215. Medieval History Podcasters

Posted on 15 March 2015

In this special episode, Peter chats with the hosts of the History of the Crusades, History of Byzantium, and British History podcasts.

Themes:

Interviews

Comments

T. Franke on 15 March 2015

Republic and the Laws

So, I learned now, that the phase of the crusades (approx 1100 - 1300) falls into the Platonist phase of Medieval philosophy (esp. school of Chartres). Mere coincidence?

Plato's Republic and the Laws were unknown in Latin christianity. Only Timaeus was known. There is not so much talk about war in the Timaeus ... but wait: There is! It is the war between primeval Athens and Atlantis! A war fought according to the rules of the Republic! Could there be an inspirational link between Latin Platonism, the Athens-Atlantis war in the Timaeus and the crusades?! Every scholar will show rolling eyes on this question, yet, hey: This is serious! I just think of what William of Conches wrote in his Glosae super Platonem XXX concerning the way of Athens' warfare against Atlantis ... a trace worth to be tracked down, I would say.

As far as I understood, on the other side of the conflict, i.e. the Muslim side, a jihad doctrine prevailed, which was based on Plato's concept of state, peace and war developed in the Laws. If it is true that the Timaeus inspired Latin medieval warfare in the crusades' period, then the two basic concepts layed down by Plato in the Republic and in the Laws were at war with each other. If so, then no wonder the Muslims prevailed ...

Today it is the other way round: Western world corresponds more to the Laws, and Muslim world corresponds more to the Republic. Again, no wonder who prevails ...

James Sommerville on 21 March 2015

I'm in love with you T.

I'm in love with you T. Franke.

PS: latest episode of the podcast not downloading from iTunes in Canada, sadly. Any other complaints from iTunes subscribers? Was really looking forward to this episode....

Peter Adamson on 21 March 2015

iTunes Canada

That's odd, it works fine on iTunes US. Is it still a problem, or a problem for anyone else?

James Sommerville on 21 March 2015

Seems like it times out or

Seems like it times out or something. I've just downloaded it directly from this site instead. Hopefully next week works out better though.

Peter Adamson on 22 March 2015

iTunes Canada

OK, thanks. The new one is up now so you can try it. I suppose it could be a problem at your end rather than on iTunes end; do you have the same problem with other podcasts?

bob on 28 March 2015

lack of history of england

META:

I've always wondered why the "guy in the shed" David Crowther's History of England podcast is never a part of the history podcasters groups. Do you have a comment on that? (also informal rule for 1 person per subject?)

i thought he could be an interesting addition to these talks especially since he mixes primary sources with a couple of basic low level pop history works.

Peter Adamson on 28 March 2015

History of England

Good point, I actually don't listen to that one despite having heard good things about it, just because I follow the British History podcast which I assume will get through the same material (eventually!).

Also Crowther isn't part of a group of podcasters who have gotten acquainted with one another via Facebook so that might be part of the explanation. But as I say, I hear it's a good podcast!

Haseef on 8 February 2017

Muhammad Unknown

Thank you for this detour Prof Adamson. Im glad I now have further series to binge as not far off catching up to your latest podcast.
A quick question about Robin's statement that the Prophet Muhammad is a bit of an unknown figure. Is that coming from a historical critical view where for eg a court historian's manuscript had it existed would've beeen acceptable but the hadith tradition is considered unreliable? And is this a general view in academia?
If you do accept the Arabic tradition, between the Quran, hadith, seerah etc, I would argue that there isn't another historical figure about whom we have so much information; down to even the most intimate moments within the household as narrated by his wives.

Peter Adamson on 8 February 2017

Unknown Muhammad

Yes, I vaguely recall having a similar (unspoken) reaction during the interview, though I know where Robin is coming from: he had a guest on his own show who argued that much of the "history" of early Islam is actually posthumously invented. This is a huge area of often heated dispute, also within academia, and concerning the Quran and its standardization as well as the hadith. I personally don't have a strong view one way or another as a historian of philosophy; for me what is important is rather how Muhammed was seen by the subsequent tradition, whether accurately or not. Similar issues arise in other religious traditions, e.g. reconstructing the genuine life and teachings of Jesus.

