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 AsheAssociate Professor of English at Worcester College, University of Oxford

Juliette WoodAssociate Lecturer in the School of Welsh at Cardiff University

And

Mark ChincaReader in Medieval German Literature at the University of Cambridge

Producer: Simon Tillotson.