Virginia Langum Medicine and the Seven Deadly Sins in Late Medieval Literature and Culture

Annotation

This book considers howscientists, theologians, priests, and poets approached the relationship of thehuman body and ethics in the later Middle Ages. Is medicine merely a metaphorfor sin? Or can certain kinds of bodies physiologically dispose people to beangry, sad, or greedy? If so, then is it their fault? Virginia Langum offers anaccount of the medical imagery used to describe feelings and actions inreligious and literary contexts, referencing a variety of behavioraldiscussions within medical contexts. The study draws upon medical andtheological writing for its philosophical basis, and upon more popular works ofreligion, as well as poetry, to show how these themes were articulated,explored, and questioned more widely in medieval culture.