Self-Help and the Seven Deadly Sins with Peter Jones

We’ve all been there: suddenly face-to-face with our ugliest selves, wrestling with pride, envy, anger, sloth, avarice, gluttony, or lust. AKA the Seven Deadly Sins. In the Middle Ages, Christian thinkers divided moral missteps into these seven familiar categories, allowing them to ponder the many ways humanity can fall into sin – as well as how to get out of it. This week, Danièle speaks with Peter Jones about how people grappled with the Seven Deadly Sins in the Middle Ages, some pretty fun confessions, and how the medieval perspective might just help us better navigate the modern world.This podcast is made possible by the generous support of listeners like you! To find out how to help spread the joy of medieval history, please visit patreon.com/themedievalpodcast

There are some very entrenched cultural ideas about the plague these days, involving big, beaky masks, and agonized people flagellating themselves in the street. But the way people thought about and treated plague changed over time, as the disease revisited populations regularly over the course of centuries. And just like our imaginings of plague today can tell us a lot about how we see the medieval world, so the changing way people wrote about plague can tell us a whole lot of interesting stuff about medieval and early modern culture. This week, Danièle speaks with Lori Jones about the evolution of the plague tract, who was considered qualified to write about plague, and some surprising ways religion fits – or doesn’t fit – into the picture.This podcast is made possible by the generous support of listeners like you! To find out how to help spread the joy of medieval history, please visit patreon.com/themedievalpodcast

Last week, we talked about a woman whose work was to support her husband’s dreams of conquest – and her son’s dreams of rebellion. But what about the medieval women whose work was a little more ordinary? What was the 9-5 like for the women who kept households, shops, and towns running? And how did that work differ from place to place? This week, Danièle speaks with Nena Vandeweerdt about women's work inside and outside of guild structures, how it was regulated, and how opportunities changed for women across time and space.This podcast is made possible by the generous support of listeners like you! To find out how to help spread the joy of medieval history, please visit patreon.com/themedievalpodcast

They say that behind every successful man is a woman, and when it comes to one of the biggest medieval stories of personal success, that seems to have been true. Everyone’s heard of William the Conqueror, the illegitimate duke of Normandy who became king of England in 1066, but fewer people have heard the story of his powerful, indomitable queen: Mathilda of Flanders. This week, Danièle speaks with Laura L. Gathagan about Mathilda's unshakeable reign as duchess and queen, the way she embodied her power, and her role in the conquest of England.This podcast is made possible by the generous support of listeners like you! To find out how to help spread the joy of medieval history, please visit patreon.com/themedievalpodcast

When the king is semi-divine and the pope speaks for God, himself, who is the boss of whom? It’s a question most of us don’t spend our days contemplating, but in the Middle Ages, this philosophical debate loomed large. Just who had the final say on planet Earth? And how did you prove it? This week, Danièle speaks with Patrick Nold about the case for the pope’s ultimate power, why it was so urgent in the early fourteenth century, and why an obscure Dominican friar came to the pope’s defense.This podcast is made possible by the generous support of listeners like you! To find out how to help spread the joy of medieval history, please visit patreon.com/themedievalpodcast

Much in debate in England in the fourteenth century was how – and even if – the Bible should be translated into everyday language. Enter Maud de Ros, Lady Welles, the woman responsible for the most complete surviving translation of the Bible in the Anglo-Norman language. This week, Danièle speaks with Kathryn A. Smith about the remarkable woman behind the Welles-Ros Bible, the circumstances under which it was made, and the ins and outs of translating the Bible in the Middle Ages.This podcast is made possible by the generous support of listeners like you! To find out how to help spread the joy of medieval history, please visit patreon.com/themedievalpodcast

As we wrap up the month, we have time to squeeze in one last love story. A tale packed full of potions, princesses, and even puppies, this one is right up there with Lancelot and Guinevere. It’s the story of Tristan and Isolde. This week, Danièle speaks with Thomas H. Crofts about the Middle English Sir Tristrem, how its author adapted the poem for a new audience, and the wild and wonderful story of one of medieval Europe’s favourite knights.This podcast is made possible by the generous support of listeners like you! To find out how to help spread the joy of medieval history, please visit patreon.com/themedievalpodcast

One of the best things about podcasting on all things medieval is the opportunity to learn about lesser-known places – especially when those places are full of examples of long-ago thinking on cross-cultural contact, integration, and immigration. So, today, we’re taking a trip to central Europe to learn all about Silesia. This week, Danièle speaks with Sébastien Rossignol about how this region navigated a mix of cultures and languages, its proactive immigration policies, and its own changing identity.This podcast is made possible by the generous support of listeners like you! To find out how to help spread the joy of medieval history, please visit patreon.com/themedievalpodcast

From the social media buzz we saw a couple of years ago, it seems a lot of people spend a lot of time thinking about the ancient Roman Empire and its military activities, but less time thinking about how it evolved into the Middle Ages. With the heart of the empire now in the city of Byzantium, how did the military face new challenges while holding onto its legacy? This week, Danièle speaks with Georgios Theotokis about the military culture of the Byzantine Empire, how people learned strategy and tactics, and how the Roman military machine changed over time.This podcast is made possible by the generous support of listeners like you! To find out how to help spread the joy of medieval history, please visit patreon.com/themedievalpodcast

Since the new year, we’ve heard about both the development of medieval music and what it was like to live in the cultural hotbed of fifteenth-century Florence. And now, we’re going to bring it together in a way that has only been heard by a handful of people in almost six hundred years. This week, Danièle speaks with Jonathan Berger about capturing the sounds of the past, what they can tell us, and the remarkable sound of one specific moment time.This podcast is made possible by the generous support of listeners like you! To find out how to help spread the joy of medieval history, please visit patreon.com/themedievalpodcast