Masculinities and Femininities in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (review)

This collection of essays developed from a combined meeting of the Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association and the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies in Tempe, Arizona. The underlying premise is that gender identities are inherently unstable, thus demanding that we look at their historical constructions not as clearly defined entities, but as variations, as masculinities and femininities.

Frederick Kiefer has brought together an interesting array of scholars and topics. His introduction, while providing a background to the continuing importance of studying the idea of gender in the past and its implications for modern scholars and teachers, does not engage at all with any of the other material in the book. A closer engagement with the other essays might have prompted a better organized structure, connecting themes and ideas.

The opening essay by Tracy Adams is focused on masculinity, specifically that of men who do not marry: medieval clerics of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The Gregorian reform prompted a major re-visioning of masculinity for clerics as celibacy became mandatory. Analysing several texts from this period, Adams suggests that an Augustinian model was adopted – ‘Make me chaste, but not yet’ – in which love was not extinguished but became a pathway toward wisdom. In this essay, the relation between men and women (or the lack of one) defined what it was to be a masculine.

Masculinity as defined between men within a more martial context is the topic of the following essay, ‘Shoulder Companions and Shoulders in Beowulf’ by Victor Scherb. The shoulder is presented as a juncture of symbolic power which represents the connection between men together on the battle field, but can also represent the severance of connection, as arms are pulled from bodies, or as men kneel at the shoulder of, or carry upon their shoulders, their dead companions. Scherb demonstrates that the use of ‘shoulder’ designates the companionate relationship between men in early English literature.

Literature as a source remains the theme as Albrecht Classen argues it is perhaps the best ‘mirror[s] of medieval mentality’ particularly in relation to gender relations (p. 44). He analyses the Middle High German maeren, demonstrating how they challenge patriarchal perspectives, especially in relation to an institution most tied to male/female relationships – marriage. He suggests that traditional misogyny was under attack from both male and female writers and thinkers.

The fourth essay returns to the topic of what it is to be a man, using the animal imagery associated with literary representations of Richard the Lionheart. Lyn Shutters skilfully unpacks the ambiguous representations of the king, showing that the connection of a man to an animal can either reinforce positive attributes, or undermine them. Perhaps this essay could have been followed with the final one of the collection, ‘Sleeping with the Menagerie’ by Paul N. Hartle. It provides a different view on human relations with animals, less on how artists depict a person through animal associations but more about the individual’s relationship with animals. It provides a wide historical sweep of the eroticized character of relations with animals in English Renaissance literature.

Megan Moore uses the genre of romance to look at the role of grief as it defines characters and propels progress within the narrative. She contrasts the battle wounds of men, which are permanent reminders of past battle success, to the impermanent scars written on the grief-stricken bodies of heroines. Although marking their grief, these images of female self-mutilation are shown to be a site of sexual allurement for knights who aspire to fill the void. Far from the ugliness of self-mutilation inciting revulsion, the stories highlight the sexual allure provided by the impermanent marks of female grief.

The subject of Judith Bryce’s essay is Ginevra de’ Benci whose portrait appears on the cover of the book. Bryce opens with quotes highlighting the...