Prescriptions for Well-Being: Food, Bodily Health and Spiritual Health in the Middle Ages
Sponsoring Organization(s)
Mens et Mensa: Society for the Study of Food in the Middle Ages
Organizer Name
John A. Bollweg
Organizer Affiliation
Western Michigan Univ./College of DuPage
Presider Name
Donna M. Rogers
Presider Affiliation
Brescia Univ. College
Paper Title 1
The Kingdom of God Is Not a Matter of Eating and Drinking: Twelfth-Century Monastic Diet and Interpretation of the Rule of Saint Benedict
Presenter 1 Name
Jack Mallon
Presenter 1 Affiliation
Univ. of Guelph
Paper Title 2
Food Consumption in The Trotula: Italian Prescription for Health?
Presenter 2 Name
Theresa A. Vaughan
Presenter 2 Affiliation
Univ. of Central Oklahoma
Paper Title 3
Healing of Disease in the Middle Ages: Foodstuffs as Medicine in the Regiminis sanitatis
Presenter 3 Name
María Margarita Tascón González
Presenter 3 Affiliation
Univ. de León
Paper Title 4
The Salvation Diet
Presenter 4 Name
Martha Daas
Presenter 4 Affiliation
Old Dominion Univ.
Start Date
11-5-2014 10:30 AM
Session Location
Schneider 1265
Description
Medieval physicians recognized food and diet as contributors to healthy and diseased complexions or temperaments, while the doctors of the Church understood abstinence and gluttony to affect spiritual health. Medical and culinary practices were similarly intertwined: not only did physicians rely on foodstuffs to aid patients, but cooks -- working with physicians -- incorporated medical theory into their cooking practices. For this session Mens et Mensa sought papers that explore practical, medical and theological/moral/pastoral uses, interpretations and representations of food and the ideas, practices or artifacts associated with food, as a help or hindrance to bodily or spiritual health in the Middle Ages (500 - 1500 CE). Topics that are of interest include, but are not limited to, food and heresy, religious fasting, relationship between food and medicine in cookbooks, herbals, trades on the border between food and medicine (e.g., spicers and grocers), foods that might injure one's bodily or spiritual health, the relationship between bodily health and spiritual health, the relationship between bodily health and good temperament and behavior.
John A. Bollweg
Prescriptions for Well-Being: Food, Bodily Health and Spiritual Health in the Middle Ages
Schneider 1265
Medieval physicians recognized food and diet as contributors to healthy and diseased complexions or temperaments, while the doctors of the Church understood abstinence and gluttony to affect spiritual health. Medical and culinary practices were similarly intertwined: not only did physicians rely on foodstuffs to aid patients, but cooks -- working with physicians -- incorporated medical theory into their cooking practices. For this session Mens et Mensa sought papers that explore practical, medical and theological/moral/pastoral uses, interpretations and representations of food and the ideas, practices or artifacts associated with food, as a help or hindrance to bodily or spiritual health in the Middle Ages (500 - 1500 CE). Topics that are of interest include, but are not limited to, food and heresy, religious fasting, relationship between food and medicine in cookbooks, herbals, trades on the border between food and medicine (e.g., spicers and grocers), foods that might injure one's bodily or spiritual health, the relationship between bodily health and spiritual health, the relationship between bodily health and good temperament and behavior.
John A. Bollweg