Margaret's Monsters: Women, Identity, and the Life of St. Margaret in Medieval England

Description

St. Margaret of Antioch was one of the most popular saints in medieval England and, throughout the Middle Ages, the various Lives of St. Margaret functioned as a blueprint for a virginal life and supernatural assistance to pregnant women during the dangerous process of labor. In her narrative, Margaret is accosted by various demons and, having defeated each monster in turn, she is taken to the place of her martyrdom where she prays for supernatural boons for her adherents. This book argues that Margaret’s monsters are a key element in understanding Margaret’s importance to her adherents, specifically how the sexual identities of her adherents were constructed and maintained. More broadly, this study offers three major contributions to the field of medieval studies: first, it argues for the utility of a diachronic analysis of Saints’ Lives literature in a field dominated by synchronic analyses; second, this diachronic analysis is important to interpreting the intertext of Saints’ Lives, not only between different Lives but also different versions of the same Life; and third, the approach further suggests that the most valuable socio-cultural information in hagiographic literature is found in the auxiliary characters and not in the figure of the saint him/herself. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Table of Contents Acknowledgements Introduction The Lives of St. Margaret The devil and the details 1. The monastic Margaret: the Life of St. Anthony and Gregory’s Dialogues in the Life The Life of St. Anthony and Gregory’s Dialogues Borrowed demons Conclusion 2. In the belly of the beast: sexual surrender and resistance in the Life Maternal succumbing: the Paris version Virginal resistance: the Katherine Group version Instruction in imitation: the Katherine Group version and Hali Meiðhad Conclusion 3. The devil made me do it: audience partitioning and the Life of St. Margaret Monastic masturbation: the Paris version In defense of virginity: the Katherine Group version Four-footed beasts: the CCC version Conclusion 4. Circumcising Olibrius: threatening sexuality and religious alterity in the Life of St. Margaret Demonic sexuality Synthesis Religious identity Jewish identity Saracen identity Conclusion 5. Paging Dr. Margaret: prayers and pregnancy in the Life of St. Margaret Margaret’s blessings Gleanings to this point Margaret at the bedside The life of the Life Conclusion: the metamorphosis of monsters The world of the perpetual present Shards of the “present” A socio-cultural history from the monstrous Reflections on monsters, time, and saints Index