Hemorrhoids and Melancholy

How the Jewish blood flow was handled in the medical context and what role theological as-pects played there will be examined in the following chapter. The gynecological workDe secretis mulierum,³⁹⁴ falsely attributed to Albertus Magnus, which is why the author is called Pseudo-Albertus Magnus, was apparently compiled by a pupil of Albert toward the end of the 13th or beginning of the 14th century. The work was still widely used in the 16th century, with more than 70 editions in print at this time and over 50 already printed in the 15th century. The contents of the different editions vary greatly. For example, there are two different commentaries on the work, which are differentiated as commentary A and B. Commentator B alone deals with the Jewish blood flow in the context of the Pseudo-Albertus menstruation chapter. Pseudo-Albertus Magnus and Commentator A make no reference to this. Commentator B expands on Pseudo-Albertus’s definition of menstruation by listing three different types of menstruation:

“Note that according to some, menses is understood in three ways. The first way is natural menses, such as the menstrual periods of women. The second is supernatural, as the Jews experience. The third way is against nature, for example certain Christians of melancholy disposition bleed through the anus and not through the penis.”³⁹⁵

In addition to female menstruation, two other forms of menstruation are thus brought into play and distinguished from each other. The category of nature is intended to define the different forms. Female menstruation is considered natural; Jewish menstruation supernatural, and melan-cholic menstruation unnatural. The attribution as supernatural locates the Jewish blood flow in a theological-metaphysical context and therefore requires no further explanation since it is outside of the medical framework. The melancholic menstruation of some Christians, by contrast, is as-signed the attribute of unnatural and categorized in the area of diseases, transferring responsibility to the medical practitioners. Furthermore, the addition that the bleeding takes place via the anus establishes the link to suffering from hemorrhoids. Here again, as in the ancient sources, the close intertwining of menstruation and hemorrhoids becomes apparent. Willis Johnson sums it up as follows: “It must be emphasized that medical theorists, from Galen (130 – 199) to Arnold of Vil-lanova (1240 – 1311), described menstrual and hemorrhoidal bleeding as interchangeable.”³⁹⁶ After Commentator B based his definition of menstrual forms on exactly this interchangeability, he dif-ferentiates between menstrual and hemorrhoidal bleeding in the further course of the text, firstly with regard to its cause, melancholy, and secondly with regard to its localization:

394 In this regard, see Helen Rodnite LEMAY: A Translation of Pseudo-Albertus’s “De Secretis Mulierum” with Com-mentaries, New York 1992, 1.

395 Ibidem, 71; “Item nota quod secundum aliquos menstruum dicitur esse in trina differentia. Primo modo menstruum naturale sicut menstruum mulierum. Secundo modo supernaturale sicut in iudeis. Tercio modo contra naturam sicut in quibusdam christianis melancolicis per anum et non per virgam.” ALBERTUS MAGNUS: De secretis mulierum cum commento, Vienna: Johann Winterburg, [c. 1504], URL: urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00005715-8 (visited on 27/02 /2019), Capitulum tercium, s.p.

396 JOHNSON: The Myth of Jewish Male Menses (see n. 101), 288.

“Melancholic males generate a good deal of black bile which is directed to the spleen, and then to the spine. From there it descends to other veins located around the last intestine which are called hemorrhoids. After these veins are filled they are purged of the bile by this flow, which, if it is moderate, is very beneficial. This is found in Jews more than in others, for their natures are more melancholic, although it is said that they have this flow because of a miracle of God, and there is no doubt that this is true.”³⁹⁷

While Commentator B, referencing other opinions, secundum aliquos, attributed Jewish men-struation in the first quotation solely to the metaphysical level, he classifies it under the third form of menstruation in the second quotation. First, he explains in detail how hemorrhoids occur in melancholic men or what path the blood takes, which is caused by excess of black bile fluid. In this context, the commentator emphasizes the benefits of this bleeding as long as it is moderate, and speaks of cleansing,purgant per talem fluxum. These two aspects, cleansing and benefits in moder-ation, link hemorrhoidal bleeding to menstruation again. Finally, Commentator B adds that Jews would naturally,ad naturam, tend to melancholy and consequently hemorrhoids. He does not give a reason, instead he refers, again referencing others,dicatur, to the supernatural dimension of blood flow as a divine miracle,miraculum dei. He also stresses that the truth of this statement is beyond doubt.

