Between Medieval Men

Author : David Clark
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Page : 243 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 2009-02-26
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9780191567889

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Between Medieval Men by David Clark Pdf

Between Medieval Men argues for the importance of synoptically examining the whole range of same-sex relations in the Anglo-Saxon period, revisiting well-known texts and issues (as well as material often considered marginal) from a radically different perspective. The introductory chapters first lay out the premises underlying the book and its critical context, then emphasise the need to avoid modern cultural assumptions about both male-female and male-male relationships, and underline the paramount place of homosocial bonds in Old English literature. Part II then investigates the construction of and attitudes to same-sex acts and identities in ethnographic, penitential, and theological texts, ranging widely throughout the Old English corpus and drawing on Classical, Medieval Latin, and Old Norse material. Part III expands the focus to homosocial bonds in Old English literature in order to explore the range of associations for same-sex intimacy and their representation in literary texts such as Genesis A, Beowulf, The Battle of Maldon, The Dream of the Rood, The Phoenix, and Ælfric's Lives of Saints. During the course of the book's argument, David Clark uncovers several under-researched issues and suggests fruitful approaches for their investigation. He concludes that, in omitting to ask certain questions of Anglo-Saxon material, in being too willing to accept the status quo indicated by the extant corpus, in uncritically importing invisible (because normative) heterosexist assumptions in our reading, we risk misrepresenting the diversity and complexity that a more nuanced approach to issues of gender and sexuality suggests may be more genuinely characteristic of the period.

Author : David Rollo
Publisher : Explorations in Medieval Cultu
Page : 196 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 2022
Category : History
ISBN : 9004429654

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Medieval Writings on Sex Between Men by David Rollo Pdf

"What happens if a cleric breaks his vows of sexual abstinence? What happens if the cleric in question does so repeatedly with other men of his vocation? Eleventh-century theologian Peter Damian provides a response. What happens if an author uses metaphor as a metaphor signifying and excoriating male same-sex relations, yet does so in a text showing an exuberant and unabashed orientation towards metaphorical language? Is the author in question rhetorically perpetrating precisely the so-called affront to nature he grammatically denounces? Twelfth-century poet Alain de Lille enacts an ambiguously enigmatic response"--

Author : Ruth Mazo Karras
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
Page : 258 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2003
Category : History
ISBN : 0812218345

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From Boys to Men by Ruth Mazo Karras Pdf

While the social identity of women in medieval society hinged largely on the ritual of marriage, identity for men was derived from belonging to a particular group. Knights, monks, apprentices, guildsmen all underwent a process of initiation into their unique subcultures. As From Boys to Men shows, the process of this socialization reveals a great deal about medieval ideas of what it meant to be a man—as distinguished from a boy, from a woman, and even from a beast. In an exploration of the creation of adult masculine identities in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, From Boys to Men takes a close look at the roles of men through the lens of three distinct institutions: the university, the aristocratic household and court, and the craft workshop. Ruth Mazo Karras demonstrates that, while men in the later Middle Ages were defined as the opposite of women, this was never the only factor in determining their role in society. A knight proved himself against other men by the successful use of violence as well as by successful control of women. University scholars proved themselves against each other through a violence that was metaphorical and against other men by their Latinity and their use of the tools of logic and rationality. Craft workers proved their manhood by achieving independent householder status. Drawing on sources throughout Northern Europe, including court records and other administrative documents, prescriptive texts such as instructions for dubbing to knighthood, biographies, and imaginative literature, From Boys to Men sheds new light on how young men were trained to take their place in medieval society and the implications of that training for the construction of gender in the Middle Ages. Rescuing maleness from its classification as an ungendered category, From Boys to Men unravels what it meant to be men in a womanless context, revealing the common threads that emerge from the study of young manhood in various disparate institutional settings.

