Zubin Mistry. Abortion in the Early Middle Ages, c.500–900.
Sara Ritchey
Zubin Mistry’s Abortion in the Early Middle Ages, c.500–900 seeks to uncover cultural significance of abortion early medieval societies. While evidence about pre-modern attitudes Western Europe is fragmentary, Mistry manages summon a range sources, all condemning practice. In excerpts canon laws, penitentials, sermons, saints’ lives, and biblical commentaries, he reads deeply into context that occasioned authoritative statements on abortion. The resulting monograph first comprehensively gather fragments continental from period consider their cumulative effects, addressing how they relate one another reflect, if not cohesive discourse abortion, then at least “thought-worlds” authors. Ages firmly establishes reactions practice were situational, rooted specific historical circumstances, unrepresentative contemporary abstract concerns fetal “life.”
The American Historical Review