tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/middle-ages-12566/articles
Middle Ages – The Conversation
2024-03-08T13:35:33Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/223506
2024-03-08T13:35:33Z
2024-03-08T13:35:33Z
Centuries after Christine de Pizan wrote a book railing against misogyny, Taylor Swift is building her own ‘City of Ladies’
<p>In her work, Taylor Swift has taken inspiration from women of the past, including actress <a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/lyrics/taylor-swift-tortured-poets-department-clara-bow-family-reacts-1235607902/">Clara Bow</a>, socialite <a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/the-outrageous-life-of-rebekah-harkness-taylor-swifts-high-society-muse">Rebekah Harkness</a> and her grandmother <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/taylor-swift-marjorie-song-video-evermore-album-sheffield-1103100/">Marjorie Finlay</a>, who was an opera singer. </p>
<p>But sometimes I wonder what the 34-year-old pop star would think of the life and work of Italian-born French writer <a href="https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/place_settings/christine_de_pisan">Christine de Pizan</a>. </p>
<p>Back in the 15th century, Christine – who scholars customarily refer to using her first name, because “de Pizan” simply reflects her place of birth, and she may not have had a last name – dealt with her share of “<a href="https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article282745283.html">dads, Brads and Chads</a>,” just as Swift has in the 21st century. </p>
<p>Thought to be the first French woman to make a living as a writer, Christine compiled “<a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2021667679/">The Book of the City of Ladies</a>” in 1405 to challenge the negative stereotypes of women in the Middle Ages. In it, she offers dozens of examples of accomplished women found throughout history, including queens, saints, warriors and poets. </p>
<p>Christine’s writings continue to resonate – especially with women – and are used widely in college courses on women and gender. I recently used excerpts from “The Book of the City of Ladies” in my course on women and gender in early modern Europe.</p>
<p>In reflecting on Christine’s writings from over 600 years ago, I am struck by how she recognized the pernicious effects of attacks on women’s intellect and accomplishments – the ways in which they could be internalized and accepted if women did not challenge the stereotypes. </p>
<h2>Building the ‘City of Ladies’</h2>
<p>Christine de Pizan was born in Italy but spent much of her life in the royal court of France during the rule of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Valois-dynasty">the House of Valois</a>. </p>
<p>Her father, a court physician and astrologer, encouraged her education alongside her brothers. She had three children with her husband, a French royal secretary named Etienne de Castel, who died when Christine was just 25 years old.</p>
<p>Widowed and facing the prospect of raising and financially supporting children on her own, she turned to composing works that appealed to elites, resulting in commissions from patrons. She wrote on a variety of topics, including <a href="https://roseandchess.lib.uchicago.edu/rose.html">a poem celebrating Joan of Arc’s success on the battlefield</a>.</p>
<p>But her most ambitious and enduring work is “The Book of the City of Ladies.” </p>
<p>Discouraged by all the misogyny she had read, Christine whimsically claimed that she had received a vision from three ladies: Reason, Rectitude and Justice, who tasked her with the project.</p>
<p>By gathering stories about the accomplishments of women, Christine set out to build an allegorical city where women and their achievements would be safe from the insults and slander of men. </p>
<p>In “The City,” she specifically referenced “<a href="http://www.theabsolute.net/misogyny/matheol.html">The Lamentations of Matheolus</a>,” from 1295, a lengthy essay written in Latin by a cleric from Boulogne-sur-Mer, France. Its French translation from the late 1300s would have been the version Christine read. </p>
<p>It is full of hateful views of women, but Matheolus saves most of his ire for wives.</p>
<p>“Anyone who wishes to immolate himself on the altar of marriage will have a lot to put up with,” he writes, adding that the torture of marriage “is worse than the torments of hell.” He derides women as “always quarrelsome … cruel, and shrewish” – “terribly perverse” individuals who have “deceived all the greatest men in the world.”</p>
<p>Matheolus was not alone in his low views of women. Other popular writings of the time included Jean de Meun’s “<a href="https://roseandchess.lib.uchicago.edu/rose.html">The Romance of the Rose</a>,” which portrayed women as untrustworthy and jealous, and an anonymous treatise, “<a href="https://pius.slu.edu/special-collections/?p=4037">On the Secrets of Women</a>,” which offered misinformation about the biology of women. </p>
<p>With so much misogyny coming from so many sources, Christine acknowledged how easy it was for women to believe what was said about them: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“It’s no wonder that women have been the losers in the war against them since the envious slanderers and vicious traitors who criticize them have been allowed to aim all manner of weapons at their defenseless targets.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Christine recognized the reasons behind this widespread misogyny: Women who were smarter and kinder than men were seen as a threat and a challenge to <a href="https://sites.udel.edu/britlitwiki/women-in-medieval-literature-and-society/">the established patriarchy</a> of Western society. </p>
<h2>Taylor Swift’s ‘big ole city’</h2>
<p>Like Christine, Swift is a gifted writer who began making a living with her pen when she was a teenager. </p>
<p>She has built her own city of sorts to protect her reputation, her music and her self-esteem.</p>
<p>In her 2020 documentary “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11388580/">Miss Americana</a>,” Swift opens up about her struggles with media scrutiny, which contributed to an eating disorder. In it, she describes herself as “trying to deprogram the misogyny in my own brain.”</p>
<p>She <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/arts/music/taylor-swift-trial-jury-verdict.html">sued a DJ that groped her and won</a>, leading to her being featured as one of the “silence breakers” <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/12/6/16742166/taylor-swift-time-magazine-person-year-2017-silence-breaker-me-too">on the cover</a> of Time magazine in 2017 at the dawn of the #MeToo movement. And in 2021, she began reclaiming her words and music <a href="https://www.today.com/popculture/music/taylors-version-meaning-swift-rerecording-albums-rcna98513">by re-recording her older albums</a> as “Taylor’s Versions” after the original masters were sold by her first record label without her consent. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Tattooed arms peruse vinyl records featuring a young woman on the cover." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580547/original/file-20240307-18-oq6pk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580547/original/file-20240307-18-oq6pk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580547/original/file-20240307-18-oq6pk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580547/original/file-20240307-18-oq6pk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580547/original/file-20240307-18-oq6pk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580547/original/file-20240307-18-oq6pk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580547/original/file-20240307-18-oq6pk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An employee of an Ohio record store stocks a shelf with copies of ‘1989 (Taylor’s Version)’ in 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/OhioDailyLife/23ee9d50617546c092a62ec7a51c301f/photo?Query=taylor%27s%20version&mediaType=photo&sortBy=creationdatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=138&currentItemNo=5">AP Photo/Aaron Doster</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In her songs, Swift also repeatedly confronts the men who have discounted her talent and intellect. Her song “<a href="https://genius.com/Taylor-swift-mean-lyrics">Mean</a>” is widely believed to be about the critics who questioned her talent, such as <a href="https://lefsetz.com/wordpress/2010/02/01/grammys/">Bob Lefsetz</a>, who wrote that Swift clearly couldn’t sing and had possibly destroyed her career after <a href="https://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/taylor-swifts-out-of-tune-grammy-performance-defended-by-label-201042/">a shaky performance</a> at the 2010 Grammys.</p>
<p>“Someday, I’ll be livin’ in a big, ole city,” Swift retorts in the track, “And all you’re ever gonna be is mean.”</p>
<p>At the conclusion of “The Book of the City of Ladies,” her mission to record the achievements of women accomplished, Christine de Pizan invites her female readers to join her: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“All of you who love virtue, glory and a fine reputation can now be lodged in great splendour inside its walls, not just women of the past but also those of the present and the future, for this has been founded and built to accommodate all deserving women.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Though the City of Ladies was built centuries ago, I have a feeling that Taylor Swift would be right at home in that big, ole city.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223506/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jill R. Fehleison does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
By compiling stories about the accomplishments of women, Christine set out to build an allegorical city where women and their achievements would be safe from sexist insults and slander.
Jill R. Fehleison, Professor of History and Interdisciplinary Studies, Quinnipiac University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/222472
2024-03-05T13:59:14Z
2024-03-05T13:59:14Z
Can witches fly? A historian unpacks the medieval invention − and skepticism − of the witch on a broomstick
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578977/original/file-20240229-24-sr8g1w.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1417%2C1009&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">One of the earliest depictions of flying witches is in a 15th-century text entitled "Le champion des dames," or "The Defender of Ladies."</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Champion_des_dames_Vaudoises.JPG">Martin Le Franc/W. Schild. Die Maleficia der Hexenleut' via Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The image of a witch flying on a broomstick is iconic, but it is not nearly as old as the idea of witchcraft itself, which dates to the <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300238679/the-witch/">earliest days of humankind</a>.</p>
<p>Several theologians, church inquisitors, secular magistrates and other authorities first wrote about such flight in the early 1400s. The earliest known visual depiction of flying witches appears in a 1451 manuscript copy of one such text, “<a href="https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/the-trial-of-womankind/">Le champion des dames</a>” (“The Defender of Ladies”), by the French poet Martin Le Franc.</p>
<p>Witchcraft accusations at this time were increasingly <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/39656">focused on women</a>. The clothing of the figures in <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/49030810/">Le Franc’s text</a> depicts them as coming from non-elite ranks of medieval society. So do the implements on which they fly. Staffs and brooms were tools for ordinary housework.</p>
<p>The notion that witches could fly served to support the idea that they gathered in large groups <a href="https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-08910-2.html">called sabbaths</a>. These gatherings, in turn, heightened the supposed threat witches posed to Christian society. </p>
<p>Even after the idea of witches flying on brooms was introduced to European society, it was not readily accepted. Many who wrote about witchcraft at this time, including Le Franc, were quite skeptical about the reality of flying witches.</p>
<p>As it turned out, however, authorities could still perceive a threat even if they believed witches’ flight was imaginary. </p>
<h2>The scope of skepticism</h2>
<p>In my work as a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=E0RaQ-oAAAAJ&hl=en">scholar of medieval European history</a>, I have researched texts describing <a href="https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-08910-2.html">witchcraft in the early 1400s</a>. </p>
<p>Some texts fully accepted the idea that witches flew, often on brooms or staffs. One described witches traveling to sabbaths on staffs anointed with a magical ointment and flying into the mountains to gather ice to cause hailstorms.</p>
<p>Other texts, however, were not sure that such flight was real. One noted that accused witches claimed to fly from mountaintop to mountaintop on chairs, but it also hinted that demons might have tricked them into thinking they did. Another text stated that accused witches who claimed to fly were “deluded” by the devil. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574238/original/file-20240207-24-dtpy1k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Illustration of witch in a red dress flying on a staff, from the 'Champion des dames'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574238/original/file-20240207-24-dtpy1k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574238/original/file-20240207-24-dtpy1k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574238/original/file-20240207-24-dtpy1k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574238/original/file-20240207-24-dtpy1k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574238/original/file-20240207-24-dtpy1k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=737&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574238/original/file-20240207-24-dtpy1k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=737&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574238/original/file-20240207-24-dtpy1k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=737&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Witches were often depicted flying on household implements such as brooms and staffs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Champion_des_dames_Vaudoises.JPG">Martin Le Franc/W. Schild. Die Maleficia der Hexenleut' via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Skepticism about flying witches drew on an early 10th-century church law about women who claimed to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/mrw.2021.0009">ride at night on “certain beasts</a>” in the train of the pagan goddess Diana, whom Christian authorities understood to be a demon in disguise. The law declared that such flight was not real, and anyone who thought so had been “seduced by illusions and phantasms of demons.” It prescribed no direct punishment but mandated priests <a href="https://www.faculty.umb.edu/gary_zabel/Courses/Phil%20281b/Philosophy%20of%20Magic/Arcana/Witchcraft%20and%20Grimoires/canon.html">preach against such “infidels</a>.”</p>
<p>Skeptics of magical flight were quite specific in their doubts. Le Franc, for example, declared that anyone who thought that witches could fly <a href="https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/the-trial-of-womankind/">lacked “common sense</a>.” On the other hand, he fully accepted that magicians, who were generally male, could conjure demons and that “magic arts” had been practiced as far back as ancient Persia.</p>
<p>The story, however, is not so simple as male authorities accepting the reality of magic practiced by men but doubting that women flew on brooms. These same authorities were, in general, taking other aspects of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/ems.2003.0002">witchcraft more seriously</a>.</p>
<h2>Imagining flight</h2>
<p>Did women accused of witchcraft really insist that they flew on brooms? </p>
<p>Scholars have speculated that the ointments often mentioned in accounts of such flight might have functioned as hallucinogens, producing sensations of flying. The most thorough study of these accounts, however, finds that such references <a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/mrw.2016.0008">rarely appear in voluntary testimony</a>. They come instead from authorities recording, and often reshaping, what accused witches said.</p>
<p>In the end, allegations of flight and dismissal of its reality may have sprung entirely from the minds of <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-invention-of-satanic-witchcraft-by-medieval-authorities-was-initially-met-with-skepticism-140809">legal and religious authorities</a> who codified and condemned the idea of witchcraft. </p>
<p>Their skepticism hardly mattered. Courts could execute convicted witches regardless of whether they believed they could fly. </p>
<p>Although witch-hunting ended – at least in Europe and North America – <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Witch-Hunt-in-Early-Modern-Europe/Levack/p/book/9781138808102">in the 18th century</a>, the image of witches flying on brooms endures.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222472/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael D. Bailey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The iconic image of a witch on a broomstick has apocryphal origins. But whether they could actually fly didn’t stop Christian society from persecuting them.
Michael D. Bailey, Professor of History, Iowa State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/223114
2024-02-15T15:55:36Z
2024-02-15T15:55:36Z
Letters and embroidery allowed medieval women to express their ‘forbidden’ emotions
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574373/original/file-20240208-18-bikmly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C873%2C487&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A miniature of the Erythrean Sibyl, writing. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=47177">British Library, Royal 16 G V f. 23.</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Medieval Europe was a place of great emotional incontinence. So much so that historian Johan Huizinga <a href="https://archive.org/details/autumnofmiddleag00joha">claimed</a>: “Modern man has no idea of the unrestrained extravagance of the medieval heart.” </p>
<p>Crying was ubiquitous – especially by religious men and women, as writing and illustrations in <a href="https://www.academia.edu/2040030/Episcopal_Emotions_in_Later_Medieval_Europe">religious texts of the time</a> show. Women were not allowed to engage widely in holy intellectual pursuits such as writing and interpreting religious texts, so they could only channel their religious fervour and closeness to God through their bodies.</p>
<p>But though such displays of extreme emotions were accepted from religious women because it was seen as a sign of their devotion to God, it wasn’t considered acceptable for their lay counterparts. </p>
<p>In the medieval period, prescriptive literature warned women of the dangers of anger – one of seven deadly sins. Women’s anger was seen to confirm their inherent weakness and inability to <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-476-02869-3_18">control their emotions</a>. </p>
<p>But while they were discouraged from expressing their feelings in daily life, letters written by elite women of the medieval period are a rich source of information about their emotions. Most upper-class women were educated and eloquent in their writing, and letters gave them the opportunity to express themselves and wield power, when they had little other means of exerting influence.</p>
<h2>Surviving letters</h2>
<p>Not many of these letters have survived. One that has was sent by Aline le Despenser, Countess of Norfolk, to the chancellor of England in around 1273. Women did not partake in official communication, so this was unusual. The letter is <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137531162_2">a masterclass in persuasion</a>. It uses rhetoric such as “dear friendship”, which was mostly only used between male associates. But the countess had to write carefully and mostly stay close to the expected gender norms of appearing to be a decorous, obedient wife – a tight line to navigate.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574374/original/file-20240208-16-kjbngj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A medieval woman writing a book" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574374/original/file-20240208-16-kjbngj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574374/original/file-20240208-16-kjbngj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=847&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574374/original/file-20240208-16-kjbngj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=847&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574374/original/file-20240208-16-kjbngj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=847&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574374/original/file-20240208-16-kjbngj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1064&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574374/original/file-20240208-16-kjbngj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1064&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574374/original/file-20240208-16-kjbngj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1064&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Detail of a miniature of Christine de Pizan in her study.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2013/06/christine-de-pizan-and-the-book-of-the-queen.html?_ga=2.69727446.759405094.1707395190-154387912.1707395190">Harley MS 4431, f. 4r/British Library</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Renaissance Italy, the feeling of being powerless was palpable in many of the letters that women wrote. <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/a-corresponding-renaissance-9780199342433">A Corresponding Renaissance: Letters Written by Italian Women, 1375–1650</a> (2016), by historian Lisa Kaborycha, includes 55 letters written by women of different social status. Through their writing, the women attempt to gain cultural currency, enter the public sphere and assert power. </p>
<p>A letter written by the aristocrat Lucrezia de’ Medici shows that she felt trapped in the roles she was expected to play. She was the older sister of Lorenzo de’ Medici, one of the most powerful Italian statesmen of the time, best known for his patronage of artists such as Botticelli and Michelangelo. </p>
<p>De’ Medici was married off at the age of 13 for a large dowry and brought to her husband’s house five years later. In one of her letters, she says: “Don’t be born a woman if you want your own way.”</p>
<p>The letters by another Florentine women from the same period, <a href="https://courses.washington.edu/hsteu401/Strozzi%20letters.pdf">Alessandra Strozzi</a> are considered some of the most important insights into political and social life at the time. But equally, they provide an insight into her inner world and emotions throughout her life – from joy and triumph to despair, anxiety, pain and sorrow. </p>
<p>Strozzi wrote long letters because she wanted to, not because she needed to. Following the death of her husband, she chose not to remarry to ensure she remained involved in her children’s lives and worked hard to negotiate beneficial financial and marital collaborations for her sons. She also used shame and guilt to manipulate and coerce her sons, Filippo and Lorenzo, into strategic deals.</p>
<p>In one of her letters she says: “Not seeing any of your children makes me wonder who are they doing all this work for. If they carry on as they are, they will harden their hearts and they’ll keep me in these negotiations for so long that I’ll die.”</p>
<h2>Embroidered messages</h2>
<p>Embroidery was another way that medieval women could express their emotions. These women used their needles as pens, subverting the traditional notion of female docility by incorporating symbols and messages into their designs.</p>
<p>During this period, embroidery was not just undertaken for practical purposes but
was expected from virtuous upper-class women, part of <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137531162_9">expressing their “true” nature</a> as dutiful and obedient wives and daughters. </p>
<p>Most embroidery pattern books were written by men, and in rejecting the patterns (and sentiments) that were proposed by them, these women exerted power and emotional authority, while treading the line between masculine authoritativeness and female passivity. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Three panels of embroidery by Mary Queen of Scots" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574377/original/file-20240208-20-shqr5l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574377/original/file-20240208-20-shqr5l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=208&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574377/original/file-20240208-20-shqr5l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=208&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574377/original/file-20240208-20-shqr5l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=208&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574377/original/file-20240208-20-shqr5l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=262&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574377/original/file-20240208-20-shqr5l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=262&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574377/original/file-20240208-20-shqr5l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=262&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Embroidery by Mary, Queen of Scots.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.rct.uk/collection/28224/embroidered-panel">Royal Collection Trust / © His Majesty King Charles III 2023</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In collaboration with noblewoman Elizabeth Talbot (widely known as Bess of Hardwick), Mary, Queen of Scots designed several embroidery and lace patterns. The designs were a way to express her agency and emotions <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9781137531162">during her captivity</a>. </p>
<p>Her designs were a symbol of her pride and resistance, especially as her letters were under constant surveillance. Her <a href="https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/prison-embroideries-mary-queen-of-scots">use of colour</a> and symbols showed her grief and melancholy. In one panel, a crowned ginger cat is pictured with a grey mouse, representing her fractious relationship with her cousin, Elizabeth I. </p>
<p>While these letters and embroidered messages are a fascinating insight into the emotions of medieval women, most of them are from women of high social standing who had wealth and privilege. Women from lower classes were not educated, and so could not make use of these forms. And the archives have gaps. What was perceived to be of value has been saved for posterity, while that which did not hold cultural currency was not.</p>
<p>As I discuss in my book, <a href="https://canongate.co.uk/books/3665-hysterical-exploding-the-myth-of-gendered-emotions/">Hysterical: Exploding the myth of gendered emotions</a>, while the wider literature from the period tells us that medieval women were silent and passive, quiet and chaste, their letters and embroideries tell a different story. The women who wrote and created these works were bold and strident, angry and astute. And clever enough to find their own tools for claiming power, in a culture determined to silence them.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
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<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223114/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pragya Agarwal received funding from Society of Authors for this research and writing of Hysterical. </span></em></p>
While the wider literature tells us that medieval women were silent and passive, their letters and embroideries tell a different story.
Pragya Agarwal, Visiting Professor of Social Inequities and Injustice, Loughborough University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/221454
2024-01-26T13:35:37Z
2024-01-26T13:35:37Z
Dogs in the middle ages: what medieval writing tells us about our ancestors’ pets
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570196/original/file-20240118-27-br2vl6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=38%2C5%2C681%2C387&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Dogs being taken care of in an image from Livre de la Chasse (Book of the Hunt). </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.themorgan.org/collection/livre-de-la-chasse/32">The Morgan Library and Museum/Faksimile Verlag Luzern</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the middle ages, most dogs had jobs. In his book <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/27050/27050-h/27050-h.htm">De Canibus</a>, the 16th-century English physician and scholar John Caius described a hierarchy of dogs, which he classified first and foremost according to their function in human society. </p>
<p>At its apex were specialised hunting dogs, including greyhounds, known for their “incredible swiftnesse” and bloodhounds, whose powerful sense of smell drove them “through long lanes, crooked reaches, and weary ways” in pursuit of their prey. </p>
<p>But even the “mungrells” that occupied the bottom rungs of the canine social ladder were characterised in terms of their labour or status. For example as street performers, or turnspits in kitchens – running on wheels that turned roasting meat.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A dog with a spiked collar and a greyhound with a long leash" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570854/original/file-20240123-29-53mp9s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570854/original/file-20240123-29-53mp9s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570854/original/file-20240123-29-53mp9s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570854/original/file-20240123-29-53mp9s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570854/original/file-20240123-29-53mp9s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570854/original/file-20240123-29-53mp9s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570854/original/file-20240123-29-53mp9s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A dog with a spiked collar and a greyhound with a long leash from the Helmingham Herbal and Bestiary (c. 1500).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/orbis:9452785">Yale Centre for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The place of dogs in society <a href="https://brill.com/display/title/25199?language=en">changed</a> when hunting became an aristocratic pastime, rather than a necessity. Simultaneously, dogs were welcomed inside noble homes – especially by women. In both cases, dogs were signifiers of <a href="https://brill.com/display/title/25199?language=en">elite social rank</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570198/original/file-20240118-19-na6vez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Manuscript drawing of a nun holding a lapdog." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570198/original/file-20240118-19-na6vez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570198/original/file-20240118-19-na6vez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570198/original/file-20240118-19-na6vez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570198/original/file-20240118-19-na6vez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570198/original/file-20240118-19-na6vez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570198/original/file-20240118-19-na6vez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570198/original/file-20240118-19-na6vez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A nun holding her lapdog, in Stowe MS 17, f. 100r .</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2013/09/dogs-medieval-mans-best-friend.html">British Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Indeed, in his ranking, Caius positions the “delicate, neate, and pretty” indoor dogs below hunting dogs but above the base mongrels, because of their association with the noble classes. As for puppies: “the smaller they be, the more pleasure they provoke”. </p>
<p>Although the church formally disapproved of pets, clerics themselves <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7722/j.ctt1x738m">often owned dogs</a>. Like women, clerics’ dogs were generally lapdogs, ideally suited to their indoor pursuits.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cats-in-the-middle-ages-what-medieval-manuscripts-teach-us-about-our-ancestors-pets-195389">Cats in the middle ages: what medieval manuscripts teach us about our ancestors' pets</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>In praise of dogs</h2>
<p>Not everyone had such affection for dogs. Concerned about potential violence, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26630015">urban authorities in England</a> regulated the keeping of guard dogs, as well as violent popular entertainments, such as boar, bear and bull-baiting.</p>
<p>In the Bible, dogs are often characterised as filthy scavengers. <a href="https://www.bibleref.com/Proverbs/26/Proverbs-26-11.html#:%7E:text=ESV%20Like%20a%20dog%20that,fool%20who%20repeats%20his%20foolishness.">Proverbs 26:11</a> famously describes how they return to their own vomit. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A miniature of Sir Lancelot, in conversation with a lady holding a small dog" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570201/original/file-20240118-21-lzdfhk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570201/original/file-20240118-21-lzdfhk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570201/original/file-20240118-21-lzdfhk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570201/original/file-20240118-21-lzdfhk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570201/original/file-20240118-21-lzdfhk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=640&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570201/original/file-20240118-21-lzdfhk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=640&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570201/original/file-20240118-21-lzdfhk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=640&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A miniature of Sir Lancelot, in conversation with a lady holding a small dog (c. 1315-1325).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2013/02/nothin-but-a-hound-dog.html">British Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On the other hand, the story of St Roch in <a href="https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/goldenlegend/GoldenLegend-Volume5.asp#Rocke">The Golden Legend</a>, a popular 13th century collection of saints’ lives, tells of a dog who carried bread to a starving saint, then healed his wounds by licking them. One of Roch’s saintly attributes, a motif by which viewers can recognise him, is <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/473871">a devoted dog</a>.</p>
<p>The trope of dogs defending their owners or lamenting dead ones can be traced back to the classical period, to texts like Pliny the Elder’s <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0137%3Abook%3D8%3Achapter%3D61">Natural History</a>.</p>
<p>This theme is repeated in the medieval <a href="https://bestiary.ca/intro.htm">bestiary</a> tradition, a moralising compendium of knowledge about animals both real and mythical. One common story tells of the legendary <a href="https://www.abdn.ac.uk/bestiary/ms24/f18v">King Garamantes</a> who, when captured by his enemies, is tracked down and rescued by his faithful dogs. Another tells of a dog who publicly identifies his master’s murderer and attacks him. </p>
<p>The tale of one greyhound, Guinefort, even <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Holy_Greyhound.html?id=XwJTqyskSRQC&redir_esc=y">inspired an unofficial saint’s cult</a>. Writing in the 13th century, Dominican inquisitor and preacher <a href="https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/guinefort.asp.">Stephen of Bourbon</a> described a noble family who, falsely believing the dog to have killed their infant, killed Guinefort in retribution. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Dogs in a battle with kings" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570200/original/file-20240118-29-td76te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570200/original/file-20240118-29-td76te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570200/original/file-20240118-29-td76te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570200/original/file-20240118-29-td76te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570200/original/file-20240118-29-td76te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570200/original/file-20240118-29-td76te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570200/original/file-20240118-29-td76te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Detail of a miniature of King Garamantes, being rescued by his dogs, from the Rochester Bestiary ( c.1230).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2013/02/nothin-but-a-hound-dog.html">British Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Upon discovering the child unharmed (the dog had really saved it from a venomous snake), they honoured the “martyred” canine with a proper burial, which led to its veneration and alleged healing miracles. Although Stephen’s story intended to reveal the sin and folly of superstition, it nonetheless underlines what medieval people perceived as the special qualities that distinguished dogs from other animals. </p>
<p>According to the <a href="https://www.abdn.ac.uk/bestiary/">Aberdeen Bestiary</a> (c. 1200): “No creature is more intelligent than the dog, for dogs have more understanding than other animals; they alone recognise their names and love their masters.”</p>
<p>The association between dogs and loyalty is also expressed in the art of the period, including <a href="https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O64856/tobias-and-sara-on-their-panel-unknown/">in relation to marriage</a>. In tomb monuments, depictions of dogs <a href="https://brill.com/display/book/edcoll/9789004328617/B9789004328617_012.xml?language=zh&print=">indicate</a> fidelity of a wife to the husband who lies beside her.</p>
<p>In the case of clerical tombs, however, they may suggest the faith of the deceased, such as Archbishop William Courtenay (d. 1396), buried in Trinity Chapel, Canterbury Cathedral. Courtenay’s alabaster effigy reposes atop a tomb chest on the south side of the chapel. The archbishop wears the robes and mitre of his office, and two angels support his cushioned head. A long-eared dog wearing a belled collar lies obediently at his feet.</p>
<p>Although it’s tempting to wonder whether the dog depicted on Courtenay’s tomb may represent an actual pet owned by the archbishop, the belled collar was a popular convention of contemporary iconography, especially for lapdogs.</p>
<h2>Pampered pooches</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570197/original/file-20240118-15-r925rs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A nude painting in which a woman looks in a mirror. At her feet is a white, pampered-looking dog." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570197/original/file-20240118-15-r925rs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570197/original/file-20240118-15-r925rs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570197/original/file-20240118-15-r925rs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570197/original/file-20240118-15-r925rs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570197/original/file-20240118-15-r925rs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1194&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570197/original/file-20240118-15-r925rs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1194&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570197/original/file-20240118-15-r925rs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1194&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Allegory of Vanity by Hans Memling (c. 1490).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hans_Memling_Vanité_ca_1490.jpg">Museum of Fine Arts of Strasbourg</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Like their modern counterparts, medieval dog owners with means kitted out their companions with a variety of accessories, including leashes, <a href="https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O73327/the-devonshire-hunting-tapestries-tapestry-unknown/?carousel-image=2006BF7088">coats</a> and cushions made from fine materials. </p>
<p>Such material investment <a href="https://www.academia.edu/27942359/_Coats_Collars_and_Capes_Royal_Fashions_for_Animals_in_the_Early_Modern_Period_in_Medieval_Clothing_and_Textiles_Vol_12_2016_pp_61_94">was central</a> to the aristocratic culture of <em>vivre noblement</em> (the art of living nobly), where the deliberate consumption of luxury commodities publicly demonstrated one’s status.</p>
<p>Popular perceptions of dog owning and accessorising also fed gendered stereotypes. Whereas men were more likely to own active dogs for the protection of their life and property, women preferred lapdogs they could cradle and pamper. Toy dogs, then, could also be <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/347765860_Arnolfini%27s_best_friend_Fellowship_and_familiarity_in_Jan_van_Eyck%27s_Arnolfini_portrait">associated with female idleness and vice</a>, as seen in Hans Memling’s painting <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hans_Memling_Vanit%C3%A9_ca_1490.jpg">Allegory of Vanity</a> (c. 1485).</p>
<p>But even working dogs needed meticulous care and attention if they were to perform at their best. A miniature in a lavish 15th-century copy of Gaston Phébus’s influential book <em>Livre de la Chasse</em> (Book of Hunting) shows kennel attendants examining dogs’ teeth, eyes, and ears – while another bathes the paws of <a href="https://www.themorgan.org/collection/livre-de-la-chasse/32">a very good boy</a>.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
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<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221454/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emily Savage does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The place of dogs in society changed when hunting became an aristocratic pastime, rather than a necessity.