Author : RachelAnn Dressler
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 202 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 2017-07-05
Category : Art
ISBN : 9781351556002

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Of Armor and Men in Medieval England by RachelAnn Dressler Pdf

Despite the profusion of knightly effigies created between c. 1240 and c. 1330 for tombs throughout the British Isles, these commemorative figures are relatively unknown to art historians and medievalists. Until now, their rich visual impact and significance has been relatively unexplored by scholars. In this study, Rachel Dressler examines this category of sculpture, illustrating how English military figures employ a visual language of pose, costume, and attributes to construct a masculine ideal that privileges fighting prowess, elite status, and sexual virility. Like military figures on the Continent, English effigies represent knights wearing chain mail and surcoats, and bearing shields and swords; unique to the British examples, however, is the display of an aggressive sword handling pose and dynamically crossed legs. Outwardly hyper masculine, the carved figures partake in artistic subterfuge: the lives of those memorialized did not always match proffered images, testifying to the changing function of the knight in England during the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. This study traces the development of English military figures, and analyzes in detail three fourteenth-century examples-those commemorating Robert I De Vere in Hatfield Broad Oak (Essex), Richard Gyvernay at Limington (Somerset), and Henry Allard in Winchelsea (Sussex). Similar in appearance, these three sculptures represent persons of distinctly different social levels: De Vere belonged to the highest aristocratic rank, where Gyvernay was a lesser county knight, and Allard was from a merchant family, raising questions about his knightly standing. Ultimately, Dressler's analysis of English knight effigies demonstrates that the masculine warrior during the late Middle Ages was frequently a constructed ideal rather than a lived experience.

Author : Clare A. Lees,Thelma S. Fenster,Jo Ann McNamara
Publisher : U of Minnesota Press
Page : 221 pages
File Size : 46,9 Mb
Release : 1994
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 9781452901657

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Medieval Masculinities by Clare A. Lees,Thelma S. Fenster,Jo Ann McNamara Pdf

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.

Author : Geoffroi de Charny
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
Page : 124 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 2013-03-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9780812208689

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A Knight's Own Book of Chivalry by Geoffroi de Charny Pdf

On the great influence of a valiant lord: "The companions, who see that good warriors are honored by the great lords for their prowess, become more determined to attain this level of prowess." On the lady who sees her knight honored: "All of this makes the noble lady rejoice greatly within herself at the fact that she has set her mind and heart on loving and helping to make such a good knight or good man-at-arms." On the worthiest amusements: "The best pastime of all is to be often in good company, far from unworthy men and from unworthy activities from which no good can come." Enter the real world of knights and their code of ethics and behavior. Read how an aspiring knight of the fourteenth century would conduct himself and learn what he would have needed to know when traveling, fighting, appearing in court, and engaging fellow knights. Composed at the height of the Hundred Years War by Geoffroi de Charny, one of the most respected knights of his age, A Knight's Own Book of Chivalry was designed as a guide for members of the Company of the Star, an order created by Jean II of France in 1352 to rival the English Order of the Garter. This is the most authentic and complete manual on the day-to-day life of the knight that has survived the centuries, and this edition contains a specially commissioned introduction from historian Richard W. Kaeuper that gives the history of both the book and its author, who, among his other achievements, was the original owner of the Shroud of Turin.

Author : Derek G. Neal
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 318 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 2009-05-15
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780226569598

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The Masculine Self in Late Medieval England by Derek G. Neal Pdf

What did it mean to be a man in medieval England? Most would answer this question by alluding to the power and status men enjoyed in a patriarchal society, or they might refer to iconic images of chivalrous knights. While these popular ideas do have their roots in the history of the aristocracy, the experience of ordinary men was far more complicated. Marshalling a wide array of colorful evidence—including legal records, letters, medical sources, and the literature of the period—Derek G. Neal here plumbs the social and cultural significance of masculinity during the generations born between the Black Death and the Protestant Reformation. He discovers that social relations between men, founded on the ideals of honesty and self-restraint, were at least as important as their domination and control of women in defining their identities. By carefully exploring the social, physical, and psychological aspects of masculinity, The Masculine Self in Late Medieval England offers a uniquely comprehensive account of the exterior and interior lives of medieval men.

