Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women

The New Historicism: Studies in Cultural Poetics

by Caroline Walker Bynum

In the period between 1200 and 1500 in western Europe, a number of religious women gained widespread veneration and even canonization as saints for their extraordinary devotion to the Christian eucharist, supernatural multiplications of food and drink, and miracles of bodily manipulation, including stigmata and inedia (living without eating). The occurrence of such phenomena sheds much light on the nature of medieval society and medieval religion. It also forms a chapter in the history of women.

Previous scholars have occasionally noted the various phenomena in isolation from each other and have sometimes applied modern medical or psychological theories to them. Using materials based on saints' lives and the religious and mystical writings of medieval women and men, Caroline Walker Bynum uncovers the pattern lying behind these aspects of women's religiosity and behind the fascination men and women felt for such miracles and devotional practices. She argues that food lies at the heart of much of women's piety. Women renounced ordinary food through fasting in order to prepare for receiving extraordinary food in the eucharist. They also offered themselves as food in miracles of feeding and bodily manipulation.

Providing both functionalist and phenomenological explanations, Bynum explores the ways in which food practices enabled women to exert control within the family and to define their religious vocations. She also describes what women meant by seeing their own bodies and God's body as food and what men meant when they too associated women with food and flesh. The author's interpretation of women's piety offers a new view of the nature of medieval asceticism and, drawing upon both anthropology and feminist theory, she illuminates the distinctive features of women's use of symbols. Rejecting presentist interpretations of women as exploited or masochistic, she shows the power and creativity of women's writing and women's lives.

Genres: History, Religion, Nonfiction, Medieval, Food, Medieval History, Christianity

464 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Caroline Walker Bynum is Professor emerita of Medieval European History at the Institute for Advanced Study, and University Professor emerita at Columbia University in the City of New York. She studies the religious ideas and practices of the European Middle Ages from late antiquity to the sixteenth century.

Reviews

[Petra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holy Feast and Holy Fast is one of the most life changing books I have read in my life. When I read it first time in early years of university, it made me passionately want to become an researcher like Bynum. Ever since that I have come back to this book and finally got myself my own copy after having this out from uni library several occasions of my university degree. Bynum has done such an immense amount of research in medieval theology, philosophy and culture, and writes about the religious significance of food so fascinatingly. She doesn't fell into the temptation of diagnosing the women as anorexic the way a lot of historians have done (ahem, Rudolph M. Bell) - she states clearly that we can't bring something so contemporary into a culture that didn't acknowledge thinness as something to dream of. It's definitely not the most approachable nonfiction book about the life of medieval women but I would say it is the best one and one you definitely should read if you want to know about fasting and ascetic lives of medieval women mystics and saints. It is definitely worth of your time if you want to understand ascetism and fasting as medieval phenomenon or medieval literature in general.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bynum's close re-reading of her texts, including several I'd read and more I'd never heard of, finds a previously overlooked common theme: Medieval women mystics can feed others; they can become food themselves; and they can eat, provided the food is also God. From there, she builds a multi-part, theoretically and theologically informed interpretation. If the masculine is culture/spirit and the feminine is nature/body, then Christ, in the Incarnation, is ipso facto fully feminine as well as masculine. The salvation of our flesh depends on identification with his feminine aspect. Thus, male and female mystics alike increasingly identified with his suffering—which was gendered for the men (who had to gender-switch to accomplish it) but not for the women. The result is, broadly, a less bifurcated symbolic universe for women. Their practice is not a matter of body- or world-hatred, but of full acceptance of their bodily capability (shades of Foucault on power as productive).

Even if the interpretation is a bit overcooked theoretically, the upshot is still an astonishing example of what history can do in the study of religion. I knew this was a study with wide influence—now I see what Amy Hollywood and Sarah Coakley are arguing about—but even decades later, you can see how it got to be a classic, and why its readers tend to nuance rather than dismiss its interpretive work.

[Amalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

You don't have to be interested in history or in the history of the Catholic Church. Just the interest in the history of Western mysticism or if you are just looking for something offbeat and interesting: This is an interesting book!

A famous modern interpretation of the behavior of religious medieval women is that all the female saints in that period presented the first known cases of anorexia nervosa, and psychologists have more theories like visions of Jesus or Virgin Mary are results of severe anorexia that might have been resulting visual or auditory hallucinations....well I'm not going to argue faith.

Caroline Bynum's book looks at women and food in a whole different way: How these women would have served as role models for Medieval women. Bynum identifies the reasons for this fasting as being, among other things, ways to get closer to God by imitating the lifestyle and suffering of Christ. The reason why especially women fasted was because food and their bodies were the only things women had control over and through that control they could manipulate their surroundings.