Emily Savage, Associate lecturer in the school of art history, St Andrews Institute of Medieval Studies, University of St Andrews
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/213702
2023-11-02T12:33:22Z
2023-11-02T12:33:22Z
Modern medicine has its scientific roots in the Middle Ages − how the logic of vulture brain remedies and bloodletting lives on today
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556715/original/file-20231030-17-ssa8rd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6022%2C4092&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">This 15th-century medical manuscript shows different colors of urine alongside the ailments they signify.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/curious-medieval-medicine#group-section-Urine-flasks-Ev4T29vMqZ">Cambridge University Library</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Nothing calls to mind nonsensical treatments and bizarre religious healing rituals as easily as the notion of Dark Age medicine. The “Saturday Night Live” sketch <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edIi6hYpUoQ">Medieval Barber Theodoric of York</a> says it all with its portrayal of a quack doctor who insists on extracting pints of his patients’ blood in a dirty little shop. </p>
<p>Though the skit relies on dubious stereotypes, it’s true that many cures from the Middle Ages sound utterly ridiculous – consider <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/2853665">a list</a> written around 800 C.E. of remedies derived from a decapitated vulture. Mixing its brain with oil and inserting that into the nose was thought to cure head pain, and wrapping its heart in wolf skin served as an amulet against demonic possession.</p>
<p>“Dark Age medicine” is a useful narrative when it comes to ingrained beliefs about medical progress. It is a period that stands as the abyss from which more enlightened thinkers freed themselves. But <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkp052">recent research</a> pushes back against the depiction of the early Middle Ages as ignorant and superstitious, arguing that there is a consistency and rationality to healing practices at that time.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/history/faculty/profile.html?id=megleja">historian of the early Middle Ages</a>, roughly 400 to 1000 C.E., I make sense of how the societies that produced vulture medicine envisioned it as one component of a much broader array of legitimate therapies. In order to recognize “progress” in Dark Age medicine, it is essential to see the broader patterns that led a medieval scribe to copy out a set of recipes using vulture organs. </p>
<p>The major innovation of the age was the articulation of a medical philosophy that validated manipulating the physical world because it was a religious duty to rationally guard the body’s health.</p>
<h2>Reason and religion</h2>
<p>The names of classical medical innovators like <a href="https://www.bl.uk/medieval-english-french-manuscripts/articles/medical-knowledge-in-the-early-medieval-period">Hippocrates and Galen</a> were well known in the early Middle Ages, but few of their texts were in circulation prior to the 13th century. Most intellectual activities in northern Europe were <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/9781107323742.023">taking place within monasteries</a>, where the majority of surviving medical writings from that time were written, read, discussed and likely put into practice. Scholars have assumed that religious superstition overwhelmed scientific impulse and the church dictated what constituted legitimate healing – namely, prayer, anointing with holy oil, miracles of the saints and penance for sin. </p>
<p>However, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/tdo.2020.4">human medicine</a>” – a term affirming human agency in discovering remedies from nature – emerged in the Dark Ages. It appears again and again in a text monks at the monastery of Lorsch, Germany, wrote around the year 800 to defend ancient Greek medical learning. It insists that Hippocratic medicine was mandated by God and that doctors act as divine agents in promoting health. I argue in my recent book, “<a href="https://www.pennpress.org/9780812253894/embodying-the-soul/">Embodying the Soul: Medicine and Religion in Carolingian Europe</a>,” that a major innovation of that time was the creative synthesis of Christian orthodoxy with a growing belief in the importance of preventing disease.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556716/original/file-20231030-21-ppngib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Medieval manuscript page with an illustration of a robed physician on the left column of the page and a cross on the right column." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556716/original/file-20231030-21-ppngib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556716/original/file-20231030-21-ppngib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=847&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556716/original/file-20231030-21-ppngib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=847&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556716/original/file-20231030-21-ppngib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=847&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556716/original/file-20231030-21-ppngib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1064&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556716/original/file-20231030-21-ppngib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1064&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556716/original/file-20231030-21-ppngib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1064&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This ninth-century manuscript juxtaposes a physician with Christ’s cross.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://portail.biblissima.fr/en/ark:/43093/ifdatac55003a71476025ab60b3182cddfa4bc3288658f">Bibliothèque nationale de France</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Establishing an intellectual framework for medical study was an accomplishment of early medieval scholars. Doctors faced the risk of being lumped together with those who dealt in sorcery and pagan folklore, a real possibility given that the men who composed the Greek medical canon were pagans themselves. The early medieval scribes responsible for producing the medical books of their age crafted powerful arguments about the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/jhmas/51.4.438">respectability and piety</a> of the doctor. Their arguments manifest in <a href="https://portail.biblissima.fr/en/ark:/43093/ifdatac55003a71476025ab60b3182cddfa4bc3288658f">illustrations that sanctified the human doctor</a> by setting him parallel to Christ.</p>
<p>This sanctification was a crucial step in including medicine as its own <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511599507.014">advanced degree program</a> at the first universities that were established around 1200 in Europe. Thus began the licensing of healers: the elite “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/44443265">phisici</a>” – the root of the English word “physician” – trained at the university, along with empirical practitioners like surgeons, herbalists and <a href="https://doi.org/10.17077/1536-8742.1057">female healers</a> who claimed a unique authority to treat gynecological illnesses.</p>
<p>Today, religious dogmatism is often equated with <a href="https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/responses/insights-on-vaccine-hesitancy-from-religious-people-s-view-of-science">vaccine hesitancy</a> and resistance to basic scientific truths <a href="https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,1090909-1,00.html">like evolution</a>. But deeply religious thinkers of the past often saw rational medicine as an expression of faith, not something endangering it. Herbal remedies were <a href="https://www.earlymedievalmedicine.com/project-updates#h.k44h7eurfg88">scribbled into the margins</a> of early medieval works on theology, history, church sacraments and more. This suggests that book owners valued such knowledge, and people of all classes were actively exchanging recipes and cures by word of mouth before writing the most useful ones down. </p>
<h2>The body in nature</h2>
<p>Though the Dark Ages is a period from which no case histories survive, we can still form a picture of an average healing encounter. Texts from that period emphasize the need for the doctor <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/44443671">to be highly learned</a>, including being well read in philosophy, logic, arithmetic and astronomy. Such knowledge enabled healers to situate their observations of sick bodies within the rules that governed the constant transformations of nature.</p>
<p>There was no way to perceive the internal state of the body via technology – instead, healers had to be excellent <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/44444831">listeners and observers</a>. They sought to match the patient’s description of suffering with signs that manifested externally on the body. The inside of the flesh could not be seen, but the fluids the body excreted – sweat, urine, menstrual blood, mucus, vomit and feces – carried messages about that invisible realm to the outside. The doctor’s diagnosis and prognosis relied on reading these “excreta” in addition to sensing subtle changes in the pulse.</p>
<p>Medieval people were detailed investigators of the natural world and believed the same forces that shaped the landscape and the stars operated inside bodies formed from the same four elements of earth, water, air and fire. Thus, as the <a href="https://digital.library.mcgill.ca/ms-17/folio.php?p=1v&showitem=1v_1MedicineI_3Bloodletting1#note06">moon’s waxing and waning</a> moved the ocean tides, so did it cause humors inside the body to grow and decrease. </p>
<p>The way the seasons withered crops or <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/44445287">provoked tree sap to flow</a> might manifest in the body as yellow bile surging in the summer, and cold, wet phlegm dripping in the winter. Just as fruit and meats left untouched began to rot and putrefy, so did dregs and undigested material inside the body <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120306142353/https:/prospectbooks.co.uk/books/978-1-903018-52-1">turn poisonous if not expelled</a>. Standing water in ponds or lakes generated slime and smell, and so were liquids sitting stagnant in the body’s vessels seen as breeding grounds for corrupt vapors. </p>
<p>In this sense, the <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/255044/pdf">menstrual cycle</a> was representative of all bodies, undergoing internal transformations according to seasonal cycles and periodically purged in order to release pent-up fluids.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3ymSgO26YW8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Bloodletting is currently used as a treatment only for very specific blood disorders.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>According to this logic, health depended above all on maintaining the body’s relationship to the physical environment and ensuring that substances were passing through their proper transformations, whether it was food turning into humors, blood disseminating throughout the body, or excess fluids and wastes leaving the body. Bloodletting was a rational therapy because it could help rebalance the fluids and remove toxins. It was visible and tangible to the patient, and, to the extent that we now better understand the <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-research-studies-and-in-real-life-placebos-have-a-powerful-healing-effect-on-the-body-and-mind-173845">placebo effect</a>, it may well have offered some kind of relief. </p>
<p>Fasting, purging, tonics and, above all, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110336337-009">monthly dietary regimens</a> were also prominent tools healers used to prevent and relieve sickness. Several medical books, for instance, specified that consuming drinks with cinnamon in November and pennyroyal in August could recalibrate the body’s temperature in winter and summer because one drink was warming while the other was cooling.</p>
<p>Some <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/centuries-old-potion-made-bile-garlic-stop-mrsa#">medieval remedies</a> – such as one produced from wine, cow bile, garlic and onion to heal eye infections – were later proven to be likely effective in treating sickness. But whether these remedies worked isn’t the point. For medieval doctors, vulture brains and cow bile operated according to the same logic that continues to inform research today: Nature operates in mysterious ways, but rational deduction can unlock the hidden mechanisms of disease. The M.D. has direct roots in the Dark Age elevation of “human medicine.”</p>
<p>Before mocking medieval doctors, consider how popular <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/01/11/are-detox-juice-cleanses-necessary/">juice cleanses and detox regimens</a> are in the 21st century. Are we really so far from humoral medicine today?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213702/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Meg Leja does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Your doctor’s MD emerged from the Dark Ages, where practicing rational “human medicine” was seen as an expression of faith and maintaining one’s health a religious duty.
Meg Leja, Associate Professor of History, Binghamton University, State University of New York
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/214246
2023-09-25T20:06:55Z
2023-09-25T20:06:55Z
From Luna Park to neo-Nazis – why the Middle Ages still matters to middle Australia
<p>The medieval is part of the mosaic of modern Australia. Our nation’s heritage on this island continent is full of it: in aesthetics, institutions, laws, languages, identities, moralities. Indeed, <a href="https://historiana.eu/historical-content/source-collections/bologna-and-the-rise-of-medieval-universities">the very idea of a university is medieval</a> – a concept developed by the Catholic Church around the year 1100.</p>
<p>We have a crown and common law because of old-time kings called Henry. Sydney suburbs called St Ives, St Clair, St Leonards, St Marys reflect medieval England’s big-name saints.</p>
<p>Melbourne’s <a href="https://lunapark.com.au/plan-your-visit/history-of-luna-park/">Luna Park</a> has a giant gaping mouth you walk through to the amusements. Why? Because a medieval design mediated over centuries showed the gates of Hell this way. </p>
<p>All this is part of why the Australian Catholic University’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/sep/14/australian-catholic-university-condemned-over-totally-indefensible-cuts-to-humanities-programs">recent decision</a> to axe dozens of humanities jobs, with <a href="https://www.acu.edu.au/research-and-enterprise/our-research-institutes/institute-for-religion-and-critical-inquiry/our-research/medieval-and-early-modern-studies">the medieval and early modern studies program</a> entirely disbanded, is so controversial.</p>
<p>People sometimes say the Middle Ages don’t matter in this bright new modern age. They were a time of backwardness, violence, racism, homophobia, witch-burnings and so on. Nothing like modern Australia!</p>
<p>There’s no point in taxpayer dollars being spent studying a bunch of lords and peasants and weird men in dresses. If we want to know about that, why not just watch <a href="https://www.medievalists.net/2021/02/game-thrones-medieval-studies/">Game of Thrones</a>?</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1701533061211681232"}"></div></p>
<h2>Getting medieval</h2>
<p>Medievalists interpret and explain the many meanings imbued in cultural forms and structures we navigate daily. You think the Middle Ages was just a parade of kings and queens – “one damn thing after another” to quote <a href="https://www.whatsonstage.com/news/why-are-we-so-obsessed-with-the-history-play_47163/">Alan Bennett’s The History Boys</a>? You couldn’t be more wrong. </p>
<p>One “medieval” project at ACU today shows how old religious institutions responded to the problems of housing precarity and homelessness. (Anyone complaining about rent or mortgage payments lately?) Another, shows how contemporary conspiracy theories derive from medieval models. A third, how <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/religion/gay-suffering-and-divine-love-reflection-for-world-aids-day/101699960">the solace of medieval spirituality was a key resource</a> for men dying of AIDS in 1980s New South Wales.</p>
<p>You think we have a problem with antisemites now? Let me tell you about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_of_Norwich">Norwich 1144</a>. Islamophobia? You might be interested in the Crusades! Homophobia? What about the medieval legend of <a href="https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/goldenlegend/GL-vol1-nativity.asp">“sodomite Christmas”</a>. (Jesus was born and all the gays died?)</p>
<p>Even those Game of Thrones producers have to get their ideas and aesthetics from somewhere. Usually, it’s from what medievalists have told them life was like back then. They talk to us, we consult for them. Industry partnership.</p>
<p>In fact, and paradoxical as it might seem, medieval history has always moved with the times. The fantastic success of <a href="https://www.historians.org/research-and-publications/perspectives-on-history/january-1997/lessons-in-the-dark-teaching-the-middle-ages-with-film">the medieval on film</a> courses (and the like) reflects this.</p>
<p>Medievalists just don’t ask the same questions today that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Stubbs">the great beardy Bishop Stubbs</a> did when he wrote his Constitutional History of England (the first book I remember mentioned in my first undergrad lecture). We’re concerned with many of the same questions and problems that other boffins study in social sciences, sometimes even hard sciences, law, economics, business and philosophy.</p>
<p>What does it mean to have an emotion, for instance? Neuroscientists can give you one idea. But they can’t help you describe the feeling. <a href="https://emotionsblog.history.qmul.ac.uk/tag/margery-kempe/">A medieval mystic like Margery Kempe can</a>. And the fact that Kempe describes it differently to us is itself important self-knowledge. </p>
<p>It reminds us that the meanings of words change. So many stoushes in Australian public life would be resolved if people could just get a grip on that.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549921/original/file-20230925-19-7tl134.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549921/original/file-20230925-19-7tl134.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549921/original/file-20230925-19-7tl134.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=815&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549921/original/file-20230925-19-7tl134.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=815&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549921/original/file-20230925-19-7tl134.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=815&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549921/original/file-20230925-19-7tl134.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1024&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549921/original/file-20230925-19-7tl134.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1024&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549921/original/file-20230925-19-7tl134.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1024&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Saint William of Norwich (15th century), St Peter and St Paul, Eye, Suffolk.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Protecting the narrative around our heritage</h2>
<p>For those of us of a liberal disposition there’s another compelling reason to keep the medieval close. We surrender it to less liberal people if we don’t. </p>
<p>My colleague at Deakin, Helen Young, <a href="https://adi.deakin.edu.au/news/adi-researchers-named-as-arc-future-fellows">has just won an ARC Future Fellowship</a> to study (among other things) how neo-Nazis and other hate groups use the Middle Ages as a setting for their <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-rings-of-power-is-suffering-a-racist-backlash-for-casting-actors-of-colour-but-tolkiens-work-has-always-attracted-white-supremacists-189963">sick fantasies of white supremacism</a>. </p>
<hr>
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<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-rings-of-power-is-suffering-a-racist-backlash-for-casting-actors-of-colour-but-tolkiens-work-has-always-attracted-white-supremacists-189963">The Rings of Power is suffering a racist backlash for casting actors of colour – but Tolkien's work has always attracted white supremacists</a>
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<p>The Catholic Church, an organisation which cops a lot of criticism in Australia, deserves credit for its efforts to preserve an unsanitised, objectively studied medieval past for everyone – giving us resources to counter those who would use it as propaganda against us. <a href="http://www.vaticanlibrary.va/">The Vatican Library</a>, in the heart of Rome, for instance, isn’t just a setting for <a href="https://danbrown.com/the-davinci-code/">Dan Brown page-turners</a>. It is a great treasure of the modern cultural world.</p>
<p>Notorious nonsense that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/may/09/highereducation.politics">the medieval is “ornamental”</a> to the modern – a silliness once espoused by former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s education minister in Britain – needs to be countered all the time. Such sentiments never lie quietly for long. </p>
<p>Just last year, then-Minister <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/world/europe/war-in-ukraine-highlights-lack-of-knowledge-of-european-history-20220306-p5a24r.html">Stuart Robert said studying Elizabethan theatre</a> – Shakespeare! – is only important to Great Britain (a political formation that did not exist in Elizabeth’s time). </p>
<p>We need to protect our cultural heritage from efforts to erase them. Especially at a time when we’re debating profound questions about our own society – how we recognise First Nations peoples in Australia, what it means to be Australian – we should make sure we retain a good understanding of the ongoing impacts of the European heritages that are common to many of us.</p>
<p>It’s a necessary resource for our civic debates.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214246/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Miles Pattenden has received funding from the UK Government, the Spanish Government, and the European Commission. </span></em></p>
The medieval is part of the mosaic of modern Australia. Our nation’s heritage on this island continent is full of it: in aesthetics, institutions, laws, languages, identities, moralities.
