A classic of medieval studies,
The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200–1336 traces ideas of death and resurrection in early and medieval Christianity. Caroline Walker Bynum explores problems of the body and identity in devotional and theological literature, suggesting that medieval attitudes toward the body still shape modern notions of the individual. This expanded edition includes her 1995 article “Why All the Fuss About the Body? A Medievalist’s Perspective, ” which takes a broader perspective on the book’s themes. It also includes a new introduction that explores the context in which the book and article were written, as well as why the Middle Ages matter for how we think about the body and life after death today.
Table of Content
List of Illustrations
Introduction to the 2017 Edition: What’s New about the Medieval?
Preface to the 1995 Edition: Acknowledgments and Methodological Musings
Introduction to the 1995 Edition: Seed Images, Ancient and Modern
Part I. The Patristic Background
1. Resurrection and Martyrdom: The Decades Around 200
2. Resurrection, Relic Cult, and Asceticism: The Debates of 400 and Their Background
Part II. The Twelfth Century
3. Reassemblage and Regurgitation: Ideas of Bodily Resurrection in Early Scholasticism
4. Psychosomatic Persons and Reclothed Skeletons: Images of Resurrection in Spiritual Writing
and Iconography
5. Resurrection, Heresy, and Burial ad Sanctos: The Twelfth-Century Context
Part III. The Decades Around 1300
6. Resurrection, Hylomorphism, and Abundantia: Scholastic Debates in the Thirteenth Century
7. Somatomorphic Soul and Visio Dei: The Beatific Vision Controversy and Its Background
8. Fragmentation and Ecstasy: The Thirteenth-Century Context
Afterword: Why All the Fuss about the Body? A Medievalist’s Perspective
Illustration Credits
General Index
Index of Secondary Authors
About the author
Caroline Walker Bynum is University Professor Emerita at Columbia University and professor emerita of medieval European history at the Institute for Advanced Study. Her books include
Holy Feast and Holy Fast
: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women(1987);
Metamorphosis and Identity (2001);
Wonderful Blood: Theology and Practice in Late Medieval Northern Germany and Beyond (2007); and
Christian Materiality: An Essay on Religion in Late Medieval Europe (2011).
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