Ginzburg, Carlo. The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth Century Miller.

Ginzburg, Carlo. The Cheese and the Worms:
The Cosmos of a Sixteenth Century Miller. Translated by John Tedeschi and Anne C.
Tedeschi. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992
Is it possible to make a
macro-argument through micro-historical analysis? The Cheese and the Worms is a rare treat that attempts to answer
large questions with small samples sizes. It masterfully illuminates the
beliefs of a miller, Menocchio, and his interpretations of the world. In
essence, the book attempts to reconstruction popular consciousness through
Menocchio. Though not a powerful or even particularly influential man, Menocchio
is a remarkable historical focal point because of his heretical beliefs. He was
a profound thinker whose literacy enabled him to develop complex political,
social, and religious theories. For example, as the title of the book suggest,
Menocchio’s creation myth began as such: “…earth, air, water, and fire were
mixed together; and out of that bulk of mass formed—just as cheese is made out
of milk—and worms appeared in it, and these were angels.” When asked about
where his ideas originated, Menocchio refered to many books he had read but was
unable to accurately describe their narratives. (52) In the end, Menocchio’s
fate is death because he refuses to repent and keep quiet. Carlo Gizburg argues
that Menocchio’s unique cosmology reflects a fragment of a “persecuted, obliterated,
forgotten peasant culture” that was in contradiction to wider Christian
culture. (xiv, xxiii) The purpose of this book is to expose others to a miller
“...who had strange ideas, and who had read a number of books” and to explore
the complicated relationship between popular religion and elite culture. (x) 
Ginzburg begins his
prefaces (2003 version, English version, Italian version) by examining two main
historiographic trends and setting them against each other. Ginzburg grapples
with two larger questions that saturate the entire book: to what extent do
aspects of the dominant elite culture permeate popular culture and to what
extent does popular culture represent a deliberate acculturation of rural and
elite beliefs? In particular, Ginzburg points out that Mandrou’s thesis argues
that popular culture must be imposed from the top-down, while Bolleme’s thesis
understands popular culture as autonomous from elite culture. In contrast to
both, Ginzburg examines Menocchio’s literary culture in light of rural culture.
Ginzburg’s most significant thesis suggests that popular culture is influence
by both rural and elite culture. His argument utilizes the theoretical frame
works of Foucaultian Post-Modernism and Levy-Bruhl’s mentalité, while also being informed by Marxism. 
Subsequent chapters detail
the story of Menocchio. His radically non-Christians beliefs and his
unwillingness to abandon them are central to the book’s discourse on popular culture.
The book utilizes Inquisition records from the interrogation of Menocchio in
Friuli over a fifteen-year period. Ginzburg executes this argument through sixty-two
short and precise chapters. In a way, this allows Ginzburg to grab the
attention of his readers by creating unique and novelesque narrative. This narrative
style enables an organic relationship between the reader and Ginzburg based on
mutual fascination with Menocchio and complicated questions of popular culture.
Additionally, Ginzburg’s organization and framework express the difficulty of
both Ginzburg and Menocchio’s to organize and execute the complex ideas with
which they deal with. 
The Cheese and the Worms comes up against minor problems when
addressing the issue of sources and their ability to reconstruct and accurately
reflex historical popular consciousness. 
Of course, this is an inherent problem with pre-modern Inquisition
records. Ginzburg argues that Menocchio’s beliefs were a well-organized body
with “an abstruse and complicated anthropology.” (68) However, Ginzburg is
unable to validate Menocchio’s ideologies without additional sources and over
sixty chapters. 
Although a brilliant book,
the basic evidence is repetitive, thin, and often overreaching. His arguments
hinges on the existence of pre-Christian rural religious traditions. However, he
cannot provide evidence that it existed. His propensities for generalizations
are crucially important to the outcome of the book. Suggesting that Menocchio’s
ideas indicate a more widespread significance, rather than a fascinating set of
individual beliefs, is difficult to prove. I do not question Ginzburg’s
description of Menocchio but instead questions whether there could have been
thousands of other like Menocchio. If there were, how can we know if they were adhering
to “traditional rural beliefs”? Even Menocchio was careful to deny such claims under
the pressure of physical torture. He insisted that his ideas were developed
through literature. 
Too often the reader is left with unproven
assertions and over-simplifications. While Ginzburg spends a majority of his
analysis exploring the origins of Menocchio’s beliefs, I was not completely
convinced of Ginzburg’s answers. His explanation of mills as “a place of
meeting, of social relations…a place for the exchange of ideas” was the most
convincing aspect of his argument. (119) But how can we account for the oral
traditions of religious materialism? (68) This is a question that haunts many
social historians and Ginzburg’s willingness to address and wrestle with it
warrants both praise and criticism. Though, I would argue that what makes this
book brilliant is not its evidence or overall conclusions but its methodology,
execution, and the questions it raises on the nature of belief and unbelief in
Early Modern Europe. After reading this book, Ginzburg’s last sentences rings
true: “About Menocchio we know many things… about the so many other like him
who lived and died without leaving a trace, we know nothing.”
Category:Reformation
Category:Popular Culture