350 Episodes: A Celebration
Episode 350
In honour of 350 episodes of The Medieval Podcast, Danièle celebrates the amazing progress that's been made in Medieval Studies since 2019.
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Danièle Cybulskie:
Hi everyone, and welcome to episode 350 of The Medieval Podcast. I'm your host, Danièle Cybulskie. When I started this podcast back in 2019, I intended for it to be a celebration – a celebration of all of the things we were learning about the medieval past, and a celebration of the medieval past itself and all of the wonderful people who lived before us – and just an investigation of what they did with their time on Earth. And so, I thought that today would be a good day to celebrate all sorts of the wonderful things that have happened in the last seven years, since I started this podcast. And I think it's important that we take time to celebrate because sometimes it can really feel like the world is going to hell in a handbasket. And people in the Middle Ages felt that, too. That's why there's so many illustrations and texts about the apocalypse. But in my humble opinion, as a historian, I think we're going to get through this and we're going to see better times ahead. And so, it's worth it to remember those things that are going really well, even in this tiny corner of Earth's history – medieval studies – and take a minute to celebrate them. So, that's what we're going to be doing for episode 350 today, is celebrating all of the good things that have been going on in medieval studies since this podcast started.
So, we're going to start with a place that is kind of obvious in that it's something that is going on throughout all sorts of human knowledge, and that is digitization. So, bringing things together onto the internet. And something that was happening really long before the podcast started is that people were digitizing manuscripts, and this is something that is so exciting. We were talking about the Auchinleck Manuscript not all that long ago, and how I got to look at it as a digital artifact back in 2006, I think it was. And so, digitization has been such an important part of how the field is moving forward, especially when we're talking about manuscripts, because you don't have to get on an airplane and fly. We talk about this all the time. I'm thinking about Robert Bartlett being here and talking about History in Flames and how it's so important to have digital artifacts that we can look at in addition to really preserving the stuff that we have, all of those manuscripts that we have something that it's worth reminding you yet again, if they're in your town, you can actually usually go and visit them. You just have to ask. So, digitization of manuscripts, of course, is something that has been amazing, not just in the last twenty years, but as we went through those COVID lockdowns, more and more things got to be digitized. And I think that is just so incredible to see that – see people being able to share their knowledge across the internet. Even when we were at home, even when we were looking at our worst. I remember going to a couple of conferences in 2020 and looking at our colleagues and seeing how we all looked a little bit different than we had looked the year before. But this sharing, this digitization of work has been so incredibly important. So – not just manuscripts though, although I really encourage you to check out digital manuscripts whenever possible and look for those little things that look like pepper that are actually hair follicles from the original animal, or dirt. We talked about dirty manuscripts not too long ago on this podcast. Looking at that stuff is so interesting, but the sharing of knowledge and actually using digital tools for that is beyond just manuscripts.
So, I was thinking back to what happened in the first year of this podcast, and one of the things that happened was the Cathedral of Notre Dame burned. And I think a lot of us remember this moment. It was pretty incredible to see something that looked like it was always going to be there going up in flames. Those pictures that we got from that event were just incredible. Incredible and heart-wrenching for a lot of us. And now Notre Dame has been rebuilt. It's been refurbished, it's been restored in ways that wouldn't have been possible without the work of medieval historians. This is not just to pat ourselves on the back, but this is the reality of it. Notre Dame was one of the places that had been measured by lasers, and that measurement had been processed and stored. There had been articles about it. So, this kind of thing is the type of work that sharing makes possible: the restoration of a place like Notre Dame. Now, I know that there are many other sites that we have lost due to war, for example, but the more that we are able to make these measurements and sketches and take photos and share them with each other, not only can we learn more about this from each other when we share this stuff, but we can preserve things that sometimes are lost, to environmental disaster, or to war. So, this sharing of knowledge, I think, is really so exciting when we think about a project like the restoration of Notre Dame, which was so eventful in that first year of the podcast. And I see this happening more and more – the digitization of information. Not just the manuscripts that are so beautiful, but archaeological finds or measurements, all of those things that make it possible to really get close to that material history. And I know in the month of June, I did a lot of podcasts on material history, and I don't know if that was everybody's cup of tea, but a bunch of people on Patreon really liked it. And I'm glad because that material culture is so important, I think. Those everyday things that people touched. And so, when I… when I built my masterclass for fiction creators, I put all that stuff in it so that people could see what was it like to touch these objects every day. So, I'm really glad you enjoyed last month's podcast about material culture. That stuff is so interesting. And that is the stuff that we're sharing more digitally on the internet. I think it's so important.
