2024-09-19
41 分钟We continue from our last episode into the years 1212-1214 in the Melrose Chronicle, where we come to the end of the interdict, and perhaps the prophesized end of King John's true sovereignty. Along the way, we also cover some of the more common ecclesiastical offices and check the accuracy of the chronicle's battlefield accounting. Today's Texts: The Chronicle of Melrose. Edited and translated by Joseph Stevenson, The Church Historians of England, vol. 4, part 1, Seeley’s, 1856, pp. 79-242. Google Books. Ranulf Higden. Polychronicon. Vol. 8. Edited by Joseph Rawson Lumby, translated by John Trevisa, Longman and Co., 1882. Google Books. Roger of Wendover. Flowers of History. Vol. 2. Translated by J.A. Giles, Henry G. Bohn, 1849. Google Books.
This is medieval death trip for Wednesday, September 18, 2024.
Episode 108 concerning the end of the interdict and a vexatious prophethood.
Hello and welcome to medieval death trip, the show where we explore the wit and weirdness of medieval texts.
I'm your host, Patrick Lane.
This episode we're picking up where we left off last time in the Melrose Chronicle, a text uniquely preserved in a 13th century manuscript.
We stopped previously at the end of the year 1211, with England and its temperamental king John still under an interdict proclaimed by Pope Innocent III, sparked off by the king's refusal to accept the papally approved new archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton.
The interdict forbid the celebration of mass and the performance of most sacraments.
Baptisms were still permitted, though with restrictions on attendance and priests could still hear confession, but they would have had to make house calls to do so, as the churches were to be shut to the common people and with only limited admission of pilgrims.
Its a bit unclear exactly how upsetting this would have been to the common people, since in the 13th century commoners had rather limited access to the sacraments in the first place.
The eucharist was typically not administered to everyone at Mass.
It was reserved for the people at the altar and on the front row, so to speak.
And as we heard back in our Meyer Helmrecht series for peasants, it was not uncommon for weddings to be primarily secular affairs.
Lack of access to proper christian burial, however, was likely a more pressing concern given the sheer number of bad outcomes stacking up on King Johns resume in those years.
Its hard to know just what proportion of the general atmosphere of discontent in England should be attributed to the interdict compared to other events.
Last episode we did see our chronicler portraying the anxious and unhappy state of the english people, though this didn't quite seem to touch John yet.
But this time we will see emerging out of that seething discontentment, some distinct eruptions of voices confronting the king himself.
But we start this section of the chronicle not with the king, but rather Pope Innocent III as he sends out the call for what will be the fourth lateran council.
The council itself won't convene until a couple of years later in 1215.
We won't get to the actual council in today's selection, but I wanted to highlight it for two reasons.
The first relates to how our chronicler presents it, which is in terms of the strength of innocent iiis political clerical machine.