Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Tristan and Iseult, as told by Thomas of Britain and Beroul in the 12th century and reworked by Gottfried of Strasbourg and others, including Wagner.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Tristan and Iseult, one of the most popular stories of the Middle Ages. From roots in Celtic myth, it passed into written form in Britain a century after the Norman Conquest and almost immediately spread throughout northern Europe. It tells of a Cornish knight and an Irish queen, Tristan and Iseult, who accidentally drink a love potion, at the same time, on the same boat, travelling to Cornwall. She is due to marry Tristan's king, Mark. Tristan and Iseult seemed ideally matched and their love was heroic, but could that excuse their adultery, in the minds of medieval listeners, particularly when the Church was so clear they were wrong?

With

Laura Ashe

Associate Professor of English at Worcester College, University of Oxford

Juliette Wood

Associate Lecturer in the School of Welsh at Cardiff University

And

Mark Chinca

Reader in Medieval German Literature at the University of Cambridge

Producer: Simon Tillotson.