Between fasting and religious suicide: A data-oriented reconsideration of the practice of endura in medieval heterodox Christianity

(Pre-print by the permission granted by Guidelines for Authors of the target journal.)

This article offers a systematic survey of evidence from medieval inquisition records concerning the controversial practice of endura, a strict form of fasting practised in a heterodox Christian milieu in southwestern France in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. Endura usually followed a form of adult baptism by the laying on of hands and often resulted in death. Some have considered endura a form of religious suicide. In this study, we use a comprehensive dataset of real-life endura cases to shed light on the geographical spread, diet, duration, and outcome of the practice, as well as on the patterns in the sociodemographic characteristics and health states of those engaging in it, and on the terminology, motivations and attitudes mentioned in the reports. We pay attention to variation, especially in motivation and diet, stress the importance of instructions and social pressure in addition to that of eschatological belief, and suggest an  ultimate ambiguity of this cultural practice, which a comprehensive interpretation should aim at highlighting rather than erasing.