IMC 2007: Sessions

Session 121: Gender and Narrative in the Early Middle Ages

Monday 9 July 2007, 11.15-12.45

Sponsor:	Department of History, University of Glasgow
Organiser:	Julia M. H. Smith, School of Humanities (History), University of Glasgow
Moderator/Chair:	Jinty Nelson, Department of History, King's College London
Paper 121-a	'As She Lay on the Floor, Unable to Sleep, I Often Lay Alongside Her, To Console Her': Narratives of Virginity in 6th-Century Gaul (Language: English) Julia M. H. Smith, School of Humanities (History), University of Glasgow Index terms: Gender Studies, Hagiography, Sexuality
Paper 121-b	Gender and the Power of Representation: Apocalypticism and Chaos in Books IX and X of Gregory’s Histories (Language: English) Jennifer McRobbie, St Andrews Institute of Mediaeval Studies, University of St Andrews Index terms: Gender Studies, Historiography - Medieval, Monasticism
Paper 121-c	Rewriting Frankish Queenship in the Early 10th Century: Regino of Prüm's Chronicle (Language: English) Simon MacLean, Department of History, Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge Index terms: Gender Studies, Historiography - Medieval
Abstract	This panel looks at selected narrative constructions of gender from the early Middle Ages. The papers each work with a different genre – saints' lives, histories, and chronicles. They also offer complementary framing perspectives, the first exploring strictly contemporary themes and images, the second on a text with a strongly eschatological flavour, and the third providing a retrospective interpretation. All three, of course, are nevertheless turned towards their writers' immediate political circumstance. Radegund, Frankish queen turned nun and saint will feature in all of them in different ways, providing a binding presence for the panel.