Miles Pattenden, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry, Australian Catholic University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/206580
2023-08-24T20:20:46Z
2023-08-24T20:20:46Z
Friday essay: ‘black bile’, malaria therapy and insulin comas – a brief history of mental illness
<p>Possibly the earliest account of a disturbed mind is recorded in a 3,500-year-old <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedas">Hindu text</a> that describes a man who is “gluttonous, filthy, walks naked, has lost his memory and moves about in an uneasy manner”.</p>
<p>In the Bible’s Old Testament, in the first <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Books-of-Samuel">Book of Samuel</a>, we read that King David simulated madness to gain safety: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>And he changed his behaviour … and feigned himself mad in their hands, and scrabbled on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle fall down upon his beard.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Book-of-Daniel-Old-Testament">Book of Daniel</a>, we find a vivid description of King Nebuchadnezzar’s mental state: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>And he was driven from men, and did eat grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till his hairs were grown like eagles’ feathers, and his nails like birds’ claws.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The ancient Greeks made early attempts to explain madness. In the 5th century BC, <a href="https://fherehab.com/learning/humors-ancient-mental-health">Hippocrates</a> viewed it as seated in the brain and influenced by four bodily fluids: blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile. </p>
<p>The Greek physician Galen, who practised in Rome 600 years later, argued that depression was caused by an excess of black bile (hence the term “melancholia”, from <em>melan</em>, black, and <em>khole</em>, bile). </p>
<p>His contemporary, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Aretaeus-of-Cappadocia">Aretaeus of Cappadocia</a>, colourfully described how, if black bile moves upwards in the body, “it forms melancholy; for it produces flatulence and eructations [or, belches] of a fetid and fishy nature, and it sends rumbling wind downwards, and disturbs the understanding”. </p>
<h2>A troubled mind, possessed</h2>
<p>During the Middle Ages, monasteries preserved the view of madness as an illness, and of those afflicted as sick rather than sinful. At the same time, the more sinister belief that the <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25208453/">principal cause</a> of the troubled mind was possession by spirits or the devil prevailed.</p>
<p>Sufferers were taken to sanctioned healers for <a href="https://theconversation.com/exorcisms-have-been-part-of-christianity-for-centuries-107932">exorcisms</a>, a practice still carried out today in some cultures. People who failed to respond to such treatment might then seek out a celebrated expert. </p>
<p>Consider Hwaetred, a young man living in what is now England in the 7th century, who became tormented by an “evil spirit”. So terrible was his madness that he attacked others with his teeth and killed three men with an axe when they tried to restrain him. Taken to several sacred shrines, he obtained no relief. His despairing parents then heard of Guthlac, a monk who lived a hermit life north of Cambridge. After three days of prayer and fasting, Hwaetred was purportedly cured.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543694/original/file-20230821-29-c0gqfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543694/original/file-20230821-29-c0gqfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543694/original/file-20230821-29-c0gqfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543694/original/file-20230821-29-c0gqfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543694/original/file-20230821-29-c0gqfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543694/original/file-20230821-29-c0gqfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543694/original/file-20230821-29-c0gqfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543694/original/file-20230821-29-c0gqfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">St Francis Borgia Helping a Dying Impenitent – Goya (1788)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Over time, the role of religious authorities in mental illness dwindled, and the medical profession claimed the exclusive practice of the healing arts. Insanity once more came to be seen more as a physical malady than a spiritual taint. Even so, life for the mentally ill could be appalling. </p>
<p>During the 17th century, religiously inspired persecution of the mentally ill was justified by the clerical hierarchy, and treatment was often some combination of neglect and bestial restraint. </p>
<p>Psychiatrists Martin Roth and Jerome Kroll <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Reality_of_Mental_Illness.html?id=pCQ4AAAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y">describe</a> the insane in this period as “miserable individuals, wandering around in village and in forest, taken from shrine to shrine, sometimes tied up when they became too violent”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-invention-of-satanic-witchcraft-by-medieval-authorities-was-initially-met-with-skepticism-140809">The invention of satanic witchcraft by medieval authorities was initially met with skepticism</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A watershed: asylums</h2>
<p>The late 18th century was a watershed in the history of psychiatry. The insanity of England’s <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22122407">King George III</a> revealed society’s ambivalence to the mentally ill (vividly captured in the 1994 film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110428/">The Madness of King George</a>). </p>
<p>In France, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Philippe-Pinel">Philippe Pinel</a> released the chains that had fettered the “lunatic” for centuries, ushering in an unprecedented phase of benevolent institutional care. </p>
<p><a href="https://dictionary.apa.org/moral-therapy">Moral therapy</a>, a form of individualised care in small hospital settings, was promoted by English Quakers at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Retreat">York Retreat</a> and gradually supplanted inhumane physical treatments such as purging, bleeding and dunking in cold water.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BHNSAK8d3qc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">English society’s ambivalence to the mentally ill in the 18th century is depicted in the 1994 film, The Madness of King George.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As populations grew and urbanised, the sheer numbers of mentally ill people in burgeoning city slums demanded action. An institutional solution emerged. </p>
<p>Asylums (from the Greek word meaning “refuge”) were built in rural settings with the best of intentions, planned to be havens in which patients would receive humane care. In the serenity of the countryside, and through carrying out undemanding tasks, they could be distracted from their internal torment and find dignity far from the bustling crowd. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Daniel-Defoe">Daniel Defoe</a>, the English writer, remained unconvinced: “This is the height of barbarity and injustice in a Christian country; it is a clandestine Inquisition, nay worse.”</p>
<p>Although conceived in a spirit of optimism, asylums tended to deteriorate into centres of hopelessness and demoralisation. They soon became overcrowded dumps. Institutions built for a few hundred people were soon holding thousands. Very few residents were discharged; many stayed for decades. Brutal oppression replaced anything that might have resembled treatment; malnutrition and infectious disease became rife.</p>
<p>In the grim environment, people were shut away and forgotten. With them out of sight and out of mind, a loss of public interest and political neglect became the norm.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543690/original/file-20230821-15-v420lw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543690/original/file-20230821-15-v420lw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543690/original/file-20230821-15-v420lw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543690/original/file-20230821-15-v420lw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543690/original/file-20230821-15-v420lw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543690/original/file-20230821-15-v420lw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543690/original/file-20230821-15-v420lw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543690/original/file-20230821-15-v420lw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Asylums were conceived optimistically, but more often housed oppression than treatment. Picture: The Hospital of Bethlehem.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wellcome Collection</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The brooding building on the hill came to symbolise the stigma and fear attached to mental illness. By the mid-19th century, critics were voicing concerns that asylums had become human warehouses that entrenched mental illness rather than curing it. </p>
<p>The combination of powerless patients, hospitals run more for the convenience of staff than for the benefit of the sick, inadequate inspection by state bodies, and lack of resources led at times to quite disgraceful conditions. Unwittingly, the spread of asylums also triggered the movement of psychiatry away from the mainstream of medicine.</p>
<p>The conditions of the asylums are evocatively described in Henry Handel Richardson’s Australian novel <a href="https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/the-fortunes-of-richard-mahony">The Fortunes of Richard Mahony</a>. We read of Richard’s decline, probably from syphilis affecting the brain, which at that time afflicted a large proportion of mental patients.</p>
<p>Towards the end of the novel, his wife comes to visit him in the asylum:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>She hung her head … while the warder told the tale of Richard’s misdeeds. 97B was, he declared, not only disobedient and disorderly, he was extremely abusive, dirty in his habits … he refused to wash himself, or to eat his food … she had to keep a grip on her mind to hinder it from following the picture up: Richard, forced by this burly brute to grope on the floor for his spilt food, to scrape it together, and either eat it or have it thrust down his throat … There was not only feeding by force, the straitjacket, the padded cell. There were drugs and injections, given to keep a patient quiet and ensure his warders their freedom.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-case-for-the-fortunes-of-richard-mahony-by-henry-handel-richardson-24474">The case for The Fortunes of Richard Mahony by Henry Handel Richardson</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Great and desperate cures</h2>
<p>In the asylum, psychiatry turned into a modern medical discipline. The
accumulation of thousands of patients provided the first opportunity
to study mental illness systematically and to develop theories about its
causes. </p>
<p>The idea that these conditions were due to brain alterations, and especially degenerative processes, became dominant, encouraged by the discovery of the cerebral pathology associated with <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/neurosyphilis">neurosyphilis</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-causes-alzheimers-disease-what-we-know-dont-know-and-suspect-75847">Alzheimer’s disease</a>. A similar degenerative process was proposed by the great German psychiatrist <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Emil-Kraepelin">Emil Kraepelin</a> to cause <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/computer-science/dementia-praecox">dementia praecox</a> – later renamed “schizophrenia” – leading to pessimism about the possibility of recovery.</p>
<p>But the priority for asylums was to relieve the suffering of overwhelming numbers of disturbed patients. Psychiatrists grasped for “great and desperate cures”. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_R._Rollin">Henry Rollin</a>, an English psychiatrist and medical historian, captures the intense zeal:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The physical treatment of the frankly psychotic during these centuries makes spine-chilling reading. Evacuation by vomiting, purgatives, sweating, blisters, and bleeding were considered essential […] There was indeed no insult to the human body, no trauma, no indignity which was not at one time or other piously prescribed for the unfortunate victim.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Treatments were sometimes based on rational grounds. Malaria therapy, for instance, was launched as a treatment for neurosyphilis by the Viennese psychiatrist <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Julius-Wagner-Jauregg">Julius Wagner-Jauregg</a> in 1917, earning him a Nobel Prize ten years later. </p>
<p>The high fever caused by the malarial parasite disabled the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/spirochete">spirochete</a> that caused neurosyphilis, but the hope that it would be equally effective for other forms of psychosis was soon dashed. The wished-for panacea was not to be.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543703/original/file-20230821-10846-x44evz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543703/original/file-20230821-10846-x44evz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543703/original/file-20230821-10846-x44evz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543703/original/file-20230821-10846-x44evz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543703/original/file-20230821-10846-x44evz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543703/original/file-20230821-10846-x44evz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543703/original/file-20230821-10846-x44evz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543703/original/file-20230821-10846-x44evz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Malaria therapy, a treatment for neurosyphilis, earned its inventor a Nobel Prize.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jimmy Chan/Pexels</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/insulin-shock-therapy">Insulin-coma therapy</a> was introduced by Manfred Sakel in the 1930s in Vienna and was soon being used in many countries to treat schizophrenia. An insulin injection was administered six days a week for several weeks, producing a state of light coma lasting about an hour, because of reduced glucose reaching the brain. </p>
<p>Many years later, an investigation carried out in the Institute of Psychiatry in London, a leading research centre at the time, showed conclusively that the coma itself was of no therapeutic value. Any positive change was probably due to the staff’s painstaking care.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/girl-interrupted-interrogates-how-women-are-mad-when-they-refuse-to-conform-30-years-on-this-memoir-is-still-important-199211">Girl, Interrupted interrogates how women are 'mad' when they refuse to conform – 30 years on, this memoir is still important</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>ECT and lithium</h2>
<p>The first widely available and effective biological treatments for mental illness were developed in the asylum. The discovery in 1938 of <a href="https://theconversation.com/electroconvulsive-therapy-a-history-of-controversy-but-also-of-help-70938">electroconvulsive therapy</a> (ECT) by <a href="https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/ugo-cerletti">Ugo Cerletti</a> and Lucio Bini, two Italian psychiatrists, led to a dramatically effective treatment for people with severe depression. </p>
<p>ECT was eagerly adopted in practice, but its history illustrates a typical pattern of treatment in psychiatry: unbridled early enthusiasm is later tempered by a protracted process of scientific evaluation. </p>
<p>The same can be said of the use of brain surgery to modify psychiatric symptoms. This was pioneered in 1936 by Portuguese neurologist <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Antonio-Egas-Moniz">António Egas Moniz</a> (another Nobel Prize winner in the field of psychiatry) and surgeon Almeida Lima, and remains controversial in psychiatry to this day.</p>
<p>A momentous breakthrough was the discovery in 1949 by <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02480-0">John Cade</a>, an Australian psychiatrist, of lithium as a treatment for manic excitement. The lithium story reveals how the incorporation of a new medication into psychiatric practice is not always smooth. </p>
<p>Several US and Danish psychiatrists had experimented with lithium in the 1870s and 1890s, only to have their work ignored until Cade’s rediscovery. It was another 18 years before lithium was shown to prevent the recurrence of severe changes of mood, its primary clinical use now.</p>
<p>Major tranquillisers were added to the growing range of psychiatric medications after being discovered fortuitously in 1953. An antihistamine used to calm patients undergoing surgery was shown to reduce the torment of psychotic patients, but without making them sleepy. </p>
<p>Shortly after this, the US psychiatrist <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1983/02/14/obituaries/nathan-kline-developer-of-antidepressants-dies.html">Nathan Kline</a> discovered that a drug being tested for its effect in patients with tuberculosis had antidepressant properties — the forerunner of medications for depression. All these drugs radically transformed the practice of psychiatry. </p>
<h2>Freud, ‘talking cures’ and shell shock</h2>
<p>A very different aspect of mental health care arose in the 1890s, outside
the asylum. Concerned with neurotic conditions, the new treatment grew chiefly out of neurology but was also influenced by a scientific interest in hypnosis and the unconscious. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543695/original/file-20230821-25-qtirft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543695/original/file-20230821-25-qtirft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543695/original/file-20230821-25-qtirft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=816&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543695/original/file-20230821-25-qtirft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=816&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543695/original/file-20230821-25-qtirft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=816&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543695/original/file-20230821-25-qtirft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1025&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543695/original/file-20230821-25-qtirft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1025&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543695/original/file-20230821-25-qtirft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1025&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sigmund Freud.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Max Halberstadt/Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Sigmund Freud conceived a dynamic model of the mind in which, through the mechanism of repression, painful or threatening emotions, memories and impulses are prevented from escaping into conscious awareness. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/a-dangerous-method-in-defence-of-freuds-psychoanalysis-5989">Psychoanalysis</a> grew to become an integrated set of concepts about normal and abnormal mental functioning and personality development, and spawned a new method of psychologically based treatment. Psychoanalysis emerged as a major theoretical underpinning of contemporary “talking cures” (psychotherapies), and its influence spread far beyond treating mental ill-health.</p>
<p>Both world wars profoundly influenced the field. The high incidence of “<a href="https://theconversation.com/shell-shock-treatments-reveal-the-conflict-in-psychiatrys-heart-29822">shell shock</a>” in World War I drove home the lesson that mental illness could affect not only those genetically predisposed, but even the supposedly robust. It soon emerged that anyone exposed to traumatic experiences was vulnerable. </p>
<p>A positive outcome from World War II was the development of techniques for screening large numbers of recruits, which revealed the substantial prevalence of emotional problems among young adults. </p>
<p>The need to treat numerous psychiatric casualties led to the development of group therapies. These paved the way for the so-called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therapeutic_community">therapeutic community</a>, based on the idea that an entire ward of patients could be an integral part of treatment.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ehPcYibzUKc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Group therapy, as depicted in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The idea of deinstitutionalisation began to gather pace in the 1960s, driven by a burgeoning civil-rights movement. <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/asylums-9780241548004">Asylums</a>, an influential book at the time by sociologist Erving Goffman, containing his minute observations of the sense of oppression experienced by patients in these “total institutions”, was one catalyst for their closure. </p>
<p>Hundreds of thousands of long-stay patients began to be transferred to alternative accommodation and specialist care in the community, a process that is still in progress.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-body-keeps-the-score-how-a-bestselling-book-helps-us-understand-trauma-but-inflates-the-definition-of-it-184735">The Body Keeps the Score: how a bestselling book helps us understand trauma – but inflates the definition of it</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What is mental illness?</h2>
<p>It is challenging to define what makes a pattern of behaviour and experience a mental disorder. Generally, such a pattern – or “syndrome” – is considered to be a disorder if it is associated with psychological distress, such as intense and prolonged anxiety or sadness, or significant dysfunction, such as a serious impairment in functioning in one or more key areas of daily life. </p>
<p>If the pattern is short-lived, relatively mild, or entirely understandable in light of the trials and tribulations of the person’s life, it should be seen as a problem in living rather than a mental disorder. Such problems may still benefit from consultation with a mental health professional despite not being diagnosable disorders.</p>
<p>This definition of what counts as a mental disorder also clarifies what is not a mental disorder. Merely being unusual or violating social norms does not mean a person has a disorder. </p>
<p>It is difficult sometimes to decide whether a new kind of behaviour is a mental disorder. For instance, should <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-youre-probably-not-addicted-to-your-smartphone-but-you-might-use-it-too-much-89853">excessive smartphone use</a> or <a href="https://theconversation.com/gambling-on-pokies-is-like-tobacco-no-amount-of-it-is-safe-51037">compulsive gambling</a> be counted as diagnosable addictions?</p>
<h2>Troubling cases</h2>
<p>These decisions about what to include under the umbrella of mental illness are fraught, and there have been some troubling historical cases when disturbing decisions were made or proposed. </p>
<p>In the 1850s, for example, Samuel Cartwright, a physician from Alabama, proposed a new diagnosis called “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2000/01/15/arts/bigotry-as-mental-illness-or-just-another-norm.html">drapetomania</a>” to explain why African-American slaves would wish to escape their servitude. </p>
<p>He recommended slaves should be treated kindly and humanely to prevent the disorder, but whipped if this treatment failed. A more patent abuse of the concept of mental illness would be hard to imagine, and it should be noted that other physicians ridiculed Cartwright’s proposal at the time.</p>
<p>Two other controversial cases date to the last century. In the early 1970s, one of us (Sidney) stumbled across disturbing media reports that many political and religious dissenters and human-rights activists in the Soviet Union were being labelled as mentally ill and detained in mental hospitals indefinitely or until they renounced their “disturbed ideas”. </p>
<p>For instance, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petro_Grigorenko">General Pyotr Grigorenko</a> criticised the privileges of the Soviet elite and publicly espoused the rights of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Tatars">Crimean Tatar</a> ethnic minority group. He was diagnosed with paranoid tendencies, one symptom being his “reformist ideas”, and forcibly committed to a psychiatric facility. </p>
<p>In effect, Soviet psychiatry’s definition of mental illness, and psychosis in particular, was so broad that political beliefs about the desirability of social change were recast as delusions.</p>
<p>The second case comes from the US. <a href="https://daily.jstor.org/how-lgbtq-activists-got-homosexuality-out-of-the-dsm/">Until 1973</a>, homosexuality was defined as a sexual deviation and included in the set of recognised mental disorders. Under pressure from civil, women’s and gay rights activists, it was removed from the diagnostic manual.</p>
<p>Noting such cases, whenever the boundary of a mental illness is expanded to include new diagnoses or loosen old ones, some critics will worry we are treating normal behaviour as a pathology and that we will harm people by labelling them. And whenever the boundary contracts, others will worry that people with psychological troubles are being excluded from clinical care. </p>
<p>Deciding what is and isn’t a mental illness is difficult, but has marked consequences.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This is an edited extract from <a href="https://scribepublications.com.au/books-authors/books/troubled-mindSees-9781922585875">Troubled Minds: Understanding and treating mental illness</a> by Sidney Bloch and Nick Haslam (Scribe Publications), published 29 August 2023.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206580/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nick Haslam receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sidney Bloch does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Humans have attempted to understand and treat mental illness for centuries – from ancient Greek medicine, Middle Ages exorcisms and the rise of asylums, to modern medical breakthroughs.
Sidney Bloch, Emeritus Professor in Psychiatry, The University of Melbourne
Nick Haslam, Professor of Psychology, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/206255
2023-06-13T15:20:19Z
2023-06-13T15:20:19Z
Why medieval manuscripts are full of doodles of snail fights
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527819/original/file-20230523-12079-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=326%2C106%2C2504%2C1362&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Battle in the margins from the Gorleston Psalter (1310-1324).</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_49622">British Library </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The doodles found in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-so-many-medieval-manuscripts-feature-doodles-and-what-they-reveal-190114">margins of very old manuscripts</a> are often just as interesting as the content of the manuscripts themselves. One such example is the frequently recurring – and extremely odd – image of knights warring against snails. </p>
<p>From the late 13th century through to the 15th century, images of knights fighting snails pop up in all sorts of unlikely places within the medieval literary world. And they reveal fascinating insights into what medieval people thought about the world around them.</p>
<p><a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2013/09/knight-v-snail.html">Images of knights fighting snails</a> first started to emerge in North French illuminated manuscripts (which are decorated with richly coloured illustrations) towards the end of the 13th century (around 1290). A few years on – although slightly less consistently – these same images started appearing in Flemish and English manuscripts.</p>
<p>Interestingly, in most cases these snail doodles appear to be unrelated to the adjoining illustrations of textual passages.</p>
<p>Often, the doodles depicted an armed knight confronting a snail whose horns were extended and pointing like arrows. In the manuscripts of the French folktale, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Roman-de-Renart">Le Roman de Renart</a>, the weapons that the knights were depicted with varied between sticks, maces, flails, axes, swords and even forks. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A knight on horseback jousting with a snail." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527821/original/file-20230523-4359-o9bdq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527821/original/file-20230523-4359-o9bdq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527821/original/file-20230523-4359-o9bdq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527821/original/file-20230523-4359-o9bdq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527821/original/file-20230523-4359-o9bdq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527821/original/file-20230523-4359-o9bdq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527821/original/file-20230523-4359-o9bdq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Extreme jousting from Brunetto Latini’s Li Livres dou Tresor, (c. 1315-1325).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/record.asp?MSID=8128&CollID=58&NStart=19">Courtesy of the British Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Snail assailants are almost always male knights. However, there is <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2852357">one known instance of a woman opposing a snail</a> wielding a spear and shield. </p>
<p>As these snail combat doodles increased in popularity within manuscripts, they became an accepted element of medieval imagery. From here, they spread to other areas of medieval life.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A page from a manuscript showing a snail facing a monk in the footer. The monk is disarmed and on his knees." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527827/original/file-20230523-28-6opxah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527827/original/file-20230523-28-6opxah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527827/original/file-20230523-28-6opxah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527827/original/file-20230523-28-6opxah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527827/original/file-20230523-28-6opxah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527827/original/file-20230523-28-6opxah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527827/original/file-20230523-28-6opxah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A disarmed monk faces a snail opponent, from The Book of Hours (c. 1320-1330).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/record.asp?MSID=8836&CollID=8&NStart=6563">Courtesy of the British Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Decorative panels <a href="https://www.mbs-brasses.co.uk/public/files/2006-transactions-volume-xvii-part-4-194995852.pdf">carved around 1310</a> on the main entrance of <a href="https://www.historyhit.com/locations/lyon-cathedral/">Lyon Cathedral</a> in France, for example, showcase a knight confronting a snail and another man threatening a dog-headed giant snail with an axe.</p>
<p>Despite travelling across the continent, the knights versus snails motif varied little from country to country, which suggests that it may have had a deeper meaning.</p>
<h2>Medieval satire</h2>
<p>Nobody knows exactly why battles between snails and knights were so popular throughout the middle ages. One theory is that these doodles <a href="https://www.gotmedieval.com/2009/07/whats-so-funny-about-knights-and-snails.html">added humour</a> to texts which were otherwise quite dry and serious. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A knight praying for mercy from a large hovering snail." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527823/original/file-20230523-19-muwv1h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527823/original/file-20230523-19-muwv1h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527823/original/file-20230523-19-muwv1h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527823/original/file-20230523-19-muwv1h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527823/original/file-20230523-19-muwv1h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527823/original/file-20230523-19-muwv1h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527823/original/file-20230523-19-muwv1h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The gastropod conqueror from the Gorleston Psalter, 1310-1324.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_49622&index=0">Courtesy of the British Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A reader could rest their eyes by taking a moment to laugh at the scene of snail combat before continuing with their reading.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527829/original/file-20230523-18640-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A rabbit and a snail sit on top of a pair of monkey's shoulders, jousting." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527829/original/file-20230523-18640-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527829/original/file-20230523-18640-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527829/original/file-20230523-18640-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527829/original/file-20230523-18640-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527829/original/file-20230523-18640-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527829/original/file-20230523-18640-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527829/original/file-20230523-18640-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A rabbit, monkeys and snail jousting, from the Harley Froissart (c. 1470-1472).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Harley_MS_4379">Courtesy of the British Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many of the doodles show a knight dropping their sword or kneeling submissively before their diminutive shelled foe, which accentuates its satirical implications. There are also several representations of women pleading with knights not to attack the formidable beasts. </p>
<p>Other similarly lighthearted imagery includes a cat stalking a snail with the head of a mouse, as well as dogs, monkeys, dragons and even rabbits in fierce opposition with the molluscs.</p>
<h2>The meaning of the snail motif</h2>
<p>Snails were recognised in medieval times for their unusual strength, given that they were able to carry their home on their back. Confrontation with a snail, therefore, could represent a test of personal strength as well as mental fortitude. </p>
<p>Once <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2852357">a symbol of deceptive courage</a>, the snail became a creature to be hunted down and destroyed in a display of strength and bravery.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A knight approaches a large red snail, wielding a club." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527825/original/file-20230523-19-miwckg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527825/original/file-20230523-19-miwckg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=274&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527825/original/file-20230523-19-miwckg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=274&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527825/original/file-20230523-19-miwckg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=274&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527825/original/file-20230523-19-miwckg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527825/original/file-20230523-19-miwckg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527825/original/file-20230523-19-miwckg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A knight versus snail fight from the Smithfield Decretals ( c.1300-1340).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Royal_MS_10_e_iv&index=0">Courtesy of the British Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Like many other subjects popularised in marginal illuminations of the 1300s, the snail and knight duo gradually disappeared as time wore on. They experienced a brief revival, however, in medieval manuscripts towards the end of the 15th century. </p>
<p>And they haven’t completely disappeared from the common imagination. Today the pairing can still be enjoyed in the nursery rhyme, <a href="https://www.mamalisa.com/?t=es&p=1509">Four-and-Twenty Tailors Went To Kill a Snail</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Four-and-twenty tailors went to kill a snail,</p>
<p>The best man amongst them durst not touch her tail;</p>
<p>She put out her horns like a little Kyloe cow;</p>
<p>Run, tailors, run, or she’ll kill you all e’en now.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206255/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Madeleine S. Killacky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Snails were recognised in medieval times for their unusual strength, given that they were able to carry their home on their back.
Madeleine S. Killacky, PhD Candidate, Medieval Literature, Bangor University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/205695
2023-05-22T17:13:36Z
2023-05-22T17:13:36Z
Curious Kids: who was the first person to speak English?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527535/original/file-20230522-25-475xbe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C270%2C2696%2C1932&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Anglo-Saxon village re-enactment event in Wirksworth, Derbyshire, 2008.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/wirksworth-derbyshire-uk-07262008-anglo-saxon-1127082854">Simon Annable/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><strong>Who was the first person to speak English? – Grace, aged eight, Belfast, Northern Ireland</strong></p>
<p>The first speaker of English did not sound like you or me. That’s because language changes all the time. You have probably noticed that the language of your grandparents differs from yours. You can imagine then how very different English was when it was first spoken in Britain many centuries ago. </p>
<p>The earliest speakers of English spoke Old English. I am using the word “speakers” because there must have been more than one speaker: after all, we use language to talk to others. </p>
<p>Old English developed in a turbulent period of British history. This was just after the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zqtf34j/articles/z2dr4wx">Romans had left Britain</a>, around 1,600 years ago. The Romans had colonised Britain but they abandoned the country in the fifth century because the Roman empire was collapsing all around them. </p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/282267/original/file-20190702-126345-1np1y7m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/282267/original/file-20190702-126345-1np1y7m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282267/original/file-20190702-126345-1np1y7m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282267/original/file-20190702-126345-1np1y7m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282267/original/file-20190702-126345-1np1y7m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282267/original/file-20190702-126345-1np1y7m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282267/original/file-20190702-126345-1np1y7m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/curious-kids-36782">Curious Kids</a> is a series by <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk">The Conversation</a> that gives children the chance to have their questions about the world answered by experts. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to <a href="mailto:curiouskids@theconversation.com">curiouskids@theconversation.com</a> and make sure you include the asker’s first name, age and town or city. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we’ll do our very best.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>The Romans who ruled Britain spoke their language, Latin. But most of the people who lived in Britain when the Romans were there – and before that too – spoke <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/history/sites/themes/society/language_romans.shtml">a Celtic language</a>. This Celtic language was rather like Welsh, but again much older than the present-day Welsh language. </p>
<p>After the Romans left Britain, Germanic tribes who were on the move throughout Europe in the fifth and sixth centuries invaded. These tribes were the <a href="https://www.bl.uk/anglo-saxons/articles/who-were-the-anglo-saxons">Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes</a>. The language they spoke is known as <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/413007">North Sea Germanic</a>. </p>
<h2>The first English speakers</h2>
<p>Once they settled in Britain it became <a href="https://www.bl.uk/medieval-literature/articles/old-english">Old English</a>, which is also sometimes called “Anglo-Saxon”. From the Angles comes the word “English” and from the Angles and Saxons together comes the word “Anglo-Saxon”. I teach Old English to students of English at university. </p>
<p>So Old English or Anglo-Saxon is the oldest form of the English language that was spoken and written in England in the early Middle Ages, the period from roughly 450 to 1050. Very few Celtic words were taken over into Old English. The word “brock” (meaning “badger”) is one of the rare exceptions. </p>
<p>Do we know the names of the first speakers of Old English? Two names are mentioned in ancient legends that tell the story of how the Angles and the Saxons arrived in Britain. </p>
<p>According to these legends, the British (when they were still Celtic speakers) asked two Germanic leaders, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zxsbcdm/articles/z23br82">Hengest and Horsa</a>, to come to Britain to help protect the country after the Romans had left. </p>
<p>Hengest and Horsa arrived in Britain with lots of other people from their tribe and conquered the land. We have no way of knowing if these legends are true, but if they are we have here the names of the two chieftains who brought their language to Britain. </p>
<h2>An Old English poet</h2>
<p>There is one other name that deserves to be mentioned, and <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-story-of-caedmons-hymn">that is Caedmon</a>. He is the first poet in English whose name is known. The story of his life is told by the <a href="https://www.bl.uk/people/bede">monk and historian Bede</a>, who lived in the north of England from around 673 to 735.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527532/original/file-20230522-21-q2jmje.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Manuscript in Latin and Old English" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527532/original/file-20230522-21-q2jmje.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527532/original/file-20230522-21-q2jmje.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=222&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527532/original/file-20230522-21-q2jmje.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=222&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527532/original/file-20230522-21-q2jmje.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=222&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527532/original/file-20230522-21-q2jmje.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=279&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527532/original/file-20230522-21-q2jmje.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=279&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527532/original/file-20230522-21-q2jmje.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=279&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A section of folio 129r of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Hatton 43: a page from Book IV, chapter 24 of Bede’s Latin Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, with an Old English text of Cædmon’s Hymn added in the lower margin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/7850a308-0dd6-4d9a-b5b5-cbd6085b18dd/">© Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Bede not only tells the story of Hengest and Horsa, but he also tells us <a href="https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/whitby-abbey/history-and-stories/caedmon-poetry/">about Caedmon</a>, who was a cowherd. Bede wrote that Caedmon could not read or write and received the ability to compose beautiful poetry as a gift from God. The first poem that Caedmon was inspired to create is a poem in praise of God. The first two lines of this poem will give you a taste of Old English:</p>
<pre class="highlight plaintext"><code> Nu sculon herian heofonrices Weard,
Metodes mihte and his modgeþanc
</code></pre>
<p>In modern English, this means: “Now we must praise the guardian of the heavenly kingdom, the Ruler’s might and his plan”. </p>
<p>You might think this is not really English at all. But we still use some of the words used in Old English – “and” and “his” are both in these two lines of poetry. Other words have survived too, though we often spell and pronounce them differently. See if you can spot the Old English words for “might” and “now” in these lines from Caedmon’s poem.</p>
<p>Caedmon looked after the cattle in a monastery in Whitby in Yorkshire. One of my university students studying Old English comes from Whitby and she told me that her school is named after our first named English poet: Caedmon College. His legend lives on.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205695/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ad Putter does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Hundreds of years ago, people spoke Old English – but it is very different to English today.
