Swordbeards and Violence, with Dr. Mark Geldof

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to:  https://swordschool.com/podcast/swordbeards-and-violence-with-dr-mark-geldof/

To support the show, come join the Patrons at  https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy

Dr. Mark Geldof specialises in all kinds of historical violence. He has a DPhil in history from the University of Oxford on Change and Continuity in English Elite Conceptions of Violence, 1450-1560 and an M.A. entitled The Heart, the Foot, the Eye to Accord: Procedural Writing and Three Middle English Manuscripts of Martial Instruction.

He got into swords through the SCA, and he explains how the knowledge he gained through whacking people with sticks has influenced his work.

We talk about the three English sword texts from the 15th century, and how Mark wrote a 122 page master’s thesis with a 22 page bibliography on 400 lines of text. He has plenty of advice for the amateur historian on avoiding pitfalls and making sure that you are studying the best sources.

We also talk about why what seems like excessive violence is actually necessary or expected, and how humans can keep going even after they’ve been stabbed in the heart or skewered on a spear, so if you’re going to kill someone, you’ve got to keep going until they are definitely dead.

There are lots of useful links for this episode. Firstly, we refer to the episodes with Paul Wagner and Mike Prendergast that you might want to listen back to. And here are the links from Mark:

- Link to the Patreon: https://patreon.com/dr_violence

- Link to the MA thesis download: https://harvest.usask.ca/handle/10388/ETD-2011-08-77?show=full (note that these transcriptions are not perfect, in this ed. But they are better than what’s been around most often)

- Link to the doctoral thesis for those interested: https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:6d6be72b-b6ea-460f-b222-beb0547465eb

- The most current edition of Titus A xxv: https://bl.iro.bl.uk/concern/articles/614dcee4-907c-4ab8-879d-5143b0e5c673?locale=en

- Gentileschi Judith and her Maidservant 1: https://discover.hubpages.com/art/Judith-and-her-Maidservant---My-Take

- Judith and Maidservant 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemisia_Gentileschi#/media/File:Artemisia_Gentileschi_Judith_Maidservant_DIA.jpg

- Judith slaying Holofernes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Slaying_Holofernes_%28Artemisia_Gentileschi,_Naples%29#/media/File:Artemisia_Gentileschi_-_Judith_Beheading_Holofernes_-_WGA8563.jpg

 - See the shownotes on Swordschool.com for the draft of the paper on the Additional ms that’s in submission right now.