14th century
20 episodes
Barbour's 'Brus'
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss ideas of chivalry and freedom in John Barbour's c1375 epic on Robert the Bruce and Bannockburn, the earliest surviving poem in Older Scots.
19 June 2025
Featuring: Rhiannon Purdie, Steve Boardman, Michael Brown
Chaucer
Melvyn Bragg discusses Geoffrey Chaucer who immortalised the medieval pilgrimage and the diversity of 14th century English society, in his Canterbury Tales.
9 February 2006
Featuring: Carolyne Larrington, Helen Cooper, Ardis Butterfield
Christine de Pizan
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Christine de Pizan (c1364-1430) who, according to Simone de Beauvoir, was the first woman to 'take up her pen in defence of her sex'.
8 June 2017
Featuring: Helen Swift, Miranda Griffin, Marilynn Desmond
Dante's Inferno
Melvyn Bragg discusses Dante’s ‘Inferno’ - a journey through the nine circles of Hell. Dante was a medieval Italian poet and the Inferno, his greatest work, is a masterpiece of world literature.
23 October 2008
Featuring: Margaret Kean, John Took, Claire Honess
Ibn Khaldun
Melvyn Bragg and guests Robert Hoyland, Robert Irwin and Hugh Kennedy discuss the life and ideas of the 14th-century Arab philosopher of history Ibn Khaldun.
4 February 2010
Featuring: Robert Hoyland, Robert Graham Irwin, Hugh N. Kennedy
Julian of Norwich
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the anchoress, who is probably the earliest named woman writer in English, and her celebrated work on her visions of the suffering of Christ.
19 October 2023
Featuring: Katherine Lewis, Philip Sheldrake, Laura Kalas
Religion15th-century English writersWriters from Norwich14th-century Christian mystics, 14th-century English women writers, 15th-century English women writers, 15th-century deaths, English Catholic mystics, Middle English literatureWomen religious writersWomen mysticsMedieval English theologiansEnglish religious writers14th century15th centuryTheologyMan and Disease
Melvyn Bragg discusses how humans have understood and fought disease throughout history, and examines the social consequences of diseases such as smallpox, bubonic plague, cholera, TB and AIDS.
12 December 2002
Featuring: Anne Hardy, David Bradley, Chris Dye
Margery Kempe and English Mysticism
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Margery Kempe (1373-1438), the English mystic who went to Jerusalem and dictated her life story, said to be the first autobiography in English.
2 June 2016
Featuring: Miri Rubin, Katherine Lewis, Anthony Bale
HistoryAnglican saints15th-century English writersEnglish women non-fiction writersWriters from King's LynnRoman Catholic mystics14th-century Christian mystics, 14th-century English women writers, 15th-century English women writers, 15th-century deaths, English Catholic mystics, Middle English literaturePre-Reformation Anglican saintsEnglish Roman CatholicsWomen religious writersEnglish autobiographersWomen mysticsFemale saints of medieval EnglandEnglish religious writers14th century15th centuryMarsilius of Padua
Melvyn Bragg & guests discuss one of the first to argue that political power came from the people, not from God or hereditary monarchy, and they could elect or remove their rulers.
30 May 2024
Featuring: Annabel Brett, George Garnett, Serena Ferente
Owain Glyndŵr
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the man behind a major revolt against England, from 1400-1412, taking control of large areas of Wales until defeated by the future Henry V
31 January 2019
Featuring: Huw Pryce, Helen Fulton, Chris Given-Wilson
Piers Plowman
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Langland's exploration of what it means to live a good life, written when the Black Death had overturned many of the old certainties.
29 October 2020
Featuring: Laura Ashe, Lawrence Warner, Alastair Bennett
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poem of the knight who interrupts King Arthur's Christmas celebrations, challenging someone to chop off his head if he can do the same in return
13 December 2018
Featuring: Laura Ashe, Ad Putter, Simon Armitage
The Battle of Bannockburn
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Battle of Bannockburn of 1314, an important victory for Scotland in its fight to win independence from England.
3 February 2011
Featuring: Matthew Strickland, Fiona Watson, Michael Brown
The Battle of Crécy
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the brutal 1346 conflict between the French army, led by Philip VI, and the English, under Edward III, after years of simmering tension.
13 April 2023
Featuring: Anne Curry, Andrew Ayton, Erika Graham-Goering
The Empire of Mali
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the empire of Mali, famous for the wealth of its rulers such as Mansa Musa and the largest empire in west Africa.
29 October 2015
Featuring: Amira Bennison, Marie Rodet, Kevin MacDonald
The Hanseatic League
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Hanseatic League or Hansa which dominated North European and Baltic trade in the medieval period.
1 February 2024
Featuring: Justyna Wubs-Mrozewicz, Georg Christ, Sheilagh Ogilvie
The Peasants' Revolt
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 - “When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the Gentleman?"
16 November 2006
Featuring: Miri Rubin, Caroline Barron, Alastair Dunn
The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the rise and fall of the largest republic in Europe, which for centuries elected its kings to rule alongside parliament and avoided religious wars.
14 October 2021
Featuring: Robert I. Frost, Katarzyna Kosior, Norman Davies
The Renaissance
Melvyn Bragg explores the veracity of modern claims about the Renaissance and whether our current perceptions about its role in cultural history stem from a 19th century historian.
8 June 2000
Featuring: Francis Ames-Lewis, Peter Burke, Evelyn Welch
Wyclif and the Lollards
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the medieval philosopher and theologian John Wyclif and his followers, the Lollards.
16 June 2011
Featuring: Anthony Kenny, Anne Hudson, Rob Lutton
ReligionCritics of the Catholic ChurchChristian humanistsAnglican saintsEnglish Reformation14th-century writers in Latin14th-century English writersEnglish evangelicalsPeople excommunicated by the Catholic ChurchTranslators of the Bible into EnglishProto-Protestants, Roman Catholic biblical scholarsTranslators to EnglishChristian radicalsDamnatio memoriae14th century
