Going Medieval

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.

Bologna’s medieval canals

As a special treat for you all we are having class OUTSIDE for a little tour of Bologna’s medieval canals.

On the way we’ll learn to spot where medieval city walls, or even bridges, used to be in modern cities; we’ll consider the every day elements of city life like laundry, bathing, and watering animals; and we’ll see that medieval city life was complex enough to necessitate things like municipal housing. There is still, somehow, some swearing.

On women’s anatomy and the power of paying attention

Pretend you are me – the nicest, cutest, sweetest person who deserves a relaxing little Sunday, where she just goofs and maybe reads a ghost book ever. Nice right? Well, I also will have to imagine it as well because unfortunately my Sunday was irrevocably disfigured by the rantings of an idiot on the internet, and I was forced to think about my job. Yes, that’s correct no one has suffered in the way that I do. Thank you for noticing. What can you do to help? Well you are going to have to look at this right here:

Let me explain something to you: periodisation and the Middle Ages

Last week, I was having a nice little chat on BlueSky, my go-to site for chatting shit and avoiding work now that twitter is unusable, with some very nice people, and I was asked a thoughtful question about how we talk about the different eras of the Middle Ages.

On secret romantic communications

It’s the commercial day of love, and you know what that means – it’s time to buy things to prove your emotions, or something. And look, we all know that Valentine’s Day is made up and has nothing to do with St Valentine. Did people sometimes pass love notes around St Valentine’s Day? Yes. I mean, at least from the fifteenth century onward. Did people buy chocolates and book restaurants? Not so much. Anyway, other people have written about the oldest Valentine and the commercialisation of a forgotten saint’s day and I don’t need to add to that. Instead, I thought I would talk a little about fancy medieval people and their various ways of communicating about love.

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.

On the Black Death in Africa and Asia, and the interconnected Middle Ages

Friends, I get angry sometimes. Yes, I know you are aware of that because this blog is, more or less, a catalogue of the various righteous indignations which I seize upon from time to time. Often this comes from seeing something silly in the wild and getting worked up about it, but this week it happened because I was talking to a colleague of mine, Prof. Philip Slavin, about the Black Death, as one does.

My top medieval books of 2023

I am unbelievably shaken to be once again at the end of the year, and babes, for me it’s been a year of books. Firstly because, of course, my book The Once And Future Sex made its debut in the world. As I type this, it is in the process of being translated into several other languages, and is already out as Die Ideale Frau auf Deutsch. As a result, I spent a lot of this year thinking about and explaining it to people, which has been a real delight and privilege.

Doctor does actually mean someone with a PhD, sorry

You know those little jokes that centre around a person with a PhD being on a plane, and someone asks for a doctor, and they say they aren’t that kind of doctor but the emergency involves their field of study? I love those. If you don’t know what I am rabbiting on about I mean these:

No, “the Church” did not kill Joan of Arc, you credulous dullards

So you know how a lot of the time my blogs are inspired by stuff I saw on twitter that made me angry? Well, because of all the incipient fascism I just haven’t been on twitter very much any more, which has been extremely good for the blood pressure. I do, however, be scrolling over on Insta, which as a general rule of thumb is a nice thing cuz I mostly get served socialist memes and then some cat videos. A+ stuff. No notes.

However, because of the memes I like, occasionally I am served a miss and one such of those was this: