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How to signal you are a Random Layperson*: wear some f#@king history!


I’m with Mary. And Milo!



*How do you know that you are a Random Layperson? You read Fencing Bear!


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The Forge of Tolkien

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I first read The Lord of the Rings  when I was eleven. My mother gave me the boxed set (see above) for Christmas, and I read all four books in one trip to our grandparents’ house by New Year’s. Imagine my 11-year-old self struggling with the hobbits across Middle-earth as my mother drove us across the middle of America from Kentucky to Texas (and back again), and you will get some sense of the effect that it had on me. Of all the things that drew me to become a medieval historian, reading (and re-reading, and re-reading, and re-reading) Tolkien is at the top of the list, although it took me decades to admit it. Tolkien lived in my imagination somewhere between stories I remembered reading as a child and my first (magical) visit to England with a school trip in high school—not really real, certainly not the stuff of serious scholarship. Latin and Chartres drew me to study the history of medieval Christianity, not elves, hobbits and dwarves. Or so I told myself. And then Pet
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Centrism Games: A Modern Dunciad

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DCR Books, in conjunction with the poets of the Dragon Common Room , is proud to announce the publication of its first full length poem!   Hello? Is this thing on? It’s time to sing! Beneath the Arch, let heartfelt praises ring! Forsake us not, o mild and moderate goddess! With fair and balanced rhymes we beg your largesse. Help us narrate the story of your knights and how they braved the un-forbidding heights. We sing with measured tones, not high nor low, our tolerance and fairness to extol. Chivalry is dead. These Knights want Fame. And Fama’s a witch. Follow a band of very different Knights on their quest to become the most balanced, the most tolerant, the most compromising of everyone on the modern political spectrum. Each Knight dares to liberalize and conserve, but who will win the ultimate prize and stay safely in the center? A cautionary tale modeled on Alexander Pope’s scathing eighteenth-century Dunciad . —Backcover You know  the backstory . Now read the book! Available in e
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Marian Double Feature

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Medieval or bust! Two livestreams in one weekend—an Easter octave treat! 1. Interview with Rachel Fulton Brown . Livestreamed with the Kurgan, April 10, 2021.  2. Medieval Devotion to Mary . Rights and Duties. Livestreamed with TradPatrick and Anthony Stine, April 9, 2021. Visit Bear On Air for a complete list of my video, podcast, and radio appearances.
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Make the Middle Ages Dark Again

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I miss the good old days. You remember. Back when the only thing people knew about the Middle Ages is that they were Dark and filled with evil barons wresting a living off the back of their serfs, not to mention lecherous clergy imprisoning young maidens so as to rape them and then accuse them of witchcraft. You remember, right? What it was like when the Middle Ages were Dark? The Roman Catholic Church made slaves of everyone, stripped them of their sense of dignity and independence and made social status a matter not of achievement, but birth. The Church hated science and industry and did everything in its power to keep people in chains. It guarded its authority with the sword and the stake, stifled all innovation, and fed the common people lies. And why were these Ages so Dark? There were no universities, no towns, only castles with dungeons. Monks huddled in their cells thinking dark thoughts about sin, while Vikings stormed across the countryside, raping and pillaging and ca
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On Tyranny: Alone of All Her Sex

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If the picture doesn’t say it, perhaps the title will! Calling from Athens, Michael Michailidis pressed me to explain why medieval Christians worshipped Mary as a Goddess—except, of course, they didn’t, which took even more explaining.  Along the way, we touched on the devotion to the Virgin Mary in the liturgy, eros  in the Christian Bible, the Great Mother Goddess of old Europe, face masks and their symbolism, the devil and modern technology, and Joseph Campbell’s theories of myth. Just in time for the feast of the Annunciation!  Θεοτόκε Παρθένε, χαῖρε, κεχαριτωμένη Μαρία , ὁ Κύριος μετὰ σοῦ. εὐλογημένη σὺ ἐν γυναιξί, καὶ εὐλογημένος ὁ καρπὸς τῆς κοιλίας σου, ὅτι Σωτήρα ἔτεκες τῶν ψυχῶν ἡμῶν. Listen at Ancient Greece Revisited (YouTube): “ The Worship of Virgin Mary, Satan’s Lure, and Facemasks ” Listen at AGR On Tyranny Radio (Spotify): “ The Virgin in a Pandemic World ” For a complete list of my video, podcast, and radio appearances, visit Bear On Air . For my books and articles on
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