Medieval Bodies

This book is filled with fascinating facts about medieval medicine, surgery, humoural theory, disease, and diagnosis. But what is surprising is how many other aspects of the Middle Ages are covered through the theme of bodies.

We learn about strange creatures like blemmyae (who have no heads and faces in their chests) and cynocephali (dog-headed people), saints and relics, race relations and politics, manuscript manufacture, religion, literature, travel, eating habits, love, sexuality, and gender identity.

I love how the chapters are organized by body part, from head to feet, a clever approach I have never seen in a history book… show more.

This non-fiction book is a marvellous study of the Medieval mindset.

With suberb illustrations, both in drawing and words, containing great humour, extraordinary beliefs, fantastical creatures, and surprising passion, dipping into this book is an uplifting experience. Were people really so very different then?

Dive into this book and enter the landscape, anthropology, and metamorphosis of Medieval times. With a narrative style that is precise, yet playful, the author captures this elusive period into a net of riches for our pleasure, entertainment, and education.

Jack Hartnell anatomises the Middle Ages in a very real sense: the book is divided up into parts of the body. It is a brilliant and innovative approach, allowing him to bring together the history of medicine, artistic objects, political thought, cartography, metaphor, and the medieval imagination, among other things. Importantly, he looks far beyond Western Europe, so the book also includes Jewish and Islamic approaches to the body, explores the Byzantine world, and analyses objects and ideas from, for instance, North Africa and the Middle East. The book focuses on the Mediterranean world in its broadest sense, ranging widely… show more.