Holy Feast and Holy Fast emerged as a pivotal work during the mid-1980s in response to a prevalent trend among scholars which placed apostolic poverty and chastity at the very core of the Western European vita religiosa at the expense of attention toward the forms of austerity, some of which were more common to women. Bynum builds up her narrative by exploring how, although the renunciation of money and sex had a shared significance to both genders, the chief metaphor governing the spiritual life of women specifically concerned food. Bynum weaves her monograph together through a careful analysis of both food symbolism and food-related religious practices as described in the works of female mystics themselves and in the hagiographical vitae of female saints. Although this review will be chiefly focused on the latter portion of the work, “Chapter 6: Food as Control of Self” in particular, a brief overview of its preceding sections may be useful for setting context.
The work begins with Section I, ‘The Background’ which consists of a general overview in medieval women’s social and religious history. The first section delineates the basic societal framework for Western European women in the High Middle Ages and outlines the cultural forces at work in shaping their lives. The second part of this section reviews the changes in religious consciousness concerning sacramental practices and fasting, from the Church Fathers to the late medieval hagiographers. It should be noted here that although more careful attention is given to the practice of ‘fasting,’ especially in the latter portion of the work which I will be examining in more detail, the ‘feasting’ in question more generally denotes the ‘love feast’ of the Eucharist than the fe...
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...such as extreme spiritual austerities can hold their place in history because they mattered to the people who practiced them, not necessarily because they were an agent for driving change. Bynum rejects morally absolutist reconstructions of the past in favour of a more relativistic reading which delves into the imagination and subconscious of the medieval writers themselves. She meets them, as much as possible, in their own milieu rather than projecting modern constructions (such as ‘anorexia nervosa’) into the past where they serve little use in our understanding of the medieval mind. Despite her close work with the Annalist School, Bynum makes no attempt toward ‘l’Histoire Totale’ or some grand narrative of the past, and in this regard the work is most honest, thought-provoking, and definitive for 21st century scholars studying the medieval mind and its times.
In 1348, religious authorities determined that the immodest behavior of certain groups led to outbreaks of ubiquitous plague. The tendency to regard indecency as the cause of plague is displayed in records of the day. Henry Knighton’s description of a guilty crowd attending the tournaments is a telling example. He laments that, “they spent and wasted their goods, and (according to the common report) abused their bodies in wantonness and scurrilous licentiousness. They neither feared God nor blushed at the criticism of the people, but took the marriage bond lightly and were deaf to the demands of modesty” (130). As one can gather from this passage, the 1348 religi...
What was the predominant image of women and women’s place in medieval society? Actual historical events, such as the scandal and subsequent litigation revolving around Anna Buschler which Steven Ozment detail’s in the Burgermeisters Daughter, suggests something off a compromise between these two literary extremes. It is easy to say that life in the sixteenth century was surely no utopia for women but at least they had some rights.
Julian of Norwich lived during a time of great fear dominated by economic and physical hardships, feudal era of control, fear of death from the bubonic plague, corruption within the church’s hierarchy and doubt and insincerity was rampant amongst believers. Living a simple existence she depende...
Thiebaux, Marcelle. The Writings of Medieval Women: An Anthology. New York: Garland Publishing. 1994. Print.
The collective Christian identity of the “later medieval centuries” was emotionally influenced by the figure of Mary depicted as either “the young mother Two images, according to Rubin, nurtured a public religious culture in Europe that was endowed with a sentimental education. In chapter three Emotions and Selves Rubin focuses on “the emergence of a European style of emotive devotion” that gave rise to a sentimental education that she attributes to the images of Mary which became a means “for reflection on the expression of emotion.” This “produced in medieval Europe. a European language of affect. [as well as] an emotional community.”
In Western Europe, between 1200 to 1500, many women gained boundless admiration as glorified souls for their extreme adherence towards Christianity. Many of these activities of extremities involved celestial amplifications of meals, physical mutations, and long term fasting. Such experiences beam aglow on the medieval culture and society, shedding light on the antiquity of women within that community. In the book, Holy Feast and Holy Fast by Caroline Walker Bynum, she addresses two main things when it came to medieval times and their women, physical suffering and food.
By the end of eleventh century, Western Europe had experienced a powerful cultural revival. The flourish of New towns provided a place for exchange of commerce and flow of knowledge and ideas. Universities, which replaced monasteries as centers of learning, poured urbanized knowledge into society. New technological advances and economics transformations provided the means for building magnificent architectures. These developments were representative of the mental and behavioral transformations that the medieval world underwent and the new relationships that were brought about between men, women and society in the twelfth century. As in technology, science, and scholasticism, Literature was also reborn with a new theme.3
Baumgarten, Elisheva, Oxford Handbook of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013). Grossman, Avraham, Pious and Rebellious: Jewish Women in Medieval Europe (New Hampshire: University Press of New England, 2004).
Born in the year 1412, Jeanne d'Arc was a singularly pious child, grave beyond her years, and showed an intense and ever-increasing devotion to things holy. Even as a young girl, she never wearied of visiting the nearby churches in and about her native village, and she passed many an hour “in a kind of rapt trance before the crucifixes and saintly images in these chapels.”1 If at dusk the evening bells sounded across the fields, Jeanne would kneel devoutly, communing in her heart with her divine Master and adored saints. “She loved above all things these evening bells, and, when it seemed to her that the ringer grew negligent, would bribe him with some gift to remind him in the future to be more instant in his office.”2 That this trait in Jeanne is true, we have the testimony of the bell ringer himself to attest.
When comparing the epic poem of The Song of Roland to the romantic literature of Ywain, the differences between the early medieval period and the high medieval period become evident. Both The Song of Roland and Ywain depicts the societies from which each story derives its fundamental characteristics. Through close observation, one is able to see the shifts in customs and mentality that make the move from the epic to the romance possible. In his chapter 'From Epic to Romance', R.W. Southern shows how this transformation manifests itself through changing ecclesiastical and secular thoughts and feelings.
The Renaissance has not ceased to be an age of discussion and debate among historians throughout the recent centuries. The vibrant nature of the era marks it as a most fascinating period of history. The Renaissance can be described as an age carrying the essence of “self-discovery and fulfillment, of recognition of human worth, and a dynamic outpouring of artistic activity.” This new world flourishing with art and creative optimism was also steeped in a spirit of “revolt of the Medievalists.” In an effort of “rebirth,” the previous culture of the Middle Ages was rejected, and even scorned. Foundational principles in all fields were overstepped, and old cultural norms were practically obsolete. It was an era whose humanistic philosophy greatly impacted the lens through which man viewed himself and the world.
Grimm, V. (1996). From Feasting to Fasting, the Evolution of a Sin: Attributes to Food in Late Antinquity. New York.
In the early stages of Catherine's life the surfacing modern age was bringing with it social turmoil which spread throughout Europe (Giordani 3). During Catherine's lifetime, according to Mary Ann Sullivan in her essay “St. Catherine of Siena,” the center of Catholic rule fluctuated between Rome and Avignon and contributed to a schism between popes in Italy and France (1). Catherine was born 23rd in a line of 25 children and, according to Sullivan “even at a young age, [she] sensed the troubled society around her and wanted to help” (1). While her parents were not exceptionally religious, St. Catherine's biographer Blessed Raymond of Capua discusses Catherine's early zeal for Catholic practices: “When she was about five she learned the Hail Mary, and repeated it over and over again as often as she could…she was inspired by heaven to address the Blessed Virgin in this way whenever she went up and down stairs, stopping to kneel on each step as she did so” (24). Her devotion to the Virgin Mary would become especially important in a vision she had around this time while walking with her brother to visit one of her sisters.
Vives, Juan Luis, and Charles Fantazzi. The education of a Christian woman a sixteenth-century manual. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. Print.
Written in the era directly preceding the holocaust, High Holy Days, written from the perspective of a young girl, is more telling than is evident at first read. Themes of a young girls distance, and doubt pertaining to her religion are prominent throughout the piece.