The Kiss of Peace: Ritual, Self, and Society in the High and Late Medieval West (review)

Kiril Petkov is an assistant professor of history at Truman State University. This book is an analysis of the kiss ritual from the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries. The emphasis is on the function of this gesture in peacemaking, although many facets of the rite are explored. The work is divided into three parts. The first treats the development of the legal bonds of peace, with extensive discussions of how the ritual operated in contract law. Examples are taken from vernacular literature as well as from juridical sources. Part Two, the "emotional economy of ritual," deals with the motivation of the respective parties, and the effects of the rite on the concerned individuals. The movement from the public setting to the private is stressed. Part Three, "Building Identities," is about the ritual's function as a means of defining the social roles of the persons involved, as well as their setting in the wider society. Petkov speculates on the psychological—and the sociological—impact of ritual peacemaking in both literary and legal sources.

Petkov draws from the extensive research on peacemaking by other scholars, particularly C. Bombaugh, Y. Carré, P. Flury, W. Frijhoff, G. Johnes, E. Kreider, N. Perella [out of order in the bibliography], J. Russel Major, and K. Schreiner. But Petkov goes beyond the range of these authors by integrating his analysis of the kiss ritual as a legal bond with the broader implications for ties to the various kinds of social groupings at the time. Particularly original are his critiques of German and French literary texts. The author shows how this simple ritual in fact reflects how other social connections operate, such as the lord-vassal bonds and the influence of political authorities. Some of Petkov's observations on the psychological impact of peacemaking rituals are profound, even brilliant.

Most readers will find Part I of the greatest interest. This section is a superb treatment of how legal conflict resolution evolved into practices more recognizable in post-medieval centuries. Much less chronological are Parts II and III, where it is often difficult to discern the author's general thesis. In these chapters the author borrows from models employed by sociologists, psychologists, and anthropologists. The jargon sometimes gets dense, as in "Subjected to constant reinterpretation, the kiss retained a stable function as a matrix ordering the relationships in which continuity and differentiation, the two basic processes of identity building, were being reproduced. Last but not least, as a representation, the kiss bridged the space between human agency and social structures by supplying symbolic referents for the loose network of associations within which the integration of the social person was achieved" (p. 243). Petkov, to be sure, carefully defines his terms, but at times the reader is compelled to dig for these definitions. It would have helped if these constructs were placed into a discernible chronological framework. The general conclusion only hints at this historical evolution. We medieval historians, moreover, get uneasy with the amorphous "medieval self" and "medieval individual." The author, finally, often cites a single page of the source discussed, and then summarizes long passages from it with no further references, leaving it to the reader to find the relevant texts.

Many sections of Parts II and III, taken separately, sparkle with insight and originality. The strength of Petkov's work is to show how a seemingly incidental rite such as kissing in fact reveals a myriad of complex relationships in late medieval society. From another perspective he argues convincingly that the symbols can even have influenced subsequent behavior, specifically the business of making social peace. Highly recommended.