A Corpus for the Body Author(s): Ioan P. Culianu Source: The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 63, No.

1 (Mar., 1991), pp. 61-80 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2938526 . Accessed: 08/07/2011 06:36
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Review Article A Corpus for the Body

loan P. Culianu
Universityof Chicago

I. A BODY

OF FRAGMENTS

attractive. Everyweek at least two new books, The bodyhas becomeincreasingly each displayingits own perspectiveon the humanbody, find theirway into the the ambitionto collect and review the bookstores.Under these circumstances, exhaustivecorpus of body literaturewould be vain. The present survey will of the expandon a limitednumberof topics in the (mostly recent)bibliography body, with particularreferenceto the three volumes of the Fragmentsfor a
History of the Human Body (hereafter cited as Fragments) edited by Michel Feher

papersby with RamonaNaddaffand NadiaTazi.1 This workcontainsforty-three French-, Italian-, and English-speakingscholars, together with a few texts commented upon by some of them, a purely iconographicalsection with twenty-eightplates, and an extensive alphabeticalbibliographyby Barbara norchronological, geographic, is neitherstrictlythematic Duden.2 Thetripartition or methodological.Accordingto Michel Feher's introduction,it is meant to amongthreemain groupsof topics: (1) "The Body and the Divine" distinguish (or whathe calls a "verticalaxis"); (2) "Body and Soul," or what the body of the subject reveals about its internalqualities (a "transversalaxis"); and (3) appliedto the body politic. Yet many "Body andSociety,"or organicmetaphors other criteria could be applied to form different clusters of articles. These We will focus hereon of the body" areactuallya body of fragments. "fragments a few topics of particular interest(insofaras they have been constantlyemphaof the names of some sized by many recent books) and follow the recurrence of authors whose recentworkshave addednew dimensionsto the historiography the body. Three themes will be only marginallytreatedbut deserve at least a the body exotic (India: Charles Malamoud, generic presentation: preliminary Jonathan Parry,LakshmiKapani;China:JeanLevi [butnot KristoferSchippers] and Mark Elvin; Japan:William R. LaFleur,Mary Picone; Africa: Franqoise the BruceM. Knauft; CarolBeckwith,Luc de Heusch;Melanesia: Heritier-Auge, Aztecs: ChristianDuverger),the body social (the king's two bodies: Florence
1 Fragmentsfor a History of the Human Body, ed. Michel Feher, with Ramona Naddaff and Nadia Tazi, Zone Series, 3 parts (New York, 1989) (hereaftercited as Fragments). 2 MarkKidel and Susan Rowe-Leete, "Mappingthe Body," in Fragments, 3:448-70; Barbara Duden, "A Repertoryof Body History," in Fragments, 3:471-554.
[Journal of Modern History 63 (March 1991): 61-80] ? 1991 by The University of Chicago. 0022-2801/91/6301-0004$01.00 All rights reserved.

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Dupont; the king's political body: Louis Marin), and the body mechanical (marionettes: RomanPaska;automata: J. C. Beaune).These leads wouldtakeus into culturalterritories about which we could say nothingmeaningfulin such limitedspace. The remainingarticles tend to confirmthe generalperiodization of Western attitudes towardthe body thathas emergedfromthe bulk of dataand interpretations duringthe past few years. Roughly speaking, the emphasisduringLate Antiquity lies on the body as a metonymyfor sex, whichis endowedwith serious to violent negativity; duringthe MiddleAges the body is primarily a metonymy for nutrition, from which some particularities of medievalmysticism,especially as practiced is scattered by women, ensue;finally,the body afterthe Reformation in a numberof topics, with an emphasison the sexual dangersof womanhood. Permissiveness comes to a halt;religioussymbolsare secularized andreducedto of fashion.Thebody is now complex:sex, nutrition, accessories symbol,biology. Reading the body becomes increasinglydifficult, and its ambivalencesare exploited by its users. After the eighteenthcentury fashion is "feminized"; signals are unconsciously transmittedand deciphered. The most influential decodersare psychoanalysisand neo-Darwinian sociobiology.Fragments for a Historyof the HumanBody will help us to explorethese threeperiods. II. A
BODY OF METAPHORS

Aline Rousselle's Porneia: On Desire and the Body in Antiquityhas become in Englishtranslation.3 available Herthesis is resumedin Fragments: to contrary common opinion, the Roman Empire was ruled by a set of rigid moral Married womenwouldoftenpracticesexualcontinence,for reasons regulations.4 the author calls "demecologic"(demographic andecologic), andencourage their husbandsto seek pleasureelsewhere, especiallywith slaves (of both sexes) and concubines. Concubineswere slaves freed at the age of twelve. The laws of Augustusprotected bothmarried womenandslavesfromsexualaggression by the castration of young male slaves. masterof a household.Domitianwouldprohibit Sexual behaviorwas regulatedby the invisible borderlinethat separated"deif public, would, for instance, cency" from "indecency" (male homosexuality, fall in the lattercategory,beingpunishable sexual by death).Despitean exuberant life, Roman citizens of both sexes had to stay within certain limits. Between slaves and masterswere a large group of professionalsof both spectacle and pleasure,thefamosi (fame and infamytogetherare the destinyof the histrion), who would seek their customersunderthe arches (orfornices, wherefrom"to fornicate")of public circuses and bathsin orderto caterto theirmost pressing needs. The picture,inevitablyreminiscent of Broadway in the middle1970s, still looks very permissiveif compared with the idea we haveof the austereChristian who MiddleAges, even if we aretold thatafamosuscouldbe killedby a husband
3Aline Rousselle, Porneia: On Desire and the Body in Antiquity(New York, 1988). 4Aline Rousselle, "PersonalStatusand Sexual Practicein the RomanEmpire," in Fragments,

3:300-333.

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63

him in flagrant with his wife. YetRousselleshows on the one discovered adultery handthatpermissiveness was regulated by preciserulesand, on the other,thatthe Middle Ages were less austerethan we think. True austeritypervadedWestern society only in the aftermath of the Reformation. In his recentbook TheBodyand SocietyPeterBrowntakesfurther Rousselle's thesis.5 Not only did Romanlegislationput restrictions on the free exercise of sexuality,but Roman sexual ethics stronglydiscouraged dissolutenessas well. The Roman sexual ideal was sober. If this is so, the rise of the Christian moralizing ethics is a conundrum. Accordingto Brown,duringthe last centuries of the Empire"PagansandChristians alike lived by codes of sexualrestraint and public decorum" which, in their denial of the Self, attemptedto imitate the allegedvirtuesof archaicRome.6 In his surveyof the Christian of the period,including literature Gnosticism (and and encratism, Browndistinguishes Manicheism), marcionism, betweentwo main trends: one which emphasizes the wonderof virginityand sets virginsapartas a tertium andangelsandanother whichis soberlyinclinedto genusbetweenhumans if seen exclusivelyas a civic dutyand devoidof sexualpleasure. retainmarriage, Brown'sperspective is interesting in its emphasis on the positivepresuppositions of and morepowerful the former trendover the generalnegativeassumptions usually impliedby research on encratism or near-encratism. The noveltyof the Christian versionof the old Platonic dualismbetweenbody andsoul residesin the transfigurationof the body virginal,whichbecomesthe miraculous body of the saintsand thewholeperiod prefigures thebodyof resurrection.7 Yetduring thebodyis certainly to be chastised andmastered, andmastership overthe flesh meansin the firstplace overone's sexuality. of concupiscence is instrumenmastership Augustine's doctrine tal in ensuring the triumph of the rigorously ascetictrendof Christian ethics.By the endof the fifthcentury, andfeastsarecensored, bishopsstopmarrying, sexuality the monasticinstitutions grow, and Christianity begins to assumethose antimundane thathavebecomefamiliar traits to us forhaving beenreemphasized of by theCouncil TrentunderProtestant Yet betweenthe sixthand the sixteenth pressure.8 centuries Christian attitudes towardthe body undergo drastic would change.Only artificially theyrevertto theirearlier severity. is PeterBrown's strength.His book is a large body of metaphors, Literature manyof them memorable. III. THE BODY AS METAPHOR If Brown often hesitates before runningcounter to the generally and tacitly admittedNietzscheanthesis that Christianity is Platonismin disguise, Caroline WalkerBynumreadsmedievalwomen's mysticismin a key in which body and soul are actually not opposed to each other. Around 1200 a new spirituality
and SexualRenunciation in Early sPeter Brown, The Body and Society:Men, Women Christianity(New York, 1988). 6 Ibid., p. 22. 7 Ibid., p. 444. 8 Ibid., pp. 428 ff.

