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.
Calling All Corpses: An Examination of the Treatment of the Dead in Old English Literature
This dissertation examines various genres of Old English literature to identify times when authors discuss corpses and to what end these discussions led.
Coping with Pandemics in the Middle Ages
Medieval people differed from us in their ways of coping with a pandemic, but they felt similar helplessness.
St. Patrick and the Ossory Werewolves
How a tale of cursed werewolves in Ireland finds its way to 13th century Norway.
Bones belong to seventh-century saint, researchers confirm
Researchers from Canterbury Christ Church University have confirmed that human remains kept in a southeastern English church are almost certainly those of St Eanswythe. Dating back to the seventh-century, these are the earliest verified remains of a medieval English Saint.
The Christmas relics that came to medieval England
If you wanted to see the manger where Jesus Christ was born, or the finger bones of Saint Nicholas (the original Santa Claus), you could have done so at an English abbey in the 15th century.
Hagiography: Medieval Fanfiction
Medieval people had their own form of fanfiction – and it retold the story of Mary Magdalene.
Image and Community: Representations of Military Saints in the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean
From the tenth through the thirteenth century, image-makers and hagiographers reconceived select saints as aggressive warriors, a transformation that launched them to the top of the saintly hierarchy in the eastern Mediterranean.
The World of Miracles: Science, and Healing in Caesarius of Heisterbach’s Dialogus miraculorum (ca.1240) in Competition with Magic
This paper offers a close reading of some of the miracle tales dedicated to the Virgin Mary as contained in Caesarius of Heisterbach’s Dialogus miraculorum (ca. 1240)
Things left behind: matter, narrative and the cult of St Edmund of East Anglia
This thesis provides a detailed and interdisciplinary analysis of one of medieval England’s most enduring saints’ cults: that of St Edmund of East Anglia.
The Holy Spirit in Female Form: Medieval Tales of Faith and Heresy
The stories of Guglielma of Milan and Na Prous Boneta of Montpelier – how they became associated with the Holy Spirit – and how the Catholic Church responded to them.