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Trans and Genderqueer Subjects in Medieval Hagiography
Trans and Genderqueer Subjects in Medieval Hagiography presents an interdisciplinary examination of trans and genderqueer subjects in medieval hagiography. Scholarship has productively combined analysis of medieval literary texts with modern queer theory – yet, too often, questions of gender are explored almost exclusively through a prism of sexuality, rather than gender identity. This volume moves beyond such limitations, foregrounding the richness of hagiography as a genre integrally resistant to limiting binaristic categories, including rigid gender binaries. The collection showcases scholarship by emerging trans and genderqueer authors, as well as the work of established researchers. Working at the vanguard of historical trans studies, these scholars demonstrate the vital and vitally political nature of their work as medievalists. Trans and Genderqueer Subjects in Medieval Hagiography enables the re-creation of a lineage linking modern trans and genderqueer individuals to their medieval ancestors, providing models of queer identity where much scholarship has insisted there were none, and re-establishing the place of non-normative gender in history.
342 pages, Hardcover
Published April 6, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
July 28, 2021
CW: (internalized) transphobia
As a trans or nonbinary person, every day you get the message 'you don't belong here, you shouldn't exist'. Eventually you start to feel like you're a mistake, a mutation. To counteract these ideas, it is essential to be able to connect yourself to a broader narrative, a world where you belong and where you are valued for who you are. Finding such a connection is hard in today's polarized discourse, especially when your very existence is considered a matter of debate.
This volume with scientific essays on trans and genderqueer people and themes in medieval hagiography brings about a connection with the past I never knew was there. I'm not in the field of history but it's very readable (save for one essay that contained so many zombie nouns that it was unreadable) . The authors created a very solid framework in which they draw on established rigorous methods of inquiry grounded in queer and crip theory.
Ok, that was the stuffy part of the review, it is so freaking amazing to read about saints queering their gender, about how Jesus was also super gender queer - OMG his side wound!! - the people in the Middle Ages held a lot more space for genderqueerness than many people nowadays. As this book is about hagiographies, it's about the people that were considered noteworthy exemplars - and apparently, it is totally saintly to change your gender expression to what you feel is right! That this isn't 'reading more into it than there is', is made clear by the urtext itself, all of them frequently affirm the genderqueer aspects - switching around pronouns, not drawing them as 'generic' AFAB or AMAB individuals, etc.
I'm left with a sense of wonder and respect for the people in the Middle Ages who had such a rich relationship with their saints and how they created space for a lot of personal narratives, not just the white allocishet patriarchy shoved down our throats every day.
As a trans or nonbinary person, every day you get the message 'you don't belong here, you shouldn't exist'. Eventually you start to feel like you're a mistake, a mutation. To counteract these ideas, it is essential to be able to connect yourself to a broader narrative, a world where you belong and where you are valued for who you are. Finding such a connection is hard in today's polarized discourse, especially when your very existence is considered a matter of debate.
This volume with scientific essays on trans and genderqueer people and themes in medieval hagiography brings about a connection with the past I never knew was there. I'm not in the field of history but it's very readable (save for one essay that contained so many zombie nouns that it was unreadable) . The authors created a very solid framework in which they draw on established rigorous methods of inquiry grounded in queer and crip theory.
Ok, that was the stuffy part of the review, it is so freaking amazing to read about saints queering their gender, about how Jesus was also super gender queer - OMG his side wound!! - the people in the Middle Ages held a lot more space for genderqueerness than many people nowadays. As this book is about hagiographies, it's about the people that were considered noteworthy exemplars - and apparently, it is totally saintly to change your gender expression to what you feel is right! That this isn't 'reading more into it than there is', is made clear by the urtext itself, all of them frequently affirm the genderqueer aspects - switching around pronouns, not drawing them as 'generic' AFAB or AMAB individuals, etc.
I'm left with a sense of wonder and respect for the people in the Middle Ages who had such a rich relationship with their saints and how they created space for a lot of personal narratives, not just the white allocishet patriarchy shoved down our throats every day.
January 17, 2023
gay angels <3
January 8, 2026
Ci va già un bel coraggio, a ricomprendere nella categoria dei "trans e genderqueer" un personaggio come santa Caterina d'Alessandria, il cui comportamento eterodivergente risiede unicamente nel fatto di non volersi sposare sebbene i suoi sudditi premessero per avere un erede dalla loro regina (!). Una donna che nel Medioevo decide di rimanere nubile adesso è automaticamente da etichettarsi come trans genderqueer?
