November 26, 2025 • 42 mins
It's the most wonderful time of the year: time to celebrate the best medieval books of 2025. This week, Danièle speaks with Peter Konieczny, editor of Medievalists.net, about their favourite reads this year - and she announces some exciting news about the future of The Medieval Podcast.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hi everyone, and welcome to episode three hundred and seventeen
of the Medieval Podcast. I'm your host, Danielle Sebolski. Well,
it's that time of year again, the time when Peter
(00:23):
Kinnecchni of Medieval is dot Nett and I reveal our
favorite books of the past year. It's always a real
pleasure to revisit the amazing books I've been reading and
the conversations I've had here on the podcast with all
the fun and generous authors in medieval studies. Today, I
hope that you look forward to this annual episode as
much as I do, and today I hope you'll stay
(00:45):
right to the end of the podcast because not only
are there some great books to talk about, but I
also have a couple of big announcements about the future
of the podcast, which I'm super excited to tell you about.
So stay tuned. All of that goodness and more is
coming up right after this. Well, welcome back, Peter. This
(01:06):
is take two because our tech did not work earlier
in the day. Welcome back. It's the most wonderful time
of the year, at the time when we get to
talk about our favorite books.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Indeed, since we had a chance to talk about it
already and it was a great talk. Let's do it again.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Yeah, it was a great talk. Let's see if we
could do a great job again. So, as usual, as
we do every year, we both pick five books that
we really liked. I picked them in no particular order,
but you pick them in ranked order, right.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Indeed, as a librarian, I need to categorize things. So
these are the five best books of twenty twenty five.
Although I was like going with here, like, hey, it
doesn't have to be twenty twenty five. It just wound
up all these books we're published this year.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Yes, a couple of mine, I only featured them this year.
All of mine are ones that were featured on the
podcast because those are the books that I do the
most reading of. And some of them are a little
bit older, but they were featured this year, the as
twenty twenty five. Okay, without further ado, let's get started.
What do you have in the number five position?
Speaker 2 (02:07):
I have for number five is Fay Tibble's book The
Crown of Thorns, Humble Gods and Humiliated Kings, which is
from Bloomsbury.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
All right, what's this one about? I know?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Yeah, this one, this one checked off a lot of boxes.
For me, what I really liked is how it takes
like a long held historical fact. The Questians would see
this as a fact that Jesus had a crown of
thorns put on him by the Romans, and they were
actual thorns, probably very painful. But what Faith is doing
(02:37):
here is taking a look at the early evidence. So
this is part of his ancient history, and it might
now have been a crown of thorns at all, but
something a little different, more designed for humiliation rather than pain.
And it's really interesting because then about a thousand years later,
this kind of imagery of the crown of thorns really
comes up in Western European art. She links it to
(02:59):
kings and trying to emulate Jesus, and there's a whole
kind of political subtext around it, especially co opted by
kings like Louis the Ninth.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
This book is really interesting because it's something that I
think everyone thinks, like you said, is just canon, like
this is the way that it was, and so it's
worthwhile to go back and look at the evidence and
see what it actually says in the Bible and see
how it's depicted through art. And I think this type
of work is really important. So I really enjoyed this
(03:29):
book as well. I think you picked a good one.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Yeah, I really like you know, it crosses over from
ancient to medieval history, so I think there'd be a
big audience for it. It really takes that one historical fact
that we have and digs deeper, and I really love
those kind of books.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
And this one is pretty accessible as well. You don't
have to have any background in religion or in medieval
studies or ancient studies. You can just dive right in
and learn.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Yeah, it's a really well written book for the general reader.
But I think if you're a medievalist that's into art
history or history of religion or the history of kings particularly,
you'll find some of these insights here.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Absolutely. Okay. So my first book that I want to
talk about, and again these are in no particular order,
is Will's and Testaments in Medieval England from the thirteenth
to the sixteenth century by Robert A. Wood. And Robert
was a guest on the podcast. You may remember. It
was his first podcast ever, and he was just so nice.
(04:25):
I think he was a bit nervous, but he did
a great job. And something I want to tell you
about before I get into the book, something that Robert
told me before we actually started recording, which is his story.
And Robert is an inspiration because he had a different job,
and I think what he said was he saw a
busshelter poster saying come and study history, and he did.
(04:46):
He did part time classes in history, and then he
went through God his degree, went to graduate school, studied
with some of the best people in our field, and
now he's come up with his book Will's and Testaments.
So I think the it is an inspiration for anyone
who thinks that they're too old to learn about history.
You're never too old. You can just dive in whenever
you want. So, coming back to the book, why did
(05:09):
I like the book? It really spoke to the way
that I think, which is sort of putting all of
my ducks in a row before I start to get
any deeper into a topic. So this is a really
thorough book where before he even gets into the Wills
and Testaments, Robert talks about the way that Roman numerals
were used, the way that currency was used in England,
(05:29):
the spending power of currency, weights and measures, social hierarchy,
and the rituals around burial before he even gets to
the wills, So he's really really thorough in telling you
what things were like, those details about how people were
thinking around not only stuff like money, but stuff like burial.
And then you get to the wills themselves, and I
(05:52):
think that they're so revealing. They tell you about what
people are thinking about in their last weeks, days, hours,
what they want to give to, what they're thinking about,
and the things that they find so important that they're
going to be clean them to people. So you get
Roberts edited wills, so you can read these words for
yourself as well as all of that background information that
(06:14):
he's put together. And so this is just a really
great book for people who want all of those real
concrete details about the period.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Well, I see in a book like this it offers
two types of histories near macro history, because he can
look at the thousands upon thousands of wills from medieval
England and find out trends and what people were doing overall.
But then you can kind of tell the individual stories
of each will and they offer really exciting glimpses of
what people thought was important to them.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Yeah, exactly, So, like I becleaned my best girdle to
this person, and you want to find out who all
the people are who are named in the wills. Of
course we will never find out, but it's really fun
to look at the evidence and really get an understanding
as to what people were thinking about when they were
create eating them, especially in a time where death was
very close at hand. Because he's especially looking at again
(07:05):
the thirteenth to the sixteenth century, so a time of
plague for most of that period. So I really liked
Wills and Testaments in medieval England?
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Who'd be it aimed for?
Speaker 1 (07:16):
It is a scholarly book, so it is written in
sort of academic language, But because he gets at all
of these small categories first that are very introductory, things
like currency, I think you could start with it and
not be lost. You'd really be able to follow along
with Robert's argument and really just learn about it, whether
you have a background in this or not. So we've
(07:39):
done two books and we're already further behind than we
were when we recorded this earlier. We need to get going, Okay,
So what do you have in fourth place?
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Leader? It's just because we love books so much, so
we do my fourth book is called Approaching Pipe Rolls
the thirteenth Century by Richard Cassidy, and it's from Rutledge.
And this is a very thin book, is under one
hundred pages, and it's really a beginner's guide to the
set of English government records. Pipe rows are the kind
of list of debts to the governments, whether it be
(08:08):
taxes or fines. And this is a book that would
have been so useful for me when I was a
grad student because you can access these records. They're in
print from the nineteenth century and you can find them online,
and this is a guide to how to access them
because they're fairly difficult to approach on their own. It's
almost its own kind of written system. And I wish
(08:31):
I had this kind of book to explain, Hey, this
is what you're looking for, this is what this means.
It's just kind of this overall guide. So I think
to me, it's a really great teaching tool and a
really good way to get students or people that are
just getting interested in history to access a set of
documents and learn all these interesting little bits of English history.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
It sounds like the type of book that you would
put on the shelf and come back to whenever you
needed to look at pipe roles, just as a refrain,
because as you say, these are technical documents that take
some skill to read and understand.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Yeah, indeed, indeed. So I think this, to me is
a good example of how a book can be done
because medievals often have to deal with sets of records,
whether they be manorial court records or government records or
from this archive or stuff like that, and it's tricky
to go through. So this is something that I would
recommend a lot of people should have it on the
(09:25):
shelf for browsing or just before they venture into something
like pipe rolls.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Well, this is interesting because you've picked a book that
is an example of for how other books should be,
and I think that's new for us. I don't think
you've come up with a book like that over the
last few years and your roundup, so this is cool.
I think people should look at this to see what
you think should be in a book that deals with
a technical subject like that. Who will pick?
Speaker 2 (09:50):
All?
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Right? Moving on my next book again, there are no
particular order. This one is also about England, but I
promise not all of them are. I really think that
the Wills and Testaments won and this one. They are
about England specifically in their case studies, but I think
that you can draw a lot of conclusions sort of
more broadly because of the subject matter. And this book
(10:12):
is Ladies in Waiting in Medieval England by Caroline Dunn.