Ad Putter, Professor of Medieval English Literature, University of Bristol
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/203751
2023-04-28T14:46:54Z
2023-04-28T14:46:54Z
Beauty ideals were as tough in the middle ages as they are now
<p>After turning up at this year’s Grammys, Madonna was subjected to a <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/madonna-now-grammys-facelift-recent-b2279848.html">vitriolic online attack</a> over her appearance, particularly what was deemed her excessive use of plastic surgery. The irrepressible 64-year-old instantly hit back, saying:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Once again I am caught in the glare of ageism and misogyny that permeates the world we live in. I look forward to many more years of subversive behaviour pushing boundaries.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It’s a familiar story. Standards of beauty have been embedded in different cultures, in varying forms, from time immemorial. The standards that women and, increasingly, all people are expected to meet to embody a certain level of beauty, are often based on binary notions of idealised forms of femininity or masculinity, or both. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1627713003238965248"}"></div></p>
<p>Women’s bodies have been pathologised throughout history, from Plato’s notion of the “<a href="https://www.rcn.org.uk/library-exhibitions/Womens-health-wandering-womb">wandering womb</a>” which was used to account for every female physical and emotional ailment. In medieval <a href="https://juliamartins.co.uk/what-is-the-humoral-theory">humoral theory</a>, women were considered <a href="https://www.medievalists.net/2011/08/the-female-body-in-medieval-europe-theories-of-physicality-versus-practical-gynecology/">cold and wet in constitution</a>, and more prone to certain afflictions.</p>
<p>The association of beauty with health, and ugliness with disease, has been taken up in more recent feminist debate over the modern cultural obsession with women’s appearance as an <a href="https://www.waterstones.com/book/beauty-sick/renee-engeln/9780062469786">epidemic</a>. It’s no wonder that instances of anxiety, depression, eating disorders and dysmorphia can all be connected to modern – and indeed, pre-modern – people’s experience of beauty standards.</p>
<p>In her 1991 book <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/oct/18/classics.shopping">The Beauty Myth</a>, Naomi Wolf argued that the standards of western female beauty were used as a weapon to stagnate the progress of women. But in medieval culture, such pressures were doubly weighted, since beauty was closely aligned with morality: beauty was associated with goodness and ugliness with evil.</p>
<p>Such cultural associations are addressed by Eleanor Janega in her book <a href="https://www.waterstones.com/events/the-once-and-future-sex-eleanor-janega-in-conversation-with-cat-jarman/london-gower-street">The Once and Future Sex: Going Medieval on Women’s Roles in Society</a>. In her lively exploration of medieval women’s social roles, Janega shows how beauty “was a key to power”, crucially connected to wealth, privilege, youth and maidenhood – to create “a ‘perfect’ sort of femininity”. </p>
<p>Janega explores medieval gender norms to consider the ways that women’s roles have – and haven’t – changed. Focusing on female beauty standards and contradictions, sex and female sexuality, and women’s roles as workers, wives and mothers, Janega reflects on what this study of women in the middle ages means now:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Turns out that the way we think about and treat women is socially malleable, and while some of our constructs have changed, we continue to treat women as inferior to men. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Weaponising beauty</h2>
<p>I’ve recently been examining a type of weaponised beauty that some religious women in the middle ages appeared to practise to emphasise the more superior beauty of their inner selves. In BBC Radio Wales’s <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001l1rl">The Idea</a>, I explored how some medieval saints subverted standards of “traditional” female beauty to avoid living lives that would hinder their chastity and spiritual goals: in other words, taint the beauty of their souls.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520863/original/file-20230413-14-ozhcz7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An ancient pen and ink drawing of a female saint mutilating herself in front of vikings." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520863/original/file-20230413-14-ozhcz7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520863/original/file-20230413-14-ozhcz7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=798&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520863/original/file-20230413-14-ozhcz7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=798&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520863/original/file-20230413-14-ozhcz7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=798&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520863/original/file-20230413-14-ozhcz7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1003&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520863/original/file-20230413-14-ozhcz7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1003&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520863/original/file-20230413-14-ozhcz7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1003&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">St Æbbe and her nuns mutilate their faces in front of the Vikings.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ecclesiae_Anglicanae_Trophae_-_Plate_18.jpg">Giovanni Battista de'Cavalieri / Venerable English College, Rome / WIkipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some of their tactics were extreme. In a female monastery in the Scottish borders, the abbess was a woman known as Æbbe the Younger, daughter of Æthelred, King of Northumbria. As marauding Vikings attacked the monastery, and terrified of being defiled, Æbbe attempted to repel them by disfiguring her face:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The abbess, with an heroic spirit… took a razor, and with it cut off her nose, together with her upper lip unto the teeth, presenting herself a horrible spectacle to those who stood by. Filled with admiration at this admirable deed, the whole assembly followed her maternal example. </p>
</blockquote>
<p><em><strong>From Roger of Wendover’s Flowers of History, Comprising the History of England</strong></em></p>
<p>Though the nuns’ mutilated faces did cause the Vikings to flee, they later returned to set fire to the monastery, burning the women alive. But in their martyrdom, the nuns’ souls remained beautiful and untainted, which was what they had desired.</p>
<p>In 15th-century legend, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilgefortis">Wilgefortis</a>, a young Christian Portuguese princess determined to live in perpetual virginity, was commanded by her parents to marry a pagan Sicilian king. At her refusal, her father had her imprisoned and tortured. Wilgefortis starved herself in penance and prayed to God that she should be disfigured.</p>
<p>Her prayers were answered and she miraculously grew a moustache and a beard. Horrified at the loss of her beauty the suitor rejected her, and her furious father ordered that she be crucified. As she died on the cross, Wilgefortis beseeched other women to pray through her to be delivered from vanity and erotic desire. </p>
<p>Wilgefortis’s metamorphosis from female-coded standards of medieval beauty to a type of <a href="https://www.health.com/mind-body/transmasculine">transmasculinity</a> offered by her beard and moustache, is, like Æbbe’s self-mutilation, an act of physiological resistance. Wilgefortis prays for deformity and God bestows her with the facial hair that repulses her suitor and secures the beauty of her soul.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520861/original/file-20230413-16-4lx37a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman with a beard wearing a dress being crucified on a cross." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520861/original/file-20230413-16-4lx37a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520861/original/file-20230413-16-4lx37a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520861/original/file-20230413-16-4lx37a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520861/original/file-20230413-16-4lx37a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520861/original/file-20230413-16-4lx37a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520861/original/file-20230413-16-4lx37a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520861/original/file-20230413-16-4lx37a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The bearded Wilgefortis was crucified by her own father for wishing away her beauty so she didn’t have to marry a pagan king.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/Hl_kuemmernis_museum_neunkirchen.jpg">Städtisches Museum Neunkirchen / Wikipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Eternal beauty?</h2>
<p>Today’s cosmetic surgeons, in supplying women like Madonna with surgical answers to their supposed aesthetic problems, might also serve as God-like figures in the continuing quest to adhere more closely to the standards of beauty that medieval saints like Æbbe and Wilgefortis harnessed in order to subvert.</p>
<p>In fact, the “gods” of cosmetic surgery, like the God of medieval Christianity, somehow enable their worshippers to match their outward appearance with their inner feelings – the states of their souls – allowing them to make peace with the variants of beauty that they desire.</p>
<p>As in the medieval past, women today negotiate the parameters of beauty in which they have been historically confined, embracing change and letting their souls spill out as they decide what beauty means for them and their bodies.</p>
<p>The pursuit of youth and beauty – and beauty within – is rarely without pain, but as we know, that makes for a powerful weapon.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203751/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laura Kalas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Standards of beauty have been embedded in different cultures, in varying forms, from time immemorial. What endures is that women are still regarded as inferior to men.
Laura Kalas, Senior Lecturer in Medieval English Literature, Swansea University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/199866
2023-02-15T19:07:13Z
2023-02-15T19:07:13Z
Buildings tumbling, survivors living in tents: medieval descriptions of an 1114 CE earthquake in present-day Turkey and Syria feel eerily familiar
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510247/original/file-20230215-26-e5eqky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=190%2C67%2C1122%2C929&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A depiction of an earthquake in a 14th-century Apocalypse.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">British Library</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The catastrophic earthquakes of February 6 2023 in Turkey and Syria are so far known to have claimed the lives of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/02/14/turkey-syria-earthquake-updates-deaths/">over 41,000 people</a>. This number will likely grow as rescue and recovery efforts continue.</p>
<p>The region has known earthquakes before. In the past century alone, Turkey has seen nearly 20 earthquakes of a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/02/10/turkey-syria-earthquake-history/">magnitude 7.0 or above</a>.</p>
<p>Seismic activity is so frequent in this area because it sits on three continually grating tectonic plates. This means the region has <a href="https://theconversation.com/earthquake-footage-shows-turkeys-buildings-collapsing-like-pancakes-an-expert-explains-why-199389">a history of earthquakes</a> that stretches far beyond the previous century.</p>
<p>While we might expect that the voices of those who survived these earlier earthquakes have been lost to history, this isn’t strictly true. Some have survived.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-have-so-many-earthquakes-hit-turkey-and-syria-199630">Why have so many earthquakes hit Turkey and Syria?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The earthquake of 1114 CE</h2>
<p>One of the cities that has been hit hardest by the 2023 quake is <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/earthquake-levels-city-antakya-southern-turkey/story?id=97034631">Antakya in southern Turkey</a>.</p>
<p>This is not the first earthquake to devastate Antakya. It was struck by another deadly tremor just over 900 years ago, in the early hours of November 29 1114 CE, or 508 AH in the Islamic calendar.</p>
<p>This earthquake is now known as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1114_Marash_earthquake">Marash earthquake</a>, named for one of the worst-hit cities. One contemporary, an Armenian priest called Matthew of Edessa, estimated it <a href="https://archive.org/details/ChronicleMatthewEdessa/page/n1/mode/2up">killed 40,000 people</a> in Marash alone.</p>
<p>Antakya is roughly 160km southwest of Marash and also suffered devastation. Much of what we know about the earthquake comes from texts that were either written in Antakya or name the city as one that was most significantly affected.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510212/original/file-20230214-26-gjlmg2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C5%2C1736%2C1378&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510212/original/file-20230214-26-gjlmg2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C5%2C1736%2C1378&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510212/original/file-20230214-26-gjlmg2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510212/original/file-20230214-26-gjlmg2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510212/original/file-20230214-26-gjlmg2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510212/original/file-20230214-26-gjlmg2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510212/original/file-20230214-26-gjlmg2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510212/original/file-20230214-26-gjlmg2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A depiction of the sixth seal (an earthquake) from a 13th century Apocalypse.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">British Library</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the time of this quake, the geopolitical map of the region looked very different from today. It was the Middle Ages, and Antakya – then known as Antioch – was the capital of the <a href="https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/The_Principality_of_Antioch_and_Its_Fron/K7Q4DwAAQBAJ">Principality of Antioch</a>.</p>
<p>Written accounts from medieval West Asia <a href="https://www.academia.edu/35537177/Natural_Disasters_and_the_Crusades_Framing_Earthquakes_in_Historical_Narratives_1095_1170">record several earthquakes</a>. The quake of 1114, however, stands out both for the impact it had on people at the time, and for its continued importance for decades after.</p>
<p>Even at a distance of 900 years, accounts of the 1114 earthquake reveal historical societies went about recording natural disasters in terms that remain poignantly resonant.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-early-christian-communities-tell-us-about-giving-financial-aid-at-a-time-of-crises-134730">What early Christian communities tell us about giving financial aid at a time of crises</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Contemporaries recorded the disaster</h2>
<p>In the aftermath of the 1114 earthquake, Christian and Muslim chroniclers in the region set about committing the disaster to writing.</p>
<p>In this period, to write something down was to make a serious statement: this is important and needs to be remembered. Writing was, and remains, a powerful tool.</p>
<p>Walter, chancellor of Antioch in the first half of the 12th century, recorded how the quake struck in the <a href="https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Walter_the_Chancellor_s_The_Antiochene_W/-9NYEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0">dead of night</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510249/original/file-20230215-21-pl37m9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510249/original/file-20230215-21-pl37m9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510249/original/file-20230215-21-pl37m9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510249/original/file-20230215-21-pl37m9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510249/original/file-20230215-21-pl37m9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510249/original/file-20230215-21-pl37m9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=655&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510249/original/file-20230215-21-pl37m9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=655&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510249/original/file-20230215-21-pl37m9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=655&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An earthquake depicted in a 14th century Apocalypse manuscript.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">British Library</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>He describes a scene that seems horrifyingly familiar: of people trapped in collapsed buildings as they slept, others who couldn’t be found, and survivors in the streets who raised their hands to the heavens and cried out in despair.</p>
<p>He wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In the streets, in courtyards, in gardens, in groves, and in other deserted dwelling places, [the people of Antioch] took tents for homes.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In present-day Jerusalem, 500km to the south, Fulcher of Chartres – the chaplain to King Baldwin I – <a href="https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/_/EU7OPQAACAAJ?hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi3kr2-mpT9AhXG-zgGHREBBDsQ7_IDegQIKBAE">wrote his own description</a> of the quake.</p>
<p>It was, Fulcher says, the worst earthquake anyone had ever known:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[The earthquake] shook the region of Antioch so that it demolished to the ground most of the towns, either whole or in part, houses as well as walls, and in the collapse some of the people perished, suffocated.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Between Antioch in the north and Jerusalem in the south lies the city of Damascus in present-day Syria. In 1114, it was ruled by the Turkish governor Tughtakin.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/The_Damascus_Chronicle_of_the_Crusades/oaTDAgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0">According to</a> the Damascene administrator Ibn al-Qalānisī, who lived and worked in the city, the quake shook the earth and terrified the people.</p>
<h2>Remembrance across space and time</h2>
<p>The 1114 earthquake and its impacts were not quickly forgotten. It became infamous far beyond the area where it had struck. This is probably thanks in large part to the efforts of those who recorded it in the aftermath.</p>
<p>In the early 13th century, nearly 100 years later, the great chronicler Ibn al-Athīr was composing his <em>al-Kāmil fit-Tārīkh</em> (The Complete History) in Mosul, more than 600km east of Antioch.</p>
<p>Ibn al-Athīr described the 1114 earthquake <a href="https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=b935e405c1d7a89c75374f1a1a81cb92a13f6055">in his chronicle</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In this year [508 AH] in Jamada II [the month of November], there was a strong earthquake in Al-Jazira area, Al-Sham and others, causing a wide destruction at Al-Ruha, Harran, Samsat, Balis and others, and many people killed under debris.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As far away as England, 13th-century chroniclers such as Roger of Wendover <a href="https://www.melocki.org.uk/wendover/Flowers1.html">continued to record</a> the 1114 earthquake. Roger briefly noted that in 1114:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>An earthquake destroyed part of the city of Mamistra, not far from Antioch, together with two castles.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The historical accounts of the 1114 quake give us a rare insight into human responses to natural disasters 900 years ago, especially processes of recording and remembering. </p>
<p>Then, as now, their impact could make an indelible mark on a region’s collective memory.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/secondary-crises-after-the-turkey-syria-earthquakes-are-now-the-greatest-threat-to-life-199682">Secondary crises after the Turkey-Syria earthquakes are now the greatest threat to life</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199866/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Beth Spacey has previously received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.</span></em></p>
We might expect that accounts of earthquakes from the medieval period have been lost to history, but some have survived.
Beth Spacey, Associate Lecturer, The University of Queensland
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/197756
2023-02-13T11:07:05Z
2023-02-13T11:07:05Z
How the Middle Ages’ female doctors were consigned to oblivion
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506114/original/file-20230124-22-elmzs5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C131%2C1997%2C1502&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The medical school of Salerno as it appears in a miniature of Avicenna's Canon. The image represents the legendary story of Robert, Duke of Normandy. Mortally wounded by an arrow, he was heroically saved by his wife who sucked out the poison as prescribed by the physicians of Salerno.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikipedia</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The figure of the witch has long cast a spell on artists and scientists, who have alternately associated her with women displaying an <a href="https://nature.berkeley.edu/departments/espm/env-hist/articles/84.pdf">uncanny knowledge of nature</a> or a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/44029940">voracious sexuality</a>. In fact, many of <a href="https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceinter/la-chasse-aux-sorcieres-n-est-pas-le-fait-du-moyen-age-3679491">“witches”</a> persecuted in Europe from the 15th century onward were midwives and healers, in line with a long tradition of lay medical practice that was more pragmatic than theoretical.</p>
<p>In seeking to <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27464406">tell the story</a> of these experts (prior to their ostracisation from the practice), researchers have come up against a number of obstacles. The information available comes primarily from scarce, disparate fragments from biographical sources, as well as economic, legal and administrative ones. Sometimes all that remains is a given name or a surname, such as in the case of the women listed in the <a href="https://www.boutiquesdemusees.fr/en/exhibition-catalogues/ars-medicina-medicine-and-knowledge-in-the-16th-century-exhibition-catalogue/899.html"><em>Ars Medicina</em> of Florence</a> (a medical treatise) or of the nun apothecary Giovanna Ginori, whose name can be found in the tax records of the pharmacy where she worked in the 1560s. </p>
<p>Such painstaking research has nevertheless helped us better understand how a male-dominated, institutional and hierarchical system has pushed women away from the practice and study of medicine.</p>
<h2>The Schola Salernitana</h2>
<p>Our first port of call in this story is a once-renowned medical school that operated in Salerno in the 9th and 10th centuries. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schola_Medica_Salernitana">Schola Salernitana</a> was an institution attended by many women, including the pioneering gynaecologist and surgeon known as <a href="https://www.biusante.parisdescartes.fr/histoire/biographies/?refbiogr=8138">Trota</a> (or Trotula) (13th century), the surgeon and eye specialist, e.g. Costanza Calenda (15th century), doctor Abella di Castellomata (14th century), or <a href="https://scientificwomen.net/women/guarna-rebecca_de-42">Rebecca Guarna (14th century)</a>. Information about these women is still scarce and being sorted out by researchers: it is complicated to separate real data from legend. The above are nevertheless some of the <a href="https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/scuola-medica-salernitana_%28Federiciana%29/">better-documented figures</a>. Also active during the Middle Ages, the group of the <em>mulieres salernitanae</em> left a mark, too.</p>
<p>Unlike the women doctors at the school, the <em>mulieres</em> worked using more empirical methods, then submitted their remedies to the school’s doctors, who decided whether to accept them. Evidence of this can be found in the manual <a href="https://ilpalazzodisichelgaita.wordpress.com/2016/09/30/scuola-medica-salernitana-istruzioni-per-luso-pubblicata-la-practica-brevis-di-giovanni-plateario/"><em>Practica Brevis</em></a>, written by <a href="https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/plateario_(Dizionario-Biografico)/">Giovanni Plateario</a>, and in the writings of <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23610222/">Bernard de Gordon</a>. Located to the South of Naples, Salerno was a city where Christian, Jewish and Muslim scholars came together, turning the school into an exceptional melting pot of scientific encounters and influences.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499594/original/file-20221207-4221-c4okzz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499594/original/file-20221207-4221-c4okzz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=843&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499594/original/file-20221207-4221-c4okzz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=843&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499594/original/file-20221207-4221-c4okzz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=843&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499594/original/file-20221207-4221-c4okzz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1059&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499594/original/file-20221207-4221-c4okzz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1059&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499594/original/file-20221207-4221-c4okzz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1059&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A woman doctor, possibly Trotula of Salerno, holding a flask of urine. <em>Miscellanea medica XVIII</em>, Folio 65 recto (=33 recto), early 14th century.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89cole_de_m%C3%A9decine_de_Salerne">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Women accused of illegal medical practice</h2>
<p>However, from 1220 onward, it became no longer possible to practise medicine without a diploma from the <a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8539706t/f60.item">University of Paris</a> or approval from its doctors and chancellor, pushing female doctors to the margins. Failure to comply with the new instructions resulted in expulsion from the field, which is exactly what happened to a woman doctor named Jacqueline Felice de Almania. According to the 1322 document produced by the University of Paris, she had been treating patients without any “real” knowledge of medicine (i.e., without a university education). She was subjected to expulsion and had to pay a considerable fine. The records of the dispute describe the medical examinations performed by Jacqueline, noting how she had analysed urine by sight, taken her patients’ pulses, probed their limbs, and treated male patients. This is one of the rare pieces of evidence that mentions the fact that women doctors also treated men.</p>
<p>The young doctor’s trial took place at a time when medical practitioners without university degrees were being denounced and sentenced. Before her came Clarice of Rouen was also banned from practising medicine for treating men, followed by more women medical experts in 1322, recorded as Jeanne the Convert of Saint-Médicis, Marguerite of Ypres and the Jewess Belota.</p>
<p>In 1330, several rabbis in Paris were also accused of illegally practising the art of medicine, along with other “healers” who posed as experts without truly being so according to the authorities. All were branded as frauds, even if they had been performing competently. In 1325, Pope John XXII had received a prompt appeal from the professors of the University of Paris following the Clarice affair. Upon this, he wrote to Bishop Stephen of Paris ordering him to forbid the practice of medicine by women without medical knowledge and by midwives in Paris and the surrounding areas, warning that these women were in fact practising witchcraft <a href="https://www.carocci.it/prodotto/anima-e-corpo">https://www.carocci.it/prodotto/anima-e-corpo</a>.</p>
<h2>The formalisation of medical studies</h2>
<p>The gradual prohibition on women practising medicine coincided with the creation of a formalised academic canon in the field. This marked the beginning of a careful vetting process by the teaching authorities and guilds, which served to marginalise women doctors even further.</p>
<p>However, this did not wipe them entirely from existence or from the practice, given that a reasonable number of names can be found in the Italian records alone. These include Monna Neccia, mentioned <a href="https://archiviodistatofirenze.cultura.gov.it/asfi/fileadmin/risorse/allegati_inventari_on_line/N91_Estimo.pdf">in the <em>Estimo</em> tax register</a> in 1359, and Monna Iacopa, who treated plague victims in 1374. Both were from Florence, as were the ten women enrolled between 1320 and 1444 in the city’s guild of doctors, the Arte dei Medici e degli Speziali. In records from Siena, Tuscany, we find mention of Agnese and Mita, who were remunerated by the city for their services in 1390 <a href="https://www.carocci.it/prodotto/anima-e-corpo">https://www.carocci.it/prodotto/anima-e-corpo</a>.</p>
<p>All the same, it had become very dangerous for women to practise medicine, particularly due to the ever-mounting suspicions of witchcraft.</p>
<p>There is an unfortunate lack of data about these women in the official sources, given that they practised at a time when society permitted only men to access more senior positions.</p>
<p>Despite all this, the historical background that we have pieced together points to an existence both of women experts who practised the art of medicine and of women doctors who had studied their craft, often on an unofficial basis, with their father, brother or spouse.</p>
<h2>Medieval women doctors in literature</h2>
<p>Non-institutional sources, such as literary texts, have proven extremely valuable to this research. Boccaccio, for instance, mentions a woman doctor in the <em>Decameron</em>. The narrator, Dioneo, recounts the tale of a certain Gillette of Narbonne, a gifted doctor who became betrothed to her beloved Bertrand de Roussillon as a reward for curing the King of France of a fistula in his chest. Boccaccio’s characterisation of Gillette is patently aware of the monarch’s lack of trust in her, both as a woman and as a “damsel”. Addressing the King, she says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Great King, let not my skill and experience be despised because I am young and a maiden, for my profession is not physic, neither do I undertake the administering thereof, as depending on my own knowledge ; but by the gracious assistance of Heaven, and some rules of skilful observation which I learned of reverend Gerard of Narbonne, who was my worthy father and a physician of no mean fame all the while he lived.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Boccaccio describes this woman medical expert in straightforward, natural terms. This is perhaps because, contrary to the current general belief, he was speaking of a rather common situation that would be recognised by his readership. Gillette’s words are indicative of a reality for women medical practitioners at the time: she had learned <a href="https://www.carocci.it/prodotto/anima-e-corpo">her craft from her father</a>.</p>
<p>There is also a great deal of information about Jewish women doctors operating mainly in southern Italy and Sicily, who learned the medical arts from their family.</p>
<p>The University of Paris played a pivotal role in the historical process of normalising and institutionalising the medical profession. In her article <a href="https://www.utpjournals.press/doi/abs/10.3138/cbmh.13.1.3"><em>Women and Healthcare Practices in the Plea Register of the Parliament of Paris, 1364–1427</em></a>, Geneviève Dumas underlines the importance of Parisian legal sources from the 14th and 15th centuries, which <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/medievales/7977">remember the women</a> who were sentenced for illegally practising medicine or surgery. Dumas chronicles two trials in her writings: one carried against Perette la Pétone, a surgeon, and another against Jeanne Pouquelin, a barber (as barbers at the time were permitted to perform certain surgical procedures).</p>
<p>As the study of medicine at the University of Paris became the only valid medical education in Europe and the Schola Salernitana saw its influence wane, women were gradually excluded from these professions.</p>
<p>The gradual disappearance of women doctors in the Medieval period can be linked to bans imposed by the Church, as well as to the progressive professionalisation of the medical field, which saw the creation of more rigorous institutions such as universities, arts societies and guilds, all founded and controlled by men.</p>
<p>In Europe, it was not until the mid 19th century that the first university-qualified women doctors <a href="https://www.biusante.parisdescartes.fr/histoire/medica/presentations/entree-femmes-en-medecine.php">were able to practise their profession</a>. Even then, they still had to face more than their fair share of criticism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197756/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Isabella Gagliardi ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>
During the Middle Ages, women were steadily excluded from both the practice and the study of medicine by an overwhelmingly male-dominated, institutional and hierarchical system.
