Ganymede/Son of Getron: Medieval Monasticism and the Drama of Same-Sex Desire

Kolve, V. A.

doi:10.2307/2887367

Cited by 53 publications

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“…Monasteries were in fact sites of child-rearing up to the tenth century, after which time they continued to foster and educate large numbers of adolescents. Indeed, V. A. Kolve has demonstrated twelfth-century monasteries' self-conception as potential sites of male maternal love for the boys within their care (Kolve, 1998(Kolve, , 1056(Kolve, -1059.…”

Section: A L D H E L M : M O N a S T I C R E P R O D U C T I O Nmentioning

confidence: 99%

Jewish heterosexuality, queer celibacy? Ælfric translates the Old Testament priesthood

Pareles

2017

Postmedieval

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This essay argues that AElfric's discussion of priestly marriage demonstrates an Anglo-Saxon articulation of the difference between Jews and Christians as sexual difference. AElfric represents temporally distant Biblical Jews as embodying a kinship-based heterosexuality that has been superseded by and is now opposed by Christian chastity and asexual reproduction. This supersession operates through linguistic as well as temporal translation; AElfric transmutes ritual Jewish purity into Christian sexual purity by translating the Vulgate's mundus and immundus, which gloss Old Testament ‫ט‬ ָ ‫ה‬ ‫ו‬ ֹ ‫ר‬ and ‫ט‬ ָ ‫מ‬ ֵ ‫א‬ ['ritually pure' and 'impure'], into Old English claene and unclaene [in AElfric's context, generally 'chaste' and 'unchaste']. Terms from the Hebrew Bible that, when translated into Greek and Latin, assume equivalence to New Testament terms for spiritual purity thus undergo a further conversion in the work of AElfric, who diverges from other Old English writers in linking the word claene not only with the Old Testament but also, specifically, with Jewish sexuality. AElfric's linguistic choices forge a largely fictive continuity between Jewish and Christian sexual purity systems, while also authorizing Christianity's break from Jewish mores.postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies (2017). 8, 292-306. doi:10.1057/s41280-017-0058-y Christians and Jews have sometimes articulated their difference in sexual terms. As Steven F. Kruger notes of this nexus of identifications, 'The means for constructing sexual difference and those for defining religious, (quasi-)racial

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Section: A L D H E L M : M O N a S T I C R E P R O D U C T I O Nmentioning

confidence: 99%

Jewish heterosexuality, queer celibacy? Ælfric translates the Old Testament priesthood

Pareles

2017

Postmedieval

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“…Kolve notes: "Medieval confessional teaching, for instance, knew perfectly well that habitual acts of gluttony define a glutton, habitual acts of fornication a lecher, habitual acts of sodomy a sodomite." 50 The parallels are clear: overindulgence of one kind (food) is linked to overindulgence of another kind (sex), which in turn is connected to the depravity of unnatural sex. Saint Jerome succinctly summarized the dilatory effects of gluttony in his letter to eustochium: "First the belly is crammed; then the other members are roused."…”

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Uncovering Difference: Encoded Homoerotic Anxiety within the Christian Eremitic Tradition in Medieval England

Sauer¹

2010

Journal of the History of Sexuality

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Within t h e b r a n C h o f m e d i e V a l monastic literature for both men and women written for hermits and anchorites, there is a consistent undercurrent of concern regarding "deviant" sexuality, particularly same-sex desire but also varied "problems" such as masturbation and nocturnal emissions. The concerns regarding same-sex desire take a number of forms, from the overt to the covert, but become clearest in three areas: the dangers of enclosure, of overindulgence, and of idleness. These themes appear in texts composed for both sexes. For instance, AElred of Rievaulx's (1109-67) Rule for a Recluse, a text supposedly written for his sister, an anchoress, specifically warned against progressive lesbian activities (simple teaching between women transformed into kisses and desire), while Richard Rolle's (1300-1349) Form of Living, written for the anchoress Margaret Kirkby, approached bodily desires in a more restrained and general manner, warning more generally against fleshly temptation. Similarly, the anonymous Rule of Saint Columba (supposedly formulated in the sixth century) for men hinted at same-sex possibilities, whereas the fifteenth-century Rule of Saint Celestine, attributed to pope celestine V, specifically warned against homosexual desire caused by looking lustfully at a servant. Though the degrees of directness and the method of delivery varied in each, the shadow of homoerotic desire loomed in the background.Besides communal monastic living (called cenobitic), the Middle ages offered other options for living a consecrated religious life withdrawn from the world, including the life of an anchorite (remaining in one place, called anchoritic) and the life of a hermit (mostly wandering from a central location, called eremitic), though both overlapped each other in numerous ways. Nevertheless, according to late medieval understanding, if not by strict definition, anchorites and hermits were two separate vocations. 1 a hermit usually 1 Not all scholars agree that a clear distinction existed between the two, and, indeed, the evidence of medieval canon law is also somewhat unclear. For the argument that they were

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Ganymede/Son of Getron: Medieval Monasticism and the Drama of Same-Sex Desire

Cited by 53 publications

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Jewish heterosexuality, queer celibacy? Ælfric translates the Old Testament priesthood

Jewish heterosexuality, queer celibacy? Ælfric translates the Old Testament priesthood

Uncovering Difference: Encoded Homoerotic Anxiety within the Christian Eremitic Tradition in Medieval England

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