Old Age in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: Interdisciplinary Approaches to a Neglected Topic (review)

Based on a conference on "Old Age in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance" held at the University of Arizona, Tucson in April 2006, this volume presents a collection of 21 articles by historians, art history experts, and—the largest group—literary / cultural studies scholars. The chronological and geographic range is broad: from Late Antiquity through the Middle Ages to the early modern period and from Spain to England, France, the Netherlands, Germany, and Italy. The articles average about 25 pages in length; they are edited and prefaced by a lengthy introduction and review of scholarship by the prolific Albrecht Classen.

Classen writes that the topic of "old age" has been "neglected," but he concedes that this situation is rapidly changing, given dramatically increased average life- spans in first- world countries, the accompanying growth in gerontological studies, and the social problem of determining older people's place in society. Can we now really speak of a new field called "Old Age Studies?" The steady growth of scholarship on old age since 1969 when the psychiatrist Robert Butler coined the word "ageism" to describe social prejudice against the elderly has certainly been striking. In medieval studies alone, for example, there was a seminal conference held in Toronto in 1983 on "Aging and the Aged in Medieval Europe" (proceedings published in 1990), and in 2006 in Krems a major conference took place on "Alterskulturen des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit" (publication forthcoming). Important studies have also appeared such as Shulamith Shahar's Growing Old in the Middle Ages (1995) and Georges Minoir's History of Old Age: From Antiquity to the Renaissance (1987). Nonetheless, "old age" is an uncertain and elusive object, even if one restricts oneself to purely chronological definitions. Almost every author in Classen's collection notes a different age by which old age was historically thought to begin, for example, 30–35 (15^th - century England), 60–70 (late Antiquity), or 70 (the seventh- century encyclopedist Isidore of Seville). Lotario de' Conti, the future Pope Innocent III, writing in the late 12^th century, suggested terminal ages of life at 40, 50, or 60 years, depending on which manuscript one confides in. Perhaps the only sure chronological definition is that quoted by Rasma Lazda- Cazers: "An old person is someone who is 15 years older than you" (203).

Social and economic class or situation, gender (on average, older women suffered from much more discrimination than men), rural or urban surroundings, religious status (older monks and nuns seem universally to have fared better than their lay contemporaries), and time and place all play significant roles in the assessment of old age and the treatment and status of the elderly. In view of this wide variety, Classen and most of the authors here rightly conclude that there was no consistent view of old age at any period of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. In fact, many individual sources simultaneously betray contradictory views. Old age is miserable and degenerate, characterized by an ugly and decrepit body, failing mental abilities, and vices exacerbated by age such as miserliness. On the other hand, old age liberates one from the tyranny of corporeal desire, brings wisdom, and commands respect (at least in theory). With such various and contradictory constructions of what it meant to be old, it is perhaps in vain that Classen hopes to establish "a history of mentalities" regarding old age. Although it might be less ambitious, it would seem more appropriate and accurate instead to speak of historically—and one ought surely to add personally—changing "attitudes" towards aging.

In an assembly of authors and disciplines as wide- ranging as this, it is to be expected that methodologies, conclusions, and quality should vary greatly. What is impressive is how many good contributions there are and how very good the best ones are...