So Wills and Testaments came out in twenty twenty three,
just full of disclosure. This one came out in twenty
twenty four, but I did have both of these people
on the podcast in twenty twenty five. So the Ladies
in Waiting book, as Caroline says at the beginning of
the book, looks at over twelve hundred ladies in waiting
(10:32):
over the last three centuries of the Middle Ages. And
this is that meticulous research that I find so valuable,
where she finds the actual people who are ladies in
waiting in these courts and she traces their careers as
best she can over the records, which is really difficult
to do. And I think that kind of work is
(10:53):
really illustrative. You can see how different families influenced court
politics or just family only politics, and you really get
to see through the relationships between people what is going
on behind the scenes, like these are the people who
are going to be around the court all the time,
and their influence is really huge. So Caroline's looking at
(11:16):
things like what their actual roles are, what their duties are,
who the people are, where they came from, and things
like their role as in, what does this mean culturally
for them to be there, what kind of knowledge are
they keeping in their minds that they are passing on
from queen to queen, princess to princess and so again,
I think that this is something that could be extended
(11:38):
beyond Caroline's work, but her work is really specific to England,
and these case studies are just so interesting and I
love how she's traced these people individuals in the way
that is really difficult to do. This is meticulous research,
and yeah, I really enjoyed this book.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
This book looks to me as the one dealing with
a prototypical background character of the Middle Ages, right the
Ladies in Waiting, which you know you often see but
never hear from in like other books. And I'm really
glad that you know. This is again taking a historical
topic that people think they know about and uncovering a
whole bunch of new details.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
So it sounds great Yeah, it is great. It is great.
I think everybody should read it. It is an academic
book again, because when you're doing this kind of research,
you really have to show your sources right side the sources,
and so it is an academic book. But I don't
think that it's very intimidating. And I know that there
are lots of people who are out there and they're
(12:36):
writers and they want to know more about medieval courts,
and so I think this is a book that would
be worthwhile to read for all of those people. All
right in third place on your list, who have you got?
Speaker 2 (12:49):
It's a book I've been waiting thirty years for, so I'm.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Yes, amazing. What is it?
Speaker 2 (12:55):
It is the Reutledge Handbook of Medieval Military Strategy and
by John Hostler and Dan Frank And it's a collection
of thirty one essays kind of dealing with strategy and
the geopolitics and long term strategy of medieval states and
medieval countries and military. So I've been kind of waiting
(13:16):
thirty years because this is a topic that I've seen
a lot of the military historians talk about with deray
military and a lot of these people are actually friends
of mine and One of the things we've always been
saying is that military history ignores the Middle Ages, especially
when it comes to strategy and it's long term strategy.
(13:37):
If it was before the nineteenth century, everyone was like
King Jeoffrey, sieges and battles were just the you know,
whatever it was done on the field was done on
the spot, right. But here it's a really good look
at what military commanders thought of, like when hey, we're
going to do with siege, what's it going to be? Like?
What is are the names of this country or empire?
And there's quite a lot of that, so, I, you know,
(13:59):
it's such a name broad book is very global too,
like you kind of expect these days they have, you know,
something about China or the Middle East, but this one
has a lot about India and even a couple of
articles delving into the Western Hemisphere.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Which is awesome. There needs to be more about that.
So I'm so glad that it made it into this companion.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Yeah, yeah, so I'm really happy. I think if you're
like a military historian, this is the must read for you.
And I'm fascinated by all the articles here.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Yeah, thirty one articles, one for every year you've been
waiting for this exactly. But it sounds like these are
all the usual suspects, as you say, all the people
at the top of the field when it comes to
military strategy. So it's like sitting in the back of
a conference when de Rey Military has people speaking all
about strategy, right.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Indeed, indeed, yeah, I can hear their voices in some
of these. It's a really good collection and like I
usually don't recommend collected essays, but this is a book
I really wanted to have on the list.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Mm hmm. Absolutely, and I admire your restraint. You didn't
put it straight to the top based on the fact
that it's military strategy. Good for you. So people can
get this book and save a ticket to Kalamazoo because
you have all of the best military historians filling out
the roster. Awesome, Okay, So, speaking of extending our reach
(15:19):
beyond Europe, my next book is Motherland, a Journey through
five hundred thousand years of African culture and Identity by
Luke Pepperah. And it was just such a joy to
talk to Luke. If you ever get a chance to
see him in person or see him in video, he's
just so enthusiastic and it really comes through in this book.
(15:41):
So even though medieval history makes only a relatively small
appearance within this book, I think that everybody needs an
education on what has been going on in Africa up
to this point in history, and of course what's happening
in Africa going forward from now, like we all need
to learn more about this. So Luke has given us
(16:03):
a really easy way in to learning more about the
continent and some of the countries there. And so in
terms of the medieval content of this book, when he
was on the podcast, we talked about Mansa Musa, who
makes a big appearance in this book, and of course
he needs to because he's just such a massive figure
(16:23):
in history, and he still ends up usually on the
peripheral of history when people are talking about it. So
I love that he had a central place in this book.
There's also reference in terms of medieval Africa to the
travels of Ibn Batuta and Leo Africanists whose real name
is al Hassan Almazan. So for medievalists, these are some
(16:45):
of the people that you might recognize as you're reading
through this. But the whole book contains everything from prehistory
to current ritual to Black Panther, So there's something for everybody. Warrior,
Queen's everything is in this book, and of course Luke
has made it so that it is accessible to as
many people as possible. So this is a book that
(17:06):
you can get for somebody interested in history for the
holidays and they'll have no problem reading it. It's not academic,
it's just for everybody to start their journey into learning
about Africa. So that is a pick for.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Me, indeed, a really good one. I think we're seeing
a trend in this collection where we're picking books of
people in groups and topics that are underrepresented. Yeah, his
section on Mansi Musa is really interesting as a medieval
listeners personally really want.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
To just engage with Yes, And if people read Motherland
and they can't get enough of Mansa Musa, it's worth
mentioning again that Luke actually did a mini series for
This is History, just like I did. So that mini
series is all about Mansa Musa and it's narrative. So
if people are interested in learning more about him, definitely
go and check that out. But it is a joy
(17:54):
for me to bring this book forward because it contains
so much of Luke's joy in it as well. So yeah,
I loved Motherland. All right, what do we have as
your first runner up? The second place on your list?
Speaker 2 (18:07):
In second place, what I'd like to do is bring
in a translated text for each of these talks, And
for this year I am picking the Observation of Gille
la Bouvier, a medieval herald's view of Europe and its
neighboring lands. And it's edited by Gideon Brow and Sophie Patrick,
and they had a whole team of translators to work
on this text. It's from Bloomsbury too.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
It sounds amazing. In fact, it sounds so amazing listeners
that after we did our failed attempt at recording this
early in the day, I stole this book from Peter
so I can read it because I hadn't seen it before. Peter,
what is this book about?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Yeah, this is a translation of a fifteenth century work
by this French diplomat. He's kind of well known if
you did late medieval France because he did other works
as well. So it's part travel guide, part political report.
As he explains, Hey, this is what the various reasons
of France are like. This is what England is like.
This is Denmark or Turkey and further lenses, and it
(19:04):
offers like little chunks of information for each. When he
does Florence, it's only a couple of paragraphs long, but
he says, this is what it's like. This is what
they eat, you know, this is the kind of wine
they like to drink. I thought this was a really
good book if you were like teaching an undergraduate class
and wanted to give them this access to like what
(19:24):
the medieval world was like, at least from this person's
point of view.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Is it something that you think would appeal to people
beyond the university.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
I think people would enjoy it, but I think you
need a little background in Middle Ages first to get
his point of view. It is a fascinating word not
quite like the level of se Marco Polo, but it's
kind of a fun read, especially when he's talking about
the English.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Yeah, well, I mean, a herald is going to be
the one you want to talk to when you want
the tea, right, They're going to be the person that
knows everything, just like the ladies in waiting.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Indeed, one thing I really liked that also about it
was that they gave the various team members who worked
on the translation their own little space at the end
of the book to talk about the challenges of translating
this text, what was tricky for them, what did they
like to do? So I really like that look into
the translator's point of view.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
I think people have a lot of questions about how
historians come to their conclusions or decide on their translations.
So anytime people can open a window onto that process,
I think is super valuable.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
What's your next book on the list?
Speaker 1 (20:30):
My next book on the list is In Plain Sight
Muslims of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem by Enzimo And
this is a book that I was so excited to read,
and it did not disappoint because this is the type
of question that I always have. Right when the Christians
came to the Holy Land and took it over, what
happened to the people who are already living there, what
(20:51):
happened to them on the day to day. Because as
much as texts will tell you that these people are
mortal enemies, on the ground, there has to be some
sort of compromise, There has to be some sort of
working together for things to sort of continue as they
have been. So this is not to say that there
wasn't mass slaughter. This was the Crusades that we're talking about.
