Any books on Masculinity and Gender in the Middle Ages?

by [deleted]

[deleted]

sunagainstgold

Um...with all due respect, what exactly have you tried looking up? The first page of Google results for "medieval masculinity" already yields two books:

  • Ruth Mazo Karras, From Boys to Men: Formulations of Masculinity in Late Medieval Europe
  • Clare Lees (ed.), Medieval Masculinities: Regarding Men in the Middle Ages

"Middle Ages" + masculinity gives me those, plus:

  • the medieval chapter in The Palgrave Handbook of Masculinity and Political Culture in Europe
  • P.H. Cullum and Katherine Lewis (eds.), Religious Men and Masculine Identity in the Middle Ages (a.k.a., apparently, Holiness and Masculine Identity)
  • two or maybe three chapters in Frederick Kiefer (ed.), *Masculinities and Femininities in the Middle Ages and Renaissance *

I mean, the Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship has given two of its most recent book prizes to book on masculinity. Searching jstor.org (even without signing in) yields pages and pages and pages of books, chapters, and articles.

Even just the free preview of the Oxford Bibliographies bibliography "Masculinity and Male Sexuality in the Middle Ages" gives you a whole range of books to start with.

If you want a number: the Brepols Medieval Bibliography (which I realize you probably don't have access to; this is just about number) gives me 120 results for "masculinity" "12th century."

Even filtering out religious/clergy-themed ones, there is lots of work on masculinity and romance--the genre that relates directly to your area, era, and focus of interest. A worldcat.org search for "'middle ages' masculinity" was especially fruitful in turning up books not focused on the clergy.

My apologies if I've misread your post, and you've been through Karras, Neal, Thibodaux, &c already and are looking for more.