And that brings me to the second thing, which is open access scholarship. Now, this is something that has been sort of in the works, and I know that it's a bit controversial sometimes, but it is easier than ever to do your research at home. And this is important for all sorts of reasons. I mean, there are economic reasons, there are environmental reasons why it is good to stay home to do your research. And also, I mean, the practical reasons. Many of us are parents and we're trying to work from home, as well. But the rise of open access scholarship has been immense, especially in the last seven years since I started this podcast. And there are more books being uploaded and updated. And of course, there was a lot of stuff that was translated in the nineteenth century that is now public domain. So, you can access so many things on the Internet Archive, for example, and do a lot of your research that way. So, you can find now not only those old translations, but you can find the new research that's coming out in open access. I just think this is brilliant. I talk sometimes about AI and what I think is an ethical use of AI and what I think is not an ethical use of AI. And I do think that AI makes it possible to look at editions of things that had been transcribed in the nineteenth century and often not translated into English – or local languages. Vernacular languages. So, AI makes it possible to translate those things quicker so that people can actually read them. And I do think that translation is an ethical use of AI with the caveat that it doesn't replace human nuance. So, that you can look at something, you can get some information from a translation in the public domain. I think that's useful and something that we weren't able to do very easily seven years ago, but I do think that if you're serious about finding out the nuances of the text that you're looking at, you do need a human brain for that. It doesn't replace human knowledge and human language skills because humans created language to speak to other humans, and so there's a lot of nuance in translation that you don't want to lose. That said, all of this public domain stuff that you can find, for example, on Internet Archive is so useful, as well as the open access articles. And so, many things appear as open access early before they become paid access. So, it's a good thing to keep your ear to the ground. For people who are actually looking for stuff, and they want to research from home, scholar.google.com is a good place to start, which gives you articles that you can look at, and then you can see, for example, if it is open access or not. And even some places will still – in the wake of COVID – allow you to have some free articles if you make an account. So, this sharing of knowledge that is not just a newspaper article, for example, but an actual scholarly article that's open access, I think it's just brilliant. And I think it is also fueling a lot of the good knowledge that we have. And when I think about really exciting work that you can usually get for free if you are right on it and right paying attention to it when it immediately comes out, I'm thinking about the Cambridge Elements, which I believe you can still download for free if you're on it in the first couple weeks. There is a new one that came out in May, so it's no longer free, but it is A Franciscan Tombstone in Fourteenth-Century China. So, the Global Middle Ages series is a really exciting one that I try and pay attention to as much as I can with the help of one of the editors, Gerry Heng, who sends me updates every once in a while, but it just is one more example of how people are starting to pay attention in the English-speaking world to places outside of the English-speaking world, and this is something that is so thrilling to me, as somebody who started with a much smaller pool of resources that were translated into English. I don't speak languages outside of English and French, so seeing stuff that is coming – work that is about Arabic sources, for example, or Chinese sources – it is so thrilling to me to be able to see this in English, and so much of that is happening now. When I was working at Arc Humanities a few years ago, we were really looking for new information, for new works that reached beyond Europe, so shoutout to the good work that's happening at Arc Humanities Press – even without me at this point. I'm thinking especially of the Past Imperfect series, which is short introductions to places and times that maybe aren't super familiar to people who came up in the European tradition. So, I'm looking at this work, this reach beyond medieval Europe, and I think this is one of the most exciting things that I see happening in medieval studies.
And speaking of a multiplicity of voices and histories and peoples, it's so amazing to see lately – especially in the last twenty years, but really in the last seven years – we're having a greater diversity of voices in the people who are being published in medieval studies, and of course this is a wonderful thing to see happening. Incredible scholarship by people who have traditionally had struggles getting published – not only in medieval studies but broadly – and so my hat is always off to the incredible people who have pushed through the obstacles to get their work out there. Some incredible work by incredible scholars. And our field, medieval studies, like every field, still has a ways to go in making sure that the doors are open for everyone at all times, but I think that as a field medieval studies is making progress, and I'm happy to see this happening because the scholarship only gets better the more voices you have.
