Review of Mirjam Reitmayer, Entführung und Gefangenschaft: Erfahrene Unfreiheit in gewaltsamen Konflikten im Spiegel spätmittelalterlicher Selbstzeugnisse, Tübingen 2021.

Reviews 618 antiquity to the present. This form of textual resistance has implications for how we understand convivencia to have existed in the social spaces of daily interaction and exchange. Finally, Pohl offers a conclusion that begins with analytical summaries of the volume’s contributions and then draws comparisons and identifies themes and lines of inquiry that demonstrate the value of exploring the link between the formation of identity and the development of historiography across a synchronous set of cultures. Overall, the essays in this volume work well together to achieve the aims set out in the introduction, and scholars and students of global medieval history will certainly gain insight from the individual contributions but will also benefit greatly from taking this collection as a coherent set of case studies with a common goal. Young Richard Kim, University of Illinois, Chicago Mirjam Reitmayer, Entführung und Gefangenschaft: Erfahrene Unfreiheit in gewaltsamen Konflikten im Spiegel spätmittelalterlicher Selbstzeugnisse. Tübingen: UVK, 2021. Pp. 490. €59. ISBN: 978-3-7398-3107-7. doi:10.1086/729482 Mirjam Reitmayer tackles a thrilling topic with her revised dissertation, completed at the University of Bochum (Germany) in 2014. The book focuses on the experience of kidnapping and imprisonment as expressed in late medieval first-person documents. The author generally distinguishes between intracultural and more transcultural captivities, the former taking place within the Holy Roman Empire, the latter mainly in the Muslim empires of the Levant and the Middle East. The time frame of the study extends from 1396 (when numerous Christian warriors fell into Muslim captivity after the Battle of Nicopolis) to the Augsburg Religious Peace of 1555. The theoretical basis of the work is broad: Reitmayer adapts a model of modern crisis management in kidnapping (based on studies by a member of the German Armed Forces, Jörg Trauboth) and presents a nine-phase model for medieval kidnappings, covering the temporal progression from reasons for conflict, through capture and arrest, to negotiations and life after captivity. Concepts of memory as constructed in the first-person accounts are also addressed, as are approaches to trauma research. Reitmayer examines a total of twenty individual accounts, arranged into groups (i.e., violent raids, war and feuds, princes in captivity), but always analyzed individually, one after the other. The range of those affected extends from city envoys to knights and princes, from cases of organized kidnapping to prisoners of war, from two-week imprisonments, as in the case of the merchant Georg Reiche, to imprisonment lasting five years, as in the case of Landgrave Philip of Hesse; sometimes individuals were imprisoned more than once, for example the envoy and poet Oswald von Wolkenstein, who fell victim to imprisonment three times. The author notes that individual fates can be more easily studied in cases of intracultural captivity—simply because the source situation is better, as we have access not only to written accounts of the captives themselves, but also to letters and charters that tend to have a weaker narrative imprint. Reports of transcultural imprisonment, on the other hand, were mostly written with the benefit of hindsight and addressed to a specific audience. Reitmayer herself points to the fact that most descriptions were written in retrospect and can hardly be read as unmediated accounts of events. She rather unsurprisingly notes that memories here coagulated into narratives and that recurring narratives were established, sometimes incorporating fictional elements and intertextual references. Prisoners tended to give detailed descriptions, especially when they could depict themselves in a positive light and tell heroic stories (about themselves, of course). These descriptions served as justification as well as defense against possible Speculum 99/2 (April 2024) Reviews 619 accusations of cowardice. Nevertheless, a close reading of the texts allows insights into the lives and prospects of the prisoners. The negotiations phase, for example, was quite clearly regulated so long as one was captive within the Empire, since well-established networks existed and could be used to communicate with family and allies. These networks were missing in foreign countries: it was primarily the lack of information that troubled the prisoners and led to escape attempts or, in the long term, sometimes to processes of acculturation. The possibility of conversion to Islam was, of course, a particularly sensitive question. The example of the poet and diplomat Oswald von Wolkenstein allows the rare possibility to compare the statements of a first-person account with findings on his skeleton: in a song, Oswald describes how, during his second imprisonment in 1421, he was tortured with injury to his leg. An examination of the skeleton in 1977 did not reveal any evidence of a fracture, but it did show periosteum inflammation on the right leg resulting from injuries. Oswald would almost certainly have limped after captivity. After release, prisoners in transcultural contexts often had to prove their identity and religious affiliation; usually, they were able to resume their former positions but suffered from the financial burdens of ransom payments. In the best case, their special knowledge enabled them to become valued experts on foreign affairs—it was precisely against this background that many reports were written. Any conclusion about physical or psychological late effects is narrowly limited by the sources. Individual burdens or traumas can only be found here in isolated cases. The lack of information as well as social disregard and isolation were perceived as particularly stressful in the foreign country—people simply suffered from loneliness. The clear focus on self-testimonies in Reitmayer’s well-researched book makes for a methodologically coherent analysis. One strength of the book is undoubtedly the narrow focus on first-person statements from those affected by imprisonment, whereby Reitmayer succeeds in distinguishing between fictionalizations, exaggerations, understatements, and actual emotional expressions. While the fact that each account is analyzed separately gives credit to each text as a source, it also makes a comparative approach difficult. The summaries of the individual chapters remain closely oriented to the individual cases and—like the analyses themselves— are structured according to the nine-phase model of modern kidnapping management. That this model really provides insight that would not have been otherwise possible seems doubtful, however. Nonetheless, Reitmayer’s book is a landmark for any further engagement with the topic of captivity and imprisonment. Christoph Mauntel, Universität Osnabrück Antoni Riera Melis, Alimentación, sociedad, cultura y política en el Occidente medieval. (La comida de la vida.) Gijon: Ediciones Trea, 2021. Pp. 511. €29. ISBN: 978-8-41810598-2. doi:10.1086/729590 The leading Iberian scholar of medieval food and cookery, Antoni Riera Melis has done pioneering work on both subsistence and cuisine. The nine articles in this volume are reprinted contributions to learned journals and conference proceedings dating from between 1991 and 2018. The collection represents a service to scholarship by presenting in one volume many of the author’s groundbreaking contributions. Although centered on Catalonia, many of the essays consider wider geographical circles: the Crown of Aragon, the western Mediterranean, and Europe generally. Certain topics are dealt with more than once, so that monastic prohibitions on eating meat and their frequent contravention are at the center of an article on Cluny versus the Cistercians but also Speculum 99/2 (April 2024)