Hartnell - Medieval bodies: life, death and art in the Middle Ages

MEDIEVAL
BODIES

Life, Death and Art in the Middle Ages

JACK HARTNELL

W.W. NORTON & COMPANY

Independent Publishers Since 1923

I would like to thank my careful and extremely generous editors Cecily Gayford and Kirty Topiwala; Taylor McCall, Jocelyn Anderson and Jessica Barker for casting their expert eyes over some or all of this manuscript; the production and design staff at Profile Books and Wellcome Publishing; Sophie Scard, Lisa Toogood and Caroline Dawnay at United Agents; Rania Jaber, Roland Betancourt and Maggie Breidenthal for their advice on translation; my many inspiring colleagues and students at The Courtauld Institute, Columbia University and the University of East Anglia; and lastly my family and friends, especially Anne Chmelewsky for her constant love and support, without which this book would never have been written.

Page numbers listed correspond to the print edition of this book. You can use your devices search function to locate particular terms in the text.

Note: An italic page reference indicates pages with relevant illustrations but without matching indexed text.

Surnames were seldom used consistently until the end of the Middle Ages. In what follows, individuals whose surnames are known appear listed by that name (e.g. Chaucer, Geoffrey). When an individual was instead known by a geographical distinction (e.g. Anne of Bohemia, Caspar von Regensburg, Teresa de Cartagena), they are listed by their first name. The many Arabic names are reproduced by surname or patronym as they appear transcribed into English in the text.

A

acoustics 668

Adalbero, Bishop 18

Adam (in Genesis) 33, 105, 222

Adrian I, Pope 263

afterlife

steadfastness of belief in 131

as sweet-smelling 63

ages of man, link to elements 15

Al-Baghawi, Husayn 118

Al-Balkhi, Abu Zayd 283

Al-Baytar, Abu Bakr 114

Al-Dawlah, Adud 18

Al-Hariri, Muhammad 246, 247

Al-Idrisi, Sharif al-Din 284

Al-Istakhri, Muhammad 283

Al-Katib, Ali ibn Nasr 256

Al-Masudi, Abu al-Hasan 945

Al-Muqaddasi, Muhammad 282

Al-Safadi, Khalil 59

Al-Sulayhi, Arwa, Queen of Yemen 247

Al-Wasiti, Yahya 246

Al-Zahrawi, Abu al-Qasim (Albucasis) 77, 178, 1856

Albrecht IV, Duke of Bayern-Mnchen 261

Albucasis see Al-Zahrawi, Abu al-Qasim

Alderotti, Taddeo 22

Alphonse of Poitiers 219

Amandus, Saint 294, 295

amputations 83, 89, 94, 186

Friedrich III, Holy Roman Emperor 260, 2613

anal fistulae 2246

anatomy 834, 111, 217, 290, 291

see also dissection

The Anatomy of the Human Body (Tashrih-i badan-i insan), by Mansur ibn Ilyas 111

Angles and Anglo-Saxons 7, 73, 223, 277

animal medicine 11415

Anna, grave of 120

Anne of Bohemia 269

Anothomia, by Mondino dei Liuzzi 32, 85, 87

Anthony of Padua, Saint 73, 74, 142

anthropocentric worldview 14, 15

anti-semitism 1635, 167, 179

antipodes 2812, 2856

anxiety states 37

Apollonia, Saint 48

Aquinas, Saint Thomas 47, 117, 219, 221

Arabic language 8, 723

Arabic translations 17

Arboleda de los Enfermos, by Teresa de Cartagena 65

Ardashir I, King of Sasanian Persia 198, 199

Arderne, John 2246

Aristotle

De anima 135

De animalibus 217, 219

support for intromission 56

on touch as the essential sense 183, 187

view of the heart 135, 138

Arnau de Vilanova 378

artworks, reflecting medieval views of the body 27

astrolabes 2757

astronomy

and blood-letting 1612

Muslim 64

Augustine, Saint 63, 105, 152, 202

autopsy see dissection

Avicenna see ibn Sina

B

Bacon, Roger 56

bad breath 75

badgers 2067

Baldassare degli Embriachi 130

baldness 43

barber-surgeons 77, 186

Bartholomew, Saint 82

Bartolomeo di Fruosino 242, 243, 247

Basil II, Byzantine Emperor 288

bathing and washing clothes 64

beauty, standards of 43

Bede 195

beheadings 435, 46, 47, 49, 145

Bla IV, King of Hungary 214

bells and their ringing 689

Benedict of Nursia, Saint 91

Benjamin of Tudela 2813, 285

Berengario da Carpi, Jacopo 290

Bernard de Gordon 378, 41

Bernard of Clairvaux, Saint 100, 152

bimaristans 18

bioarchaeology 2924

bipedalism, as defining humans 32

birthing gifts 242

biting crafts 187

the Black Death 12

Blanche of Castile 21920, 244

the Blemmyae 2934, 186, 286

blindness 5860

blood

circulation 138

of circumcision 168, 253

from icons and relics 1735

importance in the medieval body 159

menstrual blood 2345, 253

sperm generation from 232

as symbol of vitality 1723

from transubstantiation 16772

treatment of bleeding 1768

see also Holy Blood

blood-letting (phlebotomy) 16, 89, 1602, 200

Hebrew textbook 158, 161, 176

locations and timing 1601

blood libel, and anti-semitism 163, 165, 179

Boccaccio, Giovanni 143

bodily resurrection 84, 118, 120, 289

the body

body-soul dualism 11617

and distance measures 2723

image of vital organs 137

medieval view 1216, 289

unfamiliarity with 84, 218

the Body Politic 44, 145, 212, 263

body size 12

Boethius 66

A Boke of Kokery 211

Bonaventura 153

bones

bone sculptures 130

controversy over number 109

fractures and dislocations 11214

see also skeleton

The Book of Good Food (Das Buoch von guoter Spise) 212

Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices, by Ismail al-Jazari 200, 201

The Book of Routes and Realms (Kitab al-masalik wa-al-mamalik) 283

The Book of Scientific Knowledge (Danish-nama-yi Alai) by Ibn Sina 56

books

cordiform 147

damaged by use 75, 18990

gynaecological manuscripts 2367, 2389

health books 212

herbals 206, 2089, 238

red prayer-book 16970

on surgery 225, 226

travelogues 2817

Books of Hours 153, 174, 249

Borgognoni, Teodorico 112

Boussac 534

brain

diagrammatic representation 35

link with male ejaculate 232

status and role of 347, 51

Brassica silvatica 2078

burial practices

Christian 11517

epidemic victims 121

images of the deceased 1237

Islamic 118

Jewish 11921

separation of entrails 21920

burial tunic 1023, 104

Byzantium see Constantinople

C

Caesarian section 242

Caliphate, extent of 8

Camden, William 4

Canon of Medicine, by Ibn Sina 233

Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer 42

caput, saintly 49, 51

Carleton, Thomas 104

Carmina Burana 2412

cartography 30, 2837, 290

Caspar von Regensburg 149, 1501

castration anxiety 251

The Catalan Atlas 285, 2867

Catherine of Siena, Saint 489, 153, 254

Causae et curae (Causes and Cures), by Hildegard of Bingen 234

celibacy 195, 248, 252, 259

cells

within the brain 347

within the uterus 233