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appears,which marks"a tumingpoint in the historyof the body in the West."9 This contention appeared earlierin Rudolph Bell's HolyAnorexia,a workwhich, although written froma different has muchin commonwithBynum's perspective, own challenging Holy Feast and Holy Fast.10Both Bell and Bynumshow thatif in LateAntiquity-the body was mainlyassociatedwith controlof sexuality,in the LateMiddleAges the emphasisshifts to controlof nutrition and pain (generally, self-inflicted).Bell analyzedthe biographies of several women mystics in Italy between the early thirteenthand the seventeenthcenturies,drawinga parallel of abstention betweentheirpattern fromfood andthe modern knownas syndrome anorexianervosa,which especially affects young women in theirteens. In both cases the symptomsare lengthy and radical abstentionfrom any food intake, interspersedwith episodes of bulimia or binge-eating;yet the individual is hyperactive andeuphoric.In chronological order,the mysticsare Clareof Assisi (ca. 1194-1253), Umilianade' Cerchi(1219-46), Margaret of Cortona(124797), Benvenuta Bojani(b. 1255), Angelada Foligno(d. 1309), Catherine of Siena (1347-80), Francesca Bussa(b. 1384), Eustachia of Messina(d. 1485), Colomba da Rieti (b. 1466), and Orsola/Veronica Giuliani(1660-1727). To these Bynum wouldaddseveralfromotherpartsof Europe.Comparing the earlierwiththe later cases, Bell comes to the conclusionthat the Reformation radicallymodifiesthe interpretation of holy anorexia,which becomes the sign of diabolicpossession. Bell views the Reformation as an attempt of maleauthorities to obtaintotalcontrol over women. Becauseof increasedmale scrutinyinto theirlives, formermystics tum into witches. The phenomenon thereafter ceases to haveany strongreligious significance(althoughwomen mystics like Therese Neumannor Simone Weil wouldshow anorexia symptoms).Bell does not interpret modern anorexia nervosa as a mere secularization of holy anorexia; nor does he succeedin explainingthe latterby the former,for the social context of anorexianervosaseems to vary. Noelle Caskeysuggeststhe existenceof a complexinvolvingrejection of fat as an attribute of femininity(increasein weight at pubertyprecedesthe firstmenstrual 11 A period)andrejection of the motheras representative of a femininestereotype. of emphasison food and diet and personality family background disturbance in 12 Bell triesto establish one or bothparents occursin manyanorexics. statistically such a patternin medieval cases, emphasizingthe spiritualizedrelationship betweendaughter and father.Caskeynotes euphoria as a constitutive component of the-syndrome:"It is as thoughanorexicschoose this mannerof achievinga state of permanent ecstasy. Anorexics live in the desert of honey and locusts, 13 perpetually listeningto the voice of St. John."
9 Caroline Walker Bynum, "The Female Body and Religious Practice in the Later Middle Ages," in Fragments, 1:161- 219; quote on p. 162. 10 RudolphM. Bell, Holy Anorexia, epilogue by William N. Davis (Chicago, 1985); Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women(Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1987). l l Noelle Caskey, "Interpreting Anorexia Nervosa," in The Female Body in Western Culture: Contemporary Perspectives,ed. Susan Rubin Suleiman (Cambridge,Mass., 1986), pp. 175-89. 12 Ibid., p. 186. 13 Ibid., p. 184.

A Corpusfor the Body

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that the medieval mystics are early Bynum dismisses Bell's interpretation instances of anorexics who give their experience a religious dimension. She believes in a basic differencebetweenthe social spheresover which males and females exert control:men would control sexuality and women would control 14 Therefore,the scenariosof holiness are genderdifferentiated. nutrition. Formedieval(andnot only medieval)women, being in chargeof food is also over food intake. a highlysymbolicfunctionwhichmeansthatthey havemastery of food intake.The mysticalfocus Nothingcan show this betterthansuppression of holy anorexicsis the eucharist,in which Christ'sbody becomes bread. By suppressingfood, women become food themselves.15 Bynum's conclusion is thatmedievalasceticismis not rootedin Platonicdualism;the body has therefore 16 a positive function. which emphasized by PieroCamporesi, Thereis another aspectto the eucharist, the radicalnegativity may adda new dimensionto the psychogenesisof anorexia: follow the of the "pit of the stomach.'"17"Withconcem andanxiety,theologians descentof Christ'sbody intothe antrum,the dampandsmellybowels."'18Inorder to ensure the holy host a properreception, the abominablestomach must be purifiedby fasting. Thus, the theologicalemphasison the eucharisthas strong dualistic undertones(the body is a tomb) and likewise encouragesanorexia. positionis the reverseof Bynum's. Camporesi's of the Christian attitude toward As PeterBrownshows, the positivecomponents a body transfigured by asceticismdo not precludea strong soul/bodydualism. they emphasize This is also the opinionof EricAlliez andMichelFeher,although orientedEast andthe Westthat the differencesbetweenthe moreNeoplatonically 19 of Christ. looks for a model in the Passionand Resurrection A secondpolaritythatshouldbe kept in mindis thatbetweenmanandwoman. in PrudenceAllen's Its intellectualhistory has been thoroughlyreconstructed positions book TheConceptof Woman.20Allen tracesthe originsof the prevalent back to an ancient medical debate about the conceming gender differentiation of women's seed to the generation of a new being. Fourpossibilities contribution exist, giving rise to four theories:sex unity (male and female seeds are equally fertile: Plato), sex polarity (male seed is fertile, female seed is infertile: and sex complementarity (semen is nondifferentiated), Aristotle),sex neutrality Amongall these, the Aristotelian theories:Empedocles,Heraclitus). (double-seed theoryof sex polaritywould prevail,accordingto which womanis "a deformed not deprivedof semen, her animalium 716a), for although male" (de generatione
Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast, p. 25. Ibid., pp. 206-7. 16 Ibid., pp. 294-96. 17 Piero Camporesi, "The ConsecratedHost: A WondrousExcess," in Fragments, 1:221-37, translatedfrom his La casa dell'eternitd (Milan, 1987). 18 Ibid., p. 228. 19E. Alliez and M. Feher, "Reflections of a Soul," in Fragments, 2:47-84. 20 Prudence Allen, R.S.M., The Concept of Woman: The Aristotelian Revolution, 750 B.C.-A.D. 1250 (Montreal, 1985); see also Giulia Sissa, "Subtle Bodies," in Fragments, 3:133-56, esp. 137-40.
14 15

