Medievalists.net » Feminist http://www.medievalists.net Where the Middle Ages Begin Sun, 06 Dec 2015 19:35:15 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.9.9 Medieval Misogyny and Gawain’s Outburst against Women in “‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’ http://www.medievalists.net/2014/08/12/medieval-misogyny-gawains-outburst-women-sir-gawain-green-knight/ http://www.medievalists.net/2014/08/12/medieval-misogyny-gawains-outburst-women-sir-gawain-green-knight/#comments Tue, 12 Aug 2014 12:08:06 +0000 http://www.medievalists.net/?p=51806 The view has been gaining ground of late that the Gawain of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a knight renowned as 'Pat fyne fader of nurture' (1. 919) and as 'so cortays and coynt' of his 'hetes' (1. I525), degenerates at the moment of leave-taking from the Green Knight, his erstwhile host, to the level of a churl capable of abusing the ladies of that knight's household (11.2411 -28).

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]]> http://www.medievalists.net/2014/08/12/medieval-misogyny-gawains-outburst-women-sir-gawain-green-knight/feed/ 0 A Kiss Is Just a Kiss: Heterosexuality and Its Consolations in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight http://www.medievalists.net/2014/08/05/kiss-just-kiss-heterosexuality-consolations-sir-gawain-green-knight/ http://www.medievalists.net/2014/08/05/kiss-just-kiss-heterosexuality-consolations-sir-gawain-green-knight/#comments Tue, 05 Aug 2014 15:39:44 +0000 http://www.medievalists.net/?p=51635 The famous line from that modern romance- "A kiss is just a kiss"- is the message the Gawain-poet gave his listeners six centuries ago.

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]]> http://www.medievalists.net/2014/08/05/kiss-just-kiss-heterosexuality-consolations-sir-gawain-green-knight/feed/ 0 Call for Papers: Moving Women, Moving Objects (300-1500) (ICMA CAA 2015) http://www.medievalists.net/2014/04/08/call-papers-moving-women-moving-objects-300-1500-icma-caa-2015/ http://www.medievalists.net/2014/04/08/call-papers-moving-women-moving-objects-300-1500-icma-caa-2015/#comments Tue, 08 Apr 2014 22:05:58 +0000 http://www.medievalists.net/?p=48870 CFP: Moving Women, Moving Objects (300-1500) (ICMA CAA 2015)

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]]> http://www.medievalists.net/2014/04/08/call-papers-moving-women-moving-objects-300-1500-icma-caa-2015/feed/ 0 Men Who Talk about Love in Late Medieval Spain: Hugo de Urriés and Egalitarian Married Life http://www.medievalists.net/2014/02/13/men-who-talk-about-love-in-late-medieval-spain-hugo-de-urries-and-egalitarian-married-life/ http://www.medievalists.net/2014/02/13/men-who-talk-about-love-in-late-medieval-spain-hugo-de-urries-and-egalitarian-married-life/#comments Fri, 14 Feb 2014 00:05:04 +0000 http://www.medievalists.net/?p=47563 In the last third of the fifteenth century, Hugo de Urriés’s work can offer the modern reader a very rare and informative perspective from the points of view of social history and history of ideas.

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]]> http://www.medievalists.net/2014/02/13/men-who-talk-about-love-in-late-medieval-spain-hugo-de-urries-and-egalitarian-married-life/feed/ 0 The Reputation of the Queen and Public Opinion: The Case of Isabeau of Bavaria http://www.medievalists.net/2014/01/12/the-reputation-of-the-queen-and-public-opinion-the-case-of-isabeau-of-bavaria/ http://www.medievalists.net/2014/01/12/the-reputation-of-the-queen-and-public-opinion-the-case-of-isabeau-of-bavaria/#comments Sun, 12 Jan 2014 12:05:33 +0000 http://www.medievalists.net/?p=46605 This essay takes issue with a still common tendency to read contemporary criticisms of powerful women as straightforward evidence of their “unpopularity,” using as a cast study Isabeau of Bavaria (1371-1435), who was generally imagined to have suffered the scorn of her contemporaries.

