Podcasts about Early modern Europe

Read an even deeper-dive into the werewolf trials here: https://weirddarkness.com/wolves-on-trial/Across four centuries of European court records, dozens of men, women, and children confessed to shedding their skins for wolf-hides and hunting under the moon — and the magistrates who heard them believed every word.EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/RealWerewolfTrialsREAD or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/43rjhjvpFEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: We're all familiar with the concept of werewolves – they are all over pop culture, movies, television, comic books, novels, and every other medium you could possibly imagine. And while they are considered fictional, or at least in the realm of cryptids, that doesn't mean there aren't true stories of reported werewolves in history. (Real Historic Accounts of Werewolves) *** Just the idea of going to prison is enough to scare people into living a squeaky-clean life, but if you're one of the most dangerous prisoners known to exist, ordinary prison would look like a vacation as compared to life in the Florence ADX Supermax Prison. (Life In The Supermax) *** What was supposed to be a two day trip turned into a maritime mystery when the ship, the MV Joyita was discovered floating with no crew on board. What happened? (The Mysterious Abandonment of the MV Joyita)CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…00:00:00.000 = The Foreboding00:01:37.814 = Show Open00:03:32.506 = Real Historic Accounts of Werewolves, Part 100:28:44.978 = Real Historic Accounts of Werewolves, Part 2 ***00:42:51.099 = The Mysterious Abandonment of the MV Joyita ***01:02:49.562 = Life In The Supermax ***01:15:37.977 = Show Close*** = Begins immediately after inserted ad breakLISTEN ON PODCAST APPS: Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.com/wdapps*No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast*SOURCES and RESOURCES:“Real Historic Accounts of Werewolves” by Miss Celania for MentalFloss.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p84ut66, Nick Redfern for Mysterious Universe: http://bit.ly/2MFFx5p, WolvesRox on Playbuzz.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p9bjcht, and Tim Flight for HistoricCollection.com:https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p87s85sThe short fable, “The Werewolf” was written by Angela Carter: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/yckt8fn6“The Mysterious Abandonment of the MV Joyita” by Marcus Lowth for UFOInsight.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p8sux2j“Life In The Supermax” by Jacob Shelton for Ranker.com's Unspeakable Times: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p8u82p9(Over time links may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.Originally aired: January, 2022Weird Darkness digs into three dark corners this time out — the real men and women who were tried and executed as werewolves across Early Modern Europe, the South Pacific ghost ship MV Joyita found drifting with all 25 aboard vanished, and daily life inside America's most locked-down prison, the ADX Supermax in Florence, Colorado.It opens with the documented history of lycanthropy trials, tracing the term back through the Old English werwulf and the Greek myth of King Lycaon, whom Ovid recorded being turned into a wolf by Zeus. From there the episode walks through the real cases: the Gandillon family, burned in France in 1598 after the witch hunter Henri Boguet arranged their arrest; Thiess of Livonia, an eighty-year-old man tried in 1692 who claimed to be a benevolent werewolf who fought the Devil for the year's harvest; Peter Stubbe, the "Werewolf of Bedburg," broken on the wheel and beheaded on October 31st, 1589; Gilles Garnier, the "Hermit of Dole," burned alive in 1573 for killing and eating children; the Werewolves of Poligny; the Wolf of Ansbach, an ordinary wolf hanged from a gibbet in a wig and beard in 1685; teenaged Hans the Werewolf, executed in Estonia in 1651; fourteen-year-old Jean Grenier of Gascony, spared the stake and sent to a friary; the "Demon Tailor" of Chalons; and the more modern Spanish serial killer Manuel Blanco Romasanta, the "Werewolf of Allariz," who used lycanthropy as his legal defense, alongside the Ludwigslust and Angers cases and the cannibal beggar Swiatek of Poland.From there the show turns to the MV Joyita, the yacht built in 1931 in Los Angeles for director Roland West and named for his wife, Jewel Carmen. On October 3rd, 1955, she left Apia, Samoa, for the Tokelau Islands carrying 16 crew and nine passengers, and vanished; found over a month later on November 10th by the merchant captain Gerald Douglas, she was drifting more than 600 miles off course, partially submerged but afloat thanks to her cork-lined refrigerated hold. Investigators found the cabin lights on, the clocks stopped at 10:25, the radio tuned to the distress frequency, a doctor's bag holding a scalpel and blood-stained bandages, mattresses stacked over the engine, and all four escape craft gone — with the cargo, and all 25 people, never recovered. Captain Thomas Miller took the blame for sailing on one engine, but the theories that followed ran from mutiny to Japanese fishermen, Soviet submarines, pirates, and insurance fraud, with researcher Robin Maugham laying out the mutiny case in his book The Joyita Mystery.The episode closes inside the United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence, Colorado, the ADX Supermax that has held Ted Kaczynski, Terry Nichols, Robert Hanssen, Ramzi Yousef, and Zacarias Moussaoui since 1994. Inmates spend 23 hours a day alone in 7-by-12-foot concrete cells with a single 4-inch window angled so the sky and the surrounding mountains stay out of view, communicating through drained toilet pipes and "finger handshakes" through recreation-cage fencing. Former inmates and staff — including warden Robert Hood, who called the architecture itself the control, and prisoner Travis Dusenbury — describe a facility that strips away nearly every trace of ordinary life, the suicide of mentally ill inmate Jose Vega in 2010, and the ongoing lawsuits over medical and mental-health treatment that forced ADX to reevaluate its practices in the mid-2010s.

Links For The Occult Rejectshttps://linktr.ee/theoccultrejectsOccult Research Institutehttps://www.occultresearchinstitute.org/Substackhttps://substack.com/@theoccultrejects?r=7auau0&utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-pageCash Apphttps://cash.app/$theoccultrejectsVenmo@TheOccultRejectsBuy Me A Coffeebuymeacoffee.com/TheOccultRejectsPatreonhttps://www.patreon.com/TheOccultRejectsCondensed Bibliography for Part OneFranz Anton Mesmer. Memoir on the Discovery of Animal Magnetism.Franz Anton Mesmer. Aphorisms of M. Mesmer.Report of the Commissioners Charged by the King with the Examination of Animal Magnetism, commonly associated with the Franklin Commission.Jean-Sylvain Bailly. Secret Report on Mesmerism / Rapport secret.Robert Darnton. Mesmerism and the End of the Enlightenment in France.Henri F. Ellenberger. The Discovery of the Unconscious: The History and Evolution of Dynamic Psychiatry.Adam Crabtree. From Mesmer to Freud: Magnetic Sleep and the Roots of Psychological Healing.Adam Crabtree. Animal Magnetism, Early Hypnotism, and Psychical Research, 1766–1925: An Annotated Bibliography.Alan Gauld. A History of Hypnotism.Frank A. Pattie. Mesmer and Animal Magnetism: A Chapter in the History of Medicine.Alison Winter. Mesmerized: Powers of Mind in Victorian Britain.James Braid. Neurypnology; or, The Rationale of Nervous Sleep, Considered in Relation with Animal Magnetism.James Braid. The Power of the Mind over the Body.Abbé Faria. De la cause du sommeil lucide.Armand-Marie-Jacques de Chastenet, Marquis de Puységur. Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire et à l'établissement du magnétisme animal.James Esdaile. Mesmerism in India, and Its Practical Application in Surgery and Medicine.James Esdaile. The Introduction of Mesmerism as an Anaesthetic and Curative Agent into the Hospitals of India.Walter Pagel. Paracelsus: An Introduction to Philosophical Medicine in the Era of the Renaissance.D. P. Walker. Spiritual and Demonic Magic: From Ficino to Campanella.Stuart Clark. Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe.Brian P. Levack. The Devil Within: Possession and Exorcism in the Christian West.Moshe Sluhovsky. Believe Not Every Spirit: Possession, Mysticism, and Discernment in Early Modern Catholicism.Jessica Riskin. Science in the Age of Sensibility: The Sentimental Empiricists of the French Enlightenment.Peter Lamont. Extraordinary Beliefs: A Historical Approach to a Psychological Problem.Kapil Raj. “When Scottish Medicine Hospitalized Indian Magic: Dr James Esdaile's Mesmeric Surgery in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Bengal.”David Arnold. Colonizing the Body: State Medicine and Epidemic Disease in Nineteenth-Century India.Projit Bihari Mukharji. Nationalizing the Body: The Medical Market, Print and Daktari Medicine.Waltraud Ernst. Studies on mesmerism, colonial medicine, psychiatry, and medical practice in British India.Also want to remind people about the website, if you're into reading we have tons of information by multiple contributors, and we got t-shirts up on the site if you're interested. Fun fact, the art is all based on the eyeball. 

