Anger's Past: The Social Uses of an Emotion in the Middle Ages (review)

314 Reviews in contemporary discourses dealing with the shock of the N e w World and its use of models from the classical past, as in Shakespeare's The Tempest and Marston's Sophonisba. The 'nearlyabsent witch' in these dramas also seems to figure the loss of the witch of the Early Modern English village to later periods. As Purkiss argues in a fascinating conclusion which owes much to Marina Warner's studies of fairy tales, our conceptions of the witch m a y have become sanitised so that they constitute little more than displays of a lost past. But the power of witchcraft and the fear that it could once wield is still suggested by the continuing capacity of witches to arouse our curiosity. Purkiss has surely uncovered in Early Modern English drama one important genealogical line for the deep structures which shape our contemporary notions of witchcraft. But w e clearly need comparative explorations of other cultural and national traditions if w e are to gain a fuller sense of "The (European) Witch in (our) History'. Charles Zika Department ofHistory University ofMelbourne Rosenwein, Barbara H., ed., Anger's Past: The Social Uses of an Emotion in the Middle Ages, Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press, 1998; paper; pp. 256; 1 colour, 11 b/w illustrations; R.R.P. US$16.95. This book might have been entitled Past Angers rather than Ange Past, since it presents ten discrete analyses of anger in selected medieval texts or situations, rather than a comprehensive history of the emotion throughout the Middle Ages. However, taken as a whole, these essays provide a fascinating sampling of instances of Reviews 315 medieval anger (or, in some cases, its absence) and its meaning (or meanings) in different periods and contexts. Most of the analyses are based on the technique of close reading of medieval texts, including visual ones, though they deploy varying degrees of theoretical sophistication and technical vocabulary. Thus Lester K. Little begins the section on 'Monks and Saints' with a consideration of anger in monastic curses. In the course of his analysis he introduces the reader to m u c h useful patristic and iconographic background material for the understanding of medieval anger as well as the philosopher J. L. Austin's notion of 'performative utterances'. While Little's piece concentrates on the tenth to the twelfth centuries, Catherine Peyroux takes us back to the seventh century for a telling analysis of a moment of anger in the Latin Life of Gertrude of Nivelles. While focussing closely on a single text, she also discusses wider questions of the appropriate methodology for the study of medieval affect. The next section, dealing with the anger of kings and emperors, again contains papers of varying scope. Gerd Alfhoff presents a broad survey of changes in attitudes to kingly anger from the late antique period to the late twelfth century, while Genevieve Bohrer-Thierry concentrates on judicial blinding from the seventh through the ninth century, a process, which, she concludes, actually had little to do with anger per se. Paul H y a m s nanows the focus still further with his study of what Henry III saw when he went to bed (a wall-painting of Debonairitia triumphing over Ira). His piece also addresses the question of h o w such normative concepts were transferred from Latin monastic and ecclesiastic, to vernacular and courtly cultures. The three essays in the section 'Lords and Peasants' are more directly related to the book's subtitle. Stephen D. White is concerned to undermine the presumed relationship (best represented in the 316 Reviews work of Bloch) between 'medieval anger and emotionalism...and violence or political irrationality'. Here he draws upon twelfth- and early thirteenth-century political narratives, including vernacular accounts offictionalpolitics, making some interesting points about h o w these m a y be used by legal and social historians. Then we switch back a century for Richard E. Barton's examination of the role of anger in settling disputes in France. H e argues that the expression of anger often served to initiate a process of reconciliation and readjustment among parties contending over lordship. Wider in chronological scope, and...