However, the confusion of this book was that "The Explanation", was disappointing and caused confusion. She draws parallels between modern eating disorders, and fasting in medieval women, even though stated her reluctance to make this connection in the introduction. So what is she trying to say?

Still, the first part of the book is great. Recommend.

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

such an influential work, I think I'm going to buy my own copy of this masterpiece

I just wish she had addressed disability

[AskHistorians]

While male scholastics were debating in Latin, holy women (and their male advisors) were using vernacular poetry and their own bodies to create an alternative model of saintliness. This book, which broke open the world of medieval religious women to modern audiences, features a great introduction to the roles of medieval women in the Church before focusing more specifically on what made a few standout women particularly holy--and why.

[Adelais · Rating 5 out of 5]

Про відносини середньовічних черниць, аскетниць і світських вірянок з їжею, власним тілом і через них - з Христом (в тому числі як матір'ю-годувальницею). Читання місцями важке не через стиль викладення, а саме через щільність їхнього досвіду, почасти для нас дуже радикального чи навіть зовсім ненормального. Плюс наголос кожна ставила окремо: що для Катерини Сієнської їжа як зречення і знак належності, те для Агнес Бланбекін у видіннях плоть Христа (не вся плоть, а хм... крайня часточка, через це страшно скандальні вони були, коли віднайшли у вісімнадцятому столітті), а Єлизавету Тюрингську, як на наш погляд, а не сучасний, духівник взагалі для експериментів на покору використовував. Втім, цікава книжка не через сенсаційні моменти, а саме загальною картиною і шанобливим дослідженням не самої простої теми.

[mikayla · Rating 5 out of 5]

“In their symbols women expanded the suffering, giving self they were ascribed by their culture, becoming ever more wonderfully and horribly the body on the cross. They became that body not as flight from but as continuation of the self. And because that body was also God, they could sum up their love of God in paradox: ‘Hell is the highest name of Love,’ as Hadewijch said, or as Margaret Porete put it, ‘I am the salvation itself of every creature…For I am the sum of all evils.’”

I have so many feelings about this book, mostly the sadness of being done reading it. Walker Bynum illustrates how the intentional starvation of medieval women is not so simply captured by 20th and 21st century psychological paradigms. Whereas in contemporary cultural, the body and its consumption are things to be controlled, eliminated or otherwise dissociated from, medieval women in particular were fixated on embodying the flesh fully, pushing it to its limits of suffering, Imitatio Christi, becoming one with God’s fleshy suffering.

I’m left contemplating how popular portrayals of anorexia leave out the testing of the body via starvation, the satisfaction of successful restriction, the self-flagellation of an anorexic who withholds food with the intent of inflicting pain on oneself. I think the 21st century anorexic has more in common with the female medieval mystic than Walker Bynum accounts for, most likely due to the narrow, abstract, understanding of anorexia as a pursuit of thinness which sanitizes and makes palatable the phenomenological experience of severe restriction—the throbbing hunger pains, bodily weakness, the putrid aftertaste of stomach acid. While Walker Bynum presents the clinical understanding of eating disorders as attempting to control and eliminate the flesh, she seems to suggest in the epilogue that the anorexic, just as the medieval inediac, knows that ironically in pursuit of eliminating the body, the body is at its loudest.

[Dasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bynum provides an accessible and highly detailed account of medieval gender, food, and bodies. By focusing on female saints and mystics she challenges the binary notions that fasting cannot be understood as simply internalized misogyny or an attempt to escape the body but rather women's relationship to feasting and fasting was a challenge to the possibilities of the body and challenged symbol's of womanhood by addressing their relationship to food through a continuation of their bodies. The most important argument Bynum demonstrates, in my opinion, is that women saw themselves as human beings, connected to God, and their actions reflected this rather than individuals inferior to men and oppressed under their authority. In this way Bynum disrupts the notion of fasting female mystic as self-hating. Excellent read and written in a way that non-medievalists can enjoy.

[Harrison Helms · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bold, innovative, and deeply original. Caroline Bynum never misses.

[Maria Hiers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Illuminating asf

[Alexandria · Rating 4 out of 5]

“For it seems likely that women were drawn to identify with Christ’s suffering and feeding flesh because both men and women saw the female body as food and the female nature as fleshly. Both men and women described Christ’s body in its suffering and its generativity as a birthing and lactating mother and may at some almost unconscious level have felt that woman’s suffering was her way of fusing with Christ.”

