Painting of “Cannibals around Human remains”, by Francisco de Goya (1746–1828)
One of the customs that, for centuries, was between Europeans and the rest of the world was cannibalism – which was even a specialty of medicine.
A study recently in Academia.edu revealed that the Cannibalism has already worked as a medicine in the Middle Ages.
It was already known that the motivations for cannibalism were varied, ranging from the nutritional need to different religious and curative practices documented at different periods.
In the Middle Ages, there are references to how cannibalism was recurring in periods of hunger, war, riots and other extreme moments of social coexistence.
However, as explained in the person responsible for the new study, Abel de Lorenzo Rodríguezfrom the University of Santiago de Compostela, in the Middle Ages, there was also a form of therapeutic cannibalism which considered some parts of the human body useful as medicines.
For centuries, the quartered bodies were used as remedies and healings.
And you don’t have to go too far. In the nineteenth century, different dictionaries of subjects, such as the dictionary of José Oriol Ronquillo of 1855 – taken in turn from another French dictionary of 1759 – still mentioned parts of the human body – fat, blood or urine – as healing elements.
By tanatofagia to hagiofagia
Since the beginning of Christianity, the ambiguity of their own rituals gave rise to misunderstandings. For example, their practitioners were considered cannibal who ingested human sacrifices in honor of their God.
Over time, part of Christian culture directed this accusation against Jews in medieval Europe. The alleged cruelty also extended to other “sects”, such as catafrygios, whose Eucharist consisted of Blood Mix of Children with Flour.
The importance and rise of the saints at local level, their proximity to the burials, and their miraculous character led to their bodies after death were used for cures and medicines.
Unlike other types of practices that were totally prohibited, contact cannibalism was allowed, that is, ingestion of products that had touched the saint’s body or relics.
Oils that had passed through the tomb, water and even remains of dust and stones of the tomb were ingested to Search for healing and the miraculous effect of these “fragments of eternity”.
This is the case of the ingestion of the dead-tanatophagia-for the ingestion of the sacred- Hagioofaia.
São Silvestre and the end of cannibalism
One of the stories that best shows the intention of Christian literature to end the allegedly cruel pagan practices of previous therapies is the legend of Papa São Silvestre and the healing of Emperor Constantine’s leprosy.
According to the story, Emperor Constantine suffered from a “terrible leprosy.”
Following a recommendation from his doctors, he decided to take a blood bath after murdering thousands of children – once again human blood appears as a cure for various diseases.
When Constantine was on his way to sacrificing the children, St. wild and mothers managed to convince him to abandon healing and be baptized in their place.
History also addresses the previous pagan cruelty that does not respect the human body and its derivatives; and aims to transmit the Effectiveness and the power of the Christian faith as opposed to the precedes that preceded it.
