Medieval Bodies: Life and Death in the Middle Ages

Art historian Hartnell’s entertaining, comprehensive debut contradicts the popular conception of the Middle Ages as a “backwards, muddy” time by surveying medieval attitudes toward the human body. Analyzing medical textbooks, physicians’ accounts, poetry, religious sermons, and artworks from Europe, the Byzantine Empire, and the Islamic world, Hartnell works his way from “head to heel,” addressing each body part in turn. Hair types, he notes, were seen to reflect certain mental characteristics: lank, blonde hair indicated deviousness, while red hair suggested a quick temper. Middle Eastern writers thought the pale skin and “unsettling” blue eyes of Northern Europeans were indicative of cowardice; Christians, meanwhile, associated dark skin with sinfulness. The heart maintained the body’s “humoral equilibrium,” according to physicians, and generated romantic feelings, according to the poets of “courtly love.” Male and female sex organs were understood to be inverted versions of each other, with the exteriority of male genitals taken as proof of masculine superiority. In the Middle Ages, Hartnell writes, “the body was everything to everyone”—a statement that holds true for any historical era. But the book’s broadness is also its strength, recasting Dark Age medicine and culture as more globally interconnected and enduring than previously thought. Curious readers will marvel at Hartnell’s lucid prose and generous selection of illustrations. (Nov.)