New book – Death and Disease in the Medieval and Early Modern World, Perspectives from across the Mediterranean and Beyond, Edited by Lori Jones and Nükhet Varlık for Boydell & Breyer

DESCRIPTION

This collection highlights and nuances some of the recent critical advances in scholarship on death and disease, across and beyond the pre-modern Mediterranean world, Christian, Islamic and Jewish healing traditions.

Across and beyond the pre-modern Mediterranean world, Christian, Islamic and Jewish healing traditions shared inherited medical paradigms containing similar healthy living precepts and attitudes toward body, illness and mortality. Yet, as the chapters collected here demonstrate, customs of diagnosing, explaining and coping with disease and death often diverged with respect to knowledge and practice.
Offering a variety of disciplinary approaches to a broad selection of material emerging from England to the Persian Gulf, the volume reaches across conventional disciplinary and historiographical boundaries. Plague diagnoses in pre-Black Death Arabic medical texts, rare, illustrated phlebotomy instructions for plague patients, and a Jewish plague tract utilising the Torah as medicine reflect critical re-examinations of primary sources long thought to have nothing new to offer. Novel re-interpretations of Giovanni Villani’s “New Chronicle”, canonisation inquests and saints’ lives offer fresh considerations of medieval constructions of epidemics, disabilities, and the interplay between secular and spiritual healing. Cross-disciplinary perspectives recast late medieval post-mortem diagnoses in Milan as a juridical – rather than strictly medical – practice, highlight the aural performativity of the Franciscan deathbed liturgy, explore the long evolution of lapidary treatments for paediatric and obstetric diseases and thrust us into the Ottoman polychromatic sensory world of disease and death. Finally, considerations of the contributions of modern science alongside historical primary sources generates important new ways to understand death and disease in the past. Overall, the contributions juxtapose and interlace similarities and differences in their local and historical contexts, while highlighting and nuancing some of the recent critical advances in scholarship on death and disease – two historiographical subfields long approached separately.

Content

 
Intersections: Disease and Death, Medicine and Religion, Medieval and Early Modern
LORI JONES, NÜKHET VARLIK AND WINSTON BLACK

PART I: DIAGNOSING, EXPLAINING AND RECORDING

1 Knowing the Signs of Disease: Plague in the Arabic Medical Commentaries between the First and Second Pandemics
NAHYAN FANCY

2 The Legal Foundations of Post-Mortem Diagnosis in Later Medieval Milan
ANN G. CARMICHAEL

3 Epidemic Illness in the Last Book of Giovanni Villani’s New Chronicle, 1345-1348: Warfare, Sin and the Heavens
NICOLE ARCHAMBEAU

4 Colours of Disease and Death in the Early Modern Ottoman Cultural Imagination
NÜKHET VARLIK

PART II: COPING, PREVENTING AND HEALING

5 The Role of Music in a Franciscan Liturgy for the End of Life, as Evidenced in Manuscript Newberry 24
ELAINE STRATTON HILD

6 Medical and Spiritual Healing of Death and Disease in Medieval Miracle Stories
JENNIFER C. EDWARDS

7 Infirmity and Death-Wishes in Medieval French and Italian Canonisation Processes
JENNI KUULIALA

8 Bubo Men? Repurposing Medieval Anatomic Illustrations for Plague Therapy in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries
LORI JONES

9 Psalm 38 as Plague Diagnostic and Prophylactic in Abraham Yagel’s Moshi’ah Ḥosim (1587)
ANDREW BERNS

10 The Protection of Innocents: Red Coral as a Lapidary Cure for the ‘Children’s Disease’ and Conditions Related to Childbirth in Medieval and Early Modern England
NICHOLA E. HARRIS

PART III: STUDYING, ANALYSING AND INTERPRETING

11 Leprosy in Medieval Europe: An Immunological and Syndemic Approach
FABIAN CRESPO

12 Past Plagues: On the Synergies of Genetic and Historical Interpretations of Infectious Disease
HENDRIK POINAR

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
 

Authors

Lori Jones is a medical historian at Carleton University and the University of Ottawa, Canada. Her research focuses primarily on plague texts and images.

Nükhet Varlık is Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University-Newark. Her research focuses on disease, death, medicine and public health in the Ottoman Empire.

Workshop – Power, Piety and Plague: the Northern Church in the 14th Century, by Medieval Studies Research Group, Lincoln – 22 April

About this Event

The Medieval Studies Research Group (University of Lincoln), The Northern Way, and the Lincoln Record Society invite you to join us for this free, interactive workshop. No experience necessary.

This workshop will explore some of the riches contained within the Registers that were used to record the business of the Archbishops’ of York in the fourteenth century, an era of political turmoil, almost incessant warfare and climatic and public health catastrophes.

