Trans and Genderqueer Subjects in Medieval Hagiography

337 Pages·2021·3.927 MB·English

by  Blake Gutt, Alicia Spencer-Hall (eds.)

Trans and Genderqueer Subjects
in Medieval Hagiography
Hagiography beyond Tradition
The study of sanctity in medieval Europe is starting to elicit cutting-edge,
innovative and genuinely interdisciplinary scholarship that destabilizes what
people have conventionally considered to be hagiography. This is demonstrated
in the topic range of panels sponsored by the Hagiography Society at recent
landmark medievalist conferences. While hagiography has traditionally been
understood only in religious terms, recent scholarship moves beyond such
frameworks to consider alternate ways of identifying and representing exemplary
people. So doing, such research emphasises modern cultural analogies and
resonances with medieval figures.
It is not enough, however, to approach saints’ lives with a “sexy” modern
framework. The best scholarship is rooted in analytical rigour, close attention to
context(s), and a keen awareness of the potential pitfalls of anachronism, all the
while accepting that anachronism can often be productive. This series provides a
home for the kind of work that negotiates that border between the traditional and
the contemporary and encourages scholarship enhanced by interventions drawn
from celebrity studies, trans studies, crip theory, animal and monster studies,
the history of senses and the emotions, media studies, and beyond. Rather than
considering hagiography as a single genre, the series is open to expanding the
ways in which we imagine how people come to be offered for veneration, as well
as the media and genres in which they are fashioned, represented, and celebrated.
Series Editor
Alicia Spencer-Hall, Queen Mary University of London
Editorial Board
Martha Newman, University of Texas
Sarah Salih, King’s College London
Bill Burgwinkle, University of Cambridge
Virginia Burrus, Syracuse University
Trans and Genderqueer Subjects
in Medieval Hagiography
Edited by
Alicia Spencer-Hall
and Blake Gutt
Amsterdam University Press
Cover illustration: “We have always been here”, by Jonah Coman
Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden
Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout
isbn 978 94 6298 824 8
e-isbn 978 90 4854 026 6 (pdf)
doi 10.5117/9789462988248
nur 684
© Alicia Spencer-Hall & Blake Gutt / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2021
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of
this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted,
in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise)
without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book.
Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations
reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is
advised to contact the publisher.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements 9
Introduction 11
Alicia Spencer-Hall and Blake Gutt
Following the Traces
Reassessing the Status Quo, Reinscribing Trans and Genderqueer
Realities
1 Assigned Female at Death 43
Joseph of Schönau and the Disruption of Medieval Gender Binaries
Martha G. Newman
2 Inherited Futures and Queer Privilege 65
Capgrave’s Life of St Katherine
Caitlyn McLoughlin
3 Juana de la Cruz 87
Gender-Transcendent Prophetess
Kevin C.A. Elphick
4 Non-Standard Masculinity and Sainthood in Niketas David’s
Life of Patriarch Ignatios 109
Felix Szabo
Peripheral Vision(s)
Objects, Images, and Identities
5 Gender-Querying Christ’s Wounds 133
A Non-Binary Interpretation of Christ’s Body in Late Medieval
Imagery
Sophie Sexon
6 Illuminating Queer Gender Identity in the Manuscripts of the
Vie de sainte Eufrosine 155
Vanessa Wright
7 The Queerly Departed 177
Narratives of Veneration in the Burials of Late Iron Age Scandinavia
Lee Colwill
Genre, Gender, and Trans Textualities
8 St Eufrosine’s Invitation to Gender Transgression 201
Amy V. Ogden
9 Holy Queer and Holy Cure 223
Sanctity, Disability, and Transgender Embodiment in Tristan de
Nanteuil
Blake Gutt
10 The Authentic Lives of Transgender Saints 245
Imago Dei and imitatio Christi in the Life of St Marinos the Monk
M.W. Bychowski
Epilogue 267
Beyond Binaries: A Reflection on the (Trans) Gender(s) of Saints
Mathilde van Dijk
Appendix 281
Trans and Genderqueer Studies Terminology, Language, and Usage
Guide
Index 331
List of Figures
Figure 4.1 Mosaic portrait of Ignatios in N. tympanum of the Hagia
Sophia 119
The Byzantine Institute, The Byzantine Institute
and Dumbarton Oaks Fieldwork Records and Papers,
photograph c. late 1920s-2000s, Dumbarton Oaks,
Trustees for Harvard University, Washington, D.C.
7 The Queerly Departed 177
Narratives of Veneration in the Burials of Late Iron Age Scandinavia
Lee Colwill
Genre, Gender, and Trans Textualities
8 St Eufrosine’s Invitation to Gender Transgression 201
Amy V. Ogden
9 Holy Queer and Holy Cure 223
Sanctity, Disability, and Transgender Embodiment in Tristan de
Nanteuil
Blake Gutt
10 The Authentic Lives of Transgender Saints 245
Imago Dei and imitatio Christi in the Life of St Marinos the Monk
M.W. Bychowski
Epilogue 267
Beyond Binaries: A Reflection on the (Trans) Gender(s) of Saints
Mathilde van Dijk
Appendix 281
Trans and Genderqueer Studies Terminology, Language, and Usage
Guide
Index 331
List of Figures
Figure 4.1 Mosaic portrait of Ignatios in N. tympanum of the Hagia
Sophia 119
The Byzantine Institute, The Byzantine Institute
and Dumbarton Oaks Fieldwork Records and Papers,
photograph c. late 1920s-2000s, Dumbarton Oaks,
Trustees for Harvard University, Washington, D.C.
Figure 5.1 Psalter and Prayer Book of Bonne of Luxembourg 144
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters
MS. 69.86, fol. 328r. CC0 1.0 Universal
Figure 5.2 Psalter and Prayer Book of Bonne of Luxembourg 145
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters
MS. 69.86, fol. 331r. CC0 1.0 Universal
Figure 6.1 Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, MS 5204, fol. 87v. 163
Figure 6.2 Brussels, Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, MS 9229-30,
fol. 61v. 166
Figure 6.3 The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, MS 71A 24, fol. 61v. 167
Figure 6.4 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München, MS Clm
10177, fol. 373v. 170
Figure E.1 The Lamentation of Christ 273
Courtesy of the Hôpital Notre Dame à La Rose, Lessen,
Belgium

