Medieval theology and the natural body

On March 11 1995, a conference on medieval theology and the natural body, organised by the University of York's Centre for Medieval Studies, was held at King's Manor, York, under the title 'This Body of Death' (echoing Romans 7. 24). This collection includes the papers delivered on that occasion, together with further invited papers on the theme.

An introductory essay by Peter Biller on medieval and contemporary concerns with the body is followed by Alcuin Blamire's examination of the paradoxes inherent in the metaphor of man as head, woman as body, in authors ranging from St Augustine to Christine de Pizan. Peter Abelard, a writer who 'dislocated' this image, is the principal figure of the next two papers. David Luscombe's study looks successively at Abelard's view of the role of senses in relation to thought and mind, the problem of body in resurrected beings, and dualities in his correspondence with Heloise. W.G.

East then takes up the famous correspondence and love affair, focusing on the putting to death of the body in the religious life, the discussion in the correspondence of the Benedictine rule's appropriateness for women, and Abelard's hymn and his own mutilation. Peter Biller uses a sketch of the history of the discussion of women and Catharism as a preliminary to an examination of Cathar views of material women, while Alastair Minnis traces and analyses the tradition of scholastic theological discussion of female sex as an impediment to ordination and teaching. Dyan Elliott examines views of the physiological basis of various forms of rapture, concentrating in particular on later medieval female mystics.

One prominent figure in later medieval female spirituality, Margery Kempe, stars in the following paper, Rosalynn Voaden's study of the way The Book of Margery Kempe constructed Margery's very sexual awareness of both female and male bodies. The volume concludes with the first of the Annual Quodlibet Lectures in medieval theology, which was delivered in York by Eamon Duffy on 30 November 1995, on the early iconography and vitae of St Francis of Assisi.