Isabella Gagliardi, Professeur Associé d’Histoire du christianisme, Fondation Maison des Sciences de l'Homme (FMSH)
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/195389
2022-12-23T07:38:53Z
2022-12-23T07:38:53Z
Cats in the middle ages: what medieval manuscripts teach us about our ancestors’ pets
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497695/original/file-20221128-12-umimlg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C24%2C946%2C502&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cat king, Germany, circa 1450. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.europeana.eu/en/item/358/item_3J5D2RBASIEFQVLJUQZSTXUG7YHLPR7N">Scheibler’sches Wappenbuch – BSB Cod.icon. 312c</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Cats had a <a href="https://www.medievalists.net/2013/10/why-cats-were-hated-in-medieval-europe/#:%7E:text=Cats%20in%20medieval%20Europe%20mostly,this%20view%20of%20felines%20emerged.">bad reputation</a> in the middle ages. Their presumed links with paganism and <a href="https://academiccatlady.wordpress.com/2017/10/31/halloween-black-cats-and-witches-in-medieval-times/">witchcraft</a> meant they were often treated with suspicion. But despite their association with the supernatural, medieval manuscripts showcase surprisingly playful images of our furry friends.</p>
<p>From these (often very funny) portrayals, we can learn a lot about medieval attitudes towards cats – not least that they were a central fixture of daily medieval life.</p>
<p>In the middle ages, men and women were <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/A_Cultural_History_of_Animals_in_the_Med.html?id=ZbDYSAAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">often identified</a> by the animals they kept. <a href="https://mad.hypotheses.org/37">Pet monkeys</a>, for example, were considered exotic and a sign that the owner was wealthy, because they had been imported from distant lands. Pets became part of the personal identity of the nobility. Keeping an animal that was lavished with attention, affection and high-quality food in return for no functional purpose – other than companionship – signified high status. </p>
<p>It was not unusual for high-status men and women in the middle ages to have their portrait completed <a href="https://fanimal.online/the-history-of-pet-portraits/">in the company of a pet</a>, most commonly cats and dogs, to signify their elevated status.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A painting of Jesus and his disciples, gathered round a table on the right. On the left, in a corridor outside of the dinner, a cat and dog are shown." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497364/original/file-20221125-7159-k2d5y3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497364/original/file-20221125-7159-k2d5y3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497364/original/file-20221125-7159-k2d5y3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497364/original/file-20221125-7159-k2d5y3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497364/original/file-20221125-7159-k2d5y3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=653&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497364/original/file-20221125-7159-k2d5y3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=653&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497364/original/file-20221125-7159-k2d5y3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=653&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Last Supper (1320), by Pietro Lorenzetti.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pietro_lorenzetti,_ultima_cena,_assisi_basilica_inferiore,_1310-1320.jpg">Web Gallery of Art</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is commonplace to see images of cats in <a href="https://boydellandbrewer.com/9781783275694/medieval-pets/">iconography of feasts</a> and other domestic spaces, which appears to reflect their status as a pet in the medieval household. </p>
<p>In Pietro Lorenzetti’s Last Supper (above), a cat sits by the fire while a small dog licks a plate of leftovers on the ground. The cat and dog play no narrative role in the scene, but instead signal to the viewer that this is a domestic space.</p>
<p>Similarly, in the miniature of <a href="https://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=add_ms_35313_fs001r">a Dutch Book of Hours</a> (a common type of prayer book in the middle ages that marked the divisions of the day with specific prayers), a man and woman feature in a cosy household scene while a well looked-after cat gazes on from the bottom left-hand corner. Again, the cat is not the centre of the image nor the focus of the composition, but it is accepted in this medieval domestic space.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="a man and woman feature in a cosy household scene whilst a well-looked after cat gazes on from the bottom left-hand corner." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497366/original/file-20221125-24-ps4wa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497366/original/file-20221125-24-ps4wa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497366/original/file-20221125-24-ps4wa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497366/original/file-20221125-24-ps4wa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497366/original/file-20221125-24-ps4wa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=661&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497366/original/file-20221125-24-ps4wa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=661&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497366/original/file-20221125-24-ps4wa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=661&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">1500 Book of Hours known as the ‘London Rothschild Hours’ or the ‘Hours of Joanna I of Castile’. Illustrated by Gerard Horenbout.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=add_ms_35313_fs001r">London British Library. Manuscript 35313, folio. 1 verso. C</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Just like today, medieval families gave their <a href="https://www.archaeform.de/blog/2016/06/23/medieval-pet-names/?___store=english">cats names</a>. A 13th-century cat in Beaulieu Abbey, for example, <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjSjYbboMn7AhWVh1wKHS65C0AQFnoECBIQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fdiscovery.ucl.ac.uk%2F1446154%2F1%2FU593483.pdf&usg=AOvVaw2y48B3MbmwUbCtfMf5C8Kp">was called “Mite”</a> according to the green ink lettering that appears above a doodle of said cat in the margins of a medieval manuscript.</p>
<h2>Royal treatment</h2>
<p>Cats were <a href="https://www.historyhit.com/how-3-very-different-medieval-cultures-treated-cats/">well cared for</a> in the medieval household. In the early 13th century, there is <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=mSJWAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA49&lpg=PA49&dq=account+of+the+manor+of+cuxham&source=bl&ots=4vak0SEXM1&sig=SLfyBBzzy5-8dqsFhkUGbnUFn5A&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=account%20of%20the%20manor%20of%20cuxham&f=false">mention in the accounts</a> for the manor at Cuxham (Oxfordshire) of cheese being bought for a cat, which suggests that they were not left to fend for themselves.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497369/original/file-20221125-22-4ubj9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C628%2C776&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A painting of a young woman in a yellow dress, her hair wrapped in fabric and a pearl choker round her neck, holding a tabby kitten to her chest in a pose of affection." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497369/original/file-20221125-22-4ubj9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C628%2C776&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497369/original/file-20221125-22-4ubj9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=741&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497369/original/file-20221125-22-4ubj9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=741&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497369/original/file-20221125-22-4ubj9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=741&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497369/original/file-20221125-22-4ubj9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=931&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497369/original/file-20221125-22-4ubj9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=931&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497369/original/file-20221125-22-4ubj9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=931&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bacchiacca (circa 1525), by the Italian painter Antonio d'Ubertino Verdi.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bacchiacca_-_Portrait_of_a_young_lady_holding_a_cat.jpg">Christie’s</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In fact, the 14th-century queen of France, <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110544794-016/pdf">Isabeau of Bavaria</a>, spent excessive amounts of money on accessories for her pets. In 1387, she commissioned a collar embroidered with pearls and fastened by a gold buckle for her pet squirrel. In 1406, bright green cloth was bought to make a special cover for her cat.</p>
<p>Cats were also <a href="https://bvmm.irht.cnrs.fr/iiif/14997/canvas/canvas-1383291/view">common companions</a> for <a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2019/03/a-useful-companion-for-a-scholar-cats-in-the-middle-ages.html">scholars</a>, and eulogies about cats were not uncommon in the 16th century. In one poem, a cat is described as a scholar’s light and dearest companion. Eulogies such as this suggest a strong emotional attachment to pet cats, and show how cats not only cheered up their masters but provided welcome distractions from the hard mental craft of reading and writing.</p>
<h2>Cats in the cloisters</h2>
<p>Cats are found in abundance as a <a href="https://theroseandthethistle.com/2019/11/29/pets-in-medieval-times-2/">status symbol</a> in medieval religious spaces. There are lots of medieval manuscripts that feature, for example, illuminations (small images) of nuns with cats, and cats frequently appear as doodles in the margins of Books of Hours. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Rouen bibliotheque municipale ms 3028 fol. 63r" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497367/original/file-20221125-21-556ipi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497367/original/file-20221125-21-556ipi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497367/original/file-20221125-21-556ipi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497367/original/file-20221125-21-556ipi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497367/original/file-20221125-21-556ipi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=698&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497367/original/file-20221125-21-556ipi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=698&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497367/original/file-20221125-21-556ipi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=698&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">St Matthew and his cat, Bruges, c. 1500.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://bvmm.irht.cnrs.fr/iiif/14997/canvas/canvas-1383291/view">[Rouen bibliotheque municipale. Manuscript 3028, Folio 63r]</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But there is also much criticism about the keeping of cats in medieval sermon literature. The 14th-century English preacher <a href="https://archive.org/details/JohnBromyardSummaPraedicantiumParsPrima1586/page/n3/mode/2up">John Bromyard</a> considered them useless and overfed accessories of the rich that benefited while the poor went hungry.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497371/original/file-20221125-3308-71a3q5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Doodle showing a nun spinning thread, as her pet cat plays with the spindle." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497371/original/file-20221125-3308-71a3q5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497371/original/file-20221125-3308-71a3q5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497371/original/file-20221125-3308-71a3q5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497371/original/file-20221125-3308-71a3q5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497371/original/file-20221125-3308-71a3q5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=636&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497371/original/file-20221125-3308-71a3q5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=636&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497371/original/file-20221125-3308-71a3q5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=636&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Detail of a miniature of a nun spinning thread, as her pet cat plays with the spindle; from the Maastricht Hours, the Netherlands (Liège), 1st quarter of the 14th century,</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwj48c7no8n7AhWQg1wKHSs5BEYQFnoECA4QAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bl.uk%2Fmanuscripts%2FFullDisplay.aspx%3Fref%3DStowe_MS_17&usg=AOvVaw32f927hR3pl8kUZop0SGeW">Stowe manuscript 17, folio 34r</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Cats are <a href="https://www.medievalists.net/2013/10/why-cats-were-hated-in-medieval-europe/">also recorded</a> as being associated with the devil. Their stealth and cunning when hunting for mice was admired – but this did not always translate into qualities desirable for companionship. These associations led to the killing of some cats, which had detrimental effects during the <a href="https://owlcation.com/humanities/Cats-and-the-Black-Plague">Black Death</a> and other middle age plagues, when more cats may have reduced flea-infested rat populations.</p>
<p>Because of these associations, many thought that cats had <a href="https://memo.imareal.sbg.ac.at/?edmc=1999#:%7E:text=Centuries%20before%20their%20more%20familiar,in%20the%20high%20Middle%20Ages.">no place</a> in the sacred spaces of religious orders. There do not seem to have been any formal rules, however, stating that members of religious communities were not allowed to keep cats – and the constant criticism of the practice perhaps suggests that pet cats were common.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497373/original/file-20221125-7303-6390xk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Doodle in the corner of a page of a medieval manuscript shows a cat on its hind legs, dressed as a nun" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497373/original/file-20221125-7303-6390xk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497373/original/file-20221125-7303-6390xk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=655&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497373/original/file-20221125-7303-6390xk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=655&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497373/original/file-20221125-7303-6390xk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=655&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497373/original/file-20221125-7303-6390xk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497373/original/file-20221125-7303-6390xk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497373/original/file-20221125-7303-6390xk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A cat cosplaying as a nun.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://viewer.slv.vic.gov.au/?entity=IE10952603&file=FL10960776&mode=browse">State Library Victoria, 096 R66HF, folio 99r</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even if they were not always considered as socially acceptable in religious communities, cats were still clearly <a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2013/01/lolcats-of-the-middle-ages.html">well looked after</a>. This is evident in the playful images we see of them in monasteries.</p>
<p>For the most part, cats were quite at home in the medieval household. And as their playful depiction in many medieval manuscripts and artwork makes clear, our medieval ancestors’ relationships with these animals were not too different from our own.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195389/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Madeleine S. Killacky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Medieval manuscripts are littered with images of cats – sharing their owner’s dinner, keeping them company, and even cosplaying as nuns.
Madeleine S. Killacky, PhD Candidate, Medieval Literature, Bangor University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/191714
2022-10-05T15:34:13Z
2022-10-05T15:34:13Z
Why the Middle Ages have such a bad reputation
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487783/original/file-20221003-22-n5x0vv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C2%2C1644%2C1099&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Medieval city on a river, by Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1815).</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://recherche.smb.museum/detail/967064">Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie / Andres Kilger</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“People have the right to live as they wish, we are no longer in the Middle Ages.” This statement, made recently by <a href="https://today.rtl.lu/news/luxembourg/a/1742965.html">Luxembourg’s Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Jean Asselborn</a> in relation to a homophobic law in Hungary, show that <em>medieval</em> is often used as a synonym for uncultured, barbaric and backward. </p>
<p>For example, for years, films and series set in the Middle Ages have portrayed a violent, unjust and superstitious society. And this vision is reinforced by an increasingly dark aesthetic – the sun apparently did not rise much in the Middle Ages. In this sense, <em>The Last Duel</em>, a recent Hollywood blockbuster set in period, is a clichéd <a href="https://youtu.be/8W1CvMT_MrA">example</a>.</p>
<p>To lump 1,000 years of history together seems rather ridiculous. Can you imagine that in the future the time between 1500 and 2500 will be considered just one era – with the same label being applied to all those centuries? </p>
<p>Besides, it is enough to enter a Gothic cathedral to see that the Middle Ages were not just barbaric or dark. Perhaps for this reason, many <a href="https://theconversation.com/sombras-y-luces-de-la-edad-media-159672">medievalists</a> have tried to show that this derogatory view of the Middle Ages is difficult to defend. However, little is known about the origin of this conception. Why does the <em>medieval</em> have such a bad reputation?</p>
<h2>The valley of the Middle Ages</h2>
<p>The first question to be asked is why we consider 1,000 years of history a single epoch, and why we know it as the <em>Middle Ages</em>. It was the German scholar Christopher Cellarius who, at the end of the 17th century, published a book that enshrined the division of history into three ages: Ancient, Middle and Modern, to which the Contemporary would later be added. </p>
<p>Far from being neutral adjectives, these denominations already denoted a genuine vision of history. By being defined as the <em>Middle Ages</em>, the period between the 5th and 15th centuries passed into history as an epoch that’s importance was reduced to being in the middle – hence the name – of two other more important ages. </p>
<p>This view of history could be graphically represented as a landscape dominated by two imposing mountains: the Ancient and the Modern Ages, separated from each other by a valley – the Middle Ages. But when did this derogatory view of the medieval millennium begin, and can a particular time, or even a particular person, be singled out as responsible for this historical conception?</p>
<h2>The creator of a dark epoch</h2>
<p>The historical context in which the idea of a dark Middle Ages was born is none other than the Italian Renaissance, specifically the 14th century, and the first author to express it in his writings was the famous <a href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Petrarch/">Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)</a>. The circumstances of this historiographical invention are rich and complex, and in this recently published <a href="https://laergastula.com/producto/aetates-mundi-sunt-la-division-de-la-historia-durante-la-edad-media/">book</a>, I go into them in depth.</p>
<p>Briefly, we can say that the reason for Petrarch’s contempt for the Middle Ages stems from his longing for ancient Rome. As a great connoisseur of the Latin classics, Petrarch could not help comparing the ruinous situation of the Italy of his time with the glorious Roman era. Such was the Tuscan poet’s disaffection for his own time that, in his letter <em>To Posterity</em>, he remarked: “If love for my own people had not prevented me, I should always have wished to be born in any other age, and to forget this one”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473897/original/file-20220713-14-rykexm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473897/original/file-20220713-14-rykexm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473897/original/file-20220713-14-rykexm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473897/original/file-20220713-14-rykexm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473897/original/file-20220713-14-rykexm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473897/original/file-20220713-14-rykexm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473897/original/file-20220713-14-rykexm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473897/original/file-20220713-14-rykexm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In the collective imagination, the Middle Ages were an eternal valley of tears. Here, the <em>Crucifixion</em>, part of the central panel of the altar of the Franciscan church in Munich, by Jan Polack, 1492.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.bayerisches-nationalmuseum.de/en/collection/00026163">Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For Petrarch, the decline of the Roman Empire had ushered in an era characterised by darkness and corruption at all levels: political, religious and, above all, cultural. According to this view, during the Middle Ages the Church was corrupted and the arts and literature entered a dark age which, for Petrarch, still lasted.</p>
<p>In his <em>Epistolae metricae</em>, the great Tuscan poet summed it up thus: “There was a more fortunate age and there will probably be another again; in the middle, in our time, you see the confluence of misfortunes and ignominy”. This phrase perfectly sums up the historiographical conception that still persists today: a golden Ancient Age, a dark Middle Ages and a Modern Age that was to bring about the recovery of culture, i.e. its renaissance. </p>
<h2>The Promised Land: the Renaissance</h2>
<p>We return to the importance of words: something cannot be reborn if it was not already dead. The very term <em>Renaissance</em>, which, like the <em>Middle Ages</em>, was coined a little later, carries with it the implicit assertion that during the Middle Ages culture was dead.</p>
<p>It is clear from Petrarch’s quotations that he saw himself in the Middle Ages. Like a new Moses, the Tuscan poet foresaw the coming of the promised land of the Renaissance, but it was his successors within Italian humanism who proclaimed the arrival of the new golden age.</p>
<p>The first to speak of a revival in the field of letters and the arts were great humanists of the 14th century. Prominent among them was the famous <a href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Giovanni_Boccaccio/">Giovanni Boccaccio</a>, Petrarch’s favourite disciple. Subsequently, during the <em>Quattrocento</em> and the <em>Cinquecento</em>, numerous authors in the field of arts and letters proclaimed the rebirth of culture, which had risen from its medieval ashes to constitute a new golden age.</p>
<h2>The myth extends to the present day</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473898/original/file-20220713-20-sq99o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473898/original/file-20220713-20-sq99o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473898/original/file-20220713-20-sq99o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473898/original/file-20220713-20-sq99o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473898/original/file-20220713-20-sq99o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473898/original/file-20220713-20-sq99o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473898/original/file-20220713-20-sq99o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473898/original/file-20220713-20-sq99o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In the Middle Ages they also played baseball. <em>The Game of the Ball</em>, illustration from the <em>Cantigas de Santa Maria</em>.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Medieval_baseball_(El_juego_de_la_Pelota)_in_the_Cantigas_de_Santa_Maria.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This historiographical view spread rapidly through Europe. It was first of all the Lutheran Reformation that embraced this idea, especially because of the criticism of the medieval Church it contained, and spread it <em>virally</em> thanks to the printing press. </p>
<p>Subsequently, the French Enlightenment took up this historical conception. For authors such as Voltaire, the Middle Ages represented all the secular errors that they were trying to save mankind from, such as religious obscurantism and the predominance of dogma over reason.</p>
<p>Since then, the only period in which the medieval era was reclaimed was Romanticism, albeit in an idyllic manner. The representatives of this movement recreated a time full of mystery, wonder and folklore. The paintings of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspar_David_Friedrich">Caspar David Friedrich</a> or the novels of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Scott">Sir Walter Scott</a> represent very well this Middle Ages of castles, exploits and duels between knights for the love of a lady. </p>
<p>Obviously, neither of the two visions, the Renaissance nor the Romantic, do justice to what the so-called <em>medieval</em> centuries were. The Middle Ages, like all historical epochs – like our own – was a time of light and shadow. A time, in short, which, if we approach it without prejudice, still has many lessons to offer us.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191714/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eduardo Baura García no recibe salario, ni ejerce labores de consultoría, ni posee acciones, ni recibe financiación de ninguna compañía u organización que pueda obtener beneficio de este artículo, y ha declarado carecer de vínculos relevantes más allá del cargo académico citado.</span></em></p>
The press, films and series and even everyday language still reflect a derogatory conception of the Middle Ages. Was the period really that bad?
Eduardo Baura García, Doctor en Humanidades. Profesor de Historia Contemporánea y Educación, Universidad CEU San Pablo
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/177193
2022-04-11T12:09:52Z
2022-04-11T12:09:52Z
Penance and plague: How the Black Death changed one of Christianity’s most important rituals
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456189/original/file-20220404-15-nwkbnu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C4%2C1008%2C623&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Confession, circa 1460/1470. Artist unknown.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/confession-1460-1470-artist-unknown-news-photo/1314769661?adppopup=true">Photo by Heritage Art/Heritage Images via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The 14th century is known for catastrophe. By midcentury, the first wave of plague spread through a Europe already weakened by successive <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691058917/the-great-famine">famines</a> and the <a href="https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/1862.html">Hundred Years War</a> between England and France. And crises just kept coming. After the first wave, which has come to be called the <a href="https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/tmg/vol1/iss1/">Black Death</a>, the disease returned at least four more times before 1400. All the while, fresh conflicts kept erupting, fueled in part by <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-ae/Medieval+Mercenaries%2C+Volume+I%2C+The+Great+Companies-p-9780631158868">the rising number</a> of soldiers available for hire.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.libarts.colostate.edu/people/nambeau/">a medieval historian</a>, I study ways that community leaders used Catholic practices and institutions to respond to war and plague. But amid the uncertainty of the 14th century, some Catholic institutions stopped working the way they were supposed to, <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300108286/stripping-altars">fueling frustration</a>. In particular, the unrelenting crises prompted anxiety about the sacrament of penance, often referred to as “confession.”</p>
<p>This uncertainty helped spark critics like <a href="https://theconversation.com/on-the-reformations-500th-anniversary-remembering-martin-luthers-contribution-to-literacy-77540">Martin Luther</a> to ultimately <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-lasting-impact-of-luthers-reformation-4-essential-reads-105953">break from</a> the Catholic Church.</p>
<h2>Saints and sacraments</h2>
<p>During this era, European Christians experienced their faith predominantly through saints and sacraments.</p>
<p>In art, <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691169682/why-can-the-dead-do-such-great-things">saints</a> were depicted as standing near God’s throne or even speaking into his ear, illustrating their special relationships with him. Pious Christians considered saints active members of their communities who could help God hear their prayers for <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/V/bo3622188.html">healing and protection</a>. Throughout Europe, saints’ feast days were celebrated with processions, displays of candles, <a href="https://broadviewpress.com/product/the-york-corpus-christi-play-selected-pageants/#tab-description">and even street theater</a>.</p>
<p>Fourteenth-century Christians also experienced their faith through Catholicism’s most important rituals, the <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Medieval_Church/8FtcAgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=the+medieval+church&printsec=frontcover">seven sacraments</a>. Some occurred <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Medieval-Church-A-Brief-History/Lynch/p/book/9780582772984">once in most people’s lives</a>, including baptism, confirmation, marriage and <a href="https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/1438sacraments.asp">extreme unction</a> – a set of rituals for people who are near death.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A medieval manuscript with colorful illustrations depicts rites for people who are dying." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457016/original/file-20220407-24242-o5bt9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457016/original/file-20220407-24242-o5bt9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457016/original/file-20220407-24242-o5bt9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457016/original/file-20220407-24242-o5bt9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457016/original/file-20220407-24242-o5bt9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457016/original/file-20220407-24242-o5bt9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457016/original/file-20220407-24242-o5bt9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 15th-century manuscript depicts deathbed scenes: doctor’s visit; confession; Communion; extreme unction; and burial. From the Bedford Hours of John, Duke of Bedford.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/hours-of-the-dead-1414-1423-vignettes-representing-deathbed-news-photo/463979445?adppopup=true">British Museum/Print Collector/Hulton Archive via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There were two sacraments, however, that Catholics could experience multiple times. The first was the Eucharist, also known as <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-communion-matters-in-catholic-life-and-what-it-means-to-be-denied-the-eucharist-163560#:%7E:text=One%20of%20the%20seven%20sacraments,and%20divinity%20of%20Jesus%20Christ.">Holy Communion</a> – the reenactment of Christ’s Last Supper with his apostles before his crucifixion. The second was penance.</p>
<p>Catholic doctrine taught that priests’ prayers over bread and wine <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022046900016419">turned those substances into the body and blood of Christ</a>, and that this sacrament creates communion between God and believers. The Eucharist was the core of the Mass, a service which also included processions, singing, prayers and reading from the Scriptures.</p>
<p>Religious Christians also encountered the sacrament of penance throughout their lives. By the 14th century, penance was a private sacrament that each person was supposed to do <a href="https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/lateran4.asp">at least once a year</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691643823/sin-and-confession-on-the-eve-of-the-reformation">ideal penance</a> was hard work, however. People had to recall all the sins they had committed since the “age of reason,” which started when they were roughly 7 years old. They were supposed to feel sorry that they had offended God, and not just be afraid that they would go to hell for their sins. They had to speak their sins aloud to <a href="https://www.cuapress.org/9780813218694/handbook-for-curates/">their parish priest</a>, who had the authority to absolve them. Finally, they had to intend to never commit those sins again. </p>
<p>After confession, they performed the prayers, fasting or pilgrimage that the priest assigned them, which was called “satisfaction.” The whole process was <a href="https://www.academia.edu/44651890/Leonard_E_Boyle_The_Summa_for_Confessors_as_a_Genre_and_Its_Religious_Intent_in_Charles_Trinkaus_and_Heiko_A_Oberman_ed_The_Pursuit_of_Holiness_in_Late_Medieval_and_Renaissance_Religion_Leiden_Brill_1974_126_130">meant to heal the soul</a> as a kind of spiritual medicine.</p>
<h2>Broken up by Black Death</h2>
<p>Waves of plague and warfare, however, could disrupt every aspect of the ideal confession. Rapid illness could make it impossible to travel to one’s parish priest, remember one’s sins or speak them aloud. When parish priests died and were not immediately replaced, people had to seek out other confessors. Some people had to confess without anyone to absolve them.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A manuscript depicts people burying victims of the Black Death plague." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456196/original/file-20220404-11-e6xmww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456196/original/file-20220404-11-e6xmww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456196/original/file-20220404-11-e6xmww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456196/original/file-20220404-11-e6xmww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456196/original/file-20220404-11-e6xmww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456196/original/file-20220404-11-e6xmww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456196/original/file-20220404-11-e6xmww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An illustration in the Annales of Gilles de Muisit, from the 14th century, depicts people burying victims of the Black Death.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-annales-of-gilles-de-muisit-the-plague-in-tournai-news-photo/535795241?adppopup=true">Photo by Photo12/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Meanwhile, Europe’s frequent wars posed other spiritual dangers. Soldiers, for example, were hired to fight wherever war took them and were often paid with the spoils of war. They <a href="https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/3343/john-hawkwood">lived with the constant weight of the commandments not to kill or steal</a>. They could never perform a complete confession, because they could <a href="https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/historical-reflections/41/3/hrrh410302.xml">never intend not to sin this way again</a>.</p>
<p>These problems caused despair and anxiety. In response, people turned to doctors and saints for help and healing. For example, some Christians in Provence, in present-day France, turned to a local holy woman, <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501753664/souls-under-siege/">Countess Delphine de Puimichel</a>, to help them remember their sins, protect them from sudden death, and even leave warfare to become penitents. So many people described feeling consoled by her voice that a medical doctor who lived near the holy woman set up meetings so people could hear her speak. </p>
<p>But most people in Europe did not have a local saint like Delphine to turn to. They looked for other solutions to their uncertainties about the sacrament of penance.</p>
<p>Indulgences and Masses for the dead proved the most popular, but also problematic. <a href="https://www.septentrion.com/fr/livre/?GCOI=27574100385140">Indulgences</a> were papal documents that could forgive the sins of the holder. They were supposed to be given out only by the pope, and in very specific situations, such as completing certain pilgrimages, <a href="https://ignatius.com/what-were-the-crusades-4th-edition-wwc4p/">serving in a crusade</a>, or doing particularly pious acts. </p>
<p>During the 15th century, however, demand for indulgences was high, and they <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.14315/arg-1984-jg08/html">became common</a>. Some traveling confessors who had received religious authorities’ approval to hear confessions sold indulgences – some authentic, <a href="https://chaucer.fas.harvard.edu/pages/pardoners-prologue-introduction-and-tale">some fake</a> – to anyone with money. </p>
<p>Catholics also believed that Masses conducted in their name could absolve their sins after their death. By the 14th century, most Christians understood the afterlife as a journey that started in a place called <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/B/bo5972676.html">Purgatory</a>, where residual sins would be burned away through suffering before souls entered heaven. In their wills, Christians left money for <a href="https://undpress.nd.edu/9780268104948/rituals-for-the-dead/">Masses for their souls</a>, so that they could spend less time in Purgatory. There were so many requests that some churches performed multiple Masses per day, sometimes for many souls at a time, which became an unsustainable burden on the clergy.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An eagle's-eye photograph shows a graveyard being exhumed." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457018/original/file-20220407-25034-arv88i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457018/original/file-20220407-25034-arv88i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457018/original/file-20220407-25034-arv88i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457018/original/file-20220407-25034-arv88i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457018/original/file-20220407-25034-arv88i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457018/original/file-20220407-25034-arv88i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457018/original/file-20220407-25034-arv88i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Black Death burial trench under excavation between rows of individual graves and the later concrete foundations of the Royal Mint in East Smithfield, London.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/black-death-burial-trench-under-excavation-between-rows-of-news-photo/467189953?adppopup=true">MOLA/Hulton Archive via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The popularity of indulgences and Masses for the dead helps scholars today understand <a href="https://boydellandbrewer.com/9781903153413/sin-in-medieval-and-early-modern-culture/">people’s challenges</a> during the Black Death. But both practices were ripe for corruption, and frustration mounted as a sacrament meant to console and prepare the faithful for the afterlife left them anxious and uncertain. </p>
<p>Criticisms of indulgences and penance were a focus of <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-martin-luthers-reformation-tells-us-about-history-and-memory-85058">reformer Martin Luther’s</a> famous “95 Theses,” written in 1517. Though the young priest did not originally intend to separate from the Catholic Church, his critiques launched the Protestant Reformation. </p>
<p>But Luther’s challenges to the papacy were not ultimately about money, but theology. Despair over the idea of <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315246819-5/anxious-penitents-appeal-reformation-ozment-historiography-confession-ronald-rittgers">never being able</a> to perform an ideal confession led him and others to <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691643823/sin-and-confession-on-the-eve-of-the-reformation">redefine the sacrament</a>. In Luther’s view, a penitent <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=8OEUAAAAIAAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=martin+luther+95+theses+translation&ots=MwCHZjaBMT&sig=O0_frZBH_On3iTefmQAu1emmDak#v=onepage&q=martin%20luther%2095%20theses%20translation&f=false">could do nothing</a> to make satisfaction for sin, but had to rely on God’s grace alone.</p>
<p>[<em>Over 150,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletters to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-150ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>For Catholics, on the other hand, the sacrament of penance stayed much the same for centuries, although there were some changes. The most visible was the creation of the <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.7591/9781501744709/html">confessional</a>, an enclosed space within the church building where the priest and the penitent could speak more privately. The experience of penance, especially absolution, <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501753664/souls-under-siege/">remained a central</a> ritual meant to heal Catholics’ souls in times of trouble, from the Black Death <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/pubmed/fdab193">to the COVID-19 pandemic today</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/177193/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicole Archambeau does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Churches’ struggles to respond to the plague and constant warfare in the 14th and 15th centuries helped shape the kinds of Christianity in the world today.
