The Mighty Cabbage Hurling Saint
What would you call a man who crosses a river by walking on water to throw a cabbage head at his opponent? A fool, for sure, but no ordinary fool. He is a fool of God.
Saint Colette with Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski
Not every saint gets a contemporary biography, let alone two, but fifteenth-century French saint Colette is among them. This week, Danièle speaks with…
A Beginner’s Guide to Medieval Saints
This week on The Medieval Podcast, Danièle (with the help of her new puppy) introduces some of the most popular saints of the Middle Ages, along with their iconography, so you can spot them in medieval art.
New Medieval Books: The Life and Miracles of Saint Godric, Hermit of Finchale
A new addition to the Oxford Medieval Texts series, The Life and Miracles of Saint Godric, Hermit of Finchale is a twelfth-century hagiographic account of a hermit who lived in northern England.
Kings of the Angles and Kings of the English: Royal Saints in the Prayer Book Calendar
What I’m going to do is first to give an introduction to the royal saints who appear in the Calendar of the Prayer Book to talk about their lives and the history of their veneration, and then to think about what their inclusion in that calendar can tell us about the intertwined history of the English monarchy and the English church.
The Antipope Who Became a Saint: Forgery, Heresy, and the Power of Manuscripts
By Riccardo Macchioro In today’s world, people are pretty much accustomed to the concepts of “fake news” and “propaganda” (albeit, we might say,…
Promoting your patron saint, or How to win favor and influence the powerful
Medieval monasteries cared about the way in which they presented themselves to the world no less than todays’ celebrities and businesses do.
Saint Anne: Grandmother to the Medieval World
The story of how the grandmother of Jesus became an important figure in medieval Christianity.
St. Francis, Giotto and Geology
St. Francis of Assisi (c.1181-1226) and Giotto (c.1270-1337), would change the history of religion, art and ecology. Some 800 years later, geologists would examine the limestone used to construct the Basilica of St. Francis at Assisi and would discover the secret behind the extinction of the dinosaurs.
The Road to Sainthood
In the Middle Ages, making it to Sainthood was a tedious process. Though, being murdered in the Canterbury Cathedral was a good starting point.
Cyril, Methodios, and the conversion of the Slavs, with Mirela Ivanova
Despite the huge importance attributed to these men and their activities in modern scholarship, national narratives, and Slavic Orthodox identity, our knowledge about them rests largely on two texts whose interests are quite different from our own. What do we really know about them?
Cologne’s Eleven Thousand Virgins and Hildegard of Bingen: Saint Ursula’s Martyrdom in Legend and Song
In the Middle Ages, the legend of Saint Ursula and her extraordinarily courageous retinue of eleven thousand virgins was, for many writers and artists, a wellspring of inspiration.
St. Francis, Disability, and Illness, with Donna Trembinski
One of the world’s most well-known and beloved medieval saints is, of course, St. Francis, a man who faced many tribulations in the form of physical illness and disability. This week on The Medieval Podcast, Danièle speaks with Donna Trembinski about what we can learn about the person behind the saint by studying how his physical life affected his spiritual life.
St. George the martyr and his banner
If St. George is venerated in the present day, his reputation reaches back to the Middle Ages and Late Antiquity.
The watery miracles of Italian saints
A new study examines the cultural impacts of climate change in Italy during the Early Middle Ages.
The Life and Liturgy of Saint Birgitta of Sweden
When studying the relationship between women, music, and the medieval church, one of the most influential and prominent figures is Birgitta of Sweden.
Early Christian relics examined and dated by researchers
For more than 1500 years, this site has held the believed remains of two of the earliest Christians and Jesu apostles: St. Philip and St. James the Younger – relics of the Holy Catholic Church.
Relics of medieval saint stolen from church in Germany
The relics of a tenth-century saint have been stolen from a church in southern Germany. Bavarian police have opened an investigation and are seeking help from the public.
London in the Age of Becket: The 12th century Thames
Becket was born in Cheapside and raised in London, and this short talk will look at the city that Becket would have known during his lifetime, and it’s development into the 13th century, in the years after his martyrdom.
Visualising Saint Charlemagne in Twelfth-Century Aachen: From Imperial Palace to Pilgrimage Site
Vedran Sulovsky discusses how Charlemagne’s (768–814) most important palace not only preserved the emperor’s memory, but also slowly modified it so that the entire palace complex, which was famous for being the centre of the Carolingian Empire, became the final part of the story of Charlemagne’s relic-gathering expeditions to Spain, Constantinople and the Holy Land.
Oh My Dog! St Guinefort and St Christopher
Dogs and holiness in the stories of St Guinefort and St Christopher.
A Medieval Story of Redemption
From nun to noble to prostitute to beggar – the story of Beatrice.
In Search of the Promised Land: Saint Brendan’s Voyage
The story of an Irish monk and his fourteen companions who embarked on a dangerous journey in the fifth century.
‘Full of Miracles From Childhood’: Miracles in the Liturgies and Lives of Irish Medieval Saints
The signs and miracles in the lives of Irish medieval saints including Patrick, Brigid, Columcille, Brendan and Columbanus.