Motherhood in the Medieval World

From Eve to Mary to Eleanor of Aquitaine, and many others, medieval depictions of mothers in literature and historical record reveal the significance of conceptions and performances of motherhood during the Middle Ages. Discourses surrounding mothers, maternity, and motherhood during the medieval period were complicated and had far-reaching implications in all areas of medieval life. Drawing upon medieval literature, politics, medicine, and religion, this book explores the importance of mothers and motherhood to every facet of medieval society. Throughout the volume, each chapter illuminates a particular mother or act of maternity, coming together to show how literature elucidates mothers and motherhood as integral to the construction of societies and cultures spanning across the length of the medieval period in the West. Together, the diversity of the topics addressed in each of the essays contributes a rich and intricate portrait of the theme which unites them: motherhood in the medieval world.

Introduction: Motherhood in the Medieval World

Part 1: Encountering Motherhood
Bradley Phillis, Richilde of Hainaut, Motherhood, and the Historiography of the Flemish Civil War of 1071
Diana Myers, Best Mom Ever: Defining the Maternal Sanctity of St. Anne in High Medieval Liturgy

Part 2: Maternal Identities in Religious Context
Mary Hitchman, Martyred Mothers: Augustine’s Sermons on Perpetua and Felicitas
Harley Campbell, Eve (Un)Bound: Bounding the Maternal Body in the Middle English Lives of Adam and Eve

Part 3: Maternal Bodies
Dana Oswald, Pregnancy and Knowledge in the Old English Medical Tradition
Kaitlin Sager, Physiognomy and Filiation in Coudrette's Roman de Mélusine
Lauren Sisson, Consuming Mothers, Incorporated Sons

Part 4: Questioning Maternity
Sara Ameri, Undecidable Borders: The Readerly Construction of Julian of Norwich’s Motherhood
Kirsty Bolton, Guinevere’s Lack of Maternity in Arthurian Literature

Index