THE MEDIEVAL MOON. A HISTORY OF HAUTING AND BLESSING

When they gazed at the moon, medieval people around the globe saw an object that was at once powerful and fragile, distant and intimate-and sometimes all this at once. The moon could convey love, beauty, and gentleness, but it could also be about pain, hatred, and violence. In its circularity the moon was associated with fullness and fertility. Yet in its crescent and other shifting forms, the moon could seem broken, even wounded.