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Gender Archive
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Androgynes, Crossdressers, and Rebel Queens: Modern Representations of Medieval Women Warriors from Tolkien to Martin
Posted on May 15, 2013 | No CommentsThis was another stellar paper given at the Tales after Tolkien session. It was an intriguing look at the women of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones and how each author portrays the mother and warrior characters of Galadriel/Cersi/Daenerys and Eowyn/Arya/Brienne. The paper examined the differences and problems posed by the portrayal of women in theses fantasy novels. -
Chivalry and Public Disorder in Thirteenth-Century Florence
Posted on May 13, 2013 | No CommentsThe was the second of two fabulous papers given at the my first session on Medieval violence. Whereas the first paper in this series looked at violence in the university setting, this one tackled violence in an elite sphere - Florentine knights and their retinues. -
Student Violence at the University of Oxford
Posted on May 9, 2013 | No CommentsMy first foray of KZOO 2013 couldn't have been off to a better start with, “I just don’t want to die without a few scars”: Medieval Fight Clubs, Masculine Identity, and Public (Dis)order. There were only two papers in this session and both were riveting. I felt like I couldn't type fast enough to get it all in! The first paper was given by Professor Andrew Larsen of Marquette University. Professor Larsen published a book on high and late medieval student violence and the Saint Scholastica's Day Riot at Oxford university. -
Identifying Women Proprietors in Wills from Fifteenth-Century London
Posted on April 21, 2013 | No CommentsMost Londoners lodged their post obit requests with the Husting Court, the county court of London. The testators were primarily wealthy artisans and merchants, since one needed to possess a substantial amount of property in order to register the details of the division of that property. -
Wynne whoso may, for al is for to selle: Sexual Economics and Female Authority in The Wife of Bath’s Prologue
Posted on April 18, 2013 | No CommentsChaucer’s inimitable Wife of Bath stands out as one of the most analyzed literary characters of all time, in part because of her existence outside of any defined medieval cultural classification, and in part as an archetype of a rising social tradition. -
Julian of Norwich’s “Christ as Mother” and Medieval Constructions of Gender
Posted on April 13, 2013 | No CommentsRecent 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. -
Wonders and Wisdom: Anglo-Saxons and the East
Posted on April 11, 2013 | No CommentsWhat the Anglo-Saxons ‘‘knew’’ about Moslems and Jews, and about Babylon and Egypt and India, depended upon Biblical exegesis, saints’ lives, and other texts derived from Latin sources. Numerous Old English texts, as well as Latin versions that circulated and were copied in Anglo-Saxon England, concern Asia; these are quite varied in genre and in content. -
The Voices of Counsel: Women and Civic Rhetoric in the Middle Ages
Posted on April 11, 2013 | No CommentsA full discussion of women’s civic rhetoric in the Middle Ages has been somewhat obfuscated for two reasons: persistent generalities about women’s roles, and generalities about the nature of the civic itself in the Middle Ages. -
Gender Transgression as Heresy: The Trial of Joan of Arc
Posted on March 27, 2013 | No CommentsThis paper aims to take the trial of Joan of Arc seriously by arguing that Joan really was a heretic because she was different from orthodox Christians in that she transgressed traditional gender roles. -
Chaucer, Gower, and What Medieval Women Want
Posted on March 27, 2013 | No CommentsGeoffrey Chaucer and John Gower, friends and colleagues, both chose to retell the same story at roughly the same time in their story collections, The Canterbury Tales and the Confessio Amantis. -
Best Clothes and Everyday Attire of Late Medieval Nuns
Posted on March 25, 2013 | No CommentsThe habit symbolises humility because it nulifies any difference of estate; it signifies the will to chastity because it disguises the feminine form of the body; and it displays outer obedience to divine com- mands by its timelessly simple cut and fabric of linen or wool. Given this sort of symbolism, fashion and nuns appear to be mutually exclusive themes. -
Sisters Between: Gender and the Medieval Beguines
Posted on March 17, 2013 | No CommentsThe origins of the Beguines can be traced to two important medieval religious reform movements: monastic mysticism and the vita apostolica, or "apostolic life." -
Woman-Woman Love in Islamic Society
Posted on March 9, 2013 | No CommentsWomen have only recently become visible at all in Islamicist/Orientalist discourse. Within most present-day Islamic states, where representation of even married heterosexual conduct is heavily censored, woman-woman sexuality remains thoroughly submerged. -
