Medieval Blood (Religion and Culture in the Middle Ages) - Tapa dura

Dr Bettina Bildhauer is Lecturer in German at the University of St. Andrews. She co-edited The Monstrous Middle Ages and has published widely on medieval themes, both in English and German.

Medieval Blood discusses from an interdisciplinary perspective how medieval writers saw the body as a container of blood and the significance they attributed to this. Through examination and analysis of these issues, the author brings new insights into medieval culture which contributes a new and crucial chapter in the history of the body. Indeed, this book will be the first to propose that blood shapes the body as a distinct entity. Presenting material from a wide range of texts, predominantly from late medieval Germany, it discusses how and why Christ's and saints' blood was venerated, knight's blood was spent to establish their superior valour, medicine saw body, health and personality as based on blood, and laws tried to regulate bloodshed and the mixing of blood. It furthermore demonstrates how blood was used to create social links between families and larger groups as well as between the genders and between Christians and Jews.