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IMC 2012: Sessions

Session 116: Who Made the Rules, and Who Overrules Them?: Women and Leadership in the Medieval Church

Monday 9 July 2012, 11.15-12.45

Sponsor:Project 'Geschlechterambiguitäten in Wissens- und Herrschaftsordnungen: Hermaphroditen, Eunuchen und Priester im arabischen und lateinischen Mittelalter', Schweizerischer Nationalfond, Universität Zürich
Organiser:Anja B. Rathmann-Lutz, Historisches Seminar, Universität Basel
Moderator/Chair:Almut Höfert, Historisches Seminar, Universität Zürich
Paper 116-aWomen, Men, and Eunuchs: The Formation of Priestly Masculinity in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages
(Language: English)
Almut Höfert, Historisches Seminar, Universität Zürich
Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Gender Studies, Law
Paper 116-bThe Ecclesiastical Discourse on Episcopal Masculinity in the High Middle Ages
(Language: English)
Matthew Mesley, Historisches Seminar, Universität Zürich
Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Gender Studies, Hagiography
Paper 116-cSpiritual Fathers and Earthly Mothers?: Decisions and Provisions to Make when Supervising a Double Cloister
(Language: English)
Anja B. Rathmann-Lutz, Historisches Seminar, Universität Basel
Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Gender Studies, Monasticism
Abstract

Women never took a relevant official position in the ranks of the Late Antique and medieval church hierarchy. Who decided this would be a rule not to break and under what circumstances did this rule come to be accepted – if it was accepted at all?
The papers of this session will analyse the ways in which the exclusion of women from the priestly office was established in Late Antiquity and carried on in the Middle Ages and how the conceptions of gender and masculinity in Byzantium and the Latin Church contributed to this development.