As soon as Commentator B alludes to the Jewish blood flow, he cites references, even if he does not name them further. Since the Jewish blood flow in both cases has a theological-metaphysical origin that removes it from the medical sphere for which the commentator feels responsible, this could be the cause of his references to others through reformulations such assecundum aliquosand dicatur. The contradictory attribution of Jewish blood flow – initially defined solely as a supernatural phenomenon and later linked to the third aspect, melancholy – also suggests that two explanatory models of Jewish blood flow, theological and medical, collide at this point and cannot be fully reconciled. This leads to a dual character in the phenomenon of “Jewish” menstruation, which was medically defined as hemorrhoidal bleeding caused by a melancholic nature, and theologically as a divine miracle.

The treatiseOmnes homines, probably written at the beginning of the 14th century and named after its introductory words,³⁹⁸ is brought into connection with the medical school of Salerno,³⁹⁹ also referring to both theological and detailed medical reasoning to explain Jewish blood flow. The treatise is one of the Problems, which were falsely attributed to Aristotle and in which, based on

397 LEMAY: A Translation of Pseudo-Albertus’s “De Secretis Mulierum” with Commentaries (see n. 394), 74; “Item nota quod in viris melancolicis generatur multum de ipsa melanconia quae [quod?] dirigitur ad splen et de splene ad spinas dorsi a quibus descendit ad alias venas existentes circa ultimum intestinum quae vene vocantur emoroides quodque tales vene replentur tunc ipsi melanconici purgantur per talem fluxum et ille fluxus multum prodest eis si est temperatus. Et ille idem fluxus reperitur in iudeis ad naturam magis quam in aliis quia plurimum melanconicam declinat licet tamen coiter dicatur quod habent per miraculum dei de quo non est dubitandum quin sit verum.”

ALBERTUS MAGNUS: De secretis mulierum cum commento (see n. 395), Capitulum tercium, s.p.

398 See BILLER: Proto-racial Thought in Medieval Science (see n. 372), 172.

399 Suzanne Conklin AKBARI: Idols in the East: European Representations of Islam and the Orient, 1100 – 1450, Ithaca 2009, 148.

a question-answer scheme, different areas of knowledge are dealt with. The set of questions sum-marized under the initium Omnes homines mainly deals with natural philosophical and medical problems. The work was also published again and again in the 16th and 17th centuries and trans-lated into German and English early on. Robert Levi Lind, the editor of a commented edition of theOmnes hominestreatise, mentions 25 independent editions in the two centuries⁴⁰⁰ and empha-sizes the importance of the pseudo-AristotelianProblemsfor the early anatomists prior to the era of Andreas Vesalius:

“Since the pseudo-AristotelianProblemswere edited and translated by a series of fifteenth and sixteenth century scholars from Pietro d’Albano (1482) to Giorgio Valla and Theodorus Gaza (1505) the activity thus represented falls within the pre-Vesalian period and must be taken into account as part of the material upon which the anatomists of that period could draw.”⁴⁰¹ The question of Jewish blood flow is asked in the context of the question⁴⁰² regarding whether in general all men suffer from hemorrhoidal bleeding. The treatise denies this assumption and limits the disease to men who tend to melancholy. Hemorrhoids are linked to female menstruation with reference to the monthly occurrence of bleeding, but without adding effeminating associations.

Hemorrhoidal bleeding is even viewed positively as protection against diseases such as leprosy. This first question is followed by a second regarding whether Jews suffer indiscriminately from this blood flow: “Quare Judei patiuntur indifferenter hunc fluxum?”⁴⁰³ To start with, the theological arguments are cited when the author quotes the two classical Bible passages, Matt. 27.25 and Ps.

78.66. Subsequently, however, he concentrates on two, as he emphasizes, natural causes that could lead to hemorrhoidal bleeding. Firstly, he cites Jewish eating habits and explains:

“Differently and more naturally, it is answered that the Jews feed on phlegmatic and cold food because many good kinds of meat are forbidden to them by their law; the kinds of meat [which they may eat] cause melancholic blood, which is expurged by the hemorrhoidal flow.”⁴⁰⁴

Like Albertus Magnus, who referred to coarse and salty food, the author of theOmnes homines treatise also attributes the excessively melancholic blood and the resulting hemorrhoids to a poor diet, but this time to phlegmatic and cold food. The author also shows that these unhealthy eating habits are by no means self -inflicted, but religiously conditioned. Suzanne Conklin Akbari examines the text passage in the context of medieval climate theories and asks herself how the Jewish body, postulated as unchanged, can be reconciled with the idea of the bodies influenced by the climate zones:

400 Problemata Varia Anatomica: MS 1165: The University of Bologna, Lawrence 1968, 1.

401 Ibidem, 2.

402 Ibidem, 38.

403 Ibidem, 38.

404 “Aliter respondetur et magis naturaliter quia Judei uescuntur cibariis flegmaticis et frigidis quia multe carnes bone in lege eorum sunt prohibite eis ex quibus carnibus generatur sanguis melanconicus qui per fluxum emoroidarum expurgatur” (16v). Ibidem, 39.

