The Manly Eunuch: Masculinity, Gender Ambiguity, and Christian Ideology in Late Antiquity by Matthew Kuefler (review)

REVIEWS 250 Catalan political structure from an earlier authority. Through the ninth and tenth centuries, the counts of Barcelona could call on traditions of Carolingian political practice within which the count was usually considered the first among many. In the eleventh century, the counts began to form a new feudal network based upon individual and personal arrangements with their subordinates. This latter effort corresponded with the period of crisis in Catalonia which began with the independent governance of the young Berenguer Ramon I, followed by the minority of his son, Ramon Berenguer I, the subsequent civil war and reexertion of comital authority by means of the agreements which were reflected in the convenientia. The first convenientia emerged in 1021, but Kosto extends his examination back to the late tenth century, searching out the influences from which the convenientia emerged. However, it remains unclear whether Kosto believes the convenientia grew naturally out of previous documentary forms utilized by earlier counts, or were introduced from outside and then adopted to conform with new socio-political realities. Kosto opens Making Agreements with a description of the Muslim attacks on Barcelona in 985 and the subsequent necessity to rebuild and reform Catalan society. He clearly intends to argue that more than physical rebuilding was required—archival practice, personnel, and mental constructions of power had to be reformed. Which date, 985 or 1021, should be considered the beginning of the feudal transformation in Catalonia? Leaving the choice between 985 or 1021 as possible initiation dates ambiguous allows Kosto to attach his argument more easily to the various historiographical positions concerning the beginning of the feudal revolution of 1000. However, his argument would have more strength if he ignored the periodization of other regions, and instead simply examined the role the convenientia played in Catalonia from 1021. Here Kosto’s argument strongly supports the idea that sociopolitical structures changed significantly in Catalonia after that date. In this way, he both supports the idea of feudal revolution—although he prefers transformation —as argued by Duby, Pierre-Poly and Bournazel, and places that shift in the early eleventh century, as Bonnassie and Bisson have proposed for Catalonia. Adam Kosto’s Making Agreements in Medieval Catalonia is an extensively researched work based upon a thorough knowledge of the available archival sources. His concentration on a single documentary form is quite an effective choice. The creation of a new scribal formula strongly supports his argument about how and why Catalan socio-political institutions underwent a significant alteration in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The counts of Barcelona and their officials created a new feudal structure, managing their relations with the powerful under the auspices of the Barcelona court. They achieved this by making individual agreements with the nobles, castellans and landholders of Catalonia. The success of the convenientia as a documentary text is witnessed by the adoption of the format by those same nobles and landholders for use in their dealings with their own subordinates. GREGORY B. MILTON, History, UCLA Matthew Kuefler, The Manly Eunuch: Masculinity, Gender Ambiguity, and Christian Ideology in Late Antiquity (Chicago and London: University of REVIEWS 251 Chicago Press 2001) x + 437 pp. What did it mean to be a man and to appear manly in Ancient Rome? In The Manly Eunuch: Masculinity, Gender Ambiguity, and Christian Ideology in Late Antiquity, Matthew Kuefler argues that notions of masculinity, especially among the aristocracy, informed elite intellectual life in Ancient Rome and was instrumental in the conversion of the Roman World to Christianity. During a period from the beginning of the third to the mid-fifth century, “the new Christian masculinity moved a previously subordinated masculinity into position as a hegemonic masculinity by means of the rhetoric of manliness and unmanliness” (6). Roman men yearned to be manly or at least appear that way, consequently, they were deeply afraid of being perceived as otherwise. The shapers of Christian ideology picked up on this obsession with manliness and incorporated it into Christian rhetoric and tradition. Thus by converting to Christianity, a man who may not have been prototypically manly would be able to elude the stigma of unmanliness. The beauty of this book lies in Kuefler’s subtle demonstration...