1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910464139303321

Autore

Coon Lynda L

Titolo

Dark age bodies [[electronic resource] ] : gender and monastic practice in the early medieval West / / Lynda L. Coon

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Philadelphia, : University of Pennsylvania Press, c2011

ISBN

1-283-89746-6

0-8122-0491-3

Descrizione fisica

xi, 390 p. : ill. (some col.)

Collana

The Middle Ages series

Disciplina

271

Soggetti

Human body - Religious aspects - Catholic Church - History of doctrines - Middle Ages, 600-1500

Men (Christian theology) - History of doctrines - Middle Ages, 600-1500

Monastic and religious life - History - Middle Ages, 600-1500

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. [341]-373) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Introduction. Dark Age Bodies -- Chapter 1. ''Hrabanus Is My Name'' -- Chapter 2. A Carolingian Aesthetic of Bricolage -- Chapter 3. Gendering the Benedictine Rule -- Chapter 4. Carolingian Practices of the Rule -- Chapter 5. Inscribing the Rule onto Carolingian Sacred Space -- Chapter 6. Gendering the Plan of Saint Gall -- Chapter 7. Foursquare Power -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- Acknowledgments

Sommario/riassunto

In Dark Age Bodies Lynda L. Coon reconstructs the gender ideology of monastic masculinity through an investigation of early medieval readings of the body. Focusing on the Carolingian era, Coon evaluates the ritual and liturgical performances of monastic bodies within the imaginative landscapes of same-sex ascetic communities in northern Europe. She demonstrates how the priestly body plays a significant role in shaping major aspects of Carolingian history, such as the revival of classicism, movements for clerical reform, and church-state relations. In the political realm, Carolingian churchmen consistently exploited monastic constructions of gender to assert the power of the monastery.



Stressing the superior qualities of priestly virility, clerical elites forged a model of gender that sought to feminize lay male bodies through a variety of textual, ritual, and spatial means. Focusing on three central themes-the body, architecture, and ritual practice-the book draws from a variety of visual and textual materials, including poetry, grammar manuals, rhetorical treatises, biblical exegesis, monastic regulations, hagiographies, illuminated manuscripts, building plans, and cloister design. Interdisciplinary in scope, Dark Age Bodies brings together scholarship in architectural history and cultural anthropology with recent works in religion, classics, and gender to present a significant reconsideration of Carolingian culture.