Gender and Christianity in Medieval Europe Gender and Christianity in Medieval Europe
The Middle Ages Series

Gender and Christianity in Medieval Europe

New Perspectives

    • $21.99
    • $21.99

Publisher Description

In Gender and Christianity in Medieval Europe, six historians explore how medieval people professed Christianity, how they performed gender, and how the two coincided. Many of the daily religious decisions people made were influenced by gender roles, the authors contend. Women's pious donations, for instance, were limited by laws of inheritance and marriage customs; male clerics' behavior depended upon their understanding of masculinity as much as on the demands of liturgy. The job of religious practitioner, whether as a nun, monk, priest, bishop, or some less formal participant, involved not only professing a set of religious ideals but also professing gender in both ideal and practical terms. The authors also argue that medieval Europeans chose how to be women or men (or some complex combination of the two), just as they decided whether and how to be religious. In this sense, religious institutions freed men and women from some of the gendered limits otherwise imposed by society.

Whereas previous scholarship has tended to focus exclusively either on masculinity or on aristocratic women, the authors define their topic to study gender in a fuller and more richly nuanced fashion. Likewise, their essays strive for a generous definition of religious history, which has too often been a history of its most visible participants and dominant discourses. In stepping back from received assumptions about religion, gender, and history and by considering what the terms "woman," "man," and "religious" truly mean for historians, the book ultimately enhances our understanding of the gendered implications of every pious thought and ritual gesture of medieval Christians.

Contributors:
Dyan Elliott is John Evans Professor of History at Northwestern University. Ruth Mazo Karras is professor of history at the University of Minnesota, and the general editor of The Middle Ages Series for the University of Pennsyvlania Press. Jacqueline Murray is dean of arts and professor of history at the University of Guelph. Jane Tibbetts Schulenberg is professor of history at the University of Wisconsin—Madison.

GENRE
History
RELEASED
2013
March 26
LANGUAGE
EN
English
LENGTH
168
Pages
PUBLISHER
University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc.
SELLER
University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc.
SIZE
1.6
MB
Representing Medieval Genders and Sexualities in Europe Representing Medieval Genders and Sexualities in Europe
2016
Medieval Sexuality Medieval Sexuality
2010
Mary Magdalene and the Drama of Saints Mary Magdalene and the Drama of Saints
2013
Medieval Intersections Medieval Intersections
2021
Women and Aristocratic Culture in the Carolingian World Women and Aristocratic Culture in the Carolingian World
2012
Clothes Make the Man Clothes Make the Man
2012
Otherworld Otherworld
2024
Landscape with Two Saints Landscape with Two Saints
2009
Gender and Christianity in Medieval Europe Gender and Christianity in Medieval Europe
2013
A Knight's Own Book of Chivalry A Knight's Own Book of Chivalry
2013
Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain
2013
Witchcraft and Magic in the Nordic Middle Ages Witchcraft and Magic in the Nordic Middle Ages
2011
Barbarian Tides Barbarian Tides
2010
The Romance of the Rose or Guillaume de Dole The Romance of the Rose or Guillaume de Dole
2015
Before the Normans Before the Normans
2011