Danièle Cybulskie
364 episodes listed below
Patient medieval history with scholarly warmth.
The Medieval Podcast is an interview-led history show where Danielle Cebulski guides guests through the texture of medieval life. Episodes move from plague tracts and papal authority to women’s labor, Arthurian romance, manuscript culture, and the moral imagination of the seven deadly sins.
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The Medieval Podcast is a measured, interview-centered history show about the Middle Ages. Danielle Cebulski uses each episode to place a guest’s research inside a larger question, then follows the evidence patiently. The show is curious about big structures. It is just as interested in the small, revealing detail that changes how a familiar subject looks. In recent episodes, the seven deadly sins become a way to think about food, self-command, and moral habit, not simply a list of medieval prohibitions. Plague appears through the changing form of tract literature, with manuscript culture, print, literacy, and local production shaping what people could read and use. Women’s work is treated as complicated social history. Guild membership, widowhood, apprentices, household labor, and city regulations become part of a larger map of opportunity and constraint. The show also returns often to power. Matilda of Flanders is discussed through queenship, conquest, religious patronage, and the political uses of holy bodies. Papal supremacy becomes a debate about hierarchy, divine order, inquisitorial procedure, and the limits of secular rule. Books matter here. Episodes on a medieval Bible and Sir Tristram treat manuscripts not as museum pieces, but as made objects carrying language, translation, audience, and adaptation. Regional history gets similar care. A conversation on medieval Silesia uses one Central European region to think about cultural contact, immigration, language, and identity. The pacing is unhurried. Guests are allowed to build an argument, and the host’s questions tend to synthesize before moving onward. That gives the show a scholarly feel without turning it cold. It is strongest when modern assumptions are gently disturbed by medieval categories: gluttony as overattention to food, plague writing as a changing practical genre, or a daughter’s dedication to an abbey as both sacrifice and gift. The Medieval Podcast works for listeners who enjoy history with caveats intact. It offers substance, warmth, and a steady respect for the past on its own terms.
Made for: For history listeners who enjoy careful interviews, primary-source texture, and scholarly guests who can make medieval religion, politics, labor, literature, and disease feel intelligible without sanding off complexity.
What sets it apart: Its strength is the combination of academic depth and conversational patience: episodes let specialists build nuanced arguments while Danielle Cebulski keeps the stakes clear through recap, context, and well-placed questions.
A friendly podcast on all things medieval. Join host Danièle Cybulskie each week as she interviews the world's experts on topics ranging from pigs, to Persian poetry, to the Plantagenets.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
It makes medieval institutions legible through scholars' close attention to evidence and Danielle Cebulski's practical, curious questioning.
Danielle Cebulski builds each episode around a scholar and a focused historical problem, then uses direct, curious questions to make the underlying evidence legible.
A herring-craving Aquinas is waiting to make your modern food fuss look suspiciously medieval.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A thoughtful look at the seven deadly sins and the habits that sit behind them.
Peter Jones and Danielle Cebulski use the seven deadly sins to think through human nature, moral missteps, and the ways people try to wriggle free of them. The conversation is strongest when it stays with medieval sources and the small facts of lived behavior.
Plague becomes a story about print, readership, and the changing work of plague writing.
This episode treats plague less as a fixed image of horror and more as a shifting record of writing, and that frame gives the discussion shape.
A clear look at medieval women's work through guild rules, widowhood, and local variation.
The episode gives Women's work in the Middle Ages a clear frame by moving through guild rules, widowhood, and the different ways labor was regulated in Brabant and Biscay.
Matilda comes through as William the Conqueror's powerful queen, with queenship, faith, and conquest at the center.
The episode puts Matilda of Flanders in the center, not at the edge, and treats her as William the Conqueror's forceful queen rather than a familiar royal footnote.
A close look at papal power, heresy, and medieval authority.
The episode treats papal supremacy as a real medieval fight over where final authority sat. If kings were semi divine and the pope spoke for God, the question was simple to ask and hard to settle.
A careful look at Romanos, song, and the women in his early Christian world.
Romanos the Melodist sits in the space where early Christian devotion, poetry, and drama meet. Danielle Sabolsky and Thomas Aronson keep the focus on song as something worth taking seriously, and the episode is at its best when it stays close to the plain, human texture of…
A thoughtful year-end review that prizes context over hype.
The review brings Peter Kanyetchny and Danielle Cebulski into a broad 2025 survey of medieval headlines, starting with the Tres Riches Heures story and widening into the year's main debates, restorations, and surprises.
Multi-part dramatized retellings of scandals like OceanGate's Titan and the Lehman Brothers collapse.
A season-by-season history show pairing dramatized Rasputin and Salem narratives with historian interviews.
Greg Young and Tom Meyers explain how New York City's streets took shape.
Fashion historians April Callahan and Cassidy Zachary dig into garments, letters, and the people who wore them.
Episode 336 starts with the seven deadly sins.
Episode 335 starts with the usual plague imagery.
Women's work gets a closer, plainer look.
Matilda is not background.
Who rules under God?
The Medieval Podcast episode 331 focuses on the Wells-Ross Bible, the most complete surviving translation of the Bible into Anglo-Norman, and introduces Maude de Ross Lady Wells as the woman associated with it.
The Medieval Podcast episode 330 focuses on the Middle English Sir Tristram, a 14th-century Arthurian romance tied to Tristan and Isolde and described by Danielle Cebulski as a love story with “potions, princesses, and even puppies.” Guest Dr.
This episode features an interview with Dr.
This episode explores the evolution of Roman military practices into the Byzantine Empire, discussing strategy, tactics, and cultural changes with historian Dr.
Host Danièle Cybulskie interviews Dr.
An interview with Dr.
Host Danièle Cybulskie interviews Dr.
Host Daniele Cybulskie interviews Dr.
The Medieval Podcast episode 323 features Danielle Cebulski speaking with Dr.
The host discusses medieval beauty ideals and cosmetics, drawing parallels to modern beauty standards.
Episode 321 looks back at 2025.
This episode explores the historical and cultural connections between Robin Hood and Christmas traditions through an interview with scholar Dr.
Episode 319 of The Medieval Podcast centers on Richard the Lionheart, the rebel-crusader-prisoner-castle-builder that Danielle Cebulski says medieval listeners could not avoid.
Danielle Cebulski opens episode 318 of The Medieval Podcast by noting that the medieval assassins of the Middle East have gained new attention since a blockbuster video game, even though legend and reality are still hard to separate.
Host Danièle Cybulskie and Peter Konieczny reveal their favorite books of the past year and make announcements about the podcast's future.
This episode features an interview with Dr.
An interview with Dr.
Host Danièle Cybulskie interviews Dr.
Host Danièle Cybulskie interviews Dr.
Host Danièle Cybulskie interviews Nathan Amin about Henry VII's Welsh roots and his rise to the English throne.
An interview with Dr.
Host Danièle Cybulskie interviews Dr.
An interview with Luke Pepera about medieval Africa, focusing on the Empire of Mali and its significance in global history.
An interview with Dr.
An interview with Dr.
Host Danièle Cybulskie interviews Dr.
Host Danièle Cybulskie discusses how to live like a monk to cope with stressful times, drawing from her book and medieval history.
Host Danièle Cybulskie interviews Professor David Carpenter about the reign of King Henry III of England.
An interview with Dr.
Interview with historian Anne Zemo about Muslims living in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem after the Crusader conquest.