Thurkill’s Excellent Adventure: A Medieval English Peasant’s Tour of Hell

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Hundreds of years before Dante took us on a tour through the afterlife, there was Thurkill, an English peasant from the 13th century, who described his journey into hell and the edge of paradise. What was it like and what can we learn from his story? Come on a vision quest with Kristin, in this episode of Footnoting History! 

Host: Kristin​

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Further Reading

Eileen Gardiner, “Visions of Heaven and Hell: A Monastic Literature,” The Downside Review 139:1 (2021): 24-43
 
Matthias Galler, “Transformations of Life and Death in Medieval Visions of the Other World: A Response to Fritz Kemmler,” Connotations 20:1 (2010/2011): 12-22
 
Fritz Kemmler, “Painful Restoration: Transformations of Life and Death in Medieval Visions of the Other World,” Connotations 17:2 (2007/2008): 129-143
 
Paul Gerhard Schmidt, “The Vision of Thurkill,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtlaud Institutes 41(1978): 50-64
 
“The English Peasant Thurkill’s Vision of Hell (1206),” in: Medieval Popular Religion 1000-1500: A Reader, Second Edition, ed. John Shinners. University of Toronto Press, (2008), 231-238

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All Saints' Church, Stisted, Essex, UK

Music: "Evening Melodrama" by Kevin Macleod (www.incompetech.com)

All Saints' Church, Stisted, Essex, UK