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Conflicting Identities and Multiple Masculinities takes as its focus the construction of masculinity in Western Europe from the early Middle Ages until the fifteenth century, crossing from pre-Christian Scandinavia across western Christendom. The essays consult a broad and representative cross section of sources including the work of theological, scholastic, and monastic writers, sagas, hagiography and memoirs, material culture, chronicles, exampla and vernacular literature, sumptuary legislation, and the records of ecclesiastical courts. The studies address questions of what constituted male identity, and male sexuality. How was masculinity constructed in different social groups? How did the secular and ecclesiastical ideals of masculinity reinforce each other or diverge? These essays address the topic of medieval men and, through a variety of theoretical, methodological, and disciplinary approaches, significantly extend our understanding of how, in the Middle Ages, masculinity and identity were conflicted and multifarious.
List of contents
Introduction * An Unresolved Syllogism. The Search of a Christian Gender System, Jo Ann McNamara * Secular and Spiritual Fatherhood in the Eleventh Century, Megan McLaughlin * Jean Gerson and Traumas of Masculinity Affectivity and Sexuality, Brian Patrick McGuire * Mystical Castration: Some Reflections on Peter Abelard, Hugh of Lincoln and Sexual Control, Jacqueline Murray * Medieval Masculinities and Modern Interpretations. The Problem of the Pardoner, Vern L. Bullough * Triangularity in the Pagan North. The Case of Bjrn Arngeirsson and W-rvr Kolbeinsson, Jenny Jochens * Steel Corpse: Imaging the Knight in Death, Rachel Dressler * Chivalric Conversation and The Denial of Male Fear, Andrew Taylor * Separating the Men from the Goast. Masculinity, Civilization, and Identity Formation in the Medieval University, Ruth Mazo Karras * Gravitas and Consumption, Susan Mosher Stuard * Men and Masculinity in Late Medieval London Civic Culture. Governance, Patriarchy and Reputation, Shannon McSheffrey * Loved Him-Hated Her: Honor and Shame at the Medieval Court, John Carmi Parsons
About the author
Jacqueline Murray
