail of demons carrying off a monk from The Hague, KB, 71 A 24, fol. 27v
This Christmas Eve episode, we take a look a medieval forebear of the Ghost of Jacob Marley, as well as a role-model from ancient Rome.
Today’s Texts:
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William of Malmesbury.
Chronicle of the Kings of England. Ed. J.A. Giles. Trans. John Sharpe and J.A. Giles. London: George Bell & Sons, 1895.
Google Books.
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Pliny the Younger.
Letters. Translated by William Melmoth, revised by F.C.T. Bosanquet, The Harvard Classics, vol. 9, part 4, .F. Collier & Son, 1909–14. Bartleby,
http://www.bartleby.com/9/4/1083.html.
- Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol, in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas. 1843. Project Gutenberg, www.gutenberg.org/files/46/46-h/46-h.htm.
References:
- Belsey, Catherine. “Shakespeare’s Sad Tale for Winter: Hamlet and the Tradition of Fireside Ghost Stories.” Shakespeare Quarterly, vol. 61, no. 1, Spring 2010, pp. 1-27. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40731136.
- Bennett, Gillian. “‘Alas, Poor Ghost!’ Case Studies in the History of Ghosts and Visitations.” Chapter 5. Alas Poor Ghost, UP of of Colorado and Utah State UP, 1999, pp. 139-172. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46nwwn.8.
- Rife, J. Merle. “Marley’s Ghost in Athens.” The Classical Journal, vol. 34, no. 1, Oct. 1938, pp. 42-43. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3291010.
Image: Alec Guinness as Jacob Marley in Scrooge (1970), as stylized by Google Deep Dream.
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