Medieval Morsels

Host: Lucas Miller

In this episode of Medieval Morsels, we explore the fascinating world of mythical creatures that filled the medieval imagination. From dragons and griffins to unicorns and sea serpents, medieval people didn’t always separate myth from reality the way we do today. These creatures appeared in bestiaries, manuscripts, and travelers’ tales, shaping how people understood nature, morality, and the unknown.

We discuss how mythical beasts symbolized virtues and vices, how they were used in religious and moral teaching, and why they captured the curiosity of medieval audiences. This episode blends history, folklore, and cultural analysis to uncover what these legendary creatures reveal about the medieval mind.

Topics Covered:

• The role of mythical creatures in medieval bestiaries
• Dragons as symbols of chaos and evil
• Unicorns and their religious symbolism
• Griffins, basilisks, and other hybrid beasts
• Mythical creatures in medieval art and manuscripts

Key Takeaways:

• Mythical creatures were used as teaching tools as much as entertainment
• Many people accepted these creatures as part of the natural world
• Symbolism played a central role in how beasts were interpreted
• These legends reveal medieval attitudes toward nature and morality

Recommended Reading:

• The Book of Beasts by T. H. White
• Medieval Bestiaries: Text, Image, Ideology by Florence McCulloch

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Medieval Morsels Podcast

Few figures define the Middle Ages more than the knight—but behind the shining armor lies a far more complex reality.

In this episode of Medieval Morsels, we explore how knights were trained from childhood, how they fought on medieval battlefields, and how the ideals of chivalry shaped—and often conflicted with—their real behavior. Drawing from contemporary chronicles and primary sources, we examine the rise of knighthood as a social class, the brutal experience of combat, and the cultural world of tournaments and honor.

This episode separates legend from history, revealing knights not just as symbols of romance, but as disciplined warriors navigating a violent and changing world. We also trace how evolving military technology gradually reshaped their role in European society.

If you’ve ever wondered what it truly meant to live—and fight—as a medieval knight, this episode brings you inside the armor.

Follow Medieval Morsels for engaging, research-driven history that explores the strange, powerful, and deeply human world of the Middle Ages.

Faith in a Time of Plague — Religious Remedies During the Black Death

Medieval Morsels Podcast

When the Black Death swept across Europe in the fourteenth century, medicine failed—but faith did not disappear. Instead, it intensified.

In this episode of Medieval Morsels, we explore how medieval people turned to religion as their last line of defense against the plague. From public processions and relic veneration to prayer manuals, flagellant movements, and saintly intercession, faith became both comfort and cure.

You’ll discover why certain saints were believed to protect against disease, how churches transformed into centers of hope and fear, and how communities tried to restore meaning when death felt unstoppable. We’ll also examine the darker consequences of religious panic, including scapegoating, social division, and spiritual terror.

This episode reveals how belief shaped survival in a world without medical answers—and how faith itself became a form of medicine.

Follow Medieval Morsels for bite-sized history that uncovers the strange, powerful, and deeply human world of the Middle Ages.

Medieval Guilds: The Hidden Machines Behind Cities, Craft, and Power

What if you couldn’t sell bread, stitch a shoe, or light a candle without permission?

In this episode of Medieval Morsels, we step inside the medieval guild system—the powerful organizations that quietly controlled trade, training, prices, and even city politics. Far more than simple craft associations, guilds functioned as the hidden machines behind Europe’s growing towns.

From apprentices and journeymen to master craftsmen, we explore how guilds shaped everyday life, decided who could rise, and who was locked out. You’ll hear how guild halls doubled as courtrooms and banks, how certain trades dominated city councils, and why guild power still echoes in modern professional systems today.

If you’ve ever wondered how medieval cities really worked behind the stone walls and market stalls, this episode reveals the forces pulling the strings.

Follow Medieval Morsels for bite-sized history that uncovers the strange, powerful, and very human world of the Middle Ages.