‘“The Northern Way”: the Archbishops of York and the North of England, 1304 – 1405’ is an Arts and Humanities Research Council funded research project run by the Borthwick Institute for Archives, University of York, in partnership with The National Archives (TNA). ‘The Northern Way’ seeks to make the content from the 16 Registers for this period, alongside related documents from TNA, more easily searchable and accessible through the development of a digital resource. The workshop will demonstrate how the resource and index can shed light on a range of topics and previously hidden histories about, principally, the North of England but also about the employment and influence of clerks from Lincolnshire in running the diocese of York and the government of England.

You will find out more about Archbishop Melton’s reaction to the, now notorious, Joan of Leeds, a nun from the Priory of St Clements, York. In 1318, with the help of her fellow nuns, Joan faked her own death and buried a dummy of her body, so that she could run away to Beverley and allegedly live a life of ‘carnal lust’. These Registers can provide insights into the religious and political role of the province and its relationship with central government, as well as give fascinating insights into culture, society and piety.

Dr Paul Dryburgh and Dr Marianne Wilson (The Northern Way and Lincoln Record Society)

Link to register

Conference – In Sickness and in Health – Online / Haifa University, Jan 12–13, 2021

Imago – The Israeli Association of Visual Culture in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period, and the Department of Art History, University of Haifa are thrilled to publish the program of the 14th Annual Imago conference:

“In Sickness and in Health: Pestilence, Disease, and Healing in Medieval and Early Modern Art”.

The two-day international conference will be held online, January 12-13, 2021.

We invite you to join us for a rich event that will explore a diverse variety of fascinating subjects, such as “Healing, Humor and Pleasure”, “The Sick and Disabled Body”, and “Gendering Disease”.

Participation is free and there are no registration fees. To attend, please fill out the online registration form (below).

PROGRAM

DAY 1 – Tuesday, 12 January 2021

09:00–09:30 GREETINGS and Opening Remarks

Efraim Lev, Dean – Faculty of Humanities, University of Haifa
Emma Maayan-Fanar, Chairperson – Department of Art History, University of Haifa
Gil Fishhof, Chairperson – Imago, The Israeli Association for Visual Culture in the Middle Ages


09:30–11:00 SESSION 1. Plague and the Artistic Process: Continuity, Change and Opportunity
Chair: Gil Fishhof, University of Haifa

Daniel Unger, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Carlo Borromeo’s Plague in Bolognese Painting

Cyprien Fuchs, Neuchâtel University
Picturing the Black Death as an Opportunity. The Case of Taddeo Gaddi’s San Giovanni Fuorcivitas Polyptych

Rita Yates, Warburg Institute, University of London
The Sacred Heart of Jesus: Image, Rhetoric, and Practice during the Great Plague of Marseille (1720-22)


– 11:00–11:30 Coffee Break –


11:30–13:00 SESSION 2. Images and the Codification of Medical Knowledge
Chair: Daniel Unger, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Sivan Gottlieb, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Art of Healing: The Case of a Hebrew Herbal

Elena Berger, Institute of World History, Russian Academy of Science
From Prophecy to Medical Treatises: “Monsters” in Medical Illustrations of Early Modern France

Kathleen Walker-Meikle, King’s College, London
The Zodiac Horse: Animals in Astrological-Medical Diagrams in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Periods


– 13:00–14:30 Lunch Break –


14:30–16:00 SESSION 3. Healing, Humor and Pleasure
Chair: Gili Shalom, Tel-Aviv University

Dafna Nissim, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Pleasures vs. Plague Fear – Court Scenes in Two Manuscripts of The Decameron Made for Philip the Good

Anne Williams, University of Richmond
Healing Laughter: Death and Humor in Medieval Art

Fabienne Gallaire, Independent Scholar
Looking through the Glass: The Uroscopist Figure as Visual Satire


– 16:00–16:30 Coffee Break –


16:30–18:00 Session 4. The Sick and Disabled Body
Chair: Emma Maayan-Fanar, University of Haifa

Gili Shalom, Tel-Aviv University
Healing of the Disabled in St. Honorius Portal at Amiens Cathedral and Its Reception

Jennifer M. Feltman, The University of Alabama
The Afflicted Body and the Aesthetic of Wholeness in Gothic Sculpture

Sharon Strocchia and Ryan Kelly, Emory University
Picturing the Pox in Italian Popular Prints, 1550-1650

DAY 2 – Wednesday, 13 January 2021

09:30–11:30 SESSION 1. Gendering Disease and Healing
Chair: Jochai Rosen, University of Haifa

Nirit Ben Aryeh Debby, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Female Saints and the Plague in Italy: St. Clare of Assisi and St. Catherine of Siena

Sara Benninga, Tel-Aviv University
Lovesickness and Stone Operations: Gendered Disease and its Artistic Representation

Anastasija Ropa, Latvian Academy of Sport Education
Depicting Disease and Healing in the Early Modern Rus: The Story of St. Pyotr and St. Fevronia