Women's History Series, #2 of 4. In 1590, the king of Scotland fomented a witch hunt in North Berwick, implicating as many as 200 people, convicting 70, and executing as many as 50. He participated in the “questioning” of the accused, tearing confessions of treason and weather magic from their trembling lips. He sent those whom he “believed” conspired against him to their deaths. Why? Reading his witch-hunting treatise, Demonologie, one might assume it was because he feared the threat that magic-users posed to his country. But perhaps the shrewd and savvy king had other, more earthly reasons to stir up a panic that destroyed those who moved against him. Bibliography Katherine Brice, The Early Stuarts 1603–1640 (1994) Ed. Julian Goodare, The Scottish Witch-hunt in Context (Manchester University Press, 2002).  Julian Goodare, “Frameworks for Scottish Witch Hunting in the 1590s,” The Scottish Historical Review Oct 2002) Julian Goodare, “Witchcraft in Scotland,” The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America, ed. Brian Levack, 300-317 Christina Larner, Enemies of God (1981) Brian Levack, “State Building and Witch Hunting in Early Modern England,” in Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (2010) 213-226 Lawrence Normand and Gareth Roberts, Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland, Tamara Wallace, “The Witch-Finder King: A Study of James I of England and his Relationship to Witchcraft,” Undergraduate Thesis, University of Victoria (2023) Liv Helene Willumsen, “WITCHCRAFT AGAINST ROYAL DANISH SHIPS IN 1589 AND THE TRANSNATIONAL TRANSFER OF IDEAS,” IRSS 45 (2020) Jenny Wormald, “The Witches, the Devil, and the King,” in Freedom and Authority: Scotland c. 1050-1650 (2000) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Commercial seafaring, both dangerous and with large amounts of capital at stake, was the source of the risk-management institutions that still undergird the global economy today. A key institution of early modern risk management was General Average, a procedure used to redistribute extraordinary costs arising from a maritime venture between all financially interested parties. For example, should one merchant's cargo be jettisoned to lighten a ship in a storm, the loss would be shared pro rata by the shipper and all the cargo-owners. A risk-sharing practice, different from the risk-shifting of marine insurance which became established relatively late, General Average is still in widespread use. In Managing Maritime Risk in Early Modern Europe: General Average in Law and Practice in Seventeenth-Century Tuscany (Boydell Press, 2025), Jake Dyble explores how General Average worked. It reveals the gap between General Average in law and how it worked on the ground. It shows how General Average partitioned a wide array of business costs, thereby performing a significant role in structuring maritime commerce, managing risk and promoting shipping and trade. In addition, the book discusses how far General Average was a feature of a supposedly ancient, universal, customary maritime law, and contributes to debates about the evolution of institutions in economic development. Dr Jake Dyble is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Padova, Italy. This interview is conducted by Dr Lewis Wade, a Humboldt Research Fellow at the University of Bamberg. He is the author of the prize-winning Privilege, Economy and State in Old Regime France and can be found on Bluesky @wadehistory.bsky.social. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Commercial seafaring, both dangerous and with large amounts of capital at stake, was the source of the risk-management institutions that still undergird the global economy today. A key institution of early modern risk management was General Average, a procedure used to redistribute extraordinary costs arising from a maritime venture between all financially interested parties. For example, should one merchant's cargo be jettisoned to lighten a ship in a storm, the loss would be shared pro rata by the shipper and all the cargo-owners. A risk-sharing practice, different from the risk-shifting of marine insurance which became established relatively late, General Average is still in widespread use. In Managing Maritime Risk in Early Modern Europe: General Average in Law and Practice in Seventeenth-Century Tuscany (Boydell Press, 2025), Jake Dyble explores how General Average worked. It reveals the gap between General Average in law and how it worked on the ground. It shows how General Average partitioned a wide array of business costs, thereby performing a significant role in structuring maritime commerce, managing risk and promoting shipping and trade. In addition, the book discusses how far General Average was a feature of a supposedly ancient, universal, customary maritime law, and contributes to debates about the evolution of institutions in economic development. Dr Jake Dyble is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Padova, Italy. This interview is conducted by Dr Lewis Wade, a Humboldt Research Fellow at the University of Bamberg. He is the author of the prize-winning Privilege, Economy and State in Old Regime France and can be found on Bluesky @wadehistory.bsky.social. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Commercial seafaring, both dangerous and with large amounts of capital at stake, was the source of the risk-management institutions that still undergird the global economy today. A key institution of early modern risk management was General Average, a procedure used to redistribute extraordinary costs arising from a maritime venture between all financially interested parties. For example, should one merchant's cargo be jettisoned to lighten a ship in a storm, the loss would be shared pro rata by the shipper and all the cargo-owners. A risk-sharing practice, different from the risk-shifting of marine insurance which became established relatively late, General Average is still in widespread use. In Managing Maritime Risk in Early Modern Europe: General Average in Law and Practice in Seventeenth-Century Tuscany (Boydell Press, 2025), Jake Dyble explores how General Average worked. It reveals the gap between General Average in law and how it worked on the ground. It shows how General Average partitioned a wide array of business costs, thereby performing a significant role in structuring maritime commerce, managing risk and promoting shipping and trade. In addition, the book discusses how far General Average was a feature of a supposedly ancient, universal, customary maritime law, and contributes to debates about the evolution of institutions in economic development. Dr Jake Dyble is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Padova, Italy. This interview is conducted by Dr Lewis Wade, a Humboldt Research Fellow at the University of Bamberg. He is the author of the prize-winning Privilege, Economy and State in Old Regime France and can be found on Bluesky @wadehistory.bsky.social. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/italian-studies

Commercial seafaring, both dangerous and with large amounts of capital at stake, was the source of the risk-management institutions that still undergird the global economy today. A key institution of early modern risk management was General Average, a procedure used to redistribute extraordinary costs arising from a maritime venture between all financially interested parties. For example, should one merchant's cargo be jettisoned to lighten a ship in a storm, the loss would be shared pro rata by the shipper and all the cargo-owners. A risk-sharing practice, different from the risk-shifting of marine insurance which became established relatively late, General Average is still in widespread use. In Managing Maritime Risk in Early Modern Europe: General Average in Law and Practice in Seventeenth-Century Tuscany (Boydell Press, 2025), Jake Dyble explores how General Average worked. It reveals the gap between General Average in law and how it worked on the ground. It shows how General Average partitioned a wide array of business costs, thereby performing a significant role in structuring maritime commerce, managing risk and promoting shipping and trade. In addition, the book discusses how far General Average was a feature of a supposedly ancient, universal, customary maritime law, and contributes to debates about the evolution of institutions in economic development. Dr Jake Dyble is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Padova, Italy. This interview is conducted by Dr Lewis Wade, a Humboldt Research Fellow at the University of Bamberg. He is the author of the prize-winning Privilege, Economy and State in Old Regime France and can be found on Bluesky @wadehistory.bsky.social. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law

Commercial seafaring, both dangerous and with large amounts of capital at stake, was the source of the risk-management institutions that still undergird the global economy today. A key institution of early modern risk management was General Average, a procedure used to redistribute extraordinary costs arising from a maritime venture between all financially interested parties. For example, should one merchant's cargo be jettisoned to lighten a ship in a storm, the loss would be shared pro rata by the shipper and all the cargo-owners. A risk-sharing practice, different from the risk-shifting of marine insurance which became established relatively late, General Average is still in widespread use. In Managing Maritime Risk in Early Modern Europe: General Average in Law and Practice in Seventeenth-Century Tuscany (Boydell Press, 2025), Jake Dyble explores how General Average worked. It reveals the gap between General Average in law and how it worked on the ground. It shows how General Average partitioned a wide array of business costs, thereby performing a significant role in structuring maritime commerce, managing risk and promoting shipping and trade. In addition, the book discusses how far General Average was a feature of a supposedly ancient, universal, customary maritime law, and contributes to debates about the evolution of institutions in economic development. Dr Jake Dyble is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Padova, Italy. This interview is conducted by Dr Lewis Wade, a Humboldt Research Fellow at the University of Bamberg. He is the author of the prize-winning Privilege, Economy and State in Old Regime France and can be found on Bluesky @wadehistory.bsky.social. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Commercial seafaring, both dangerous and with large amounts of capital at stake, was the source of the risk-management institutions that still undergird the global economy today. A key institution of early modern risk management was General Average, a procedure used to redistribute extraordinary costs arising from a maritime venture between all financially interested parties. For example, should one merchant's cargo be jettisoned to lighten a ship in a storm, the loss would be shared pro rata by the shipper and all the cargo-owners. A risk-sharing practice, different from the risk-shifting of marine insurance which became established relatively late, General Average is still in widespread use. In Managing Maritime Risk in Early Modern Europe: General Average in Law and Practice in Seventeenth-Century Tuscany (Boydell Press, 2025), Jake Dyble explores how General Average worked. It reveals the gap between General Average in law and how it worked on the ground. It shows how General Average partitioned a wide array of business costs, thereby performing a significant role in structuring maritime commerce, managing risk and promoting shipping and trade. In addition, the book discusses how far General Average was a feature of a supposedly ancient, universal, customary maritime law, and contributes to debates about the evolution of institutions in economic development. Dr Jake Dyble is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Padova, Italy. This interview is conducted by Dr Lewis Wade, a Humboldt Research Fellow at the University of Bamberg. He is the author of the prize-winning Privilege, Economy and State in Old Regime France and can be found on Bluesky @wadehistory.bsky.social. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/finance

#487> To purchase the book: https://amzn.to/3S7rcR9> This episode of the podcast is sponsored by the Klomar app. A clear way to learn Chumash - Rashi. The text of each pasuk with Rashi menukad and a shiur by Rav Sholom Menachem Wohlgelernter explaining each word of Rashi. For more information and to download the app: https://www.klomar.org/> To join the SeforimChatter WhatsApp community: https://chat.whatsapp.com/DZ3C2CjUeD9AGJvXeEODtK> To join the SeforimChatter WhatsApp status: https://wa.me/message/TI343XQHHMHPN1>  To support the podcast or to sponsor an episode follow this link: https://seforimchatter.com/support-seforimchatter/or email seforimchatter@gmail.com (Zelle/QP this email address)Support the show

