An Investigation on Food Restriction in the Medieval British Church

Authors

Cope Makechnie-Hardy

Keywords

Seaxburh, fasting, anorexia mirabilis, devotion, medieval Britain

Abstract

When Seaxburh, Queen of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Kent, retired to her sister’s newly established religious house at Ely in 665 she was a physically broken woman, with “wan cheeks from fasting” and a body frail from years of food restriction.1 Already throughout her life Seaxburh had used her body as an integral part of her devotion to Christ, and after arriving at Ely “signed her stomach with the mark of Christ so that she might not burden it with food.”2 Nearly six hundred years later, Saint Elizabeth of Hungary would engage in a similar practice, referred to by historians today as anorexia mirabilis, or “holy anorexia,” a miraculous loss of appetite and continued rejection of food for religious purposes. Though previous historical study has focused on late medieval and early modern Continental women, the British historical record makes clear that some early medieval British religious, like the seventh-century Seaxburh and the tenth-century saint Wulfthryth of Wilton, engaged in extreme fasting practices similar to those previously studied in the high Middle Ages across the European continent.

Recommended Citation

Makechnie-Hardy, Cope (2023) "An Investigation on Food Restriction in the Medieval British Church," The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing: Vol. 52: Iss. 1, Article 10.
Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/thetean/vol52/iss1/10