Synopsis After an unexpected late-season hiatus, we’re back with an episode on musical forms! We’ve got the earliest hymns, the maddest madrigals, tuning and temperament, at least three different type

Summary More on the Feast of Fools and the Kalends, with some digressions about Roman Emperor Claudius and labyrinths. Annotations For most of the Feast of Fools and Herod info from this episode, see

Summary Christmas, a season for overeating, arguing with your parents about politics, and…wearing masks? Join Em and Jesse as they talk about topsy turvy Medieval holidays like the Feast of Fools! Als

Summary More on music! (Shoutout to episode 40/music part 1, which came out a while ago now.) We talk about dulcimers and gitterns, viols and tabors, Jew’s harps and gamelans, and Jesse’s favorite–the

Summary Do you want some candy, little girl? Of course you do, it’s delicious. But what was candy a thousand years ago? Turns out at least some of it was kind of similar to what we get today. Annotati

Summary It’s spooky season! Witches have been around–and feared–since the Middle Ages. We discuss their history, unexpected ties to Judaism, and their little (or large and wolfy) dogs, too. Annotation

Summary You may have heard someone say that music is in their bones, but is it really? Answer: Yes! (If you are a Neanderthal, anyway.) In fact, the earliest instrument we have found, dating from 50-6

Summary What was the one weird habit of the Ptolemys that librarians hated? What trick did early indexers use for organizing collections? And what major library lost some really important documents–an

Summary “When I was in library school, we never discussed outright conquest as a method of collection development.” In which we discuss books (and other recordkeeping methods), the growth of reading i

Summary The 1560 painting “Children’s Games,” painted by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Question: What did kids do before Gameboy? Answer: Everything. Annotations Important works: Nicholas Orme’s Medieval