The following article, hereafter in its English translation, has been written by Dr Giulia Rainis.
Giulia Rainis is a Specialist of Law History of the late Medieval Age with a PhD in Historical Anthropology. She has been a recipient of scholarship at the Italian Institute of Historical Studies and she co-worked with different Research Institutions as post-Doc Researcher (University of Trieste, Italy; Université Diderot, Paris VII, Université Lumière, Lyon 2; Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique CNRS – Maison de Science de l’Homme MSH Paris).
She is currently a member of the Scientific Committee for FULMEN project at the École Française in Rome, lead by Julien Théry, and she started collaborating as post-Doc with the Reseach Group of the University of Siena, Italy, in the PRIN environment “To the origins of Welfare: poverty, assistance, citizenry in the late Medieval Italy”. Author of different scientific articles, her interests focus on the animalization and exclusion.
LIBERATING. AN OVERLOOK ON THE NOTIONS OF SCREAM DURING THE MIDDLE AGES
The most common definition of the world “scream”, referred to human being, is “to emit yell aloud, prolonged and repeated because of pain or strong emotions”, but also “to call, to protest, to reprimand or incite with a high and agitated voice”, which is the meaning we commonly give to this action in our everyday life. In our daily routine, somehow and from a indefinite moment, the cathartic and liberating purpose of the act of screaming failed: now it has been silently relegated into the private sphere of our emotions.
In our imaginary, related to recent history and certainly influenced by images, photographs, video and movies, the connotations taken by the act of screaming are often negative: a scream can express a feeling of rage, pain and, in some other cases, fear. In this way, it becomes, somehow, a violent act , almost vulgar (“You scream as a vajassa” someone would say in Naples, where with Vajassa they mean a woman with humble origins, coarse and vulgar in her behaviours).
Occasionally, into our vocabulary and our everyday collective imagination, the act of screaming is even banished into the area of mental instability of individuals that, unable to maintain the necessary control on their actions, make use of a stern voice and a violent attitude. This situation is clear if we reflect on those common expressions related to hysteria and insanity: “stop being hysterical” or “you scream like crazy”.
This brief as meagre introduction, in which I tried to shortly describe what the potential connotations we commonly give to the scream might be, it is simply a propaedeutic introduction to a simple query: how to find in the act of screaming that cathartic and calming function that became marginal in our lives and that Dayana Marconi’s project “I can hear you now” is trying to glorify instead?
Since I had the chance to actively participate to the project “I can hear you now”, as one of her sitters, and since I had the chance to follow its development since the early stages to the current one, as Specialist of the Medieval historical period I tried to investigate how the act was “perceived” at that time. Of course, it would be presumptuous presuming to be able to provide an absolute and univocal answer to this ample topic full of undertones with this brief essay: this is why I will try to retrace some of those contexts in which the act of screaming emerges from those available sources, trying to highlight, from time to time, the role that it performed in different socio-cultural environments.
Scream and Justice: the Guilt.
At the dawn of XIII Century, with the establishing of a procedural inquisive model and the concept of merciless justice, torture became a probative instrument in judiciary environment. In this way, screams entered into those justice-competence headquarters for the first time. The suspect, if innocent, would have not allowed himself to be defeated by pain but, guided by God, he would have gone through corporal inflictions. The scream, as well as pain, in this context assumed the role of evidence of guilt.
Scream and War: the Catharsis.
The great majority of those numerous studies dedicated to war is focused on military or socio-economical aspects, omitting, unfortunately, the ritual perspective. Thanks to historic reports of Academics who narrated those events related to their historical periods, anyway, we are aware of interesting slices of life.
For instance, Liutprando, Bishop of Cremona, in his Chronicon, written at the end of X Century, narrated how Ungars, before attacking their target, used to split in small groups that, before each battle, used to surround a specific residential zone hiding themselves and commonly emitting scary screams, diffusing panic in the population before the conflict. Christian armies usually responded to Ungars’ diabolic “Hui! Hui!” by screaming the liturgical Kierieleison prayer (from Greek: Κύριεἐλέησον).
Scream and animalization: the Savagery.
The scream, into literary production and theological-religious treatise, was an act not completely accepted. The scream has always been seen in contrast with silence and it was commonly related to the Deadly Sin of Rage. Overall, it was something conceived as inhuman and bestial: this is why it was perceived as something to condemn and to be confined into the parallel Universe of Silva that, in the Medieval dichotomist meaning was juxtaposed to the City, the Universe of men. Silva is the forest: the place belonging to wild beasts in which human being had no control.
Scream and Religion: the Absolution.
The relationship between screaming and preaching or processions is, clearly, different. In these specific religious contexts the scream loses its heavily negative connotation, becoming something necessary: preaching in its deep didactic and moral connotations needs, as a matter of fact, this act. It has always been used as a way to communicate and to keep devotees on course. In this way, the act of screaming, even if in a religious context, can be seen as a necessary form of communication, an instrument that the preacher uses to guide the observant on the way to safety. At the same time, this type of communication can also be used, sometimes, during processions.
Original Italian article: written by Dr Giulia Rainis.
English translation: Dayana Sharon Marconi.
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Rainis Giulia, Université Lumière Lyon 2, CIHAM UMR 5648, Histoire, Post-Doc, Profile page and Publications http://xn--universitlyon2-jkb.academia.edu/GiuliaRainis
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