IN THE early 11th century, a Burgundian monk, Rodulfus Glaber, explained why only some parts of the world were Christian. The answer, he believed, was to be found in the crucifixion: “When He was hung from the Cross, the immature peoples of the East were hidden behind his Head, but the West was before His eyes, ready to be filled with the light of the faith.” The North benefited from “His almighty right arm, extended for the work of mercy”, whereas the South “swarmed with barbaric peoples” because his left arm sagged.
That portion of the earth which profited from Christ’s gaze is the subject of Mark Gregory Pegg’s scholarly new history of the Middle Ages, which demonstrates how Christianity shaped every aspect of life for more than a millennium. The story is told in a series of vignettes, which come together to tell the story of both belief and believers — a novel and thought-provoking approach, although one that may prove challenging for those with little previous knowledge of this era.
Pegg highlights examples of remarkable faith (including St Patrick, whose enthusiasm for missionary work was undaunted by the constant threat of death or enslavement), and celebrates intellectual giants from St Augustine to Dante. But he is clear-sighted about some of the more troublesome aspects of medieval Christianity, notably its preoccupation with the devil. He was a constant presence in many lives — quite literally in the case of one 11th-century monk, who was pestered even when visiting the lavatory.
Consequently, people went to great lengths to atone for their sins. Dominic, an 11th-century hermit, wore chain mail, and constantly whipped himself because his parents had purchased his ordination. Others tried to avoid temptation: St Anthony of Egypt (d. 356) spent two decades living in an abandoned fort, his only contact with the outside world being twice-yearly bread deliveries.
But such extraordinary acts of devotion did not always go to plan, as one young monk discovered. Inspired by tales of Syrian stylites, Wulflaic set up home atop an abandoned Roman column. Unfortunately, he lived in Germany, and in winter it was so cold that his toenails fell off, and icicles hung from his beard. Eventually, the local bishop ordered the humiliated monk back to his monastery.
Pegg, a Washington University professor who specialises in medieval heresy, shows that, even in this age of supposed unity, to be Christian was to be judged not only by God, but also by one’s co-religionists. Heretics often met particularly unhappy ends, but even the conventionally devout were not necessarily safe. When the papal legate Arnau Amalric was asked how to distinguish between good Christians and heretics during the siege of Béziers, he allegedly replied: “Kill them all! Truly, God will know His own.”
Relations between Christians and non-Christians were even trickier, especially during the Viking raids and the Crusades, and anti-Semitism increased in the later Middle Ages. In a particularly horrifying episode, thousands of German Jews were massacred because of rumours that they had caused the Black Death by poisoning water supplies. Magicians were also vulnerable: St Patrick’s miracles included the violent deaths of two sorcerers. One died after being hurled into the air, and the other was incinerated when a magic trick went wrong.
The inclusion of such obscure figures is one of the greatest strengths of this book; accounts of little-known lives nestle alongside the stories of famous men such as Charlemagne and Chaucer. Pegg’s mastery of his sources allows him to paint some of these ordinary lives in surprising detail. Thus, we hear the intimate testimony of Béatrice de Plannisoles, a French noblewoman who kept her daughter’s first menstrual cloth so that the blood could be given in a drink to her future husband, to make him love her. (Fortunately for the man in question, Béatrice was arrested by the Inquisition before this plan could be implemented.)
Other lives are merely glimpsed, but, nevertheless, provide a powerful sense of medieval humanity. In plague-ravaged Kilkenny, the English Franciscan John Chynn described himself as “waiting amongst the dead for death to come”. He died soon afterwards, leaving parchment for the continuation of his chronicle, “in case anyone should still be alive in the future, and any son of Adam can escape this pestilence”.
Dr Katherine Harvey is Research Fellow in the Department of History, Classics and Archaeology at Birkbeck, University of London.
Beatrice’s Last Smile: A new history of the Middle Ages
Mark Gregory Pegg
OUP £27.99
(978-0-19-964157-4)
Church Times Bookshop £25.19