In this startling original work of historical detection, Mark D. Jordan explores the invention of
Sodomy by medieval Christendom, examining its conceptual foundations in theology and …

Through a sensitive use of a wide variety of imaginative and didactic texts, Ruth Karras
shows that while prostitutes as individuals were marginalized within medieval culture …

The single woman is a troubling and disruptive category. Does it denote all unmarried
women, therefore creating a group which every female was part of at some stage in her life …

Conrad Leyser examines the formation of the Christian ascetic tradition in the western
Roman Empire during the period of the barbarian invasions, c. 400-600. In an aggressively …

This book makes a vigorous reassessment of the moral dimension in Chaucer's writings. For
the Middle Ages, the study of human behaviour generally signified the study of the morality …

The thirteenth-century Ancrene Wisse is one of the major works of early Middle English
prose, and was repeatedly revised and adapted for different audiences. It has attracted …

AIDS, argue that “nothing is more punitive than to give a disease meaning—that meaning
being invariably a moralistic one.” 4 Other inquiries highlight the use of metaphors in …

Reflecting the era's historicist sensibility as much as the general revival of orthodoxy in the
various Christian denominations, the Nazarenes responded with great acumen to pressing …

If material bodies have inherent, animating powers—or virtues, in the premodern sense—
then those bodies typically and most insistently associated in the premodern period with …

To read accounts of late medieval banquets is to enter a fantastical world where live lions
guard nude statues, gilded stags burst into song, and musicians play from within pies. We …