medieval religion – Going Medieval

On spooky animals

I’ve been thinking a lot about ghosts lately. No, not because it’s October. That sort of seasonal interest in ghosts is for amateurs, and your girlie is thinking about ghosts 24/7 365. I don’t get ready for spooky season, I am spooky season. Regardless! I was once again enjoying the delights of the Byland Abbey ghost stories and thought it would be a cute seasonal treat for us to consider them all today, because I don’t expect you to be as committed to the creepy girl life as I am.

On body count

I’m not really on twitter that much anymore because of all the generalised unpleasantness. I mostly go to let people know I have done something that they can go read, watch, or listen to, and then I scuttle away to fritter my time on other useless pursuits.

And yet, at times there is a post so ridiculous, so incredibly stupid, that it goes up like a bat signal for me specifically, and all my friends that are still on yell at me until I come look at it. The other day there was one such case, and I was pulled out of retirement to gaze upon it in horror.

Here it is:

On gossip

I had the singular pleasure of visiting with a bunch of my high school friends the other week, and one of them put me on to a podcast I had not heard about before Normal Gossip. She said it was something she thought I would like because, well, a thing about me is that I am interested in gossip – and I mean this in several ways.

Firstly, I mean I am interested in gossip as an academic concept. I like thinking about the way gossip is discussed in medieval sources. Secondly, I also like to think about how gossip is conceptualised by anthropologists, which is to say, I enjoy thinking about what it is that gossip does socially. Because it does a lot. Thirdly, I mean, look, I am a social historian. My job is to gossip about dead people. I sit around and read what they have written, or what was written about them. I rifle through records of their house contents to try to picture how they were living their lives. And I think about who is talking about them in order to try to put together an idea of what they were like – and then I tell people all about it. And like, let’s just be honest – My interest in this means that I am a professional gossip who writes on gossip as a concept and that’s cuz … I want to hear the gossip. You have some? Great, I want it. Is it about some people I have never even met and probably won’t ever meet? Even better. To me, every bit of anonymous gossip is my own private soap opera, and I simply love to hear it.

On obscenity and modernity

It will come as a surprise to exactly zero regular readers that I have been contemplating the concept of obscenity lately. What may come as a surprise to you, however, is exactly why I have been thinking about that. And friends, it’s not because medieval people are being prudes – it’s because we are, now.

My fav saints: St Margaret of Antioch

Friends, since I made you all think about death recently I thought I would keep it light for you real quick and talk to you once again, about one of my favourite saints – the good St Margaret of Antioch. I was thinking about her recently because I was writing up something about your good friend and mine, Joan of Arc. See, Margaret was such a cool saint that even noted badass Joan looked up to her, and claimed that Margaret was one of the voices that spoke to her and told her to go out there and beat up some English people. My love for several English people, and currently location in the capital of England notwithstanding, I do agree that probably it’s good to beat them up when they are in your backyard stealing your pig. So, I think it is probably good that she was out there inspiring anti-invader violence. ANYWAY! If she’s good enough for Joan, she’s good enough for you, so today we’re going to learn all about her and how you can spot her in medieval art.

You are not, in fact, the granddaughter of the witches they couldn’t burn

Say you are me (sorry about that) and you are minding your own business online, just trying to survive in a world of unrelenting horror when suddenly you are served an ad. Because of the dark magic of the algorithms and ad service providers, the ads are being tailored to me based on things I have read, or purchased, or allowed my eyes to linger on for a little too long. Maybe it has figured out that I am mates with a bunch of the people who appeared in the Witch podcast. It has certainly gleaned that I am a woman, I tend to read things about history, and am interested in feminist theory more generally.

Hillariously, what that means is I am often served ads for this schlock:

On the 11,000 virgin martyrs, iconography, and beauty standards

The other week while wandering around the Cologne Cathedral (shout out to a legend) I came upon an extremely excellent altar in one of the side chapels. Built into its base were several perfectly identical reliquaries showing smiling, beautiful blonde women. I stopped to look at it, because, firstly I was absolutely amazing, and secondly it took me a second to realise what I was looking at. Have a look at her:

Podcast alert: medieval abortion on History Hack

I stopped by History Hack to yell a lot about the history of abortion in the medieval period. Have a listen and sharpen up your argumentation skills.

On indulgences

The other day, friend of and contributor to the blog, and my writing partner the infinitely talented Dr Sara Öberg Strådal made a very good and funny point about a bunch of Evangelicals who are trying to … NFT prayers. Witness it, and laugh:

On non-written communication (in Norwich)

I am aware, my gorgeous readers, that the blog has been languishing of late. This is down to the fact that I foolishly agreed to write a book which is, and I am not sure if you are aware of this, hard. Luckily I should have more time to spout off here now that it is all turned in, however. As a little celebration of finishing up, the other week I took a little mini-holiday to Norwich, and today I want to talk to you about some cool medieval stuff I saw there and what it means.