IMC 2013: Sessions

Paper -a:
The pleasure of food is the feeling of wealth that derives from the consummation of a natural instinct. This category of pleasure belongs to an area of the senses that is most basic and primal to the concept of happiness. In classical Roman culture it was accomplished in the Greek tradition, where initial pleasure was connected to a Platonic communication of ideas other words, the crossroads of physical with spiritual pleasure.

The Romans loved their food which became more luxurious and elaborate as their empire increased. The food was inherently associated with social status in the Middle Ages therefore explores early medieval food and Ostrogothic eating behaviours and it's changing in different contexts. The aim of this study to introduces Ostrogoths lifestyle changing when they settled down in Italy.

Paper -b:
The paper is concerned with texts referring to table manners and with their ideological significance. The author pays particular attention to the Polish early 15th-century poem by Słota entitled 'About Behaviour at the Table' and to the description of table manners included in Chaucer's General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, but also some other texts of this kind are taken into account including the Biblical ones, such as the book of Ecclesiasticus. Some use is made of the critical works of such medievalists as Teresa Michałowska, Norbert Elias and Douglas Gray. The author of the paper argues that the concern with table manners in the 14th and 15th Centuries signalizes a major change in European style of life.