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The Virgin's Kiss: Gender, Leprosy, And Romance In The Life Of St. Frideswide, Gary Stephen Fuller

Theses and Dissertations

The longer thirteenth-century Middle English verse life of Saint Frideswide found in the collection of saints' lives known as the South English Legendary (SEL) narrates an event unique to medieval hagiography. In the poem, a leper asks the virgin saint to kiss him with her "sweet mouth," which she does in spite of her feelings of considerable shame, and the leper is healed. The erotic nature of the leper's request, Frideswide's reluctance to grant it, and her shame throughout the incident represent a significant departure from the twelfth-century Latin texts on which the SEL version of the saint's …