The Body-in-Pain: Sensorial, Emotional, and Performative Dimensions of Pain in the Early and High Middle Ages

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At all times, the experience of pain is shaped not only by biological, but by social and cultural factors. As such it is subject to historical change. As the vast majority of a population are or have been experiencing pain, and therefore have intimate knowledge of this phenomenon, the ways pain is addressed and incorporated socially and culturally provides insight into societies as a whole. Based on a range of early and high medieval sources, the research project will provide one of the first systematic studies of long-term pain in premodern societies. The focus is on contemporary concepts of corporeality, emotions, and perception, and on the performative dimension of pain. In the Middle Ages, the body was seen as permeable and easily changeable; the experience of pain was closely linked with sensory (as well as transcendent) perceptions, emotional states, (ritual) acts and deeds. The project examines the social meanings, the applicability, and the changes of these concepts between the 6th and 12th centuries. Its aims are to 1. direct attention to pain as a corporeal experience in the Middle Ages; 2. study the emotional and sensorial experience of pain in the Middle Ages; 3. highlight the performative character of pain in medieval cultures. The project focuses on a time period when long-term pain was a widespread phenomenon and the scope of effective pain relief was limited. By examining the culturally and socially shaped experiences of pain over the course of time, the project will advance and deepen the field of premodern disability history as well as our current understanding of pain. It is methodically and thematically innovative in that it combines the historical subjects of pain, disability, and emotions, and brings together the respective methodologies without reverting back to an individualistic model of disability. This approach will be developed and continuously sharpened and evaluated in collaboration with leading researchers in the fields of premodern disability history and the history of emotions at Swansea University. In order to fully explore this new methodological premise, an international, cross-epochal research network “Disability, Pain and Emotions” will be initiated.