Perhaps the most impressive image is that of the Wound Man - a figure covered with a multitude of graphic wounds and diseases such as dagger pierces, swollen glands, thorn scratches, bee stings and snake bites.

Every chapter is illustrated with images that add interest and intrigue to the accompanying text. These images range from the wheel of urine sprouting from a tree (for diagnosis) to nuns picking penises from a tree, to a ninth-century illustration of foetuses gambolling in the womb. The book is written with warmth, wit and erudition and is filled with fascinating nuggets. Drawing on art, medicine, literature, science, politics, history, philosophy and ranging across Europe and the Middle East, the scope can be quite dizzying at times. Under the chapter on skin, Hartnell addresses flaying, leprosy, plastic surgery, racial difference and manuscripts. His chapters roam widely on subjects closely and sometimes tangentially connected with the chapter title, so his chapter on the head inspires discussions of mental illness, hairstyles, beheading, and the rival relics of John the Baptist’s head. Over the course of the book's ten chapters, author, Jack Hartnell uses each part of the body (the head, the senses, the skin, the bone, the heart, the blood, the hands, the stomach, the genitals, and the feet) to explore t he many fascinating and often bizarre ways that people in the Middle Ages viewed their physical selves.

It has been critically acclaimed and was one of the Sunday Times' Books of the Year. This beautiful book is published by the Wellcome Collection and written by art historian, Jack Hartnell. Medieval Bodies: Life, Death and Art in the Middle Ages is a compelling and, at times, gruesome read that explores the Medieval world through the body.

Medieval bodies jack hartnell