Author : Ian Forrest
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 520 pages
File Size : 47,7 Mb
Release : 2020-03-31
Category : History
ISBN : 9780691204048

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Trustworthy Men by Ian Forrest Pdf

The medieval church was founded on and governed by concepts of faith and trust--but not in the way that is popularly assumed. Offering a radical new interpretation of the institutional church and its social consequences in England, Ian Forrest argues that between 1200 and 1500 the ability of bishops to govern depended on the cooperation of local people known as trustworthy men and shows how the combination of inequality and faith helped make the medieval church. Trustworthy men (in Latin, viri fidedigni) were jurors, informants, and witnesses who represented their parishes when bishops needed local knowledge or reliable collaborators. Their importance in church courts, at inquests, and during visitations grew enormously between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. The church had to trust these men, and this trust rested on the complex and deep-rooted cultures of faith that underpinned promises and obligations, personal reputation and identity, and belief in God. But trust also had a dark side. For the church to discriminate between the trustworthy and untrustworthy was not to identify the most honest Christians but to find people whose status ensured their word would not be contradicted. This meant men rather than women, and—usually—the wealthier tenants and property holders in each parish. Trustworthy Men illustrates the ways in which the English church relied on and deepened inequalities within late medieval society, and how trust and faith were manipulated for political ends.

Author : Sharon A. Farmer,Carol Braun Pasternack
Publisher : U of Minnesota Press
Page : 354 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 2003-01
Category : History
ISBN : 0816638942

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Gender and Difference in the Middle Ages by Sharon A. Farmer,Carol Braun Pasternack Pdf

Nothing less than a rethinking of what we mean when we talk about "men" and "women" of the medieval period, this volume demonstrates how the idea of gender -- in the Middle Ages no less than now -- intersected in subtle and complex ways with other categories of difference. Responding to the insights of postcolonial and feminist theory, the authors show that medieval identities emerged through shifting paradigms -- that fluidity, conflict, and contingency characterized not only gender, but also sexuality, social status, and religion. This view emerges through essays that delve into a wide variety of cultures and draw on a broad range of disciplinary and theoretical approaches. Scholars in the fields of history as well as literary and religious studies consider gendered hierarchies in western Christian, Jewish, Byzantine, and Islamic areas of the medieval world.

Author : Dawn Hadley
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 296 pages
File Size : 55,5 Mb
Release : 2015-12-14
Category : History
ISBN : 9781317882985

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Masculinity in Medieval Europe by Dawn Hadley Pdf

An original and highly accessible collection of essays which is based on a huge range of historical sources to reveal the realities of mens' lives in the Middle Ages. It covers an impressive geographical range - including essays on Italy, France, Germany and Byzantium - and will span the entire medieval period, from the fourth to the fifteenth century. The collection is divided into four main sections: attaining masculinity; lay men and churchmen: sources of tension; sexuality and the construction of masculinity; and written relationships and social reality. The contributors are: Dawn Hadley, Jenny Moore, William M. Aird, Jeremy Goldberg, Matthew Bennet, Janet Nelson, Conrad Leyser, Robert Swanson, Patricia Cullum, Ross Balzaretti, Shaun Tougher, Julian Haseldine, Marianne Ailes and Mark Chinca.

Author : C. S. Lewis
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 212 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 1998
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 0521645840

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Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature by C. S. Lewis Pdf

An invaluable collection for those who read and love Lewis and medieval and Renaissance literature.

Author : Mark Masterson
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 247 pages
File Size : 44,9 Mb
Release : 2022-06-17
Category : History
ISBN : 9781351135214

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Between Byzantine Men by Mark Masterson Pdf

The presence and importance of same-sex desire between men in the Byzantine Empire has been understudied. While John Boswell and others tried to open a conversation about desire between Byzantine men decades ago, the field reverted to emphasis on prohibition and an inability to read the evidence of same-sex desire between men in the sources. Between Byzantine Men: Desire, Homosociality, and Brotherhood in the Medieval Empire challenges and transforms this situation by placing at centre stage Byzantine men's desiring relations with one another. This book foregrounds desire between men in and around the imperial court of the 900s. Analysis of Greek sources (many untranslated until now) and of material culture reveals a situation both more liberal than the medieval West and important for its rite of brother-making (adelphopoiesis), which was a precursor to today’s same-sex marriage. This book transforms our understanding of Byzantine elite men's culture and is an important addition to the history of sex and desire between men. Between Byzantine Men will appeal to scholars and general readers who are interested in Byzantine History, Society, and Culture, the History of Masculinity, and the History of Sexuality.

