Medieval History Commons^™

Women’S Public Language In The "Old English Apollonius Of Tyre", Sophia D'Ignazio

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

This article argues that the Old English Apollonius is a deliberate, complete adaptation of the Apollonius story that centers women’s learning. Read as an integral narrative, rather than a fragment, the Old English Apollonius becomes a story about Princess Arcestrate’s education and governance. Following hagiographical models, Arcestrate’s learning and virtue take center stage, with Apollonius displaced into the supporting role of teacher. The adaptation celebrates female learning as the means of moral governance and dynastic success.

Lesbians Like Me, Judith M. Bennett

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

In 1973, I was a brand new lesbian and also a brand new medievalist. This essay explores how these two strands of my life diverged and intersected over the course of my career. It has sad bits but is mostly happy. I hope it will interest many of you today, and I also hope that its story of change-for-the-better continues for all of us.

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal Of Gender And Sexuality 59.1 (2023)

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Reading The Books Of Margery Kempe And Alice Pyett: Attachment And Feminist Restoration In Michelle Paver's "Wakenhyrst", Laura Varnam

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

This article examines reading, attachment, and the restoration of female voices in Michelle Paver's Wakenhyrst, a 2019 novel inspired by the fifteenth-century mystic and author, Margery Kempe. The article foregrounds and analyses the author’s own response to the novel and to Paver's comments about Kempe from the perspective of Rita Felski's work on art and attachment (2020) and in the context of Carolyn Dinshaw's reading of Hope Emily Allen's championing of Margery Kempe (2012). Underpinned by a framework that draws on medievalism studies (particularly Katherine Brown's concept of 'restoration'), the article explores the ways in which Paver's two readers …

Apostate Nuns In The Later Middle Ages, Morgan Mcminn

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

A Life Of Ill Repute: Public Prostitution In The Middle Ages, Amanda Scott

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

The Basque Seroras: Local Religion, Gender, And Power In Northern Iberia, 1550–1800, Phyllis Zagano

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Women, Food, And Diet In The Middle Ages: Balancing The Humors, Autumn Reinhardt-Simpson

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Women Warriors And National Heroes: Global Histories, Misty Urban

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Cárcel De Amor / The Prison Of Love, Laura Francis, Álvaro Garrote Pascual

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

The Hidden History Of The Norseman And Celts, Amber Nicole Johnson

Whittier Scholars Program

When people hear the word Celts or Vikings there seems to be a common stigma or romanticization of them. This seems to stem from the early iron age and has shifted over to the 21st century with the production of movies and franchises. They are often depicted as being savage, barbaric, or warrior based (a term used to describe them) when there is a whole other side to these people. In the Spring of 2023, I took an independent study course that allowed me to examine the available archaeological and other evidence to understand the identities of the Germanic and …

A Presence Of P____ And W__Th, Riley Wilson

Masters Theses

This body of work examines the involvement of association as it relates to our cultural interpretations of natural phenomena. Flowers and animals, both real and imagined, have been used as symbols for human morality since the beginning of human history. Two sources with which I drew inspiration from are medieval bestiaries and the Victorian practice of flower language. By combining elements from these references, I aim to pair this idea about the human need for classification with my own considerations about my identity. In combination, I also aim to highlight the responsibility that is intrinsic to curiosity. When faced with …

Obscene Pedagogies: Transgressive Talk And Sexual Education In Late Medieval Britain, Jenny C. Bledsoe

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Holy Matter Making Holy Meaning: Fashioning Memory, Community And Dissimilar Similitude In Middle Dutch Sister-Books And The Book Of Margery Kempe, Godelinde G. Perk

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

The Middle Dutch sister-books and The Book of Margery Kempe are fifteenth-century vernacular texts by women chronicling their female subjects’ conversion and arduous attempts at a holy life. They share an (auto)hagiographic enterprise and formal and thematic features, including a display of rags and riches by the vitae’s subjects and a desire for mnemonic engagement on the part of the readers with the text. This article is the first to present the Diepenveen and Deventer sister-books and the Book as conversation partners. I draw on two main conceptual tools: 1) medieval memoria and 2) the notion of “dissimilar similitude” …

Gender And Voice In Medieval French Literature And Song, Joseph P. Derosier

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Female Reception Of Stained Glass Images Of St. Anne In Late Medieval York: Women, Mothers, And Wives, Susanna Wyse Jackson