Ci va già un bel coraggio, dicevo, a fare certe affermazioni, e infatti gli autori ben si guardano dal farle: salvo qualche forzatura lessicale, più comica che scorretta, i saggi, in sé e per sé, sono tutti quanti piuttosto equilibrati. E, in alcuni casi, anche molto interessanti: si trova, nel mucchio, qualche storia curiosa che ti fa dire "beh, sì: ai giorni nostri, questo qua lo definiremmo effettivamente un travestito / un trans". E questa rimane comunque una constatazione che viene affidata alla sensibilità personale del lettore: gli storici fanno il loro lavoro di storico presentando le fonti agiografiche così come ci sono state consegnate attraverso i secoli, senza il tentativo di attualizzarle o di metter loro in bocca un messaggio diverso da quello che originariamente volevano mandare.
Peccato per il lavoro del titolista, verrebbe da dire: perché "Trans and Genderqueer Subjects in Medieval Hagiography" è un titolo che risulta veramente forzato per una larga parte dei saggi presenti nel volume. Sicuramente è un titolo che vende; ma (stante che dubito molto che l'Amsterdam University Press sperasse di trasformare questo volume in un best seller), rimane al lettore quel vago senso di presa in giro, tipo "siamo tutti colleghi studiosi, al lavoro: perché mi devi far perdere tempo con un titolo che promette cose che il libro effettivamente non contiene?".
Ci va già un bel coraggio, dicevo, a fare certe affermazioni, e infatti gli autori ben si guardano dal farle: salvo qualche forzatura lessicale, più comica che scorretta, i saggi, in sé e per sé, sono tutti quanti piuttosto equilibrati. E, in alcuni casi, anche molto interessanti: si trova, nel mucchio, qualche storia curiosa che ti fa dire "beh, sì: ai giorni nostri, questo qua lo definiremmo effettivamente un travestito / un trans". E questa rimane comunque una constatazione che viene affidata alla sensibilità personale del lettore: gli storici fanno il loro lavoro di storico presentando le fonti agiografiche così come ci sono state consegnate attraverso i secoli, senza il tentativo di attualizzarle o di metter loro in bocca un messaggio diverso da quello che originariamente volevano mandare.
Peccato per il lavoro del titolista, verrebbe da dire: perché "Trans and Genderqueer Subjects in Medieval Hagiography" è un titolo che risulta veramente forzato per una larga parte dei saggi presenti nel volume. Sicuramente è un titolo che vende; ma (stante che dubito molto che l'Amsterdam University Press sperasse di trasformare questo volume in un best seller), rimane al lettore quel vago senso di presa in giro, tipo "siamo tutti colleghi studiosi, al lavoro: perché mi devi far perdere tempo con un titolo che promette cose che il libro effettivamente non contiene?".
June 22, 2021
hit and miss but the hits are good
November 7, 2023
Fascinating collection of essays.
Read
May 16, 2025Predictably mixed. Some neat stories and readings in here, but many essays feel forced, too.
May 31, 2026
In my mind, I think there were two opposing approaches to trans identity. Either 1) you do a sort of self-invention ubermensch thing that seems to largely be against society or 2) you comfort yourself through thoughts that trans identity is aligned with religion/nature/etc. and is hence beautiful and natural and such, which can be comforting. I think that towards the end, I felt like the book almost had a both/and mentality where defining yourself against society is kind of essential to sainthood (I mean, Jesus was crucified), but that sort of self-definition is in itself part of a (divinely approved) tradition of resilience and resistance? Though the idea that cis people can happily use trans narratives as like inspo porn is not really the comforting notion that it seems to be presented as. Anyway, it was fun to see an alternate framing of Christianity in particular that most are not familiar with.
There were a few more boring spells, but on the whole, I'm glad I read this book because it was really quite educational and it was sometimes moving. Learning about grave analysis was especially interesting to me.
Let me do a quote dump real quick:
"This litany of saints places Juana’s actions solidly within the canon of hagiographies which recognized passing as male as an acceptable strategy to protect virginity and gain holiness"
Moreover, St Francis himself was gender non-conforming, repeatedly failing at the role of warrior, and intentionally divesting himself of other male roles of his day. To his companion Leo, he wrote: ‘I am speaking to you, my son, in this way as a mother’.17 He explained that we are ‘mothers’ of the Messiah ‘when we carry Him in our heart […] and give birth to Him through a holy activity’.18 Developing this theme further, Francis wrote in his first Rule that each brother should ‘love and care for his brother as a mother loves and cares’
God renders gender-transcendent those He calls, giving them attributes of the opposite binary gender, and ultimately recreating them to be like Him, apophatically transcending gender. It is through this background and context that we can best understand Juana’s life, and her sermons.
the work of making the Second Person of the Trinity incarnate.51 She highlights the Second Person as Lady Wisdom/Sophia
Notably, the pear is placed in the same location previously occupied by the Son, the bosom and womb of the Father. It is only after this intimate enthronement of the pear in God’s centre that we learn that the pear is in fact the Virgin herself: ‘And while everyone was watching, they saw that suddenly that very pear was changed into […] Our Lady, the Virgin Mary’.65 Juana leaves her listeners with an image of God reminiscent of nesting Russian dolls. Enclosed in God is the Virgin, and enclosed in the Virgin is the Christ.