Commercial seafaring, both dangerous and with large amounts of capital at stake, was the source of the risk-management institutions that still undergird the global economy today. A key institution of early modern risk management was General Average, a procedure used to redistribute extraordinary costs arising from a maritime venture between all financially interested parties. For example, should one merchant's cargo be jettisoned to lighten a ship in a storm, the loss would be shared pro rata by the shipper and all the cargo-owners. A risk-sharing practice, different from the risk-shifting of marine insurance which became established relatively late, General Average is still in widespread use. In Managing Maritime Risk in Early Modern Europe: General Average in Law and Practice in Seventeenth-Century Tuscany (Boydell Press, 2025), Jake Dyble explores how General Average worked. It reveals the gap between General Average in law and how it worked on the ground. It shows how General Average partitioned a wide array of business costs, thereby performing a significant role in structuring maritime commerce, managing risk and promoting shipping and trade. In addition, the book discusses how far General Average was a feature of a supposedly ancient, universal, customary maritime law, and contributes to debates about the evolution of institutions in economic development. Dr Jake Dyble is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Padova, Italy. This interview is conducted by Dr Lewis Wade, a Humboldt Research Fellow at the University of Bamberg. He is the author of the prize-winning Privilege, Economy and State in Old Regime France and can be found on Bluesky @wadehistory.bsky.social. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Commercial seafaring, both dangerous and with large amounts of capital at stake, was the source of the risk-management institutions that still undergird the global economy today. A key institution of early modern risk management was General Average, a procedure used to redistribute extraordinary costs arising from a maritime venture between all financially interested parties. For example, should one merchant's cargo be jettisoned to lighten a ship in a storm, the loss would be shared pro rata by the shipper and all the cargo-owners. A risk-sharing practice, different from the risk-shifting of marine insurance which became established relatively late, General Average is still in widespread use. In Managing Maritime Risk in Early Modern Europe: General Average in Law and Practice in Seventeenth-Century Tuscany (Boydell Press, 2025), Jake Dyble explores how General Average worked. It reveals the gap between General Average in law and how it worked on the ground. It shows how General Average partitioned a wide array of business costs, thereby performing a significant role in structuring maritime commerce, managing risk and promoting shipping and trade. In addition, the book discusses how far General Average was a feature of a supposedly ancient, universal, customary maritime law, and contributes to debates about the evolution of institutions in economic development. Dr Jake Dyble is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Padova, Italy. This interview is conducted by Dr Lewis Wade, a Humboldt Research Fellow at the University of Bamberg. He is the author of the prize-winning Privilege, Economy and State in Old Regime France and can be found on Bluesky @wadehistory.bsky.social. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/italian-studies

Commercial seafaring, both dangerous and with large amounts of capital at stake, was the source of the risk-management institutions that still undergird the global economy today. A key institution of early modern risk management was General Average, a procedure used to redistribute extraordinary costs arising from a maritime venture between all financially interested parties. For example, should one merchant's cargo be jettisoned to lighten a ship in a storm, the loss would be shared pro rata by the shipper and all the cargo-owners. A risk-sharing practice, different from the risk-shifting of marine insurance which became established relatively late, General Average is still in widespread use. In Managing Maritime Risk in Early Modern Europe: General Average in Law and Practice in Seventeenth-Century Tuscany (Boydell Press, 2025), Jake Dyble explores how General Average worked. It reveals the gap between General Average in law and how it worked on the ground. It shows how General Average partitioned a wide array of business costs, thereby performing a significant role in structuring maritime commerce, managing risk and promoting shipping and trade. In addition, the book discusses how far General Average was a feature of a supposedly ancient, universal, customary maritime law, and contributes to debates about the evolution of institutions in economic development. Dr Jake Dyble is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Padova, Italy. This interview is conducted by Dr Lewis Wade, a Humboldt Research Fellow at the University of Bamberg. He is the author of the prize-winning Privilege, Economy and State in Old Regime France and can be found on Bluesky @wadehistory.bsky.social. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law

Commercial seafaring, both dangerous and with large amounts of capital at stake, was the source of the risk-management institutions that still undergird the global economy today. A key institution of early modern risk management was General Average, a procedure used to redistribute extraordinary costs arising from a maritime venture between all financially interested parties. For example, should one merchant's cargo be jettisoned to lighten a ship in a storm, the loss would be shared pro rata by the shipper and all the cargo-owners. A risk-sharing practice, different from the risk-shifting of marine insurance which became established relatively late, General Average is still in widespread use. In Managing Maritime Risk in Early Modern Europe: General Average in Law and Practice in Seventeenth-Century Tuscany (Boydell Press, 2025), Jake Dyble explores how General Average worked. It reveals the gap between General Average in law and how it worked on the ground. It shows how General Average partitioned a wide array of business costs, thereby performing a significant role in structuring maritime commerce, managing risk and promoting shipping and trade. In addition, the book discusses how far General Average was a feature of a supposedly ancient, universal, customary maritime law, and contributes to debates about the evolution of institutions in economic development. Dr Jake Dyble is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Padova, Italy. This interview is conducted by Dr Lewis Wade, a Humboldt Research Fellow at the University of Bamberg. He is the author of the prize-winning Privilege, Economy and State in Old Regime France and can be found on Bluesky @wadehistory.bsky.social. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you enjoy this episode, we're sure you will enjoy more content like this on The Occult Rejects.  In fact, we have curated playlists on occult topics like grimoires, esoteric concepts and phenomena, occult history, analyzing true crime and cults with an occult lens, Para politics, and occultism in music. Whether you enjoy consuming your content visually or via audio, we've got you covered - and it will always be provided free of charge.  So, if you enjoy what we do and want to support our work of providing accessible, free content on various platforms, please consider making a donation to the links provided below.  Thank you and enjoy the episode!Links For The Occult Rejectshttps://linktr.ee/theoccultrejectsOccult Research Institutehttps://www.occultresearchinstitute.org/Substackhttps://substack.com/@theoccultrejects?r=7auau0&utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-pageCash Apphttps://cash.app/$theoccultrejectsVenmo@TheOccultRejectsBuy Me A Coffeebuymeacoffee.com/TheOccultRejectsPatreonhttps://www.patreon.com/TheOccultRejectsWORKS CITEDArnold van Gennep. The Rites of Passage. 1909; English translation, University of Chicago Press, 1960. Use for: separation, transition, incorporation, initiatory structure, and the candidate's movement through old identity, liminal state, and return.Victor Turner. “Betwixt and Between: The Liminal Period in Rites of Passage.” In The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual. Cornell University Press, 1967. Use for: liminality, threshold identity, the candidate as “betwixt and between,” and darkness as embodied transition.Victor Turner. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Aldine Publishing, 1969. Use for: liminality, communitas, anti-structure, social transformation, and the ritual pressure placed on ordinary identity.Catherine Bell. Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice. Oxford University Press, 1992. Use for: ritualization, ritual power, the ritualized body, and the temple as a structured environment that trains perception and action.Catherine Bell. “The Ritual Body and the Dynamics of Ritual Power.” Journal of Ritual Studies 4, no. 2 (1990): 299–313. Use for: ritualized bodies, spatial discipline, gesture, power, and the way ritual arrangements shape action.John C. Lilly. The Deep Self: Profound Relaxation and the Tank Isolation Technique. Simon & Schuster, 1977. Use for: the isolation tank, reduced stimulation, altered consciousness, and the modern technological black room.John C. Lilly. The Center of the Cyclone: Looking into Inner Space. Julian Press, 1972. Use carefully for: Lilly's altered-state/counterculture context, isolation tank work, consciousness exploration, and the bridge between research and psychedelic-era experimentation.Justin S. Feinstein et al. “Examining the Short-Term Anxiolytic and Antidepressant Effect of Floatation-REST.” PLOS ONE 13, no. 2 (2018): e0190292. Use for: Floatation-REST, reduced environmental stimulation, anxiety reduction, mood change, and the clinical side of float tanks.Hannah Hruby et al. “Induction of Altered States of Consciousness During Floatation-REST Is Associated With the Dissolution of Body Boundaries and the Distortion of Subjective Time.” Scientific Reports 14 (2024). Use for: float tanks, altered states, body-boundary dissolution, and subjective time distortion.Madison K. M. Garland et al. “A Randomized Controlled Safety and Feasibility Trial of Floatation-REST in Anxious and Depressed Individuals.” PLOS ONE 18, no. 6 (2023): e0286899. Use for: safety, tolerability, repeated Floatation-REST, and caution against overclaiming.Lashgari et al. “Floatation-REST Systematic Review.” 2025. Use for: the broad current state of Floatation-REST research, including anxiety, pain, stress, sleep, well-being, and the need for stronger standardization and larger studies.Michael T. H. Do. “Melanopsin and the Intrinsically Photosensitive Retinal Ganglion Cells.” Neuron 104, no. 2 (2019): 205–226. Use for: ipRGCs, melanopsin, non-image-forming vision, circadian entrainment, pupil response, sleep, and light as biological timing information.Lorenzo Lazzerini Ospri, Glen Prusky, and Samer Hattar. “Mood, the Circadian System, and Melanopsin Retinal Ganglion Cells.” Annual Review of Neuroscience 40 (2017): 539–556. Use for: light, mood, circadian rhythm, melanopsin, and the biological consequences of light exposure.Charles A. Czeisler and related circadian medicine research. Use for: artificial light, circadian disruption, melatonin suppression, shift work, and modern light exposure as a biological intervention.Anne-Marie Chang, Daniel Aeschbach, Jeanne F. Duffy, and Charles A. Czeisler. “Evening Use of Light-Emitting eReaders Negatively Affects Sleep, Circadian Timing, and Next-Morning Alertness.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112, no. 4 (2015): 1232–1237. Use for: screens, evening light, melatonin suppression, delayed circadian timing, altered sleep, and modern light's effect on the body.A. Roger Ekirch. At Day's Close: Night in Times Past. W. W. Norton, 2005. Use for: premodern night, darkness before electric light, nocturnal fear, dreams, prayer, crime, labor, and the cultural history of darkness.A. Roger Ekirch. “Sleep We Have Lost: Pre-Industrial Slumber in the British Isles.” The American Historical Review 106, no. 2 (2001): 343–386. Use for: segmented sleep, first sleep and second sleep, night waking, dreams, prayer, and premodern sleep culture.Craig Koslofsky. Evening's Empire: A History of the Night in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge University Press, 2011. Use for: early modern night culture, artificial lighting, urban night, public space, and the transformation of darkness.Elisabeth Bronfen. Night Passages: Philosophy, Literature, and Film. Columbia University Press, 2013. Use for: symbolic and cultural readings of night, dream, fear, darkness, passage, and the imagination.Robert F. Taft. The Liturgy of the Hours in East and West: The Origins of the Divine Office and Its Meaning for Today. Liturgical Press, 1993. Use for: night offices, vigils, prayer through darkness, sacred time, and Christian ritual use of night.Bernard McGinn. The Foundations of Mysticism: Origins to the Fifth Century. Crossroad, 1991. Use for: Christian mystical traditions, contemplative darkness, early mystical theology, and the development of mystical language.Pseudo-Dionysius. The Complete Works. Translated by Colm Luibheid. Paulist Press, 1987. Use for: divine darkness, apophatic theology, mystical unknowing, and darkness as a theological category.John of the Cross. Dark Night of the Soul. Various editions. Use carefully for: spiritual darkness, purification, absence, mystical trial, and transformation.“The Neophyte Initiation Ritual.” Public Golden Dawn ritual material. Use carefully for: hoodwink, darkness, “Light dawning in darkness,” staged revelation, and the candidate being brought from night into day.Chögyal Namkhai Norbu. The Crystal and the Way of Light: Sutra, Tantra and Dzogchen. Routledge, 1986. Use for: Dzogchen context, light, vision, and the broader framework around contemplative perception.Christopher Hatchell. Naked Seeing: The Great Perfection, the Wheel of Time, and Visionary Buddhism in Renaissance Tibet. Oxford University Press, 2014. Use for: visionary practice, Great Perfection, Tibetan contemplative contexts, and careful treatment of luminosity and appearance.R. Shane Burns. “Dark Retreat in Tibetan Buddhist Practice.” Use for: dark retreat, preparation, disciplined context, and the difference between contemplative practice and casual sensory deprivation.Raymond Moody. Reunions: Visionary Encounters with Departed Loved Ones. Villard, 1993. Use for: modern psychomanteum practice, grief, mirror-gazing, and encounters with the dead.Arthur Hastings. “The Psychomanteum: A Modern Oracle of the Dead.” Use for: psychomanteum procedure, grief, memory, mirror-gazing, and structured encounter.Marcia K. Johnson, Shahin Hashtroudi, and D. Stephen Lindsay. “Source Monitoring.” Psychological Bulletin 114, no. 1 (1993): 3–28. Use for: inside/outside ambiguity, origin judgments, memory, imagination, and how dark or altered environments complicate interpretation.Shahar Arzy et al. “Induction of an Illusory Shadow Person.” Nature 443 (2006): 287. Use for: sensed presence, body-self disruption, temporoparietal junction, and the feeling of another being nearby.Olaf Blanke et al. “Neurological and Robot-Controlled Induction of an Apparition.” Current Biology 24, no. 22 (2014): 2681–2686. Use for: sensorimotor conflict, apparition-like presence, body-boundary disturbance, and the embodied basis of sensed presence.Also want to remind people about the website, if you're into reading we have tons of information by multiple contributors, and we got t-shirts up on the site if you're interested. Fun fact, the art is all based on the eyeball. A