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seed is cold, infertile,and soulless. In conclusion,man and womanare to each other in the same relationship as the soul is to the body: the formeris active, rational,madeto rule, while the latteris passive, irrational, made to obey. Man is hot, fertile, and perfectlyformed,and contributes soul to the generation of a new being;womanis cold, infertile,anddeformed,and contributes the body. In Romantimes, the Aristotelian was the mostinfluential. theoryof sex polarity Like Platohimself, Middle-andNeoplatonists to oscillatebetweensex polarity appear and sex unity, with occasionalelementsof sex neutrality, accordingto which, manandwomanmaybe oppositeto eachotherin theirqualitiesandtheir although role in generation, they sharenevertheless the samevirtuesandthe samewisdom. Porphyry (233-305) favorscompleteequalityof men and women on the ground thatthey have an equal sharein soul, generation,and virtue, wherebythey are equallyable to become philosophers.EarlyChristian theologiansare in general notconsistentwith any of the above-mentioned theories.Augustine,in particular, would make use of all of them, not mindingtheircontradictions; and he would keep the roadto women's sainthood completelyopen. In his Periphyseon (537d), JohnScotusErigena withthe (800-875) holdsthe view thatgenderwill disappear Resurrection.All this shows that the Aristotelianview was not adopted by beforethe LateMiddleAges. It would firstappearin the Arabicand Christianity Jewishcommentators andwouldbe takenover by Western scholasticslike Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas. The latter's "combinationof originalityand dependenceon Aristotle gave a deeper rationale for sex polarity than had existed. His theologicalclaim thatsex polaritywas entirelyconsistent previously with Christianreligious teaching made sex polarity invulnerableto criticism '21 withinthe Christian world for centuriesto come.' Bell's thesisthatthe Reformation of male authorities was a totalitarian attempt to controlwhatwas supposed in the to be "disorderly" womanhood findssupport of radicalAristotelian views of sex polarity.The chronologyof the penetration ultimatemonument of misogynyis the 1486Malleusmaleficarum of the German andJacobSprenger, inquisitors HenryInstitoris whose book 1, chapter 6, lists the reasons why the majority of witches are women and, coming up with an of ancientauthoritative impressiveapparatus the intrinquotations,demonstrates sic inferiorityof women. In summation,woman is "an imperfect animal" (Aristotle),carnal,naturally evil for lackof faith(in fact, theygavethe etymology of the wordfemina asfe andminus, "withoutfaith"!), impulsive,untrustworthy for lack of memory,emotional, destructive,and naturallymendacious.22 This is very characteristic attitude of the European and Refonnation, pre-Reformation a Christian fundamentalist revival whose theologywas mainly Augustinian, yet whose basic assumptions were Aristotelian as well.23As is usuallythe case, the
Allen, p. 251. On the Malleus, see my article, "Sacrilege," in The Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. M. Eliade (New York, 1987), 12:557-63. 23 See Jean Delumeau, La Peur en Occident, X!Ve-XV!lle siecles (Paris, 1978), esp. pp. 305-44; and Pierre Darmon, Mythologie de lafemme dans l'Ancienne France, XV!e-XlXe siecle (Paris, 1983).
21
22

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revolution"of the twelfth and seeds of repressionhidden in the "Aristotelian which characthirteenth centuriescoincidedwith the increasein permissiveness in the fifteenth andfirsttwo decadesof the terizedthe sameperiodandculminated sixteenth century. The very complexity of this historical process defies any two unilateral explanation,as we will shortly see, mainlythroughinvestigating and institutionsmeant to satisfy basic needs of the humanbody: prostitution publicbaths, both used as examplesin differenttheoriesof culture. bordellos,both state and privatelyowned, startswith The historyof Western B.C. Athens. One could open a dikterion the Greek dikterionin sixth-century The institution, provided one paidthepornik6telos,the tax onporneiaor harlotry. whose ritualsand prices are knownfrom variousreports,was very lucrativefor overone thousand courtesans cities like Corinth,wherein thetempleof Aphrodite were operating. In Rome, the lupanarium(from lupa, literally "she-wolf," of the metaphor actually"bitch") seems alreadyto loom behindthe mythological by a lupa. Aroundthe beginningof foundation of the city by an orphannurtured the Common Era there were thirty-twothousandprostitutesin Rome, for a of approximately one million. Like the Greekdicteriadae,the Roman population were registeredfor life with the authorities.All possible categories meretrices called existed, from the highly expensivecourtesansto the cemeteryprostitutes at funerals.Romanbordelloswere bustuariae,who also acted as paid mourners males would also sell their charms. Public establishments: equal-opportunity were already the mostcommonplacefor quick bathsdisguisedas massageparlors fornication.24 Whoever believes that the institution was suppressed in the was imposedby MiddleAges is wrong:the only temporary Christian suppression the Germansafter the fall of the WesternEmpire in 476. Among the great the mostprominent inventions anddiscoveriesclaimedby the sixthcentury, being the plow and the bed, one rediscoverystandsout: the brothel.Feudalbordellos would accompany moving armiesin a tent or would settle in houses of business in the cities, wherethey generallywould be tolerated.In Parisaround1230 the QuartierLatin is depicted by Jacquesde Vitry as an ancient version of Rue Saint-Denisor Place Pigalle, where prostitutes would dragclerics to apparently the brothels or, if they declined the offer, would call them sodomites. Yet in accordingto Leah L. Otis, who analyzedthe history of the establishment Provencebetween the thirteenthand the sixteenthcenturies, even earlier the church recognized prostitutionas a malum necessarium,condemning only procurement as sinful encouragementof debauchery.25 In thirteenth-century Provencebordellosare expelled from the centerof the cities (Toulouse,Carcassonne), yet toleratedextra muros. In the late fourteenthand early fifteenth is institutionalized, the women becomingliterallypublic, centuriesprostitution themselves, they were propertyof the municipality for, like the establishments under protectionof the French crown and would occasionally performtheir
24 See Emmett Murphy, Great Bordellos of the World: An Illustrated History (London, Melbourne, and New York, 1983), pp. 32-33. 25 Leah L. Otis, Prostitution in Medieval Society: The History of an Urban Institution in Languedoc (Chicago, 1985).

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in III in Nuremberg duty by enliveningparades.They greetedFrederick patriotic CharlesV cameto visit the city, they appeared 1471, andlater,when the emperor of flowers. . . only. But all of a sudden,under in frontof him dressedin garlands the influence of a complex of misogynous ideas conveyed by the Protestant in France,bordellosaresuppressed whichwas powerfulin southern Reformation, rightin claimingthat Otisis undoubtedly century.26 by the mid-sixteenth Provence a similar evolution occurredall over Europe. That this took place under the hadalreadyset is againbeyonddoubt.Pre-Reformers of the Reformation pressure and paganfeasts. One of the most zealous in the fightagainstharlotry standards was JohannesGeiler of Kaysersberg(1445-1510), a doctor of theology from in 1477 and cathedral at the Strassburg Basel (1475) who was hiredas a preacher was laterchaplainto the emperorMaximilian.Geiler,who at his deathwas one of the most influentialand respectedGermanhumanists,had opposed, "like a he In particular, bronzewall, the streamof vices" of the city of Strassburg.27 foughtto suppressa numberof innocuousand very ancientfeasts and carnivals which took place in the cathedral(including the widespreadrite of reversal from celebrated by the choirboyson the day of the Innocents),to banprostitution laws, andhe inveighedagainstindecentfashion the city, andto enforcesumptuary amongwomen. Between 1480 and 1482 the city councilyielded andsome of the reformswere enacted,althoughnot the penaltyof deathhe had fiercepreacher's This was only a preludeto the repressivelegislation proposedfor blasphemy.28 forty years later. broughtaboutby the Reformation The example of Geneva is even more eloquent. Prostitutionwas a state was forbidden,and the mainbordelloin 1428 was institution,streetprostitution gate, in a neighborhoodmuch frequentedby located near Saint Christopher queen.Between 1481 electeda highlyrespected clerics.From1413the prostitutes towardprostitution (includingthe queen)and mixedpublic and 1491 the attitude for indecencyand neighbors Denouncedby outraged bathschangeddramatically. of both kinds would close duringthe first otheroffenses, many establishments decadesof the sixteenthcentury.Calvin suppressesthem altogetherin 1543.29 Examplescould be multiplied.The city of Venice, as usual, does not follow the are not closed until the eighteenth mainEuropean majorestablishments pattern: century (between 1747 and 1774),3? this because the city was proud of its unequaledinstitutionof the "cortegiane," geisha-like courtesanswho would platformshoes (an imitationof the appearin public wearingtwenty-inch-high
26 27

See Otis's excellent analysis, ibid., pp. 42-45. See l'Abbe Leon Dacheux, Un Reformateurcatholique a la fin du XVe siecle: Jean Geiler de Kaysersberg,pre'icateur d la cathedrale de Strasbourg, 1478-1510 (Paris and Strasbourg, 1876). 28 Ibid., pp. 69-72. 29 See Henri Naef, Les Origines de la Rforme d Geneve, vol. 1, La cite des e6veques; IHumanisme; les signes precurseurs (Geneva, 1968), pp. 219-30. 30 Antonio Barzaghi, Donne o cortigiane? La prostituzionea Venezia:Documenti di costume dal XVI al XVIIIsecolo (Verona, 1980).