Medieval studies is one field that has had more women scholars in it than many other fields have. I'm not really sure the reason for it, but I do know that the women scholars who were working in the ‘70s and '80s really paved the way for the rest of us women in this field and worked really hard to be recognized for the work that they were doing. And so, well done, sister suffragettes! We're no longer pushing for the vote, but we can always use more equality.
Once, I was sent a message by a podcast listener who was a father listening with his daughters, and I didn't even realize that this podcast was a catalyst for discussions about how you can be a woman in a field and have expertise and talk about it with other people and get your information out. It's not even something that I considered – that this was something that could be a catalyst for allowing people to talk about women in scholarship, women in medieval studies. So, if this podcast has made a difference, I could not be more pleased about that. But I think if you're listening and you're a minority of whatever sort, and you're not sure if your voice should be heard, or you're not sure if you can get past the gatekeeping, I hope that you'll continue. I hope that you'll keep fighting the good fight because we need your voice. Not only in medieval studies, but globally.
One of the things that's really exciting about the last seven years in medieval studies since I started this podcast is that there are a lot more podcasts out there on medieval studies, on history. And history is one of the top-performing areas in podcasting. Is this because of The Medieval Podcast? Of course it is. Or not really. The Saga Thing podcast was here before me. I think Byzantium and Friends with Anthony Kaldellis was here before me. But since I got here and started looking around, History Hit appeared with Gone Medieval. That used to be Cat Jarman, and now it's Matt Lewis and Eleanor Janega who are putting out… I think they put out two episodes a week. So, they also do interview podcasts. We have Richard Abels doing 'Tis But a Scratch. We have the Medieval Grad Podcast, which I don't think is putting out more episodes, but that's there for graduate students. Byzantium and Friends, as I mentioned. The Court Jester with Kleio Pethainou. I think this one is one that has to do with primary sources, so that's worth checking out. And I was just emailed not too long ago by Kyle Thomas – sorry, Kyle, I didn't get back to you, but I did read your email. Who's with me on this? Who can relate? Kyle emailed me because there is a new podcast out called the Pageant Wagon Podcast. So, people who are interested in medieval drama have a place to go as well. And of course, there is This Is History with Dan Jones, which is just wrapping up its Plantagenet work. And so, you have to stay tuned to see what they do next. But of course, I was able to be there talking about Philip the Fair, talking about Charles the Beloved, AKA Charles the Mad, AKA Charles VI. Plus, Luke Pepera, if you remember him, he was here talking about medieval Africa and he got to do a series on This Is History on Mansa Musa. So, so much stuff is happening in the podcast space, and I know that I'm missing a lot because I tend to focus deeply in on my work, and I haven't listened to all of these podcasts, but I think when you just do a search for medieval podcasts, you'll find a lot of them. And what's even cooler about this is that you can listen to all of us. You don't have to just pick one. You can listen to Gone Medieval, and you can listen to this one, and This Is History, or The Court Jester, or The Medieval Pageant Wagon. Definitely Byzantium and Friends and Saga Thing. There's so much out there, and you can listen to it all sort of back-to-back if you like, and this is such an exciting part of medieval studies because pretty much everybody who is doing these podcasts is an expert, and they are able to bring you information that's good information. So, not just stuff that is sort of AI garbage that gets churned up from stuff that isn't very useful. But it's expert information. And many of these – I mean, especially the interview podcasts – we're talking to experts every week. So, you know that the information that you're getting has been put to the test. And I think that is so valuable and so accessible. Something that I've talked about before on the podcast, but not for some time, is that many of the people who I love have dyslexia. And so, having more podcasts is, I think, one of the most beautiful ways that we are able to reach people, for example, that have a learning disability or other challenges that make it hard to look at those dusty old tomes that used to be the way that we interacted with history. And so, I think that this podcasting explosion is such a good way of reaching people.
Which brings me to my last point, which is that I'm starting to see the public is on board. So, when I started this podcast, and when I started actually writing my little articles as the Five-Minute Medievalist – started a blog – it was to bridge between ordinary people who are super interested but get a little intimidated by the big academic works, which – let's be real – were not public-facing. In fact, they were mostly discussions within academia. That is how a lot of the academic work was designed. And this is something that has changed a lot, too, in that people who are writing academic works are starting to write in a language that is accessible outside of academia. So, you can make a really good scholarly argument, but it doesn't have to be so obscure that a person – just an ordinary person – can't read it. So, when I started this, it was to sort of bridge that gap between the Ivory Tower and everybody else. And what's been so exciting about this is when I started doing this writing on the internet, not every scholar was into it. Not every scholar was excited about it. It seemed a bit scary. It seemed maybe to dilute the work or something, to share it more broadly. But especially from the time that I started doing this podcast on, there have been so many scholars that have been on board with it. In fact, I think there's only been one person who decided not to be on this podcast – maybe two – in the entire time that I've been doing this – 350 episodes, several hundred guests – because what the people in medieval studies seem to have noticed or seen, or their enthusiasm has made them leap over, is that it's important to reach people with the work that you're doing. It doesn't have to be something that is gatekept. And so, if you're fairly new to the podcast, there've been people here from all of the major, major universities that are so well respected in the world. People from global universities have been here on the podcast because I feel like – it's not about me: it's about these scholars recognizing that podcasts are a good vehicle for reaching the public. The public that is interested. And remembering that the work of the university, for example, is meant to be in the service of the public. And so, this teamwork between the people who are in the archives, and me, and you as listeners – this is starting to make a difference. This is something that is one of the most exciting things that I've noticed in the past seven years, is that when you see something that is not quite right – someone has posted something not quite right on the internet – more and more people are starting to jump in and gently, hopefully, correct it. You can definitely see this in the work of the Fake History Hunter, who's also known as Jo, who was on the podcast a little while ago. When Jo posts something, a lot of people will jump in and she'll engage and discuss. This is something that was so great about medieval Twitter as well. RIP. When you had scholars who were accessing these public spaces, so that we could have chats with people, we could make gentle corrections, we could send people in the direction of good information. And so, it's working. It's working because it's not just scholars that are making these corrections anymore: it's peer-to-peer. It's just regular listeners of The Medieval Podcast, for example, who know the truth, who know the facts, and are gently steering the conversation. And I say gently because this is how I want it to go. I don't want anyone to get dogpiled in the comments by people who are listening to this podcast. But you can't see something like somebody saying the Earth is flat anymore without a discussion about it in the comments. And this is… this is huge progress. And it is huge progress that has happened in less than twenty years. This is incredible. And I see this happening also when it comes to the fiction space. So, I've tried to serve fiction creators by creating my masterclass, which is still out there. You can still access it if you like. But part of this is because I've noticed that audiences are craving this in their fiction. They're craving what looks like reality with a fictional story in the background. And we're seeing this in novels, and we're seeing this in comic books, and we're seeing this in graphic novels, and we're seeing this in film. To greater and lesser degrees. I mean, The Odyssey has just come out, so there's a lot of discussion about whether this is real and authentic, and is it supposed to be, and do we care about this stuff. But I'm starting to notice that audiences are starting to care about this, and I'm starting to notice that directors are starting to care about this as well – to greater and lesser degrees. So, I did discuss this a little bit in a post that I did for Medievalists.net, which is a review of the current Robin Hood with Hugh Jackman in it. There are still some stumbling blocks here that I think have to do with: can it be intellectual, and also not violent, and also not dirty? I don't know if we're ready for that yet, but I do see that changes are happening. I do see all of these changes happening, little by little. And I think if you take a still picture from many medieval movies that are coming out now, you do see a greater attention to detail, depending on the production. Depending on the values of the production. And I don't want to be the fun police here. You really have to look at each film based on what it's intending to do. Is this about mood? Is this about authenticity? You do have to engage with these discussions, as well, but it looks like the public actually cares about this stuff. And so, we're starting to see this reflected back. We're starting to see more often more colour, for example, not just brown all the time. And so, this is not me as a historian saying we should make everything look like a documentary, but this is me saying that the conversation in public is changing. And this is brilliant. This is the hard work of scholars, and public historians, and reconstructive archaeologists, and the people who engage with it. So, all of you listeners who have discussions around the dinner table with people, you are making a difference. It's actually moving the needle. So, when we talk about, like, the world maybe going to hell in a handbasket – not here. It's not happening here. We are making progress, and this is a wonderful thing. And I'm going to keep beating that drum because I do think it's very exciting that we are making change that's tangible, that's visible, that you're seeing happening in real time. It’s amazing. And there's a reason why I'm getting so excited about this, and this is not just because I'm so excited to see perspectives changing. Because when I was taught in school, we were taught medieval people were stupid. It broke my heart because when I, you know, watched Robin Hood or Sleeping Beauty, I thought people were brilliant back in the day. So, I was very sad to hear that they were stupid and full of mud. And so, I'm very glad to hear that that conversation is changing and maybe we are teaching people differently.