Step past the knights and banners—because castle life was mostly smoke, schedules, and a whole lot of work. In this episode of Medieval Morsels, we tour the castle as it really functioned: a home, a workplace, a courthouse, and a warehouse all wrapped in stone walls. From the great hall to the kitchens, chambers, stables, and even the less-glamorous necessities, we’ll meet the people who kept the place running and bust a few Hollywood myths along the way.

Castles weren’t just built for war—they were built for living, governing, and surviving. If this episode changed the way you picture medieval life, follow Medieval Morsels for more bite-sized history with a storytelling twist. And next time, we’ll dig even deeper into what made the Middle Ages feel real—messy, fascinating, and very human.

Books, Power, and “Truth”: How Manuscripts Shaped the Medieval Mind

In a world before printing presses and paperbacks, books weren’t casual objects—they were handmade technologies of authority. This episode explores how medieval manuscripts shaped what people could know, who controlled knowledge, and how “truth” was established through institutions, commentary, and tradition. We follow the manuscript as both a physical artifact (parchment, ink, illumination, binding) and a social force—one that organized education, reinforced power, and preserved (and sometimes transformed) ideas as they traveled across time and place.

Along the way, we examine the culture of glossing and marginalia, where medieval readers literally wrote their thinking into the page, and we zoom in on two key case studies: the devotional Book of Hours and the university book economy—including strategies like the pecia system that helped meet growing demand for texts. Ultimately, this is a story about how knowledge worked in the Middle Ages: not as endless information, but as curated tradition—guarded, copied, debated, and authorized.

In this episode:

• Why manuscripts were expensive, scarce, and politically meaningful
• The manuscript-making process: parchment, scripts, layout, illumination, binding
• Who accessed books (and how oral reading expanded their reach)
• Commentary culture: glosses, scholastic methods, and layered authority
• Marginalia as evidence of real readers and real intellectual life
• Case study: Books of Hours as devotion, identity, and status
• Case study: universities and the pecia system (scaling book production)
• How manuscripts shaped medieval “truth” through institutions and interpretation

Key terms:

Manuscript • Parchment • Vernacular • Gloss/Marginalia • Scholasticism • Illumination • Book of Hours • Pecia

In this follow-up to our Black Death episode, we step inside the medieval sickroom to answer a haunting question: what did people actually do to treat the plague? Without germ theory or antibiotics, medieval communities relied on the medical framework they had—humor theory, environmental medicine, and the belief that disease traveled through corrupted air (“miasma”).

We explore the remedies that followed logically from that worldview: herb bundles and fumigation, vinegar cloths, bleeding and purging, and attempts to “draw out” plague swellings with poultices and lancing. We also discuss complex apothecary mixtures like theriac, and why many “treatments” were as much about restoring control and meaning as they were about curing illness.

Along the way, we include a brief primary-source moment to hear how medieval witnesses described fear, isolation, and the collapse of ordinary care—and we close with what these treatments reveal about medieval knowledge, culture, and survival under pressure.

In this episode:

• The medieval medical “operating system”: the four humors
• Miasma and the war on “bad air”
• Common responses: herbs, incense, vinegar, and household prevention
• Physician practices: bleeding, purging, and regimen (diet + behavior)
• Buboes and “drawing out” remedies: poultices and lancing
• Theriac and the medieval pharmacy
• What may have helped accidentally: isolation and supportive care

Next up (vote for the follow-up):

1. Why quarantine becomes “40 days”
2. Plague doctors: myth vs. timeline
3. Daily life during outbreaks—work, family, fear, and survival

The Middle Ages weren’t just castles and knights—sometimes they were silence, fear, and a bell that wouldn’t stop ringing. In this episode of Medieval Morsels, we step into the 14th century to explore the Black Death: how it spread, what medieval people believed was causing it, and the strange (and sometimes surprisingly logical) ways they tried to survive.

But this isn’t only a story about death—it’s a story about transformation. The plague reshaped work and wages, power and protest, faith and doubt, art and memory, leaving Europe permanently changed. Join us for a curious, story-rich look at the pandemic that didn’t just devastate the medieval world… it remade it.