Looking beyond the marble elegance of Michelangelo's David, the pugnacious, passionate, and--crucially--important story of Renaissance manhood.  Timothy McCall's book Making the Renaissance Man: Masculinity in the Courts of Renaissance Italy (Reaktion, 2023) explores the images, objects, and experiences that fashioned men and masculinity in the courts of fifteenth-century Italy. Across the peninsula, Italian princes fought each other in fierce battles and spectacular jousts, seduced mistresses, flaunted splendor in lavish rituals of knighting, and demonstrated prowess through the hunt--all ostentatious performances of masculinity and the drive to rule. Hardly frivolous pastimes, these activities were essential displays of privilege and virility; indeed, violence underlay the cultural veneer of the Italian Renaissance. Timothy McCall investigates representations and ideals of manhood in this time and provides a historically grounded and gorgeously illustrated account of how male identity and sexuality proclaimed power during a century crucial to the formation of Early Modern Europe. Jana Byars is an independent scholar located in Amsterdam. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Looking beyond the marble elegance of Michelangelo's David, the pugnacious, passionate, and--crucially--important story of Renaissance manhood.  Timothy McCall's book Making the Renaissance Man: Masculinity in the Courts of Renaissance Italy (Reaktion, 2023) explores the images, objects, and experiences that fashioned men and masculinity in the courts of fifteenth-century Italy. Across the peninsula, Italian princes fought each other in fierce battles and spectacular jousts, seduced mistresses, flaunted splendor in lavish rituals of knighting, and demonstrated prowess through the hunt--all ostentatious performances of masculinity and the drive to rule. Hardly frivolous pastimes, these activities were essential displays of privilege and virility; indeed, violence underlay the cultural veneer of the Italian Renaissance. Timothy McCall investigates representations and ideals of manhood in this time and provides a historically grounded and gorgeously illustrated account of how male identity and sexuality proclaimed power during a century crucial to the formation of Early Modern Europe. Jana Byars is an independent scholar located in Amsterdam. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Looking beyond the marble elegance of Michelangelo's David, the pugnacious, passionate, and--crucially--important story of Renaissance manhood.  Timothy McCall's book Making the Renaissance Man: Masculinity in the Courts of Renaissance Italy (Reaktion, 2023) explores the images, objects, and experiences that fashioned men and masculinity in the courts of fifteenth-century Italy. Across the peninsula, Italian princes fought each other in fierce battles and spectacular jousts, seduced mistresses, flaunted splendor in lavish rituals of knighting, and demonstrated prowess through the hunt--all ostentatious performances of masculinity and the drive to rule. Hardly frivolous pastimes, these activities were essential displays of privilege and virility; indeed, violence underlay the cultural veneer of the Italian Renaissance. Timothy McCall investigates representations and ideals of manhood in this time and provides a historically grounded and gorgeously illustrated account of how male identity and sexuality proclaimed power during a century crucial to the formation of Early Modern Europe. Jana Byars is an independent scholar located in Amsterdam. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies

Looking beyond the marble elegance of Michelangelo's David, the pugnacious, passionate, and--crucially--important story of Renaissance manhood.  Timothy McCall's book Making the Renaissance Man: Masculinity in the Courts of Renaissance Italy (Reaktion, 2023) explores the images, objects, and experiences that fashioned men and masculinity in the courts of fifteenth-century Italy. Across the peninsula, Italian princes fought each other in fierce battles and spectacular jousts, seduced mistresses, flaunted splendor in lavish rituals of knighting, and demonstrated prowess through the hunt--all ostentatious performances of masculinity and the drive to rule. Hardly frivolous pastimes, these activities were essential displays of privilege and virility; indeed, violence underlay the cultural veneer of the Italian Renaissance. Timothy McCall investigates representations and ideals of manhood in this time and provides a historically grounded and gorgeously illustrated account of how male identity and sexuality proclaimed power during a century crucial to the formation of Early Modern Europe. Jana Byars is an independent scholar located in Amsterdam. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

Looking beyond the marble elegance of Michelangelo's David, the pugnacious, passionate, and--crucially--important story of Renaissance manhood.  Timothy McCall's book Making the Renaissance Man: Masculinity in the Courts of Renaissance Italy (Reaktion, 2023) explores the images, objects, and experiences that fashioned men and masculinity in the courts of fifteenth-century Italy. Across the peninsula, Italian princes fought each other in fierce battles and spectacular jousts, seduced mistresses, flaunted splendor in lavish rituals of knighting, and demonstrated prowess through the hunt--all ostentatious performances of masculinity and the drive to rule. Hardly frivolous pastimes, these activities were essential displays of privilege and virility; indeed, violence underlay the cultural veneer of the Italian Renaissance. Timothy McCall investigates representations and ideals of manhood in this time and provides a historically grounded and gorgeously illustrated account of how male identity and sexuality proclaimed power during a century crucial to the formation of Early Modern Europe. Jana Byars is an independent scholar located in Amsterdam. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/european-studies

Looking beyond the marble elegance of Michelangelo's David, the pugnacious, passionate, and--crucially--important story of Renaissance manhood.  Timothy McCall's book Making the Renaissance Man: Masculinity in the Courts of Renaissance Italy (Reaktion, 2023) explores the images, objects, and experiences that fashioned men and masculinity in the courts of fifteenth-century Italy. Across the peninsula, Italian princes fought each other in fierce battles and spectacular jousts, seduced mistresses, flaunted splendor in lavish rituals of knighting, and demonstrated prowess through the hunt--all ostentatious performances of masculinity and the drive to rule. Hardly frivolous pastimes, these activities were essential displays of privilege and virility; indeed, violence underlay the cultural veneer of the Italian Renaissance. Timothy McCall investigates representations and ideals of manhood in this time and provides a historically grounded and gorgeously illustrated account of how male identity and sexuality proclaimed power during a century crucial to the formation of Early Modern Europe. Jana Byars is an independent scholar located in Amsterdam. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/italian-studies

Looking beyond the marble elegance of Michelangelo's David, the pugnacious, passionate, and--crucially--important story of Renaissance manhood.  Timothy McCall's book Making the Renaissance Man: Masculinity in the Courts of Renaissance Italy (Reaktion, 2023) explores the images, objects, and experiences that fashioned men and masculinity in the courts of fifteenth-century Italy. Across the peninsula, Italian princes fought each other in fierce battles and spectacular jousts, seduced mistresses, flaunted splendor in lavish rituals of knighting, and demonstrated prowess through the hunt--all ostentatious performances of masculinity and the drive to rule. Hardly frivolous pastimes, these activities were essential displays of privilege and virility; indeed, violence underlay the cultural veneer of the Italian Renaissance. Timothy McCall investigates representations and ideals of manhood in this time and provides a historically grounded and gorgeously illustrated account of how male identity and sexuality proclaimed power during a century crucial to the formation of Early Modern Europe. Jana Byars is an independent scholar located in Amsterdam. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The difference between Protestant notions of toleration in Early-Modern Europe vs. Catholic ones. Hypocrisy was not a problem!