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

This article explores the depiction of St. Anne in the late medieval stained glass of three York parish churches. Focusing on two iconographic subjects, St. Anne teaching the Virgin Mary and St. Anne with her extended family, it argues that the representation of St. Anne in these contexts speaks to the conscious orientation of iconography towards female members of the laity. Images of St. Anne may have served to reinforce specific roles and values by providing a focus for performative identification. In addition, they reflect women’s status within the family, the parish, and society as a whole. This under-explored area …

Studying Gender In Medieval Europe: Historical Approaches, Jessica E. Zisa

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Selecting Authority: The Compiler And Female Mystical Sources In Speculum Devotorum, Caitlin J. Branumthrash

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

The fifteenth-century Speculum devotorum, or Mirror to Devout People, is best known for incorporating the texts of mystical women into its narrative of the life of Christ, likely because it has an explicitly stated female audience—a nun of Syon. Rather than considering how the female audience may have perceived the female sources in Speculum devotorum, this article investigates the compiler’s views of his female sources based on how he incorporates them into his work. I argue that the compiler treats his female sources as full auctores, but he only includes their works when he addresses what he considers female …

"Oiez Mon Aventure": Cuer D'Acier's Nonbinary Gender In Perceforest, Brooke Heidenreich Findley

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

The character of Cuer d’Acier, or Heart of Steel, in the 15^th century French romance Perceforest, has a complex gender identity that does not fit easily into a gender binary. First appearing as the courtly maiden Neronés, the character later lives and is read as a man. The romance uses both “he” and “she” pronouns to refer to Heart of Steel, often using both in the space of a single paragraph or even a single sentence. While Heart of Steel is again dressed as a woman at the end of the romance, the character’s own actions and statements …

Book Of The Body Politic, Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Christine De Pizan: Life, Work, Legacy, S.C. Kaplan

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal Of Gender And Sexuality 58.2 (2023)

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Bibliography, Alison Langdon

Faculty/Staff Personal Papers

Bibliography of publications by Alison (Ganze) Langdon.

Elite Women In The Mediterranean 31 Bc – 1380 Ad: An Investigation Into Female Agency, Identity, And Patriarchy Across Classical And Christian Paradigms, Julia Maurer

Capstone Showcase

This paper explores the responses of elite women to patriarchal regimes across the Classical Pagan and Medieval Christian paradigms in the Mediterranean from 31 BC to 1380 AD. While the current historiography acknowledges the radical differences between the two worldviews fundamental to the core values of Western Civilization, an investigation of three women that can be taken to be emblematic examples of the periods in which they lived reveals a striking continuity in the nuanced social roles available to women. This continuity contradicts expectations of significant changes reflective of this revolutionary paradigm shift.

I utilize Julia Augusti, Vibia Perpetua, and …

Lenses, Focus, And Fluidity: Lessons From Medieval Queer History, Reese Hollister

The Gettysburg Historical Journal

The Medieval era is sometimes overlooked within the field of Queer and Transgender History, but a recent shift in focus has revealed new discoveries and interpretations. This historiographical analysis posits that in the Middle Ages, gender and sexuality were much more fluid than previously believed.

Gendered Violence And The Family: An Analysis Of The 14th-Century Epic "Lion De Bourges", Ashley Paige Holt

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is the first to focus on gender roles within the fourteenth-century French epic Lion de Bourges and the first work to feature extensive translations into English of this medieval text. Using the cyclical dismemberment and reunification of the Bourges family as a lens, it brings into focus the various members of the family, their relationships, and the larger thematic questions about family and society put forward by the poet. Chapter one interrogates the notion of the king as a national father figure as well as the spread of injury and violence from the father/king to the members of …

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal Of Gender And Sexuality 58.1 (2022)

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

The Mélusine Romance In Medieval Europe: Translation, Circulation, And Material Contexts, Angela Weisl

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal Of Gender And Sexuality 57.2 (2022)

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Affect And The Tomb In Robert Henryson's Testament Of Cresseid, Elizabeth Elliott

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

The penultimate verse of Henryson’s Testament of Cresseid suggests the possibility that Troilus raised a monument in memory of his former love, Cresseid: “Sum said he maid ane tomb of merbell gray” (l. 603). Examining the political implications of this uncertain act of memorialisation, this article considers how Henryson's poem mobilises the reader's emotional response to constitute Cresseid as a mourned subject, whose subjectivity is recognised only insofar as it is limited to suffering and death. In doing so, the Testament also establishes a subjectivity for women that offers conditional tolerance predicated on respectable behaviour, contributing to the historical production …