Gender and Difference in the Middle Ages

Medieval Cultures #32

by Sharon Farmer, Carol Braun Pasternack (Contributor)

Gender has been a powerful and prominent factor affecting relationships of power and social hierarchies throughout history but, as this group of essays shows, there were many other notions of `difference' that intersected with gender within the medieval world. These 11 essays, which are based on research from the fields of history, literary and religious studies, use postcolonial and feminist theory to explore various categories of `difference' in western Christian, Jewish, Byzantine and Islamic worlds. They examine the ways in which concepts of gender and difference were used to constrain and control social behaviour and to undermine identities, and the presence of various forms of resistance to these discourses of difference.

Genres: History, Medieval, Nonfiction

354 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Sharon Farmer is Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Reviews

[Ella]

Solid if somewhat dated exploration of gender across various medieval religious cultures. The essay on interpretations of Daniel as court eunuch and the role of the court eunuch in the Byzantine empire was by far my fave.