Oxford historian Professor John Blair explores vampire beliefs, predatory corpses, and the deep connections between witchcraft and folklore in medieval and early modern Europe — and colonial New England.What do vampires, witch trials, and shroud-chewing corpses have in common? More than you might think.In this episode of The Thing About Witch Hunts, hosts Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack sit down with Professor John Blair, Emeritus Professor of Medieval History and Archaeology at the University of Oxford and Fellow of The Queen's College, Oxford. Professor Blair is the author of the book Killing the Dead: Corpses, Vampires, and the Unquiet Dead in Medieval and Early Modern Europe — a landmark study of how premodern communities understood the body, fear, and the threat of the dangerous dead.This conversation goes deep into the history of vampire beliefs and folklore, including:The origins of the word "vampire" and the many names given to predatory corpses across culturesCorpse execution practices in medieval and early modern EuropeSleep paralysis and its role in shaping beliefs about the unquiet deadThe Malleus Maleficarum and its connections to vampire and witchcraft loreShroud-chewing, witch cakes, and vampire cakes — and what these practices reveal about community fearStriking parallels between vampire beliefs and witchcraft accusations in colonial New England, including the Salem Witch TrialsWhether you're interested in medieval folklore, the history of witchcraft, vampire mythology, early modern European history, or the Salem trials, this episode offers essential historical context for understanding how fear, the body, and the supernatural intersected in the premodern world.

This episode is titled: The Story of Sack Wine in Early Modern Europe.Imagine walking into the lively taverns and candlelit theaters of early modern Europe, where one drink stood out among both the fashionable and the literary: sack. Think of Sir John Falstaff, the unforgettable character from Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part II, delivering his famous speech. With great enthusiasm, he says that if he had a thousand sons, the first lesson he would teach—the most important of all—would be to avoid weak, watery drinks and instead dedicate themselves to sack.Falstaff's love for sack was not just a joke; it reflected a real trend that spread through England and beyond in the 16th and 17th centuries. Sack was a fortified white wine—rich, strong, and often sweet—similar to what we now call sherry or white port. The origin of the name “sack” is still debated. According to several dictionaries cited by Wikipedia, some believe it comes from the French word “sec,” meaning “dry,” though this explanation has certain linguistic uncertainties.Others suggest it may derive from the Spanish word “sacar,” which means “to withdraw,” referring to the process of drawing wine from a solera. Some historians suggest that the name “sack” comes from the Spanish verb “sacar,” which means “to withdraw,” possibly in reference to drawing wine from barrels for export. The wine itself was traditionally produced in the vineyards of Spain and Portugal. In Spain, the Canary Islands became a major producer after colonization in the 1400s, and regions such as Málaga, Jerez, and Andalusia also produced well-known types. Portugal also played a part, with wines from the north and center of the country, and especially from Madeira. Merchants labeled their shipments by where they came from—” Canary sack,” “Malaga sack,” “Madeira,” or “Jerez”—and these names appeared in trade records from London to Dublin.The trade was massive, especially to the British Isles. According to Jerez-Xeres-Sherry, in 1517, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, Don Alfonso Pérez de Guzmán, granted extended privileges to English merchants operating in Sanlúcar, many of whom were facing difficulties with the Inquisition. Later, in the 1530s, English merchants formed the Spanish Company to facilitate trade, exporting cloth and importing sack wine. So intertwined were the goods that some wines earned the cheeky nickname “bastard”—a nod to the English cloth measure and the back. Even war did not stop people from wanting to sack. During the Anglo-Spanish conflict from 1585 to 1604, smugglers risked crossing the Channel to keep the wine coming when official trade was blocked. Official trade faltered.One of the most memorable moments was Sir Francis Drake's bold raid on Cádiz in 1587, when he set out to “singe the King of Spain's beard.” During the attack, Drake's men took about 2,900 pipes, or butts, of sack, with each holding around 600 liters. This added up to more than a million liters of wine taken as loot. Back in England, drinking this captured wine became a patriotic gesture, a playful way to celebrate victory while enjoying the spoils.Sack became a big part of English culture. On the London stage, it was often mentioned. Ben Jonson praised “a pure rich cup of Canary wine” in his poetry, and later writers, such as John Dryden, who was appointed poet laureate in 1670, according to Samuel Johnson, even accepted barrels of sack as payment. But Shakespeare was its biggest fan. Falstaff talks about the amazing effects of sack: it clears the mind, sharpens wit, warms the blood, and gives courage. “Skill in the weapon is nothing without sack,” he says, and his friends joke about how much he loves it. Audiences in the late 1590s would have recognized sack everywhere, seeing it as a symbol of English energy.Read the full textMore Podcasts

Slovenia sits at a crossroads of Europe – where the Alps meet the Pannonian Plain and where a short Adriatic coastline opens onto the wider Mediterranean world.From Lake Bled and its island church to ancient pagan traditions and Ljubljana's legendary dragon, Slovenia is steeped in myth and memory.In this episode, we are joined by Dr Lauren Mackay, an historian of Early Modern Europe, as she examines how geography and power intertwined to shape Slovenia's identity across the centuries.Academy Travel is a leading specialist in small-group cultural tours, allowing you to travel with like-minded companions and learn from internationally renowned experts. Like our podcast, our tours are designed to appeal to travellers with a strong interest in history, archaeology, architecture, the visual arts and the performing arts.Learn more here - https://academytravel.com.au/

This month of learning is sponsored by our dear friends Matt and Mollie Landes of Riverdale for the neshama of Dovid Yehonatan ben Yitzchak Yehuda.In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast, we speak with Professors Elisheva Carlebach and Debra Kaplan, scholars of early modern Jewish history, about women's religious, social, and communal roles in early modern Jewish life.In this episode we discuss:How have women's prayer and shul-going habits changed over time? When did the women's chevra kadisha become a Jewish institution? How did Jewish emancipation alter the structure of Jewish life and its implications for women? Tune in for a conversation about how women shaped—and were shaped by—the structures of the early modern kehillah.Interview begins at 9:13.Elisheva Carlebach is the Salo Wittmayer Baron Professor of Jewish History, Culture, and Society at Columbia University and Director of its Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies. A specialist in Early Modern European Jewish history, her work explores Jewish–Christian relations, religious dissent, conversion, messianism, and communal life. She is the award-winning author of The Pursuit of Heresy, Divided Souls, and Palaces of Time, and has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and honors including Columbia's Lenfest Distinguished Faculty Award.Debra Kaplan teaches early modern Jewish history at Bar-Ilan University. A social historian, she is the author of Beyond Expulsion (2011) and The Patrons and their Poor (University of Pennsylvania 2020; winner of the Rosl und Paul Arnsberg-Preis).References:“Notes Toward Finding the Right Question” by Cynthia OzickA Woman Is Responsible for Everything: Jewish Women in Early Modern Europe by Debra Kaplan and Elisheva CarlebachWomen and the Messianic Heresy of Sabbatai Zevi, 1666 - 1816 by Ada Rapoport-AlbertMothers and Children: Jewish Family Life in Medieval Europe by Elisheva BaumgartenComing of Age in Medieval Egypt: Female Adolescence, Jewish Law, and Ordinary Culture by Eve KrakowskiFor more 18Forty:NEWSLETTER: 18forty.org/joinCALL: (212) 582-1840EMAIL: info@18forty.orgWEBSITE: 18forty.orgIG: @18fortyX: @18_fortyWhatsApp: join hereBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/18forty-podcast--4344730/support.

L'éclairage public, de nos jours, il y en a à beaucoup d'endroits, et ce n'est pas rare qu'il soit éteint aux heures creuses de la nuit pour lutter contre la pollution lumineuse. Mais à ses débuts, c'était une toute autre histoire, parce qu'il a été très mal reçu par les habitants ! Et quand je parle de ses débuts, ce n'est pas le 19e siècle avec l'électricité, car l'éclairage public, il est né en France dans la deuxième moitié du 17e siècle ! Mais alors, comment ça s'est fait ? Eh bien pour le découvrir, j'ai eu le plaisir de recevoir dans un nouvel entretien historique l'historienne Sophie Reculin, dont c'est la spécialité, pour qu'elle nous éclaire à ce sujet ! Je vous souhaite une bonne écoute sur Nota Bene !➤ Pour approfondir le sujet, découvrez : ➜ Le livre de Sophie “L'invention de l'éclairage public en France. De la nuit illuminée à la nuit éclairée (1697-1789)” : https://www.septentrion.com/FR/livre/?GCOI=27574100084770➜ Sa page Academia : https://univ-lille.academia.edu/SophieReculin

In small villages, bustling cities, and crowded ghettos across early modern Europe, Jewish women were increasingly active participants in the daily life of their communities, managing homes and professions, leading institutions and sororities, and crafting objects and texts of exquisite beauty. In their book, A Woman Is Responsible for Everything: Jewish Women in Early Modern Europe (Princeton UP, 2025), Debra Kaplan and Elisheva Carlebach marshal a dazzling array of previously untapped archival sources to tell the stories of these woman for the first time.Kaplan and Carlebach focus their lens on the kehillah, a lively and thriving form of communal life that sustained European Jews for three centuries. They paint vibrant portraits of Jewish women of all walks of life, from those who wielded their wealth and influence in and out of their communities to the poorest maidservants and vagrants, from single and married women to the widowed and divorced. We follow them into their homes and learn about the possessions they valued and used, the books they read, and the writings they composed. Speaking to us in their own voices, these women reveal tremendous economic initiative in the rural marketplace and the princely court, and they express their profound spirituality in the home as well as the synagogue.Beautifully illustrated, A Woman Is Responsible for Everything lifts the veil of silence that has obscured the lives of these women for too long, contributing a new chapter to the history of Jewish women and a new understanding of the Jewish past. Interviewees: Debra Kaplan is the Samuel Braun Chair for the History of the Jews in Germany at Bar-Ilan University. Elisheva Carlebach is Salo Wittmayer Baron Professor of Jewish History, Culture, and Society, at Columbia University. Host: Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York, and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple University Press). Visit him online at ZalmanNewfield.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In small villages, bustling cities, and crowded ghettos across early modern Europe, Jewish women were increasingly active participants in the daily life of their communities, managing homes and professions, leading institutions and sororities, and crafting objects and texts of exquisite beauty. In their book, A Woman Is Responsible for Everything: Jewish Women in Early Modern Europe (Princeton UP, 2025), Debra Kaplan and Elisheva Carlebach marshal a dazzling array of previously untapped archival sources to tell the stories of these woman for the first time.Kaplan and Carlebach focus their lens on the kehillah, a lively and thriving form of communal life that sustained European Jews for three centuries. They paint vibrant portraits of Jewish women of all walks of life, from those who wielded their wealth and influence in and out of their communities to the poorest maidservants and vagrants, from single and married women to the widowed and divorced. We follow them into their homes and learn about the possessions they valued and used, the books they read, and the writings they composed. Speaking to us in their own voices, these women reveal tremendous economic initiative in the rural marketplace and the princely court, and they express their profound spirituality in the home as well as the synagogue.Beautifully illustrated, A Woman Is Responsible for Everything lifts the veil of silence that has obscured the lives of these women for too long, contributing a new chapter to the history of Jewish women and a new understanding of the Jewish past. Interviewees: Debra Kaplan is the Samuel Braun Chair for the History of the Jews in Germany at Bar-Ilan University. Elisheva Carlebach is Salo Wittmayer Baron Professor of Jewish History, Culture, and Society, at Columbia University. Host: Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York, and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple University Press). Visit him online at ZalmanNewfield.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies

