<i>Dark Age Bodies: Gender and Monastic Practice in the Early Medieval West</i> (review)
J. Michael Colvin
Reviewed by: Dark Age Bodies: Gender and Monastic Practice in the Early Medieval West J. Michael Colvin Lynda L. Coon, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press 2011) xii + 390 pp. Coon’s application gender theory her most recent monograph examines new theoretical vogue: body. Coon has written book “to reconstruct ideology clerical masculinity through an investigation early medieval readings body” (2). She adopts intersectional view identity formation, noting that “the approaches as a lifelong negotiation, shaped by (modern) contingencies age, class, sexual identity, nationality, imperialism, ethnicity, even physical location body its environment ... is never free-floating category can be deployed isolation from other vectors, especially ethnicity” (9). There much useful this book, conclusions are result learned erudite consideration often-intransigent source materials, but might represent step too far analysis paradigms period, instead move toward imposition modern sensibilities onto past. investigates intersection monastic bodies theories about embodiment creation during Carolingian era. argues references allusions to tell us how notions were created process ascetic practice. thesis maintains bodily ideals, products these negotiations, encoded into construction buildings layouts communities. The core argument rests on collective reading Rule St. Benedict Plan Monastery Gall gendered documents, latter which metonymically stands for former. believes period was “dark age” insofar practitioners viewed their enterprise preservation classical classicizing culture teetering edge barbarity. Her intervention, then, responds number historiographical fields, such revival classicism empire, reform movements, church-state relations” (4). To may added monasticism, masculinities, [End Page 176] architectural history. “The seven chapters organized around three recurring subjects: body, building, practice” (4), each which, according expressions masculinity. with deals masculine, negotiation. explored book,” writes “are idiosyncratic all-male cloister. They not models readily transferable social contexts, royal hunt, monarchical court, domestic spaces secular aristocracy, female communities, or palaces bishops” These masculinities hierarchical, it means hierarchy we differential relationships power within Monks allowed speak public—honestiores (which terms masculine “mouth men”) (94)—were superiors hearing monks—humiliores feminine “body (95, 169). This point fair enough. honestiores “penetrating” party, whose words enter ears hearers overtly sexualized manner. Yet, some more uncertain, still others outright impositions. If I am correctly, then relationships—gendered they are—are also sexualized, necessarily so. Using anthropological semiology, delivers double entendre. Some imaginative moments come dealing various symbolisms legibility: younger monks (10); rods used beatings grotesque dildos (87); genitals noses break boundaries internal external effluvia, while eyes boundary opposite direction—and anuses go both ways (89); mouths labile vaginas “capable gulping down...
Comitatus-a Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies