We are growing fonder of the Medieval Podcast, a podcast entirely devoted, obviously enough, to medieval saints, people, subjects, and curiosities. And even though it might seem like the audience for this kind of material would be rather niche, that is not necessarily the case. For example, last year host Daniele Cybulskie invited professor R. Howard Bloch to talk about cathedrals – a subject many people might be interested in, especially considering that the words cathedral and church are oftentimes used interchangeably (and sometimes erroneously) to refer to religious Christian buildings. However, as Philip Kosloski explains in this article, whereas all cathedrals are churches, not all churches are cathedrals.
The first episode of this year was, as one might expect, about New Year’s resolutions — medieval New Year’s resolutions, to be precise, featuring the diary of a Florentine named Gregorio Dati who, on January 1, 1404, “wrote down his good intentions […] to keep himself accountable.”
Now, Cybulskie brings her audience “A beginner’s guide to medieval saints,” an episode in which she introduces some of the most popular saints of the Middle Ages, along with their iconography, so that one can identify them when visiting a church, going through a psalter, or visiting a medieval collection in a museum.
And today we celebrate...