Clergy, Foreign Lands, and Apocalypse: Medieval Perception of the World

In this episode, Felicitas Schmieder, a professor of Medieval History in FernUniversität Hagen and visiting professor at CEU, speaks about medieval urbanism, perception, and eschatology. She begins with the research on her hometown, Frankfurt am Main, and the unique features of this royal city. Her focus is the medieval clergy, its role, and its challenges in the feudal world. Felicitas Schmieder would explain the pros and cons of being a cleric and why she does not consider the medieval Church an obstacle but rather a productive force for the city's development.In the second part, the professor speaks about her studies of perception in the Middle Ages. With Marco Polo as an example, she describes the key differences between modern and medieval people's vision of the world and foreign lands. The final part of the episode is devoted to medieval eschatology and how it influenced the people's understanding of the changes and environmental catastrophes around them. Felicitas Schmieder describes how people handled the changes of the Late Middle Ages, how they knew that Apocalypse was coming and how medieval prophets showed Apocalypse as a possible win-win situation.  Past Perfect! is CEU Medieval Radio’s show on medieval and early modern history and culture, where Christopher Mielke casually discusses with his guests various issues from the crusades to archeo-zoology to medieval urine sampling. The discussions are made with the aim to popularize medieval and early modern studies with the help of experts such as early musicians, historians, philologists and archeologists.This episode was first recorded and broadcast in 2013.