Medieval Mythmaking w/ Professor Matthew Gabriele
Spirits: Mythology, Legends, & Folklore
Multitude
4.8 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 14 January 2026
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
If you’ve ever wondered how myths were made, especially during the Medieval period, we’ve got you covered! We’re joined by Professor Matthew Gabriele, host of American Medieval, to talk about Medieval mythmaking, Castlecore vs Crusadecore, and Romantasy as a way of reflecting on the Medieval period!
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of fascism, white supremacy, islamaphobia, misogyny, death, sex, and genitals.
Guest
Matthew Gabriele is a professor of medieval studies at Virginia Tech. The co-author of "The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe" and "Oathbreakers: The War of Brothers that Shattered an Empire and Made Medieval Europe," he'll talk your ear off about the Middle Ages. This is why he started the Multitude podcast, "American Medieval." See more at profgabriele.com and americanmedieval.com
Housekeeping
- Books: Check out our previous book recommendations, guests’ books, and more at spiritspodcast.com/books
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Sponsors
- Bookshop.org, where you can now use the code we shared in the midroll to get 10% off your purchase!
Find Us Online
- Website & Transcripts: spiritspodcast.com
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Cast & Crew
- Co-Hosts: Julia Schifini and Amanda McLoughlin
- Editor: Bren Frederick
- Music: Brandon Grugle, based on "Danger Storm" by Kevin MacLeod
- Artwork: Allyson Wakeman
- Multitude: multitude.productions
About Us
Spirits is a boozy podcast about mythology, legends, and folklore. Every episode, co-hosts Julia and Amanda mix a drink and discuss a new story or character from a wide range of places, eras, and cultures. Learn brand-new stories and enjoy retellings of your favorite myths, served over ice every week, on Spirits.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The |
| 0:07.0 | The Welcome to Spirits podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends, and folklore. |
| 0:32.8 | Every week, we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. |
| 0:36.3 | And throughout time. I'm Amanda. |
| 0:38.6 | And I'm Julia. And we are joined today by our newest sibling at Multitude, Dr. Matt Gabriel. He's a |
| 0:45.5 | professor of medieval studies in the Department of Religion and Culture at Virginia Tech and the host of |
| 0:49.9 | American Medieval, the newest Multitude member show. Welcome, that. Oh, thank you so much for having me. |
| 0:55.0 | I'm so pleased to be here. Oh, we are so delayed to have you. I get to enjoy the dulcet tones of |
| 1:00.6 | your voice every week when I edit your podcast, but I'm so glad that we get an opportunity for our |
| 1:05.4 | audience to hear a little bit more about you, medieval folklore, and a lot of like hagiography and stuff like that. I'm very excited to |
| 1:13.1 | talk to you today about all of that. I've like tentatively titled in my head this episode as |
| 1:19.4 | medieval myth-making. So I'm very excited to sort of dive deeper into that. But before we do, can you |
| 1:26.7 | tell the audience a little bit about |
| 1:28.7 | yourself, your work, and American medieval? This is really exciting to be here because it combines |
| 1:34.3 | two of my most favorite things in the world, which are cool stories about the Middle Ages, |
| 1:38.5 | and alcohol, which is probably revealing a little bit too much about myself and my personal life, |
| 1:43.5 | but that's okay. Hey, we have a decade of episodes about us drinking and telling stories. So, you're in the right place. I feel like that's, that's what podcasts are for anyway. So revealing a little bit too much about yourself. So I don't know, I don't know what you're talking about having grown up on podcasts over the last 10 years. No qualitative or quantitative evidence for that matter. |
| 2:01.8 | Anyway, yeah, no, I'm really excited to be here. |
| 2:04.2 | I am a professor, as you mentioned at Virginia Tech. |
| 2:07.1 | I teach on the long history of the Middle Ages, which means that I am kind of one of the |
| 2:12.9 | very few people who teach on anything related to this chronological period here at the |
| 2:16.9 | university. |
... |
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