Trans and Genderqueer Subjects in Medieval Hagiography. Edited by Alicia Spencer-Hall and Blake Gutt

Abstract

As the epilogue to this important new contribution to medieval studies rightly recognizes, the fantasy of an ethnically unified Europe, where men were men and women knew their place, is one that has frequently been bandied about by white supremacists eager to seek historical support for their Islamophobic or transphobic views. St Joan of Arc, scrubbed of queerness and essentialized as the Maid of Orléans, has been transformed into a left-wing working-class hero or a right-wing nationalist while Christ has been figured as the very archetype of masculinity, and thus a reiteration of the supposed primacy of Adam over Eve, and, by extension, of man over woman. The essays in this volume, which adopt a range of approaches to trans and genderqueer issues, reveal that nothing could be further from the truth. Medieval authors and artists, fascinated by questions of fluidity, repeatedly reveal how identified gender is not necessarily synonymous with the sex or the gender assigned at birth. The result is a fascinating and provocative insight into medieval production that raises clear implications for a range of broader interdisciplinary debates. The essays themselves, skewed heavily in favour of AFAB subjects (assigned female at birth), cover a range of topics. In addition to two treatments, by Vanessa Wright and Amy V. Ogden, of St Euphrosyne, who lived as a eunuch in a monastery, M. W. Bychowski offers a fascinating reappraisal of St Marinos/Marina, focusing on questions of exemplarity. The novelty of Bychowski’s approach lies in dismissing outdated terms such as ‘transvestism’, and instead focusing on the saint’s decision to self-identify as male. This raises implications not just for Margaret and Pelagia, to whom Marinos/Marina is etymologically and conceptually related, but for later texts such as Jacobus de Voragine’s Legenda aurea, which performs a spectacular act of queer cleansing by reappraising the decision to don male attire as a mandate issued by the saint’s father, thus invalidating the display of agency and instead refocusing the narrative in part on notions of hegemonic masculinity. One slight criticism is that some essays are partially decontextualized. Caitlyn McLoughlin’s treatment of St Catherine of Alexandria, for instance, advances a number of informative observations but is weakened by the absence of references to previous critical studies of the saint or the broader theological or intellectual context of concepts such as her status as sponsa Christi [bride of Christ]. Conversely, a notable strength of the volume is Sophie Sexon’s treatment of Christ, who is approached from a non-binary perspective in which the wound in his side — appraised in conspicuously vulvic terms — is envisioned as the organ from which the Church was born. His depiction thereby succeeds in destabilizing the bounded categories of male and female. The volume is completed by essays on a range of other topics, including Kevin C. A. Elphick’s discussion of the much-neglected figure of Juana de la Cruz, as well as an extensive jargon-busting appendix which offers a number of invaluable pointers as to how language should be employed by those as yet unfamiliar with this fascinating emerging field.