Death and Dying in the Middle Ages by Edelgard E. Dubrick , Barbara I. Gusick (review)

Abstract

that anxiety over basic food production and transport, virtually unknown in the modern West, underlies some of the disparitybetween heroic literature (in which food is abundant)and historicalsources(inwhich faminesarefrequent).Magennis's discussion of the power of hunger, anthropomorphized and even bestialized with such verbs as slitan('cut,tear'),ahy6an ('plunder,destroy'),bindan ('bind'),and hienan ('fell,bringlow') drivesthe point home vividly(p. 44). The sections of the book on ecclesiasticalantagonismtowardssatingthe material body, while hardly innovative, are capably presented. More could be pulled from the intriguing texts and passages he brings to the discussion, perhaps. Magennis paints a picture of heroic society as one in which meat is a prestige item, and in which a carnivorousdietisvalorizedasprovidingstrengthand courage (pp. 60-6 ), but does not sufficientlyreconcile this with the abstention from meat valorized by the Benedictine Rule, for instance. These heroic poems are being copied, after all, by monksforwhom eating meat is a signof infirmity,not power. Any discussion of food imagery in Old English poetry is bound to come around to Andreas, and here again Magennis's discussion is fresh and informative. Critics such as Robert Boenig andJohn Hermann have elucidatedthe eucharisticimagery in the poem (readinto the cannibalismof the Mermedonians), an approachwhich Magennis rejects as overstated (pp. i66-69). Instead he offers a reading of the poem's internallogic, supportedwith anthropologicalaccounts of cannibalism.He notes that the Mermedonian guardsareperverseeven by theirown standards,since they flouttheirpracticeof eating only strangersby eating theirown guards(p. 148). Even the unfortunateDonners refusedto breakthe double taboo of eating members of their own family, as the high-ranking Mermedonian chief proposes when he volunteershis own son forthe cannibalisticfeast. Magennis's wide-ranging overview of an important element of Anglo-Saxon literatureis sensitivelyattuned to what is missingfrom it. Thus he notes that sweet drinks,an importantcomponent of the Latinexegetical tradition,arenot developed in Old English poetry (p. I35), while metaphorical 'bitter drinks' are common enough. Also, the vernacular tradition does not take advantage of the spiritual interpretation of alcoholic drinks (e.g., the 'intoxication with Christ' common in Latin works such as Augustine's Ennarationes). While earlier Latin writers such as Bede and Alcuin are both comfortablewith the metaphor of spiritualintoxication, later vernacular writers such as AElfricrefrain from developing such imagery (perhaps because 'he was too concerned about inebriation in its immediate, literal sense to wish to explore the fine points of its spiritualmeaning' (p.140)). Magennis has successfullyexposed one of the greatdouble standardsof Old Englishliterature. The idea and the ritual of eating are noble, while the act of eating is cruel and inhuman;the idea and the ritualof drinkingare heroic, while the act of drinkingis gruesome. PENNSYLVANIASTATE UNIVERSITY, MONT ALTO PETER DENDLE Death and Dying in theMiddle Ages. Ed. by EDELGARD E. DUBRICKand BARBARA I. GUSICK. (Studies in the Humanities: Literature, Politics, Society, 45) New York,Bern, and Frankfurta.M.: Lang. 1999. Xi + 5I5 PP. [44. This is an ambitious and fascinatingbook that bringstogether essays on death and dying in the Middle Ages. It comprises a series of essays ranging from the practicalitiesof death (therole of doctors;the Beguines;the ritualimportanceof the Altarof the Holy Cross)to the theologicaldebatesof the age (The FourLastThings; St Thomas Aquinas; the tortuousjourney of the soul to heaven; the role of saints that anxiety over basic food production and transport, virtually unknown in the modern West, underlies some of the disparitybetween heroic literature (in which food is abundant)and historicalsources(inwhich faminesarefrequent).Magennis's discussion of the power of hunger, anthropomorphized and even bestialized with such verbs as slitan('cut,tear'),ahy6an ('plunder,destroy'),bindan ('bind'),and hienan ('fell,bringlow') drivesthe point home vividly(p. 44). The sections of the book on ecclesiasticalantagonismtowardssatingthe material body, while hardly innovative, are capably presented. More could be pulled from the intriguing texts and passages he brings to the discussion, perhaps. Magennis paints a picture of heroic society as one in which meat is a prestige item, and in which a carnivorousdietisvalorizedasprovidingstrengthand courage (pp. 60-6 ), but does not sufficientlyreconcile this with the abstention from meat valorized by the Benedictine Rule, for instance. These heroic poems are being copied, after all, by monksforwhom eating meat is a signof infirmity,not power. Any discussion of food imagery in...