Nordic Witchcraft in Transition: Impotence, Heresy and Diabolism in 14th-century Bergen
Within the orbit of witchcraft, what is the relationship between sexuality, heresy, and diabolism?
The myth of Jewish male menses
Several scholars have asserted that medieval Christians believed that Jewish men menstruated. Their arguments, made in support of a grander claim that Jews as a collectivity were gendered feminine in Christian thought, rest on numerous misreadings.
Medieval Feminine Humanism and Geoffrey Chaucer’s Presentation of the Anti-Cecilia
Perhaps the tale has been dismissed because, compared to the other tales, it appears to be simple and straightforward. Lynn Staley Johnson points out that “most Chaucerians hold that this legend could not have been written before about 1373” and further that “it is generally accepted that Chaucer decided to include the legend in the Canterbury book relatively late in the Canterbury period” .
The Wife of Bath: a Tragic Caricature of Women
The Wife is characterized by a preoccupation with sex, which she uses to manipulate her husbands, of which she has had five, into acquiescing their land and money to her control.
Women on the Rack: Torture and Gender in the Ius commune
The story that I will tell in this essay is of four women. Queen Sibílla Fortià of Aragon, an unknown woman named Mita, Beatrice Cenci of Rome, and Artemisia Gentileschi, also of Rome. What unites these four women is torture. All four were summoned to court, and all four were tortured.
How to be a Man, Though Female: Changing Sex in Medieval Romance
Gender participates in a series of taxonomies that structure the social order, and it therefore participates in processes beyond itself, such as Christianity and knighthood, which are equally about identity within the world of chivalric romance. Therefore, the inscription of one often helps to define the other.
Shifting Experiences: The Changing Roles of Women in the Italian, Lowland, and German Regions of Western Europe from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Period
Specifically, the thesis compares and analyzes the changing roles that women could employ economically, politically, socially, and religiously.
Gender Roles and Symbolic Meaning in Njáls Saga
There are many examples in Njáls saga of characters who fail to adhere to their assigned gender role and as a result perpetuate the chain of events that leads the saga to its grisly conclusion.
“The Softness of Her Sex”: Matilda’s Role in the English Civil War of 1138-1153
This thesis examines the life of the Empress Matilda (1102-1167), focusing on how factors beyond her control directed much of its course. It discusses her attempts to take control of the political realm in England and the effect this had on her, her supporters, and her kingdom. It also analyzes her later years and influence on her son Henry II.
Prescribing Love: Italian Jewish Physicians Writing on Lovesickness in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
This paper begins with a general survey of early modern European medical literature concerning lovesickness. This is followed by a short introduction to the Jewish physicians who lived and worked in the geographic area currently constituting Italy during the beginning of the early modern period, focusing on three physicians who wrote about lovesickness…
The Empress in Late Antiquity and the Roman Origins of the Imperial Feminine
This thesis seeks to explore the construction and conceptualization of the Byzantine imperial feminine, up until the sixth century AD.
Holy Body, Wholly Other: Sanctity and Society in the Lives of Irish Saints
The core of hagiography, whatever else may accrete around it, is therefore the depiction of what defines a saint as a saint in the eyes of the hagiographer and his intended audience. Ireland’s hagiography must then encompass the Irish author’s understanding of an Irish saint.
The status of women in Roman and Frankish law
Under both Roman and Frankish laws, women, although they did not have judicial equality with men, did have many legal rights and freedoms.
Chaucer’s costume rhetoric in his portrait of the Prioress
No critic has ever discussed costume signs in order to reveal to what extent the Prioress does or does not conform in her costume to the fourteenth century norm, with consideration given, simultaneously, to the historical records, literature and visual arts of the period that form and inform the signs from the many traditions Chaucer in corporates in his portrait of the Prioress.
The castrati: a physician’s perspective
The phenomenon of the castrati enters the history of Western music in the latter half of the 16th century, becoming a dominant factor in Italian music through most of the 17th and 18th centuries, and then gradually fading during the 19th century.
Scissors or Sword? The Symbolism of a Medieval Haircut
Simon Coates explores the symbolic meanings attached to hair in the early medieval West, and how it served to denote differences in age, sex, ethnicity and status.
A Historiography of Chastity in the Marriage of Edith of Wessex and Edward the Confessor
While records of Edith’s life and her marriage to Edward are poor, the historiography of those who narrated her life after her death is rich. In some ways, the historiography of her life was directly related to that of her husband’s.
Got Medieval?
Developing queer history through the concept of affective connection—a touch across time—and through the intentional collapse of conventional historical time, I wanted in Getting Medieval to help queer studies re- spond to such desire.
The Werewolf Pride Movement: A Step Back from Queer Medieval Tradition
Werewolf texts fiom the Middle Ages — namely, the early thirteenth-century romance, William of Palerne, and Marie de France’s early twelfth-century lay, ‘Bisclavret’ — suggest that the curse of fur might, after all, be a blessing to the individual dissatisfied with his or her place in society
The True Characters of Criseyde and of Diomede in Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde: A Restoration of the Reputations of Two Misunderstood Characters Unjustly Maligned in Literary Criticism
This is a defence of the characters of Criseyde and of Diomede based, inter alia, on a close textual analysis.
Gender Equality in Wage Labour Relations: the example of statutory regulation in late medieval and early Tudor England
The first question, not yet raised in labour historiography, is about the impact of wage labour relations on gender equality.
The second question is related to the first one: what role did women play as protagonists of wage labour relations.
The Women of the Wars of Independence in Literature and History
My paper will have two main goals. The first goal is to survey the historical evidence available for the study of real women who were affected by the war…The second goal will be to consider the theoretical implications of the representation of women in a discourse produced entirely by men.
“Doulce chose est que mariage”: Exemplarity and Advice in the Works of Christine de Pizan
I first examine the autobiographical elements of Christine’s works that highlight her personal marital experience. Christine draws authority from her first-hand knowledge of marriage, which supersedes the flawed assumptions of scholars lacking this life experience.
Fruit of the Womb: Prenatal Food in Renaissance Italy
One of the crucial tenants of humoral theory is the belief that females are of a colder and wetter disposition than the hotter, drier nature of males. To achieve optimal health the humors needed to be in perfect balance, as seen in all recommendations for food, drink, preparation and even environment.