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Arabickapkap,similarto the Spanishchapines).3' A sixteenth-century cortegiana was a highly paid professional,very well educated,who could sing, dance, and a modelof elegance, good manners,andcleanlinessfor play musicalinstruments, all of hercontemporaries. Althoughthe life of a cortegiana,who receiveda salary from six or seven constantlovers and was allowed to entertainforeignersat a in her luxurioushouses, was full of hazards,the professionattracted nighttime of the Renaissance.At least few amongthe most respectedwomen intellectuals two of the most famous poetesses of the sixteenthcentury,VeronicaFranco (1546-91) and GasparaStampa(1525-54), became courtesansby their own choice. A catalogof 1556 publishedby Barzaghilists the 210 top courtesansof Venice, with names, addresses,and fees.32The highestfee was thirtyscudi, the of four months'salaryfor a physicianor surgeon.Venice'sjealously equivalent guarded religiousindependence mayexplainwhy the generalsocialrulesenforced by the Reformation werenot appliedtherebeforewell into the eighteenth century. of prostitution. The historyof publicbathsclosely follows the pattern Georges Vigarello,the author of Le corps redresse,of whicha chapter has been translated in Fragments,part 2, has more recentlypublisheda historyof bathsin France between the thirteenthand eighteenthcenturies(now also availablein English translation).33 This work is especially interestingsince it raises a theoretical thatpublicbathsclosed all of a suddenin all major question.Vigarelloascertains French cities between 1510 and 1561 because they were alleged to provide avenues of contamination by plague. Physicians supportedthese allegations, emphasizing the healthhazardsof the baths. In 1651 public bathsin Pariswere long forgotten.ForJeanRiolanthe discoverythatone hundred fifty yearsearlier they were flourishingis quite a shock. They were created in the twelfth to thirteenth centuries,probably underthe influenceof the Moorishhammam;34 in 1292 Paris had twenty-six public baths. In seventeenth-century Paris no such
31 On the history of the Venetianzoccoli, see Giovanni Grevemborch,Gli Abiti de Veneziani di quasi ogni etd con diligenza raccolti e dipinti nel secolo XVII (Venice, 1981), 1:136; Paul Weber,Schuhe: Drei Jahrtausendein Bildern (Aarau and Stuttgart, 1980), pp. 54-56. On the Europeanand British expansion of the chapines fashion, see Florence E. Ledger,Put YourFoot Down: A Treatise on the History of Shoes (Melksham, 1985), pp. 66-74. 32 Barzaghi, pp. 155-67. 33 Georges Vigarello, Le corps redresse: Histoire d'un pouvoir pedagogique (Paris, 1978), "The UpwardTrainingof the Body from the Age of Chivalryto CourtlyCivility," in Fragments, 2:149-99, and Le propre et le sale: L'hygiene du corps depuis le Moyen Age (Paris, 1985), English trans., Concepts of Cleanliness: Changing Attitudesin France since the Middle Ages, trans. Jean Birrell (New York, 1988). 34 Over hammamsor public baths in Muslim Spain there is a rich literature: see Philip Aziz, La civilisation hispano-mauresque(Geneva, 1977), pp. 160-73; Rachel Arie, Espafia musulmana (Siglos VIII-XV)(Barcelona, 1987), pp. 302-5. It is a fact that Christiansbelieved the hammamto be a house of promiscuityand pleasure. In most cases this was wrong:Moorishbaths were not promiscuous,and Muslim sexology discouragedintercoursein bathhouses: "Nor is the bathhouse the place for coitus," says the early fifteenth-centuryThe Glory of the Perfumed Garden: The Missing Flowers: An English Translationfrom the Arabic of the Second and Hitherto UnpublishedPart of ShaykhNafzawi's PerfumedGarden (London, 1975), p. 227.

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was left. The only, almost clandestine,baths were functioningin establishment private aristocratichotels. Only a very few houses owned a bathtub. The courtloved water,yet for the eye, not for the body.Therewouldbe no Versailles comebackof the privatebathuntil the eighteenthcentury. The theoreticalquestion raised by Vigarello's work stems from his total civilization theoryof the sociogenesisof Western to the evolutionary commitment defended by NorbertElias. According to Elias, the developmentof Western civilization was marked by "the increased tightening and differentiationof and controls,"which led graduallyto a "higher level of social differentiation Obviously, Elias could not leave recent permissivenessunacintegration."35 of rules: reductionof knowledged, yet he explained it as an internalization externalcontrol becomes possible if it is replaced by tight internalcontrol. terms: Accordingly,Vigarellotracesthe historyof public baths in evolutionary andrevelry;the medievalbathsare associatedwith eroticpleasures,promiscuity, actsuponthe premisethatthereshouldbe distancebetweenthe century fourteenth sexes; the fifteenthcenturycompletelyfulfills this premiseby eliminatingmixed baths; the sixteenth century suppressesbaths altogether,in order to enforce policy. Vigarello'sLe corps redressesimilarlyoffers an evoluantiprostitution for the straight postureof the upperbody, which would have tionaryexplanation been enforcedupon the nobilitystartingfrom the sixteenthcentury.36 Elias's and Vigarello's theses have been not only thoroughlycriticizedbut HansPeterDuerr.37 philosopher actuallyreversedin a recentbookby the German According to him, Westerncivilization is going through a slow process of Duerr looseningcontrolthrougha lessening of social constraints.In particular, of of publicbathswas not a resultof the appearance showsthatthe disappearance morephysicaldistancebetweenthe sexes. Those rules rulesthatwouldprescribe had alreadyexisted from time immemorial,and in most humansocieties. Most andthose thatwere should were not linkedwith prostitution, bathestablishments be treatedas brothelsin disguise. Yet Duerrdoes not connect in any way the or bathswith the Reformation. of eitherprostitution suppression seem to agree today on the negative views of Historiansof Protestantism reformers,in woman, sexuality, and marriageheld by the sixteenth-century as a movementof of the Reformation contrastto the commonmisinterpretation tendsto emphasizerather recentresearch of women.38 On the contrary, liberation but whichis not a sacrament of Protestant marriage, the negativecharacter sharply an almost evil institutionnecessaryonly because of the weaknessof the flesh. Shortlyit became,in Luther'sown terms, "ein Spitallder Siechen,"a "hospital
35 On Elias, see Stephen Mennell, Norbert Elias: Civilization and the Human Self-Image (Oxford, 1989). 36 Vigarello, The Upward Trainingof the Bodyfrom the Age of Chivalry to Courtly Civility, p. 153. The discovery that all possible educationalrules were enforced by the Jesuits (pp. 184 ff.) does not, however, make Vigarello ask the question whetherthe so-called evolution was not in fact a revolution producedby the Reformation. 37 Hans Peter Duerr,Nacktheitund Scham: Der Mythos vom Zivilisationsprozess(Frankfurt, 1988); see my review, "Naked Is Shameful," History of Religions 29 (1990): 420-22. 38 See Martin E. Marty, Protestantism(New York, 1972), pp. 242-50.

