Heads Will Roll: Decapitation in the Medieval and Early Modern Imagination

Contributors: Tina Boyer, Thea Cervone, Dwayne C. Coleman, Christine F. Cooper-Rompato, Mark Faulkner, Andrew Fleck, Jay Paul Gates, Thomas Herron, Mary E. Leech, Nicola Masciandaro, Jeff Massey, Asa Simon Mittman, Larissa Tracy, and Renée Ward
 
Preface by: Jeffrey Jerome Cohen
 
Introduction:
The final cut, the fatal blow: Beheading is one of the most pervasive modes of execution in human history. From the iconic images of Judith sawing off the head of the tyrant Holofernes, to the animated head of the Green Knight in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, to the English block and the French Guillotine, to modern images of captured soldiers beheaded on camera by terrorists, decapitation crosses all boundaries of time, culture and genre and provides a spectacular and performative affirmation of power and authority. But beheading also serves multiple purposes in the corpus of medieval literature. It is a means by which to ensure death and immobilize a recalcitrant corpse; it is magical and prophetic; it is a marker of sanctity and theological propaganda; it is a testament to brutality and the reality of martial violence. Just as the head is given special significance in many medieval cultures, the act of beheading takes on special significance in the medieval texts collated in this collection.

The essays are arranged in chronological order from biblical examples to the earliest Anglo-Saxon hagiographic texts through the secular early modern iconography of Anne Boleyn, and feature the evolution of the "talking head", beginning with silent heads and moving to locquacious examples. The miraculous motifs give way to magical episodes in medieval secular romances, and take on a mystical and allegorical dimension in early modern literature, drama, and popular culture. The final essay recontextualizes the evolution of decapitation in terms of the early Anglo-Saxon examples and modern reception.