An exploration of the relations between medical and religious discourse and practice in medieval culture, focussing on how they are affected by gender. Current preoccupations with the body have led to a growing interest in the intersections between religion, literature and the history of medicine, and, more specifically, how they converge within a given culture. This collection of essays explores the ways in which aspects of medieval culture were predicated upon an interaction between medical and religious discourses, particularly those inflected by contemporary gendered ideologies. The essays interrogatethis convergence broadly in a number of different ways: textually, conceptually, historically, socially and culturally. They argue for an inextricable relationship between the physical and spiritual in accounts of health, illness and disability, and demonstrate how medical, religious and gender discourses were integrated in medieval culture. Naoe Kukita Yoshikawa is Professor of English in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Shizuoka University. Contributors: Louise M. Bishop, Elma Brenner, Joy Hawkins, Roberta Magnani, Takami Matsuda, Liz Herbert McAvoy, Irina Metzler, Denis Renevey, Patricia Skinner, Juliette Vuille, Diane Watt, Naoe Kukita Yoshikawa.

About the Author
NAOE KUKITA YOSHIKAWA is Professor Emerita of Medieval English Literature at Shizuoka University, and Research Fellow at the Center for Medieval English Literary Text Studies, Meiji University, Japan. Professor Diane Watt is Head of the School of English and Languages, University of Surrey. Secretaries of God won the 1998 Foster Watson Memorial Gift. JULIETTE VUILLE is a Lecturer in Old and Middle English at the University of Lausanne. LIZ HERBERT MCAVOY FLSW is Professor Emerita of Medieval Literature at Swansea University and Honorary Senior Research Associate at the University of Bristol. NAOE KUKITA YOSHIKAWA is Professor Emerita of Medieval English Literature at Shizuoka University, and Research Fellow at the Center for Medieval English Literary Text Studies, Meiji University, Japan.

Reviews
Anyone intrigued by the peculiar body-centered, corporeal spirituality of medieval female mystics, and interested in the history of popular Christian devotion before 1500 . . . will find in this rich collection food for thought and a plethora of enlightening examples. * CATHOLIC HISTORICAL REVIEW *
A valuable contribution to the scholarship. * FRANCIA *



Book Information
ISBN 9781843844013
Author Professor Naoe Kukita Yoshikawa
Format Hardback
Page Count 310
Imprint D.S. Brewer
Publisher Boydell & Brewer Ltd
Weight(grams) 1g