Nicole Archambeau, Associate Professor of History, Colorado State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/177696
2022-04-01T12:46:13Z
2022-04-01T12:46:13Z
Medieval illustrated manuscripts reveal how upper-class women managed healthy households – overseeing everything from purging, leeching and cupping to picking the right wet nurse
<p>What type of images come to mind when you think of medieval art? Knights and ladies? Biblical scenes? Cathedrals? It’s probably not some unfortunate man in the throes of vomiting. </p>
<p>It might surprise you to learn this scene is found in a luxurious book from the Middle Ages made with the highest-quality materials, including abundant gold leaf. Known as an illustrated manuscript, it was made entirely by hand, as virtually all books were before the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/printing-press">adoption of the printing press</a>. </p>
<p>Why would such an opulent art form depict such a mundane topic?</p>
<p>Scholars believe that around 1256, a French countess commissioned the creation of a health manual to share with her four daughters just as they were forming their own households. Known as the “Régime du corps,” or “regimen of the body,” the book was widely copied and became extremely popular across Europe in the late Middle Ages, specifically between the 13th and 15th centuries. Over 70 unique manuscripts survive today. They offer a window into many aspects of everyday medieval life – from sleeping, bathing and preparing food to <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/medm/hd_medm.htm">bloodletting, leeching and purging</a>. </p>
<p>I’m an <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=HypjDKAAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">art historian</a> who recently published a book called “Visualizing Household Health: Medieval Women, Art, and Knowledge in the Régime du corps” <a href="https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-09059-7.html">about these magnificent illustrated copies</a>. What’s fascinating to me about the “Régime du corps” is how it depicts the responsibilities of women in wealthy medieval households – and how domestic management advice was passed down among them.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454256/original/file-20220324-9510-163m7nr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A painting of two women in medieval dress – one hands a jar to the other." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454256/original/file-20220324-9510-163m7nr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454256/original/file-20220324-9510-163m7nr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454256/original/file-20220324-9510-163m7nr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454256/original/file-20220324-9510-163m7nr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454256/original/file-20220324-9510-163m7nr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=691&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454256/original/file-20220324-9510-163m7nr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=691&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454256/original/file-20220324-9510-163m7nr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=691&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In a chapter on caring for one’s complexion, two women exchange a remedy. ‘Le Régime du corps,’ circa 1265-70.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">British Library, MS Sloane 2435. ©The British Library Board.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Glimpsing relationships</h2>
<p>The illustrations, which are usually located at the start of each chapter, convey information not often found in other historical records. Even if the images are idealized, they reveal an extraordinary amount about the clothes, objects and furnishings of the period. They also show interactions among people that reflect the culture and society in which these books were made. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454234/original/file-20220324-17-fvxoo3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A painting of two medieval women standing next to eacb other. One woman is reaching out and feeling the other's exposed breast." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454234/original/file-20220324-17-fvxoo3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454234/original/file-20220324-17-fvxoo3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454234/original/file-20220324-17-fvxoo3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454234/original/file-20220324-17-fvxoo3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454234/original/file-20220324-17-fvxoo3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=731&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454234/original/file-20220324-17-fvxoo3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=731&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454234/original/file-20220324-17-fvxoo3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=731&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A potential wet nurse is assessed by another woman. ‘Le Régime du corps,’ 14th century.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">MS Fr. 12323. © Bibliothèque nationale de France.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a scene accompanying the chapter on caring for one’s newborn, two women are depicted opposite each other. Closer inspection shows the well-dressed woman on the right is reaching across and grabbing the exposed breast of the woman in more simple attire. This scene – seemingly one of aggression and violation – depicts the evaluation of a potential wet nurse. </p>
<p>Wet nurses were used throughout the Middle Ages by some elite families who could afford them, but choosing a good wet nurse was critical, loaded with life-and-death implications. Aldobrandino of Siena, the author of the “Régime du corps,” warns that an unhealthy nurse can “kill children straight away,” pointing to very real anxiety around this important decision. The different clothing and headwear communicate each woman’s social status. The elite woman’s gesture also makes clear who has the power in the scene.</p>
<p>Across “Régime du corps” manuscripts, upper-class women are presented with clothing, objects and gestures that convey authority, often in dialogue with those who are shown as laborers of various kinds. Servants within elite households are also illustrated, especially in the chapters about various foods and their health benefits. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454235/original/file-20220324-21-ssh8vc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A painting of two women in medieval dress standing next to two large sacks of grain against a blue background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454235/original/file-20220324-21-ssh8vc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454235/original/file-20220324-21-ssh8vc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454235/original/file-20220324-21-ssh8vc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454235/original/file-20220324-21-ssh8vc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454235/original/file-20220324-21-ssh8vc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454235/original/file-20220324-21-ssh8vc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454235/original/file-20220324-21-ssh8vc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Two servants with sacks of grain. The Bute Painter, ‘Le Régime du corps,’ circa 1285.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">MS Arsenal 2510, © Bibliothèque nationale de France.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Both men and women are shown sifting rice, making wine and managing livestock. The manuscripts’ creators chose not only to make such mundane and repetitive work visible but to treat the high-status physician and milkmaid as equally valid subjects for depiction.</p>
<h2>Medieval health maintenance</h2>
<p>In the Middle Ages, the health of family members, from infancy to old age, was maintained through a variety of strategies that aimed for balance in the body. The “Régime du corps” recommended a wide range of treatments, including the release of bodily fluids through purging or bloodletting to maintain such balance.</p>
<p>Cupping, or the placement of heated glass cups onto the skin, was among the procedures overseen by surgeons, because it involved scratching or perforating the skin before applying suction. Across “Régime du corps” manuscripts, it is not uncommon to see physicians and other male practitioners represented, implying that elite households made use of such professionals. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454237/original/file-20220324-21-1egwztf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A painting of one woman applying a large jarlike object against the bare back of another woman." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454237/original/file-20220324-21-1egwztf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454237/original/file-20220324-21-1egwztf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454237/original/file-20220324-21-1egwztf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454237/original/file-20220324-21-1egwztf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454237/original/file-20220324-21-1egwztf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=784&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454237/original/file-20220324-21-1egwztf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=784&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454237/original/file-20220324-21-1egwztf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=784&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A woman administers cupping treatment. ‘Le Régime du corps,’ circa 1265-70.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">British Library, MS Sloane 2435. © The British Library Board.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But women are also shown administering treatments, including in several cupping scenes. A practitioner’s humble clothing and headdress signal her class as a worker.</p>
<p>Such images show that medieval health care involved many tools – medicine, surgical treatments, food, prayer and charms – and a wide range of individuals offered their services both within and outside of the home. Women sometimes administered such care professionally, but they also did so through oversight of their own households. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454431/original/file-20220325-29-o7ltx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An ornate hand lettered book is open showing colorful illustrations painted amid the text, many depicting grain growing." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454431/original/file-20220325-29-o7ltx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454431/original/file-20220325-29-o7ltx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454431/original/file-20220325-29-o7ltx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454431/original/file-20220325-29-o7ltx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454431/original/file-20220325-29-o7ltx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454431/original/file-20220325-29-o7ltx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454431/original/file-20220325-29-o7ltx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 15th-century copy of the ‘Régime du corps’ open to a section on food.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">British Library, MS Sloane 2401. © The British Library Board</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The “Régime du corps” offered owners images that reflected their world – showing women asserting authority over the care of their families, providing treatment and contributing to a well-run household. The elite owners of these exquisite books were also provided with an added benefit: Possession of such manuscripts was undoubtedly a symbol of status and evidence of conspicuous consumption.</p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation’s politics, science or religion articles each week.</em><a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-best">Sign up today</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/177696/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Borland does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
This illustrated health manual dating back to the 13th century provides a glimpse of daily life in aristocratic households during the Middle Ages.
Jennifer Borland, Professor of Art History, Oklahoma State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/155099
2021-02-11T20:10:50Z
2021-02-11T20:10:50Z
For the birds? Hardly! Valentine’s Day was reimagined by chivalrous medieval poets for all to enjoy, respectfully
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383815/original/file-20210211-19-qdtz6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=302%2C627%2C761%2C755&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Roses are red, thieving birds are blue. My neck is aching, are you uncomfortable too?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/cpg848/0494">Universitatbibliothek Heidelberg</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Valentine’s Day <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2012/02/13/opinion/obeidallah-hate-valentines-day/index.html">annoys many people</a>.</p>
<p>For many in a relationship, the pressure to impress a partner can weigh heavily, and expensive gifts serve as a reminder of the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/feb/12/valentines-day-commercialised">relentless commercialization</a> <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228150577_A_Holiday_Loved_and_Loathed_A_Consumer_Perspective_of_Valentine's_Day">of the holiday</a>. Meanwhile those still looking for love <a href="https://blog.pof.com/2020/01/the-pressures-of-valentines-day-dating-study/">approach the day with trepidation</a> – another reminder of their single status and the pressure to find a partner.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholars.library.tamu.edu/vivo/display/nbfd0863b/Persons/View%20All">chivalric literary historian</a> who has studied the origins of the holiday, I find this a shame. When the notion of Valentine’s Day as a day for romance emerged in the 1380s it was all about love as a natural life force – birds choosing their mates, the freedom to choose or refuse love and the arrival of springtime. But even then many people did not understand or value these things. In fact, that is why it was invented. </p>
<h2>Odes to love</h2>
<p>The first to write of Valentine’s Day – a feast day with <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/holidays/reference/saint-st-valentines-day/#:%7E:text=The%20earliest%20possible%20origin%20story,sacrifice%20a%20goat%20and%20dog.&text=When%20Pope%20Gelasius%20came%20to,put%20an%20end%20to%20Lupercalia.">ancient pagan roots</a> – as a holiday celebrating love and lovers were the 14th-century <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/geoffrey-chaucer">English squire Geoffrey Chaucer</a> and his friend, the internationally admired <a href="https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/nicholson-grenier-winther-granson-poems-introduction">knight and poet Oton III de Granson</a>, from Savoy in modern-day France. Both poets were recognized in their own time as chivalrous advocates for human rights. And in tandem, they seem to have <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-parliament-of-fowls#:%7E:text=The%20idea%20that%20Valentine's%20Day,their%20mates%20for%20the%20year.">concocted Valentine’s Day as a day for lovers</a>.</p>
<p>Their work supported principles still important for us today, notably the right to free choice in love and the right to refuse romantic advances.</p>
<p>Chaucer and Granson encountered one another in the service of <a href="https://www.ancient.eu/Richard_II_of_England/">Richard II of England</a> and admired one another’s poetry. Their poems about Valentine’s Day show them operating as an international chivalric team to address pressing issues in the theory and practice of love, then and now.</p>
<p>In the poem “<a href="https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/English/Fowls.php">The Parliament of Fowls</a>,” Chaucer presents Valentine’s Day as a day when birds gather to choose their mates under the supervision of nature. In the poem, presented as a dream, three rival eagles each express a lifelong commitment to a single female. Birds of lower social status and different temperament, waiting in line, quarrel about how to resolve the impasse so they, too, can select their mates.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An engraving of four eagles in a tree as depicted in Geoffrey Chaucer's 'Parliament of Fowls'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383790/original/file-20210211-15-1ycv2m0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383790/original/file-20210211-15-1ycv2m0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383790/original/file-20210211-15-1ycv2m0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383790/original/file-20210211-15-1ycv2m0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383790/original/file-20210211-15-1ycv2m0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383790/original/file-20210211-15-1ycv2m0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383790/original/file-20210211-15-1ycv2m0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 19th-century illustration of Chaucer’s ‘Parliament of Fowls.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/illustration-from-the-kelmscott-press-edition-of-the-works-news-photo/464000155?adppopup=true">The Print Collector/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the scenario, two of the eagles must be disappointed – Valentine’s Day is no guarantee that all will find love. But in the end the wise female eagle obtains from the figure of Nature the right to take her time in deciding her mate. She chooses not to choose. It is a story of waiting to recognize one’s true love, knowing your own heart and having the right to choose your partner yourself.</p>
<p>Chaucer’s tale relates to an actual courtship that included three suitors and ended in the wedding of two 15-year-olds: <a href="https://www.westminster-abbey.org/abbey-commemorations/royals/richard-ii-and-anne-of-bohemia">Richard II and the princess Anne of Bohemia</a>, in 1382. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Granson promoted Valentine’s Day in his French poems as a day for human lovers to choose one another and pledge their love, as do the birds. Granson pledges his own undying love to a mysterious lady in his “<a href="https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/granson-nicholson-grenier-winther-complainte-de-saint-vallentin-garenson">Complaint to Saint Valentine</a>.” There was no merchandise involved and no gifts were expected.</p>
<h2>Free love</h2>
<p>Chaucer and Granson’s celebration of love as a relationship between partners, a union of souls grounded in respect and the freedom of choice, contrasts with many of the traditions of the age in which they lived.</p>
<p>Throughout the Middle Ages, most <a href="https://www.brown.edu/Departments/Italian_Studies/dweb/society/sex/sex-spouses.php">marriages were arranged and often forced</a>, usually in childhood – as <a href="https://www.unicef.org/stories/child-marriage-around-world">many still are today</a> – with the full support of tradition and the law. Saints’ lives and legal documents describe <a href="https://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1948&context=mff">parents coercing children to marry</a> by brute force. Chaucer’s own father was <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=TQHw98Pn16IC&pg=PA371&dq=John+Chaucer+aunt+kidnapping&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwia1M3l9uHuAhXaG80KHYaWDLIQ6AEwAnoECAcQAg#v=onepage&q=John%20Chaucer%20aunt%20kidnapping&f=false">kidnapped at age 12 by his aunt</a> in an attempt to force him to marry her daughter in order to gain control over his inheritance.</p>
<p>In this context, Chaucer and Granson reimagined the already existing Valentine’s Day festival to celebrate the potential beauty of love itself. In a world where forced and child marriages are still all too common, it is important to reflect on Chaucer and Granson’s visions. Their reinvention of the day opened the eyes of poets, knights, ladies and just plain folk to the need for respect and self-respect in courtship – and the value of partnerships entered into for love, not just for lust, power or money.</p>
<p>Servants of love, these two knightly poets shaped Valentine’s Day as a gift for future generations. Their chivalrous enterprise deserves to be celebrated as we pursue our own happiness.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155099/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Wollock does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The view of Valentine’s Day as a day for lovers can be traced back to two medieval poets who stood up for romance and the freedom to choose.
Jennifer Wollock, Professor of English, Texas A&M University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/151370
2020-12-08T13:14:42Z
2020-12-08T13:14:42Z
In ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ and beyond, chess holds up a mirror to life
<p>In the closing sequence of “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10048342/">The Queen’s Gambit</a>,” the chess-playing heroine, Beth Harmon, defeats her archrival Vasily Borgov at the Moscow Invitational. The next day she impulsively skips her flight home to join a group of adoring chess players in what appears to be Moscow’s famous <a href="https://www.moscovery.com/sokolniki-park/">Sokolniki Park</a>. The symbolism of this moment is clear. Dressed in a <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-8987717/Netflix-reveals-meaning-Beth-Harmons-outfits-Queens-Gambit.html">blazing white coat and hat</a>, Beth has become a chess queen with the power to move freely through a field of men.</p>
<p>If this use of chess to represent life feels familiar, it is largely thanks to the medieval world. As I argue in my book “<a href="https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14222.html">Power Play: The Literature and Politics of Chess in the Late Middle Ages</a>,” the game’s early European players turned the game into an allegory for society and changed it to mirror their world. Since then, poets and writers have used it as an allegory for love, duty, conflict and accomplishment.</p>
<h2>The game’s medieval roots</h2>
<p>When chess arrived in Europe through Mediterranean trade routes of the 10th century, players altered the game to reflect their society’s political structure. </p>
<p>In its original form, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Companion-Chess-Second/dp/0198661649">chess was a game of war</a> with pieces representing different military units: horsemen, elephant-riding fighters, charioteers and infantry. These armed units protected the “shah,” or king, and his counselor, the “firz,” in the game’s imagined battle. </p>
<p>But Europeans quickly transformed the “shah” to a king, the “vizier” to the queen, the “elephants” to bishops, the “horses” to knights, the “chariots” to castles and the “foot soldiers” to pawns. With these changes, the two sides of the board no longer represented the units in an army; they now stood in for Western social order.</p>
<p>The game gave concrete expression to the medieval worldview that every person had a designated place. Moreover, it revised and improved the very common <a href="http://faculty.goucher.edu/eng330/three_estates.htm">“three-estate” model</a>: those who fought (knights), those who prayed (clergy) and those who worked (the rest). </p>
<p>Then there was the transformation of the queen. Although chess rules across medieval Europe had some variations, most initially granted the queen the power to move only one square. This changed in the 15th century, when the chess queen gained unlimited movement in any direction. </p>
<p>Most players would agree that this change made the game faster and more interesting to play. But also, and as the late Stanford historian Marylin Yalom argued in “<a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/birth-of-the-chess-queen-marilyn-yalom?variant=32122469023778">The Birth of the Chess Queen</a>,” the queen’s elevation to the strongest piece appeared first in Spain during the time when the powerful Queen Isabella held the throne. </p>
<h2>A ‘mating’ dance</h2>
<p>With <a href="https://chaucer.lib.utsa.edu/omeka/items/show/274705">a powerful female figure</a> now on the board, jokes about “mating” abounded, and poets often used chess as a metaphor for sex. </p>
<p>Take the 13th-century epic poem “<a href="https://carleton.ca/chum/wp-content/uploads/Huon-for-Hums-3200.pdf">Huon de Bordeaux</a>.” Wanting to expose his newly hired servant, Huon, as a nobleman, King Yvoryn urges him to play chess against his prodigiously talented daughter. </p>
<p>“If thou can mate her,” Yvoryn says, “I promise that thou shalt have her one night in thy bed, to do with her at thy pleasure.” If Huon loses, Yvoryn will kill him. </p>
<p>Huon does not play chess well. But this turns out not to matter because he looks like a medieval version of “Queen’s Gambit” breakout star <a href="https://www.marieclaire.com/culture/a34510174/who-is-townes-the-queens-gambit-jacob-fortune-lloyd/">Jacob Fortune-Lloyd</a>. Dizzy with desire and desperate to sleep with this heartthrob, Yvoryn’s daughter plays badly and loses the game. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373384/original/file-20201207-13-1f9670l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A young man and woman play chess while two other women look on." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373384/original/file-20201207-13-1f9670l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373384/original/file-20201207-13-1f9670l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373384/original/file-20201207-13-1f9670l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373384/original/file-20201207-13-1f9670l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373384/original/file-20201207-13-1f9670l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373384/original/file-20201207-13-1f9670l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373384/original/file-20201207-13-1f9670l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An image of two young lovers playing chess from Alfonso X’s 13th-century ‘Book of Chess, Dice and Tables.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://jnsilva.ludicum.org/HJT2012/BookofGames.pdf">Charles Knutson</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the 14th-century poem “<a href="https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/hahn-sir-gawain-avowyng-of-arthur-introduction">The Avowyng of King Arthur</a>,” chess also stands in for sex. At one key moment, King Arthur summons a noble lady to play chess; together they “sat themselves together on the side of the bed” and “began to play until dawn that was day.” The repeated “mating” on the board not-so-subtly hints at a night of lovemaking.</p>
<p>It also shows up to this end in “The Queen’s Gambit.” In an echo of Huon’s game, Beth plays with her friend and love interest, Townes, in his hotel room. Their match, however, is interrupted when it becomes clear that Townes doesn’t share Beth’s feelings. Later in the story, Beth plays with Harry Beltik. Their first kiss takes place over the board and prefaces their sexual consummation. </p>
<h2>Chess as ‘life in miniature’</h2>
<p>But much deeper and more interesting are the medieval allegories that use chess to reinforce societal obligations and ties between citizens. </p>
<p>No author did this more comprehensively than 13th-century Dominican friar Jacobus de Cessolis. In his treatise “<a href="https://www.textmanuscripts.com/medieval/cessolis-liber-de-moribus-60910">The Book of the Morals of Men and the Duties of Nobles and Commoners on the Game of Chess</a>,” Jacobus imagines chess as a way to teach personal accountability. </p>
<p>In four short sections, Jacobus moves through the gameplay and pieces, describing the ways each one contributes to a harmonious social order. He goes so far as to distinguish pawns by trade and to connect each to its “royal” partner. The first pawn is a farmer who is tied to the castle because he provides food to the kingdom. The second pawn is a blacksmith, who makes armor for the knight. The third is an attorney, who helps the bishop with legal matters. And so on.</p>
<p>Jacobus’ work became one of the most popular of the Middle Ages and, according to chess historian <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/A-History-of-Chess/H-J-R-Murray/9781632202932">H.J.R. Murray</a>, at one point rivaled the number of Bible copies in circulation. Even though Jacobus in his prologue implies that his book is most useful for a king, the rest of his treatise makes clear that all people – and the piece they most closely resemble – can benefit by reading his work, learning the game and mastering the lessons that come with it. </p>
<p>Jacobus’ allegory becomes one of the central messages of “The Queen’s Gambit.” Beth reaches her full potential only after she learns to collaborate with other players. Just like the pawn she converts in her <a href="https://vandevliet.me/the-queens-gambit-the-final-game-harmon-vs-borgov/">final game</a>, Beth becomes a figurative queen only with the help of others.</p>
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<p>But this is not the only modern work that deploys chess in this fashion. “<a href="https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/star-wars-holochess-game-no-headset">Star Wars</a>,” “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sm_-vJNCHk">Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone</a>” and “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Za8TuwshXnA">Blade Runner</a>,” to name just a few, use versions of the game at key moments to show a character’s growth or to stand in as a metaphor for conflict.</p>
<p>So the next time you see a headline like “<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-01/trump-nears-checkmate-stage-in-last-gasp-bid-to-undo-election">Trump Nears Checkmate</a>” and “<a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/gang-of-10-obamas-checkmate/">Gang of 10: Obama’s Checkmate</a>,” or see an ad for <a href="https://spycentre.com/products/checkmate-home-infidelity-test-kit">a “Checkmate” infidelity test</a>, you can thank – or curse – the medieval world.</p>
<p>Grandmaster Garry Kasparov’s observation ultimately holds true. “Chess,” <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RemmwytmEXs">he once quipped</a>, “is life in miniature.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151370/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jenny Adams has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). She has received no support from for-profit organizations.</span></em></p>
Ever since players tweaked the game to reflect the medieval social order, poets and writers have used chess as an allegory for love, duty, conflict and accomplishment.
