The Canterbury Fails

The set up is so juicy: dissolution, gluttony, corruption--but no, it's a moral Scottish march through politics, ethics, and penance, with a 3x3 drink that does what it should but not what it could.

Buried in an eighth-century Latin letter from a monk who keeps his name a secret is a two-line maybe heroic nugget of juicy maybe heroic wisdom. We read it.

Matt and David try to grapple with a late Middle English anti-money tract, but there isn't much to work with, and the cocktail is a citrusy paean to sadness.

A reflective reading of Jesus and his loaves and fishes, chock full of allegorical goodness, and a world class Old Fashiouned (TM): thank you Canada!

A very special stunt episode where Matt and David read unseen (by them, but no doubt Furnivall has read them all) and give their gut reactions / hot takes, as they peregrinate through breweries in Port Moody. Chaos, 80s music, and revelry ensue.

A poem in Old English that is wildly ambivalent but brutally clever coupled with a vegetation-rich perversion of an English classic.

A gentle tail-rhymed parody about a brotherhood of drinkers that no one has every written about: a perfect Fail.

Ælfric gets all teacherly about Jesus's birth and Matt and David suck down 3000 calories in 5 minutes. It's great.

The vaguest and most general milquetoast fifteenth-century poetry on how bad things are (they are bad people!) with a drink that makes Matt and David question their credibility.

Alfred shouts out his sorrows while Matt and David (both the Biblical and the actual) knock back a Bob Dylan x vermouth fanfic love fest. With fire. And a monastic chaser.

A Middle English ballad about a sketchy juggler with bad intent and a potent bittersweet and floral ringer.

An inventive and violent life of a kid doctor with the citrusy and herbal Milk of a Lion.

Lydgate's anti-Plague miracle poem with pestiferous angels paired with a medieval medicine-infused citrus bomb.

A live and in-person episode recorded in Kalamazoo Michigan at the International Congress on Medieval Studies featuring Usha Vishnuvajjala, Marty Schichtman, Laurie Finke, S.C. Kaplan, Sarah Baechle, Erin Sweany, and Dana Oswald. Decapitated wolves! Penis pilgrimage! Terrible romance! Fun was had by all.

A mediocre and short (thankfully) Old English encomium for Edmund that confuses Danes and Vikings paired with a rich and potent New York transplant cocktail. And David got one of those cherries he likes.

A barrage of nonsense luxury food items coupled with a surrealist filmic stiff drink.

A very special episode we like to call Canterbury Fails Ales Trails: a pilgrimage to several imbiberies punctuated with discussion of a bilingual apocalypto-prophetic wake-up call to the the English who are clearly eyebrow-deep in dissolution (much like the hosts).

A Middle English bird cries out for mercy, while we suck down the WORST potpourri vanilla chemical peach asscrap

Ælfric lays out the first six days of creation--ecotheory, gender, epistemology (according to Coley)--and we have a stunning cocktail and IPA chaser.

A comic almost-fabliau about a boy, three wishes, and apocalyptic flatulence, with a layered cocktail that hides the darkness in the light.

Margaret was both a medical and military rockstar. Do not mess with her.

An Old English barrage of healing recipes--dung! venison! breast milk!--with a cozy medicinal hearth warmer.

Who'd have thought that the super classy and amazingly sophisticated Marie de France wrote poems on exploding ass and pregnant men?

An anonymous Boethius-lite (TM) prison poem coupled with an opaquely frothy egg creme abomination.

The short Old English death lyric embedded in an emotional Latin letter about an expiring superstar scholar, coupled with an explosive lemon and anise dropshot.

A poem so unruly and excessive that it cannot be summarized: unhinged bananas bull goose loony. With a trifecta of Penny cocktails.

Ælfric's life (and death) of the saint Maurice and his 6665 friends, plus a potent bitter smoky and sweet masterpiece.

A beast fable dream vision mirror of princes with a potent and delicious Scottish cocktail.

An Old English prose riddle that many or may not be about incest, and a page of secret codes, coupled with a curdled hellscape of coconut, citrus and sulphuric eggy blobs.

Recorded live in front of a real audience in Kalamazoo, Michigan, the Canterbury Fails had six brilliant guest stars: Brian O'Camb and Mary Kate Hurley on some marginal and doubly obscure Latin-Old English proverbs; Carissa Harris and Noëlle Phillips on a testy fifteenth-century beer ballad; Irina Dumitrescu and Denis Ferhatovic on a very twisted French fabliau. I know. Right? Unbelievable. Also weird drinks, hijinks, minor kinks, and deep thinks.

A bunch of yahoos battle it out over a reeve's daughter, while we drink an oily peach-potpourri disaster.

A degenerate and grotesque Old English psalm paired with a smoky golden delight.

A wild and all too detailed description of male members; actually, no, it's a political allegory in verse, and a sevenfold rich whisky marvel.

A stultifying set of rules for churchmen with a flaming rum-blast of venom, scorpion-style.

In this stunt episode, David and Matt adventure downtown to a super fancy cocktail lab and--switching it up--attempt to match a medieval text to the drink. Amazing cocktail and mainstream (non-Fail) text. An ambient noise odyssey in self-consciousness, grotesque wealth, and canonical literature. Special thanks to our very cool bartender and bonus thanks to our audio engineer splice-master.

A broken-down shattered poeticalish charm against vermin with a swingin' big city celebrity tipple.

A fiery blast of excommunication ritual with a literally on fire tequila citrus blowout.

An alchemical slog in Middle English prose matched by a neoplatonically perfect cure-all.

God and his army protects every last one of your weird little body parts, while you sip a herbal smoky kick to the the triform brain (and liver).

A late medieval music theory complaint and literally the best most bonkers depraved monk freak show mock-gothic novel paired with a gin-soaked tea (do re mi!) and repugnant Jolly Rancher retro-cocktail. With awesome special guest stars Kandice Sharren and Kate Moffatt.

An elegant and informed exposition of John the Baptist's birth paired with a cloudy red seafood drink.

A pedantic grind about table manners with a syrupy cocktail for babies.

We interrupt summer hiatus to invite proposals for a live Canterbury Fails: do you want to be on the Fails? We want you to be on the Fails. We're hosting a live participatory episode at Kalamazoo in May 2023. Please listen and submit; website here: wmich.edu/medievalcongress. Plus two micro-fails: barbaric scrawl and Ovidian lament

A maligned Harley lyric about birds in a lady's underclothes paired with a whale-poop tinged concoction: a cetaeceous sazerac.

A homely homily that keeps things very rote, with the BEST cocktail.

A fifteenth-century fishing handbook by a very chill nun, accompanied by a Herculean face-punch.

Wack-ass trivia in Q+A form, someone might call "Dylanesque" with the sublime nectar of the BVM's infinite glory.

A dumb-ass political dream vision and kooky conspiracy theory with a potent citrus and herb concoction.

Homer and Virgil buddy-pic with a fizzy tree-licker.

A parade of penis jokes with a disgusting double cocktail.

A monotonous litany of fascinating miracles chased by a revivifying kick.