Kissing Christ: Masculinity and religious experience in the Medieval period, c. 400-1240

Abstract

Is the apparent lack of ‘male mystics’ in the high medieval period an historical reality or is it a modern historiographical illusion? Gender informs the two approaches which drive this question: how does gender influence our modern expression of medieval mystics and mysticism? And how did gender influence medieval understanding of mystics and mysticism? These questions are not mutually exclusive and this thesis will demonstrate that both medieval and modern authors had and have an expectation that medieval religious men and women will express spirituality in particular ways. My work seeks to address the issue that there has been little scholarly attention given to the role which men played in creating and enforcing a gendered norm for other men. The specifically revisionist, gendered approach I intend to pursue is underrepresented within the wider historiography of mysticism and it is my hope that this research will provide a contribution to medieval historiography at two points. Firstly, this work will become part of the continuing project to illuminate the lives of medieval men and the study of masculinities, and secondly, by undertaking a more gendered approach to the study of medieval religious men, this work will contribute to the already well-considered realm of medieval mysticism.