Medieval Masculinity In The Middle Ages Summary
Jonathan Taubes
Sex and Society in Europe
4/24/15
The Intersection of Masculinity and Occupation in Late Medieval Society
It is by now a well-known cliché in medieval gender studies that ideals of masculinity and femininity were often defined in opposition to each other. Men are reasonable and women are passionate; men are creatures of the mind and women, creatures of the body; men provide economically for the family, whereas women birth babies and take care of the household. As noted historian and sexologist Vern Bullough writes in his essay On Being A Male In The Middle Ages, “the most simplistic way of defining it (masculinity) is as a triad: impregnating women, protecting dependents, and serving as provider to one’s family.” (1) While …show more content…
If the knights took physical chaos and molded it under their skillful control, the academic scholar did the same thing with his mind. C. Stephen Jaeger, writing on the subject of 12th century humanism and the version of the “ideal man” which it produced, writes that this humanism had the effect of making “man seem godlike. Discipline and learning deified the student.” (4) Jaeger goes onto describe highlights from the literature of medieval humanism. Describing the ideas evident in Bernard Silverster’s Cosmographia, he writes that “the primal state is strife, contention, warfare… But the mind of God combats this train… by polishing, disciplining, refining it.” Like the knights, academics had what Karras refers to as “an academic structure of attack and defense… a forum for the demonstration of masculinity” (2). This was medieval academic debate, a kind of mental jousting in which “the violence was metaphorical, using words as weapons.” In both the cases of the knight and the scholar, we see that the common linkage is a need to dominate other men to gain prestige, and a need to master the innate chaos of the world in doing
Sex and Society in Europe
4/24/15
The Intersection of Masculinity and Occupation in Late Medieval Society
It is by now a well-known cliché in medieval gender studies that ideals of masculinity and femininity were often defined in opposition to each other. Men are reasonable and women are passionate; men are creatures of the mind and women, creatures of the body; men provide economically for the family, whereas women birth babies and take care of the household. As noted historian and sexologist Vern Bullough writes in his essay On Being A Male In The Middle Ages, “the most simplistic way of defining it (masculinity) is as a triad: impregnating women, protecting dependents, and serving as provider to one’s family.” (1) While …show more content…
If the knights took physical chaos and molded it under their skillful control, the academic scholar did the same thing with his mind. C. Stephen Jaeger, writing on the subject of 12th century humanism and the version of the “ideal man” which it produced, writes that this humanism had the effect of making “man seem godlike. Discipline and learning deified the student.” (4) Jaeger goes onto describe highlights from the literature of medieval humanism. Describing the ideas evident in Bernard Silverster’s Cosmographia, he writes that “the primal state is strife, contention, warfare… But the mind of God combats this train… by polishing, disciplining, refining it.” Like the knights, academics had what Karras refers to as “an academic structure of attack and defense… a forum for the demonstration of masculinity” (2). This was medieval academic debate, a kind of mental jousting in which “the violence was metaphorical, using words as weapons.” In both the cases of the knight and the scholar, we see that the common linkage is a need to dominate other men to gain prestige, and a need to master the innate chaos of the world in doing