
Lepers and Leprosy in the 13th Century
Footnoting History
05/25/13
•11m
About
Comments
Transcript
Featured In
(Lucy) Reactions to medieval lepers were often extreme. Medieval romance-writers depict them as not only disease-ridden but filthy, and morally suspect to boot. Saints, on the other hand, ran around kissing them. More ordinary people just asked lepers to pray for them. Why? And if you lived in thirteenth-century Chartres, why shouldn't you eat dinner with the leper next door?
Previous Episode

Occupy Alcatraz: Protesting Native American Autonomy
May 17, 2013
•11m
(Lesley) As an imposing fortress, Alcatraz island isolated inmates and imprisoned the most dangerous criminals like mob boss Al Capone. Yet after its closure in 1963, Alcatraz became the scene of occupying Freedom as Native Americans tried to take back land under a treaty with the US. How did an uninhabitable rock become the gateway to a bastion of freedom for American Indians?
Next Episode

Getting Skinny: A Brief History of Dieting
June 1, 2013
•14m
(Samantha) From WeightWatchers to the Atkins Diet to the Lemon Detox, Americans are obsessed with using diet to control our weight. But we’re not the first ones to be concerned with our body mass, to experiment with dieting, and to come up with some really bizarre ideas about how to get thin.
If you like this episode you’ll love
Promoted




