How to be an Atheist in the Middle Ages

Gone Medieval

History Hit

History

4.6 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 29 August 2023

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We tend to think that it was impossible not to subscribe to Christianity in the Middle Ages. But, as in any age, belief can wax and wane. But the chroniclers of the period largely ignored the voices of ordinary people, whose faith may not have been quite so devout as we have been led to believe.

In this episode of Gone Medieval, Dr. Eleanor Janega talks to Dr. Alec Ryrie, author of Unbelievers: An Emotional History of Doubt, which charts how atheism bloomed as a belief system in its own right.

This episode was edited by Joseph Knight and produced by Rob Weinberg.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	If you're a fan of the podcast, I've got some exciting news for you. We're publishing a book.
0:04.7	If you've ever wondered, who was the third man on the moon? Why was a pigeon a hero in the
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0:20.1	Pre-order from your favourite bookshop or visit historyhit.com forward slash book.
0:31.4	Hello and welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit. I'm Eleanor Janega and in today's episode
0:36.8	we'll be talking about atheists in medieval Europe, how to see unbelief, and why we often
0:41.4	like to think the atheists are a product of the modern world. Today I'm delighted to be joined by
0:46.3	Professor Alec Rairi. He is the professor of the history of Christianity at Durham University,
0:51.4	where he works on themes including the emotional history of religion, the intersection of religion
0:56.1	and politics, war, violence, and martyrdom. His latest book is unbelievers in emotional
1:02.0	history of doubt, which we'll be informing our discussion today. So Alec, thank you so much for
1:06.4	being here. No, it's a great pleasure. Thanks for having me. I guess I'm going to have to start us
1:10.2	off for something that is both a very easy question, kind of simple but very difficult in the complexity
1:16.5	of it. So for the most difficult question of all time, could you just describe the religious climate
1:21.5	of medieval Europe, you know, just a thousand years of history? Could you describe that? Sure,
1:26.0	yeah, just a sense and so too. We're talking about this quite weird phase in the long history
1:33.7	of Christianity. And it's worth emphasizing how weird it is because those of us living in the post
1:41.1	medieval world, as we all do, have come to see it as normal. There's been this sort of deep sense
1:47.7	since the Protestant Reformation that something has broken in the religious culture of the Western,
1:53.3	we need to get back to it. I think that sense of medieval worlds as this ideal still lurks there.
1:58.5	What makes it so exceptional is that for the best part of a thousand years,
	...

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