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 |
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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-a | From Asklepieion to Kosmidion: Healing Networks in Late Antiquity (Language: English) Index terms: Archaeology - Sites, Byzantine Studies, Daily Life, Medicine |
Paper 528-b | Imagined Healing Spaces in Byzantine Monastic Literature: Between Metaphor and Medicine (Language: English) Index terms: Archaeology - Sites, Byzantine Studies, Medicine, Monasticism |
Paper 528-c | Health and Risk in Late Medieval Vernacular Miracles (Language: English) 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. |