Envy, Jealousy and Zeal in the Ancient and Medieval Mediterranean

This open access book is a cross-cultural history of the rivalrous emotions. Based in close studies of half a dozen pre-modern Mediterranean societies, from the biblical Israelites and the classical Greeks to Umayyad Córdoba and medieval Latin Christendom, Envy, Jealousy and Zeal in the Ancient and Medieval Mediterranean traces changing understandings of jealousy and envy across two millennia. By treating envy, jealousy and their estranged cousin zeal as concepts with long and complex histories, it shows how they have reflected and in turn influenced broader social changes in gender relations, friendship, class structure, marriage norms, religious piety, sexuality, emotional style and language. Is jealousy a healthy social virtue, or a manifestation of the utter depravity of human nature? The answer depends, to a remarkable extent, on the language you speak.

A host of unexpected stories emerge along the way: how religious ‘zealotry’ evolved out of pious ‘jealousy’ to become the emotion which drove devout heroes to combat heretics; how ‘romantic jealousy’ developed in tandem with the biblical metaphor of God as a ‘jealous husband’ thrashing his wife for infidelity; how philosophers since antiquity have waged war on jealousy and envy through a succession of utopian projects spanning from Plato’s Republic and Christian monasticism all the way to the free, or heavily discounted, love of the Hippy communes. Ancient and medieval texts brim with answers to timeless questions: is jealousy the proof of love, or rather love’s opposite? What role is there for envy in a healthy community? When does ideological zeal improve society, when does it lead to intolerance and misguided violence?

Using historical anthropology, this open access book questions basic assumptions about these emotions within contemporary psychology, philosophy and theology. Through extensive interdisciplinary dialogue, it offers a new basis for a cross-cultural understanding of these fundamental human feelings.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by The Swiss National Science Foundation.