Medieval Virginities

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.