We inaugurate our first “Saga Summer” a bit late this year, but starting with an early poet’s saga, a tale of love and betrayal, duels and magic. This is Part 1 (of 4) of Kormak’s Saga.
Today’s Texts:
The Life and Death of Cormac the Skald. Translated by W.G. Collingwood and J. Stefansson. Viking Club Translation Series, no. 1., Wm Holmes, Ltd., 1902. Google Books.
Egil’s Saga. Translated by Hermann Pálsson and Paul Edwards, Penguin, 1976.
Egil’s Saga. Translated by Bernard Skudder, The Sagas of Icelanders: A Selection, Penguin, 2001, pp. 3-184.
References:
Andersson, T.M. “The Emergence of Vernacular Literature in Iceland.” Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal, vol. 8, no. 4, Summer 1975, pp. 161-169. JSTOR.
Finlay, Alison. “Skalds, Troubadours and Sagas.” Saga-Book, vol. 24, 1994-1997, pp. 105-154. JSTOR.
Hollander, Lee. “The Case of the Skald Kormak.” Monatshefte für Deutschen Unterricht, vol. 35, no. 3/4, Mar.-Apr. 1943, pp. 107-115. JSTOR.
Jónas Kristjánsson. Eddas and Sagas. Translated by Peter Foote, Hið íslenska bókmenntafélag, 1997.
Malm, Mats. “Skalds, Runes, and Voice.” Viking and Medieval Scandinavia, vol. 6, 2010, pp. 135-46. JSTOR.
O’Donoghue, Heather. Old Norse-Icelandic Literature: A Short Introduction. Blackwell, 2005.
Illustration of a Phoenix from British Library, MS Harley 4751, fol. 45r.
“Survivors at the End of Their Worlds: Voices from the Exeter Book and Other Apocalypses”
Online class, Tuesdays, 7-9pm Central Daylight Time (UTC-5) Sept. 15 – Oct. 13, 2026
This course will explore the remarkable medieval survivor that is the Exeter Book, a thousand-year-old, scarred manuscript that contains the only known copies of the so-called Old English Elegies. The speakers in these poems express each in their own way feelings of being alone in a world breaking apart. Through these poems, we will introduce the formal features and cultural context of Old English poetry (in translation, but with reference to the original language). We will consider their apocalyptic anxieties alongside those of later medieval mystics, modern poets, a third-generation clone from 200 years in the future, and, of course, ourselves.
The course fee is $495 (fee reductions are negotiable with Enclosure Academy and discounts are available for early registration).
Prospective Syllabus for the course (subject to change):
Enclosure Academy
Fall 2026
Tuesdays, Sept. 15 – Oct. 17
Instructor: Patrick Lane
Survivors at the End of Their Worlds: Voices from the Exeter Book and Other Apocalypses
“Þæs oferēode, þisses swā mæg.” [That passed away, and so may this.] —from the Exter Book, Deor
“It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.” —R.E.M.
This course will explore the remarkable medieval survivor that is the Exeter Book, a thousand-year-old, scarred manuscript that contains the only known copies of the so-called Old English Elegies. The speakers in these poems express each in their own way feelings of being alone in a world breaking apart. Through these poems, we will introduce the formal features and cultural context of Old English poetry (in translation, but with reference to the original language). We will consider their apocalyptic anxieties alongside those of later medieval mystics, modern poets, a third-generation clone from 200 years in the future, and, of course, ourselves.
Required Text:
Hamer, Richard, editor. A Choice of Anglo-Saxon Verse. Faber & Faber, 2016. ISBN-10: 0571325394 (paperback), 0571087646 (hardcover) (Kindle edition also available and usable, though it may make comparisons with the original Old English lines less convenient.)
Additional readings will be made available through links to versions posted online or by PDFs provided by email and in our class Google Drive resources.
Collection Commonplaces:
Starting with the readings for Week 2, you should begin building a collection of items that strike you as you read through the selections. These could be specific words that seem significant or strange, individual lines or sentences that linger or puzzle, and/or concepts and themes that you notice emerging as you read. Copy each item down into your preferred note-taking system (notepad, notebook, cards, app); collect at least three items (preferably several more than that). Then of all the items you’ve added to your collection for that session, pick three and for each one, write out a brief observation about why you collected that item. Then jot down a connection you can make between that item and one of the other readings — or any other media or culture that it resonates with for you. I’ll be looking for people to share some of the items in the collections during our discussions.