Sharon Khalifa-Gueta, University of Haifa
The Image of St. Margaret Emerging from the Dragon as an Emotional Director for Coping with Childbirth


– 11:30–12:00 Coffee Break –


12:00–13:30 SESSION 2. The Power of Images: Healing and Apotropaic Functions
Chair: Sharon Khalifa-Gueta, University of Haifa

Giuditta Gentile, Independent Scholar
Sacred Images to Ward off the Plague: The Case of an Early Sixteenth-Century Italian Print

Shir Blum, Tel-Aviv University
Assisting in Childbirth: The Material Variety of Amulets as Obstetrical Aides

Rebekkah C. Hart, University of California, Riverside
‘Against All Unknown Afflictions’: Medicine and Healing in English Alabaster ‘St. John’s Heads’ (c. 1417-1550)


– 13:30-15:00 Lunch Break –


15:00–17:00 SESSION 3. Sites of Healing: Space, Identity and Trauma
Chair: Assaf Pinkus, Tel-Aviv University

Brittany Forniotis, Duke University
Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Italian Lazzaretti and Collective Trauma in Fourteenth and Fifteenth-Century Italian Cities

Joana Balsa de Pinho, University of Lisbon,
Renaissance Hospitals in Portugal: Art and Architecture Regarding Sickness and Health

Anđela Gavrilović, University of Belgrade
The Scenes of Christ’s Miraculous Healings in the Church of Hagia Sophia in Trebizond: The Meaning and the Reasons of Their Depiction

Emily Jay, Texas Tech University
Hollow, Hallowed Body: Santa Rosalia and the Reconstruction of Identities in Palermo during the 1624 Plague

The conference will be held online via Zoom. For registration and a link to the meetings please register at the link below, or contact gfishhof@staff.haifa.ac.il
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf5-EIeBObP-Euybk2GRk-Mghs_NWKt4vjorPzZ2p6JObzdiQ/viewform?fbclid=IwAR2x6E8hDNGhXhYUgYfKTVVm7CvBruQ0_oQIOz892EMhPfVKXiGVlJurXJ4

The conference is held according to Israel local time (GMT+2).

Organizing committee: Gil Fishhof, Mazi Kuzi, Jochai Rosen, Margo Stroumsa-Uzan

More infos on the organisator website

Call for Papers – ‘For I am a woman, ignorant, weak and frail’: Feminising Death, Disability and Disease in the later Middle Ages – IMC Leeds

‘For I am a woman, ignorant, weak and frail’: Feminising Death, Disability and Disease in the later Middle Ages

International Medieval Congress University of Leeds 3rd – 6th July 2017

Conference Details

The International Medieval Congress is the largest interdisciplinary medieval conference of its kind – attracting over 2,200 attendees from over 50 countries, and boasting approximately 1,700 individual papers within 580 academic sessions. Every year, the IMC chooses a special thematic strand which, for 2017, is ‘Otherness’. This focus has been chosen for its wide application across all centuries and regions and its impact on all disciplines devoted to this epoch. For further information on the Congress, see: http://www.leeds.ac.uk/ims/imc/imc2017_call.html 

Session Details

**Should this session attract enough interest it will become a three-part series, with each session focussing more deeply on the individual themes of death, disability and disease. Within late-medieval society, to be valued was to look and behave according to the societal ‘norm’ – dependency was largely represented as a feminine trait, whereas to be independent was to be masculine. How then did medieval people respond to deviations from these gendered expectations as a result of death (or dying), disabilities and chronic diseases? This session will consider the feminisation of death, disability and disease through an interdisciplinary lens, in order to answer questions about the perceived ‘feminine’ dependency of the marginal ‘third state’ between being fully healthy and fully sick (i.e. to be dying, diseased or disabled). It will hope to consider the contradictory nature of female disease and disability which both engendered an elevated sense of holiness and, conversely, a sense of physical monstrosity; the female response to death, disability and disease as elements of daily life which were (largely) out of their control; the effect of death, disability and disease on medieval constructions of masculinity; and whether – if death, disease and disability dehumanise the body – is it even important to consider the effect of these states on an individual’s gendered identity? We welcome multi-disciplinary papers from all geographical locations, c.1300-c.1500, which engage with themes such as (but not limited to): representations of death, disease and/or (dis)ability; literature either for or by women dealing with the themes of death, disease and/or disability; the tradition of Memento Mori and/or the Danse Macabre; the gendering of ‘Death’ ; the Black Death’s impact on traditional gender roles; obstetric death; female piety and holy anorexia; the effect of chronic disease and/or disability on late-medieval constructions of masculinity; women and disease (as the developers of cures, writers of recipes, carers or patients, etc.); female use of disability aids and/or prosthetics; and self-inflicted disfigurement.

Submission Guidelines

Please send a paper title and an abstract of 100-200 words to Rachael Gillibrand at the Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds (hy11rg@leeds.ac.uk) by 23rd September 2016.

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