A Cultural History of the Human Body in the Medieval Age

The Christian, Jewish, and Muslim communities of medieval western Europe conceived of the human body in manifold ways. The body was not a fixed or unmalleable mass of flesh, but an entity that changed its character depending on its age, its interactions with its environment, and its diet. For example, a slave would have been marked by her language, her name, her religion, or even by a sign burned onto her skin, not by her color alone. Covering the period from 500 to 1500 and using sources that range across the full spectrum of medieval literary, scientific, medical, and artistic production, this volume explores the rich variety of medieval views of both the real and the metaphorical body. ultural History of the Human Body in the Medieval Age presents an overview of the period with essays on the centrality of the human body in birth and death, health and disease, sexuality, beauty and concepts of the ideal, bodies marked by gender, race, class and disease, cultural representations and popular beliefs, and self and society.>

Product details

• Authors: Linda Kalof
• Assisted by: Kalof Linda (Editor)
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 13.03.2014
• EAN: 9781472554635
• ISBN: 978-1-4725-5463-5
• No. of pages: 312
• Dimensions: 170 mm x 245 mm x 16 mm
• Series: Print on demand; The Cultural Histories Series
• Subjects: Education and learning > Teaching preparation > Vocational needs; Cultural Studies, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Gender Studies, HISTORY / Social History, Social & cultural history, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social, Medieval History, c 1000 CE to c 1500, Social and cultural history, Gender studies, gender groups, c 500 to c 1000 CE, C 500 CE To C 1000 CE