But what happened to the people who survived and stayed
(21:15):
in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. So Anne talks about in
this book narrowing down in a sort of bull's eye way,
so outer circles towards inner circles. She talks about the
geography of where Muslims are at living in Jerusalem at
this time. Then she moves on to things like economic activity,
So what are they allowed to do for a living?
(21:37):
What do they continue to do for a living? What
do they value doing for a living? Then she talks
about the legal landscape, So what happens if you have
a problem, who do you go to? Do you go
to a Muslim authority? Do you go to a Christian authority?
What happens if you have a problem, because I mean,
these are practical issues people had to work out. Then
(21:57):
of course, the political landscape, so who is in charge
of what? Because again this is sort of something that
you can say from on high, but what does it
look like when we're talking about people living their day
to day lives? And then she really got into stuff
that I had a hunch about but I didn't know about,
which is how people worked together. So even things like
(22:17):
shared territories, like you have landlords of the same territory,
one maybe Christian and one may be Muslim, and how
does that work? So really interesting stuff. And then for
the people who are interested in sort of the more
military things, she does talk about knowledge spying, how people
are gaining their knowledge, what they're bothering to share, what
(22:39):
they are choosing to share, and all of that stuff.
So basically, I think that we all have an idea
that life in the Holy Land at this time is complicated,
but finally we have a book that tells us the
ways in which Muslims are living in this complicated time,
and that is something that I'd always wanted to know.
(22:59):
So great to see it in a book and again
and was on the podcast for people who want an
introduction to her work. Yeah, I really enjoyed this one.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
And I was very impressed with a level of research
in this book because I've done a lot about the Crusades,
and I've never seen a book that comes even close,
even in an article, that comes close to the detail
that this offers and insights. I was just so impressed
with how she was able to access the government documents
and records and pull things in to kind of tell
(23:29):
this story. This is a really good example of historian
at work.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Yes. Yeah, she's looking at archaeology, she's looking at chronicle history,
she's looking at legal history, she's looking at literature, basically
taking all these pieces together to create this mosaic that
gives us a picture of what things were like. And so, yeah,
that's a good one. I think that it's kind of
academic in that again, and has to lay out her
argument very carefully to make sure that everyone can see
(23:56):
her path. So it's maybe not the first book on
the Crusades you should read if you're a beginner to
the topic, but once you have a book or two
about the Crusades under your belt, I think that it's
going to be very easy for people to read and
definitely understand. Okay, that brings us to your top book
of twenty twenty five. Drum roll, please, what did you pick?
Speaker 2 (24:19):
I've picked The Hungry City, A Year in the Life
of Medieval Barcelona by Mary kellerher And from Cornell University Press.
And there's a couple of reasons I chose this book.
It's one that deals with a famine that strikes Catalonia,
particularly Barcelona, between thirteen thirty three to thirteen thirty four.
She's able to go in and look at the city
records for the most part and understand what's happening with
(24:42):
crisis management at this time. Typically famines or other crisis happened.
They get it brushed over. The chronicler says it was
a bad year, right, things were probably terrible, and that's
all we can think of, right, But she's able to
access all this information, especially about particular pace people like
the city officials, merchants, sea captains, even like a bride,
(25:05):
and tell their stories. So this is a very big microhistory.
It was just a fascinating work just to read, to
see how much she could pull out of these records
and tell this story.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Yeah, I mean, it sounds like a fascinating book. I
haven't read it yet myself, but it sounds amazing. And
you have another very important reason why you picked this.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Book indeed, indeed, and that's because Marie call her. Unfortunately,
she passed away unexpectedly in twenty twenty four, just as
she was finishing up the editing of this book. I
had known about this book was coming along. For a
long time. I've been following her research. She was always
a really good writer, talking about food, legal history, things
(25:48):
that are happening in Catalonia. So I was like, this
book would never come out, but her friends and colleagues
work together to finish up the last editing process and
get this book out. And I think it's a wonderful
tribute to Maurice's work as a scholar, because a lot
of what she was doing was culminating with this book.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Yes, what a special thing to have people come together
and make sure that the work sees the light of day,
because it could easily not have. And so I love
it when people make such wonderful tributes to colleagues like this,
with collections that are in honor of someone, or especially
a work like this where people work together to make
(26:28):
sure that this research actually comes out and people can
read it. And you showed me the book earlier. Today,
this looks like it's a book that anybody could read.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Yeah, yeah, I think the stories within it, they're so diverse.
There's lots of information, But I don't think you need
to even have this background. What's happening in the medieval
world at time. It helps if you know a bit
about food, food geography, things like that, but it offers
so much if you want to look at warfare, because
there's a conflict with Genoa, what's happening with the local
(26:58):
Jewish community, all sorts of topics just get in here.
It's just a vibrant mosaic.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
That's amazing. I think that you have picked a really
perfect book as your number one book this year, and
I didn't steal it this afternoon, so I'm going to
have to steal it from you later because it sounds
like it's a great piece of work.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Well, your last book is also a pretty great piece
of work too.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Yes it is. And again my books are no particular order,
but I needed to have this one on the list,
and that is Medieval love Letters, a critical anthology by
Myra Stokes and ed Putter, and I was lucky enough
to have both of these scholars on the podcast. They
were so much fun to talk to because not only
do they have a great sense of humor, but this
is a great topic. And so for people who may
(27:43):
not remember this episode off the top of your heads,
this is the one where we talked about love letters
that were being sent between two clergy members, perhaps two ecclesiastics.
There are secret letters, there are angry letters, are there's
all sorts of spicy stuff in here, which is fantastic.
It's not super x rated, but you do have all
(28:06):
of these sentiments that are being sent back and forth
in letters between people that maybe you wouldn't suspect would
be quite so passionate. There are also exemplar letters which
are really special in this book as well, because some
of them are hilarious, like how to write to a
nun to keep her from being a nun because you
want to have a love affair with her. That's one
(28:28):
of my favorite once in the whole book. And then
there's another exemplar from a different collection where a sister
is writing to her sister saying, our dad is sending
me up with a guy who's really ugly and unpleasant.
Can you send me a horse so I can run
away from dad before I get married off to this guy.
So some of these letters were never sent, for example,
(28:49):
these ones are exemplars to help you figure out how
you should write your letter to your sister about escaping
your dad. But what's amazing about these is that you
get to see what people thought was important enough to
actually put into letters. And even if some of these
are a bit silly, like how often are you going
to need to write to a nun to tell or
to not be a nun? The structure of the letters
(29:12):
tell us us a lot about society and what people value,
and the ones that were sent tell us about what
people would want to say to their bill love is.
There's so much involved in this between things like who
is literate at this time, who is going to be
seeing this maybe someone else is going to be reading
it out loud. So there's things like the covert ways
(29:34):
to make a tryst to set up a rendezvous that
are involved in the works that are in this book.
So Mayra and adds, it's such a wonderful job collecting
these letters, and they walk you through the process of
trying to figure out are these ones real? Are they
just drafts? We don't know? And so you have not
(29:54):
only the letters themselves, but again this working through how
we work with evidence historians. So I absolutely love this
book and I needed to give it another shout out
before the year is out.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
This is a really fascinating book because on one hand,
it's a dive into the medieval hearts and minds, right,
but the same times also a rhetorical exercise. So it
really is good that they can give you that analysis
as you come into that, so you're not like, what's
the reality behind it, what's the strategy behind writing these letters?
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Mmmm? You get to know the personalities behind the letter
writers or the people who are writing the exemplar books,
because again, they review little things about themselves by the
way they write. And so this was a really great
book and one that I'm happy to bring to the
forefront again. So, wow, what a great year for books,
(30:46):
And you have more books that you wanted to highlight, right,
because it's been a great year for books coming out
by people that people might be familiar with from Medievalist,
don't it.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Indeed, indeed there's this larger team of writers and podcasters
here at Medievalist, And I have a rule that they
can't get on this list because I'm a mean person,
but I think.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
You're trying to be a fair person.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
I'm a mean person, but they should get a mention.
And that includes Steve Tibble Assassins and Templars.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Yes, not only is he a great writer about the Crusades,
but He's also a great husband to Faith Tibble, whose
book did make your list.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Indeed, indeed, indeed, so we have him. We have Laura Chevalier.
