Medieval LOLs: Chaucer's 'Miller's Tale'

‘Courtroom encounters present you with only a fragment of a person’s story, from which you may or may not be inclined to infer the rest,’ James Lasdun wrote recently in the LRB. Last October, he set out on a road trip across America, with the aim of attending as many different ki ...  Show more

When commenting on the power and influence of the Catholic Church, Stalin is supposed to have asked: ‘how many divisions has the pope?’ Donald Trump has yet to question how many F35s Leo XIV has, but he may as well have done in his angry response to the American pope’s criticism ...  Show more

As Mary and Irina discussed in the previous episode of Medieval LOLs, fabliaux had an enormous influence on Chaucer, but outside of his work, only one survives in Middle English. Dame Syrith, a story of lust, deception and a mustard-eating dog, is medieval humour at its silliest ...  Show more

With their tales of supernatural beasts, death-defying quests and dashing knights that always got the girl, romances were the must-reads of the Middle Ages. Lydia Zeldenrust reveals how – despite concerns that they were corrupting readers – medieval romances became a pan-European ...  Show more

In this episode of Gone Medieval, Matt Lewis welcomes his new co-host, historian Dr. Eleanor Janega. For her first episode, Eleanor and Matt kick off with a quick fire round about some of her favourite Medieval subjects, culminating in booze. How important was alcohol in the m ...

Riddles are an ancient and universal form, but few people seem to have enjoyed them more than English Benedictine monks. The Exeter Book, a tenth century monastic collection of Old English verse, builds on the riddle tradition in two striking ways: first, the riddles don’t come w ...  Show more