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Ask a Medievalist

Ask a Medievalist

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 Everything you always wanted to know about the Middle Ages, but were unable to ask.E.H. Lupton and Jesse Njus 2020-2022 Welt
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  • Episode 99: Respect My Authority

    Episode 99: Respect My Authority
    Jan 21 2026
    Synopsis What exactly is authority? Where does it come from? How do you get it? Can you move authority from St. Paul, MN to the south side of Chicago? Join Em and Jesse for a wide-ranging chat on the subject. Notes 1/ Of course, many people in addition to women have a hard time getting others (i.e. non-group members) to pay attention to their authority. For example, trans and nonbinary people have a hard time getting anyone to listen to them speaking about their own lived experiences. 2/ I’ve published four novels and a novella since this was recorded, and people actually do think I’m an authority on some topics for some reason. 3/ The story about Aristotle’s phony translators comes from here, I think: https://historyofphilosophy.net/translation-movement Pseudopigrapha: from pseudo, false, and epigraphe, name or inscription. A falsely attributed text. U of Michigan’s Galileo text: “After an internal investigation of the findings of Nick Wilding, professor of history at Georgia State University, the library has concluded that its “Galileo manuscript” is in fact a 20th-century forgery. We’re grateful to Professor Wilding for sharing his findings, and are now working to reconsider the manuscript’s role in our collection.” Also, “Wilding concluded that our Galileo manuscript is a 20th-century fake executed by the well-known forger Tobia Nicotra.” (The quotes are from the linked website.) 4/ According to the Virginia Woolf society, the actual quote is: “I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.” (From ch 3 of A Room of One’s Own.) Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (5th/6th century CE)) Pseudo-Pseduo-Dionysius is anyone once thought to be Pseudo-Dionysius but now recognized (by modern scholars) to be someone other than Pseudo-Dionysius. Confused? 5/ Pseudo-Bonaventure (14th century CE) wrote Meditations on the Life of Christ. 6/ I’ve become a bit more familiar with copyright law in the three years(!) since we recorded this, since I’ve published three going on four books of my own since then. A really good example of a point I think past Em is trying to make is Sherlock Holmes, who has recently passed into public domain. He’s a neat character and everyone wanted to play with him (look at the adaptations of recent memory: the Robert Downey Jr. films, the BBC’s Sherlock, the American Elementary). But because of copyright law, this was fairly difficult and confusing until very recently, despite the character’s creator having been dead since 1930. These cases raise many questions of authorship vs ownership and how long someone should really be able to make money on an idea. (Patent Law is, if anything, worse, from what I understand.) 7/ It was a photograph of Prince! Since we recorded this, the Supreme Court sided against Andy Warhol’s estate: https://www.npr.org/2023/05/18/1176881182/supreme-court-sides-against-andy-warhol-foundation-in-copyright-infringement-cas Girl Talk is awesome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSoTN8suQ1o I mention him because there was a really good documentary about copyright called RiP! A Remix Manifesto that discussed his work (including a discussion of it with the head of the copyright office of the Library of Congress). 8/ Just to clarify, “fair use” is kind of a complicated issue. When you are a non-commercial educational podcast (ahem), you can use things (like samples of YouTube performances) without having to pay licensing fees. You can also fairly quote sections of things for criticism, news reporting, and research. You can therefore quote lines from songs or poems in textbooks, but not in novels because they aren’t considered teaching. Parody (hello, Weird Al!) can be a weird gray area, because a parody obviously has to be somewhat transformative but still retain enough of a likeness that people will know what you’re parodying, and on this question hangs a lot of lawsuits. (Not toward Weird Al though, as far as I know. But Margaret Mitchell’s estate did try to sue to block the publication of The Wind Done Gone.) See also: Why does Ulysses (in Em’s novels) wear so many band T-shirts and occasionally mention songs and artists, but there are zero song lyrics in the books? Because you can’t copyright band names or album/song titles. Steamboat Willie has actually entered public domain since we recorded this! [So amazing!–Jesse] Peter Pan actually first appeared in 1902! Also, sorry, “Peter Pan is a psychopomp” is somehow not a sentence I had on my bingo card. I guess it has lost a bit in its translation to the screen… On the plus side, SIDS rates have dropped dramatically since 1902? “I can rewrite Macbeth if I want to.” Or a really complex riff on The Bacchae? Em of 2022 did not know what was coming, lol. 9/ Notably, Spivak also quotes primarily women. The episode on Hrotsvit: Episode 22 10/ For more on Juliana of Cornillion and the Feast of Corpus Christi, ...
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    1 Std. und 25 Min.
  • Episode 98: In Rome for the Calends

