'A Great Effusion of Blood'?: Interpreting Medieval Violence

by Mark D. Meyerson (Editor), Daniel Thiery (Editor), Oren Falk (Editor)

Overview

'A great effusion of blood' was a phrase used frequently throughout medieval Europe as shorthand to describe the effects of immoderate interpersonal violence. Yet the ambiguity of this phrase poses numerous problems for modern readers and scholars in interpreting violence in medieval society and culture and its effect on medieval people. Understanding medieval violence is made even more complex by the multiplicity of views that need to be reconciled: those of modern scholars regarding the psychology and comportment of medieval people, those of the medieval persons themselves as perpetrators or victims of violence, those of medieval writers describing the acts, and those of medieval readers, the audience for these accounts. Using historical records, artistic representation, and theoretical articulation, the contributors to this volume attempt to bring together these views and fashion a comprehensive understanding of medieval conceptions of violence.

Exploring the issue from both historical and literary perspectives, the contributors examine violence in a broad variety of genres, places, and times, such as the Late Antique lives of the martyrs, Islamic historiography, Anglo-Saxon poetry and Norse sagas, canon law and chronicles, English and Scottish ballads, the criminal records of fifteenth-century Spain, and more. Taken together, the essays offer fresh ways of analysing medieval violence and its representations, and bring us closer to an understanding of how it was experienced by the people who lived it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442624931
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	03/27/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	360
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Mark D. Meyerson is an associate professor of History and Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto.
Daniel Thiery is an associate professor at Iona College.
Oren Falk is an associate professor of History at Cornell University.

Table of Contents

Contributors

Abbreviations

Introduction
Mark D. Meyerson, Daniel Thiery, and Oren Falk

PART I: VIOLENCE AND IDENTITY FORMATION

1 Violence and the Making of Wiglaf
John M. Hill

2 Defending Their Masters’ Honour: Slaves as Violent Offenders in Fifteenth-Century Valencia
Debra Blumenthal

3 The Murder of Pau de Sant Martí: Jews, Conversos, and the Feud in Fifteenth-Century Valencia
Mark D. Meyerson

4 Violence and the Sacred City: London, Gower, and the Rising of 1381
Eve Salisbury

5 Bystanders and Hearsayers First: Reassessing the Role of the Audience in Duelling
Oren Falk

6 Scottish National Heroes and the Limits of Violence
Anne Mckim

PART II: VIOLENCE AND THE TESTAMENT OF THE BODY

7 Seeing the Gendering of Violence: Female and Male Martyrs in the  South English Legendary
Beth Crachiolo

8 Violence or Cruelty? An Intercultural Perspective
Daniel Baraz

9 Body as Champion of Church Authority and Sacred Place: The Murder of Thomas Becket
Dawn Marie Hayes

10 Chaucer’s Clerk’s Tale: Interrogating ‘Virtue’ through Violence
M.C. Bodden

11 Violence, the Queen’s Body, and the Medieval Body Politic
John Carmi Parsons

12 Violence in the Early Robin Hood Poems 268
Richard Firth Green

13 Canon Laws regarding Female Military Commanders up to the Time of Gratian: Some Texts and Their Historical Contexts
David Hay

Conclusion
Mark D. Meyerson, Daniel Thiery, and Oren Falk

Editorial Reviews

‘A worthwhile volume that needs to be reckoned with in discussions of how violence means in medieval society.’

—Christine M. Rose, Arthuriana

‘Collections like ‘A Great Effusion of Blood?’ help us to better understand the historical and often inextricably tragic connections between violence and the state, between violence and the law, and between violence and moral relations.’

—Eileen A. Joy, The Sixteenth Century Journal

‘A timely collection of important research on very different aspects of medieval violence.’

—Dianne Hall, Parergon

‘What we learn from a volume as diverse as ‘A Great Effusion of Blood’? is not only the ubiquity of violence in the Middle Ages but its varied purposes and meaning.’

—Scott L. Waugh, University of Toronto Quarterly

From the Publisher

‘A worthwhile volume that needs to be reckoned with in discussions of how violence means in medieval society.’

Arthuriana - Christine M. Rose

‘What we learn from a volume as diverse as ‘A Great Effusion of Blood’? is not only the ubiquity of violence in the Middle Ages but its varied purposes and meaning.’

University of Toronto Quarterly - Scott L. Waugh

‘Collections like ‘A Great Effusion of Blood?’ help us to better understand the historical and often inextricably tragic connections between violence and the state, between violence and the law, and between violence and moral relations.’

The Sixteenth Century Journal - Eileen A. Joy

‘A timely collection of important research on very different aspects of medieval violence.’

Parergon - Dianne Hall