Structured around several themes - all taken from parts of the body like heart, hands and feet, the book then describes medieval attitudes, beliefs and behaviours to these parts of the body - or at least that what it claims to do.Īt times it does this well, but too often the author uses the chapter title as an excuse for a rambling exploration of subjects only tenuously connected with the book or chapter title - hence from feet we go to travel and from travel to maps. The writing is to a high standard, erudite and mostly interesting. Beautifully presented and well illustrated, this is a lovely object. In the category of book as physical object this would gain 5 stars. Some images in this ebook are not displayed due to permissions issues. Encompassing medicine and mysticism, politics and art-and complete with vivid, full-color illustrations- Medieval Bodies shows us how it felt to live and die a thousand years ago. We learn about the surgeons who dissected a living man’s stomach, then sewed him up again about the geographers who delineated racial groups by skin color and about the practice of fasting to gain spiritual renown. Medieval Bodies guides us on a head-to-heel journey through this era’s revolutionary advancements and disturbing convictions. But while this medieval medicine now seems archaic, it also made a critical contribution to modern science. Medieval beliefs about the body were drastically different from ours today: Hair was thought to be a condensation of fumes emitted from the pores, ideas were supposedly committed to memory by being directly imprinted on the brain, and the womb of a goat was believed to function as a contraceptive. With wit, wisdom, and a sharp scalpel, Jack Hartnell dissects the medieval body and offers a remedy to our preconceptions.

Medieval bodies jack hartnell