IMC 2016: Sessions
Session 225: (Re)Theorising Medieval Feast/Fast/Famine in the 21st Century, II: Eating Practices and the Value of Food in the 13th-Century Southern Low Countries
Monday 4 July 2016, 14.15-15.45
| Sponsor: | Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship (SMFS) |
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| Organiser: | Anne-Laure Méril-Bellini delle Stelle, Independent Scholar, Pissos |
| Moderator/Chair: | Brenda M. Bolton, University of London |
| Paper 225-a | Spilled Milk: Miscalculated Eating in the Exempla of Jacques de Vitry (Language: English) Index terms: Gender Studies, Hagiography, Religious Life, Women's Studies |
| Paper 225-b | Nutritional Value of Corporeal and Spiritual Food in Male Cistercian Communities: A Balance to Reach (Language: English) Index terms: Gender Studies, Hagiography, Religious Life, Women's Studies |
| Paper 225-c | Reassessing and Piety: Food and Feeding among the mulieres religiosae and the viri Dei of the 13th-Century Southern Low Countries (Language: English) Index terms: Gender Studies, Hagiography, Religious Life, Women's Studies |
| Abstract | Food was a crucial component in religious circles as a mean of livelihood, as a spiritual tool at the heart of penitential practices and as a coveted divine relic in the form of the Eucharist. Religious women appeared to nurture a special relationship with food and feeding, a relationship that perhaps provided a level of control otherwise denied women in society writ large. Through various religious sources - Vitae and exempla from sermons regarding women as well as men in the 13th-century Southern Low Countries - this session will investigate whether food was exclusively a female concern and how gendered food actually was within medieval religious circles. Comparisons between men’s and women's experiences will therefore be drawn to explore the various ways in which both sexes interacted with food and how their eating practices were shaped by theological commitments. |