Reddit reviews Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (The New Historicism: Studies in Cultural Poetics)

Relic Theft

Medieval Memory/Cognition Techniques

Women in the MA

Woman and Food

Asceticism

The Cult of the Saints

Monastic Culture

Medieval Origins of Modern Thought

If there's anything specific you're interested in, let me know and I'll try to think of some more recs.

>The body is sinful, dirty, foul, tainted, etc. Could that not lead to self-loathing, depression, extreme ascetic attitudes entrenched in a desire to get control of the body, attitudes that might translate well into disordered eating?

See: Holy Feast and Holy Fast

My senior year of undergrad I did a fair amount of work on medieval and early modern women, so I can recommend a couple of works here. Caroline Walker Bynum is basically the pioneer in the field and has written some really great studies, like [Holy Feast and Holy Fast] (http://www.amazon.com/Holy-Feast-Fast-Significance-Historicism/dp/0520063295/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1335016290&sr=8-2) and [Jesus as Mother] (http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Mother-Spirituality-Medieval-Renaissance/dp/0520052226/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1335016290&sr=8-8). These both deal with women and feminine imagery in the context of the medieval church, and specifically within monasticism. If you're looking for something a little closer to the Reformation and perhaps a bit more accessible, I'd recommend [The Burgermeister's Daughter] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Burgermeisters-Daughter-Scandal-Sixteenth-Century/dp/0060977213/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1335016083&sr=8-4) by Ozment.

I don't know if these are the best and more important books I've read, but they're ones I heartily recommend:

• In Small Things Forgotten: An Archaeology of Early Modern American Life, in which the author (James Deetz) asks his readers to consider the small things forgotten (fancy that) in the archaeological and historical record. Buttons, cups, doorways, gravestones. What do these tell us about people and the everyday?
  
  
• I was quite impressed by Barbed Wire: An Ecology of Modernity, by Reviel Netz. He discusses the invention of barbed wire and its use in and effects on agriculture, warfare, and concentration camp. It's rather theoretical, but it's easy to read and really well done. I am partial to history books that focus on one seemingly mundane object (such as salt, as on your list; cod; the clock; or the cat).
  
  
• Holy Fast, Holy Feast, by Caroline Walker Bynum, is required reading for any medievalist. She discusses the significance of food and fasting to medieval religious women.