Dark Age Bodies: Gender and Monastic Practice in the Early Medieval West

Front Cover
University of Pennsylvania Press, Jun 6, 2011 - History - 416 pages

In Dark Age Bodies Lynda L. Coon reconstructs the gender ideology of monastic masculinity through an investigation of early medieval readings of the body. Focusing on the Carolingian era, Coon evaluates the ritual and liturgical performances of monastic bodies within the imaginative landscapes of same-sex ascetic communities in northern Europe. She demonstrates how the priestly body plays a significant role in shaping major aspects of Carolingian history, such as the revival of classicism, movements for clerical reform, and church-state relations. In the political realm, Carolingian churchmen consistently exploited monastic constructions of gender to assert the power of the monastery. Stressing the superior qualities of priestly virility, clerical elites forged a model of gender that sought to feminize lay male bodies through a variety of textual, ritual, and spatial means.

Focusing on three central themes—the body, architecture, and ritual practice—the book draws from a variety of visual and textual materials, including poetry, grammar manuals, rhetorical treatises, biblical exegesis, monastic regulations, hagiographies, illuminated manuscripts, building plans, and cloister design. Interdisciplinary in scope, Dark Age Bodies brings together scholarship in architectural history and cultural anthropology with recent works in religion, classics, and gender to present a significant reconsideration of Carolingian culture.

 

Contents

Dark Age Bodies
1
Chapter 1 Hrabanus Is My Name
13
Chapter 2 A Carolingian Aesthetic of Bricolage
42
Chapter 3 Gendering the Benedictine Rule
69
Chapter 4 Carolingian Practices of the Rule
98
Chapter 5 Inscribing the Rule onto Carolingian Sacred Space
134
Chapter 6 Gendering the Plan of Saint Gall
165
Chapter 7 Foursquare Power
216
Epilogue
247
Notes
255
Bibliography
341
Index
375
Acknowledgments
389
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Dark Age Bodies: Gender and Monastic Practice in the Early Medieval West
Lynda Coon
No preview available - 2010

Common terms and phrases

Aachen abbey abbot Alcuin altar ascetic asceticism basilica Benedict Benedictine biblical Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana Cambridge Candidus Carolingian monastic CCCM cenobitic Chapter Christ Christian church Civate classical cloister context corporate body Corvey crypt culture desert discussion early medieval Eigil elite entryway Epistolae Ernst Dümmler exegesis exegetical Expositio Figure Frankish Fulda gender guests gyrovague Hebrew Hildemar Holy Cross honorem sanctae crucis Horn and Born Hrabanus Maurus Hrabanus's Ibid Jacobsen Klosterplan von St Latin liturgical loggia Louis Louis the German Louis the Pious magister male mandalas martyrs masculine McClendon Medieval Architecture Michael Rotunda monastery monastic body monasticism monks mouth ninth-century oratory pilgrims Plan of Saint Plan of St poem political practice quod Ratgar reading refectory ritual Roman Rule Rule's Sacred Space Saint Gall sarabaite scripture secular sexual Smaragdus Smaragdus's spatial spiritual status Stiftsbibliothek Sturm text in Fry titulus trans University Press verse visual Vita Sturmi Werner Jacobsen westwork

About the author (2011)

Lynda L. Coon is Associate Professor of History at the University of Arkansas. She is the author of Sacred Fictions: Holy Women and Hagiography in Late Antiquity, also available from the University of Pennsylvania Press.

Bibliographic information

TitleDark Age Bodies: Gender and Monastic Practice in the Early Medieval West
The Middle Ages Series
AuthorLynda L. Coon
Editionillustrated
PublisherUniversity of Pennsylvania Press, 2011
ISBN0812204913, 9780812204919
Length416 pages
Subjects ›  › 

History / Europe / Medieval
  
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