Transvestites in the Middle Ages
By Vern L. Bullough
American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 79, No. 6 (1974)
Abstract: Transvestism, which is usually defined in terms of psychopathology, must also be examined in terms of status gain and loss. This appears most obvious in an examination of the lives of the transvestite saints whose legends and myths help set Western attitudes toward transvestism. All of these saints were female, and by implication females could only gain by donning the clothes of the male. Males, on the other hand, lost status if they wore items of female apparel, and the only way society could justify such a loss was through attaching erotic connotations to such conduct which made it both dangerous and sinful.
Excerpt: It would seem logical, then, to argue that the female who wore male clothes and adopted the role of the male would be trying to imitate the superior sex, to become more rational, while the man who wore women’s clothes, who tried to take on the gender attributes of the female, would be losing status, becoming less rational. This seems to be implied as early as the 4th century by Saint Jerome, who wrote that as “long as woman is for birth and children, she is different from man as body is from soul. But when she wishes to serve Christ more than the world, then she will cease to be a woman and will be called man.” A similar concept was pressed by Saint Ambrose, also in the 4th century: “She who does not believe is a woman and should be designated by the name of her sex, whereas she who believes progresses to perfect manhood, to the measure of the adulthood of Christ. She then dispenses with the name of her sex, the seductiveness of youth, the garrulousness of old age.” The list of similar statements could be much expanded to indicate that the Christian church to a certain extent encouraged women to adopt the guise of men and live like men in order to attain the higher level of spirituality normally reserved to males. Whether this was the actual, well-thought-out intention of these church fathers is doubtful, but there are numerous stories about saintly women who lived and worked as men. Scholars today may argue that many if not all of these saints were legendary rather than real, but folk belief further emphasizes that transvestism among women was usually admired and only rarely punished. There are no male transvestite saints, not only because the male who cross-dressed lost status but because he was also associated with eroticism, or with witchcraft. Two examples illustrate this. This first is reported in the 6th century by the Frankish writer Gregory of Tours.
Gregory reported that during a revolt of some nuns in the convent of Radegunde the rebellious faction charged the abbess with keeping a man clothed in female garb and pretending that he was a woman in the convent. Everyone knew, they claimed, that he “was most plainly of the male sex; and that this person regularly served the abbess.” The charges resulted in an investigation which found that indeed there was a male nun. He had donned female garb because as a little boy, according to the physician Reovalis, he “had a disease of the groin and he was regarded as incurable. His mother went to the holy Radegunde and begged her to have the case examined. The saint summoned me, and bade me give all the help in my power. I then cut out his testicles, an operation which in former days I had seen performed by surgeons at Constantinople, and so restored the boy in good health to his anxious mother. I never heard that the abbess knew aught of the matter.” As a result of this testimony the charges against the abbess were finally dropped. The implication remains, however, that the only reason a man might don female garb and live in a convent was to gain sexual satisfaction from the nuns.
Click here to read this article from the University of Durham
Transvestites in the Middle Ages
By Vern L. Bullough
American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 79, No. 6 (1974)
Abstract: Transvestism, which is usually defined in terms of psychopathology, must also be examined in terms of status gain and loss. This appears most obvious in an examination of the lives of the transvestite saints whose legends and myths help set Western attitudes toward transvestism. All of these saints were female, and by implication females could only gain by donning the clothes of the male. Males, on the other hand, lost status if they wore items of female apparel, and the only way society could justify such a loss was through attaching erotic connotations to such conduct which made it both dangerous and sinful.
Excerpt: It would seem logical, then, to argue that the female who wore male clothes and adopted the role of the male would be trying to imitate the superior sex, to become more rational, while the man who wore women’s clothes, who tried to take on the gender attributes of the female, would be losing status, becoming less rational. This seems to be implied as early as the 4th century by Saint Jerome, who wrote that as “long as woman is for birth and children, she is different from man as body is from soul. But when she wishes to serve Christ more than the world, then she will cease to be a woman and will be called man.” A similar concept was pressed by Saint Ambrose, also in the 4th century: “She who does not believe is a woman and should be designated by the name of her sex, whereas she who believes progresses to perfect manhood, to the measure of the adulthood of Christ. She then dispenses with the name of her sex, the seductiveness of youth, the garrulousness of old age.” The list of similar statements could be much expanded to indicate that the Christian church to a certain extent encouraged women to adopt the guise of men and live like men in order to attain the higher level of spirituality normally reserved to males. Whether this was the actual, well-thought-out intention of these church fathers is doubtful, but there are numerous stories about saintly women who lived and worked as men. Scholars today may argue that many if not all of these saints were legendary rather than real, but folk belief further emphasizes that transvestism among women was usually admired and only rarely punished. There are no male transvestite saints, not only because the male who cross-dressed lost status but because he was also associated with eroticism, or with witchcraft. Two examples illustrate this. This first is reported in the 6th century by the Frankish writer Gregory of Tours.
Gregory reported that during a revolt of some nuns in the convent of Radegunde the rebellious faction charged the abbess with keeping a man clothed in female garb and pretending that he was a woman in the convent. Everyone knew, they claimed, that he “was most plainly of the male sex; and that this person regularly served the abbess.” The charges resulted in an investigation which found that indeed there was a male nun. He had donned female garb because as a little boy, according to the physician Reovalis, he “had a disease of the groin and he was regarded as incurable. His mother went to the holy Radegunde and begged her to have the case examined. The saint summoned me, and bade me give all the help in my power. I then cut out his testicles, an operation which in former days I had seen performed by surgeons at Constantinople, and so restored the boy in good health to his anxious mother. I never heard that the abbess knew aught of the matter.” As a result of this testimony the charges against the abbess were finally dropped. The implication remains, however, that the only reason a man might don female garb and live in a convent was to gain sexual satisfaction from the nuns.
Click here to read this article from the University of Durham
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