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for the sick."39 Luther abolished prostitution,closed the brothels and the convents, and made marriagecompulsoryfor every woman. Accordingto the radicalAristotelian tradition of sex polarityin whichhe was raised,Luther saw in every womanan instrument of the devil, whom the maritalbondswere meantto chastise. This createdin Germanhistoryan opposition,still powerfulunderthe Nazi regime, betweenmarried and unmarried women. The latterwere the object of social contemptandfaced the everydayhazards of a precarious existence.The connotationof words expressingthe conditionof unmarried women (spinster, whore, nun, witch) is negative.40 PierreDarmonalso sees in the Reformation the principal causeof the spreadof misogynyin Francein the sixteenthand seventeenth The specialtyof centuries.41 all greatseventeenth-century preachers consistedof fulminating againstthe flesh and particularly against the currentwomen's fashion that exposed half of the breasts.Protestants and Catholicsalike began the offensive around1550. "La batailledu sein" would continueuntil the end of the seventeenth century.In the 1630s severalpreachers advisedthatwomen, even if, regrettably, they could not follow the salutaryChinese fashion of foot binding, which would naturally preventthemfromleavingtheirhomes, shouldneverthelessnot appearin public unveiled.42 Womanhood is especiallydenounced for being concupiscent (Augustine and Luther). Most seventeenth-century religious authorswould insist on women'ssexualinsatiability, on the abnormal sexualrelationsthey engagedin by reasonof theirunquenchable lust for sex. All of them adheredto the venerable patristic tradition which ascribesto womena largercapacityfor sex thanmen. In 1617 a certain Jacques Olivier, "licencie ex lois du Droit canon," issues
anonymously an Alphabet de l'imperfection et de la malice des femmes which is

a mockeryof the litaniesof the Virgin, listingin alphabetical orderthe retinueof evils that follow the abomination called woman:Avidissimum animal, Bestiale
baratrum, Concupiscentia carnis, Duellum damnosum, Estuans aestans (for her

"burning"lustfulness),etc. And elsewherewomanis called "la plus imparfaite des creaturesde l'univers, l'ecume de la nature, le seminairedes malheurs, l'allumette du vice, la sentined'ordure,un mal necessaireet un plaisirdommageable.'43 A passionatedebate followed, quenchedafter a few years, in which Olivier's misogyny was almost unanimouslydeplored. Yet his book was the carrier of a popularfeeling stemmingfrom the union of Christian doctrinewith Aristotelianism, cementedby the powerfulfire of Reformation. It may perhapsbe inferred fromThomasW. Laqueur's article "Amorveneris, vel dulcedo appelletur"that otherfactorsmade the matterof sex polarityeven
39 See esp. DagmarLorenz, VomKloster zur Kuche: Die Frau vor und nach der Reformation Dr. MartinLuthers, in Die Frau von der Reformationzur Romantik:Die Situationder Frau vor dem Hintergrund der Literatur- und Sozialgeschichte, ed. Barbara Becker-Cantarino(Bonn, 1987), pp. 7-35. 40 According to Lorenz, although a Catholic, Hitler shared the values of a good German Lutheran(ibid., pp. 29-30). 41 Darmon (n. 23 above), pp. 33 ff. 42 Ibid., pp. 44-45. 43 Ibid., pp. 3 ff.

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In 1492 Christopher discoveredAmerica; in 1559 morecomplicated.44 Columbus RenaldusColumbus discovereda new continentof the female body:the clitoris, definedfor centuriesto come as a miniature penis.45 The news musthavecaused a shock comparable to that of the acknowledgment of the "solitary vice" in women by the mid-nineteenth century,for it was actuallythe precondition for autoeroticpracticesand even, as AmbroisePare had alreadyremarked in the sixteenth century, for tribadismor homoerotic gratification.Yet during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the woman's genital apparatusis also as the perfectnegativeof a penis, a penis revertedor a commonlyinterpreted hollow penis. This view, on the one hand, derives from the conceptionof the womanas an imperfectman and, on the other,continuesto enforceit. Another fresh suspicion cast on women by many respectableanatomistsstartingwith Ambroise Pard stems from the controversyaround the hymen, whose very existenceis doubted.This adds one morecomplaintagainstwomento the many of chastityis an invention, accumulated previously,for if the preciousmembrane then the value of virginity,for whose loss, accordingto SaintJerome,not even God can make up, may after all not be so high.46Even if twentieth-century conclusionthat the hymen does physicianshave come to the incontrovertible exist, the issue of the physicalityof this membrane may actuallybe unimportant. to it by the humanmind.The sameapplies Whatmatters is the meaningattached to the body as a whole: it is an extensionof the mind, and a play of the mindas well. The mindturnsthe body into a complex metaphor. IV. BODY ANDBODICE As JacquesLe Goff shows in his authoritative article "Head or Heart?The PoliticalUse of Body Metaphors in the MiddleAges," boththe body as a whole andits partsareinvolvedin a complexplay of semanticoppositions.47 The naked bodysignifiesan implicitopposition withthe clothedbody (andvice versa),being a sign integrated into a languagebasedon vast cultural premises.48 Why does the body have to be clothed? Two polar theories exist, one especially influential betweenAugustineandthe end of the nineteenth centuryand the otherthereafter. The formeris usually known as "modesty" or "lust-shame"theory:human beingsareto covertheirbodiesout of modestyanddecency.Women'sclothingis supposedto be both an obstacle to the eye and a sign of male ownership.But between 1880 and 1890 anthropologists came to thinkthat dress functionsas a sexual stimulant,not as a depressant.This led to the theoryof "immodesty," accordingto which dress is meant not to cover but to uncover.Freudtried to combinethe two by emphasizing of scoptophilia, the gender-related occurrence or
"Thomas W. Laqueur,"Amor Veneris, vel dulcedo appelletur,"in Fragments, 3:91-131. 45 Actually, the clitoris was known by Greek and Arabic medicine (see ibid., pp. 108-9). Columbus rediscovers it. 46Sissa (n. 20 above), 3:143-54. 47 Jacques Le Goff, "Head or Heart? The Political Use of Body Metaphorsin the Middle Ages," in Fragments, 3:13-27. 48 Mario Perniola, "Between Clothing and Nudity," in Fragments, 2:237-65.

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the "libidofor looking,"andexhibitionism, or "libidofor beinglookedat." Men would be highly scoptophilicand women highly exhibitionistic.The Freudian J. C. Flugel, authorof ThePsychologyof Clothes,emphasizestwo basic aspects of clothing:its ambivalence,stemmingfromthe fact thatclothescover the body, yet at the same time attractattentionto it, and its being the result of the displacement of one's unconscious conflictbetweenexhibitionism andmodesty.49 It follows thatpublicfeelings aboutfashionare actuallydisplacedfeelings about sexuality.50 This is a way to explain the phenomenon called "feminization"of fashionthat startedtowardthe end of the eighteenthcentury,when creativityin fashion became almost exclusively reserved to women, men's fashion being functional. Yet the preferredalternativeis still ThorsteinVeblen's theory of "vicariousconsumption": the aristocracy used clothing to display conspicuous consumptionas a sign of wealth and thereforeof conspicuous leisure and conspicuous waste.5'ReligiousPuritanism into the sphereof clothingthe brought visible sign of innerworldly asceticism,andfor a while it was fashionable for both sexes to dress inconspicuously. Yet, if men's clothes stabilizeand do not show majorchangesafterthe end of the eighteenth century,womencontinueto display conspicuous leisure. This is the famous "vicarious consumption" theory, to which the womanendorsesvicariouslythe man's need for conspicaccording uous consumption. For men, vicarious consumptionis actually a form of waste:in a beautifuldressthe wife or mistresscannotengagein any conspicuous 52 Apparently, productive activity. women'sliberation fromconspicuous leisurein fashioncoincideswith WorldWar1;53 and shortlybeforethat (ca. 1900-1905), corsetshad become discreteand adherent to the body.54 If clothingis an extensionof the body (J. C. Flugel) andthe body signifiesan extensionof the mind, the significanceof the body corsetedis difficultto read. One wouldbe temptedto treatthe corsetas one of the manysymbolsof captivity that were turnedinto status symbols and ended up emphasizingconspicuous leisureand waste.55Yet this would be too simple. Let us examinethe shocking revelationthat the undressedbody of the mystic Colombada Rieti (b. 1466) reserved to a bunchof rapistswho assailedheron Friday,August22, 1488, when she was wandering far from home: "They beganto rip off her clothes, stopping when they heardwhat they took to be the jingling of coins in only momentarily her pocket, but that turned out to be the noise of her crucifix hitting her
flagellum.
49 50

. .

