In this book readers will find stories about medieval heresies and “magic” from an unusual perspective: that of food studies. The time span ranges from Late Antiquity to the Late Middle Ages, while the geographical scope includes regions as different as North Africa, Spain, Ireland, continental Europe, the Holy land, and Central Asia. Food, heresies, and magical boundaries in the Middle Ages explores the power of food in creating and breaking down boundaries between different groups, or in establishing a contact with other worlds, be they the occult sides of nature, or the supernatural. The book emphasizes the role of food in crafting and carrying identity, and in transferring virtues and powers of natural elements into the eater’s body. Which foods and drinks made someone a heretic? Could they be purified? Which food offerings forged a connection with the otherworld? Which recipes allowed gaining access to the hidden powers within nature?
- Cover
- Table of Contents
- Introduction ‒ On Food and Boundaries: New Trends in Food History
- Part I. Religious Boundaries
- 1. Religious Identities and Consuming Differences in Augustine’s De haeresibus
- 2. Dinner with the Heretic: The Story of an Ordeal Meal in Gregory of Tours’s De gloria martyrum
- 3. Consuming Heresy according to Walter Map: How to Restate the Boundaries of the Status Quo
- 4. Comos in William of Rubruck’s Itinerarium: A Mongolian Beverage of Apostasy
- Part II. Magical Boundaries
- 5. Saint Brigit and Milk from the Otherworld
- 6. A Pagan Counter-Cuisine: Food and the Supernatural in Burchard of Worms’s Corrector
- 7. Cannibalism and Natural Magic: Human Flesh as a Gate to the Hidden Powers of Nature in the Picatrix
- 8. Niccolò da Poggibonsi and the “Magical” Bread of Bethlehem
- Concluding Remarks ‒ Boundary Foods and Boundaries of Food
- Index of Names
- Index of Places
- Index of Foods and Ingredients
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