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]]> http://www.medievalists.net/2014/01/12/the-reputation-of-the-queen-and-public-opinion-the-case-of-isabeau-of-bavaria/feed/ 0 Looking in the Past for a Discourse of Motherhood: Birgitta of Sweden and Julia Kristeva http://www.medievalists.net/2014/01/12/looking-in-the-past-for-a-discourse-of-motherhood-birgitta-of-sweden-and-julia-kristeva/ http://www.medievalists.net/2014/01/12/looking-in-the-past-for-a-discourse-of-motherhood-birgitta-of-sweden-and-julia-kristeva/#comments Sun, 12 Jan 2014 11:16:36 +0000 http://www.medievalists.net/?p=46603 This essay explores two parallel trajectories of mythic retrospection: medieval “myths” of the Biblical past (like Birgitta’s prophetic visions), and modern “myths” of the medieval past (like Kristeva’s survey).

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]]> http://www.medievalists.net/2014/01/12/looking-in-the-past-for-a-discourse-of-motherhood-birgitta-of-sweden-and-julia-kristeva/feed/ 0 Judging Female Judges: Sir John Fortescue’s Vision of Women as Judges in De Natura Legis Naturae http://www.medievalists.net/2013/11/14/judging-female-judges-sir-john-fortescues-vision-of-women-as-judges-in-de-natura-legis-naturae/ http://www.medievalists.net/2013/11/14/judging-female-judges-sir-john-fortescues-vision-of-women-as-judges-in-de-natura-legis-naturae/#comments Thu, 14 Nov 2013 23:54:45 +0000 http://www.medievalists.net/?p=44883 Judging Female Judges: Sir John Fortescue’s Vision of Women as Judges in De Natura Legis Naturae  Emma Hawkes Limina, Volume 8, (2002) Abstract The fifteenth-century English legal commentary, De Natura Legis Naturae, is probably the most obscure of Sir John Fortescue’s renowned writings. Fortescue’s text examines female authority more explicitly than his other writings, there has, […]

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]]> http://www.medievalists.net/2013/11/14/judging-female-judges-sir-john-fortescues-vision-of-women-as-judges-in-de-natura-legis-naturae/feed/ 0 Transvestite Knights: Men and Women Cross-dressing in Medieval Literature http://www.medievalists.net/2013/09/29/transvestite-knights-men-and-women-cross-dressing-in-medieval-literature/ http://www.medievalists.net/2013/09/29/transvestite-knights-men-and-women-cross-dressing-in-medieval-literature/#comments Sun, 29 Sep 2013 11:41:16 +0000 http://www.medievalists.net/?p=43951 In this thesis, I will look at mainly French and German texts from the 12th to the 15th centuries which deal with the subject of cross-dressers in the decidedly masculine domain of the knight. There are many tales of cross-dressing, particularly of women, but the concept of men dressing as women while jousting, and women dressing as knights, brings up several questions about the clothes, what it meant to be male and female, and how cross-dressing could be viewed on the tournament field.

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]]> http://www.medievalists.net/2013/09/29/transvestite-knights-men-and-women-cross-dressing-in-medieval-literature/feed/ 0 Fasting and the female body : from the ascetic to the pathological http://www.medievalists.net/2013/08/17/fasting-and-the-female-body-from-the-ascetic-to-the-pathological-2/ http://www.medievalists.net/2013/08/17/fasting-and-the-female-body-from-the-ascetic-to-the-pathological-2/#comments Sun, 18 Aug 2013 03:39:51 +0000 http://www.medievalists.net/?p=42911 Importantly, the dietary practices of the early Christians cannot be understood as a single corpus of ideas or practices. It could mean going without food altogether, as in the case of one of the desert fathers, Simeon Stylites, who ate nothing for the whole of lent.

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]]> http://www.medievalists.net/2013/08/17/fasting-and-the-female-body-from-the-ascetic-to-the-pathological-2/feed/ 0 Julian of Norwich’s “Christ as Mother” and Medieval Constructions of Gender http://www.medievalists.net/2013/04/13/40428/ http://www.medievalists.net/2013/04/13/40428/#comments Sat, 13 Apr 2013 22:59:31 +0000 http://www.medievalists.net/?p=40428 Recent Christian feminists have revived an interest in women mystics and feminine religious imagery. In light of what most people generalize about medieval misogyny and about the veneration of the Virgin as a surrogate for a female divinity, Julian of Norwich's trope of Christ as Mother seems even more remarkable.

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