In small villages, bustling cities, and crowded ghettos across early modern Europe, Jewish women were increasingly active participants in the daily life of their communities, managing homes and professions, leading institutions and sororities, and crafting objects and texts of exquisite beauty. In their book, A Woman Is Responsible for Everything: Jewish Women in Early Modern Europe (Princeton UP, 2025), Debra Kaplan and Elisheva Carlebach marshal a dazzling array of previously untapped archival sources to tell the stories of these woman for the first time.Kaplan and Carlebach focus their lens on the kehillah, a lively and thriving form of communal life that sustained European Jews for three centuries. They paint vibrant portraits of Jewish women of all walks of life, from those who wielded their wealth and influence in and out of their communities to the poorest maidservants and vagrants, from single and married women to the widowed and divorced. We follow them into their homes and learn about the possessions they valued and used, the books they read, and the writings they composed. Speaking to us in their own voices, these women reveal tremendous economic initiative in the rural marketplace and the princely court, and they express their profound spirituality in the home as well as the synagogue.Beautifully illustrated, A Woman Is Responsible for Everything lifts the veil of silence that has obscured the lives of these women for too long, contributing a new chapter to the history of Jewish women and a new understanding of the Jewish past. Interviewees: Debra Kaplan is the Samuel Braun Chair for the History of the Jews in Germany at Bar-Ilan University. Elisheva Carlebach is Salo Wittmayer Baron Professor of Jewish History, Culture, and Society, at Columbia University. Host: Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York, and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple University Press). Visit him online at ZalmanNewfield.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

In small villages, bustling cities, and crowded ghettos across early modern Europe, Jewish women were increasingly active participants in the daily life of their communities, managing homes and professions, leading institutions and sororities, and crafting objects and texts of exquisite beauty. In their book, A Woman Is Responsible for Everything: Jewish Women in Early Modern Europe (Princeton UP, 2025), Debra Kaplan and Elisheva Carlebach marshal a dazzling array of previously untapped archival sources to tell the stories of these woman for the first time.Kaplan and Carlebach focus their lens on the kehillah, a lively and thriving form of communal life that sustained European Jews for three centuries. They paint vibrant portraits of Jewish women of all walks of life, from those who wielded their wealth and influence in and out of their communities to the poorest maidservants and vagrants, from single and married women to the widowed and divorced. We follow them into their homes and learn about the possessions they valued and used, the books they read, and the writings they composed. Speaking to us in their own voices, these women reveal tremendous economic initiative in the rural marketplace and the princely court, and they express their profound spirituality in the home as well as the synagogue.Beautifully illustrated, A Woman Is Responsible for Everything lifts the veil of silence that has obscured the lives of these women for too long, contributing a new chapter to the history of Jewish women and a new understanding of the Jewish past. Interviewees: Debra Kaplan is the Samuel Braun Chair for the History of the Jews in Germany at Bar-Ilan University. Elisheva Carlebach is Salo Wittmayer Baron Professor of Jewish History, Culture, and Society, at Columbia University. Host: Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York, and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple University Press). Visit him online at ZalmanNewfield.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In small villages, bustling cities, and crowded ghettos across early modern Europe, Jewish women were increasingly active participants in the daily life of their communities, managing homes and professions, leading institutions and sororities, and crafting objects and texts of exquisite beauty. In their book, A Woman Is Responsible for Everything: Jewish Women in Early Modern Europe (Princeton UP, 2025), Debra Kaplan and Elisheva Carlebach marshal a dazzling array of previously untapped archival sources to tell the stories of these woman for the first time.Kaplan and Carlebach focus their lens on the kehillah, a lively and thriving form of communal life that sustained European Jews for three centuries. They paint vibrant portraits of Jewish women of all walks of life, from those who wielded their wealth and influence in and out of their communities to the poorest maidservants and vagrants, from single and married women to the widowed and divorced. We follow them into their homes and learn about the possessions they valued and used, the books they read, and the writings they composed. Speaking to us in their own voices, these women reveal tremendous economic initiative in the rural marketplace and the princely court, and they express their profound spirituality in the home as well as the synagogue.Beautifully illustrated, A Woman Is Responsible for Everything lifts the veil of silence that has obscured the lives of these women for too long, contributing a new chapter to the history of Jewish women and a new understanding of the Jewish past. Interviewees: Debra Kaplan is the Samuel Braun Chair for the History of the Jews in Germany at Bar-Ilan University. Elisheva Carlebach is Salo Wittmayer Baron Professor of Jewish History, Culture, and Society, at Columbia University. Host: Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York, and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple University Press). Visit him online at ZalmanNewfield.com.

In small villages, bustling cities, and crowded ghettos across early modern Europe, Jewish women were increasingly active participants in the daily life of their communities, managing homes and professions, leading institutions and sororities, and crafting objects and texts of exquisite beauty. In their book, A Woman Is Responsible for Everything: Jewish Women in Early Modern Europe (Princeton UP, 2025), Debra Kaplan and Elisheva Carlebach marshal a dazzling array of previously untapped archival sources to tell the stories of these woman for the first time.Kaplan and Carlebach focus their lens on the kehillah, a lively and thriving form of communal life that sustained European Jews for three centuries. They paint vibrant portraits of Jewish women of all walks of life, from those who wielded their wealth and influence in and out of their communities to the poorest maidservants and vagrants, from single and married women to the widowed and divorced. We follow them into their homes and learn about the possessions they valued and used, the books they read, and the writings they composed. Speaking to us in their own voices, these women reveal tremendous economic initiative in the rural marketplace and the princely court, and they express their profound spirituality in the home as well as the synagogue.Beautifully illustrated, A Woman Is Responsible for Everything lifts the veil of silence that has obscured the lives of these women for too long, contributing a new chapter to the history of Jewish women and a new understanding of the Jewish past. Interviewees: Debra Kaplan is the Samuel Braun Chair for the History of the Jews in Germany at Bar-Ilan University. Elisheva Carlebach is Salo Wittmayer Baron Professor of Jewish History, Culture, and Society, at Columbia University. Host: Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York, and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple University Press). Visit him online at ZalmanNewfield.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In small villages, bustling cities, and crowded ghettos across early modern Europe, Jewish women were increasingly active participants in the daily life of their communities, managing homes and professions, leading institutions and sororities, and crafting objects and texts of exquisite beauty. In their book, A Woman Is Responsible for Everything: Jewish Women in Early Modern Europe (Princeton UP, 2025), Debra Kaplan and Elisheva Carlebach marshal a dazzling array of previously untapped archival sources to tell the stories of these woman for the first time.Kaplan and Carlebach focus their lens on the kehillah, a lively and thriving form of communal life that sustained European Jews for three centuries. They paint vibrant portraits of Jewish women of all walks of life, from those who wielded their wealth and influence in and out of their communities to the poorest maidservants and vagrants, from single and married women to the widowed and divorced. We follow them into their homes and learn about the possessions they valued and used, the books they read, and the writings they composed. Speaking to us in their own voices, these women reveal tremendous economic initiative in the rural marketplace and the princely court, and they express their profound spirituality in the home as well as the synagogue.Beautifully illustrated, A Woman Is Responsible for Everything lifts the veil of silence that has obscured the lives of these women for too long, contributing a new chapter to the history of Jewish women and a new understanding of the Jewish past. Interviewees: Debra Kaplan is the Samuel Braun Chair for the History of the Jews in Germany at Bar-Ilan University. Elisheva Carlebach is Salo Wittmayer Baron Professor of Jewish History, Culture, and Society, at Columbia University. Host: Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York, and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple University Press). Visit him online at ZalmanNewfield.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies

