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IMC 2023: Sessions

Session 528: Cultures of Healing in Late Antiquity and the (Mostly) Early Middle Ages, I: Places and Spaces of Healing

Tuesday 4 July 2023, 09.00-10.30

Sponsor:ReMeDHe - Working Group for Religion, Medicine, Disability, Health & Healing in Late Antiquity / Beyond Beccaria Project
Organisers:Claire Burridge, Faculty of History, University of Cambridge
Carine van Rhijn, Departement Geschiedenis en Kunstgeschiedenis, Universiteit Utrecht
Moderator/Chair:Peregrine Horden, Department of History, Royal Holloway, University of London
Paper 528-aFrom Asklepieion to Kosmidion: Healing Networks in Late Antiquity
(Language: English)
Mark Beumer, First Faculty of Medicine, Institute for History of Medicine & Foreign Languages, Univerzita Karlova, Praha
Index terms: Archaeology - Sites, Byzantine Studies, Daily Life, Medicine
Paper 528-bImagined Healing Spaces in Byzantine Monastic Literature: Between Metaphor and Medicine
(Language: English)
Jonathan Zecher, Institute for Religion & Critical Inquiry, Australian Catholic University, Victoria
Index terms: Archaeology - Sites, Byzantine Studies, Medicine, Monasticism
Paper 528-cHealth and Risk in Late Medieval Vernacular Miracles
(Language: English)
Janna Coomans, Capaciteitsgroep Geschiedenis, Universiteit van Amsterdam
Index terms: Daily Life, Hagiography, Language and Literature - Dutch, Medicine
Abstract

Central to this first session in the series is the question how place and space were fundamental to certain types of healing, and how long traditions, extending to pre-Christian time, shaped beliefs in such practices. No (early) medieval Christian would, for instance, expect incubation (healing sleep) to work anywhere but in a church or sanctuary, while ecclesiastical spaces were expected to provide not only physical, but also spiritual healing. Such places and spaces were, also in the later Middle Ages, parts of a Christian topography of healing which formed the framework for people actively seeking healing of any kind.