Medieval Virginities

Virgins and virginity are frequently referred to in late medieval culture and in particular in historical, medical, legal and hagiographical literature. Whilst virginity can often become linked with chastity, it can be both a permanent and temporary state within the lifecycle, and remains no less ambiguous and elusive to definition. This collection of twelve essays takes a multi-disciplinary approach to the subject of the manifestation of virginity in the late medieval period. Subjects explored include virginity referred to in law, Welsh prose, clerical perceptions, the virginal portrayal of Edward the Confessor, erotic mysticism, alchemy, the virgin martyr and Joan of Arc.

History

Salih, Sarah

Evans, Ruth

Bernau, Edited by Anke

Europe

University of Wales Press

While existing books have concentrated on female virginity in religious and hagiographic contexts, this book represents a second generation of virginity studies, building on and questioning the current research. It accepts the plurality of virginities and represents masculine and feminine, sacred and secular, medical, religious, and legal discourses. Familiar figures like Joan of Arc are examined from fresh perspectives. Articles look at the history of the hymen, mysticism and the erotic, masculinity and knighthood, the medieval physician, the cult of St. Edmund, chastity tests, the St. Barbara Altar, the Eucharist, virginity in legal records, and the sheela-na-gig figure.

Univ of Wales Pr

This study looks at the question of what it meant to be a virgin in the middle ages, and the forms which female virginity took. It begins with the assumptions that there is more to virginity than sexual inexperience, and that virginity may be considered as a gendered identity, a role which is performed rather than biologically determined. The author explores versions of virginity as they appear in medieval saints' lives, in the institutional chastity of nuns, and as shown in the book of Margery Kempe, showing how it can be active, contested, vulnerable but also recoverable. SARAH SALIH teaches in the Department of English at King's College London.

Versions of Virginity in Late Medieval England

Literature & Fiction

British & Irish

D.S.Brewer

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