Rachel Midura joins Jana Byars to talk about Postal Intelligence: The Tassis Family and Communications Revolution in Early Modern Europe (Cornell UP, 2025) connects and situates histories of the post and government intelligence alongside print technology and state power in the wider context of the early modern communications revolution. In the sixteenth century, postal services became central to domestic governance and foreign policy enterprises, extended government reach and surveillance, and offered new control over the public sphere. Rachel Midura focuses on the Tassis family, members of which served as official postmasters to the dukes of Milan, the pope, Spanish kings, and Holy Roman emperors. Using administrative records and family correspondence, she follows the Tassis family, their agents, and their rivals as their influence expanded from northern Italy across Europe. Postal Intelligence shows how postmasters and postmistresses were key players in early modern diplomacy, commerce, and journalism, whose ultimate success depended on both administrative ingenuity and strategic ambiguity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Stuart Carroll's Enmity and Violence in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2023) transforms our understanding of Europe between 1500 and 1800 by exploring how ordinary people felt about their enemies and the violence it engendered. Enmity, a state or feeling of mutual opposition or hostility, became a major social problem during the transition to modernity. He examines how people used the law, and how they characterised their enmities and expressed their sense of justice or injustice. Through the examples of early modern Italy, Germany, France and England, we see when and why everyday animosities escalated and the attempts of the state to control and even exploit the violence that ensued. This book also examines the communal and religious pressures for peace, and how notions of good neighbourliness and civil order finally worked to underpin trust in the state. Ultimately, enmity is not a relic of the past; it remains one of the greatest challenges to contemporary liberal democracy. Jana Byars is the Academic Director of Netherlands: International Perspectives on Sexuality and Gender. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Rachel Midura joins Jana Byars to talk about Postal Intelligence: The Tassis Family and Communications Revolution in Early Modern Europe (Cornell UP, 2025) connects and situates histories of the post and government intelligence alongside print technology and state power in the wider context of the early modern communications revolution. In the sixteenth century, postal services became central to domestic governance and foreign policy enterprises, extended government reach and surveillance, and offered new control over the public sphere. Rachel Midura focuses on the Tassis family, members of which served as official postmasters to the dukes of Milan, the pope, Spanish kings, and Holy Roman emperors. Using administrative records and family correspondence, she follows the Tassis family, their agents, and their rivals as their influence expanded from northern Italy across Europe. Postal Intelligence shows how postmasters and postmistresses were key players in early modern diplomacy, commerce, and journalism, whose ultimate success depended on both administrative ingenuity and strategic ambiguity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Rachel Midura joins Jana Byars to talk about Postal Intelligence: The Tassis Family and Communications Revolution in Early Modern Europe (Cornell UP, 2025) connects and situates histories of the post and government intelligence alongside print technology and state power in the wider context of the early modern communications revolution. In the sixteenth century, postal services became central to domestic governance and foreign policy enterprises, extended government reach and surveillance, and offered new control over the public sphere. Rachel Midura focuses on the Tassis family, members of which served as official postmasters to the dukes of Milan, the pope, Spanish kings, and Holy Roman emperors. Using administrative records and family correspondence, she follows the Tassis family, their agents, and their rivals as their influence expanded from northern Italy across Europe. Postal Intelligence shows how postmasters and postmistresses were key players in early modern diplomacy, commerce, and journalism, whose ultimate success depended on both administrative ingenuity and strategic ambiguity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Stuart Carroll's Enmity and Violence in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2023) transforms our understanding of Europe between 1500 and 1800 by exploring how ordinary people felt about their enemies and the violence it engendered. Enmity, a state or feeling of mutual opposition or hostility, became a major social problem during the transition to modernity. He examines how people used the law, and how they characterised their enmities and expressed their sense of justice or injustice. Through the examples of early modern Italy, Germany, France and England, we see when and why everyday animosities escalated and the attempts of the state to control and even exploit the violence that ensued. This book also examines the communal and religious pressures for peace, and how notions of good neighbourliness and civil order finally worked to underpin trust in the state. Ultimately, enmity is not a relic of the past; it remains one of the greatest challenges to contemporary liberal democracy. Jana Byars is the Academic Director of Netherlands: International Perspectives on Sexuality and Gender. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/german-studies

Stuart Carroll's Enmity and Violence in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2023) transforms our understanding of Europe between 1500 and 1800 by exploring how ordinary people felt about their enemies and the violence it engendered. Enmity, a state or feeling of mutual opposition or hostility, became a major social problem during the transition to modernity. He examines how people used the law, and how they characterised their enmities and expressed their sense of justice or injustice. Through the examples of early modern Italy, Germany, France and England, we see when and why everyday animosities escalated and the attempts of the state to control and even exploit the violence that ensued. This book also examines the communal and religious pressures for peace, and how notions of good neighbourliness and civil order finally worked to underpin trust in the state. Ultimately, enmity is not a relic of the past; it remains one of the greatest challenges to contemporary liberal democracy. Jana Byars is the Academic Director of Netherlands: International Perspectives on Sexuality and Gender. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

On the Shelf for January 2026 The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 332 with Heather Rose Jones Your monthly roundup of history, news, and the field of sapphic historical fiction. In this episode we talk about: Summary of the Project in 2025 Recent and upcoming publications covered on the blog Xie, Wenjuan. 2015. (Trans)Culturally Transgendered: Reading Transgender Narratives in (Late) Imperial China. Dissertation. Sommer, Matthew H. “Was China Part of a Global Eighteenth-Century Homosexuality?” in Historical Reflections / Réflexions Historiques, vol. 33, no. 1, 2007, pp. 117–33. Carton, Adrian. 2006. “Desire and Same-Sex Intimacies in Asia” in Gay Life and Culture, A World History, ed. Robert Aldrich. Universe Publishing, New York. ISBN 978-0-7893-1511-3 Gowing, Laura. 2006. ”Lesbians and Their Like in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1800” in Gay Life and Culture: A World History ed. Robert Aldrich. London: Thames and Hudson. 125-43 Rupp, Leila J. 2001. “Toward a Global History of Same-Sex Sexuality” in Journal of the History of Sexuality, Vol. 10, No. 2: 287-302 Leupp, Gary P. 2007. “Capitalism and Homosexuality in Eighteenth-Century Japan.” in Historical Reflections / Réflexions Historiques, vol. 33, no. 1, pp. 135–52. Pflugfelder, Gregory M. 1992. “Strange Fates: Sex, Gender, and Sexuality in Torikaebaya Monogatari” in Monumenta Nipponica Vol. 47, No. 3 (Autumn, 1992), pp. 347-368. Shah, Shalini. 1991. “Women and Sexuality in the Mahabharata” in Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, Vol. 52: 138-144. Srivastava, Manjari & Manjari Shrivastava. 2007. “Lesbianism in Nineteenth Century Erotic Urdu Poetry “Rekhti”” in Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, Vol. 68, Part One: 965-988 Book Shopping The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective by Sara Lodge Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction Dreadful Sorry, Clemintine (Clementine #2) by Genta Sebastian Steel on Distance by N.J. Knox A Djinn and Tonic (The Magical Underground #2) by Nan Sampson Gold and Grace by Eline Evans Like in Love with You by Emma R. Alban The Debutante Dilemma by author The Case of the Murdered Muckraker (Harriot Morrow Investigates #2) by Rob Osler What I've been consuming The Case of the Missing Maid by Rob Osler Saint-Seducing Gold by Brittany N. William A Plague on Both Your Houses by Susanna Gregory Earl Crush by Alexandra Vasti Murder by Memory by Olivia Waite Emma: The Nature of a Lady by Kate Christie The Scandal at Pemberley by Mara Brooks The Shocking Experiments of Miss Mary Bennet by Melinda Taub The Lady's Wager by Olivia Hampton Call for submissions for the 2026 LHMP audio short story series. See here for details. This month we interview M.K. Hardy and talk about: Needfire by MK Hardy (US availability is limited) MK Hardy is a nom de plume for Morag Hannah and Erin Hardee Adapting the gothic template for sapphic stories Why Scotland is the perfect setting for gothics The benefits and complications of writing as a team Forthcoming: The Haunting of Avis Lovelock A transcript of this podcast is available here. (Interview transcripts added when available.) Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/ Twitter: @LesbianMotif Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon Links to Heather Online Website: http://alpennia.com Email: Heather Rose Jones Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop Bluesky: @heatherrosejones Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page) Links to MK Hardy Online Website: https://www.mkhardywrites.com/ Twitter: @mkhardywrites Instagram: @mkhardywrites Bluesky: @mkhardywrites.com

EVEN MORE about this episode!Step into the magic of Christmas with psychic and medical intuitive Julie Ryan and renowned historian Dr. Gerry Bowler as they uncover the hidden spiritual origins and captivating history behind the world's most beloved holiday. From ancient winter rituals and medieval nativity traditions to the evolution of Santa Claus himself, this episode reveals the powerful symbols—angels, light, miracles, and more—that have shaped Christmas across centuries. If you've ever wondered why we celebrate the way we do—or simply want to feel the wonder of the season on a deeper level—this enchanting Christmas special is the perfect holiday treat. Guest Biography:Dr. Gerry Bowler, a historian from Saskatoon with degrees from the University of Saskatchewan and a Ph.D. from King's College London, has spent his career exploring the intersection of religion and popular culture after beginning as a scholar of Medieval and Early-Modern Europe. His wide-ranging work spans studies on The Simpsons, Aristotle and professional wrestling, Wayne Gretzky, and Bloody Mary, though he is best known for his extensive research on the history of Christmas. The author of numerous books—including The World Encyclopedia of Christmas, Santa Claus: A Biography, God and The Simpsons, and Christmas in the Crosshairs—Gerry has also contributed countless articles, encyclopedia entries, op-eds, and edited volumes, with his works translated into multiple languages worldwide. When not writing or teaching, he serves as a Senior Fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, where he humorously “shakes a fist at modern society and tells it to get off his lawn.”Episode Chapters:01:04 Exploring Christmas Traditions with Dr. Gerry Bowler02:13 Medieval Beliefs and Christmas04:25 The Emotional Impact of Christmas08:36 The Evolution of Christmas Traditions11:00 The Role of St. Nicholas and the Reformation14:03 The Reinvention of Christmas in the 19th Century19:09 Personal Reflections on Christmas21:41 Blending Winter Rituals with Christian Traditions24:39 The Star of Bethlehem and the Wise Men29:05 Christmas Markets and Modern Celebrations30:39 Canadian Christmas Inventions32:49 The Evolution of Santa Claus35:48 Rudolph and Commercialism37:26 Nativity Scenes and Their History41:11 Angels in Christmas Lore43:49 Symbolism of Light in Christmas48:11 Midnight Mass and Traditions49:55 Magical Christmas Superstitions51:40 Personal Reflections on Christmas➡️Subscribe to Ask Julie Ryan YouTube➡️Subscribe to Ask Julie Ryan Español YouTube➡️Subscribe to Ask Julie Ryan Português YouTube➡️Subscribe to Ask Julie Ryan Deutsch YouTube➡️Subscribe to Ask Julie Ryan Français YouTube✏️Ask Julie a Question!