‘the aim of religious vision was to fuse entirely with one’s object, God Himself: touching and being touched in a single glance […]. This haptic interplay ultimately renders subject/object labels irrelevant.’35 In this formulation, one fuses not only with God, but also with Christ as part of the Trinitarian nature of God: a body that is human and divine, and also genderfluid.
. In this image, the lower two wounds have been touched or kissed in a way that has resulted in abrasion of the pigment.46
As Bonne of Luxembourg’s book attests, we are not only the viewing patrons shown within the margins of folio 328r. We are also, ourselves, the body of Christ as shown on folio 331r, just as we are, too, the hybrid viewing creature in the margins of folio 331r; both human and animal in nature, capable of being both male and female, in the course of our affective meditations
"Alice’s sanctity and her disability signify simultaneously: the illness that progressively impairs her body is both a mark of divine love and a mechanism for taking on the sins of her peers. Through each of these aspects of her leprous embodiment, her piety and her spiritual status are enhanced."
for Blanchandine, pain is a sign that she is not alone.40 The sensation affirms that she is accompanied by God, and is held in relation both to him and to other mortal beings, including Tristan
There were a few more boring spells, but on the whole, I'm glad I read this book because it was really quite educational and it was sometimes moving. Learning about grave analysis was especially interesting to me.
Let me do a quote dump real quick:
"This litany of saints places Juana’s actions solidly within the canon of hagiographies which recognized passing as male as an acceptable strategy to protect virginity and gain holiness"
Moreover, St Francis himself was gender non-conforming, repeatedly failing at the role of warrior, and intentionally divesting himself of other male roles of his day. To his companion Leo, he wrote: ‘I am speaking to you, my son, in this way as a mother’.17 He explained that we are ‘mothers’ of the Messiah ‘when we carry Him in our heart […] and give birth to Him through a holy activity’.18 Developing this theme further, Francis wrote in his first Rule that each brother should ‘love and care for his brother as a mother loves and cares’
God renders gender-transcendent those He calls, giving them attributes of the opposite binary gender, and ultimately recreating them to be like Him, apophatically transcending gender. It is through this background and context that we can best understand Juana’s life, and her sermons.
the work of making the Second Person of the Trinity incarnate.51 She highlights the Second Person as Lady Wisdom/Sophia
Notably, the pear is placed in the same location previously occupied by the Son, the bosom and womb of the Father. It is only after this intimate enthronement of the pear in God’s centre that we learn that the pear is in fact the Virgin herself: ‘And while everyone was watching, they saw that suddenly that very pear was changed into […] Our Lady, the Virgin Mary’.65 Juana leaves her listeners with an image of God reminiscent of nesting Russian dolls. Enclosed in God is the Virgin, and enclosed in the Virgin is the Christ.
‘the aim of religious vision was to fuse entirely with one’s object, God Himself: touching and being touched in a single glance […]. This haptic interplay ultimately renders subject/object labels irrelevant.’35 In this formulation, one fuses not only with God, but also with Christ as part of the Trinitarian nature of God: a body that is human and divine, and also genderfluid.
. In this image, the lower two wounds have been touched or kissed in a way that has resulted in abrasion of the pigment.46
As Bonne of Luxembourg’s book attests, we are not only the viewing patrons shown within the margins of folio 328r. We are also, ourselves, the body of Christ as shown on folio 331r, just as we are, too, the hybrid viewing creature in the margins of folio 331r; both human and animal in nature, capable of being both male and female, in the course of our affective meditations
"Alice’s sanctity and her disability signify simultaneously: the illness that progressively impairs her body is both a mark of divine love and a mechanism for taking on the sins of her peers. Through each of these aspects of her leprous embodiment, her piety and her spiritual status are enhanced."
for Blanchandine, pain is a sign that she is not alone.40 The sensation affirms that she is accompanied by God, and is held in relation both to him and to other mortal beings, including Tristan
Read
May 7, 2026The subject is important, and politically necessary, and the book contributes greater understanding of non-normative gender identity in the Middle Ages, which remains rather underdeveloped in medieval studies, in part due to a lack of thorough historicization of gender and sex. The introduction of this book was a tough read though, and it often felt like they were checking off the boxes of each identity group without actually meaningfully engaging with issues of intersectionality in the actual essays. Having spent a lot of time thinking about queer medieval scholarship, I feel like this book is an important step in the field, but the essays are fairly inconsistent in their historical rigor, but perhaps that is the point? Idk I'm not a warrior against "anachronism" but sometimes they lose me when what was supposed to be historiography turns into what feels like theology. There is a time and a place for that, but I'm less convinced that trying to read transness onto the monks in the Vitae is super helpful for trans people today... there were trans and nonbinary people in the past and we have historical records of this. Leah DeVun's book The Shape of Sex is a much stronger example of history of gender in the premodern past.
to-read-actual
May 6, 2021Pub 2021
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews