Yanko Tsvetkov’s Reviews > Dreaming of Cockaigne: Medieval Fantasies of the Perfect Life > Status Update

“Fears and frustrations in particular were combated with what by present standards must seem to be very coarse and violent joke making. As we are no longer capable of recognizing these distressing situations, let alone able to understand or share in them, it is easy for us to find such humor blunt and childish.”

“Someone else indulges in autophagia—self-devourment—and calls out that he has finally conquered Hunger, now that he will die replete and satisfied. This technique was not unknown: the triumph seemed to lie in the victory itself, even at the cost of one’s life.”

“Jacob van Maerlant—who around 1275 set the life of their founder to rhyme for the Friars Minor of Utrecht—painted the portrait of an unbending sufferer of hunger by vocation: whenever Saint Francis was given cooked food he would mix it with ashes or water to take away any hint of taste.”

“Bakers and grain merchants were always held responsible for food shortages, even when it was not at all clear how much they were to blame. The smallest disruption in the supply of grain could wreak havoc, leading to a vicious circle of imputations and speculations that could plunge a whole community into a state of turmoil."