“The Modulated Scream, based on a stunning array of primary sources, takes a close look at the many meanings of pain in the later Middle Ages. Compassing churchmen, jurists, physicians, mystics, and the humble women and men who sought cures at the shrines of saints, it is a profound study of a fundamental human experience.”

Barbara Rosenwein, Loyola University Chicago

“A remarkable achievement, an essay in intellectual and social history of the highest quality. The Modulated Scream will become a standard point of reference for scholars wishing to find their way through the dense thicket of medieval pain perception.”

Robert Mills, King’s College, University of London

“Pain brings out the best and the worst in us all. Alongside despair over life-long suffering there is the sympathy that another’s pain inspires. Pain can take the form of torture but it is also a vehicle towards self-understanding. The possibilities of studying pain historically are vast. In The Modulated Scream, Esther Cohen explores with sensitivity and erudition the combinations of feeling and action which medieval Europeans developed in their treatment of pain. From the theories of jurists about torture, the recommendations of doctors on pain relief, the ecstasies of the religious produced in emaciated bodies, to the efforts of every housewife to keep her family pain free, a picture emerges markedly different from our own world, and yet set within a broader frame of universal human sympathy. This is a book which historians will savour, and which many others beyond will greatly enjoy.”

Miri Rubin, Queen Mary, University of London