Episode 90: Ask a Memevalist
About this episode
The episode reviews medieval memes and discusses their cultural significance.
Synopsis Memes. Love or hate them, they’re hard to escape. Let’s do a medieval meme review. Notes 1/ Sorry for the weird sound at the beginning. File errors. 2/ There are whole Bsky accounts like “ weird medieval guys “. 3/ Cave Canum Know thyself 4/ The Book of Dog Names: Superdog’s name is Krypto Livre du Chasse (see Episode 29 note 5 for more!) Here is the Christie’s description for this specific manuscript. Edward, Duke of York (1373-1415–he died at Agincourt!!!) “Gentlemen of England now abed”: An (incredibly famous) line from Henry V “Gallant, springing, brave Plantagenet”: From the scene in Richard III where the two murderers go to kill Clarence, Duke of Gloucester (on RIII’s orders, of course). Interpolated: to insert between two parts. RIP Wrigley, bestest girl (2009-2024). Now we have Addison, the best boy. 5/ Here’s a name–age calculator: https://randalolson.com/name-age-calculator/ Interestingly, Jessica has almost the same arc as Tiffany, but Tiffany is definitely a very 1980s neon name and Jessica is not. Is it because of the prominence of a Jessica in Shakespeare’s A Merchant of Venice…
People in this episode
Hosts: Ask a Medievalist, Em, Jesse
Topics covered
- medieval memes
- cultural references
- name analysis
- historical figures
- literary connections
Keywords
- memes
- medieval
- cultural references
- historical figures
- name analysis
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Bsky, Christie’s, NYT
Books & works: Henry V, Richard III, A Merchant of Venice
More episodes of Ask a Medievalist
- Episode 99: Respect My Authority
- Episode 98: In Rome for the Calends
- Episode 97: Non-Roman Calendars
- Episode 96: Pope Joan
- Episode 95: Sur le Pontife d’Avignon
- Episode 94: Popes and Antipopes
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