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IMC 2026: Sessions

Session 1723: No Longer Male and Female: The Evolution of Gender Mutability in Medieval Spirituality

Thursday 9 July 2026, 14:15-15:45

Organiser:Clara Romani, Département d'histoire / Héritages: Culture/s, Patrimoine/s, Création/s (UMR 9022), CY Cergy Paris Université
Moderator/Chair:Claire Poynton-Smith, Department of English, Trinity College Dublin
Paper 1723-aDegendering and Regendering in Monastic Spaces: Brides of Christ in the High Middle Ages
(Language: English)
Tamara Vitale, Department of History, Trinity College Dublin
Index terms: Gender Studies, Monasticism, Religious Life, Theology
Paper 1723-bAlways the Purgatorial Mediatrix, Never the Bride: The Multiple Deaths of Christina the Astonishing and the Bridal Ascent of the Soul
(Language: English)
Samantha Sandy, American College Dublin
Index terms: Gender Studies, Hagiography, Lay Piety, Women's Studies
Paper 1723-cFrom Wound to Womb: Reproductive Metaphor and the Heart of Christ, 12th-15th Centuries
(Language: English)
Hanyang Ma, Department of History, Trinity College Dublin
Index terms: Gender Studies, Religious Life, Theology
Paper 1723-dConceived in the Spirit: Gestation and Incarnation in the Theology of Na Prous Boneta
(Language: English)
Clara Romani, Département d'histoire / Héritages: Culture/s, Patrimoine/s, Création/s (UMR 9022), CY Cergy Paris Université
Index terms: Gender Studies, Lay Piety, Theology, Women's Studies
Abstract

This session explores the fluidity of gender and its representations in the religious lives of Western Christians from the eleventh to fifteenth centuries. Medieval spiritualism often played with ideas of gender, decoupling bodies, experiences, and customs from their gendered expectations. The session’s papers are presented chronologically, each examining a different religious concept or figure, to offer a glimpse at the changing landscapes of gender and devotion in the second half of the Middle Ages.

In the first paper, Vitale traces the evolution of masculinity and femininity in monastic communities from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries. In the second, Sandy examines the influence of mortality on gender identity in the life and deaths of Christina Mirabilis. Ma then explores the development of uterine metaphor in medieval devotional writing on Christ’s heart from the twelfth to fifteenth centuries. Finally, Romani discusses the role of birth and incarnation in the apocalyptic theology of Na Prous Boneta.