    Episode 98: In Rome for the Calends
    Jan 6 2026
    Summary

    It’s January, the first month of the year, ruled by the god Janus, who looks both ways. But a week ago it was December, the…tenth month of the year? What the heck was up with Roman calendars? Join Em and Dr. Jesse to explore why this otherwise competent civilization just fell apart when it came to tracking what day it was.

    Notes

    Jörg Rüpke, The Roman Calendar from Numa to Constantine: Time, History, and the Fasti, Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.

    1/ Rome’s famous AVC (or AUC today), the abbreviation for Ab urbe condita (from the founding of the city), i.e. 753 BCE.

    2/ For example, archeology uses “BP” or “Before Present.” Geology and astronomy and similar tend to use variations on “millions of years ago“.

    3/ Calends! Nones! Ides!

    4/ December is such a mess! For more on December not being the 10th month of the year (maybe ever!)–and/or the possibility of competing new years (one beginning in January and one in March), see Rüpke (p. 6).

    5/ Fasti Antiates Maiores, created 60s or 50s BCE (Rüpke, p. 6), from before the Julian reforms in 46 BCE. January is the first month. Here is the original and here is the reconstruction.

    6/ Annus confusionis ultimus! (46 BCE) See Rüpke, p. 112.

    7/ Gregorian calendar!

    8/ England finally officially adopts the Gregorian calendar in 1750. (This was adopted for the whole British Empire, including the colonies in America.)
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    1 Std. und 13 Min.
  • Episode 97: Non-Roman Calendars

    Episode 97: Non-Roman Calendars
    Nov 25 2025
    Synopsis

    When is Hanukkah this year? When is Lupercalia, or Easter, or Midsummer’s Eve? When is your birthday? Figuring out when big events happen is incredibly important, and humans have been doing it for a long time. But while we can see some similarities in the process of calendar evolution, many civilizations had very different ways of conceptualizing and measuring time. Join Em and Dr. Jesse for a discussion of non-Roman calendars!

    Notes

    0/ Check out the Nerd and Tie podcast network! Official announcement here.

    1/ A lot of Mayans live in Yucatán in Mexico. Between 1847–1933, the Mayan fought a long and bloody war against the government of Mexico, and for a while controlled an independent state. Eventually they won the right to break up some of the haciendas, making it a fairly successful indigenous land movement. Now in Yucatán, a lot of the land is collectively owned/managed by the Maya.

    2/ St Patrick will be coming up in the future! His episode has been recorded.

    3/ Sir Capricorn’s name turns out to be Sesame. He is amazing!

    4/ Gobekli Tepe (settled roughly 9500 BCE)

    5/ Wurdi Youang (Australia)

    6/ Warren Field (Scotland)

    7/ Hawaii

    8/ Yoruba calendar

    9/ Babylonian calendar (from the 2nd millennium BCE). See Lis Brack-Bernsen’s “The 360-Day Year in Mesopotamia”

    The early astronomical text known as MUL.APIN (from 1000 BCE).

    10/ Ancient Egyptian calendar! And some fun artifacts from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

    11/ Mayan calendar! Very intriguing.

    Here is the film 2012 which posits many incorrect things, not just about the Mayan calendar.
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    1 Std. und 17 Min.
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