Description
Book SynopsisA classic of medieval studies, this book traces ideas of death and resurrection in early and medieval Christianity. Caroline Walker Bynum explores problems of the body and identity in devotional and theological literature, suggesting that medieval attitudes toward the body still shape modern notions of the individual.
Trade ReviewThere are few historians of whom one can say that they have actually shifted some of the landscape of the writing of history in their own generation, but Bynum is one of them. New Republic [A] fascinating and wide-ranging account that tells us a lot about medieval thinking and practice. New York Times Book Review A masterful work of intellectual history. Publishers Weekly
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations
Introduction to the 2017 Edition: What’s New about the Medieval?
Preface to the 1995 Edition: Acknowledgments and Methodological Musings
Introduction to the 1995 Edition: Seed Images, Ancient and Modern
Part I. The Patristic Background1. Resurrection and Martyrdom: The Decades Around 200
2. Resurrection, Relic Cult, and Asceticism: The Debates of 400 and Their Background
Part II. The Twelfth Century3. Reassemblage and Regurgitation: Ideas of Bodily Resurrection in Early Scholasticism
4. Psychosomatic Persons and Reclothed Skeletons: Images of Resurrection in Spiritual Writing
and Iconography
5. Resurrection, Heresy, and Burial
ad Sanctos: The Twelfth-Century Context
Part III. The Decades Around 13006. Resurrection, Hylomorphism, and
Abundantia: Scholastic Debates in the Thirteenth Century
7. Somatomorphic Soul and
Visio Dei: The Beatific Vision Controversy and Its Background
8. Fragmentation and Ecstasy: The Thirteenth-Century Context
Afterword: Why All the Fuss about the Body? A Medievalist’s Perspective
Illustration Credits
General Index
Index of Secondary Authors