The Jacquerie Revolt with Justine Firnhaber-Baker
A decade after The Black Death, French peasants rose up suddenly against the nobility in an unprecedented and remarkably coordinated revolt. This week on The Medieval Podcast, Danièle speaks with Dr. Justine Firnhäber-Baker about the rebellion that shocked the elites of Europe: the Jacquerie.
The Last Duel with Eric Jager
Trial by combat has captured people’s imaginations for centuries, which is exactly why it’s the focus Hollywood’s latest medieval film: The Last Duel. This week, Danièle speaks with Eric Jager, author of the non-fiction book that inspired the film.
A Rotting Cat and a Damaged Penis
Do you know what is the best weapon to attack your drinking pal outside of a tavern? A rotting cat, of course! In today’s episode, Allison Bailey, a PhD candidate in history at the University of Toronto presents her research about the intersection of gender, violence and emotions in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century France.
Mutilation as Gendered Punishment: State Violence and Sexual Transgression in Medieval Europe
I want to talk today particularly about the use of mutilation as punishment for sexual offenses and particularly those involving same-sex activity in medieval Europe.
Trial by Combat: Medieval and Modern
The medieval idea of fighting a duel to determine who is right is one that has some appeal even in the modern-day.
Dangerous Times for Ordinary People: Violence from Above in Medieval Japan
Suzanne Gay discusses the medieval reality of violence and coercion of ordinary people by elites, focusing on several specific cases.
Murder by Poison: A Crime from 15th century Valencia
In medieval Europe, arsenic was stocked as a matter of course along with other medicines. As with other medicines, the poisonous nature of arsenic is a matter of dosage and administration.
Too Good Looking to Die: How to get saved from an execution in the Middle Ages
In the Mamluk state there were several ways to avoid being executed, including physical beauty.
Vi et Armis: Londoners and Violent Trespass Before the Common Pleas in the Fifteenth Century
The Londoners who entered pleadings in this court between 1405 and 1415 have left a fascinating glimpse into both interpersonal violence and the world of savvy litigators.
The Sandby Borg Massacre: Interpersonal Violence and the Demography of the Dead
During excavations of the Iron Age ringfort of Sandby borg (AD 400–550), the remains of twenty-six unburied bodies were encountered inside and outside the buildings.
Writing fire and sword: the perception and representation of violence in Viking Age England
Through analysis of poetry, chronicle, biography and sermon I will seek to investigate how contemporaries perceived, interpreted and shaped the experience of Viking violence in England.
Horror and Violence in The Canterbury Tales
A large amount of brutality, subjugation, and death can be be found within the most famous literary work of the Late Middle Ages, Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales.
Archaeologists discover medieval man ‘broken on the wheel’
An archaeological dig in Milan has uncovered the remains of a young man who suffered massive injuries, likely caused by torture and execution while being ‘broken on wheel’.
Medieval torture with Larissa ‘Kat’ Tracy
What was torture really like in the Middle Ages? Larissa ‘Kat’ Tracy joins Danièle to talk about iron maidens, dungeons, executions and more on The Medieval Podcast.
Domestic violence against women as a reason to sanctification in Byzantine hagiography
The lives of Matrona of Perge, Mary the Younger and Thomaïs of Lesbos are rare examples of how domestic violence against women could be also interpreted as a reason to sanctify the woman suffered abuses of this sort.
The Great Western Schism, Legitimacy, and Tyrannicide: The Murder of Louis of Orléans (1407)
I will argue that the use of this kind of vocabulary during the Schism may have facilitated a slip into the rhetoric of tyrannicide, and may have incited it. I will suggest that the climate and rhetori of the Schism may have led John the Fearless to rationalize tyrannicide against his cousin, Louis of Orléans.
Digital map reveals medieval London’s homicide ‘hot spots’
First digital map of the murders recorded by the city’s Coroner in early 1300s shows Cheapside and Cornhill were homicide ‘hot spots’, and Sundays held the highest risk of violent death for medieval Londoners.
Five Murders in Medieval Oxford
When trying to understand acts of violence in the Middle Ages, historians often have to turn to government records. Here are five official accounts of murders that took place in the city of Oxford at turn of the 14th century.
Homicide and Suicide in Viking Age Scandinavia
What was the perception and conception of homicide and suicide in the Viking Age Scandinavia, and to what extent is that traceable in the written and archaeological sources?
The Calamity of Violence: Reading the Paris Massacres of 1418
The prelude to the massacres began on the night of 29 May 1418. The city had been brutally occupied for five years by the Armagnacs, the ruling junta hostile to both the Parisians and the populist Burgundian party that the vast majority of the capital’s residents favored.
Axlar-Björn: The Only Serial Killer of Iceland
Axlar-Björn, or Björn of the farm Öxl, was executed in 1596 for having murdered at least 18 people.
The Giving and Withholding of Consent in Late Twelfth-Century French Literature
My investigations into the depiction and punishment of rape in late twelfth-century literature in northern France stem from a particular interest in some of the earlier branches of the Roman de Renart.
Soldiers, Villagers and Politics: Military Violence and the Jacquerie of 1358
The Jacquerie of 1358 remains a hotly contested incident, but the importance of soldiers as a cause of the revolt is one of the few things on which scholars agree.
Anglo-Saxon Punishments: The Price of a Pinky
Recognizing that an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, medieval lawmakers believed that justice could be satisfied by aggressors making financial compensation to victims.