He has a book called A Medieval Cabinet of Curiosities,
and I think it's a nice send off for all
his articles because he's such a diverse writer. He comes
up with so many different topics for me, so I'm
really glad he put this out as well. We have
Michael Livingston. He has a book on one hundred Years War,
(31:43):
which has a couple of different titles, depending on which
side of the Atlantic you are on. I just called the
two hundred Years War.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Yeah, basically that is the argument. Michael was on the
podcast talking about this. I think that the book that
I saw was called Bloody Crowns, A New History of
the one hundred Years War, A New History of the
two hundred Years War. Anyway, that is the argument a
two hundred years War.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
And then David Backgrach, who started writing for us at
the end of the summer, he has a book that
he credited with father called Warfare in the Global Middle Ages.
He actually wrote a piece about writing that book that
I found really fascinating on medievalist Don Net.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Yeah, you mentioned that a few weeks ago, so now
people can find the actual book.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Itself, so I want to give a shout out to that.
I want to also give a shout out to Delcassian Publishing.
They have created something called the Scriptorum Project, and that's
where they're providing these editions and translations of smaller medieval
texts like a saint's life or a collection of charters
or a collection of law codes. And these are often
(32:45):
really small books, like under ten pages with Latin and English.
They're seem to be producing them like once a week,
so I think this is a great little service for
scholars that want to access those particular topics that are
interesting to them.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Where do you find these books, Well, you.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Can access them through Amazon or the Calcium Publishing website DP.
Curtis has a really good Instagram as well. He's the
main person behind it, so it's kind of a hidden
jym and if you go in there, you wind up
buying like five or ten books and they'll be smaller
than one book.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Well yeah, I mean people had to write this stuff
out by hand back in the day, so.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
I'm really glad for them, and we're getting tons and
tons of books here at midievles dot net. I'm really
appreciative all the publishers having sending in their things. We're
trying to get to them, all getting social media posts
and things like that out.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
I kind of spread the word, yeah, well you're going
to get rits just putting these books all on the shelf. Right,
this is going to be your workout going into January. Right.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Indeed, like just hauling piles of books around for photography
is fun stuff.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Well, and there are lots of good novels that came
out as well. And I don't intend to talk about
novels on the podcast because it feels like a totally
different thing to be talking about the historical accuracy and
whether it's literarily great or not. So I don't tend
to talk about them. But I hope to talk about
novels a bit more on Patreon. And we're going to
talk about Patreon in just a second. But first, you
(34:14):
have a great discount for people who are interested in classes.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Right, Yes, it's the time again for the Black Friday sale,
which are our biggest sale of the year. Twenty five
percent off if you use the code black Friday All
one word. We had a really good twenty twenty five
when it came these courses. A few dozen you know,
have come up, and we have eight more that are
going to be starting between January and mid March. So
(34:39):
we have a lot of people that want to teach classes.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Everything that you ever wanted to know, you can take
a class about on Medievalist dot net. So the code
is Black Friday, all one word and it's Medieval Studies
dot THINKIVI dot com.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Right Indy, So go check that out. We're looking forward
to a really good twenty twenty six on that.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Yeah, it's going to be amazing. Speaking of amazing stuff
in twenty twenty six, the big news is that I'm
going to be taking this podcast fully independent. So when
this started, I wanted to put out a podcast. Peter
wanted to have a podcast on Medievalist dot net. So
I made the podcast and Peter distributed it, and this
(35:19):
is how it's gone for the last six years. And
the Patreon was created to support the podcast, but the
Patreon was created for Medievalist dot net. I haven't really
been part of this, and we started to discover that
people came to Patreon because of the podcast and so
I've really wanted to build a community there around the podcast.
(35:40):
So I'm going to take the podcast fully independent, and
you're going to create a Patreon for Medievalist Net. So
we we're just like cell division, right, It's not like
a breakap or a split or anything like that. It's
just sort of like making our two jobs more distinct
than they have been before.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
Indeed, indeed, patreons like a great way to engage, but
I think it makes so much sense for you to
go in and go fully into Patreon and provide ways
of giving more access to your listeners. We can still
keep offering add free access to the website for your
listeners on that Patreon. We'll set up another one for
(36:18):
new people that are coming in on medieval st NE
and just want to be there at free. But yeah,
I'm really excited about this, especially for you. You're gonna kick butt.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
Thank you. It's gonna be a great time. I think
more than kicking any sort of butt, it's gonna be
like just reaching out to people. Because I didn't even
have a Patreon account before this. So you people who
have been there, you've been talking to Peter alone. So
it's my turn. I'm going to take over this Patreon
and turn it into the medieval Podcast. So if you're
already there on Patreon, you don't need to do a thing.
(36:51):
You can just sit tight. On January first, I'm going
to offer some new tiers and you can choose whether
you want to be on them or not. Like Peter said,
people are still going to have the option to get
Medievalist dot Net ad free. This podcast add free all
sorts of stuff, so if you're happy where you are,
you can just stay where you are. The only thing
that's going to be different is Bow and Blade is
going to migrate to Peter's new Patreon, So if you're
(37:14):
there for Bow and Blade, you might want to consider
once January comes around, maybe that you want to switch
to medievalists dot Net's patreon. So if you're there, just
stay there. You don't need to do a thing. If
you want to tune in and see and be part
of a survey that I'm going to put out to
make sure that I'm learning what people actually want on Patreon,
(37:34):
just think about joining the free tier for now, just
to keep your ear to the ground, and of course
just listen to this podcast every week. So yeah, it's
going to be an exciting year twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Yeah, I know, like I think we're both kind of
expanding and we're loving it, and yeah, I'm looking forward.
And the good news for your listeners is like, well,
I won't be on every week on the podcast. I
humbly ask that we can keep doing this episode every year.
I'll come back for book talk.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
Yeah exactly, because we still value Peter's expertise when it
comes to books, so people won't miss you too much.
You have an entire website there one can go to
and see what you're doing. But yeah, this is growth
for both of us, and so this was the best
decision for both of us, which should I think it's
going to be exciting for both of us and hopefully
(38:23):
for all of you listeners as well. So I think
that's all the news for now and all the books
for now, and I mean there's going to be more
books to talk about next week and the next week
and the.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
Next week, and in a couple of weeks I'll be
back for the year in review.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
Yeah exactly. So thanks Peter for coming on and telling
us all about these amazing books that you have picked
for the year, and we will look forward to talking
with you again in just a couple of weeks.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
Indeed, thanks as.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
I mentioned in my conversation with Peter, I'll be taking
over the patreon dot com slash Medievalists account on Jennuary first,
and turning it into a medieval podcast community. My plan
is to create a fun space where we can come
together to discuss all things medieval, but especially the amazing
content that my guests bring to the airwaves every week.
(39:14):
To that end, I'll be creating chat spaces for educators,
for creators, and for general medieval enthusiasts to share ideas
and get to know each other as a start, but
I'd like to know what other content you think should
be there, so I've set up a survey open to
all patrons so that you can have your say. And
if you're not currently a patron but you'd like to
(39:34):
fill out the survey, go ahead and join the free
tier at patreon dot com slash Medievalists so you can
chime in and stay in the loop. Finally, going solo
in January means it's time to create a new home
for all the show notes and most importantly, the books.
It's a big challenge to create pages for three hundred
and seventeen individual episodes. So the website is still under construction,
(39:59):
but I wanted to have something nice for you ready
to go for the holiday season. So with the invaluable
help of my lovely assistant Virginia, I've posted all the
books featured on the podcast, going back to episode two
hundred and fifty in one place. It's Medieval Podcast dot
com slash Holiday Booklist, all one word. I hope you'll
(40:19):
enjoy browsing the covers and revisiting some of your favorite
authors and episodes, and maybe getting some inspiration for your
holiday shopping this year. I've called this the Holiday book
List because if you click on any of the covers,
it'll take you straight to the books page on Amazon
dot com. These are affiliate links, which means that if
you choose to buy the books through these links, you'll
(40:40):
be supporting this podcast at no extra cost to you.
So if you're choosing to shop on Amazon during the
sales this weekend, I hope that you'll consider using one
of these links to get there. Of course, I always
support indie book buying as well, so I hope that
this collected list helps make indie book buying easy too.
I'm medieval podcast dot com will list every book going
(41:03):
back to episode one, but for now, you can find
nearly seventy five incredible books on medieval history, including Peters
in my favorite books of twenty twenty five at medieval
podcast dot com slash Holiday booklist. No matter how you've
been supporting the podcast, whether it's through Patreon or affiliate links,
or letting the ads play, or just sending me your
(41:24):
good vibes, you always have my heartfelt appreciation. I hope
that the podcast has been a joyful part of your
life so far, and that my next steps will just
keep making the experience better for you as time goes on.
For everything from fabulous books to fabulous looks, follow medievalist
dot net on Instagram at medievalist net or blue Sky
(41:45):
at Medievalists. You can find me Danielle Sabowski across social
media at five min Medievalist or five minute Medievalist, and
you can find my books at all your favorite bookstores.