Jenny Adams, Associate Professor of English, UMass Amherst
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/146467
2020-10-01T12:27:27Z
2020-10-01T12:27:27Z
How 3 prior pandemics triggered massive societal shifts
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360834/original/file-20200930-22-1auioh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=137%2C137%2C2901%2C2122&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A 19th-century engraving depicts the Angel of Death descending on Rome during the Antonine plague.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_angel_of_death_striking_a_door_during_the_plague_of_Rome_Wellcome_V0010664.jpg">J.G. Levasseur/Wellcome Collection</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Before March of this year, few probably thought disease could be a significant driver of human history. </p>
<p>Not so anymore. People are beginning to understand that <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1105960/changes-to-the-general-lifestyle-due-to-covid-19-in-selected-countries/">the little changes</a> COVID-19 has already ushered in or accelerated – telemedicine, remote work, social distancing, the death of the handshake, online shopping, the virtual disappearance of cash and so on – have begun to change their way of life. They may not be sure whether these changes will outlive the pandemic. And they may be uncertain whether these changes are for good or ill.</p>
<p>Three previous plagues could yield some clues about the way COVID-19 might bend the arc of history. As <a href="https://www.macalester.edu/politicalscience/facultystaff/andrewlatham/">I teach</a> in my course “Plagues, Pandemics and Politics,” pandemics tend to shape human affairs in three ways.</p>
<p>First, they can profoundly alter a society’s fundamental worldview. Second, they can upend core economic structures. And, finally, they can sway power struggles among nations. </p>
<h2>Sickness spurs the rise of the Christian West</h2>
<p>The Antonine plague, and its twin, the Cyprian plague – <a href="https://asit-prod-web1.cc.columbia.edu/historydept/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2017/07/Kenneth-Philbrick.pdf">both now widely thought to have been caused by a smallpox strain</a> – ravaged the Roman Empire from A.D. 165 to 262. <a href="https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/daily-life-and-practice/the-antonine-plague-and-the-spread-of-christianity/">It’s been estimated</a> that the combined pandemics’ mortality rate was anywhere from one-quarter to one-third of the empire’s population. </p>
<p>While staggering, the number of deaths tells only part of the story. This also triggered a profound transformation in the religious culture of the Roman Empire.</p>
<p>On the eve of the Antonine plague, <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Rise_of_Christianity.html?id=HcFSaGvgKKkC">the empire was pagan</a>. The vast majority of the population worshipped multiple gods and spirits and believed that rivers, trees, fields and buildings each had their own spirit. </p>
<p>Christianity, a monotheistic religion that had little in common with paganism, <a href="https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/daily-life-and-practice/the-antonine-plague-and-the-spread-of-christianity/">had only 40,000 adherents</a>, no more than 0.07% of the empire’s population. </p>
<p>Yet within a generation of the end of the Cyprian plague, Christianity had become the dominant religion in the empire.</p>
<p>How did these twin pandemics effect this profound religious transformation? </p>
<p>Rodney Stark, in his seminal work “<a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Rise_of_Christianity.html?id=HcFSaGvgKKkC">The Rise of Christianity</a>,” argues that these two pandemics made Christianity a much more attractive belief system.</p>
<p>While the disease was effectively incurable, rudimentary palliative care – the provision of food and water, for example – could spur recovery of those too weak to care for themselves. Motivated by Christian charity and an ethic of care for the sick – and enabled by the thick social and charitable networks around which the early church was organized – the empire’s Christian communities were willing and able to provide this sort of care. </p>
<p>Pagan Romans, on the other hand, opted instead either to flee outbreaks of the plague or to self-isolate in the hope of being spared infection.</p>
<p>This had two effects. </p>
<p>First, Christians survived the ravages of these plagues at higher rates than their pagan neighbors and developed higher levels of immunity more quickly. Seeing that many more of their Christian compatriots were surviving the plague – and attributing this either to divine favor or the benefits of the care being provided by Christians – <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Rise_of_Christianity.html?id=HcFSaGvgKKkC">many pagans were drawn to the Christian community and the belief system that underpinned it</a>. At the same time, tending to sick pagans afforded Christians unprecedented opportunities to evangelize.</p>
<p>Second, Stark argues that, because these two plagues disproportionately affected young and pregnant women, the lower mortality rate among Christians translated into a higher birth rate.</p>
<p>The net effect of all this was that, in roughly the span of a century, an essentially pagan empire found itself well on its way to becoming a majority Christian one.</p>
<h2>The plague of Justinian and the fall of Rome</h2>
<p>The plague of Justinian, named after the Roman emperor who reigned from A.S. 527 to 565, arrived in the Roman Empire in A.D. 542 and didn’t disappear until A.D. 755. During its two centuries of recurrence, it killed <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Justinian_s_Flea.html?id=2oA2Lbiv4xAC">an estimated 25% to 50% of the population</a> – anywhere from 25 million to 100 million people. </p>
<p>This massive loss of lives crippled the economy, triggering a financial crisis that exhausted the state’s coffers and hobbled the empire’s once mighty military. </p>
<p>In the east, Rome’s principal geopolitical rival, Sassanid Persia, was also devastated by the plague and was therefore in no position to exploit the Roman Empire’s weakness. But the forces of the Islamic Rashidun Caliphate in Arabia – which had long been contained by the Romans and Sasanians – were largely unaffected by the plague. The reasons for this are not well understood, <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22992565/#:%7E:text=The%20epidemic%20plague%20significantly%20contributed,territories%2C%20succeeded%20in%20escaping%20the">but they probably have to do with the caliphate’s relative isolation from major urban centers</a>.</p>
<p>Caliph Abu Bakr didn’t let the opportunity go to waste. Seizing the moment, <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Plague_and_the_End_of_Antiquity/DKhLOd6gGlAC?hl=en&gbpv=0">his forces swiftly conquered the entire Sasanian Empire</a> while stripping the weakened Roman Empire of its territories in the Levant, the Caucasus, Egypt and North Africa.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Troops clash in a 14th-century illustration of the Battle of Yarmouk." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360879/original/file-20200930-14-1ofqkrg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360879/original/file-20200930-14-1ofqkrg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=319&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360879/original/file-20200930-14-1ofqkrg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=319&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360879/original/file-20200930-14-1ofqkrg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=319&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360879/original/file-20200930-14-1ofqkrg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360879/original/file-20200930-14-1ofqkrg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360879/original/file-20200930-14-1ofqkrg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Muslim forces of the Rashidun Caliphate captured the Levant – a region of the Middle East – from the Byzantine Empire in A.D. 636.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/Hayton_BNF886_9v.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Pre-pandemic, the Mediterranean world had been relatively unified by commerce, politics, religion and culture. What emerged was a fractured trio of civilizations jockeying for power and influence: an Islamic one in the eastern and southern Mediterranean basin; a Greek one in the northeastern Mediterranean; and a European one between the western Mediterranean and the North Sea. </p>
<p>This last civilization – what we now call <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Middle-Ages">medieval Europe</a> – was defined by a new, distinctive economic system. </p>
<p>Before the plague, the European economy <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Plague_and_the_End_of_Antiquity/DKhLOd6gGlAC?hl=en&gbpv=0">had been based on slavery</a>. After the plague, the significantly diminished supply of slaves forced landowners to begin granting plots to nominally “free” laborers – serfs who worked the lord’s fields and, in return, received military protection and certain legal rights from the lord. </p>
<p>The seeds of feudalism were planted.</p>
<h2>The Black Death of the Middle Ages</h2>
<p>The Black Death broke out in Europe in 1347 <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Plague_A_Very_Short_Introduction/KYOz00Jkt9IC?hl=en&gbpv=0">and subsequently killed between one-third and one-half</a> of the total European population of 80 million people. But it killed more than people. By the time the pandemic had burned out by the early 1350s, a distinctly modern world emerged – one defined by free labor, technological innovation and a growing middle class.</p>
<p>Before the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/plague/index.html"><em>Yersinia pestis</em> bacterium</a> arrived in 1347, <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Plague_and_the_End_of_Antiquity.html?id=DKhLOd6gGlAC">Western Europe was a feudal society that was overpopulated</a>. Labor was cheap, serfs had little bargaining power, social mobility was stymied and there was little incentive to increase productivity.</p>
<p>But the loss of so much life shook up an ossified society. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/uprisings-after-pandemics-have-happened-before-just-look-at-the-english-peasant-revolt-of-1381-139260">Labor shortages</a> gave peasants more bargaining power. In the agrarian economy, they also encouraged the widespread adoption of new and existing technologies – the iron plow, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/three-field-system">the three-field crop rotation system</a> and fertilization with manure, all of which significantly increased productivity. Beyond the countryside, it resulted in the invention of time and labor-saving devices such as the printing press, water pumps for draining mines and gunpowder weapons.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360884/original/file-20200930-18-1aszuon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Townspeople flee the city for the countryside to escape the bubonic plague." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360884/original/file-20200930-18-1aszuon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360884/original/file-20200930-18-1aszuon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=191&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360884/original/file-20200930-18-1aszuon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=191&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360884/original/file-20200930-18-1aszuon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=191&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360884/original/file-20200930-18-1aszuon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=240&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360884/original/file-20200930-18-1aszuon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=240&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360884/original/file-20200930-18-1aszuon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=240&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Black Death created massive labor shortages.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/flight-of-the-townspeople-into-the-country-to-escape-from-news-photo/188005823?adppopup=true&uiloc=thumbnail_more_search_results_adp">Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In turn, freedom from feudal obligations and a desire to move up the social ladder <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Plague_and_the_End_of_Antiquity.html?id=DKhLOd6gGlAC">encouraged many peasants</a> to move to towns and engage in crafts and trades. The more successful ones became wealthier and constituted a new middle class. They could now afford more of the luxury goods that could be obtained only from beyond Europe’s frontiers, and this stimulated both long-distance trade and the more efficient three-masted ships needed to engage in that trade. </p>
<p>The new middle class’s increasing wealth also stimulated patronage of the arts, science, literature and philosophy. The result was an explosion of cultural and intellectual creativity – what we now call <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Renaissance">the Renaissance</a>.</p>
<h2>Our present future</h2>
<p>None of this is to argue that the still-ongoing COVID-19 pandemic will have similarly earth-shattering outcomes. <a href="https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality">The mortality rate</a> of COVID-19 is nothing like that of the plagues discussed above, and therefore the consequences may not be as seismic. </p>
<p>But there are some indications that they could be. </p>
<p>Will the bumbling efforts of the open societies of the West to come to grips with the virus shattering <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/world/asia/coronavirus-china-aid.html">already-wavering faith in liberal democracy</a>, creating a space for other ideologies to evolve and metastasize? </p>
<p>In a similar fashion, COVID-19 may be accelerating an already <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057%2F9780230358973_3">ongoing geopolitical shift</a> in the balance of power between the U.S. and China. During the pandemic, China has taken the global lead in providing medical assistance to other countries as part of its “<a href="https://www.cfr.org/blog/mapping-chinas-health-silk-road">Health Silk Road</a>” initiative. <a href="https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/chinas-pandemic-power-play-2/">Some argue</a> that the combination of America’s failure to lead and China’s relative success at picking up the slack may well be turbocharging China’s rise to a position of global leadership. </p>
<p>Finally, COVID-19 seems to be accelerating <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/2020/09/07/zoom-work-from-home-future-office-after-coronavirus/5680284002/">the unraveling of long-established patterns and practices of work</a>, with repercussions that could affet the future of office towers, big cities and mass transit, to name just a few. The implications of this and related economic developments may prove as profoundly transformative as those triggered by the Black Death in 1347. </p>
<p>Ultimately, the longer-term consequences of this pandemic – like all previous pandemics – are simply unknowable to those who must endure them. But just as past plagues made the world we currently inhabit, so too will this plague likely remake the one populated by our grandchildren and great-grandchildren.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146467/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Latham does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Societies and cultures that seem ossified and entrenched can be completely upended by pandemics, which create openings for conquest, innovation and social change.
Andrew Latham, Professor of Political Science, Macalester College
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/140809
2020-07-02T12:26:45Z
2020-07-02T12:26:45Z
The invention of satanic witchcraft by medieval authorities was initially met with skepticism
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344310/original/file-20200626-104484-1dbzjs6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C10%2C3344%2C2773&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Woodcut, circa 1400. A witch, a demon and a warlock fly toward a peasant woman.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/circa-1400-a-witch-a-demon-and-a-warlock-fly-towards-a-news-photo/51240919">Hulton Archive /Handout via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On a midsummer day in 1438, a young man from the north shore of Lake Geneva presented himself to the local church inquisitor. He had a confession to make. Five years earlier, his father had forced him to join a satanic cult of witches. They had flown at night on a small black horse to join more than a hundred people gathered in a meadow. The devil was there too, in the form of a black cat. The witches knelt before him, worshiped him and kissed his posterior.</p>
<p>The young man’s father had already been executed as a witch. It’s likely he was trying to secure a lighter punishment by voluntarily telling inquisitors what they wanted to hear.</p>
<p>The Middle Ages, A.D. 500-1500, have a reputation for both heartless cruelty and hopeless credulity. People commonly believed in all kinds of magic, monsters and <a href="https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15568.html">fairies</a>. But it wasn’t until the 15th century that the idea of organized satanic witchcraft took hold. As a historian who <a href="https://history.iastate.edu/directory/michael-bailey/">studies medieval magic</a>, I’m fascinated by how a coterie of church and state authorities conspired to develop and promote this new concept of witchcraft for their own purposes.</p>
<h2>Early medieval attitudes about witchcraft</h2>
<p>Belief in witches, in the sense of wicked people performing harmful magic, had existed in Europe since before the Greeks and Romans. In the early part of the Middle Ages, authorities were largely unconcerned about it. </p>
<p><a href="https://pages.uoregon.edu/dluebke/Witches442/PaganTraces.html">A church document</a> from the early 10th century proclaimed that “sorcery and witchcraft” might be real, but the idea that groups of witches flew together with demons through the night was a delusion. </p>
<p>Things began to change in the 12th and 13th centuries, ironically because educated elites in Europe were becoming more sophisticated.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344356/original/file-20200626-104489-1x8hg5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344356/original/file-20200626-104489-1x8hg5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344356/original/file-20200626-104489-1x8hg5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344356/original/file-20200626-104489-1x8hg5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344356/original/file-20200626-104489-1x8hg5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344356/original/file-20200626-104489-1x8hg5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=609&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344356/original/file-20200626-104489-1x8hg5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=609&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344356/original/file-20200626-104489-1x8hg5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=609&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Henricus de Alemannia lecturing students at the University of Bologna in the second half of the 14th century – one of the earliest illustrations of a medieval university classroom.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Laurentius_de_Voltolina_001.jpg">Laurentius de Voltolina/Kupferstichkabinett Berlin</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Universities were being founded, and scholars in Western Europe began to pore over ancient texts as well as learned writings from the Muslim world. Some of these presented complex <a href="https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-08213-4.html">systems of magic</a> that claimed to draw on astral forces or conjure powerful spirits. Gradually, these ideas began to gain intellectual clout.</p>
<p>Ordinary people – the kind who eventually got accused of being witches – didn’t perform elaborate rites from books. They gathered herbs, brewed potions, maybe said a short spell, as they had for generations. And they did so for all sorts of reasons – perhaps to harm someone they disliked, but more often to <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/popular-magic-cunning-folk-in-english-history-9780826442796/">heal or protect</a> others. Such practices were important in a world with only rudimentary forms of medical care.</p>
<p>Christian authorities had previously dismissed this kind of magic as empty superstition. Now they took all magic much more seriously. They began to believe simple spells worked by summoning demons, which meant anyone who performed them secretly worshiped demons. </p>
<h2>Inventing satanic witchcraft</h2>
<p>In the 1430s, a small group of writers in Central Europe – church inquisitors, theologians, lay magistrates and even one historian – began to describe horrific assemblies where witches gathered and worshiped demons, had orgies, ate murdered babies and performed other abominable acts. Whether any of these authors ever met each other is unclear, but they all described groups of witches supposedly active in a zone around the western Alps. </p>
<p>[<em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklysmart">You can get our highlights each weekend</a>.]</p>
<p>The reason for this development may have been purely practical. Church inquisitors, active against religious heretics since the 13th century, and some secular courts were looking to expand their jurisdictions. Having a new and particularly horrible crime to prosecute might have struck them as useful.</p>
<p>I just translated a number of these early texts for a <a href="https://www.academia.edu/43358448/Origins_of_the_Witches_Sabbath">forthcoming book</a> and was struck by how worried the authors were about readers not believing them. One fretted that his accounts would be “disparaged” by those who “think themselves learned.” Another feared that “simple folk” would refuse to believe the “fragile sex” would engage in such terrible practices.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520320574/european-witch-trials">Trial records</a> show it was a hard sell. Most people remained concerned with harmful magic – witches causing illness or withering crops. They didn’t much care about secret satanic gatherings.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344298/original/file-20200626-104499-4etmz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344298/original/file-20200626-104499-4etmz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344298/original/file-20200626-104499-4etmz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=850&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344298/original/file-20200626-104499-4etmz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=850&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344298/original/file-20200626-104499-4etmz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=850&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344298/original/file-20200626-104499-4etmz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1068&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344298/original/file-20200626-104499-4etmz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1068&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344298/original/file-20200626-104499-4etmz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1068&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The handbook for detecting and persecuting witches in the Middle Ages, ‘Malleus Maleficarum’ or ‘Hammer of Witches.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:J._Sprenger_and_H._Institutoris,_Malleus_maleficarum._Wellcome_L0000980.jpg">Wellcome Images/Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1486, clergyman Heinrich Kramer published the most widely circulated medieval text about organized witchcraft, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/literature/european-literature/hammer-witches-complete-translation-malleus-maleficarum?format=PB&isbn=9780521747875">Malleus Maleficarum</a> (Hammer of Witches). But many people didn’t believe him. When he tried to start a witch hunt in Innsbruck, Austria, he was kicked out by the local bishop, who accused him of <a href="https://www.dtv.de/buch/heinrich-kramer-guenter-jerouschek-wolfgang-behringer-der-hexenhammer-30780/">being senile</a>. </p>
<h2>Witch hunts</h2>
<p>Unfortunately, the fear of satanic witchcraft grew. The 15th century seems to have provided ideal soil for this new idea to take root. </p>
<p>Europe was recovering from <a href="https://cornellup.degruyter.com/view/title/568227">several crises</a>: plague, wars and a split in the church between two, and then three, competing popes. Beginning in the 1450s, the printing press made it easier for new ideas to spread. Even prior to the Protestant Reformation, religious reform was in the air. As I explored in an <a href="http://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-02225-3.html">earlier book</a>, reformers used the idea of a diabolical conspiracy bent on corrupting Christianity as a boogeyman in their call for spiritual renewal.</p>
<p>Over time, more people came to accept this new idea. Church and state authorities kept telling them it was real. Still, many also kept relying on local “witches” for magical healing and protection.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344300/original/file-20200626-104484-6oipp0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344300/original/file-20200626-104484-6oipp0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344300/original/file-20200626-104484-6oipp0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344300/original/file-20200626-104484-6oipp0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344300/original/file-20200626-104484-6oipp0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344300/original/file-20200626-104484-6oipp0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344300/original/file-20200626-104484-6oipp0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344300/original/file-20200626-104484-6oipp0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The execution of alleged witches in Central Europe, 1587.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/Wickiana3.jpg">Zurich Central Library/Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The history of witchcraft can be quite grim. From the 1400s through the 1700s, authorities in Western Europe <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Witch-Hunt-in-Early-Modern-Europe-4th-Edition/Levack/p/book/9781138808102?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI9s_H7OuV6gIVi8DACh3paAtCEAAYASAAEgLcLvD_BwE">executed around 50,000 people, mostly women,</a> for witchcraft. The worst witch hunts could claim hundreds of victims at a time. With 20 dead, colonial America’s largest hunt at Salem was moderate by comparison. </p>
<p>Salem, in 1692, marked the end of witch hunts in New England. In Europe, too, skepticism would eventually prevail. It’s worth remembering, though, that at the beginning, authorities had to work hard to convince others such malevolence was real.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140809/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael D. Bailey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The idea of organized satanic witchcraft was invented in 15th-century Europe by church and state authorities, who at first had a hard time convincing regular folks it was real.
Michael D. Bailey, Professor of History, Iowa State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/141327
2020-06-24T15:59:48Z
2020-06-24T15:59:48Z
Comets, omens and fear: understanding plague in the Middle Ages
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/343742/original/file-20200624-132972-1h40eg8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A comet depicted in medieval times in the Bayeux tapestry.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.bayeuxmuseum.com/en/the-bayeux-tapestry/">Bayeux Museam</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On August 30 2019, a comet from outside our solar system was observed by amateur astronomer <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/07/science/interstellar-comet-2i-borisov.html">Gennady Borisov</a> at the MARGO observatory in Crimea. This was only the second time an interstellar comet had ever been recorded. <a href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7498">Comet 19 or C/2019 Q4 </a>, as it is now known, made its closest approach to the sun on December 8 2019, roughly coinciding with the <a href="https://www.who.int/csr/don/12-january-2020-novel-coronavirus-china/en/">first recorded human cases</a> of COVID-19.</p>
<p>While we know that this is merely coincidence, in medieval times authorities <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/episode-4-the-one-who-flies/id1517030516?i=1000476891328">regarded</a> natural phenomena such as comets and eclipses as portents of natural disasters, including plagues.</p>
<p>One of the most learned men of the early Middle Ages was the <a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2016/05/bede-the-greatest-hits.html">Venerable Bede</a>, an Anglo-Saxon monk who lived in Northumbria in the late seventh and early eighth centuries. In chapter 25 of his scientific treatise, <a href="https://www.library.wales/discover/digital-gallery/manuscripts/the-middle-ages/de-natura-rerum#?c=&m=&s=&cv=&xywh=-546%2C0%2C4483%2C3808">De natura rerum</a> (On the Nature of Things) , he <a href="https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/books/id/38342/">describes comets</a> as “stars with flames like hair. They are born suddenly, portending a change of royal power or plague or wars or winds or heat”.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/as_SDf63xgg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Plagues and natural phenomena</h2>
<p>Outbreaks of the <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/plague">bubonic plague</a> were recorded long before the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/middle-ages/black-death">Black Death</a> of the 14th century. In the 6th century, a plague spread from Egypt to Europe and lingered for the next 200 years. At the end of the seventh century, the Irish scholar <a href="https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/Documents/college-artslaw/CMR1900/CMR1900/Sample-entry-Adomnan-of-Iona.pdf">Adomnán, Abbot of Iona</a> wrote in book 42 of his <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/44479625?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">Life of St Columba</a> of “the great mortality which twice in our time has ravaged a large part of the world”. The effects of this plague were so severe in England that, according to Bede, the kingdom of Essex <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ecclesiastical-History-of-the-English-People">reverted to paganism</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://asc.jebbo.co.uk">Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records</a> that 664 “the sun grew dark, and in this year came to the island of Britain a great plague among men (‘micel man cwealm’ in Anglo Saxon)”. The year 664 held great significance for the English and Irish churches: a great meeting (or synod) was held in Whitby in Northumbria to <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15610a.htm">decide</a> whether the English church should follow the Irish or Roman system for calculating the date of Easter. By describing the occurrence of an eclipse and plague in the same year as the synod, Bede makes this important event in the English Church more memorable and meaningful.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/343714/original/file-20200624-132965-v4o6bz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/343714/original/file-20200624-132965-v4o6bz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343714/original/file-20200624-132965-v4o6bz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343714/original/file-20200624-132965-v4o6bz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343714/original/file-20200624-132965-v4o6bz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343714/original/file-20200624-132965-v4o6bz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343714/original/file-20200624-132965-v4o6bz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In the Middle Ages, comets like 2019’s C/2019 Q4 signalled a calamitous event on earth to come.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2I/Borisov#/media/File:Comet-2IBorisov-HubbleST-20191016_(cropped).png">NASA, ESA & D. Jewitt (UCLA)</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Plague and medieval religion</h2>
<p>In the Middle Ages, occurrences like plague and disease were thought of as expressions of God’s will. In the Bible, God uses natural phenomena to punish humankind for sin. In the Book of Revelation 6:8, for example, pestilence is <a href="https://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/dou/rev.htm">described</a> as one of the signs of Judgement Day. Medieval scholars were aware that some plagues and diseases were spread through the air, as <a href="https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/books/isbn/9781781382936/">explained</a> by the seventh-century scholar <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Isidore-of-Sevilla">Isidore of Seville</a> in chapter 39 of his De natura rerum (On the Nature of Things): </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Pestilence is a disease spreading widely and infecting by its contagion whatever it touches. When plague (‘plaga’) smites the earth because of mankind’s sins, then from some cause, that is, either the force of drought or of heat or an excess of rain, the air is corrupted.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Bede based his On the Nature of Things on this work by Isidore. In a discussion of plague in the Old English version of Bede’s <a href="https://www.medievalists.net/2015/02/old-english-translation-bedes-historia-ecclesiastica-gentis-anglorum-historical-cultural-context/">Ecclesiastical History</a> we find a reference to the “an-fleoga”, meaning something like “the one who flies” or “solitary flier”. This same idea of airborne disease is a feature of Anglo-Saxon medicine. One example comes from an Old English poem we call a <a href="https://anglosaxonpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/the-metrical-charms/">metrical charm</a>, which combines ancient Germanic folklore with Christian prayer and ritual. In the <a href="https://heorot.dk/woden-9herbs.html">Nine Herbs Charm</a>, the charmer addresses each herb individually and invokes its power over disease:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This is against poison, and this is against the one who flies,</p>
<p>this is against the loathsome one that travels throughout the land …</p>
<p>if any poison come flying from the east,</p>
<p>or any come from the north,</p>
<p>or any from the west over the nations of men,</p>
<p>Christ stood over the disease of every kind. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>As well as fearing plague, medieval scholars attempted to pinpoint its origins and carefully recorded its occurrence and effects. Like us, they used whatever means they could to protect themselves from disease. But it is clear medieval chroniclers presented historical events as part of a divine plan for humankind by linking them with natural phenomena like plagues and comets.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/141327/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marilina Cesario works for Queen's University Belfast. She received funding from British Academy, Royal Society, Leverhulme Trust and Marie Curie.. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Francis Leneghan works for the University of Oxford. </span></em></p>
In medieval times natural phenomena, such as comets and eclipses, were regarded as portents of natural disasters, including plagues.
Marilina Cesario, Senior Lecturer, School of Arts, English and Languages, Queen's University Belfast
Francis Leneghan, Associate Professor of Old English, University of Oxford
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/134640
2020-05-18T12:16:19Z
2020-05-18T12:16:19Z
When religion sided with science: Medieval lessons for surviving COVID-19
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335423/original/file-20200515-138610-1ilyxn1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=20%2C10%2C1007%2C738&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The biblical book of Ezekiel describes a vision of the divine that medieval philosophers understood as revealing the connection between religion and science.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ezekiel-Vision-Merkaba.jpg#/media/File:Ezekiel-Vision-Merkaba.jpg">By Matthaeus Merian (1593-1650)</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Faced with a range of serious patient reactions to the <a href="https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/treatments-for-covid-19">COVID-19 disease</a>, doctors and nurses have sometimes struggled to find viable treatment options. But when we examine faith-based responses to the virus, spiritual guidance has proved even more elusive.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/organizations/index.html">Guidelines for faith leaders from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention</a> encourage groups to clean surfaces and limit meetings or gatherings. But they do not address the emotional effects that COVID-19 victims, and those of us who <a href="https://www.apa.org/research/action/speaking-of-psychology/coronavirus-anxiety">live in fear of contracting it</a>, might experience.</p>
<p>Religious figures such as Pope Francis have composed <a href="https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2020-03/pope-francis-prayer-our-lady-protection-coronavirus.html">prayers for protection from coronavirus</a>. But the idea of prayer as a vital part of any response to COVID-19 might feel inappropriate or even irresponsible to some in a world that often views medicine and religion as polar opposites – one turning to science, the other to God.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://as.vanderbilt.edu/jewishstudies/faculty/phillip-i-ackerman-lieberman/">social historian</a> of the medieval Islamic world, <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/beo/2904">I think and write</a> about the role of religion in daily life. Looking at how people thought about science and religion in the past can inform the contemporary world’s approach to COVID-19.</p>
<h2>Plagues – a fact of life</h2>
<p>Plagues were a fact of life in ancient and medieval worlds. Personal letters from the <a href="https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/genizah/1">Cairo Geniza</a> – a treasure trove of documents from the Jews of medieval Egypt – <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520221628/a-mediterranean-society-volume-v">attest that bouts of widespread disease were so common that writers had different words for them</a>. They varied from a simple outbreak – <a href="https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-TS-00020-00113">wabāʾ, or “infectious disease” in Arabic</a> – to an epidemic – <a href="https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-LG-MISC-00016/2">dever gadol, Hebrew for “massive pestilence,” which hearkens back to language from the 10 plagues of the Bible</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335451/original/file-20200515-138644-w15w1p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335451/original/file-20200515-138644-w15w1p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=623&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335451/original/file-20200515-138644-w15w1p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=623&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335451/original/file-20200515-138644-w15w1p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=623&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335451/original/file-20200515-138644-w15w1p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=783&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335451/original/file-20200515-138644-w15w1p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=783&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335451/original/file-20200515-138644-w15w1p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=783&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fragment from Cairo Geniza held at Cambridge shows handwritten letter from Moses Maimonides. It was discovered in late 19th century.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/moses-maimonides-handwritten-letter-c-1172-signature-news-photo/590537778?adppopup=true">Culture Club/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>During the time of the jurist and philosopher <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/maimonides/">Moses Maimonides</a> (1138-1204), who led the Jewish community of Egypt, Fusṭāṭ (Old Cairo) faced <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=LbFGvT76XzsC&pg=PA54&lpg=PA54&dq=population+decline+egypt+plague+fustat&source=bl&ots=PwS8JQCMYW&sig=ACfU3U14Vao9ZpcVF_QrBkS-rFNKA6B9VA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwidwriLiKzpAhUEn-AKHW83B5IQ6AEwAHoECBgQAQ#v=onepage&q=population%20decline%20egypt%20plague%20fustat&f=false">a plague so daunting</a> in 1201 that the city’s Jewish population never returned to its former glory.</p>
<h2>Divine punishment?</h2>
<p>Religious people throughout history often saw plagues as <a href="https://bostonreview.net/arts-society/paula-findlen-what-would-boccaccio-say-about-covid-19">the manifestation of divine will</a>, as a punishment for sin and a warning against moral laxity. The same chorus is heard by a minority today. As a Jewish person, I am embarrassed to read that a <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-rabbi-blames-coronavirus-outbreak-on-gay-pride-parades/">rabbi was recently quoted as saying that COVID-19 was divine punishment for gay pride parades</a>.</p>
<p>In “<a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520221581/a-mediterranean-society-volume-i">A Mediterranean Society</a>,” Geniza researcher S.D. Goitein describes Maimonides’ reaction to the plague: “Whatever the philosophers and theologians of that time might have said about man’s ability to influence God’s decisions by his deeds, the heart believed that they could be efficacious, that intense and sincere prayer, almsgiving, and fasts could keep catastrophe away.”</p>
<p>But the Jewish community also dealt with disease in other ways, and its holistic response to epidemics reveals a partnership – not a conflict – between science and religion. </p>
<h2>Science and religion</h2>
<p>In the medieval period, thinkers like Maimonides combined the study of science and religion. As Maimonides explains in his philosophical masterwork <a href="https://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/gfp/gfp007.htm">“The Guide to the Perplexed</a>,” he believed that studying physics was a necessary precursor to metaphysics. Rather than seeing religion and science as inimical to one another, he saw them as mutually supportive. </p>
<p>Indeed, scholars of religious texts complemented their studies with science-centered writings. Maimonides’ Islamic contemporary, <a href="https://www.iep.utm.edu/ibnrushd/">Ibn Rushd</a> (1126-1198), is a perfect example. Though an important philosopher and religious thinker, Ibn Rushd also made meaningful contributions to medicine, including <a href="https://europepmc.org/article/med/12134355">suggesting the existence of what would later come to be called Parkinson’s disease</a>.</p>
<p>But it was not only elite scholars who saw religion and science as complementary. In “A Mediterranean Society,” Goitein says that “even the simplest Geniza person was a member of that hellenized Middle Eastern-Mediterranean society which believed in the power of science.” He adds: “Illness was conceived as a natural phenomenon and, therefore, had to be treated with the means provided by nature.” </p>
<h2>Tending to one’s inner life</h2>
<p>Science and religion, therefore, were both integral to the soul of the Geniza person. There was no sense that these two pillars of thought challenged one another. By tending to their inner lives through rituals that helped them deal with the sadness and trepidation, and their bodies through the tools of medicine available to them, the Geniza people took a holistic approach to epidemics.</p>
<p>For them, following the medical advice of Maimonides or Ibn Rushd was an essential part of their response to plague. But while hunkered down in their homes, they also looked to the spiritual advice of these thinkers, and others, to care for their souls. Those of us <a href="https://www.apa.org/topics/covid-19/faith-crisis">experiencing stress, solitude and uncertainty</a> amid the coronavirus pandemic could learn from the medieval world that our inner lives demand attention too.</p>
<p>[<em>Get facts about coronavirus and the latest research.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=upper-coronavirus-facts">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.</a>]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/134640/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Phillip I. Lieberman has received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities. He is affiliated with Vanderbilt University. </span></em></p>
Those experiencing stress and uncertainty amid the coronavirus may find guidance in medieval responses to plagues, which relied on both medicine and prayer.
