In this episode of Beyond Footnotes we interview PSU Professor John Ott, who teaches Medieval History, with a focus in Northern France and Flanders in the 11th and 12th centuries. Professor Ott discusses the training needed to be a medievalist and the medieval church, including the secular clergy. If you’re wondering what a secular clergy is, then you’ll find out in this episode!
Professor Ott is currently collaborating on a reader that complies primary source documents, which offers a fascinating glimpse into the working of the medieval religious courts. The medieval religious court also features in Professor Ott’s upcoming book, The Archbishop’s Poets: Scandal and Reform in an Eleventh-Century Church, which is a study of the turbulent court of the Archbishop Manasses I of Reims and how poetry played a role.
John Ott received his MA and PhD from Stanford in 1999. He has received numerous awards and fellowships, including the John Eliot Allen Outstanding Teacher in History (PSU), a NEH Summer Institute participant at Oxford, and Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellowship. He is a founding member of, EPISCOPUS: Society for the Study of Bishops and Secular Clergy in the Middle Ages.
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