Schedule: (ASV refers to the required text, A Choice of Anglo-Saxon Verse; other readings will be provided)
Week 1 (9/15): Introduction to the Exeter Book Readings: Wulfstan, Sermo Lupi ad Anglos; “The Ruin” (ASV); Özge Lena, “Writing Poems in the Middle of a Catastrophe”
Week 2 (9/22): The Lonely Road Readings: “The Wanderer” (ASV); “The Seafarer” (ASV); Claire Colebrook, “End Times for Humanity”; C. K. Williams, “Tar”
Week 3 (9/29): Love’s Exiles Readings: “The Wife’s Lament” (ASV); “The Husband’s Message” (ASV); “Wulf and Eadwacer” (ASV); Hadewijch of Brabant, “The omens make very clear to us”; Kyla Guimaraes, “The Apocalypse Is Almost Here, So We Do the Dishes”
Week 4 (10/6): Endings and Legacies Readings: “Fortunes of Men”; “Gifts of Men”; “Deor” (ASV); Mechtild of Magdeburg, from The Flowing Light of the Godhead; Rachael Lin Wheeler, “Field Notes on Living, Perpetually, on the Brink of Tragedy”
Week 5 (10/13): Fearsome Futures Readings: “The Whale” (ASV); “Fates of the Apostles” (ASV); Jane Hirshfield, “Let Them Not Say”; Douglas Adams, “Sifting Through the Embers”; Don Hertzfeldt, World of Tomorrow
As vacation season kicks off, we revisit 14th-century traveler Friar Odoric at the very start of his journey, as he crosses from the Black Sea to the Persian Gulf, passes through the Strait of Hormuz, and makes shore in India.
Today’s Texts:
Odoric of Friuli. “The Eastern Parts of the World Described, By Friar Odoric the Bohemian, of Friuli, in the Province of Saint Anthony.” In Cathay and the Way Thither, edited by Henry Yule, vol. 1, Hakluyt Society, 1866. Google Books.
“Viaggio del Beato Frate Odorico di Porto Maggiore Del Friuli.” Edited by Ramusio, Delle Navigationi et Viaggi, vol. 2, Venice, Giunti, 1583. pp. 253-257. Google Books.
Odoric of Friuli. “Latin Text of Odoric; from a MS in the Bibliotèque Impériale.” In Cathay and the Way Thither, edited by Henry Yule, vol. 2, Hakluyt Society, 1866, pp. i-xlii. Google Books.
References:
Small, Margaret. “Transformer and Influencer: Giovanni Battista Ramusio’s Impact on Wester European Geography.“ Journal of Early Modern Studies, vol. 12, 2023, pp. 39-54. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.36253/JEMS-2279-7149-14383.
We complete our look at epilepsy in the Middle Ages by considering how religion and medicine intersect in surviving medical texts and how classical learning was reintroduced by looking at the example of John of Gaddesden, possibly the model for Chaucer’s Doctour of Phisik.
Today’s Texts:
John of Gaddesden. “John of Gaddesden on Epilepsy.” Edited by William G. Lennox, translated by Adrian P. English, Annals of Medical History, vol. 1, no. 3, May 1939, pp. 283-307. Semantic Scholar.
Origen. Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, translated by John Patrick, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 9, edited by Allan Menzies, Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1896. New Advent, revised and edited by Kevin Knight, www.newadvent.org/fathers/1016.htm
Herbarium. In Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England, translated by Thomas Cockayne, vol. 1, Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green, 1864, pp. 1-325. Archive.org.
Leech Book. Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England, translated by Thomas Cockayne, vol. 2, Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green, 1864. Archive.org.
“Life of St. Winefred.” Lives of the Cambro British Saints, of the Fifth and Immediate Succeeding Centuries, from Ancient Welsh & Latin MSS. in the British Museum and Elsewhere, with English Translations, an Explanatory Notes, edited and translated by W. J. Rees, Welsh MSS. Society, 1853, pp. 515-529. Google Books.
References:
Capener, Norman. “John of Gaddesden: and the Crest of the Frederick Coller Surgical Society.” Annals of Surgery, vol. 154, suppl. 6, Dec. 1961, pp. 13-17. DOI: 10.1097/00000658-196112000-00003. PubMed Central.
Dendle, Peter. “Lupines, Manganese, and Devil-Sickness: An Anglo-Saxon Medical Response to Epilepsy.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine, vol. 75, no. 1, Spring 2001, pp. 91-101. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/44445557
Temkin, Owsei. The Falling Sickness: A History of Epilepsy from the Greeks to the Beginnings of Modern Neurology. 2nd ed., revised, Johns Hopkins Press, 1971. Archive.org.