In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Japan sent its first diplomatic delegations to visit the popes and dignitaries of Europe. European artists portrayed these historic ambassadors—the Tenshō embassy (1582–90) and the Keichō embassy (1613–20)—in numerous oil paintings, frescoes, drawings, and prints. Envisioning Diplomacy: Japanese Ambassadors in Early Modern Europe (Pennsylvania State UP, 2025) by Dr. Mayu Fujikawa analyzes these images—including newly discovered and lost works—within their cross-cultural and diplomatic contexts. Drawing on extensive and geographically expansive archival research, art historian Dr. Fujikawa investigates how the embassies were received and either assimilated or differentiated at European courts. She demonstrates how delegates' gifts to their hosts, their Europeanized kimonos, and the Western clothes they wore while traveling functioned as tools of soft diplomacy. Dr. Fujikawa also shows how printed materials functioned much as news does today, promoting the embassies widely and conveying information about the guests and their striking physical appearance. Envisioning Diplomacy offers a fascinating look at the political, social, and cultural meanings of visual materials created around the embassies and should be of great interest to scholars, students, and general readers interested in early modern European art and history, costume history, diplomatic history, and Japanese and global studies. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda's interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Welcome, my dark souls! In this haunting chapter of Unholy December, we uncover the chilling possession outbreaks that swept through convents in France, Spain, and Italy during the 17th century. From violent public exorcisms to quiet nocturnal terrors, these cases reveal how fear, faith, and control shaped the lives of cloistered women across Europe. Drawing from diaries, trial records, and centuries of historical analysis, this episode exposes the obscure boundary between mysticism, trauma, and the supernatural. A deep, unsettling journey into the archives where some of history's darkest whispers have been waiting. *Listener Discretion is Advised*****************Sources & References:Aldous Huxley, The Devils of Loudun (1952).Michel de Certeau, The Possession at Loudun (1970).Nancy Caciola, Discerning Spirits: Divine and Demonic Possession in the Middle Ages (2003).Edward Peters, The Magician, the Witch, and the Law (1978).John D. Lyons, The Phantom of Chance: From Fortune to Randomness in Seventeenth-Century French Literature (2019).Moshe Sluhovsky, Believe Not Every Spirit: Possession, Mysticism, and Discernment in Early Modern Catholicism (2007).Marina Warner, Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary (1976).Moshe Sluhovsky, “The Devil in the Convent,” American Historical Review 107, no. 5 (2002).Francine Masiello (ed. and trans.), The Diary of Santa Veronica Giuliani (selections).Michel Carmona, Urbain Grandier (2000).H. C. Lea, Materials Toward a History of Witchcraft (1939).Brian P. Levack, The Devil Within: Possession and Exorcism in the Christian West (2013).Stuart Clark, Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (1997).Jodi Bilinkoff, Related Lives: Confessors and Their Female Penitents, 1450–1750 (2005).Various 17th-century exorcism transcripts and ecclesiastical reports referenced in secondary scholarship above.****************Leave Us a 5* Rating, it really helps the show!Apple Podcast:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beauty-unlocked-the-podcast/id1522636282Spotify Podcast:https://open.spotify.com/show/37MLxC8eRob1D0ZcgcCorA****************Follow Us on Social Media & Subscribe to our YouTube Channel!YouTube:@beautyunlockedspodcasthourTikTok:tiktok.com/@beautyunlockedthepod****************Music & SFX Attribution:Epidemic SoundFind the perfect track on Epidemic Sound for your content and take it to the next level! See what the hype is all about!

#417> To purchase the book: https://amzn.to/3MhucaO> This episode sponsored by the Touro Graduate School of Jewish Studies. Are you ready to nurture your interest in Jewish studies or pursue your graduate degree in the field? Perhaps you're in need of a deeper understanding of Jewish history and thought to advance your career? At Touro's Graduate School of Jewish Studies, you can explore such topics as the history of Hasidism, studies in 19th-20th century biblical commentaries and much more. You'll learn from noted subject matter experts as you earn your master's in Jewish Education or Jewish History or audit any course that interests you. All courses are offered fully online via Zoom. For more information visit https://gsjs.touro.edu/history/> This episode is also sponsored by Amudim.Unite to Heal, Amudim's annual 36-hour livestream, is happening December 7–8, and it's become the most-watched Jewish event of the year. Everything you'll see is original — real conversations, real Torah, real mental-health insight — with some of the most respected voices in the Jewish world.If you're into thoughtful Torah conversations, honest discussions about mental health and community, and hearing from some of the most interesting Jewish voices today, you're going to want to tune in!https://unitetoheal.com/seforim-ch> To join the SeforimChatter WhatsApp community: https://chat.whatsapp.com/DZ3C2CjUeD9AGJvXeEODtK> To join the SeforimChatter WhatsApp status: https://wa.me/message/TI343XQHHMHPN1>  To support the podcast or to sponsor an episode follow this link: https://seforimchatter.com/support-seforimchatter/or email seforimchatter@gmail.com (Zelle/QP this email address)Support the show

Spooky Series. Episode #3 of 4. In 1220 CE, St. Francis of Assisi tamed a ferocious werewolf terrorizing Gubbio, Italy—transforming "Brother Wolf" from savage beast to peaceful townsperson. But why did Christianity need to conquer the wolf? For millennia, werewolves have stalked the boundaries between civilization and savagery, humanity and monstrosity. From ancient Mesopotamian curses to Greek myths of divine punishment, from medieval theology to early modern courtrooms where hundreds died in werewolf trials, the shape-shifter has embodied our deepest anxieties about human nature itself. Join Marissa and Elizabeth as they uncover the forgotten history of werewolf prosecutions that claimed real lives, explore how economic crises and religious upheaval sparked lycanthropy panics, and trace the transformation of the werewolf from genuine judicial threat to Hollywood monster. This third episode in our Spooky series reveals how the figure of the werewolf has shaped—and been shaped by—Western culture's evolving understanding of violence, identity, and the wild within us all. NOTE: This episode contains references to sexual assault, violence against children, and descriptions of gruesome gore. Listen/read with extreme caution. Find show notes and transcripts at www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 16th and 17th century England, the plague and pox, disease and injury were a daily presence. At at time when medicine was a complex interplay of tradition, faith and observation, survival depended not only on doctors and their remedies but also on resilience and community support. Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Dr. Alanna Skuse to explore how ordinary people navigated the perils of sickness and the diverse healers who sought to preserve life in an age where outcomes were always uncertain.More: Surgery in the Early Modern Age3 Ways to Die in Early Modern EuropePresented by Professor Suzannah Lipscomb. The researcher is Max Windle, audio editor is Amy Haddow and the producer is Rob Weinberg. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.All music courtesy of Epidemic Sounds.Not Just the Tudors is a History Hit podcast.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Peter Stubbe or Peter Stumpp, also known as the Werewolf of Bedburg, was part of a case in Germany where the concepts of witchcraft and lycanthropy were interconnected. Research: Baillie, Nathan. “Monstrous Lessons: Peter Stumpp, the Werewolf of Bedburg.” University of Saskatchewan Undergraduate Research Journal Volume 9, Issue 2, 2024. Baring-Gould, Sabine. “The Book of Were-wolves: Being an Account of a Terrible Superstition.” London. Smith, Elder and Co. Cornhill. 1865. https://archive.org/details/thebookofwerewolvesbarin/ Barker, Sara. “Time in English Translations of Continental News.” News Networks in Early Modern Europe. Brill. Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1163/j.ctt1w8h1ng.21 Beck, Melinda. “Before America Had Witch Trials, Europe Had Werewolf Trials.” History. 10/15/2021. https://www.history.com/articles/werewolf-trials-europe-witches Crabb, Jon. “Woodcuts and Witches.” The Public Doman Review. 5/4/2017. https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/woodcuts-and-witches/ Davidson, Jane P. and Bob Canino. “Wolves, Witches, and Werewolves: Lycanthropy and Witchcraft from 1423 to 1700.” Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, 1990, Vol. 2, No. 4 (8) (1990). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43308065 de Blécourt, Willem. “Monstrous Theories:: Werewolves and the Abuse of History.” Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural , Vol. 2, No. 2 (2013). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/preternature.2.2.0188 Dinwiddie, Gerda, trans. “The Execution of Werewolf, Peter Stump: A Translation.” Dana K. Rehn. https://danakrehnblog.wordpress.com/2021/05/22/the-execution-of-werewolf-petter-stump/ Dinwiddie, Gerda, trans. “Truthful and Frightening Description of the many Sorcerers or Witches: An English Translation.” Dana Rehn. https://danakrehnblog.wordpress.com/2022/01/02/truthful-and-frightening-description-of-the-many-sorcerers-or-witches-an-english-translation/ Priest, Hannah. “The She-wolves of Julich.” History Today. Vol. 65, Issue 6. June 2015. Summers, Montague. “The Werewolf in Lore and Legend.” Dover Publications. 1933. https://archive.org/details/TheWerewolfInLoreAndLegend/page/n273/mode/2up See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you lived in 16th-century London, would you have any idea what was happening in Paris, Venice or Frankfurt? Well, yes, according to Joad Raymond Wren – and that news could reach you quicker than you might expect. Speaking to Ellie Cawthorne, Joad uncovers a complex network of communication operating across Europe between the end of the Middle Ages and the rise of modern mass media, from ambassadors' news bulletins to emerging postal services.  (Ad) Joad Raymond Wren is the author of The Great Exchange: Making the News in Early Modern Europe (Allen Lane, 2025). Buy it now from Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Great-Exchange-Making-Modern-Europe/dp/0241188539/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=WiNnK&content-id=amzn1.sym.6b6d4bc1-013f-4684-8a3d-174e5cf88d17&pf_rd_p=6b6d4bc1-013f-4684-8a3d-174e5cf88d17&pf_rd_r=262-1509211-7609724&pd_rd_wg=Qidud&pd_rd_r=e40330ef-009c-40ff-9312-5510cb970586&ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk&tag=bbchistory045-21&ascsubtag=historyextra-social-histboty. The HistoryExtra podcast is produced by the team behind BBC History Magazine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices