Medieval Cruelty: Changing Perceptions, Late Antiquity to the Early Modern Period / Edition 1

by Daniel Baraz

Overview

The Middle Ages are often thought of as an era during which cruelty was a major aspect of life, a view that stems from the anti-Catholic polemics of the Reformation. Daniel Baraz makes the striking discovery that the concept of cruelty, which had been an important issue in late antiquity, received little attention in the medieval period before the thirteenth century. From that point on, interest in cruelty increased until it reached a peak late in the sixteenth century.Medieval Cruelty's extraordinary scope ranges from the writings of Seneca to those of Montaigne and draws from sources that include the views of Western Christians, Eastern Christians, and Muslims. Baraz examines the development of the concept of cruelty in legal texts, philosophical treatises, and other works that attempt to discuss the nature of cruelty. He then considers histories, martyrdom accounts, and literary works in which cruelty is represented rather than discussed directly. In the wake of the intellectual transformations of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, an increasing focus on the intentions motivating an individual's acts rekindled the discussion of cruelty. Baraz shows how ethical thought and practice about cruelty, which initially focused on external forces, became a tool to differentiate internal groups and justify violence against them. This process is evident in attacks on the Jews, in the peasant rebellions of the later Middle Ages, and in the Wars of Religion.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801438172
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	03/17/2003
Series:	Conjunctions of Religion and Power in the Medieval Past
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.81(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Daniel Baraz received his Ph.D. in History from the Hebrew University and was a Mellon Postdoctoral fellow at the Penn Humanities Forum, University of Pennsylvania (2000-2001).

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	ix
	Abbreviations	xi
	Introduction	1
Chapter 1	Speculating on Cruelty, from Seneca to Montaigne	13
Chapter 2	Late Antiquity--The Building Blocks of a Discourse	29
Chapter 3	The Early Middle Ages--An Age of Silence?	47
Chapter 4	The Central Middle Ages--A Renaissance of Cruelty	75
Chapter 5	The Late Middle Ages--Manipulated Images and Structured Emotions	123
Chapter 6	The Early Modern Period--Cruelty Transformed	143
	Conclusion	177
	Appendixes	181
	Glossary of Latin Terms	209
	Selected Bibliography	211
	Index	221

What People are Saying About This

Paul Freedman

Daniel Baraz has written a fascinating book about why cruelty was ignored for so much of the Middle Ages and then rediscovered. He gathers evidence about how human savagery was depicted and perceived from works of piety and chronicles from Arab as well as Latin sources. Medieval Cruelty is especially important because of the concern over torture in the contemporary world and interest in why things come to seem intolerable when previously they were regarded as inevitable or with stolid matter-of-factness.

Editorial Reviews

An important and imaginative study in intellectual history, this book informs us about the use of a powerful concept over centuries and simultaneously warns against easy assumptions about correspondence between text and context.

Richard W. Kaeupern Historical Review

The ambiguity of cruelty, whereby it might be used both to excoriate the torturer and glorify the martyr, to demonize the criminal and justify the law, or to explain why the English were superior to the French, is also nicely brought out. Here, then, is a useful lesson in the immense difficulties, as well as in the valuable rewards that come from asking the right questions, in dealing with the elusive history of ideas.

Virginia Quarterly Review

For Baraz, the treatment of cruelty is a cultural issue and must be considered apart from the actual practice of violence.... His argument is sound and thoroughly convincing. Because he carefully provides the historical context for each episode that he discusses, Medieval Cruelty is suitable both for general readers and experts.

History - David S. Sefton

An important and imaginative study in intellectual history, this book informs us about the use of a powerful concept over centuries and simultaneously warns against easy assumptions about correspondence between text and context.

American Historical Review - Richard W. Kaeuper

"The ambiguity of cruelty, whereby it might be used both to excoriate the torturer and glorify the martyr, to demonize the criminal and justify the law, or to explain why the English were superior to the French, is also nicely brought out. Here, then, is a useful lesson in the immense difficulties, as well as in the valuable rewards that come from asking the right questions, in dealing with the elusive history of ideas."—Virginia Quarterly Review, 79:4

"An important and imaginative study in intellectual history, this book informs us about the use of a powerful concept over centuries and simultaneously warns against easy assumptions about correspondence between text and context."—Richard W. Kaeuper, University of Rochester, American Historical Review, April 2004

"For Baraz, the treatment of cruelty is a cultural issue and must be considered apart from the actual practice of violence. . . . His argument is sound and thoroughly convincing. Because he carefully provides the historical context for each episode that he discusses, Medieval Cruelty is suitable both for general readers and experts."—David S. Sefton, Eastern Kentucky University, History Winter 2004

"An important and imaginative study in intellectual history, this book informs us about the use of a powerful concept over centuries and simultaneously warns against easy assumptions about correspondence between text and context."—Richard W. Kaeuper, University of Rochester, Europe: Ancient and Medieval, April 2004

"Daniel Baraz has written a fascinating book about why cruelty was ignored for so much of the Middle Ages and then rediscovered. He gathers evidence about how human savagery was depicted and perceived from works of piety and chronicles from Arab as well as Latin sources. Medieval Cruelty is especially important because of the concern over torture in the contemporary world and interest in why things come to seem intolerable when previously they were regarded as inevitable or with stolid matter-of-factness."—Paul Freedman, Yale University

From the Publisher