We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
To save content items to your account,
please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies.
If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account.
Find out more about saving content to .
To save content items to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org
is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings
on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part
of your Kindle email address below.
Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations.
‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi.
‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
The discovery of historical genders and sexualities offers the possibility of establishing continuities between the past and present that allow for identification and a more nuanced understanding of contemporary categories. Sexually, femininity was defined by the passive position in heterosexual intercourse, and yet, one of the principal medieval associations with femininity was sexual voracity. The survey of genders and sexualities discussed in this chapter is organized around a few configurations found in medieval literary texts. Beginning in the twelfth century, the literature of romance initiated a new model of heroic masculinity in tandem with the invention of heterosexual courtly love. Same-sex desire in the Middle Ages appears most often in the context of friendship. Virginity provided a kind of gender transitivity for women in a way that it did not for male saints. Finally, the chapter addresses literary representations of gender transgression and sexual acts between members of the same sex.
Recommend this
Email your librarian or administrator to recommend adding this to your organisation's collection.