WC #24 Medieval Christmas with Misty Schieberle and Scott Smith

You can also listen on your favorite podcast app or at the Podbean site.

I try to figure out what Christmas in the Middle Ages might have been like. There are truly only a handful of references. And I get two medieval scholars to help me.

Dr. Misty Schieberle, Associate Professor of English at the University of Kansas. She teaches at the University of Kansas and specializes in late medieval literature and manuscript studies.

Dr. Scott T. Smith, Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature. He teaches classes in early medieval literature, history of the English language, comics and graphic novels, and horror fiction at Penn State University.

We mention so many people and texts to follow up on. Here are the major ones in the order they came up:

(Totally cheating and using Wikipedia links, but I’ll update them with something better asap.)

• Bishop Eckbert
• Bede
• King Alfred’s laws
• Anglo Saxon Chronicle
• Wren Day
• John Stowe
• Infancy Gospels and here’s a link to the Apocrypals episode about the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.
• Boy Bishop
• Advent lyrics
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
• York Corpus Christi plays
• Sloane Manuscript lyric – Virgin and Christ’s birth and/or annunciation (“came very still.”)
• Grettis saga

…

And if you enjoy what I do, please consider helping out. You can buy me a “coffee” at Ko-Fi.com (click here), which lets you give small $3 donations to sites like mine.

If you like the cards and the podcasts, consider subscribing on Patreon. I’m putting out podcasts all year round, most with Christmas info but also major and weirder holiday stuff throughout the year. There are also other treats like real postcards sent you throughout the year and other treats. Go to Patreon and search for Weird Christmas or just click here:

https://www.patreon.com/weirdchristmas