Medieval Bodies: Life, Death and Art in the Middle Ages

by Jack Hartnell

Genres: History, Non-fiction, Science
Pages: 352
Rating:

Synopsis:

Just like us, medieval men and women worried about growing old, got blisters and indigestion, fell in love and had children. And yet their lives were full of miraculous and richly metaphorical experiences radically different to our own, unfolding in a world where deadly wounds might be healed overnight by divine intervention, or the heart of a king, plucked from his corpse, could be held aloft as a powerful symbol of political rule.

In this richly-illustrated and unusual history, Jack Hartnell uncovers the fascinating ways in which people thought about, explored and experienced their physical selves in the Middle Ages, from Constantinople to Cairo and Canterbury. Unfolding like a medieval pageant, and filled with saints, soldiers, caliphs, queens, monks and monstrous beasts, it throws light on the medieval body from head to toe - revealing the surprisingly sophisticated medical knowledge of the time in the process.

Bringing together medicine, art, music, politics, philosophy and social history, there is no better guide to what life was really like for the men and women who lived and died in the Middle Ages.

Jack Hartnell’s Medieval Bodies: Life, Death and Art in the Middle Ages is a very attractive book, with in-line colour illustrations. It’s definitely aimed at a pretty casual audience, with little by the way of referenced sources: mostly it’s a conversation with the author, in chapters arranged by theme (skin, feet, heart, etc) with various pieces of art and discussions of medicine that illuminate little pieces of how medieval people viewed the world.

I found it a bit shallow and random at times, because it tries to cover a lot of ground and cover things the author finds especially interesting, and it kind of feels like there’s no throughline that brings it all together beyond curiosity. Which is laudable, don’t get me wrong, but means there’s not so much of a solid narrative to get you through the book and link things up.

Being fair, there is a bibliography at the back if you want to try to look up sources, and it is beautifully presented! Just doesn’t quite come together, at least for me.

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)