. Still they tore away her vestments, stripping Colomba down to the

J. C. Flugel,The Psychology of Clothes (London,1930). See Valerie Steele, Fashion and Eroticism: Ideals of Feminine Beautyfrom the Victorian Era to the Jazz Age (New York and Oxford, 1985). 51 ThorsteinVeblen, Theoryof Leisure Class, rev. ed. (New York, 1934). 52 See Quentin Bell, On Human Finery, 2d ed. (New York, 1976), pp. 118 ff.
53 54

Ibid.

See Elizabeth Ewing, Dress and Undress: A History of Women'sUnderwear (New York, 1978). 55 See Mary Lou Rosencranz, Clothing Concepts: A Social-Psychological Approach (New Yorkand London, 1972), pp. 131 ff. Rosencranzwould treatas reversedsymbols of slavery the nose rings used by Kuna and San Blas women in Panama,Arabianheavy anklets, Chinese bound feet, Western platform shoes in the sixteenth century (by 1530, not 1430, as it is stated on p. 133), and long fingernailsin ancient China.

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iron belt threefingerswide with which she punishedher nakedhips and then to herhairshirt withtwo studded ironchainsstrapped around herneck andacrossher
breasts."56

Colomba'sbody is no body:it is flesh recklesslychastisedfor the kingdomof heaven,in memorynot only of the sufferingsof Christ'shumanbody but also of so many lives of ancient women saints like Barbara,Catherine,Juliana, and whose exquisitebeautyarousedthe lust of powerfulpaganpretenders. Margaret, Rejected,the men tumed into beasts and committedthe innocentcharmsof the saints to ferocious hangmen. Their bodies, first whipped in public, were atrociouslymutilated:breasts and feet were cut off, and then the heads, or otherwise the saintswerehangedandthendismembered, or directlycut into small pieces.5 The bodice functionsas an ideal deterrent (especiallyif it is an ironcage) and instrument of self-chastisement (as the hair shirt), yet ironicallyit is also an instrument of fashionin use since the "fashionrevolution of the twelfthcentury" (a new traitto be addedto the twelfth-century Renaissance),which sees for the firsttime loose clothingtuminginto tight-fitting and waistedclothes with lacing. In the sixteenthcenturyall sorts of corsets were in use: corsets with whalebone busks, ironcorsets, or stiff "bodies" madeof wood or bone (displayedas outer clothing).Starchis a Dutchinvention,introduced to England by Madame Digham VanderPlasse in 1564 and used duringthe seventeenthcenturyto keep up the hugeruffsor lace collars.By the mid-sixteenth centurya cage similarto thecorset is used to supportthe weight of an extremelywide dress. It comes from Spain, where it is called verdugado(from verdugo, "stick"); in English it becomes Around1855 the cage crinoline,a new versionof the farthingale, "farthingale." appearsin England.Ten years laterit is replacedby the bustle behind, madeof horsehair anddimityand wom with cuirassebodices,poitrinesadherentes made of rubber,and other such accessories.The Pre-Raphaelite womangives up the corset and the conspicuous waist to returnto the "antique waist," and the movement of "rational dress" would reduce the tortures inflicted upon the woman'sbody to a rationalminimum.58 David Kunzle, who in the Fragmentscontributes an article on pulling teeth from the seventeenthto the nineteenthcenturies, is an expert on cosmetic martyrdom.59 He has written a history of body sculpturein the West with particularemphasis on tight lacing, starting from the debatableconcept of "fetishism," used by him to indicate a particular yet not necessarilyperverse attachment to objects in contact with certain erogenous zones of the female body.60 (As we know, in his 1927 article "Fetishism"Freudexplainedthis form of exclusively male perversityas a resultof the young son's frustration with the
R. Bell (n. 10 above),pp. 153-54. See Brigitte Cazelles,Le Corpsde Saintete, JehanBouche d'apres d'Or,JehanPauluset viesdesXIIeet XIIIesiecles(Geneva,1982). quelques 58 Forthe history of the corset,see Ewing,pp. 18 ff. 59DavidKunzle,"The Art of PullingTeethin the Seventeenth andNineteenth Centuries: From Public to Private Martyrdom andPolitical Nightmare in Fragments, 3:29-89. Struggle?" 60 DavidKunzle,Fashionand Fetishism: A SocialHistoryof the Corset,Tight-Lacing and Other Formsof Body-Sculpture in the West (Totowa, N.J., 1982).
56

57

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absenceof his mother'spenis. The fetish is a substitute for the mother'spenis, whose importance is transferred uponanother partof the femalebodyor uponthe )61 David Kunzle interprets postpiece of clothing in contact therewith. Reformation of medieval painful feminine body sculptureas a secularization the nineteenth-century penitential practices; womanwouldkeep up, accordingly, to some extent,Colombada Rieti's bodychastisement, endowingit with variable and therebycombiningasceticismwith sexual allurement.62 significance Kunzle notes thatthe corsetfashionstemsfromthe Protestant perceptively secularization of pain: "Protestantism discouragedthe showierforms of religiousself-denial, and refused women the right to set themselvesapart in nunneriesin order to practice them.Penitential to everydaylife and painanddisciplineweretransferred ordinary things:education,household,work, and even dress. The overt antagonism betweenthe religious-ascetic andthe eroticis a psychologicalcontradiction which mysticsand fetishistsin theirvery differentways attemptto reconcile."63 his bookKunzleuses religiousmetaphors Throughout to describetheexperience of tightlacing, in whichhe ultimatelysees botha formof ecstaticmysticismand 64Although a disciplinal ritual thatbearsa resemblance to equinedisciplines. it may well manipulate male fantasies,fetishisticfashiondoes not originatein thembut in women'screativeuse of thebody.65 Valerie aboutKunzle'suse Steele, skeptical of theterm"fetishism,"shares,nevertheless, his overallconclusions: thesymbols of oppressionworn by Victorianwomen (tight-lacedcorset, high-heeledshoe, turnedinto symbolsof domination bustle, etc.) were actuallysemantically over males.6 Victorian fashionwas opposednot so muchby feministsas by Puritans, and it is doubtfulthatwomen's emancipation went handin handwith the eliminationof the cumbersome Victorian attire.67 Howeversuggestive,the secularization theoryendorsedby both Kunzleand Steele shows the same ambivalence as clothingitself: it uncoversone partof the truthand covers the other. V. A
BODY FORNOBODY

Medieval people, like their Greek and Roman predecessors,lived in a world inhabited by manyunquantifiable presences.68 Unlikegods and ghosts, monsters are closer to humanbeings. They are describedand depictedby the science of teratology(from teras, Greekfor monster).One of the earliestmanualsof tera61 62 63

Steele(n. 50 above),pp. 32-33. andFetishism, Kunzle,Fashion pp. 11-12.

Ibid., p. 12. For a good sample of Puritancovert chastisement of the female body, see

William Law,Works, vol. 4, A Serious Callto a Devout andHolyLife,adapted to theStateand

Conditionof all Orders of Christians (London, 1762), chap. 19: "Showing how the method of educatingdaughters, makes it difficult for them to enter into the spiritof Christianhumility.How miserably they are injured and abused by such an education. The spirit of a better education, representedin the characterof Eusebia." 64 Kunzle, Fashion and Fetishism, pp. 39, 246. 65 Ibid., pp. 41 ff. 66 Steele, p. 4. 67 Ibid. 68 See especially my book, ErosandMagicin theRenaissance (Chicago, 1987).