Our music is by Christian Overton. Thanks for listening, and
you have yourself an awesome day.
Hi everyone, and welcome to episode three hundred and seventeen
of the Medieval Podcast. I'm your host, Danielle Sebolski. Well,
it's that time of year again, the time when Peter
(00:23):
Kinnecchni of Medieval is dot Nett and I reveal our
favorite books of the past year. It's always a real
pleasure to revisit the amazing books I've been reading and
the conversations I've had here on the podcast with all
the fun and generous authors in medieval studies. Today, I
hope that you look forward to this annual episode as
much as I do, and today I hope you'll stay
(00:45):
right to the end of the podcast because not only
are there some great books to talk about, but I
also have a couple of big announcements about the future
of the podcast, which I'm super excited to tell you about.
So stay tuned. All of that goodness and more is
coming up right after this. Well, welcome back, Peter. This
(01:06):
is take two because our tech did not work earlier
in the day. Welcome back. It's the most wonderful time
of the year, at the time when we get to
talk about our favorite books.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Indeed, since we had a chance to talk about it
already and it was a great talk. Let's do it again.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Yeah, it was a great talk. Let's see if we
could do a great job again. So, as usual, as
we do every year, we both pick five books that
we really liked. I picked them in no particular order,
but you pick them in ranked order, right.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Indeed, as a librarian, I need to categorize things. So
these are the five best books of twenty twenty five.
Although I was like going with here, like, hey, it
doesn't have to be twenty twenty five. It just wound
up all these books we're published this year.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Yes, a couple of mine, I only featured them this year.
All of mine are ones that were featured on the
podcast because those are the books that I do the
most reading of. And some of them are a little
bit older, but they were featured this year, the as
twenty twenty five. Okay, without further ado, let's get started.
What do you have in the number five position?
Speaker 2 (02:07):
I have for number five is Fay Tibble's book The
Crown of Thorns, Humble Gods and Humiliated Kings, which is
from Bloomsbury.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
All right, what's this one about? I know?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Yeah, this one, this one checked off a lot of boxes.
For me, what I really liked is how it takes
like a long held historical fact. The Questians would see
this as a fact that Jesus had a crown of
thorns put on him by the Romans, and they were
actual thorns, probably very painful. But what Faith is doing
(02:37):
here is taking a look at the early evidence. So
this is part of his ancient history, and it might
now have been a crown of thorns at all, but
something a little different, more designed for humiliation rather than pain.
And it's really interesting because then about a thousand years later,
this kind of imagery of the crown of thorns really
comes up in Western European art. She links it to
(02:59):
kings and trying to emulate Jesus, and there's a whole
kind of political subtext around it, especially co opted by
kings like Louis the Ninth.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
This book is really interesting because it's something that I
think everyone thinks, like you said, is just canon, like
this is the way that it was, and so it's
worthwhile to go back and look at the evidence and
see what it actually says in the Bible and see
how it's depicted through art. And I think this type
of work is really important. So I really enjoyed this
(03:29):
book as well. I think you picked a good one.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Yeah, I really like you know, it crosses over from
ancient to medieval history, so I think there'd be a
big audience for it. It really takes that one historical fact
that we have and digs deeper, and I really love
those kind of books.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
And this one is pretty accessible as well. You don't
have to have any background in religion or in medieval
studies or ancient studies. You can just dive right in
and learn.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Yeah, it's a really well written book for the general reader.
But I think if you're a medievalist that's into art
history or history of religion or the history of kings particularly,
you'll find some of these insights here.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Absolutely. Okay. So my first book that I want to
talk about, and again these are in no particular order,
is Will's and Testaments in Medieval England from the thirteenth
to the sixteenth century by Robert A. Wood. And Robert
was a guest on the podcast. You may remember. It
was his first podcast ever, and he was just so nice.
(04:25):
I think he was a bit nervous, but he did
a great job. And something I want to tell you
about before I get into the book, something that Robert
told me before we actually started recording, which is his story.
And Robert is an inspiration because he had a different job,
and I think what he said was he saw a
busshelter poster saying come and study history, and he did.
(04:46):
He did part time classes in history, and then he
went through God his degree, went to graduate school, studied
with some of the best people in our field, and
now he's come up with his book Will's and Testaments.
So I think the it is an inspiration for anyone
who thinks that they're too old to learn about history.
You're never too old. You can just dive in whenever
you want. So, coming back to the book, why did
(05:09):
I like the book? It really spoke to the way
that I think, which is sort of putting all of
my ducks in a row before I start to get
any deeper into a topic. So this is a really
thorough book where before he even gets into the Wills
and Testaments, Robert talks about the way that Roman numerals
were used, the way that currency was used in England,
(05:29):
the spending power of currency, weights and measures, social hierarchy,
and the rituals around burial before he even gets to
the wills, So he's really really thorough in telling you
what things were like, those details about how people were
thinking around not only stuff like money, but stuff like burial.
And then you get to the wills themselves, and I
(05:52):
think that they're so revealing. They tell you about what
people are thinking about in their last weeks, days, hours,
what they want to give to, what they're thinking about,
and the things that they find so important that they're
going to be clean them to people. So you get
Roberts edited wills, so you can read these words for
yourself as well as all of that background information that
(06:14):
he's put together. And so this is just a really
great book for people who want all of those real
concrete details about the period.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Well, I see in a book like this it offers
two types of histories near macro history, because he can
look at the thousands upon thousands of wills from medieval
England and find out trends and what people were doing overall.
But then you can kind of tell the individual stories
of each will and they offer really exciting glimpses of
what people thought was important to them.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Yeah, exactly, So, like I becleaned my best girdle to
this person, and you want to find out who all
the people are who are named in the wills. Of
course we will never find out, but it's really fun
to look at the evidence and really get an understanding
as to what people were thinking about when they were
create eating them, especially in a time where death was
very close at hand. Because he's especially looking at again
(07:05):
the thirteenth to the sixteenth century, so a time of
plague for most of that period. So I really liked
Wills and Testaments in medieval England?
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Who'd be it aimed for?
Speaker 1 (07:16):
It is a scholarly book, so it is written in
sort of academic language, But because he gets at all
of these small categories first that are very introductory, things
like currency, I think you could start with it and
not be lost. You'd really be able to follow along
with Robert's argument and really just learn about it, whether
you have a background in this or not. So we've
(07:39):
done two books and we're already further behind than we
were when we recorded this earlier. We need to get going, Okay,
So what do you have in fourth place?
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Leader? It's just because we love books so much, so
we do my fourth book is called Approaching Pipe Rolls
the thirteenth Century by Richard Cassidy, and it's from Rutledge.
And this is a very thin book, is under one
hundred pages, and it's really a beginner's guide to the
set of English government records. Pipe rows are the kind
of list of debts to the governments, whether it be
(08:08):
taxes or fines. And this is a book that would
have been so useful for me when I was a
grad student because you can access these records. They're in
print from the nineteenth century and you can find them online,
and this is a guide to how to access them
because they're fairly difficult to approach on their own. It's
almost its own kind of written system. And I wish
(08:31):
I had this kind of book to explain, Hey, this
is what you're looking for, this is what this means.
It's just kind of this overall guide. So I think
to me, it's a really great teaching tool and a
really good way to get students or people that are
just getting interested in history to access a set of
documents and learn all these interesting little bits of English history.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
It sounds like the type of book that you would
put on the shelf and come back to whenever you
needed to look at pipe roles, just as a refrain,
because as you say, these are technical documents that take
some skill to read and understand.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Yeah, indeed, indeed. So I think this, to me is
a good example of how a book can be done
because medievals often have to deal with sets of records,
whether they be manorial court records or government records or
from this archive or stuff like that, and it's tricky
to go through. So this is something that I would
recommend a lot of people should have it on the
(09:25):
shelf for browsing or just before they venture into something
like pipe rolls.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Well, this is interesting because you've picked a book that
is an example of for how other books should be,
and I think that's new for us. I don't think
you've come up with a book like that over the
last few years and your roundup, so this is cool.
I think people should look at this to see what
you think should be in a book that deals with
a technical subject like that. Who will pick?
Speaker 2 (09:50):
All?
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Right? Moving on my next book again, there are no
particular order. This one is also about England, but I
promise not all of them are. I really think that
the Wills and Testaments won and this one. They are
about England specifically in their case studies, but I think
that you can draw a lot of conclusions sort of
more broadly because of the subject matter. And this book
(10:12):
is Ladies in Waiting in Medieval England by Caroline Dunn.
