Laurence Erussard

Universidad de Murcia

Queen Virginity, Lady Chastity and Christ's 8th Century Holy Athletes

Michel Foucault has pointed out that sexual identity and its status are no more than historical constructs most susceptible to cultural influences. Using texts by Aldhelm, Bede and Æthelwulf, this paper explores the effects of monasticism and of the Christian concepts of virginity and chastity on the Anglo-Saxon definition and status of the sexes during the 8th century. It will be argued that the creation of double-houses presided by learned, aristocratic women and the Church's focus on the purity of the body prompted a redefinition of virginity. In a warring society in which the metaphor of siege was dominant, the image of the unpenetrated female body had a striking military resonance. These factors created a system of sexual politics which put women in a privileged spiritual situation that men were encouraged to emulate. The scholarly nuns became Christ's holy athletes; their achievements were described in terms of maleness while male chastity was defined in terms of femaleness. The result was a rather plastic model of sexual identity within a system of singular gender expressed in terms of power and bodily purity.