ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author attempts to reduce symbolic formations associated with penitential fasting in medieval Christianity to a pathological infrastructure. He deals with the work of culture whereby unconscious motivations are progressively transformed or sublimated into publicly acceptable symbolic forms; or a parallel process whereby the cultural form is given personal motivational significance. Anorexia remains the defining symptomatology in H.C.P. Bell’s adoption of the term ‘holy anorexia’. Saintly women’s fame spread and in some instances extraordinary fasting was seen as a miracle, a situation impossible to envisage in anorexia nervosa. It is Christ’s blood therefore that truly replenishes body and soul as a physically and spiritually nurturing substance; and a substance, one might even say at the risk of parody that provides a transfusion of blood through its transubstantiation. In union the woman identifies with Christ without losing her own separate identity which is also true of the marital sense of union.
