Yue Fei and Thomas Becket

Abstract

This chapter takes as its starting point the gendered nature of political communications. It uses as case studies the careers — and subsequent reputations — of two twelfth-century figures: the Southern Song general Yue Fei (d. 1142), and the Angevin minister and churchman Thomas Becket (d. 1170). Both rose from relatively humble beginnings to become powerful men, and both met violent deaths at the hands of rivals within the elite. Posthumously, they were both celebrated for specifically masculine virtues in their respective cultures. This micro-comparative study deploys the traditional Chinese dichotomy between wen (civil, cerebral) and wu (military, physical) expressions of manhood to explore the masculinities at play in their careers, their homosociality, and their reputations.