Like specialists in other fields in humanities and social sciences, medievalists have begun to investigate and write about sex and related topics such as courtship, concubinage, divorce, marriage, prostitution, and child rearing. The scholarship in this significant volume asserts that sexual conduct formed a crucial role in the lives, thoughts, hopes and fears both of individuals and of the institutions that they created in the middle ages. The absorbing subject of sexuality in the Middle Ages is examined in 19 original articles written specifically for this "Handbook" by the major authorities in their scholarly specialties. The study of medieval sexuality poses problems for the researcher: indices in standard sources rarely refer to sexual topics, and standard secondary sources often ignore the material or say little about it. Yet a vast amount of research is available, and the information is accessible to the student who knows where to look and what to look for. This volume is a valuable guide to the material and an indicator of what subjects are likely to yield fresh scholarly rewards.

The subject of sexuality in the Middle Ages is examined here in 19 articles written specifically for this handbook. This volume seeks to offer a useful guide to the wealth of material and research that is available yet often overlooked.

The nineteen original articles written by medieval scholars fill a gap in the field's scholarship which has ignored sexuality as a topic. Building on the groundbreaking work of Michel Foucault's history of sexuality, the essays consider ignored research work and bring fresh insights to the culture, history, and literature of the middle ages. The writings focus on sexual norms, homosexuality, lesbianism, prostitution, and sexuality in the context of Christian, Judaic, and Islamic religious practices. c. Book News Inc.

The Oxford Handbook of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe provides a comprehensive overview of the gender rules encountered in Europe in the period between approximately 500 and 1500 C.E. The essays collected in this volume speak to interpretative challenges common to all fields of women's and gender history - that is, how best to uncover the experiences of ordinary people from archives formed mainly by and about elite males, and how to combine social histories of lived experiences with cultural histories of gendered discourses and identities. The collection focuses on Western Europe in the Middle Ages but offers some consideration of medieval Islam and Byzantium. The Handbook is structured into seven sections: Christian, Jewish, and Muslim thought; law in theory and practice; domestic life and material culture; labour, land, and economy; bodies and sexualities; gender and holiness; and the interplay of continuity and change throughout the medieval period. It contains material from some of the foremost scholars in this field, and it not only serves as the major reference text in medieval and gender studies, but also provides an agenda for future new research.

Perceptions about gender and sexuality have shaped the lives of men and women in every known culture and in every period of history. To study these perceptions one must delve into the underlying religious, social, philosophical and scientific influences. Understanding gender and sexuality during the Middle Ages requires an examination of the ideas, laws and institutions of the time--for example, the regulations of the Christian church, the anatomical studies of the medieval medical community, the chronicles of the time and the social criticism found in medieval literature. This reader brings such documents from throughout the medieval world into one collection. Representing a diverse range of ethnic, geographic and religious backgrounds, documents of the late Roman, Germanic, Anglo-Norman, Mediterranean, Byzantine, Slavic, Jewish and Islamic identities are all included. The book's chapters are organized according to nine areas--the Bible; Christian thought; chronicles; law; biology, medicine and science; literature; witchcraft and heresy; Judaism; and Islam--allowing for comparative examination of different societies and periods of the Middle Ages.

An examination into aspects of the sexual as depicted in a variety of medieval texts, from Chaucer and Malory to romance and alchemical treatises.

The twenty-eight essays in this handbook represent the best current thinking in the study of Latin language and literature in the Middle Ages. Contributing authors--both senior scholars and gifted younger thinkers among them--not only illuminate the field as traditionally defined but also offer fresh insights into broader questions of literary history, cultural interaction, world literature, and language in history and society. Their studies vividly illustrate the field's complexities on a wide range of topics, including canonicity, literary styles and genres, and the materiality of manuscript culture. At the same time, they suggest future possibilities for the necessarily provisional and open-ended work essential to the pursuit of medieval Latin studies. The overall approach of The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Latin Literature makes this volume an essential resource for students of the ancient world interested in the prolonged after-life of the classical period's cultural complexes, for medieval historians, for scholars of other medieval literary traditions, and for all those interested in delving more deeply into the fascinating more-than-millennium-long passage between the ancient Mediterranean world and what we consider modernity.