Image Credit: The Doctor of Physick, from the Ellesmere manuscript of the Canterbury Tales (Huntington Library EL 26 C 9, via Wikimedia Commons).
This episode we begin a two-part exploration into the understanding and treatment of epilepsy in the middle ages. But to get to the medieval, we have to start with its ancient antecedents, so here in Part 1, we look at texts produced by the Hippocratic school and its later followers.
Today’s Texts:
Lucretius. On the Nature of Things. Translated by John Selby Watson and John Mason Good, George Bell & Sons, 1893. Internet Archive.
Wilson, J.V. Kinnier, and E. H. Reynolds, translators. “Translation and Analysis of a Cuneiform Text Forming Part of a Babylonian Treatise on Epilepsy,” Medical History, vol. 34, 1990, pp. 185-198. National Center for Biotechnical Information,www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1036070/
Hippocrates. “On the Sacred Disease.” The Genuine Works of Hippocrates, vol. 2, translated by Francis Adams, Sydenham Society, 1849, pp. 831-858. Google Books.
Galen. “Advice for an Epileptic Boy.” Translated by Owsei Temkin, Texts and Documents, reprinted from Bulletin of the Institute of the History of Medicine, vol. 2, no. 3, May 1934, pp. 179-189. Archive.org.
Paulus Ægineta. The Medical Works of Paulus Ægineta, the Greek Physician. Vol. 1, edited and translated by Francis Adams, J. Welsh, 1834. Google Books.
References:
AL-Zwaini, Isam Jaber, and Ban Adbul-Hameed Majeed Albadri. “Epilepsy — The Long Journey of the Sacred Disease.” Epilepsy — Advances in Diagnosis and Therapy, IntechOpen, 2019, pp. 1-10. Academia.edu.
Diamantis, Aristidis, Kalliopi Sidiropoulou, and Emmanouil Magiorkinis. “Epilepsy during the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.” Journal of Neurology, vol. 257, 2010, pp. 691-698. DOI: 10.1007/s00415-009-5433-7. Academia.edu.
Katz, Arnold M. “Knowledge of Circulation Before William Harvey.” Circulation, vol. 15, May 1957, pp. 726-734. American Heart Association.
Patel, Puja, and Solomon L. Moshé. “The evolution of the concepts of seizures and epilepsy: What’s in a name?” Epilepsia Open, vol. 5, 2020, pp. 22-35. DOI: 10.1002/EPI4.12375. Academia.edu.
Temkin, Owsei. The Falling Sickness: A History of Epilepsy from the Greeks to the Beginnings of Modern Neurology. 2nd ed., revised, Johns Hopkins Press, 1971. Archive.org.
Image Credits:
Babylonian tablet on epilepsy (British Museum, Tablet 47753, obverse, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
As a follow-up to our 2025 saint’s-life generating Advent Calendar game, we hear an actual medieval saint’s life and discuss how we get some of our saintly terminology. You’ll also find out where you can get a downloadable version of the Advent Calendar game!
Today’s Texts:
“Life of St. Winefred.” Lives of the Cambro British Saints, of the Fifth and Immediate Succeeding Centuries, from Ancient Welsh & Latin MSS. in the British Museum and Elsewhere, with English Translations, an Explanatory Notes, edited and translated by W. J. Rees, Welsh MSS. Society, 1853, pp. 515-529. Google Books.
“The Miracles of St. Winifred’s Well.” The British Medical Journal, vol. 2, no. 1762, 13 Oct. 1894, p. 829. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20230146
The Rule of St. Benedict. Translated by D. Oswald Hunter Blair, 2nd ed., Sands & Co,m 1907. Google Books.
References:
Dendle, Peter. “Lupines, Manganese, and Devil-Sickness: An Anglo-Saxon Medical Response to Epilepsy.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine, vol. 75, no. 1, Spring 2001, pp. 91-101. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/44445557
Head, Thomas. “Hagiography.” Reprinted from ORB: the On-line Reference Book for Medieval Studies, 1999. Hagiography Society, 2013, www.hagiographysociety.org/?page_id=678
Keune, Jon. “Comparative vs. Hagiology: Two Variant Approaches to the Field.” Religious Studies, vol. 10, no. 10, 14 Oct. 2019, p. 575. MDPI, doi.org/10.3390/rel10100575
Stumpe, Lynne Heidi. “Display and Veneration of Holy Relics at St Winefriede’s Well and Stonyhurst.” Journal of Museum Ethnography, no. 22, Dec. 2009, pp. 63-81. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41417138
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