ABSTRACT
One of the most prominent recurring themes in Urbanus magnus is the physical body. It is important to acknowledge the research in body studies, such as the work of social theorists. Turner, in his examination of the body in Western society, summarised the four discrete interpretations of the body in modern social theory.1 First, Foucault identified the body as ‘an effect of deeper structural arrangements of power and knowledge’, and argued that the body was central ‘to modern systems of discipline and control’ as ‘an effect of the growing sophistication of social regulation’. Second, we can view the body as a symbol ‘which produces a set of metaphors by which power is conceptualized’. Third, the body can reflect long-term changes of society. Finally, the body can be treated as a means of analysing the lived experience of daily life.2 However, while indebted to these social theories, this chapter does not seek to examine post-structuralist arguments about the body, but rather focuses on the work of medievalists who have incorporated such modern social theories into a reinterpretation of the body in the Middle Ages. Indeed, the body has been an increasingly popular subject among medievalists, who have examined it from a variety of perspectives, ranging from the body as a physical and visceral entity to one which has a more symbolic role. Scholars such as Caroline Bynum, Peter Brown, and Miri Rubin have led the way in the use of the body as a new means of exploring the medieval period.3 Indeed, scholars have shown how ‘the body was the pre-eminent symbol of community’.4 Writing about the medieval body, Roy Porter has argued that ‘of cardinal importance is a grasp of the subordinate place ascribed to the body within the religious, moral and social value systems of traditional European cultures’.5 The body needs to be subordinated precisely because it is so uncontrollable.