So Wills and Testaments came out in twenty twenty three,
just full of disclosure. This one came out in twenty
twenty four, but I did have both of these people
on the podcast in twenty twenty five. So the Ladies
in Waiting book, as Caroline says at the beginning of
the book, looks at over twelve hundred ladies in waiting
(10:32):
over the last three centuries of the Middle Ages. And
this is that meticulous research that I find so valuable,
where she finds the actual people who are ladies in
waiting in these courts and she traces their careers as
best she can over the records, which is really difficult
to do. And I think that kind of work is
(10:53):
really illustrative. You can see how different families influenced court
politics or just family only politics, and you really get
to see through the relationships between people what is going
on behind the scenes, like these are the people who
are going to be around the court all the time,
and their influence is really huge. So Caroline's looking at
(11:16):
things like what their actual roles are, what their duties are,
who the people are, where they came from, and things
like their role as in, what does this mean culturally
for them to be there, what kind of knowledge are
they keeping in their minds that they are passing on
from queen to queen, princess to princess and so again,
I think that this is something that could be extended
(11:38):
beyond Caroline's work, but her work is really specific to England,
and these case studies are just so interesting and I
love how she's traced these people individuals in the way
that is really difficult to do. This is meticulous research,
and yeah, I really enjoyed this book.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
This book looks to me as the one dealing with
a prototypical background character of the Middle Ages, right the
Ladies in Waiting, which you know you often see but
never hear from in like other books. And I'm really
glad that you know. This is again taking a historical
topic that people think they know about and uncovering a
whole bunch of new details.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
So it sounds great Yeah, it is great. It is great.
I think everybody should read it. It is an academic
book again, because when you're doing this kind of research,
you really have to show your sources right side the sources,
and so it is an academic book. But I don't
think that it's very intimidating. And I know that there
are lots of people who are out there and they're
(12:36):
writers and they want to know more about medieval courts,
and so I think this is a book that would
be worthwhile to read for all of those people. All
right in third place on your list, who have you got?
Speaker 2 (12:49):
It's a book I've been waiting thirty years for, so I'm.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Yes, amazing. What is it?
Speaker 2 (12:55):
It is the Reutledge Handbook of Medieval Military Strategy and
by John Hostler and Dan Frank And it's a collection
of thirty one essays kind of dealing with strategy and
the geopolitics and long term strategy of medieval states and
medieval countries and military. So I've been kind of waiting
(13:16):
thirty years because this is a topic that I've seen
a lot of the military historians talk about with deray
military and a lot of these people are actually friends
of mine and One of the things we've always been
saying is that military history ignores the Middle Ages, especially
when it comes to strategy and it's long term strategy.
(13:37):
If it was before the nineteenth century, everyone was like
King Jeoffrey, sieges and battles were just the you know,
whatever it was done on the field was done on
the spot, right. But here it's a really good look
at what military commanders thought of, like when hey, we're
going to do with siege, what's it going to be? Like?
What is are the names of this country or empire?
And there's quite a lot of that, so, I, you know,
(13:59):
it's such a name broad book is very global too,
like you kind of expect these days they have, you know,
something about China or the Middle East, but this one
has a lot about India and even a couple of
articles delving into the Western Hemisphere.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Which is awesome. There needs to be more about that.
So I'm so glad that it made it into this companion.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Yeah, yeah, so I'm really happy. I think if you're
like a military historian, this is the must read for you.
And I'm fascinated by all the articles here.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Yeah, thirty one articles, one for every year you've been
waiting for this exactly. But it sounds like these are
all the usual suspects, as you say, all the people
at the top of the field when it comes to
military strategy. So it's like sitting in the back of
a conference when de Rey Military has people speaking all
about strategy, right.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Indeed, indeed, yeah, I can hear their voices in some
of these. It's a really good collection and like I
usually don't recommend collected essays, but this is a book
I really wanted to have on the list.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Mm hmm. Absolutely, and I admire your restraint. You didn't
put it straight to the top based on the fact
that it's military strategy. Good for you. So people can
get this book and save a ticket to Kalamazoo because
you have all of the best military historians filling out
the roster. Awesome, Okay, So, speaking of extending our reach
(15:19):
beyond Europe, my next book is Motherland, a Journey through
five hundred thousand years of African culture and Identity by
Luke Pepperah. And it was just such a joy to
talk to Luke. If you ever get a chance to
see him in person or see him in video, he's
just so enthusiastic and it really comes through in this book.
(15:41):
So even though medieval history makes only a relatively small
appearance within this book, I think that everybody needs an
education on what has been going on in Africa up
to this point in history, and of course what's happening
in Africa going forward from now, like we all need
to learn more about this. So Luke has given us
(16:03):
a really easy way in to learning more about the
continent and some of the countries there. And so in
terms of the medieval content of this book, when he
was on the podcast, we talked about Mansa Musa, who
makes a big appearance in this book, and of course
he needs to because he's just such a massive figure
(16:23):
in history, and he still ends up usually on the
peripheral of history when people are talking about it. So
I love that he had a central place in this book.
There's also reference in terms of medieval Africa to the
travels of Ibn Batuta and Leo Africanists whose real name
is al Hassan Almazan. So for medievalists, these are some
(16:45):
of the people that you might recognize as you're reading
through this. But the whole book contains everything from prehistory
to current ritual to Black Panther, So there's something for everybody. Warrior,
Queen's everything is in this book, and of course Luke
has made it so that it is accessible to as
many people as possible. So this is a book that
(17:06):
you can get for somebody interested in history for the
holidays and they'll have no problem reading it. It's not academic,
it's just for everybody to start their journey into learning
about Africa. So that is a pick for.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Me, indeed, a really good one. I think we're seeing
a trend in this collection where we're picking books of
people in groups and topics that are underrepresented. Yeah, his
section on Mansi Musa is really interesting as a medieval
listeners personally really want.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
To just engage with Yes, And if people read Motherland
and they can't get enough of Mansa Musa, it's worth
mentioning again that Luke actually did a mini series for
This is History, just like I did. So that mini
series is all about Mansa Musa and it's narrative. So
if people are interested in learning more about him, definitely
go and check that out. But it is a joy
(17:54):
for me to bring this book forward because it contains
so much of Luke's joy in it as well. So yeah,
I loved Motherland. All right, what do we have as
your first runner up? The second place on your list?
Speaker 2 (18:07):
In second place, what I'd like to do is bring
in a translated text for each of these talks, And
for this year I am picking the Observation of Gille
la Bouvier, a medieval herald's view of Europe and its
neighboring lands. And it's edited by Gideon Brow and Sophie Patrick,
and they had a whole team of translators to work
on this text. It's from Bloomsbury too.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
It sounds amazing. In fact, it sounds so amazing listeners
that after we did our failed attempt at recording this
early in the day, I stole this book from Peter
so I can read it because I hadn't seen it before. Peter,
what is this book about?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Yeah, this is a translation of a fifteenth century work
by this French diplomat. He's kind of well known if
you did late medieval France because he did other works
as well. So it's part travel guide, part political report.
As he explains, Hey, this is what the various reasons
of France are like. This is what England is like.
This is Denmark or Turkey and further lenses, and it
(19:04):
offers like little chunks of information for each. When he
does Florence, it's only a couple of paragraphs long, but
he says, this is what it's like. This is what
they eat, you know, this is the kind of wine
they like to drink. I thought this was a really
good book if you were like teaching an undergraduate class
and wanted to give them this access to like what
(19:24):
the medieval world was like, at least from this person's
point of view.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Is it something that you think would appeal to people
beyond the university.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
I think people would enjoy it, but I think you
need a little background in Middle Ages first to get
his point of view. It is a fascinating word not
quite like the level of se Marco Polo, but it's
kind of a fun read, especially when he's talking about
the English.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Yeah, well, I mean, a herald is going to be
the one you want to talk to when you want
the tea, right, They're going to be the person that
knows everything, just like the ladies in waiting.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Indeed, one thing I really liked that also about it
was that they gave the various team members who worked
on the translation their own little space at the end
of the book to talk about the challenges of translating
this text, what was tricky for them, what did they
like to do? So I really like that look into
the translator's point of view.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
I think people have a lot of questions about how
historians come to their conclusions or decide on their translations.
So anytime people can open a window onto that process,
I think is super valuable.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
What's your next book on the list?
Speaker 1 (20:30):
My next book on the list is In Plain Sight
Muslims of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem by Enzimo And
this is a book that I was so excited to read,
and it did not disappoint because this is the type
of question that I always have. Right when the Christians
came to the Holy Land and took it over, what
happened to the people who are already living there, what
(20:51):
happened to them on the day to day. Because as
much as texts will tell you that these people are
mortal enemies, on the ground, there has to be some
sort of compromise, There has to be some sort of
working together for things to sort of continue as they
have been. So this is not to say that there
wasn't mass slaughter. This was the Crusades that we're talking about.
