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Mary Wellesley and Irina Dumitrescu start their Medieval Beginnings series with Beowulf, a tale of monsters and heroes that is also a complex collection of interwoven stories about war and the conduct of a warrior society. They consider the poem’s preoccupations with kingship and a pagan past seen through the eyes of a Christian culture, as well as many of the mysteries which still surround its, not least its authorship and many narrative curiosities.

Irina Dumitrescu is Professor of English Medieval Studies at the University of Bonn and Mary Wellesley as a historian and author of Hidden Hands: The Lives of Manuscripts and their Makers.

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Read more in the LRB:

Terry Eagleton: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v21/n22/terry-eagleton/hasped-and-hooped-and-hirpling

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In episode two of Medieval Beginnings, Mary and Irina turn the pages of the Exeter Book, a remarkable 10th century manuscript containing numerous poems and riddles, some of which are written in the voices of women. They consider in particular the enigmatic and beautiful ‘Wife’s Lament’ and ‘Wulf and Eadwacer’, and their numerous interpretations, and compare them to an extraordinary collection of letters written by influential women to St Boniface in the 8th century.

Irina Dumitrescu is Professor of English Medieval Studies at the University of Bonn and Mary Wellesley as a historian and author of Hidden Hands: The Lives of Manuscripts and their Makers.

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Find reading resources for this episode on the LRB website:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/close-readings/medieval-beginnings-letters-and-laments

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In the third episode of Medieval Beginnings, Mary and Irina explore the much-chronicled life of St Cuthbert, as told by the most famous writer of the early medieval period, the so-called Venerable Bede. From Cuthbert’s childhood interest in naked handstands, to his later work as a charismatic preacher who could elicit total confession, and as a hermit who enjoyed the assistance of friendly sea otters, it was a life which, as told by Bede, both challenged and conformed to the expected patterns of hagiography.

Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up here:

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In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings

Further reading in the LRB:

Barbara Newman: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v37/n09/barbara-newman/when-medicine-failed

Diarmaid MacCulloch: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v33/n11/diarmaid-macculloch/rome-s-new-mission

Irina Dumitrescu is Professor of English Medieval Studies at the University of Bonn and Mary Wellesley as a historian and author of Hidden Hands: The Lives of Manuscripts and their Makers.

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In their fourth episode, Mary and Irina climb inside a tiny cell to explore the Ancrene Wisse, a guidebook written in the early 13th century, originally intended for three anchoresses, but which enjoyed a much wider audience (there was even a copy in Henry VIII’s library).

The women addressed by the text lived lives of extraordinary restriction, permanently enclosed in small anchorholds in order to devote themselves to prayer and contemplation. The Ancrene Wisse is a striking literary artefact, a piece of learned and often beautiful writing, but one which elaborates a broad and detailed conception of sin in its prescription for the control of women's minds and bodies.

Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:

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In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings

Further reading in the LRB:

Mary Wellesley: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v41/n10/mary-wellesley/this-place-is-pryson

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If a Middle Ages full of castles, jousts, hawking, illicit love affairs and playful singing in the meadows is what you’re looking for, then look no further than the Lais of Marie de France. These 12th century love stories, written in Anglo-Norman by a writer who was unusually keen to make her name known, describe noble stories of passion, devotion, betrayal, self-sacrifice and magical transformations played out in enchanted woodlands and richly-draped chambers.

Irina and Mary discuss Marie’s various portrayals of love, her luscious powers of description, and the frequent deployment of animals in her stories to expose and resolve human problems.

This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up here:

Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq

In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings

Irina Dumitrescu is Professor of English Medieval Studies at the University of Bonn and Mary Wellesley as a historian and author of Hidden Hands: The Lives of Manuscripts and their Makers.

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For the sixth episode in their Medieval Beginnings series, Mary and Irina go full Romance with one of the most elaborate and surprising narrative poems in medieval literature, Le Roman de Silence, a complex, 13th-century Old French tale about gender, power and transformation.

Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up here:

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In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings

Irina Dumitrescu is Professor of English Medieval Studies at the University of Bonn and Mary Wellesley as a historian and author of Hidden Hands: The Lives of Manuscripts and their Makers.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Irina and Mary continue their run of Romances with the Middle English Havelok the Dane, a double Cinderella story of sex, fishing and surprisingly graphic violence, written at the end of the 13th century and set in a pre-Conquest, legendary English past.

Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up here:

Directly in Apple Podcasts at the top of this feed, or here: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq

In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings

Irina Dumitrescu is Professor of English Medieval Studies at the University of Bonn and Mary Wellesley as a historian and author of Hidden Hands: The Lives of Manuscripts and their Makers.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.