Sex, dissidence and damnation: minority groups in the Middle Ages (review)

176 Reviews by all libraries that cater for scholars working on Petrarch and on the early Italian Renaissance, and there should be very few that can ignore this all-important area of literature and history. Rawski's great enthusiasm for his topic is a plus, and his work on Plutarch is a fine testimony to his scholarship and industry. For the impecunious scholar, however, the librarian of Alexandria (perhaps suffering from back trouble) gave a salutary warning against such over-large books, that may still seem relevant: 'An over-large book is a big nuisance'. John R. C. Martyn Classical & Near Eastern Studies University of Melbourne Richards, Jeffrey, Sex, dissidence and damnation: minority groups in the Middle Ages, London & N e w York, Routledge, 1990; cloth and paper; pp.xii, 179; 34 illustrations; R.R.P. AUS$89.95 (cloth), $26.95 (paper) [distributed in Australia by the Law Book Company]. The 'New' history has produced, very rapidly, a number of 'bandwagon' studies. Of these, the present volume looks like a leading contender in thefieldof 'sex', the highlighted word on the lurid dust-jacket. Closely on the heels of the sober, but nevertheless timely and suitably deconstructionist study by R. I. Moore (77ie formation of a persecuting society, 1987), comes the present volume, which looks at first sight like a re-run of the (pioneering?) work by Andrew McCall, The medieval underworld (1979). Separate chapters on "The Middle Ages', 'Heretics', 'Witches', 'Homosexuals', 'Jews', and 'Prostitutes' are common to both. See also ch. 10 of J. Le Goff, ed., Medieval callings (1990): 'The marginal man', by Bronislaw Geremek. Neither McCall nor Richards are practising research scholars in thefieldsthey write about McCall would appear to be a freelance writer. Richards is an academic medievalist whose research has hitherto concentrated on the early history of the medieval Papacy. Nevertheless, on close acquaintance, one is happy to acknowledge that Richards's book is conscientious, academically solid, and well worth reading. Its major fault, a failure to provide footnotes specifying sources, is to some extent made up for by the occasional practice of citing in the text the names of the authorities being followed, and by a conscientious bibliography; although, any reader of ch.8 would now want to see the work of Mark Pegg cited. While in the main, and inevitably, reliant upon authorities being used at each point, Richards does 'engage' with some authors whose views he contests; for example, R. I. Moore (p.13) and Bosewell in ch. 7 on homosexuals. In thefirstchapter there is an attempt to create a theme for the volume: the 'other', the 'unclean', 'exclusion', 'intolerance', 'minorities' and economic change, plague, the rise of institutions of persecution and of the bourgeoisie, etc. The cumulative impression one gains from the chapters that follow is of the extraordinary medieval elite, and Reviews 111 sometimes mass, concern for individual and social purification as an essential avenue towards salvation. The Satanic attack on Christendom takes many forms: temptation through women (chs. 2 and 6), threats from heretics (ch. 3), witches (ch. 4), Jews (ch. 5), homosexuals (ch. 7) and lepers (ch. 8). All these topics are seen to be deviations from norms considered desirable for salvation. While it is true that Richards's detailed treatment of these topics sometimes creates the impression that the details are ends in themselves, overall one is kept aware of the larger world-view which lead to the creation of so many stigmatised minorities. The book is an excellent introduction to its subject and the illustrations, mostiy late medieval or early modem, add some interest. John O.Ward Department of History University of Sydney Setton, Kenneth M., Venice, Austria, and the Turks in the seventeenth century (Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 192), Philadelphia, American Philosophical Society, 1991; cloth; pp. 502; R.R.P. US$35.00. Idem, Western hostility to Islam and prophecies of Turkish doom (Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 201), Philadelphia, American Philosophical Society, 1992; cloth; pp. vii, 63; R.R.P. US$10.00 Setton's Venice, Austria, and the Turks in the seventeenth century is a continuation of his magisterial Papacy and the Levant, 1204-1571, 4 vols. (Philadelphia, 1976-1984). The last...