Historical Studies (Chinese Edition)

No.5, 2015

 

The Body Concept and Bodily Identity of Holy Women in Western Europe during the High Medieval Era

(Abstract)

 

Wang Lihong

 

Research on the imagination, cognition and actions of the body, as major components of identity, have been drawing growing attention in academia. The history of the body has become an important branch of the new Western historiography, with the discovery of the body being connected to the rise of modern society. Medieval holy women in Western Europe, always described as being miserable, ascetic, sick and weak, not only had a tense relationship with the religious and theocratic society of the time, but also encountered objective difficulties in the cognition of their own female bodies. Monastic women in the high medieval era used their bodies as a medium; through the platform constructed by the imagination, cognition and actions of the body, they put forward their own female concept of the body, demonstrating the meaning of physiology, perception. pain, etc., for their bodily identity.