Widows in Anglo-Saxon England
Posted on March 3, 2013 | No CommentsOwing to a fairly large number of mainly vernacular codes of law that have survived, we are in a position to see at least how in legislation the position of women in general, but also of widows in particular, was defined. -
Personal’ Rituals: The Office of Ceremonies and Papal Weddings, 1483-1521
Posted on March 3, 2013 | No CommentsThis analysis reveals the increasing involvement of papal ceremonialists in the preparation and supervision of wedding events,5 highlighting the ceremonialists’ own broad definition of their mandate and a pragmatic approach to the boundaries of papal ritual. -
The Welsh Female Saint: Patterns within a Social Framework
Posted on March 2, 2013 | No CommentsHistoria Divae Monacellae, the Latin Life of Melangell is also comparatively late in composition, with the earliest manuscript being from the 16th century, but possibly drawing on earlier written sources.3 When we look at the availability of written texts relating to male saints the difference in source material is immediately evident. -
Fashion of Middle England and its Image in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales
Posted on February 24, 2013 | No CommentsFashion of Middle England and its Image in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales Petra Štěpánková Bachelor Thesis, Masaryk University – Brno, Faculty of Education, Department of English Language and Literature, Brno (2012)... -
Kings and Courtesans: A Study of the Pictorial Representation of French Royal Mistresses
Posted on February 24, 2013 | No CommentsAs France emerged from the Middle Ages, the monarchy began to establish itself as a more stable institution and a curious development took place: the French kings began to install official mistresses at court. With this official status these women became parallel members of the royal family. They lived like queens, with various estates granted to them by the kings. -
Scandinavian late Viking Age art styles as a part of the visual display of warriors in 11th-century Estonia
Posted on February 24, 2013 | No CommentsArtefacts decorated in Scandinavian Late Viking Age art styles have been known for a long time in the Estonian archaeological material, and were first published as early as 1914 by Max Ebert; a more comprehensive overview was given in 1929 by Birger Nerman. The finds include silver-plated and sometimes partially gilded weapons, as well as belt and scabbard fittings, plaques, and only a few pieces of jewellery. -
Traditions of Courtly Love and the Canterbury Tales
Posted on February 24, 2013 | No CommentsChaucer uses both common and courtly love in the Canterbury Tales. His pilgrims represent nearly every level of the social scale and range anywhere from a knight to a miller to a parson to a pardoner. Thererfore, their status will determine what kind of tale they will tell. -
Syphilis, Misogyny, and Witchcraft in 16th-Century Europe
Posted on February 19, 2013 | No CommentsSyphilis, Misogyny, and Witchcraft in 16th-Century Europe Eric B. Ross Current Anthropology, Vol. 36, No. 2 (Apr., 1995), pp. 333-337 Abstract While debate continues over the geographical origin of syphilis... -
Mi Suete Leuedi, Her Mi Béne: The Power and Patronage of the Heroine in Middle English Romance
Posted on February 10, 2013 | No CommentsThe Middle English Romances are somewhat difficult to study as a group. In order to examine these works accurately, one must take into consideration other literature produced at the same tirne, as well as that which preceded it. -
Did Joan of Arc have to be a woman? Contemporary and later perspectives on her gender
Posted on January 29, 2013 | No CommentsThe only trustworthy drawing of Joan of Arc made during her lifetime has often been reproduced. Yet, to those of us who study the fifteenth-century French military saint, this portrait is actually a disappointment. -
En/gendering representations of childbirth in fifteenth-century Franco-Flemish devotional manuscripts
Posted on January 27, 2013 | No CommentsLate-medieval representationsof the births of holy and heroic children invariably show a domestic interior with the new mother lying in bed attended by female assistants.These images thus appearto show a `genderedspace' in which women cared for each other and from which men were marginalized. -
Procopius’ Portrayal of Theodora in the Secret History: ‘Her Charity was Universal’
Posted on January 27, 2013 | No CommentsLike most other writers of late antiquity, what little is known about Procopius comes from his works. Born at the turn of the sixth century in Caesarea, he had the chance to receive education in the traditional Greek fashion, i.e. through the use of classical authors, before Justinian banned pagan teaching in 529