Author : Norman F. Cantor
Publisher : Harper Collins
Page : 232 pages
File Size : 46,9 Mb
Release : 1995-02-03
Category : History
ISBN : 9780060925796

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Medieval Lives by Norman F. Cantor Pdf

A fascinating look at life in the Middle Ages that focuses on eight extraordinary medieval men and women through realistically invented conversations between them and their counterparts.

Author : Alanus (de Insulis)
Publisher : PIMS
Page : 268 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 1980
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0888442750

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The Plaint of Nature by Alanus (de Insulis) Pdf

Author : Laura L. Gathagan,Charles C. Rozier,William North
Publisher : Boydell & Brewer
Page : 262 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 2021-12-17
Category : Civilization, Medieval
ISBN : 9781783276592

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The Haskins Society Journal 32: 2020. Studies in Medieval History by Laura L. Gathagan,Charles C. Rozier,William North Pdf

Essays illuminate a wide range of topics from the Middle Ages, from the seals of an empress to priests' wives and the undead.This volume of the Haskins Society Journal demonstrates the Society's continued engagement with historical and interdisciplinary research from the early to the central Middle Ages on a broad range of topics including militarism, piety, the miraculous and the monstrous. Chapters explore material culture through a mythic eleventh-century papal banner and the seals and coins of the Empress Matilda; offer new insights into Carolingian hagiography and into the undead in the Historia rerum Anglicarum. Further chapters feature new evidence on the role of priests' wives, the tensions of multiple lordships, shifting identities in the Irish Sea world, and the didactic use of royal anger. A fresh examination of Aelred of Rievaulx's Relatio de Standaro and a re-assessment of Flemish documentary practice continue the Haskins Society's commitment to primary source analysis. Two essays on the thirteenth century, including links between Crusade spirituality and lay penitential strategies and an investigation into the economic costs of waging war, round out the volume.Contributors: DAN ARMSTRONG, DAVID S. BACHRACH, DANIEL M. BACHRACH, JILLIAN M. BJERKE, HANNAH BOSTON, MARIAH COOPER, FIONA J. GRIFFITHS, JESSE M. HARRINGTON, JEAN-FRANÇOIS NIEUS, ALICE RIO, CHARITY URBANSKI, PATRICK WADDEN, MEGHAN WOOLLEY, LU ZUOth century, including links between Crusade spirituality and lay penitential strategies and an investigation into the economic costs of waging war, round out the volume.Contributors: DAN ARMSTRONG, DAVID S. BACHRACH, DANIEL M. BACHRACH, JILLIAN M. BJERKE, HANNAH BOSTON, MARIAH COOPER, FIONA J. GRIFFITHS, JESSE M. HARRINGTON, JEAN-FRANÇOIS NIEUS, ALICE RIO, CHARITY URBANSKI, PATRICK WADDEN, MEGHAN WOOLLEY, LU ZUOth century, including links between Crusade spirituality and lay penitential strategies and an investigation into the economic costs of waging war, round out the volume.Contributors: DAN ARMSTRONG, DAVID S. BACHRACH, DANIEL M. BACHRACH, JILLIAN M. BJERKE, HANNAH BOSTON, MARIAH COOPER, FIONA J. GRIFFITHS, JESSE M. HARRINGTON, JEAN-FRANÇOIS NIEUS, ALICE RIO, CHARITY URBANSKI, PATRICK WADDEN, MEGHAN WOOLLEY, LU ZUOth century, including links between Crusade spirituality and lay penitential strategies and an investigation into the economic costs of waging war, round out the volume.Contributors: DAN ARMSTRONG, DAVID S. BACHRACH, DANIEL M. BACHRACH, JILLIAN M. BJERKE, HANNAH BOSTON, MARIAH COOPER, FIONA J. GRIFFITHS, JESSE M. HARRINGTON, JEAN-FRANÇOIS NIEUS, ALICE RIO, CHARITY URBANSKI, PATRICK WADDEN, MEGHAN WOOLLEY, LU ZUO