On this episode, we take one more step backwards in history from last time and look at some scandalous behavior from King Edgar the Peaceful as described by William of Malmesbury.
Today’s Text:
- 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. (Available at Google Books.
- The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Trans. E.E.C. Gomme. London: George Bell and Sons, 1909. [Available through Google Books.]
- Herodotus. The Histories. Trans. Aubrey de Sélincourt. Rev. by John M. Marincola. New York: Penguin, 1972.
References:
- Gransden, Antonia. Historical Writing in England. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1974.
Image: Manuscript leaf of William of Malmebury’s traveling copy of his Gesta Pontificum Anglorum in his own hand. (Oxford Magdalen MS lat. 172.)
On this episode, we look at one moment in history from three different sources — the deaths of King Edgar and his short-reigned heir, Edward the Martyr. Stay tuned to the very end for the new riddle!
Today’s Texts:
- The Melrose Chronicle. In The Church Historians of England. Vol. IV, Part I. Ed. and Trans. Joseph Stevenson. London: Seeley’s, 1856. 347-384. [Available through Google Books.]
- The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Trans. E.E.C. Gomme. London: George Bell and Sons, 1909. [Available through Google Books.]
- 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. [Available through Google Books].
Image: The Murder of Edward the Martyr, from British Library MS Royal 2 B VII, f.245.
It’s our (shortly after) Mother’s Day episode, in which we learn from Edward the Confessor how not to treat one’s mother and investigate a connection between The Song of Roland and radioactive wastelands.
Today’s Text:
- Annals of the Church of Winchester. In The Church Historians of England. Vol. IV, Part I. Ed. and Trans. Joseph Stevenson. London: Seeley’s, 1856. 347-384. (Available at Google Books.)
References:
- Burgess, Glyn S., trans. The Song of Roland. New York: Penguin, 1990.
- Holmes, Urban T., Jr. “Chernubles de Munigre.” Speculum 16.2 (Apr. 1941): 244-245.
- Stafford, Pauline. Queen Emma and Queen Edith: Queenship and Women’s Power in Eleventh-Century England. Oxford: Blackwell, 1997.
Image: Queen Emma flees with Edward and Alfred to her brother in Normandy, detail from Cambridge University Library MS EE 3.59 f. 4v. [Used under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License (CC BY-NC 3.0).]
This episode, we return to the Lanercost Chronicle for some examples of clergy behaving in some unclergylike ways, with a particular look at the decline and fall of clerical marriage in the medieval church.
This Episode’s Texts:
-
The Chronicle of Lanercost: 1272–1346. Trans. Sir Herbert Maxwell. Glasgow: James Maclehose and Sons, 1913. (Available at
archive.org.)
-
Ordericus Vitalis.
The Ecclesiastical History of England and Normady. Vol. 4. Trans. Thomas Forester. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1856. (Available at
Google Books.)
References:
- Brooke, C.N.L. “Gregorian Reform in Action: Clerical Marriage in England, 1050-1200.” Cambridge Historical Journal 12.1 (1956): 1-21.
- Frazee, Charles A. “The Origins of Clerical Celibacy in the Western Church.” Church History 57 Supplement: Centennial Issue (1988): 108-126. Reprinted from Church History 41 (1972): 149-167.
- McLaughlin, Megan. “The Bishop in the Bedroom: Witnessing Episcopal Sexuality in an Age of Reform.” Journal of the History of Sexuality 19.1 (Jan. 2010): 17-34.
Image: Detail depicting the sin of adultery from British Library MS Royal 6 E VI f. 61.
On this episode, we look at a couple of diggers of relics: first, Elfred (or Aelfred or Alfred), who brought the relics of the Venerable Bede to Durham Cathedral; and second, antiquarian James Raine, who dug up those same relics in the early 19th century.
Images of the cast of the skull of Bede and its lovely, TARDIS-blue storage box.
References
- Simeon of Durham. Simeon’s History of the Church of Durham. Trans. Joseph Stevenson. Church Historians of England. Vol. 3, pt. 2. London: Seeley’s, 1855. 619-711. Google Books.
- Symeon of Durham. Libellus de exordio atque procursu istius, hoc est Dunhelmensis, ecclesie: Tract on the Origin and Progress of this the Church of Durham. Ed. and Trans. David Rollason. Oxford: OUP, 2000.
- Geary, Patrick J. Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages. Revised ed. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UP, 1990.
- Raine, James. A Brief Account of Durham Cathedral, with Notices of the Castle, University, City Churches, &c. Newcastle: Blackwell & Co., 1833. Google Books.
- Story, Joanna, and Richard N. Bailey. “The Skull of Bede.” The Antiquaries Journal 95 (2015): 325-50.
- Warner, Richard. A History of the Abbey of Glaston; and the Town of Glastonbury. Bath: Richard Cruttwell, 1826. Google Books.
Image
Photo of the present-day tomb of Bede, by Robert Scarth. Used under Creative Commons License (CC BY-SA 2.0)
After much delay, Medieval Death Trip is back to ring in 2016 (just not on the conventional date for New Year’s Day) with a very special episode. What would it sound like if all the previous MDT episodes got together and made a monstrous baby? It might turn out a little bit like this.
Texts
All of that have been featured on the show so far!
References
Ware, R. Dean. “Medieval Chronology: Theory and Practice.” Medieval Studies: An Introduction. 2nd ed. Ed. James M. Powell. Syracuse: Syracuse UP, 1992. 252-257.
Further Reading
Lydia Fairchild case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lydia_Fairchild
Images
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