The Modulated Scream: Pain in Late Medieval Culture

by Esther Cohen

In the late medieval era, pain could be a symbol of holiness, disease, sin, or truth. It could be encouragement to lead a moral life, a punishment for wrong doing, or a method of healing. Exploring the varied depictions and descriptions of pain—from martyrdom narratives to practices of torture and surgery—The Modulated Scream attempts to decode this culture of suffering in the Middle Ages.

 

Esther Cohen brings to life the cacophony of howls emerging from the written record of physicians, torturers, theologians, and mystics. In considering how people understood suffering, explained it, and meted it out, Cohen discovers that pain was imbued with multiple meanings. While interpreting pain was the province only of the rarified elite, harnessing pain for religious, moral, legal, and social purposes was a practice that pervaded all classes of Medieval life. In the overlap of these contradicting attitudes about what pain was for—how it was to be understood and who should use it—Cohen reveals the distinct and often conflicting cultural traditions and practices of late medieval Europeans. Ambitious and wide-ranging, The Modulated Scream is intellectual history at its most acute.

Genres: History, Medicine, Disability, Medieval

384 pages, Hardcover

First published May 15, 2010

Reviews

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! I have a longstanding personal interest in pain and the title kept me intrigued until one day I bought myself a copy. It was slow-going and I put it down a few times for easier things. That said I found everything about it interesting, and looking for more. I was sorry I only have "hymnbook Latin" as she gave occasional phrases in Latin and she'd made her own translations of so items with the originals in the notes. A working knowledge of Latin is expected in both the history of science and the history of medicine. Aside from that Cohen has sparked my imagination and I've been able to locate a number of references to follow-up on some historical figures. "The Modulated Scream." While not for the faint of heart the stories and examples Cohen has used are no where near as graphic as those in some other works (Foucault's "Discipline and Punish" for example).
"The Modulated Scream" is an excellent choice for anyone looking to learn more about justice, faith or health/health care in the medieval era.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

For the most part, this is a tightly-argued and well-organized contribution to studies in medieval culture and it is certainly an important resource for scholars working on the subject of pain in any field of medieval studies, with particular implications for specialists in medical, theological, and legal matters. Although Cohen does not directly deal with literary and visual representations of pain, scholars interested in examining the presence and construction of pain and suffering in medieval literature and art could benefit enormously from this study as a blueprint for thinking about the normative, expressive, and performative aspects of pain in medieval culture. The book should also appeal more widely to those interested in general social and intellectual histories or the history of pain, torture, or medicine in western culture.