[Ygraine · Rating 4 out of 5]

wish i'd read this during medieval term ! super compelling account of christian food practices & changes in emphasis from the early to late medieval period, of the importance of food imagery and food practices, particularly taking communion & fasting, both in the accounts by men of female saints and in female mystics' accounts of their own lives, and of the many functions, actual and symbolic, food performed. also really good (although this is only a brief mention in the epilogue, & def not the Focus) on the modern failures of language around eating disorders, & the discomfort with acknowledging that both food and body, in themselves, not as symbols representing e.g. sexuality or control, are central to our relationships, disordered or otherwise, with eating.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love books where scholars take seriously the words and experiences of women. So of course I was going to swoon over this. Walker Bynum manages to corral a vast amount of fragmentary documentation into something resembling a coherent shape, while making a damn persuasive case that modern understanding of female religious experience and symbols ignores the social and cultural context of those experiences and symbols. I think she understates the extent, depth, and breadth of medieval misogyny, but that does not materially change the point that women managed to make themselves a religious world in which their needs were paramount.

Also, the epilogue, in which Walker Bynum briefly discusses some implications of her study on modern ideas about food, damn near made me cry.

[Sloane Getz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really really interesting read!! The book is split into two parts, with the first half covering a range of medieval instances of female piety, and the second half analysing the motivation behind these acts. Would not recommend to anyone with a sensitive stomach - the first half of the book is almost entirely medieval women coming up with bizarre and often gross forms of piety (shoutout Catherine of Siena’s Jesus foreskin wedding ring), but Bynum's treatment of these women is sympathetic and measured, and she neither medicalises their experiences nor lionises them.

[Katherine Addison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read long ago for an undergraduate class on the history of the body. Excellent.

[Abby Ang · Rating 4 out of 5]

So much about breast milk

[Maria Reagan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very absorbing and interesting book. The introduction and conclusion were both fascinating. The central chapters that are heavily research based are also fascinating but very very dense and difficult to get through despite how interesting they are. I really like how Bynum does not shy away from any of the weirdness of medieval mysticism and yet tries to draw out the meaning within the wild range of symbols at work in the late medieval period. She also doesn't fall into the trap of describing the female experience as a two dimensional tale of woe and victimization. Instead she works hard to discover the sources of meaning and agency for her female subjects.

[Apollo Y · Rating 5 out of 5]

i adored this piece of scholarship, bynum is an incredible researcher and historian and i’m honestly so amazed at the way she was able to piece together her argument. she came into this book with something to prove, firmly piecing together contexts around the role and symbolism of food for medieval women, and pushing back against a two dimensional reading of these that too often was the case. i especially enjoyed myself near the end of the book, it was the perfect wake up call to the fact that i was still holding on to a bit of my own modern perception of what these things mean to me. i feel like i gained so much from this and i cant wait in the future to get into more of her work.

[sarah rogan · Rating 5 out of 5]

loved reading this for my women in the renaissance seminar for art history. disordered eating from women being unable to control their situations and instead turning to fasting because food is the one thing they can control. nurturing and feeding others and punishing themselves for their sins as far back as women saints and martyrs looking to jesus. that jesus is an idol to women more so than mary. the difference between anorexia and holy fasting. feeding men period blood for fidelity. starving themselves to death and only agreeing to eat if they no longer have to serve their partners sexually. so much interesting research into holy women.

[George Kettler · Rating 5 out of 5]

A true head-trip of women's history, this was one of the more unique medieval historical books I've read. Bynum takes a multifaceted approach to understanding the role of medieval religious women and why food served as the dominate symbol in their lives. Her analysis covers a wide range of subjects including increasing eucharistic devotions, economic changes in urban and rural areas, writings of female mystics and development in thought around the body. All of theses she brings together to argue how food served as the domininant symbol for women's religious experience.

[Edgard Aedo · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very thorough examination of the role of food in medieval religious life - particularly with regard to women. Caroline Walker Bynum explores how medieval female saints employed fasting as a form of rebellion against societal norms, as well possible links to anorexia nervosa and bulimia. By exploring the beliefs and practices of an era long gone, her book also provides some insights for our own time.

[Emily Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is exactly the kind of oddly specific deep dive into a niche historical context that I’m into.

I loved this book and thought it was super weird and interesting. The medieval period was a wild time and I’m glad we don’t live there anymore.

I’m not thrilled by her takes about eating disorders in the epilogue, especially in light of recent research that has come out about anorexia nervosa. I do wonder if she were to change anything, what would she change?

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read, both for the history and the theology. As someone who has long had a vocation against marriage to a man, and as someone who has been working with food (domestically and professionally) my whole life, I felt a lot of resonance with the experiences of medieval women, even though their context was very different from mine. The spirituality of medieval women, and this work of scholarship, is still extremely relevant.