“The case of the Jews is the logical extension of this relationship between climate and food:

[…] the Jews maintain their habitual diet. By doing so, they set themselves apart from those who are native to the lands that the Jews enter into, not just in a social or cultural sense, but physiologically as well. What they eat makes them what they are.”⁴⁰⁵

The idea of adiasporic body,⁴⁰⁶which preserves its original climate through food, plays an addi-tional role in this context. Secondly, the reason given for the assumed Jewish blood flow is a certain pattern of behavior that also contributes to the production of melancholic blood:

“But since they neither work nor move nor interact with people and because they are in great fear that we may take revenge for the suffering of Christ, our Redeemer. All this causes cold and prevents digestion. Therefore, a lot of melancholic blood develops in them, which is expelled or expurged by them every month.”⁴⁰⁷

Indirectly, the author refers to the precarious social status of Jews when he ascribes to them a withdrawn life – life without human contact, i.e. primarily without Christian contact – and the permanent fear of Christian vengeance. The special pattern of behavior that causes melancholy and thus hemorrhoids is consequently conditioned by the special social position of Jews. Here, too, the idea of a Jewish body in the diaspora is important.

Furthermore, it is worth recalling thequodlibetdiscussion⁴⁰⁸at the Faculty of Arts of the Sor-bonne in Paris, which was mentioned at the beginning, and which Peter Billers analyzed in his essay Views of Jews from Paris around 1300and edited in the original Latin. In this discussion, which was held at the Sorbonne around 1300, there is also the question of whether Jews in general suffer from blood flow: “Consequenter queritur utrum iudei paciuntur fluxum.”⁴⁰⁹Initially, this assumption is denied and the principle is held that Christians and some Jews have the same complexion. Then, however, the value of experience is played off against this assumption, and is supposed to suggest the opposite, namely that the majority of Jews referred to as illi leccatores, those lechers, have a blood flow. In the next paragraph, the blood flow is then defined more precisely as hemorrhoidal bleeding and the medical reasons for this are given. First, the bleeding is attributed to melancholy and, as with the two preceding works,De secretis mulierumandOmnes homines, this is justified by an incorrect diet:

“I prove this, because they use roast foods and not boiled or cooked [cooked here means in a way other than roasting or frying PB], and these are difficult to digest […]. Item, they have

405 AKBARI: Idols in the East (see n. 399), 150.

406 Ibidem, 140. In the third chapter of her book, the sectionClimate and the Diasporic Body, 140 – 154.

407 “Sed quia non sunt in labore neque in motu neque in conuersatione hominum et etiam quia sunt in magno timore quia nos ulciscantur [ulciscamur] passionem Christi redemptoris nostri, hec omnia faciunt frigiditatem et impediunt digestionem. Ideo in eis generatur multus sanguis melanconicus qui in ipsis tempore menstruali expellitur seu expurgatur” (Fol. 17r). Problemata Varia Anatomica (see n. 400), 39.

408 In this regard, see chapter3.1.2 Barriers.

409 BILLER: Views of Jews from Paris around 1300 (see n. 322), 205.

roast fat, such as oil, etc […]. Another cause is that digestion with wine… [here a blank in the manuscript PB] – therefore those who do not drink wine have many superfluous not digested humours.”⁴¹⁰

In this case, it is less the food itself or the seasoning than the wrong preparation, the frying and the use of oil that are criticized. Furthermore, not only food, but also drinks are mentioned here. Accordingly, Jews’ lack of wine consumption leads to excess, undigested body fluids, which are known to promote melancholy. In addition, the text lists three other symptoms that, according to Hippocrates, can be attributed to melancholy:

“[They are melancholics PB] because the melancholic shuns dwelling and assembling others and likes cut off or solitary places. However, Jews naturally withdraw themselves from society and from being connected with others, as is patent, therefore they are melancholics. Item, they are pallid, therefore they are of melancholic complexion. Item they are naturally timid, and these three are the contingent properties of melancholics, as Hippocrates says.”⁴¹¹ In addition to the two symptoms already described in theOmnes homines treatise, withdrawal and anxiety, a third is added: pallor. The strict separation of the social spheres imposed on Jews and Christians in the Middle Ages by bans, as described in chapter2.2 The Medieval Ban on Jewish Wet Nurses, is physically attributed to Jews. Life on the sidelines of society is not regarded as a pre-scribed norm, but rather as Jewish “nature.” The attributenaturaliterillustrates this strikingly. The body in the diaspora is declared to be a “naturally” melancholic body. At this point, the emphasis on naturalness is fundamentally connected with the attempt to distinguish it from the theological sphere. Remarkably, the quodlibet discussion on Jewish blood flow does not refer to theological explanations, but exclusively to natural philosophical and medical arguments. This clearly separated the Faculty of Arts from the Faculty of Theology at the Sorbonne in Paris and defined its area. The attribution “naturaliter” must therefore be regarded as divine punishment in the context and against the background of the accusation of Jewish blood flow. “Natural” is used here as an exclusion crite-rion for the metaphysical explanation. This is already found in theOmnes homines treatise, which, after citing the Bible passages, aims to address the more natural explanations –aliter respondetur et magis naturaliter. Peter Biller comes to the following conclusion when comparing the two text passages:

410 Translation by Peter Biller: BILLER: Views of Jews from Paris around 1300 (see n. 322), 192–193; “Probo [the melan-cholic inclination of Jews] quia utuntur alimentis assatis et non elixatis non coctis, et hec sunt difficile digestibilia […]. Item, utuntur assarem [recteassatam; comment by Biller: PB] pinguedinem scilicet in oleo etc. […]. Alia causa huius est quia digestio per vinum [per vinumwith erasure line in MSPB] quod [blank in MSPB], ergo illi qui non habent bibere vinum habent multos f [sicPB] superfluos humores indigestos.” Ibidem, 206.

411 Translation by Peter Biller: Ibidem, 192; “Quia melancolicus fugit cohabitacionem et congregacionem et diligit loca secretaria vel solitaria; sed iudei naturaliter retrahunt se a societate et coniuncti [possibly recte coniungi PB] cum aliis ut patet, ergo sunt melancolici. Item, pallidi sunt, ergo sunt melancolice complexionis. Item, timidi sunt naturaliter et hec tria sunt [supra ?MSPB] accidencia propria melancolicorum, ut dicit Ipocras.” Ibidem, 206.

“Though the precise interrelationship of these texts may remain unclear, one aspect of their authors’ view is clear: sharp awareness of seeing Jews ‘according to nature.’ While the Parisian master does this by excluding theology and insisting on explanations ‘according to nature,’

the author ofOmnes hominesproceeds differently, including theology, but stating that one must answer both, and separately, ‘theologically’ and ‘according to nature.’”⁴¹²

Despite all the emphasis on nature, however, this does not describe an unalterable situation. That the attributes – isolation, anxiety and pallor – assigned to the Jewish body by nature were actually perceived as relative ascriptions can be seen in the fact that the text describes these three attributes as accidents,accidencia, which are characteristic of melancholy. Accordingly, the author refers to the philosophical contrasting pair of substance and accident.⁴¹³While the substance defines what invari-ably belongs to the being or what essentially constitutes the being, the accident characterizes what is randomly added. Thus, isolation, anxiety and pallor as accidents are merely additional attributes and can therefore be changed.

The texts, which are oriented on natural philosophy and medicine, therefore have in common that they too assume a Jewish blood flow, but diagnose it as a hemorrhoid disease on the one hand and consequently assign it to melancholy on the other. As a result, the symptoms of melancholy also increasingly move into the foreground since only they can confirm the diagnosis of a natural cause, namely a melancholic core state of Jews. That this argumentation was also used in the Early Modern Period by proponents of thelimpieza de sangreideology can be seen in the textLilium medicinaeof the physician Bernard de Gordon († c. 1320), who taught at the University of Montpellier around 1300. A Spanish edition of the medical treatise was published as early as 1495, and the authors of the apologies on the limpieza de sangre liked to refer to it when they presented the argument of

“Jewish male” menstruation with regard to the Conversos. The passage from Bernard de Gordon’s medical work does not provide any new arguments, but certainly a new perspective. Since it was an important basis for the apologists of thelimpieza de sangre, it will be quoted here in its entirety and in the Spanish version:

“Sixth, Jews generally suffer from hemorrhoids for three reasons: first, because they are al-ways in a state of otiosity, and this causes melancholic blood in them; second, because they are constantly in fear and anxiety, which causes melancholic blood to accumulate in them.

Hippocrates says: ‘Fear and pusillanimity, which persist for a long time, make the humoral complexion melancholic’; third, this is because of the divine saying that goes: ‘and he smote them in the hinder parts and put them to a perpetual reproach.’”⁴¹⁴

Hippocrates says: ‘Fear and pusillanimity, which persist for a long time, make the humoral complexion melancholic’; third, this is because of the divine saying that goes: ‘and he smote them in the hinder parts and put them to a perpetual reproach.’”⁴¹⁴