Episode 107: Middle Ages 101

Michial Farmer moderates a conversation with David Grubbs and Nathan Gilmour on the middle ages, those thousand years in western Europe that gave us scholastic theology, nominalist philosophy, and so many bad stereotypes that they're not worth listing here. Focusing on the historian's task of saying something about the period without saying too much, the trio bring forth some of the great intellectual, poetic, and cultural developments that arise in the shadow of the Roman Empire. Among the texts and other realities discussed are Confessio Amantis, Canterbury Tales, Song of Roland, Islam, homo viator, and the concept of an intellectual system.