Daniel
Baraz.
Medieval Cruelty: Changing Perceptions, Late Antiquity to
the
Early Modern Period.
Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 2003.
Conjunctions
of Religion and Power in the Medieval Past series.
248pp.
Hardback
ISBN 0801438179.
Publisher's
recommended price $35.00
The
Middle Ages are
often thought of as an era during which cruelty was a major aspect of
life,
a view that stems from the anti-Catholic polemics of the Reformation.
Daniel
Baraz makes the striking discovery that the concept of cruelty, which
had
been an important issue in late antiquity, received little attention in
the medieval period before the thirteenth century. From that point on,
interest in cruelty increased until it reached a peak late in the
sixteenth
century.
Medieval
Cruelty's
extraordinary scope ranges from the writings of Seneca to those of
Montaigne
and draws from sources that include the views of Western Christians,
Eastern
Christians, and Muslims. Baraz examines the development of the concept
of cruelty in legal texts, philosophical treatises, and other works
that
attempt to discuss the nature of cruelty. He then considers histories,
martyrdom accounts, and literary works in which cruelty is represented
rather than discussed directly.
In
the
wake of
the intellectual transformations of the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries,
an increasing focus on the intentions motivating an individual's acts
rekindled
the discussion of cruelty. Baraz shows how ethical thought and practice
about cruelty, which initially focused on external forces, became a
tool
to differentiate internal groups and justify violence against them.
This
process is evident in attacks on the Jews, in the peasant rebellions of
the later Middle Ages, and in the Wars of Religion.
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