Byzantine Sex, Gender, and Race

The world "intersectionality" evokes anxious sneers from some people who rarely give evidence of any serious thought, much less any thought informed by history or psychology. But the term, however much it may appear a species of contemporary jargon, simply refers to what good scholars have always done: examine connections between multiple phenomena.

Forthcoming in October is a book that does this for some of the most explosive issues of our time and indeed of all time: Roland Betancourt, Byzantine Intersectionality: Sexuality, Gender, and Race in the Middle Ages  (Princeton University Press, October 2020), 288pp.

About this book the publisher tells us this:

While the term “intersectionality” was coined in 1989, the existence of marginalized identities extends back over millennia. Byzantine Intersectionality reveals the fascinating, little-examined conversations in medieval thought and visual culture around matters of sexual and reproductive consent, bullying and slut-shaming, homosocial and homoerotic relationships, trans and nonbinary gender identities, and the depiction of racialized minorities. Roland Betancourt explores these issues in the context of the Byzantine Empire, using sources from late antiquity and early Christianity up to the early modern period. Highlighting nuanced and strikingly modern approaches by medieval writers, philosophers, theologians, and doctors, Betancourt offers a new history of gender, sexuality, and race.

Betancourt weaves together art, literature, and an impressive array of texts to investigate depictions of sexual consent in images of the Virgin Mary, tactics of sexual shaming in the story of Empress Theodora, narratives of transgender monks, portrayals of same-gender desire in images of the Doubting Thomas, and stereotypes of gender and ethnicity in representations of the Ethiopian Eunuch. He also gathers evidence from medical manuals detailing everything from surgical practices for late terminations of pregnancy to save a mother’s life to a host of procedures used to affirm a person’s gender. Showing how understandings of gender, sexuality, and race have long been enmeshed, Byzantine Intersectionality offers a groundbreaking look at the culture of the medieval world.

Hermites and Anchorites

Among some Christians of both East and West, there is a tendency to romanticize both monasticism and the Middle Ages. Such romanticism will find it hard to survive this new book, Hermits and Anchorites in England 1200-1550, ed. E.A. Jones (Manchester University Press, 2019), 248pp.

About this book the publisher tells us this:

This source book offers a comprehensive treatment of solitary religious lives in England in the late Middle Ages. It covers both enclosed recluses (anchorites) and free-wandering hermits, and explores the relationship between them. Although there has been a recent surge of interest in the solitary vocations, especially anchorites, this has focused almost exclusively on a small number of examples. The field is in need of reinvigoration, and this book provides it. Featuring translated extracts from a wide range of Latin, Middle English and Old French sources, as well as a scholarly introduction and commentary from one of the foremost experts in the field, Hermits and anchorites in England is an invaluable resource for students and lecturers alike.

Medieval Canticles

Cambridge University Press, one of the oldest and most prestigious academic presses in the world, reprints from time to time older and classical works. One such recent reprint will be of interest to students of comparative liturgics: James Mearns, The Canticles of the Christian Church: Eastern and Western, in Early and Medieval Times (Cambridge University Press, 2012), 122pp.

About this book, the publisher tells us:

First published in 1914, this book provides information on the Canticles of the Eastern and Western Church in early and medieval times. The text is divided into two broad sections: the first covers Greek and Eastern Canticles; the second covers Latin and Western Canticles. Additional material includes illustrative plates and an index of manuscripts. This is a highly informative book that will be of value to anyone with an interest in religious music and the history of Christianity.