RT on 2 July 2018

I am binging your episodes,

I am binging your episodes, as may be obvious from the late date of this comment. However I wanted to pause here just to state two things I have realized of late. First, I am absolutely fascinated by medieval philosophy now. It is much more nuanced and thought provoking than I had assumed it would be, and I feel a reason for that realization is in how well you have presented it. Second, I find that you seem to have a natural talent (or at least it is well enough honed to seem natural) for interviewing. In many podcasts I will drudge through the interviews, but yours are rather a delight. Thank you for creating these.

Peter Adamson on 2 July 2018

Medieval

Thanks! That's very encouraging on both counts, though I think the quality of the interviews is more down to the guests than to me. I mostly just try to stay out of the way, if I can (I do send them questions in advance, as you might have guessed, which may help too).

Andrew on 26 March 2025

No transcript

Any plans to give this one a transcript? Or is this one too much of a pain to do?

Peter Adamson on 27 March 2025

Transcripts

Thanks for catching the missing transcripts! Yeah I wasn't going to do this one but I will try to catch up on the others, some of those I am not sure why they are not published.

Andrew on 27 March 2025

Transcripts report, along with other stuff.

Did some further snooping and found all of this, some may not be of much interest to you though:

Episodes that don't have a linked transcript:
Western - 95, 299, 318, 455*, 461, 464
* - doesn't even have the "interviews" theme
Africana - 39, 63, 142*
* - 142 does have a transcript from what I found, it just isn't linked to on the page for the audio version
China - 18, 21, 23

Transcripts that have the link to the audio episode missing:
Western - 437, 442, 447, 449
Africana - 133, both 140 transcripts, 142
China - 3, 11

Transcripts not in transcript folder:
Western - 431, 442, 447*, 449
* - stored in its own unique folder, "transcript-"
Africana - 130, 133, both 140 transcripts, 142
China - 3, 6, 11

Episodes swapped in transcripts page's order of the episodes:
Western - 447 and 449*
* - The Catholic Reformation, Early Modern, and China episodes aren't listed currently in the transcripts page - for each transcript there is a sidebar section that links to "More Transcripts in this series". That is where these transcripts are out of order
Africana - 130 and 133, both 140 transcripts come after 142

Only one of the two 140 transcripts have an image. Both are linked in the transcripts page, and in the sidebar "More Transcripts in this series" list. The one the audio episode links to is the one without the image, "transcript-cornel-west". It was the other one, "140-cornel-west-himself", that I commented on, which has an image.

Also, a few questions:
1. Why not make a dedicated transcript page for the Q&A 250 episode? It would clean things up a bit, even if it isn't an interview (unless we want to say we were interviewing you haha).
2. I assume 400 would also be too much of a pain to do, like 215?
3. Have you thought about making transcripts of all the Bonus episodes, beyond just the interview you did with Glenn Adamson? May not be interviews either (other than the GPW series) but could be good to have them. I have a feeling though GPW would also be too much of a pain to bother with though.

Last unrelated thing to note - the page for the timelines really could do with a clean up. For one thing, style wise, the differing naming scheme for them really stands out when they are all together like that, plus they really should be justified to the center rather than all the way to the left, at least to match with every other page. Also they could be reordered to fit with the order used everywhere else - All the western sections first, then the non-western, also going top to bottom rather than bottom to top in recency order. Also missing a link to the early modern timeline, although maybe there isn't one yet - I imagine that one would be particularly long. Last thing, it seems the renaissance timeline doesn't have the names centered but off to the left of the column, unlike the other timelines.

Peter Adamson on 1 April 2025

Transcripts etc

Thanks for this detailed investigation! Super useful. I'm just traveling so can't really tackle all this at the moment but I at least standardized the names of the timelines since that was easy. I need to put together the start of an early modern timeline, that will be a monster one eventually! May break it down by region as in the podcast series though.

I figured I'd only have transcripts for the "proper" interviews and not for bonus episodes.