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tology, the Physiologus,was composedin the second to thirdcenturiesC.E. and circulated in manyversionsthroughout the MiddleAges. Othertreatises belonged to the medievalgenre of the mirabilia,like the Libermonstrorum, composedin Englandby the mid-eighthcenturyfor use in conventualentertainment.69 It is divided into three books: humanmonsters,monstersof the earth and sea, and serpents.Forour purposethe firstbook, featuringfifty-sixmonsters,is the most interesting. Along with the classicalhybrids(fauns, mermaids, centaurs,onocentaurs,androgynes), it describesraces of people deprivedof mouthand digestive apparatus, sustained by breath alone;headlesspeoplecalledepifugifroman island on theriverBrixon,a livingexampleof reduction of redundancy andself-mimicry, insofaras theybearall the organsof theirnonexistent headson theirshoulders and breasts; womenwho wouldbe fertile at five anddie at the age of eight;andother women, tall, very attractive, with two camel feet andtwo oxtails on the sides. It appears thatmedievalimagination wouldcombinehumanbeingswith manysorts of animals, yet perhapscentaursand mermaidsare among the monstersmost resistantto age. The combination man-horse is ancientand powerful.The horse is a multifarious symbol, standingfor death, afterlife,status,nobility,elegance, and masteryover the body.70 Benignor malignant, monsterswere humankind's ambivalent neighbors.71 Yet someof themwerepartof humankind: women,constantly definedas "monsters' at least since the Councilof Maconin Burgundy held in 585 C.E.72 And whenthe Britishsatirical magazine Punch, whose firstissue appeared in 1841, depictedthe metamorphosis into cockroachesof fashionablewomen wearingcorset, bustle behind, and high-heeled shoes, this was only half intended as a jocular metaphor.73 Around the close of the nineteenthcentury, woman was often conceivedand represented as an ancient,monstrous,and versatileChimera,74 a being "hybrid, indecipherable, undetermined, hellish, interpretable, feminine, metaphorical, light, animal, fiery, raging, boundless, impossible."75 We will return to theserepresentations. The categoryof "monster"or "mutant"maywell applyto the changesoperatedby body sculpture on women, yet it is too vague. Some theories, often contradictory, have been devised to uncover the deep meaningof artificialyet durable corrections aboutby fashionin orderto brought createfrom an existing body the shape of a nonexisting,new species. We will
See Liber monstrorum,ed. Franco Porsia (Bari, 1976). See FernandBenoit, L'heroisationequestre (Aix-en-Provence, 1954). 71 See, for different categories of monsters, Ernst Lehner and JohannaLehner, A Fantastic Bestiary:Beasts and Monstersin Mythand Folklore (New York, 1969); on particularly obnoxious monsters, like werewolves and the chimera, see Joyce Carol Oates, "Metamorphosis and in franche-Comte, 1521-1643," in Fragments, 1:305-63; and GinevraBompiani, Lycanthropy "The ChimeraHerself," in Fragments, 1:365-409. 72 Darmon (n. 23 above); on medieval definitions of woman as defectus naturalis, animal occasionatum,or aberrationaturae, see ClaudeDulong, La vie quotidiennedesfemmesau Grand Siecle (Paris, 1984). 73 See ChristinaWalkley, The Wayto Wear'Em: 150 Yearsof "Punch" on Fashion (London, 1985). 74 See The EarthlyChimeraand the FemmeFatale: Fear of Women in Nineteenth-Century Art, introductionby R. Heller (Chicago, 1981). 75 Bompiani, p. 401.
69 70

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follow this process in reference to a few body sculpting devices such as high-heeledshoes and makeup. The existence of platformshoes in Venice as a shockingnovelty of fashion, introducedby courtesans, was for the first time describedin 1494 by Pietro Casola, a pilgrim to Jerusalem. Women walking on zoccoli looked in his bewilderedeyes like giants, and they could not walk unless supportedby a on each side. Zoccoli came via Turkey,whereplatformshoes were maidservant worn by women to avoid contactwith waterin publicbathsand filth on muddy at the beginningof the streets.In Christian Spainthey hadmadetheirappearance of Talavera criticizedthose troublesome fifteenthcentury;in 1438 the archpriest women who would wear los chapinesor tapinesornatewith silver or gold on leather, and forty years later Fray Hernandode Talaverawould lament the of the Chapines,which madecorkinto incredible heightandexcessive popularity for theirskirts and women'sclothes into an expensiveadventure, a rarematerial had to cover the shoes as well. From Spain, the Chapinesfound their way to with the blessing of the Church,which saw in Franceand England,apparently them unexpectedallies in its fight against women's dancing.76In Elizabethan Chopines)wouldreachthe unbelievEnglandthe Chapines(or, morefrequently, inches.77 able height of twenty-four by Agnes Accordingto the formalisttheoryof "cycles of fashion"formulated the same "cycle" as dresses(which BrookYoungin 1937, heels oughtto undergo vary from "tubular" to "back-full" to "bell shaped" and back again to of height "tubular")-that is, they shoulddecreasewhen they reacha maximum If "high-heeledcycles" do indeed and increasewhen they reacha minimum.78 "modis definitelymotivatedby ideologies encouraging exist, theirinterruption est," "natural,""aesthetic,"or "rational"clothing.Highheels were suppressed century,by "rationality"in the by Puritan"modesty" by the mid-seventeenth aftermathof the French Revolution, by the return to "nature" during the decades. Romanticperiod, and by "aesthetic" dress duringthe Pre-Raphaelite Yet from around 1850 high-heeled shoes make a steady returnin women's fashion, being occasionallyinhibitedthoughnever completelysuppressed.But what is achievedby wearinghigh-heeledshoes? The Chinese custom of foot binding may shed some light on the parallel fashionof high heels, which is said to derivefromplatformshoes in the Western sixteenth century. Foot binding is more ancient: it is attributedto Li Yu (937-978), second emperorof the SouthernT'ang dynasty,and to his favorite Into the early twentiethcentury,all middle-and upper-class wife, Yao-niang.79 Chinesegirls hadtheirfeet bound,startingfromthe age of five.80The procedure,
Weber(n. 31 above), p. 54. Ledger (n. 31 above), pp. 72-73. Agnes Brooks Young, RecurringCycles of Fashion, 1760-1937 (New York and London, 1937). 79 See Robert van Gulik, Sexual Life in Ancient China: A PreliminarySurvey of Chinese Sex and Societyfrom ca. 1500 B.C. till 1644 A.D. (Leiden, 1961), chap. 12. 80 R. L. McNabb, The Womenof the Middle Kingdom (Cincinnati and New York, 1903), pp. 21-22. See also Rev. JustusDoolittle, Social Life of the Chinese:WithSomeAccountof Their
76 77 78

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whichturned the Chinesewomaninto a symbolof conspicuous leisureandwaste, was extremelypainful: A longcottonbandage two or threeincheswideis thrown overthesmallfourtoes, andpressed andtheyaredrawn under up intothe fleshypartof the foot. Beingheld in thatposition, andceaseto grow.Theheel is drawn downand theybecomestunted of thefootis pressed thecenter upuntiltheinstep bulges outin front of theanklebone. The greattoe is left out, andforns the acuteangleof a triangle.. . . The largetoe beingallthatgoes intotheshoe,thegirlpractically walkson hergreat toe. Theprocess is painful, andsometimes to suchan extentthatit has to be taken the foot is injured
off.8'

