Patricia Skinner (1) (1965–)

This fascinating book looks at social and medical responses to acquired facial injuries in the early medieval period. We speak of "the blind", "the deaf", "the lepers", Patricia Skinner notes, assuming that these physical characteristics created some form of shared identity among members of these groups in the Middle Ages—yet can we speak of "the disfigured" in the same way? Living with Disfigurement is to a great extent a foray into this field of study and so its findings are preliminary, and I'm a little uneasy at the prospect of trying to draw any kind of blanket conclusions from across an entire continent over a period of several hundred years. Still, I think in at least broad outline Skinner is correct to point to the idea of facial disfigurement as a sign of moral flaw as having very deep roots, and to this being a topic worthy of more attention and nuance than historians have previously given it. Well worth the read for those interested in the history of medicine and/or disability.… (more)

This is a really interesting collection of medieval primary sources in English translation—the editors have pulled together a wide range of sources relating to medieval lay women from birth to death. Conscious of the kinds of biases that usually affect such collections, they've purposefully tried to include sources from across the medieval world, from Scotland to Egypt, al-Andalus to Rus, relating to Christian, Jewish and Muslim women. It makes for interesting reading (divorces, suicides, elopements, oh my), though as with all source books it's not best suited to reading from cover to cover—it's best to dip in and out of it, for while the editors have loosely grouped the documents according to how they relate to the medieval ideal of the female life cycle, they're not otherwise organised chronologically/geographically. I'll definitely keep it to hand when putting together assignments in the future.… (more)