“The Cheese and the Worms” is an exciting and enjoyable book to read for historical researchers looking into the past social and political life of peasants relating to inquisition goals. It explains a popular culture through one man’s eyes, a miller who was taken faces trial during questioning (Ginzburg 42). Carlo Ginzburg incorporates the trial record of the miller, Domenico Scandella who was popularly known as Menocchio to show how microhistory can be vitally important in the determination of macro history for research purposes and more specifically on Italian inquisition. Transformation of microhistory to macro history by Ginzburg is evaluated through his suggestion that not all the peasants of that time were uneducated as they were thought to be. Ginzburg makes a declaration that the already existing histories were also utilized in the 16th century by laborers to deduce their convictions and their convictions, which changes the entire comprehension and notion of the workers of that time.
The book focusses on Menocchio, a miller in the 16th century from Montereale village in Friuli, the northeastern part of Italy in the Republic of Venetian (Ginzburg 13). He was an intellectual thinker, somebody with a well-wrought political and social theory and virtuous indignation at the insult of political and religious authority for personal reasons (Ginzburg 69). Through the Friuli inquisitors’ interrogations, they realize that there were host differences in peasants’ perception. The book’ title comes from an outstanding cosmogony, “… my opinion, all was chaos, that is, earth, air, water, and fire were mixed; and out of that bulk a mass formed – just as cheese is made out of milk – and worms appeared in it, and these were the angels. The holiest majesty decreed that these should be God and the angels, and among that number of angels there was also God, he too having been created out of that mass at the same time.” Pg. 69 Menocchio’ ecclesiology never came to terms with theological teachings, practices, and concepts. Theological concepts include; mass for departed souls, transubstantiation, blasphemy, damnation, original sin, Catholic sacraments (confirmation, baptism, ordination, and marriage, extreme unction, confirmation, and communion), use of religious imagery and the Apocrypha.
Oppositely, Menocchio’s ecclesiology supported religious equality and assumed the existence of a natural causal force that predated God. Menocchio had a disposition of demeaning religion to morality as blasphemy, and he uses this as a reason during trials. However, it is not only the theological heresy that makes Menocchio unclean to the religious authorities but also his political insults. He complained about the usage of Latin in law courts the reason being, he quotes, “speaking Latin is a betrayal of the poor because in lawsuits the poor do not know what is being said and are crushed; and if they want to say four words, they need a lawyer.” Pg. 25. He objects the sale of sacraments and indulgences also refutes confession claiming you can confess to anything including a tree or a monk just as you would do to a priest. He also goes ahead to claim that Jesus was not born of the Virgin Mary but man (Ginzburg 25).
Ginzburg describes the article in a European context, pinpointing factors such as counter-reformation and reformation, printing revolution, utopian literature genre, and longstanding oral traditional culture. The book is a comprehensive study on ecclesiology articulating the tribunals while emphasizing on its cultural significance and the large influences trials. The unparalleled belief system was similar to that of the Jacobites, Lutherans, Anabaptists, general Reformation, Origen followers and Manicheans and Ginzburg brings out their distinctive nature.
I love the way Ginzburg illustrates the main character Menocchio. He clearly outlines his capacity to project complex ideologies, for instance, he relates God to the chaos of a fetus in the womb. However, he also shows his inclination to falter in his contradictions such as the reality of paradise and morality of the soul (Ginzburg 126). Ginzburg outlines the destructive nature of Menocchio against the Roman Catholic church doctrines and that his conduct is a representation of other free-thinkers whose existence rejects, “the unacceptable notion that ideas originate exclusively among the dominant classes.” Pg.126. Ginzburg suggests that restoration, printing revolution, and counter-reformation incited Menocchio to effectively spread his belief ingrained in former notions of peasant which pose a challenge to the Catholic Church authority.
It is quite difficult to follow the storyline in Cheese and the Worms because it does not provide a succinct synopsis of important events. His work is inclusive of extracts from other sources, for example, Travels by Mandeville by Caravia by Nicolini which feels tangential and arbitrary. It is unfortunate that Ginzburg concentrates on the phenomenon of coagulation and omits discussion that is vitally important in the understanding of entire cultural events such as the eminence of chaos-based pagan religions in Europe.
Finally, the book provides a good understanding of historical methodologies, historiography, and offer a new knowledge of religious belief system of Italians peasant in the late sixteenth century. The story of Menocchio slightly marks the beginning of reformation because of the torture he undergoes publicly before he dies by fire. The end goal was to get him reveal the names of his accessories. The mental and physical torture makes the story decent for the writer. Nonetheless, Ginzburg record uses the story to advocate for defense in the culture of a worker.
Work cited
Ginzburg, Carlo. The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller. JHU Press, 2013.
