![]() Before examining the fluidity of ideas like gender and sexuality in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, it is important to acknowledge that many of the terms we use today (and continue to develop and refine) such as hetero-, homo-, bi-, and a-sexual, did not exist at the time. This approach is not exclusively about gay, lesbian, transgender, or straight individuals but about the potential for multifaceted, iterative, and complex identity dynamics. Each image discussed in this post could be described as providing a queer lens with which to view the past-“queering,” if you will. In scholarship, the term “queer” is often used to describe any expression of sexuality or gender that disrupts or disturbs traditional binaries. Such binaries begin to break down under greater scrutiny. Even categories like male/female, gay/straight, or Christian/non-Christian risk essentializing, oversimplifying, or anachronism. It is sometimes tempting to generalize about what constituted “normal” male and female behaviors, expectations, identities, and relationships in the past, but the norm in one place and time was not necessarily the norm in another. Human sexuality and gender identity are complex topics, and our understanding of each is continually expanding and deepening. Froissart's "outing" of this French ruler exemplifies a frequent tactic for undermining a person's moral and spiritual reputation.Male Martyrs and Saints Worshiping the Lamb of God Female Martyrs and Saints Worshiping the Lamb of God in the Spinola Hours , about 1510–20, Master of the James IV of Scotland. The artist depicted the duke, at far right, placing his hand on the shoulder of the youth, whose short tunic and hose reveal his buttocks, as was fashionable at the time. The literary and artistic regendering of Bagoas/Bagoe reveals the predominant prejudice against same-sex attraction and, by analogy with the Amazons, the pervasive wariness toward powerful women.Įmbellishing his account of political negotiations at the French court, historian Jean Froissart (1337-1405) shared a defamatory anecdote: He wrote that Jean, Duke of Berry (1340-1416), was infatuated with a boy at court who specialized in manufacturing knitted undergarments. In the illumination, Bagoe wears luxurious garments like those of the spear-carrying Amazon women in the background, who were renowned for their military prowess and heightened sexual drive. The Classical world-ruler Alexander the Great's lovers included the young man Hephaistion and the eunuch Bagoas, but in one medieval account Bagoas was recast as a beautiful woman, called Bagoe, in order to "avoid a bad example," according to the text. Under Abbot Samson, Robert's vita was written and a shrine erected for his veneration. Edmunds, the ultimate victor, Samson, campaigned on the claim that his opponent allowed the town's Jewish moneylenders access to the abbey church. When two candidates vied for the seat of abbot of Bury St. The establishment of Robert's cult appears to have been politically motivated. The scenes at the upper left show a woman (possibly an accomplice) hiding Robert's body in a well and, at right, an archer discovering the corpse. Blood libel is the incendiary claim that Jews killed Christian children for use in rituals that often mocked the Crucifixion. ![]() A composite manuscript from East Anglia, England - begun around 1190 as a picture cycle of Christ's life with devotional supplements from about 1480-1490 - provides the only remaining medieval image of Robert of Bury, an obscure child saint said to have been murdered by Jews. Other examples in the exhibition treat forms of control and persecution that were not officially legislated by church or state but were no less destructive in their scope.
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