Julius Cesar was an epileptic. There are many evidences about it and there is not any author I know who actually denies it. Of course the Romans did not say that he was epileptic, but said he had a sacred illness that put him in contact with the gods. Julius Cesar probably believed this himself, and it is very probably that epilepsy was one of the reasons to actually increase his self esteem. Nowadays, however, there is not any author who argues that he was actually touched by the gods and that epilepsy is just a modern interpretation of the phenomenon. Of course none of us actually believes in the Roman gods, they are just poetic figures used time to time as metaphors…
In the case of Margerie Kempe, however, her evident anorexia is read as some spiritual other thing. Of course she and her contemporaries read it as some religious fast and put much of spiritual content in it, but, even with its spiritual content, that was anorexia. Nowadays, anorexia is socially encouraged with the name of “diet” and actual diets really become alimentary disorders with enough similarities with Margerie’s disorders. Fasts were also socially encouraged during the Middle Ages, and the line that separated the pious fast from the alimentary disorder was equally thin.
Why we cannot say that Margerie had anorexia in a pious version, just as we say that Cesar had epilepsy in his own Roman version, but epilepsy on the bottom line?
Arturo, I think we probably could call many of the women saints who fasted to an extreme degree anorexic, and be medically correct. The problem that arises is in projecting the modern baggage of the disease onto women whose cultural context was completely different. Margery was not a young woman seeking to control her weight, but someone who believed her fasting to be ordained by God. The "truth" of that belief is beside the point.
ReplyDeleteAlso, because anorexia is not simply a medical condition, but is a disease with a strong psychological component, ignoring the religious mindset of the woman in order to place her in a diagnostic box seems to disregard her personal experience to a dangerous degree.
Arturo,
ReplyDeleteI agree with Rose. Anorexia is a disorder that exists apart from the religious mysticism of Kempe and other woman. It usually results from low poor self-esteem, unrealistic social expectations, and abuse. The anorexic is obsessed with losing weight, but never thinks she's lost enough. This does not describe the condition of Kempe.
I don't know, however, if mystics who undertook extreme fasting can be called anorexic. Self-starvation for religious purposes might be deemed a mental disorder, but it is not in the same category as anorexia. The mystics were fasting to attain holiness, purge themselves of sin, detach themselves from the things of this world, and become closer to God. It had nothing to do with loosing weight or trying to have an ideal body. The mystics and the anorexics are similar in denying themselves food, but their goals are entirely different.