Online Resources for Medievalists

What’s a medievalist to read, watch, and listen to in lockdown? What resources can the Internet offer us to brighten our days, teach us new things, and keep us in touch with one another and our work? This is a crowdsourced list of podcasts, videos, blogs, and websites for your delectation and edification, first written up by Karl Kinsella in March and updated for the autumn.

Podcasts

• If you want to learn more about the history of pandemics and learn some lessons from medieval leeches, Francis Leneghan and Marilina Cesario recorded a podcast in lockdown that you can listen to here: https://shows.acast.com/queens-university-belfast-history-of-pandemics/episodes/5eeb8977ebf65f5fe871c9de
• You can check out Oxford-based podcasts here http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/ (just search for ‘medieval’...or indeed anything you’d like, there are lots of interesting things there.)
• The livinglibrariespodcast.co.uk is highly recommended to help you virtually explore Oxford’s libraries while you’re stuck indoors.
• On your Podcast app, search for ‘About Buildings + Cities’ by Luke Jones & George Gingell. They have a wonderful episode about John Ruskin to sate any desire you might have to learn more about medievalism!
• You can always go on to BBC Sounds (https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds) and listen to old episodes of In Our Time. Medieval themed episodes can be found here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01hb3y1
• Yale do an Early Middle Ages series here https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/early-middle-ages/id515946405
• You can have your own walking tour of Paris with Christopher de Hamel while you put your feet up and drink some tea (https://www.lesenluminures.com/media_entries/video/7-podcast-walking-tour-of-the-medieval-book/)
• For French speakers, https://passionmedievistes.fr/ comes highly recommended.
• Learning something about the Met Cloister in New York from the comfort of your own home, https://cosmo.marlboro.edu/thehistorycafe/history-cafe-visits-the-met-1/
• There is also a chronological history of the History of Britain to listen to https://www.thebritishhistorypodcast.com/
• There are a list of other medieval podcasts here as well (https://www.medievalists.net/2012/10/ten-medieval-podcasts/)!
• Get some magic in your life with the Glitch Bottle podcast (search in your podcast app).
• For a grab-bag of medieval podcast episodes on all kinds of topics across the British Isles, go to https://www.history.org.uk/podcasts/categories/pod-britain-ireland-medieval.

Blogs and Websites

• The Medieval People of Color Project has a great archive of posts, you can have a look at some of their work here: https://medievalpoc.tumblr.com/
• While you’re at it, have an explore of Black Central Europe’s pages on the medieval period: https://blackcentraleurope.com/sources/1000-1500/?fbclid=IwAR0EFJBDea40xAo7IXyE7_3sN8EcJGoFgT84Uly7fCjN8z6XVzZR-SkppZ4
• Jenni Nuttall’s Stylisticienne blog remains as entertaining and informative as ever: http://stylisticienne.com
• Amuse yourself with some Old English riddles at https://theriddleages.wordpress.com
• There’s a wonderful collection of material discussed by James Cameron, who is always brilliant when discussing medieval churches https://stainedglassattitudes.wordpress.com/

Videos

• Last term’s OMS Lecture on knights and their armour by Tobias Capwell is up on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpGh3zFlS38, and have a browse around the rest of TORCH’s YouTube channel as well!
• Check out Laura Ashe’s BBC4 Documentary on living in times of plague, which you can watch here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000mmjf
• You can also rewatch the Medieval Academy of America’s lockdown webinars on their website: https://www.medievalacademy.org/page/webinars
• You can also watch papers and the keynote lectures from this year’s virtual IMC at https://www.imc.leeds.ac.uk/imc-2020/vimc-2020-keynote-lectures/, and revisit the Dark Archives at https://aevum.space/darkarchives
• The broadcaster OcTele has just produced a documentary on The Oxford Trobadors, including the performance of some beautiful 12th century songs, Xavier Bach on the history of the troubadours, and lots of spoken Occitan: https://www.octele.com/Oxford-trobadors_fiche_3750.html
• There are some beautiful objects discussed here https://www.youtube.com/user/moleiroeditor.
• The British Archaeological Association’s lectures are online here, with a wide variety of subjects available. https://thebaa.org/videos-of-baa-lectures/
• Or, how about a medieval church crawl. Relive last year’s wonderful event, http://oxfordstories.ox.ac.uk/medieval-churches-oxford#/trail/medieval-churches-oxford
• You can see some fun videos about a lot of different things here https://www.youtube.com/user/Alliterative
• Listen to Compline sung virtually at St Edmund Hall at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5m7tAVGFaA&feature=youtu.be
• Feeling nuntastic? Enjoy videos about 12th century German nuns here: https://lisa.gerda-henkel-stiftung.de/kloster?language=en

For more medieval matters from Oxford, have a look at the website of the Oxford Medieval Studies TORCH Programme and the OMS blog!