The Ends of the Body: Identity and Community in Medieval Culture

Drawing on Arabic, English, French, Irish, Latin and Spanish sources, the essays share a focus on the body’s productive capacity – whether expressed through the flesh’s materiality, or through its role in performing meaning.

The collection is divided into four clusters. ‘Foundations’ traces the use of physical remnants of the body in the form of relics or memorial monuments that replicate the form of the body as foundational in communal structures; ‘Performing the Body’ focuses on the ways i...