Holy Feast and Holy Fast

The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women

Caroline Walker Bynum

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English

University of California Press
07 January 1988

The Early Church; Christian worship, rites & ceremonies; Christian life & practice; Gender studies: women

Series: The New Historicism: Studies in Cultural Poetics

In the period between 1200 and 1500 in western Europe, a number of religious women gained widespread veneration and even canonization as saints for their extraordinary devotion to the Christian eucharist, supernatural multiplications of food and drink, and miracles of bodily manipulation, including stigmata and inedia (living without eating). The occurrence of such phenomena sheds much light on the nature of medieval society and medieval religion. It also forms a chapter in the history of women.

Previous scholars have occasionally noted the various phenomena in isolation from each other and have sometimes applied modern medical or psychological theories to them. Using materials based on saints' lives and the religious and mystical writings of medieval women and men, Caroline Walker Bynum uncovers the pattern lying behind these aspects of women's religiosity and behind the fascination men and women felt for such miracles and devotional practices. She argues that food lies at the heart of much of women's piety. Women renounced ordinary food through fasting in order to prepare for receiving extraordinary food in the eucharist. They also offered themselves as food in miracles of feeding and bodily manipulation.

Providing both functionalist and phenomenological explanations, Bynum explores the ways in which food practices enabled women to exert control within the family and to define their religious vocations. She also describes what women meant by seeing their own bodies and God's body as food and what men meant when they too associated women with food and flesh. The author's interpretation of women's piety offers a new view of the nature of medieval asceticism and, drawing upon both anthropology and feminist theory, she illuminates the distinctive features of women's use of symbols. Rejecting presentist interpretations of women as exploited or masochistic, she shows the power and creativity of women's writing and women's lives.

By: Caroline Walker Bynum
Imprint: University of California Press
Country of Publication: United States
Volume: 1
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 30mm
Weight: 680g
ISBN: 9780520063297
ISBN 10: 0520063295
Series: The New Historicism: Studies in Cultural Poetics
Pages: 464
Publication Date: 07 January 1988
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Professional & Vocational , A / AS level , Further / Higher Education
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Foreword Note on the Text Author's Note The Boston Poems Cups 1-12 The Park The Faerie Queene The Moth Poem Image-Nations -4 Les Chimeres Charms Great Companion: Pindar Image-Nations 5-14 and Uncollected Poems Streams I Syntax Pell Mell Great Companion: Robert Duncan Streams II Exody Notes Great Companion: Dante Alighiere Wanders So Oh! Afterword Index of Titles and First Lines

Caroline Walker Bynum is Western Medieval History Professor Emerita School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study.

Reviews for Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women

"""A rich, positive and thoughtful description of the way some medieval women managed to control and develop their own subjectivities and social roles.""--""Women's Review of Books"