Medieval Bodies: Health, Medicine, Life and Death is a richly illustrated ten-unit exploration of how people in the Middle Ages understood the human body: how it became ill, how it was healed, how it was disciplined, and what happened to it after death.
 
Written for students and general readers, the book brings together medical theory, literary texts, saints’ lives, plague chronicles, herbals, religious writing, and historical case studies. Readers encounter the humours, food and digestion, medieval physicians and remedies, the Black Death, pain and injury, pregnancy and childbirth, fasting and holy bodies, warfare, monstrosity, burial, ghosts, and resurrection.
 
Each unit combines clear contextual explanation with primary-source extracts, glosses, visual analysis, key-term tables, guided activities, and review material. Rather than treating medieval medicine as merely strange or primitive, the book shows how closely medieval ideas of health were connected to environment, emotion, diet, religion, family, work, community, and social status.
 
Beautifully designed in a medieval tapestry-inspired style, Medieval Bodies is ideal for upper-secondary, undergraduate, and lifelong learners interested in medieval literature, history, medicine, religion, and the cultural history of the body.