Review of The Sorrow of Soreness: Infirmity and Suicide in Medieval EnglandBy: Rebecca F. McNamara

HIST 2101Dr. Cynthia J NevilleMarch 9th 2016Amanda Iliadis- B00714773

1In her article The Sorrow of Soreness: Infirmity and Suicide in Medieval England, Rebecca McNamara suggests that suicide in the medieval period was not entirely a consequence of evil tendencies or the seven deadly sins, but rather a reflection of mental illness or sickness brought on by emotional distress. She explains that in the middle ages suicide was considered a response to extreme despair, pride, sloth, or it might be prompted by the devil himself (McNamara, 11). This notion of sinful suicide was depicted through art, sermons, plays, and other works of the period. However, McNamara explains that these early depictions changed when medieval bureaucrats began to document emotional motivation for suicide (McNamara, 12). She describes infirmity (mental illness or physical pain) in particular as the psychological cause behind self-killing, and is an explanation for changing medieval attitudes towards suicide. Furthermore, McNamara discusses a religious influence on suicide that reflected a lack of faith or spiritual disturbance. She goes on to explain the differences between the suicidal cases of men and women, and the emotion these cases drew from court officials. She further explains that suicide cases were labeled in one of two ways: infortunium (misfortune/accidental death) or felonia de se (deliberate self-inflicted death); she also explores ways in which the cases were handled in superior courts. According to McNamara, the legal documents that describe these cases reveal much about the emotional history of suicide in the middle ages.McNamara begins her article by explaining that while suicide was depicted as sinful and criminal in early medieval England court documents also noted emotional motives. She explains that women suicide cases produced a greater emotional response from the court than cases regarding men. Furthermore, families who lost members to suicide, something kill themselves in response, causing an emotional chain reaction. She then explains the types of suicidal cases as these were classified by English secular law. The category of infortunium included self-inflicted deaths that were caused by mischance and without the deliberate will of the victim. On such cases people were often deemed insane, evoking pity and compassion. The value of the deodand (the object which caused the 2death) for an infortunium went to the crown, but the deceased persons land and chattels(personal possessions) did not (McNamara, 14). The term Felonia de se, translated as 'the felony of the self', described deliberate suicide. In this instance, the deodand as well as any goods or chattels were confiscated by the crown. Here, McNamara provides an example of a thirteenth-century woman who killed herself with an axe; in this case the death fell under the category of felonia de se as deliberate suicide. These cases were all handled in superior courts including King's Bench, the itinerant eyre courts, and sometimes went to Chancery for final judgment (McNamara, 15). The author states that the motives for these suicide cases were not often described in legal court documents, but the sources did provide an emotional framework to justify the cases.McNamara explores at great length emotional responses to suicide by organising her subject matter under several subheadings. This is very effective for the purposes of following her article and understanding each topic she discusses. After explaining the types of suicidal cases and the way they were dealt with in court, McNamara moves on to the important topic of infirmity. The records described this as mental and physical illness. In the medieval period, Galenic humoral medicine (matching elements, seasons, and bodily fluids) made links between the physical body and mental emotions, suggesting that the mind and body were interrelated (McNamara, 17). Therefore, illnesses of the mind and body shared similar causes, symptoms, and treatments. Other factors that were considered to affect someone's mental and physical health included sleep, food, drink, and emotions. McNamara offers a detailed explanation of the history of humoral medicine and its emergence in English society. Furthermore, she links this to pious movements in the thirteenth century, showing that clerics and devoted laypersons used physical pain and sickness to understand and and identify with the physical and emotional pain of Christ and the Virgin Mary. McNamara reviews the thirteenth-century theory of the 'psychosomatic body', which held that the physical body is influenced by emotions from the sufferer and reactions from their observers. She states, in conclusion, that emotions and infirmity were 3both used to examine suicide in the late medieval period. According to McNamara, there were important distinctions between cases which identified as infirmity and those that referred solely to madness. In the next section of her article, she explains the use of infirmity in suicide cases and legal documents. Labeling a case as infirmity did not justify suicide, but it made such a case more readily understandable because self-killing ended physical and mental suffering. Naming illnesses that people are known to have had suggests that the law took into account certain aspects of their suffering prior to the individual taking his or her life, whether or not they were suffering from the exact illness reported. Furthermore, these cases suggest that often, illness initiated the madness (or frenzy) that led to suicide. Rather than automatically describing a person's mental state as insanity, this madness they experienced indicated an extreme suffering from illness. These suicides, McNamara argues, were an end to a person's suffering, as opposed to acts of madness. The distinction of new interpretation, and the importance of contextualizing suicide in terms of infirmity, clarify the Crown's desire for the return of infirm suicides confiscated goods and chattels to their families (McNamara, 22). The author explains with clarity and ease the concept of infirmity to justify suicide and the outcome that arise from this new interpretation. She also provides a few pertinent examples of people who succumbed to madness due to emotional distress, causing their infirmity and eventual suicide. McNamara's next section, examines infirm suicides during the reign of Edward I. A number of writs survive from his reign pertaining to family members who petitioned the crown for the return of goods and chattels of the person whose death had been ruled felonia de se. She argues that such evidence is a valuable resource for discovering the emotional premise of suicide during the late thirteenth century. Furthermore, the author examines how the Crown used evidence from suicide cases to draft letters to the sheriff (or coroner) regarding the petition he received, and the release of goods and chattels to those families. McNamara provides a few recurring, but effective examples of this process 4and the families involved with the writs they obtained from the crown. She clarifies that there were also instances in which king Edward was compassionate to the infirm in cases other than suicide. Furthermore, she explains the legal treatise Bracton, which names the suffering of mental and physical infirmity as the cause of suicide, as with contemporary legal theory of self-murder. The treatise provided leniency for those who killed themselves because they were in physical pain or a deranged state, even though it is not relied upon in modern English legality. (McNamara, 24). In the suicide records dated in the mid thirteenth-century, the cause of infirmity is an interaction between physical, mental, and emotional health, conveying the extreme nature of the individual's suffering.Throughout the article, McNamara reveals that in the medieval period psychosomatic infirmity had emotional undertones in religious, medical, and legal writings. In each of these areas of medieval society the suffering from pain and sickness (physically and mentally) had deep sentimental ramifications for the suffering individual, prompting others to respond emotionally through compassionate sympathy (McNamara, 33). McNamara concludes the topic of infirmity with a euphoric flow and much clarity. She refers to the 'sorrow of soreness' as the process of suffering from infirmity that is brought on by fever, madness, or intense pain and the sympathetic practice by others in response. In the medieval period, the sorrow of soreness was often used to explain the impulse of self-killing and the responses from others to such a traumatic event. The use of infirmity to contextualize suicide cases becomes more clear in the writs issued during the reign of Edward I discussed earlier. It is also evident in the Eyre records and Coroners rolls, where infirmity is used more than any other reason to explain the motivations behind the act of self-inflicted death. Suicide in medieval England was once a condemned issue thought as sinful and criminal, against faith and reason. It was once depicted as a manipulation by the devil to those who were weak and unpius. In her article, McNamara provides an explanation for medieval suicide beyond the realm of unlawful activity and disgrace. She justifies that suicide was an act brought on by infirmity caused5initially by derangement. The legal records and Crown writs both demonstrate how infirmity was the primary cause of self-killing, thereby inflicting emotional responses from others. McNamara effectively describes the sorrow of soreness in early to late medieval England.

6Bibliography

McNamara, Rebecca F., 'The sorrow of soreness: infirmity and suicide in medieval England', Parergon 31 (2014) 11-34.