[Niamh Colbrook · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have yet to read anything even remotely disappointing by Caroline Walker Bynum. Her analysis is historically and theologically profound, her writing clear, engaging and imaginative, and her mastery of primary sources enviable. Once again, I am struck by the ability of her work on such a specific aspect of history and culture to speak creatively to our current questions, fears, and longings.

[Keely Shinners · Rating 5 out of 5]

“If the flesh was sweet as well as bitter, that was because all our humanness, including our fleshliness, was redeemed in the fact of the Incarnation. If the agony was also ecstasy, it was because our very hunger is union with Christ's limitless suffering, which is also limitless love.”

[Plaguetruther · Rating 5 out of 5]

i wish i had properly read this earlier, an absolute joy to read and a reading of medieval mystics that gives them dignity, agency and power in their own perception of self, unlike many essays that simply decry internalized misogyny. CWB is the goat

[Laura Hellsten · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great work and important knowledge on the history of a lost female spirituality!

[Justinian]

2009-07 - Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women. Author: Caroline Walker Bynum. 300 pages. 1988

It took me almost two years to get through this book. I would pick it up, read some, set it down, think about it, read something it talked about and eventually come back to it and repeat the cycle.

This book challenged me and my feelings about certain aspects of my faith probably as much or more then the bulk of my seminary classes. In reality this book could easily be broken in to two books. One book about the role and imagery of food in the Christian religion or any religion for that matter. The other book would be about women in religion. In this context women in the Christian church. Granted that this book is about Roman Catholicism in the middle ages, yet issues of food eating, abstaining, imagery of women, hierarchy, spirituality etc apply not just to all Christian churches but to almost every religious tradition across the spectrum.

As to the first aspect, the issue of food in religious faith. Food, its meaning, purpose, and symbolism are an important issue in most religious systems. Food and faith can be looked at from a theological point of view which often provides a rationalized explanation for the various regimens of food. Food and faith can also be looked at from a physic – psychological point of view. The first point of view is usually where most people start and stop buttressing or attacking based on the rationalization and explanations about food. The second point of view though is much more interesting because the physical effects of say protein restriction or removal are universal on the human body and these effects can be shaped psychologically by faith. It is for many religious an uncomfortable topic of discussion because it breaks down uniqueness.

This book does an excellent job of explaining the development, motivations, and rationalization of food in the Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages especially as it relates to women’s spirituality and the male hierarchy’s reaction to that spirituality. While not intentionally delving into the second point of view it does lead the reader to consider this aspect of food and faith by the detailed descriptions of the physical and mental process in the words of the women and their observers. While reactions to food and other forms of asceticism are universal physically and often psychologically we must be careful when looking at rational and motivation to avoid using modern clinical assignations. This book does a good job of minimizing these diagnoses’s by seeking to constantly frame the context through the words and experience of the participants.
It is an endlessly fascinating topic and there are entire university courses devoted to the issue of food and faith.

The second aspect of this book has the potential to makes religious readers, especially those of a conservative nature perhaps a bit squirmy. This issue is the issue of women in religion. What is documented in this book is the evolution of a distinctive spirituality as a reaction to evolution in the church itself. This of course led to reactions and further evolutions. The fault lines seem to have been set on spiritual authenticity, the role of the Eucharist and issues of authority. There was an increasing fervency in asceticism among women in direct contrast to a loosening of ascetic norms by the church as a whole. This is where the notion of food comes in to play.

In particular the type of fasting that was practiced. Fasting was a much talked about topic at seminary but this book really made me think about fasting in a new and more spiritually mystic way. The introspection resulted not from the theological underpinnings and explanations of fasting but from the specifics of the practice. The practices of these women did not emphasize the personal aspects of fasting but rather the communal and alms aspect of fasting. This aspect is sorely missing in most theological or pastoral discussions about fasting. Food its preparation and intake was one of the few areas in society that women controlled and so it became a tool of expression and asceticism for these women. Their responses and actions are worthy of study and reflection. In certain aspects they are definitely worthy of emulation. They tapped into a trueness and practice which is sadly lacking in modern Christianity which tends towards an individualized focus.

Besides fasting there were discussion about feasting and the meaning of the Eucharist and the symbology which surrounds it. One of the interesting images was of the priest as mother who gives birth to God in the Eucharist. That was one of the images that stayed with me as I kept plodding through this book. Gender role and gender bending based on actions and role not on biology. There is an undercurrent of this throughout the text which challenges and surprises. It is worth the effort.

The book is a slow read due to the detail, the academic style of the writing and for me the need to go and read some of the referenced works. It is in the end a book well worth the time and effort.

[Brenna · Rating 5 out of 5]

For my thesis! This book blew my mind. CWB is truly a revolutionary within the Medievalist world.

[Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the finest novels in the English language, but unputdownable.