Passion and Order: Restraint of Grief in the Medieval Italian Communes (Conjunctions of Religion and Power in the Medieval Past)

Lansing (history, University of California at Santa Barbara) is well known for her scholarly work on the communes of medieval Italy. This study of how the town leaders managed to legislate public mourning and how that changed behavior and attitudes to grief, especially in men, has repercussions that continue to this day. Before the thirteenth century violent public expressions of grief were considered natural and healthy. The bereaved were often joined in their mourning by the rest of the community. Lansing uses art, literature and public records to show how this was suppressed and how emotional outpourings of grief by men came to be considered a lack of self control. She theorizes that this came about through a governmental desire to contain emotional demonstrations as a way of maintaining civic order. She makes a convincing argument for these conclusions. An interesting look at the many ways in which public expectations affect personal ones. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)