The result was that the foot was actually changed into a hoof.82 This must have

resultedin a radicalchange in bodily postureand leg musculature. Van Gulik notesthatno otherpartof the body of a Chinesewomanwas surrounded by such interdictions as the bound feet, not even the genitals.83 Sexuality seems to be displacedon this artificialcreation,whose secret was jealously guarded,for a womanwould unbindher feet in frontof no one. Among the many theoriestryingto explainthe significanceof the fashionof high heels, none is entirely compelling. Most of them emphasizetheir erotic function,which, however,remainsvague. Let us examinea few of thesetheories. The phallicsymbolismof high heels was stressedby many,andthe acquisition of phallicfeet seems to fit into the Freudian of fetishist "displacement," pattern like Steele with acquisition traits.84 Fashion historians by the womanof predatory andKunzlewouldgenerallyadhereto the morecomplexinterpretation offeredby of high-heeledshoes in termsof WilliamA. Rossi, which explainsthe attraction the modificationof the bodily posture ("back arched, thrustingthe bosom of "the apparent contourof the legs, ankles, forward")and of the modification herlong legs seem made andfeet."85The womanbecomesa living contradiction: to takeoff at greatspeed, yet she hardlycan walk;she is aggressive,yet passive for being immobilized.86 of "hip action."87 Anotherresult is the enhancement The changein posture,however,seems to varywith the epoch:todayit involves a compensatory of bendingof the chin backwards, with corresponding protrusion both the buttocksand the chest, whereasin the 1870s it involved the famous "Grecianbend," producedby the thrusting forwardof the chin.88 All thesetheoriesderivefromcommonsense anddo notpretend to be definitive and "scientific." Not so, sociobiologicaltheories, howevercontradictory. BioEducational andBusiness Customs andOpinions Religious, Governmental, (New York,1865),
2:197 ff. 81 McNabb, pp. 22-23. 82 See van Gulik, pl. 12. 83 Ibid. 84 Kunzle, Fashion and Fetishism (n. 60 above), p. 16. 85 William A. Rossi, TheSexLifeof theFootandShoe(London, 1977).
86 87 88

andFetishism, Kunzle,Fashion p. 18.

Ibid., p. 22. Ibid., p. 19.

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logical explanationsusually carry some weight, yet they presupposegenetic factors which cannot yet be traced back to the human genetic map. Even supposingthatin the long run such a map would exist, manyfunctionscan be a matterof genetic correlation and would not appearon even the most complete map.It is, therefore, idle to speculate thatcertaincomponents of "human nature" may be genetic, since evidencefor thatmay never become available.89 The basis for the sociobiologicalinterpretation of fashionhas been laid by the workof DesmondMorrisand some European ethologists.90 A synthesishas been offeredin a personalworkby Russell Dale Guthrie,whose interpretations differ largely from Morris's.91 Entirely unacknowledgedby fashion historians, Guthrie's how debatable, theories,no matter seem moreappropriate to explainthe achievements of body sculpture thansimple common-sense hypotheses. Two basic conceptsare takenover by Guthriefrom DesmondMorris'swork. Thehumanspeciesis highlyneophilic(fondof novelty),andit is neotenic(fixated on youthand youthfultraits;fromthe Greekneotes, "youthful")to such a point thatwe may owe ourlack of body hairto this lattercharacteristic.92 Accordingly, neoteny is fundamentalas both a process and in its influence on fashion, especiallywomen's. The neotenicexplanation has been adoptedfrom Morrisby JohnLiggettin his historyof facial makeup.93 Liggettnotes thatthe female face shows the attributes of childhood.Accordingly,cosmetics are used to enhance them:white makeupproducesbulgingcheeks;a touchof rouge is reminiscent of a healthysportingchild;red lips, long eyelashes, andartificially enlarged pupils, likewise. Mascarais a signal of sexual recognition,due to the fact thatthe eye zone is naturally darkerin women thanthe rest of the face.94Anotherinterpretationdevisedby Morris,to which Liggettadheres,concems the sexualfunction of the humanface.95Guthriewould furtherexpandon this theoryof "automimicry," which together with the concept of neoteny provides the conceptual structure of his book. Amongthe severalcategoriesof social automimicry, in its the most important applicationto human fashion is sexual automimicry.Instances thereof are displayed,for example, by the male mandrill,whose face is a duplicateof the genitals,or by the femaleGeladababoon,whose chest displaysa genitalpattem. DesmondMorris'sinterpretation of female humanbreastsas a duplicateof the buttocks adaptedto coital frontal position has met with wide acceptancein His interpretation of the use of lipstickas an attempt sociobiology.96 to transform the mouth (or the entire face) into a duplicate of female genitals has been contestedon the groundthatred lips are a neotenicsignal. Accordingto Guthrie,
89 In thiswe do not sharethe optimism of Michael Senseor Nonsense? Ruse,Sociobiology: (Dordrecht, Boston,andLancaster, 1985). 90Desmond Morris, TheNaked Ape, 2d ed. (New York,1984). 9' R. Dale Guthrie, BodyHot Spots:TheAnatomy SocialOrgansand Behavior of Human (New York,1976). 92 Morris, p. 35. 93 JohnLiggett,TheHuman Face(New York,1974). 94 Ibid.,pp. 21-25. 95Ibid.,pp. 158 ff., basedon Morris, p. 63. 96Guthrie, p. 104.

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by women's clothingor makeuphave to be interpreted manysignalstransmitted in neotenickey; to those alreadymentionedwe shouldadd the miniskirtand the of skin. Blondhairis stocking,whose functionis to suggestyouthfulsmoothness a neotenictraitselectedby nature(children'shairtendsto be lighterthanthe hair of adults).Men shave theirbeardsto appearyouthful. the humanfrontalcoital position, humanshave in However,notwithstanding commonwith primatesthe buttocksas the most erogenouszone, signalingthe "hot spot" of the vulva. Accordingto Guthrie,the signalingfunctionextends partof the legs. "The lines of the buttocks,thigh, calf and downto the posterior with high-heeled butthis can be increased anklehave a nativesexualstimulation, shoes; the curves are exaggeratedwhen the heel is lifted. These curves are in a ballerina's toe stance.'97 Thus, rumpdisplaywouldbe apparent particularly of high heels. the key to the attractiveness shoes endowwoman It is, however,only one key. Likeboundfeet, high-heeled with an artificialhoof, turningher into a gracefulmonster,perhapshalf woman and half horse, endowedwith the elegance of the animal,not with its speed. to a certainextent, the most difficultpart Even if this conclusionis acceptable how are we supposedto evaluatefashion and still remainsto be accomplished: to malefantasies, heraccording cosmetics?Do theyenslavewoman,transforming do they allow womanto expresscreativitywithin a context or, on the contrary, Kunzle and which, for a long time, did not offer her many other alternatives? Steele would emphasize women's creative, almost religious, concern with fashion. In contrast, a recent book by Bram Dijkstrasees only negativityin imagesof women, whichhe believeswereentirelydetermined nineteenth-century types featuring by male fantasiesof evil.98Dijkstradevises eleven iconographic women in attitudes which, according to him, invariablyreflect an entirely negative,distortedconceptof womanhood.This applieseven to the "household making Madonna of Puritan nun, keeperof herhusband'ssoul," an innerworldly who is superior to men and bestowspeace and gentlenessupon them. The other types refer to woman's sickliness, to her torpid sexuality, to her alleged to man, masochism,to her passivityand narcissism,to her biologicalinferiority to her lack of intelligence, to her sexual insatiability,etc. These and other mindsof myriadsof fantasiesof feminineevil, certainlycreatedby the disturbed century. over the millennia,did indeedexist in the nineteenth male intellectuals Yet Dijkstra'sreadingof iconographyis often doubtfuland his interpretation 99 unilateral. of comes to an end. A number surveyof body literature Hereour fragmentary readingsof the body have been some alternative topics have been individuated, havebeenpointedout. It remains for further research offered,andsomedirections collectionof Fragments for a History only to thankthe editorsof the monumental of the Human Body for theirimpressiveenterprise.
Ibid., p. 95. BramDijkstra,Idols of Perversity:Fantasiesof FeminineEvil in Fin-de-Siecle Culture(New Yorkand Oxford, 1986). 99 According to his criteria, the only positive images of women could be found in Nazi or Stalinist art, with their emphasis on woman as a mother, a citizen, a producer,a soldier, etc.
97 98