Sex and Gender in the Middle Ages

English 301 - Topics in Middle English

M. McInerney, Fall 2000

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This class will examine the contruction and representation of sex and gender in the Middle Ages. Medieval ideas about men, women and sexuality are often apparently contradictory. Women may be represented as bride of Christ or virgin mother on the one hand, on the other as temptresses and whores; "courtly love" appears to teach men to idolize women, even as clerical misogyny encouraged men to despise women. The courtly Romance exists side by side with the obscene Fabliau, but both were composed for the same audiences. Religious and devotional texts are full of transvestite saints, castrations threatened and accomplished, attempted rapes both homo- and heterosexual, strange distortions of the body and cases of holy anorexia.

Our focus will be on medieval texts, but we will accompany these primary readings with secondary readings in feminist and queer theory and the history of the body.

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 Images of Eve on the WWW

• Creation of Adam from John of Berry's Petites Heures (France, 14th century) and Eve from the Breviary of Martin of Aragon (Spain, 15th century). Both of these form part of the Age of Charles V (1338-1380) exhibition at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.
• Jan van Eyck, Ghent Altarpiece, from Nicholas Pioch's Webmuseum.
• Hieronymous Bosch, Paradise and Hell, also from the Webmuseum.

I am not aware of an Eve homepage. Is this an opportunity for someone?

Marian Resources on the WWW

• Mary Homepage at Dayton University
• Marian Apparitions around the world
• Apostolic Letter Mulieris Dignitatem, 15 August 1988, which gives the Church's current thinking on the creation of Eve, the nature of Mary, and many other issues to do with women.

 Illminations of Hildegard of Bingen:

• Ecclesia (Holy Church) with Virginity and Companions (Scivias II 5)
• Falling Stars (Scivias III 1),
• The Quickening of the Child and the Tribulations of the Soul (Scivias I 5)
• Relationship of Microcosm and Macrocosm (Book of Divine Works I 2 15)
• Heavenly Choir/Mandala

  (all from Bonnie Duncan's Medieval Women site, which unfortunately does not identify their sources in Hildegard's texts)

• Creation and Fall of Adam and Eve (Scivias I 2) and the Call to Prophecy (Scivias I 1).

Readings:

• Letters of Abelard and Heloise; Abelard's History of my Misfortunes
• Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim, Dulcitius, Pelagius
• Hildegard of Bingen, Symphonia
• Heldris, Silence
• Chaucer, Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale
• Fabliaux: The Lay of Ignaures, The Lady who was Castrated
• Anonymous, Pearl
• Margery Kempe, The Book of Margery Kempe
• Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love
• Film: Jesus of Montreal
• Selections from the Old and New Testaments, Patristic writers, and others.

Requirements:

This class will be conducted as a true seminar; all students are expected to participate regularly in class discussion and to do outside reading. Assignments will include

• at least one oral presentation
• regular postings to the electronic bulletin board established for the class
• 2 short (4-5) page essays
• occasional 1 page written assignments
• 10-12 page term paper, due at the end of the semester