Phillip I. Lieberman, Associate Professor, Vanderbilt University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/134585
2020-03-27T13:17:09Z
2020-03-27T13:17:09Z
Coronavirus: advice from the Middle Ages for how to cope with self-isolation
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323555/original/file-20200327-146678-1fk2f7v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C3%2C1011%2C1013&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Enclosing of an anchoress (14th century).</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 079: Pontifical</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The pandemic of COVID-19 is often called “unprecedented” – and for many people cooped up in their homes in different countries, the experience is both unparalleled and challenging. But in late-medieval Europe, individuals self-isolated professionally. Some people – women particularly – permanently withdrew from society to live walled in, alone in a room attached to a church. </p>
<p>Guides for, and texts written by, these female “anchorites” – as the women were known – from Britain and continental Europe give us descriptions of their way of living and recount their reflections. So what can these medieval women teach us about how to cope with self-isolation? </p>
<p>These anchorites chose to be confined in these cramped cells for many reasons. According to medieval religious culture, a life of prayer on behalf of others vitally supported society. Isolation empowered women to express their love for Christ, and minister to their fellow believers through their prayers and counsel. Anchorites were even presented as possessing “super powers” of <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/medieval-anchorites-in-their-communities/english-nuns-as-anchoritic-intercessors-for-souls-in-purgatory-the-employment-of-a-revelation-of-purgatory-by-late-medieval-english-nunneries-for-their-lay-communities/DEE6A28A9AF94D5463F6D0C82A17497A">interceding for the deceased</a> in purgatory. </p>
<p>Furthermore, in the late Middle Ages, devotion among laypeople – people who are not clergy – flourished. Life as an anchorite offered laywomen an option to express this piety, but offered more freedom for individual contemplation (and solitude) than a nun’s life. </p>
<p>Warnings in <a href="https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/hasenfratz-ancrene-wisse-introduction">guides for anchorites</a> also hint at less spiritual motives. Life as a recluse, paradoxically, situated anchorites at the heart of their communities and could transform them into religious celebrities. Their cells often faced busy roads in bustling cities and doubled as a bank, teacher’s cubicle, and storehouse of local gossip.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323228/original/file-20200326-133012-frrvvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323228/original/file-20200326-133012-frrvvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=643&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323228/original/file-20200326-133012-frrvvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=643&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323228/original/file-20200326-133012-frrvvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=643&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323228/original/file-20200326-133012-frrvvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=808&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323228/original/file-20200326-133012-frrvvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=808&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323228/original/file-20200326-133012-frrvvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=808&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A king consults an anchorite.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Beinecke MS 404 (Rothschild Canticles), Yale Library</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Don’t expect comfort</h2>
<p>The 13th-century, medieval English guide for female anchorites, <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/746288964">Ancrene Wisse</a>, warns recluses not to look for comfort. Instead, the anchorite should remind herself that she was enclosed not just for her own benefit, but for the sake of others too.</p>
<p>She is told to “gather into your heart all those who are ill or wretched” and “feel compassion”. By self-isolating, the anchorite “holds [all fellow believers] up” with her prayers. Now, nurses and doctors are urgently calling for a similar commitment from the public, when begging “Stay home for us.”</p>
<p>The Wisse’s advice has a flavour that feels equally relevant today. Self-isolation may be easier to bear if instead of seeing it as a stretch of boring but comfy nights in, you recognise it as an unpleasant, stressful experience – but also visualise all the people whose health you are protecting by staying home. </p>
<h2>Acknowledging vulnerability</h2>
<p>The earliest-known English woman writer, <a href="http://juliancentre.org/about/about-julian-of-norwich.html">Julian of Norwich</a> (c.1343–c.1416) – an anchorite – likewise encouraged readers to acknowledge their own vulnerability, but suggested perceiving it as a strength. She assured readers in her late 14th-century or early 15th-century text, <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1026917663">A Revelation of Love</a>, that suffering and difficulties will not defeat them:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Christ did not say, ‘You shall not be perturbed, you shall not be troubled, you shall not be distressed,’ but he said, ‘You shall not be overcome.’ </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323550/original/file-20200327-146678-5n3f07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323550/original/file-20200327-146678-5n3f07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323550/original/file-20200327-146678-5n3f07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323550/original/file-20200327-146678-5n3f07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323550/original/file-20200327-146678-5n3f07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323550/original/file-20200327-146678-5n3f07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323550/original/file-20200327-146678-5n3f07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Modern statue of Julian of Norwich at the west entrance to Norwich Cathedral.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Evelyn Simak</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Julian promises that readers will experience emotional turmoil during any crisis but will ultimately conquer it. This promise parallels modern <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/246552060">survival psychology</a>. When adapting to life during a crisis, acknowledging the challenging circumstances as forming one’s real life now is essential. Yet one should simultaneously remember that one is doing one’s utmost to return to a better, pre-crisis style of living. Only by acknowledging our vulnerability – both physical and mental – and consequently taking action to protect and care for others and ourselves, will we make it through.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323233/original/file-20200326-132965-1tfwar8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323233/original/file-20200326-132965-1tfwar8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323233/original/file-20200326-132965-1tfwar8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323233/original/file-20200326-132965-1tfwar8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323233/original/file-20200326-132965-1tfwar8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323233/original/file-20200326-132965-1tfwar8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323233/original/file-20200326-132965-1tfwar8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A reconstruction of Julian of Norwich’s cell at St Julian’s in Norwich.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Godelinde Gertrude Perk</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Guarding the senses</h2>
<p>According to manuals for anchorites, they should guard their metaphorical windows (their five senses) and actual cell windows, to prevent falling into temptation and being distracted from their prayers and meditation. The Wisse declares: “disturbance only enters the heart through something … either seen or heard, tasted or smelt, or felt externally.” </p>
<p>The external world can upset one’s interior world. Dutch anchorite Sister Bertken (1427-1514) recounts this confusion in a <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/746288964">poem</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The world held me in its power<br>
with its manifold snares<br>
it deprived me of my strength. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yet this nervousness about the effect of sensory input can also be understood as a medieval analogue to a warning against fake news or anxious over-consumption of news. Several guides recommend having a female friend scrupulously guarding the anchorite’s window, refusing to allow access to visitors who spread gossip and lies. Social media today can be a little like such visitors.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323239/original/file-20200326-133040-127t6uc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323239/original/file-20200326-133040-127t6uc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323239/original/file-20200326-133040-127t6uc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323239/original/file-20200326-133040-127t6uc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323239/original/file-20200326-133040-127t6uc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323239/original/file-20200326-133040-127t6uc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323239/original/file-20200326-133040-127t6uc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Enclosure of Sister Bertken.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by E de Groot & S Pieters, University of Utrecht</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Keep busy, keep sane</h2>
<p>Anchorites and writers of manuals for anchorites also reflected upon how to keep sane. Keeping occupied prevents one from climbing the walls. British Cistercian monk, Abbot Aelred of Rievaulx (1110-1167), tells his sister, an anchorite, in <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/34002361">A Rule of Life for a Recluse</a> that: “Idleness … breeds distaste for quiet and disgust for the cell.” </p>
<p>Routines are key. Anchorites recited sequences of prayers, psalms and other Bible readings at fixed points of the day. According to modern <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/246552060">survival psychology,</a> dividing a problem or stretch of time into manageable steps is crucial when faced with a crisis. Equally important is performing each step one by one, never looking further ahead than the next step.</p>
<p>Mentally absorbing hobbies, such as crafts, gardening or reading, are another time-honoured strategy for dealing with self-isolation. After recommending sewing clothes for the poor and church vestments, the Wisse assures anchorites that keeping occupied will shield their minds against temptation: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>For while [the devil] sees her busy, he thinks like this: ‘It would be useless to approach her now; she can’t concentrate on listening to my advice.’ </p>
</blockquote>
<p>These suggestions are easily translatable to today. After all, according to survival psychology, performing manageable, directed actions with a purpose is crucial in crises. Incidentally, the Wisse also recommends keeping a cat.</p>
<p>On the one hand, self-isolation can feel limiting – Julian of Norwich also felt that: “This place is prison,” she said, referring either to earthly life or her cell. But the cell’s cramped space also granted medieval women a paradoxical, spiritual freedom. In his <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/890854337">letter to the anchorite Eve of Wilton</a>, the 11th-century monk <a href="https://books.google.nl/books?id=uSlpAwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&pg=PA164#v=onepage&q&f=false">Goscelin of St Bertin exclaims</a>: “'My cell is so narrow,’ you may say, but oh, how wide is the sky!”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/134585/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Godelinde Gertrude Perk's project "Women Making Memories: Liturgy and the Remembering Female Body in Medieval Holy Women’s Texts" has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 842443.</span></em></p>
Some medieval Christian women locked themselves away in the name of their faith. Here are their insights into self-isolation.
Godelinde Gertrude Perk, Postdoctoral researcher in Medieval Literature, University of Oxford
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/129577
2020-03-04T16:03:26Z
2020-03-04T16:03:26Z
The medieval roots of modern weather forecasts
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315315/original/file-20200213-11040-1ostlel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1%2C0%2C997%2C666&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Reporting dreary weather for many centuries.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/stormy-weather-217127848">Shutterstock/ahupepo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s official: <a href="https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/press-office/news/weather-and-climate/2020/2020-winter-february-stats">according to the UK’s Met Office</a>, February 2020 has been the wettest February in England, Wales and Northern Ireland since it began keeping records – and the second wettest (behind February 1990) for Scotland. It has also been the fifth wettest of any calendar month in a series from 1862.</p>
<p>Delivering the bad news each night, weather forecasters have been looking depressed, while the UK public – already renowned for their obsession with the weather – have been huddled together in whatever shelter they can find, moaning about the terrible winter.</p>
<p>So it seems fitting to note that the world’s first daily weather forecasts were <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-32483678">published in a British newspaper</a>. Appearing in the 1860s, these vital scientific summaries of information were the work of Robert FitzRoy (who was also captain of HMS Beagle as it took Charles Darwin on his famous voyage of discovery). </p>
<p>But similar forecasts from the 12th century onward, known as “prognostications” before FitzRoy coined the term “weather forecast”, were also based on genuine scientific beliefs of the time. Medieval forecasters used both detailed observations of actual weather and complex astronomical and mathematical calculations to predict the future. </p>
<p>My <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/medieval-meteorology/12DCC7DA683729A4E520C76ADCF6502D">research has shown</a> that these forecasting methods were in fact taken seriously from the 9th to the 18th centuries. In the 16th and 17th centuries both Tycho Brahe, a Danish astronomer, and Johannes Kepler from Germany made <a href="http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100029043053.0x000001#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=8&xywh=-371%2C95%2C4471%2C2672">forecasts of this sort</a>, and recommended the collection of data to improve accuracy. </p>
<p>Their works were expensive, but <a href="https://www.reading.ac.uk/special-collections/exhibitions/sc-exhibition-almanacs.aspx">almanacs</a> made popular versions of forecasts widely available – including specialist titles designed to appeal to women, travellers and farmers. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318601/original/file-20200304-66069-1owa1vn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318601/original/file-20200304-66069-1owa1vn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318601/original/file-20200304-66069-1owa1vn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318601/original/file-20200304-66069-1owa1vn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318601/original/file-20200304-66069-1owa1vn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1341&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318601/original/file-20200304-66069-1owa1vn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1341&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318601/original/file-20200304-66069-1owa1vn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1341&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An almanac from 1709.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author's copy.</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The scientific theory involved started with classical astronomy, the idea that celestial bodies – especially planets – exerted powerful forces over the Earth and its inhabitants. </p>
<p>Arabian scientists from the 9th century had accepted and developed this model. Just as the sun brought light and heat, and the moon apparently produced moisture and controlled tides, Saturn was believed to be powerfully dry and cold, while Jupiter was warm and mildly wet. </p>
<p>This theory had been developed by <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ptolemy">Claudius Ptolemy of Alexandria</a>, the great cosmologist and astronomer of the 2nd century. Ptolemy’s main contribution was to produce complex mathematical models which made it possible to predict with considerable accuracy where the planets would be on any chosen date. </p>
<p>This in turn meant, Ptolemy said, that it was possible to calculate how their effects would interact, and what the outcome would be for the Earth’s atmosphere and weather. </p>
<p><a href="https://archive.org/details/ptolemystetrabib00ptol/page/66/mode/2up">Ptolemy outlined</a> how detailed weather forecasts could be made, stating:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When planets are in significant relationship to one another, they produce associated variations in the state of our atmosphere, which must be factored together with seasonal conditions and prevailing winds. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>But the lack of interest among aristocrats in technical astronomy led the science to decline in the Roman Empire and then to be unavailable to early-medieval western Europe.</p>
<p>Instead, astronomical weather forecasting was developed by philosophers in the Arab Empire from the 9th century. Scholars such as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/al-Battani">al-Battani</a> and <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/al-kindi/">al-Kindi</a> compiled new data into updated planetary tables and refined Ptolemy’s methods of weather forecasting. </p>
<p>Their work was slowly assimilated by scholars in Europe from the late 11th century, and incorporated into university teaching of astronomy by the 13th century. But the main barrier to wider successful forecasting was the complexity of the calculations involved. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, there was a powerful incentive to succeed. One of the most popular Latin treatises on weather forecasting was attributed to <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/grosseteste/">Robert Grosseteste</a>, the 13th-century scientist and English bishop who <a href="https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/inquire/Discover/Search/#/?p=c+0,t+,rsrs+0,rsps+10,fa+,so+ox%3Asort%5Easc,scids+,pid+dc320630-0d87-41d5-8b84-5c60b49449df,vi+73cda575-4e4b-4bfe-9a87-45174766f3ce">set out a simplified method</a> of making the actual forecasts and urged that forewarning of droughts or floods would save many lives. </p>
<p>Later on, some practitioners achieved great fame for their accurate forecasts. Englishman <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=_oDCDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA162&lpg=PA162&dq=John+of+Eschenden+successfully+claimed+to+have+predicted+the+great+plague+of+1348&source=bl&ots=6Y7zrD-NlU&sig=ACfU3U1YfrtxLcy5CIGGbs8MflQZwnNIHA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjO6a_CmfTnAhVyUBUIHTUgDIIQ6AEwAHoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=John%20of%20Eschenden%20successfully%20claimed%20to%20have%20predicted%20the%20great%20plague%20of%201348&f=false">John of Eschenden successfully claimed</a> in 1348 that he had predicted the great plague of that year in 1345, though his prediction was rather vague. </p>
<p>His ongoing prognostications of prolonged cold, wet and windy weather, causing floods and famines into the 1370s, were acclaimed as correct. He worked with other scholars and church authorities to spread knowledge of this important science and its findings. </p>
<h2>Shining a light</h2>
<p>An important further step was taken in the mid-14th century by a scholar known as John of Saxony, working at the University of Paris. His almanac supplied ready-calculated sets of planetary positions for a long period and was highly influential. </p>
<p>The serious work going into weather forecasting in the late middle ages is further shown by the growing practice of making detailed observations of weather and correlating them with forecasts. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/merle1891/0012/image">earliest known examples</a> of this come from England and Germany from 1330 to 1360, and their effect was to increase confidence in astronomically based weather forecasting. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317812/original/file-20200228-24655-wa9vwb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317812/original/file-20200228-24655-wa9vwb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317812/original/file-20200228-24655-wa9vwb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317812/original/file-20200228-24655-wa9vwb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317812/original/file-20200228-24655-wa9vwb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317812/original/file-20200228-24655-wa9vwb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317812/original/file-20200228-24655-wa9vwb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">From medieval to modern.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/smart-phone-weather-forecast-on-screen-423062497">Shutterstock/OSORIOartist</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Later astronomers, including Brahe and Kepler, continued to build on this “medieval” weather forecasting. Brahe argued for making both weather records and forecasts, with the aim of increasing the accuracy of the forecasts by using more data. Weather observations and forecasts made by Kepler from 1593-1624 survive. </p>
<p>In the 15th century it was already the responsibility of university astronomers, in cities across Europe, to issue annual prognostications covering the weather.</p>
<p>With the arrival of print in the late 15th century, such prognostications were rushed out as annual almanacs, which sold in enormous numbers. The more expensive ones provided daily weather forecasts for the coming year, in phraseology still echoed by modern forecasters. They mentioned “wind, rain and stormy weather”, “variable winds” and conditions described as “fresh and fair”. </p>
<p>These were still published across Europe and in America in the 19th century, although taken much less seriously because of growing scepticism about the powers of the planets. But much of this seems to have been widely ignored in histories of science. </p>
<p>This may be partly due to a widespread dismissive attitude towards anything classified as astrology, but perhaps also because of a tendency to focus on Europe, rather than the Arab Empire, as the birthplace of modern science. But as we all continue to discuss the weather and its effect on our day to day lives, the legacy of careful analysis of atmospheric changes and their causes, deserves to be remembered.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/129577/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anne Lawrence-Mathers received funding from the AHRC for the research on which this article is based. </span></em></p>
How science has been used to predict wind and rain for over 1,000 years.
Anne Lawrence-Mathers, Professor in Medieval History, University of Reading
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/124742
2019-12-18T13:51:59Z
2019-12-18T13:51:59Z
How St. Francis created the Nativity scene, with a miraculous event in 1223
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307507/original/file-20191217-58307-1wckxeo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The earliest biblical descriptions do not mention the presence of any barnyard animals, that are part of Nativity displays today.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/oscar99ta/341887154/in/photolist-wdg97-wdg9b-Py2e9x-2dnjWS4-4d6L17-7rUFAe-7rUAvH-7rUAnv-5L62fg-5KcfGh-5KcfVG-dzy5z7-b18Vc6-2aN4EGw-2hW3xoC-2dJfCpz-9grTwi-dAkYnx-5MpqrB-BHnJhu-ogyD-7gFut-9MCbak-9cBBpx-C33xe9-8ZzrVT-vrT6A-tzUJv-dAkYCP-dyZPPp-tcMAG-2gi65eH-vrUJA-vMYqs-7nHcN4-CQV4pi-v3g6H-LryVXX-91KnqH-jHCS2z-vG5rL-4ahezq-91Nuc7-AVre2V-BQDWGj-91Kn2r-cuKTcG-23fnFEk-5MV1JB-WQf5R7">Oscar Llerena/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Around the Christmas season, it is common to see a display of the Nativity scene: a small manger with the baby Jesus and his family, shepherds, the three wise men believed to have visited Jesus after his birth and several barnyard animals.</p>
<p>One might ask, what are the origins of this tradition? </p>
<h2>Biblical description</h2>
<p>The earliest biblical descriptions, the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke, written between A.D. 80 and 100, offer details of Jesus’ birth, including that he was born in Bethlehem during the reign of King Herod.</p>
<p>The Gospel of Luke <a href="http://www.drbo.org/chapter/49002.htm">says</a> that when the shepherds went to Bethlehem, they “found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger.” <a href="http://www.drbo.org/chapter/47002.htm">Matthew</a> tells the story of the three wise men, or Magi, who “fell down” in worship and offered gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.</p>
<p>But as my <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=TxC_AdIAAAAJ&hl=en">research on the relationship between the New Testament and the development of popular Christian traditions</a> shows, the earliest biblical descriptions do not <a href="http://www.drbo.org/chapter/49002.htm">mention the presence of any animals</a>. Animals first start to appear in religious texts around the seventh century. </p>
<p>A series of early Christian stories that informed popular religious devotion, including what’s known as the Infancy Gospel of Matthew, attempted to fill in the gap between Christ’s infancy and the beginning of his public ministry. This text was the <a href="http://gnosis.org/library/psudomat.htm">first to mention</a> the presence of animals at Jesus’ birth. It described how the “most blessed Mary went forth out of the cave and entering a stable, placed the child in the stall, and the ox and the ass adored Him.” </p>
<p>This description, subsequently cited in several medieval Christian texts, created the Christmas story popular today. </p>
<h2>Start of Nativity scenes</h2>
<p>But the Nativity scene now recreated in town squares and churches worldwide was originally conceived by St. Francis of Assisi.</p>
<p>Much of what scholars know about Francis comes from “<a href="https://www.ecatholic2000.com/bonaventure/assisi/francis.shtml">Life of St. Francis</a>,” written by the 13th-century theologian and philosopher St. Bonaventure. </p>
<p>Francis was <a href="https://www.ecatholic2000.com/bonaventure/assisi/francis.shtml">born into a merchant family</a> in the Umbrian town of Assisi, in modern-day Italy, around 1181. But Francis rejected his family wealth early in his life and cast off his garments in the public square. </p>
<p>In 1209, he <a href="https://ofm.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/The_Rule.pdf">founded the mendicant order of the Franciscans</a>, a religious group that dedicated themselves to works of charity. Today, Franciscans minister by serving the material and spiritual needs of the poor and socially marginalized.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298810/original/file-20191027-113953-1gm8m2o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298810/original/file-20191027-113953-1gm8m2o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298810/original/file-20191027-113953-1gm8m2o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=658&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298810/original/file-20191027-113953-1gm8m2o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=658&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298810/original/file-20191027-113953-1gm8m2o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=658&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298810/original/file-20191027-113953-1gm8m2o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=826&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298810/original/file-20191027-113953-1gm8m2o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=826&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298810/original/file-20191027-113953-1gm8m2o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=826&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">St. Francis of Assisi preparing the Christmas crib at Greccio.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.wikiart.org/en/giotto/st-francis-of-assisi-preparing-the-christmas-crib-at-grecchio-1300">Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi, Assisi, Italy</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>According to Bonaventure, Francis in 1223 sought permission from Pope Honorious III to do something “for the kindling of devotion” to the birth of Christ. As part of his preparations, Francis “made ready a manger, and bade hay, together with an ox and an ass,” in the small Italian town of Greccio.</p>
<p>One witness, among the crowd that gathered for this event, reported that Francis included a carved doll which cried tears of joy and “seemed to be awakened from sleep when the blessed Father Francis embraced Him in both arms.” </p>
<p>This miracle of the crying doll moved all who were present, Bonaventure writes. But Francis made another miracle happen, too: The hay that the child lay in healed sick animals and protected people from disease.</p>
<h2>Nativity imagery in art</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298828/original/file-20191027-113980-wltsy9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298828/original/file-20191027-113980-wltsy9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298828/original/file-20191027-113980-wltsy9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298828/original/file-20191027-113980-wltsy9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298828/original/file-20191027-113980-wltsy9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298828/original/file-20191027-113980-wltsy9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298828/original/file-20191027-113980-wltsy9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298828/original/file-20191027-113980-wltsy9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Adoration of the Magi.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.wikiart.org/en/fra-angelico/adoration-of-the-magi">Fra Angelico</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Nativity story continued to expand within Christian devotional culture well after Francis’ death. In 1291, Pope Nicholas IV, the first Franciscan pope, ordered that a permanent Nativity scene be erected at Santa Maria Maggiore, the largest church dedicated to the Virgin Mary in Rome. </p>
<p>Nativity imagery dominated Renaissance art.</p>
<p>This first living Nativity scene – which was famously depicted by Italian Renaissance painter Giotto di Bondone in the Arena Chapel of Padua, Italy – ushered in a new tradition of staging the birth of Christ. </p>
<p>In the tondo, a circular painting of the Adoration of the Magi by 15th-century painters Fra Angelico and Filippo Lippi, not only are there sheep, a donkey, a cow and an ox, there is even a colorful peacock that peers over the top of the manger to catch a glimpse of Jesus.</p>
<h2>Political turn of Nativity scenes</h2>
<p>After the birth of Jesus, King Herod, feeling as though his power was threatened by Jesus, ordered the execution of all boys under two years old. Jesus, Mary and Joseph were forced to flee to Egypt.</p>
<p>In an acknowledgment that Jesus, Mary and Joseph were refugees themselves, in recent years, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/baby-jesus-in-cage-churchs-immigration-themed-nativity-scene-dedham-2018-12-06/">some churches</a> have used their Nativity scenes as a form of political activism to comment on the need for immigrant justice. Specifically, these “protest nativities” have criticized President Donald Trump’s 2018 executive order on family separation at the U.S.-Mexico border. </p>
<p>For example, in 2018, a church in Dedham, Massachusetts, placed baby Jesus, representing immigrant children, in a cage. This year, at <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2019/12/08/church-nativity-displays-jesus-mary-joseph-cages-separated-border/">Claremont United Methodist Church</a> in California, Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus have all been placed in separate barbed-wire cages in their outdoor Nativity scene. </p>
<p>These displays, which call attention to the plight of immigrants and asylum seekers, bring the Christian tradition into the 21st century.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124742/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vanessa Corcoran does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Nativity scenes showing the birth of baby Jesus first originated in the small Italian town of Greccio.
Vanessa Corcoran, Adjunct Professor of History, Academic Counselor, Georgetown University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.