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Medieval Masculinities Regarding Men in the Middle Ages Clare A. Lees, editor |
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This collection of essays examines the ideals and archetypes of men in Medieval times and how these concepts have affected the definition of masculinity and its place in history. "We should not be working [exclusively] on the subjected sex any more than a historian of class can focus exclusively on peasants."—Natalie Zemon Davis, 1975 In the years since Natalie Davis made this remark, men's studies, and gender studies along with it, has earned its place in scholarship. What is often missing from such studies, however, is the insight that the concept of gender in general, and that of masculinity in particular, can be understood only in relation to individual societies, examined at specific historical and cultural moments. A brilliant application of this insight, Medieval Masculinities is the first full-length collection to explore the issues of men's studies and contemporary theories of gender within the context of the Middle Ages. Interdisciplinary and multicultural, the essays range from matrimony in medieval Italy to bachelorhood in Renaissance Venice, from friars and saints to the male animal in the fables of Marie de France, from manhood in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Beowulf, and the Roman d'Eneas to men as "other," whether Muslim or Jew, in medieval Castilian epic and ballad. The authors are especially concerned with cultural manifestations of masculinity that transcend this particular historical period—idealized gender roles, political and economic factors in structuring social institutions, and the impact of masculinist ideology in fostering and maintaining power. Together, their essays constitute an important reassessment of traditional assumptions within medieval studies as well as a major contribution to the evolving study of gender. "Each essay is impressively well-referenced through the end notes, the provision of original and Modern English versions of almost all literary and many historical texts makes the essays accessible to both specialist and general reader, and the final index facilitates the investigation of thematic links. The book produces an invigorating opening—out of medieval versions of men and women." —International Medieval Bibliography Contributors: Christopher Baswell, Vern L. Bullough, Stanley Chojnacki, John Coakley, Thelma Fenster, Clare Kinney, Clare A. Lees, Jo Ann McNamara, Louise Mirrer, Harriet Spiegel, Susan Mosher Stuard. Clare A. Lees is assistant professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of Tradition and Belief. 224 pages | 1994 |
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$20.00 paper