Castration and Culture in the Middle AgesPaperback / softback
Castration and Culture in the Middle AgesPaperback / softback Castration and castrati have always been facets of western culture, from myth and legend to law and theology, from eunuchs guarding…
Specifikacia Castration and Culture in the Middle AgesPaperback / softback
Castration and Culture in the Middle AgesPaperback / softback
Castration and castrati have always been facets of western culture, from myth and legend to law and theology, from eunuchs guarding harems to the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century castrati singers. This collection explores this often taboo subject and its implications for cultural mores and custom in Western Europe, seeking to demystify and demythologize castration. Metaphoric castration pervades a number of medieval literary genres, particularly the Old French fabliaux - exchanges of power predicated upon the exchange or absence of sexual desire signified by genitalia - but the plain, literal act of castration and its implications are often overlooked.
Its subjects include archaeological studies of eunuchs; historical accounts of castration in trials of combat; the mutilation of political rivals in medieval Wales; Anglo-Saxon and Frisian legal and literary examples of castration as