GENDER IN THE EARLY MEDIEVAL WORLD

Gender analysis is one of the most probing ways to understand both power and cultural strategies in pre-industrial societies. In this book, sixteen scholars on the cutting edge of their disciplines explore the ideas and expressions of gender that characterised the centuries from c. 300 to 900 in milieux ranging from York to Baghdad, via Rome and Constantinople. Deploying a variety of disciplines and perspectives, they draw on the evidence of material culture as well as texts to demonstrate the wide range of gender identities that informed the social, political and imaginary worlds of these centuries. The essays make clear that although the fixed point in the gender systems of the period was constituted by the hegemonic masculinity of the ruling elite, marginalised groups, often invisible as historical subjects in their own right, were omnipresent in, and critical to, the gendered discourses which buttressed assertions of power.

LESLIE BRUBAKER is Reader in Byzantine Art History and Director of the Centre for Byzantine Studies at the Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity, University of Birmingham. Her many publications on Byzantine culture include Vision and Meaning in Ninth-Century Byzantium (Cambridge, 1999) and Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era: The Sources (2001).

JULIA M. H. SMITH is Reader in Medieval History at the University of St Andrews. She has published extensively on early medieval history and her books include Province and Empire: Brittany and the Carolingians (Cambridge, 1992) and Early Medieval Rome and the Christian West (ed., Leiden 2000).

GENDER IN THE EARLY MEDIEVAL WORLD

East and west, 300–900

EDITED BY

LESLIE BRUBAKER AND JULIA M. H. SMITH

PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
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© Cambridge University Press 2004

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2004

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

Typeface Adobe Garamond 11/12.5 pt.   System LATEX 2_e   [TB]

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
Gender in the early medieval world: east and west, 300-900 / edited by Leslie Brubaker and Julia M. H. Smith.
p.   cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0 521 81347 6 – ISBN 0 521 01327 5 (pbk)
1. Sex role – Europe – History – To 1500.   2. Women – Europe – History – To 1500.   3. Men – Europe – History – To 1500.   4. Europe – Social conditions – To 1492.   5. Feminist theory.   I. Brubaker, Leslie.   II. Smith, Julia M. H.
HQ1075.5.E85G46   2004
305.3′094 – dc22   2003069751

ISBN 0 521 81347 6 hardback
ISBN 0 521 01327 5 paperback

Contents

Illustrations

Contributors

JULIA BRAY, Professor of Arabic, University of Paris 8, Saint-Denis

LESLIE BRUBAKER, Reader in Byzantine Art History and Director of the Centre for Byzantine Studies, University of Birmingham

NADIA MARIA EL CHEIKH, Associate Professor in History, American University of Beirut

LYNDA COON, Associate Professor of History, University of Arkansas

BONNIE EFFROS, Associate Professor of History, State University of New York at Binghamton

DAWN HADLEY, Senior Lecturer in Historical Archaeology, University of Sheffield

MARY HARLOW, Lecturer in Roman History, University of Birmingham

YITZHAK HEN, Professor of Medieval History, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

MAYKE DE JONG, Professor of Medieval History, University of Utrecht

GISELA MUSCHIOL, Professor of Medieval and Modern Ecclesiastical History, University of Bonn

JANET L. NELSON, Professor of Medieval History, King’s College London

WALTER POHL, Director of the Institute for Medieval Research, Vienna

JULIA M. H. SMITH, Reader in Mediaeval History, University of St Andrews

SHAUN TOUGHER, Lecturer in Ancient History, Cardiff University

MARTHA VINSON, Associate Professor of Classical Studies, Indiana University

IAN WOOD, Professor of Medieval History, University of Leeds

Acknowledgements

In the first instance, the editors wish to thank Tom Noble for providing the original inspiration behind this collection of essays when he asked why five years’ work by a team of international experts studying ‘The Transformation of the Roman World’ had paid virtually no attention to either social relations or men’s and women’s experiences during and after late antiquity. Our initial response to that lacuna was to run a strand of sessions on ‘Gender and the Transformation of the Roman World’ at the Leeds International Medieval Congress in 2000. Several articles in this volume had a preliminary airing on that occasion; alongside them we have added other specially commissioned contributions. Bringing these papers together into a coherent whole has been a collective undertaking: we thank our contributors for their care in commenting on each other’s chapters and their understanding of the time that such a collaborative project invariably takes. In addition, we gratefully acknowledge the stimulating contribution of everyone who participated in the Leeds panels and of those who aided the transition from conference to book: Melissa Aubin, Tom Brown, Averil Cameron, Wendy Davies, Hans-Werner Goetz, Guy Halsall, Heinrich Härke, Anne-Marie Helvétius, Judith Herrin, Michel Kaplan, Rosamond McKitterick, Daniel Praet, Barbara Rosenwein, Pauline Stafford and Nicholas Stoodley. We are also deeply indebted to William Davies at Cambridge University Press for his support throughout all stages of this project. In steering this volume through production, Alison Powell has coped smoothly with unforeseen circumstances and has helped us greatly. Last but not least, we appreciate the incisive editorial advice and domestic support of Chris Wickham and Hamish Scott.

Abbreviations