Food, Heresies, and Magical Boundaries in the Middle Ages

Andrea Maraschi has a PhD in Medieval History (University of Bologna), and has been a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Iceland and at the University of Bari. He teaches Anthropology of Food at the University of Bologna. His research interests touch, among other things, the history of food, the history of magic, and the history of medicine. Francesca Tasca has a PhD in History of Christianity and of Churches (University of Padua) with a thesis on Waldensian origins. She is a high-school teacher. Her research interests focus on accusations of heresy, with particular attention to food identity markers. She has several publications on the subject to her credit. She is publishing coordinator of Riforma e movimenti religiosi, the journal of the Society of Waldensian Studies.

Introduction. On food and boundaries: New trends in Food History
Part I. Religious boundaries
Chapter 1: Religious Identities and Consuming Differences in Augustine’s De haeresibus
Chapter 2: Dinner with the Heretic: The Story of an Ordal Meal in the De Gloria Martyrum by Gregory of Tours
Chapter 3: Consuming Heresy according to Walter Map: How to restate the boundaries of the status quo
Chapter 4: Kumiss in William of Rubruck’s Itinerarium: A Mongolian Beverage of Apostasy
Part II. Magical boundaries
Chapter 5: Saint Brigit and Milk from the Otherworld
Chapter 6: A Pagan Counter-Cuisine: Food and the Supernatural in Burchard of Worms’s Corrector
Chapter 7: Cannibalism and natural magic: Human flesh as a gate to the hidden powers of nature in the Picatrix
Chapter 8: Niccolò da Poggibonsi and the “Magical” Bread of Bethlehem
Concluding remarks: Boundary foods and boundaries of food
Index