But what happened to the people who survived and stayed
(21:15):
in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. So Anne talks about in
this book narrowing down in a sort of bull's eye way,
so outer circles towards inner circles. She talks about the
geography of where Muslims are at living in Jerusalem at
this time. Then she moves on to things like economic activity,
So what are they allowed to do for a living?
(21:37):
What do they continue to do for a living? What
do they value doing for a living? Then she talks
about the legal landscape, So what happens if you have
a problem, who do you go to? Do you go
to a Muslim authority? Do you go to a Christian authority?
What happens if you have a problem, because I mean,
these are practical issues people had to work out. Then
(21:57):
of course, the political landscape, so who is in charge
of what? Because again this is sort of something that
you can say from on high, but what does it
look like when we're talking about people living their day
to day lives? And then she really got into stuff
that I had a hunch about but I didn't know about,
which is how people worked together. So even things like
(22:17):
shared territories, like you have landlords of the same territory,
one maybe Christian and one may be Muslim, and how
does that work? So really interesting stuff. And then for
the people who are interested in sort of the more
military things, she does talk about knowledge spying, how people
are gaining their knowledge, what they're bothering to share, what
(22:39):
they are choosing to share, and all of that stuff.
So basically, I think that we all have an idea
that life in the Holy Land at this time is complicated,
but finally we have a book that tells us the
ways in which Muslims are living in this complicated time,
and that is something that I'd always wanted to know.
(22:59):
So great to see it in a book and again
and was on the podcast for people who want an
introduction to her work. Yeah, I really enjoyed this one.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
And I was very impressed with a level of research
in this book because I've done a lot about the Crusades,
and I've never seen a book that comes even close,
even in an article, that comes close to the detail
that this offers and insights. I was just so impressed
with how she was able to access the government documents
and records and pull things in to kind of tell
(23:29):
this story. This is a really good example of historian
at work.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Yes. Yeah, she's looking at archaeology, she's looking at chronicle history,
she's looking at legal history, she's looking at literature, basically
taking all these pieces together to create this mosaic that
gives us a picture of what things were like. And so, yeah,
that's a good one. I think that it's kind of
academic in that again, and has to lay out her
argument very carefully to make sure that everyone can see
(23:56):
her path. So it's maybe not the first book on
the Crusades you should read if you're a beginner to
the topic, but once you have a book or two
about the Crusades under your belt, I think that it's
going to be very easy for people to read and
definitely understand. Okay, that brings us to your top book
of twenty twenty five. Drum roll, please, what did you pick?
Speaker 2 (24:19):
I've picked The Hungry City, A Year in the Life
of Medieval Barcelona by Mary kellerher And from Cornell University Press.
And there's a couple of reasons I chose this book.
It's one that deals with a famine that strikes Catalonia,
particularly Barcelona, between thirteen thirty three to thirteen thirty four.
She's able to go in and look at the city
records for the most part and understand what's happening with
(24:42):
crisis management at this time. Typically famines or other crisis happened.
They get it brushed over. The chronicler says it was
a bad year, right, things were probably terrible, and that's
all we can think of, right, But she's able to
access all this information, especially about particular pace people like
the city officials, merchants, sea captains, even like a bride,
(25:05):
and tell their stories. So this is a very big microhistory.
It was just a fascinating work just to read, to
see how much she could pull out of these records
and tell this story.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Yeah, I mean, it sounds like a fascinating book. I
haven't read it yet myself, but it sounds amazing. And
you have another very important reason why you picked this.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Book indeed, indeed, and that's because Marie call her. Unfortunately,
she passed away unexpectedly in twenty twenty four, just as
she was finishing up the editing of this book. I
had known about this book was coming along. For a
long time. I've been following her research. She was always
a really good writer, talking about food, legal history, things
(25:48):
that are happening in Catalonia. So I was like, this
book would never come out, but her friends and colleagues
work together to finish up the last editing process and
get this book out. And I think it's a wonderful
tribute to Maurice's work as a scholar, because a lot
of what she was doing was culminating with this book.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Yes, what a special thing to have people come together
and make sure that the work sees the light of day,
because it could easily not have. And so I love
it when people make such wonderful tributes to colleagues like this,
with collections that are in honor of someone, or especially
a work like this where people work together to make
(26:28):
sure that this research actually comes out and people can
read it. And you showed me the book earlier. Today,
this looks like it's a book that anybody could read.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Yeah, yeah, I think the stories within it, they're so diverse.
There's lots of information, But I don't think you need
to even have this background. What's happening in the medieval
world at time. It helps if you know a bit
about food, food geography, things like that, but it offers
so much if you want to look at warfare, because
there's a conflict with Genoa, what's happening with the local
(26:58):
Jewish community, all sorts of topics just get in here.
It's just a vibrant mosaic.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
That's amazing. I think that you have picked a really
perfect book as your number one book this year, and
I didn't steal it this afternoon, so I'm going to
have to steal it from you later because it sounds
like it's a great piece of work.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Well, your last book is also a pretty great piece
of work too.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Yes it is. And again my books are no particular order,
but I needed to have this one on the list,
and that is Medieval love Letters, a critical anthology by
Myra Stokes and ed Putter, and I was lucky enough
to have both of these scholars on the podcast. They
were so much fun to talk to because not only
do they have a great sense of humor, but this
is a great topic. And so for people who may
(27:43):
not remember this episode off the top of your heads,
this is the one where we talked about love letters
that were being sent between two clergy members, perhaps two ecclesiastics.
There are secret letters, there are angry letters, are there's
all sorts of spicy stuff in here, which is fantastic.
It's not super x rated, but you do have all
(28:06):
of these sentiments that are being sent back and forth
in letters between people that maybe you wouldn't suspect would
be quite so passionate. There are also exemplar letters which
are really special in this book as well, because some
of them are hilarious, like how to write to a
nun to keep her from being a nun because you
want to have a love affair with her. That's one
(28:28):
of my favorite once in the whole book. And then
there's another exemplar from a different collection where a sister
is writing to her sister saying, our dad is sending
me up with a guy who's really ugly and unpleasant.
Can you send me a horse so I can run
away from dad before I get married off to this guy.
So some of these letters were never sent, for example,
(28:49):
these ones are exemplars to help you figure out how
you should write your letter to your sister about escaping
your dad. But what's amazing about these is that you
get to see what people thought was important enough to
actually put into letters. And even if some of these
are a bit silly, like how often are you going
to need to write to a nun to tell or
to not be a nun? The structure of the letters
(29:12):
tell us us a lot about society and what people value,
and the ones that were sent tell us about what
people would want to say to their bill love is.
There's so much involved in this between things like who
is literate at this time, who is going to be
seeing this maybe someone else is going to be reading
it out loud. So there's things like the covert ways
(29:34):
to make a tryst to set up a rendezvous that
are involved in the works that are in this book.
So Mayra and adds, it's such a wonderful job collecting
these letters, and they walk you through the process of
trying to figure out are these ones real? Are they
just drafts? We don't know? And so you have not
(29:54):
only the letters themselves, but again this working through how
we work with evidence historians. So I absolutely love this
book and I needed to give it another shout out
before the year is out.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
This is a really fascinating book because on one hand,
it's a dive into the medieval hearts and minds, right,
but the same times also a rhetorical exercise. So it
really is good that they can give you that analysis
as you come into that, so you're not like, what's
the reality behind it, what's the strategy behind writing these letters?
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Mmmm? You get to know the personalities behind the letter
writers or the people who are writing the exemplar books,
because again, they review little things about themselves by the
way they write. And so this was a really great
book and one that I'm happy to bring to the
forefront again. So, wow, what a great year for books,
(30:46):
And you have more books that you wanted to highlight, right,
because it's been a great year for books coming out
by people that people might be familiar with from Medievalist,
don't it.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Indeed, indeed there's this larger team of writers and podcasters
here at Medievalist, And I have a rule that they
can't get on this list because I'm a mean person,
but I think.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
You're trying to be a fair person.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
I'm a mean person, but they should get a mention.
And that includes Steve Tibble Assassins and Templars.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Yes, not only is he a great writer about the Crusades,
but He's also a great husband to Faith Tibble, whose
book did make your list.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Indeed, indeed, indeed, so we have him. We have Laura Chevalier.
He has a book called A Medieval Cabinet of Curiosities,
and I think it's a nice send off for all
his articles because he's such a diverse writer. He comes
up with so many different topics for me, so I'm
really glad he put this out as well. We have
Michael Livingston. He has a book on one hundred Years War,
(31:43):
which has a couple of different titles, depending on which
side of the Atlantic you are on. I just called the
two hundred Years War.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Yeah, basically that is the argument. Michael was on the
podcast talking about this. I think that the book that
I saw was called Bloody Crowns, A New History of
the one hundred Years War, A New History of the
two hundred Years War. Anyway, that is the argument a
two hundred years War.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
And then David Backgrach, who started writing for us at
the end of the summer, he has a book that
he credited with father called Warfare in the Global Middle Ages.