Acknowledgements
The scholarly networking and initial research that resulted in this collection
was sponsored by the Hagiography Society. This volume shares the spirit
of many insightful and collaborative research conversations that came
about with the Society’s support, and the commitment of these scholars to
uncovering what was always already there: trans identities and experiences
in medieval hagiography.
The editors would like to thank Shannon Cunningham and Amsterdam
University Press for their ongoing support for this project, and particularly
for their pledge to keep the Terminology, Language and Usage Guide a
freely available resource. Gratitude is owed to all those who commented on
and contributed to the Guide: friends, colleagues, and anonymous online
interlocutors. Any remaining errors or omissions are, of course, our own.
We are profoundly grateful to the volume’s contributors for their rigorous
scholarship, alongside the trust they have placed in our editorial vision. We
are deeply appreciative to Jonah Coman, creator of the volume’s cover image,
for lending us a share of his artistic vision. Thanks are due, too, to all those
who have paved the way for this volume, including but not limited to: Aren
Z. Aizura, Moya Bailey, S. Bear Bergman, Talia Mae Bettcher, Marquis Bey,
b. binaohan, Kate Bornstein, John Boswell, Judith Butler, Gabrielle M.W.
Bychowski, Bill Burgwinkle, Joan Cadden, B. Camminga, V. Varun Chaudhry,
Simone Chess, Carsten Balzer/Carla LaGata, Andrea Long Chu, Jonah Coman,
Trystan Cotten, Leah DeVun, Carolyn Dinshaw, Emmett Harsin Drager,
Aniruddha Dutta, Lee Edelman, Ruth Evans, Leslie Feinberg, Elizabeth
Freeman, Jack Halberstam, Cáel M. Keegan, Anna Kłosowska, Grace Lavery,
Karma Lochrie, Clovis Maillet, Robert Mills, Adam Miyashiro, Marcia
Ochoa, Mary Rambaran-Olm, Raina Roy, Julia Serano, C. Riley Snorton,
Sandy Stone, Susan Stryker, Trudy (@thetrudz), Salvador Vidal-Ortiz, and
Karl Whittington.
Blake would like to thank the Michigan Society of Fellows, Don Lopez, and
Linda Turner for the postdoctoral scholarship that allowed the completion
of this project. Enormous gratitude is due to all the interlocutors who shared
their time and energy with me and the various elements of this project:
Catherine Brown, Bill Burgwinkle, Gabrielle M.W. Bychowski, David Caron,
Simone Chess, Shane DuBay, Joey Gamble, Scott Larson, Peggy McCracken,
Brendan McMahon, Misha Mihailova, Anthony Revelle, Megan Steffen. I
will forever be thankful for Alicia, without whom this project would not
exist, and I would be sadder and less wise. ‘Engage.’