AbstractOverviewing the history of self‐starvation, extreme fasting may be found in three different forms: a miracle, a spectacle, an illness. Referring to different contexts of interpretation, the transition from sainthood to patienthood suggests a discontinuous pattern in the history of self‐starvation. On the other hand, several similarities in the behaviours of fasting women over the centuries rather point to transhistorical continuity. The discussion usually centres around the question of whether one may apply a ‘modern’ diagnosis such as anorexia nervosa, together with its actual sociocultural meanings, onto the phenomenon of food abstinence in previous ce