He actually wrote a piece about writing that book that
I found really fascinating on medievalist Don Net.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Yeah, you mentioned that a few weeks ago, so now
people can find the actual book.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Itself, so I want to give a shout out to that.
I want to also give a shout out to Delcassian Publishing.
They have created something called the Scriptorum Project, and that's
where they're providing these editions and translations of smaller medieval
texts like a saint's life or a collection of charters
or a collection of law codes. And these are often
(32:45):
really small books, like under ten pages with Latin and English.
They're seem to be producing them like once a week,
so I think this is a great little service for
scholars that want to access those particular topics that are
interesting to them.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Where do you find these books, Well, you.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Can access them through Amazon or the Calcium Publishing website DP.
Curtis has a really good Instagram as well. He's the
main person behind it, so it's kind of a hidden
jym and if you go in there, you wind up
buying like five or ten books and they'll be smaller
than one book.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Well yeah, I mean people had to write this stuff
out by hand back in the day, so.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
I'm really glad for them, and we're getting tons and
tons of books here at midievles dot net. I'm really
appreciative all the publishers having sending in their things. We're
trying to get to them, all getting social media posts
and things like that out.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
I kind of spread the word, yeah, well you're going
to get rits just putting these books all on the shelf. Right,
this is going to be your workout going into January. Right.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Indeed, like just hauling piles of books around for photography
is fun stuff.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Well, and there are lots of good novels that came
out as well. And I don't intend to talk about
novels on the podcast because it feels like a totally
different thing to be talking about the historical accuracy and
whether it's literarily great or not. So I don't tend
to talk about them. But I hope to talk about
novels a bit more on Patreon. And we're going to
talk about Patreon in just a second. But first, you
(34:14):
have a great discount for people who are interested in classes.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Right, Yes, it's the time again for the Black Friday sale,
which are our biggest sale of the year. Twenty five
percent off if you use the code black Friday All
one word. We had a really good twenty twenty five
when it came these courses. A few dozen you know,
have come up, and we have eight more that are
going to be starting between January and mid March. So
(34:39):
we have a lot of people that want to teach classes.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Everything that you ever wanted to know, you can take
a class about on Medievalist dot net. So the code
is Black Friday, all one word and it's Medieval Studies
dot THINKIVI dot com.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Right Indy, So go check that out. We're looking forward
to a really good twenty twenty six on that.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Yeah, it's going to be amazing. Speaking of amazing stuff
in twenty twenty six, the big news is that I'm
going to be taking this podcast fully independent. So when
this started, I wanted to put out a podcast. Peter
wanted to have a podcast on Medievalist dot net. So
I made the podcast and Peter distributed it, and this
(35:19):
is how it's gone for the last six years. And
the Patreon was created to support the podcast, but the
Patreon was created for Medievalist dot net. I haven't really
been part of this, and we started to discover that
people came to Patreon because of the podcast and so
I've really wanted to build a community there around the podcast.
(35:40):
So I'm going to take the podcast fully independent, and
you're going to create a Patreon for Medievalist Net. So
we we're just like cell division, right, It's not like
a breakap or a split or anything like that. It's
just sort of like making our two jobs more distinct
than they have been before.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
Indeed, indeed, patreons like a great way to engage, but
I think it makes so much sense for you to
go in and go fully into Patreon and provide ways
of giving more access to your listeners. We can still
keep offering add free access to the website for your
listeners on that Patreon. We'll set up another one for
(36:18):
new people that are coming in on medieval st NE
and just want to be there at free. But yeah,
I'm really excited about this, especially for you. You're gonna kick butt.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
Thank you. It's gonna be a great time. I think
more than kicking any sort of butt, it's gonna be
like just reaching out to people. Because I didn't even
have a Patreon account before this. So you people who
have been there, you've been talking to Peter alone. So
it's my turn. I'm going to take over this Patreon
and turn it into the medieval Podcast. So if you're
already there on Patreon, you don't need to do a thing.
(36:51):
You can just sit tight. On January first, I'm going
to offer some new tiers and you can choose whether
you want to be on them or not. Like Peter said,
people are still going to have the option to get
Medievalist dot Net ad free. This podcast add free all
sorts of stuff, so if you're happy where you are,
you can just stay where you are. The only thing
that's going to be different is Bow and Blade is
going to migrate to Peter's new Patreon, So if you're
(37:14):
there for Bow and Blade, you might want to consider
once January comes around, maybe that you want to switch
to medievalists dot Net's patreon. So if you're there, just
stay there. You don't need to do a thing. If
you want to tune in and see and be part
of a survey that I'm going to put out to
make sure that I'm learning what people actually want on Patreon,
(37:34):
just think about joining the free tier for now, just
to keep your ear to the ground, and of course
just listen to this podcast every week. So yeah, it's
going to be an exciting year twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Yeah, I know, like I think we're both kind of
expanding and we're loving it, and yeah, I'm looking forward.
And the good news for your listeners is like, well,
I won't be on every week on the podcast. I
humbly ask that we can keep doing this episode every year.
I'll come back for book talk.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
Yeah exactly, because we still value Peter's expertise when it
comes to books, so people won't miss you too much.
You have an entire website there one can go to
and see what you're doing. But yeah, this is growth
for both of us, and so this was the best
decision for both of us, which should I think it's
going to be exciting for both of us and hopefully
(38:23):
for all of you listeners as well. So I think
that's all the news for now and all the books
for now, and I mean there's going to be more
books to talk about next week and the next week
and the.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
Next week, and in a couple of weeks I'll be
back for the year in review.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
Yeah exactly. So thanks Peter for coming on and telling
us all about these amazing books that you have picked
for the year, and we will look forward to talking
with you again in just a couple of weeks.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
Indeed, thanks as.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
I mentioned in my conversation with Peter, I'll be taking
over the patreon dot com slash Medievalists account on Jennuary first,
and turning it into a medieval podcast community. My plan
is to create a fun space where we can come
together to discuss all things medieval, but especially the amazing
content that my guests bring to the airwaves every week.
(39:14):
To that end, I'll be creating chat spaces for educators,
for creators, and for general medieval enthusiasts to share ideas
and get to know each other as a start, but
I'd like to know what other content you think should
be there, so I've set up a survey open to
all patrons so that you can have your say. And
if you're not currently a patron but you'd like to
(39:34):
fill out the survey, go ahead and join the free
tier at patreon dot com slash Medievalists so you can
chime in and stay in the loop. Finally, going solo
in January means it's time to create a new home
for all the show notes and most importantly, the books.
It's a big challenge to create pages for three hundred
and seventeen individual episodes. So the website is still under construction,
(39:59):
but I wanted to have something nice for you ready
to go for the holiday season. So with the invaluable
help of my lovely assistant Virginia, I've posted all the
books featured on the podcast, going back to episode two
hundred and fifty in one place. It's Medieval Podcast dot
com slash Holiday Booklist, all one word. I hope you'll
(40:19):
enjoy browsing the covers and revisiting some of your favorite
authors and episodes, and maybe getting some inspiration for your
holiday shopping this year. I've called this the Holiday book
List because if you click on any of the covers,
it'll take you straight to the books page on Amazon
dot com. These are affiliate links, which means that if
you choose to buy the books through these links, you'll
(40:40):
be supporting this podcast at no extra cost to you.
So if you're choosing to shop on Amazon during the
sales this weekend, I hope that you'll consider using one
of these links to get there. Of course, I always
support indie book buying as well, so I hope that
this collected list helps make indie book buying easy too.
I'm medieval podcast dot com will list every book going
(41:03):
back to episode one, but for now, you can find
nearly seventy five incredible books on medieval history, including Peters
in my favorite books of twenty twenty five at medieval
podcast dot com slash Holiday booklist. No matter how you've
been supporting the podcast, whether it's through Patreon or affiliate links,
or letting the ads play, or just sending me your
(41:24):
good vibes, you always have my heartfelt appreciation. I hope
that the podcast has been a joyful part of your
life so far, and that my next steps will just
keep making the experience better for you as time goes on.
For everything from fabulous books to fabulous looks, follow medievalist
dot net on Instagram at medievalist net or blue Sky
(41:45):
at Medievalists. You can find me Danielle Sabowski across social
media at five min Medievalist or five minute Medievalist, and
you can find my books at all your favorite bookstores.
Our music is by Christian Overton. Thanks for listening, and
you have yourself an awesome day.
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