Essays exploring medieval castration, as reflected in archaeology,
law, historical record, and literary motifs. Castration and
castrati have always been facets of western culture, from myth and
legend to law and theology, from eunuchs guarding harems to the
seventeenth- and eighteenth-century castrati singers. Metaphoric
castration pervadesa number of medieval literary genres,
particularly the Old French fabliaux - exchanges of power
predicated upon the exchange or absence of sexual desire signified
by genitalia - but the plain, literal act of castration and its
implications are often overlooked. This collection explores this
often taboo subject and its implications for cultural mores and
custom in Western Europe, seeking to demystify and demythologize
castration. Its subjects includearchaeological studies of eunuchs;
historical accounts of castration in trials of combat; the
mutilation of political rivals in medieval Wales; Anglo-Saxon and
Frisian legal and literary examples of castration as punishment;
castration as comedy in the Old French fabliaux; the prohibition
against genital mutilation in hagiography; and early-modern
anxieties about punitive castration enacted on the Elizabethan
stage. The introduction reflects on these topics in the context of
arguably the most well-known victim of castration in the middle
ages, Abelard. Larissa Tracy is Associate Professor of Medieval
Literature at Longwood University. Contributors: Larissa Tracy,
Kathryn Reusch, Shaun Tougher, Jack Collins, Rolf H. Bremmer Jr,
Jay Paul Gates, Charlene M. Eska, Mary A. Valante, Anthony Adams,
Mary E. Leech, Jed Chandler, Ellen Lorraine Friedrich, Robert L.A.
Clark, Karin Sellberg, LenaWÃ¥nggren
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