Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (Volume 1) (The New Historicism: Studies in Cultural Poetics)

In the period between 1200 and 1500 in western Europe, a number of religious women gained widespread veneration and even canonization as saints for their extraordinary devotion to the Christian eucharist, supernatural multiplications of food and drink, and miracles of bodily manipulation, including stigmata and inedia (living without eating). The occurrence of such phenomena sheds much light on the nature of medieval society and medieval religion. It also forms a chapter in the history of women. Previous scholars have occasionally noted the various phenomena in isolation from each other and have sometimes applied modern medical or psychological theories to them. Using materials based on saints' lives and the religious and mystical writings of medieval women and men, Caroline Walker Bynum uncovers the pattern lying behind these aspects of women's religiosity and behind the fascination men and women felt for such miracles and devotional practices. She argues that food lies at the heart of much of women's piety. Women renounced ordinary food through fasting in order to prepare for receiving extraordinary food in the eucharist. They also offered themselves as food in miracles of feeding and bodily manipulation. Providing both functionalist and phenomenological explanations, Bynum explores the ways in which food practices enabled women to exert control within the family and to define their religious vocations. She also describes what women meant by seeing their own bodies and God's body as food and what men meant when they too associated women with food and flesh. The author's interpretation of women's piety offers a new view of the nature of medieval asceticism and, drawing upon both anthropology and feminist theory, she illuminates the distinctive features of women's use of symbols. Rejecting presentist interpretations of women as exploited or masochistic, she shows the power and creativity of women's writing and women's lives.

In the period between 1200 and 1500 in western Europe, a number of religious women gained widespread veneration and even canonization as saints for their extraordinary devotion to the Christian eucharist, supernatural multiplications of food and drink, and miracles of bodily manipulation, including stigmata and inedia (living without eating). The occurrence of such phenomena sheds much light on the nature of medieval society and medieval religion. It also forms a chapter in the history of women.
Previous scholars have occasionally noted the various phenomena in isolation from each other and have sometimes applied modern medical or psychological theories to them. Using materials based on saints' lives and the religious and mystical writings of medieval women and men, Caroline Walker Bynum uncovers the pattern lying behind these aspects of women's religiosity and behind the fascination men and women felt for such miracles and devotional practices. She argues that food lies at the heart of much of women's piety. Women renounced ordinary food through fasting in order to prepare for receiving extraordinary food in the eucharist. They also offered themselves as food in miracles of feeding and bodily manipulation.
Providing both functionalist and phenomenological explanations, Bynum explores the ways in which food practices enabled women to exert control within the family and to define their religious vocations. She also describes what women meant by seeing their own bodies and God's body as food and what men meant when they too associated women with food and flesh. The author's interpretation of women's piety offers a new view of the nature of medieval asceticism and, drawing upon both anthropology and feminist theory, she illuminates the distinctive features of women's use of symbols. Rejecting presentist interpretations of women as exploited or masochistic, she shows the power and creativity of women's writing and women's lives.

Cover 1 CONTENTS 8 LIST OF PLATES 10 PREFACE 14 INTRODUCTION 18 Part I: The Background 28 1 RELIGIOUS WOMEN IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES 30 New Opportunities 31 Female Spirituality: Diversities and Unity 40 2 FAST AND FEAST: THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 48 Fasting in Antiquity and the High Middle Ages 50 A Medieval Change: From Bread of Heaven to the Body Broken 65 Part II: The Evidence 88 3 FOOD AS A FEMALE CONCERN: THE COMPLEXITY OF THE EVIDENCE 90 Quantitative and Fragmentary Evidence for Women's Concern with Food 93 Men's Lives and Writings: A Comparison 111 4 FOOD IN THE LIVES OF WOMEN SAINTS 130 The Low Countries 132 France and Germany 146 Italy 157 5 FOOD IN THE WRITINGS OF WOMEN MYSTICS 175 Hadewijch and Beatrice of Nazareth 178 Catherine of Siena and Catherine of Genoa 190 Part III: The Explanation 212 6 FOOD AS CONTROL OF SELF 214 Was Women's Fasting Anorexia Nervosa? 219 Food as Control of Body: The Ascetic Context and the Question of Dualism 233 7 FOOD AS CONTROL OF CIRCUMSTANCE 244 Food and Family 245 Food Practices and Religious Roles 252 Food Practices as Rejection of Moderation 262 8 THE MEANING OF FOOD: FOOD AS PHYSICALITY 270 Food and Flesh as Pleasure and Pain 271 The Late Medieval Concern with Physicality 276 9 WOMAN AS BODY AND AS FOOD 285 Woman as Symbol of Humanity 286 Woman's Body as Food 294 10 WOMEN'S SYMBOLS 302 The Meaning of Symbolic Reversal 304 Men's Use of Female Symbols 307 Women's Symbols as Continuity 313 Conclusion 319 EPILOGUE 322 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 352 NOTES 356 GENERAL INDEX 470 A 470 B 471 C 472 D 473 E 474 F 474 G 475 H 476 I 476 J 477 K 477 L 477 M 478 N 480 O 480 P 480 Q 481 R 481 S 481 T 482 U 482 V 482 W 483 Y 483 INDEX OF SECONDARY AUTHORS 484 A 484 B 484 C 485 D 486 E 487 F 487 G 487 H 488 I 488 J 488 K 488 L 489 M 489 N 490 O 490 P 490 Q 490 R 491 S 491 T 492 U 492 V 492 W 492 Z 493 THE LATER Middle Ages, especially the period from the late twelfth to the early fourteenth century, witnessed a significant proliferation of opportunities for women to participate in specialized religious roles and of the type of roles available.