But more than that, more than that, I do know that people are starting to rely on AI for answers. And I'm not opening a discussion here about AI sort of stealing people's published work. My work was also fed into the machine – just as, you know, my perspective on it here. But I do know that people are using AI for answers. And the only way that AI can give answers is if it is fed with good information. So, I'm not about to say, you know, feed your books into AI, but I'm saying this in that the discussions that we have about medieval studies, the louder we can be about the true facts, the reality, the diversity, the intelligence of the people of the past, the more we can talk about that, the more AI is just going to pick it up because it's just a vacuum cleaner, right? It just picks things up. I do know that this podcast is being picked up by AI. It's inevitable. So, if I can keep doing this podcast, if we have more experts doing podcasts, if we have more people discussing in public forums what things were like in the Middle Ages, it's going to change the way that AI gives information, as well. My thoughts on AI are complex. This is not the forum for them, but I think there are two things that are inevitable. One, it's here and people are using it, and people will continue to use that from this point. And also, the better information it's fed, the better information people will be getting from it. And so, when I see that the public discussion and the public expectations about representations of the Middle Ages is starting to become more sophisticated, and starting to focus on us wanting to see things that look real, I think that that's going to be a virtuous cycle. But it is something that has to be intentional. Because if we just leave AI to its own devices, it's going to regurgitate all that old stuff. So, we do have to be intentional about the discussions and the way we talk about it and keep talking about it and keep investing in good sources of material, so that it becomes a virtuous cycle. I have a feeling there's going to be a lot of comments on this. When this gets uploaded to YouTube, there's going to be a lot of comments about this. But I do think these things are inevitable: one, that people are going to keep using AI, and two, that we can make the answers people get from AI better if we are intentional about it and if we are loud about it. So, let's keep being loud about it. So, when every week, I thank you for being here, and I thank you for sharing episodes, and I thank you for talking to your students about this work if you are teaching, or talking about this work with your friends or online if you're just a listener who's super enthusiastic about the Middle Ages, or when I thank you for being a patron and allowing me to continue this work, it's because we are actually making change, and we're doing it together. It is a team effort, and I've said this for many years. It is a team effort. And all of these things – the small things that you're doing as listeners – is making a difference, and I see it, and I want to celebrate it. And so, this episode – 350 – is all about celebrating this teamwork that we are doing together, through this love of the Middle Ages, through the discussion of the Middle Ages, through our collective curiosity in wanting to learn more. Not just about Europe but everywhere, and all of the people with all of the perspectives. This is making change.
So, if you started today thinking that maybe humanity is doomed or something like that, recognize people did think that in the Middle Ages. And yet here we are. We're doing okay. And I hope that this sort of reflection back on these last 350 episodes – these last seven years, and the changes that are being made, that we are making – I hope that it gives you a little bit of hope for the future and definitely something to celebrate. Because the investment that you've put in – coming here, and listening to these episodes, and giving me your attention each week when attention is at a premium – this is what's changing our world for the better. So, hold on to this. It's worth it. And really give yourself a pat on the back just for being here. You are moving the world in a better direction.
For the show notes on this episode, a transcript, a collection of the books featured on The Medieval Podcast, and more, please visit medievalpodcast.com. You can find me, Danièle Cybulskie, on social media @5minmedievalist or Five-Minute Medievalist.
Our music is by Christian Overton.
Thanks for listening for 350 episodes, and have yourself an amazing day.
